US animation that has FAILED.

This is a list of US animation that attempts to break the barrier of the kid/teen demographic, usually by featuring more sex, violence, or "coolness" in some way. In most cases, these fail to gain any respect, yet at some point someone must have said "this will raise the bar for US animation and usher in a new era of mature, sophisticated animated films and series that can be enjoyed by the masses in an uninhibited form of creative expression that knows no bounds."

-Invasion America, short lived miniseries by Steven Spielberg, used typical WB animation but attempted to be more mature than the average saturday morning cartoon by having a somewhat serious storyline and an occasional risque comment. Nobody cared because it still looked and felt like an average WB cartoon, and wasn't particularly groundbreaking.

-Heavy Metal 2000, attempted to revive the cult hit Heavy Metal while adapting a story from its magazine. Rather than provide unique stories from multiple authors, it became a typical "testosterone-driven female kills and maims in a world full of sex and violence." Little character development or backstory (for example, her tight red outfit and cool sword simply appear with little explanation). Suffers from "trying to be hardcore" syndrome.

-Sin: the movie, based off the game, attempts to deliver an interesting and somewhat epic story in the style of anime. It actually has an interesting feminine character, and at least a little plot. But mostly its an excuse for tons of action scenes, and still suffers from "tries to be hardcore" syndrome. It also has a poor resolution, as the main villainess simply falls off camera, whispering "I'll be back if they ever make a sequel." Another strange note is the subtitles for the Japanese version have completely different dialogue in some places.

-Anastasia: Could have been a serious and dramatic period piece. Actually it was, but it was incredibly superficial and didn't address important historical issues such as death. It tries to be epic, but since it tones down and kiddifies the truth, and ends up being more like a Disney movie than anything else.

-Titan A.E: While not an adult movie, the previews at least implied it could have been en epic, serious sci-fi movie. Instead it turned into a WB style teen movie with limited plot or depth. Typical mindless unsympathetic villains, no real drama or emotion attached to the loss of Earth, and annoying attempts to be hip and cool through the middle. The amount of money spent on this and Anastasia caused the sutdio to go bankrupt.

-Final Fantasy: the Spirits within: Expectations included: Epic sci-fi movie, epic plot in the style of FF games, and a groundbreaking CGI movie that could revolutionize animated movies in the US for an older audience. Instead, it aspired to be a B-grade hollywood movie.

-The Animatrix: Eh. Some parts were cool. Not all of them were that great. Might have carried the "adult animation" genre forward, or widened its audience, but not significantly.

Movies I haven't viewed: Lady Death, Van Hellsing: The London Assignment, and Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury.

Conclusion: The animation market wants to expand to an older audience. It tries to breakthrough into the mainstream, in hopes that ones of its features will be immensely popular, create a fanbase, and make lots of money for its producers. But it hasn't, due to the following challenges:

-Hardcoreness. The assumption that "more mature" means more sex and violence, and that a huge teen/adult male audience will flock to it. The faultiness here is that bad action movies already exist. Good ones at least have a plot and likeable characters.

-Broadening genres. Besides action and sci-fi, there isn't much. Perhaps they feel there isn't room to cater to more niche audiences, such as a female oriented drama, comedy, or satire.

-Licensing. Most of these are licensed to tap into some preexisting fanbase. One would assume this means "built in audience," but it also means "limited audience." You're taking "people who like watching X movie" and taking only a small percentage of those who'd watch an animated feature based on it. There are plenty of other sources to tap into, especially comics like in Japan. But hollywood would much rather spend money on a live action adaptation of a comic due to its broader appeal. The challenge is making an animated feature as good or better than a live action equivalent (Batman: Mask of the Phantasm vs Batman & Robin). Also, there are hundreds of independant comics that can be adapted, just look at any comics catalog. But companies are probably too scared to put any "risk" into telling a story with views that don't have mass market appeal.

-Perception of characters. We still use archetypes such as the muscleclad superhero and superheroine. There haven't been too many "normal" characters with interesting backstories, and I think part of this is fear of looking "weak." If you had a truly feminine girl with quirks and shyness, or a timid guy, then you wouldn't have an invincible flawless herop character. I think some people are afraid of showing a character who isn't perfect, or can't defeat the bad guys with one hand. There needs to be flaws and quirks and interesting backstories and personalities and little details, rather than assuming peole will like "generic invincible girl/guy."

-Curves. For some reason, people cannot draw curves. Ever see an ad or artbook that attempts to mimic the "anime" style? There's always something not quite right about it. I believe it has to do with social perception in different cultures, such as "we're tough and unyielding, so we have square jaws" vs "pretty cherry blossoms and kittens = soft pillowy cuddly girls that are excessively cute." Or, they think if females aren't presented as hard and strong, it makes them automatically look weak. But everything needs some amount of femininity to make it more believable. I think this conflict between "should I draw her like a soft harmless animal" or "should she act and talk like a guy" is what subtly seperates curved characters from WB geometric faced characters.

-Lack of funds. If it takes money to make money, how can you work on a more "independant" film if you don't expect it to break through the mass market? You create something cheap, with mass appeal, that has the potential to be wildly popular, so that you can gain capital and hopefully make that more unique, thought provoking epic you dreamed of. But step A never happens. Because the cheap mass market idea os too obivous, too superficial. And if you're going to do that, why make an action movie? Why not make animated porn?

Answer: Because you can only draw chicks that look like guys.

Disclaimer: The above opinion happens to be biased. And an opinion.

How about "Atlantis"?

>>1 is a very interesting post... I approve of it

Actually, about that man-women thing. I wouldn't guess that most people here play with barbies, but I'm a big collector. Lately barbies have been getting more flat chested and more man-faced. Not to mention those ugly-ass Bratz dolls. I can tell they tried to get somewhat of an anime style with Bratz, but they're just disgusting and look like transvestites.

I can't find it anymore, but I could have sworn I saw Japanese versions of the Bratz dolls on HLJ once. I don't know whether they're originally Japanese toys, though. In any case, what the fuck they're the ugliest things I've ever seen in my life.

I just want a serious US-produced cartoon that doesn't make me feel ill every time I watch it...but then again, if it was *that* serious, it wouldn't neccessarily be called a cartoon then, would it?

I miss Kitty Bebop :(

>>6

The Incredibles is still running, you know!

Cartoons that try to emulate anime are about as successful as Americans that try to become Japanese by listening to The Pillows and pretending they like nattou.

Even the fact that they're CALLED "cartoons" shows an American bias that animated shows are kids-only fare, or at best a U-rated family show (read: Disney). There's barely any of the animation industry outside of Japan that even knows how to do animation that isn't a kids' show.

Well, most of Japan views their TV shows as for kids as well. The mature ones really only make up a minority.

Nice read, thanks!
But... there's nothing left to discuss..?

Oh yeah, and you really should watch The Incredibles, it was really great!

The adult in me says...: Yeah I watched it. Good movie. It might pave the way for more mature animation, or it might not. It's definitely in a class of its own though.

But the kid in me says...: That movie was totally sweet!

Watch the unedited version of the Batman Beyond movie. That was some pretty deep stuff for a cartoon.

>10

That's still more than America has.

>>13
right on, that was surprisingly good, still a little convoluted but much better than the rest of that series was

The key is making shows and movies which can be enjoyed by children, but has something to serve to adults. The Incredibles does this. Batman does this. Justice League does this. Naturally, both Simpsons and Family Guy do this. Hell, to some extent Teen Titans does this.

>>16

That is not "the key" that is what they have been trying to do, and that ultimately fails.
What they should do is make a clear choice, adults or kids, none of that average demographic stuff, it makes the movies unbalanced and rediculous.

