Why Japanese cartoons are better
The best episodic series (Bebop, Neon Genesis) have an overall story arc - a beginning, a middle, and an end. People learn. They change. Some new characters appear. Others leave. Sometimes good people fail, and they might even die.
I don't think I've seen an american cartoon that followed this pattern. Most are stateless - nobody ever ages, or changes, or learns anything, so the next episode always starts out with the same set of characters and the same blank slate. Kenny is always alive again the following week. No matter how many times the ghost turns out to be a guy wearing a rubber mask, Shaggy never catches on. Mr. Burns will have his life or career ruined or saved by Bart or Homer, but next week it's back to the same old:
"Who is that man?" Why, I believe that's Homer Simpson, sir."
Why is this? I suspect it's has a lot to do with syndication. If your characters never change or learn anything, an audience can appreciate the episodes in any order. So once you accumulate enough episodes, your series can go on making money indefinitely, recycling and reshuffling the same set of episodes with a new one thrown into the mix now and again.
We're used to the stateless protocol. We come to expect it. But if we know in advance our hero will succeed, his struggle is less compelling. Finding out that failure was possible suddenly makes the conflict seem real.
All of which boils down to: Real drama needs tragedy. And not just in the opening act. They need to have it in the middle and at the end as well. Not all the time, but often enough. And if most of the stories you see end happily, the rare one that doesn't seems hugely more powerful.
I guess that's also why I like Terry Gilliam movies -- there's a man who loves an unhappy ending!
Of course, one could take this too far. I suppose if everybody directed like Terry Gilliam then the occasional rare happy endings would start to seem gripping, intense, and unusually true-to-life.
I don't think I've seen an american cartoon that followed this pattern. Most are stateless - nobody ever ages, or changes, or learns anything, so the next episode always starts out with the same set of characters and the same blank slate. Kenny is always alive again the following week. No matter how many times the ghost turns out to be a guy wearing a rubber mask, Shaggy never catches on. Mr. Burns will have his life or career ruined or saved by Bart or Homer, but next week it's back to the same old:
"Who is that man?" Why, I believe that's Homer Simpson, sir."
Why is this? I suspect it's has a lot to do with syndication. If your characters never change or learn anything, an audience can appreciate the episodes in any order. So once you accumulate enough episodes, your series can go on making money indefinitely, recycling and reshuffling the same set of episodes with a new one thrown into the mix now and again.
We're used to the stateless protocol. We come to expect it. But if we know in advance our hero will succeed, his struggle is less compelling. Finding out that failure was possible suddenly makes the conflict seem real.
All of which boils down to: Real drama needs tragedy. And not just in the opening act. They need to have it in the middle and at the end as well. Not all the time, but often enough. And if most of the stories you see end happily, the rare one that doesn't seems hugely more powerful.
I guess that's also why I like Terry Gilliam movies -- there's a man who loves an unhappy ending!
Of course, one could take this too far. I suppose if everybody directed like Terry Gilliam then the occasional rare happy endings would start to seem gripping, intense, and unusually true-to-life.