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what happened to anime?

Kite

Kite

Member
lol Thread like this always make me laugh, I started watching anime back in the mid 90s. There were tons of garbage back then to, the diff is that no one remembers those crap shows. The seasons were not filled wall to wall with Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Kenshin, Berserk and Slayers-level shows. No one remembers shit like Garzey's Wing, MD Geist, Crystal Triangle, Ninja Cadets, Galaxy Fraulein Yuna or Cosplay Complex.

A decade from now anime fans will look back and only remember the good shows from recent times as well. Shush OP, you know nothing. Anime has mostly crap for decades now, guess you just realized this lol?
 
U

UrbanRats

Member
Extollere said:
Okay, a couple things. While I'm usually a fan of the 3 episode drop rule (meaning if a show doesn't catch my attention before 3 episodes then I drop it). There are plenty of shows where this is actually a bad idea and you could be missing out.

Gurren Lagann is great if you can switch your brain off. There's a pretty good character story in there, and it's a lot of fun especially around the half-way mark, and then again towards the end. There's a reason why it's still one of the most beloved shows from the past decade.

Secondly, Steins;Gate is one of the better sci-fi shows out there. This is a terrible show to drop early but I can understand if you do. The show spends a good 7 or 8 episodes or so just hanging out with the characters before it flips and becomes a thriller. Once the meat of the story gets underway it becomes incredibly captivating. It's a well done show, it just requires a little patience to get through the bullshit in the beginning.
Click to expand...

Gurren Lagann i may watch in the future.

One thing i liked about Death Note, despite the sloppy thriller writing at times, is how little time is wasted.

I dont usually watch anime but know from my Hokuto no Ken days what kind of a plague filler can be, so i really appreciated every scene moving the plot forward (as it should be).

Im like 10 episodes away from being done with it though and even here, i think a shorter format wouldve worked better.
Maybe the movie was a good idea foe that story.

Maybe its because i have so limited free time, but i cant fathom sitting through 3+ hours of something i hate, in the hope it'll get good.
I usually drop tv shows after the 4th ep. If they dont click, but thats only if i was luke warm on them.
Only exception wss the 100, where i watched the whole 1st season and hated it all the way through.

Another common thing ive seen that i hated, the clumsy exposition dumo, often in the form of unnatural dialogue.
There are better ways ti shiw how your world works.

Anyway next i wanna check out Mob Psycho 100 and Ping Pong, they seem more up my alley.
Nit on Netflix though.
 
E

Extollere

Sucks at poetry
UrbanRats said:
Both art and writing really drove me up the wall.
Probably the worst one after 7 deadly sins.
I get that one episode isnt great to jusde a show, but id be willing to give it more of my time if i was luke warm on it, not i outright hating everything about it.
Click to expand...

Here are a couple of recommendations you might try.

Aku no Hana - A teen drama with a horror-like vibe. Rotoscoped, but well done with believable characters and some cool moments. In particular there was one episode with an ending that just blew me out of the water. The build up and pay off was great. Very good atmospheric and oppressive soundtrack.

Ping Pong - Excellent character development and mature story about life and ambition. A really wacky and fresh animation style with a ton of energy. Don't miss this one.

From the New World / shin sekai yori - A sci-fi fantasy based on a novel. Excellent world building and heavy concepts related to evolution, society, civilization, war, religion, and human domestication. Requires some patience, and takes a few episodes to gear up. Some horror and thriller elements as well. That art isn't fantastic, but the soundtrack and story are.

All of these shows had a level of depth to them that your average anime doesn't. They give you something to wrap your head around and keep you coming back for more. None of them had any fanservice that I can recall, but they all require a little more investment than just watching one episode and then dropping them.

Ping Pong and Aku no Hana are both short series and can easily be finished. From the New World is a little longer at 2 season's worth, but was a very rewarding show.
 
N

nded

Member
Japanese weirdos are famously irresponsible with their own money so studios keep making things Japanese weirdos want to buy.
 
T

TheSpoiler

Member
Kite said:
lol Thread like this always make me laugh, I started watching anime back in the mid 90s. There were tons of garbage back then to, the diff is that no one remembers those crap shows. The seasons were not filled wall to wall with Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Kenshin, Berserk and Slayers-level shows. No one remembers shit like Garzey's Wing, MD Geist, Crystal Triangle, Ninja Cadets, Galaxy Fraulein Yuna or Cosplay Complex.

A decade from now anime fans will look back and only remember the good shows from recent times as well. Shush OP, you know nothing. Anime has mostly crap for decades now, guess you just realized this lol?
Click to expand...

Well if they do they remember it fondly for some reason. Geist wasn't even that fucking good.

Hell do people not remember how bad X was? That shit was like modern day trash.

Also OP should watch Gundam Thunderbolt
 
L

Lulubop

Member
Outside of waifu bait shit, not a lot of seinen of josei get adapted into anime, or adapted well.

Not That, that hasn't always been the case anyway.
 
