Have you ever noticed that most of Netflix’s 2D action cartoons have a kind of…visual similarity? Castlevania, Tomb Raider, the Witcher movie and the upcoming Devil May Cry all have the same character designs, staging, lighting and bloom, etc. If you haven’t noticed, some people have (and they’re the kind of nitpickers that dwell in the Internet’s dark corners, can never be satisfied, and will find a reason to hate anything).
These people must be new to the world, so I guess I have to explain the concept of a house style. Usually when multiple cartoons are being produced at the same studio, the same people are designing all of them, so they tend to look similar. It’s why all of Klasky-Csupo’s characters had lumpy bodies and stringy hair. It’s why all of Hanna-Barbera’s characters had thick outlines, flesh-colored eyeballs and square jaws. And in this case, it’s because Castlevania, Tomb Raider and Devil May Cry are all produced at Powerhouse Animation.
An interview has been posted at the website iO9 with Powerhouse leaders Samuel Deats, Adam Deats and David Howe, where they talk about their visual style and what led to it. In this case, it’s a combination of factors.
“The reality is certain things have changed in the industry, and there have also been standardizations in place that have affected the way shows look for a long time,” says Adam Deats. “There are occasions when we try to push for something that is a big departure from what we’ve done before, and we are reined in due to various factors.”
Deats goes on to say that due to the outsourcing pipeline, shows are often passed from animation farm to animation farm, usually around South Korea, and various scenes can often come back looking different from other ones. A common style can smooth out that process, and it helps if it’s one all the teams have little issue mimicking.
So there you go. That’s why video game based toons from Powerhouse all look the same. It’s not that big a deal. Trust me, the industry conformity was WAY worse in the 80s and earlier.
