Japanese animation, popularly referred to as anime is notable for its dynamic, calligraphic style. The genre is directly related to manga, the graphic novels read by millions of Japanese, both children and adults. Manga in turn is a distant cousin of Japan's classic scroll paintings, the kinetic pictorial format that combines a continuous visual image with a narrative text. The scroll painting, together with Japan's ancient calligraphic technique, led to the development of ukiyo-e, the colorful woodblock prints made famous by Hokusai and Utamaro. Like ukiyo-e, Japanese animation stands out for its visual immediacy and boldness of vision