Anime, one of Japan's foremost forms of entertainment, popular in countries all around the world, and the subject of this essay. The word anime itself has its origins in France, from whence the Japanese borrowed it. Being a foreign word, anime is written in the katakana set of characters, which is reserved for foreign words, foreign names, made-up words, and sometimes used to write children's names. Anime in its American sense (that being Japanese animation) is easily recognizable by the larger than normal eyes, exaggerated expressions, and stylized type of design (used mainly on characters but sometimes also on backgrounds). A less noticable trait of anime is the fact that it normally uses less frames per second than your average American cartoon.

Let's talk about the origin of anime. To see the origins of anime, you must see the origins of Japanese art itself. At first, Japanese art was merely comprised of copies, so to speak, of Indian and central Asiatic art. When China brought Buddhism to Japan, it also brought with it Chinese art. This the Japanese people intermingled with their previous art style, as the Japanese are wont to do, and for a while they toyed with that. It wasn't until the Heian Era that the Japanese found their own art style. It was, of course, influenced by its past borrowed styles, but it also had something of its own, which is why it was distinguishable from all other art styles. Using their new style, the Japanese created many works of art: sculptures, architectures, woodblock prints, and paintings. One type of painting that has survived the many Eras of Japan is manga.

Modernly, manga can be described as Japanese comics. Originally, manga was a form of humorous drawing. Oftentimes, it was made as caricatures of animals or people. It advanced from one panel sketches to several panel drawings (similar to American Sunday paper comics). However, manga didn't become what it is today until Tezuka Osamu, the so-called 'Father of Anime' or manga depending on your source, wrote his many manga stories.

Tezuka has been quoted as citing Disney films (Bambi in particular) as one of his main influences. The large eyes especially worked their way into his manga. Several of his manga stories were turned into animated classics, including titles such as 'Jungle Emperor Leo' ('Kimba the White Lion' in America), 'Mighty Atom' ('Astroboy' in America), and Metropolis.

This is perhaps the origin of the tradition of turning manga publications into animated films or series (aka anime). For the most part, anime are manga stories put into motion, and some original anime are turned into manga after the fact (take the series 'Cowboy Bebop' for example: After its hit television series, the characters were taken into two different manga series and a popular animated movie). In fact, it is very hard to describe one without mentioning the other, because both manga and anime are so closely intertwined.

Manga today comes in many different forms, and is read by nearly everyone in Japan. In fact, it's so popular that all of it is printed on 100% recycled paper, in order to satisfy its great demand at a smaller cost. This is due to the fact that there are hundreds of topics and several different story types to choose from. From middle aged housewives ('Sazae-san'), to want-to-be pirates ('ONE PIECE'), from traditional ninjas ('Naruto') to business relations ('Japan Inc.'), they have it all. To name off the more popular general catergories: shounen, shoujo, seinen, yaoi and hentai.

Shounen manga are aimed at junior and senior high school age males (the word shounen means young man, lit. 'few years'). They focus, for the most part, around a character or a group of characters who use action, fighting, and the like, to reach a goal. Friendship is often a driving theme.

Shoujo manga are aimed at junior and high school aged females (shoujo meaning young girl). These type of manga are usually based around some sort of romantic situation, with a few other plot elements thrown in. The main character is usually a girl, but it can sometimes be a young man.

Seinen manga are the alternative to shounen and shoujo type stories, as they focus more on hobbies, such as sports ('Prince of Tennis') or cooking ('Iron Wok Jan'), and are aimed at varied audiences. This manga type is usually less violent and/or sexual than other manga.

Yaoi manga are not as broadly ranged as the previous three categories as it deals strictly with the relationships between men, whether friendship or romantic. This, of course, leads its audience to be made of mostly females.

Hentai manga are sexual stories, that oftentimes have little, if any, significant plot. Its reader base is obviously mostly males, and probably lots dirty old men, at that.

There are many other kinds of manga, including very young children's manga, and learning manga (sometimes used in elementary schools, and often drawn by the teachers themselves), among others. Besides the types of stories, manga also come in two formats, conglomerate serial or graphic novel. For the most part, the graphic novels are merely several chapters of a certain manga story taken from its conglomerate format in order to appeal to more potential buyers.

When it comes to anime, because of its transition from manga, the types of stories generally coincide with the types of manga stories. Because of the length of most manga, the anime that are derived from them are usually in series format with a few exceptions that have been made into movies instead ('Akira' is the most prominent example).

The popularity of anime series can sometimes be astounding. In some cases it is more popular than American television shows in America! Many anime recieve primetime slots on large, well-known television stations ('Naruto' and 'Prince of Tennis' on TV-Tokyo), and large portions of anime series feature hour-long specials and weekly or monthly contests for viewers to enter in order to recieve merchandise from the show.

