Anime vs. Disney

Anime is a type of Japanese animation. Many people in America watch anime. The name anime comes from the Japanese katakana word アニメ (pronounced ah-ni-may). It's short for the English word "animation." Anime is watched by many people in America, especially teenagers. Even yours truly had an anime stage. When I was in 8th grade I was obsessed with Naruto and many other anime types such as Bleach or Inuyasha. These anime are very popular with young people and have been around for years.

Anime can easily be distinguished from another show or even american cartoons because it has a very distinct style. Popular characteristics of anime characters are long limbs and huge eyes. They are also often very pale and white, any black characters in anime usually have very stereotypical personalities. These features are often seen as crazy or ridiculous by comic artists in America, but anime is also accepted by many people.

Disney cartoons similarly create disproportionate characters, however it's more Americanized and less exaggerated than in anime. For example, The Princess and the Frog has a black main character without overly stereotyping her personality. Tiana is a princess who just happens to turn into a frog, but that's part of the story. Disney is becoming (slowly) less stereotypical and whitewashed than anime. It's interesting to me because Japanese people are Japanese, not white. However, most of the anime characters I've seen are girls with huge double lidded blue eyes, and wavy brown hair. Or straight vibrantly colored hair in various ridiculous styles. Either way, dark brown eyes and dark haired characters are not as common in anime as double lidded eye characters are. it's interesting.

Anime also distorts anatomy much more than Disney does. There is a genre of anime called yaoi (which roughly translates to guys being friendly) where the hands are often incredibly large and the heads are drawn to be tiny. The shoulders are also incredibly wide in some comics or shows, and sometimes the main characters have limbs that are so long they resemble spiders. It's creepy, however it's just an art style. Anime isn't made to be anatomically correct, it's made to tell a story or just look cute.