It's interesting to look back at late 90s western animation and see which shows were still clinging to the Bruce Timm Batman style and which were starting to (very awkwardly) adopt anime aesthetics - ThreadSky

merrittk.com • 274 days ago

It's interesting to look back at late 90s western animation and see which shows were still clinging to the Bruce Timm Batman style and which were starting to (very awkwardly) adopt anime aesthetics

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crushbort.bsky.social•274 days ago

last three all look like revolution 60 with a few more hours of work

samhainsgrimm.bsky.social•273 days ago

I think there was definitely still some Jim Lee X-Men vibes in there too as a lot of action shows tried to duplicate the success of that show.

aaronwarning.bsky.social•274 days ago

You call it awkward anime-aesthetics, I call it Yassified Klasky-Csupo

gearheadrpg.com•274 days ago

At the time I thought Batman TAS had been influenced by anime aesthetics.

samhainsgrimm.bsky.social•273 days ago

The teams working on the animation were undoubtedly influenced by anime, though Timm personally was not a fan. I think he can be heard complaining on the “Beware the Gray Ghost” commentary when he felt a sequence looked “too anime.” He would send some stuff back for changes for that reason.

electriceden92.bsky.social•274 days ago

It sort of was - Timm had definitely seen Akira by then. The whole idea was to get away from the fussy, overly (and usually poorly) detailed designs on 70s/80s Saturday morning cartoons

electriceden92.bsky.social•274 days ago

And the later Timm stuff - Superman, the WB Batman, and especially Batman Beyond and Justice League - leans even farther in that direction

roxconn.bsky.social•274 days ago

I mean, they DID make Robin do the Akira slide

juan.mywasteofspace.com•274 days ago

a few anime studios did work on the show

TMS (Akira) did this episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76-8xyGf7w0

realsayyadina.bsky.social•273 days ago

Not just "influenced" by it. Most of the show's animation was done by Sunrise, the same studio that does the Gundam franchise. The TAS team would later do The Big O using the same art style and techniques!

fleabttn.com•274 days ago

the "approximately anime, but not" style is so weird to me

like they aren't threading a needle here, what's the point?

juan.mywasteofspace.com•274 days ago

this clicked a lot into place for me

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelaide_Productions

junebugfox.bsky.social•273 days ago

cheweycarapace.bsky.social•274 days ago

I feel like the Anime-light style is directly related to these being outsourced to Korea or Malaysia for even cheaper production.

thegonzalez.bsky.social•274 days ago

Adelaide Animation managed to occasionally do something fun with the latter. They could make some really nasty looking guys.

honk.supply•273 days ago

Being a dumb kid I never figured out the anime connection. It reminded me of the really good stuff I'd see sprayed under bridges so it felt like they were going for some sort of skate park x-treme edge. MIB eventually won me over.

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