anime

Word family

• manga
  nounB1
• animation
  nounB1
• animator
  nounB2
• animated
  adjectiveB1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All four words describe drawn entertainment, but each points to something different. 'Animation' is the broad technical term for any moving images created frame by frame, including 3D films and short adverts. 'Cartoon' is a casual word that usually suggests Western, often shorter and child-focused programmes such as Tom and Jerry or Bluey. 'Anime' specifically means animation made in Japan, with its own visual style — large eyes, expressive hair, and colourful action — and stories aimed at every age group, from preschool fans to adults. 'Manga' is not animation at all; it is the printed Japanese comic book that many anime are adapted from. So a learner might say: 'I read the manga first, then watched the anime, which is a beautiful piece of animation — much deeper than a Saturday-morning cartoon.'

Common collocations

Etymology

Borrowed into English in the late 1980s from Japanese アニメ (anime), itself a shortened form of the English loanword 'animation' that Japanese speakers had adopted earlier in the twentieth century. English then re-borrowed the clipped Japanese form to name the distinct visual style coming out of Japanese studios, so the word has effectively travelled across the Pacific twice.