Forum - View topicINTEREST: Cowboy Bebop Writer: Anime Will Die Out in Few Decades
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Captain Crotchspike
 Posts: 355 Location: Phoenix, AZ |
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Also, it's interesting to see this posted at the same time as an overview of Michael Aria's lecture for the Summer Institute of Studies in Japanese Popular Culture, where he expressed concerns for anime's future given the difficult conditions of the work place in at a typical Japanese animation studio.
Well, yes, that's why I said it's worth noting that he's not just "whining", he's actually been trying to make the kinds of shows he thinks should be made from his position. Although, that's not to say he should just shut up about it even if he were completely unable to.
I still can't think of many shows along the lines of what he's describing that have come out since then besides maybe...well..."Eden of the East". I personally don't believe there haven't been good shows period since then or anything (although I could say there's been woefully few of them), but I am having a hard time thinking of much of anything that's like what he's talking about. I do think that even if he truly is kind of self-centered, the stuff he is talking about here is worth being concerned about. |
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ic3p1ck
Posts: 1 |
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I can't say I disagree with his sentiments. There's been a substantial drop in the quality of anime series in the past two years. I haven't encountered a superb series so far in 2010. Durarara turned into a mainstream-apealling trainwreck and Arakawa Under the Bridge had several weak episodes.
@ikillchicken: Nowhere in the article does it state that Dai Sato was complaining about viewers not liking his work. 
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ayashe
 Posts: 122 |
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To me this just sounds like "anime will die out in a few decades because no one makes anime as good as I do."
And whaddaya know, that merchandise sells.
I'm not surprised he thinks that. I don't think anime will die out in a few decades (at least not for his reasons), but I sure hope his anime does. And to the people complaining about anime quality, the quality of today is no worse than it has been in the last couple decades. For people to think that all the anime before a certain cut-off date (hmm, "the last few years," is it?) were masterpieces, that no anime today can compare to is ridiculous. Of course there's a lot of crap out there! There always have been, and there will always be anime, manga, shows, books, movies that are worse than others, and better than others. But this guy does not get to decide that for other people, and neither do any of you. |
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2204 |
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I can't really say I can argue with the guy; the only series I've really been interested in the past few years is Guin Saga (hell, got me to read the books). Too much anime produced these days consists of juvenile moe shows and escapist fodder that will swiftly be forgotten within a few years, if that. Even stuff that tries to break that trend is ignored by the general public; stuff like Wolf's Rain, Samurai Champloo, Ergo Proxy, Black Lagoon, The Skull Man, Kara no Kyoukai and so on (though there are exceptions).
Seriously, the lack of respect for the medium is astounding and the terrible quality control is really poisonous. People refuse to get into the industry as well because of low wages and most adaptations of long-running series are BURIED under slipshod writing and bad execution. Even manga seems to be suffering these days. Maybe the guy is overreacting, but it's hard to argue with him when there are so many things backing up his argument. |
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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Hmm. His comments were food for thought more than anything, IMO.
Reading over the comments, it seems a lot of you may not realize just how much things can change over 20 or 30 years. I think we can be pretty certain that animation technically will be a lot different than it is now. Maybe some of these changes will render so much of what goes on today obsolete that we would hesitate to call it the same thing. He may be alarmist, but that doesn't mean you should entirely dismiss his comments. I'm sure that many of the things he brought up are just as concerning as he believes. A lot of people might dispute his conclusions, but the idea that if you don't nurture future talent, you'll have less of it, or lower quality, is certainly a sensible thing to say. From our perspective, I don't think it means much as we can't effect any real change in how things work in Japan. All we can do is support the anime we like by buying it and hope that the dev and production studios make enough of a profit to keep going. I know I'll keep doing my part as long as there are shows made that I want to see. For the rest, I'll hope for the best. |
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DmonHiro
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What I really think he means is that anime will die out in Japan, as in, won't really be produced in Japan.
