User blog comment:Magma MK-II/Characters that shouldn't be here, Part 4: Electric Boogaloo/@comment-25008763-20160112134608/@comment-366087-20160125144530

Okay, let's examine the varied motivations behind killing. If you, a human, live in the wild far removed from any stores where food has been obtained and packaged for you… if you pick up a gun, fishing pole, or other weapon of any sort—or even set traps—to procure animals as food for yourself and possible family… are you being evil?
 * No, if your motivation is sustenance and you consume most of what you kill
 * Yes, if your motivation is not only sport but you cannot possibly eat all you kill

Now, most animals kill for sustenance. Very few kill for "sport"—the alleged "maneaters".
 * Shows which depict animals acting as animals are generally presented as sustenance-killers. Natural to the Food Chain and Cycle of Life. Not Evil or Wicked
 * SOME stories present kills which were not for food, but out of "animal rage" and savagery. Unnatural to the Food Chain and Cycle of Life. Higher-to-outright quotient of wicked- and Evilness

And that's without figuring in if the prey are sentient or not. And since non-sentient non-anthro animals are incapable of evaluating sentient levels of their prey, it removes from them any Evil or Wickedness to their actions except possibly where they are Raging in a manner abnormal to their nature.

As for your examples of Kaa and Thunderclap, and I say Sharptooth who doesn't talk, they are anthropomorphic in that they have been attributed with human-like reasoning and motivations. Not simply because they talk, but because they have been made relatable-to-human-audience. That's all that's needed for Anthro'ing; IRL pet owners have been doing that for years. Sure talking and "humanish" bodies and movement (on 2 feet, etc) make them even more relatable, but that's just cartoony goodness gravy.

As a sidebar, I think the distinction between "Animated" and "Cartoon" lays in the degree of anthropomorphizing. Tom & Jerry routinely are presented shifting between "normal" animals and "human like", going not only from all fours to upright, but able to use tools in a fashion the animals they are based on cannot. For example using a bow and arrow. So, Cartoon. While 101 Dalmatians, despite being animated, are consistently presented as very much in keeping with what RL dogs can do. At most using their mouths and teeth instead of "paws-as-hands". So, Animated.

These are of course not industry definitions, but perhaps would service this wikia for sake of categorizations.