Basic Trope: A work's art style doesn't match the tone of the series.
- Straight:
- "The Adventures of Alice and Bob" is a cartoon drawn in a cute, cartoony art style. However, the actual show is a hardcore drama with many sad and disturbing themes.
- "Charles and Diane" has a gritty, realistic art style, but is a zany, sugary-sweet Slice of Life comedy.
- Exaggerated:
- "The Adventures of Alice and Bob" appears to be sickeningly sweet, but is actually an Animated Shock Comedy loaded with gore, swearing, sex, drug usage, and bad role models for children.
- "Charles and Diane" has an art style not unlike gritty, M17+ rated games, but is a very kid-friendly Edutainment Show.
- Downplayed:
- "The Adventures of Alice and Bob" is G-rated, but still has a few surprisingly dramatic moments for a cartoon with such a cute art style.
- Alternatively, it has a semi-realistic artstyle and a Y7 rating, and it only has art style dissonance on the darker spots, like Bob's Heroic Sacrifice sending him into a coma in the Season 2 finale.
- "Charles and Diane" has a fairly realistic art style and is an adult comedy-drama, though its funnier moments can make its art style a bit dissonant on occasion.
- Justified:
- Well, the art style doesn't necessarily say anything about the work.
- "The Adventures of Alice and Bob" takes place in a Crapsaccharine World.
- "Charles and Diane" takes place in a world where things are actually better than what they seem to be.
- The titular duo in “Charles and Diane” are children who are obsessed with a very shallow idea of maturity, but are otherwise normal kids. The story is told from their perspectives.
- The dissonance is intentional; for example, the Fantastic Racism between Funny Animals is meant to represent a real-world religious conflict.
- The writer has little experience with drawing and while their art is passable, it does seem somewhat too cartoonish for the subject matter explored in the work. Art Evolution may or may not change the art style after a while.
- Inverted: The art style is extremely generic for the genre. There is nothing subversive or even new inside the show itself. It is a Cliché Storm that you'd know the entire plot of just by looking at the cover.
- Subverted: "The Adventures of Alice and Bob" just had some Early-Installment Weirdness, where the show was a lot more adult than its art style would suggest.
- Double Subverted: Then it returns to having a more adult tone.
- Parodied:
- "The Adventures of Alice and Bob" has a humorous R-Rated Opening featuring the characters angrily dismissing the viewers if they thought they were just going to see a cute cartoon.
- A group of Heteronormative Crusaders releases an Author Tract comic where every male character is meant to be straight, but are accidentally drawn to look extremely gay with lots of unintentional Ho Yay between them.
- Zig-Zagged: Sometimes the tone of the work fits its art style, but sometimes it doesn't.
- Averted:
- "The Adventures of Alice and Bob" is a cartoon with a cute art style, and is a cute and family-friendly cartoon.
- "Charles and Diane" has a gritty, realistic art style and is a show for adults.
- Enforced:
- The creator of the series wants to cash in on the popularity of shows such as South Park.
- It's just funnier (or sometimes more interesting) when the tone of the work doesn't match its art style.
- The creator uses the series to explore the effects of childhood trauma.
- The protagonist is an edgelord who lives in an utopia.
- It can give the Do Not Be Deceived PSA the oomph it needs to make the message stick
- Lampshaded:
- "Wow, this is a little dark for a cartoon, isn't it?"
- "Why is the cartel locking away their classified documents inside of safes with their passwords corresponding to addition questions?"
- Invoked:
- Kyle kill Alice and Bob live on camera so that the now scarred children have Kyle's political message burned into their brains forever.
- Samantha makes her world a more pleasant place to live in. After years, she resolved the issues that made her world initially merciless.
- Exploited:
- The Eldritch Abomination lures victims to its realm by masking as a cartoon bunny.
- Defied: The titular characters of "The Adventures of Alice and Bob" decide not to get too dramatic.
- Discussed: " This place looks too happy go lucky to not be a trap. I don't trust places with masquerades.
- Conversed: "Why do some shows have tones so much different than their art style?"
- Deconstructed: Because "The Adventures of Alice and Bob" looks like a kids' show, parents assume it's appropriate for their young children and show it to them anyway.
- Reconstructed: The creator of the show takes notice of this and explicitly clarifies that it isn't a show for young children.
- Implied: A puppy covered in blood.
- Played for Laughs:
- Alice and Bob Crosses the Line Twice.
- The show is built on Slap Stick despite having realistic models.
- Played for Drama: Alice and Bob are in a circus hellscape but need to hide the horrors to protect the sanity of the audience
- Played for Horror: Alice and Bob try to live a normal life but have to deal with flashbacks and night terrors caused by the massacre.
Back to Art-Style Dissonance
