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ANNCast - Revenge of the 2000s Part I: Are You Not Entertained?

I remember coming home and anxiously downloading the latest Code Geass episode every Sunday back in the mid aughts. AAMOF, I did that for both series. And, while I enjoyed them both, a lot, I wouldn't have dreamed of them being on any serious critic's Top 10 list of the decade. (...)

The absence of Gurren Lagann, on the other hand, did genuinely surprise me. (...)

Death Note seems debatable, even with its shaky second half. (...)

I remember coming home and anxiously downloading the latest Code Geass episode every Sunday back in the mid aughts. AAMOF, I did that for both series. And, while I enjoyed them both, a lot, I wouldn't have dreamed of them being on any serious critic's Top 10 list of the decade. Specifically R2. It was a very good series, make no mistake. But, sometimes it was a bit ridiculous.

The absence of Gurren Lagann, on the other hand, did genuinely surprise me. In terms of story, characters, and just about all other technical merits, it stood out among everything else that year; as well as its predecessors (Getter Robo, Gunbuster 2) that clearly influenced it.

Death Note seems debatable, even with its shaky second half. It was truly innovative and was ingeniously written in its first half.

Kaoshin_Sama wrote:

It seems like any shows that still try to do thing the traditional way and IMO do it well are ignored and bomb in the markets and just about anything that does the new media thing garners instant attention and popularity everywhere and is at the very least a modest success on the markets.

Can you cite some examples of what you're referring to here? I'm curious about what, exactly, you mean here.

Key wrote:

marie-antoinette: I don't believe NANA ever comes up, even in listener-submitted lists. That surprised me, since it was a well-respected series.

Poor NANA. It is not only my favourite anime from the 2000s but also my favourite anime period (though I will admit, most of my favorite series are from the 2000s, with the major exception of Fushigi Yuugi which is very flawed but still very loved by me), so maybe that will make it better. I still am sad to see it get forgotten though; maybe things will improve if the manga manages to get finished and a second season is made.

Key wrote:

Kaoshin_Sama wrote: It seems like any shows that still try to do thing the traditional way and IMO do it well are ignored and bomb in the markets and just about anything that does the new media thing garners instant attention and popularity everywhere and is at the very least a modest success on the markets. Can you cite some examples of what you're referring to here? I'm curious about what, exactly, you mean here.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that titles like Hyouge Mono, Showa Monogatari, Kaiji, Akagi, One Outs, Souten Kouro, & Ring ni Kakero 1, among others, are the types of titles Kaoshin was talking about (the titles in his head are probably different, but the thought is the same).

Lord Geo wrote:

Key wrote: Kaoshin_Sama wrote: It seems like any shows that still try to do thing the traditional way and IMO do it well are ignored and bomb in the markets and just about anything that does the new media thing garners instant attention and popularity everywhere and is at the very least a modest success on the markets. Can you cite some examples of what you're referring to here? I'm curious about what, exactly, you mean here. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that titles like Hyouge Mono, Showa Monogatari, Kaiji, Akagi, One Outs, Souten Kouro, & Ring ni Kakero 1, among others, are the types of titles Kaoshin was talking about (the titles in his head are probably different, but the thought is the same).

If that's what's meant by "traditional storytelling" then we're clearly not talking about "traditional in a purely anime sense" but "traditional in general." Those kind of titles have always been a minority - heck, I'd even say a very small minority - amongst anime productions, and aside from the fact that they didn't exist at all more than 25 years ago I don't think that their frequency has changed that much over time. They've also only rarely been popular, so it isn't like this supposed shift to fan-focused titles is washing them out. (And incidentally, I'm not convinced that fan-pandering is a more prominent approach now than it's ever been before. It just seems that way because anime is now more commonly pandering to narrower fetishes.)

The 2000s ... well, they kind of sucked in comparison. Oversaturation of the market with too many of the same kind of bland shows due to the jump to digital animation. Science Fiction shows are scarce.

jeromeskee wrote:

The 2000s ... well, they kind of sucked in comparison. Oversaturation of the market with too many of the same kind of bland shows due to the jump to digital animation. Science Fiction shows are scarce.

A simple Genre Search using our Encyclopedia's search function shows that there were 574 anime titles tagged as Science Fiction from 2000-2009, out of 2209 total titles. That's an average of 57 a year and 26% of all titles released in the decade, and that's probably low since a lot of titles don't have insufficient genre tags on them. Don't think you can call them "scarce" based on that.