I agree, but for slightly different reasons.

Animation in the West refused to break the "animation is for kids/family content only" mindset (despite the efforts of Fritz the Cat, Watership Down, Wizards, and Heavy Metal to change that), and so stayed relegated to little-kid content for the most part. So the Japs took over that part as Western animation stayed firmly in its television-era Saturday morning mindset. We COULD have had a better industry here.

And the reason for that mindset is historical; it really dates only to the television era, but the Hayes Code didn't help either. The earliest cartoons were clearly made with adults in mind. If the Hayes Code hadn't been a thing, racy Fleischer style cartoons could have existed alongside the more family-friendly Disney, and the landscape nowadays would be very different. Hell, I can only imagine how Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies would have looked if they didn't have the Code to reign them in (they had no oversight, and did what they thought was funny. Jack Warner didn't give a shit about cartoons, beyond that they made him money. If they didn't, there'd have been no animation department. Hell, he thought he owned Mickey Mouse, and didn't recognize Mel Blanc making fun of his voice via Sylvester.)

If the Code hadn't happened, there'd have been no NEED for Japanese cartoons to be a thing in the West, and no need for Western amimators to have to go live in filthy dog-eating Korea.

I agree, but for slightly different reasons.

Animation in the West refused to break the "animation is for kids/family content only" mindset (despite the efforts of Watership Down, Wizards, and Heavy Metal to change that), and so stayed relegated to little-kid content for the most part. So the Japs took over that part as Western animation stayed firmly in its television-era Saturday morning mindset. We COULD have had a better industry here.

And the reason for that mindset is historical; it really dates only to the television era, but the Hayes Code didn't help either. The earliest cartoons were clearly made with adults in mind. If the Hayes Code hadn't been a thing, racy Fleischer style cartoons could have existed alongside the more family-friendly Disney, and the landscape nowadays would be very different. Hell, I can only imagine how Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies would have looked if they didn't have the Code to reign them in (they had no oversight, and did what they thought was funny. Jack Warner didn't give a shit about cartoons, beyond that they made him money. If they didn't, there'd have been no animation department. Hell, he thought he owned Mickey Mouse, and didn't recognize Mel Blanc making fun of his voice via Sylvester.)

If the Code hadn't happened, there'd have been no NEED for Japanese cartoons to be a thing in the West, and no need for Western amimators to have to go live in filthy dog-eating Korea.