US animation needs a change in style, Pixar has picked up the torch for the bounce rubber ball animation style, while it works good for children's comedy, it is dreadfull for serious adult works.
Look at the serious works from Japan, and you see what they all have in commen, besides the style of animation or designs, they also have a clear point and clear ideas/concepts driving the films, they dont act like some UN of animmation trying to have some kind of agreement among demographics like the US animation tries to do.

When you start to listen to your audiance, that's when you fail as an artist, and you become a salesman, and at that point, you get animations like the ones mentioned in the initial post.

But if you don't know what your audience wants, and aren't successful as a result, surely that makes you a flat broke artist.

Your conclusions sound based on your own impressions. On IMDBpro it clearly shows that some made a profit (or they lie about cost). I can give arguments for each tittle in your list but the one that bothers me the most is Animatrix, it made a huge profit, the animation was best in years technicaly and the stories were actually better than the matrix trilogy to me (and yes i'm an adult if you wonder).

An animated series that clearly did succeed in your ideal (except for the profit but what the hell) would be Invader Zim. Produced in America, very innovative style wise, and good (insane) stories. I still think its a miracle the makers got the funding from nickelodeon ofcourse not for too long.

BUY THE DVDS :)

>>18

and welcome to the cliche "starving artist" which is not cliche at all, it is a reality, so that means reality is cliche? :o

I major in animation at my school. All the teachers there involved in the industry, and are usually stuck up pricks. Seriously, I'm not just saying that cause I'm a student either. I haven't met a teacher there YET who is willing to accept something that's really innovative or creative, without finding some way to bash it or change the premise entirely. I always thought that it was just their way of trying to keep our projects simple and easy for us, but the more I witnessed it the more I felt they were purposley trying to get us to to adhere to some formula that they themselves are already used to. I'm not saying I haven't seem some great things come out of that place, but it get's real tiring seeing so many Jhonen V. Knock-offs, and machismo driven storylines.

I think it's something that's ingrained in our culture really. Mostly everyone in the U.S. has the perception that cartoons or animation is a thing for children.

Great post.

I think you forgot Titan A.E. in your list. that was surely as bad as Anastasia, but at least anastasia had a cute talking animal (that albino bat-thing, Bartok). Bartok was the only thing that was nice in Anastasia (later got his own movie, Bartok's great adventure, which they managed to screw up as horribly as Anastasia).

Anyway, there are more truely horrible example's of US animation out there. Need i remind you of every single cheapquel disney has ever made? i think not. Or how about that horrible CG Popeye the sailorman that's currently being produced? that's going to suck ballz as well.

oh, and "the Polar Express"? not even TOm hanks could save that one.

I'd kinda like to ignore the CG revolution here and look at the death of cel or even cel/cg mix animation in America.

I jsut saw Animattrix last night and would contend with >1 that was pretty damn good. It was really different and got some really good talent ont it. Then again, it was a bunch of shorts and not a full movie. Also, it was mainly Japanese directors and artits mixed with US talent, so it's not fully American anyway. Though it was released here. Plus it falls into that pit fall of the movie tie in, though I think this is the best one.

I agree with yoru other failures, though I did like Titan AE as well as Atlantis (the Secret of Blue Water) despite their shortcomings.

As for the Van Hellsing short, I caught it once. It was surprisingly good, not that great, but decent. I skipped the movie as it looked terrible, but this short wasn't bad. It was about the quality of an ep of Gargoyles.

Now there's a good series, Gargoyles. It had it's limitations being a Disney cartoon on in the afternoon, but it did try to be more and I think it did a fantastic job creating a solid animated series.

Also, I love Zim, but dear crap is it getting a bit overrated and Jhonen V and his fans are sometimes annoying. I acutlaly prefer Roman's Dirge's Lenore to Johnny and there are a number of Lenore flash toons floating about. If only that came to TV instead of just web toons.

>>5 Brats toys
They might as well call them Stupid Rich Whores and have Paris Hilton hawking them.

One mroe thing, I think there is thankfully a good amount of comedy toons in the US. With now TV staple Simpsons you got one oddity of acceptance, but there seem to be more shows with stuff like Family Guy and Adult Swim. Adult Swim is getting quite a following and I think has enough of one to almost be mainsteam. I know it's popular among college kids, but I think it does get noticed by other people and press as well. Personally, I think Venture Brothers is one of the funniest shows on TV.

Then again you do have a number of failed comedy and odler shows like Clone High (which my roomates got me into) or a nubmer of failed MTV comedy toons. The stuff they tried way after good stuff like The Maxx of Aeon Flux.

>>23Also, it was mainly Japanese directors and artits mixed with US talent, so it's not fully American anyway.

The only shorts that had any US input with the visuals was Final Flight of the Osiris, that was the last film that studio made before it went bust (thanks to FF:Spirits Within) and that Peter Chung thing.
The rest of the animations...were 100% directed, produced, designed and animated in Japan by Japanese, you cant really say "mixed with US talent" with too much confidence, since the only ones where there was some kind of mix were the two i mentioned above (and only the directors too) the rest is 100% japanese.
If you count the producers and middle men...sure....you can say with lots of confidence that it was a mix production ;)

And also brings another point to the table...US animation is in such a dire situation that the only time they actually produced something that can be considered a step forward is when that thing is heavily influenced by Japanese animation, and 95% made by Japanese....come on, an industry will not survive like that.
And then to bring on the current situation in hollywood to remake foreign films, or interprete foreign history.

Which can only give you one conclusion....culturally, the US has nothing more to give to Hollywood and its various entertainment industries, when the best(highest grossing) "US" animation film of the last 10 years was 95% foreign made, and the best live action films in the last 6 years are interpretations/remakes of other cultures/foreign films...there is only one conclusion you can have, the Hollywood machine is culturally exhuasted and cant provide anymore inspiration to their own artists, so they seek inspiration elsewhere, but the problem is..that when interpreting culture or remaking films of other cultures...you have one significant flaw, YOU ARE NOT FROM THAT CULTURE. so they ultimately fail due to translation.

But, some things are inherent to all people, regardless of culture.

Viva la Revolucion!

Er, if any of you guys have the capital. I'm sure one of you has some funds. Otherwise you wouldn't have time to stare at imageboards all day, right?

I think a lot of us here are examples that culture doesn't always play a role. Most of us watch anime and/or read manga, and the majority are probably WASPish. So, why do we like anime? Are we just different from the rest of our societies?

Or did you mean that Hollywood is distorting what they see? In which case I agree.

I'm not talking about consuming culture, i'm talking about creating culture, can you >>27 really say that you can create a movie/anime that will even make the Japanese think that it was made by a Japanese person?
You were born and raised in the west(i assume), not in Japan, your influences are completely different, the culture is completely different, i highly doubt any person here will succeed in making a film which will fool a 60 year old japanese farmer into thinking its a japanese film.
Just like there is no Japanese that can make a film about the west and pull it off.

And yes, Hollywood distorts foreign films/culture, the most idiotic thing i saw was when someone i know got a bit exited when she saw a movie she thought was "The Last Samurai" and was like "oh! you have that too?" then i said "No, its a japanese film called 'Twilight Samurai'" and then she was like "oh, i dont wanna see that" and started laughing at it...
This is the kind of thing we are dealing with, i've seen it more often, most people dont want to see culture how it truly is, they want to see their own interpreted versions of that culture, which is why that girl prefered "The Last Samurai" over "Twilight Samurai" and guess which is the better film about samurai...

Not to mention the perception that cartoons are automatically kids entertainment, that is probably the largest hurdle for western animation, they have no market of adults like in Japan, the (very small) adult animation market in the west watches Japanese cartoons!
And most do not like western cartoon aesthetics, the only market for western cartoons is the children's market, which is what is holding them back, and there are no companies brave enough to take a chance.
Only WB tried with Animatrix, but that's only becuase they already knew it would make money thanks to The Matrix franchise.

In Japan you are always 100% sure that your film will sell at least to the otaku market, in the west, they have no otaku market...the otaku market is a Japanese animation otaku market, not a western animation otaku market.

