You know, I don't think I've ever actually seen anyone call anime "cartoons", and if I have it didn't get to me enough that I remembered it.
But yeah, given that they are cartoons, just from another country, I don't really care. Unless it's being used in a derogatory manner. So basically, what everyone else has said. :P
Pretty much agreeing with everyone here. They are cartoons. The only times it really worries me is (1) when people use the word "cartoon" to automatically mean "bad" or "immature" (and usually I'm bothered by that more because I'm a fan of western animation, too) or (2) when people think that since anime is a "cartoon" it should always be OK for children and I have to quickly set them straight.
Otherwise, yeah. It doesn't matter too much.
Current project: Cleaning up the Chrono Crusade examples one at a time. God help me.I dislike it when anime is called cartoons but then I also dislike it when Western Animation is called cartoons as well. For some strange reason I have always hated words beginning with c.
The problem is that, based on my experiences, almost anyone who is aware of what anime are, and still chooses to call them "cartoons" instead, intentionally puts that kind of negative edge to it.
I mean, when my grandma sees something on my screen, and calls it a cartoon, it's obvious that she isn't trying to provoke me, she is just describing it with the best vocabulary she has (technically, she is even correct). But when a 20-something friend says "Dude, you watch Japanese cartoons", he doesn't even need to continue the sentence, you can reasonably predict that he intentionally chose that term over the more precise "anime" to imply how childish you are, and not just based on the technical definition of the term.
There might be rare exceptions, who appear to be knowledgeable about these subtleties while they honestly aren't, but generally it is clear when a word is used with an edge.
edited 10th Jul '11 4:59:52 AM by Ever9
Well, the word "cartoon" makes me think of Looney Tunes and such, so it seems wrong to apply it to Cowboy Bebop or whatever, but I don't really care if people do. The only time I ever refer to anime is cartoons is when I'm making fun of it.
Do note that I don't use the word "cartoon" a whole hell of a lot when talking about western animation either.
edited 10th Jul '11 3:50:55 AM by Nyktos
I guess it is.It depends, but most of the time I don't care.
Now Bebop is something i would have to clarify as an anime..
edited 10th Jul '11 4:24:00 AM by GearLeader
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXkI1sTDoEgNow, according to the dictionary, anime is cartoons. However, when most people talk about cartoons, they think more Tom&Jerry, and less Madoka Magica. So yeah, I guess it bugs me when people ask me why a man in his twenties would spend his time watching cartoons.
It is not so much the word itself, but the implications it brings when people that don't know their stuff talk about it.
Well, with me, when I say "cartoon", I mean western animation and when I say "anime", I mean Japanese animation.
Then you've got the whole connotation of how western animations tends to be all silly and what not. I'm not saying all western animation is silly and all Japanese animation is serious, it's just, you ask an average person to describe a cartoon, and they'll describe something like Looney Tunes or Sponge Bob or The Simpsons
NO TREE FOR ME (ALSO LOVES HER BOYFRIEND)Words change meaning when they cross boundaries, I guess. It's not an issue of semantics, it's an issue of cultural attachments. While it's true that there are more "mature" Western cartoons, the word "cartoon" itself has a connotation of childishness, whereas "anime" loses that connotation.
While there are some anime that I could call "cartoons", there are just some anime which you would feel weird about calling it a "cartoon".
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edited 9th Jul '11 2:36:27 PM by AdeptusAlpharius
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