Cartoon watchers with jobs

WipEout wrote:
SommerMatt wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

I'm far from a cartoon purist but those anime inspired designs are terrible. Cheetara looks especially horrible.

Agreed. But let's face it, I'm not their demographic anymore.

I'm sure you're right. But then what is the appeal of the Thundercats to modern kids? A slightly less 'anime' style would appeal to olders kids like us, and be differentiated from the other cartoons that are out now.

You guys realize that the 80s cartoon WAS "anime," right? It was drawn by Japanese animators (as were most cool 80s shows, before it got too expensive).

I'd argue that just because it was animated in Japan doesn't make it anime, though. The designs, stories, etc were very much western/American. Outsourcing the labor doesn't necessarily place it in that country's animation genre.

I didn't know, it was a long time ago, but I agree with WipEout here. I consider anime to be more a sensibility than the location of the tweening studio.

Apparently just about all of Gargoyles is on youtube. Sweet.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
WipEout wrote:
SommerMatt wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

I'm far from a cartoon purist but those anime inspired designs are terrible. Cheetara looks especially horrible.

Agreed. But let's face it, I'm not their demographic anymore.

I'm sure you're right. But then what is the appeal of the Thundercats to modern kids? A slightly less 'anime' style would appeal to olders kids like us, and be differentiated from the other cartoons that are out now.

You guys realize that the 80s cartoon WAS "anime," right? It was drawn by Japanese animators (as were most cool 80s shows, before it got too expensive).

I'd argue that just because it was animated in Japan doesn't make it anime, though. The designs, stories, etc were very much western/American. Outsourcing the labor doesn't necessarily place it in that country's animation genre.

I didn't know, it was a long time ago, but I agree with WipEout here. I consider anime to be more a sensibility than the location of the tweening studio.

Yeah. Because Miyazaki's Spirited Away totally has the same artistic sensibility as Dragonball Z.

LarryC wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:
WipEout wrote:
SommerMatt wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

I'm far from a cartoon purist but those anime inspired designs are terrible. Cheetara looks especially horrible.

Agreed. But let's face it, I'm not their demographic anymore.

I'm sure you're right. But then what is the appeal of the Thundercats to modern kids? A slightly less 'anime' style would appeal to olders kids like us, and be differentiated from the other cartoons that are out now.

You guys realize that the 80s cartoon WAS "anime," right? It was drawn by Japanese animators (as were most cool 80s shows, before it got too expensive).

I'd argue that just because it was animated in Japan doesn't make it anime, though. The designs, stories, etc were very much western/American. Outsourcing the labor doesn't necessarily place it in that country's animation genre.

I didn't know, it was a long time ago, but I agree with WipEout here. I consider anime to be more a sensibility than the location of the tweening studio.

Yeah. Because Miyazaki's Spirited Away totally has the same artistic sensibility as Dragonball Z.

Dragonball Z had artistic sensibility?

wordsmythe wrote:
LarryC wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:
WipEout wrote:
SommerMatt wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

I'm far from a cartoon purist but those anime inspired designs are terrible. Cheetara looks especially horrible.

Agreed. But let's face it, I'm not their demographic anymore.

I'm sure you're right. But then what is the appeal of the Thundercats to modern kids? A slightly less 'anime' style would appeal to olders kids like us, and be differentiated from the other cartoons that are out now.

You guys realize that the 80s cartoon WAS "anime," right? It was drawn by Japanese animators (as were most cool 80s shows, before it got too expensive).

I'd argue that just because it was animated in Japan doesn't make it anime, though. The designs, stories, etc were very much western/American. Outsourcing the labor doesn't necessarily place it in that country's animation genre.

I didn't know, it was a long time ago, but I agree with WipEout here. I consider anime to be more a sensibility than the location of the tweening studio.

Yeah. Because Miyazaki's Spirited Away totally has the same artistic sensibility as Dragonball Z.

Dragonball Z had artistic sensibility?

It will. IN FIVE MINUTES!

Honestly, I hesitate to call a Miyazaki film an anime. His style and execution is far more traditional than the onomatopoeic (thanks, Wikipedia!) typography, big, pupil-less eyes, and choppy framerates (again, indicative of a lower budget-- so Japanese studios got clever with their use of style and figures to make up for the lack of frames). I mean, as far as anime meaning "Japanese animation", sure-- it's anime. But as a style of animation? Hell no.

This conversation is far more indicative of the clouding of the definition "anime" (hint: it means "animation", plain and simple) however, rather than the cultural styles of animation and the means by which we classify said animations.

