Calling Anime "cartoons" isn't really an insult and really shouldn't be treated as such
As someone who likes both Cartoons and Anime equally, I have yet to find someone who doesn't get offended by me saying that. They're just animated projects at the end of the day, just made differently through cultural norms. I'll enjoy both like I'll enjoy a burger & ramen, both are good and tasty, don't care which one's better as long I'm munching down
That's it, I'm just writing this because I'm bored
85 replies
Word
Word, Japan
I find it a hairy topic because the terms mean different things for different people. A cartoon is something that's animated to me, anime is just Japanese cartoons with a distinct style.
I mean, I kinda see it as calling astronauts cosmonauts. It's slightly less precise but still refer to the same-ish concept.
The way I see it, I've seen a few interviews in Japan where elderly people end up calling cartoons like frozen or other disney stuff anime ( using the word anime instead of cartoon ), so I am personally not super fussed over calling anime cartoons. Especially since when I was growing up, I don't ever really remember shows like one piece or pokemon or naruto being called anime on tv.
I get there absolutely are cultural differences, but I personally view basically any fully animated movie/show a cartoon. I may not call an anime a cartoon, but it's all cartoon to me, in a respectful way.
Anime is just a specific subset of cartoon. 🤷♂️
I think it depends on the topic being animated. It needs to be for satire, caricature, or humor.
Anime horror is not a cartoon.
"Cartoon" is a synonym for "animation."
Incorrect.
Most animation is for humor, so people mislabel all animation as a cartoon.
Is A Scanner Darkly a cartoon? No.
A Scanner Darkly isn't even straight animation. It's rotoscoped. But yes, it is technically a cartoon.
The "technically a cartoon" part is what is being debated.
"Animated design" is the definition in other languages (particularly in french, by its inventor). Yes a cartoon is an animated design, but not all animated designs are cartoons.
Let's make it simple. Is a moving technical blueprint of a car engine a cartoon?
Promise kids an afternoon of cartoons and show them Mazda MX5 engines and you'll have a riot.
Tell an motor engineer that their CAD presentation is a cartoon and they will kick you out the meeting.
No. Not all Animated Designs are cartoons.
How the fuck is anime horror not a cartoon? It's the same type of media, that being drawn animation.
Because for a cartoon the topic needs to be satire, caricature, or humor.
Finish reading that sentence:
All anime is cartoon.
A scanner darkly relies on a sequence of illustrations for its animation, but it is not a cartoon.
Every frame of Loving Vincent is an oil painting and would not be considered a cartoon.
Waltz with Bashir would not be called a cartoon even though the drawn style matches popular cartoons.
A counterexample of your final claim. Grave of the Fireflies is an anime about children during World War II. It is not a cartoon.
"Cartoon" isn't a genre, it's a technique. All of the films you've listed are cartoons. Because, by definition, they're a series of illustrations. Animation = cartoon = anime.
How you feel about the subject matter is irrelevant.
None of the films listed are cartoons, because none are satire, caricature, or created for humor.
I agree my feelings are irrelevant. I'm quoting Wikipedia
Man you chose a weird hill to die on. This fits you. You are a cartoon! Case in point case in point 2. I think someone could have a field day with these exchanges and it's quite meta (are we doing meta still?)
^^anime is japanese and/or korean and/or chinese cartoons^^
I would say the 2 cases presented could be categorised under satire / caricature / humor.
Lots of cartoons are anime, but not all anime are cartoons. The classic Akira is certainly not described as a cartoon.
Well I won't deny someone who thinks avatar is an anime, but I am having a culture shock watching the show. And I am sure it's the same for cartoon watchers when they get k-on recommended as a cartoon. I mean would you count a peotry slam or a comedy act as a theater play, just because they perform on a stage? Or saying you go to a concert when you visit a club with live dj?
Or going back to your example, would you appreciate someone saying "lets grab a burger" and then go to the ramen place. What I want to say: it can be misleading.
I'm just writing this because I am bored that it
Whether you agree with it or not, there is a significant cultural stigma in the West around the word "cartoon". As others have pointed out, for a very long time it was almost exclusively associated with comic strips in the newspaper and then animated children's television.
It's similar to how "comic books" was set aside in favor of "graphic novels". "Watchmen" is not, colloquially, a comic book. Neither is "The Killing Joke".
"Animated film" is another example of a term that was adopted to distance some content from the stigma of "cartoons".
For a very, very long time in the west animated content was the exclusive territory of children's entertainment.
Literal, dictionary definitions may allow the use of "cartoon" to describe any animated content, but it's a lot like the word "sports". Its usage has evolved to imply a specific subset (athletic competition), even if you can technically say you're doing a variety of non-athletic activities "for sport".
And I say all this as someone in their 40s who truly enjoys American cartoons, adult animated series, anime, and a variety of other media generally skewed towards a younger audience.
So yeah, I don't call anime cartoons for the same reason I don't call hunting a sport :)
Yeah. Like, cartoons are generally for kids. Bluey is a cartoon. But no one really calls The Simpsons a cartoon. The Simpsons is "animated". Anime is a catch all (from a westerners perspective, at least) for anything animated out of Japan, regardless of the intended audience.
