http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Anime_irothtin.jpg
[[caption-width:525:''[[CrackIsCheaper "Anime: My anti-drug. Because when you're addicted to anime, you can't afford no drugs."]]'']]

Animation Japanese style. Best known for its distinctive early "big eyes, small mouth, tiny nose" visual style and the wide range of subjects and genres it covers. Unlike the United States (where it is generally regarded as a "[[AnimationAgeGhetto ghetto]]" restricted to children's programming), animation is considered just another medium in Japan, lending itself to any story for any age level (although the demographic which watches TV the most is inevitably kids). It is also very useful in certain genres like SciFi which would otherwise be very expensive to produce.

As a result, a large number of Japanese television shows and movies are animated; there is also a very large market for direct-to-video animation (known as {{OVA}}s). Most of these productions are ''not'' restricted to topics suitable for the under-12 set.

The term ''anime'' is short for the Japanese ''animeeshon'', itself a loanword from English. Anime's trademark visual style is shared with {{Manga}} (Japanese comic books and graphic novels); in both cases, it is inherited from the post-World War II work of {{Osamu Tezuka}}, who is arguably the father of modern Japanese commercial art.

It may come as a surprise that the classic anime "style" is in fact lifted from ''American'' animation. Tezuka was strongly influenced by the work of Walt Disney, and adapted the Disney style to Japanese sensibilities. (Other sources say the greatest influence was actually [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Boop Betty Boop]], who was one of Tezuka's favorite characters.) Subsequent creators of graphic works copied his style, resulting in the familiar "large eyes" look that characterized anime and manga for so many decades since the 1950s. (On this topic, fellow artist/author Shirow Masamune has said, "I've heard that some people complain about the large eyes and small noses and mouths in Japanese manga. But I don't see a whole lot of difference when I look at Disney characters.")
Tezuka's work essentially created both manga and anime as they are known today. His seminal creation -- and the one most Americans are likely to be familiar with -- was ''Tetsuwan Atom'' (''Mighty Atom''). It's perhaps better known in the English-speaking world as ''AstroBoy''.



'''See also:'''
+ AnimeCharacterTypes
+ AnimeGenres
+ AnimeSettings
+ AnimeTropes
+ NamesToKnowInAnime
+ NoteworthyAnime
++ EssentialAnime
+ UsefulNotes/JapaneseCulture
++ JapaneseLanguage

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