Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4440927-20150410030856/@comment-34326521-20150524184607

Superalexiy wrote: Blaziken rjcf wrote: "Anime" is what the Japanese call "animation". Only in the west do some people separate western animation and Japanese animation by calling them "cartoon" and "anime", respectively. If you go to Japan and show them Spongebob Squarepants, they'll say it's an anime. If you show them Dragon Ball, they'll also say it's an anime. Not sure about that, Anime is alot more serious then american cartoons and in fact I think japan draws a fine line bettwen the two you can't go calling tokyo ghoul an anime then look at sponge bob and say "Oh, Thats a cool Anime" it doesn't fit they usually just refer to it as american cartoon. Do you know Japanese (the language)? Do you know Japanese people? Because I know Japanese people, and, while I don't know near enough Japanese to hold a conversation, I do know several Japanese words. The Japanese people I know find it ridiculous (yes, ridiculous) how most people call Japanese animation "Anime" and western animation "cartoons", as if there's a difference between the two terms. There is not; at least not in the way you think. A cartoon is an anime. Anime literally means "animation". So, all cartoons are anime, but not all animes are cartoons. Pixar's movies, for example, are anime - animation. Japanese cartoons (Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto, Doraemon - and I dare you call this last one "serious") are anime, and american cartoons (Spongebob, Ben 10, Toy Story 3) are anime as well. So, in short:

Anime=Animation

Cartoon (regardless of country of origin)=Animation

Cartoon (regardless of country of origin)=Anime

However, and this is something I must concede, just because a word has a certain meaning doesn't mean it has to remain that way forever. "Awesome", for example, no longer means what it did 100 years ago. That said, for right now, Japanese animation is still a cartoon, by definition - a cartoon is nothing more than an animated drawing.