Why Is Adult Animation So Far Behind?

[@Lextorias]

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[@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914]

1st adult animation i saw was : "Wicked City" in 1995 I think the japanese OAV with eroticism and horror (films with animation, also : Cool world and evidently Roger Rabbit)

[@equmaq]

Why didn't you get them to have to code be Sextorias! It would have been perfect

[@herobrine8763og]

So glad I didn't watch this video on the tv today

[@NathanielJordan85]

I see it's finally your turn to get a promo with them...

[@Grimmmmy-boy]

Wait it’s not a joke???

[@mariokarter13]

Instead of making an animation that's actually adult, they get hung up on the novelty of making an animation for "adults." That's why they appeal to edgy teenagers, it's a child's idea of maturity.

[@Nobody1mportant999]

Honestly I think King Of The Hill is the perfect example of an animation that's made for adults in the right way.

[@improbablyyourdad8458]

Facts. Avatar the Last Airbender is more mature then most "adult" animations.

[@Momo_Minomo]

I call it man-child animation because that's exactly who it's made by and for. I'm not trying being sexist with that term, either, since sexism and objectifying women are baked into the entire concept. I hate how media corporations all act like it's just a given that men are sexist and therefore that's the only media that will appeal to them.

[@PAT.OS96]

​@@Momo_Minomo calling it man-child animation is just perfect. It covers all the topics those type of shows looove to do.

[@worthybutter2004]

That's weird cuz i'm a child and even i detest some of those animations.

[@im_skrunkly]

im a 15 yr old who has a job emptying trash cans at a waterpark a few times a week and i get paid more than animators in japan 😭

[@tacticalrefrigerator]

I'm 15 and unemployed and my grandma randomly slips me more money than animators in Japan get paid 💀

[@alwest4472]

Sad thing is, some will look at that and say you’re the bad guy and not the execs underpaying animators

[@drpallus]

Keep in mind the us has an insane cost of living.

[@floppavevo5920]

​@drpallus What's wild is that Japan does as well. It's a bit less in Japan, but it's catching up to us quickly.

[@jimmyjohnjohnson9803]

​@floppavevo5920 to be fair, japan is experiencing an absurdly awful economy at the moment

[@Lakeside80]

55:11 fun fact, Treasure Planet doing bad in the box office was Disney's own fault and release timing. Disney really wanted an excuse to swap to 3D and discourage experimental/expensive projects, so they sabotaged Treasure Planet as a loss by making the trailer spoil a lot of it and releasing it around The Santa Clause 2.

[@Topdoggie7]

Sounds legit.

[@CarlosHirasawa-lz8ge]

Not only that, but the directors John Musker and Ron Clements were only allowed to make the film after making the Little Mermaid and Hercules, which were significant in building the Disney brand at the time. As they were working on their passion project, Disney did not invest in the marketing and overall support needed to make the film a success at the box office.

[@chaserseven2886]

@@Lakeside80 proof?

[@Sylvinavina]

@@chaserseven2886do your own research

[@TebbleTV]

@@chaserseven2886 There should be some videos of people covering the fact that Disney on purpose did not market the movie to make it fail on purpose so they could move everything over to 3d animation for their movies.

[@DaDarkDragon]

I totally didn't think of the naughty kind of adult animation when you asked

[@chaserseven2886]

bentai?

[@berltrin5565]

Suta Fex

[@florianneacosta987]

🌽

[@Essentially_Empy]

yes

[@Timotarius_]

To be fair the quality of hentai has been on such a decline for more than a decade now except for one studio

[@amberhernandez]

Learning that _Rick and Morty_ went through multiple shell companies solely to avoid unionisation was _not_ something I anticipated today, but I can't be totally surprised. Awful people.

[@Dave102693]

I’m not surprised either, considering the co creators’ behaviors.

[@RtistiqSkubie]

What the hell is that supposed to mean? People SHOULD create something just to let people who had nothing to do with the development tell you how you should operate? Unionization for EVERYTHING is crazy thinking. ​@@Dave102693

[@Gohka]

I mean I'm not surprised, Americans hate unions more than Xi Jingping hates being called Winnie the Pooh

[@gabrielmagalhaes859]

​@@Dave102693true

[@bewawolf19]

@@Gohka It's the issue that unions are good in industries that have demand and a shortage of workers, meaning that pragmatically you can unionize and collectively use your economic value to negotiate. However the driving factor for creating unions isn't economic prosperity but normally when demand for said workers decreases, whether this is due to technical innovations or just simply a change in the market. This means that a lot of unions form when the service said union members provide isn't that uniquely desirable and thus the union demanding workers can easily be replaced with non-union. You saw a similar thing with journalists attempting to unionize a few years ago when their industry was massively receding, and the only result was that those that successfully unionized lost their jobs anyways then the corporation they worked for either went bankrupt or was forced to be sold. Attaching moral principles to unions is just kinda silly, the workers want to unionize as the value of their product (Their labor) is diminishing whilst the business obviously doesn't want to pay more money for a product (The labor) that costs more than it's value. Generally the unions that survive that are good adapt themselves and actually provide services to workers beyond just contract negotiation, but you don't see that in a lot of American Unions outside of blue collar jobs.

[@Marci.B]

As a professional in the TV animation industry, and primarily a senior Toonboom Harmony rigger at that, I gotta point out a few things. You can totally make a rig that can be animated in a super fluid way. You can rig in a way that both leaves a lot of freedom to the animator and also *expects*, not just allows for, heavy use of new drawing substitutions (basically traditionally animated elements within the rig structure) made by the animators directly on the shot to avoid any stiffness. Rigging even allows you to create super elaborate animations that even implement traditionally animated parts and place these animation "bits" into a library that can be accessed at will to reuse or build on top of. Even the "computer generated transitions" between poses that you (rightly) point out to are easily avoided using ease ins and ease outs on the key frames before going in and keying the tweening. All these techniques of animation combining cutout rigged animation and traditional animation is called mixed animation (ikr) and I think really brings out the strengths of rigging without any of the stiffness and cheapness it can cause. The reason you don't see stuff like this and instead you see a bunch of shitty, cheap looking stiff rigs is the deadlines we have to be working under. Making a fluid ass rig takes like a week and a half, but the production expects it to be ready in two days. Animating a rig with care, eases, and traditional animation patches takes even longer. I made some personal rigs in my spare time, where deadlines ain't an issue, that I really wish I could do and have animated for an actual production. Sadly we are meant to output content at a speed that is often incompatible with quality. I have lost count of the times, reviewing an episode or something, that I notice a mistake or something looking particularly shitty and Production doesn't allow anyone to go fix it because there is no time. And they themselves are just doing their job keeping the production on the rails, if I could have gone fixing all the shit I wanted a show will never come out. But the whole rhythm of the industry is in my opinion a breakneck pace that often sacrifices quality for profit. And I know this is hardly a revelation but all this is to say it's not rigging's fault

[@c.malicious]

Absolutely. When I found out that Hilda is a show with rigged characters it changed my outlook. Used to think "rigged" meant shitty, but no, every aspect of animation just takes time. ... That includes the stuff that the studio thinks should be able to be banged out in a day.

[@pscarlata]

100%. The old Good-Fast-Cheap triangle, you can only choose 2, and more often than not they choose cheap and fast

[@artisticcrossbreed]

As a Toonboom Harmony animator I approve this message. Good rigs make all the difference and they never give the time for it.

[@jadonsmine1877]

Family guy, as ugly as it looks, has had some of the greatest animated fight scenes I've ever seen. They made those janky ass looking characters look cool as hell.

[@j.2512]

more like troon-boom lol american animation sucks and its made by wokies

[@zUJ7EjVD]

The worst part about how animators are being worked to death for peanuts, I never even asked for there to be so many anime. I've got anime to re-watch, a backlog to work through, and skills to develop. I've got games to play, manga to read, and thoughts to let myself have. The one thing I'm not short on is things to potentially occupy my time. The attention industrial complex is probably my greatest foe of this decade.

[@KeyleeTamirian]

Dude, you have same problems with backlog as i do >

[@angel_of_rust]

i've had my own backlog just for the ps1 games

[@anthonyfaiell3263]

Unfortunately people like me and you are minorities in this world. People don't want to replay things, they don't want to rewatch things, they don't want to eat leftovers. These people want to continue throwing money at new, slightly different products. They want to go out and spend more money on a single dinner than I spend in an entire month on groceries to cook. . Whether through propaganda, culture, or a myriad of other possible reasons, most people in society are blind consumers. They simply want new and shiny things that they can buy to validate that they earn enough capital to be valuable in society.

[@dereklewis4518]

You need to trademark “attention industrial complex” before all the video essayists steal it lol

[@zUJ7EjVD]

@@dereklewis4518 I put it here in the hopes it would catch on. We really need a term for this trend.

[@maskedfoxx7173]

Props to Lextorias for dragging his couch to all these different locations to give us nice backgrounds. We appreciate it, man 🙏

[@matercan5649]

No wonder it took one month between videos

[@haldir108]

@@matercan5649 For this kind of video, it's a miracle that it only takes a month to make, or rather, that there's only one month between videos. I'm certain it's been in the pipe for longer.

[@fipachu]

I can’t believe he went to Cyberpunk 2077. What a legend.

