Western Animation - Discuss American, Canadian, and European cartoons here (or just bitch about wokeshit, I guess)

[Trilby]

It all just screams "nothing personell kid" Coldsteel early-90s/late-2000s edgelord bullshit. I wouldn't be surprised if all of a sudden, they play some Linkin Park or Limp Bizkit shit in the middle.

Disposable entertainment strikes again.

 

[TVB]

Disposable entertainment strikes again.

Yep, and there are people who will defend it due to its name it big shiny bold letters, like typical consoomers they truly are

 

[John Titor]

Castlevania is genuinely one of the worst writen, worst paced, most boring shows I have ever laid eyes upon and I genuninely cannot fathom how this shit got this popular.

As a fan of the games, I was interested to see an adaptation of a video game not suck and was hoping this would be the exception. I liked the first two seasons for at least trying to make sense of a video game plot that was barely there and it did show promise. As for non-game fans, it was probably because edgy "mature" (using that word lightly) cartoons are pretty scarce.

A regular ass human took out a vampire warlord with a belt? I'm sorry what? Even exclusing how retarded this is, why the did you waste 5 episodes on him then? Did we genuinely need FIVE episodes exploring a side character who's only purpose was to receive the equivallent of an offscreen death for all the significance it had?

I straight up stopped watching when the undead reanimated godless vampire priest somehow was holy enough to bless the river for whatever retarded reason the writers conjured up.

And the whole premise of the show doesn't even make sense. Why does dracula need fifty fucking warlords by his side when humans are literally physically incapable of doing anything against his army other than kneeling over and dying? There's no resistance, organized or disorganized, humans just die without fighting back.

This isn't a war, its an extermination campaign, you don't need 50 exterminators to take out an ant nest when the ants literally can't even comprehend what is happening.

The entire political drama rings completely hollow because there are literally 0 fucking stakes. It is impossible for the vampires to fail killing the humans so who gives a shit about them bitching about it AND WHY are they being so dramatic about it?

I'll be fair here, the whip is magic and is what allows him to go toe to toe with monsters; don't remember if they actually explain that in the show. Humans can still put up some resistance but we've only seen the unarmed peasants get mogged. But you're right, the worldbuilding is a mess. You even made me realize a huge flaw in the story telling is that they bring up a bunch of plot points and never actually follow through with them or just threw it in for last minute edginess. It's probably a good thing you stopped at season 2 because if you hated the writing there, the rest is literal fanfiction and would make you tear your hair out. I still think the highlight of the series are the action scenes because as much as I hated the final season, it gave us several episodes where everyone is just punching each other to death for 30 minutes each.

I see a lot of people slinging mud at this show for being anti-christian. I'm of two minds about it. Historically, the Catholic church before the reformation happened was seen as very corrupt. In this show the church is corrupt, but holy water still damages vampires, which is never explained. The cross thing is, and it's stupid, but we never learn why actual holy stuff is harmful to vampires, nor do we learn why the morning star whip is ( I could be wrong, correct me if I am). It's disappointing and it leads me to believe this show doesn't actually have anything to say about religion. It's just nihilist trash. The church is bad with no depth because it is. We're never told why it has power or why people follow it, it's just the church and people follow the church. We're never given any reason that Trevor should be fighting the vampires, he just does it because he's the Belmont. Mankind in this show is depicted as ignorant, unpleasant, and corrupt. Chaos reigns, I am all of me.

I assumed the morningstar is enchanted as it was explained in Lament of Innocence but I don't remember if they explained that in the show. Also, Catholic Church in Romania. lmao

 

[Oilspill Battery]

I'll be fair here, the whip is magic and is what allows him to go toe to toe with monsters; don't remember if they actually explain that in the show.

No no, you're confused, I'm not talking about the main character vampire hunter and his blessed whip, I'm talking about when the gay black guy literally uses the belt from his pants to 1v1 the viking vampire and kills him in less than 20 seconds.