Actually I enjoyed Sin a fairly large amount, liked it alot.

There are a few exceptions to the "American animation" scene, such as a whole world of absolutly insane flash cartoons, (look around eatpoo.com, someone is making a comic into a flash animation, it is seriously nuts) and various other entities.  I believe that the whole problem isn't so much that american artists lack skill, so much that they are just lacking in general, and don't want to make "anime" as much as they do plain. old. cartoons.

There are some EXTREMELY good cartoons out there, that many people don't realize how good they actually are, such as.. say..   Freakazoid, something that has made me laugh more then any other cartoon in the history of mankind, then there is more "mainstream" nowadays things such as Ed, Edd, and Eddy, which makes me laugh pretty often as well, and all of these are very much as animation as anime is.  When you say "animation" include everything, not just anime.

>>27
"I think a lot of us here are examples that culture doesn't always play a role. Most of us watch anime and/or read manga, and the majority are probably WASPish. So, why do we like anime? Are we just different from the rest of our societies?"

I believe people like us are attracted towards anime because we dislike the MTV rap & street-life image.  For whatever reason, the 'popular clique' teenagers of America want to copy the black people (African American if you prefer, I'm trying to offend no one) and MTV follows their lead, essentially giving the mob what it wants, and that in turn influences more teens to envy the African-American ghetto culture.  I don't think there's a gigantic amount of people actually living in a true-to-life ghetto, living amongst crime and poverty, who actually see their lot in life as privileged.  And yet millions of suburban teens copy their dress and slang, and the corporations that cater to the teen demographic deliver for their own profit's sake.

Ah, I'm rambling on.  My point is, we see the absurdity of trying to be a certain way because it's popular.  Some of us anime-watchers and 4channers might be unpopular, picked on, depressed, fat and ugly, losers, or just plain low on the social hierarchy.  Anime offers us an alternative to the culture we see as rediculous.  We identify ourselves more closely with the anime-watching, manga-reading lifestyle than the buying expensive name-brand clothes, $200 shoes, club-hopping, get-drunk-and-get-laid-every-Saturday-night lifestyle.  (God damn, I love hyphens.)

Ironically, many American otaku fall into the same trap of envying the culture that isn't theirs that they simply go too far.  I'm sure you know of people who absolutely cream their jeans for anything and everything Japanese, regardless of how useless, idiotic, or shitty it is.  They are out on the extremes, just keep in mind to strive for all things in moderation.

As for the topic of U.S. animation that failed, I can't say i've know of a lot of failures.  Years ago I loved Animaniacs, half of the pieces were crap but there were some absolute masterpieces, either well-written or good comedy.  If you haven't hear Yako singing the countries of the world, it's definately worth looking for on google or kazaa.  Adult swim seems to be doing well and I'm glad for that, but really they're lumping anime, traditional animation (is venture bros hand drawn?), and flash (such as sealab 2021 and athf) into one demographic.  I don't have a problem with this, I like most of AS's program lineup.

I think that we're going to see an improvement in American animation thanks to the flash (.swf) revolution.  Flash makes it easy and inexpensive to animate, and it compresses well too.    Part of the comedy of Sealab 2021 is its crappy cell-rotation animation style, and it also it proves that shows can focus more on writing and voice acting, while abandoning the hugely expensive animation process.  Soon more studios are going to follow the lead of Williams Street, and if they realize they can leave the kid's market, will produce quality shows.

>>28
I don't see much reason to make an animation that would fool a Japanese person. Japanese animation may be the standard for a lot of us, but it's not perfect. I'm sure it can be surpassed, or at least equalled. And anime isn't that amazingly complicated or different either. I'm sure that some skilled film student out there, who loves anime, could some up with an entertaining likeless given the chance.

Now, whether Hollywood and the ilk can do it is another question. I think we can all agree that Hollywood as it is now is simply incapable of such a thing. But there are some people out there who surely could, if they only received the funding (which probably won't happen anytime soon).

Of course, I'm not all that qualified to comment. I threw my TV out a few years ago and rarely go to the movies anymore. Why bother when I know it'll suck? If anything good comes out my friends are sure to insist I drop by.

And what the hell happened to name cookies? --

>>31

You didnt quite understand me...what i mean with all that is that you should not try to emulate a culture you dont know, its ok to take some inspiration from that culture and add it to your works, but to try and mimick them is the wrong way to do it, which is what hollywood has been trying to do.

And i would like to see such a person who can mimick another culture so well as to fool even the most patriotic individuals of that culture.

>>17

No, animation in general does not have to draw a line between children's works and adult's works.  Do you like Fullmetal Alchemist?  One Piece?  Gundam?  Sailor Moon?  Well whether you do or not, all of these anime are designed to appeal primarily to young to teenage viewers, while giving at least something for  people who are older.  And if you disagree, there's about  10000 fans or so who would say otherwise.

Animation aside, works in general do not need a clear divide between appealing to children and appealing to adults.  Or are you the kind who go "LOL NINTENDO IS FOR KIDS?"  I'm going to assume you are not, because I hope for a world where that sort of dumbassery doesn't exist.

And there is nothing wrong with listening to your audience if you are an artist.  You do not ruin your artistic integrity by doing so.  If your audience has valid opinions, they have valid opinions and it is only to your benefit that you at least hear what they have to say.  Don't agree with it?  Fine.  Do you want to REALLY know how to make any artwork you produce stagnate?  You don't listen to anyone.  You let yourself be closeminded, shunning any form of criticism, only believing yourself to be better than your audience. 

>when the best(highest grossing) "US" animation film of the last 10 years was 95% foreign made
Shrek 2's the #3 highest grossing box office movie after Star Wars & Titanic.  Besides martial arts, wanna know where the Matrix's is really stolen from including its 2.5 billion dollar lawsuit? 
http://www.slccglobelink.com/news/2004/10/28/Entertainment/mother.Of.The.Matrix.Victorious-785067.shtml

Somebody up there mentioned that as an animation student most of his animation teachers instruct him to conform to the general cartoony themes and kiddy feels.  Damn.. I really give up on western animation now.  One of the reasons I love anime is because the creators don't treat me like I have RETARD stamped on my forehead. 

How the creators of Western animation think vs eastern thought in animation and movies just gets to me, western seems so much less developed like they've been reading comic books their whole lives to tell them what complex and deep is.

To make one big comparison, Walt Disney made his cartoons for the kids not for use as some deep meaningful medium.  Osama Tezuka, when he made his comics he made them because he couldn't make film, sure as hell he made kiddy stuff but he also made comics where a girl could take a pill become a woman and learn about how her body works (Tezuka was studying to be a doctor at the time) or the weird pinoccio story where the fake boy has to kill for his body parts with many modern war overtones.  What if Walt Disney tried to do mature things like that?  I think the people who came to rule the animation industry today would be so much more mature in turn creating more developed product.. instead we get the typical american response to kids that protecting them is to close their eyes or make jokes with inneundo that goes over their heads.

The japanese put some real content in their shows, they respect what they're making.  The producers here just come off being like they're going for mainstream whatever that is. 

I really look down on the western directors, sometimes I think if they could do better action like some of the stuff I read in manga maybe the shows would be worth watching but nothing really ever gets my blood pumping.  Every hit is predictable and nothing blows me away.  Batman the animated series was awesome, but that was over 7 years ago when it was a show aimed at adults & aired primetime on FOX.  Today's Justice League is pretty kiddie from a directorial point of view.  Again one of the differences in thought between east and west animators.  In the west animation=cartoon and disney or comicbook, japanese animation=film (or next best thing).  Beacuase I want to be at directing I take a good look at how these cartoons are put together, what shots, what camera angles, length of cuts in fight scene, closeups and ultimately how much impact is made on the viewer.  Always asking if I were making this instead what could I have done to make it better, and I always come up with more stuff with western shows.  Japanese seem to know their stuff, western directors feel so sophmoric. 

