Cartoons vs. anime – Part 1

Or at least when I was a kid we had some great cartoons. During the 80s, when I was young, we had some memorable shows. Transformers, GI Joe, and the Smurfs, just to name a few.

While, like most children’s programing, the toons we had were often lacking in plot, they made sense to the viewer. These recent imports from Japan make little to no sense. The characters for each show are interchangable weirdos with ridiculous hair. They seem to always be screaming about this or that with more overacting then a trashy horror film.

At first I found the animation style of anime to be refreshing and amazing. Though I feel it has certainly gone downhill a bit since comming to America, it is still better than much of the 80s toons as far as its technical brilliance. The anime art lacks the variety and feeling put into those old cartoons of my youth. It often feels manufactured. Those old 80s toons were obviously less refined in their art, but they brought, and still bring, those farm fuzzy feelings.

Its no contest. Those cartoons many of us children of the 80s watched beat this new crop of anime hands down.