Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be troll here. At school, I have a friend who adamantly insists anime is not a cartoon. When I asked him why, he explained "Well, anime is for teenagers and adults, but cartoons are for kids." Loads of people tell that to me. By that logic, Family Guy is anime and Pokémon is not. Doesn't really work.

The difference between anime and cartoons is not the intended audience but rather the origin from the product. For instance, The Last Airbender has always been confused as an anime, because it has a similar artwork and has been somewaht anime influence, however, the definition of anime is pretty simple. Anime MUST be from Japan. People often confuse the whole age thing because many call anime cartoons and so the argument that they think is, "Oh, this is not for little kids" but they have gotten the wrong definition of what anime is. Anime once again has to be from Japan, so series like Last Airbender and Regular Show are both cartoons. Pokemon is an anime and Family Guy is a cartoon. The Amazing World of Gumball is a cartoon and Tokyo Ghoul is an anime. See what I just did there? Both Family Guy and Tokyo Ghould are meant for older ages that can handle a higher level of maturity, and Pokemon as well as The Amazing World of Gumball are meant for younger audiences (while that does not mean that you should be limited to watching only series of your own age). Age honestly is a factor that can be very unstable because it has to do more with the maturity level. I watch cartoons and animes of all ages. There will be american cartoons that might be influenced by Japanese culture and vice versa with anime but they are different. Hope this helped you see the difference between both. Cartoon and Anime are both for all ages depending on the series but they are differentiated by their area of origin.

But Family Guy IS an anime, don't you know? It's one of the more popular animes.

As an anime fan I can say that animes most TECHNICALLY are cartoons, since all cartoons are, are animations. For example, Avatar: The Last Airbender is drawn in anime style (as mentioned) but is widely considered not to be anime, but a cartoon.

At it's purest form, there really is no technical difference between an anime and a cartoon. But as Collapz said, the point of origin is what classifies it.

Think of it like movie genres. They are, of course, movies. But a pure comedy could not be any more different than a pure horror. It's kind of like that. Animes and cartoons are usually different in material, plotting, and the intended audience. That's not to say cartoons can't be mature (the Avatar series is great and considered to be closely related to anime.) but the thing is the style, target audience, and stories are usually quite different. 

Let's also make this clear: at it's most point, both are just animations. So, they are really just different classifications of animations. But they are different classifications! So they have both built up a separate reputation. Anime is seen as geek culture by many Americans, while cartoons are seen as everyday comedy entertainment. (A majority of animations in America are comedies anyways, like Family Guy, Futurama, The Simpsons, Archer, South Park, etc.)

Honestly though, the argument of anime vs. cartoon is so tiring, when people should just accept that they're not the same, but they're not so different as well.

Well anime was originally called Japanimation (or something close) but was shortened to anime. So pretty much all anime is made in Japan and has a different art work than most cartoons. Also I don't see why people say "anime is for teens, adults etc..." cause there are many anime created for younger audiences :/

SilverHyruler :

So what does your friend figure stuff like South Park, Ugly Americans, Superjail!, Drawn together or Mister Pickels is?

Personally, I don't care. I guess it is just easier to call all the Japanese stuff anime and all the rest of the stuff cartoons... or just animation.

Well, I don't really know. Ignoring the fact that technically anime is ONLY from Japan, which would make this pretty easy, I will try to explain what I think in a way so anime-haters could understand what I mean. I feel that Japanese anime overall has a different feel to it than western cartoons simply because of the different demands and expectations of the audiences. I feel that Japanese viewers get offended a lot less easily by some of the content in shows than western extremists and helicopter parents, so it seems like anime can get away with more. As a result, they include this content, whether it be blatant ecchi or dark and psychological story lines that would be put into an adult, live action TV show in the west.  Therefore, I think anime in general carries itself in a more mature and serious manner than that of what we would generally dub "cartoons." So yes, there is a difference, but in all technicality, I guess there isn't. It's a long and confusing debate resulting in confusion and annoying teens calling people like me "faggot weebs." So yeah. But hey, that's just my opinion.

I don't think there's any real point on trying to put such specific and structure rules on something like art.

Anime is animated movies or shows from Japan... are they cartoons? I suppose they could be.

As for "Anime is for teens and adults, but cartoons are for kids", that's irrelevant. Anime and Cartoons can be for kids, teens, adults, and in the case of anime, pretty much any other demographic. The Simpsons, for example, are targeted at teens and adults, whereas, say, Cardcaptor Sakura is an anime targeted at kids

Well, I do fully agree with everything LK said. All cartoons all have an art form that is created for all ages, no matter the show.

