Anime and manga terminology

Media is often put on a physical medium or in a "time slot" that does not perfectly fit, so filler is added to the material of greater relevance or quality to fill a certain time slot or physical medium.

Bishōjo (美少女, literally "beautiful girl", also spelled bishoujo) is a Japanese term used to refer to beautiful young girls, usually below young adult age.

Cosplay (コスプレ kosupure), a contraction of the words costume play, is a performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character.

An eroge (エロゲ or エロゲー erogē, pronounced [eɽoɡe]; a portmanteau of erotic game: (エロチックゲーム erochikku gēmu)) is a Japanese pornographic video game.

Fan service (ファンサービス fan sābisu), fanservice, or service cut (サービスカット sābisu katto), is material in a work of fiction or in a fictional series which is intentionally added to please the audience.

A light novel (ライトノベル raito noberu) is a style of Japanese novel primarily, but not exclusively, targeting middle- and high-school students (young adult demographic).

Lolicon (ロリコン), also romanised as lolikon or rorikon, is Japanese discourse or media focusing on the attraction to young or prepubescent girls.

Shotacon (ショタコン shotakon), short for Shōtarō complex (正太郎コンプレックス shōtarō konpurekkusu), is Japanese slang describing an attraction to young boys and is shota in manga.

Voice acting in Japan is acting as a narrator, or as an actor in radio plays, or as a character actor in anime and video games.

Kawaii (かわいい, [kaw͍aiꜜi], "lovable", "cute", or "adorable") is the quality of cuteness in the context of Japanese culture.

Bara (薔薇, "rose"), also known by the wasei-eigo construction "Men's Love" (ML メンズラブ, "menzu rabu"), is a Japanese technical term for a genre of art and fictional media that focuses on male same-sex love usually created by gay men for a gay audience.

Ōkina otomodachi (大きなお友達) is a Japanese phrase that literally means “a big friend” or “an adult friend”.

Japanese manga has developed its own visual language or iconography for expressing emotion and other internal character states.