An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn (or made with computers to look similar to something hand-drawn) moving picture for the cinema, TV or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot.

Animation is the optical illusion of motion created by the consecutive display of images of static elements. In film and video production, this refers to techniques by which each frame of a film or movie is produced individually. Computer animation is the art of creating moving images via the use of computers. It is a subfield of computer graphics and animation. Anime is a medium of animation originating in Japan, with distinctive character and background aesthetics that visually set it apart from other forms of animation. An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn (or made with computers to look similar to something hand-drawn) moving picture for the cinema, TV or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot (even if it is a very short one). Manga is the Japanese word for comics and print cartoons. Outside of Japan, it usually refers specifically to Japanese comics. Special effects (abbreviated SPFX or SFX) are used in the film, television, and entertainment industry to visualize scenes that cannot be achieved by normal means, such as space travel. Stop motion is a generic gereral term for an animation technique which makes static objects appear to move.