PS: I love how people are whining that anime is declining just because anime shows they like aren't being made anymore, in spite of the fact that K-ON, and Angel Beats sold like hot cakes. |
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Teriyaki Terrier
 Posts: 5689 |
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Hold on, he actually may have a point. I can easily see English dubbing being ceased (not that I want that to happen, but that is a topic for another thread) but I think he is on to something here. What he said about an escape does ring true for the most part, with some people. But the word escape can sound worse than it actually means. For example, after a hard day's work and what not, a person watching anime might find that a relaxing escape after a long' day's work. Another example is the anime watcher who uses anime as a means of escape because well you fill in the blanks here. I am not saying watching anime as a escape is wrong, but there is a limit of course. Anime is fantastic, but some people (here's pointing to the guy in an old column of Answer man who thinks he can shoot lightning) can take it slightly too far and way too far. But being an escape has side effects as well. Time slips by and reality may be harder to deal with some people. No matter how great a series is, it's important to remember it's just a hobby and shouldn't consume your life. It's not in the least a pretty image to imagine the next generation being lost in the escape of anime and having little to none grip on reality. Obviously, creating anime isn't at all easy, nor is dubbing, subtitling or finding the right market for the series. It takes the right author (creator) to make a captivating series. That said, now and days, finding an original series that isn't copied (or at the very least, heavily copied) from other series is quite rare. It's not secret that I enjoy Shonen anime. However, creating a original Shonen series isn't as easy as it seems and finding one that is entirely original is even much harder. That said I can understand what the Cowboy Bebop Writer means. If the only new shows that are created are similar or almost exact carbon copies of other shows, all that is being done is recycling. Don't get me wrong, recycling normally is good, but in terms of anime, usually isn't that great. Obviously, that trend of recycling isn't that bad yet, but as the years go by (or months in some cases) it is harder and harder to create an original series that has concepts that either haven't been used before, haven't been used much or haven't even be considered at all. Think about it, just for a second. Ninja's? Got them. Super powered men/women? Got them as well. It's hard to come up with really, truly original ideas that haven't been made or been done to death already. Truth be told though, I don't think anime will entirely disappear soon. Now I've said this before and I will say again (and yes, I do apologize in advance) the only source that could hasten the death of anime is moe. |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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Zilan
Posts: 167 |
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Sounds like someone is bitter. People will get sick of moe and lolicon, just like they got sick of giant robots, and magical girls. Anime flows in a cycle. Give it some time and quit crying.
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DangerMouse
Posts: 3983 |
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Another thing this article did was remind me that it really has been way too long since he got another big work out there where's he part of the primary staff like Wolf's Rain, Ergo Proxy and Eureka 7 and the GITS series, of which 2nd Gig is slowly starting to be longer and longer ago, especially if he isn't retiring or anything.
We haven't seen him front and center on a work since 2nd Gig, and nothing from scratch since E7, I think. I actually can't believe it's been so long... Not they can wave a magic wand and create something on the spot but I think the huge gaps with nothing from great talent in the industry, new and old, also leads to the perception that anime is dying every so often, new guys aren't even getting to work with them since many of them have no projects going anymore even before they get older or leave the industry. That previous "directors who need more work thread" kinda brought some attention to it, many of whom are supposedly still active in the industry and yet aren't even planning works. Last edited by DangerMouse on Tue Jul 27, 2010 1:53 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Saturn
 Posts: 513 |
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The same doom and gloom scenarios have been predicted for most industries (music, movies, and especially publishing) for years now, so I don't see why anime would be any different.