R

rpmurphy

Member
90's anime oh yeah
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1990_anime_television_series
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1991_anime_television_series
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1992_anime_television_series
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1993_anime_television_series
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1994_anime_television_series
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1995_anime_television_series
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1996_anime_television_series
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1997_anime_television_series
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1998_anime_television_series
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1999_anime_television_series

OP, you only know the curated shows. There was a lot of mediocre, forgettable shows and shounen anime in every era, which we now get easily with the Internet.
 
M

Mendrox

Member
UrbanRats said:
Lately i tried to give every anime available on netflix a shot.

I watched ep1 of almost every one under the "anime" tag.

The only one that i found interesting enough to go through with, has been Death Note.
It's got some bullshit writing for a thriller, but its fun so far.


Ajin i also got a bit further but got bored.

Gurren Lagann looked visually cool too.

Every other one ranged from pretty bad, to shit.

Worst offenders were Stains Gate, Code Geass and 7 Deadly Sins.
Even one episode of these was hard to go through.

But i also watched Psycho pass, Attack on Titan, Ana something something, Eureka Seven, Kuromukuro.

Didnt like any of them, but at least a couple had good animation.

Could be that netflix only has bargain bin anime tho.
Click to expand...

SteinsGate is a goddamn masterpiece. It is also one of the best visual novel games on the market. The first 9 episodes confuse people but after that you will kick yourself why you thought it is bad. Never judge anime only after the first episode. I needed 3 tries with SteinsGate and after it kicked off I couldnt believe my eyes. That is one show/game that is famous for a good reason. Death Note was shit compared to it. Eureka also needs at least 2 episodes.
 
T

The Silver

Member
Sounds more like you changed, Jojo literally is one of those old crazy action shows(one of the progenitors alongside Dragonball) and if you don't like that while saying you're a DBZ fan then...... yeah..... I mean at least One Punch Man......




Oh and fuck the increasing trend of shows that have no ending, goddamn LNs, it was bad enough when it was just ongoing manga. Need more good VN adaptations, don't have to worry about no ending, one less thing to piss me off.
 
U

UrbanRats

Member
Extollere said:
Here are a couple of recommendations you might try.
Click to expand...
Thanks, i actually watched one ep of Aku no Hana.
I found the little ghost girl extremely annoying but i liked the animation and artstyle, plus the more down to earth setting was nice too.

Ping pong is from Matsumoto of which i loved Tekkonkinkreet and Sunny so ill watch it for sure
 
M

Mulgrok

Member
Gintama has to be the biggest surprise favorite of mine. Had no idea what it was going in, and by the end of the first season my sides hurt from laughing. A shame that the last season and a half had little of what made the rest great,humor.

EDIT: I hope they continue adapting Black Lagoon, because there isn't much like it.
 
M

Magwik

Banned
PunjabiPlaya said:
You talking about Manime?
Click to expand...
9d2.jpg
 
L

LotusHD

Banned
Kite said:
lol Thread like this always make me laugh, I started watching anime back in the mid 90s. There were tons of garbage back then to, the diff is that no one remembers those crap shows. The seasons were not filled wall to wall with Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Kenshin, Berserk and Slayers-level shows. No one remembers shit like Garzey's Wing, MD Geist, Crystal Triangle, Ninja Cadets, Galaxy Fraulein Yuna or Cosplay Complex.

A decade from now anime fans will look back and only remember the good shows from recent times as well. Shush OP, you know nothing. Anime has mostly crap for decades now, guess you just realized this lol?
Click to expand...

Basically this. We know of all the great shit from the past because that's all people ever talked about, not the crap stuff. Now that we're older and can look it up for ourselves, it becomes hella apparent that there's a lot of stuff to sift through, which only increases as the years go by.
 
N

Ninjimbo

Member
There's tons of awesome anime to check out. Why not ask AnimeGAF? They'll tell you a lot more than the biased strangers in OT.
 
U

Unidentified

Member
When I do watch anime these days, most of the time it is older series (pre-2000), so nostalgia is not really a factor for me. I do still occasional watch a few new series now, but I stopped watching for a few years due to being unable to get through a single episode of most series I tried and most of the time I look to watch anime as just another source of filler entertainment not high quality writing.

Based on what I've tried, I would say it's gotten considerably worse since the mid 2000s and more so than just a lot of anime being bad, most are just off-putting due to pandering to certain tastes, which existed before, but not to this extent.
 
SolVanderlyn

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
BasilZero said:
Boruto, One Piece and DB Super is awesome yo ;(

I still watch old anime like for an example Gundam ZZ....its...bad prefer Gundam Zeta or the original mobile suit gundam.


Anyways, ya a lot of the stuff nowadays arent the same as they were in the 1990s but...oh well.
Click to expand...
These (and to a lesser extent Attack on Titan) are all I can take these days, and I'm pretty sure it's because they're 90's/2000's shows that are still going. Not even the "better" modern stuff like My Hero Academia can grab me, it feels too... I don't know how to describe it, it feels different though.

