Curated category
Anime and manga terminology
- Harem (genre)The genre emerged in Japan during the 1970s. It gained significant popularity through the late 1980s and 1990s with the advent of dating simulator games.
- EcchiEcchi is the Japanese slang term for playfully sexual behavior, and it carries a lightness that sets it apart from the harder edges of other words in its…
- MangaManga, the Japanese comics that now outsell American comics, were once the work of a four-page magazine that lasted only three issues.
- Yuri (genre)Yuri is a genre of Japanese media built around intimate relationships between female characters, and the word itself simply means "lily" in Japanese.
- Manga iconographyA page from the Marmalade Boy manga, volume 1 shows a visual language that has developed over decades. This drawing style emerged from early 20th-century…
- Shōjo mangaShojo manga is a category of Japanese comics aimed at adolescent girls and young adult women, and its history stretches back to the very turn of the…
- Josei mangaJosei manga is the Japanese comics category aimed at adult women, and it carries a history more tangled than its simple label suggests.
- Fan serviceFan service is a term born in Japanese anime and manga fandom, and it describes any material added to a fictional work not because the plot demands it, but…
- Magical girlIn 1962, a young girl named Akko opened a small silver compact in the pages of Himitsu no Akko-chan. This moment marked the first time a magical girl used an…
- Seinen mangaSeinen manga is the editorial category of Japanese comics made for young adult men, and it sits at a crossroads that few publishing categories can claim…
- CosplayCosplay is the activity of wearing costumes and accessories to embody a specific character, and in 1939, two science fiction fans in New York City started…
- HentaiHentai is a style of Japanese pornographic anime and manga that, by the year 2000, had become the 41st most-popular search term on the internet, outranking…
- Light novelLight novels occupy a peculiar space in Japanese publishing: paperback books small enough to fit in a jacket pocket, priced around ¥540, and built for…
- Children's anime and mangaChildren's anime and manga occupy a distinct corner of Japanese popular culture, aimed squarely at pre-adolescent children.
- Original video animationOriginal video animation, or OVA, arrived in Japanese homes in 1983 with a single cassette tape and a promise: anime made not for broadcast, not for cinemas…
- AnimeAnime began not with a studio or a streaming service, but with a short film nobody can agree on. A claim exists for Katsudō Shashin, made around 1907 by an…
- MechaMecha are giant robots or machines, humanoid walking vehicles that have captured the imagination of audiences across the world for over a century.
- Anime-influenced animationThe term anime refers to animation originating from Japan, yet a distinct category of non-Japanese works has emerged that adopts its visual and narrative…
- Anime music videoIn 1982, a twenty-one-year-old man named Jim Kaposztas created the first anime music video. He connected two videocassette recorders to one another in his…
- Shōnen mangaShōnen manga is an editorial category of Japanese comics that, by any measure, dominates the global comics market. In 1995, at the industry's peak, shōnen…
- Chibi (style)Chibi is a Japanese art style in which characters are drawn small, chubby, and disproportionate, with oversized heads and eyes, stubby limbs, tiny noses, and…
- Original net animationAn original net animation is an anime that is directly released onto the Internet. This format mirrors the term original video animation, which has been used…
- IsekaiIsekai is the Japanese word for "another world," and it names a genre of fiction built on one of storytelling's oldest fantasies: the chance to leave your…