Ask John: Why Does CG Get Used for Comedy Animation so Frequently?

Question:
Why does America audiences turn to 3D CGI animation for lighthearted and comedic subject matter and turn to 2D anime for darker, more serious stuff? Are there any serious and darker CGI animation out there?

Answer:
American audiences seem to lean toward 3D CG animation, particularly for lighthearted and humorous films, primarily because these days they have no practical alternative. For contemporary American produced animated film, the options are almost entirely 3D CG imagery or nothing. These days, America simply doesn’t produce traditional 2D animated feature films anymore. America’s most recent major 2D animated film release was 2011’s Winnie the Pooh, and prior to that, 2009’s Princess and the Frog. The limited success of both of those films combined with the limited success of recent straight-to-video 2D animated films including Dark Knight Returns and Thor: Tales of Asgard suggests that the majority of American viewers have just lost interest in watching and supporting traditional 2D animation. American viewers associate animation with family and children’s films; they expect animation to deal with simple, accessible, and superficial stories and characters. Since CG imagery resembles reality more closely than 2D animation does, even when highly stylized, CG animation is easier for average American viewers to associate with and mentally process. Because CG animation more closely resembles familiar reality than 2D animation, average viewers are able to suspend disbelief and “get into” CG animation more quickly, naturally, and effortlessly than 2D animation, which our minds instinctually constantly remind us is unreal.

Serious, more adult-oriented animation has always been infrequently produced and distributed in America. Including even straight-to-video and Canadian produced works, for every Heavy Metal, Rock & Rule, G.I. Joe: Resolute, Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, or Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, there are a dozen lighter, happier, more child-friendly productions. Unlike Japan, which much more frequently produces macabre, grim, or just adult-oriented 2D animation works like Kara no Kyoukai, Aku no Hana, Madoka Magica, and even AnoHana, which isn’t literally dark at all but certainly isn’t oriented toward children, America continues to perceive animation as a medium for children’s entertainment. So even when mainstream American animation attempts to get a bit more serious, productions like Peter Chung’s 2010 straight-to-video film Firebreather sill end up as 3D CG child-oriented films. Arguably, the only mainstream American CG animated film that skews toward an older, mature audience has 2007’s Beowulf, and Beowulf and the literally dark children’s CG animated film 9 have been the only two mainstream CG animated films since 2007 to receive a PG-13 rating. While American hasn’t produced a serious, dark, young-adult-oriented CG animated film in the past 7 years, Japan has produced works including Vexille, Appleseed: Ex Machina, Biohazard: Degeneration & Biohazard: Damnation, Planzet, Tekken: Blood Vengeance, Asura, and Space Pirate Captain Harlock, with Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary coming up this year. And that’s not to mention particularly the “Buki yo Saraba” sci-fi action segment of last year’s anime anthology film Short Peace. The number of lighthearted, comical, mainstream-friendly, and child-friendly anime produced in Japan largely outnumbers dark, serious, adult-oriented productions, and while America has arguably produced only one “mature audience” CG animated feature film, Japan’s output is actually only moderately more prolific, averaging only about one such film a year.

Perhaps CG technology hasn’t yet progressed enough to allow for fully satisfying grim and serious adult-oriented CG features. Productions like Vexille, the Appleseed movies, Planzet, and the Biohazard movies seem to evidence this particular theory. Personally, I think that the breathtaking CG action sequences seen in CG anime shorts like the Onimusha 3 game opening and contemporary Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft games suggests that CG is absolutely capable of creating satisfying feature entertainment, but likely due to budgetary concerns, so far no studio has yet expanded the quality and intensity of short CG sequences to a feature length movie. Even the Tekken: Blood Vengeance movie deliberately chose to make its movie different from the characteristics that make its game CG sequences so stunning. Evidence seems to suggest that producing elaborate, intense, mature action continues to be more practical and affordable in alternate mediums: live-action or 2D animation, rather than feature-length 3D CG. Finally, evidence clearly seems to imply that viewers, especially in America but also in Japan, instinctively seem to prefer more challenging provocative material in more traditional media: either live-action or 2D animation. Live-action makes emotional, challenging, mature content immediate, real, and compelling. 2D animation renders such themes allegorical, academic, speculative. So far, 3D CG imagery has yet to really prove itself capable of enhancing and supplementing the impact of provocative, mature themes, which is why the medium has been almost exclusively utilized only for light and comical films.