Animation style characterized by visible heavy black borders around characters and objects. This style began being used by a few animation companies in the early 1950s (mostly UPA, of Gerald McBoing-Boing and Mr. Magoo fame), and became dominant in American TV animation during the '60s and '70s, eclipsing the more naturalistic style used in most animation during earlier decades. It was phased out during the early '80s, when more naturalistic styles again became dominant in American animation, but then became the standard yet again (on television at least) during the late '90s, and so it remains to this day. Shows animated in Flash and ToonBoom tend to look good in this style.
This is sometimes considered to be among the most defining traits of modern day American animation, mostly when contrasted with the similar "anime=big eyes" notion to emphasize the differences between U.S. and Japanese animation. When this art style does show up in Japanese media, it tends to have uneven lines and crayon shading in imitation of children's doodles (rakugaki).
Compare and contrast Thin-Line Animation, Limited Animation, Web Animation, Super-Deformed.
Examples:
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Advertising
- A Jell-O commercial featuring Alice talking with the Griffin and the Mock Turtle used this. The animation recycled from Alice's movie even had the outlines thickened to match.
Anime & Manga
- Attack on Titan: It's not of uniform thickness, though, giving the impression of a brush pen.
- Aggretsuko used the thick-lining anime style.
- Close-up shots in Casshern Sins usually have this.
- Some episodes of Digimon Savers animate the child-level mons in this style, particularly in the series' tail end. It's very inconsistently done and is probably a product of the Off-Model Art Shifts which plague the series.
- Used in the Dragon Ball Z film Fusion Reborn. Especially apparent during Goten and Trunks' fight with Hitler.
- Fullmetal Alchemist has done a couple Art Shifts to this type of style for some comical moments.
- The first ending of Brotherhood is entirely animated in thick lines and crayon colors, representing drawings made by Ed and Al before they lost their bodies.
- Hellsing is different in how the anime and OVA series averts it when the manga has very noticeable thick line drawing.
- The mochi segments in the fifth season of Hetalia: Axis Powers use this.
- The anime adaption of Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls uses this in the character designs and weapons. The general art style resembles traditional ink painting.
- Kaiji and Akagi both the works of Nobuyuki Fukumoto and both animated by Madhouse.
- Appears in episode 7 of the Katanagatari anime, which is closer to the light novel's art style.
- Koe de Oshigoto! uses this as an artistic direction; it's used to emulate the look of Eroge CG's.
- The western animation-like anime Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt by Gainax. In fact it uses the same art style as The Powerpuff Girls.
- The western animation-like anime Space Patrol Luluco by Studio Trigger.
- Applied at times on the character designs in Samurai Champloo.
- Used in Super Milk Chan making it look a lot like a mix of Ren & Stimpy, Dr. Seuss, and The Powerpuff Girls.
- The fourth episode of Dragon Ball Super is full of this, particularly the scenes with Emperor Pilaf.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! features this from time to time. Notably during closeups of the characters' faces.
- Any work of Kouta Hirano, where it's used to accentuate the angular, dynamic designs of his Noodle People characters, though it's less pronounced in the TV version of Hellsing. OVAs and Drifters, OTOH...
- The anime for Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun consistently depicts characters and objects with thick oultines.
Films — Animation
- A Scanner Darkly
- The Secret of Kells, though it was invoked purposely to resemble medieval illustrations.
- Aladdin utilizes this sort of style to mimic the inking of Al Hirschfeld's drawings.
- In Fantasia 2000, the Rhapsody in Blue segment utilizes this to an even greater extent, being more directly based on Hirschfeld.
Softwares
- The Windows 10 emoji art since the Anniversary Update
. Besides fitting with the flat Metro look, it also helps it show up better on backgrounds of any color.
Video Games
- Early cel-shaded games such as Jet Set Radio and Cel Damage utilized bold outlines.
- Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers, and Super Meat Boy, all made by the Newgrounds.
