Best (ever) Western/non-anime animated series?
Over the past 2 weeks I watched Arcane, mainly because a friend of mine insisted it was a masterpiece when it first came out and has been waiting to hear my opinion since. While I think it's very good from a technical standpoint, I found it very tropey and ultimately I was underwhelmed. Part of that was the expectation going in that it was supposedly perfection, but part of that was simply my own lack of investment throughout. I realized I wouldn't bother to watch season 2 whenever it's released, because I simply don't care enough about the story or characters to keep going.
However, my friend thinks it's the best Western animated show since Batman: The Animated Series, and I've been trying to think if there's any other legit contenders. Any suggestions? My taste favors stuff like Robot Chicken and Archer, but I think comedies are kinda at a disadvantage in serious comparisons.
Strong second for Bojack Horseman. It’s in a league of its own.
Thoughtful, brilliant, tightly-crafted, highly original. Top-notch voice acting. Dialogue is tight and purposeful, often lightened up with frivolity, puns, and alliterations. Realistic portrayal of mental illness, the human condition, and the quest for meaning in a surrealistic world. But also absolutely absurdly hilarious.
I could watch Hilda for hours even on mute just because the style and animation are so attractive.
And She-Ra was great not only because of the quality animation, but it meant a lot to me to see this fantasy world where gay people were just a matter of life and didn't need to fight for acceptance. I found the ending to have a lot of meaning; it wasn't just heartwarming, it was heart-healing. I'm surprised you mentioned it without also mentioning it's unofficial "brother" show, Voltron: Legendary Defender.
I will say that describing Over the Garden Wall as "comfy" is a bit odd, but I totally get where you're coming from.
I really wanted to like Vox Machina; the style and animation looked great. But mostly I just didn't care for the characters, and since the show was built around them the show became dull from my perspective. A lot of the jokes really fell flat for me, too.
I really enjoyed Vox Machina, but I'm always a little conflicted on D&D based stories and shows because I feel like even when they're not doing the D&D rules they still tend to lean too heavily on D&D tropes. I guess if you're more into the game that's part of the appeal for you, but for me it totally wrecks the verisimilitude of the world-building.
I think that's like a general trend with the writing in genre fiction nowadays where's there is just way too much self-referentiality going on. It was fun when nerd culture was a subculture and seeing an easter egg felt like a bit of a wink and a nudge. But now I just kind of feel like writers expect us to go "HE SAID THE THING!" and I wonder how they manage to get themselves into work every day without feeling like that Bart Simpson meme.
If you like the Star Wars shows, you might also like Star Trek: Prodigy
Them's fightin' words!
While I like Lower Decks for its in-jokes and homages to TNG, I believe that Strange New Worlds and, surprisingly, Prodigy are the best current Star Trek shows.
Avatar: The Last Airbender gets a vote from me. I re-watched it a few years ago when it was added to Netflix and it holds up.
I'm amazed nobody's mentioned The Owl House yet. It's got a great plot that they actually planned far in advance, which means that there is tons of foreshadowing all throughout the series. It's also got a very unique world full of mysteries to uncover - which they do - as well as some surprisingly well written humour and a cast of very talented and memorable voice actors. And from time to time they bless us with some truly over-the-top highly kinetic fight scenes; it's got western sakuga. As an animation buff, I love these soooooo much. It's a shame that Disney ended up screwing over the fans on this one, but at least they greenlit a few more episodes so they can finish the plot. The last episode is coming out soon, but you can tell from the other two they released that there was a lot of opportunity to expand on which they missed out on.
Also surprised nobody has mentioned Steven Universe given how popular it was at one time. Looking back it feels almost like it was something of a fever dream considering how active the fan community was around it and how they ended up affecting the production of the show. Luckally I was mostly seperated from that, and I found the finished product to be pretty good; I really liked the lighthearted atmosphere and how the story was built around love and acceptance; I can guarantee you there's almost certainly going to be an episode that will make you cry. The show is also the first one I've seen with that western sakuga I mentioned before; the movie is almost watching just to see all the times they pull it off. And it also has a follow-up series that tackles PTSD and I am not kidding when I tell you that it's honestly the best depiction of the condition that I've ever seen.
One interesting thing is that Steven Universe kind of accidentally benefits from some of the things that would usually be shortcomings. One could easily say that the pacing is kind of horrible; there is a lot of time spent in episodes where neither the plot nor any of the characters advance or change at all, but the slow pacing and intimate looks into even the minor side characters is part of why it's so endearing. The vocal songs start off feeling just a bit off, but the way that they improve in quality over time matches the way the characters grow stronger in their convictions as the plot progresses.
