Windows 8.1 Plus and Minus

So we’ve all heard different side of the story of the same old battle of anime vs cartoons. Hardcore anime fans will swear that anime is not cartoons while everyone else who doesn’t understand the culture will say that it’s cartoons. I think it’s about time I throw in my few cents on the matter.

Anime is, in fact, cartoons and cartoons is, in fact, anime.

Wait, what? Yes, you read it right, they are pretty much one and the same in terms of “meaning.”

Let’s break it down. The term “anime” is short hand for animation. So what is cartoons? They’re a form of animation. With that logic, it’s safe to say that cartoons is a form of anime. Problem is, this is not how us anime watchers sees it (at least, from the looks of it, from the younger generations).

Anime, nowadays, is referred to as Japanese Animation while cartoons is referred to other forms of animation that does not conform to the Japanese style art and/or animation. But what is considered Japanese style art and animation vs cartoon art and animation? See the picture below for a good example.

As you can see, the styles is different between cartoonist vs what the anime style art looks like.

But the art style isn’t the only thing that’s different between the 2. Anime tends to have an ongoing story line, once it reaches a number of episodes then it’s over or it might get another season or even an OVA (Original Video Animation); whilst cartoons can keep themselves (story-wise) contain in each episode. What’s I’m talking about is that if you sit down and watch My Little Pony or Bugs Bunny, each episode that you’re watching is self contained and you can watch it out of order if you wish and it’ll still make sense while if you’re watching an anime called Bleach, you can’t just jump into the middle of a season and expect to know what’s going on, you’ll need to start from the beginning and catch up.

Another major differences is the overall emotions involved. Cartoons tends to keep things completely light and humorous because it’s meant to be there to make people laugh. When Mickey Mouse first came out on the black and white, it was there to make (mainly) adults laugh to get through the tough times back then but now it’s there to keep the younger kids (and also some adults) laughing and enjoying themselves. With anime, on the other hand, can be an emotional wreck. Why do I say this? Let’s go back to the story concept here. If a cartoon can keep themselves self-contained in each episode but you can’t with an anime series, what do you think is in play here? The story line. Depending on the series you can experience anger, sadness, pissed off, etc., based off of what’s happening in the story line.

Other than story lines, there’s other minor differences as well and a few majors. Since we talked about a few of the major ones, there is a few minors as well.

First of all, background music and opening & closing. Cartoons tend to have the same blah opening and closing with some lame ass music and half time you won’t have background music while with anime, depending on the length of the series, might go through many different opening and closings along with different background music depending on what’s happening. Plus the opening and closings of an anime is anywhere from a minute and half to 3 minutes long in length while cartoons are generally 30 seconds long (they need to fit the full story in a 30 minute time period some how). But scsa, isn’t music a major thing? Most thinks they are, I don’t believe so since it doesn’t change the overall artwork of a style.

Another minor differences is in the detail of the animation. An anime might be detailed down to the hair, it lacks something that cartoons exceeds at, everything isn’t in motion. Next time you watch an episode of Power Puff Girls, keep attention to the characters, you’ll see their hair is constantly moving or they’re blinking there’s some sort of movement that continues to happen while in anime they don’t. It’s lame I know but hey, the Japanese animations had to cut corners somehow.

So, as you can see, there is a differences between anime and cartoons but lets face it, they’re both cartoons and they’re both anime. We should be calling anime Japanese Anime and cartoons American Anime or Japanese Cartoons and American Cartoons, because they’re both a form of “animation.”

Anyways, off to bed for me, hope you all learn something today.

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