I think maybe I'm just coming at your argument with a certain age range in mind? Because I agree with that.

I think that maybe it's because of the shows I grew up on, I consider "kid" range to start around 8, at which point I feel there at least isn't any real language barriers for most shows/movies. My bread and butter growing up was dinosaur and astronomical documentaries and specials on the Discovery channel networks, so I learned a lot about physics and biology early in life.

For instance, I remember watching .hack//Sign when it first aired on I think Toonami, when I was 13 according to Wikipedia, and the main problem I had with it was that I kept forgetting what night it came on and would miss episodes entirely and be lost when I tuned in again. I mean, a lot of the psychological issues that it tackles went over my head, but I don't think it mans I shouldn't have watched it, and by extension I don't think that means children shouldn't be exposed to topics that they won't understand for years to come.

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@ Altimis:
I have a lot more ichor in my blood-circulating flesh-balloon reserved for Attack on Titan, but yeah, I am not glad that I watched SAO and I wish people could see why it's so bad.

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As I've recently heard and am fond of repeating, "kids deserve our best, not our leftovers", which is why when I have control of the television I don't let my nieces watch anything that I wouldn't watch myself -- so, no Teen Titans Go, no Uncle Grandpa, no Spongebob Squarepants, etc. I'm trying as best I can to indoctrinate them with shows like MLP, SU, AT, and Avatar. Good animated movies do well, too, though. The next opportunity I have, I'm having them watch Spirited Away.

I feel you there.
While I think the world has merit, I don't like how its story is being told. I always feel that there's something missing, because they are rushing everything and among other things, you don't learn to like the characters there's too large a cast and too short a time to bond.

Actually we are agreeing a lot. We may disagree in taste for anime. I am guilty here, because I like gritty fantasy. And I use what I watch as a catharses session, to throw my accumulated violence away.

Just to be perfectly clear, when I say mature, I am referring to anything that has some kind of mature content of various levels, ranging from 12+ to 18+. In that range you will not find anything suitable to kids, but only for teens and adults.

As for kids shows, I watch them with my daughters (even more than I wanted) and I particularly like Doctor McMuffins. Very intelligent, educative and positive show. Too bad my daughters don't like it and they have the possession of the remote control in these times.

I think it's bad to define maturity as a scale. I think it's much more useful to describe the "age window" of a given show: Basically, the range of ages that can watch the show, being limited on the lower end by violent, sexual, dark, or even just difficult to understand content that wouldn't be appropriate for younger audiences, and being limited on the upper end by the depth of the show, which must reach a certain threshold to keep older audiences engaged.

For example, some crappy kids cartoon would have a window of 0-12, as there is nothing which would be objectionable or incomprehensible to children of any age, but it wouldn't be of any particular interest to an adult. Stuff like harems or gratuitously sexual or violent shows would fall into the 13-18 range, as anyone under 13 probably shouldn't be watching them, and anyone over 18 would probably be unimpressed by the sex and violence, and see them as shallow and boring. Something like The Godfather would be 13-∞, because its use of violence makes it unsuitable for anyone under the age of 13, but it uses the violence as a means to create a story that can be compelling to older audiences, rather than exploiting the shock value of the violence as its sole selling point. Finally, there are shows like what Luna described, which are both suitable and engaging for people of all ages.

I think that the distinction Luna was trying to make was between two definitions of maturity: shows with high lower limits, and shows with high upper limits. Some people, especially young adults, tend to like shows whose lower age limit is as close to their age as possible, which I speculate is because watching those shows makes them feel mature. Personally, I think that for adults, the lower limit of a show should be irrelevant. Why should one enjoy a show any more for knowing that people younger than one's self cannot appreciate it?

You can never be too mature for harems Cato, it's the best genre.

As long as we're talking age range, I will give you the two I believe in:

• 0-10 (or 0-6 or whatever arbitrary age range you want to use):
  I understand the necessity of giving infants, toddlers, and very young children media which can give them understandings of language and the alphabet, numbers, dealing with other people, et cetera; stuff that any older child and adult will gain nothing from watching/listening/whatever.
  
• "Over 18" (and other arbitrary age ranges):
  I also understand keeping children from certain media before they're a certain age because they wouldn't understand how socially unacceptable the content is -- for instance, as great a show as I think Breaking Bad is, I would probably give it an 18+ rating. I say other arbitrary age ranges because as razor points out, it's probably a good idea to keep shows like, say, Trigun away from kids younger than... I dunno, 10?, because of the violent content.

Other than those, I don't believe in an age range because the idea behind "kids deserve our best, not our leftovers" means that the media we let them consume should have the same sort of quality control that our adult media has. In case I'm not clear, that means my categorization contains no "crappy kids cartoons" because those cartoons deserve to go to hell and die just the same way Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online does. I do not want my 4- and 6-year-old nieces watching Teen Titans Go any more than I would want to subject a 15-year-old to Attack on Titan. They're just bad influences.

EDIT: Maybe a better example of keeping media from a 15-year-old would be Jackass.

