Amal's blog: N: Japanese Animation (Anime)

Definition:

Anime (ah-NEE-may)(/ˈanəˌmā/), more commonly referred to Japanese animation, often having a science fiction theme and sometimes including violent or explicitly sexual material. It has its roots in manga (MAHN-ga), or Japanese comics.

In Japan, anime is a rather popular form of entertainment. It comes in the form of tv shows, movies at the cinema as well as direct to video releases. Unlike in the west, anime has a huge variety of genres - it is not only for children. Nor, on the other hand, is it just sex and violence for adults! Anime is for everybody!

Manga developed over hundreds of years, starting as pictures drawn on temple walls, then on wooden blocks, and finally as woodblock prints with captions collected in books. In time, the captions became stories and the art became sequential. By the early 20th century, manga had become the main form of literature for most of Japanese society.

For decades, anime was produced by and for Japan -- a local product, with a distinct look-and-feel to not just the artwork but the storytelling, the themes, and the concepts. Over the last forty years, though, it's become an international phenomenon, attracting millions of fans and being translated into many languages. A whole generation of viewers in the West have grown up with it and are now passing it on to their own children.

Anime is traditionally hand-drawn, but like in most animation computer assisted animation techniques have become quite common in recent years. The story-lines of anime represent most major genres of fiction and most motion-picture media – such as television broadcast, DVD and VHS distribution, and full length motion pictures.

In Japan, anime appears in three media:

TV series (often running several years, and accumulating several dozen episodes)
Original Animation Video (OAVs, also spelled OVA)
Full length feature films. The first Japanese anime TV show, "Tetsuawan Atom" ("The Mighty Atom"), debuted in 1963 and ran for 10 years.

Anime Genres:

Action (the action/fighting is the dominant element)
Adventure (lots of traveling around, going to new places)
Comedy (lots of laughs, or attempts at it anyway, and never gets too serious)
Drama (lots of shocks, suspense, and emotions)
Romance (romantic relationships are the dominant element)
Shonen (all of these also include Action and/or Adventure, target audience of adolescent boys)
Shojo (all of these also include Romance and/or Drama, target audience of adolescent girls)
Mecha (giant anthropomorphic robots are integral to the plot)
Hentai (Contains detailed and adult sexual content. This is often pornographic material)
Ecchi (Will have mature subject matter, but falls short of being called hentai)
Psychological
Gender Bender ( Will include the main character dressing up as the opposite gender or otherwise switching to the other gender)
School Life (Stories following the life of a character who is in school)
Shotacon (Involves sexual relations with young, under-aged males)
Smut (these manga contain sexually graphic love relationships, though less extreme than what can be seen in hentai)
Yaoi (Involves homosexual male relationships, can often times portray graphic sexual scenes)
Yuri (Involves homosexual female relationships, can often times portray graphic sexual scenes)
Shojo Ai (literally 'girls' love', is about homosexual female relationships, but is portrayed less graphically than in yuri)
Historical Mecha - Involving and often centralized around large machines (such as gundams)
Lolicon (Involves sexual relations with young, under-aged females)
Maho Shojo– 'Magical Girl', revolving around a female character(s) who have magical powers
Sci-fi (advanced technology, aliens and/or outer space, futuristic worlds)
Fantasy (magic worlds, monsters, magical powers)
Supernatural (ghosts and poltergeist, demons, spirits and gods)
Mystery (characters spend the majority of the series trying to solve one or more mysteries or other “unknowns”)
Horror (lots of gore, blood baths, and nightmarish stuff)
Parody (almost always a Comedy too, much of the humor is derived from gags and parody)
Sports/Tournament (the main plot involves the characters competing in games and tournaments)
Frenetic (hyperbolic and gags, comedy/parody, or just plain wild and weird)
Romedy (romance comedy)
Dramance (romance drama)
Epic (dynamic stories, action/adventure)
Slice-of-Life (more realistic stories of a character(s) trials and tribulations)
Slice-of-Un-Life (almost slice-of-life, but fantastical genres are present)
Puzzles (involves mysteries, strange occurrences, unexplainable phenomena)