Anime or Animes
 

I know I've brought this up before but, which do you use for the plural of Anime: Anime or Animes? We all know the the japanese terminology would be Anime so many believe that to be correct. But I was reminded of this when I was playing Metal Gear: Twin Snakes and realized Otacon says "animes". So which one do you use when talking about anime? Do you insist on going with with the original Japanese pronunciation, or do you use the american (english) plural by adding an 's'?

I think I mostly just say anime but I've probably said animes a few times.

You would have to refer to them in the term 'multiple Anime shows' when trying to talk about them plural, both because its a inanimate noun and a word from another language not adopted by our language (although I think it has been pretty much).

And if it was given a plural form, which would sound really strange saying in my opinion, I think it would be spelled Animies. If it followed the example of other objects of its type. However the spelling is just as baffling as the way it sounds...

...How about animations? Anime is short for Japanese Anime, which is short for Japanese Animation. The shortnessessessess of it all!

Anyway, keeping with the shortening words, I think from now on I'll just call it Ani. Plural will also be Ani.

"Anime" is actually a French word -- it comes from their phrase for "cartoon", "dessins anime" (The "e" in "anime" should have the accent mark over it that indicates it's pronounced as "ay", but I don't know if it would show up correctly here. :B), literally "animated drawings". The plural of "dessins anime" is "dessins animes", so the plural of "anime" should be "animes". Then again, it's also supposed to be pronounced ahn-ee-may instead of anna-may, so attempting to get people to use the correct plural form may be just as much of a lost cause.

Depends on situation. Talking to someone i'll use Animes. Typing i'll use Anime, animes just look stupid when typed lol

...You know far too much, Mash. Far far too much.

Anyway, I still stand by it being a shortend version of Japanese Animation (even if it isn't just a word cut in half)... why else would they use a french word to describe japanese shows?

Besides... I really wanna start using ani...

Ya got a good point, why would frenchies create a word for a country like 2000 miles away to use, and inevitable be credited with creation of?

They? As in the Japanese? The Japanese don't use anime to describe Japanese animation. They use it to describe all animation. Thus Disney feature animations are as much anime as Ghilbi features.

I've read that a possible reason the Japanese use anime instead of animation is due to the 'tion' sound.

As for the English usage of anime to refer only to Japanese Animation, it's an obvious borrow from the Japanese term for animation. Which itself was borrowed from French. Though I suppose it could argued they simply dropped the 'tion' from animation and ended up with a word that just happened to match the French word for animation.

One language borrowing words from another is very common. Japanese is littered with English loan words, and English is full of French words. All languages do it.

Actualy in english anime refers to basicaly any cartoon that is cool. (cuz theres american anime to and that blows your theory away)