What is Anime?

In brief, anime is the Japanese word for animation. It has come to refer to the Japanese animation industry, and the products thereof. The scope of anime is much greater than that of "cartoons" in the United States or other similar nations; it is more comparable to the scope of the Hollywood movie industry in terms of breadth of subject matter. There are anime targeted at all age groups, from "little kids'" programming to "full adult" movies and OVA's, and everything in between. Some of the more cultur-neutral childrens' anime have made substantial inroads in the United States after being dubbed and frequently appear in such places as Nickelodeon's "Nick Jr." programming block. Dubbing has also brought several "older-kids'" anime series to the after-school cartoon scene, including _Thundercats_, _Silverhawks_, and the famous _Robotech_. In general, however, the amount of anime that has been visible in mainstream America represents a nearly insignicant fraction of the totality of anime, and certainly does not represent the pinnacle of anime excellence.
The bulk of the anime pursued by the fans seems to be targeted at the high school and college age crowd, though this is a general average. There are numerous television series, Original Video Animations (OVA's), and outright movies falling into this category. There are many reasons why fans tend to congregate around certain well-known anime, but some of the more prevalent concerns seem to be cuteness, plot depth, character design, and "hentai" factor. Of these, cute seems to be the most popular concern. The nice thing about anime is that, being that its scope is so wide, there are anime which hit all these bases well.