The lack of respect Dragonball and its fans get.

[Kendamu]

Or we could just call it all "cartoons" and ignore the entire labeling problem altogether. It's not like the term ever made sense in the first place.
What do we call US cartoons? "Cartoons".
What do we call British cartoons? "Cartoons".
What do we call French cartoons? "Cartoons".
What do we call Russian cartoons? "Cartoons".
What do we call Chinese cartoons? "Cartoons".
What do we call Japanese cartoons? ..."Anime".
Really, how did this practice even start in the first place? All it generally brought with it is heaps of weirdos with superiority complexes declaring that "anime" is better than simple "cartoons", and must absolutely not be referred to as such.

If you could get everyone in the world to agree to just call them cartoons, then yeah. But as it stands, if I called an 'anime' a 'cartoon', I can guarantee 500 people would call me out on it and try to correct me. I don't want to have to explain what I mean every single time. That's why I use 'Japanese animation' if I want to be really clear...

I usually use the terms "Japanese cartoon" and "anime" interchangeably within the same conversation. Usually it depends on how seriously people are taking the conversation as to which I use. If people are taking it too seriously or think that I'm taking it too seriously, I'll say "Japanese cartoon" to remind everyone that the conversation is only about TV (many times, TV aimed at kids). Otherwise, I'll stick with "anime."

Maybe I should reverse the situation and call everything "anime."

[Dr. Casey]

The reason people don't call them just 'cartoons' is because no one effing respects animation in this country

Exactly. The word 'cartoon' just has too much of a stigma against it. Not that it's an entirely unjustified stigma since American cartoons tend to be terrible compared to animation from Japan, but I'd rather use the word that has a relatively clean slate and doesn't carry as much connotations.

[samuraigundam]

Like I said above, I consider Anime to be any animation produced in Japan, despite foreign influences on overall plot and character development. Transformers and G.I. joe were animated by Toei, as their U.S. distributor, Sunbow, only began animating in - house in the early ninties. And since Thundercats and Silverhawks animation was produced completely by a Japanese animation studio, they are technically Japanese animation, as are Afro - Samurai, the Animatrix, and Gotham Knight. Particularly Afro - Samurai, which was first a Manga series. Though, I have always hated Thundercats.

I do not consider animation and art that copies the Anime art style, and originates from non - Japanese animators and artists, to be Anime in any way.

"Foreign influences"? The core production and creative team for a cartoon are far more important than that. Even if the grunt animation for Transformers or ThunderCats or whatever is done in Japan, it doesn't suddenly make them purely Japanese products just because of one part of the production process originated there.

Also, Japan doesn't even do all its own grunt animation. They frequently shop that out to other Asian countries, like Korea and the Philippines. Kai has at least some of its touch up work done in the Philippines, so by your logic, that would make it a Filipino cartoon instead of Japanese.

I never said that it made it purely Japanese. By foreign influences, I was refering to Anime with plots and characters devised by non - Japanese producers, such as in the Animatrix, and Thundercats, NOT the animation itself. I cant believe I have to be more explicit about this. What I am saying is that as long as the actual frames of animation, not the writing, not the touch up work, or even the painting, which you are correct in pointing out, does sometimes take place in other Asian countries, like Korea, are done only by Japanese animators, than it is Anime.

No offense, but is what I am saying really that difficult to comprehend? Because I dont think I can make it any clearer.

[Kendamu]

The reason people don't call them just 'cartoons' is because no one effing respects animation in this country

Exactly. The word 'cartoon' just has too much of a stigma against it. Not that it's an entirely unjustified stigma since American cartoons tend to be terrible compared to animation from Japan, but I'd rather use the word that has a relatively clean slate and doesn't carry as much connotations.

Seems that nowadays "anime" might carry an even worse stigma than "cartoon" does. Then again, that all depends on if you consider being called a "nerd" to be a bad thing.

On the plus side, "Dragonball Z" is at the age where fond nostalgia keeps it from having bad connotations. It might also have to do with the fact that a lot of English-speaking anime fans I've met call it "not real anime."

[fig404]

Seems that nowadays "anime" might carry an even worse stigma than "cartoon" does. Then again, that all depends on if you consider being called a "nerd" to be a bad thing.

On the plus side, "Dragonball Z" is at the age where fond nostalgia keeps it from having bad connotations. It might also have to do with the fact that a lot of English-speaking anime fans I've met call it "not real anime."

So, I guess the real definition of 'anime' is "cartoons that they like".
Or atleast, "shows their parents never heard of".