[@youraveragechroma2139]

I can’t believe he dragged his couch to Titanfall 2’s Typhon. It must have been sooo hard getting the camera still with the whole planet being explosion rubble.

[@ich_esse_betten6364]

@@youraveragechroma2139 i searched 2 minutes for this comment and it payed off ;)

[@Bluejeanne1]

as an animator, i really appreciate your conclusion and final statement. the industry is getting worse by the year, but it's nice to know that there's folks like you who care abt awareness and education on the work we do. cheers!

[@nexus274]

You mentioned Spy Family right next to Fire Punch. Fun fact, the author of Spy Family worked as an assistant on Fire Punch right before starting Spy Family.

[@thirteen_candles9806]

thank you for bringing me that incredible piece of information.

[@Lextorias]

Spy X Family, Dandadan, and Hell's Paradise!

[@bruhwtf2662]

@@Lextorias this guy knows his shit

[@artemisiakyrell7727]

I love that this phenomenon also occurs in the shoujo genre where tokyo mew mew is in the same category of mother fuckin Utena lmao

[@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051]

@@artemisiakyrell7727 As in that pervert magical girl anime?

[@zeemod1556]

Shout out to Hollywood only ever awarding 2 anime movies "Best Animated Film" both being Miyazaki-Ghibli movies and very little other anime ever being nominated, when stuff like Boss Baby and whatever the Pixar movie was that year regardless of quality gets nominated all the time.

[@G0A7]

Well the jury of that award didnt had to watch the nominees until now, so they just voted what they heard more with his kids 😅

[@schedark]

Boss baby robbed A Silent Voice for the oscar

[@Little1Cave]

@@schedarkFerdinand and Boss Baby should’ve been replaced with A Silent Voice and Lego Batman.

[@S_raB]

​@@Little1Cave Lego Batman is still my favorite Batman movie. And top 3 animated behind Ghost in the Shell & Ninja Scroll.

[@backtoklondike]

And whenever they present the awards for animated movies, it's always in the most condescending ways possible. Plus no acknowledgement that some of those animated movies are usually the some of the highest grossest and critically acclaimed movies of the year.

[@MrDoomDawg]

great video!! i watched it while working, im a european overseas animator working on contract for a studio, which is working on am american adult animated cartoon (one that was actually mentioned briefly in this video). a lot of what was said in this video rings incredibly true to my experience in the industry so far. one thing worth mentioning is that, at least here, competition to enter the animation industry is incredibly high. despite the "low skill floor" in western animation, many fresh graduates here have to grind for years on their portfolio before being hired. one of my coworkers got a job as a junior animator for the first time this year, EIGHT YEARS after graduating! its really hard to be noticed! also, reliance on contract based work means that animators have no job security or stability. the industry is ridiculously fickle- i was in a studio once that shut down overnight, 100 peoples jobs gone in an instant. i have coworkers who cannot buy a home because they cant apply for a mortgage, because theyre constantly between 6 month contracts. some of my coworkers have worked at the same studio for 5-6 years, but havent gotten a raise that entire time. this constant instability, fear of losing your job, and how RIDICULOUSLY HARD it is to break into the industry or find new work, is part of why me and my coworkers put up with abuse. there are a thousand other desperate animators who are hungry for work- if you speak up, step out of line, unionize... then they can fire you easily and find someone to fill your shoes out of a massive pool of people. i am a middle animator (just above junior), i make less than average wage in my country even though i have years of experience and a bachelors degree. my love of the craft will only carry me so far. i am definitely better off than my japanese compatriots who i have massive sympathy for, but i can also relate to their plight a lot. also worth mentioning, is that a huge part of why my studio has any business at all, is because we undercut other studios in other countries. we sell high quality animation for dirt cheap by exploiting animators here, because theyre compelled to take any opportunity they can (as well as exploiting their passion for the craft). this is why the studios are generally so against unionisation, as its this cheap labor and short contract flexibility that allows them to undercut competition. anyway. ramble over, just speaking to my experience because this video got me thinking a lot. thank you for a very entertaining and comprehensive video, and love and peace to all artists out there who just want to create but instead suffer under capitalism. there are a lot of deeply passionate, creative, and exploited people behind some of the ugliest boringest adult animated shows out there.

[@user-xn1no3do2h]

So glad you commented! I always wondered, can animators get together and create a new studio to cut out the other studios? I know competition is high, but people that love anime are tired of the greedy companies weaseling their way into anime. If animators could create their own shows, then who cares about Disney, Sony, licensing, and contracts with them. Can you use a platform like KZbin to do this for Western animators? I feel like animators and voice actors would flock to a company that paid their workers; created a union to protect them and offered benefits. I would rather pay more for new Western anime even without the glitz (Ufotable or MAPPA), if it's a good story and released faster than Eastern anime (I feel like it's 8-12 years for the next season of anything). I am always looking for English dubs, characters older than high school, action romance, and I pray it's not a harem. Thank you, and your coworkers, for working so hard.

[@afunkylittleguy]

​@user-xn1no3do2h the thing is that yes you could but it takes A LOT of money. More than what most of these animators have and/or making. They would need some sort of outside investment of some sort. There are a few attempts to make a more fair system, one in particular that I can't remember the name of that will spend years working on a project and actually pays their employees pretty fair, but those are far and few between. This is why the industry is fighting so hard to unionize and fight back against AI. The industry is already shit and they want to see it improve but that's takes a LOT of time and money, which most of these individuals do not have.

[@user-xn1no3do2h]

@@afunkylittleguy ok, I will support where I can too then! Wishing all of you get what you're demanding, aka basic human rights!

[@TheMadmanAndre]

TV Tropes coined the term "Animation Age Ghetto." A lot, and I mean A LOT of people believe that animation is meant for kids and kids alone, and don't take the medium seriously at all. A lot of these people are in high ranking positions in the TV and film (and now streaming) industries.

[@chalkopirate]

Sadly true. And such a stupid opinion to have.

[@srcoeiu6100]

That's the way the world is unfortunately, I'm not saying it can't be changed, but it'll probably take a while

[@LuznoLindo]

​@@srcoeiu6100 Not in the East: Why wait for the Western world to take ir serious when the Eastern one already does?

[@TheRedJadex]

​@@LuznoLindoDifferent circumstances and views on animation that came into being decades ago, and took time to formulate.

[@RyoHazuki224]

Thats the Western mentality, that "cartoons are for kids" and we just can't shake that. Thats why even till today, some people still get shocked at how adult Anime could get in terms of subject matter and themes.

[@greywitchleila]

The funny thing about increased imports of anime supplementing and replacing "adult" animation in the west (as you define it here, since most imported anime are still children's shows or adaptations of children's comics) is that we saw this before, in the 70s, 80s and 90s it became cheaper for networks to import anime and rebrand it for a local audience than it did to produce bespoke children's shows which is one of the things which led to anime's popularity in the west in the first place. Yeah a lot of people cite Akira, and later Dragon Ball, and rightfully so but the market wouldn't have been primed for it without Battle of the Planets, Gigantor, Robotech, Voltron or Transformers paving the way. So in a sense we've come full circle.

[@amberhernandez]

Even live-action wasn't exempt from this process. I can't imagine how different my brother and I would be if Power Rangers didn't exist.

[@Dave102693]

Exactly

[@Dave102693]

@@amberhernandezI’m a big Super Sentai and Ultraman fan due to Power Rangers

[@teathesilkwing7616]

Isn’t transformers made by hasbro? Looking into it, the original animated TV show was made by the American companies sundown and *marvel* and the Japanese company toei, so it’s like 1/3 anime

[@OtakuNoShitpost]

This is Astro Boy and Speed Racer erasure and I won't stand for it. Speed Racer sped so Voltron could fly

[@zombathinlostleghackercat5233]

1:47 I was gonna say it was interesting that you chose Vaporeon instead of Pikachu, but then I remember this video was about *_adult_* animation.

[@kermitgotthesickkicks4265]

Oh hell naw

[@skalbagge3131]

Oh hey Cheesy HfjOne man

[@JollyWally12349]

Did you know?

[@narwall7289]

😦

[@wafelkai3154]

NO NO NO NO NO!!!! Don't put that in my head

[@liamannegarner8083]

Another big factor in the 3D/2D split, exacerbated by producers sabotaging each other's films, was that 2D artists had a union and the 3D artists didn’t. Also, there's another reason "adult" cartoons look like that: the producers explicitly frown on appealing designs or spiffy drawing, because those require talented employees, and they want the freedom (and the threat) to shift production of the entire show to another studio at a moment's notice if the economics work out.

[@nullpoint3346]

Why do we not have more mocap 3D animations?

[@johnindigo5477]

​@@nullpoint3346mocap got a bad rep in the 2000s

[@Ealais76]

@@johnindigo5477not really, it’s still used to this day even in animated film

[@liamannegarner8083]

@@nullpoint3346 Between Food Fight and ExArm, I think we all know by now that it probably costs more to fix mocap gone wrong than to just animate it rightly in the first place.

[@darkzeroprojects4245]

Always the Higher-ups I swear. If they weren't so focused on their short term money grabbing things would of been fantastic.No wonder they're also pushing for AI.

[@RiderHershberger]

You should ask the Italian Senate what they think of adult animation lol

[@boslyporshy6553]

Tifa?

