I have one simple question that needs to be answered by many people. It's for a school assignment and I need to get an answer out as soon as I can. The question is simple. And I need as much detail as possible in any answer. Please tell me as much as you can. I need to collect answers for school.

What does anime mean to you?

It means time used, that would otherwise be wasted on homework

>>2
What he said. 'Cept in the case of homework, mine is 'life'.

To me, anime is a form of escape.
I generally don't get along well with the people around me and I find it hard to talk to people and function like a normal human being. When all of my problems become too much for me to handle, or I'm just feeling low and need a pick me up, I turn to anime.
It allows be to get away from the real world and become invested in a new and interesting fictional world. Instead of worrying about my own personal problems which I struggle to sort out, I can follow a characters struggles and see how they approach it and solve it.
I guess in a way anime also helps me to learn things.
Ultimately, I hold anime dear to my heart because it forms the basis of my personality. I still don't know what personality type I truly am, but I am certain that the anime I watch has had a great effect on the way I think and behave. Say, for example Fullmetal Alchemist. I used to think the world was black and white, there was good and there was bad, no in between. I used to also believe that the law of equivalent exchange applied to everything in existence. However, after finishing that anime, I learnt how to see things from a different perspective and be more open minded. When it ended, I did a lot of reflecting, and that helps me a lot.
Finally, anime helps me get out my emotions. I am a major crybaby, however I find it hard to start the tears flowing. When I watch an anime like Clannad or Myself;Yourself, I can cry in every episode no problem. I feel like, if I didn't have those emotional slice of life animes, I would have all these emotions built up inside me that would probably cause me to explode one day.
So, in summary, anime to me is:
- A form of escape
- A good pick me up
- A way in which I learn
- Something I use to improve myself
- A way to escape my problems
- A way to release my built up emotions
Sorry about the lack of structure, I was pretty tired when typing this up ^^;;;

Well.....many of us have reasons on what anime means to us...for me I guess like the answer of @Tee,...anime is a way to escape reality....anime also gives me reason not to give up like Naruto...anyways....I know there are some consequences of being an otaku like being a loner like the protagonist in Watamote...but because of all the lessons I learnt while watching many animes it helps me to fight all of the challenges in my life...like bullies...


Anime became a motivation to move forward for me

Well really, how is anime different to experiencing a story any other way? I mean you read a book and get a story but you do the same with movies. I think anime is just a great way to spends some down time experiencing a nice narrative. And seriously, some of the stuff that people come up with is immensely creative. A notebook that can kill people? A colorless gang in a colored gang city? A vampire that has a humanity complex? Anime is to me what a really good book or movie is to some other people. A means of conveying an epic story.

For me I go out all the time. I have many friends we explor the town, get drunk, smoke a pack or two, make new friends with old and young, laugh buy some shots, go to the clubs till daybreaks and make a new lady friend every night. When im not doing that I watch anime, read manga, shop for figures, and listen to music from animes I like. Anime for me is one the greatists pleasures in my life. It just makes me feel like myself, like I can be content with myself and be inspired. I learend from anime humor, life lesons, and the courage to do what makes me happy. When I feel down I think of insperational quotes from anime; like what Luna said from Sailor Moon "it's the hard part that makes you stronger". When I see people get down I think of how important it is to give others a boost like in the anime Kokoro Consert. Many little things in anime teach me a little about how to live mylife, and I trust it because it feels right. Im saved by these little things.

Anime for me is a nice distraction from all the annoying stuff in my life like working studying and so on.
It gives me the chance to experience things which i probably wouldnt irl. You dont even have to be a Hikikomori or something like that to enjoy Anime, i know a lot of ppl associate Anime with being nerdy and shit.

