"Anime are children's cartoons." Fallacious?

###this came in from an anonymous source###

So, my husband, my teen-age son and I were looking up the longest running anime series. We stumbled upon one that has been around since 1969. Upon viewing photo's of the anime, my husband stated that it looked like a children's cartoon. I then retorted, "Anime are children's cartoons." Now let me explain that both of them are fully aware that I know of the different genres of anime. There are anime geared towards adults and children. However, they decided to hammer me and completely go off topic by saying I claimed that all anime were for children and then after I clarified the misunderstanding, they continued to ridicule me about semantics. Which caused me to get extremely irritated, blow up and just storm off to bed...lol. However, it was a general statement, but in context it made perfect sense. Just like if someone said "The doctor has been practicing for 25 years." Then someone responded with "but, that doctor is a woman." Then someone retorts with "Doctors are women." Even though, of course all Doctors are not women, you would think the statement is valid considering its context. I would like you to let me know what fallacies are involved in my debate with my family members. Thank you.

Thanks for sharing. Here are my observations on that exchange:

Technically, the statement "anime are children's cartoons" does imply that all Anime belong to the category "children's cartoons," just like the phrase "doctors are women" implies that all doctors belong to the category "women." Had you said, "Anime can be children's cartoons" you would have been correct. To give you another example, saying "brilliant people are men" would be wrong in so many ways, even though there are brilliant men.

Your family was acting dickish. You made your intention clear after they questioned your statement, and they proceeded to ridicule you. In debate, this could be seen as a form of ad hominem attack. Your husband's original statement that the Anime looked like a cartoon sounds to me as if he incorrectly assumed that no children's cartoons could be anime, which is factually incorrect. This ridicule for your poor wording choice sounds like an attempt to move away the focus of his more serious blunder on your more minor one (also a red-herring ).

In debate, it is important to do your best to say what you mean rather than have to later explain what you mean because the words you used didn't reflect what you meant. It is also important to be right. The implicit claim that a children's cartoon cannot be anime was the big blunder here, and next time, insist that the first blunder be addressed before moving on to the next.