A theory on the current Animation Ghetto.
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I would argue that western animation can have and have done mature storylines, even if it is directed towards children. Re-watch some of the more famous western animation shows. Shows like all of the DC Animated Universe, Avatar: the Last Airbender, and others have shown, in my opinion, a mature storytelling without being entirely for kids.
However, as for an adult-related mature show, I don't think that any exist as a series. However, as noted by previous posters, there are plenty of adult-related (I hate that term by the way, it sounds like I'm talking about porn for some reason) movies out there. You just have to look for them.
Also: for those who are saying that now days anime is mostly stupid pandering to the base, anime (and most other mediums for that matter) always pander to the base. Have you seen a lot of the shows that were released in that time period, not all were that good. Heck, many weren't. We just remember the gems that existed. I would argue that even now, there are plenty of good anime for a mature audience that exist (Stuff like Ergo Proxy, Magica, etc). Of course, this is just my opinion so I could be wrong.
However, as for an adult-related mature show, I don't think that any exist as a series. However, as noted by previous posters, there are plenty of adult-related (I hate that term by the way, it sounds like I'm talking about porn for some reason) movies out there. You just have to look for them.
Also: for those who are saying that now days anime is mostly stupid pandering to the base, anime (and most other mediums for that matter) always pander to the base. Have you seen a lot of the shows that were released in that time period, not all were that good. Heck, many weren't. We just remember the gems that existed. I would argue that even now, there are plenty of good anime for a mature audience that exist (Stuff like Ergo Proxy, Magica, etc). Of course, this is just my opinion so I could be wrong.
The thing with...well, The Thing, is that the best of the best worked on that movie. Even then, the effects had to be handled with enough care so that they didn't become static and hokey. There are two scenes in particular when I think the lost that: a crane shot of the Thing-dog fully bloated in which near the end of the shot, it stopped really moving well, and in an instant, it looked more to me like it had cheap animatronics in it. The other is when the one guy in the chair goes Thing because his blood is burned and he gobbles down another guy. The flopping dummy they used for the guy being eating completely destroyed that scene, for me.The_Waspman said:
I grew up in the 90's and was exposed to 2D, stop-motion, practical effects, and the advent of widespread CGI, so I guess I became sorta desensitized to the idea of effects. Absolutely no effects are what I would consider "convincing". I always know its an effect, but I never let it get in the way of enjoying the movie unless I find the effects to be poorly executed.
For me, its all about how the effects interact with the actors and environments. If the world I'm watching isn't convinced that the effects are there, then neither am I. Interaction is what I think is the key. Ex: The fight between Sinbad and the Harryhausen skeleton in the first Sinbad movie(I believe) is so well rehearsed that the actor knew how to fight an invisible opponent. With the stop-motion added later, I think the fight is wonderful(though I thought the music sucked). Then we get to Jason and the Argonauts and its celebrated multi-skeleton fight...I honestly think half the live actors really phoned it in. Half of them lack the intensity and focus when it comes to sword fighting and the animation far upstages them. I was not convinced that several of those people were fighting reanimated skeletons.
I guess all I'm saying is that any effects have be just as well crafted as the other. CG or not. I, for one, am used to CG. But clearly, others aren't.
I wasn't mainly talking about adult 80's animation, I was more focused on the content aimed towards children. The 80's theatrical scene was rather sparse, I'd say, but I think 80's TV animation played the far bigger role in subsequent mindset about animation. Yes, I admitted, it got its start in the 70's, but the 80's gave a whole new way to dismiss animation. That is the point of my theory.MelasZepheos said:
Eh. Just an okay movie to me. Didn't find much memorable about it. Couldn't stand the villain. I like Vincent Price, but I think Ratigan had too lame a plan, and was overall not as smart and devious as I thought he should have been. I personally thought he was utilized better in The Thief and the Cobbler.
Actually, Gainax was inspired to do that anime after looking at Drawn Together, and how much vile content was actually aired on American TV. Personally, I find Drawn Together to be probably the most hit and miss show I've ever seen. Half the time, the humor is well-timed and outrageous. The other half, it either goes too far over the line, or goes for the obvious cheap laugh.Ivi942 said:
I thought Panty and Stocking had a better hit rate per joke per episode. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I look forward to Funimation's release of it here.
I've also heard rumors that Gainax even had Gendy Tartakovsky come in as part of the creative team, but I'm not sure that actually happened. Anyway, the art looks more like Craig McKracken than Gendy.
Good to see that Madhouse is getting some recognition here, I consider them severely underrated.
I'm under the impression that PSG is Gainax's experiment at emulating American cartoons in both animation and humor, and they succeeded almost too well so to speak (mind you, I don't hold anything against the show for this).Ivi942 said:
Actually, I don't think that anime is becoming less mature.Casual Shinji said:
First of all, it's not exactly true that Anime was ever outside the ghetto. They also have their own dismissive attitudes about animation in the mainstream.
It's just more similar to the american comic book ghetto: Instead of saying that mature animation should not exist at all, they allow it to exist, but like Marvel and DC comics, they are limiting it to the "obsessive nerds living in their parents' basements" types instead of a mainstream population of millions, with only a few exceptions.
Even a decade ago, the "otaku" stereotype already existed, the only reason why some classic anime look exceptionally mature to us, is because at the time, the industry happened to be going through a "let's make everything look like an american action movie, with lots of guns, stubbled badasses, and hot seductive women" phase, that resonated with westerners as very mainstream, even though for them, that was just a fad, a deviation from default Japanese interests.
Modern anime rarely has gun violence, and it has more immature looking character designs, and cuteness, but cuteness is pretty mainstream in Japan, even with adults and with males, the fact that modern anime looks that way isn't actually a sign that it's now made for kids, it's made for the same target audience as it used to be.
Teenage-pandering fluff anime has been present throughout the 80's and 90's, with Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon, but now that's all anime seems to be.Alterego-X said:
And I wouldn't call Akira and Ghost in the Shell anime that's marketed towards the American action movie lovers, far from it. The Street Fighter 2 anime, sure, but not these two films. Next you're going to tell me that Robot Carnaval, Neo Tokyo Labyrinth, and Memories were part of the "let's make everything look like an American action movie" phase, too.
These movies were made with one idea in mind; Let's make some groundbreaking animated splendour. And this mentality seems to fucking vanished from Japan.
That can be disproved just by looking at the surrently running Spring 2012 TV season. There are barely any mainstream shonen and shoujo cartoons, it's full of late night otaku-anime, aimed at adults, and in terms of profitability, entirely reliant on selling ridiculously expensive disks for collectors.Casual Shinji said:
Sakamichi No Apollon, Nazo no Kanojo X, Acchi Kocchi, Jormungand, are all based on Josei or Seinen manga. And these are just the ones from the top of my head that are manga adaptations, so we can OFFICIALLY state that they are aimed at adults. As I said, a bunch of others are also aimed at them, as it can be inferred from their business model.
Sure, some of these are comical, or lighthearted, but this has nothing to do with maturity. It's just a different trend. You would be resorting to stereotypes if you say that only grimdark badassery is mature.
And what does "animated splendour" even mean? If you are talking about visual quality, we have Studio SHAFT's abstract surrealism, or KyoAni's gorgeous backround sceneries.
Casual Shinji said:
Getting a little off topic here, I know, but I agree that there are practical elements to the '82 thing that don't work well (the dummy thrashing scene being a prime example). I do beleive that CGi is very good for certain things. Inanimate objects for example. It is very good at producing cars, space ships, things like that, unfortunately, these are the things that are just as easily produced practically. Where CGI fails to stand up (in the vast majority of cases anyway) is producing flesh and blood creautres. There is just something about the movement, the way the flash/hair/whatever moves that just fails to convince.ShogunGino said:
As an example, as terrible as the film was, the first of Michael Bay's Transformers movies did a very good job at making the robots in the film at least feel real. And yet it boggles my mind that it lost the visual effects oscar to the vastly inferior The Golden Compass with the terrible cgi talking animals, none of which looked real in the slightest.
Visual Effects for me is one of those thankless jobs to work in, much like editing. The degree of success of your work is based entirely upon how little people notice it. As a digital artist, if the audience doesn't notice your work, then it is a success. Likewise with editing, if you draw so much attention to it (as a lot fo films do nowadays) then you've failed. This is one of the (many many) issues I have with Sucker Punch
Back On Topic, I'm not entirely against CG animation. For one thing, despite its flaws (mainly with the script) I thought Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was a great technical accomplishment. Maybe because it was entirely CGI, but it is one of the few CG films I've seen where elements at least looked live action (maybe not so much with the facial animation, but thats always going to be a problem, isn't it?). Similarly, I also quite enjoyed the cg version of Appleseed (again though, not because of the godawful script) and probably to a greater extent Vexille. Maybe because they (like most video games now) used motion capture, so while it may not be on the actual screen, there is an element of live action in there.
You see, a ghetto is where they place oppressed people to live among themselves separate from the rest of the world. That's kind of where animation is. A "ghetto" where only kids and there families can enjoy them and not just regular adults. The ghetto analogy works because just like there are those who come from the ghetto and become smart, successful people without making that much difference to his situation, there have been few animated works that have gained respect for their capability to be mature.Loop Stricken said:
This thread is awesome.
