Episode 735 - Anime
Apr 14, 2025
Welcome to another DD Quackcast! We were going to discuss Ad Hoc rationalisations and also “what happens AFTER you take over the world” but both topics were waaaay too trumpish and we didn't feel like getting negative and ranty about that fellow's foolishness so we thought we'd talk anime instead! But what is anime? At its simplest it's just cartoons like any other but they happen to be from Japan. There's more to it though, most anime has a articular look to it: reasonably realistically drawn worlds and reasonably realistic figures but they all tend to have slightly oversized heads, huge expressive eyes, tiny noses and mouths, and very stylised hair and reactions. That's not always the case but it's pretty typical. But these days “anime” is also made in Korea, China, France, the USA and more, it's become a style rather than a country of origin thing.
Topics and Show Notes
What differentiates it from Western animation? Mainly that the the figures were more realistically drawn, with more realistic and detailed backgrounds, while the typical Western style was much more stylised, flat, and simplified. These differences do not denote higher quality or a lack of quality, it's just about what's being prioritised: In Western animation all that flatness and stylisation meant that facial expressions could be enhanced, animation could have more more frames and everything could look smoother and more dynamic. For anime that mean you could have much better drawn, more realistic looking figures (always with 5 fingers!), as well as things like shading, reflection, and shadows, along with much more detailed worlds that they exist in. The trade-off was less frames, jerkier animation and many simplified scenes where they repeat movements, pan and zoom over still backgrounds to fake movement, and even replace backgrounds with things like lines to indicate movement.
The upshot of this was that the more realistic style in most anime can have more appeal to adults, while the much more abstract style favoured by Western animation is always seen as a bit childish so it's been harder to maintain the adult animation industry in the west and it's not anywhere near as diverse. But the real difference is that the animation industry in Japan is massive because of the culture of producing manga which gives animation a constant pipeline of massively varied and interesting material, and the insatiable appetite of the public for new series. And because so much is constantly being produced it means the diversity of story style and genre is incredible and there is something for EVERYONE, of all ages groups, rather than the mainly violence and or sex focussed adult stuff, Simpsons clones, or kid focussed stuff in the West. It's a big, fully mature industry, while the western animation industry just isn't- it's much smaller and the older teen and adult part of it is immature so that diversity of style and genre is weak and very inconsistent.
Would you agree? What are your fave animes?
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Landscapes and Stick Figures - A mechanically surreal piece, like mechanised people all made of crystal glass, dancing in an intricate series of interweaving and interlocking moves. It’s quite beautiful.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Water Lily Hight - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/apr/07/featured-comic-water-lily-high/
Featured music:
Landscapes and Stick Figures - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Landscapes_and_Stick_Figures/ - by Lagoticspy, rated E.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 734 - When love turns to hate
Apr 7, 2025
When love turns to hate… It's a common trope in fiction: partners split up and their once loving relationship turns to one of bitter acrimony! We see hate turning to love frequently too, that's another common trope, I saw both when I watched Willow again last night. Mad Martigan and Sorsha went from hate to love to hate to love again, and Sorsha and her mum Queen Bavmorda went from love to hate. It's a staple in fiction because it's a staple in reality.
Episode 731 - Contrariancast
Mar 17, 2025
I love those characters who bitch and moan and want to do things differently, although they don't usually take up the leadership role themselves, they just THINK they should be leader instead, but they don't really want to be one. They become a sort of fake antagonist… they're not the REAL antagonist, they just like to spice things up and add tension because they don't want to go with what the leader or the rest of the gang says.
Episode 722 - Main characters with main character syndrome
Jan 12, 2025
Main characters with main character syndrome? What is main character syndrome? Well the way we're dealing with it here it's normally a snide criticism you level and someone who seems to think the world revolves around them, like social media “influencers”, selfish self centred people, that sort of thing. Popular figures like Elon Musk and Donald Trump are great examples: they imagine the world should bend to their whim, and normal rules don't apply, like a main character in a fictional story.
Episode 719 - Merry Christmas!
Dec 22, 2024
Happy Christmas eve! In this penultimate Quackcast of the year we decided to have a free day and just chat about any subject that interested us at the time. Next week will be our final cast of the year when we'll do a year in review. We even went back to our roots and did some silly accents, mine were of course A-mazing! (they were pretty crap TBH)
Episode 716 - Identify with characters?
Dec 2, 2024
Is it important to Identify with characters? This question occurred to me as I was watching a rather banal sitcom, Rules of Engagement. I love two of the stars, David Spade and Patrick Warburton, but it's not really that engaging a show, the humour is anodyne and a lot of it is based around traditional gender roles and expectations, but I forced myself to watch it anyway just to see more of the aforementioned stars. The only way I was able to get into it was because I somewhat identified with David Spade's character- being a small blonde guy with long hair and a bit of a perv, haha!
Episode 708 - Cyberpunk
Oct 7, 2024
Cyberpunk is a cool genre we have never covered exclusively on a Quackcast before. But what IS cyberpunk? It's a subset of SciFi, it's usually near future, involves body modifications, grittiness, street level computer use, techno body modification, and hacking. At least that's the way it started. Formative influences on the cyberpunk genre were the first Tron movie, Bladerunner, and Escape from New York. Tron showed us what cyberspace was, while Bladerunner and Escape from New York gave us gritty near future dystopias with cool tech, modified humans, and most importantly the punk aesthetic which was the gritty street youth fashion of the late 70s and early 80s.
Episode 702 - Expression-cast
Aug 26, 2024
Following on from last week with our Quackcast on faces, this week we're chatting about expressions, which is a very natural progression! expressions are a great way to enhance communication in comics. they can be fun to play with but tricky to master. Though when you get them right they really help lift your game.