 

[John Titor]

No no, you're confused, I'm not talking about the main character vampire hunter and his blessed whip, I'm talking about when the gay black guy literally uses the belt from his pants to 1v1 the viking vampire and kills him in less than 20 seconds.

Oh ok, it has been a while since I watched it. That does sound dumb in hindsight.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

In this scene's defense, I actually think that kind of explanation would just flat out be cool in a setting with vampires or an equivalent written to be more bestially slaved to their instincts, especially if there were a bunch of other ways hunters exploited weaknesses in vampire biology to level the playing field. Would make it really feel like monster slaying has tangible refined intergenerational knowledge by having said knowledge be integral for every victory... all of which would be fine as its own work but leaves a bitter taste in my mouth hack fit into Castlevania as a vessel to retcon things that did not need to be retconned ala midichlorians from Star Wars.

Speaking of which, back on topic, I've never watched this series nor do I intend to. Is this just a one-off asspull to avoid giving symbolic power to the cross?

Fucking Fright Night did this shit better in the 80’s. It’s not the Cross itself, but the faith behind it. It’s only useful if the person evoking it believes in God.

That series kept them as Supernatural, which they should be. I hate niggers who try to do sci-fi with Fantasy and magic to explain away the magic. You can sort of explain shit, but at the end of the day it’s magic. Everything else is window dressing and at some point you ruin the mystique.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

As a fan of the games, I was interested to see an adaptation of a video game not suck and was hoping this would be the exception. I liked the first two seasons for at least trying to make sense of a video game plot that was barely there and it did show promise. As for non-game fans, it was probably because edgy "mature" (using that word lightly) cartoons are pretty scarce.

I really hated it from S1 onwards. The dialogue was terrible and they definitely didnt understand what Castlevania is. I spent like a month researching Castlevania for my own substack article and what Castlevania actually is, in couple of words, is pulp fantasy. Its very basic narrative of buff dude travelling across the land into villains domain to rescue princess and defeat villain, all the other lore parts are additions on top of that basic narrative. Its very much inspired by Robert E Howard and Universal monster movies at least initially, from Rondo of Blood and SOTN onwards it became more anime ish with stupid dialogue and more complex costumes. So if you wanted to make a Castlevania show, its gotta be just like Conan the Barbarian with some additional Japanese or monster movie flourishes on top. Its not generic YA fantasy with edgy dialogue and stupid fight scenes, thats what it became from the GBA games onwards. Each game in the series tries to imitate very specific things, the first four games are pure sword and sorcery pulp fantasy, Rondo of Blood is 90s anime, Bloodlines and Portrait of Ruin are a shitty alt history exploitation movies, SOTN tries to combine Japanese fantasy fiction with western fantasy fiction like Silent Hill does with horror, The GBA games and Dawn of Sorrow all try to be cringy YA anime shit, the PS2 and N64 games try to be Dark Gothic Fantasy with some sword and sorcery elements and Order of Eccelsia is trying to be one of those 90s feminist anime with JRPG elements and strong female protag, like Angel Cop Battle Angel Alita and the like. The show adapts Draculas Curse, thats fine but its not fucking cringy YA fujoshi crap.

 

[A Grey Cat]

Conversely the Netflix version of cuphead is a decent translation from game to show. And a love letter to the golden age of animation.

The animation isn't actual fleschier good but i can see the influence of it. It's at the very least the most "animated" Netflix cartoon. For some reason a good chunk of their shows (usually the adult cartoons) will just have character talking blankly going on about whatever with little to no body language at all.

 

[Anonitolia]

The animation is almost a 1 to 1 of the cab Calloway/fleschier bros collabs of the day

dude if you think that's 1:1 then you've never seen Fleischer for more than 5 seconds
It's got some decent imitation of it, sure, but the gargantuant amount of tweening (look at that entire orchestra or the way King Dice rolls back and forth for some really obvious examples) and the saturation of its color palette puts it very firmly in the "2010s animated cartoon" pile more than it does Fleischer.

