104 Can you name any of them? A slice-of-life cartoon uses a type of storytelling that focuses on everyday moments, often depicting the ordinary but meaningful aspects of life. Instead of grand adventures or intense drama, these cartoons highlight relatable experiences like friendships, family dynamics, or worklife struggles. Anime is the style of animation popular in Japanese films. At the turn of the 21st century, Japanese cartoons began to attain wide international popularity with television series like Pok mon, Sailor Moon, and Dragon Ball Z. CARTOONS Origins and technique The first animated television show, developed by Alexander Hume Anderson, was Crusader Rabbit, first aired in 1949. Anderson put into practice a sort of limited animation , which manipulated cut-out art elements, in other words a form of stop-motion that used flat characters and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, and fabric. Before then, the only way you could see cartoons was at the cinema, so its success inspired many more television cartoon characters. Genres Genre conventions shape the way cartoons tell their stories by setting expectations for tone, structure, and themes. A superhero cartoon usually features a heroic protagonist, with narratives that explore themes of justice, identity, and redemption, while a slice-of-life cartoon tends to centre on everyday, relatable characters. As far as plot structures are concerned, for example, action cartoons rely on fast-paced conflicts and quests, while comedy cartoons focus on humorous situations. Here are some of the most popular genres: comedy lighthearted, funny, and often absurd; action packed with thrilling fight scenes and adventure; ONLINE RESOURCES Animation lms benchmark: modello caped: mascherato cornerstone: caposaldo crusader: attivista flat: piatto, privo di profondit to foster: incoraggiare relatable: verosimile slice-of-life: vita quotidiana to tackle: affrontare 238 BIG AnD sMAll sCREEn fantasy magical worlds, mythical creatures, and epic quests; science fiction futuristic tech, space travel, and alien encounters; superhero caped crusaders battling villains. The role of cartoons Cartoons entertain by taking their public into different worlds, times, and dimensions. As any audio-visual product, they can also be used as a means of spreading values: cartoons are, in fact, an important teaching part of children s leisure activities and have an impact on their development, so they have been developed to target children of different age groups. American and Japanese animated series Cartoons have also been used to foster moral values typical of the society they are produced by. American cartoons promote an idea of American society based on the self-made man: it is thanks to a single character that the story can have a happy ending. Japanese cartoons , instead, are not based on the one-for-all philosophy, but on its opposite: they focus on the single who cares about the team or group and is prepared to sacrifice him/herself to save them.