Yeesh, people are so touchy about this subject. Okay, um, basically anime is just animation. Everybody got that part? Alright good.

Over here in North America, Europe and all that jazz, we refer to anime as animation originating in Japan. But, that's just slang. Right? Understand? It's not actually 'anime' or anything, it's just animation from that specfic country, we, gave anime that meaning.

We've taken that slang so far that it actually becomes a real word describing the style of Japanese animation. Virtually most if not all animation in Japan has that certain style, and everyone here knows what I'm referring to.

Now, the Japanese could easily refer to "American" animation as anime. Because anime IS animation, right? The Japanese could easily say that American animation has a certain style, and if a show that originated in Japan were to draw from this so called American style, it's the same as when American animators are influnced by Japanese animation.

Now keep it mind, that it's ALL animation, it's ALL the same, just the two countries happen to have some sort of signature style that is recognizable.

But since the majority of us here are North American/European and other, (basically not Japanese) we refer to the Japanese style of animation, 'anime'. In this case, anime doesn't mean animation, it's slang for Jap animation. Now I'm repeating myself, but what the hey.