In Japan, the term “anime” refers to all animation. In the US, it specifically refers to Japanese animation. Hayao Miyazaki apparently dislikes the term, or at any rate did in 1987. He said at the time that he felt it represented Japanese animators’ focus on product rather than art. However, to most American audiences, his own work is covered under that umbrella, as well as everything else animated in Japan, from children’s fare to the notorious hentai. This is why so many people find the idea of liking or disliking anime as a whole bewildering.

Oh, I admit, anime fandom is very much a thing. There’s an anime convention at my alma mater that I’ve written about before, and of course it’s put on by the anime club. And in fact, I did long ago have a boyfriend who would rather watch an anime he suspected or even knew to be bad than a live-action movie he suspected might be good. However, that’s weird to me and was at the time. Indeed, that was when I developed the art of “falling asleep in self defense,” because I disagreed with him so much.

But seriously, if they weren’t animated and from Japan, there are a whole mess of anime that no one would consider to be similar, much less the same thing. The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a beautiful, delicately drawn rendering of a Japanese folk tale. Summer Wars is a more realistically drawn story combining a modern Japanese family and a fanciful online community. They are both fine films, both appropriate to younger audiences, both well worth watching. But are they the same genre?

To a certain extent, American animation falls into the same trap. This is how you get people refusing to admit that maybe Idiots and Angels might not be for kids—I mean, it’s animated, isn’t it? But while people will at least admit that not all animation has princesses (unless, apparently, it’s Disney; all Disney movies have princesses and all animated princess movies are Disney, in the popular conception) or even talking animals, there is still a perception that all anime has giant robots and pouty schoolgirls and probably tentacles in there somewhere.

And, yes, I’ve seen anime with all of those. I might somewhere have encountered some (that crazy ex-boyfriend of mine, remember) with all three. But I’ve also talked to someone who didn’t believe that Miyazaki films fit even the narrower American definition of the word simply because they do not, in general, have any of the three. (Sometimes schoolgirls.) Resented that Miyazaki was brought up every time he said all anime was bad, because Miyazaki didn’t count. If he had a reason other than “because it doesn’t fit my preconceptions of what anime is like,” I never found out what it was.

Is this intended to be a blanket defense of anime? Oh, good Gods, no! Hell, if you want a list of specifically bad anime, it wouldn’t take much effort for me to produce it. Or indeed even just anime that isn’t for me. (Or anime that I have a weird twitch about because of that ex of mine?) Come to that, I can even write you up a list of anime I like even though it’s hopelessly weird and/or silly. My long-time favourite involves people who change into things when they get splashed with cold water and back when they’re splashed with hot. Naturally, their town has a sizeable population of random goldfish vendors and wandering tea merchants, for plot-related water.

My argument, rather, is that it doesn’t make sense to consider all anime the same thing. My boyfriend’s mother used to grouse that two of her sons watched the stuff, and her complaint was that the animation was all so bad. I never could get her to watch My Neighbor Totoro, so I could show her the clip of the stream where you can see all the rocks on the bottom—and the trash people have thrown into it. She’d caught glimpses of some of the stuff that was more cheaply made, and that was good enough for her.

In a way, I kind of wish we’d go back to the term “Japanamation,” which I so proudly learned in my adolescence. (I’m old.) It made clear that all we were really talking about was animation from another country, and it doesn’t take much to realize how broad that umbrella is. But I suppose we’ve rejected that title because using an actual Japanese word feels more culturally inclusive, even if we’re using it in a more exclusive way than the Japanese do.