Consistency in US animation?

[guest]

We know that depending on the budget, Japanese animation has inconsistent animation quality problem. Why is that American animation does not have this problem?

[Lavabyle]

^ because all american animation is terrible from the start

[StanAce]

^ True that. For most anyways. I guarantee you it's much easier to animate South Park than Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. =P
Not that I hate those American comedy cartoons though.

[Sonhex]

It seems that most US animations are based on franchises or ideas that have been tested via pilots (Cartoon Network does this a lot) and commisioned and budgeted upfront by broadcast networks. The anime production model is slightly different, as it's sponsorship based (either by third parties or the studios themselves) and it is not unheard of for shows to simply run out of budget half-way through.

Another reason is that to meet deadlines anime studios often farm out production to third parties, and unfortunately those companies are not as proficient/consistent as the main studio resulting in poorer quality animation.

Originally Posted by Lavabyle

^ because all american animation is terrible from the start

Well most of it is terrible, but it's also considerably less ambitious and less risky than anime.

[wao]

Yeah, the impression I get out of US animation is that it's largely functional so there's not much difference in quality compared to Japanese works where different teams of people will put in their own touches and stuff to it. That's one thing I enjoy while watching anime; despite the rigorous production format and all the various standardization processes, it's not hard to see the varying touches of different staff members on different episodes. Of course this can be for better or for worse, but sometimes you sort of need crappier people to remind you exactly how good and precious the good animators and directors are...

I mean I think with US animation, if the storyboard says person A jumps from this rock to another rock, all the different animation teams will just do person A jumping straight, rather than bothering to put in their own twist like doing a flip or putting in extra frames or what. Of cousre I'm not familiar with the situation at all but I'm just guessing. I'm also guessing that the storyboarders are largely of the same quality and some aren't particularly more detailed than the others - or even fi they are, by the time it comes to the animation level it's all equalised.

I think in both cases though there are budget restraints anyway - perhaps in anime it's just that there's more cases of uneven spreading of this budget; whereas they keep it more evenly divided in American animation...

[Ending]

US-made cartoons are usually backed by large, well-established companies. Why? Because the only way a cartoon can make it to the awareness of general public is through well-established channels, which prefer taking material from big companies. In turn, big companies want safe, conservative choises, so the circle is ready: small players can't enter to the markets dominated by big players, big players want conservative cartoons, people get to view only convervative cartoons, and these conservative cartoons strenghten the position of big players. It's a stalemate.

In contrast, like said, japanese anime is sponsor-based. Although the sponsor still gets to dictate pretty much of the content, there is more variety, since not all sponsors are that large with strict policies about what to show and what not. If the sponsor(s) can't afford paying very much, they have to pinch from somewhere...

Also, remember that big companies have the benefit of mass-production, so they can recycle some of the stuff. E.g: Disney re-uses animation-models in their movies, such as the dance of Winnie the Pooh and Mogli, from Jungle Book. Basically, US cartoons are more stable in the quality because you are watching what you have already seen for the second/third/fourth time whereas anime is more often made from scratch.

[DarkCntry]

Originally Posted by Wordplay

US-made cartoons are usually backed by large, well-established companies. Why? Because the only way a cartoon can make it to the awareness of general public is through well-established channels, which prefer taking material from big companies. In turn, big companies want safe, conservative choises, so the circle is ready: small players can't enter to the markets dominated by big players, big players want conservative cartoons, people get to view only convervative cartoons, and these conservative cartoons strenghten the position of big players. It's a stalemate.

In contrast, like said, japanese anime is sponsor-based. Although the sponsor still gets to dictate pretty much of the content, there is more variety, since not all sponsors are that large with strict policies about what to show and what not. If the sponsor(s) can't afford paying very much, they have to pinch from somewhere...

Also, remember that big companies have the benefit of mass-production, so they can recycle some of the stuff. E.g: Disney re-uses animation-models in their movies, such as the dance of Winnie the Pooh and Mogli, from Jungle Book. Basically, US cartoons are more stable in the quality because you are watching what you have already seen for the second/third/fourth time whereas anime is more often made from scratch.

Adding to this is the simple formula of that the cartoon is going to have a toy line, that toy line is going to have TCG line somewhere, that TCG will have a complimenting coloring book, and so forth.