(edited to fix spelling)
Steven Universe is pretty great. I only wish the episodes were slightly longer. As an adult, 10 minute episodes don't feel very satisfying for me.
TBH I've only watched it via binge-watching, and that's probably the best way to watch it.
Personally speaking, having to wait a week for the next episode just increases the likelyness that I will lose interest before a show ends. A third act reveal does nothing if you've lost me before the third act begins.
I binge watched it as well. I still wish episodes where longer. It's a great cartoon either way.
I arrived late to this one, but loved it even as someone pretty far outside the target age demographic. I was basically forced to watch it by some friends last year. I had been using the excuse that I had no TV, so they brought over a TV and we watched it. It's very bingeable due to it's length. It kept getting better and better through S1 (which is 50+ 10min episodes), and then after the narrative reveal at the end of S1 I was pretty hooked.
The Venture Bros
A future-faux-retro show satirizing the Space Age Jetsons-esque science fiction boy adventurer genre and meditation on failure. The characters fail at what they want to be and do and can’t get over being failures, so chaos, comedy, and hijinxs ensue.
Well-written, memorable, very fun. First season is good but a bit muddled as they try to find their way. Subsequent seasons are superb.
Seconding this, hands down my favorite animated show of all time, western or no. Superb writing, witty jokes, great animation (though it definitely improves as the seasons progress), as well as some surprisingly genuine and heartwarming moments peppered throughout. And on rewatches, its satire of superheroes and supervillians hits even more potently, in this age of mega-blockbuster Marvel/DC superhero film over-saturation. It's the complete package.
When Adult Swim cancelled The Venture Bros I went cold turkey on Adult Swim. I don't care what the viewership or advertising metrics or whatever looked like: it was far and away the most superb original program they've ever aired IMO, and I don't know if they'll ever earn my forgiveness (though greenlighting the movie is a start). It was a deeper stab to the guts than Fox/Comedy Central cancelling Futurama, for me.
I second most of what was said ahead, but if a mini-series counts I recommend (Hulu link) Over the Garden Wall. It's definitely a seasonal thing to watch in the Fall, especially around Halloween. I'd say it's all ages, but there are parts that might be a bit scary for small (like <8 yrs old) kids. But it's entertaining and surprisingly deep. Soundtrack is solid too.
Over the Garden Wall is such a delightful miniseries.
@vord, @teaearlgraycold and @hungariantoast already mentioned several of my absolute favorites, Aeon Flux, Avatar: TLA + Korra, Clone Wars, and Invincible. And you already mentioned Archer. But a few more of my favorites (in no particular order):
Gargoyles
Classic 90s animation, so really cheap looking. But it's dark, more mature than you might expect, and the story actually holds up reasonably well.
Samurai Jack
Beautifully animated. Really interesting world-building. Supremely underrated, IMO.
ReBoot
Fun. Just fun. Really cool concept too. The 3D animation doesn't hold up well, but if you can look past that, and are a computer nerd, I suspect you will still enjoy it.
And despite being pretty immature and supposedly for younger kids, Fairly OddParents, Powerpuff Girls, Spongebob, Ren & Stimpy, and Animaniacs, are all actually really good too.
Also, I can't believe nobody has mentioned Futurama yet, which is probably my most rewatched animated show of all time.
Pretty much the entire reason I went to get a degree in 3D animation in 2000. The animation and character models got a decent upgrade for season 4, which didn't air in the US so I didn't get to watch until years later. It gets kinda dark for a kids show and it's pretty great.
There's a guy on YouTube who's posted a 4K upscale of the entire series : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22SEoekI3cM&list=PL_hfDtD68l8UO7GiIaNI0u2LGjyq_6aKE&index=1
ReBoot is one of my all-time favorite shows. It's kind of amazing how well the show holds up, at least if you excuse the early CG looks. The only part of it that I don't care much for is the first season, which was famously hamstrung by their production partners to make it more child-friendly, but even then it was clear that the people running it were amazingly talented and imaginative and were pulling from a wide range of inspirations. The jokes can be painfully bad at times, but it actually ends up making the show all that much more endearing. I'd even say that that child-friendly beginning ended up making the show better in the long run, since it provided a great amount of contrast when the show would take a darker tone.
