anime
Pluralanime, animes
- 1An animated work, such as a film or series, that originated in Japan, whatever its artistic style.
The manga sold so well that a Tokyo studio turned it into an anime within a year.
Several of this season's anime are adapted from light novels rather than comics.
Note
As a countable noun it names one title, and its story is often one of adaptation: a manga sells well and is made into an anime for television, or a video game inspires one. The plural is either animes or an unchanged anime, as in these anime. Unlike the drawing style, it depends on where a work was made, not on how it looks.
- 2The artistic style that began in Japanese animation and is associated with it, also used by a relatively small number of animated works from other countries.
The artist offered to sketch an anime portrait of each guest at the party.
The American studio's new series borrows heavily from anime, down to the huge eyes and speed lines.
Note
The word has made a round trip: Japanese took the English animation, clipped it to anime, and English borrowed the short form back to name the look of Japan's own animated films and series. As a style it is never counted, and it often sits before another noun, as when someone offers to draw an anime version of you.
- 3Any animated work, whatever country it comes from.
The streaming ad promised "classic animes from around the world," and the first pick was an old Soviet cartoon about a hedgehog.
"My students made a two-minute anime with clay figures and a phone camera," the art teacher told parents at the science fair.
Note
Many people reject this loose use outright: for them an anime must come from Japan, and a cartoon made anywhere else is simply animation, however much it borrows the look. The use is rare, and in careful writing it reads as a mistake; calling a Western studio's film an anime invites correction.
- 4Alternative spelling of animé.
The cabinetmaker's varnish recipe called for a measure of anime alongside the copal.
The resin dealer kept a jar of pale anime on the shelf beside the amber.
Note
The unaccented spelling makes the resin's name look exactly like the word for Japanese animation, but the two are unrelated: this one may come from French animé, “animated”, after the insects trapped in the resin, or from a native name. The resin of the courbaril tree goes into varnishes, and it is uncountable: a lump or a jar of anime.
Practice
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Origins
Borrowed from Japanese アニメ (anime), a shortening of アニメーション (animēshon), which was itself borrowed from English animation, from Latin animātiō, from animāre.
Either borrowed from French animé ('animated'), from the insects trapped in it, or a native name.