Anime -- The New "Saturday Morning" Cartoon?

By the time you get to high school, you probably consider yourself "above" cartoons. Hey; you're almost an adult now! And there are better things to do than crash in front of your t.v. in your pj's every Saturday morning to catch reruns of old Looney Tunes and Disney... (despite the fact, you wish you still could crash on the couch every Saturday morning.)

The first time I was exposed to anime -- Japanese cartoons done in the manga style of drawing -- I was in college, and thought I had left cartoons behind a long time ago. Cartoons are simple, quick stories for little kids. Not so with Anime. I had walked into one of my girlfriends' rooms and cast a jaundiced eye at her t.v. "What are you watching?" I asked.

"Oh, it's really cool, come see!"

Quite frankly, I wasn't prepared for was the complexity and depth of anime storytelling.

Characters face difficult choices encompassing everything from being a hero to their world or sticking up for a friend in need and all variants in between. Entire worlds are built and landscaped. Sure, they maybe drawn caricatures of people, but gone is the Tom and Jerry simplicity of storytelling.

For the older, more discriminating watcher, anime may be the way to go when you need that cartoon fix (but don't want to appear like a kid!).

~*~

Heather S. Ingemar has loved to play with words since she was little, and it wasn’t long until she started writing her own stories. Termed “a little odd” by her peers, she took great delight in exploring tales with a gothic flair, and to this day, Edgar Allan Poe continues to be her literary hero. To learn more, please visit: http://ingemarwrites.wordpress.com/ or follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/heatheringemar