Which is rather odd, because that is very clearly targeted at stoned teenagers.FilipJPhry said:
Give me an example of an adult-oriented, mature western animated film or TV show
- Thread starter MurderousToaster
- Start date
A lot of western animation has taken inspiration from Japanese art styles for decades now. If you want to limit the selection to western art styles you won't be left with much options.
Anyway, on to some suggestions then. There's really not many animation that's purely for adults without touching on comedy or porn, so I'm going to include late teens as a target audience as well.
Western art style, made by westerners:
- 'Wizards' and 'Fire and Ice' by Ralph Bakshi
- Batman: Under the Red Hood
- Hulk vs.
- Aeon Flux
Damn, this is hard... How about some stuff made by westerners with art styles inspired by the east:
- Afro Samurai
- Animatrix
- Todd McFarlane's Spawn
That's from the top of my head. It's very hard to draw a line somewhere, because many of the good animated series were suitable for younger teens or even children to watch and still have adult themes for an older audience. Like the 1992 X-Men animated series or Batman: the animated series. Pm me if you want some Japanese animation for adults, there's loads of them going around (and I don't mean hentai, you perverts
). Good luck on your essay!
Anyway, on to some suggestions then. There's really not many animation that's purely for adults without touching on comedy or porn, so I'm going to include late teens as a target audience as well.
Western art style, made by westerners:
- 'Wizards' and 'Fire and Ice' by Ralph Bakshi
- Batman: Under the Red Hood
- Hulk vs.
- Aeon Flux
Damn, this is hard... How about some stuff made by westerners with art styles inspired by the east:
- Afro Samurai
- Animatrix
- Todd McFarlane's Spawn
That's from the top of my head. It's very hard to draw a line somewhere, because many of the good animated series were suitable for younger teens or even children to watch and still have adult themes for an older audience. Like the 1992 X-Men animated series or Batman: the animated series. Pm me if you want some Japanese animation for adults, there's loads of them going around (and I don't mean hentai, you perverts
). Good luck on your essay!
II2 said:To quote myself, verbatim:
She legitimately looks like she's about to keel over and die.II2 said:
That is one of the most disturbing pictures I've seen. Is there a reason she's suppose to look like that?
OT: I have no idea. There's a bunch of adult oriented cartoons on Netflix though.
Futurama is the best animated show bar none. It is therefore not particularly relevant whether or not one would consider it "mature"
Oh, and "Beowulf [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442933/]"
Oh, and "Beowulf [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442933/]"
The only one I've actually seen that I don't think anyone else has mentioned is Afterworld. It was a series of three-minute episodes, but I think that it might have aired on television at some point. It was science fiction adventure drama, if that is something you are looking for.
You're going to have to deal with a couple of problems here. First, you have to deal with the general (and largely stupid) bias, as you acknowledge, against calling anything humourous "mature". Then you have to deal with the fact that animation has its own history. This second one is very important because it makes it hard for people unfamiliar with the medium to pick out mature content. People see something like Aeon Flux and, because it has guns and lack of clothing, assume it's immature when in fact it's playing off of the existence of those things in the medium. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to convince someone of the maturity of these things, but it's much, much more difficult than looking for things that would be considered mature in any medium, but just happen to be animated. Personally, I'd find this latter option less interesting, but it's worth bearing in mind.
You're also going to have to deal with the fact that a huge amount of western animation has very strong ties to eastern animation at this point. There are series that do all of the work save animation in the west and use eastern animation studios and there are an increasing number of wholly western productions that are done in the style of eastern animation. The lines between these are really blurring to the point where I'm not sure just how fruitful it is to try to draw this distinction.
Some easier ones:
Triplets of Belleville.
A Scanner Darkly
Mary and Max (if you consider claymation animation)
Persepolis
Some harder, potentially more medium-dependent (and, to me, more interesting) candidates:
Aeon Flux
Batman the Animated Series (Heart of Ice being probably the most important episode)
The Tick (humor, but very clear deconstruction of superhero cartoons)
Boondocks (humor, but regularly deals with very mature social questions)
Venture Brothers (humor, but very clear deconstruction of, well, everything - prominent theme of failure)
You're also going to have to deal with the fact that a huge amount of western animation has very strong ties to eastern animation at this point. There are series that do all of the work save animation in the west and use eastern animation studios and there are an increasing number of wholly western productions that are done in the style of eastern animation. The lines between these are really blurring to the point where I'm not sure just how fruitful it is to try to draw this distinction.
Some easier ones:
Triplets of Belleville.
A Scanner Darkly
Mary and Max (if you consider claymation animation)
Persepolis
Some harder, potentially more medium-dependent (and, to me, more interesting) candidates:
Aeon Flux
Batman the Animated Series (Heart of Ice being probably the most important episode)
The Tick (humor, but very clear deconstruction of superhero cartoons)
Boondocks (humor, but regularly deals with very mature social questions)
Venture Brothers (humor, but very clear deconstruction of, well, everything - prominent theme of failure)
I would suggest Daria.
Yes, it's a Beavis and Butthead spin-off, yes it was on MTV, and yes the intended demographic was teenagers. However, by virtue being a cartoon centered about an intellectual, introverted girl who refuses to play the high-school politics game, but was not above observing its effect on the surrounding wildlife, the series was very mature, unique for its time, and hell, my dad loved that show. For reference, this is the only cartoon show I've ever seen him watch.
Like, ever.
Yes, it's a Beavis and Butthead spin-off, yes it was on MTV, and yes the intended demographic was teenagers. However, by virtue being a cartoon centered about an intellectual, introverted girl who refuses to play the high-school politics game, but was not above observing its effect on the surrounding wildlife, the series was very mature, unique for its time, and hell, my dad loved that show. For reference, this is the only cartoon show I've ever seen him watch.
Like, ever.
