Manga or Anime?

[David]

[Potato]

I dont think of any of Tezuka's works as 'metaphorical'. but they're still deep and meaningful.

[Princess Sapphire]

[Tetsu Deinonychus]

I'm not sure if I'd agree with that.

Disney's stuff was very good, and I have alot of respect for his legendary status in animation history. But, I don't think I'd call Disney the best of western animation (I also don't think the work his company currently produces is anywhere near as good as they used to make, especially compared to when Walt was still alive).

When it comes to American, hand-drawn animation I tend to hold the Fleisher brothers, Otto Mesmer, and Winsor McCay in higher regard.

I also tended to prefer Don Bluth movies to the Disney Co.'s productions during the '80s and '90s.

I also think the current "King of animation" (considering that both Tezuka and Disney, while both brilliant, are no longer with us ) is Peter Chung.

To be honest, there are so many animation and comic artists, both past and present, from around the world (well, mostly Japan, USA, France, and Korea) that I admire; it would be impossible for me to call anyone "the best".

Of course, that's just my opinion. It's all about individual tastes.

[cmoon]

Oh noes; general animation discussion...

Disney was king of animation in the 30's and 40's. The animation in Bambi is still some of the best 2D work you will ever see, period. It is very clear how quickly things went into decline after Walt started losing money and his brother convinced him that this thing he'd been doing needed to actually turn a profit. Corner cutting starts, formulaic crap begins. Truly the worst Disney (if you want to see it) is in the 70's and 80's, but I won't go so far as calling the 90's a new golden era for them because their writing is so bad, and still incredibly formulaic. True, some of those films have really good animation, but they have also lost a bunch of the older, more expensive techniques (and we find by the time of Lilo and Stitch that they actually don't even remember how to do a lot of those techniques...)

So anyway, when people say Disney, be generous and think of Bambi. I know there are decades of other films, but it is this era that was so influential on Tezuka, not what was to follow.

Bluth? Ack! I have issues with Bluth. He has tried really hard, but I can find the (significant) blunders in each of his films.