anime

plural animes · alternative animé

1. countableAn animated work that originated in Japan, regardless of the artistic style.

   These anime prepared the way for Otaku no video, a two-part Original Video Animation (OVA).

   2006, Thomas LaMarre, edited by Tomiko Yoda and Harry D. Harootunian, Japan After Japan, page 363

   4 more examples

   Gotta get in tune with Sailor Moon / 'Cause that cartoon has got the boom anime babes / That make me think the wrong thing

   1998, “One Week”, performed by Barenaked Ladies

   After three months of successful sales in manga form, it was made into an anime for television.

   2005, Peter J. Katzenstein, A World of Regions, page 165

   Usually the manga comes first, though it may be an offshoot of a novel, and an anime may be inspired by a video game.

   2005, Joan D. Vinge, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Eighteenth Annual Collection, page cix

   Originally found in the opening dialogue sequence from the 1989 Japanese space shoot’em up game “Zero Wing,” this awkward translation of the phrase “all of your bases are under our control” swept across gaming message boards and forums in the late 1990s, giving rise to one of the first epic-scale “Photoshop memes” based on poorly translated quotes from Japanese video games and animes.

   2014 March 11, Ben Huh, “10 classic memes that owned the Internet”, in CNN

2. uncountableAn artistic style originating in, and associated with, Japanese animation, and that has also been adopted by a comparatively low number of animated works from other countries.

   I can draw an anime version of you, if you want.

   1 more example

   Touching on themes as disparate as sex, death, science fiction and romance, manga and anime catered to all ages and tastes. Commercial hits like “Pokémon” and “Dragon Ball Z,” meanwhile, projected a new image of Japan to the world.

   2019 July 28, Emiko Jozuka, “Japanese anime: From ‘Disney of the East’ to a global industry worth billions”, in CNN

3. countableproscribedrareAn animated work, regardless of the country of origin.

   Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first: Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game is absolutely gorgeous. It looks like the anime, as you’d hope and want it to, animations are stunning, and it feels smooth in the way that great fighting games should.

   2026 June 30, Will Borger, “Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game Has Me Excited to Get into the Lab | IGN Preview”, in IGN, archived from the original on 04 Jul 2026

1. alternativeuncountableAlternative spelling of animé (“the resin of the courbaril”).