Why do modern cartoons suck so much? [my very first nostalgic rant]

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't know how widely held this view is (I've seen a few other people complain about it on the internet, but I'm not sure if they form a consensus) so apologies if I'm being Captain Obvious here, but I thought the feeling was worth sharing.

My childhood was spent astride between the late 1990s and early 2000s, so I think I've been able to witness firsthand the absolute decadence of Western animation that occurred at the turn of those two decades. Seriously, think back about it. Back when I was a little kid, we had cartoons with reasonably mature, elaborate, and meaningful storylines. They were still destined to children, obviously, but they didn't view children as morons, and some didn't even hesitate to tackle "adult" topics. The Gold Standard was obivously Batman: The Animated Series, which has already gone down in history as, not only one of the best cartoons ever made, but also one of the highest points of the Batman franchise.

But what really struck me (and eventually motivated me to start this thread) was rediscovering an obscure French cartoon called Chris Colorado, which I had first seen when I was 8. I rewatched it in full 3 years ago, and was amaze by just how complex and multidimensional its characters were (with full-fledged anti-villains and good guys who perform questionable acts), and the maturity of themes they managed to include: treason, unrequited love, madness, kinda-sorta drug addiction, post-apocalyptic humanity, genetic engineering, manipulation, tyranny/resistance (with a few glaring references to Nazi occupation), electoral politics, etc. And then you had its musical theme. Listen, just listen to it. Really, if this is your thing and if you can tolerate a small deal of cartoonish camp, you highly recommend watching it. You'll find all the episodes in English on youtube (since it was actually released in several countries).

Anyway, the point is that this cartoon was probably among the last of its kind. Starting in the 2000s or so, what I found on TV was increasingly silly, cheap, immature crap. Sure, this stuff had always existed to some extent, but now you can find almost only this. The only thing that saved my childhood from complete bore were Japanese anime (first Digimon Adventure, then stuff like Knights of the Zodiac... thank God). But from the West, all you get is moronic cartoons which don't take themselves - or their viewers - even remotely seriously, drop any pretense of basic logic or any ambition to tackle even remotely serious topics otherwise than through pseudo-satire (the satire in question consisting mainly in showing stupid and utterly uninteresting characters doing stupid things which more or less closely relate to real-life issue). Now, the "intellectual" cartoons are supposed to be Spongebob Squarepants, Family Guy, or, for the affectionate creeps, My Little Pony... Seriously, how have we sunk that low?

Maybe I'm making the picture a bit too grim, but again, I'm speaking based on my personal experience as a child and later as a teenager. Maybe I was just tuning in to the wrong channels (in Italy, I watched Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and later Fox Kids - in France, mainstream TV). I don't know. If anyone can point out something of the same caliber as the good cartoons of the 90s, I'll happily reconsider my judgment. But from what I've seen, its a pretty depressing tale.

[Antonio the Sixth]

...

I think I went full Naso, didn't I ? I guess that's fitting, coming right after I once again expressed my distaste for his antics.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I am glad you prefaced this by saying it was a nostalgic rant, so I don't have to read it. Nothing against you Antonio, but there is nothing that I dread more than "nostalgic" rambling.

No worries, I understand. I myself usually have a similar attitude.

I guess I'm just in the mood for this right now.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Have you watched Adventure Time? It's very good.

Nope, never seen it (although it's probably because I've long stopped watching cartoons on TV altogether).

Reading through the Wikipedia article, it does seem to have some interesting elements. However, the awfulness of the drawings (thanks google images) is a huge turnoff.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Because you're no longer a child and thus don't find television shows aimed at children engaging?

Maybe... As I said, today I can still rewatch some cartoons from that time period and be genuinely interested (sure, the childish aspects sometimes bother me, but not that much). I think that "aimed at children" meant a different thing at that time than it does today.

Weird and crude character designs are part of the show's appeal.

I guess we just disagree on what makes a cartoon appealing. I mean, I'm not asking for uber-realistic design, but this stuff looks like it's for kids under 5.

