Manga?

Manga can loosely be translated as "comic", or litterally, "involuntary pictures". The famous artist Katsushika Hokusai was the person who first used the word in the year 1814. At that time manga was painted pictures of battling samurais. but in modern time Osamu Tezuka is the man that made the first manga comic. He also made the first animated TV-serie called Tetsuwan Atom, or more known as Astro Boy, that was shown on televisions in the 60's.

Anime?

Anime comes from the english word "animation". An anime is a cartoon
that often, but not always is based upon a manga.

Style

It's easy to recognise a manga character. Big round eyes, small nose and a tiny mouth, that becomes enormous when the character laughs, is typical manga. The plot in many of the anime productions goes like this:
The main character is a 15 year old boy or a girl, who lives a normal life (well, ofcourse they don't, hehe) The person often has a super-power he/she can use to fight the bad guys, usualy demons or monsters. The story doesn't always have an happy ending, the main character can die but that is after he/she has saved the earth first =).
Not all manga/anime is based on this plot ofcourse, there are as many genres in manga as there is in the hollywood film industy, plus a few more.
Like "mecha" (from "mechanical") which is a sci-fi film with giant human- controlled robots. "Hentai" is equivalent of the adult films. Hentai means "pervert" or "abnormal". Hentai productions always is tagged with an 18 year age-limit. Speaking of age-limits, anime is divided into four different classes. PG (parental guidance), 12, 15 and 18 year. A film with an 18 years age-limit contains lot of violence, blood and/or sex.

Glossary:

Manga= a cartoon, Anime= an animated film, OAV= (Original animation video) = a movie relesed directly on video, Mecha= a sci-fi movie with big robots. Hentai= adult manga, Shoujo= "girl-manga", Shounen= "boy-manga", Otaku= a person who lives for, and only for manga. Has no contact with the outside world. Eats manga, sleeps manga and even breathes manga =).