Furthermore the argument that the quality of anime is slipping/becoming too entangled in merchandising also directly mimics what's happening in those other entertainment industries (just consider how common series are at movie theaters and on bookshelves, and look at the cross-promotional marketing for films at walmart/mcd's/burger king/whatever to see evidence of that). What we have to accept is that media in general, including entertainment, is changing; and what we're feeling now are the growing pains of that change. If anime doesn't die out, it's probably going to change a lot-- and "a few decades" is a LONG time in our super-speed world. Imagine what anime was like a "few decades" in the past; in 30 years, it will be as different from what we know now, as what we know now is from then. |
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garfield15
 Posts: 1517 |
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I really, really, really, really, really really hate when the general argument is "Everything in anime sucks except for a list of generalized shows from the past that I'm going to list here and ignore everything in-between and now everything that has ever existed at any time is K-ON." Look, everybody has favorites. Everybody notes of shows in the past such as the 80's and 90's that stick out for them in their memory and make a person remember the "good old days" when these shows were considered quality. And if these shows back then were quality than that means everything that came out in that time was quality right? It seems neglectful. Rurouni Kenshin, Bebop, Outlaw Star, etc. all came out in different seasons or different years. But now, let's look at that. Rurouni Kenshin: Premiered Spring 1996 Cowboy Bebop: Premiered Spring 1998 Outlaw Star: Spring 1998 Yu Yu Hakusho: Fall 1992 Saiyuki: Spring 2000 Not to mention except for Bebop, all of those are not anime-originals, but manga adaptations so what one is basically saying when making these kind of lists is not that they are top-tier anime but top-tier manga that happened to be lucky enough to be picked up by a competent studio (Not to mention, the basic argument here was "I liked adult swim when it put on anime I liked"). In any case, the point is that what about the stuff that came before those? Are those just not as memorable? What about the quality shows that have come out? Are those just not Rurouni Kenshin enough? What about the attempt to broaden demographics? And what about toyetic anime? Are those too K-ON too? Cause I don't think Yusei is playing "Cagayake Girls" on his D-Wheeler yet. Look, nobody denies that there are shows that are legendary and well-written enough to go down in the annals of anime history (though, don't most people really dislike how the Kenshin anime became a trainwreck?). And for that matter, what about the hundreds of anime that came out in-between YYH and Cowboy Bebop? Does that mean every single thing that came out then was at Bebop level? I guess Virus Buster Serge was just that freakin' awesome huh? I for one still consider YYH to be my favorite shounen anime of all time, one that even surpassed the manga but you cannot just put a list of shows from the past and then say "These were better" and then generalize an entire genre by the standards of a popular moe show. That just seems outright insulting to other people's taste. There are always going to be things people dislike in a medium and at the same time, there will always be a masterpiece one year and people will look fondly back on the past and remember that that year was waaaaay cooler than anything else afterwards because now that we have gotten deeper into the fandom, we notice more and we are more observant and critical of the tastes that come our way and the true nature of the industry that we are buying from. And that's okay. It's expected. But don't just insult other people's tastes like that nor post the un-truth of how everything is just being something else. That's just messed up to Eden of the East. It's insulting to Tatami Galaxy and completely ignorant of Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail, Rebuild of Eva, House of Five Leaves, Heroman, Durarara, FMA:B and I could go on but that would by hypocritical and I'm trying to stay recent. And people are not going to agree with those anime I just picked but that's just it. It's a matter of opinion not fact. There are always going to be hit and misses. I just picked some general stuff. some of which was anime-original, some manga-based and some not. When you just completely ignore others tastes and shows in favor of some "Golden times" that only exist in one specific time period, the argument just becomes one not of sensical contention but of pure malice and I don't think anybody should have that attitude and still claim to enjoy anything past those oh-so-beloved cut-off days. The great ones will come and go and what matters is that we remember them fondly for what they were. Not hold them up some god-like standard. (BTW, I feel given more time and proper structure Angel Beats really could have been better and much more well-received as it had a lot of things going right for it) |
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BlackJaded
 Posts: 332 |
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Well Dai Sato is true writer from every account because of his planning and story. Actually I think we have that edge since everyone thinks money is the priority since the economy falling doom back in 2008, plus fanservice could be a gift or curse what you do to make what is. I just think, If it keeps like for a couple years , we may see the end of anime. The fact is that in last year or so no one ever made a good story then we go to fanservice. Last time I watched anime so good, it was back at my middle school years, now I see it's beginning to be crap because nobody doesn't understand what producing good anime is. Let's make it fun and accesible, not for money or giving it pandering Otaku who are leeching off the streets. that's just plain foolish and stupid.
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Since Eden of the East? Maybe. Since 2006 though? If you're going to claim that then I think you've clearly missed a lot of good shows over the last four years.
Oh I completely agree. As I said, I think he generally has some good points even if he's really overstating things.
Yeah. Yeah it does. "He pointed out that “Ergo Proxy,” for which he wrote the story, had DVD box sets around the world, but not in Japan. He also said that many anime fans dismissed “Eureka Seven” as a “Neon Genesis Evangelion” clone without even watching it."
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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Sturgeon's Law says that 90% of everything is crud. So as the industry is producing half as many anime as five years ago, that means that there are fewer really good ones.
But projecting current trends into the future is always a tricky thing, because sometimes instead of trends they are cycles, and you are confusing the decline and fall of an industry with a low tide that will be followed by a period of renewal. |
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