All Anime isn't mostly aimed for teens/adult, some are for kids as well. Mostly looking at the show's age rating will depend on what the show is aiming at, like TV-MA/R/18+ mostly aimed for adults and TV-PG/PG/6+ are aimed for kids.

They're a lot of cartoons out there that adults watch, and vise versa.

So, stuff that are aimed to doesn't equal that is only for that age group.

I think that one big difference is that 99% of the anime was first manga that was ported to the TV. Pokemon, Naruto, Dragon Ball... All of them started as a manga, and the anime just made those series even more popular, spawning videogames, movies and a lot more material.

Another big difference is that anime doesn't know of seasons. Family Guy, for example, has different seasons of a set number of episodes. Anime just airs a determined date and hour every week or two. Some anime that started in the late 90s are still on air, and you will not find anything like Season 1, Season 2 or anything. Other series divide themselves in spin-offs, like Pokemon, Dragon Ball or Yu-Gi-Oh!, but still nothing you can compare to seasons.

And well, anime isn't for children no matter the show, or else it wouldn't suffer that much censorship. Most anime series aired outside Japan are highly edited and some scenes even cut off, so to really judge anime you have to watch the original series and not the dub. 

It should also be worth noting that Japan is different. We think of cartoons mostly for action or comedy, however Japan has anime for the most trivial things: a card game (lots of them, to be honest), sports (soccer, tennis, basketball...) and something else I better not mention here. Japan uses anime to tell stories, something we only know to explain through movies or documentaries/TV specials.

Well yeah they are technically. Cartoons aren't really exclusively for kids or even have kids as their main demographic, things like Family Guy and South Park are technically cartoons. Just as that "animes" are also cartoons, japanese cartoons, anything from Pokemon to Death Note and in between.

I mean the word anime itself is technically an abbreviation of the word animation and wasn't even used for japanese cartoons to begin with. It's really a term that can be used for animated media such as cartoons from any country which means things like Family Guy can be considered anime, even if that isn't what the term is used for today.

Well... it depends. Anime is Japan's colloquial term for "animation", so technically, anime is a cartoon. However, considering the origin of the term, anime now equates to "Japanese animation", so not all cartoons are anime since not all cartoons are from Japan. As for anime being for teens/adults and cartoons for younger kids, I think that's nonsense. Many anime's are for kids (Pokemon, Mirumo de Pon etc.) and there are also lots of cartoons for adults (Happy tree friends, Southpark, the Simpsons).

"Are you watching your Chinese little girl cartoons again?" NO! IT'S JAPANESE CARTOONS FOR MEN!!!!!


But seriously. They really are cartoons, since they are both animated entertainment. There are both cartoons and anime for children, teens, adults, and for everyone! The only difference is, one is in Japanese and has some more mature tones. While the other is in any other language, and is usually more lighthearted.

EXPalen put it nicely. Most anime often start off as a manga before airing, this is an essential factor in determining the key differences between the two.

Most anime content outside of Japan has to be heavily edited because they don't get as easily offended as western viewers tend to. What we might consider to be offensive or strange, they might consider to be completely normal.

There are a lot of anime suited for younger audiences just like there are cartoons for younger viewers. Obviously you wouldn't want a for year old watching season one of Attack on Titan, so just use logic in determining what is suitable for children and adults respectively.

Essentially, cartoons and anime are both intended for entertainment purposes, they just come from different origins. For instance, the last air bender is not an anime because it didn't originate in Japan although it evokes certain qualities that are typically found in anime. Hopefully this clears things up.

Anime offen tend to be a bit more realistic, compared to your basic cartoon.

Anime is a Japanese word that's short for the western word, animation. So, it's actually more accurately called an animation, but if it's an anime then that means it's a Japanese animation production, that's all, a Cartoon is a western word that's only used in the west that generally means the same thing, also it's worth noting that Astro Boy which looks like a cartoon is an anime, so essentially you can call an anime a cartoon, what separates them is simply the culture that surrounds it.

Anime doesn't really mean it's a cartoon, but you wouldn't be wrong to call it a cartoon.

Anime and Cartoons are same blasted thing. Just different styles. And the big ol' anime eyes they were influenced by........old style cartoons. So,anime nerds,get over it.

Final Weapon :

Sure. All that tentacle porn and Totoro is highly realistic. King of the hill on the other hand is so out of this world. Like anyone would believe there are such things in real life than "Texas" or "propane".

Anime is more realistic than regular cartoons. It's also based at an older audience so really it's not in the cartoon catergory.

dekker pretty much nailed this one...
Anime is just a shortened version of "animeshon" (as its written in Romanji).
It was separated into its own category and is distinguished by specific art styles.
So, the content isn't what makes it anime, but rather the style (and country of origin I suppose).