Oh yeah, one last comparison fow how one side thinks vs another. King Kong against Godzilla.  Completey mindless destruction giant monster b-movies westerners, both of em.  Nothing could be meaningful here. 
King Kong dies, monster is dead, everyone is happy.  Hooray its another scary movie.
Godzilla dies, everyone cries, everyone is sad.  what the hell?  Take a closer look. 
Godzilla comes out of nowhere (the sea), has some strange bizzarre RADIOACTIVE breath, is big, GREEN, lumbers around tokyo destroying everything by just walking around, people cry at the end because japan is in ruins. . .
hint: the movie was made after an ATOMIC bomb hit them from certain country, and the MILITARY of a certain country occupied their land...
(strange that in later movies Godzilla becomes something of a defender of Japan)

read this is you don't want to suck
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.4/3.4pages/3.4chung.html

>>27

Although I agree with you that animation does not need to be blood-irificly mature to appeal to adults, I feel that animation should at least have a few well known, good works that are mature.  Right now, animation is not a respectable medium to use for mature film making because of the 'kiddy' label it has.  People see animation (cartooning in particular) as a medium for kids, and will avoid seeing mature animation because of that 'kid' label.  Now, if someone were to make a ground breaking beautiful animated film, this will probably change people's opinions on animation. Hopefully the film will inspire others to create similar works of art which will increase the awareness of the potention in animation, and in time, people will see animation as another medium to use in mature film making, rather then just for children.  After that notion is set, then of course animation can be used for general demographic films, whether it be used for adult film or kid oriented programming, both should not be looked down upon because the content is animated. Instead, the quality of the work

should be judged.

Aborn!

zepher = in my county we call those people Diplomats ;P
No seriously, i agree that there is no need to totally emulate other countries styles, i think it is the content that matters not the way it is packaged.
People who thinks that animation is a media for kids are probably either insecure with themselves or have had their childhood whipped out of them at an early age. For an example here in Sweden a whole lot of people watch the disney christmas special that they send every year, and from what i have seen mainly the adults are the ones who wants to watch it year after year.
Even if you argue how drawings have been our oldest way of communicating except for speech or how mature comics can be and such there will allways be people who doesn't like them. Just like there will be alot of people who doesn't like alot of other things, be it because of religious, cultural or personal ideas and ideals.
Now on a very sepparate subject what i'd like to see is a good old dark and creepy detective animation without any superpowers or occult, but the thing about animation is that you can do so much more with them then with normal movies so i guess that hope will be washed away as the big companies try to smack in even cooler looking 3D renderings.

Last I heard Disney axed its entire 2D animation division. In other words, we won't see any more out of then.

Of course, I personally believe that Disney Inc lost its edge at least a decade ago, if not when Disney died. The guy was an oddball, but he did make classic animation.

The cow thing was the last 2D animation of Disney.

home on the range is an insult.

Long live the 1% of all the world's animation that's actually worth watching!

I think western animation needs to find its own identity for serious drama animation rather than aping anime.
When someone makes a show that tries to use anime style it's usually obvious at a glance they don't understand why shortcuts like action line scrolling backgrounds and facefaults(sweatdrops etc) are used, or how to implement them appropriately. I tried watching an episode of Totally Spies once. The way they panned across backgrounds was immediately jarring. It seemed like they had sped it up to the full 30fps of tv. Whatever was done, the image looked like it was shot with a cheap camcorder, leaving the lower framerate character cells feeling detached from the background.
There's already been some progress towards opening animation to an older audience on the comedy side with shows like South Park and the Adult Swim lineup. Unfortunately, none of them raise the bar for art, as most look like they were made with Flash.
Batman:TAS was a big step forward with a unique high-quality look and writing, but was held back by the "cartoons are for kids" perception and all the lesser shows grafted onto the style later on.

Here in Canada there's been a glut of high-school set cartoons aimed at the older child/younger teen market. It would be nice if tried to be something more than a generic episodic series. Heck, even a light hearted romantic comedy would be a nice change.

i think its hilarious that you say American Animation has failed, and you list a project designed, directed, and produced by a japanese man, the only reason you can even call it american is cause they used their hawaii office they used to have

Jacky Chan Adventures
Teen Titans
Totally Spies

ExoSquad was the only American animation that actually pwns most Japanimation in terms of story and characters (animation was dated though). Animaniacs had pretty well written humor as well.

>>10

True. But in Japan, there's not the general perception that animated shows and movies CAN'T be for adults. Or that ONLY children can enjoy them, and adults only watch them because somebody needs to take the kids to the theater. Both of those perceptions are rather common in America.

In addition, Japanese culture allows for things in "kids' shows" that wouldn't be tolerated in American "kids' shows". Hence nearly all anime on US television being censored.

I don't like these new 3D animations that are suposedly for both kids and adults, maybe there is something redeaming in them but I find them damn ugly and unwatchable, and as animation that was for adults and didn't quite succeed you should look into home movies and mission hill, maybe they don't count but they are great in my opinion, I think the key to animation for adults in the US is NOT to make something too serious, to leave a bit of humor and not be like "we are the l33t, we kick japans ass in seriousness, boo yah"

>>48
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-10-11&res=l

Your friend at the end - the Period.
"I go at the end of your sentences - like this!  I let people know when it's okay to breate!"

>>46
Exosquad? You mean the show that blatently and poorly ripped off Macross/Robotech?

Anyone know an animator named Bill Plympton?  His works are unique and pretty good.  Not to mention they're not "kiddie".  Just check them out.  You won't be dissapointed.

And I'd like to add, I can't believe no one mentioned Bill Plymton yet!  Although it's not suprising since myself only found out about him after watching his short animation feature "Face" in Sundance channel, which is not included in a standard cable service.

>39
Truth. There's nothing wrong with "kiddy" animation mor animation designed solely for the purpose of entertainment or amusement. The problem is that most American companies can't concieve of animation being worthwhile for anything _other_ than that. And since a large majority of Americans agree, it's unlikely that Disney would ever risk enough money on changing their mind. Pixar is downright incredible when it comes to 3D, but they don't really push the borders very far; it's basically all kids' stuff as well.

I don't think that even a single big-name animation could alter the American views towards animation enough; Akira, Ghost in the Shell and the Princess Mononoke were all relatively successful and non-kiddy but failed to make much of a dent in the general attitudes, for varying reasons. The only path I can see really working is a studio that managed to grind out a number of successive films/series that made it abundantly clear that adult-oriented (not porn) animation can work. I don't expect this to happen, however, and I'm not going to mourn the possibility; mainstream America just doesn't have the right combination of circumstances to make an industry out of a media we happen to enjoy. As CG technology increases, however, it may reach the point where most or all filmmaking is done via animation, at which point it will be interesting to see how the media end up intersecting.

I know the American cartoon industry isn’t as impressive as Japans is, but who gives shit?  Americas film power isn’t in animation, it’s in live action everybody should know this by now.  

>>34
I don't think you understand at all.

All the animes you mentioned weren't made for adults and kids.  They weren't made "for" anyone.  The original artists used their comics as a form of personal self-expression.  That's what being an artist is.

The problem with American cartooning isn't just that we see the genre as kid-oriented, it's that there's no room for creativity.  Animated movies aren't made by artists, they're created by corporate scumbags in committee, arguing about the best way to make an easy buck by copying some other piece of America trash.  They talk to focus groups and look at demographics and try to engineer mindless drivel for the largest group of people.  That's not what an artist does.

There's a difference between taking creative criticism and being a corporate whore.