I don't think wordsmythe was commenting on Toryama's artistic sensibilities so much as the rather mindless action drivel that DBZ portrays compared to any given Miyazaki animation.

LarryC wrote:

wordsmythe:

DBZ has the same visual style as most of Akira Toriyama's works. This is why Dragon Quest characters look like they were taken from Dragonball Z. The original series - Dragonball, is actually quite good. Dragonball Z Kai is a compilation of Dragonball Z episodes without all the useless filler minutes. It moves pretty fast.

WipEout wrote:

Honestly, I hesitate to call a Miyazaki film an anime. His style and execution is far more traditional than the onomatopoeic (thanks, Wikipedia!) typography, big, pupil-less eyes, and choppy framerates (again, indicative of a lower budget-- so Japanese studios got clever with their use of style and figures to make up for the lack of frames). I mean, as far as anime meaning "Japanese animation", sure-- it's anime. But as a style of animation? Hell no.

Anime is not a style of animation. It just isn't.

This is anime:

example, example, ad infinitum

I didn't think I needed to be more clear, but...

Miyazaki's animation is anime, in that anime itself is animation made in Japan by Japanese studios. Specifically, anime is just animation. Disney cartoons are technically anime, by the very definition of anime. By that same token, it could be argued that our favorite 80s cartoons were anime, in that they were largely animated in Japan by Japanese studioes (though it could also be argued that they were doing the in-betweens, which begs the question of whether or not outsourced animation can indeed be a product of a genre whose style is unique to the region from which it was produced, whether that style was implemented or not).

But I hate to tell you, anime is most definitely referred to as a style. What are the most common, repeated, and known themes of almost all anime? Large eyes indicate pure souls (as do higher pitched voices), small eyes = evil; onomatopoeic typography; exaggerated body proportions -- basically, anime is animated manga. Granted, this is basically the Japanese style, but in laymen's terms, this is the style of anime.

You don't need to tout examples of anime to me, as I already know what they are (although I don't really watch any anymore), and have spent a good few years in school studying the history of animation and the defining traits of different styles. Like I said-- yes, Miyazaki is anime in the truest sense of the word, but so is Pixar animation, if you want to get so technical. I was pointing out that most people tend to think of anime as a style rather than the Japanese word for "animation", and this thought process is evident in the arguments that the new Thundercats looks like a modern anime.

So anime isn't a style itself, but Japanese animators definitely fall back on specific tropes that certainly differentiate anime from traditional Western animation.

WipEout:

Spoiler:

And I'm saying that it's wrong. I don't know how many or which anime you've been watching, but given that you agree that the new Thundercats is "anime-inspired," I'm inclined to think that this is largely the mass-produced product-tie-in shonen crap that most companies think Americans (Westerners?) like the best.

In that, you have my agreement, the new Thundercats does look like crap. But it doesn't look like anime, at least not the good stuff.

Allow me to be more clear here.

A metric ton of anime never makes it stateside. What you get is filtered through fans and what companies think will make a buck. Then it gets butchered by whatever translation or licensing company happens to make the translations and cuts, and whatever is left is further mutilated by censor requirements. A lot of anime is crappy, mass-produced things for filling air, entertaining young boys, and for product-tie-ins. Those are crap, and those have all the things you ascribed to "modern anime."

However, a significant amount of anime is NOT shonen crap and does not have the properties you describe. Miyazaki's works are only some examples of this, as are the things I posted. By saying that ONLY shonen crap is anime, you're doing other anime programs a disservice.

If Thundercats were made like a well-budgeted adult targeted anime, it would look a lot better. How?

Well, well-budgeted anime still cuts corners where they can, but they have money to do the things that they like. One of the characteristics of many modern anime is a remarkable attention to clothing and mechanical detail. Characters have distinctive faces, so unlike cheaper anime, they don't have to resort to clothing (or weirdly colored hair) for viewers to be able to tell characters apart. Anime like Card Captor Sakura (which is, interestingly, also shonen) go wild over costume and costume detail. Sakura almost has one unique costume per episode, and she doesn't have a set transformation sequence.

Thundercats strikes me as the sort of show that would attract military and mech nuts as well as cat nuts and action junkies. The illustrated pic is notably lacking in anything that would remotely interest these target audiences. There are no hyper-detailed mechs, no meticulously researched guns, not much in the way of action, and no hint of cat-person fanservice. Even the costumes look like they're designed for cut-rate production. The clothing has nearly no detail, and no forms that would require lots of good clothing-work to detail.

