Osamu Tezuka

Osamu Tezuka was heavily inspired by Disney's Bambi and Betty Boop, which influenced the style that he developed as a manga artist. Tezuka became the first anime artist to tell stories simiar to way Disney had, he borrowed the style of round heads, bold lines and large, expressive eyes to create his characters. This soon became the house-style for the anime genre, and Tezuka had established the genre himself and inspired lots of animators after him such as Hayao Miyazaki, where his characters also featured the anime style. With borrowing styles from Disney, the anime genre was able to shoot off as they were able to easily express emotion with their characters and establish a style that anyone nowadays would easily be able to recognise. Without Tezuka, anime may never have gotten so big as it lacked a style that brought it all together and made it a genre. The anime style is clearly still present today as Japanese animations still use large eyes, and heavily expressive faces to tell their stories.