Anime What's That?

Is it a bird, is it a plane, no it's a cartoon. Wrong, Anime is its own unique art form that differs from cartoons in more than one way.

How is anime any different from cartoons Liandro?

Well good question my hypothetical friend, I will tell you.

Number one, presentation. Just by looking, one can notice a lot of differences in the presentation. For example the biggest and most noticeable trait difference are the eyes. Anime characters tend to have very large and colorful eyes, this is done because facial features of anime characters are very simple and similar. To set anime characters designs apart creators focus on their eye's and hair. That's why most of the time you'll see anime characters with crazy or colorful hairstyles. Another key difference would be backgrounds, unlike the simplistic face design of the characters. Anime backgrounds tend to almost always be very detailed, colorful, and unique.

Pictured found  http://geekrevolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Mazui_Hyouka_-_07_078F97DC_Jun-3-2012-9.58.05-PM.jpg
and property of Koyoto Animation

Picture found http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101023031941/teentitansfanon/images/c/cc/Superman_Justice_League_Unlimited2.jpg
and property of D.C Comics 

Number two storyline

Cartoons usually don't have a defined storyline, they are usually compiled of single random episodes that serve primarily to entertain instead of pushing the story along. Anime always has a defined story line that takes the viewer from point A to B with a lot of stops in the way of course. Cartoons are also usually always original pieces of work, by this I mean they are not very often adapted from books or comics. Anime on the other hand is almost always adapted from some other source material, such as video games, light novels and the biggest one Manga (Japanese Comics). Another big difference in the storylines between the two is that anime tends to cover much more adult themes than cartoons. There is also a blur line between good and evil in anime, a lot of times villains turn into heroes or vice versa. Lastly there are tons and I mean tons of different genre of anime, from sports, music, romance, drama, horror, sci-fi, adult, adventure, action the list goes on. Not to say that cartoons don't have a wide selection of genre's it's just much more apparent in anime, trust me.

Number three animation

Anime unlike cartoons, uses a different style of animation called limited animation. This method uses less frames to create movement but does it in such a way that it tricks the viewers eyes into thinking there is more movement than there actually is. Cartoons use traditional animation which is just simply drawing each frame individually, the end result is very smooth and fluid animation. Which you can imagine takes a lot more time, money and man power to accomplish. I say this because cartoons run at 24 frames per second, while anime does not re-draw entire frames. Instead it reuses common parts between frames, this takes less time, money and man power. To further compensate for this anime creators focus on backgrounds to set the scene's mood, which goes back to what I said in the beginning that animators create detailed and unique backgrounds.

So I hope this helps you see the differences between both mediums, although there are many more the only way to truly understand it is to watch anime and immerse yourself in the world, a world from a different culture with different values.