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What happened to anime?


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Kruszer



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 7981
Location: Minnesota, USA
PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 7:31 pm Reply with quote
I'm a 32 year old anime fan myself. They haven't gone anywhere, trust me, animation has just evolved for the better.

Make your My ANN list public and rate some stuff so I can see your preferences and I'd be happy to provide you with a nice tailored list of the stuff you've missed out on where our tastes might overlap.

In the mean time you can look at some of these.


Last edited by Kruszer on Sun Dec 14, 2014 7:46 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Spotlesseden



Joined: 09 Sep 2004
Posts: 3514
Location: earth
PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 7:39 pm Reply with quote
anime nowadays are much better than the older anime. You can compare to the worst anime to the best anime in the 80s, 90s, 10s. Even the remakes are normally better than the original
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
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Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 16935
PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 11:33 pm Reply with quote
Kruszer wrote:
I'm a 32 year old anime fan myself. They haven't gone anywhere, trust me, animation has just evolved for the better.

Make your My ANN list public and rate some stuff so I can see your preferences and I'd be happy to provide you with a nice tailored list of the stuff you've missed out on where our tastes might overlap.

In the mean time you can look at some of these.

As a fellow 32 year old I have to agree with my compatriot here. While new shows may look more slick and shiny with their newer animation, as opposed to the animation of yesterday, there are still plenty of "adult" titles out there. Stuff more geared towards serious audiences and not lighter popcorn fare. I could give you a list of at least 50 from 2000 on that would easily be as adult and mature as anything from the 80's and 90's. I will admit the newer slicker animation of today can give a show an appearance of not being as mature or adult. Anime frm the 80's and early 90's did have a more...gritty feel and look to it. Just a byproduct of earlier animation in my opinion. That being said as the old saying goes don't judge a book by it's cover. There may be more popcorn friendly cute girl moe happy happy joy joy shows out there now, but there are still plenty of more adult shows out there also.

And on a purely hentai point there are a LOT of hentai that take the old tentacle hentai to vast new levels of debauchery and creepiness. Just saying heh.
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RadarJay



Joined: 01 May 2014
Posts: 51
PostPosted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 1:09 am Reply with quote
Hmm... Well, if there's one thing that I can recommend you to for shaking off the cobwebs and saying "wow, this is why I like anime. It has some serious potential, even today" is Space Dandy. It's a unique, ambitious, flavorful looking project made my a conglomerate of some masters in the anime biz (even some that you may recognize from your rose-lensed 90's, created by Shinichiro Watanabe himself) allowing for a whole market of cool, unique, indeed "mature" thought provoking ideas as an anthology show. Sure, this means the creators occasionally repeat their voices from previous works, but it also has the added benefit of making it quite different from most things that you've seen in the best way possible (and hey, isn't that a large part of why we love anime in the first place?). It's an episodic comedy, but in no way a sitcom, allowing for unique, personality brimming characters shine as they interact in unique situations and environments. So yeah. I recommend Space Dandy for anyone in your type of situation.
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nobahn
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Joined: 14 Dec 2006
Posts: 5120
PostPosted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 4:40 am Reply with quote
Desslok--

This is becoming a recommendation thread. Therefore, here's a link to (the only allowed) meta-recommendation thread. Happy hunting!

I do feel compelled, however, to offer my $0.02 about '80s pop music: It was awful!
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Shadowrun20XX



Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 1935
Location: Vegas
PostPosted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 4:49 am Reply with quote
Anime rarely has the throwaway funding on new stuff that won't sell. In the 90's it was anyone's guess. OVA's and movies were coming out like crazy.

What happened? Its not safe to make the stuff you like anymore. So we rarely get the Ninja Scroll gateway movies anymore.

Its just not anime,its everywhere like Hollywood movies, fast food and triple AAA game titles have been skimping out. Just remember, "what goes around comes around" and that Kickstarter might be the path to that non-committee decided title you've been aching for all these years.
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noblesse oblige



Joined: 22 Dec 2012
Posts: 277
Location: Florida
PostPosted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 4:59 am Reply with quote
As someone previously mentioned, part of what you are perceiving has to do with comparing a cherry-picked collection of fond memories against an uncurated slate of current anime offerings. Not exactly a fair comparison. However, I would be loath to claim that there hasn't been a noticeable shift in the preferences that anime studios indulge. One of the anime premises that has become more popular recently is the after-school club that does nothing, or whose sole purpose is to make friends. Another premise that has been gaining popularity is the nerd who is transported inside a video game. Don't get me wrong, entertainment like anime has always been escapism to a some extent, but this new trend is about the most blunt, unapologetic way of doing this that I can think of.

