Anime is a short term for Japanese animation. Many countries have their own animated shows, but Japan has the best.

Before you roll your eyes and say to yourself: "don't tell me he likes CARTOONS," let me point out that anime is NOT the same thing as cartoons, for the following reasons:

1. Cartoons are intended for children or "family viewing" - anime is not. Yes, there are anime series for children - most Americans are familiar with Sailor Moon and Pokemon, two of Japan's anime series for younger audiences which were (badly) dubbed into English - but there are anime series geared for older, thinking audiences as well. There's comedy anime, soap opera anime, horror, mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, futuristic... the list goes on.

Anime is not restricted to being strictly a kid thing or family thing, which is both good and bad. Good in that you get intelligent shows that are extremely smart, moving, and/or funny, and that deal with subjects American cartoons would never touch (like homosexuality, intrigue, rape, religion, etc.); bad in that you also get extremely violent/crude anime series, not to mention hentai anime (anime porn).

The point is that anime encompasses all that, the positive as well as the not-so-positive: in other words, it's a medium in itself.

2. The art. Disney has had its share of good art, especially in their first early movies, but their style and quality cannot compare to some of the best anime artists' work. See the following pictures for yourself and ask if Disney has ever done anything as pretty:

The nice thing about the way people are drawn in anime is that although the faces are more "abstract" than what you'll find in Disney-type art, it's actually better that way. Artists for other "cartoons" put too much emphasis on trying to make faces realistic-looking, but in the end it backfires because it's still 2-D art trying to imitate life. Cartoon art tries to mimic reality; anime art creates its own reality.

Because facial features in anime are abstracted, it's very common for a white person to comment on how no anime character actually looks Asian. Yet in the same vein, Asians viewing anime will perceive the characters as being very much Asian-looking, while a person in Italy might think they all look Italian. Therein lies the beauty of anime art - the abstraction makes it highly malleable, influenceable by one's own thoughts, perceptions, and preferences.

(Lately, Disney has been saying that the art for their most recent movies was anime-influenced. Not to be rude, but that's doing an injustice to anime art. *g*)

3. Anime has a highly developed visual language. What I mean by that is that there are so many little visual symbols and cues in anime that allow so much more information to be conveyed than in cartoons. For instance, while watching anime, you might notice a pair of cat ears suddenly appearing on top of a character's head, and this would indicate that the character is being sly (or just plain cute :p). Or you might see a giant drop of sweat appear on the back of a character's head, which would tell you that the character is either nervous, exasperated, and/or embarrassed; meanwhile, a little cross-mark appearing on the back of a person's head would indicate stress, anger, or annoyance. Anime has its own language and set of rules, and it's things like that which add so much more to anime as an art form and set it apart from cartoons.

4. Anime music is excellent. Just as anime includes storylines and subjects of all types, anime music encompasses all genres of music (orchestral, metal, pop, funk, operatic, you name it), and the work and effort that goes into the background music for anime, as well as the ending and opening songs for the episodes, and still more songs on countless anime CDs, is just amazing.

4a. speaking of anime music:

Seiyuu ("seiyuu" are the voice actors for characters in anime series, radio sound dramas, video games, and the like) regularly sing songs on anime CDs while pretending to be the actual character they play, which is something I always love. Seiyuu from the same anime series even club together and form their own music groups; two of the more successful ones are Weiss, which consists of four seiyuu from the anime Weiss Kreuz, and E.M.U., which consists of five seiyuu from the anime Sotsugyou. In Japan there are even magazines about seiyuu/seiyuu groups/seiyuu CDs (practically every major seiyuu has released a solo CD if they're not in a group), and there were even television shows about seiyuu.

now that you know what anime and seiyuu are, here's my blurb about manga:

More often than not, an anime series is based off a manga. "Manga" is merely the Japanese word for comics, and "manga-ka" is the term for manga artists. Sometimes the anime is better than the manga it's based on; sometimes it's worse; but most of the time it's a mix of both, as there are advantages and disadvantages to both art forms.

Just as anime is more interesting and crafted better than cartoons (as least I think so *g*), manga is superior to comic books, things of the "Marvel Comics" breed. Like anime, manga can be about anything, not just "kid stuff," and in Japan people of all ages read manga. Manga has the same developed visual language that anime does, and in general has better art than what one will find in comic books:

My favorite manga-ka are Takeuchi Naoko, creatrix of Sailormoon (see the Mamoru and Michiru pics above), and Nasu Yukie, creatrix of Koko wa Greenwood (see the Mitsuru and Shinobu pic above).