Words You Should Know (and how to say them!)

Anime- (AH-ni-mei)- That's how you say it in Japanese. Just wanted to put that out there. The art of Japanese animation, based on manga.

Manga- (MA-n-ga)- Japanese comics. A specific style of drawing featuing large eyes. Yes, there's more to it than that.

Bishounen- (bee-show-nen)- Pretty boys. Common in anime, often have long hair and femimine features.

Shojou - (show-joe)- Being aimed at girls, namely young girls. It features romantice themes, cuteness, bishounens, ect. Examples- the entire Magical Girl genre of anime.

Shonen- (show-nen) - being aimed at young boys. Action packed, adventure stories, often with mechas, ninjas, samurari, ect.

Shounen-Ai- (Show-nen Eye) - Boys love- meaning it contains homoerotic themes and gay characters. Yaoi (yow-ee) is similar but is more sexual, like animated gay pornography, manga term.

Shoujo-Ai- (show-joe Eye) - Girls love- meaning it comtains lesbian themes and characters. Yuri (yur-ree) is similar, but more sexual, like animated lesbian porngraphy, Manga term.

Hentai- (hen-tie)- being very sexual in nature, animated pornography. If an anime is rated H, it is a hentai anime.

Ecchi- (ee-chi)- Pervert. This refers to any thing that has perverted characters in it, men that peek up women's dresses, stare at their breasts, make crude comments ect. It can also refer to the use to panty shots and extremely large breasts as important to the anime.

Harem- (hair-umm)- in anime, this refers to (usually) a man that lives with, is surrounded with, or affiliated with a large group of women that like him and try to hit on him. Example- Love Hina is a harem anime.

Mecha- (mech-a)- referring to the use of large robots in battle. Mainly used in Shonen anime.