Talk:Adult animation/Archive 2

Untitled

I've just given this article a bit of a go-over, but it still has pretty big issues. For a start, I think there's too much emphasis on pornographic or otherwise sexual animation. I think there also needs to be a sharper line drawn between reality and public perception: it seems likely to me that most animation is for adults but, in some parts of the world at least, it's the animation for children that's the most visible. NeilEm (talk) 16:38, 30 April 2011 (UTC) (<- Shove your f1lthy censorship up in your xaxsxs!)

What exactly is "adult animation"?

As I see it, "adult" content in animation falls into three categories.

1) The animation itself is inappropriate for children of some age. This obviously includes hentai and probably stuff like Happy Tree Friends too. The animation is crucial to the purpose of the product; live-action versions would be impossible or pointless.

2) The material contains content inappropriate for young children, but not (normally) connected to the animation, rather to the plot things the characters say. Here lie South Park, Family Guy etc, and this is probably what most people think of when they hear "adult animation". You could probably do live-action versions, but the animation allows for more surreal jokes or bizarre plot twists that would otherwise seem out of place otherwise.

3) The most recent development, serious films that contain adult themes, Persepolis, Waltz with Bashir etc. They probably do not carry restrictive certificates, but nevertheless children will find them boring. Animation is an artistic choice, more so than for category 2, where it is merely used to support other story-telling devices and create a surreal alternate world, instead giving the audience something nice to look at. Here the animation itself is important, much like category 1. However, story-telling is more important than in category 1.

It seems a bit weird to lump it all together though, doesn't it? What is really required is three separate pages. Problem is, what would you call them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.30.133.31 (talk) 18:43, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Daria

I was wondering if Daria should be added to this list. It wasn't "adult" in the sense of being vulgar (a few innuendos aside) but it dealt with some serious subjects such as the death of a classmate, the pressure to lose one's virginity, the stress of raising an unusual child and the role of social class in college applications. However, some of the other episodes were much more childlike. 82.31.46.4 (talk) 22:15, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Children's Shows

Why are children's shows like X-Men and Batman The Animated Series listed in this article about adult animation. Just because you're an adult and enjoy it, it does not change the fact that shows were geared towards kids, marketed to kids, and aired in children's programming blocks.Stacecom (talk) 23:19, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Adult Swim

The U.S. Adult Swim channel has been airing adult-oriented anime series on Saturday nights: Blue Exorcist, Cowboy Bebop, Death Note, FLCL, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, IGPX, Inuyasha, Soul Eater and Space Dandy.

Are you kidding me? Blue Exorcist is a shounen series, Death Note is a shounen series, FMA is a shounen series, and Inuyasha and Soul Eater are both shounen series. Who made this list? I have personally watched FMA and it's not an adult oriented anime at all 8v

This is an adult oriented anime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puella_Magi_Madoka_Magica This is not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Note This might seem like an adult oriented anime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Titan but it is not. This one the other hand, is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koi_Kaze

Please do a little research in the future before trying to pass off your own opinion as fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.1.136.210 (talk • contribs) 01:34, December 2, 2014‎

I agree with the unsigned commenter above. Those anime originate from shonen (boy's) manga, and are even rated TV-14 or less in the States. Adult anime can come from seinen (adult) manga, and are likely to be rated TV-MA (mature audiences) in the U.S. Dongord (talk) 04:50, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Adult animation/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

I believe the current article does not meet GA requirements, and that editing the article in order to make it do so would be a huge amount of work. I do not believe the article would even count as "B-class". I have various reasons for feeling this way, which I will detail in a list of points ~Mable (chat) 10:06, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

• The strong globalization imbalance in this article should be obvious. There's a very clear Unites States-centric point of view, and the views on adult animation in South America and most Asian countries isn't described at all. How is adult animation looked upon in countries such as Brazil and China? The manner in which adult animation in Europe and Japan are handled doesn't make me happy either, though, as detailed in the points below.
• The section on Europe has two paragraphs
• This article seems to be taking a strong historical perspective. Per region (US, Europe, and Japan), the article offers a timeline of television series are considered adult. This is primarily an issue with the sections on Europe and Japan. Reading these sections, I start to feel like the article is a list of animated works rather than a proper article on the subject of adult animation. You have lines such as

  The first foreign animated film to receive both an X rating and ...

