Category: February

I have spoken before about my desire to see more horror animation. While there are plenty of anime (and some western animation) that feature horror elements, they are more often than not driven by some other aspects such as action or sci-fi. While thinking about this, I rewatched a web series (whether it counts as animation or not is debatable) called Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared and was reminded how much of what I was looking for could be found in this show.

I discovered the first episode of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared when (like many people I assume) a friend showed it to me. I can remember not thinking much of it at the time, admiring the production value but finding the shock value ending a little tasteless. In 2015 while watching an episode of the Game Grumps playthrough of Bloodborne, Danny compared one of the monsters to a character from Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. Interested, I decided to watch the four episodes that were uploaded at that point and realized that I had seen the first episode years before.

I’m sure that we are all familiar with the Dreamworks Animation brand which has released films such as the Shrek franchise, the Kung Fu Panda series, the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy and more. These are all 3D CGI animated films and I do believe it is fair to say that 3D animation is what most people think of when they think of Dreamworks. However, did you know that of the first 7 films that Dreamworks Animation produced, only 2 of them were 3D CG films with the other 5 films animated in 2D?

It’s an interesting array of films as well with The Prince of Egypt (1998), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Joseph: King of Dreams (2000), Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003). Featuring 2 bible stories, a legendary city, a literary adaptation and a semi-historical film, these films are a strange mix when it comes to quality and animation.

While I do spend a lot of time discussing anime, I am also a fan of Western animation. There is no doubt in my mind that there have been many amazing animated series created in the West that put much of anime to shame. However, living in Ireland where much of our DVDs and Blu-Rays are released by UK based distributors, I have found it very hard to collect Western animated TV series.

Let’s start off by saying that there are certain animated series that are widely available over here. From series such as The Simpsons, Futurama, Spongebob Squarepants and more, these are a few examples of shows that are easy enough to find on DVD (notice I’m leaving out Blu-Ray).