Basically it's not so much that the animation itself has a higher budget overall, it's that it benefits from product tie-ins. Take for example the ORIGINAL GI Joe. For the age it was created, budget was fairly low for the animation to begin with, basically using resources from the established toy line, albeit small. Most of us are old enough to know where it went after that, several incarnations of show still air today in many areas, albeit not the same.

[Shounen]

Originally Posted by Lavabyle

^ because all american animation is terrible from the start

^ That, and the dubbing or voice acting (speaking about dubbs..literary).

[Supersonic]

Yeah man, White people can't make cartoons worth a damn. Why can't people just accept when another nation is superior?

[Nergol]

I'd disagree that American animation in general is of crappy quality.

Now generally to start with I assume we're speaking in terms of actual animation quality and not writing. Writing-wise, much of American animation is fantastic. The Simpsons has consistently been the best thing on US television for the past fifteen years. South Park, crude as it is, is funny and stingingly insightful social commentary. Futurama, Family Guy, The Tick, and King of the Hill have also been superlative both in writing and acting. Even with the miniscule budget they had, Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Cartoon Planet were both inventive and effortlessly cool.

Disney/Bluth/Dreamworks generally have fine animation quality but their writing is both awful and stultifyingly politically correct. A notable exception was The Iron Giant, which I found to be an exceptional and very satisfying film.

I'd honestly say that the showcase of American animation style in an artistic sense was the Warner Brothers revival of the 90s - specifically centered on Batman: The Animnated Series. Batman was not only extremely well-written, extremely well-acted, and as mature as American TV can handle, but offered a well-drawn and uniquely American style. All these virtues were especially on display in the feature film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, which I kid you not when I say I'd hold up right there amongst the very best animated films - Japanese or western. Mark Hamill's voice performance as the Joker (yes, that was none other than Luke Skywalker himself) was terrifying and haunting. And yes, the animation was very high quality in style and detail.

Unfortunately, that style - which held a lot of promise - ended up going nowhere. Batman eventually declined in quality, and the Superman and Justice League series that followed were artistically quite good but so-so plotwise. They never took chances - remember that B:MotP was released with a PG rating - something that amost never happens with American animated films. But American studios take few chances and like safe bets, and that's what the WB animation eventually degenerated into. When computer animation started getting really big, I think studios started losing interest in traditional animation. Warner Brothers certainly dropped any idea of doing dramatic animation and went back to goofy kids shows and dumb actioners.

This left the cutting edge of American animation in the hands of Cartoon Network. But for me, the less said about the Tartakovsky/McCracken style of animation the better.

[Nergol]

Re: voice acting/dubbing...

One of my favorite souvenirs of my time on the JET Program is a tape off of TV of a few episodes of The Simpsons dubbed in Japanese. Let me assure you, bad dubbing goes both ways - it's utterly awful. It is amusing, however, to hear Japanese seiyuus try to mimic the very distinctive voice tones of Dan Castellaneta and Julie Kavner.

Also amusing were a couple of things cut out. For example, one of the episodes I have is Bart Vs. Australia. There's a scene in the episode where Homer looks at a globe, spots Uruguay, and laughs "Look at the name of this country! U-r-gay!". Even though it's only about five seconds long, this was cut from the Japanese dub, presumably because the joke, being a very silly pun, simply could not be made to make any sense in a dub.

Another of the episodes I have is Homer The Great. Yes, they left the Stonecutters drinking song in - but dubbed with new lyrics, which pretty much but not entirely match the original ones.

[Sonhex]

Originally Posted by Nergol

...
This left the cutting edge of American animation in the hands of Cartoon Network. But for me, the less said about the Tartakovsky/McCracken style of animation the better.

You surprise me, I always thought Tartakovsky was the most exciting 'individual' in the current US animation industry aside from John Lasseter. Samurai Jack was the only thing worth watching on CN (when I did watch it). He's directing the prequel to The Dark Crystal and the Astro Boy remake, two films I'm looking forward to.

[Supergrunch]

Originally Posted by Nergol

Now generally to start with I assume we're speaking in terms of actual animation quality and not writing. Writing-wise, much of American animation is fantastic. The Simpsons has consistently been the best thing on US television for the past fifteen years. South Park, crude as it is, is funny and stingingly insightful social commentary. Futurama, Family Guy, The Tick, and King of the Hill have also been superlative both in writing and acting. Even with the miniscule budget they had, Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Cartoon Planet were both inventive and effortlessly cool.

