The term used to describe
Japanese animation or the art style of characters borrowed from Japanese animation.
Anime, in recent years, has enjoyed a significant boom in popularity in outside of Japan, namely in the Western
world.
Although anime has interesting and unusual themes, sometimes adult (not common in most Western animation), anime doesn't really deserve the mass popularity it has gained. Most anime shows follow similar and repetetive plots and themes to eachother, and as well, anime technique on a whole is very primitive in comparison to the American
school of classical animation (
eg. VERY static characters, anime has walk cycles of 4 frames) and it seems the Japanese animators take as many shortcuts as possible.
Humor in anime for the most part is insultingly simplistic; a character says something stupid, and everyone falls down. The sad thing is, most anime that tries to be humorous borrows the exact same gags as every other "comedy" anime.
However, there are a few artful gems which defy these stereotypes, (Miyazaki's films, namely) but on the whole anime is a overhyped genre thats sadly, killing North
American cartoons off
television.