- Angry Birds
- Awesomenauts
- Among Us
- BattleToads (2020) And this is the part most criticized for this ugly and simplistic art style. everybody cross out this style as it were Thin-Line Animation, But it is actually not, because it has too angular shapes and outlines are thicker.
- The Binding of Isaac uses this animation style to take the edge off of just how screwed up everything is.
- Borderlands uses this effectively for comic like graphics.
- Brawlhalla
- Clam Man
- Cuphead used the 1930's cartoon-esque art style to make it look like the Mickey Mouse and Popeye cartoons.
- Champions Online has a graphics option for this.
- Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit
- Hollow Knight
- Ittle Dew, a twisted Zelda tribute game, utilizes an artstyle resembling Wind Waker's 2D artworks.
- The first three Mario & Luigi games had somewhat of a graffiti-style to it, with (you guessed it) thick outlines. It was dropped for the fourth game in favor of pseudo-3D sprites.
- Ninjabread Man The cover art of the game uses this. Along with the loading screen.
- Paper Mario
- PaRappa the Rapper
- Rakugakids (a Konami Fighting Game for the Nintendo 64) has character sprites drawn this way, clashing with the realistically drawn backgrounds.
- Rayman Origins
- Rhythm Heaven
- Shantae
- The GBA game Sonic Battle, which sported a thick-lined graffiti style.
- Super Smash Bros. For Nintendo 3DS adds black borders around characters to make them more visually distinct on the handheld's relatively small screen.
- Skullgirls
- Scribblenauts
- WarioWare
- Yoshi's Island has this as a large part of the distinctive art style, though the thick lines are most noticeable on background objects.
- Yoshi's Story uses this in cutscenes.
Web Animation
- Pucca is a non-American example.
- Homestar Runner
- Happy Tree Friends
- The Most Epic Story Ever Told in All of Human History
- Battle for Dream Island
- Brain Pop
Web Comics
- El Goonish Shive: As the artwork began to improve, the outlines became thicker.
- Penny Arcade used to have thick outlines (especially in the 2000-2003 strips), up until about 2008-2009, in which the outlines slowly became thinner.
- 2004-2006 VG Cats comics. Almost nowhere to be seen in later comics.
- Yume-Hime
- Cyanide & Happiness
Western Animation
- Fleischer Studios used this for the bulk of their cartoons house style. It was apparently a holdover from Max Fleischer's years as a newspaper cartoonist.
- The cartoons of Van Beuren Studios likewise used this, but ditched it around 1934 when Burt Gillett arrived at the studio and overhauled the art direction.
- The films made by UPA codified the style as we know it today. The studio was revolutionary in its application of modern design to animation, which included bold lines and simple graphic shapes for the characters.
- Hanna-Barbera had an appealing style such as this in the late '50s to early '60s. Their resurrection after several years in the wilderness in the '90s led to the renaissance of the style and its increased use in modern animated series. Their earliest shows used this style to show up well on small black and white television sets.
- Dexter's Laboratory (Mainly Seasons 1 and 2, the revival was ran by CNS but the animation was still thick lined, if to a slightly lesser extent)
- Johnny Bravo
- The Powerpuff Girls
- The 2016 reboot, however, averts this by using thin outlines.
- 2 Stupid Dogs
- The works of Butch Hartman:
- Danny Phantom
- The Fairly OddParents: Later seasons began to slightly downplay this, though this trope remained in effect until it ended.
- T.U.F.F. Puppy
- An odd variant with Nelvana's futuristic shows Blaster's Universe and Cyberchase: The animation of the characters and objects tends to have black bold outlines, but the backgrounds are so heavily vectorized and detailed that they feature no outlines whatsoever, making it seem that they don't match with the actual animation.
- This is a common artstyle with Canadian series animated in Adobe Flash. To name a few:
- Atomic Betty
- Camp Lakebottom
- Carl Squared
- Jimmy Two-Shoes
- Numb Chucks
- Scaredy Squirrel
- Sidekick
- Stickin' Around. A little different from the others, but still counts.
