What's the difference between anime and Western / American cartoons? The differences are many, and often striking. Here's a quick guide to many of the common differences between anime and conventional cartoon shows.
1. Japanese tropes
xxxHOLiC / Image courtesy PriceGrabber
Because anime is from Japan, a good deal of it proudly wears its origins on its sleeve. This can be anything from just the locale of the show (e.g., it's set in Tokyo) to elaborate cultural quirks. Some examples:
- Super GALS! deals with the teen-girl subculture of urban Tokyo, with its own slang, social attitudes, favorite activities, and so on.
- xxxHOLiC and Mushi-shi tap into Japanese mythology and folklore for many of their monsters and supernatural conceits.
- Samurai Champloo borrows freely from Japanese history and samurai lore, but mixes it all up with many modern-day concepts (from both Japan and the West) as well.
2. Storylines
Western cartoons typically have self-contained episodes, where most or all of the goings-on are wrapped up by the end of the half-hour. Anime storylines tend to be a lot more involved, continuing across the course of a whole season or even several seasons.
- Bleach, One Piece and Naruto are notable for having storylines that stretch into the hundreds of episodes, where a great many rivalries and extended casts of characters are introduced.
- The series Monster runs for a total of only 74 episodes, but within those three seasons a great deal still happens.
- On the more manageable side, Claymore only runs for 26 episodes, and Princess Jellyfish only 11. But again, even those shows demand to be seen from the beginning.
For some examples of popular, long-running shows, see our feature Anime 301: The Long And Winding Shows.
3. Storytelling
Many anime borrow advanced storytelling techniques from live-action movies and TV. Some shows use nonlinear plotlines, where you're first dropped into the middle of the action and then filled in bit by bit on what has happened (Venus Versus Virus). Or you might see the same storyline explored in parallel incarnations (Tatami Galaxy).
4. Art styles
"Big eyes, small mouth" is a trope that's been invoked often to describe "the anime look". Most people know the anime look when they see it -- not just the facial features, but the hair, clothes, and many other attributes of the character are exaggerated for the sake of visual impact.
The more anime you watch, though, the more you see that the basic look actually has a great deal of variation. Some shows (Monster) tilt towards realistic character designs; some (Shin-chan) look intentionally crude and sketchy a la South Park; some (Blade of the Immortal, Basilisk) sport lush designs and animation across the board that are both realistic and hyper-real.
5. Controversial subject matter
Anime doesn't flinch from encompassing things that typically don't show up in Western cartoons aimed at roughly the same age brackets: sexuality, violence, etc. To that end, there's a fair number of shows that are definitely not for younger viewers: Claymore, Akira, Witch Hunter Robin.
One useful way to think about this is to look at the age rating for a given show, and then transpose that to a live-action show or movie with the same age rating. It often gives you a more useful impression of what the show is like.
