Defining "anime" (was Re: Yasui Yoshio's anime book E+J)

[junji yoshida]

Dear everybody,
Anime is definitely an interesting topic though I am hardly familiar with
its history.  At the risk of disclosing my own ignorance, let me please ask
a few questions regarding a recent discussion of anime on KineJapan: 

At 9:25 AM 4/23/99 -0500, Abe-Nornes wrote:
 But "anime" is defined as the newest of the new, and perhaps this
justifies a turn from the past...from films, from >early television, and
from theory. 

Can "a turn from theory," among others, be truly justified by defining
"anime" as the newest of the new?   I am not exactly sure what "a turn from
theory" means here, but why does it need to be imagined as something
justifiable in the first place?  Is such a justification desirable and
helpful to our understanding of anime or to anime itself?  Can anybody help
me to understand where -- what discourse -- this interestingly fraught
relationship between anime and theory is coming from?   

Junji Yoshida  @ UO