Cartoons are what most children grow up on. Watching the wacky antics of the talking cartoon animals and comically drawn human characters can amuse a child to no end. Yet when a child grows up, cartoons are no longer a socially acceptable and other forms of entertainment have to be found. Cartoons are classified as juvenile. This is just a tiny glimpse of an American view on American cartoons. It is true that cartons are basically made for children, but what about teenagers and adults? To distinguish between the two groups, (children and teens/adults), we'll call children's television "cartoons", and teen/adults television "animation". According to Webster's dictionary cartoons are "satirical drawings..." whereas animation is described as a "motion picture..." Animation is a form of cartooning that is taken to a more sophisticated level. Plus animation can be enjoyed by a wider variety of audience. Unfortunately, animators in America try to appeal to a younger market such as children and worry not about the older set of people that enjoy cartoons. This is how animation is different because it can be funny and enjoyed by all, but without the wacky and silly hijinks of "satiri

Japanese culture is a complex one that even takes Japanese people a long time to completely learn accurately. A good way to teach a nation what its history is is through something it enjoys. An idea was spurred and people thought why don't we put some history into our anime? People agreed that that would give them a wider selection of ideas that they could choose from and it would be interesting to interpret the ancient texts. And so it was born that history would be mixed with anime. This turned out to be a very good idea because Japanese mythology is deep with stories and legends that boggle the mind. One that stands out most to me is the story of the trip to the Dragon Palace. The story goes that an entire town decided one day to go visit the Dragon Palace and have tea with high officials. Since they didn't have cars they decided to ride atop and fairly large turtle. So the entire town went to the Dragon Palace and had tea. When the town had returned to where their town had been, they found nothing was the same. All the houses had crumbled to the ground or where about to. They found a person passing by and found out that 100 years had passed since they had been gone, though none of them aged at all. The moral to this story is that if there are no clocks and no ways of telling time at all, does time really pass at all? Is time just an illusion created by our mind to remind us were growing old? Without the ways of telling time, the entire town forgot about it and it had no relevant meaning to them. This tale can be found in Rumiko Takahashi's movie Beautiful Dreamer where the same situation seems to apply, but the spirit of wishes gets involved and messes things up. In American animation, it is very hard to tell if there is any significant meaning to what the story is about.

Anime in America is not as complicated as it seems. It appears that only the popular anime in Japan is what makes it to America, for example, Pokemon. These cute and adorable critters (originally called Pocket Monsters) were a huge, huge success in Japan. Then, two years later, they make their debut in America. The success of this anime could never have been fathomed. Not only did children like this anime, but adults as well. To start of with, the animation itself is based upon the super hit Gameboy game by the same title of Pocket Monsters. Then following the anime came all the merchandise. As if this was not enough in Japan and America, a second series was made, still by the same title. What is the secret of this success? It doesn't target one market. If you don't like the video game, but you like to watch the TV instead then you're set. If you like the video game more then the show then you're set. If you like neither, but you think the characters are adorable, there is a huge selection of paraphernalia to choose from. Besides the basic hit crazes that are obvious successes, there are the movies and such that have to be given a chance. This is the case for Hayo Miyazaki's newest film, Mononoke Hime, or Princess Mononoke. This film grossed 160 million dollars in Japan. This was the highest grossing film ever in Japan only outdone by Titanic. When the film was brought over to America, however, it was poorly handled. There was limited to no publicity and spent a very short time in theaters. It is predicted that the movie will do better on film because people became more aware of the movie after it was out of the theater (Forbes). It basically comes down to

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Approximate Word count = 2355
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)