When it comes to anime merchandise, the possibilities are endless. I would dare to go as far as to say that Japan has more forms of merchandise than even America does. To name a few of the things I own myself: pencil boards, clear files, calanders, plushies, chopsticks, artbooks, doujinshi, keychains, action figures, lego figures, picture frames, cell phone holders, bobble head toys, trading cards, stickers, actual food itself...the list could go on for longer, but I think it should stop before I start bragging! On top of the knick-knack sort of merchandise, there are also DVDs, VHS, soundtracks, and video games.

An interesting thing I'd like to mention: what exactly is a pencil board? Physically, a penciboard is a strong but pliant piece of plastic, just a bit smaller than a piece of printer paper, and printed with art based on or taken directly from an anime. Many people collect these, myself included, for the art only. But what is its original purpose? It can't be only for the art, because there are art books full of anime art that you could buy instead. I've never spoken with a resident of Japan about this, but after speaking with other intelligent people I know here, I would say the most logical answer is that a pencilboard is to be used as a hard place to write when you have nothing else hard to write on (such as a desk or table). Of course, this is only a theory, as there are no instructions included with your average pencilboard...

Back to our original topic, anime movies are their own breed of animation. Just as anime series in Japan are given primetime slots on television stations, anime movies are shown nationwide in movie theaters across Japan. There are two different kinds of anime movie: movie-only original, or based on a series or manga.

Probably the most famous movie studio that produces original anime films is Studio Ghibli. To be more specific, Miyazaki Hayao, the creator (or co-creator) of such famous films as My Neighbor Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away (which held, and perhaps still holds, the record for highest grossing movie in the world, even surpassing Titanic).

When it comes to movies based off of an existing anime series, they're the dessert. The series will give you all your neccessary vitamins and nutrients, and the film based on that series will give you your sugar. This is because while new thirty minute series episodes are released once every week, those who work on a movie are given several months up to over a year to complete a project that is only two to three times longer, timewise. This, as you may guess, leads to high quality animation with beautiful drawing and painting, smoother frame blending, and more elaborate action scenes. The only problem is when animators use movies only to create more profit. This often results in poorly thought out storylines with overused plot elements.

You might guess that basically the same is true for movies based on manga, that they take the characters and put them into new situations different from the original story, but for the most part those who make manga based movies try and sum up the manga's story while still producing visually tantilazing animation. But a bonus with moving from manga to anime (whether movie or series), is that you get cool music!

Music in anime varies from j-pop to classic Japanese to fully orchestrated and beyond. There are just as many types of anime soundtracks as there are types of manga. And the Japanese also have a very nice knack for using their music to really accentuate the story and emotions of the moment. One thing, to be specific, that has only been imployed by American movie and television score writers sparsely, is silence. Often in anime, silence will bring just as much emotion into a scene as emotionally moving music will. As mentioned before, anime soundtracks are a popular form of merchandise, and every anime has one, whether its music was epic in nature or even if it was plain-jane music.

Along with the music, I would also like to mention a couple of other aspects of anime that I have not yet covered. First I would like to say that anime is not a Japan-America-only form of entertainment. The rights to anime and manga are sold to translating companies in Italy, Germany, Britain, Canada, and Mexico. And many of those countries recieve translated forms of manga and anime months or, as is more common, years before America does.

Next I'll address some ways of expressing certain emotions that are unique to anime. First we have the sweatdrop. Most non-anime-ized people would wonder what a sweatdrop could possibly symbolize, as it mainly has to do with a body function used to cool oneself off. A sweatdrop or a group of sweatdrops symbolizes exasperation, embarrassment, and is sometimes a forebearer to irritation. If you've ever been extremely nervous, you might have noticed a slight dew to your brow, or just under your nose, that feeling is portrayed in anime as the sweatdrop. It has become extremely exaggerated though, after having deacades of use, and now it is used on almost anything to convey a humorous feeling of embarrassment. Also, the size and/or number of sweatdrops shows the intensity of the emotion protrayed. Secondly we have the crosshairs. If a character (or sometimes an object) shows one or more crosshairs it represents irritation or slight anger. This came about because of the original style of drawing veins rising from certains areas of the body (ie forehead, back of fist) and eventually became extremely stylized. The third, and probably funniest, emotion expressor is the nosebleed. This is almost strictly reserved for male characters and only shows up when the male is exposed to a sexual situation that embarrasses or is too much for him.

watashi wa anime ga dai suki ne. datte kyusai no toki de watashi no obasan wa anime no eiga o misemashita. ano eiga no namae wa otonari totoro, eigo de My Neighbor Totoro. obasan wa watashi to watashi no imouto ga setsuko to mei o imasite to iimashita. soreirai watashi wa anime ga HONTOU dai suki da yo! sa, ima, watashi wa otonari totoro no eiga o misemasu eigo de.