I regret to inform you of this, but if the only anime you were taught in school is the crappy mass-produced kind, then your school did you a significant disservice. You ought to go back there and ask for your money back.

WipEout wrote:

So anime isn't a style itself, but Japanese animators definitely fall back on specific tropes that certainly differentiate anime from traditional Western animation.

Specifically, low-budget, low-brow anime does. While the Japanese are more broad-minded in their approach to animation in general, they're not that much more broad-minded in thinking about what appeals to children. Cartoons for kids are generally better in the Western market.

Anime that's meant to be good usually has some kind of artistic vision that makes it stand out from the crowd. You can easily tell, for instance, that Cowboy Bebop or Emma is a cut above the usual mass-produced sh*t.

PS: this tangent is veering significantly towards anime. If you wish to pursue, let's post in the anime thread.

I would really like for Thundercats and other Western animation efforts to be better, if possible. Anime is okay in its way, but it takes real effort to get into a Japanese mindset.

wordsmythe:

DBZ has the same visual style as most of Akira Toriyama's works. This is why Dragon Quest characters look like they were taken from Dragonball Z. The original series - Dragonball, is actually quite good. Dragonball Z Kai is a compilation of Dragonball Z episodes without all the useless filler minutes. It moves pretty fast.

WipEout wrote:

Honestly, I hesitate to call a Miyazaki film an anime. His style and execution is far more traditional than the onomatopoeic (thanks, Wikipedia!) typography, big, pupil-less eyes, and choppy framerates (again, indicative of a lower budget-- so Japanese studios got clever with their use of style and figures to make up for the lack of frames). I mean, as far as anime meaning "Japanese animation", sure-- it's anime. But as a style of animation? Hell no.

Anime is not a style of animation. It just isn't.

This is anime:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xco-508zimY

So is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR5XyHtI9Ew

and this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVUOvHYv3ME

and this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q6mcx2qF4Q

and this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQzqaDwcoqk&playnext=1&list=PL563D2B459B9AD22E

and this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvJGKyiGPyQ

LarryC: Don't know why you spoilered that? Anyway, fundamentally I think everyone agrees with the meat and the disagreement is the use of the term 'anime' where you prefer 'shonen crap.' :p

Fair enough, I've seen very little anime, but what I've seen is excellent because I avoid crap like Dragonballs. (I love to say it that way to see the eyes of the fans roll back in their heads) The Thundercats character look like they belong to the 'shonen crap' that most forum kiddies with Naruto avatars seem to love. If they looked more detailed and Death Note like I would find them less objectionable.

Hell, I don't even care particularly anyway. It was just a passing observation.

Got referred to this thread, so I thought you might want some input from a Japanese-American. Technically speaking, all animation is アニメ, but Anime is not all animation. What's the difference? Well, アニメ is the Japanese term for animation, and in English Anime is a stylistic genre of animation coming out Japan.

Since this is mainly an English speaking forum, I figure that if anybody uses the term Anime they mean it in the English context.

Now, concerning the Thundercats. I'd not consider it Anime inspired in that it doesn't seem similar to modern Anime. It's more like an evolution from older American cartoons that initially took inspiration from the Anime style of 10 years ago.

MrDeVil909:

I took a real interest in this because I love Thundercats and I think that it could benefit from portrayal techniques and the kind of money involved with a real, nice anime effort.

Lion-O has what essentially amounts to a male chainmail bikini because they were trying to skimp on animating his clothes. What if they didn't?

I'd love to see Lion-O with a nice casual outfit, and outer space work suit, honest-to-goodness battle armor, and a decent variety of hair portrayals. It shouldn't look the same way 90% of the time, for god's sake. And the action scenes! A little something like these wouldn't be amiss, I think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8gYIMpXPQs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxt7w6eyrcs

I spoilered my comments to head off a complete derail into animeland. We already have an anime thread. Comparative comments are okay, I suppose, and ones for definition, but I think we'd all like it if the focus remained on "cartoons," as opposed to anime.

Yeah, I'm sure the style is picked largely due to keep the budget down in case it tanks. I do wonder though if a better budget and better style would make the reboot more appealing to the older cartoon watchers who may be nostalgic for a Thundercats remake.

As it stands now, it looks 'too anime/shonen' for most older folks, and is a property without resonance for the Naruto kiddies. Of course, it may be really good and they get to polish the art style over time if it survives, but I have to wonder.

