Anime is a style of animation originally developed in Japan, which has become quite popular in the West, It originally was used by Japanese filmmakers,  The word itself is related to animation.  In Japan the word refers to all animation, while in the West it refers only to the style of animation made popular by Japanese movie makers.  Anime programs are shown on television and are a part of full length movie making as well.  Most anime programs are produced in Japan for the Japanese market, although there is some co-production going on with the Cartoon Network

The plots definitely range across the full spectrum of human emotions, including sci fi, romance, general fiction and mystery.  Although anime has been viewed from the West as being a comic book or cartoon style, the story lines involved in anime movies are much more detailed and have greater depth than anything similar in the West.  An action adventure, for example may include romance, humor, and a little social commentary.

How To Draw Anime

The characters drawn with this style are fairly stylized. The backgrounds tend to be fairly detailed and the characters are designed to look as realistic as possible.  Fantasy creatures such as witches will more than likely be drawn to have exaggerated features of some sort.  Although there is a great deal of variation between artists and studios there are some characteristics of anime which have come to be accepted as being representative of the style and these are the things that someone from the West would think of when describing anime.  First is the oversized eyes.  This was in large part due to the influence of a particular artist, Tezuka.  His look was so popular that it became almost a stylistic template for other artists.  He was said to have drawn his inspiration from Western characters such as Betty Boop, Bambi as well as Mickie Mouse.

Other artists carried the large eyes concept even further by enlarging the eyes, reducing the balance of the face.  They also increased the size  of the entire head and reduced the balance of the body.

Although originally hand drawn, most are computer generated today. For several reason, anime was the medium of choice by Japanese filmmakers.  First was the low budget available for live action films, second, the lack of western appearing actors and finally the desire for desire for innovation in the field.  With anime, the characters could be any nationality and the story could be in any location.

The growth of fan clubs in the West is increasing.  What is essentially pirated materials is recorded, provided with English subtitles and redistributed to other fans.  This brings up licensing issues and contractual arrangements which would seem to have been ignored.

It appears that most fans are aware of the issues surrounding copies and copying and stop using the homemade copies as soon as the anime feature is licensed for distribution in the West.