How important was the invention of blue towards anime?


In the video of [Vsauce2](https://youtu.be/VIg5HkyauoY?t=575) it is mentioned
that

> Prussian blue ... it reinvigorated Japanese wood block painting, which went
> on to influence manga which led to Japanese animation

The phrasing makes it sound like the invention of this Prussian blue is one of
the key factors towards the development of Japanese animation or anime.

But was this invention really a key factor towards the creation of anime? Or
did this Prussian blue really have a an effect to the creation of Anime at
all?




# The Logical Fallacy that A implies B

This is an example of a "false cause" or ["post hoc ergo propter hoc"
fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc).

i.e. "A occured, then B occured. Therefore A caused B"

Some examples:

  * "The rooster crows every morning, therefore the rooster causes the sun to come up.
  * "Hospitals are full of sick people. Therefore hospitals make people sick."

In this case:

  * "Prussian Blue was used in woodblock paintings. Woodblock paintings were the precursor to manga. Therefore, the invention of Prussian Blue was critical to manga's creation"

# The Actual Claim - A was faster than it could have been

We can break down the statement from the video:

> Prussian blue reinvigorated Japanese wood block painting, which went on to
> influence manga which led to Japanese animation

If we look carefully at the facts from this sentence:

**A:** Prussian blue reinvigorated Japanese wood block painting

**B:** Japanese wood block painting went on to influence manga

**C:** manga led to Japanese animation

These are presented by the video as to seem to be connected, but they are not
necessarily.

Let's imagine that artists took 100 years to perfect Woodblock Painting, then
100 years to develop Manga and another 100 to Anime. The entire time being 300
years to create Anime (note: these timelines are entirely made up)

Vsauce is implying that this first stage was invigorated and perhaps moved
faster than it may have without the introduction of Prussian Blue. Maybe it
would have taken 80 years to perfect Woodblock Painting instead - leaving us
with a total of 280 years before we got to anime for the same process.

What they are saying isn't incorrect, but it is worded as to give Prussian
Blue a false importance.

# However...

The new availability of blue ink did allow some new stylistic choices for
authors, as an alternative to black. We can see artists chose this sometimes
in other areas than Japan.

[![Sketch by Giuseppe
Arcimboldo](https://i.stack.imgur.com/X21ttm.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/X21ttm.png)

