Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

From Variety:

[quote="Michael Schneider"]
Children of the 1980s, Warner Bros. Animation is reviving a key piece of your cartoon past: "ThunderCats" is making a return, this time on Cartoon Network.

"ThunderCats" is part of a big animated revival taking place at Warner Bros. Animation, which is also behind “Batman: The Brave and the Bold,â€

From MTV:

MTV EXCLUSIVE:

Ugh, that looks awful. So generic, like all the other crap on kids TV these days.

I think it looks fine, in fact, a lot better than most cartoons on now.

I think they look great in their modern form... I can't wait to see Mumm-Ra!

My main beef with anime productions is the, for lack of a better term, weak character designs that are so unimaginative that even the so called monsters that are infamous in the genre fall into five very familiar categories.

For example...

1-Slightly off-looking humans who aren't supposed to be human

2-giant, emotionless insects

3-walking abstract shapes (traditional animation or CGI)

4-less interesting copies of pre-existing Yokai art and design (or foreign mythical monsters)

5-mecha

I would have counted 'naughty tentacles', but those fits in either categories three or four.

There are few exceptions, and most notably among them are American and Japanese co-productions that compliment each other, such as the original Thundercats, even though it goes without saying that the US involvement was more heavy between the two sides creatively.

The new character designs almost fall into the number one category of 'anime creature design', but thankfully are obliviously feline enough that they stand out, and a much welcome change from the said anime tropes.

They look like cat humanoids, as opposed to humans with minor cat features, and that's a good thing!

I'd be interested to see how the villains, and other inhabitants of Third Earth will look (better Crab Man please?) in this style, so I'm quite hopeful and not as terrified as some people are of the upcoming series.

I don't mind anime's character design and art direction (despite the five dreaded categories I just shared), but I hope we don't get similar storytelling styles, and some of the original show's moral compass remains.

Yes, the original Thundercats would be a little TOO goodie-good-shoes for their own good (pun?), but they were clearly better role models with good, universal messages, than most modern cartoon characters are these days, regardless what side of the pond they hail from.

That's my only real doubt, but again, very hopeful, if not open minded for the upcoming series.