An original net animation (ONA), known in Japan as , is an

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

that is directly released onto the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. ONAs may also have been aired on television if they were first directly released on the Internet. The name mirrors original video animation, a term that has been used in the anime industry for straight-to-video animation since the early 1980s. A growing number of trailers and preview episodes of new anime have been released as ONA. For example, the anime movie of '' Megumi'' can be considered an ONA. ONAs have the tendency to be shorter than traditional anime titles, sometimes running only a few minutes. There are many examples of an original net animation, such as '' Hetalia: Axis Powers'', which only last a few minutes per episode. But while that was true for the beginning of the 2010s, this began to change in the second half of the decade as full series began to be licensed exclusively for streaming services like

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by ...

, and

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. The majority of the production of animation in Japan is made for television or for other audio-visual formats, which include ONAs that can be viewed on television, mobile devices or computers.

History

Makoto Shinkai was a pioneer of original net animation (ONA) in the late 1990s, producing his first animated short films on a

home computer Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...

and distributing them on the

. He produced the earliest animated short ONA, including ''Tōi Sekai'' (''Other Worlds'') in 1997, ''Kakomareta Sekai'' (''The World Be Enclosed'') in 1998, and '' Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko'' (''She and Her Cat'') in 1999. Another early short ONA was ''Azumanga Web Daioh'' (2000). As broadband Internet bandwidth began to increase in speed and availability, delivering high-quality online video over the Internet became a reality. In the early 2000s, the Japanese

industry began broadcasting ONA web series on the Internet. Early examples of ONA series include '' Infinite Ryvius: Illusion'' (2000), ''Ajimu'' (2001) and '' Mahou Yuugi'' (2001).

References

{{Animation industry in Japan Anime and manga terminology Web animation New media Internet-based works Multimedia

History

See also

References