People most definitely do.
This is a great explanation. A lot of these types of arguments seem to come down to "sure that thing is true, but it would be misleading to say it."
Look, people will make up all sorts of bullshit to not admit that they like comics and cartoons.
Bugs Bunny? Cartoon. Disney's Robin Hood? Cartoon Macross, Ghost in the Machine, Grave of the Fireflies? Cartoon
Same shit for comics. Far Side, Superman or Chainsaw Man? Comics
bruh, I like comics and cartoons, I said it bluntly in my post, but that doesn't change my opinion on the vernacular.
Hunting isn't a sport, Watchmen isn't a comic book, and Ghost in the Shell isn't a cartoon.
You don't have to agree, but you also don't have to be a dick about it and demean people for their opinions on language
If you know both words why ever use the less specific one except to evoke a negative reaction. Why use the broad category if you know the subtype. If you know precise technical language and your Interlocutor is familiar with the same language, why use the more broad term unless you specifically mean the broad term. Why use the name of a set to talk about a subset of that set. Why convey less meaning in a word rather than more.
I just don't really get using cartoon when talking as and with people that know the concept of anime. Its not really perceived as an insult, but it does imply either yourself or your Interlocutor to not be capable or willing to distinguish the categories, which if both of you know both, will either come of as you insulting their intelligence or their preference, because if you both know both terms, the expectation is for the fastest and most precise word you'd both be expected to know to be used, with a deviation from that expectation at the very least causing friction.
I'm not sure that's unpopular at all. They are objectively cartoons.
I mean... yeah... sorta. That's like saying Comic Books and Manga are the same thing. Sure, there is some overlap, but they are both on a pretty different wavelength. I think the difference is the cultural weight behind them. Cartoons in the west are entertainment mostly aimed at children. Anime has that, sure, but there is a whole slew of it aimed at adults, too. You can argue that the West has adult cartoons, but I think you'd be stretching it to say they are even remotely the same. Only in recent years have cartoons really taken a transgressive turn in the public eye.
I think one indicator of this is that I’ve never once ever heard anyone refer to something like king of the hill or South Park as a cartoon. They’re just TV shows, not cartoons. Cartoon implies “kids”. Anime does not. So to an American, calling anime a cartoon is insulting, because it would be like calling Game of Thrones a cartoon.
Never??? Not even like "Cartman is a cartoon character from South Park"??
I’ve never heard anyone refer to any adult swim type show as a cartoon.
Is that because of the cultural connotations? "Cartoons are for kids and I'm not a kid, so I don't watch cartoons. I will not call South Park or Adult Swim a cartoon because I watch them and I don't watch cartoons."
That doesn't imply the word is wrong, just that using it that way is taboo in western culture.
Well yeah, that’s what I was saying. It’s an insult because “cartoons are for kids” is the prevailing thought process.
People used to say games are for kids, now the game industry is bigger than the movie industry, with plenty ofnadults playing. Times change, so do cultural norms and word usage. I'd be unsurprised if in 10 years people think calling something a cartoon is an insult in any way.
Listen, I don’t think it’s an insult, but this post is literally an “unpopular opinion”. Not only that but we’re literally discussing how people see cartoons as being for kids.
People didn’t say this in the 80s and 90s. They only started calling them for kids in the 2000s when republicans had to find another boogeyman to attack. Then you can see people started to figure out that was clearly stupid.
On the other hand, I have heard both referred to as cartoons, often with some derogatory prefix like "pervert" or "Democrat". Ditto The Simpsons. I always assumed that calling them cartoons was fairly widespread; maybe it's a southern and/or conservative thing specifically.
It does usually carry the connotation of an insult; IME there's generally an understanding in conservative circles that anything "cartoonish" is inherently childish and therefore unworthy of any respectable adult's attention, and any adult who admits to enjoying animated TV is given a raised eyebrow, at least by the older folks.
I grew up in Texas and don’t remember anyone ever calling any of those shows cartoons.
How curious, especially because Tennessee imports so much of its culture from Texas. Maybe its an age thing, I am mid 40s and my impression is that that idiom is less prevalent with the youth. Never gave it much thought before.
I mean ... some people say it to be insulting. "you still watch cartoons?"
It shouldn't be but you know how people are ...
Yeah I do, while I clean my firearms.
Yeah I get why people don't want to call them cartoons. I will say though that animation in the us has changed so much that it is kinda moot.
Hi, it's me, someone who doesn't judge what you enjoy. This does not affect me or put anyone down. I am unoffended. Pleased to meet you.
the main difference is that cartoons are for children and anime is for people who are sexually attracted to children
I don't think it's inherently an insult, but most of the time that's how people mean it, so of course you'll get lumped in with them
Connotation vs denotation.
I get it. I think you may be preaching to the choir here on the fediverse, but I think this is actually an unpopular opinion IRL.