By "I don't believe in an age range", do you mean that you don't believe that there are other factors than educational content and sex/violence level which should keep someone from watching a show because of their age, or do you believe that any show which would keep a person from watching it for a reason other than one of these is necessarily bad?

By and large, my main point is that just because something would go over a younger viewer's head doesn't mean that said younger viewer shouldn't watch it. I'd be perfectly happy with showing a 10-year old Serial Experiments Lain.

But yes, there are a lot of shows that get written off as "okay for kids but bad for adults" that are just bad all around. For instance, half of Dreamworks' titles -- most recently, Home. I wouldn't put Home on the same level as Teen Titans Go, but its writing is so bad that if I had my way I wouldn't have my nieces watch it.

EDIT:
Giving it some thought, I realize that my argument sounds like I don't think these shows have any merit whatsoever, and that's... only slightly off-base. See, the worst crime most of my examples commit is being bad at delivering what they're aiming for. Attack on Titan is very, very bad at delivering the emotional experience that it tries to make the audience feel. Sword Art Online is bad at making observations and/or predictions about VR. I would say Teen Titans Go is bad at educating children, but it's patently obvious that 90% of the time that is not their goal.

So I'm on episode 121 of Bleach.

A few things:
- Story has been really good so far. However, looking ahead, they have not done so yet but later in the show they are going to start pulling Naruto Shippuden's on me.

- Almost every episode now has a 1 and a half to 2 minute recap at the beginning. If not longer. This made watching this show in syndication a nightmare, and it continues to be really annoying while binge-watching it.

- The opening and closing songs range from really really good to annoying as ****. A lot of them have blatant spoilers.

I never said anything to the contrary. I even said that some of the shows you mentioned were appropriate for all ages. All I did was create a system by which to classify shows using 2 variables rather than 1.

For what it's worth it never gets quite as bad as Naruto in the 'Filler: The Anime' stakes though yeah it's still kinda bad.

Incidentally where abouts in the plot is Episode 121? What arc you current sat at?

Oh. I misunderstood, then. You just suggested "other variables than educational and sex/violence content", to which I failed to come up with any meaningful variable that I would want to keep from a child.

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I'm going to hazard a guess and say somewhere in Hueco Mundo, because that arc lasted for freaking ever.

Mexico was probably the worst arc of the series (not including filler). Literally just spinning your wheels for episode after episode all the while retreading ground you've already trod on better previously.

Of the ones I followed, I'm going to call the early arc that introduced the other mod souls besides Kon to be the worst because besides being forgettable, it didn't even have the decency to be self-contained. Instead we're left with these two useless stuffed toys lying around for about a season afterwards.

Also, I really liked the first two opening songs for Bleach. Asterisk was weird and had a beat to it, and I just seem to like UVERworld, probably because my first exposure to it was through Failed Containment by Terkoiz.

There is a inherent problem when trying to make a program for all ages and it is the conflicting interests of each age, and also the gender interests. Kids want cuteness and songs, teens want action and sexual innuendos, and adults want complexity and sometimes the same as teens, only multiplied.

It works for movies, due to the short amount of time, but I don't think it works very well for series that need to grasp the attention of their audience for a long period of time.

Enter: Adventure Time.
Enter: Steven Universe.
Avatar fails on the innuendoes and songs.
My memories are fuzzy on them, but I'd be willing to bet those Disney shows of the 90's filled a lot of those as well.

But also, because of old shows like the Looney Toons and Tom and Jerry, I think your argument as phrased is a fallacy.

QUICKEDIT: Oh! That's another one: the old Chuck Jones cartoons! They mainly lack complexity.

Not a fallacy, just a simple generalization. The point is the more you try to please all, you fail to generate the highest levels of enjoyment in all the audience.

As for old shows, they were the only options compared to what was available at the time, they probably were made as the highest cuteness possible at the time, and at the time we were not at the political correct period.

And the cuteness thing is completely not true because Disney was doing the cute thing with Silly Symphonies at the time (which Looney Toons came about to directly compete with).

Now, if perhaps what you actually mean is that a show that tries to please too many audiences can never be the best in its category/genre/whatever, then I agree with you. But as you keep phrasing your arguments makes it sound like you think any cartoon (or at least any Western cartoon) cannot be highly enjoyed by all audiences, which is untrue. I don't think trying to please all ages is as large a hindrance as trying to please people by being shallow, like the way most Dr. Seus movies go about it -- probably Cat in the Hat with Mike Myers being the biggest offender (as far as audience age goes).

I have nothing against western cartoons, I think even Fishtronaut (brazilian cartoon) is a good one. The ones directed to kids are much better than any japanese ones when considered that type of audience. Also I am a fan of Simpsons, I said that already. I liked it as a kid and I continue to like it as an adult, just a little less.

It is hard to please everyone for long periods, you may please some or only provide a moderate enjoyment, but not full enjoyment for long periods. It is my modification of Abraham Lincolns phrase: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

But it fits the idea I am trying to pass.

What kind of timescale are you talking about here? Because most television shows have a hard time keeping the same quality for longer than a few seasons, and most movie sequels don't stack up against the originals (movie sequels higher than 2 are almost universally horrible).