Anime is a great way to escape from all my problems.I have been struggling with my anxiety since I was a little kid and I don't have many friends,i cannot trust nor feel accepted.But when i watch anime,i see all those great relationships between friends,see characters that have personalities like mine and i feel accepted some way. I also like drawing and don't want to lose my imagination.Since it's hard for me to focus on books,I can enjoy myself watching anime which doesn't require much attention.And most importantly,it's a whole new world with heroes, heroines and other creatures.You can always find a place for yourself in specially shounen series,fight along with your favourite characters.You can learn many things from them and try to think about next step in mystery series,play the detective.Also an enjoyable way to learn Japanese,specially the pronounciation.My English is bad sorry,i hope this helps.

Anime to me is like an escape. None of that would happen to me ever, but I get to see the way it might effect other people. Usually they have great storylines that get me caught up and distracted from life and all my problems. Some of them get me inspired to do things and stop procrastinating... Although that was what I use them for

anime is a relief from the problem in the world it creates away for the reader to live as someone else as a hero someone that you could be or will be it creates peace and harmony for the reader that is what anime and manga is for me

Anime, for me, is like a reflection of morality. Take Durarara for example, after I saw the whole series, I thought to myself of how we all look at society today. That's one example, I have so many more, but I won't say all of them. Also, it makes you feel better about yourself, makes you feel moody.

Anime is a genre of Japanese cartoons drawn in explicit detail.

The anime in itself is a reflection of the writers and artists. It is self-expressionism coupled in infinite beauty, detail, and extravagance...

In anime bonds to the characters are formed mainly because we can relate to the character.

I personally feel like I can relate to Shizuo because he hates violence yet violence is typically the answer to everything.

I am the exact same way...

Anime is such a beautiful thing that there is no one meaning to it.

To me it is as beautiful as it is relatable...

Anime is living life through someone elses eyes. Anime is a way to live 100 different lives, in 100 different settings, with 100 different friends, 1000 different problems and 1,000,000 different experiences.

Where else can you learn alchemy, catch Pokemon, fight pirates, meet forest spirits, join the Dollar and discover a floating city?

Anime is an escape from reality. Anime is a playground for the imagination.

Anime, to me, is something I look forward to every day. I feel like it's a place that will allow you to finally be free of the daily problems we have to go through.

I read the word "escape" a lot here. To be honest, I also believe in that. Many people use songs, movies, books, drawing and other hobbies to escape from the world. Anime is just another form of that escape.

I personally started watching anime, because of the drawing style and I still love it, but I don't watch a lot of anime lately, maybe 1 or 2 in the year.

Bump

it tells about life

Philosophy, messages, leaving a legacy, etc.
I find a career in comic/manga/literature, animation, painting, sculpture, drama, music (not the mainstream pop BS), much more satisfying and meaningful than most jobs for the "System."

>>21 Video games too. Any kind of job that requires creativity instead of being an office sheep actually.

>>21 >>23
>implying all jobs aren't just ways for the Jew to screw you.
>implying you can't be creative in an office

You are young and know nothing of the world. :D

>>24 /cough/ coming from the guy who hates his job /cough/

well anime is a distraction from all the hard stuff in my life.
and I love it, it's so intriguing and it's fun to make references to a random person and they understand immediately (not so much when you make a reference you know this person knows and they don't get it ;-;) it's nice

>>25 That's why I can be creative.
Beautiful things grow from hatred. ;D

Hmmm.
Anime is like a community.
We have conventions for it and we can talk about it.
Sometimes I can relate to a character. Sometimes I laugh when I see their ridiculous antics and cry when I see them hurting.
It's just so fun and you get so connected to it!

Anime used to mean a life that didn't require any form of work or social interaction to be enjoyable. Now it's just another cool thing I used to do in my once-ample amount of spare time, and I've slowly moved away from it since and now I lean more toward film and music for entertainment.

Still, some of the anime that I love, I REALLY love, and my life would be... well, not incomplete, but it would lose something without them.

So to me, anime is that time in my life when I was old enough to know that I had to get on with my life, but was too lazy to get off of my ass. It was an escape, and one that has provided me with some pretty awesome (if lonely) memories.

>>29 Dem feels, bruv.