Anime vs Cartoons

Judgement

So, let the fiery debate begin. What makes an animated series 'anime', and what makes it a 'cartoon'?

riofriz

In a cartoon "Hello" sounds like "Hello", in an anime it sounds like "Herulo~~" :

Judgement

I have been told that animated series that come from Japan are classified as anime, and animated series that originate elsewhere are classified as cartoons. Then somebody else told me that it depends on which nativity the original creators have. And then another person told me it solely depends on the art style!

riofriz

> I have been told that animated series that come from Japan are classified as anime, and animated series that originate elsewhere are classified as cartoons. Then somebody else told me that it depends on which nativity the original creators have. And then another person told me it solely depends on the art style! I do think it depends on the art style as there are plenty of VERY valid animated series from the US that can easily be considered anime, even tho the main language is english :

Judgement

riofriz

> Such as... Avatar: The Last Airbender? Well say "The Boondocks" for example, it's so close to be an anime that really all it needs is them to speak Japanese to be one : Or Black Dynamite

chaud

The line becomes very thin in this day and age since artists over seas can be influenced by manga/anime. I would say the japanese language, the tropes like a tsundere,..., the cultural jokes make something an anime.

cleand

I think the animation is also a factor on how you classify an anime and a cartoon.

weebywitch

My understanding is that the word itself literally means any animated media. At least within Japan. It’s only outside of Japan that we’ve constrained it to Japanese styled animation. They’ve got such a huge range of animation styles, genres, etc and “anime” is everything from their simplest, most basic ones aimed at toddlers to the extreme MA rated horror, gory or ecchi and mature or historical stuff and anything and any style in between. There’s watercolor, realism, abstract, chibi, there are so many styles, genres and combinations in addition to animation techniques but they’re all anime. They’re aired from Saturday mornings to late night television with a wide range of audiences. The same is true of animated media made elsewhere in the world for audiences that we’d call cartoons or Disney Digital or whatever you call Pixar—it can all be considered anime in the purest sense if you want to go with a basic sense of it being animated pictures. I mean Disney ripped off anime (Osamu Tezuka) apparently so there’s that extra bit of evidence for the argument that it’s all the same if you want to go the influence route. Don’t get me wrong, every culture has their own individual traits and characteristics. I’m not saying anyone can just make anime the way it’s done in Japan. What I’m saying is the most basic definition, as they use it, to my understanding, is as described above. And we, as outsiders, have turned it into a niche thing by virtue of both the language and the visuals being foreign to us. seiryu as much as we nitpick at with other, what do you think of the big picture of my response here? Or rather, what are your thoughts in general? Both works, actually, if you’ve the time or inclination. Please and thank you. ^_^

goldenvenus

Like WeebyWitch said, 'anime' originally derives from the term 'animation', but over the years, as the popularity grew massively, anime started to become a term to classify animated works from Japan. When I was in university I had done a few studies on this (but don't remember much XD) it's really interesting actually. Animated works from outside of Japan are often referred to as 'cartoons.' However, even if now we insist that it's just a matter of language, it already feels strange to refer to non-Japanese animation as 'anime.' Just like how the term 'villain' changed over the centuries, the term 'anime' was also shifted. Even my Japanese friend calls Japanese animation 'anime' and simply refers to western works as 'cartoon' XD. Personally, as someone who was exposed to anime since childhood, I prefer to refer to them differently; Japanese animation as 'anime,' and the rest as 'cartoon.' And it's mostly because the differences in visual, representation, genres etc. > In a cartoon "Hello" sounds like "Hello", in an anime it sounds like "Herulo~~" : I'm cackling XD > I have been told that animated series that come from Japan are classified as anime, and animated series that originate elsewhere are classified as cartoons. Then somebody else told me that it depends on which nativity the original creators have. And then another person told me it solely depends on the art style! Nativity doesn't play a part at all. The anime Radiant's creator is German (if I'm not mistaken) but since Japanese studio produced it, it's categorized as an anime.

weebywitch

> Nativity doesn't play a part at all. The anime Radiant's creator is German (if I'm not mistaken) but since Japanese studio produced it, it's categorized as an anime. I’d have to agree with this statement. Even CanonBusters is considered an anime even though it was created by LeSean Thomas who is American.

sweetjacky

I think the difference is quite simple. Anime are animated series with origin in Japan and the rest is cartoon. No matter how similar the animation is to anime (for example Avatar: The last Airbender) it doesn't make it classify as anime. At least that's what I think. But then again, Japanese people might refer to cartoons as anime as well since it's a Japanese term but I don't know how it really is.