As an exercise in objective data analysis, lets take a look at the upcoming season. 15 out of the 27 shows are either ecchi or slice-of-life. That's slightly over half. If shows like these are not your preference (like myself), you can easily pick them out from a thumbnail or short description and promptly ignore them. With the remainder you get a couple of sports shows, some shonen adventures, a couple of shoujo romances, a handful of sci-fi mech series, a couple samurai or feudal era japan shows, and maybe a supernatural horror or two. I think most people can find at least one or two shows a season that they enjoy, but it takes some effort. The best advice I can give is to get recommendations from people who have similar tastes. Key mentioned some good ones from the most recent season. There have been some shows following the sci-fi traditions of yesteryear: things like Psycho-Pass, Ghost in the Shell: Arise, Gargantia of the Verduous Planet. Also, I would be remiss not to mention Time of Eve and all the other works of Yasuhiro Yoshiura. Time of Eve is available for streaming on Crunchyroll premium, but the home video release was made possible through kickstarter, (a venue to keep an eye on if you find you like this sort of thing). Another project you might want to keep an eye on was also one funded through kickstarter, Under the Dog. It is still in production, but you can find the trailer here: animenewsnetwork.com/news/2014-08-08/under-the-dog-sci-fi-anime-kickstarter-launches/.77440
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CoreSignal



Joined: 04 Sep 2014
Posts: 727
Location: California, USA
PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 4:21 am Reply with quote
This is the third 32 year old chiming in here. I'm pretty much gonna say what everyone else has said. There's plenty of mature anime out there, you just have to look (harder) for it. The recommendations thread is a good place to start. I would say the only type of shows that don't make anymore are the grand, epic space opera shows with huge space fleets and warring planets, stuff like Battleship Yamato and Galactic Heroes. Other than that, I'd actually say there's been a resurgence of sci-fi anime with shows like Psycho-Pass and Ghost in the Shell Arise.
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Zalis116
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Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6864
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 11:43 pm Reply with quote
Desslok wrote:
The up side is that with all the legal sources to sample from, I'm not out anything but some bandwidth, instead of having to sink 20-30 bucks on a blind buy based on an ADV trailer.
I always considered it a form of gambling with far better odds than the lottery. Of the 20 or so shows that I bought as singles approximately as they were coming out (i.e. not as closeout/liquidations after the collections were released), I can't say I was truly disappointed in any of them.

I neglected to mention it before, but despite being 33, I don't think I can help that much with old-guard-approved "adult" anime. I only got into anime in 2003, and over time, I've either consciously or unconsciously conformed my tastes to match the Japanese otaku average. Which means that there are always plenty of shows every season that will appeal to me, even if they aren't critical darlings or true masterpieces. Besides, simply being "not otakubait" doesn't guarantee that something will actually be good, as seen with Psycho-Pass. (Serves it right for its moefan trolling.) I'm fine with a steady supply of "known quantity" entertainment, rather than staking all my hopes on rare 5-star masterpieces that are likely as not to crash and burn.

vanfanel wrote:
Older Japanese otaku have to a degree been left behind, as well; the interests of young otaku today are quite a bit different from those of the 80s, when geekdom was much more oriented around serious sci-fi and fantasy... We 40-somethings now have to make do with a few new things every once in a while, and a trickle of 80s nostalgia revivals.
I guess I figured that Japanese otaku that old generally self-selected out of the fandom, whether out of a desire to have a chance at marriage, or because the probability of bosses or other authority figures finding out about their hobby approaches 1 as time goes on.
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@



Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Posts: 3498
Location: IN your nightmares
PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:56 am Reply with quote
Even though I'll probably be just reiterating what others have said here, perhaps I'm in the minority out of anime fans who have been watching anime for a long time that most old shows have nothing on anime today. I strongly feel that people who praise highly the shows and feature films of days long past are actually judging anime on the heightened level of experience it gave you as being something unique rather than on the basis of a fair and equivocal standard of quality. Artwise, you really can't compare cel-drawn work with today's animation, it's just on a different level or realm, not necessarily better because cel animation lent itself to a lot of laziness that is regarded as how anime developed it's trademark look as well as, well, just plain crappy animation.

So in short, i think the majority of old anime is just mediocre and what happened to it is that it has evolved into a grander and much more diversified medium by virtue of quantity. But even as the saying goes; more doesn't mean better, overall I think as for the relative level of quality, newer equates to better. Anyway, I think I'll take this opportunity to plug Inou-Battle. I'm enjoying that show far more than everything the entire 80's and most of the 90's ever put out.
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Funkgun



Joined: 15 Apr 2009
Posts: 23
PostPosted: Sat Dec 20, 2014 1:22 am Reply with quote
vanfanel wrote:
Zalis116 wrote:
It's just the the adults they're made for happen to be Japanese otaku with different tastes, values, and life trajectories than the older American fanbase that came on board with the violent/gory/action/sci-fi movies and OVAs of the 80s and 90s.


