Who can forget the time where you would get up early on Saturday morning to watch cartoons. I did when I was a child, but since I've grown, American cartoons don't really interest me anymore. I'm into a new, rapidly growing style of cartoons called Anime. But what is the difference between Anime and American cartoons? It's a whole world of difference between the two.
Anime is the Japanese word for cartoon, but the word has taken on the meaning of Japanese cartoons in the United States. Anime is considered interesting because the age range is generally towards the teens rather than the children. For American cartoons, it's the exact opposite although there are American cartoons that are exceptions to this rule. Both Anime and cartoons have storylines, but anime tends to give the characters a little more background. You actually get to understand the characters quite bit through out the shows run. The characters in anime also go through many life changing experiences. For example, in the anime, Naruto, you can see that the main character, Naruto, goes through many things. He sees a villain sacrifice himself to avenge his follower, learns about friendship, puts his life on the line for others and many other experiences. You also come to understand that not everyone is bad because they are bad. There is a reason why certain characters turn out to be villains. Anime is definitely not something that you want children twelve and under watching.
American cartoon characters tend to be a little more simplistic. It falls down between the good guys versus the bad guys. Nothing too difficult to grasp or understand. If I had to put it another way, the characters are black and white. But as I said earlier, there are exceptions, such as Avatar: the last airbender. Avatar is a mix between anime and American cartoons since there is slapstick humor, but at the same time there are many difficult decisions and choices the protagonists must make. It's adolescent in action.
Between the two, the humor in anime tends to be more teenage related since there are some suggestions of sexual reference in there. In certain cases, anime humor can also include exaggerating a situation to be more serious than it really is. You generally don't see teenage humor in American cartoons. The humor is more of situational comedy or slap stick. One of the key differences in Anime and American cartoons is fighting. While both have a certain edge of violence, Anime is more graphic. Anime will show people being cut with their blood gushing out of their wound or characters that are bleeding. American cartoons really have no sign of blood in fights unless it's like an alien or something. Even the Anime that is translated in English has any sign of blood removed.
Other than that, there are just some nit picky differences. Anime can be superlong for series Pokemon, which is up to about 400 or more episodes. But typically one season is roughly about twenty to twenty-six episodes while American cartoons are typically thirteen episodes per season. as mentioned earlier, Anime is more for teens so there are signs of mature items like smoking, drinking, swearing, and other stuff. Not something you see in American cartoons.
If anything there really is nothing wrong with Anime and American cartoons. But until they start making the American cartoons a little more serious, I think I'll stick with anime.