Quote from Joese

I put anime since it was mainly animated in Asia rather than USA.

I mean, I used to think it had sense differentiating manga as stuff the came only from Japan and certain magazines. But then, there are tones of artists that do the same style and that those same magazines payed they to publish stu ...

By this logic, a lot of things are anime if being animated in Asia is the only qualifier. Including the Boondocks…(which has even more of an anime-style art than Avatar lol).

My 2c is that anime is made in Japan. There is no shame in just being a cartoon since it’s a predominately Western production despite its inspiration. I am not sure why this is so debated.

http://i.imgur.com/LxhWm.jpg (will reformat this some day…)

I view it as a RWBY situation. It’s a cartoon but has been inspired by the styles of anime. I think another good example of this is the Teen Titans 2003 cartoon. It’s also very overtly inspired by the styles of anime.

Not that it’s a bad thing either! It’s something we see a lot in Western media nowadays even. An example I wanna go with is actually Dreamworks Bad Guys, as I feel a lot of it makes me feel reminiscent of Lupin III, actually. That’s just my thoughts of it, but it was something I noticed.

Quote from calstine

It's a cartoon. There is zero logic behind calling it an anime, because neither its art nor its storytelling style or characters is even remotely anime-esque. If anything, it reminds me of a manhwa/manhua. And wasn't it produced by an American company for an American network?

Thissss

Yup, I expressed my point terribly XD.
It's just that if you consider manga/anime as a movement, I find it strange distinguishing between series that were inspired by the same source and use the same techniques/art-style, just because of where it's published.

I think the Boondocks, just as MHA or that weird batman movie, would lie in between. They are clearly classified cartoon/manga but they have many cross references. In other cases the references to both are obvious and constant like big hero 6's San Fransokyo.

As to give another example, many Korean series were inked the same as manga. Or in some cases the series was done in the authors home country, after the author had worked for the industry in Japan.

Honestly I feel stuck on this one.
Normally, I'd say it's a cartoon and not an anime because isn't from Japan, but all anime are just cartoons.
However, non-Japanese cartoons do get called anime (especially if they are from China or Korea) if they copy the style and formulas that are associated with anime closely enough. And Avatar does borrow a lot from Japanese anime, but it still feels stylistically Western at parts.

TL;DR: idk ¯_(ツ)_/¯