I still contend that the original, in retrospect, was awful in that vein of DiC-produced shows that had seventeen frames of animation and the voice-actors were all apparently drunk/pulled off the street, but again, I am not the target demographic for this.

Anyone seen any of the new DCAU stuff? I'm vaguely interested, but in all honesty, you name a show "Young Justice" and it sounds.... well, it didn't make me think "superheros". I blame the internet.

I will only watch Young Justice if there's more Flaming C.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Yeah, I'm sure the style is picked largely due to keep the budget down in case it tanks. I do wonder though if a better budget and better style would make the reboot more appealing to the older cartoon watchers who may be nostalgic for a Thundercats remake.

As it stands now, it looks 'too anime/shonen' for most older folks, and is a property without resonance for the Naruto kiddies. Of course, it may be really good and they get to polish the art style over time if it survives, but I have to wonder.

One of the things I admire the most about anime is the production cycle of the short ones. The manga is made as a separate product. This serves as a test-bed for plot concepts and character concepts. People respond, research is done, and the chaff is cut en route to the anime production. Since the story arc in the manga is limited, the anime itself is necessarily limited. This precludes stretching out the series to the point where it fades into nowhere, cuts out filler, and has good pacing.

I'd like for Thundercats to get the same script treatment - limited run, specific story, specific conclusion.

I would like a total disconnect from the temporal timeline of the old series, since much of it was made without any real effort at a coherent narrative. For instance, the origins and flight from Thundera could have been made longer and have more impact. Epic space battles as the Thundereans fled Thundera? Yeah, count me in for that. I don't know what a suitably badass conclusion might be, but it has to be more than just the defeat and banishment of a little ol mummy.

Why is it I have only just discovered Venture Brothers! 3 episodes in and I love it. The missus is lukewarm on it, but she doesn't watch Archer with me either.

Grenn wrote:

Apparently just about all of Gargoyles is on youtube. Sweet.

I love Keith David, he has such a great voice, Like Peter Cullen. Now I have to go get my hands on Transformers Prime and see what it's like.

Just finished Sym-biotic Titan which was great. Unfortunately the show was canceled, to awesome for cartoon network I guess.

I want to add that the wife and I have recently started watching Adventure Time, and it is glorious. If only I had seen SommerMatt's post from December sooner (just skimmed back and saw it now).

Also, Adventure Time's creator was a storyboard artist on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack-- and that show was good! Watching Adventure Time now, I can definitely see the influences in comedic timing Flapjack had on Pendleton Ward.

And Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends was a most excellent cartoon in both style and substance.

Superjail is back with a second season. I don't know how many episodes are out now. If you watch it you wont need to get high.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Superjail is back with a second season. I don't know how many episodes are out now. If you watch it you wont need to get high.

Probably like 4 or 5 although I missed this Sunday's.

WipEout wrote:

I want to add that the wife and I have recently started watching Adventure Time, and it is glorious. If only I had seen SommerMatt's post from December sooner (just skimmed back and saw it now).

Glad to hear it. I still really enjoy it, but I tend to forget when it's on. The worst part for me is that there haven't been any DVDs or blu-rays available... blu-rays specifically, since I just love watching it on Cartoon Network HD.

Adventure Time is totally math.

The first 3 episodes of the new thundercats aired. I haven't seen it yet though.

What the?

I've always kind of "poo-pooed" the recent BATMAN: THE BRAVE & THE BOLD show as being too campy, but I happened to watch an episode today where Superman is exposed to Red Kryptonite ("Battle of the Superheroes!").

I had a blast.

Giant turtle Jimmy Olson, references to Lois Lane always trying to rope silver age Supes into marriage, Batman reenacting the finals scenes from THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (splash pages and all), references to the "super dickery" meme, and much more.

SommerMatt wrote:

I've always kind of "poo-pooed" the recent BATMAN: THE BRAVE & THE BOLD show as being too campy, but I happened to watch an episode today where Superman is exposed to Red Kryptonite ("Battle of the Superheroes!").

I had a blast.

Giant turtle Jimmy Olson, references to Lois Lane always trying to rope silver age Supes into marriage, Batman reenacting the finals scenes from THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (splash pages and all), references to the "super dickery" meme, and much more.

Like you, I was down on TB&tB originally myself. And then I saw this.

Yes, thanks to the incomprehensibly wonderful Gail Simone, a 3:30 second dick joke put to music made it on children's television. I wish I got to catch more of the show, but oh my god, hilarious.

That's a dirty song.

You'll notice that they insulted the manhood of every superhero EXCEPT for Batman. Hard to get really does work.