Quote:
Originally Posted by Aniki
It's because the Japanese animation was nothing special before the 90's, just different drawing style and that's all. Sure they made Gundam, Akira, Grave of the Fireflies, and of course Myazaki and his work, but that's basically it. While Disney alone made so many wonderful work. Mickey Mouse, Donald and other characters, animated films like Pinocchio, Jungle Book and Fantasia (which features only classical music and no dialogues) were really fun to watch. And no Japanese anime ever done anything like Fantasia (not that I know). And I won't even bother talking about Tom and Jerry and the others.
But in the 90's things changed, more and more "serious" anime started to show up like Ghost in The Shell, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Perfect Blue, Death Note which attracted the viewers, with their philosophy and complicated plots, (heck, they put most Hollywood movies to shame). And I will go far by saying that Myazaki is today's Walt Disney, although not all of his work is so wonderful like everyone says, but you can really see that he puts his heart into it.While Pixar and Disney keep making stuff with the same formula - computer animated films with stories for children, but with adult humour so that adults could enjoy them too, and it's pure CGI CGI CGI. And the new American cartoons that you see on TV today, they're total crap in both ways - the character design and story, and is not even worth comparing with Japanese anime.
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I definitely agree with you about today's American cartoons. I think the only good American TV cartoon I've seen in a while is Avatar: The Last Airbender. That show gives me a lot of faith in USA cartoon making.
Japanese anime has become more serious... but is that really a good thing? I think entertainment should have a fair mixture of intelligence and excitement. I think that Death Note had a good amount of that, but NGE and Ghost in the Shell put me to sleep. I didn't really like the way those shows were created. It was like BOOM BANG EXCITEMENT - pause. Philosophical conversation. BOOM BANG EXCITEMENT. Death Note really kept the excitement throughout even the philosophical conversations because there was so much in store for all of the characters, and it demonstrated its intelligence rather than had the characters sit down and talk about it through lengthy dialogue.
I also disagree with Pixar and Disney being made for children. I really believe that there's so much intelligence in those films, intelligence that children may not necessarily understand. I think Pixar especially makes films for both adults and kids, and merchandise for kids because they know it's the 10-year-old's that will drag their parents to the movie theaters.