[FYI] About Anime and Manga

Anime

Anime is from the word “animated” and used by the fans to distinguish the Japanese version from other animated movies. Ex: Doraemon, Captain Tsubasa, and Naruto are anime but Scooby Doo, Tom and Jerry, and Spiderman are not.

Bishoujo/ Bishounen

A term used referring to a beautiful women / men; also used in manga world to show the reader’s preference or the artist’s drawing style. They can be either Shoujo (girl stories where the characters have long legs and big Bambi eyes) or Shounen (boy stories where the characters are drawn more muscular and realistic).

-chan

A suffix meaning “darling” or “little” as a term of affection, usually used for little animals, cute persons, or romantic partners, later used in anime to describe a ‘squashed’ version of characters with enlarged heads and child style body.

CB

Child Body – a term used to show a drawing of a chara (character) in a ‘squashed’ form. This style is also called SD or Super Deformed. For short its called CB (CheeBee).

Cosplay

Derived from costume play, cosplay is a way of anime fans to express their love for their favorite anime character. Usually they will dress up exactly like their favorite character. Cosplay is dressing up not only like a favorite anime character but also like a character from comicbooks and computer/video games. There are regular gatherings of Cosplayers, locally and internationally all over the world, which are called conventions.

Ecchi

A term used to show that the anime contains soft porn or shows many adult scenes but is less offensive and gentler than Hentai. In Japan the rating is usually, N 13. In Indonesia this is already N 17.

Hentai

The Japanese term for anime with adult contents (usually sexual content). Manga has a very wide range of readership in terms of age, and the same goes with anime. In Japan, the regulations about sex in the media are rather loose compared to those in Indonesia.

Kawaii

The Japanese word for cute. Cuteness is a characteristic of national importance and many anime characters are cute in the extreme.

Moe

An evolved term of kawaii. It is used to describe characters who are very cute in the extreme, usually can make your head feels hot just by looking at them.

Manga

The Japanese term for comics. Nowadays, manga is the generic name for comics from Japan and also refers to the style used in drawing manga-like comics. A manga creator is called mangaka.

Nudity

This is a result of a different culture’s views on naked bodies. Often nudity is used for comic effect and the characters involved might feel highly embarassed.

Otaku

In Japanese the word means obsessive. A word used for people who are hardcore anime fans.

Sensei

A japanese word meaning master or teacher, a term of respect applied only to the acknowledged giants in a field, as a suffix to the surname (e.g. Oda-sensei).

Seijuu

The Japanese term for dubber. In Japan, seijuus are popular as any celebrity in other field. Their voices are highly valued as an anime can be popular just because it was dubbed by certain seijuus. A seijuu can even record an original soundtrack and hold concerts.

X sign

The x sign shown on an anime character’s forehead is a throbbing vein, which shows that the character is very angry, frustated, or furious.

Taken from: C’nS vol.3 No.24 May-June 2004

Conclusion

The word anime is same as the word cartoon. Both are animated ficton film. So, there is no point to arguing whether both of them are different or not.
In Japanese the word otaku means obsessive. It means, otaku is a hardcore person in something. Not only obsessive to anime and a hardcore fans. As long as he/she love something very much, they can be categorized as otaku. If a person love playing video games, he is a game otaku. If a person loves gardening, she is a garden otaku, and so on. (Although i'm not sure there is a hardcore gardening person)