Older Japanese otaku have to a degree been left behind, as well; the interests of young otaku today are quite a bit different from those of the 80s, when geekdom was much more oriented around serious sci-fi and fantasy... We 40-somethings now have to make do with a few new things every once in a while, and a trickle of 80s nostalgia revivals.

I filled out the survey for my top five favorite anime this year, but could only come up with four titles: ("Fate Stay/Night," "GARO," "Jojo's Bizarre Adventure," and "M3: The Dark Metal"(which was so-so, but overall I liked it). I probably could've added "Silver Spoon," but I haven't watched season 2 yet.)

Have you watched Rage of Bahamut?
It somehow recalls that old action oriented sensibility
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vanfanel



Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 1239
PostPosted: Sat Dec 20, 2014 1:48 am Reply with quote
Zalis116 wrote:
I guess I figured that Japanese otaku that old generally self-selected out of the fandom, whether out of a desire to have a chance at marriage, or because the probability of bosses or other authority figures finding out about their hobby approaches as time goes on.


Many probably do, so with dwindling numbers comes dwindling collective buying power, and therefore dwindling influence in the marketplace. Even if a fan continues to enjoy anime on TV or rental video after settling down, any BDs or other merchandise is going to have to be explained to the wife, who in Japan often handles the family budgeting -- even deciding how much spending money the breadwinner gets.

There's actually a word ("hesokuri") that refers to a secret stash of cash a husband has somehow hidden from his wife. One episode of "Chibi Maruko-chan" had the little girl blackmailing her dad when she found out where his was located...
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vanfanel



Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 1239
PostPosted: Sat Dec 20, 2014 1:53 am Reply with quote
Funkgun wrote:
Have you watched Rage of Bahamut?
It somehow recalls that old action oriented sensibility


I saw the first episode. It was well-animated and had some fun action scenes, but I didn't stick with it for some reason. Maybe I should give it another shot sometime.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
Posts: 1767
Location: South America
PostPosted: Sat Dec 20, 2014 2:21 am Reply with quote
CoreSignal wrote:
This is the third 32 year old chiming in here. I'm pretty much gonna say what everyone else has said. There's plenty of mature anime out there, you just have to look (harder) for it. The recommendations thread is a good place to start. I would say the only type of shows that don't make anymore are the grand, epic space opera shows with huge space fleets and warring planets, stuff like Battleship Yamato and Galactic Heroes. Other than that, I'd actually say there's been a resurgence of sci-fi anime with shows like Psycho-Pass and Ghost in the Shell Arise.


Well, the Yamato 2199 is from 2013. Very Happy

But it's true that I get the impression that serious sci fi/fantasy declined in proportion in the manga/anime mediums and slice of life highschool stuff increased over the past couple of decades. Though I would need more information than my sample of 450 anime and manga titles that I watched/read.

I don't actually care that much, however, about the date stuff was made. So in the end it's irrelevant if sci fi stuff is from the 1980's or 1990's instead of being new: I don't care that much about modern aesthetic style versus old school styles.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
Posts: 1767
Location: South America
PostPosted: Sat Dec 20, 2014 2:31 am Reply with quote
vanfanel wrote:
Zalis116 wrote:
I guess I figured that Japanese otaku that old generally self-selected out of the fandom, whether out of a desire to have a chance at marriage, or because the probability of bosses or other authority figures finding out about their hobby approaches as time goes on.


Many probably do, so with dwindling numbers comes dwindling collective buying power, and therefore dwindling influence in the marketplace. Even if a fan continues to enjoy anime on TV or rental video after settling down, any BDs or other merchandise is going to have to be explained to the wife, who in Japan often handles the family budgeting -- even deciding how much spending money the breadwinner gets.

There's actually a word ("hesokuri") that refers to a secret stash of cash a husband has somehow hidden from his wife. One episode of "Chibi Maruko-chan" had the little girl blackmailing her dad when she found out where his was located...


I might perhaps disagree on that theory on the decline of sci fi/fantasy versus slice of life/echii stuff. Echii stuff always was abundant and a large fraction of all anime/manga since well, man is a sexual animal. I think that the relative rise of slice of life stuff is correlated with the aging of the otaku population: when you are teenager and in your 20's you are more attracted to sci fi/fantasy stuff but when you get older I think you would be more attracted to moe stuff, out of the instinct desire to have babies.

Myself, though only 26, wasn't interested in stuff like K-On 6 years ago but now I consume that sort of stuff in large quantities. Although I am starting to get bored of slice of life stuff.
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