Then again, asking someone to make 36 full-length TV episodes worth of Fleischer-style animation with full color, backgrounds, and relatively-complex character designs (not too complex, but if you put King Dice next to Felix the Cat you'll see what I mean) on a Netflix deadline should be classified as a Human Rights abuse, so I entirely understand why they didn't do that. It would've been really cool though.

 

[Betonhaus]

Conversely the Netflix version of cuphead is a near perfect translation from game to show. And a perfect love letter to the golden age of animation while simultaneously being everything about that eaten fold i mean...just look.

The animation is almost a 1 to 1 of the cab Calloway/fleschier bros collabs of the day

Yeah, I don't trust Netflix

 

[A Grey Cat]

dude if you think that's 1:1 then you've never seen Fleischer for more than 5 seconds
It's got some decent imitation of it, sure, but the gargantuant amount of tweening (look at that entire orchestra or the way King Dice rolls back and forth for some really obvious examples) and the saturation of its color palette puts it very firmly in the "2010s animated cartoon" pile more than it does Fleischer.

Then again, asking someone to make 36 full-length TV episodes worth of Fleischer-style animation with full color, backgrounds, and relatively-complex character designs (not too complex, but if you put King Dice next to Felix the Cat you'll see what I mean) on a Netflix deadline should be classified as a Human Rights abuse, so I entirely understand why they didn't do that. It would've been really cool though.

I said ALMOST, as in there are times where even though it's tweened unlike the og game which WAS hand drawn. There's definitely influence of the fleschier bros style . Maybe "1 to 1" was too generous I admit but it's heart is definitely in the right place. Also when was the last time a western cartoon let alone a Netflix one was just...a cartoon? As in you could watch one without being lost in the middle of some big undoing storyline?

point is compared to castlevania the cuphead show is a miracle. There's two pages of essays deconstructing why castlevania fails big time
From its edgy nihilism and religion bashing to how it cant stay consistent with its own rules . Can the sane be said for the cuphead show?

 

[BiggestKai]

I've recently finished the Siegfried comic and in the back of volume extras there's a lot of interesting stuff about their approach to their animated movie(which will never come out considering this comic ended 2017). I highly suggest picking up the books(its only three volumes) and reading the comic because it's absolutely byootiful(and because the extras are like 120 pages across all three volumes) but I'll post some of their stills of the assumed dead movie.

Spoiler: Volume 1

Spoiler: Volume 2

Am totally not posting this in the hopes that someone who knows more about this can give me hope or closure that the movie is actually still alive/dead.

On an unrelated note, would anyone know of the french animated movie Mars Express and where if anywhere I could watch it english subbed? I've heard it's by the same studio as Lastman which I've really enjoyed.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

Then again, asking someone to make 36 full-length TV episodes worth of Fleischer-style animation with full color, backgrounds, and relatively-complex character designs (not too complex, but if you put King Dice next to Felix the Cat you'll see what I mean) on a Netflix deadline should be classified as a Human Rights abuse, so I entirely understand why they didn't do that. It would've been really cool though.

Thats why instead you go independant, release an episode on YouTube, set up a patreon/kickstarter for people to donate to you while you take your time making the cartoon that people actually want.

Licensing out an IP to other companies in regards to tv/movies just isn't feasible anymore unless you're someone like Nintendo or Scott Cawthorn... making sure to breath down those production companie's necks making sure they don't fuck-up your property to the umpteenth degree, and even that doesn't produce 100% accurate results.

Companies these days for some dumb fucking reason like to restrict creativity and freedom (in a medium that calls for that kind of shit, mind you, so it's counter-productive) while also going for the lowest common denominator in regards to animation style, jokes, the story, writing, etc... partially thanks to shit like focus groups and marketing.

 

[TVB]

Yeah, I don't trust Netflix

Which is why Netflix is releasing anime versions of Resident Evil and Tomb Raider soon, and those have been horrifyingly milked for the worst.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

Companies these days for some dumb fucking reason like to restrict creativity and freedom

Creativity and freedom might lead to a higher budget.

