Quote from: Voros;946584Those are all pretty long in the tooth at this point.

Yes, it is directly related to the last time period I was into anime. That said, quality is quality. Casablanca, Seven Samurai, 2001, The Shining, Bladerunner, Aliens, etc are all far older, and yet are absolutely worth seeing and would get recommendations to anyone from me to this day. Art doesn't have an expiration date.

Of course, but I thought we were debating contemporary adult anime vs. adult western animation. To me, Shinkai seems to be one of the few adults left in anime. Would love to hear any recommendations to the contrary. And I mean adult, not just pornography, gore and fan service.

Quote from: Voros;946624Would love to hear any recommendations to the contrary. And I mean adult, not just pornography, gore and fan service.

I mentioned it in another thread you were present in, but Shiki (2010) is as thematically adult and hard hitting as it gets despite the unbelievably dumb hairdos. Yes, it's a vampire story, but it's not a power fantasy (especially in the final episodes) and goes for the slow burn. Yes, it has some teen/kid characters, but it has a really big cast and most of the major movers and shakers are adults with adult problems. Yes there's some (extremely tame) fanservice, but it's pretty minimal considering the run time.

Cool thanks. To clarify: I'm okay with gore and pornography but I don't consider that exactly 'adult.' Fanservice is more annoying to me personally but I can take it in small doses if it is worth it.

Quote from: Voros;946624Of course, but I thought we were debating contemporary adult anime vs. adult western animation.

Not in that instance; I was replying to someone asking for an example of good non-western animation aimed at adults

The other big problem with western animation is that the networks and suits are very adverse to serial stories and tend to force things to contained episodes. You might get some story arcs. But often these were slipped in or are spread far apart as to almost not matter.

Quote from: Omega;946779The other big problem with western animation is that the networks and suits are very adverse to serial stories and tend to force things to contained episodes. You might get some story arcs. But often these were slipped in or are spread far apart as to almost not matter.

Slight tangent in defense of episodic shows:
- When they go bad the earlier stuff is untainted (and some rare later episodes can still be appreciated in isolation despite the overall mediocrity of the season).
- They are usually more relaxing and make great end-of-workday-bedtime-soon watching.
- Individual self-contained episodes can still pack a wallop as stories rather than steps up to a difficult to pull-off climax.
- Some thoughts from this old Grognardia blog post: http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/07/slaying-ouroboros.html

Saw Gantz: 0 on Netflix. It's one long monster-bash, lean on plot...but still awesome. The monsters are hysterically good.

Okay let me start by saying sorry for the long reply I have been stupid busy and haven't had much internet time ans what i have had has been get on do something important and get off.
As with my last post this is both general and specific..

Quote from: Voros;942782A very unique view I'd say. The vast majority of anime these days seems strictly made for teens and arrested adolescents. Miyazaki and Anno have both been very critical of the economic and artistic state of anime. The lost of Satoshi Kon was a major blow to actually intelligent, adult anime. Shinkai seems to be the only one still making good features outside of Ghibli-alumni.

In terms of the West you seem unaware of the wonderful and very beautiful SONG OF THE SEA. France and Quebec also continue to produce very good animated features like APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD.

Actually I am aware of Song of The Sea(is on my need to watch list) what i didn't know was that it had a theater release which I'm thankful to Skarg for pointing out APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD is one on me though.
I'll be honest Maybe you are right and picking up on things that don't mean any thing and this year every movie and tv show to launch will prove me wrong but those odds are damn long.

Quote from: Skarg;943432I saw Song of The Sea in the theater and quite liked it, though it is a kids & adults thing.

Seems to me worth considering that in the West, animation for adults sort of describes the CGI that has been sneaking into films, and making them subtly more surreal while still mostly photorealistic. I might have despised certain CGI action films less if they had switched to cartoon animation style for their insultingly unrealistic action bits, leaving my imagination a bit more room to shift gears and perhaps imagine things actually not happening in quite so ridiculous a fashion.

A few questions that come to mind for those of you who are more into anime & animation & definitions that I am:

* Having considered whether the West has animation fiction for adults, what is a first-rate example of good non-Western animation for adults (and not kids & adults)?

* Would you consider 300 (the Sparta thing) to be Western animation for adults?

* How would you categorize (or is there already a term/category for) the surreal semi-animated or stylized Western films for adults (I'm thinking of the style of Sin City, Kill Bill (IIRC has interludes with animated parts), Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow, Dark City)?

* What's the term for the style of that recent Tintin film?

I would say CGI like what is found in 300 to be SFX and not true animation as to Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow that's a 30s /40 children's sci-if movie in my mind (thats very much what its aping)
along the lines of say flash Gordan(the only movie serial not the 80s movie. I cant speak to the rest because ether I've never seen it or the more then a clip or 2.

