Thread: How do you guys feel about the state of American animation?

To be honest American animation has never been good. Sure there's a few gems on television but even as a child I always chose Japanese animation over anything else. I thought a lot about this recently and I think its a culture factor that makes this so.

Why don't we have compelling storylines? Why do we over rely on lame jokes to repalce true animation? I can't speak for all japanese animation, but I feel if these things exist in cartoons, anime is the place to find it.

I think American culture doesn't accept animation as an acceptable medium for serious ideas. Partly because its squarely targeted at children.

Or could it be it's just simply expensive to make animation? Is this the reason behind all the live shows that have popped up over the years? Disney anyone?

The old Warner Brothers cartoons dominated, then the 60's and 70's Saturday morning cartoons were the best ever, and now South Park and The Family Guy are the greatest.

By the way, the younger people here probably aren't that familiar with the idea of Saturday morning cartoons. There were tons of great ones. They would start showing on all three networks (Those, PBS, and UHF were all anybody got until HBO came out in the late 70's) soon after sunrise and be on until about 11 a.m. The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show came on for an hour and a half every Saturday morning, and it was the king of the Saturday morning cartoon shows.

>implying most anime isn't derived from distorted/exaggerated Western influence

Originally Posted by Abra

>implying most anime isn't derived from distorted/exaggerated Western influence

So what?

If Anime is better than western anime now, that's what matters.

Who cared what the influences are, it's about the quality now.

Children's animation was pretty good when I was that age, stuff like Hey arnold, Rocko's Modern Life, Doug... but I've seen my friend's little brother watching it nowadays and frankly it sucks.

Some animation nowadays is pretty good, South Park, Family Guy (to an extent), even shows like ATHF and Metalocalypse.

As far as over all quality, I really can't stand America's animation. Somebody go turn on nicktoons one day. You'll be disgusted by sloppy ugly animation and character design. The voices are almost always annoying. With all teh characters having high pitched nasal voices, whereas the main characters are the one's that actually have good voice actors.

I'm also not very fond of this new flash animation used in south park, and family guy. It's very dull and tasteless.

Not to mention the content. They are all dull and stupid, imo, and an insult to intelligence.

I myself much prefer japanimation (or anime) to american cartoons.

Generally better voices, better plots, usually farily well directed, and ometimes with very catchy soundtracks.

Bambi, Dumbo, snow white and the seven dwarves, pinocchio, fantasia, cinderlla, alice in wonderland, sleeping beauty, the sword in the stone, the jungle book, aladdin, beauty and the beast, the little mermaid. You know I could keep going on and on, but I am just trying to make a point. Not only are all of the above considered classics, unless your really young, you probably seen every single one of them.

I would say there was a ton of good cartoons when I was a kid as well, and there is still today. The only way japanise animation is better than the US, is that it has more shows focused on adults, while US animation still goes mostly towards younger people. Though we do have adult stuff, and the stuff made for children, is often good enough for adults. In fact, we are way better at making family stuff, that adults and their children can watch together. We are also better in most ways for comedies.

Now if you want violent story telling, japanise animation is the place to go. Also to be fair, they probably put out far more of stuff. So you get far more junk anime than anything else, but mixed in with the junk there is a lot of good stuff. Its just because they make so much though.

Have to remeber, by the time anime gets over here, most of the junk gets filtered out(though there is still some bad stuff).

Almost all american adult cartoons continue the same old status quo of the american apathetic attitude, that life doesn't matter and watching a teenage girl get beaten by her father is funny. There are so many other forms of entertainment besides base and immoral humor. Family guy has gone way down hill, it's become way too much like south park. And south park is shit.

I wouldn't mind so much if it was just few shitty apathetic cartoons here and there, but virtually all american adult cartoons are like this now. There is virtually no diversity in the american adult cartoon scene.

There are so many genres you see in ADULT japanese cartoons that you don't see in adult american cartoons. Theres:
1. Drama
2. Horror - okay yeah we've got horrific south park, but we don't got straight out classical horror. I don't like horrors, but the Japanese know their horrors.
3. Romantic Comedies and Soap Operas. Their soaps actually rival latin countries! AND ITS A CARTOON
4. Fantasy Adventure Realism - compared to Ventura Brothers which retains cartoon sillyness, where you can kill a character, but in the next episode they can figure out some stupid reason why this character didn't actually die. I'm not dissing Venture Brothers, I'm just saying, it's 'silly'.
5. TRADITIONAL Sci-fis. What does this mean? The traditional sci-fi messes with your head, and shows you a possible and real future. But what makes the traditional sci-fi what it is, is how it fills you with ideas you never thought of before. It's not a good sci-fi if it doesn't make you think or question. Though rare gems, the japaense have proven to know their Sci-fi. Where are the american sci-fi cartoons that even come close? We don't have them!! That's sad, just sad.
6. Surreal - like Paranoia Agent. The cartoon ISN'T what it appears to be. Surreal is mature but dream like, sometimes trippy. Sure we have straight out trippy cartoons, but surreal animations retain meaning. Paranoia Agent is trippy and meaningful.

Why are we lacking in these genres in our adult cartoons? Why are virtually all adult american cartoons base immoral humor?

The problem with all american cartoons being completely apathetic is it completely dumbs real life problems so much, you can almost pretend these problems don't exist. I mean, that's the whole reason why you watch them right? Its Idiocracy in the making . Sure ignorance and laughing at real life issues must feel like bliss, but the world is in a real crises right now and it doesn't help that these cartoons actually keep americans apathetic and retarded. Apathy is the reason why america is failing to change for the better.

Probably the only good adult cartoon that's able retain humor, entertainment, and still address problems as REALITY is Boondocks.

My rant is mostly about ADULT cartoons

The only recent kids cartoon Ive seen was Avatar the Last Air Bender. It was awesome! It was awesome because it understood that america was lacking fantasy adventure REALISM. Even though it was originally aired for kids - the average fantard is actually an adult. Why? Because it was a mature and sophisticated cartoon. It applied a huge range of elements : romance, comedy, adventure, fantasy, mythology and realism to make it meaningful.

Characters grew, developed, and changed. How important is this realism? It keeps the viewers HUMAN. If in family guy Meg gets raped or beaten people just laugh. When if something like this were to happen to their own family member it would actually be tramautizing and nothing short of funny. The realism keeps you human. In Avatar the Last Airbender, if Katara was raped and abused - fans would be shocked, angry, confused, some would even cry or scream. Their emotions would retain humanity.

America needs more realism in it's cartoons because apathy in every form needs to end!