The term vintage anime is often used to refer to anime before the 2000s but many confuse the 80s with the 90s.
While both are retro, there are some key differences in style, themes and even character design.
Nihonime is here to show you how to distinguish the 2 and go through the core elements of some of the most iconic anime in history.
If you are in a rush, here is a quick summary showing the differences between the 2 decades:
Table of Contents
The Problems With Classification
Classifying anime by decade is tough because there are too many styles and variants within 10 years.
The problem is even more present when analyzing series like Mobile Suit Gundam or Dragon Ball Z, released at the dawn of a new decade.
If you add that the late part of the 90s and the early 00s saw a shift to digital animation, it becomes even harder to consider the former as part of the 90s.
As you can see, it’s tough to label anime into exact classifications since every decade can split into 2 or even more parts.
Would you consider Sailor Moon closer to the 80s or another show like Cowboy Bebop?
The image below shows some similarities between Creamy Mamy (1983), the Magic Angel and Sailor Moon (1992), and notice how big the differences are.
The image on the right (90s) is much more elegant, defined, and rich in detail thanks to the aid of CGI, unlike the one from the 80s which is rougher, having been created entirely by hand.
A Quick History Recap
N.B. This is a short recap because the 20 best years of anime are tough to summarize. We will describe each decade in separate articles.
The 80s: Experimentation & Japanese Boom
The 80s featured more experimentation and creativity thanks to the economic boom of Japan during the same period.
Showa Era lasted until 1989 and represented the zenith of Japan’s growth that will be followed by 30 years of stagnation.
In this period it’s easy to name the biggest fighting anime that made the genre, like Saint Seiya and Fist of the North Star.
But fighting isn’t all, this is the era of real robots after Yoshiyuki Tomino introduced Mobile Suit Gundam to the world! Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Space Runaway Ideon also had an important impact on what will come next.
Many Americans will also recall it as Robotech instead of Macross.
The mid-80s also featured the end of Urusei Yatsura, one of the most pivotal romcom anime ever, whose tropes are still used today.
This period was also the age of OVAs as they were cheap to produce and were great for testing new ideas. The Japanese economic miracle also helped a lot in this.
But this doesn’t mean that the 80s were only about OVAs.
And let’s not forget an event that occoured that forever changed the medium: the birth of Studio Ghibli (1985), a cornerstone of Japanese animation to this day.
Some iconic and fundamental series in the history of anime were released during this decade, such as Dragon Ball and Captain Tsubasa, cornerstones in their respective genres.
The end of the 80s is indeed characterized by one of the most iconic anime ever and a great introduction to the 90s: the one and only Dragon Ball Z.
40 years later, the 80s are widely regarded by many as the golden age of Japanese animation.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that without this transitional period, anime wouldn’t be what they are today.
This decade served as a launching pad for the future, setting the stage for continued growth and innovation, and there’s no better way to describe it.
The 90s: Peak of Sci-Fi & Long-Running Shows
The 90s improved what was built during the 80s and have some of the most important Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk series ever.
We are talking about the birth of big brands and continuous serialization.
The 90s featured more mainstream shows, especially due to the worldwide distribution.
They had to make them suitable for all targets: young or old, eastern or western viewers.
CGI changed everything in terms of animations and character design, and long-running series established as staples like Detective Conan, OP, and DBZ continued in the early 90s.
This is a clear opposition to short OVAs who were predominant in the 80s.
Animation studios had tested the ground enough, now it was time to get serious.
So longer-running anime, fighting, Sci-Fi, and even the born of merchandise are the key elements here.
Ghost in the Shell, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Sailor Moon and even One Piece are all goliaths of Japanese animation.
During the early 90s television became accessible to almost everyone in Japan, children included and this urged for a reduction of violence in shows.
At the same time, anime merge serious themes with a cheerful tone and purely entertaining shows.
The development of anime and pretty much any other media is affected by the economy and the culture of its native country.
In this case, anime were becoming more popular among the youngest and this called for additional measures.
The early 90s were quite similar to the late 80s in terms of style and one of the biggest names to mention is Sailor Moon.
While the anime is quite different from the manga both in style and story, the adaptation had huge success.
Sailor Moon is considered a feminist anime and the first one at that.
Its influence on the magical girls genre is still visible today during sequence transformations!
The mid-90s can boast Neon Genesis Evangelion by Hideaki Anno, a milestone in the history of Japanese art, and oh boy if it had a huge impact, pun absolutely intended.
NGE isn’t the first mature anime, but it had a tremendous impact in proving that anime can be serious and not only a mere entertainment, especially considering the facts we mentioned above.
Following this, the real big deal of the 90s began: the serious Sci-Fi series with deep and philosophical themes, like Serial Experiments Lain, Cowboy Bebop and NGE itself.
Main Differences
The key differences between 80s and 90s anime can be summarized as follows:
80s: Experimentation, City Pop, Contrasts
Rougher animations due to lack of CGI, which was used for the first time in 1983 with Golgo 13 but abandoned until later.
More experimentation with OVAs, more mature and violent shows like Gundams, mechas and realistic romance shows like Maison Ikkoku, KOR and UY.
And these two genres were indeed the most popular at the time.
With KOR that featured a super solid City Pop OST, anime also started to have better themes with the inclusion of actual music.
90s: Existential Dread, Brightness,
Existentialism was a theme in many shows, maybe due to the Bubble Collapse and Kobe Earthquake. Japan was doing badly during the 90s (Lost Decade), so the mood wasn’t one of the best.
According to Akira Asada, 80s culture had that kind of dark core with happy surfaces.
90s pop culture was oriented to a bright and happy world, like the 90s J-pop.
As quoted: “Anno was under the influence of dark 80s culture.
Music trends tend to come to anime 10 years later or so. We think it’s often the same with anime, think about the dark 80s influence on anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Some Visual Anime Comparisons
There are many examples to see these differences, here is a recap of some of the most iconic:
80s: LOTGH, Fist of the North Star, Maison Ikkoku, City Hunter, Patlabor, Gundam, Akira, Saint Seiya, Urusei Yatsura, KOR, Captain Tsubasa, Macross
90s: YuYu Hakusho, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Sailor Moon, Angel’s Egg, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Berserk, Perfect Blue, Dragon Ball, Bubblegum Crisis, Ghost in the Shell, Lain, Rurouni Kenshin.
A Look At Female Characters & Anime Icons
One of the easiest ways to spot differences across the 2 decades is by looking at female characters.
In that period females in anime were way more detailed and recognizable than men.
Iconic 80s characters: Kei (Dirty Pair), Madoka and Hikaru (KOR), Pegasus (Saint Seiya), Ken (Fist of the North Star)
Iconic 90s characters: Lina (Slayers), Usagi (Sailor Moon), Faye and Spike (Cowboy Bebop), Yusuke (Yu-Yu Hakusho), Asuka and Rei (NGE)
In the 80s, we noticed more extravagant and fluffy hairstyles, reflecting the bold fashion of the time, which included high-waisted jeans and quirky accessories.
In the 90s, while this style persisted for a while, it was gradually replaced by a new trend: elegance.
This gave rise to more elegant, stylish, and refined ways of dressing, both in streetwear and in more formal settings.
Anime lover and a big fan of the 90s. He has previous experience working with foreign websites and now he is willing to move things even further.
When he is not writing for Nihonime.com, Zeruan spends most of his time reading, coding and developing marketing strategies.
