Anime (An-a-may) is short for animation and is just animation or cartoons drawn from Japan. Some people call it Japanimation, but that's just ignorant nowadays. If you call it Japanimation and you're reading this right now- stop it. Most people believe anime to be Pokemon, and if you're really lucky, maybe they think it also includes Sailormoon or Dragonball Z. That's why most anime fans don't talk about anime to non-anime lovers, they're not "one of us" and too stupid to understand anything. Our biggest hope is to convert them to the side of good.

Doujinshi

These are comics made by fans. I've never had particular interest in these because 1) they're made by fans and 2) too many deal with hentai. Not like either reason is bad, I'm just not into fan work. There are some really good Doujinshi out there if you search hard enough, and a lot of crap if you don't look hard.

FanBoy

Simply put someone who has focused all their energy and love towards one anime and try to learn the most about it. In this quest usually other great animes are left out of the lil' Fanboy's knowledge. Also, parts of their brains short circuit (good movie, Short Circuit) and they get a little too involved with the series. These people usually start to lose common sense and drool on carpets. They later go on in life to write crappy poems or make fanfictions. And if we're really lucky, they go make webpages.

Fanfiction

Oh god no. Fanfiction are stories written by anime lovers who usually want to continue the original creator's idea past the ending. Or they just take characters from anime series and add their own little ideas. I have never come across a good fanfiction and I'm not a big fan of fanfiction writers either. Irony being that I write fanfiction myself. Even though I hate my own work I write it because most people find it funny... I think.

Hentai/Ecchi

Believe it or not there is anime porn. Trust me, you don't want to see the people who get their kicks from this stuff. It's incredible how much Idealism is used to get across hentai as kind of "the perfect sex". The proportions in most of these are staggering with chests bigger than the length of my arm extended. Sometimes it has a weird tendancy to contain alien tentacles going places your mommy never even told you about.

Kanji

An alphabet that originated in China and made it's way to Japan. Most Japanese themselves haven't fully mastered Kanji but we see it a lot in cool posters since they are so complicated.

Manga

Manga is kind of our equivalent of comic books. Well, actually manga tends to be longer then most little comic books and sometimes referred to as graphic novels. Personally I love manga especially Ranma 1/2 manga. Unfortunatly, you can sometimes breeze through some mangas because a lot of it is fight scenes that take forever to show in animation, but a few frames in manga. Ranma 1/2 usually doesn't have this problem.

Mecha

Mecha are the huge robots we see in a lot of anime. From what I hear the idea started with Ur-mecha; later the robots evolved into Gundams which seem to be the most respected mecha out there. The American idea of robots are huge and clunky and powerful because of their size. But for some reason, since they are taller, Japanese believe that mecha are quite fast and sleek. Don't ask me how this came to be, it's just a Law of Anime.

Mosaic

I bet you've always wondered what the name of this is. It's the blurred squares you see when censoring obscense nudity in anime. But if someone is censoring anime, they can take it up a step higher like Cartoon Network and just add bathing suits.

Nani?!

Just don't, alright? chances are if you're reading this you don't speak fluent Japanese. (for all those who don't know, Nani means What in Japanese. It's also the most overused Japanese word by annoying otakus)

Nipples

Besides hentai most anime fans will never see a woman's nipples in anime. This belief comes from the fact that if you can't see the nipples, she's not really naked. Good thinking Japan. I've also heard that most animes are restricted from drawing pubic hair. This includes guys' armpit hairs, not like anyone cares.

Otaku

Otaku is used differently by different people. Some really anal people think that otakus are people who are totally obsessed with one series, resemble an anime character and have way too much knowledge in anime. But I think ToastyFrog sums is up best "worthless loser with no personal life whose only joy is putting together scale Gundam models in his parents' basement and arguing minor points of his favorite series on USENET". I would also add their overuse of small Japanese vocab they know. If you have a site that uses kawaii, nani, or baka in it interchangably with the English words, please e-mail me. I will smack you upside the head with a tac hammer.

Otacon

No, not "that nerdy guy from Metal Gear Solid". It's short for Otaku Convention. It's when all the little otakus get together and ask the creators annoying questions that they create by watching the series twenty million times. They also wear costumes of their favorite characters. I'd say about 80% of them suck and if I see another convention pic with another guy dressed up like a Sailor Scout I'm going to throw up. I saw one guy dressed up like Shampoo (from Ranma 1/2) that one blinded me for a day.

Speed Lines

All those little lines drawn into the background of anime and manga. I'm not quite sure why they draw it in anime since they don't need lines to show they're moving. Maybe it's to cut down on the price of drawing backgrounds.

Urusei

Japanese for "annoying". I use this describe most website designers (10 PICTURES IS NOT AN IMAGE GALLERY!) and people who think they know Japanese. I know about 80 people trying to learn Japanese and only about...2 that can actually speak it fluently, or even form sentences for that matter.

Yaoi

Picture your two favorite anime guys, now picture them in the same bed with lubricants. That's pretty much yaoi in a nutshell. Some people claim that yaoi has "defiled" certain animes such as Gundam Wing and Trigun. I disagree, if yaoi scares you don't look at it, simple as that.

Yuri

Same as above except with chicks. The Utena movie is the biggest piece of yuri I've ever seen. And a lot of anime already have lesbians in their series sooooo...