  ,

  In 1986, England produced yet another politically-themed animation, When the Wind Blows, about ...

  , and

  Werner - a German animated film based on the comic book. In an episode of many characters use foul language and flip the bird

  and so on.
• What the article does not cover at all is culture and social aspects of adult animation. Coming into this article, I expected to read about why the US believes animation is generally for children or why so many US adult shows are primarily about "crude" jokes, but all I saw was that this thing called the "Hays Code" restricted adult content for 40 years. The article doesn't even really explain why this code was implemented and currently suggests that it affects all film, not just animation. Similarly, I hoped to find out why cultural perception in Japan about adult animation is so different from the US. All the Japan section does is defining hentai (not even mentioning ecchi, shonen, and other genres of interest) followed by listing random adult animated examples. As a result, this just looks like the history of anime in the form of a timeline.
• I am unsure of why I am supposed to care about a list of screenings of adult animated works in US festivals. These don't even seem to have produced any kind of controversy. What am I supposed to learn about adult animation from this section? When I saw the section header, I assumed it was about festivals centered around adult animation, which would have been a much more interesting subject. Is it uncommon for adult animation to be screened at a festival? I guess the article suggests that it is by giving only three examples... but I'm just really not sure what information to take out of this.
• Refimprove! Most of the Europe and Japan sections are unreferenced!
• There are some odd lines in this article, like

  although the film was not by any stretch pornographic, it was an adult film ([examples]) and received an R rating when imported to the United States.

  ,

  "Escalation" in particular is interesting because it was made by Disney animator Ward Kimball, independently from the Disney Studios.

  ,

  Betty’s hula animation was reused for a cameo appearance with Popeye the Sailor in his self-titled animated debut short.

I think these are my main issues. I truly believe the section on the US is pretty good, but the article as a whole is completely unbalanced and doesn't describe the actual cultural perspectives that are relevant to this topic at all. Most importantly: Why is adult animation considered a separate issue from adult live action? I do believe that this is the main question this article should answer. ~Mable (chat) 10:06, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Hays Code

"this thing called the "Hays Code" restricted adult content for 40 years. The article doesn't even really explain why this code was implemented and currently suggests that it affects all film, not just animation"

I do not think a full explanation of the "Hays Code" is necessary here, since we have a rather detailed article about it: Motion Picture Production Code. As a censorship code, it was in effect from 1930 to 1968. In general, it influenced the contents and depictions of American films by severely limiting the amounts of sex, violence, drugs, etc. that could be depicted, and determining how they were depicted.

I have been trying to improve several articles on American animated short films over the last few years, by citing books by animation historians. Several of them address how the Code affected animated films, but also mention that the directors and animators still managed to include "adult" material, by making references that the censors did not get. A director who worked in this way was Bob Clampett. Taken from his article:

"According to an interview published in Funnyworld #12 (1971), Clampett had a method for ensuring that certain elements of his films would escape the censors' cut. It consisted of adding material aimed just at the censors; they would focus on cutting those, and thus leave in the ones he actually wanted". Dimadick (talk) 10:45, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

This information already sounds more useful than most of what is in the article. In particular, I would like to see described how Hays Code affected animation specifically, rather than the article giving some examples of old cartoons (Bosko's Picture Show, Betty Boop) that were changed after the Code was implemented. After all, you could probably do that for live action television at the time as well. In general, the whole "Pre-code animation" section is devoted to examples (most of it to Betty Boop, which I'm sure wasn't unique, and if it was, it would be getting undue weight regardless).