[@malaksafa4074]

@@boslyporshy6553 and xiangling. People keep forgetting that.

[@isaacbejjani5116]

What do they think?

[@Natediggetydog]

@@isaacbejjani5116probably that Tifa Lockhart is pretty hot 😂

[@MGS-lore-enthusiast]

​@@malaksafa4074 XIANGLING?!

[@ShaneRob93]

1:26:30 This is the case for the Japanese (live-action) film industry as well! There was a lot of talk about how crazy low the budget was for Godzilla Minus One, when in reality, in Japan, it's considered to have a HUGE budget even for similar Kaiju/special FX heavy films. It's been this way throughout the history of the Japanese film industry as well, even at it's heights in the 50s and 60s. It's hard to find detailed numbers though, but when you do find numbers it's always flabbergasting how they get away with such tiny budgets and its nearly always the case that they got there through underpaying and overworking the cast and crew.

[@kyonkochan]

One of the most "adult" animations I've seen in the last while that actually hit me deep with adult concerns was "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish". It's frank and honest commentary on anxiety, ageing, mortality, and family are better thought out than most non-animated stuff.

[@madmanonyt9943]

You are so real for that! Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, along with other films and series like Nimona, Arcane, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Blue Eye Samurai, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Scavengers Reign, and the Spider-Verse films, far exceed any raunchy animated series in terms of maturity and heart.

[@bob_marlee03]

genuinely the scene where puss had a panic attack made be sob because it really hit me so hard. i knew exactly what he was feeling and it really just showed how animation can sometimes portray the kinds of things that we experience better than live action

[@DavidJamesHenry]

But you realize that is still a kid's movie. It was intended for children.

[@nullpoint3346]

@@DavidJamesHenry And now we wrap around to the argument that [things made for children shouldn't be immature and empty].

[@madmanonyt9943]

@@DavidJamesHenry Fair enough. Using a kids’ movie, no matter how mature it is, to prove that animation is for adults was always very odd to me. Instead, using films like A Silent Voice, Persepolis, and Waltz with Bashir, and TV shows like Arcane: League of Legends, Invincible, and Blue Eye Samurai, are much better in proving how mature animation can be, since those are animations catered exclusively to adults.

[@jaketakenobreak]

I think the biggest issue with adult animation is that many writers or directors feel the need to inject raunchy or vulgar themes, jokes and stories out of a misguided need to be "mature" and taken seriously. Unfortunately many people still view animation as a means to distract and entertain children and others still see animation as a genre rather than a medium itself. I think that attitude is starting to change as people who were raised with a greater appreciation for animation as a medium of story telling are going into the industry along with the wealth of independent animators all over the world.

[@mythosinfinite6736]

Hannah Barbera and its properties have had catastrophic effects on the Western view of animation for generations

[@clueless_cutie]

I think as indie animators who first blossomed online start to steamroll major animation production in the west, we'll see animation shift into a more respected and mature medium for story telling. It's hard to call something stupid or childish when it's got a wrecking ball of an predominantly adult audience that's willing to pay to see animated movies/shows Vivienne Medrano was basically a dark horse who exploded in popularity from her youtube animations. If Telepurt released a full series or movie, people would absolutely flock to see it There's a very real chance for grass root animations to get picked up by bigger productions and shift the idea of animation

[@X2011racer]

Blame Conker's Bad Fur Day for that. It established the standard that Blood, Gore, Vulgarity, and Sex Jokes are all you need for an adults only product.

[@inoob26]

this is very much a thing with anime too but they are way less ashamed about it

[@Aryasvitkona]

I think the biggest problem is many writers and directors are sheltered children who think poop jokes are "adult humor" because they're idiots who haven't struggled. We can blame nepotism for a majority of that. Comedians are proof that to be funny you have to struggle, you can't be a good haha man if you have had a perfectly cushy life, and I think this is true for basically any type of writing but most demonstrable in comedy.

[@yasminebutlerstevens5562]

The fact that Mappas work ethic is so terrible it becomes a running joke in anime fandom spaces online that people use for artists and animators 😭 like you’d find a amazing ass animation and somebody in the comments would say “Hide this guys from Mappa” or “Mappa is gonna kidnap this guy” and even “Mappas not gonna let bro see his family for 5 years”. Their reputation is that bad 💀

[@SlapstickGenius23]

Oh dear, so was Gainax, the studio behind Evangelion that inspired Mappa. Even after it’s become defunct, its own reputation is still marred by scandals involving wage slave labour and other, just as questionable things.

[@noampresnete8677]

i love the fact this video isn't just shitting on westarn animation and dickriding anime, but discusses the develoments and limitations of both. i have been looking for a video like this for ages to explain to my freinds why westarn and japanese animation are diffrent but also why not all of the westarn side sucks

[@youraveragepersonwalkingth6850]

Ever since totallynotmark released his review of the “watchmen” while wearing powerpuff girls underwear the internet has switched up and started saying cartoons are better than anime

[@Wandermidget]

ngl, I did watch this video expecting that, and was pleasantly surprised that I was wrong. I get it that western animation is in a weird state, but it's so tiresome of almost everyone talking only about the negative aspects of it, and of course, using Big Mouth or Teen Titans Go as the ultimate scapegoat as to why *[show they like]* only got one season.

[@freelancerthe2561]

@@Wandermidget I blame pop culture. Pop culture likes things that are popular. Where as I like things that are Good. And Good things can come from a lot of different places. Even in modern anime circles, we only talk about the stuff thats Good or Popular or is so terrible, its worth noting just for that. And just ignore the 70% of anime that is mediocre, and/or just puppy mill fodder. The reason you don't see as much on the western animation side, is that animation is too expensive, and studio system (US in particular) too cheap/not in a position to replicate the terrible conditions that lets Japan and Korea get away with cheap production costs. So like everything else here, its relegated to either small/moderate scale indie, or large syndication, with little in between. meanwhile, being in the countries that have it, everyone knows about the(ir) mountain of trash tier live action shows that pop up over the course of the year, and are quickly forgotten. The only reason the early 2000s bad live action is still remembered, is because it was still in that awkward phase where production lacked the resources to keep up with the writing.... or the writing was just cliche enough that it was enhanced by the uncanny special effects to create a new sub-genre of Camp. Which is why most of the stand outs where Dramas and Sub-Dramas, since those relied almost entirely on the writing. And why exceptional dramas usually cross that line with the addition of excellent cinematography (See HBO/AMC series).

[@MichaelBurling13]

I also like that it shows that the eastern market is only able to do this through labor exploitation.

[@julio.dealmeidabranconeto5831]

​@@youraveragepersonwalkingth6850... What?

[@codyjacobs6899]

As someone who went to school for teaching, I really empathize with the fact that passion is taken advantage of so egregiously within the animation community. For every 10 people that love doing a job, there will be 100 more willing to abuse that love despite of the amount of skill and dedication required. If you lower your standards for the sake of "passion" then you will lose your passion due to low standards.

[@c.malicious]

Well said.

[@pscarlata]

Word

[@OperatorWolfy]

Loved the video mate. The long form is what I missed seeing in KZbin back then (namely, when it used to be far more common).

[@JazLyte]

Incredible video, and highly accurate. I've been in storyboards/retakes for the last decade in LA, and let me tell you, American studios are TRYING IT with that draconian exploitation we see in Japan. I have made way the hell of a better living than I expected to growing up, but that being said the manipulation into free overtime via "passion" and "being part of legacies" is loud and thick out here. What they can't do legally due to the Guild, they make up for in job smear. With every passing year, what I've had to do as a board artist has enveloped full, meticulously on-model animation, editing, voice acting, writing to make up for incomplete scripts, and the full range of design from props, characters and through to backgrounds, including learning 3D to actually meet these demands - all so they don't have to hire experts in those areas of the pipeline. You can say no if you're okay not being able to pay your own bills. And of course we're rewarded with hella shows to be thrown out and everyone fired early over mergers and corporate incompetence/myopia by unfireable dipshit yuppies, then for there to be no work for most of us for a year(+) at a time when there's Guild negotiations. They love making sure nobody's working and desperate so they can cram fresh new slave-driving bullshit down our throats, so there are periods where almost nothing is greenlit regardless of company profits. Still, I am happy to not be paid $30/cut, that is actually sociopathic. Wildly, a lot of my peers who just wanna touch anime or want a Sakuga-booru tag of their name will take those jobs and give up that basically free labor on top of their own full time LA job. Thanks for bringing up all the pro-workforce info and support, this is great stuff for animation fans to know.

[@bobokitty123]

Oh yeah, definitely have had coworkers take those anime gigs for no pay (that said, I know others in US animation who are getting paid $35/cut and no one is allowed to talk about it).

[@projectorates]

Take care man, you deserve a lotta better

[@llianya]

It sad because this trickles down to a lot of things art related. I've been doing freelance drawings for the past couple of years and even in places that's predominantly for people who do support artists, you still see the random threads which look for artists who are passionate about the art and not the money. It always baffles me because there's that assumption there that artists draw simply for the money. I mean of course we're working for the dollars too because we won't even be alive if we don't have the funds to support us. It always feels weird when the term "passion" is thrown at us as something directly opposite of wanting to be financially secure when they're not mutually exclusive things.

