I’ve occasionally been asked (as well as asking myself) why I call myself an anime fan, when being a fan of only one form of animation is so limiting. I’ve talked a little about this before, but I feel like elaborating.
A lot of people may only watch what is best from every category of animation, to skim the cream of the crop until you get a wide variety of good animation from around the world. However, while my love of animation and comics is not confined to only that which comes out of Japan, the reason why I label myself as an anime fan is that I like the bad as well as the good. I’m not here just to see the envelope being pushed, seeing the medium progress beyond its current limits. I mean, I still certainly hope anime does that, but if you’re only seeing the best of the best, you’re not actually seeing everything anime has to offer. It’s the difference between ignoring your friend’s flaws and accepting them.
That said, I don’t really bother with bad cartoons from other cultures, and for that it may just be a matter of not having enough time to watch every cartoon and read every comic ever. This is also why I don’t necessarily fault people for being very selective with their anime, let alone with cartoons in general. Only if they’re being jerks about it.
I guess I’ll end on asking people if they have any favorite non-anime/manga animations, cartoons, comics, etc. that they’re willing to share. As for me, I quite enjoy the works of Norm McLaren, such as Synchromy.
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Favourite non-Japanese cartoon? Off the top of my head, I’d have to say Freakazoid. Haven’t seen it in ages, but I loved that as a kid.
I liked a lot of the first Adult Swim originals before they got overly disgusting and stupid.
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There is no better piece of animation (and perhaps no finer piece of FILM) anywhere than “Duck Amuck.”
Of course, any Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck cartoon blows anything new out of the water. It may not LOOK as good as, oh, Teen Titans (just grabbing a cartoon out of my hat), but it’s better in every other way.
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I think I prefer Bugs and Daffy better when they’re solo acts. The cartoons where they were together kind of sucked, I think.
But yes, watching it again, Duck Amuck is brilliant.
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A brilliant non-anime cartoon is Batman the Animated Series, along with the rest of the DC Animated Universe (Superman, Batman Beyond, JL/JLU). Continuity is tight, characterization is consistent, the animation is great, voice acting is top notch, and it probably represents the characters better than the comics ever have. Even though I grew up on it, watching the old episodes truly blows me away. One of my more recent favorites turned out to be Codename: Kids Next Door. Watching the final season, it was great to see how it not only captured the wild ideas of childhood, but also what a good cartoon should be.
On the side of comics, recent favorites include the latest Blue Beetle series (with the beginnings of a new believable protagonist, exciting art, and a storyline that doesn’t require a wikipedic knowledge of the DC universe) and Invincible (a self-contained series published by Image with great visuals, humorous writing, and a modern look at the Silver Age of superheroes). I’m not the biggest cape-and-tights reader, but I can’t hesitate recommending these to anyone who loves comics of any origin. If you want an older, grittier, and debatably deeper comic, take a look at Watchmen. It’s certainly a different kind of superhero book. Sorry that most of my recommendations are of the cape variety, that’s been the taste of the week. I didn’t even realize how much DC I was reading, definitely not usual for me.
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I think I prefer Bugs and Daffy better when they’re solo acts. The cartoons where they were together kind of sucked, I think.
I don’t disagree (although I think you’re being a little harsh). When I suggested ‘Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck’, I didn’t mean ‘any cartoon with both of them in it’. I meant ‘any Warner Brothers cartoon of a certain time period, roughly 1940-1969ish, featuring Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck’. You could include the Road Runner in there, or WB cartoons that don’t feature any of the name characters.
Because most of ’em are pretty durn good.
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You don’t say.
Ultimately, you will have to like what you want to like. It’s not a matter of perception or being “in click” with any real-life social circles (unless your social circle’s interests match yours). Because you like anime, enjoy it. Nobody deserves to be ostracised because you liked anime, and anime alone.
But an old sage told me this, “In life, take everything in moderation.” So, there.
To be honest, I can’t really bat anything off my head (since the current topic seemed to be about any other “non-anime cartoons” I can think of right now), but cartoons in between “Captain Planet” and “Teen Titans” periods are much better progressed. Not all, some.
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I think the fact that I could still watch a Warner Bros cartoon and find it awesome at 21 says something about how those cartoons were the type of things that everyone can enjoy. Nowadays, it’s very hard to find that sort of cartoon that can transcend age and experience (lol politics): We either have stuff for the young, stuff for the not so young (adults from 20-35ish, maybe), and nothing really for the older adults. I think anime is the closest thing that we have to meeting that.
I’d say I liked cartoons like Rocko’s Modern Life and The Angry Beavers (more so the former than the latter), where they had elements that people from multiple age groups can enjoy, but they range is more limited somehow?
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as for me, it has to be “bugs bunny nips the nips”
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Good question to raise and I think it’s something people should ask themselves more often, and to answer vocally as a badge of what kind of anime consumer they are.
I think for me until they make “animation” about everyday life a commonality, anime will be where it’s at. I’m a bit of a flip case–I enjoy western animation, but much like a noob does for anime–I watch only the best the genre/medium/scene has to offer. And much like anime, the hard part is finding out what’s good and what’s not.
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Isn’t Code Lyoko French? I was hooked on that for a while.
However, animation around the globe is, most likely, strictly limited to countries with the economy that allows for consumer stability. Perhaps I am wrong, but I doubt I will ever come upon a Nigerian reanimation of Eva, or their own iconic cartoon for that matter.
Perhaps cartoons in general give us, as an anime nation, a skewed perspective of the world in the sense that our very imagined community is so exclusive.
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