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Anime – Anime is the affectionately shortened name for animation in Japan. It’s written in Katakana, as a derivative of English and general refers to any animation conceived and drawn in Japan. There is however a certain style and method to anime that can be recognized the world over as unique to Japanese animation. The simple, exaggerated character features and surprisingly detailed settings along with the actual thematic content, usually a coming of age story of some sort. Some character’s development through a series of trials via uniquely Japanese morals of perseverance and strength.

Baka – Japanese slang for stupid. It’s affectionately used to describe every goofball, oddball, and erstwhile character in an anime. Usually applied by a female toward a male, it’s best defined as the catch all insult for a nerdy, insecure male (and sometimes female) who accordingly does something stupid. Hence, Baka.

Cosplay – The unique and overwhelming practice by anime fans the world over of dressing as their favorite anime and video game characters for the sake of meeting up with other extreme fans and comparing their realism. Because anime is drawn (mostly) to scale, and the clothing is generally brightly colored and completely impractical, characters are easily recognized on those who have a particular talent in this arena. Expos are held for cosplayers annually, as well as contests. It’s something of an underground phenomenon in the culture that’s become much less underground in recent years.

Doujinshi – The Japanese word for fan created manga based on existing characters. Pretty much the anime equivalent of the Star Wars novels. There’s a huge market for these fan created fictions in Japan, and because of the massive pool of talent they’re often of equal or greater quality than the source material. Seems like a good way to go. Keep your future employees on the outside, drawing for free.

Ecchi – A Japanese word that roughly translates to ‘pervert’. Basically it’s used to describe all those school girl animes in which the skirts stop about two inches above their panty line, and yet somehow magically stay on. It’s not quite the caliber of Hentai as it tries not to be pornographic, but the fan service and suggestive themes quotient are fairly off the map.

Fan – For American anime connoisseurs especially, the fan is one of the only ways to get access to some anime, and until recently pretty much the only way. Fan stands for Fansubbing (the fan produced subtitling of shows ripped straight from Japanese television ), Fandubbing (the slightly less done, and often much funnier dubbing of the same material by fans), Fanfiction (the written form of Doujinshi, often involving a whole lot of Ecchi), and Fan Service (in which a show will purposely do something over the top or suggestive because they know that’s what their fans are looking for). The fan is what floats the market for anime, especially in America where until very recently the market was mostly a blackmarket.

Gundam – One of the original fathers of anime. Around for 25 or more years now, Gundam has produced more than 25 series and movies since it debuted in 1979, and continues to be one of the most popular series on each every year, with an exponential growth of productions of late. The show was one of the pioneers of the giant mech anime and an underground favorite in America for years….and it makes for some pretty funny cosplayers.

Hentai – And of course, with any art form, when you have a large enough fan base, someone perverts it. Pornographic anime has something that normal pornography does not though, lots of creepy weird tentacles and occasionally a plot. Yes, in line with many of Japan’s finer arts, Hentai does try occasionally to inject a bit of intelligence into their mindless sex. And the production quality tends to be higher even than normal productions. Speaks to the nature of porn, I guess. It runs the industry.

Idol – The idol mentality runs the Japanese pop culture sphere.

hentai videos are everywhere, their movie stars are singers, their movie-star-singers are tv hosts. Their movie-star-singer-tv-hosts are voice actors. It’s all cyclical and it means mass exposure in a crowded country of a 140 million. And it leaks over in the shows they make, and the mass production of the shows (usually one a week every week until the show’s done…for some shows that’s years) and the production values all speak to this.

Jump – Shonen Jump is the monthly manga publication in Japan that broke some of the biggest names in anime. Dragonball, Naruto, One Piece, Kenshin and so on. The super popular children oriented anime that rules the charts comes out of this little gem repeatedly. And now it’s here in the US. Power in circulation.