VOICES GRASPED BY FRAME FOR STORIES TOLD THROUGH BORDERS: WHAT GENRES MATTER TO AFRICAN ANIMATION AND ARE THERE ANY HIDDEN ONES?

As African animation gains traction on the global stage, the fog begins to clear and the land of stories begins to emerge.

From folklore to futurism, heroism to heritage, the continent’s storytellers have shown immense range and resilience. 

But now, the question isn’t just what’s next, but also what's missing? 

What kind of stories have we not yet told? Or rather what narratives are still waiting to be animated, explored, and reimagined?

And more importantly, which genres bring in a greater lens for African animation in Africa, and in a global perspective, for the animation world.

We look to turn the lens inward, to examine the possibilities, and the urgent stories still left untold.

Beyond the Village: Everyday African Modernity

When it comes to the stories that are told about the Africa, there is often a lot that is explored within the rural-urban perspective, that is often mostly rooted in the village in Africa.

Too often, African stories are visually frozen in a “timeless” village setting. While these spaces are rich with tradition, they are not the whole story. Therefore, what does this often common trope or theme explore for animation storytelling in Africa and the larger animation world?

The rural-urban theme exploration, helps us explore the modern world while also keeping our roots together. It can be an important tool for amplifying voices of the growing landscape of global influence with the evolution of African societal and cultural norms.

This helps push the boundaries of African communities across the various countries, in terms of what they still believe in and what they look to embrace going forward. A lot of voices can get a chance to speak and express themselves.

For the greater animation world, this can mean, expressing various stories that can be explored in many more ways than we are used to and provide more avenues to push the medium of animation and what it can do for stories.

This leads us to question such as:

- Urban lives in Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, or Addis Ababa?

- African tech culture, social media drama, or student life?

- The chaos of public transport, the rhythm of marketplaces, the electricity of youth culture?

These everyday African realities are goldmines for character-driven narratives, comedy, romance, and even surrealism. We need stories that reflect today’s Africa, as complex, digital, messy, and vibrant as anywhere else.

Mental Health, Identity & Inner Worlds

Africa as a society, is known to keep a lot of it's traditions, but at the same time, a key question is whether the traditions and values, are evolving with an evolving world in terms of changes in global society. In the end, who gets the say on such matters?

In today's society, they are growing issues that press on humanity everyday. Most notably mental health and deeper psychological and psychiatric matters, that are often seen as curses and misfortunes given by evil spirits.

Despite, mental health and matters related to it, being a taboo in several cultures, when we turn the lens towards Africa, they're is just as much unsaid, as there is, in other cultures strongly embedded with various cultural traditions and norms. What does this mean for African animation storytellers?

Animation has the power to visualize the unseen, and there is no territory more unseen, especially in African media, than the inner emotional world.

Where are the animated stories about:

- Depression and healing through ancestral rituals?

- A child learning to navigate their neurodivergence in a world that doesn’t understand them?

- The spiritual dimensions of trauma or personal transformation?

Stories about mental health, grief, self-discovery, and identity are deeply human and ripe for animation. This is a space for poetic experimentation, surreal visuals, and emotional truth.

Not Just Savior Heroes but Antiheroes, Outcasts & Misfits

We’ve begun to explore African superheroes and chosen ones. This is an area of rising storytelling in African animation that possibly provides the look at the exploration of leadership and probing into the world where we have the people who put our societal fabric woven tightly.

However, just as it is important to have stories of hope and victory, what about the characters who don’t fit in?

- Tricksters who steal from the gods.

- Rebels who question tradition.

- Flawed protagonists who fail, fall, and grow.

This not only reflects African society as a one way street, but it also recognizes that there are the people in African society, that never fit the mold of tradition. Therefore, it probes the question, what does African society does to those who don't abide or they don't deem fit?

This thrusts into question our laws, policies and justice from an African perspective. Not just courts and police men, but from how various cultures across the continent, take on matters on law and justice. Both from those who make them, to those who rise in unorthodox ways to question them.

The world doesn’t need perfect African heroes, it needs real ones. Characters that challenge moral binaries, wrestle with contradictions, or blur the line between good and bad.

These stories create richer, more mature narratives and reflect the true texture of our societies.

Genre Stories: Horror, Noir, Slice-of-Life, and More

While many African animated stories fall into either folklore or Afrofuturism, other genres remain largely unexplored. The human experience extends beyond just what the mainstream animation world has been able to create greater influence over.