[@artemisiakyrell7727]

Omg yes, I'm an animation student in aus & one of my mates in boards all the way down here got fired due to the negotiations. These companies get away with so much, let's hope our unions get stronger as consumers are increasingly aware of the human cost.

[@pscarlata]

"Job smear" is a problem in so many ways. On the one hand, it's a way for the studios to get more work using less people. What used to be 5+ jobs is now one job, "storyboard artist" (at least in American adult TV animation). On the other side of things, not many people will be great at all the jobs that fall under that umbrella job title. Someone who is great at thumbnailing shots might not be great at drawing perspective. Someone who is great with emotive keyframe acting may not be great at comping shots or shot sequences, etc. As a director, part of my job is assessing people's skills and weaknesses and giving them their assignments accordingly.

[@larrydupp3988]

The final part about outsourcing reminds me of Amphibia, which credited the korean animation team who had helped animate the episode. The fact that this is an exception and not the standard is miserable

[@celisewillis]

I work in animation, and some people talk about overseas artists like they're robots, when they're the people who *actually make the final product* and get paid a fraction of what we do. They are incredible artists with their own visions and stories, just like anywhere else. Billing is very defensive when you ship overseas; there's a whole list of rules for who pays what depending on the error, so both sides become very literal in what they produce, even if the shot doesn't make sense anymore. Overseas artists are asked to work overtime and at breakneck speed. So of course we're going to get back a subpar product. (Think of the comparison between the old Simpsons intro and the new one). It's not that artists are worse or lazy. Every show (yes, even Simpsons and Big Mouth) has a ton of love put into every scene. Primetime shows have a certain style for telling those stories, which is fine. South Park is like a podcast with bonus visuals, you rarely need to look at the screen to know what's going on. And yes, the animation from these shows look stiff and limited. This isn't new; Clutch Cargo and Flintstones were made on the cheap, too. When you're making art for money, it limits your creative decisions. Any time we need to do something more elaborate (think transformation or cartoony) it requires 4x as many drawings for us, sometimes even animating it ourselves instead of shipping it overseas. Which costs more! It all comes down to turning art into business. Many artists around the world are burned out, and yes, just collect the paycheck, and who can blame them? Hopefully in the future, every country can have its own animation industry, and tell their own stories, instead of just being part of the animation meat grinder for the US and Europe. I think anyone looking to start an animation studio needs to seriously consider the co-op model, like the revolution happening in indie games. In a co-op, every worker is paid the same! And you're paid more, because there's no CEO scraping off your money to fund their a bloated salary. The money goes to the people who actually make the shows! Anyway, thanks for coming to my animation ted talk lol

[@SlapstickGenius23]

@@celisewillis the South Korean Animation industry has Pororo and Dooly, with the latter being a manhwa adaptation.

[@elderjose9662]

just out topic, a lot of people ask why some western games are heavily censored in japan because of its violence but animes don't, but you have to understand that are not the same guys who censor animes that censor games, de guys who censor animes are eirin, and the guys who censor games are cero, ans historically cero is WAY more restrictive than eirin

[@secoTheSonicFan]

Japanese are trying to censor more anime and games. Its a battle there. Games are a little more censored in 2024 than decades ago. The pro censorship group in Japan are fighting but have not done too much harm.

[@brutusmagnuson315]

Never stop keeping in mind that last part that anime made in Japan uses horrendous work hours and animators end up using speed to keep up with their workload. I’m willing to wait an extra year for a season, if it’s not destroying the lives of the people making them.

[@Gilluled]

As an animator in Japan, I can confirm 😅

[@henryfleischer404]

@@Gilluled Hopefully you guys get unions soon, I took a leap of faith on getting into game development a few years ago, terrified I'd be expected to work absurd hours, and now there's a wave of unionization happening here in the US games industry.

[@kylespevak6781]

The Japanese animation industry is just like the American gaming industry

[@ko-fl8hu]

"I’m willing to wait an extra year for a season, if it’s not destroying the lives of the people making them." I'm on the cynical side and will say that you're the minority. Unless it's become a meme like MAPPA, there are more people on the English-speaking side who do NOT share the same perspective you do. Have you SEEN anime studio livestreams on KZbin? The live chats are pure hell, and to me that's evidence that the casuals will NOT care so long as they get what they want. It's kind of a miracle that the anime studios don't speak English or can't understand what's being said in those live chats.

[@Velatix]

Came here to say this

[@NelsonStJames]

Interesting how western anime fans, were duped into thinking that spending $50 to $60 and upwards for an “officially licensed” sometimes 45 minute, or less anime was “helping animators in Japan” only to realize that the animators weren’t seeing any of that money. And they still guilt a lot of people into thinking that.

[@CaseNumber00]

Buy artbooks released from the studio. Bu any studio released merchandise if you want to support the studio and animators.

[@3nertia]

Welcome to capitalism!

[@phantom-ri2tg]

@@3nertia I'd like to hear how Capitalism takes the blame for that.

[@teathesilkwing7616]

@@phantom-ri2tg…because the studios prioritize profits because of capitalism, and paying employees less means more profits

[@doomguy_the_slayer]

​@@teathesilkwing7616 and if capitalism wasn't a thing what type of retribution you think the animators would get? Socialism and comunism don't promote artistic labor fields since they aren't profitable for the state and don't produce essential products

[@kingmegart]

I worked in the industry for over a decade. And ive worked personally on two "adult animation" cartoons. Alot of these shows are animated in south east asia where rates are incredibly cheap vs the US. Animators are considered part time, and are paid per minute of animation versus a stable hourly income. So you get alot of "good enough" factory mass produced animation as a result.

[@kingmegart]

Also animation for things like Family Guy and Rick and Morty have been standardized here. There is no room for creativity. Only following the animation formula thats been established

[@jstevinik3261]

@@kingmegart This makes sense because the formula results in a more cost-efficient production to maintain the budgets. In contrast, shows that try to oppose formulas like the 1990s Ren and Stimpy would infamously go way behind schedule.

[@secoTheSonicFan]

​@@kingmegartuhh, no. Animation is more expensive here. To create Batman or Superman cartoon with high level detail we have to pay animators several times more. Which means cartoons like that cant even survive without merchandise sales.

[@secoTheSonicFan]

​@@kingmegartFamily Guy and Ricky and Morty last the way they do because those shows were popular. Family Guy during its popularity days got 10 million views. Ben 10 got 10 million views. One Piece, the most viewed anime in Japan may get 1.2 million views on its most popular episodes. Here, cartoons got cancelled for whats considered "good ratings" in Japan because we need to pay animators more. At your Mcdonalds job you are paid more thsn anime animators

[@secoTheSonicFan]

​@@kingmegartits easy to post crap on the internet while not understanding how the real world works. An episode of South Park costs 250,000 to make. It costs 400,000 to make an episode of Rick and Morty. How much does it cost to make a high detailed Demon Slayer episode? Hint: less than a Ricky and Morty episode. Thats real life. Anime is the way it is because anime animators are paid breadcrumbs. That kind of pay is not even legal here.

[@elymnir4683]

When part 3 started, I KNEW it would become real familiar real quick. I work as a freelance translator and the pattern is the same. One translation agency will take as many contracts as possible, then outsource them to other agencies, which will outsource as well, with the actual work being done by badly paid freelancers. It's sad to see this pattern repeat so often. People doing the actual work ending up being the lesser paid link in the chain. As a PS, love your videos. Many seem so niche but end up being hella interesting.

[@zigzag8392]

Lex: this is a study of adult animation. Ends up being one of the most detailed videos on the economics and processes of animation I’ve seen. One of my favorite lextorias videos! Cheers!

[@rafaelferreirasantos7819]

Calling Treasure Planet just a flop does some disservice to it, when it came out disney was dead set on 3D so they went short of activelly sabotaging it's marketing

[@pointyheadYT]

It's not a bad movie by no means. It was just unfortunate to be released in the same month as some other much more popular releases. They also went a bit overboard on the budget.

[@theshrike6428]

"Western animation raised the ceiling of quality for their studios while anime raised the floor." This right here is the exact sentence I have been looking for to describe how I feel about both worlds of animation. The west has prettier gems, but anime has shinier garbage, and even now I'm not sure which of these two I prefer.

[@angel_of_rust]

a higher floor ensures you get something better on average.

[@nullpoint3346]

Boosting this.

[@dansmith1661]

Everything in the west has turned into garbage. Anime only gets a bad rap because there is so much of it and something for everyone. The west cares more about pushing T H E M E S S A G E instead of making good products.

[@rawrrruh]

Raising floors is a fighting tactic by gon in hunter x hunter. Gon vs hisoka episode

[@andocommando3071]

Oh there's still bottom of the barrel garbage in every one of those seasonal charts

[@mrhalfsaid1389]

Gotta love the whole thing of artists being so underpayed and disrespected that they literally can't pay their f♤cking rent, and that this is somehow so normalized that they have specialized places to live that are cheaper than anywhere else. You see this is why indie is becoming so large. Because at least a *gambit* on making your dreams known has a decent chance of getting sh♡t *FUNDED PROPERLY*

[@anthonydaniel1727]

It is not just anime artists...pretty much every industry. Those shoes on your feet and the clothes you are wearing, and that cell phone on which you are reading this were pretty much made by exploiting the workers.

[@dansmith1661]

@@anthonydaniel1727 It costs maybe a few bucks to make them but you pay tens or hundreds of dollars. The consumer is exploited into buying useless next year's product.