I liked Titan AE and Teen Titans are great

>>56
If Teen Titans were not blatantly trying to have an "Anime look" so damn hard from a standard comic book american style I could stand it.
But every 5 fucking seconds there is a sweatdrop, stress cross, giant yelling head, chibi form, non-pupil, cliche anime expression.
With exactly the same setups for these occurances to happen, over and over.
As if to say, "HEY LOOK AT ME! IM ANIME! HEY HEY! IM ANIME NOW! CHECK IT OUT. IM SOOOOOO ANIME!" I hate that show very much and it's extremly hard to watch.

>>57
The anime look is the only reason to watch that crappy show.

For the record, the animation director is Chinese.  It's not Wapanese.

otaku creating anime is awesome. AKA Megus XLR which parodies/pays tribute to the great/horrible young adult series. it wins hardcore.

There's a perception problem--in the US, animation is considered a genre, in Japan, it's considered a medium.

>>43
Totally Spies is French.

I'd like to mention Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles. It was brilliant. Great writing (one of the lead story editors was Greg Weisman, of Gargoyles fame), veteran voices, beautiful animation. SO MANY things went wrong for it though - money issues, screwed up production schedule, no set airing schedule. I'm still angry about the red-headed stepchild treatment it got from Sony. It's been, what? Damn near six years now...?

>>61
"A France-Canada Coproduction" to be precise. And I don't see how France fails to qualify as western.

>>21


Geez, is everyone in the entertainment industry and asshole. I used to go to a lot of game show message boards, but they started getting overrun by snotty pricks with broadcasting degrees and no talent  who bully and harass everyone isn't a part of their clique.

>>60
Truth.

It's gotten better though.  "Animation" used to mean hitting cartoon animals over the head with anvils.

>>62

It's pretty traditional to consider the East to be Asia and the West to be Europe and the Americas(damned if I know where everything else is supposed to be). So yes, that means it is Western.

Well, at least South Park was a sucess.
Much of the credit can go to how it makes fun of how fucked up America is, and be funny at the same time. Remember that episode about Protest and support of the Iraq war? That totally rocked. How about the time Rob Reiner went on an anti-smoking crusade in South Park? How about making fun of the shitty way the handicaped were treated in Timmayy and The Lords of The Underworld?

I think there's a definite perception issue here on what makes a work "mature". Sex and violence is one way, but it won't necessarily create a product that's actually interesting.

Instead, there needs to be more American animation with sophisticated themes, above the level of a child. I was lucky enough to see Spawn II with a friend, which achieves this quite well, even though I had known nothing about the series beforehand. The story has angst and tragedy. It shows homeless people trapped between gang wars and drug dealers expanding their territory, and how it affects those living on the streets. A murdered man returned as a hell-spawn fights his natural inclination for evil and attempts to walk on the edge of the fence between killing for the sake of those who cannot defend themselves and killing for the sake of killing itself. He has to decide whether his best friend in life has betrayed him by dating his former fiancee, or if he is trying to make sure no harm befalls the loved one of the departed. There's violence and cursing, but it isn't smeared over the entire film but used where appropriate. There's no music, no action-packed fight scenes, and the movie is better for it as a whole, having a downright haunting effect on the viewer.

Admittedly I'm not too familiar with the genre of American comics, but they're likely the best bet in bringing U.S. animation to more sophisticated levels. Comic books frequently deal with mature themes that a child wouldn't be able to begin understanding until much later in life. Themes of racial discrimination and genocide can be found clearly in X-Men, where both the humans that hate them and Magneto's group of mutants out to destroy humanity can cause moral conflicts for Xavier's students. Even the Hulk, typically seen as the story of an angry green guy smashing stuff, goes deeper when it's actually read: Bruce Banner is a MPD patient, and the grey Hulk, green Hulk, the Professor, guilt Hulk and other archtypes are all manifestions of different parts of his personality. This fact leads to a number of conflicts and quite a bit of therapy probing the inner workings of his mind.

Thanks to the success of Spiderman, superhero movies are on the rise. So why not create an animated film for older audiences, based off a comic book? Seeing as the comics were illustrated to begin with, it wouldn't be much different than creating an anime or OAV from a popular manga. It seems unlikely that any such movie will ever see a mainstream audience, but for the time being it's America's best shot.

With that said, pick up your AK47s and demand something that does not milk cash. If you really want something, take action. Support some poor artist trying to make a totally different and original feature. Shoot some damn CEO. Blow up Disneyland. I don't care what you do, if you want change, it's gonna be a violent and bloody battle. Or alternatively, move to Japan.

Sure.  Contact info?

I can't believe nobody has mentioned The Iron Giant.

That would be because the Iron Giant rocked.

I haven't seen Iron Giant.  Does it rock in a good way, or does it rock back and forth in the corner like an autistic child?

I think the problem with US is that we haven't found a middle ground for animation. It's either immature racy porn cartoons or childish mindless fun. We need mature as in deep and thought provoking.. not just profanity, sex, and violence. Maybe then the mothers of America will start thinking animation as more of a genre.

>>72
The Iron Giant is AWESOME...

>>74
I've heard the same from friends I trust, I guess I'll have to watch it one day.

>>50
Actually, it had more in common with FASA's Battletech I thought. Even design wise, see; Elementals.

>>51
>>52
I haven't seen this Face before. I'm familiar with the commercials he did (it seems the only truly creative outlet in the US now is advertising/marketing. Fun little irony there.) and that wacky movie of his that played on IFC a lot back in the day called So I Married A Strange Person. I love the part when the war-mongering general forgets about his new "powers" and blows himself up while taking a whiz.

Actually there was a LOONG LONG lawsuit between Battletech and Exosquad. Battletech was using designs from a Macross artist. Exosquad had a crossover with Robotech. FASA sued since Exosquad already had such a similar plotline anyway, FASA lost, and lost the countersue, also losing the right to use the designs. Exosquad then had a crossover with Robotech. I have a Exosquad-Robotech mech in my hand right now.

Back on the subject on failed animation (and not why the industry sucks), I believe Megas XLR has joined the ranks of the good, the dead, and the American\Non-Japanese. Megas had soooo much potential to be the anti-Gundam giant robot anime-ish show, with a greater ratio of metal on metal ass-kicking to angst\love stories than the average Japanese GRA (Giant Robo Anime). Unfortunatly, they wasted their opportunity with iffy action sequences, cliched writing and bad editing. And now it's dead.
Not coincidentally, Cartoon Network started airing Krypto the Superdog about the same time that Megas hit the floor. CN is heading the way of Nick and MTV, and theres nothing to stop it's fall. How sad.

Actually Krypto's not that bad as long as Dini is writing. However the SECOND that Dini steps out to grab some lunch this other writer runs in, shits on a piece of paper, and sends it off to the animation studio.

Another reason why US animations has failed is because they treat their audiences as mindless zombies. Mind you most Japanese Animation does that do but the ones that actually take their audience seriously can produces marvels liek Cowboy Bebop and FLCL.

The US Animation Industry just cares about looks primarily. Story and acting is secondary to them because their primary market are kids. If the industry doesn't start changing the way they see their audience it is never going to move up.

The best thing the American animation industry can do for now is do exactly what the Japanese animation industry started out doing (and in many cases continues to do), animating comic books.

By comic books I mean more of the graphic novel sort, like most of the stuff on Vertigo. There's already an audience right there and making movies from comics has become a big thing lately. They've just been tossing away a perfectly good opportunity by doing live action films. As much as I adore hearing about Natalie Portman's bald head every ten seconds I think V for Vendetta would make a better animated work. There's already a sophisticated art style that could easily translate, a good plot, and a fan base. These are things western animators have been trying to forge out of nothing for the past five years. Yes, Japanese animation is great by now, but remember Astro Boy? They didn't just sit around and say "Hey I think it'd be a pretty cool idea if we made cartoons for growed ups now." like the western artists have been doing. It drifted that way over half a century. If we're able to bring people in on these comic adaptations in live action, they'll be more than willing to accept them animated, and eventually the American market will probably be pretty comfortable with adult themes in animation and animators will be able to make their own stories without feeling presured into making them PG or under.