[Super Ghost Kamikaze]

Wait, anime has a POSITIVE stigma? I'm pretty sure it conjures up images of a 40 year-old balding man of 400 pounds jerking off to 12 year-olds in foreign animated exploitation media.

[Kendamu]

By "stigma" I meant it in a negative way. Maybe it's because of my age and the age group I hang out with (mid-20s) but from what I see anime used to be cool but now it has kind of a bad reputation... as if it were only associated with those guys with no social lives and shelves full of hentai figurines.

[Taku128]

Exactly. The word 'cartoon' just has too much of a stigma against it. Not that it's an entirely unjustified stigma since American cartoons tend to be terrible compared to animation from Japan, but I'd rather use the word that has a relatively clean slate and doesn't carry as much connotations.

I know right? No other country's animation holds up when compared to glorious Nippon!

[Savage68]

Too bad they hardly ever have budgets.

[Piccolo Daimao]

Wait, anime has a POSITIVE stigma? I'm pretty sure it conjures up images of a 40 year-old balding man of 400 pounds jerking off to 12 year-olds in foreign animated exploitation media.

Yeah, when you've got a cartoon with its own pornographic variant with its own name, and then you look at the early volumes of Dragon Ball, I can sometimes see why people think that. No American cartoon would have a little boy appearing naked even once, let alone multiple times.

Some of my friends even associate anime with that kind of thing. Granted, it wasn't helpful of me to bring in Dragon Ball Volume 1, which in itself has plenty of the stereotypes people state.

[Dr. Casey]

Exactly. The word 'cartoon' just has too much of a stigma against it. Not that it's an entirely unjustified stigma since American cartoons tend to be terrible compared to animation from Japan, but I'd rather use the word that has a relatively clean slate and doesn't carry as much connotations.

I know right? No other country's animation holds up when compared to glorious Nippon!

I'm not saying there's no such thing as a good American cartoon or a bad Japanese one, since there's a couple of US cartoons I think are decent and most anime honestly doesn't catch my interest, but the difference in style and quality on the whole is obvious. I don't think there's anything too unreasonable about saying that, on the whole, a country that views animation as a legitimate medium (Relative to how the US views it, anyhow) puts out better work on average than a country that sees it almost exclusively as vapid nonsense that kids past the single digits would find it hard to enjoy.

[Bussani]

Yeah, when you've got a cartoon with its own pornographic variant with its own name, and then you look at the early volumes of Dragon Ball, I can sometimes see why people think that. No American cartoon would have a little boy appearing naked even once, let alone multiple times.

'Cept Simpsons. Or South Park.

[IncompetentOverlord]

I have encountered this a lot in both my internet and personal social circles. The only things to do are either (A) somehow convince them to watch the show in Japanese from the beginning of DBnotZ, or (B) accept that you will always have different opinions than other people.

As for the why of the hate, I think that it's because a lot of DBZ fans are relatively normal, non-otaku kinds of people(myself not included). a lot of times, they either never got out of it and treated it as no big deal, or came back to the show out of nostalgia and found themselves enjoying it enough to post videos relating to it on Youtube.

[Rocketman]

somehow convince them to watch the show in Japanese from the beginning of DBnotZ

The Pilaf Arc is really not the best section to use to claim that Dragonball deserves respect.

[IncredibleGuy]

Maybe they're just mad Dragon Ball doesn't contain the same pseudo-psychological Japanese fortune cookie life lessons you get from other shows like Naruto and Bleach.

[Kendamu]

Maybe they're just mad Dragon Ball doesn't contain the same pseudo-psychological Japanese fortune cookie life lessons you get from other shows like Naruto and Bleach.

Naw. Dragonball definitely has 'em. They're just not shoved in your face so hardcore. Instead, y'gotta kinda see it for yourself.

[Rocketman]

Naw. Dragonball definitely has 'em. They're just not shoved in your face so hardcore. Instead, y'gotta kinda see it for yourself.

It doesn't matter how hard you work, your position has been determined from birth?

[Scarz]

It's that time again! Wheel of Morality turn, turn, turn. Tell us the lesson that we should learn.... And the moral of today story is:

It doesn't matter how hard you work, your position has been determined from birth

[penguintruth]

Remember when we used to call it "Japanimation", folks?

Little did we know that was actually a better term than "anime".

[samuraigundam]

Remember when we used to call it "Japanimation", folks?

Little did we know that was actually a better term than "anime".

HA! I read somewhere that creators of Japanese animation hated that term!