I know that a lot of my love for the show is nostalgia, but unlike most of the other nostalgic properties from my past, it actually holds up as a something that anyone can enjoy regardless of your age.
I can't believe Fairly OddParents is still going. It's just as fun for adults as it is for kids. I was sad when I found out that the creator is a bit of a nut job who thinks the earth is only 10,000 years old.
Futurama is fantastic as well. It's been cancelled and revived so many times that it changed quite a bit over the course of 20 years. It'll be interesting to see what the new revival looks like.
I swear that something has to have happened to Butch Hartman to turn him into the joke he is today. Perhaps he is a victim of his own success with OddParents? But at the same time he has many stories of being treated rather poorly by the executives from Nickelodeon, so maybe that had more to do with it.
If you look at his early career it seems like he was such a go-getter, working really tough labor-intensive jobs in the animation industry presumably because he loved the art so much. But now it seems like he really doesn't like drawing at all anymore; the kids show he was trying to produce for his network barely got a few minutes of animation done and the amount of dicking around he does on social media is somewhat legendary at this point.
Can't believe I forgot about Gargoyles!!
Thank you. People always look at me like I'm something they found on the bottom of their shoe when I say I don't like Arcane much. I especially dislike the supposed protagonist (that is, the younger sister).
Are we looking for more adult-oriented shows specifically? Or stuff geared towards children (which adults might also enjoy)?
Assuming I'm not going to recommend Avatar TLA again, which is probably just the one answer to the question, I'd point at Adventure Time as a balanced choice.
Adventure Time is a sleeper hit as far as animated shows go, just because it covers an awful lot of ground and the cast and the world kind of grow up with the audience. Finn has to learn a lot about heroism and his ideals, Jake has to learn to live with some of his choices and insecurities, Bubblegum has to learn about her need to control everything and open up, and while they end up in a better place than when they started, that's not to say that things aren't better forever. Decay still happens, bad things are still abound, and happily is not ever after in the land of Ooo. But that's okay, because you can only do what you can, and know what you know, and when you're done, that's it. The show didn't tell you everything, and Finn and Jake did a whole lot of good, but where the show ends up is that new darkness rose and new heroes have to overcome it, and the cycle begins again.
I mean, I was mostly trying to get past the idea of favorites and looking for whatever we might quasi-objectively consider 'best,' but my picks for best anime, for comparison, are shows like Cowboy Bebop, Aku no Hana, and Blade of the Immortal, i.e. not shounen series at all. Children's shows that have some nods and winks towards adults usually aren't as high-quality in terms of depth of ideas, emotional nuance, complexity, consistency, resonance, etc. as shows targeting older audiences. As much as I'd personally love to make cases for classic stuff like Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry on artistic merits, they don't really rise above entertainment value. I think comedies are similarly hamstrung by typical episodic formats. Lack of overarching narrative often reduces them to being essentially judged by laughs per minute.
Having said that, there are always exceptions, so if you've got a pick that has a real argument for the title in your eyes, have at it.
Despite the recency bias of just having finished rewatching the whole show, I think Samurai Jack might be the best animated series ever created.
This might sound like hyperbole, but there is not a single bad episode of that show. There are even a handful of episodes that I'd rank as some of the greatest episodes of animated shows I've ever seen. It's also full of extremely memorable characters.
It's the most literal embodiment of animation as a series of paintings. Nearly every shot in the show is absolutely gorgeous and could stand as a piece of art on its own.
Hm... what else would you put in your top 3 or 5? I keep hearing this kind of praise for this show, but I've always been skeptical what else those recommending have seen to make such a claim. I've already seen some of the shows listed in this thread, for example, and if they're mentioned here pickings must be pretty slim.
Samurai Jack is bit of an outlier only list since I usually tend toward comedy when it comes to animation…
The Simpsons, up to season 9.
I actually like a lot of the Hannah Barbera cartoons, like The Flintstone and The Jetsons, and Tom and Jerry (though they may count as short films considering that’s how they were originally released).
I actually like the 2011 version of The Looney Tunes Show I think a lot of it functions as a child version of Seinfeld.
Also the 2010s run of Mickey Mouse I thought was really well done and under appreciated, especially at the time. I watched it when I was going through a really strong Disney phase but I still think it’s pretty funny.
I’ve never seen Gravity Falls but people really like that.
During the first year of the pandemic I quite enjoyed Star vs the Forces of Evil.