Justice League is pretty kick ass. I also enjoyed Clone Wars.

Anastasia rocked. It showed clearly that imperialistic dictatoriship doesn't mean that the ruler is a cold-hearted bastard, but a kind and loving father and that an evil wizard sparked the people's revolt, not the fact that they hardly had any money, food or rights.

It's pro-imperialistic, really. In reality, had I ever encountered Anastasia, I would've strangled her slowly and I'm not even a communist! The Romanov family deserved EVERYTHING done to them and the world is a better place with them gone.

>>83

Not to mention that Rasputin hardly had ANYTHING to do with the revolt. Hell, he was too busy fucking the Tsar's wife to do it.

What really weirds me out are the adults that see cartoons as a "sacred" artform not to be defiled by more violent/harsh themes. They see them as a medium of eternal innocence.

>>85
that's why the made single-frame naughty images amirite?
"Boy Home on the Range is a lot better than I expected, I really like the performance OMG TUBGIRL that Roseanne Barr is delivering in this film."

>>83
You wouldn't have raepd teh loli? PEDOBEAR IS SAD!

age

88get

Not sure if this has been adressed, but I'm to lazy to read 88 posts.

Lady Death pretty much sucked. Looked dated, and the story just felt really rushed at times. The animation wasn't exceptional, but I guess they thought adding a lot of cleavage would distract people from noticing that.

TEEN TITANS and naruto SUBBED i like it plain old japanese what the us did to it is ruined it

I guess I must agree with >>90, but he is also why I don't like world4ch.

the way I see it the failure of most US 2D animation simply lies in story/bad writers and character design, we can forget originality it died last decade. That and some people need to get the idea that cartoons are for kids/teenagers out of their head, I would have thought that went away afer Spawn came in some years back.

on that note why aren't there ANY animaniacs DVD? I loved that show

>>89

I've heard similar.  I also was disappointed that there wouldn't even be a *cameo* for Evil Ernie.

>>89

I've heard similar.  I also was disappointed that there wouldn't even be a *cameo* for Evil Ernie.

>>55
That's the way I see it, too!!! American-made "anime" is possible but it would require a team of dedicated artists that:
1.) Know what they're doing
2.) Know how to draw anime
3.) Are not controlled by a corporation that only thinks in money!

And before you mention it, yes! I know its hard to make animation without a big studio.

I personally liked some of the movies mentioned on the the first article of this thread, and I like shows like Totally Spies and Teen Titans. But i also understand must of these shows are made out of fashion and not love and that is what kills the magic.

If it werent for the musicals, I would be a bigger fan of Disney Animation because I love how they draw and animate their movies.

Alot of MTV cartoons were really intelligent and ownage. Daria and Clone High come to mind.

Some Cartoon Network cartoons also have a really high bar. Fostor's Home For Imaginary Pets has alot of humor that would fly over the intended audience. Such like the episode which had Big Lebowski refrences abound. I'm pretty sure no kid would know what the hell The Big Lebowski is.

My opinion is that in the West animation has generally declined(with occasional bright spots) since it started appearing on television. Right at that point there was a critical crossroads; either companies would bank on animated shows as being great successes, as they have in Japan, or they would be offered up only if they could be done cheaply - remember that here we only use advertising to support TV, wheras in Japan TV licensing exists. Anyway, in the 60s, they went from Astro Boy to giant robots, and in the 70s got Lupin III. The U.S. got Yogi Bear and the Jetsons. Another crucial difference is that comics could not be used as source material(except for superheroes, which predictably have been the source of many of our most successful animated shows) in the U.S. following the great comic paranoia of the 50s which destroyed almost the entire industry along with its excesses. I mentioned Lupin; Wikipedia says that the style of the original manga came in part from early MAD comics. And MAD shifted to the magazine format to get away from the censorship. See the connections here? A major chunk of our culture got trashed back in that era and we're still trying to recover today. Our animation today is still automatically biased towards Hanna-Barbera-esque blatant cost-cutting techniques rather than on making prestigious flagship animated shows. The animated movie market has to suffer correspondingly, since movies exist at the top of the economic food chain and have bigger barriers to entry - so their existence is very frequently justified by the success of the TV show. And as long as TV remains fiscally conservative we will only see animation done on lower and lower budgets here, or else done in the Pixar mass-appeal mode, unless Internet-based distribution can build up enough of an economic basis for this to change.

Basically, we have to be wasting more money to support creativity. Most anime, after all, ends up taking a loss.

On the subject or reaching to muliple audiences, I think Rocko's Modern Life did that very well with suggestive jokes that went over me as a kid, but I understood easily when I watched it again as an adult.

Chalk up boondocks as a failure so far. The Samuel L Jackson guest episode shows what should be possible, but hasn't been attempted in any past shows. If it continues along the storytelling method seen there it will succeed, but after that episode with the ho, and the pilot, I ain't holding out much hope.
The only reason it's even so popular is because college kids are fucking stupid and tasteless.

>>99
Fails for implying failure. Boondocks had the highest ratings for a premier episode for the Adult Swim lineup, and has had consistently stayed at the top 3 of the AS ratings.
Failures should be deemed by facts, not your opinion.

Highest ratings on the premier of anything means two things, jack and shit, and jack left town.  People watch the premier to determine if they like the show or not.  This implies that the people do like the show watched it, and the people that don't like the show watched it.  It's the ratings in the following episodes that mean anything.

>>101
Someone isn't from marketing 101!

>>102
But he was 101get!

>>103
that alone wins on so many levels.

>>100
I think the Boondocks are doing great. Those that think otherwise just fail to see the humor and irony within the show.

In the Boondocks thread #54 wrote sumthin pretty interesting...and harsh :p

Every US animation fails.




Well, maybe except for those Disney and WB ones...

Animatrix was pretty much done by real anime-tors, eg, the creators of ninja scroll, cowboy bebop, perfect blue, aeon flux and the list continues. It was co produced by the Wachowskis and american studios. It is 100% authentic anime.
And the same goes for spirits within, Square enix japan and usa worked on it. And although it has the hyper real look, it is still falls under the anime field.

Sin was an american effort anime movie, I dont know much about it though....Not much interest really.

The riddick animation is by the creators of Aeon flux, so it is anime.
As for the rest I dunno. And yeah boondocks, thats some wicked shit.

It what has plagued american animation is the oriniginal animators that started to do animation where artist first and only writers second. Many are guilty for sacrafising story and substances for cheap laughs. Many just simply ignore what makes a goods only a hand even attempt to do so. Show for children doesn't mean crap by default look at movie Chronicles of Naria that was a kid movie but it great to watch but the problem with cartoons for kids is that kids are stupid by nature and they need to be protected. This destroys must attempts to created goods story. Also many cartoons aimed at adult to have  don't have good stories because they are trying to hard to be funny.

Probally the best thing to do to  get animation to wider audiance is have a big broadcast buy the writes to a popular novel have streche it out into a tv seriouse. Then once the script is written send to Japanese animation studio then have turn it into anime play it in primetime.

Phantom 2040 ;'(

>>108
... I really hope english is your second language.
And your point about (what I gathered at least) writers making cheap laughs has more to do with our culture. Western culture revolves around humour. We don't notice this, it just seems natural. Japanese cuture is centered around making people bawl their fucking eyes out. They fail at humour, but they can tell one hell of a sob story.

This is a (but not -the-) big difference between our and their animation. When someone pitches a cartoon idea, the question they're going to be asked is, "how is this going to be funny?" And then spend pointless hours arguing over jokes.

When someone pitches an anime idea, the question changes to, "how is this going to touch the audience? How can we get them to relate to the actions and characters?" Then they spend pointless hours arguing over their formulas and carbon-copied techniques.