[Antonio the Sixth]

also, digimon was bad. it was the poor man's pokemon in more ways than just the title.. and i knew that even as a 10 year old. but for some reason i watched anyway. i guess the characters were cute if bland. granted, the premise was actually pretty good (certainly better thought out than pokemon...) even if it totally failed to live up to its potential.

Really? I've always thought that the contrast with the absolutely horrendous, franchise-driven Pokemon cartoon was striking. It had a serious storyline (with real stakes, as opposed to that "I wanna be da best!!" crap), a good deal of character development, plenty of moments of awesome... Digimon is probably one of the cartoons which most made my childhood.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I think the key word here is rewatch. As you've already seen and liked these shows in your childhood, you're predisposed to like them when viewing them now. If you watched the cartoons for the first time as an adult, I doubt you'd have the same reaction.

You've heard old people refer to "the good old days"?  This is the same phenomenon.  "stuff is crap now, not like when I was younger" is a common complaint throughout history.

Yeah, you're probably mostly right. I'm aware of the biases that inevitably come when one thinks about their childhood, so I might be exaggerating things a bit. In my defense, I must say there were also many cartoons which I disliked at the time and utterly loathe today (the David Feiss stuff comes to mind.. bleah).

I think there is also a lot of truth to Mint's explanation, though.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Ahem...

but this stuff looks like it's for kids under 5.

I was speaking in purely aesthetic terms. As I said, I've never watched it so I can't judge on its content. But still, thank you very much for the nightmares I'll probably have tonight.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm probably not in the mood/conditions to start watching something new right now - both because I'm not entirely done with uni papers and because I have some other plans for the next few weeks (including catching up with a few live action TV series). But I'll be happy to take your recommendations, and enthusiastically follow them whenever I'm in the mood for anime again (this happens about a couple times per year).

I probably have some preferences in terms of thematics, but I haven't explored the field well enough to be sure about them. As a kid what I watched was mostly "adventure"/"heroic"/sci-fi, but I think that would make sense for a kid (though I certainly don't renege this style now). I'm open to various stuff, though I might only watch one or two episodes and determine it's not my thing. My brother uses to watch (and read) a few of the most recent manga, such as Naruto or Bleach, but I wasn't really caught into these.

I think I saw the pilot episode of Avatar in my late childhood, it seemed pretty interesting, but for some reason I never managed to follow it regularly. I might go for this next. Also, what do you think of Sailor Moon? I vaguely remember seeing a few episodes as a kid, and being pretty caught up by the plot, and it seems to have an adult fandom (which, of course, is far from a guarantee in itself ), so I thought it might be worth a try. As for Saint Seiya (sorry, I should have known to use the original title, but I've been used to calling it I Cavalieri dello Zodiaco for a long time), it was really amazing. I was hooked up to it for a long time (watched up to the Neptune arch) and was thoroughly impressed. I was a bit troubled by its "roughness" (especially the moral dissonance surrounding widespread child abuse), but if I could bear it as a teen, I certainly can now.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Glad to see the Pony fanclub hasn't corrupted this thread yet.

Can someone summarize Regular Show and Gravity Falls, since they've been cited so many times? I'm too lazy to read through the Wiki articles...

[Antonio the Sixth]

I see. Seems like the "silly fun" kind of cartoons which I really can't stand.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's the new Spongebob.

Good to know. Excellent reason for me not to watch it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, Up was an absolute masterpiece. No question about that.

I'm probably not in the mood/conditions to start watching something new right now - both because I'm not entirely done with uni papers and because I have some other plans for the next few weeks (including catching up with a few live action TV series). But I'll be happy to take your recommendations, and enthusiastically follow them whenever I'm in the mood for anime again (this happens about a couple times per year).

I probably have some preferences in terms of thematics, but I haven't explored the field well enough to be sure about them. As a kid what I watched was mostly "adventure"/"heroic"/sci-fi, but I think that would make sense for a kid (though I certainly don't renege this style now). I'm open to various stuff, though I might only watch one or two episodes and determine it's not my thing. My brother uses to watch (and read) a few of the most recent manga, such as Naruto or Bleach, but I wasn't really caught into these.