As for Bob Clampett quote you're giving: it is awesome little insight, but it still isn't something specific to animation. That information would belong in the Motion Picture Production Code first and foremost, and could be added here because Clampett was an animator, but it doesn't really solve the problem I'm having with these sections. My biggest question is just really: why is adult animation so rare in the US? When did the US populace decide that animation is primarily for children? If Hays Code affected animation more so than live action, then it would definitely deserve multiple sections as it does now. Otherwise, well, all relevant information should already be in the MPPC and Betty Boop articles and this article is clearly unbalanced towards the US, so I don't see the point in having two large sections on it until more relevant information gets added. ~Mable (chat) 12:44, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

After two months of no activity, I have decided to delist this article. ~Mable (chat) 12:12, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

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"Early" cartoons

How is Looney Toons included amongst the "earliest cartoons"? Winsor McCay was nearly dead when the first started being made. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:04, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

The section is about animation from before the implementation of Hays Code in the US. I'd love to read about adult animation from before the 1930s, but to be fair, I don't know how much there is to write about that. Either way, the insane focus on Hays Code in this article is simply weird. ~Mable (chat) 11:43, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

The problem is the idea of "adult animation before the 1930s" as a supposed subset of pre-1930s animation—how much pre-1930s animation was intended for children? The Sinking of the Lusitania certainly wasn't. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 13:26, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

If pre-1930s cartoons were predominantly intended for adult audiences, then the article should comment on that. Currently, the article seems to suggest that "cartoons for children" is the default, even in 1930. ~Mable (chat) 07:35, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

We have plenty of information on animated films, their creators, and the studios producing/and or releasing them. We often lack information on the intended audience. For what its worth, Understanding Animation by Paul Wells devotes an entire chapter to the audience's perception and reaction to animation from the 1930s onwards. Although Wells seems to be using quotation by big-name animation fans such as Sergei Eisenstein. Dimadick (talk) 11:00, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Heavy Metal

In the Other animated features section, can I add Heavy Metal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_animation#Other_animated_features

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Justifying a split

The article is currently 232,202 bytes and 88,207 as stated on X tools (or 14,029 words). Per WP:SIZESPLIT, articles > 60kB/60,000 chars "probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)." As stated on WP:RSUW, no article should "give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject." Additionally, a spinoff of the U.S. content into an article follows the guidelines stated on WP:SPINOFF which say that one of the reasons that spinoff subarticles are necessary is "where the expanding volume of an individual section creates an undue weight problem." Furthermore, the fact that the content about adult animation in the U.S. takes up almost half the article, and as WP:WEIGHT states, undue weight can be given in ways such as "depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, juxtaposition of statements and use of imagery." In this case, the depth of detail and quantity of text are relevant. As such, as per WP:BOLD, I splitting off this content shortly into a new article. Historyday01 (talk) 21:40, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Age rating

Is there a generally agreed upon age rating (i.e. TV-MA or TV-14) that defines adult cartoons, or can TV-PG and below cartoons be adult cartoons? Better yet: is there a legal regulation, or is the concept of an 'adult' cartoon purely theoretical and subjective? Holdonspirit (talk) 22:03, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I think it is more subjective than anything else, at least that's my understanding. There's no legal definition of an adult cartoon, nor of a children's cartoon. Historyday01 (talk) 14:08, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Comment

I don't have anything of value to add to this article, and I understand the historical and cultural reasons for having a distinction for "Adult animation", but I can't help but continue to feel that this is one of the most useless and idiotic articles on the whole of Wikipedia. It kind of furthers the idea that "animation is made for kids" by indirectly propagating the thought that "adult" content in the medium is its own genre or whatever. There's no article or whatever for "kids animation", so the whole thing feels completely disingenuous, especially with the two lead paragraphs of this article doing so. Whether or not it has sources for the claims it makes, as for what is and isn't considered "adult animation", it's worth noting that there isn't really anything like this for "adult television" or the like; instead, if we look up 'adult television' in the searchbar, we're greeted with a list of "erotica/porn" channels and... yeah that's it. 'Adult animation necessitates the inclusion of nudity, sex, violence, certain themes, etc.' is really poor in taste; and I understand that I cannot change anything about this because it is technically sourced content that has been written about or academically looked at, but it really makes no sense whatsoever. There is nothing worse than this idea that "adult animation" is its own genre or brand of content.