[@Polychi1998]

@@slevinchannel7589Jessie what the fuck are you talking about?

[@qwertydavid8070]

@@anthonydaniel1727 man....how did we let it get this bad....

[@gonzoengineering4894]

​@qwertydavid8070 Step one: striking gold Company one underpays workers and sells a cheaper product, which means more luxuries for the consumer and more profits for the company Everyone is happy, except for a small minority of workers in a place you've never heard of. Step two: the gold rush Other companies see this and now the race is on to see who can get the most labor for the least money. They move factories abroad to places where impoverished people are desperate for any income at all. More luxuries for the consumer, more profits for companies, sometimes even the underpaid workers are happy to have slave wages over no wages. Step 3: the tipping point Wages get as low as they'll go, well paying jobs disappear and those workers lose their buying power. Companies begin ratcheting up their prices to make up for lost sales as the consumer base shrinks, while the underpaid workers begin to gain an awareness that they're never moving up in the world at these wages and start campaigning crazy ideas, like a minimum wage or taxes on these companies to fund social programs. Prices go higher, so satisfied consumers shrink in number, so prices go higher. Step 4: oh shit oh fuck Entire industries collapse as consumers disappear. Pay is chiseled away wherever it still can be, if not through cuts then through stagnation and inflation. Step 6: ??? This long race to the bottom ends somewhere. Nobody knows what that looks like, but shit will truly hit the fan before anything gets better.

[@VoidySan]

2:19 "Arcane is like the best looking thing ever" so real.

[@D44RK_Iced_Yogs]

This is such a fascinating video man. Basically what it boiled down to was Americans were refining movie skills while Japan was refining their show skills. Then America’s politics got put onto display during the censorship waves and caused everything to be kid friendly due to it being cartoons made for kids. Super well made video and brought things I didn’t even know of let alone think of!!

[@ghoulbuster1]

The animators that started in the internet are now the pioneers of adult animations.

[@phantom-ri2tg]

That is actually where a lot of the problems come from. The original animators studied movies extensively to create something special. A lot of people now are simply trying to replicate what was already built. And the issue the video mentioned that companies get away with exploiting workers because they are relying on people's passion to keep them working.

[@Sly-Moose]

Don't mind me while I go rewatch Ramshackle

[@Max25670]

@@phantom-ri2tg That's also why modern western animation is so stiff because no wants to draw smear frames anymore because they grew up looking at "Don't Pause ____ At the Wrong Time" memes.

[@phantom-ri2tg]

@@Max25670 I think that is more an evolution of media. Pausing was barely an option when that stuff was made yet now is something that people actively do. Also I don't think stiff movement was caused by pauses but rather the process of making media being streamlined. Fluid 2D animations take a lot of work. Also from what I heard anime production has some issues with efficiency. If a scene might be remade you are not going to want it to have a lot of effort put into it. And given their policy is fueling things off the blood of animators and cheap labor I imagine there is quite a lot of redoing scenes.

[@YanntastischGER]

This is 100% accurate with smiling friends. The creators of that show started animation on Newgrounds.

[@RothAnim]

Excellent essay! A little anecdote about the role of budget in animation; I once got to ask a Disney feature animator what his quota was for a film like Mulan. An experienced animator was expected to animate 5 seconds worth of approved keys per week. That's just clean keys and breakdowns: someone else would do in-betweens and Ink&Paint. At the time, I was animating 50 seconds of broadcast-ready animation a week on "Odd Job Jack", one of the early puppet animation adult sitcoms you described in part 2. "Happy Tree Friends" had a relatively relaxed 25 second quota. It was, in fact, one of the few reasons animation could be made in Canada in that era. When I graduated in '97, Storyboards and layouts would be done in North America, then the remainder would be sent to places like Indonesia or the Phillipines. Thanks to tax credits and CRTC "Canadian Content" requirements, I got to work on a number of interesting projects, but I've also had to live through multiple industry downturns. Right now, the industry is having another of those "crunch" moments, with a lot of those streaming services moving away from animated content and original production as the massive growth of the Covid pandemic and competition has made people far more conservative about investing in new productions.

[@Defixio.]

My grampa was "that guy" on military base who could draw a "Felix The Cat" on your bomber jacket in the korean war era. he showed me how he could just draw a felix on anything given a few minutes.

[@UninspiredArtemis]

My grandpa Felix served in Vietnam and said Felix The Cat was his favorite cartoon

[@GeebusCrust]

1:48 the fact that you used a picture of Vaporeon to talk about Pokémon in a video about adult animation is positively riotous 👌

[@simonwillover4175]

yeah we dont want lame ass pickachu in there; weve seen him enough already

[@dudethedude1220]

Makes sense, because if we’re talking about terms of male human and female Pokémon breeding…

[@teathesilkwing7616]

Hey, did you know…

[@Myrope]

Excellent pfp choice! Serge is precious

[@mehmoria]

I work both as a freelance animator but also as an artist who sells their work at conventions and online, and I can say with the utmost confidence that artists selling merchandise of these various medias mainly coming from Japan are getting paid more than the people actually creating the media. Not to say convention artists should be making less off their work, not at all, but the animators and artists making these shows and movies and so on deserve so much better for their time, effort, and skills.

[@hideshisface1886]

One thing I have to say about "western" adult shows that are adult only because of blood, guts, sex and swearing... They are actually pretty damn childish a lot of the time - and this just showcases the insane absurdity of our age rating systems. I suppose the excess vulgarity is a shoddy attempt at disconnecting these animations from the stigma that "animation is for kids". Because as we know, kids never, ever swear like old sailors, do not secretly watch porn and do not have violent, edgy fantasies. Oh wait... This is the thing that hit a lot of the anime with controversy back in the 80s and 90s - where a lot of the shows were seen as excessively brutal or got butchered by censored based purely on a moronic misconception that animation = kids' stuff.

[@TheExtraterrestrial99]

A lot of the time, animation with nudity or sexual content, is basically just animation for horny dude, nothing about them is really matured.

[@Pangora2]

Indeed, they're often fairly childish, and then the "icons" of Western animation are just...safe. Maybe a risk here or there, but nothing you'll think hard on afterwards.

[@Noelle_Holiday]

You heard that right, Asriel Dreemurr.

[@diazkohen2149]

Oh shit, i know one of those violence anime from 90...Jack Violence!

[@kongzillatoho4558]

''Because as we know, kids never, ever swear like old sailors, do not secretly watch porn and do not have violent, edgy fantasies. Oh wait...'' How do you know kids secretly watch porn? sounds like you should be in jail my dude.

[@zerikane]

Everyone should definitely watch PART 3. So many video omit or do not cover this essential history when discussing this topic. THAT is why I subscribed to this channel! So much in-depth realities beyond the uploader's title or end card.

[@Tea-KW]

51:51 fun fact! A lot of early Disney works that show "unnecessary" extra body movements were usually done by Milt Kahl! If I remember right he did it as a sort of flex specifically because of the amount of extra work that was needed for it, it made his animation work stand out from others at the time

[@claudiazg9932]

The Animation Guild is starting negotiations on July 31, if you want a better industry, suport the workers! Loved the video, and would love for you to talk more animation labor movements!

[@ka-nv9xn]

LOL! DBz and Sailor Moon had its timeslot directly after school was out here in Germany :D We had uncensored naked SonGoku at the kids programm

[@cameronharding2878]

Yeah but he was a kid so I don't think it's that bad

[@G0A7]

​​@@cameronharding2878Theres a moment when Goku touches bulma while she sleeps and finds out she doesnt have a dick, theres other moment when bulma lift ups his skirt to an +100 yo Guy before realizing shes not wearing panties, that old dude actually manages to get his head between bulmas breast (not exactly, but who cares) and i quite "puf puf" for a while I dont really care and i found It hilarious at 8yo, but that shit is 100% not making out today, in fact dragon ball was banned for a rerun in my country after being on air in the 90 without any issue

[@AesttseA]

I am sure I saw Ranmas Pink nipples on daytime TV 😂 Germany was waaaay chiller with nudity even on quote on quote kids shows. And I am sure I saw breast on RTL on day time during the 2000s aswell

[@LolWutMikehSM]

​@@cameronharding2878Im sorry but you need to re read what the hell you just wrote ans remember that we all know your name is cameron harding. I get that you saw it in a couple anime, but that doesnt mean you should feel that way or SAY that beside your whole name.

[@user-hu4ol2ip5o]

@@LolWutMikehSM bruh

[@TheRealE.B.]

Patent isn't copyright. Patents only last for like 20 years, while copyright lasts like a bazillion. Also, patents cost money to apply for, while copyright is theoretically free. So, if you invent a cure for cancer, you have to spend thousands of dollars patenting it, and then best-case scenario you only have a limited time to build a profitable business from your invention before Proctor and Gamble swoops in and steals all of your work (they may also just figure out a way to work around your patent). But if you draw a cartoon mouse, a corporation can buy the mouse off of you and sue people for copyright infringement decades after your death.

[@AdryanConsalter]

It's exhausting to watch this video when I have to pause every 30 seconds to add an 80s anime to my Letterboxd watchlist

[@daksharora928]

Inside job had such good visuals but unfortunately it got scraped by Netflix :(

[@Beginnerss]

Imagine being Titmouse. You worked on Metalocalypse and Venture Bros. but you also had to work on Big Mouth and Chigaco.

