i hate cartoons

[rtil]

I think limited animation is great and it adds to the appeal of animation for me by making it seem more attainable. Definitely part of what inspired me to keep making stuff was watching your animations and how much you could pull off in a 15mb flash file on newgrounds by doing this intelligently. Definitely not something that I'm good but you and many others make it seem easy.

This still doesn't explain why so much TV animation is bad though, which is definitely the flaw, not the limited animation.

Zenny was saying that TV shows have to have good writing and the animation doesn't really matter as much. For me the animation has to be good enough for me to be able to enjoy the writing. The flaw in most anime for me I think is the story, while the flaw in the shitty cartoon network content is the animation.

If i'm purely watching something for the animation though I would still rather watch Rtil's one man productions than a team of incredibly talented japanese animators (although the gifs you posted are super nice). I don't really know why.

Is the animation on TV bad just because it's cheaper to hire bad animators?

well what stands out on tv as particularly bad to you? i do know that in the CN/calarts circle of artists, they think that bad drawings and animation are funny - this was explicitly mentioned by Thurop Van Orman (creator of Flapjack), and it's still somewhat apparent today. I think it was at its peak during the Adventure Time craze with ugly meme reaction faces, wildly off model characters and animations simply moving from point A to point B with nonsensical noodle appendages flying around. i think it instilled a very toxic mentality in aspiring western animators that they didn't have to be good at art to be animators. while a bad drawing can be funny if it's overdone it becomes lazy.

i'm kind of in the middle of the road on the writing/animation department. a strong story is harder to appreciate without good animation, but top-notch animation used on a crappy story seems like a waste (although it can be appreciated out of context in digestible formats like gifs). they both deserve equal attention.

anime has different problems for different reasons. the biggest problem is the uncertainty of a show continuing, leaving many anime with stunted and unsatisfying conclusions. if the anime doesn't sell well, it doesn't get another season, and it's unlikely they'll ever continue. and since many are adapted from light novels and manga, many don't risk doing an "original ending" or simply can't because they were told not to by the publisher. there's also lots of "slice of life" anime that are basically seinfeld-styled sitcoms or "shows about nothing" that focus on everyday life.

but no country on earth produces anywhere close to the volume of animation that japan does - just this season there are over 60 anime series and 15 anime films coming out and that's not even including the single-episode specials and bluray exclusives. while there's plenty of bad anime that comes out every season there's always something great, and anime has the widest appeal because there are anime about almost anything you can imagine. the phrase "something for everyone" comes to mind.. i'd have a hard time believing that someone who enjoys animation couldn't find at least a handful of anime they liked, otherwise i'd be skeptical of their claim.

and while there are plenty of anime that have bad animation i'm guessing you're talking about western animation. in the US a lot of animation is still outsourced. cheaper studio usually means cheaper animation. the (probably crappy) storyboards/animatics are sent to some overworked korean 4,000 miles away. things get lost in translation, they don't really care about what they're animating and probably don't even know what it is, it gets sent back and it's wrong/bad. they probably won't correct it and it ends up on tv. though a lot of the problems are still at the roots i think. bad design, bad aesthetics, bad drawings, bad boards.. what's some intern in another country who speaks another language going to care about fixing those?

but shows that are largely done in-house like The Amazing World of Gumball are consistently well done. that show is produced almost entirely in the UK.

[RichChap]

well what stands out on tv as particularly bad to you? i do know that in the CN/calarts circle of artists, they think that bad drawings and animation are funny - this was explicitly mentioned by Thurop Van Orman (creator of Flapjack), and it's still somewhat apparent today. I think it was at its peak during the Adventure Time craze with ugly meme reaction faces, wildly off model characters and animations simply moving from point A to point B with nonsensical noodle appendages flying around. i think it instilled a very toxic mentality in aspiring western animators that they didn't have to be good at art to be animators. while a bad drawing can be funny if it's overdone it becomes lazy.

Really hate adventure time but honestly I actually liked flapjack, it's the one show in the past ten years that I think i've actually enjoyed, although i haven't made a huge effort. I'm really not a fan of rick and morty or adventure time. partially because the voices are really annoying and mostly because the animation is boring.

It makes sense that outsourcing the animation is part of why it's bad.

I just really don't understand why there's such a huge audience for this animation, particularly among my classmates who want to work for cartoon network. If that was the only kind of stuff I had been exposed to throughout my life I would probably never have considered wanting to become an animator. I just really like the independent stuff on the internet a lot more. So much more.

[rtil]

i don't like AT myself either but remember it also started as an independent animation. it became a lot more like fanfiction as it went on but it did have independent roots.

the kind of humor found in most popular cartoons today i think stems from deep roots in internet culture which is more or less 'our' culture. not everyone finds it funny but most people do, sometimes i wish i liked it more and i'd feel less cynical and detached from what most people like, but i guess i can't help it.