Anime Genre and Media Expanse!

Anime features a wide variety of artistic and story line styles differing from artist to artist. Stark colorful graphics and colorful images can characterize various styles. Images are often depicted as vibrant characters in a variety of different settings and story lines, aimed at a wide range of audiences.

Anime transcends many genres, almost as many as traditional, live action cinema. Such genres include action, adventure, children's stories, comedy, drama, erotica (hentai), medieval fantasy, occult/horror, romance, and science fiction (I’m sure superheroes are included).

At times, this can make categorizing titles very difficult. A show may have a seemingly simple surface plot, but at the same time may feature a far more complex, deeper story line and character development. It is not uncommon for a strong action plot to also involve humor, romance, and even poignant social commentary. The same can be applied to a romance themed anime in that it may involve a strong action element.

Recently, the National Child Exploitation Coordination Center of Canada had incorrectly classified all anime as hentai. This indeed, gave an improper impression of the content of most anime and manga material. This occurred despite having a link to the appropriate page at Wikipedia in order to establish a definition of terms. Complaints about the article's content and improper citations caused the NCECC to revise the citations but not the content.

In general, there are three categories most often used:

Films: Generally released in theaters, films represent the highest production budgets and generally the highest video quality. Examples of movies that have broken profit records include Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Spirited Away. Some films are only released at film or animation festivals. These are sometimes shorter and lower in production value. Some examples of these are Winter Days, and Osamu Tezuka's Legend of the Forest.

Other types of films include compilations. They are usually television episodes edited together for theater presentation. These may, however, be longer than the average movie. There are also theatrical shorts derived from already existing television series and billed in Japanese theaters together to form feature-length showing.

Television series: Anime is also syndicated and broadcast on television on a regular schedule. Television series are generally lower in quality compared to OVA (Original Video Animation). Most episodes are about 23 minutes in length, to fill a typical thirty-minute time slot with added commercials. One full season can consist of 26 episodes with many titles running half seasons, or 13 episodes. Most episodes will have opening credits, closing credits, and often an "eyecatch", or short humorous scene. This is used to signal the start or end of the commercial break. At the end of the credits is usually a preview to the next episode.

Original Video Animation (OVA): This type of production is often similar to a television miniseries. OVAs can be any number of episodes in length. They are most commonly released directly to video. As a general rule OVA anime tends to be of high quality, approaching that of films. Titles often have a very regular, continuous plot best enjoyed if all episodes are viewed in sequence. Opening credits, closing credits, and eyecatches may sometimes be found in OVA releases, but not universally.

If you want to keep up on the varied and interesting activities going on in the world of comic books, then feel free to sign up for my newsletter “Comics Galore” in the form below. And by all means, I would love to hear your comments and opinions on anime as opposed to comic books. You can sure leave them for me at my contact page in the menu at the left. I may even be able to include them in my newsletter. I thank you ahead of time.

Dave Gieber