[@ConvincingPeople]

Well, everything from the bit about the financing of the production of Astro Boy on has been a waking nightmare. Like, I knew the pipeline system sucked and how poorly paid and treated freelance animators were within it, but it’s sobering to hear it outlined so starkly and put into perspective with what Netflix et al have been doing. Great video, very informative, but Jesus.

[@Pangora2]

Netflix has the streaming Boom money. In the 1980s everyone and their mother made an overly expensive OVA. Comparing the exuberant expenses of the OVA scene to the prior decade would be unfair. What Netflix does when the belt needs to be tightened will say how it really plays out. As they need to keep raising prices, how many 6-year windows for more Arcane-like projects do they have?

[@gustavomonteirorodrigues3554]

One thing i loathe about adult animation is how often writers think being adult means senseless gore and sex jokes or having a pretentious pessimistic, nihilistic outlook on life. Ironically, these come across as juvenile and, for a lack of better term, "i'm 14 and this is deep" edgelords.

[@seamuswood7519]

Did not expect this to become a passionate ad for unionization, but I am 100% here for it

[@newrecru1t]

Any Moral Orel fans that remember this show walked so Bojack Horseman could run?

[@jsmith3946]

there where strangers shows then that before Moral and Bojack like family dog your pretty face is going to hell and a bunch of others

[@sorentothesky]

basically yeah

[@eatpant4ever]

Moral Orel mention 🗣

[@CerbearusBane]

Can confirm that boomers think all animation is for kids. My parents will not even consider watching anything animated.

[@thecompareablezombie]

Its funny to see that is the case, when their parents enjoyed adult animation in the 20s to early 40s before their generation started.

[@Jepze158]

Even something like simpsons?

[@G0A7]

I had great parents in that regard, my dad watched spirited away with me when i was like 6-7 yo, my sister is a huge fan of Tim Burton because she saw the nightmare before Christmas at 5-6 yo too We have a funny history with that actually, in his 6-7 birthday my sister wanted a doll of Sally and my parents bought a pretty cool one, there where concerns of the other parents (mostly mothers) as to why my sister would want something like that and why they didnt buy her a barbie or a bratz (late 2000 early 2010), the only answer my mother gave him was "she looks rather Happy dont you think?"

[@Jepze158]

@@G0A7 My parents liked the simpsons but that's about it. Well my mom likes shit like Ice Age but she stills seems them as just dumb kid movies. My dad on other hand leaves the room when any kind of animation movie starts.

[@G0A7]

@@Jepze158 my mother actually watched death note and 2 seasons of kaguya sama love is war with me but shes not the biggest fan of animation either, my dad went to the cinema with me to see the boy and the heron and raya and the last dragon (biggest mistake of my life), he also was the one that introduced me to ghibli (but it was my mother the one that hooked me in anime buying me the dragon ball manga as a whole) They dont hate animation at all but they dont consume it as much as i do, i cant blame them because they dont really like subs and most anime is not dubbed in spanish and mostly is poorly done, but they also grew up with anime so its expected they dont see animation as something weird (my father was a huge Saint Seiya fan and my mother loved Candy Candy or Heidi, my uncle liked Mazinger z a lot too)

[@EyeofKoruption]

0:01 something insanely horrifc and gory cruel or just plain disgusting and everyone laughs at it for some reason.

[@Wavecheckfoo]

My roommate and I recently finished all of family guy and American dad. The amount of gore that came up was actually crazy i was thinking “was this really allowed on tv” 😭

[@ausbin_arts]

4:40 bro why is walt serving so hard here

[@GobblyGook]

Fr like why is bro so zesty 😭

[@sayounsang]

Disney might be evil but damn is he cunty

[@invertebrado]

Yeah like, go girl, slay

[@iluvchess14736]

I've always seen him as that friendly uncle who made mickey so seeing him like that was a shock

[@bellac6311]

hes having his brat summer

[@axelprino]

Whenever I hear that Adult Swim became popular in the US by showing anime I remember how in the early to mid 2000's the LatAm version of AS constantly refused to show any (popular) anime and frequently had this white text on black background segments where they insisted that if you wanted anime on CN that was what Toonami was for, in general they were weirdly antagonistic to their audience.

[@fixedfunshow]

Here we had Magic Kids, Locomotion, etc. each country had its channel airing anime. Koni-chan never aired in the US.

[@Urushi12kitty]

yooo i think that happened for a bit in the US too, it didnt last long as it sounds very familiar to me and im in the US.

[@axelprino]

@@fixedfunshow oh yeah, Magic and Locomotion was where we usually watched anime back then. I even remember being surprised when CN started airing DBZ because it really didn't fit the mental image I had of CN back then, and also because they were years late to the party. I wasn't aware that Koni-chan never aired in the US, I learn something new every day. What a bonkers show that was, completely unhinged.

[@fixedfunshow]

@@axelprino Latin America broke the 'anything animated is for kids' by airing a lot of anime that not even the US wanted to air. Sadly some people still think watching anime is immature but those assholes anyway.

[@starletwitch]

As a Canadian animation worker alot of US shows are outsourced to us but we often do not get credited on the productions. We lost alot of jobs here bc so many US shows were canceled resulting in no outsourced work avaliable. At one point I lost 2 jobs in a row at the same studio bc they got canceled just before I was able to join then they had to let alot of the staff go as a result...

[@MajoraZ]

I wish Crunchyroll Originals (their western produced original "anime") got brought up: I do stuff with Aztec history, and Crunchyroll's Onyx Equinox series was actually amazingly well researched and I got to know some of the people who worked on the show as a result of my posts breaking down it's cultural influences (I helped write Cartoon Universe's video on the show, for example). They have a LOT of stories they could tell about the production process and how working with Crunchyroll was, suffice it to say that the budget was insanely low (apparently the entire series had less of a budget then single episodes some other projects they worked on had!), they had to fight and threaten to quit to get some of the resources they were promised, etc. To be clear, this is all stuff they've talked about publicly in interviews as well.

[@brandonlyon730]

Problem is, among them is High Guardian Spice.

[@j.2512]

please no, just ban americans from making animation, it all sucks

[@Starpotion]

​@@brandonlyon730 Onyx Equinox predates High Guardian Spice, but everyone ran with the narrative that High Guardian Spice was Crunchyroll's first and only original production and now barely anyone talks about their other series

[@inaciu3000]

Outsourcing to Japan was quite usual in European animation in the 70s and 80s too. Series like Los Mosqueperros (from Spain, I don't know the English name), Wickie the Viking (from Denmark and Germany), the Moomins (from Finland) and many more are good examples. Then Japan started to outsource to South Korea, Taiwan and more when their industry growed enough.

[@Croz89]

Moomin wasn't outsourced, it was a European-Japanese co-production (the same partnership that produced the Alfred J Kwak TV series). Japan loved the books and needed no prompting from Europe to make their own anime, which they did in 1969 (which the author, Tove Jansson, absolutely hated!). In some ways the 1990 anime was an attempt to make amends and do something more faithful to the books and comic strips (which it was, mostly, at least the first series!).

[@inaciu3000]

@@Croz89 oh, good to know. I knew there were a pair of Japanese series before the Finnish one, but I thought Japan didn't coproduce the third one.

[@Croz89]

@@inaciu3000 There's been quite a few adaptations and even a standalone film over the years, some of which Finland were involved in and some they weren't. The latest adaptation doesn't involve Japan at all and I believe is produced by a British company that contracted a Finnish animation studio. IMO the 1990 anime is probably still the best adaption of them all, I think Moominvalley feels too fast paced and lacks some of the atmosphere and charm. But that might just be the nostalgia talking.

[@dalriada7554]

Or the Mysterious cities of Gold and Ulysses 31, co-productions between European countries and Japan (quite often, it wasn't just one country. Since it was cartoons, so dubbed by definition, TV channels from different countries were putting money together to minimize the cost).

[@gfin4576]

1:28:50 The cartoon network show "Steven universe" became notorious for this. The creators would lazily and roughly sketch out storyboards (maybe animatics sometimes) send it off to the contracted studio in Korea with very little to no direction, and then be surprised that characters could not be kept on model from shot to shot. this went on for nearly the entire run.

[@ashknight6696]

more like, cartoon network wanted episodes churned out so fast that they didn't want revisions done in korea, and then later some viewers noticed that some of the models looked off sometimes and complained that the artists were lazy. did you miss the part where he said almost every animation ever gets outsourced to korea? you people are just looking for things to get mad at

[@jstevinik3261]

@@ashknight6696 Yes. Also, the American studios would give the Korean animators model/design sheets.

[@ashknight6696]

@@jstevinik3261 yeah, and then paid them $0.30 an hour and expected unreasonable turnaround times. can you blame them??

