What is Anime? Japanese Animation Guide & Genres

September 28, 2025

Table of contents:

From Studio Ghibli’s magical worlds to modern hits like Demon Slayer, anime has gone from being a distinctly Japanese art form to a global entertainment phenomenon that covers every genre imaginable. With its signature style and diverse storytelling, anime proves animation isn’t just for kids.

What defines anime beyond its Japanese roots and how can creators capture that look in their own projects with LTX Studio? Let’s dive into this influential animation medium that shapes global pop culture.

What is Anime?

Anime is a style of Japanese animation known for its colorful visuals, expressive characters and diverse genres from children’s adventures to adult dramas. While anime originated in Japan, it’s now produced globally and is recognized as a part of international pop culture. The anime definition includes TV series, films, OVAs (Original Video Animations) and web anime that share the same art style and storytelling depth.

Unlike Western animation that targets younger audiences, anime covers a huge range of themes and demographics. This broad appeal has made anime a unique medium that bridges cultural gaps while keeping its Japanese look and narrative sensibilities.

History of Anime

Anime’s early roots go back to Osamu Tezuka in the 1960s whose work was inspired by Disney but developed into distinctly Japanese characteristics that would define the medium. Tezuka’s influence established the fundamental anime conventions including character design principles, narrative pacing and production techniques that still apply today.

Major studios like Studio Ghibli and Toei Animation brought global awareness of anime through internationally acclaimed films and series that introduced worldwide audiences to Japanese storytelling. The rise of streaming platforms has exponentially increased anime’s global reach, making diverse anime content available to international audiences and creating fan communities across cultures.

Anime vs Manga

Manga refers to Japanese comic books or graphic novels, while anime refers to animated adaptations or original animated works. Many popular anime series are adapted from successful manga like Naruto, Attack on Titan and One Piece, but anime can also have completely original stories developed specifically for animation.

The relationship between manga and anime is a translation from static panels read right-to-left to dynamic animated sequences with voice acting, color, music and motion. This adaptation process often expands on the source material while keeping the core narrative and character elements that made the original manga successful.

Anime vs Animation

Anime is a subset of animation defined by cultural origin, style and storytelling conventions rather than technical production methods. What makes anime unique includes visual elements like big eyes, exaggerated expressions, stylized hair and specific motion techniques that create visual impact.

Western animation targets children as its main audience, anime covers all age groups and genres from light hearted fantasy and romance to psychological horror and slice of life stories. This demographic diversity allows anime to tackle mature themes and complex character development that’s uncommon in other animation traditions.

Popular Anime Genres

Shounen anime targets young male audiences with action packed adventures and coming of age stories like Naruto and Dragon Ball. Shoujo anime focuses on romance and emotional drama for young female viewers, Fruits Basket is an example of the genre’s emphasis on relationships and personal growth.

Seinen and Josei anime are for adult audiences with complex themes, narratives and mature content that explores psychological depth and social commentary. Isekai anime has become super popular with protagonists transported to other worlds, while romance anime encompasses various demographic categories with stories ranging from school based relationships to supernatural romantic fantasies.

Anime Style and Aesthetics

Anime’s visual traits include big eyes, distinctive facial features, unique hairstyles and stylized movement that creates instant recognition. These anime art style have evolved over the decades, 90s anime style hand drawn cel animation is very different from 2000s anime style digital production and contemporary CGI.

The anime style influence goes beyond animation into fashion, gaming, art communities and global pop culture, inspiring artists, designers and creators across multiple industries. This aesthetic influence shows anime’s impact on visual culture beyond its original medium.

Anime Example powered by LTX Studio

This short film, created by the team here at LTX Studio, tells the story of a girl and an ancient oak tree, exploring themes of change, beauty and the quiet strength of letting go. The anime example shows how modern AI tools can capture the emotional depth and visual beauty of great anime storytelling, and how the medium can convey deep themes through unique artistic expression.

How to Make Anime in LTX Studio

LTX Studio offers two ways to create anime-style content.

Option 1: in the Gen Space
You can click on Style and select Anime and upload reference images to generate anime-style frames based on your visual preferences.

Option 2: in the Storyboard area

You can click on Style and select Anime to apply anime aesthetics to entire sequences. This gives you the flexibility to start from scratch with AI image generation or apply anime styling to your complete narrative projects and have visual consistency throughout production.

Conclusion

Anime is more than Japanese cartoons—it’s a unique art form and medium that has shaped global entertainment culture. From its roots with pioneers like Osamu Tezuka to modern digital production, anime continues to inspire new artists and creators around the world.

With LTX Studio, you can bring anime worlds to life with our AI anime generator that works as single-frame generator in Gen Space and anime-style storyboarding for full cinematic projects. Whether you create original characters, adapt existing stories or experiment with anime aesthetics, our modern AI-powered tools make it easier than ever to join this creative tradition.