 

[BetterFuckChuck]

The fags on Twitter are going gaga over the latest molly mcgee episode where Andrea says she planned on marrying a woman when she's older. Half are saying she's joined the Disney lesbian club (with amity blythe and Sasha waybright though only amity is confirmed a full on lesbo) the other half are saying she's shown interest in boys before so she must be bi, pan, queer whatever buzzword they can dredge up.


Can't this just BE a show about a girl and her best friend being a dead guy? It was admitably one line in an episode all about how the future isn't set in stone nor is who you are as a person. Andrea pretty much loses her family fortune and daddy's money so she tries to reinvent herself and discover who she is.

it's very telling that they write these shows for adults, not for children. hence why every child character is this weirdo bisexual talking about marriage. most children believe in cooties and shit. the lion king appeals to children because the boy and girl are in a platonic relationship at the start, if the movie didnt have them being love interests at the end it'd be almost progressive. i will argue that disney always put in romance for the adults, but it's weird to try to make the children be the one doing the romancing and to also be putting in romance for a show that is intended to be watched by kids on their ipads alone but instead is watched by unmarried, grown adults on their big screen tvs... alone. all kids shows nowadays do this, and it's not just like gay rep bs that the creators have a victim complex about saudi arabia not airing. that show star vs famously developed into pandering to its adult shippers who wanted the teenagers to fuck. weird!

 

[TVB]

Creativity and freedom might lead to a higher budget.

And yet the budget for the industry is focused way more on BlackRock investments than any sort of creativity and freedom

 

[Basic Blond Boy]

Saturday, September 23rd - Teen Titans Go will air its 8th season which promises to begin with a bang as the Titans initiate a company-wide crossover with all of WB's IPs as a celebration of WB's 100th. The season will also contain a special episode marking the 400th episode of the series.

Spoiler: WB Crossover

 

[A Grey Cat]

it's very telling that they write these shows for adults, not for children. hence why every child character is this weirdo bisexual talking about marriage. most children believe in cooties and shit. the lion king appeals to children because the boy and girl are in a platonic relationship at the start, if the movie didnt have them being love interests at the end it'd be almost progressive. i will argue that disney always put in romance for the adults, but it's weird to try to make the children be the one doing the romancing and to also be putting in romance for a show that is intended to be watched by kids on their ipads alone but instead is watched by unmarried, grown adults on their big screen tvs... alone. all kids shows nowadays do this, and it's not just like gay rep bs that the creators have a victim complex about saudi arabia not airing. that show star vs famously developed into pandering to its adult shippers who wanted the teenagers to fuck. weird!

Which is a shame cause if you removed all but maybe one mention of periods in the molly mcgee episode a period piece...it'd be a pretty serviceable episode about a girl getting needlessly jealous about her best friends acting more mature than her despite them still being more or less kids...tweens at most. Not the best material out there but pretty by the numbers kids stuff.


Same goes for davenport in decline. Remove that one scene where Andrea admits she's thinking of maybe spending her future life with another woman (which is no doubt really what what those fat lesbos who wrote it want projection much?) And the episode become a run of the mill "rich girl loses family fortune." Episode....hey arnold did almost the same plot 30 years ago but the big difference is hey arnold didn't make Rhonda llyod into Ellen degenerate.


Well that and episode about finding a new personality when your life ends up going in a different direction. Without the sam twins sticking their fat fingers in it I think gomm wouldn't be 100% safe from modern woke animation writing, but it'd at least be kept in the background of the show not right in the audience faces..though to he fair...the show is still being somewhat restrained when compared to owl house or later season star vs.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

Saturday, September 23rd - Teen Titans Go will air its 8th season which promises to begin with a bang as the Titans initiate a company-wide crossover with all of WB's IPs as a celebration of WB's 100th. The season will also contain a special episode marking the 400th episode of the series.

Spoiler: WB Crossover

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in 10 years the kids who watched this will be 20 and consider this show nostalgic like spongebob. take in this information however you will