I'll send you some recommendations of good heroic sci-fi adventure anime by PM after I've had a good night's sleep and consulted with a couple of friends of mine who are more immersed in those particular genres than I am.

Thank you very much! Note that here's no need to be too specific in subject matters (the slashes that I put were more disjunctive than conjunctive), I wouldn't want to close myself up into a single genre.

I think I can go with Sailor Moon next, then! I'll try to see how the Japanese version is - although I admit I don't much like watching subtitled shows/films when I'm not proficient in the language (it took me a while to even start with Anglophone works). Italy is generally known for its high-quality dubbing (among other things, they translate directly from the original version rather than using the English version as a shortcut) so that might be an option too.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Antonio, I looked it up and it seems like the Italian Sailor Moon dub, while technically well done, is heavily censored, though not as much or as blatantly as the English dub. A lot of the lesbian and transgender themes of the original, for example, were actively disallowed from making it into other languages (to the extent possible; a lot of the English censorship, at least, was unbelievably clumsily done), and some of them are pretty important to an understanding of what's going on. Also Rei is way different in the anime compared to the manga and manga!Rei is generally considered a better-written character, but that's true of every language.

True, I did not consider that. Of course it should be expected that Italian TV would censor (though, interestingly considering everything, it tends to be a bit less prudish than others, at least from my experience). I'll go for the original subtitled version, then - which is probably also easier to find on the internet. I probably don't have the patience or interest to read the original manga, though. From my modest experience, I haven't much enjoyed the manga format.

I looked up Legend of Galactic Heroes and it seems pretty interesting. I'll give it a try some day too.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'll have a look at all this, and see if I am interested enough to watch through all of it. I got the sense that these anime sagas tend to be pretty long, and that's indeed a bit discouraging. But who knows.

Note that it might take a while for me to even start watching. I have many things to watch in my schedule and time, as always, is the scarcest resource.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'll have a look at all this, and see if I am interested enough to watch through all of it. I got the sense that these anime sagas tend to be pretty long, and that's indeed a bit discouraging. But who knows.

Not all of them! Some of my favorites clock in at around eleven to thirteen or twenty-four to twenty-six half-hour episodes. Serial Experiments Lain, for instance, is very short, although it's not what many people would call very accessible. That one depends on how you feel about the cyberpunk subgenre.

I actually read extensively about Serial Experiments Lain on TV Tropes, and though I found it interesting in many respects, I concluded that it was probably too unsettling (even at 20, I am still far too easily "creeped out" at certain particular things) and had too intricate a plot (I have difficulties with works where I cannot perceive a fully coherent storylines) for my tastes.

[Antonio the Sixth]

also, digimon was bad. it was the poor man's pokemon in more ways than just the title.. and i knew that even as a 10 year old. but for some reason i watched anyway. i guess the characters were cute if bland. granted, the premise was actually pretty good (certainly better thought out than pokemon...) even if it totally failed to live up to its potential.

Really? I've always thought that the contrast with the absolutely horrendous, franchise-driven Pokemon cartoon was striking. It had a serious storyline (with real stakes, as opposed to that "I wanna be da best!!" crap), a good deal of character development, plenty of moments of awesome... Digimon is probably one of the cartoons which most made my childhood.

the original pokemon in a lot of ways was basically adventure time 1.0. pre teen kid and his intelligent animal friend interacting with other colorful characters in a post apocalyptic setting. also pokemon has a lot of male characters that are effeminate or cross dress while adventure time has two implied lesbians in the main cast so similar kind of lgbt thing going on. also gary

I'm not sure we're talking about the same Pokemon here...

[Antonio the Sixth]

The problem with these clues is that they are too subtle and little for me (or most normal people) to give a damn. They aren't in any way relevant to the main plot and thus can't give any interest to a pathetically empty storyline.