There's a connotation of childishness or simple-mindedness to the word "cartoon", at least in my neck of the language, born of the era of newspaper funny pages and saturday morning cartoons for kids. Some people (but not all) use "cartoon" to mean any visual art (still or animated) that isn't either hyper-realistic or actual IRL footage, and I think those two things give rise to the notion that all animated or cartoonish media is only suitable for children. The natural next step in this chain of thought is that any adult who enjoys any animated or cartoonish media must be childish.
It's a stigma I learned as a child and had to get over as an adult, and I'm glad I did; there's a lot of great animated content out there that I would have missed out on if I hadn't. Some of it, like Bob's Burgers, is kid-friendly but still has some really great storytelling. Some, like Bojack Horseman or Archer, are more squarely aimed at adult audiences, and also have some really great storytelling.
I haven't mentioned anything that falls under the "Anime" umbrella; that's not because I don't like anime, but I am simply late to the game and there is an insane amount of content, and it feels paralyzing figuring out where to start. I keep having One Piece recommended to me, and I would like to start climbing that mountain one day, but 1000+ episodes and counting is a daunting mountain.
That's all, I'm just writing stuff because I should be sleeping but can't, and this is preferable to lying awake in bed with my thoughts. Hope your boredom is a pleasant one :)
We should have an only_unpopular_irl community
I think that's an idea with legs. So many posts on this comm get responses on the theme of "That opinion, while possibly unpopular with the general public, is extremely popular on the internet / in the fediverse", often accompanied by some suspicion of gaming the system for upvotes. I think it would be interesting to see the differences between
c/only_unpopular_irlandc/only_unpopular_on_fedi.I feel the same and I think taking offense to people referring to it as such is kind of gatekeeping in a way.
I think on a technical note, in Japan, anime is just short for animation anyway. It's not actively trying to be it's own thing. They're literally calling out what it is: animation.
Cartoons are also animation. In my mind, whatever you call it, it's an animation. Retro Disney movies, people would commonly call an animation but not a cartoon in the similar way people take offense about calling anime a cartoon. Makes no sense to me. Then again, maybe that's just the engineer in me trying to apply logic to it all.
In any case, to me, they're all just animation. Different styles and target audience, yes, but just animation.
The people you hang out with seem like giant jackass nerds. You should aggressively make them feel bad for their shitty gate keeping.
I bet you “acktuallly” is their most used vocabulary.
It is japenese cartoon. So yes call it as it is
“Cartoons” have an English interpretation for being narratively simple. Whether they’re 3-4 panel comic strips or political speech or 30-minute kids shows, they tend to be fundamentally bite-sized morsels of media and do not traditionally evoke notions of grand storytelling or significant narrative merit.
There is no shortage of anime series and films that I’d classify as cartoons. Cartoons are fine and respectable entertainment, but they are only a small subset of all animated media.
Fans of the anime art form are justified in bristling at someone who calls all anime “cartoons”, or animated media from any other country for that matter. Tokyo Godfathers, The Tale of Princess Kaguya and Mind Game are all dense, complex films, which pushes them outside the bounds of what most people categorize as cartoons. Yuri Norstein, Hayao Miyazaki and Jan Švankmajer make animated films, not cartoons.
So a cartoon with a coherent story, like ATLA for example, is an anime then?
Actually, yes. ATLA is generally considered closer to anime than American cartoons, and is heavily influenced by anime
No-one calls the DCAU an anime, and I daresay for its time that Justice League TAS had one of the most intriguing and thoughtful plotlines in the whole collection.
DCAU is not influenced by Japanese animation, so of course it's not. But I wouldn't call it a cartoon either. It's an animated series, IMO
I'd say that ATLA is an animated show but doesn't feel like a cartoon. For me personally, "cartoon" and "anime" are different subcategories of "animated show or movie".
It was a bigger deal a generation ago when adult themed animation was relatively novel.
What about calling manga's reverse comic books
Manga are regular comic books. They just aren't written in the direction you are accustomed to.
I read them backwards for one.
I
SovietRussia people jokingly call anime "Chinese porno-cartoons".Cartoon the word invokes idea of a caricature. Animation (Anime is short for animation) on the other hand doesn't.
Several cartoons which aren't Japanese (so weren't called anime when they launched) have been classified as anime because of the complex story telling and characters. Most famous example are Avatar, Jack the samurai.
I don't think that's a very applicable categorization. Anime is just a Japanese export, and there have been French, Canadian and American productions over the years that closely resemble visual styles that are mistaken for it. Anime doesn't necessarily mean anything is more complex, and we just don't have the same cultural attachment to animation as a medium to have formed the more distinct categories to describe western equivalents.
Anime is a wide range, with everything from looney-toons style gags and cultural riffing, to action oriented power scaling and then much more mature, political or dramatic presentations.
Even in Japan, people differentiate between anime with more basic or complex themes.
The simplified difference is standard in foreign (non Japanese) communities which don't have a culture of complex theme animations being targeted towards adults for entertainment.
Pretty much. Not really a clean word in English to differentiate these categories of production.
It's not an insult, but it's different worlds. Cartoons were marketed for kids, while anime (in Europe) was marketed as "animation for teenagers and adults."