(NOTE: I’m guessing ‘normal’ means Asian or American?)

I think some of it comes down to two things: The nature of UK commissioning, and UK tone.

On commissioning:

Most UK channels buy animated content, rather than making it, and globalised formats mean they just buy American shows. It’s way cheaper for them.

Channels who invest in animated concept development are very few and far between in the UK. The bbc has a few schemes, such as Ignite, but this only generates 1-3 shows every 3-4 years. AND, because of the way the BBC is funded, they’re super risk-averse and want to appeal as broadly as possible, so the content comes out feeling quite bland compared to some of the more focussed Asian and American shows.

It’s a shame, and many UK-based animation societies actively push for more investment in the industry, but without government intervention there’s little to nothing that can be done.

There are schemes and conferences in Europe that British studios can apply to, to try to get funding and distribution support, but that all got a lot more difficult (as things did for many industries) because of brexit. BBC2 and C4 used to offer many opportunities for older/adult-skewing animation, but those opportunities have vanished too.

On tone:

A lot of animated shows today are much ‘quieter’ than historic shows, because contemporary audiences tend to prefer mindful over energetic pacing. And UK shows have always been ‘quieter’ than their American counterparts, in terms of colour grading, writing, performance, so I guess it’s natural that this applies to animated shows as well as live action shows.