| dahuman said: Anime is a made up term that originated from French, really just means animation, I'll go with good ol' English since I live in the US of A, hence they are all Cartoons. Thundercats was animated in Japan, but we call it a cartoon, and it was drawn in Japanese style all the way while not being called anime, I rest my case. |
You mean the word 'cartoon' which comes from the Italian 'cartone'? Because if you do, then that's hilarious.
I don't know where you got this "because French is kewl" stuff from, either. Anime is just the shortened form of animation--the Japanese love doing that--which they almost certainly borrowed from English, as early animation from the US was the biggest influence on early Japanese animation. The root doesn't matter in this context.
As for the OP, technically speaking, anime is cartoons and cartoons are anime. However, people in other parts of the world have adopted the word 'anime' in order to easily and quickly distinguish Japanese animation in conversation. Otherwise people would have to say "cartoons from Japan" all the time, which would be stupid.
Personally, I don't care if people use the term cartoons for anime. It's like using 'picture' when you're talking about the Mona Lisa, though--using 'painting' would be far more informative and require less extra defining. It just makes sense to be as specific as you can. That people seem to have a problem with other people using the word 'anime' for the sake of improved communication is really, really funny to me.
