Probably an awful question, but I don’t know since I’ve never watched anime in my life, and my first time seeing a manga was when my uncle brought me some Japanese ones a month ago when he heard a was learning Japanese.

Those who hate anime/manga on principle.
Those who think anime/manga is inherently different to western cartoons.
Those who think anime/manga are exactly the same.

ALL THESE PEOPLE ARE WRONG.

In essence, anime and manga are cartoons and comic books. That’s how I am told the Japanese people see it, and that’s how it should most likely be seen. It certainly is different, depending on what you watch/read it covers a much wider range of stuff than western cartoons.

Some of it is fantastic, some of it outright sucks. It’s the same as watching literally anything else in the world ever. It gets a bad rep from a lot of people who have never really watched anything good. (that and the really weird stuff…)

Also, in terms of content（内容）、it does seem that Japanese anime and manga are more liberal in terms of what they are allowed to show so thats how you get complicated plots that can involve dynamism, romance, revenge and well structured characters traits. That’s not to say the same exists in Western media but there seems to be a general feeling for Western cartoons is that they should be family oriented and dumbed down enough for kids to understand.

So in short, I’d say the difference between the 2 is more of style.

If you’re gonna start reading manga, I’d recommend AKB49＞＞恋愛禁止条例＜＜ and Boys Be

So basically manga and anime are simply the japanese terms for comics and cartoons. So when non-japanese speakers use those words they refer to the japanese style and when japanese speakers use them they refer to any comics/cartoons.

as for their differences… well i think it’s a much bigger world in japan than anywhere else. So there is a much much bigger variety. we do have adult comics and cartoons of course, but I’d say those are usually adult humor. I love how japan’s anime can be for adults but isn’t necessarily crude. I’d say japanese anime is generally more story-based too.

Another big difference is obviously the style. You can usually tell when a comic/cartoon is japanese. personally i love that art style but i know a lot of people don’t..