Toecutter wrote:However, there was an even crappier cartoon, called Widget. It was about some good-two-shoes purple alien, sent to Earth to teach the only two kids who knew about his existence about environmental awareness (it was a cheap knock-off of Captain Planet).
I believe the name of that series was
Widget the World Watcher. Don't ask me how I know that
Actually, that's another really lame cartoon. Who wants to see the same, over-done, Disney-style villians (all of which have major positions in big American corporations, go figure) try to destroy the Earth just for kicks? Come on! At least in anime, the villians aren't so simply portrayed. They have their own motivations, ethics, and desires. But American villians are just evil because they can be. That's why Disney pisses me off so much. Even in "Beauty and the Beast", the villians (the French, of course) are all single-minded in their goal to kill the Beast, without any dissent or varying opinions. You don't hear a single, middle-class moderate citizen criticizing the drunken fools with hunting muskets.
That's why I prefer anime over standardized, American cartoons.
Actually, there are just as many one-note anime villains as there are American. It's just harder to pick them out of the bias.
All Queen Beryl (
Sailor Moon) wanted was to rule the world. The same goes for just about all the villains in
Sailor Moon with the exception of Daimondo and Galaxia.
Every major DBZ villain to ever hit the series (with the exception of Vegeta). 'Nuff said.
As much as I like Trigun, Knives had no motivation for being evil other than insanity. And we never got the full reason WHY he was insane, or why he wanted to make Vash's life miserable.
In
Ranma 1/2, just about every vilain(ess) wants to either beat Ranma to a pulp so they can claim his/her title, or marry him/her.
In
DNA2, the guy at the end (I forget his name, it wasn't worth a remembrance) wanted to beat Junta to get his girlfriend back because he was an obsessive ass-monkey.
I could go on, but I'd be here all night.
As for American villains, not ALL of them are one-note. The villains in
Gargoyles had varied motivations. Xanatos wanted to make a better life for himself so he could laugh in his father's face. Demona wanted to kill Goliath because she couldn't handle a 900-year guilt trip. The Archmage wanted revenge for his exile from Malcolm's court. Macbeth just wanted to die. Oberon wanted his grandson back, etc.
In
X-Men, Magneto's aim was to destroy humans before humans can exterminate mutants. Having been a Holocaust survivor, he's quite familiar with the destructive power of xenophobia in the minds of authority.
In
Spiderman, the Hobgoblin wanted revenge on Spiderman for killing his father.
Again, I could go on, but I'd be here 'til dawn.
Bottom line is that anime has its story flaws just as American animation does. The difference is, it has more mature themes than American animation, which don't make the flaws seem all that glaring.
, damn that show SUCKED big time.