- Supernoobs
- The Total Drama franchise. This one is a little more justified since Word of God is that Clone High was a major influence on the show and its artstyle.
- Wayside
- Yin Yang Yo!. Probably due to having a lot of people who worked on The Fairly Odd Parents and Total Drama working on the show.
- The ZhuZhus
- The works of Genndy Tartakovsky:
- Dexter's Laboratory
- Samurai Jack is an inversion; while the show's character designs are very angular and blocky as is typical for the style, the thick lines themselves are absent. In fact, the art style is known for having no lines.
- Star Wars: Clone Wars
- Sym-Bionic Titan
- The Hotel Transylvania films used this in the credits. But the films are All-CGI Cartoon.
- Primal (2019)
- 101 Dalmatians: The Series, more so in the episodes by Sun Min Co., Walt Disney Animation (Japan), Sunwoo Entertainment, and Koko Enterprises.
- 101 Dalmatian Street
- Almost Naked Animals
- 'The Alvin Show
- The Amazing World of Gumball started using moderately thicker outlines in season two for most of the 2D characters. All of them pale in comparison to Clare, who has an outline approximately five time as thick as anyone else's◊—so thick that a cross-section of her arm would be more outline than body.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force featured this from time to time, especially in later seasons.
- Archer
- While the show, Arthur uses thin outlines, The Shows Within a Show Dark Bunny, Love Ducks, and Alfred utilize this art style.
- In the episode "The Contest", The Brain's story parodies Dexter's Laboratory and Francine and Binky's story parodies WWE. They both utilize this art style too.
- The Angry Beavers
- American Dragon: Jake Long: Season 1 was this.
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold
- Blaster's Universe
- Blazing Dragons Season 2 had thick lines (along with some radical changes in character design) that was a sharp contrast to the cleaner look of season 1.
- Brandy & Mr. Whiskers
- Camp Lazlo
- Catscratch
- ChalkZone on a few occasions. Sunwoo Entertainment did this in the show's second season as a result of inconsistency; they switched to the show's thinner outline look in season three, and Toonzone Entertainment and Yeson Entertainment gave the show thick outlines during season four (albeit colored instead of black like the show used for the first three seasons). The Oh Yeah! Cartoons short "The Amazin' River" had thicker outlines than the rest of the ChalkZone shorts (and season one), due to it being storyboard artist Bob Boyle's regular style (he later went on to work on The Fairly OddParents and created Yin Yang Yo! and Wow! Wow! Wubbzy, all three utilizing thick line animation).
- Clarence, but only in the opening titles, as well as the Fleischer tribute episode "Goldfish Follies".
- Class of 3000
- Clerks: The Animated Series
- Clifford the Big Red Dog and Clifford's Puppy Days
- Clone High almost looks like it shares the same character designers as Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls.
- Codename: Kids Next Door started out like this which is mostly used in Season 1, Season 2 has slightly thinner outlines but the lines are still visible, and by season 6, it completely thinned out.
- Daria
- Drawn Together, with its mishmash of art styles, has internet Flash parody Spanky Ham animated this way. Spanky has particularly thick lines, but most of the other characters also have outlines similar to those in the page image. The biggest exception is Princess Clara, who parodies the traditional Disney princess animation style with softer outlines ... the outlines are still there, but tend to be of a contrasting color or darker version of the fill (as with Billy's nose in the page image) rather than stark black, making them look softer.
- Duck Dodgers
- The 2017 reboot of DuckTales (1987) is a rare modern-day example of this trope, where the outlines are thicker and the designs are more angular compared to other cartoons at the time, which used Thin-Line Animation.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy has it along with its wobbling animation which makes it unique.
- Family Guy: The pre-revival seasons had this. Although the revival did start off with this style, it was gradually phased out. By the middle of the sixth season, it was gone, especially once Digital eMation took care of the animation services.
- The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants
- All of the marine animals from Fish Hooks.
- Fillmore!
- Good Vibes
- Gravity Falls, though starting from "A Tale of Two Stans" and onward, the lines started getting thinner.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and its sister show, Evil Con Carne.