Some of the genres, at times can feel a bit reserved for specific regions but African animation needs them as well to keep on pushing the bandwidth of what it can offer the world.

With the great diversity that Africa holds, a simple genre can be explored in various ways, even just between two communities who hold very different perspectives on the same matter or even between two countries with different backgrounds and historical settings. 

Therefore, we ask, where are the:

- Psychological thrillers based on urban legends?

- Intimate slice-of-life dramas?

- Supernatural noir mysteries in African megacities?

- Animated horrors drawn from oral myths and taboos?

The continent has a deep reservoir of mystery, magic, and cultural complexity, which are all perfect ingredients for genre storytelling. These stories could push the medium beyond expectation.

Stories from the Margins: Whose Voices Are Missing?

As African animation grows, it is clearly evident that it moves through a path with extensive cultural diversity, between countries in the African continent. Not only that, but also the progression of the global society. 

Therefore, African animation, must also grow to inclusive. Most importantly on a local level.

We still need to hear from:

- Queer African voices navigating love, safety, and chosen family. A lot of times, African tradition turns a deaf ear towards the global realities of humanity, seeing them as things not meant to be dealt with by Africans, however, through each generation, a rise of queer people are often spotted in the African continent. Does this place emphasis on colonial aspects or a growing global phenomenon? Whatever the case, some voices need to be brought about and discussed through characters.

- Women and girls as complex leads, not just mothers or helpers. This often touches on the matter of, gender stereotypes and the role of gender in society. However, with the diversity, that African carries, African animation, has a chance to be able to craft the right narratives for genders and let their issues to be explored, in a myriad of ways, through what communities believe and look to shape beyond what is shown to them globally.

- Disabled protagonists who are not simply inspirational tropes. While being inspirational tropes is a not a bad thing. It is important to recognize that there is more towards the ones who have not been given the everyday abilities that majority of people have. They still wish to express their humanity in their complexity as everyone else does. In a plot twist of ways, they could be those that look to mostly be those who wish to question society or even turn various paths in their dilemma to answer the questions of life that most of us have.

- Ethnic minorities and diasporic Africans with layered identities. A rich place from which, the aspect of those Africans who have travelled abroad or found new places to live, have their voice to explored, and offer the reality of Africans in a different perspective. It also helps shed light towards, Africa and how it connects with the global society. One of the biases, is that most of the Africans who travel abroad have found greener pastures and forgotten those back in the continent, but do those who have travelled truly get a chance to say what the experience is like living abroad? That is the voice in which we need to explore more, and many others in different perspectives from this topic of ethnic minority and diasporic Africans.

These stories are not “niche”, they are part of the African reality. Their absence is a creative silence that African animation can be uniquely suited to break.

Stories That Heal, Not Just Entertain

In traditional African storytelling, tales were not just entertainment, they were medicine. They taught, warned, blessed, questioned, and remembered.

They were part of cultural traditions that were practiced from elders to the young ones at various stages of their lives until they matured. This not only meant at the fires at the night, but also in various times and ventures in lives.

In this spirit, we still need:

- Animated stories that preserve endangered languages and traditions.

- Narratives that help children understand conflict, climate change, or cultural loss.

- Stories that create hope in places where systems have failed.

Animation, when used consciously, can become a form of restoration, especially for young audiences who are inheriting both old wounds and new dreams.

Longer Formats, Slower Stories

Most African animations today are short-form, partly because of funding and bandwidth. However we’re ready for more:

- Animated series that let characters grow and worlds expand.

- Feature-length films with deeper themes and layered plots.

- Narrative pacing that doesn’t rush to entertain but allows moments to breathe.

Animation can take its time. African stories, which often live in silence, gesture, and metaphor, deserve the space to unfold slowly and powerfully.

Finally, Animation as Future, Memory, Mirror

So, the harvest is plenty, but what kind of stories do we still need to tell? And which ones serve a greater deal to African animation, and greater animation world?

The ones we can and ensure they push a needle.

We need stories that come from our memories, our wounds, our wisdom, and we need them not because the world demands it, but because we deserve to see ourselves in full, not just in fragments.

African animation has proven that it can entertain, impress, and inspire. Now it must also remember, challenge, and dare.

Animation is not just a medium, it’s a movement.

And the next chapter belongs to those who are brave enough to write stories that haven’t yet been told.

What are some of the stories you feel need more presence as African animation evolves? Let us know in the comments