seiryu

> My understanding is that the word itself literally means any animated media. At least within Japan. It’s only outside of Japan that we’ve constrained it to Japanese styled animation. They’ve got such a huge range of animation styles, genres, etc and “anime” is everything from their simplest, most basic ones aimed at toddlers to the extreme MA rated horror, gory or ecchi and mature or historical stuff and anything and any style in between. There’s watercolor, realism, abstract, chibi, there are so many styles, genres and combinations in addition to animation techniques but they’re all anime. They’re aired from Saturday mornings to late night television with a wide range of audiences. The same is true of animated media made elsewhere in the world for audiences that we’d call cartoons or Disney Digital or whatever you call Pixar—it can all be considered anime in the purest sense if you want to go with a basic sense of it being animated pictures. I mean Disney ripped off anime (Osamu Tezuka) apparently so there’s that extra bit of evidence for the argument that it’s all the same if you want to go the influence route. Don’t get me wrong, every culture has their own individual traits and characteristics. I’m not saying anyone can just make anime the way it’s done in Japan. What I’m saying is the most basic definition, as they use it, to my understanding, is as described above. And we, as outsiders, have turned it into a niche thing by virtue of both the language and the visuals being foreign to us. seiryu as much as we nitpick at with other, what do you think of the big picture of my response here? Or rather, what are your thoughts in general? Both works, actually, if you’ve the time or inclination. Please and thank you. ^_^ Woah...this is the second tag from you that I didn't get a notification for. I guess I gotta ask for some troubleshooting by the staff. Hmmm...kinda a loaded question. There are definitely cultural aspects, so in some ways the influential foreign series do fit the "anime" label quite well (I'd throw Simpsons into this discussion from the impact on society aspect). From a more technical standpoint, the technique of drawing (the same steps Oda uses for manga) of a rough sketch, a finalized sketch, adding shading/details, and then coloring. As a purist, I don't consider the CGI stuff "anime". There was a terrible looking CGI One Piece special that was fully CGI created. I don't think it's a coincidence that it was a 1x event. Then as you mention, we have the definition aspect where everything can be considered anime. For me, it's all context of the discussion. I agree with the literal definition as well. But for example, I fully agree with Oda that CGI stuff is not One Piece "anime". Asians are very racist in terms of having high pride about their culture and not liking when others don't take the effort to understand said culture. Japan was infamous for straight up hating on all foreigners and it's still only a relatively new thing for there to be acceptance of foreigners (bullying of interracial kids is still common from what I understand). So this too carries over in that 10+ years ago Japanese would not consider anything outside of Japan anime. Either way, there is no one answer and it's actually a little bit of everything mentioned here. Just depends on the context of the discussion.

nikamara

I think anime just means cartoons in Japanese : But certainly there are differences in the art and story style of Japanese cartoons. Most notably, anime tends to have a progressive storyline, whereas cartoons were and still to a large extent are episodic. The reason avatar feels like an anime is because of the overreaching plot.

riofriz

Let's hear more opinions on this now that we have more users :

mr.mxy

I don't like this semantics tbh, take for example ShinChan, it is considered to be Anime in Japan but here it is more in line with Cartoon tag. I think reason for this is people have subconsciously assigned Cartoon tag to anything that has slightly more Childish theme. But when you mention anime people start taking it seriously. Worse is some people here imagine worse things when I say Anime. haha However, people in my family when I graduated from CartoonNetwork to Animax, were still calling it cartoon and due to my habit of watching it me an immature kid.lol Well, I feel it doesn't really matter, but in general Anime tends to signify slightly more mature content and mature level of animation. The word itself however means whatever it is that is animated.

negatibuhige

Anime is just the Japanese for cartoon, which is derived from the English word animation. They even write the word with Katakana! So it's just a matter of terminology, broadly. However, anime has distinct art and animation style, doesn't it? The range of complexity in story is also very varied. There are some cartoons that have similarly complex stories, of course, but I've only watched Avatar the Last Airbender which falls into this category. But the visuals mostly state the difference. No one will mistake X-Men for an anime no matter the plot complexity and no one will mistake Maruko-chan for a cartoon no matter the simple art.

seiryu

I don't think I welcomed you to our community negatibuhige! I hope you enjoy the various discussions here. "Negative beard"? Is that the intended name? Cute panda for sure though.

leandro

What makes a Cartoon: Poor animated series with bad art and mostly comedy just to please kids or parents who want to watch something with their kids. Once you grow up you can forget cartoons because they become obsolete. What makes an anime: A more elaborated art with better animation for more demanding people than just kids,it offers a lot of different genders and even if somehow people don't like some of them they will find others to like and i am a good example of that. I hope they bring more animes with the animation of this era like the ones they used to do before like Inuyasha,Dragon Ball,Ninja Scroll or Yu Yu Hakusho,i missed those old stories who made me love anime so much. : By the way "Back to the blind Oda faith (until the next B.S. of course)." Thanks for this,someone still reminds some of my opinions😂😂

christinachoi

For me, I always thought of cartoons being a very broad definition or category. For example, cartoons can be something like SpongeBob but can also be something like Death Note while being completely different in art style and culture. Although I could just be confusing myself with cartoons and animations :