Anime 101

Every hobby has an unspoken vocabulary, and anime has more than most: subs and dubs, seasons and cours, shonen and seinen, films versus OVAs. This collection explains the fundamentals in plain language, so a newcomer can follow any conversation — and any of our reviews — without needing a glossary open in another tab. There's no gatekeeping here. Watching dubbed is not a lesser way to watch anime, skipping a beloved classic is allowed, and dropping a series that isn't working for you is fine. Our job is to give you the context to make those calls confidently, not to hand down rules.