There’s no doubt that American and Japanese animation have been in active conversation since their birth. The father of what we know as modern Japanese anime, Osamu Tezuka, was inspired by Disney’s earliest animations. When he created Astro Boy, Tezuka looked to Disney’s doe-eyed, expressive, and exaggerated character designs, as well as Disney’s character-driven story-telling structures. And that was just the start. While Western and Eastern animation have developed their own distinct features…