- Home Movies used a very unusual style which had unstable "wiggling" outlines (and in some cases no outline between certain objects, such as Coach McGuirk's yellow collar having no border between it and his red shirt).
- Invader Zim uses this in a few episodes; Zim's antennae are noticeably thicker than usual in them.
- Johnny Test: Season 1 used this, but once the show became a Canadian show and switched to Adobe Flash, the outlines got thinner.
- The Henry and June shorts on KaBlam! (though more often in later seasons)
- Kappa Mikey: Played with, where only Mikey is drawn this way; his Japanese costars have thin outlines and are Animesque.
- Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil
- Kim (2008 series)
- Kim Possible
- King Arthur's Disasters
- The Looney Tunes Show: Though the thick lines were dropped starting from season 2.
- The Loud House and its spin-off, The Casagrandes.
- Let's Go Luna!
- LarryBoy: The Cartoon Adventures
- Legends of Chamberlain Heights
- Maisy is a prime example of this. Based on simple picture books by Lucy Cousins, the characters and objects are all black lines with generally bright, cheery colors filled in to appeal to the youngest audiences.
- The 2010s series of Mickey Mouse shorts.
- The animated portions of the original The Mickey Mouse Club as well, most notably in the opening sequence.
- The Mighty B!
- Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures
- Mixels often uses the thick black style for characters, though some elements of them, such as electricity spikes or ice crystals, are given colored outlines, as are all the backgrounds.
- The Mr. Men Show, though only the characters have these. The objects have no outline at all.
- ¡Mucha Lucha!
- My Gym Partner's a Monkey
- My Life as a Teenage Robot went out of its way to look like a combination between this or a 1930s animation as much as freakishly possible.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic uses a variation with colored outlines instead of plain black.
- My Little Pony: Pony Life goes for the more traditional black outlines.
- Max and Ruby
- Mission Hill
- Making Fiends
- Nature Cat is a rare modern example.
- Ni Hao, Kai-Lan
- Peppa Pig. Just like the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic example above, It uses colored thick outlines instead of plain black outlines.
- Peep and the Big Wide World
- Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja
- Most of Rankin Bass's holiday specials that were traditionally animated rather than stop-motion feature this:
- Cricket On The Hearth
- The First Easter Rabbit
- Frosty the Snowman and its first sequel, Frosty's Winter Wonderland.
- The non-Rankin Bass sequels Frosty Returns and The Legend of Frosty the Snowman also have this; albeit, with Frosty Returns having a Peanuts-like artstyle (it was made by Bill Melendez Productions).
- 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
- Regular Show: Downplayed starting from season 3.
- Ren & Stimpy uses it from time to time, depending on it's animation studio. The episode "Egg Yolkeo/It's a Dog's Life" for example, along with the pilot episode named "Big House Blues".
- The Replacements Season 1 uses this, then it's dropped by season 2.
- Robotboy
- Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- The Secret Saturdays
- Shorty McShorts' Shorts Some of the shorts has this, along with it's intro.
- The Simpsons had this when the show switched to digital ink and paint, though it went away in the HD episodes.
- Spongebob Squarepants: Seasons 4-8 were this.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil had this during the first half of season one before the animation studio Mercury Filmworks was changed to Toon City, resulting in more thinner looking outlines. Thick lining is still noticeable, though not as much.
- Steven Universe
- Stanley
- Sabrina: The Animated Series
- Teacher's Pet, though only in the Toon City episodes.
- Teamo Supremo
- Teen Titans Go!, in comparison to the original 2003 series.
- Time Squad
- Any season one episode of Tiny Toon Adventures animated by Wang Film Productions and—due to inconsistency—Kennedy Cartoons.
- ToddWorld
- Trollz
- Twelve Forever
- Unikitty!
- The Venture Bros.
- Wander over Yonder
- WordGirl
- Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!
- Xiaolin Showdown and its reboot, Xiaolin Chronicles.
- Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum
- Zip Zip
