I love your passion on the difference between medium and genre, (matches mine) but arguably he is correct. When you talk about anime you’re talking about Japanese animation as opposed to animation (or movies) overall. Therefore you could conceivably call anime a genre (one that’s style and culture based as opposed to content based).
I’ve heard the ‘French origins’ story before and I always thought it was a bit fishy. Thanks for the clarification. FWIW japanimation was, I believe, still current in the early 1990’s on this side of the pond.
You could argue that, but you’re still teetering. Not all anime is the same stylistically. For subtle differences Cowboy Bebop (I’ll admit not the best example considering the intended western audience) doesn’t fall into the same style tropes Dragonball (for example) does. Or check out Crayon Shin Chan, it definitely has some style things (i.e. someone gets excited and a flashy background goes behind them) but animation-wise looks little like the stereotypical “anime” most people expect.
But I agree, for as far as it matters you can call it a genre. I think the argument is more for people who say “all anime sucks, end of story.” Because (in my opinion) saying Cowboy Bebop = Sailor Moon (for example) is saying Watership Down (the movie) = Spongebob. Maybe I’m stretching it a little, but whatever. (I don’t know why I care what anyone holds as an opinion, it’s just how people assume that things that look somewhat similar and come from the same place are equivilent whether it be TV, movies, food et cetera or from Japan, France, Britain, Brazil et cetera).
I can see where people believe it though, IIRC Japanese and French animation studios had a good amount of of “team projects” back in the day (or maybe I’m imagining that, for some reason I can’t dig up a cite). At the very least, searching Google I found the Wikipedia page about Anime/Manga outside Japan and France has a huge section while everyone else seems like a footnote.
In fact you can still see some of the influence in certain projects, i.e. Code Lyoko.
Does it really matter? It’s just cartoons.
I’d guess that it matters a lot more to you than any of the previous posters in this thread, as you’re the one who took the time to search out and respond to a thread that no one else had posted in for eight years.
Does that mean the new term in Zombanimation?
(Big Krusty the Clown groan after a joke bombed)
No. It’s re-animation.
KYJellyFish, if you think the topic for a thread is stupid or not worth talking about, don’t post in the thread. We have a lot of threads here- I’m sure you can find one that interests you and participate there. We avoid threadshitting on this board and you can get a warning for doing it.
No warning issued, but avoid doing this in the future.
To be more helpful to this thread than I was 8 years ago, I’ll just note that I started watching anime in high school (~1996) and heard a few references to Japanimation, but not a ton. Most things referenced the type of animation as anime. I think it’s safe to say that the term probably died out somewhere in the 1995-2000 range.
And the word Japanimation still sounds stupid.
I had a roommate once who insisted on calling it “Japimation”.
I’ll be using Japanimation until they pry it from my cold dead lips. If some weeaboo* has a problem that I say that instead of anime, tough.
[sub]* I’m sure the actual Japanese people don’t give a shit what anyone else calls their cartoons. [/sub]
Do you call all people who like animation made by the Japanese weeaboos or just the ones who like anime?
If you want, you can also say tipple instead of drink and hullabaloo instead of ruckus. You can, but you’ll sound silly.
“There I was watching my Japanimation and tippling a dollop of cream, when I heard a hullabaloo outside and whisked my way out to see what’s what!”
I’d be happy to keep calling it “japanimation” but my laziness drives me toward “anime” which sounds pretentious but is easier to say.
I worked at a Tower Records/Video in California from 1990. I started a small section in the soundtrack and one in the video aisles for anime. We had videos, laserdiscs, manga, posters, CDs and other merchandise all direct from Japan without any English subtitles or dubbing. Later we added the U.S. domestic releases of Japanese titles which featured English.
Anyway, the in-store artist who made signs and promotional displays made an awesome one for the section. And in big letters it had JAPANIMATION! That sign was on display and updated yearly with the same text. As the section grew, we had lots of customers, including Japanese. We also sent photos to our Japan office supplying us the merchandise. We never heard any comment about the term being racist or degrading.
I left the shop when I graduated in 1995 and moved to Japan. 
You graduated from Tower Records? Wow, that’s almost as prestigious as Yale.
Tower Records - a leading institution in the AV League.