[@bobokitty123]

(to be fair, us over at Powerhouse think the anime description is pretty silly and will joke about it) Edit: just finished the essay and oh my god thank you for being so supportive of us in the animation industry. It's been rough, and it's just so hard to get proper timelines and budgets to finish a show. There are also so many people wanting to enter the industry and no work for them. And the work that is out there, well you better hope you land a union paying job that doesn't require you to move to LA. And the studios who start out working for cheap, when they try to up the budgets for their employees, they get out bid because no one wants to actually pay the proper amount. Like, I know that if I did the same amount of work in admin in animation at a tech company, I would get paid at least double the amount I make now. But I also love my job so like, all you can do is scream some days. It's so hard not to fell like the industry is collapsing everywhere, the US, Japan, Canada, South Korea...etc. I want more people to know, more people to CARE. Animation is SO MUCH WORK, 2D and 3D. It's a labor of love! People who do it should be allowed to make enough to not only afford groceries and a place to live, but also make enough for extra spending. Just ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! As I said, lovely vid and thank you for being someone who listens to us ❤

[@deantejacques9871]

Toonami was originally an after school time slot with heavy censored versions DBZ, Sailor Moon, and Gundam prior to being relocated to a mid night Saturday slot.

[@TheStickCollector]

Probably in relation to being bought out by adult swim, instead of the cartoon network origins.

[@SmallRoundDuck]

Putting Akira behind Rick and Morty on the thumbnail is a sin. That’s all I gotta say 😂

[@TheQuietTimes]

It's mostly because adult animation is formatted like a sitcom... And when you have to make 26 episodes of a show a year you don't really have a ton of time for crazy in-depth animation

[@Dave102693]

This

[@HelloOnepiece]

And then there is Europe, which tries to survive with weird artistic movies

[@artblob]

What weird artistic movies do you mean? I think a studio like Cartoon Saloon deserves more recognition than it does. Wolfwalkers and Song of the Sea are exceptional

[@user-pi4qo3zc2e]

European countries are more socialist and artists tend to think that art is something you do for art sake and it must be government funded. Government maintains useless artists by handing out grant money for politically acceptable art projects.

[@dalriada7554]

Well, Arcane is European and it's quoted in the video.

[@BenkaiDebussy]

I think the main reason some gap between the West and Japan will remain is simply the role of manga in Japan, which really has no equivalent in the West (and most anime is ultimately just adaptations of manga). Manga/comics as the root of most of this stuff is very important, because manga is inherently far easier and cheaper for individuals to produce, so you end up with a far greater breadth of content (that can then be adapted into animation). So while we'll see more good animated shows/movies, I don't think we'll ever see the medium become nearly as populated and diverse in content.

[@qwertydavid8070]

The Marvel Cinematic Universe was basically the closest we got to that manga-->anime process lol. It was literally just incredibly high quality adaptations and re-imaginings of stories that already existed years ago.

[@ThunderbackOG]

Yo, the limited framerate thing saves SO MUCH time and money it is nuts. If the Spiderverse movies were animated on 1s instead of 2s, we would have to wait another 6 Months+ between films and the budget for animation would have almost doubled.

[@polkadi]

It's kind of wild how the first movie had variable framerates as an artistic choice, and then the sequel makes that choice into a necessity. Animating Spider-Punk _alone_ took months of work, and you can see it in the end result. Animating that on 1s is not an option.

[@TaisonSphereNo.4]

The first thing that appeared in my head when you said adult animation was Fritz the Cat

[@unknown6390]

Sure buddy

[@Jenna_Talia]

if true then that's honestly amazing cause fritz the cat is beyond obscure. I only ever see him brought up as a demonstration that furries didn't just spawn into the world in 2014.

[@Samm815]

Using a picture of Lt. General Zulu? Checks out.

[@TaisonSphereNo.4]

@@Samm815 A COINCIDENCE I SWEAR!

[@joaquinfernandez3977]

same, honestly. it's blatantly dark and not for kids at all most adult animation nowadays is mostly for teens

[@Microplasticindulger]

I would argue that US 3D animation is leaps and bounds above anything else but when it comes to 2d/hand drawn japan has continued to push the envelope making them leaders in that aspect. I personally distinguish the two as separate media despite them being used together in some cases. 2d is similar to painting and drawing while 3D is more akin to sculpting and puppeteering.

[@Pangora2]

I agree for the most part. While both are animation, I feel 3D is closer to puppetry as well. And I think you agree with me, that doesn't make it Lesser.

[@princessjellyfish98]

It kills me that the production committee system is what killed yuri on ice 😔 it's definitely true that mappa intentionally abandoned shojosei after it blew up, but they also made pennies on the dollar for YOI. the irony is that the short film that became YOI came out of Khara's animation festival--a studio created to try to escape the creative limitations of the production committee system. Now YOI is dead and MAPPA is animating half of Jump and they're patient zero of crunch

[@Pangora2]

But would the anime have gotten off the ground at all if there was no production committee for it? The answer is no.

[@princessjellyfish98]

@@Pangora2 it literally got off the ground because of a short film festival run by studio khara, which hideaki anno created to try to circumvent the exploitative and artistically bankrupt production committee system! It quite literally exists because the original short film was NOT bound by a production committee. The fact that it crashed and burned because of one was the whole point of my comment! It's a textbook example of this broken system! Idk why you're going to bat for production committees as though they're the reason for anime's quality when it's an unambiguously broken system that is hurting the industry more than it's helping

[@phantomkitten73]

I want shorter shows with worse animation made by people who are paid more to work less and I’m not kidding.

[@amberhernandez]

Lex will never escape this and I love it

[@karayura10]

Pop Team Epic and specially animation by ACbu duo

[@kusuossecretgf5401]

​@@karayura10 PTE doesn't even look that bad 😭 sure it has those yee yee ass segments but itns funny as hell

[@Croz89]

@@phantomkitten73 If you want the ultimate form of that, you only need look at terrible KZbin kids videos. The animation is garbage, they're all really short, and the people behind them make millions while using AI tools and asset swaps to crank out endless variations.

[@henryfleischer404]

@@Croz89 I'd be happy with the animation quality of Gundam 0079 if the writing and visual design is good.

[@1masterd1]

When you said "lets go" I literally got the ad for Deadpool/Wolverine where Wolverine says "lets go" right in the beginning And it was hype

[@acid_kat4000]

PLEASE do a video about animation in canada, im genuinely suprised that indie animation isint a larger part of the canadian cultural identity

[@NotSoMax]

My perpetual delusion is to one day be successful enough that I can fund my own anime by poaching animators from these studios and have everyone working on it get residuals. The fact that artists do not get residuals still blows my mind and feels like one of the most messed up parts of modern media creation. Distributors and publishers continue to profit off of these artists work while paying them slave wages because they know we love making art.

[@3nertia]

Viva la capitalism! Heh

[@PrograError]

Well... if the artists get residuals, the process doesn't work. The cash doesn't flow right that way...

[@phantom-ri2tg]

Issue is you can't compete with the current environment because those exploiting their workers have lower labor costs. And they keep getting new workers because people got into the industry for passion.

[@kokorochacarero8003]

The difference between labor and capital

[@pscarlata]

YESSSSS RESIDUALS!!!! It is a crime that the artists who actually MAKE the product do not share in the financial success of that product outside of their initial paycheck.

[@SPyoutube42069]

adult swim raised millennial here, never seen your channel before but this seems very well researched and i like what you're doing!

[@morgandusin2401]

"Anime" is the just term Japan uses instead of animation (not a one-to-one translation I don't think, but I digress), and Japan aruges about Spongebob and South Park the same way that America argues about Dragon Ball. There are internet forums where Japanese people will dunk on eachother for their taste in American cartoons.

[@valutaatoaofunknownelement197]

Dont forget the Japanese will also argue if King of Hill should be considered "American" anime or not.

[@juan-ij1le]

@@valutaatoaofunknownelement197 do they I keep hearing about that i never found one example

[@valutaatoaofunknownelement197]

@@juan-ij1le Haven't confirmed it either. Afterall, I don't know Japanese.

[@KeyleeTamirian]

Then what do you propose as a term to differentiate between animation made in Japan, and animation made in the west, then?

[@kokorochacarero8003]

​​@@KeyleeTamirianIma blow your mind 🫲 🌈Japanese🌈animation🌈🫱

[@Hoopryfien]

13:13 this is funny cause Pluto then went and played with the idea of what makes someone a murderer in a society where mankind and robots (try to) live alongside each other

[@Gross8989]

Former Archer animator here. I can tell you first hand, Archer was NOT primarily animated in Toon Boom Harmony. Also, there is still plenty of drawing that must go in to using Harmony, even with rigs.

[@Lextorias]

I was just going off of an interview with Chad Hurd, talking about how it was used for the show. Didn’t mean to imply it was the only program used, since I know Adobe software was what it started with. “Yeah, well one big new thing that we’re using now is Toon Boom Harmony, which is kind of like a super fancy Flash that's made for animating. It's a lot more traditional and we've been using this a lot more with our rigs. Anything that you see that has a lot of movement, usually our action scenes, like when we do a big spin kick, that's done in Harmony. We've been using that a good bit more this season. You're going to see a lot of fun action scenes.” Source: www.awn.com/animationworld/minimalist-animation-archer

[@Gross8989]

@@Lextorias Chad Hurd is the man! 🤙

[@jstevinik3261]

@@Gross8989 Nice to hear from you. I would say the animation got better after season 1, which is obviously higher budgeted than Adam Reed's Adult Swim show Frisky Dingo. Overall, I liked the witty one-liners, so the animation job is to visually not derail.

[@rekreshan7030]

I haven’t wanted to watch a long form video for awhile, so I appreciate that I actually saw this and really wanted to watch it whole. Thanks bro.

