All the time I hear about how the anime being released now is so much worse than it used to be. I hear about how there is no longer any anime that they can bear to watch. The first thing I think when I hear this is what genre are they looking for?
I also wonder if something is offending them about current shows. The anime today can’t be that bad, because it is still so popular. Yes, there is Anime Where The Main Character is OP. And some of the more longer-running animes can get repetitive. But overall, the quality doesn’t seem to be falling. So maybe something is offending them? I decided to look into some older programs to see what is so great about them compared to today’s shows. Older anime from the glory days are supposed to be much better than today’s so first I looked at the storyline of some older shows.
This show ran waaaaay too long. Even in the old days.
A lot of older anime do not seem to have storylines that are that much better than today’s programs. Look at Cutie Honey or Ranma ½, the story in both is very repetitive in both of them. Cutie Honey has a lot of monster of the day elements which is a problem a lot of older super robot animes had as well. Ranma ½ varies slightly between physical fights and getting in trouble with his large harem. So the stories of anime back then were not so great all around.
Shin Kotetsu Jeeg is a good example of a new show paying respect to an old one. They kept the old storylines, and the old characters show up. This is how you do a franchise. Also their opening song rules:
One problem that someone could have with anime today is if they are a mecha fan. In particular if they are a super robot fan. There are not as many of those kind of shows around today. The ones that do come out are usually some kind of remake of an old show. Even with real robot shows there is not a ton of variety. So there is not the same kind of variety of shows as they had back in the day.
Anime today has a different brand of fanservice than older programs, but times change. It is not like there were no shows with fanservice in them before recently. Kekko Kamen and Harenchi Gakuen had fanservice in them long ago. Today we have shows with young girls trying to get with their teachers and fetishes of all different kinds. Shows are made based on hentai games that are very popular. It’s like some shows are made just for the anime body pillow that can be made from them. The things we have today would have never been allowed back then. As with shows in American, anime is having to do more to surprise or attract their jaded audience such as selling merchandise like Nendoroid anime figures. It isn’t like all shows have it or anyone is making people watch the shows that do have it, so what does it hurt?
A true classic.
For a comparison let us look at two different comedy shows Great Teacher Onizuka and Tentai Senshi Sunred. Great Teacher Onizuka is about ten years older than Sunred. If it was true that anime is getting worse the newer Sunred would be way worse than GTO. Instead of finding one lacking I find that the two have a lot in common. The main women are Kayoko for Sunred and Fuyutsuki for GTO, each have a lot in common. Both are the more friendly counter to the main character trying to help him while not appearing to totally understand him. The main characters for both shows use street fighting techniques to handle their problems even though it is not in keeping with their professions. Onizuka since he is a teacher and Sunred since the hero is supposed to be handling things well more heroically than street fighting. Both the shows get their humor from the main character not fitting into the mold you think he should. I find that both anime are equally entertaining, which would not be the case if anime was really getting worse over time.
While anime isn't getting worse, we can understand why you'd think that.
Looking at lists for the anime lineup for seasons as far back as 2006 I don’t see the lineup getting worse and worse over time. In fact, people are not only watching anime more, but also buying anime products like onesies (Anime fans can find the newest anime suits here). I see seasons that I do not like anything I see, but I also see seasons that I would have watched almost everything. I think that the problem is that most of the anime community when looking at old shows only see the things that were popular enough to be remembered even now. The bad things were lost over time only to be brought back for bad anime panels at conventions. It isn’t that old anime was so much better, but that we are seeing the best and looking at it with nostalgia goggles. Someday people will probably think the anime we are watching now is better than what they are watching and will watch our rejects to get a few laughs.
I belive that we also had low standarts back then, it was new, it was cool and we where childs.
Now, we have grown up and our actual standars are a lot better. Shure, we still find DBZ mindless fights awesome, but if we see the big picture, its imposible that as we are now, we’ll wake up staturday morning just to watch 1/888 of the fight with cell with 8 mins of announcemets.
So long story short, right now we search for difrent, more specific things, and it’s harded to just “like” whatever they give us.
I think anime is making themselves smaller and smaller with fanservice…. i think they need to branch out with anime more because ive noticed alot that the most popular animes are the Moe shows.
i prefer action or comedy in my anime more than moe. but i do enjoy a good harem
it is more SHITTY now a days. nowa days anime is aimed at either children to sell the toys or otaku to sell the dvds.
and you odn’ tknow shit about old anime.
do you know how many gems haven’t been fansubbed from the 80’s 90s or maybe they are no one knows about it.
you don’t know shit about the 80s and 90s anime. at least nt enough to compare. tha’ts obvious.
you can’t ocmpare something you don’t know with something you know.
let’s say you know 50% of anime that came in 80/90s and you know about 90% of anime that came out in the 2000s.
therefore there’s a high chance you missed out on the classics. and no ranma and escaflowne are not classics. and neither is gto.
Are you seriously trying to say that old anime wasn’t trying to sell toys and videos? That is bullshit. People have always been advertising things in anime. Also you are making claims about how many anime I have seen and how much I don’t know without knowing anything about me. You don’t know shit about what I have seen. Finally, if you are going to criticize something you should probably use proper spelling and punctuation.
i guess age has something to do with it. We were once young anime lover hence our standards were lower. But like last year, I’ve watched an oldie: Code Geass and omg that anime was AMAZING ! So in general, the standards about the same, but you can’t find anything as good as Code Geass now a days. I just can’t stand the hentai and the cheesiness. Normally, I could watch a horror anime in public, but thanks to stupid hentai, I couldn’t and cheesiness, I swear, if there’s no hentai, there’s cheesiness (thoguh there are some that I can handle, like Naruto, Gakuen Alice, etc and I fine with cheesiness in Manga for some reason, but of course not too much)
The only anime I watch regularly is Detective Conan. I sorta stopped watching Naruto because of the fillers but I heard they stopped already so I guess I’ll be getting back on track