[jcl]

I think anime's predilection for establishing shots may be due in part to its manga roots...

In "Understanding Comics", Scott McCloud analyzed the transitions made between panels in various works, and he found that sequences of transitions between different views of an environment (what he called "aspect-to-aspect") were common in manga but were nearly absent in American or European comics. I believe he attributed this to the fact that manga typically has higher page counts than other comics, allowing the authors to invest more in setting up scenes.