Reading "I am a Japanese School Teacher," this is also evident in graduation ceremonies. Think back to your being put through other people's highschool graduations. They speaker would alway try and throw a couple of jokes in.
This is different in Japan.
"So graduation is more or less designed for crying. They call the students names and hand out certificates, but as they do so they play some sad violin music in the background. I'm really not making this up."


Oddly enough, the preceding paragraph.
"This is one crying culture I have to say. It seems like every TV show is built upon making the viewer cry at some point. They love showing touching human drama stories on the variety shows, and then as soon as the story is finished, they cut to the celebrities who were watching, and make sure to get them crying on camera. Some shows don't even wait - they do a picture in picture of the celebrity watching, so you can see them crying as the story unfolds. There's a show that comes on Monday evenings starring one of the members from SMAP (Goro, if you are familiar with them) that brings on little kids (elementary schoolers) and tells them ghost stories designed to freak the holy shit out of them. Every episode has them at recoiling in horror at least twice, and crying over some touching ghost story. ...How much is this fucking them up? Seriously. I oftentimes wonder how the men and women of this country get to be so fucked up, but then I see shows like this and I don't wonder so much anymore."

>>110
The picture-in-picture thing sounds like the crying equivalent of a laugh-track or live studio audience.

Ok after reading most* the posts here, I have a few things to say.

Right now, I'm 18 (male) and in a college that is devoted to 3D animation and graphics (expression.edu). I don't consider myself a normal person, I have split personality disorder, and I listen to lots of heavy metal and don't have much of a social life to speak of. Now that you know about me let me say some things.

"US animation that has FAILED." - I will have to agree to a point, only recent US animations. There has not been a single "real" animation that I have liked in a good while. When I said "real" I mean, one that’s not a comedy. Family Guy is funny, South part is funny, Simpson’s are good, but none of those are very serious, most of them just poke fun at the current pop culture. They have solid plots and great characters. But they lack any kind of atmosphere. I'll try and explain as best I can...
When I open up an Aliens comic I get a sense of atmosphere, I know that stuff is gonna happen and it hold a different kind of seriousness to it. As where-in I watch a Family Guy ep, I never feel like I care what’s gonna happen to the characters or the plot. I mean its funny sure, but I'm not getting any connection with the enumeration as I would if I watched a old X-Man or even a Thundercats ep. Although some of that might be connected with me having seen those as a child and me watching family guy as a adult.

I've watched some "anime" from Japan, most I dislike, but the crazier ones I dig (Elfenlied). A lot of people where talking about cultures. The thing I see happening is that the people who control the media in the US are a bunch of pussys (No joke intended). It makes me hurt that I see a good independent comic, well drawn and good plots ect ect. But I know it will never get anywhere. Due to television the comic industry has suffered big time. People just don't read comics, they would rather just put in a DVD and space out. I'm not saying that’s a bad thing, I do it all the time. I'm just saying that I know that I'll never see the same dedication and love that I would if I read a comic. Because I know that the DVD I watch will have been put though hundreds if not thousands of tests and committees and re-written and all that other junk, until its just a other DVD just like all the others. (I'm not say that all DVDs and Movies are pointless and the same thing, I'm just trying to show my point as best I can.) There’s been some acceptations of this that I've liked, one of my favorites being FireFly (aka Serenity). Good job to the Sci-Fi channel.

Holy crap I've gone off topic, I feel that it’s simply an issue of money and time. Two things that the west will always have a problem with. It is simply cheaper to make a whole series of Family Guy then it is to make a few eps of a show like Tundercats. If needed Family Guy could crank out a one ep in less the 4 days, tops. I would imagine that it took the makers of thundercats a lot longer (per ep). And the time paid to those people ect ect. Family guys people would get paid less then the thundercats people (if they where paid the same) because of the hours worked. Now that creates a problem. The people at the top of the cooperate ladder care about two things. Making money and keeping there jobs. If they don't do one of those two things right, they don't do the other. And that puts them in a tight spot. They just try to make money. And they no longer see the art, they see the $ signs. All they want to know is if THE MASS will like and buy into it. Now that makes an other problem, because what THE MASS is currently into is the ghetto (sp?) style. Although they have there own art and stuff, I don't see ANY animation. So, that being said, if THE MASS doesn’t see animation THE MASS won't want to see animation and wont buy into animation, therefore the people on the top wont make animations because they wont make money. The mass of people I talk about is just American pop cultures people. Mostly teens and young adults.

Most of this probably doesn’t make sense to anyone but me. But if you do get anything out of this, know that its YOU and YOUR friends that effect weather or not "US animation FAILS". Goodnight and good luck. This is my oppontion.

Many have suggested that animating American comic books could be used to help improve american animation and help bring about seriouse cartoons for adults. But American comic have had major problems themeselves and have faced a large decline in sales. It would be much wiser to use popular fiction instead of comics. More people have read the latest Ann Rice novel then the latest issue of spiderman.

Well I wouldn't go as far as to say it has failed, but it's not all that good. Simpsons, Family Guy etc are okay. But it's only when they try and rip-off Anime it fails, and no-one needs to be told why...

The simpsons can pull on your heart strings sometimes

>>112
Yes, U.S. animation is driven by businessmen who only see the profit and not the art. But so is anime. Anime is also produced for profit by large corporations. Anime is also commercialized and artificially tailored to target demographics. Anime only seems more niche because "the mass" in Japan likes different things, but it's still "the mass".

>>113
but then there isn't any connection. novel publishers aren't going to want to touch animation either, they're going to say "why can't you make a live action film out of this?"

>>90

Teen Titans was made by an all American crew, dumbfuck. And sage for immense fail.

Shitcock, I forgot to sage

I don't understand why US television and film is so damn high quality, with attention to detail and characterization, especially CSI style shows and dramas, yet in all this time no US company has made an anime that realistically portrays life.

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>>1
Sin is Japanese made. All creators are Japs. Only dubbing and some of funding was by Americans. Japanese version is also like completely different movie and has better plot and dialogue. Animatrix was mostly(if not totally?) made by Japanese creators too.

>>123
Oh, forgot Spirit Within. It's TOTALLY Japanese made with no real American influence though American version was dumbed down.

This is a weaboo conversation - only weaboos worry about cartoons and how childish they are.  Cartoons are for children, anybody who says otherwise is a fag.

>>125
You read all this thread to complain about it...damn,thats soooooo lame

>>126
no, I skimmed it.

FAGGOTS

AKIRA

ESURANCE

bwa ha ha ha Esurance..lol

Hears an idea create a script writting contest   tell the contestants that if they win it will be turned into a movie. But don't tell them it will be turned into an animated film. This insures that the contest will try to write a story to there best of there abillities with out being influenced by there preconceived notion animation.
Your bond to to get a few goods stories. Advertise in Literature magazines and at Liberal arts collages.

Interesting website on what makes a good story. It supposed to be for shortstories and novels but most of it could be applied to any medium
http://www.aaronshep.com/youngauthor/elements.html

EVERYTHING FROM JAPANAMAISIA IS SUPERIOR BEAUSE IT ISN'T AMERICAN AND THERE'S A CULT FOLLOWING FOR LOONY STUFF FROM THE FAR EAST.

On a mature level, there's a great old 20 minute Disney propaganda reel about the Nazis from the 1940s. It's got excellent "pre-anime" animation that outshadows all of the crap you see today and even provides an insight on german politics and expansionist policy of the day.

I like this since it requires thought and it requires the viewer to think about what they're watching rather than expecting a new development in the plot.

Anyways, you're too wrapped up in my opinions to understand what I'm talking about here and the goldmines that exist outside of conventional television and film mediums.

Look up "the Animation Show" on google, it's a DVD/Nation-wide tour of independent animators and studios. It features their best work and some modern classics like BitterFilm's rejected
animated by Don Hertzfeld.

