Typography of 1990s Anime

Evangelion was among the first anime to create a consistent typographic identity across its visual universe, from title cards to NERV’s user interfaces. Subcontractors usually painted anything type-related in an anime by hand, so it was a novel idea at the time for a director to use desktop typesetting to exert typographic control. Although sci-fi anime tended to use either sans serifs or hand lettering that mimicked sans serifs in 1995, Anno decided to buck that trend, choosing a display serif for stronger visual impact. After flipping through Fontworks’ specimen catalog, he personally selected the extra-bold (EB) weight of Matisse (マティス), a Mincho-style serif family.¹

Cover of the paperback collection vol. 1, displaying the famous Akira logotype. First printing: Sep. 21, 1984.

What most of us know as the Akira logo is actually the title on the cover of the paperback collection published by Kodansha from 1984. At the time, the design was astounding. The B5 format with yellow page edges (a color rarely used at the time), and a cover entirely in English, turned the book into a sensational subject that was considered groundbreaking.²

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