The problem is that although many of those shows are brilliant, none of them attempt to portray any sort of story other than for the purpose of jokes.

But I think American animation can be good, it's just rare. And yes, on the whole, American animation is more consistent in animation quality, for reasons stated above.

[raikage]

Originally Posted by Lavabyle

^ because all american animation is terrible from the start

*sigh* Not this tired argument again...

[Ending]

riting-wise, much of American animation is fantastic. The Simpsons has consistently been the best thing on US television for the past fifteen years. South Park, crude as it is, is funny and stingingly insightful social commentary. Futurama, Family Guy--

You must be kidding. They all are basically about the same thing: one-shot episodes repeating the same theme 100+ times, always resetting to point zero at the end. They lead nowhere and although they might have some interesting jests in them, they are not even nearly as entertaining as real stories with a beginning and an end, continuing over several episodes and developing each character. US-made cartoons, especially those that have become big franchises, just drag on and on and on and on.

IIRC, the Iron Giant was a stereotypical Disney flick to boot. Take one super-noble boy, one symphatetic robot, and a standard, evil organization with a cackling leader and you have a typical mass-market success. If cartoons characters could be bad actors, they would had been fired, since not even the computer enhanced graphics could hide the underlying, bland character-design.

[DanielSong39]

Some people just can't accept the fact that US companies can produce excellent animation...

I suppose it's a matter of taste.

For the record I feel the Incredibles can stand up to the very best of Japan's works - and that includes Miyazaki. And as for shows like Simpsons, South Park, King of the Hill - it certainly provided top-notch entertainment, at least for 2-3 seasons.

And as much as I appreciate the best of what Japan has to offer, for me, nothing can match the laughs provided by Warner Bros. 7-minute shorts, or the haunting and charming imagery from Walt Disney's older films. As I said before, tastes can simply differ - and if you prefer the Japanese style, good for you.

[Supergrunch]

Originally Posted by DanielSong39

Some people just can't accept the fact that US companies can produce excellent animation...

I suppose it's a matter of taste.

For the record I feel the Incredibles can stand up to the very best of Japan's works - and that includes Miyazaki. And as for shows like Simpsons, South Park, King of the Hill - it certainly provided top-notch entertainment, at least for 2-3 seasons.

And as much as I appreciate the best of what Japan has to offer, for me, nothing can match the laughs provided by Warner Bros. 7-minute shorts, or the haunting and charming imagery from Walt Disney's older films. As I said before, tastes can simply differ - and if you prefer the Japanese style, good for you.

That's true, but I'd like to see an american animation that is serious and has a full story... I'm sure there are some out there.

[Gundam Zero Force]

^ True that. For most anyways. I guarantee you it's much easier to animate South Park than Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. =P
Not that I hate those American comedy cartoons though.

I don't know if anyone already stated this but . . . even south park now is done on the computer!!

You think I am joking . . .I have a professor who used to work for the simpsons and south park . . . they now use the Program called MAYA (which I have at home ) to do thier animations . . . I've seen stuff at college that can make similar south park style things . . . . I think it is lazy and just not good quality . . . it seems they are more interested in quantity than quality . . .

I like Japanese Anime better, even though yes there are a few good American things . . . .to me Japanese animation is the good stuff . . . .it's got Japanese music and voices lol . . I like that becasue I am used to that

[Nergol]

Sonhex;

I didn't like Samurai Jack. The CN animation style reflected in it just never grabbed me, and it seemed like SJ never quite figured out wether it was supposed to be camp or serious.

I will, however, state for the record that I enjoyed Star Wars: Clone Wars tremendously and thought that it was better-written than the Lucas prequels (not that that's a very high bar).

[Ziv]

Originally Posted by Sonhex

You surprise me, I always thought Tartakovsky was the most exciting 'individual' in the current US animation industry aside from John Lasseter. Samurai Jack was the only thing worth watching on CN (when I did watch it). He's directing the prequel to The Dark Crystal and the Astro Boy remake, two films I'm looking forward to.

I saw samurai jack and I though it was corny. There's not enough character development to justify the fight scene style. Those kind of pauses are sopposed to give you a chance to consider what's going through the main character's head, and his character wasn't that deep. It was on the right track, but fell short.