Quote from: Voros;943806Satoshi Kon was the best director of anime for actual adults as opposed to adolescents that I enountered. Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, Paprika, even his TV series Paranoia Agent are all very good.

Graveyard of Fireflies is also amazing, I guess some would debate if it is for kids and adults but I think it would probably be to scarring for most kids to watch.

Quote from: Voros;944218That term certainly raises hackles on the nerdnet. I enjoy some literature written for young people in addition to films and cartoons but if the majority of your cultural diet is composed  of material composed for teens and pre-teens and you're an adult I think arrested adolescent seems a fair description.

I would say the same about women who read exclusively YA novels. Some anime (very little these days) is made for adults. Some has silly violent and sexual content made to appeal to teens who think that makes it 'adult.' It is the equivalent of Image comics in the 90s. Basically, I question whether the material the OP posted about qualifies as adult.

Of course none of that has to do with RPGs, which can be childish, adolescent or adult depending on who is playing and how they're played. There is a range there just as in the genres they are based on (fantasy, sf, thrillers, horror, etc).

I under stand and agree with you to A point on the idea that there is A lot of animated content that is artificially made for adults some shows that come to mind are Archer,South Park,American Dad! and the previously mentioned Family Guy.
But this also go's both ways there are also quite a few things are artificially for children 3 good anime examples off of the top of my head are mobile suit gundam 0079 and dougram and the fang of the sun and legend of the galactic hero's.

For a fair comparative example we can step over to video games and compare tf2 and overwatch.

If you are on the out side looking in and are not in to video games tf2 looks like the more mature game especially if you are like some parents I know and only look at a games rating.
But if you get in to them as a whole overwatch is the more mature game. At least as far as story telling is concerned tf2 never really takes it self seriously where as overwatch all ways treats the events in question as real things with real consequences.
A few good example include The last bastion,Alive,Reinhardt's comic issue #2 particularly his self narration during the battle with the dragons andPharah's comic issue#5 where one of the member's of her strike team blow's his head off so he won't be forced to kill his friends and the rest of the team.

I find that the fact of weather or not a particular work is intended for adults or not is much less relevant then the contend and intent of the work in question. A work for children can tackle A subject and be very mature and make the fact that it is a work for children irreverent. where as A work for adults can be dumb and unintelligent and be about as impactful as an episode of american dad or family guy.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;946461As far as anime? I'm only a dabbler these days, but as far as masterpieces of adult animation you couldn't go wrong with Serial Experiments: Lain, the original Ghost in the Shell, or (if you have a strong stomach and not prone to clinical depression), my personal favourite: Elfen Leid.

The above mentioned millennium actress is probably the best movie I have ever watched.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;946651I mentioned it in another thread you were present in, but Shiki (2010) is as thematically adult and hard hitting as it gets despite the unbelievably dumb hairdos. Yes, it's a vampire story, but it's not a power fantasy (especially in the final episodes) and goes for the slow burn. Yes, it has some teen/kid characters, but it has a really big cast and most of the major movers and shakers are adults with adult problems. Yes there's some (extremely tame) fanservice, but it's pretty minimal considering the run time.

From what you are saying it reminds me of moon phase(the comic not the tv show).

Quote from: Voros;946656Cool thanks. To clarify: I'm okay with gore and pornography but I don't consider that exactly 'adult.' Fanservice is more annoying to me personally but I can take it in small doses if it is worth it.

Quote from: Omega;946779The other big problem with western animation is that the networks and suits are very adverse to serial stories and tend to force things to contained episodes. You might get some story arcs. But often these were slipped in or are spread far apart as to almost not matter.

This is defiantly an issue that ham strings western animation.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;946810Slight tangent in defense of episodic shows:
- When they go bad the earlier stuff is untainted (and some rare later episodes can still be appreciated in isolation despite the overall mediocrity of the season).
- They are usually more relaxing and make great end-of-workday-bedtime-soon watching.
- Individual self-contained episodes can still pack a wallop as stories rather than steps up to a difficult to pull-off climax.
- Some thoughts from this old Grognardia blog post: http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/07/slaying-ouroboros.html

No one is saying episodic shows are innately bad there have been some fantastic episodic shows made.
What he is getting at is the demand networks and production company's that show be episodic and not serials. For example wander over yonder was originally intended to be a serial but Disney refused to fund it on that alone with no regard for anything else about the show.

related news
also animation where house made a video about adult animation that ties in to my earlier point about the lack of diversity in adult western animation.

