Will Serious Western animation ever rival Serious Eastern animation?

A

anamara_88

New member
What I mean is western cartoons ever be more than for kids besides comedies like the Simpsons, family guy etc.? Like cartoon dramas or action that are more targeted towards teenagers or young adults.
 
It's main purpose was to be a shonen fighting story where the hero (who gained his powers in an homage to Hellraiser) used games and mind rape to fight his enemies. One such story involved an homage to Magic: The Gathering, and that one story and the character it introduced (Seto Kaiba) became extremely popular, so he brought both back for another story arc that was supposed to be the end of the whole cardgame routine. But this arc also turned out to be exceedingly popular, and the fans wanted more. So eventually, the card game took over and Kaiba became a recurring anti-hero.



Where did I say that? I'm just saying that every time I turn on a random episode, it happens to be one of the lame ones. And I've been watching for a while now.



That's...pretty simplistic for fight choreography. Blood and violence do not equal a good fight scene.
 
Which really depends on the series, in case you didn't notice. I don't really care if Gundam 00 uses more limited animation for its talking scenes as long as I get those sweet and intense battle scenes.
 
I know, but once the "Magic and Wizards" aspect was brought up late in the early manga (third episode in Toei anime), it went downhill for the shonen fighting with mind games, and uphill for merchandising card games. I have been into the series for awhile, I know quite a bit about it, and its flaws. If the card game wasn't as popular, then it might not have made it to America, especially the way it did, and would have been more akin to the season 0 anime, and probably licensed not for kids. And most of us wouldn't have found it, because we all mostly found it on KidsWB.
 
Not my point, my point is a show being darker and edgier doesn't make it good and for all the good dark action shows that make into the west from Japan, there about thousand that really suck.

Surgeon's Law people, the majority of any product from an entertainment genre is going to suck and anime is no exception. We may get the best of anime here in the west, but that doesn't mean there is a ton crap back in Japan we never see.
 
I actually brought those videos up in response to this, explaining anime is actually less animation quality.



But this quote can clear up the topic changing in a better way than the title is the reason
 
Probably not. We are limited to only comedy, like South Park, Family Guy, Simposns, etc. shows that "Eastern" (I think you thought of Japan, but all) would love to have.
 
Missed this one:



Yeah...a sniper. You do know that's cheating, right? You know what happens to those who cheat against Yugi, right? You are aware that the holograms are just a means for regular people to imitate a power Yugi already had, right?

Your hypothetical sniper would probably be either dead or scribbling on the walls.
 
Um.. yes.. I know that, but it does not have to do with the original question, which clearly referred to audience and genre types of series and not the technical aspects of animation quality. Pretty much anyone who watches anime and is older than 16/17 knows this.

The only reason for the late age notice is that high framerate is often, IMO, unnoticed for the things american animation usually uses it to do, which is usually gags, and exaggerated expressions/poses.

And I`m sorry, but you can`t expect to title a Video "Why anime sucks!" and have people NOT take it as inflammatory and/or trollish. "Criticism of anime" would have been a much more effective title if he was truly not trying to flame.
 
He was going for the stadegy extreamist anime fans do when they poke fun at how American animation is bad. They name their videos "Anime better than American Animation, American Animation sucks (explicitive)", so to attract viewers, he says that. Viewers see what he meant to do, and find it informative.

I originally posted as the second post, that America is doomed to comedy animation, like South Park or Family Guy, and serious drama is usually going to be limited to movies like "9".
 
Yeah, Yugi (Atem really) would just dodge it, then say "The doors of the underworld are opened" (forgot the exact workds) and the sniper would be shot with bullets from his insides, and the game would end, no victor.
 
That depends. There were shows like Justice League that definitely reached out to the older audience. However, as long as the stigma of 'cartoons for kids' exists, it going to take a special type of show to do the job. It has to have content that doesn't get people thinking that could be just as easily done in live-action.
 
Debatable.

It's true Avatar was planned from start to finish since the beginning (baring the radical changes they made overtime), but DP does have an overall arc; it centered around a coming-of-age tale about a boy who learns to mature and gain responsibilities for himself and the powers he was given. That was the central plot. It's just along the way, other characters and stories developed as well.

Though Hartman and the new writers probably did not have an intentional finale until the cancellation forced them to make one, Steve Marmel, the original story planner DID. He didn't plan it from beginning to end like the creators of Avatar, but he planned ahead. Unfortunately, he was fired before he could bring it all in.



I think it's less about them beating up baddies as how the plot forces them to creativity counter their enemies. The overall gimmick may be tedious, but depending on how they do it, the execution isn't. Personally, JLU had some killer good results from such a concept.
 
Glad the original misconception is out of the way. Let's hope a mod changes the topic title.

"9" was actually running through my head when I read the initial question. That's a perfect example of what we need more of in american animation, only in serial form. I am not sayign what we have now is bad, but I am saying that american animation should have more genres than "kids comedy, Kids action, Adult comedy".

A lot of the american series people mentioned are, although good series, most of them are "toned down" from their comic source material to be kid-appropriate. Most mature, non-comedic american animation is in movies though, unfortunately.

I`d love a serious wolverine/Hulk/Thor/Marvel series done like the "Hulk vs." movie, only on TV. It's strange that for marvel to make a serious series using their charachters, they had to go to anime. That's not a slam against american animation, but I actually think it's sad, in a way, that an originally american comic book series, even after all these years, still isn`t allowed to be made mature(and by mature I mean not for kids, but for teens/adults)/non-comedy american animation in series form.
 
The only thing that cartoons have had that has come close to drama was the episode of Gargoyles where gargoyle x shoots that girl, while playing with the gun. Movies seem to be where most mature cartoons appear, unfortunalty, and Gargoyles was no exception, no movie led to no content like that again. The scene was censored in future airings, and even on the DVD release.
 
Wow, this topic got really off-topic.

To me, I find a lot of Western cartoons very predictable. If the plot is to defeat a big villain, you know that's gonna happen, because they're making shows for children, and they don't want to upset them by having the main character die/lose. Like in W.I.T.C.H. and Avatar you knew how the ending would end. Even though it is interesting to see how they get there.

Some/most action anime are unpredictable on their endings... There's Code Geass, Elfen Lied, Gundam series, etc. Though there are some predictable, generic ones as well. >_>
 
I'd think that shows like Wolverine & The X-Men and The Spectacular Spider-Man fit that bill. You might argue that the X-Men and Spider-Man films prove otherwise, but since television programs get a smaller budget than movies, animation is a better way to make the sci-fi elements and stunts look real.

I mean on a TV Show budget could Superman's fight with Darkseid be done convincingly in live action?
 
Back
Top