My way of creating mature stuff that’s as not “cheesy” or “edge lord-ish” as possible is, separating what I make happen in the story and how explicit the way you convey that event is in the artwork.

For example, I can write a story of a guy looking for love.

This simple concept can be used to create both family friendly and adults only content.

To make it dark, violent or sexual, I shall express the character’s journey with depictions of flirting, kissing, having sex or arguing with his partner.

On the other hand, if it was supposed to be for younger audience, the methods above should be replaced with depictions children can understand easily.

I strongly believe that the plot, universe, characters, goals and all the stuffs forming the show must not be vulgarity itself but something “meaningful”. It’s, like I’ve said, the way you show how everything goes. If a story is all about someone hooking up with multiple girls, the show is very likely to end up being like garbage such as Paradise PD and other Netflix’s generic comedy shows. They claim to be funny and dark at the same time but we perceive them as childish while being so kid-unfriendly.

Since I don’t know what you exactly want to make, finding out how you will create using this technique is your job. Hope what I said helps.

well, don't overdose on shock value, make sure you know if you want to do 14+, 18+ or STRICTLY SAUSAGE PARTY/DRAWN TOGETHER NOT FOR KIDS.... and always know when you've gone too far!

make sure the themes are intact, don't force a thing like a Drug moral or an Abortion arc, don't make a Cerebus syndrome

nightmare (that's when you stop being funny and you switch between serious and funny ala' an old comic about an Aardvark) be sure to make all your themes about things like Racism and all that not sacrifice the comedy, study the humor of Simpsons; the FOX brainwashing jokes for instance.

if the plan is to do South Park coat tail dragging, don't make ...look, if your plan is to be like South Park BE MORE

ON YOUR TWO FEET! WHY OUT-SOUTH PARK SOUTH PARK, WHEN YOU COULD BE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT!? example of what I mean: if you look at Rick and Morty ....you'll see it's just Family Guy meets Futurama.

but then it turned into so much more than that, aside being Back to the future meets Doctor Who on acid.

if you want to make the art style good, let's see it. if your idea is to have blood and guts do it in a simple style.

art styles like anime are chuck full of realistic violence like Ghost in the shell or berserk...which makes it more shocking in the long run. Archer is kind of uber sexual and its realistic style.... just doesn't justify its humor so if push comes to shove,

don't do comedy if you don't want to. even Batman can be adult sometimes.

:)

one thing you need to keep in mind is that you don't even need dialouge in an adult cartoon! look at primal! almost no dialouge!

remember Flow?

I should probably have more advice, but uh......do what you will with what I told you guys, kay?

thank you.

Penis enlargement pills.

Basically, "write what you know."

And unfortunately, it sounds like you have a ways to go before you are an actual adult, and thus cannot yet write more authentic adult themes simply based on your own experience with "adulting." Perhaps in the meantime, if you don't want to write juvenile SpongeBob-like stuff, consider studying classic 1940's cartoons like Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Woody Woodpecker--stuff that was never meant to be labelled "kids shows" like they are today (especially the World War II propaganda stuff), but at the same time, 20th-century bigotry aside, are too tame by today's standards to be shown on the likes of Adult Swim or Comedy Central. The Tasmanian Devil was particularly known to be popular among boys going through their "terrible teens."

Anime is also a good source of writing inspiration of stuff that not quite "adult," but at the same time more nuanced than most Western cartoons are ever allowed to be, since animation is not labelled as exclusively "children's entertainment" in Japan like it is in the US. When you think about it, popular melodramatic shounen and shoujo series like Naruto, Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z are cathartic particularly for those of us currently going through puberty and going through all the confusion and identity crises puberty causes. In DBZ, for example, getting angry and screaming causes characters to go Super Saiyan and finally beat the likes of Frieza right when it looks like the good guys are done for. IRL, getting angry and screaming causes your forehead acne to break out, earns you an "autism" diagnosis and several boring visits to the school counselor, or worse, gets you sent to juvenile prison.

One thing I would avoid from anime, though, is over-reliance on sexy "fan-service"--it's the equivalent to a Western "adult" cartoon having cute characters saying the F-bomb every other word to distract from the fact that they don't have any actual jokes beyond offending your grandmother who thinks all cartoons are for small children and teach good morals. Likewise, I can't enjoy like 95% of light novel adaptations on Crunchyroll because they have nothing to offer for those who expect more than "gooning material" from anime storylines and are no longer attracted to bug-eyed 2D girls, if the viewer was ever attracted to mere drawings at all.

Outside of maybe YA novels, Western media always seems to forget there's an entire market in between "children" and "full-grown working adults," and perhaps you could fill that void in the teen market best while you're a teen yourself?

Remove the words adult cartoon and put this in your head instead:

I want to make a really good cartoon, but it just has a higher age rating so I can be more creative with it.

Adult animation feels too broad since the mainstream makes the medium more comedy than other genres.

If it is a comedy, then my main advice is to write the show as your own. Imitating other shows like South Park, Family Guy, the Simpsons and Hazbin Hotel is the worst path. Imitation will only bring appeals to people who are already familiar with it. Make it your own, however, will bring some novelty and can raise eyebrows from curious people. List down your likings, influences and opinions that you want to see on screen. Write the show for that one person who is super to see it.

That's what I mean by adult animation. Something for an older audience. It dosen't have to be necessarily for adults. It can be for mature teens.