Anime is, however, also a spawn of manga, which dates back to as far as the 900s AD. Like political cartoons, ancient Japanese artists would express themselves in pictures, sometime with anthropomorphic animal characters (humanoid animals). The subjects, however ranged from illustrated Bhuddist scrolls to Novels, and in the olden days were only for the elite and rich as the printed silk scrolls were expensive (like some manga today *grumble*).

Anime and manga, like their ancient predecessors, also cover a wide array of subjects, genres, and most importantly, audiences. Unlike American and other Western cartoons, anime and manga are mostly geared towards older audiences, save some shoujo series and such, and hold themes to rival that of some movies and science fiction novels. (In fact, some anime and manga would get ratings of R or even X.) However, the wide variety of anime and manga usually means there is something for everyone, and to find such (more adult) rated material one usually has to go looking for it.