It floods through the Internet and provides a financial backbone for the Japanese film industry. Yet say the word “anime” and you might get a confused reaction from even the most religious cinephiles.

But anime (a.k.a. Japanese animation, or Japanimation) has garnered a near religious following here in the United States, inspiring legions of rabid fans who utterly worship the personas that stem from this unusually popular — and eye-catching — filmmaking style.

Its worldwide popularity ranks alongside — and likely surpasses — Disney animation, which many critics complain has become stale and drab, while even the most recent works from anime masters freshly interweave complex, challenging and often downright confusing storylines with dazzling visuals.

The anime craze in the United States comes off a tsunami of merchandise related to such children’s TV and film series such as Pokemon and Yu Gi Oh! Film cults worldwide cherish the beloved futuristic sci-fi outing, Akira, Japan’s unofficial answer to Blade Runner.

But what brings these visuals to life? The answer may surprise you.

Many of the top anime masters — most notably Hayao Miyazaki, whose films My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and the recent 2002 release Spirited Away have become instant classics — animate their stories largely by hand.

The tradition hearkens back to the earliest days when Disney animators would draw individual cell frames by hand, paying meticulous attention to color and composition, without the immeasurable aid of the computer.

Characters often share similar features, from saucer-plate eyes to large mouths, with a riot of color and texture in the background.

Japanese animators mimic this process by drawing thousands of cells, paying crisp attention to such details as the specific texture of an individual blade of grass — a minute detail that becomes a powerful visual when magnified on silver screen.

It is a traditional drawing style that many cinema pundits believe is in competition with the 3-D computer wizardry pioneered by Pixar Studios (Toy Story, Monsters Inc.) and DreamWorks (Shrek). Recent Disney films mostly utilizing “traditional” cell-animation techniques have not been successful at the box office, while computer-animated films have almost all been mammoth hits.

But across the globe, anime’s popularity, akin to its graphic-novel counterpart, has not dwindled in light of progressive animation techniques, as it accounts for approximately one-third of the Japanese film industry.

So how does it remain so popular? Well, for starters, Japanese animators embrace virtually all subjects and genres not simply strange science fiction. Grave of the Fireflies powerfully depicts how a brother and his sister combat malnutrition during World War II.

Metropolis takes a typical sci-fi storyline and combines it with state-of-the-art computer animation and used a Dixieland jazz music score.

While some anime is incredibly violent and sexual, much of it ranges from simple human stories to the enchanting fantasy of Miyazaki (whose Spirited Away is favored to be nominated and likely win this year’s best-animated-film Oscar).

But one thing is clear: In a film industry where the dramatic standards of most live-action films have fallen to insufferable lows, the vibrancy and sheer inventiveness of Japanese animators promises to further extend the imaginations of moviegoers for ages.