User blog comment:Omega natsu2/Chapter 367: Jellal vs. Oración Seis, Predictions./@comment-5303512-20140110020220/@comment-4829046-20140110171135

Well... there is a reason that it is a "term that seems to have arisen in the 1970s, apparently based on French animé "animated, lively, roused," from the same root as English animate (adj.). Probably taken into Japanese from a phrase such as dessin animé "cartoon," literally "animated design," with the adjective abstracted or mistaken, due to its position, as a noun. "