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Old 03-04-2010, 01:34 AM   #5
Chris

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Re: Anime/ Cartoon, Manga/Comic????

It's just one giant apocalyptic paradox.

If you google the definition for anime, which I just did myself to confirm my suspicion, virtually every definition starts with "A style". Which would imply that the term Anime simply means the distinct style that was created by the Japanese. Which we would then have to assume would mean that if someone creates a motion picture in North America in original English, using that same artistic style, it has to be called Anime.

Oni has a good point, correct me if I'm wrong, in saying it's simply a terminology issue, Anime and Cartoons are the same thing, it just depends on where you're from, and how you view it.

In Japan, they simply refer to their animations as Anime and have for a long time. In Japan, the term Anime does NOT refer to a specific style, and does not imply that the show was created solely in Japan, any animated show is simply an anime to them. My theory is, years ago, when animation that was created in Japan started to leak into North American soil, especially via VHS fan-subs which quickly became popular, and even legal subs and dubs such as the original "Akira", they were tagged as anime simply because it was from Japan and that's what they call their animations (some people called it Japanimation but eventually dropped the term in favor of the condensed version). Since we already had the conflicting term "Cartoon" referring to what we are used to seeing on every day television, the term "anime" in america was solely labeled to the show's coming out of Japan and the specific style they carried, whereas in Japan, they still referred to any Animation as Anime regardless of where it's from or the style it had.

In short, Cartoon and Anime both simply mean ANIMATION. They are all technically the same thing, but the word "Anime" in America simply evolved and took on a new meaning and is now commonly associated with the specific style of Animation coming out of Japan.

"Anime" in Japan refers to ANY animation regardless of where it's from or what style is used
"Anime" in America refers to animation coming out of Japan and the style that follows.

If you stop and think about it, I'm sure you can come up with other terms or phrases that were taken from one culture and evolved to fit the other culture's needs.

It's all kind of one giant circle, and even writing all this jumbled knowledge from my brain into this post has sort of put things into more perspective for me.
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Last edited by Chris; 03-05-2010 at 11:59 PM.
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