These are the cartoons I personally grew up on. They were fun, they were colourful. They had variety - action, mystery, comedy. But nothing really developed.
One of the main unifying cartoon formats was to use the medium to be zany, silly, and comedic by depicting impossible violence. Each episode was self-contained; an issue would be set up, hijinks would occur, and by the end everything would be exactly the same. There were some occasional new introductions when the same jokes got stale, but usually to the detriment of the show. Most of the time, a cartoon world was held in statis, an impenetrable status quo to uphold gags. Humour was the absolute name of the game. Everything had to be funny, or building up to be funny. Some of these cartoons were old enough and insecure enough in their own format, they actually had laugh tracks. And most of the gags revolved around bad things. Things you could technically label as ‘negative’ - antagonistic relationships, goofy injuries, family disputes, exploitative behaviour.
…And then along came anime.
After the 90s, anime popularity exploded. There were far, far more good examples than those pictures, these were just my personal set. No more random, contextless violence - anime gave all that physical harm a plot and a purpose, as well as weird fantasy creatures, robots, and aliens. It was still zany, but it added one thing the cartoons I’d seen as a kid never had - drama. Despite having the most absurd design choices ever to beam into our TVs, anime plunged into drama at every possible moment. Animal sidekicks helped you deal with separation and loss. Fight sequences resulted in actual deaths. Characters emoted on screen, got angry or upset, for understandable reasons. For those of us thrown into teenagerhood it was exactly what we craved - cartoons like the ones we knew, but with the wrenching, overblown drama we saw in our own lives. It didn’t matter that it was about alien robots from the past or inexplicable hair. We loved it.
And these are the cartoons I’m delighted to see currently being produced. We broke out of the idea that cartoons were all for young children who don’t follow a story. Now we have multiple shows with ongoing plots - and I don’t know how many people realise how amazing that actually is. It’s actually viable for a cartoon to hold back on detail reveals, to develop cultures for nonhumans or fantasy humans, for characters to develop and learn and change. I NEVER had this when I was young. I may not be in the age group seen as the target for cartoons any more, but I can still enjoy these and don’t feel at all bad for doing so. Cartoons are great now, and I’m so happy they’ve evolved out of what they were before and becomes stories of real characters, real personalities, with plots and not avoiding drama for the sake of comedy, with artistry in every area of the work, the designs, the environments, the music, and all the little hidden touches. It’s like the creators aren’t afraid any more to openly care about their creations, they can sincerely write something that moves them and that they want to share. 90s cartoons were fundamentally insincere and insecure by comparison, an art form that was afraid to be serious or require sustained interest after 15 minutes. I’m so glad for the way cartoons are developed now and how they can command such dignity by being sincere and dramatic, and promote messages of respect, caring, and loyalty.
areudirty
stormborns
gummygunk
blakekathryn
romaincrisis
germansingergirl
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