ANIME IS NOT CARTOON

SALEH IBNE OMAR

STUDENT AT SOUTHEAST UNIVERSITY, CSE DEPT., DHAKA, BANGLADESH
 Anime is not Cartoon

If you are an anime fan and watching anime and suddenly one of your friends or siblings who
doesn’t know about anime sees you and burst out of laugh and tells you t ‘Hey you are watching
cartoons again? you are nothing but a kid, grow up!’. They will make fun of you even if you
say anime is not cartoon hundreds of time. It’s a typical way of thinking in our country
(Bangladesh), no matter how much you try to convince them that anime is not cartoon they
will play hard to accept this fact.

Just as every other anime fan I also faced such problems a lot, I’m watching anime since I was
in class four, now I’m in university but I watch anime whenever I have free time. So when I
was a teenager some of my classmates and friends who did not know about anime or they were
not into anime so when they came to know that I watch anime they started to mock me. They
used to call me a ‘KID’, I will not be an adult anymore and they also gave me a nickname
‘Cartoon’. Whenever they saw me or wanted to make fun of me they used to call me by the
name cartoon. Anyway, I was having hard times since I was a teenager but now that I’m an
adult they don’t call me in that name but they do ask me if I watch cartoons or not, in reply I
always say “No! I don’t watch cartoons but I do anime if I have time”. Then they state that I’m
still the same. Let me say “Anime is not Cartoon”. I will defend it every time and there are
logics for me to say this. If I can put up necessary and logical documents about anime and
cartoons which will separate them from each other most of the people will understand and
acknowledge anime as a different genre of animation, except some ignorant people who will
always stick with his/her opinion that anime is cartoon.

It is a common mistake for those who haven’t watched or have no knowledge about anime to
take anime as cartoon. Anime and cartoon may be a similar form of animation but they are not
the same, although they are categorized under the term ‘animation’. They do not exactly have
the same meaning nor the same origin and they are far from being the same. To differentiate
between anime and cartoon first we must know about animation. What is animation? An
animation is a form of motion pictures, making the images and drawings to move, talk, dance,
etc. Animation has many branches, among them the most common ones are anime, cartoon,
and animation movies.

So what kind of animation is anime actually? The origin of anime is Japan; no other nation can
make such kind of unique animation. I can say it is in the culture of Japan. Japan is a colorful
country with different beliefs and faiths. They have so many ancient fairytales and stories
where different types of supernatural powers and characters have been mentioned. If you
research on their culture you will find out quickly. There are lots of cultural programs which
are being celebrated by the Japanese every year. In some festivals they wear different types of
clothes, they can be seen wearing samurai dresses, ninja dress even they wear different masks
and so on. So you can tell that they can imagine a lot, there are people who write supernatural,
fantasy, romance, action, sci-fi stories but they store the stories along with drawings in books
and these books are called ‘Manga’. Base, plot, and the main theme of anime comes from these
manga books. Japanese anime making production turn those stories and drawing into a form of
animation which is called anime. Unlike cartoons, anime has plots and stories and mainly they
have big series carrying the main plot which you might not notice in cartoon animations.
Cartoons have fewer twists in the plot and have a childish vibe. However, anime has lots of
twist and adults can enjoy it. The most distinguishable feature between cartoon and anime are
the visual characteristics. The characters are well designed, they mostly seem to resemble real
humans. In the cartoon you won’t see that type of animation and they mostly resemble different
types of creature to entertain children and cartoon don’t carry the main plot, they come with
different plots and stories each and every episode for example: (Tom & Jerry, Woody Wood
Pecker, Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, Barbie, Ben 10, Generator Rex).

I would like to recommend some anime for everyone to watch if they have spare time:

1. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (episodes 63).

2. Hellsing OVA (episodes 10).
3. Nura Rise of the yokai clan (2 seasons 26 episodes each).
4. Bleach (episodes 366).
5. Black Butler (episodes 24)
6. Charlotte (episodes 13).
7. Yu-Gi-Oh (Dual monsters-224 episodes / 5 seasons).
8. Inuyasha (episodes 167).
To show the difference between Anime and Cartoon visually, I attached some photos so that
readers may understand.

Here are the photos:

Thus anime and cartoon are both animations and have some similarities but they are far more
different than each other, cartoons are mainly made for entertaining kids by making funny
scenes or imaginational figures which kids love the most, but most of the anime gives great
morals along with thrills, actions, drama, romance, etc. You might find it interesting if you
approach it because there are lots of anime that adults can watch and they are not childish at
all. Lastly, I would like to say that, please don’t assume anime as cartoon, if you do at least
don’t criticize those who enjoy watching anime. What really matters, is that we anime fans
have fun watching them just like you have fun watching movies or other good quality
programs.

© 2018, Saleh Ibne Omar

Date written: 14 August 2017