TOnime – Anime is the affectionately shortened name of animation in Japan. It is written in Katakana, as a derivative of English and generally refers to any animation conceived and drawn in Japan. However, there is a certain style and method of anime that can be recognized around the world as unique to Japanese animation. The simple and exaggerated characteristics of the characters and the surprisingly detailed settings along with the actual thematic content, usually a coming-of-age story of some kind. The development of some characters through a series of tests through the Japanese moral of perseverance and strength.

Baka – Japanese slang for stupid. It is used affectionately to describe all the silly, weirdo, and ancient characters in an anime. Usually applied by a woman towards a man, it is best defined as catching all insult to a nerdy and insecure man (and sometimes woman) who consequently does something stupid. Hence, Baka.

VSosplay – The unique and overwhelming practice of anime fans around the world to dress up as their favorite anime and video game characters to meet other extreme fans and compare their realism. Because the anime is (mostly) drawn to scale, and the clothing is generally brightly colored and completely impractical, the characters are easily recognized by those who have a particular talent in this field. Exhibitions for cosplayers are held annually, as well as contests. It’s a kind of underground phenomenon in culture that has become much less clandestine in recent years.

Doujinshi – The Japanese word for manga created by fans based on existing characters. Pretty much the anime equivalent of the Star Wars novels. There is a huge market for these fan-created fictions in Japan, and due to the sheer number of talents, they are often of equal or higher quality than the original material. It seems like a good way to go. Keep your future employees out, drawing for free.

mecchi: Japanese word that roughly translates to “pervert.” It’s basically used to describe all those schoolgirl anime where the skirts stop about two inches above the panty line and yet somehow magically stay. It’s not of the caliber of Hentai as it tries not to be pornographic, but the fan service and suggestive topic quotient is pretty off the map.

Fan – For American anime connoisseurs especially, the fan is one of the only ways to access some anime, and until recently it was pretty much the only way. Fan means Fansubbing (the subtitles produced by fans of shows taken directly from Japanese television), Fandubbing (the slightly less done and often much more fun dubbing of the same material by fans), Fanfiction (the form written by Doujinshi, which often involves a whole lot of Ecchi), and Fan Service (in which a show will deliberately do something exaggerated or suggestive because they know that’s what their fans are looking for). The fan is what floats in the anime market, especially in the United States, where until very recently the market was primarily a black market.

GRAMundam – One of the original fathers of the anime. For 25 years or more, Gundam has produced more than 25 series and movies since its debut in 1979, and it continues to be one of the most popular series of each year, with an exponential growth in productions in recent times. The show was one of the pioneers of giant mech anime and an underground favorite in America for years … and it makes for some pretty hilarious cosplayers.

Hentai – And of course, with any art form, when you have a large enough fan base, someone perverts it. However, porn anime has something that normal porn doesn’t have, lots of weird and creepy tentacles and occasionally a plot. Yes, according to many of the best arts in Japan, Hentai occasionally tries to inject a bit of intelligence into their mindless sex. And the quality of production tends to be higher even than normal productions. Talk about the nature of porn, I guess. Run the industry.

Idol – The idol mentality dominates the sphere of Japanese pop culture. Your singers are everywhere, your movie stars are singers, your movie star singers are TV presenters. Its TV hosts, singers and movie stars are voice actors. Everything is cyclical and means a massive exposure in a country crowded with 140 million. And it seeps into the shows that they do, and the mass production of the shows (usually one a week every week until the show ends … for some shows it’s years) and the production values ​​speak to this.

Jump – Shonen Jump is the monthly manga in Japan that broke some of the biggest names in anime. Dragonball, Naruto, One Piece, Kenshin and so on. The super popular kid-oriented anime that rules the charts repeatedly emerges from this little gem. And now it’s here in America. Power in circulation.

Kawaii – Japanese adjective for cute. And this is how he describes half of what they produce. Super cute, to the point of gagging at times. The ability to turn the ugliest and most disturbing things into cute and cuddly pets is a distinctly Japanese skill. Just look at half the Pokémon. Extremely ugly, but cute nonetheless.

Love Hina – Love Hina didn’t make it up, but she made it better: bedroom fantasy anime. And now it is its own subgenre. A silly young man who has no luck with the ladies finds himself thrown into a situation where he is surrounded by women on a daily basis, who eventually assault him and make his life hell, all the while falling in love with him. Ecchi moments abound and often our altruistic hero ends up with a bloody nose on the rocks outside a hot spring somewhere.

