In its most basic form, anime refers to animation. Interestingly enough,
the name itself isn’t an abbreviation of the English word animation. Instead,
it’s how you say “animated cartoon” (written アニメ) in Japanese. To a
Japanese viewer, anime is any cartoon, whether it’s made in Japan or not.
Outside of Japan, however, the term anime has come to mean
“animation made in Japan,” or more broadly, any animated show or movie that uses
signature aspects of Japanese-style animation, like vibrant colors,
dramatic panning, and characteristic facial expressions.
And there are some of most popular genres of anime:
Shonen It's involved with superheros, ninjas or samurais.
Shoujo Is always about romances.
Seinen If you want to watch rated levels of violence and sexuality, murkier morals, and characters that are not promised any sort of absolution this is your tipe of anime.
Mecha It's about giant robots, always.
Spokon The characters are running around the sports, generally have only one per serie. You can learn things about a sport watching this pite on anime.
Slice of life It's all in the name. It's a genre containing stories that observe everyday life as it is lived by an individual or group of characters.
Yuri About homosexual women relationships.
Yaoi About homosexual men relationships.
Ecchi If it's sexy, naughty, risque, and/or flirty, it's squarely ecchi. It will never be sexual, only focuses on the comedy of being sexy.
Hentai It's litterally drawn porn, it could have a bit of story but it's focused on "that".