Marvel Anime (2010-2011) is a four-series anthology co-produced between Marvel Comics, Sony Pictures and Studio Madhouse, first announced at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con. Featuring Iron Man, Wolverine, the X-Men and Blade as the leads of their respective shows, each of their stories involve travelling to Japan either to simply save the day, motivated by revenge in the case of Wolverine, to save a kidnapped member of the X-Men, or to slay a few vampires hiding there. Supervised by Warren Ellis (with the exception of Blade), the anthology is said to create an entire parallel universe for Marvel, according to representatives of the company.
In 2013, the film Iron Man: Rise of Technovore was released to coincide with the release of Iron Man 3. The flick also featured several heroes from The Avengers (2012), such as Hawkeye, Black Widow and Nick Fury. Another film, Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher, was released in 2014 as a tie-in to Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
See also: Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers, another Marvel-themed anime collaboration, though this time done with Toei Animation. Marvel Future Avengers is another anime done with Madhouse. Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes is an animesque series made by the French company Moonscoop.
Tropes applying to the Marvel Anime universe:
- Adaptational Heroism: Takeo is mainly the villain due to Power Incontinence. His comic counterpart, Proteus, was a psychotic villain who murdered innocent people For the Evulz.
- Ascended Extra: Yinsen in the almost every media is an important character, but only lasts for Iron Man's origin before he ends up killed. The Iron Man anime has him survive past his encounter with Stark and become a major antagonist (though of the Anti-Villain variety).
- Blessed with Suck: Xavier's son, Takeo, who is an incredibly powerful mutant, but whose powers bloomed when he was barely entering grade school, which forced him to grow up in isolation thereafter after having to use them to wipe his existence from the memory of everyone who ever met him.
- Bloodless Carnage: While some blood does get shown, it's usually much less than you'd expect. Particularly noticable in the Wolverine, but taken to extremes in Blade, where the victims are all vampires and so burst into flames and disintegrate when struck.
- Cameo Cluster: The final episode of X-Men features cameos from Colossus, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Archangel, Captain Britain, Iron Man, and Deadpool.
- Composite Character: Takeo is Xavier's son Legion and Moira MacTaggert's son Proteus rolled into one. A similar combination of the two characters previously appeared in Ultimate X Men as the Ultimate Marvel version of Proteus.
- Darker and Edgier: All three of the animes to come after the Iron Man anime.
- X-Men features the first animated depiction of the U-Men, human sadists who kidnap innocent mutants and vivisect them in the hopes of gaining superpowers by transplanting their organs into their own bodies.
- In the final episodes, Xavier plans to use his psychic powers to kill his Reality Warper son, Takeo, and then die with him because he sees no other ways to stop his rampage.
- Wolverine features Omega Red, who is stated on-screen to be a former serial killer, as well as countless fatalities amongst the organised crime members facing off against Wolverine himself.
- X-Men features the first animated depiction of the U-Men, human sadists who kidnap innocent mutants and vivisect them in the hopes of gaining superpowers by transplanting their organs into their own bodies.
- Disposable Woman: A number of prominent female characters are routinely killed off for dramatic effect in the various series including Dr. Tanaka in Iron Man, Mokoto in Blade, and a two-for-one in Wolverine with Yukio and Mariko.
- Expy: The Original Character Kikyo Mikage can be seen as one for Wolverine In-Universe; an Arrogant Samurai Japanese mutant with a Healing Factor and katana-like blades that he can extend from his palms.
- Instrumental Theme Tune: All four series.
- Immortal Hero: Wolverine in his series gets the crap beat out of him and normally lethal injuries numerous times nearly every episode by more skilled, powerful, or numerous enemies. Thanks to his healing factor he always lasts long enough to squeak out a win. By the end, the villains are trying to figure out how to kill him since he keeps getting up no matter how badly they wound him.
- Our Vampires Are Different: They're even different in-universe in Blade, which has distinct species of vampires such as the "Water Tigers" (vampires who favor hunting from water and who assume a Game Face that can best be described as saber-tooth tiger-headed fishman with a cat's tail).
- Race Lift: Yui Sasaki from X-Men is a Japanese version of Moira MacTaggert, Xavier's former love-interest from the comics. Likewise, her son Takeo is a Japanese version of Moira's son Proteus.
- Reality Warper: Xavier's son, the ultimate source of conflict in the X-Men anime.
- Smug Snake: Hideki Kurohagi.
- 12-Episode Anime: All of them.
- Vampire Bites Suck: Vampires in the Blade anime leave the traditional puncture marks when they feed; Blade's "sire", Deacon Frost, is unusual in that he has fang-like lower canines as well and so leaves four puncture wounds on the same side of the neck. This is the trait that Blade uses to track him.
- Wolverine Publicity: Guess who is the only character who makes an appearance in all four? Go on, guess. Though the Wolverine in the eponymous series and the Wolverine in the X-Men have very different character designs. The first is a borderline Bishonen while the X-Men Wolverine is closer to his comic-book counterpart.
