I don't know what you mean by anime is not art, but I would say cartoons and comics aren't usually art to me. I'd say you could take an anime styled character and draw/paint them in a very artistic way though. And it's better if it's an original character or at least an original way of portraying the character. But plain anime characters are more like doodles to me. As far as the cartoons/comics, they usually seem really cheesy to me. Not just anime but western too. I mean some comics can be considered art more so because of the literature, rather than the drawings.