[@Stealthy_Mouse]

Same here. He paced the whole thing in a way that made it super easy to actively watch in one sitting too.

[@cipper12]

This is honestly the best video about the animation industry I've ever watched.

[@alexbryda]

one of the smoothest hand drawn adult animation I've seen is superjail. and nothing comes close, the animation was so dang smooth and crispy for the technology back then, each frame hand drawn like oh Disney

[@Imperial_Squid]

I'm sorry _Prison School_ gor a *_G_* rating?! That's fucking wild

[@bigglou]

That is confusing to me considering there is a censored and uncensored version. The censored one airing during the day while uncensored late at night.

[@Apollos_Triumph]

I think he got the information from IMDb, and there was an error just comparing it to other similar anime, like HDD which is 15 re rated to 18.

[@YamiVT]

When you say "adult animation" I think about bad writing, cheap animation, ugly aesthetic and stoner friends I don't want to be around

[@GothaBillsAndDeath]

When you say "anime" I think about fanservice, trope-filled writing, and taboo genres involving age with sweaty individuals who argue about the age of consent all day on imageboards. I don't really want to be around with that sort of group.

[@rohannborah9025]

Sucks to be both of you, lol.

[@GothaBillsAndDeath]

@@rohannborah9025 My post was an ironic statement mirroring his. I don't know if OP really feels that way about all adult animation. I certainly don't feel that way about the Boy and the Heron or Monster, two animated properties from Japan I consider really high quality.

[@Dave102693]

@@GothaBillsAndDeathwhen I think of both, I often think of both if your opinions. It’s why I’m very picky to what I watch in general nowadays.

[@bullettime1116]

​@@GothaBillsAndDeaththere ain't nothing wrong with tropes, and there's also nothing wrong with a safe story

[@elhombrechorizo]

OH MY GOD SOMEONE FINALLY BRINGS UP GEKIGA AND HOW IMPORTANT HAS BEEN TO JAPANESE MEDIA AND IT GROWTH AND JUST WORLD CULTURE. GOATED VIDEO FUCKING THANK YOU. Ive been trying to explain how pivotal gekiga is to media subconsciously for years 😭😭😭

[@naninyan]

Censorship is always bad for art evolution, end of story. Let people make whatever art they want to make, distribute them with labels and cateogory mainly to protect kids and those who find disturbed. You do not have to cancel something when you don't like it. You can educate your own kids, but not controling the artist. LET PEOPLE BE PEOPLE, STOP CENSORING THINGS

[@henryfleischer404]

Yeah, I agree in more than 90% of cases.

[@kasonbear_]

⁠@@henryfleischer404what’s the other 10%

[@henryfleischer404]

@@kasonbear_ CP, and a couple things I have yet to think of.

[@Es_gee]

​@@kasonbear_ do you really want to see animated CP in every episode? Some censorship is necessary

[@grumpysourdough]

We could have a had a moral orel season two. Remember what they from us.

[@TrampyPulsar]

In America we had a major issue for half a century where part of the cold war was cultural. Huge amounts of money was being pumped into american art culture, the problem was this was entirely around what we now know as 'modern art', abstract art, expressionist art, ect. This was done to combat the more realism and romanticism of soviet art at the time. Growing up I had an art class every other semester, and every single time I wanted to draw in the romantic style, to make cool stuff like a comic book or manga which I was really into at the time, and every, single, time the art teacher who was some weirdo hippie would consantly push back against it and insist on abstract art only, I wanted to learn line art, they wanted me to do expressionism. I can only imagine all the same artistic students getting the same influences and either giving up or listening to the teacher and going along with the idea. And I can't imagine dedicated art schools being much different. One thing I think, is that our current system for creative production is starting to break down, especially in Hollywood. Now is the time to start new underground scenes, network with others who find adult animation fun and interesting. And I hope that this scene becomes real and explodes, and the people involved are collaborative and competitive(in a friendly way) enough to push western animation back into greatness.

[@JH-pe3ro]

It's definitely a watershed moment taking place in the arts, throughout all the industries. I'm seeing it most closely from games, which has had equivalent layoffs to animation recently. Where we've ended up is all downstream of how the international economy was structured since the 70's, especially following the Cold War: America focused on developing its consumer markets and juicing asset prices, while East Asia served as the workshop. The demographics have shifted and air is coming out of that bubble. At the top of my mind is "where's the next investment trend?" Both because I have a portfolio to keep track of, but also because investment is what leads to stable creative jobs - indie scenes tend to come hand-in-hand with entrepreneurialism, and not everyone is keen on that. Art skills are versatile and jump between industries easily - the games industry is actually a string of nearly unrelated industries that reinvented itself with each generation of computing technology. So I suspect the answer is going to have something to do with tech, but maybe not computers - those have hit a certain natural maturity where it's less important to keep reinventing wheels(which investment was a primary driver of - changing the technical language lets you capture markets) than it is to incrementally refine and polish(something now supported by unionization in software). But "core" sectors like energy, transportation, agriculture all seem to be shifting(e.g. Tony Seba's predictions of disruption), and those things do need a cultural backing around them.

[@absolutebad3333]

I didn’t realise how bad the quality of pay and stuff for Japan is. I host weekly trivia. Two nights a week for about 2 hours each and I get paid more for that than some Japanese animators. Not to mention I do other work on top of that. It’s freaky and weird to think about especially when I love a variety of anime

[@NathanielJordan85]

Your videos have such deep pulls... I wish you and HBomberGuy would do a collab someday just for the sheer rabbithole factor that video would have...

[@Wolede]

Seeing Bento Box make mediocre animated sitcoms and then Smiling Friends is peak "be careful who you call ugly in middle school".

[@Lextorias]

technically it's Princess Bento Studios, a collaboration between Bento Box and Australian Princess Pictures, who previously animated some other Michael Cusack works. Smiling Friends is very much a collaborative effort en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Pictures#Princess_Bento_Studio

[@Wolede]

@@Lextorias Ah okay.

[@direktive4]

wages stagnate, cost of living goes up, and the media has the gall to wonder out loud 'why are birth rates decreasing?' without ever actually examining any root problems and instead letting some employer rant about 'nobody wants to work anymore,' as everyone is scrambling to find a way to replace employees with 'AI.'

[@hobnobmoth]

Oh man I could go on and on about the industry and all of it's issues, but I’ll just bring up this one interesting anecdote. I got to ask Hiroshi Nagahama some questions at a con earlier this year and made this interesting revelation. -Apparently producers in Japan often push for as much limited animation as possible. To the point where directors have to push back at times for more fluid animation. They also still separate all the steps (1st keys, 2nd, inbetweens, etc) noting that it’s easier to fill one missing step quickly if something happens -Western producers often want more and more motion, but also often expect an artist to all steps of rough animation. Western companies do this in order to save on money as it’s more regularly pay per hour (in theory.) A lot of issues you mentioned in the third portion have been sneaking into everything from indie to primetime shows. Pay, schedules, etc it’s not healthy. It doesn’t help that some indie shows that are considered big that also have low pay rates make that low pay the expectation or worse, as a high bar. Animation is in a weird middle zone of expensive. It’s relatively cheap to make when compared to Hollywood live action movies, but more expensive than the low end of live action. It’s harder to visualize and explain to producers. Also the medium wage thing you mentioned on US animation pay, it’s cause it’s LA artists. A lot of them have to live in LA because of the union and have to have roommates because the pay doesn't go far enough. Those are often top artists on top of that, lots of traditionally lower paying jobs are outsourced like you mentioned. (For context I work as a freelance, western animator and cleanup artist)

[@cobalt2672]

Okay, I didn't realise that ad read was legit / not a gag until a solid 20 seconds into it... That "weaponised passion" you discussed in part 3 reminds me of the card game industry as well, or more specifically Magic - I've heard the conditions and pay at WotC are fairly dire for the work involved, but because everyone there is a Magic fanatic, they get away with it. (I do love how you used the Hit & Run car wash music right before the Simpsons fake-out)

[@rohannborah9025]

No, Invincible doesn't just look "pretty good" it looks below average aside from consistent character art. It is stiff as fuck 90% of the time, layouts are flat and boring. Most of the budget went to the A-list Hollywood actors instead of the animation staff. Can't believe you just showed a clip from Elusive Samurai beside it and said they are the same quality. Invincible is an incredible story just wished the higher-ups cared. Btw X-men 97 is what you get when you care.

[@Pangora2]

It took a good time scrolling to find rational people. I was losing faith.

[@yt2468mymy]

true lol

[@IloveElsaofArendelle]

Invincible is an borderline okay series, storyline can be better as well as characterization. After Arcane, I compare it to the new gold standard of adult animation, second would be Blue Eye Samurai, third Ghost in the Shell, fourth Castlevania and then Invincible

[@SamuriBlack]

was eating then bro mentioned big mouth, nearly lost my appetite lol

[@ZenoDovahkiin]

>the adult animation you may have thought about may have been... _different_ Does he know what he's doing? >Vaporeon Yep, there it is.

[@eveemcghee4454]

Sailor moon, dbz, and gundam wing were not midnight run, they were on in a 3-5pm time slot which is when kids get out of school (3pm)

[@dalriada7554]

They are the quintessence of a children show.