SUBWAYanga – Ah yes, the biological father of everything. Manga is the comic, hand-drawn formula for all the madness. It started out as an offshoot of the 19th century and earlier woodprinting art forms, Manga took compelling stories and serialized them into fun, easy-to-read comics. Not to say that Superman and Detective Comics of America did not help this trend.

NOTeon Genesis Evangelion – A spinoff of the giant mech anime, Evangelion broke into new legions of fans by being what some animes had dared before, but few had succeeded: mature and intelligent. A fairly common theme these days, Evangelion managed to take complicated biblical, social, and personal themes and turn them into a 24-episode apocalyptic and often funny epic 24-episode series and 2 movies.

ORtaku – in what is actually an insult in Japan, roughly translated as ‘you’ … but more commonly referred to as ‘lifeless geek who spends all his time building GUNDAM models …’ The definition is a bit less caustic on our side of the Pacific, usually referring to someone who simply enjoys the depths of Japanese pop culture, watches anime after school, and draws characters from their favorite shows in their notebooks. More of a clique at school than a mocking subculture. But of course that is changing rapidly, as the anime arena is growing so rapidly here in the states.

Pokemon – Pokemon is the new generation of kid-oriented anime that was born out of the need for marketing, used to sell video games, video games used to sell the show. It’s been running for almost 10 years, and new episodes are still coming out. If the Japanese do something right, it’s selling stuff, and Pokémon continues to sell, actually marketing to a whole new generation of kids these days.

Queen Emeraldas – I’m dating a bit here because Q, as we all know, is the most horrible letter in the alphabet to make an ABC list. However, Queen Emeraldas is a good anime. An OAV produced in 1998 as an offshoot of the Harlock and Galaxy Express 999 series, Queen Emeraldas continues the story of a popular character that if you haven’t seen any of the above shows won’t make sense to you.

Rurouni Kenshin – Kenshin is the epic story of a wandering samurai in the Meiji era of Japan known as Kenshin. He finds a small martial arts school in the new capital, and after saving the young heiress, he stays with her and goes on various missions to help the government he helped form a few years earlier to survive. He is an incredibly badass swordsman and draws a small entourage of characters. I don’t know if it’s the most important thing in the world in terms of anime, but it’s one of my favorite shows so it’s on the list.

Shoujo: term used to describe anime aimed at young girls. All Sailormoons and Cardcaptor Sakuras fit in here. It’s actually a good niche and it does very well here, as well as in Japan. It is a testament to the popularity of a subculture when in reality it takes time to stop generating violent battles between half-witted men to attract young girls as well.

Tezuka Osamu – The Walt Disney of anime, Dr. Tezuka created Astroboy, Kimba the White Lion, Metropolis, and countless more anime classics that more or less established the art form. He’s the guy you want to look at every time you ask, “Who is responsible for all this?”

ORrusei Yatsura – A monstrously popular franchise from the ’70s and’ 80s that spans nearly 200 episodes, 10 movies, and a handful of OVAs. It is more or less a group of “nasty aliens” (the actual translation) invading and mocking the earth. They are all girls and they were part of the beginnings of what made Love Hina happen, a lustful teenager surrounded by strange and sexy women. Yes, they sure know how to do shows there.

Voice acting – Come on. It’s animation, right? Unlike the American animation industry, Japan’s group of voice actors is huge and really talented. American companies use the same people over and over and pay them peanuts, and they generally suck at what they do. In Japan, the respect for doing what they do is much more pronounced … and they don’t suck.

Wings of Honneamise – Another historical anime, this is the first film produced by the super studio Gainax (the guys who made Evangelion, among others). It’s essentially a sci-fi military fantasy with a few twists on the story and the technology. One of my favorite examples of how anime also doubles the genres in which it operates. It’s out there and that’s why we love it.

X – Yes, just X. From Clamp, a group of female artists whose fan base (and quality of workmanship) is obscene, X is one of their previous films, which later became a series. The style is best described as Shoujo without serving only girls.

Yaoi – The slightly homosexual version of Ecchi, Yaoi is usually a homoerotic fan service of male characters in typical situations who act sexually ambiguous and are often quite close to each other. When the outing is this good, you can expect anything good, and Yaoi’s gay-chic is immensely popular in Japan.

Z, Dragon Ball – I cheated again, so what? Dragon ball Z was one of the key reasons the anime spread to the mainstream here in the states after all, with a couple hundred episodes and memorably long fights (and I mean looooong), Dragon Ball Z captured the fan base of all youth violence. prone kids across the country and kept them enthralled into their 20s (yeah yeah … stop looking at me).

And there you have it. 26 keys to understanding the anime subculture, a true AZ of what you need to know … minus Q and Z.