Anime

Interesting debate!))) It seems like the problem lies in perception, or perhaps you watched a different anime. Personally, I don't see a debate here...

Correct. 10% of films are aimed at children, 95% of anime is aimed at children.

Where did you get these statistics?

First of all, it would be good to write an official definition in the topic:

Anime (['anʲɪmə, ənʲɪ'mɛ] neut., not decl., Jap. アニメ (info) [anʲime], from English animation) is Japanese animation. Unlike animation from other countries, which is mainly intended for children to watch, most of the anime produced is aimed at a teenage and adult audience, and this is largely why it is so popular worldwide.[1] Anime often (but not always) differs in its characteristic style of drawing characters and backgrounds. It is released in the form of television series, as well as films, distributed on video media or intended for theatrical release. The plots can describe many characters, differ in the variety of places and eras, genres and styles.

Most anime series are adaptations of Japanese comics, manga, usually preserving the graphic style and other features.

About the Plot

As in any other form of cinema, the diversity of anime plots is limited only by the screenwriter's imagination. Along with anime that tells about parallel realities and space, there are anime that describe historical events, or even recreate the daily life of the main characters in the most ordinary Tokyo. However, various genres impose various imprints on the plots of anime, and often determine the overall structure or key milestones of the series' plot.

For example, works called "shounen-adventure" often have a predictable canonical form: for most of the series, the main character gathers a team of supporters and learns new combat techniques, overcoming minor problems that arise, in order to eventually defeat a stronger opponent. After this, the series either ends, or returns to the beginning: a stronger, more dangerous enemy is indicated. One such cycle is sometimes called an arc (from English arc). An example of a classic shounen-adventure is "Rurouni Kenshin" - an epic about Himura Kenshin, a samurai from the Meiji Restoration era, who knows how to kill but no longer wants to.

It is also common to see a non-standard combination of familiar patterns. For example, the comedy/action "Full Metal Panic!" tells about a young but brave soldier, Sagare Sosuke, who is assigned to study at a school - to protect a potential victim. The harmonious combination of school comedy scenes and a serious military plot compensates for the shortcomings of both lines.

Despite the abundance of series made according to the genre's canons, there is still a large number of original works that do not lend themselves to precise classification. An example of a series with a non-standard plot is "GANTZ" - an action film, the main characters of which, Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato, died under the wheels of a subway train, but were resurrected by a motionless black sphere, occupying half the room in a Tokyo hotel - in order to participate in a brutal survival game, from which one can only escape by earning 100 points.

The universes in which the series take place can take any form, from classic fantasy worlds to cyberpunk popularized by American authors ("Ghost in the Shell", "Serial Experiments Lain") or developed anime steampunk ("Fullmetal Alchemist", "Steamboy"). The stories of fantastic worlds can differ significantly from what we are used to: for example, in the anime "Fullmetal Alchemist", alchemy is developed instead of physics, in the anime "Trigun", the action takes place in the distant future, on a desert planet, among the remains of lost technologies. The series "Wolf's Rain" depicts a post-apocalyptic world in which humans once lost to themselves and left behind vast battlefields littered with the skeletons of combat machines.

Most anime series have a pronounced emotional and ideological subtext. The director creates a suitable emotional background with images to convey his thoughts. Popular ideas include: the idea of resilience, the unwillingness to give up to any powerful people or circumstances, ideas of self-determination and choice of life path, human morality. The different age of the target audience often affects the ideological subtext of the work: shounen-adventure, usually aimed at boys over the age of twelve, more often contain a "simple" emotional range (do not give up, protect friends, etc.) with less detailed development than philosophical or psychological works for adults. However, "simplicity" does not mean that the ideas of such series are "childish" or even "naive", "maximalist" - or that such series are not intended for an older generation. More serious series explore questions of the meaning of life, morality, the problem of escapism, loneliness and the separation of people, religion.

Often, the plot and style of anime are borrowed from the work being adapted, usually a manga or "light novel". Sometimes, the plot of the anime may differ significantly from the plot of the adapted manga: for example, characters that are not in the manga may be added to the anime, the ending may be changed, and so on.

Regarding the audience:

Anime is divided:
By target audience (children, boys, girls, men, women)

Criticism of anime

Along with the growing popularity of anime outside of Japan, the number of opponents of this genre of animation is also growing. The most serious criticism is caused by the excessive, in the opinion of many, amount of violence and eroticism in anime, the inadequate behavior of people who are fond of watching and collecting anime - otaku, which sometimes turns into pathological forms (withdrawal from reality, aggressiveness, close to drug addiction). In European countries and the United States, Japanese animation is subject to preliminary evaluation, with the determination of the age audience, sometimes, in order to reduce the age limit, the publisher cuts out too explicit or violent scenes from the work.

Many people do not like anime on an emotional level: if a viewer believes that cartoons are only created for a children's audience, they expect a corresponding development of the plot, and either experience discomfort from watching anime aimed at a teenage or adult audience, or, by refusing to watch, create a negative opinion about the work. Viewers also often dislike the graphic design in anime - the infamous "big eyes", or the voices of the characters, due to the unfamiliar sound of words and the expression of emotions in the Japanese language for Europeans.

Most of the criticism expressed against anime is also fair in relation to any branch of modern mass (especially visual) culture, one of the representatives of which is the Japanese animation industry.

P.S. Sorry for the length, it's just a big industry (I shortened it as much as I could), I think the arguments here are solid, I would have written it myself, but I was afraid I would forget something, if anyone asks where I got this from, I got it from Wikipedia, I was too lazy to look for it