Even under the Japan content, "On 12 December 2020, Lloyd Newkirk pointed out several more adult animations like Berserk, Monster, Afro Samurai, Basilisk, Gantz, Hellsing: Ultimate", as if all of these necessitate thinking about in terms of whether or not they're "adult animation." I mean, I think pretty much anything that airs late at night in Japan would probably be considered "adult animation", because that's what late-night anime is meant to be; but instead, there's this absurd list of titles attempting to condensate what is or isn't adult animation based on a list of sources that specifically refer to it as such. Why it's worth mentioning if series are on Amazon Prime or whatever else is beyond me-- especially when, as mentioned, that's highly irrelevant to even this topic ("adult animation"), and still cherry-picking a list for seemingly no reason. They're not really examples; they just feel like editors read a few articles that described anything as "adult animation" and inserted it into the article. It's about the least intellectual or historiographical method of even approaching the topic, I feel.

"On television, such animations often run in the evening, but they are not generally pornographic or obscene." Then why have such a distinction as if it's a genre in the first place?? Again, historical or cultural reasons, but the article covers none of that, it attempts to define "adult animation" based on a comparative to "kids" or "family-friendly" animation, which is kind of just disrespectful to the whole medium.

Anyway, I despise this article. Sarcataclysmal (talk) 08:15, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking similar things when I had this article delisted in 2017. The framing feels all wrong to anyone into the medium, and yet reliable sources keep using this framing for glorified listicles. Or at least, that's what it feels like. There don't seem to be any reliable sources that go into depth on what exactly is happening here, and thus we can't seem to do anything more with it here either. The relationship between maturity and animation is complex and interesting and I really want to read more about it that isn't just "look at this erotic and/or documentary movie that was made in 19xx." If you can find sources, please do. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:35, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

I'll see if I can find anything and see if I can outsource any knowledge from related or interested persons from social media (unlikely to result in much but just maybe). Sarcataclysmal (talk) 08:51, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

It would be hard work either way to reframe the article. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:55, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Someone pointed it out to me, but the citation list basically just being subjective opinions of what is or is not "adult animation" (the first 5 references alone are entirely that) seems pretty uncredible for the topic at hand despite where the sources are coming from. Really bizarre. It'd be hard work, but when the obstacle posts are that low, lol... 09:01, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

This is something that particularly bothers me personally whenever the article starts listing teen action anime (shounen). I don't know what to do with this tho, these are our "reliable sources"? Of course it's always going to be opinions. This writeup seems interesting and well-thought out to me, at least, actually talking about maturity in anime directly: [1] ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:13, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

This source quotes Toshio Suzuki's thoughts about anime in the 1980s, which seems good: [2]. I do think this should be listed before James Cameron's Ghost in the Shell praise. Done ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:20, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

I think this is a good start. Sarcataclysmal (talk) 06:48, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not going to make this a big project of mine, but I'm glad I was able to help to some degree. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:49, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

If Comic Brew is reliable, then this listicle has some good information: [3]

Only in Hollywood does the idea of adult animation seem novel. Other branches of the industry — tv, streaming, and indie features, not to mention the short film circuit — have demonstrated that the medium is just that: a medium, capable of telling any story to any audience, and not a self-contained family genre. Not only that, the market for mature animation is growing and diversifying like never before. If Belson is showing interest, it isn’t just because of the coronavirus.

~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:11, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, that could be a good source to use. I can agree that the page probably should be updated, and I say that as a person who did a BIG update on the page a while back. Admittedly, I probably didn't do the best job, but I believe it was better than what it once was... And @Sarcataclysmal, my impression is that "children's animation" is within the Children's television series page, specifically sections like "Demographics" or even "Under-represented groups". Even so, I think it would be worthwhile to have an entire page on children's animation (not sure if it would be be called that or "All-ages animation" as a redirect to the Children's television series currently says), as there are pages like LGBT representation in children's television, after all. Furthermore, I would argue that it makes sense to keep "adult animation" as its own page, as it has been established as distinct from children's animation as this point. And surely, there is an issue with animation being considered "for kids" rather than "adults". And some of the series were noted as on certain platforms because they were adapted from Lists of adult animated television series, and when I originally wrote a good chunk of it, I didn't want to spend the time doing a super deep-dive into the topic, so I just use the sources on those pages. And there probably should be fewer listicles at the time as well, but when I wrote a lot of this, I did on my own, and no one else really helped, from what I remember. Sometime ago, the U.S. section of the article was so large it had to split off into Adult animation in the United States (hence, a lot of the good sources moved to that page and didn't remain on this one when that page as split off). Some of the articles in the lead are better than others, I admit, such as:

• Adult Animation Is Better Than Ever - So Why Does It Draw Ridicule?
• Animation nation: how Covid fuelled the rise of adult cartoons
• Why Saying Animation Is Only For Kids Is Bullshit
• What Future Lies in Store for Non-Comedy Adult Animation?
• A Brief History of Cartoons for Adults
• Why is everybody talking about adult animation?
• Why ARE people laughing at rape? American adult animation and Adult Swim: Aqua Teen Hunger Force as contemporary humor (if we had the full thesis here, that would be great)
• How Adult Animation Became the Hottest Genre for Streaming Services

Along with others like A brief, and somewhat shocking, history of adult animation. All in all, I think improving the article is a good thing to do, but I'm not sure I have the energy (or the time) to "fix" it at this point, to be perfectly honest. Historyday01 (talk) 13:06, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

"the medium is just that: a medium, capable of telling any story to any audience, and not a self-contained family genre." Over the last few years, I have been revisiting animated films and series from past decades for my own viewing pleasure. I have seen animated works deal with themes such as fatalism versus free will, darker sides and character flaws in heroic characters, redeeming qualities in villains, moral dilemmas, and unrequited love. Yet I keep finding reviews which claim that such works are for 5-year-olds. Honestly I think the reviewers are rather immature and shallow, rather than the works. Dimadick (talk) 13:28, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Oh probably so. The works definitely are less shallow and immature as reviewers claim. There are some good reviewers out there, but are also many bad ones. Historyday01 (talk) 16:24, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Personally, rather than separate articles on "Children's animation" and "Adult animation", I would want to write an article called "Maturity of animation" or something along those lines, to dive into the subject. But clearly, "Adult animation" is a notable title, as we can see in all these sources, and we do risk original research if we aren't careful. But I think it's very important to treat a medium with respect, and emphasizing (adult) animation's relationship with crude humor too much can be a risk.

These sources look good. So far I've only really been trimming stuff that seemed irrelevant to the abstract concept of "adult animation" or belonged more in the List of adult animation (a whole separate can of worms) rather than here. Actually get some ideological prose done should be a priority I think. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 06:19, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I can agree, that the medium should be definitely treated with respect, and I think an article titled like "Maturity of animation" would be a good idea. Historyday01 (talk) 16:38, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Honestly I'm not even sure if it's possible to rewrite this article to be more accurate. My suggestion would be to remove it entirely and start from scratch with what Historyday said, but that comes at the cost of likely warring with all of the other pages and editors-- at the same time, it'd mean pushing for the dissolution of the idea that "adult animation" is a genre on numerous pages and whatnot. I don't really know how to approach this without starting from square one. Sarcataclysmal (talk) 11:55, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

@Sarcataclysmal: If people are willing, we could definitely start Draft:Adult animation and begin a massive rewrite with a fresh eye on the subject. Once it reaches a certain level of completion, we can compare it to the live article and see which is a better encyclopedic representation of the subject. This would be a lot of work, though. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:54, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, when I did work on the article, I broadly kept in the present structure, and ended up spinning off all the information about adult animation in the U.S. (I noted that in a comment back in June) But, that was years ago, and I wouldn't say it was my best work, of course, and having a massive rewrite is definitely overdue. Historyday01 (talk) 12:42, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I just created the suggested draft page for a new "Adult animation" article. I've compiled a set of sources that should come in use. Feel free to write content in here. I would love to include more sources from books if possible, butt here's already a ton to work with, especially for 2015 onwards. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:43, 31 July 2023 (UTC)