I think it's a mix between growing up and the medium itself changing, but I was a huge fan of anime that told consistent serialized stories with comic book esque power-ups and believable world building. I like the stuff that's a mix of fantasy and comic books with a cartoon sheen. Kenshin, Groove Adventure Rave, Yu Yu Hakusho, Naruto, Ronin Warriors, that stuff was always my jam. I was never into the slice of life stuff like Tenchi Muyo and it seems like a LOT of anime these days is that. I've come to realize I hate and have always hated otaku culture despite liking so many older Japanese cartoons, go figure
 
H

Hydrus

Member
I'm with you OP. Theirs not a lot I like these days. My bigger problem is the digital animation. Some show look amazing, while others look like crap.
 
U

UrbanRats

Member
Mendrox said:
SteinsGate is a goddamn masterpiece. It is also one of the best visual novel games on the market. The first 9 episodes confuse people but after that you will kick yourself why you thought it is bad. Never judge anime only after the first episode. I needed 3 tries with SteinsGate and after it kicked off I couldnt believe my eyes. That is one show/game that is famous for a good reason. Death Note was shit compared to it. Eureka also needs at least 2 episodes.
Click to expand...
Well i look at it this way, i have an average of 2 hours of time a day to do anything ranging from playing videogames, to watching movies, to TV shows, to, indeed, anime.
I couldn't stand the writing, the "humor", the weird ass characters, the art or the animation of the first episode, basically anything about it i hated.
So i would have to dedicate 2 or 3 days just in the hope that it will completely turn around and click with me? I find that unlikely.

I don't think that Death Note is a master piece, so it's not like i don't believe something can be better than it, but one thing Death Note did very little of, is having some irritating character that is supposed to be cute or funny on screen, which helped me get on board (though Misa came close in the second arc).

It's the reason why these days i just won't touch games that "take 10+ hours to get going", like some rpgs.
It just isn't worth the time, when i have so many movies i want to watch, for example.
(i also cut down on TV shows in general, for the same reason).

MikeHattsu said:
Are ya thinking of AnoHana instead of Aku no Hana? :p
Click to expand...

I am, wasn't quite understanding the rotoscope thing, indeed, lol.

Flowers of Evil was also on my list, yeah.
 
J

Jacob

Member
andymcc said:
It's because the creepy niche stuff isn't shoved off to obscure OVA land and instead made for late-night TV.

It's not really changed as much as it's more visible.

You had the gatekeepers of western localization that took years to translate anime and would only bank on stuff they knew would translate to VHS sales. Now everything, warts and all, is visible because virtually every show each season gets a multicast stream.
Click to expand...

While this is true, we can at least be grateful that rapey '90s shit like Ninja Scroll no longer enjoys such a prominent place in Western anime fandom. Not to say that modern anime doesn't have its problems with misogyny, but that shit was a lot more visible 20-30 years ago.* But for some reason, a lot of people a more offended by moe than by all the violence and rape in their favorite "manime" of decades past.

*By which I mean it made up a larger percentage of movies/series that were being imported, not that it was especially prominent in Japan itself.
 
Y

yanipheonu

Member
Eh it's about the same.
The thing I've learned about virtually every medium is that the exceptional is always the exception.
Most movies, TV, music, games, and anime are pretty forgettable. It's those exceptional entries that make you love the medium as a whole.

I find it's best just to seek out the exceptional parts of the medium if you're getting bored with it overall.
 
S

Savitar

Member
The market crashed in the 90's, the more dedicated groups that were buying things meant they were the ones with the purchasing power and so began to be catered too.

The market exist due to that as it is. You cater to that buy and lots of what is made reflected those groups that buys those items.

Unfortunately said taste is pretty shitty, moe, lolli's, what have you.
 
M

Mr. Giggles

Member
I think you've just focused in on what you like OP, perhaps in the earlier days you were more open to try different genres!

I know I was
 
H

hosannainexcelsis

Member
Kite said:
lol Thread like this always make me laugh, I started watching anime back in the mid 90s. There were tons of garbage back then to, the diff is that no one remembers those crap shows. The seasons were not filled wall to wall with Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Kenshin, Berserk and Slayers-level shows. No one remembers shit like Garzey's Wing, MD Geist, Crystal Triangle, Ninja Cadets, Galaxy Fraulein Yuna or Cosplay Complex.
Click to expand...

I will always remember Garzey's Wing! How could you forget WHUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
 
F

fhqwhgads

Member
It's like any kind of media really:
Genres fall out of style and new ones become the popular choice
More stuff is getting made/getting international release
An overall problem with homogenising in order to get the highest possible audience

The stuff you like is still out there, it simply isn't as prominent as it once was and it's harder to find now there's so much anime kicking around.
 
O

Opto

Banned
Where's that chart of just how much anime is now produced? The industry is at critical mass and now anyone is lucky to break even on a show.
 
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