From over on Antipixel, a link to Kuro5hin:
Lai Lai Boy has written a decent capsule introduction to anime over at Kuro5hin.org.
[Antipixel]
I'd agree that it's pretty decent. It's a hard topic to write about in a simple sense, since anime covers so many genres of things. I was showing a friend KareKano last night because I wanted to show her something that was a little different from what most people think of anime as. She enjoyed it so I'll make a point to show her some more of it soon.