Manga killing western animation?

[Kit]

I've just been going through a bunch of animated features for dc and marvel and it's all ****e manga action. I don't mind it but mixing it with batman and the like is perhaps the daftest idea I've seen. You can't go all dark and gritty when you have some kid with a ****ing giant head and eyes wondering around. Also, due to all this manga stuff the action is totally exaggerated. Every movement looks like a ****ing 10 trillion frame energy punch. It's awful.

It's not like I hate it in and of itself - I loved ghost in the shell, street fighter the animated film etc it just blends so, so badly with the comicbook stuff and it's kind of off putting.

/moan

Thoughts?

[teddymeow]

You mean anime, right?

Manga is printed comics.

Sorry.

/Pedant mode over

[Asura]

It only kills western animation when it's done badly.

Avatar: The Last Airbender managed to balance Western and Eastern styles of animation really well. The mix is quite unique and very entertaining.

[Tobal]

You make it sound it like all western cartoons where good to begin with, I enjoyed the like of turtles, heman, bravestar and transformers

->Open Spoiler<-

(gobots)

when I was kid but seeing them now they look like crap, reuse a lot of stock footage, never had any over arcing story and come off as a toy commercial. Now there are certainly exceptions to the rules, as you had Batman, spiderman, Wheeled Warriors, Ulysses and Nic's "comedy" cartoons like ren and Stimpy, Rocko modern life.

But as I look at it now it seems to be either toy commercial using an "anime" style poorly because its cheap to not have to draw detail and most of the people now making decent shows all grew up on Ren and Stimpy so we have people aping that adult humour with a nod and wink like Sponge bob, gravity falls, then on the other end is adult stuff like simpsons, south park and family guy(urgh), dominate shows all about comedy/satire, so there little room for any TV exec to clear even a small budget for anything that isn't already a brand or to sell a toy, and Disney killing traditional 2D to chase the bigger (cheaper) bucks found in 3D doesn't help either.

[bash]

American cartoons are overated, WB batman and DC universe stuff is amazing as is Avatar and Samurai Jack.

If TMNT or Thundercats animation quality was on par with their opening credits I might have said differently. The problem is you go back to these ol skool shows and they're sooooo geared towards selling toys it gets in the way of the plots. He-man cracks me up now purely down to Skeletors camp factor being so high!

[noobish hat]

Avatar and Samurai Jack are both clearly inspired by anime and Thundercats was animated by a Japanese company.

The anime-ification of non-Japanese cartoons is very sad. American stuff that adopts the anime style usually looks like crap in comparison to the top Japanese artists/animators and has no identity of its own.

[PaTaito]

anemrican cartoons havent been anywhere near the japanese stuff since the old, OLD WB days.

[QualityChimp]

I didn't realise J. Michael Straczynski wrote most of Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors.

I thought all Western cartoons were farmed out to South Korea anyway?

[Asura]

I didn't realise J. Michael Straczynski wrote most of Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors.

Yep. Thats where he got the ideas for the bio-engineered race in B5.

I thought all Western cartoons were farmed out to South Korea anyway?

Yes and no. There are levels of involvement from both sides.

Often American cartoons are sent to the Korean animation houses in animatic form, so the Koreans have little creative input. There's an episode of Futurama on one of the DVDs where you can watch the video they send to Korea; it's very illuminating.

[Lebowski]

i would hold up Adventure time as a really unique and excellent take on western animation. I've never seen a kids show with so many complex characters and story lines, dealing with love, loss, depression, and tackling subjects like alzheimer's, abandonment, and wayward parents. the recent episodes where Fin try's to reunite with his dad only to realise the guys a complete arse was very well played out.

then it goes and dose something really random like the snow golem and firewolf episode "thankyou" it hits you right in the feels with its tail of strange friendship between two creatures that instinctively hate each other.

[Guts]

I'm more pissed off that anime killed anime. These days it's pretty much s***. What happened to the badass, cool anime from the 80's and 90's? Now it's just some teenage, schoolgirl mo? garbage which looks like s*** because it's all cheap CGI.

[danholo]

You make it sound it like all western cartoons where good to begin with, I enjoyed the like of turtles, heman, bravestar and transformers

->Open Spoiler<-

(gobots)

when I was kid but seeing them now they look like crap, reuse a lot of stock footage, never had any over arcing story and come off as a toy commercial. Now there are certainly exceptions to the rules, as you had Batman, spiderman, Wheeled Warriors, Ulysses and Nic's "comedy" cartoons like ren and Stimpy, Rocko modern life.

But as I look at it now it seems to be either toy commercial using an "anime" style poorly because its cheap to not have to draw detail and most of the people now making decent shows all grew up on Ren and Stimpy so we have people aping that adult humour with a nod and wink like Sponge bob, gravity falls, then on the other end is adult stuff like simpsons, south park and family guy(urgh), dominate shows all about comedy/satire, so there little room for any TV exec to clear even a small budget for anything that isn't already a brand or to sell a toy, and Disney killing traditional 2D to chase the bigger (cheaper) bucks found in 3D doesn't help either.

I agree. I've been watching some Transformers from the eighties and apart from the movie, the show is terrible. The animation is crap; the Transformers change sizes all the time, the colors are off and the story, if there is any, is lame. The idea is cool though, so I don't understand the flak Michael Bay is getting by 'ruining our childhoods' that weren't actually so great to begin with. Crap shows, crap movies but awesome nonetheless!

I'm more pissed off that anime killed anime. These days it's pretty much s***. What happened to the badass, cool anime from the 80's and 90's? Now it's just some teenage, schoolgirl mo? garbage which looks like s*** because it's all cheap CGI.

True, I guess. But truth be told, there's always good and bad every generation. Attack of Titan might not be as great as what you remember but it's pretty good. Certainly not teenager, schoolgirl garbage. There's an audience for everything.

[Tobal]

I'm more pissed off that anime killed anime. These days it's pretty much s***. What happened to the badass, cool anime from the 80's and 90's? Now it's just some teenage, schoolgirl mo? garbage which looks like s*** because it's all cheap CGI.

Hardly, its like saying all western animation is comedy/satire. And just like I mentioned before with western shows the 80/90s anime had its fair share of crap, your only remembering the highlights.

[PaTaito]

I'm more pissed off that anime killed anime. These days it's pretty much s***. What happened to the badass, cool anime from the 80's and 90's? Now it's just some teenage, schoolgirl mo? garbage which looks like s*** because it's all cheap CGI.

While i definately don't agree that anime isnt cool these days, i do agree on the cgi part.

80's/90's fully hand drawn stuff seemed so much more vivid and lovely.

Also my top 5 list are all from the 80's/early 90's...

However i just think anime has matured these days, so while it maybe doesn't excite in the same way, its good in various different ways.

[speedlolita]

I think it is just you guys that have changed.

Perhaps, shows you would like don't get as much exposure as they would have in the past but those shows do still exist.