In the 20th century, the term "tragicomedy" became blurred a bit. "Robot Dreams" is a tragicomedy in the most classical sense of the word: hard, dramatic events leading to a more or less happy ending, although tainted with sadness. It's what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote his late tragicomedies - which, too, are based around separation and reunion, deal with passage of time. And the exact way "Robot Dreams" mixes the sad with the comical - like when Dog finally manages to scare the kids at Halloween - stroke me as rather Shakespearean.
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Perhaps you could review "Werewolf Island" (狼人岛)? It's a little-known recent Chinese web animated series without spoken dialog. We've got a short article about it at the Russian WikiFur -
https://ru.wikifur.com/wiki/Остров_оборотня
- but I think it deserves wider recognition.
Here's one of the episodes at e926.net: https://e926.net/posts/4274614
A wonderful film.
In the 20th century, the term "tragicomedy" became blurred a bit. "Robot Dreams" is a tragicomedy in the most classical sense of the word: hard, dramatic events leading to a more or less happy ending, although tainted with sadness. It's what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote his late tragicomedies - which, too, are based around separation and reunion, deal with passage of time. And the exact way "Robot Dreams" mixes the sad with the comical - like when Dog finally manages to scare the kids at Halloween - stroke me as rather Shakespearean.
-----
Perhaps you could review "Werewolf Island" (狼人岛)? It's a little-known recent Chinese web animated series without spoken dialog. We've got a short article about it at the Russian WikiFur -
https://ru.wikifur.com/wiki/Остров_оборотня
- but I think it deserves wider recognition.
Here's one of the episodes at e926.net:
https://e926.net/posts/4274614