Anime in Finland

Anime in Finland before the 2000s

Anime has been watched in Finland since the 1980s when the first VHS releases became available. One of the most significant series was Silver Fang (1986), which was dubbed into Finnish in 1989. The Finnish audience had a strong assumption that a cartoon featuring dogs would automatically be aimed at young children, but the content of Silver Fang surprised many. Despite the version released in Finland being edited to be more suitable for children, the animated series contained more violence and blood than expected. Nevertheless, and partly due to its graphic nature, Silver Fang has over time become a cult classic.
Anime gradually began to appear in Finnish everyday life through television as well. Many remember series such as Maya the Bee (1975–1976), The Adventures of Tom Thumb (1980–1981), Alfred J. Kwak (1989–1990), and Tao Tao (1983–1985) from their childhoods, but may not have known that they were anime. These series are Japanese productions that have collaborated with creators from, among others, Germany, the Netherlands, and China. The popular series Moomin (1990) from the 1990s is a Japanese-Finnish-Dutch production. Tove and Lars Jansson collaborated with the Japanese screenwriters and animators for the series.
Even full-length anime movies have been shown on Finnish TV. For example, In 1995,, Studio Ghibli’s Porco Rosso (1992) and My Neighbor Totoro (1988) were broadcasted.
Apart from the examples mentioned above, watching anime before the 2000s was still mainly an activity for dedicated enthusiasts. Before the internet age, rare works spread among fans as VHS cassette copies and the like.

Anime in Finland in the 2000s

The emergence of anime into the wider public consciousness in Finland is often traced back to the debut of the Pokémon animated series (1997–) on Finnish television in 1999. As a result of Pokémon’s popularity, many other anime series were released in the early 2000s, such as Digimon Adventure (1999–2000), which was also dubbed in Finnish. Other series were also aired on television, such as the Swedish-dubbed version of Sailor Moon (1992-1997) alongside original Japanese voiced series like Fullmetal Alchemist (2003–2004) and Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–1996), as well as English-dubbed series like Dragon Ball (1986–1989) and Dragon Ball Z (1989–1996).
In addition to television broadcasts and home recordings, many people watched anime on the internet. Before legal streaming services such as Crunchyroll and Netflix made anime more mainstream, numerous unofficial fan-maintained websites existed where viewers could watch both English-dubbed and Japanese-language anime. Fans produced unofficial fan-subtitled videos themselves. Anime could also be found to some extent on YouTube, although the episodes often had to be split across multiple videos due to the platform’s length restrictions.

Anime in Finland from the 2010s to the Present Day

Watching anime is easier than ever, as streaming services have been offering licensed and professionally translated series since the 2010s. Examples of services focused on anime include the current American market leader Crunchyroll and the now-defunct French service Wakanim.
Streaming has been seen as an appealing alternative to unofficial websites, where the quality of both the videos and subtitles varied considerably. Crunchyroll has become popular among viewers familiar with anime, but streaming services focused on Western content, like Netflix, have also brought anime to a broader audience. The significance of fan-subtitles has diminished greatly, with streaming services now translating their content themselves. Occasionally, series are also translated into Finnish, although translation often occurs via an intermediary language, usually English.
Anime films are now shown in cinemas several times a year. Alongside the popular films from Studio Ghibli, recent years have seen the release of spin-off films from popular series, such as One Piece Film: Red (2022) and Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie (2021).