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Anime |
Japanese animation usually recognizable by its distinctive drawing style. People are usually shown with elfish facial features and large eyes. Taken from the French word for "animation". |
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Bishoujo |
Means beautiful girl. Used to describe a type of anime and manga that is designed to appeal to young girls. |
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Bishounen |
Means "beautiful boy". |
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Bootleg |
Illegally copied video tapes that are sold for profit. |
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Chibi |
Literally "small, runt or dwarf". In some series there are characters that have "chibi" in their name and in others "chibi" is a doll. |
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Deformed or Super Deformed |
Certain characters are drawn small but with exaggerated features and large heads. The characters look like small children with large eyes. Also referred to as "SD". |
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Doujinshi |
Refers to manga or anime that is produced by fans using well-known anime characters. A.K.A Fan Fiction. |
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Dubbed or Dub. |
English is recorded over the original Japanese soundtrack. The all new dialog and sound effects may not be a very accurate translation. |
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Fan dubbed or Fan dub. |
The dubbing process is done by someone other than the video production house, usually done by an anime club. The quality of dubbing can range from good dialog and foley sound effects to terrible acting and bad sound effects. The quality of the translation may be in question at times too. |
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Fan Fiction |
Stories that have been written by a fan that conforms to a anime story line or characters. There are some excellent examples of this out on the web. Spend the time to read them sometimes, they can be worth it. A.K.A. Doujinshi. |
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Golem |
Large statue that has come to life, also used to describe large robot-like machines occasionally. Many OAV and manga use this type of creature in their stories. |
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Hentai |
Word used to refer to pornographic anime, it is the Japanese word for "perverted". This material is not intended for children at all. |
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Kawaii |
Translates as "Super cute". |
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Manga |
The word for Japanese comic books. First used by artist Hokusai, manga is literally translated as "careless drawings". Many of the more popular anime are taken from manga. Story lines in manga can vary drastically from it's counterpart video (OAV) series. |
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Mech or Mecha |
The large robot-like fighting suits that are found in many anime story lines. |
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Neko |
Japanese for cat, it is also used to refer to the half-human, half-cat characters found in many anime stories. |
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Oni |
Mythical demons who were thought to protect treasures and passageways in Japanese folklore. These types of demons find their way into anime stories quite often. |
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Otaku |
Means geek, nerd or overzealous fan; has a negative connotation to Japanese. Usually found on web sites or in magazines. |
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OAV |
Original Animated Video. Video tapes of an anime series. Some of the tapes have two or three 20 - 30 minute episodes each, some have full length features. |
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Shoujo |
Means "young girl". Refers to comics designed for young girls. |
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Shounen |
Means, "young boy". Refers to comics designed for young boys |
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Subtitled, Subbed or Sub. |
The original Japanese soundtrack is left alone and English dialog is superimposed at the bottom of the screen. It can be a bit confusing to try and watch the show while trying to read the dialog, but I think you get a more true representation of the original story this way. |