A lot of people have said this already, but we're slowly getting out of the ghetto ourselves. While stuff like American Dad and South Park are just comedies that pander to lower denominators (not lowest, per say. South Park actually talks about heavy stuff sometimes), they do actually help push the idea that cartoons aren't just for children.
Meanwhile, things like MLP and Adventure Time shows that even children's programing can be enjoyed by adults too.
Shows like Young Justice and Avatar show that action cartoons can have over-arching plots without being confusing for new members (same for Spectacular Spiderman...too bad they cancelled that). They also have great quality put into them as well.
So, really, the only thing we're lacking is adult programs that are like Young Justice and Avatar. If we get something like that, with good quality, then we'll pretty much have come full circle.
A lot of people have said this already, but we're slowly getting out of the ghetto ourselves. While stuff like American Dad and South Park are just comedies that pander to lower denominators (not lowest, per say. South Park actually talks about heavy stuff sometimes), they do actually help push the idea that cartoons aren't just for children.
Meanwhile, things like MLP and Adventure Time shows that even children's programing can be enjoyed by adults too.
Shows like Young Justice and Avatar show that action cartoons can have over-arching plots without being confusing for new members (same for Spectacular Spiderman...too bad they cancelled that). They also have great quality put into them as well.
So, really, the only thing we're lacking is adult programs that are like Young Justice and Avatar. If we get something like that, with good quality, then we'll pretty much have come full circle.
You have to remember that entertainment is a business. While you can make a smart, intelligent, animated show, that show is probably not going to sell a whole lot of merchandise beyond the DVD collections. If you take that same animation team and make some crappy (yet popular) kids show, on the other hand, you can make a fortune by licensing out the rights to make action figures, clothing, and other products. From a money standpoint, it's unfortunately kind of a no-brainer.
Remember the 90s, "anime is animation, but for adults! Don't call it a cartoon! It's got action, blood, guts, and cursing... adult things!" in it. Ah, being a teenager in the 90s.
Despite the fact that anime like Trigun that were used as an example of this were designed primarily for a Western audience. Meanwhile, all the anime otaku nowadays, me included, are fawning over anime like Nichijou. Or basically, Slice of Life comedy anime which are like a Japanese counterpart to adult comedies 90s kids decried about adult Western animation. Only cuter and more Japanese.
Admittedly, too much of the animation in the West that is aimed at adults, is comedy. It's kind of like how too many Western video games star macho dudes who shoot things up. It was a pretty nice idea to have this raunchy social commentary show with purposely ugly characters a while back. But that was over a decade ago. The Simpson's wore it dry as far as I'm concerned. Now that we've got all these Simpsons clones like South Park, Family Guy, American Dad, and so forth, it's a really, really old card that I think needs a break. Though that's not just an adult thing, I also agree with the mentality that animation, and American animation in particular, needs more animation with drama, if just to go along with comedy.
I like slice of life comedies with Japan because they're cute, and because I'm used to seeing drama and action in anime and want a break. And just want to laugh. With Western animation, I'm sick of all the comedy. There's well done comedy, in my opinion, like Adventure Time and The Mighty B!. But some drama would definitely be refreshing.
Oh, yes, ironically, I like the kids comedy coming out of the West rather than the adult comedy. I never liked The Simpsons, and things like Family Guy rather annoy me, too. I did like the Oblongs, though. I'm such a hipster, lol.
Despite the fact that anime like Trigun that were used as an example of this were designed primarily for a Western audience. Meanwhile, all the anime otaku nowadays, me included, are fawning over anime like Nichijou. Or basically, Slice of Life comedy anime which are like a Japanese counterpart to adult comedies 90s kids decried about adult Western animation. Only cuter and more Japanese.
Admittedly, too much of the animation in the West that is aimed at adults, is comedy. It's kind of like how too many Western video games star macho dudes who shoot things up. It was a pretty nice idea to have this raunchy social commentary show with purposely ugly characters a while back. But that was over a decade ago. The Simpson's wore it dry as far as I'm concerned. Now that we've got all these Simpsons clones like South Park, Family Guy, American Dad, and so forth, it's a really, really old card that I think needs a break. Though that's not just an adult thing, I also agree with the mentality that animation, and American animation in particular, needs more animation with drama, if just to go along with comedy.
I like slice of life comedies with Japan because they're cute, and because I'm used to seeing drama and action in anime and want a break. And just want to laugh. With Western animation, I'm sick of all the comedy. There's well done comedy, in my opinion, like Adventure Time and The Mighty B!. But some drama would definitely be refreshing.
Oh, yes, ironically, I like the kids comedy coming out of the West rather than the adult comedy. I never liked The Simpsons, and things like Family Guy rather annoy me, too. I did like the Oblongs, though. I'm such a hipster, lol.