[video=youtube;-ksyHccgEEU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ksyHccgEEU[/youtube]

Quote from: kosmos1214;947141Actually I am aware of Song of The Sea(is on my need to watch list) what i didn't know was that it had a theater release which I'm thankful to Skarg for pointing out APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD is one on me though.
I'll be honest Maybe you are right and picking up on things that don't mean any thing and this year every movie and tv show to launch will prove me wrong but those odds are damn long.

As Skarg pointed out both do fall into the 'for kids and adults' area more so than just for adults. France and Quebec produce several good films in that style every year but they get even less exposure than anime features.

In terms of shorts Eastern Europe continues to produce amazing stuff but most of it is restricted to festivals and limited showings on the better public televison stations. Jan Svankmajer and the Quay brothers have made amazing stop motion animated features

Quote from: Voros;947205As Skarg pointed out both do fall into the 'for kids and adults' area more so than just for adults. France and Quebec produce several good films in that style every year but they get even less exposure than anime features.

In terms of shorts Eastern Europe continues to produce amazing stuff but most of it is restricted to festivals and limited showings on the better public televison stations. Jan Svankmajer and the Quay brothers have made amazing stop motion animated features

yes very much so I'v all ways been impressed with the animation to come out of Eastern Europe. And to be honest I much of this discussion has revolved around the animation for adults part of my argument but I feel that is only one facet of the discussion.
To be fair much of that is my fault for taking so long to get out all of my thoughts and points. So I'm going to try and put out as much of the rest as I can in the rest of this post.

Note the reason I used tf2 and overwatch for my above comparisons was I wanted to have my examples be as comparable as possible.

The lack of adaptions
I know this might seem an odd thing to comment on but when I look around I see meany property's that are perfect for adaption that no one seems to want to take a crack at.
Yes original content is the heart of western animation but there have always been adapted material hell the movie that made the Oscars recognize animation Disney's snow white is it self an adaption.

Over sanitization
Before I begin this point I need to I need to credit A video by kaptainkristian for having a comment on the end of the video that helped this thought to congeal in my mind.The video can be found here.
In that video at the end he talks about how being A family movie tends to be synonymous with kid safe but as someone who watched the like of all dogs go to heaven and an american tail as a child there is no doubt in my mind that this is wrong.
Yet time and again we see animation dumbed down because some ones is afraid that they might touch on a real subject or influence someones thinking or because they are scared that they might get bumped a rating.
This also leads in to one of the major differences between western and eastern animation. Western animation tends to shy away from serous subjects while eastern animation runs in to then head long.
Now to be clear there are works in western animation that do embrace such subject mater A personal favorite it the world most popular magical girl show Winx club .
Time and again where it could simply do the easy thing they make reasons for things why to the trix want to take over the universe? Its not A lust for power not to be evil for evils sake but for revenge because of the discrimination they faced for no other reason then who there ancestors where. flora's nervousness to ask out the guy she likes because on her world the man is to make the 1st move and then later on when her family visits it bites her in the ass as we find out that part of her family is very traditional and snub her for it. Or musa and riven's relationship that all ways on edge because they both understand what it is to be abused and there defenses poke each other.

Before the death of Saturday Morning Cartoons there used to be a long running series that adapted books. Some pretty obscure. And Red Planet actually got a short TV series back in the 90s.

Japan though cranks out adaptions at a prodidgious rate and better than half the time stay kinda faithful to the source. Unless its a long running series. And not just Japanese books either. Quite a few adaptions of English and French works among others.

Whereas in the US more than half the time you are lucky if the adaption shares anything in common with the source other than the title and maybee some character names. and a glancing not in the general direction of the original plot. At this point whenever someone says "Wouldnt it be great if they adapted (insert book, comic, older series here)?" the response is "Please God No!"

Quote from: Omega;947849Japan though cranks out adaptions at a prodidgious rate and better than half the time stay kinda faithful to the source.

Staying faithful to the source is not always a virtue (see the James Bond films vs the books), and I've appreciated several anime-original endings that swiftly wrapped up adaptations that would have otherwise been interminable repetitive slogs.

WMMV. and Japan has done a few adaptions that were just short of in name only that I am aware of. I havent seen a good, or at least passable  adaption from the US in nearly a decade now.

One problem with Japanese adaptions lately is they tend to end abruptly. With alot more to tell. Which can be really annoying.

I say 50/50 crap shoot when changes are done well you get the likes of  Cardcaptor Sakura, Romeo x Juliet or Emma a Victorian romance.
When it doesn't work you get MOON PHASE,Chobits.
And I agree with you omega about endings that are to cut off be be satisfying or give any sort of closure E's Otherwise is a good example where even though they are trying to fallow the plot of the comic the end its cut to short and ambiguous.