Anime & Cartoons

[Greeneyes]

What is the difference?

 

Do you care?

[brycec]

I do not really think there is much difference, since the mainstream worldwide seem them as the same think.

 

Western animation does tend to feel inferior at times though, because it tends to be too episodic.

[Orius]

Doesn't really matter. It's semantics. You could really argue all day long about who is correct, when both have reasonable arguments of their own.

 

Technically speaking, if you really want to get down to it, anime is technically cartoons - by definition.

 

Cartoons:

1. a simple drawing showing the features of its subjects in a humorously exaggerated way, especially a satirical one in a newspaper or magazine.
   
2. a film using animation techniques to photograph a sequence of drawings rather than real people or objects.
   
3. a full-size drawing made by an artist as a preliminary design for a painting or other work of art.
   

Note the last two points. A film using animation techniques to photograph a sequence of drawings. So yes, anime is technically cartoons, because it fits that animation process.

 

But like I said, it doesn't matter, because the very usage of "cartoon" today has been distorted, much like the word, "irony" (which doesn't have anything to do with funny remarks). "Cartoon" is very often used today when referring to animation (not necessarily "childish" animation mind you) that pander to younger audiences, when obviously, that isn't true with anime. Anime, by default, merely means any form of animation produced in Japanese, so that can be any animation targeted towards both adults and children. Thereby, today's definition of "cartoons" doesn't fit. But that's only when you take into consideration the informal usage of "cartoons" rather than the official Oxford definition... So, like I said, you could really argue all day long without getting anywhere.

Edited May 29, 2017 by Guest

[Cy~]

As @Orius says, by definition, it would seem to be the case that anime is a sub-type of "cartoons". With that said...

 

Thereby, today's definition of "cartoons" doesn't fit. But that's only when you take into consideration the informal usage of "cartoons" rather than the official Oxford definition...

 

It's worth noting that dictionaries almost always lag behind the actual usage by something like 10 to 25 years (basically, a generation). Keeping this in mind, it's quite possible that the definition of "cartoon" will narrow if anime becomes popular enough to attract the attention of the rather boring 50+ year old crowd that tends to maintain the Oxford and other dictionaries. Either that or we'll just have to update it ourselves when we hit that wonderful milestone of life, hahahaha.