The Simpsons, first ten seasons. Futurama. Rick & Morty, first three seasons. Castlevania season 1. Beavis and Butt-Head. Dr. Katz. Dexter's Laboratory. Batman - The Animated Series. X-Men The Animated Series. Dungeons & Dragons (1983).
I didn’t expect South Park to be mentioned among this group tbh
It seems to go against the sensibilities of this site. The purpose of the show is to be offensive to everyone. I’d expect the treatment that r/GamerGhazi would give it.
I quite like the show, I saw it as a kid when I was way too young to watch it, and I agree that it should be mentioned with the very best in western animated shows. But I didn’t expect a show with these types of jokes to be mentioned here.
I've not watched much of South Park but I often watch Johny2Cellos on YouTube who reviews a lot of animated TV. It sounds like especially in the last few seasons it's improved and matured a lot (while retaining its trademark style).
This particular video for example talks about The Streaming Wars, a meta-reference to streaming sites trying to get SP exclusives and how the whole system is toxic to consumers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJBCBQSv3HU
Aeon Flux is definitely up there, though it predates/overlaps with Batman so not sure if it qualifies.
I'll second the reccomendation of BoJack Horseman. Its a comedy, but deep dives into mental health in an big and serious way.
South Park definitely has its moments. I've not watched in many years, but they did an excellent job lampooning current events. Douche vs Giant Turd never stops being relevant. The documentary on how they were churning out an episode inside of a week was eye-openingly awesome.
I'm also going to throw Daniel Tiger's Neighboorhood out there. It is an excellent show for teaching emotional intelligence. Though I doubt it will win many awards, given that the <7 crowd is the target audience.
It’s been mentioned before but I want to make another comment just for it: Castlevania on Netflix.
It’s incredibly well paced: Completely over-the-top action (pretty brutal) followed by calm, dialogue-heavy scenes. I generally got characters‘ motivations for doing what they do, including the villains, which is so rare.
Set pieces are amazing, animations are fluid. It’s just wonderfully done. It reminded me of Avatar: The Last Airbender in terms of quality. So much that I expected it to be the studio‘s next big project but apparently it isn’t. Also I have zero connection to the videogames, it’s just a great vampire epic for me.
I got partway into season 2 before I kinda fell off of Castlevania. Me getting that far is a testament to how good the writing and voice acting are, because I've no connection to the games either, and I don't like vampire/horror/gore stuff at all. So it's a solid recommend overall... but no one seems to mention the animation. The lower frame rate does take some getting used to, and it doesn't seem like it's a stylistic choice. IMO the action sequences suffer noticeably for it.
I do like it, so I may try to finish it sometime, but I usually watch shows while eating dinner or something, so it's not exactly a great fit there.
IMHO Castlevania is actually a bit better if you don't know anything about the games.
It's not like the series had a particularly deep cannon to begin with.
There's a lot of perfect series here. Its rotoscoped, but Undone is also pretty neat and definitely worth watching.
I've never understood why people hate on rotoscoping so much. In any case, this is the first I've heard of this show, and judging from the trailer it looks like rotoscoping is the perfect choice for the effects you'd want for the premise. I'll definitely check it out, thanks!
Richard Linklater has two great rostoscopy movies, Waking Life and Scanner Darkly.
Also Apollo 10-1/2.
(I didn't care for any of his rotoscoped films but Apollo uses the animation to a better extent than his others IMHO.)
Back then, I thought of those movies not as animation, but rather as deeply stylized live-action, and the technique matched the demands of the narrative. If I was comparing it to animation, I might see rotoscopy as a negative as well.
I haven't seen Apollo, thanks for the tip ;)
That’s probably the best way to consider those movies, IMHO. When A Scanner Darkly came out I remember seeing stills of the reference footage and thinking that the originals looked better. But then again, that movie really felt like a fever dream. I don’t remember the plot, I can vaguely remember two actors faces and the strongest memory I have of it is that there is some kind of body horror element regarding bugs that are part of some sort of drug trip.
Both movies have an encompassing narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. Waking Life's plot is looser, dreamlike, obscure and abstract. Scanner Darkly is way more traditional, it's essentially a crime drama -- although an exceedingly trippy one (which is to be expected since it is based on a story by Philip K. Dick).
I think a lot of the haters don't realize how prevalent rotoscoping is. Its a neat series. If you like crazier stuff, Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law and The Big Lez Show are great. The Big Lez Show was done in paint and the work improves as it goes.
Rotoscoping can be good. The problem is that the biggest examples tend to be the worst ones. Think Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings.