The last post talked about the history and evolution of anime. This one will talk about the genres of anime.

Anime, being a child of the 70s and 80s, has been influenced to a great extent by the movies, TV and radio of the period. Thus we find genres like action, comedy, adventure, drama and (to a large extent) erotica. Though an anime may belong to many categories at a time, the major categories that an anime might fall into are as follows:
-Action/Adventure, that involves battles, war, and death. Such anime is usually violent, and generally has mature audiences. Examples are: Naruto,One Piece, Blood+.
-Drama, that revolves around one or many characters, each of whom drives the story along. Examples include: Inuyasha,Fushigi Yuugi etc.
-Game Based, which revolves around characters from a game. Examples are: Yu-Gi-Oh!,Hikaru no Go etc.
-Horror, which uses dark, psychological themes to scare the viewer. These anime are also violent. Examples are: Death Note, Vampire Hunter D, Jigoku Shoujo etc.
-Science Fiction, uses the latest advancements in science to create a story of the future. Examples: Ghost in the Shell,Appleseed etc.
-Progressive include art-film-like stories. Examples: Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, Byousoku 5 Centimetre etc.

A distribution based on the demographic (’target’) audience will be covered in the next post.