2025 Volume 25 Issue 1 Pages 53-63
This study aims to clarify how animation has been featured in Japanese language textbooks and to trace its historical transitions. To this end, I conducted a study of Japanese language textbooks used in elementary, junior high, and high schools from the postwar period to the present. I categorized the 29 extracted animation-related materials into four periods and analyzed the transitions. The first instance of animation content in a Japanese language textbook appeared in 1949, in a middle school textbook as part of a film unit. In the 1980s, animation topics were included in film-related units, featuring works by animation directors. From the 1990s onwards, essays, biographies, and other texts related to animation began to be included, serving to spark students’ interest and curiosity. In the 2010s, animation content began to focus on the differences between media, and today, it is included with the goal of fostering media literacy.