You're a lazy fuck, I'll just give you the link to the page : http://www.animationshow.com/

Order the DVD and support independent artists instead of waiting for the mainstream to spoon-feed you your god damned entertainment.

>>134
oh man. education for death is great.

hey guy dragonball z def failed here haah but im in portugal not america

Well....that's not really news to anyone. :/

    I like the show more when it parodies the quixotic delusions of the workaday white collar world. It started as that. It enumerated and insulted all these absurd phenomenons that spring up from these lame cities. AKA: Theme resteraunts, bronzing crap, people's infatuations with dogs, porcelein figurines, the "wacky" tv variety show and its hypergesturing host, heterosexual executives and their homoerotic business friendships).

    But sometimes it denudes the parody so far that it just becomes arbitrarily bizarre. Which can have funny moments, but it doesn't take you along for the ride. It's like when somebody describes their really boring bizarre dream.

    I love this show. I think the freeze-frame facsimile style is able to highlight the haunting artistry of the individual moments of conversation that take place in towns like Jefferton. I love that it attacks this hilarious ideology that has taken over America, this "Entrepreneurship for its own sake" type thinking. Where people have fallen in love with the ideas of success, management, and just generally "making it happen." The mayor is the essence of this. He's like an abstraction of Steve Carell's character in "The Office." He loves himself, he doesn't listen, but he's honed in on the "popularity" of the concept of listening. So he has all these prefab reactions to people's ideas. "Yeah, " "Great!" "I love that Tom, " And then off to himself.

    The show needs to stick it to society. Like south park does. It's more abstract than south park, and more visual. It's awesome at it when it tries. Hatred of the lame suburban and business worlds is the inspiration for this show. It needs to be true to that inspiration.

>>49
Penny arcade is fucking shit.

what are all those haughty-taughty, psuedo intellelectuals doing on 4chan?
really, entertainment is just entertainment and its not proving to others about how deep or awesome you really are.
btw, my comments look crap because english isn't my first language and i'm only 14.

Hey, i actually enjoyed Titan A.E. but can't remember much of it because i went to see it many years ago when it was shown at the movies. So i can't remember many details.

Home Movies

Squidbillies

12 oz Mouse

I can't help but notice that no one's said anything about Avatar yet. That's a damn good show in my opinion, not only does the action rival that of any anime (if not succeed it occasionally), but the plot is good, it's funny, and the characters are well thought out.

...Or is that drawn by asian slave-animators and I just don't know yet?

CLUB WINX

>>144
You did it wrong.

>>142

What's Worng With Home Movies?

C'mon, Batman the Animated Series. Need I say more?
And of course the Simpsons.
And Johnny Quest.
And the Venture Brothers.
Ect.

Does the Satanika animu count as US failnimation or animu weeaboory?

anonymous, i dont know how to tell you this, but your...your CD4+T cell count is very low.in other words..........

U HAV AIDS LOLZ!!1!

I think it's the same thing that plagues a lot of TV, movies and animation is really about the same.  Writing is all but DEAD.  Studios seem to be allergic to complexity of any form.  You can't do a complex story that makes people *think*, you can't have moral ambiguity, you can't have a plot that makes people pay attention to the story.  That might turn off audiences. 

Most of the time they solved the plot-free movie/tv problem by covering it with purty 'splosions and sex scenes.  Or by doing a reality TV show.  Or by trying to drum up something "controversial", like gay kisses, a character uses the N-word, a teenager gets pregnant, sposal abuse, etc.  Anything to avoid having to create charaters that people care about, or plots that flow naturally. 

What you can have is lots of psuedo-controversy.  I remember watching in the early 1990's when "gayness" first came into the mainstream eye (not that hollywood wasn't gay before, just that the issue of homosexuality wasn't a big thing).  Every sitcom and other TV show was having "very special" pro-gay episodes.  Every one of them sucked hard.  They didn't bother with establishing a gay character that people would actually give a fuck about.  Too hard.  Instead, they had a new character come in for about half an episode and kiss the main character.  Then they disappeared -- forever.  They weren't even really gay *characters*, they were gay redshirts.  They existed only to be gay.

Scifi is in just as bad of shape as animation. A genre that started as a way to explore complex issues (Read Heinlein or Asimov, ie) has become a genre about nothing.  The throw away line in Sith about "you're with me or against me" was about as close to old scifi as anything in the last 10 years.  In most scifis, if they take on an issue, they take only one side. 

just so you know...

YOU'RE ALL ARGUING ABOUT FUCKING CARTOONS!

time to grow the fuck up.

>>151

And?

Does mocking strangers make your internet penis grow?

>>152
No. There's nothing to argue about is all. Gee all fucking touchy too I see.

ALL AMERIKKKAN ANIMATION =CRAP
JAPAN SUPERIOR ANIME BETTER

King of tables, master of cats

　　　　　　　　　　∧＿∧　　　／￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
　　　　　　　　　 （　´∀｀）　＜　WATCH A GUY NAMED MAX HARDCORE HE KNOWS HOW TO THREAT GIRLS
　　　　　　　　／　　　　|　　　 ＼＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
　　　　　　　/ 　　　 　 .|　　　　　
　　　　　　 / "⌒ヽ |.ｲ |
　　　＿＿ |　　　.ノ | || |＿＿
　 .　　　 ノく＿＿つ∪∪　　 ＼
　　　＿（（＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿_＼
　　 ￣￣ヽつ￣￣￣￣￣￣ | |￣
　　　＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿__| |
　　 ￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| |

　　　　　　　　　　∧＿∧　　　／￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
　　　　　　　　　 （　´∀｀）　＜　WATCH A GUY NAMED MAX HARDCORE HE KNOWS HOW TO THREAT GIRLS
　　　　　　　　／　　　　|　　　 ＼＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
　　　　　　　/ 　　　 　 .|　　　　　
　　　　　　 / "⌒ヽ |.ｲ |
　　　＿＿ |　　　.ノ | || |＿＿
　 .　　　 ノく＿＿つ∪∪　　 ＼
　　　＿（（＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿_＼
　　 ￣￣ヽつ￣￣￣￣￣￣ | |￣
　　　＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿__| |
　　 ￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| |

im mexican, but i want to join the us marines

I think it's a great pity that Bob Clampett's JOHN CARTER OF MARS project (based on Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoomian planetary romances and with design work by ERB's son and frequent illustrator, John Coleman Burroughs) never got beyond the test reel stage.  I think it would have revolutionized American animation.

The Roswell Conspiracies was actually pretty good. Good plot, good animation and good action scenes.

Did you get to watch it?

its hard to deny that at the very least   todd mcfarlenes  hbo series  spawn  showed the way to tell mature american style fiction stories with good smooth animation ....of course that was outsourced still  one can admit you have your point that there are struggles with the american animation attempt we re so culturally behind the rest of the world in alot of ways artistically and i guess truelly animation is one of them

We should make cartoons of Max Hardcore reaming virginal nostrils and erotically pooping on puffy nipples.  Put tentacles on Max for X-tra culture!  Oh yeah!  Cannes, here we come!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WEFIp6GYT0 <-----Commentary on why anime sucks.

http://www.arcademe.info

>>163
Yeah!  X-TRA culture, motherfuckers!  He should ass-fuck and unload on some lame-assed, puffy-lipped, brooding cartoon bitch of a vampire---and then piss in her eyes.  I would thereafter go and rape my pillow.  Oh so soft!

ALL OF THEM SINCE IS NOT JAPANESE IS ALREADY A FAILURE THE MOMENT IT WAS MADE

http://www.leasticoulddo.com

http://www.sentient-puddle.com/

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It actually has an interesting feminine character, and at least a little plot. But mostly its an excuse for tons of action scenes, and still suffers from "tries to be hardcore" mated red to dy cared because it still looked and felt like an average WB