Sym-Bionic Titan

Year: 2010

Creator: Genndy Tartakovsky

Type: Mecha

Subtype: Alien teenagers try to combine a normal life on Earth with their outrageous mecha lifestyle.

Primary audience: People who have been hoping for anime esthetics to be imported into Western cartoons for a couple of decades now.

Worth watching: Oh yes.

Big monsters, big robots, big battles, (ir)regular teenagers, blah blah blah.  So anyway, let me talk about Genndy Tartakovsky, who is one of the few Western cartoonists who understands anime, and has been copying all its best tricks for years, but always adding something uniquely his own to the mix.  An secret ingredient X, if you like.  Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, The Clone Wars (the earlier one).

Sym-Bionic Titan makes all of those seem like trial runs, and just like the mecha in the series combine to form super-mega-mecha for their super-mega-battles, (as such things are inclined to do, and if you find yourself wondering how they do it, remind yourself it’s just a show, and you should really just relax), all his previous cartoons combine to form this one.  It’s a bit messy, and it’s really all style, but what a style it is.  Enough talk, I’ll show you: The clip above, about an uneventful trip on the bus.  Real anime is too stuck in its own clichés to do something like that.  But this isn’t anime, it’s Genndy Tartakovsky.

2 thoughts on “Sym-Bionic Titan

  1. NC

    I agree with you. Genndy’s style in animation is soo amazing. He’s one of the greatest animators who have ever lived in the history of animation.

  2. greg

    Gennedy is a unique animator. I grew up watching all of his work such as Dexters Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars (Not the crappy CGI nonsense, the original). So glad to see him at his best again just when Cartoon Network is dying out with all the live action shows.

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