Anime: Definition (by me)

At last, I´m going to talk about things I´ve learned and some questions I have about anime. (Open to corrections).

Let´s see, if you landed on this page I suppose you already have a notion of what anime is and that it comes from japan (although in this last years there are works made by americans with japanese). Yes, it´s animation (cartoons, Humm, maybe?) but far more diverse and for a more general audience than convential western animation, based on a unique style of drawing (to my opinion).

I was reading a book and it says that although it comes from japan some (SOME) of their ideas came from american animation, stuff made by disney and characters like Betty Boop, which (if my memory is not failing me) incentivated the idea of using big eyes for their drawings. The great thing about this japanese adaptation of animation was that it took some really good elements and made them even greater turning it into a major industry. The name Tezuka seems to appear everywhere related to the start of japanimation.

I thought that Astro boy was the first anime, but apparently there were more before that. Do your own research :p.

Japanese animation has genres to cover for any necessity. You want action? you want cute? you want romance? you want comedy? you want ….? yeah! it has everything!. So far the genres I remember are : Shounen (means «boy» so it’s mostly action for boys) , shoho (means «girl» so it’s stuff for girls), maho shoho (magical girl, like cardcaptor sakura, get it?), Meca (about robots, it falls like a subgenre of shounen) , Yuri (girls that like girls),….yeah, these guys are naughty haha…..hentai (adult content XXX) , Ecchi (not as strong or explicit as hentai, mostly insinuation), slice of life (uh…I’m not quite sure what this is about, but i´ve seen it mentioned in some blogs), and others. 

Let´s leave this first post of «acquired knowledge» here. For a more decent definition and explanation about the concepts in anime read about it in wikipedia.

And now I have a couple of questions for otakus out there:

1. Why is it that in many animes kids have lost one of their parents or live alone? Is it just in anime or is it a reflection of some phenomenon in Japan? 

2. Why is it that some female characters appear with a vampire-like sharp teeth that shows out of their mouth or cats ears?. Is it just fanservice or does it say something about the characters personality?

3. Why is it that in most animes that develop in a school shows the kids hanging out on the roof top? Is that a normal thing in japan? Is it reflecting something of the characters?
Recommended research words: Anime , Osamu Tezuka