When Did Anime Become Bad?

[@TheBellman]

I'm away from my editing rig so let me see if I can name all of the (unnamed) anime in this video from memory and inference, by order of appearance we should have: Pop Team Epic Me!Me!Me! City Hunter '87 Berserk '97 Gurren Lagann Made in Abyss Akhashic Records Lucky Star Claymore Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Royal Space Force Black Magic M66 (Akira) Urusei Yatsura (0079) (Macross) Gunbuster (Lupin III) (Ashita No Joe) (Ace Wo Nerae) Hakujaden The Wind Rises Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken Project A-Ko Cowboy Bebop Yu Yu Hakusho Ghost in the Shell '95 Lodoss War Patlabor TV (Bebop) (Evangelion) (Sailor Moon) Evangelion Bebop Lain You're Under Arrest Remy Iketeru Futari (I think?) Spirited Away [Walt Disney on the Multilevel Camera] You're Under Arrest Evangelion Berserk '97 Bebop Utena Bebop (Sailor Moon) (Cowboy Bebop) Stand Alone Complex Tenchi Muyo Yu Yu Hakusho (Sailor Moon) Huggto Precure Jigokuraku Jujutsu Kaisen 08th MS Team I forgor, wasn't this G-Reco? Outlaw Star (Initial D) Lain Kinos Journey FLCL Mushishi Texhnolyze Highschool of the Dead (Evangelion) Candidate for Goddess Highschool DXD Welcome to the NHK Space Dandy Cyberpunk Edgerunners Animementary: Ketsudan Mnemnosyne Ben-To Bastard (Nausicaa) Ninja Scroll Photon (Urotsukidoji) Chained Soldier Something about instant death powers? Idk and idgaf Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (everything in the isekai section is labeled and I don't remember the ones that aren't right now), The mystery clips are cuts by Shingo Fujii and Yutaka "GOAT" Nakamura in the promo for "Line Novel", some LN site starting again at 14:49 Oreimo Highschool DxD i forgor Guilty Crown Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl (in background) Seitokai Yakuindomo Ano Natsu De Matteru Seitokai Yakuindomo Vending Machine Isekai Space Dandy Casshern Sins K-On The Tatami Galaxy Nichijou Psycho Pass Vivy Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust Lain Pompo The Cinephile Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken (Girls Last Tour) (Blend S) Cyberpunk Edgerunners Frieren Dungeon Meshi Maddox Ai City Akira Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust Ghost in the Shell '95 Mahoromatic Bebop Movie Frieren Redline Shirobako Jigokuraku Violet Evergarden Eizouken Frieren A Silent Voice Bebop The Great Pretender Paranoia Agent Dungeon Meshi

[@adiyo011]

Thank you for listing that! I don't know if it would be possible but in future videos, would it be possible to add it directly to the clip? I've been loving your essays and how they are contextualized into literature, culture and history. Keep up the great work!

[@TheBellman]

@adiyo011 If I do another video like this I'll consider it. I don't want to overwrite the KZbin closed captions for people who might want/need them, but it might be ugly to have every frame captioned in the video itself.

[@pxrpetualpxin1143]

Urusei Yatsura my beloved

[@captsorghum]

After Chargeman Ken, everything has gone downhill.

[@jne3464]

Can someone tell me what the anime with the grim reaper looking guy on the horse was? At 17:31

[@TJTheEmperor]

I've been saying this for a long time: the viewing habits of western anime fans - to watch as many new shows as possible that debut every season - is totally unhealthy. Anime is the only entertainment medium where this is encouraged to such a degree, and when you step back for a second to think about what you're doing and compare it to how other forms of media are consumed, you begin to see how ridiculous it is. Imagine if you attempted to watch every new American TV show that debuted in a given year, both on regular TV and on streaming services - or worse yet, attempted to listen to every new song uploaded to Spotify. Honestly, if I did that, I'd probably come away thinking most of it was garbage too. It's so much more sustainable for the long term survival of your interest in the medium to be picky, to focus on just two, maybe three new shows that strike your interest. And hey, maybe go back and check out some of the shows you missed from years (or decades) past while you're at it. That's what I've been doing for years now, and I've been a fan of anime since 1999 whose passion for the medium has never been greater.

[@markwatson8714]

@@droopy_eyes It's not that bad a comparison. The number of anime series or for that matter OVA's we got coming West during the 80s and 90s would barely fill a couple of VHS tapes per year - even with the fan trading. It introduces a selection bias; the only way we'd get an anime here in the West was if it was already successful enough in Japan a company thought it'd be worth the time and expense of bringing it over or it had already developed a fanbase in the West that was dedicated enough to produce a fansub or fandub. All that's really happened is that filter has been removed. Back in the 80s and 90s a mediocre or worse anime wouldn't usually make it outside of Japan, today it's on Crunchyroll.

[@FullmoonPhantom-dn2sr]

You're right! It's not healthy and it can cause burn out of the passion. Though there's also nothing wrong with fans enjoying a medium so much, they would go out of their way to consume everything they can get their hands on. Right now, everything that is currently coming out. Possibly with the an eventual goal of every title in existence. These fans just really love the medium. The same way movie buffs love movies or music fans love music. They don't just casually enjoy the thing, but become superfans of the thing instead. They want to know everything there is to know about the thing.

[@banquetoftheleviathan1404]

Most people who like an anime are watching maybe one at a time.

[@MissionSilo]

Ever hear of the movie pleasant ville?

[@sugarzblossom8168]

Not sure most people seems accurate ​@@banquetoftheleviathan1404

[@nikidelvalle]

Anime never became bad, it just got easier to consume and we got more of it, and so the good ones became harder to find.

[@marcodaddario3965]

The shelf life for Anime also became way shorter. 90s Anime could keep you hooked for years because it was such a slow drip compared to today. That's another reason why the 90s feel far more "full" or "complete".

[@timalley3906]

Man back in the 90s when you watched anime on TV it would take literally 6 months to a year to go through the series. Or in the case of Dragonball Z, literally 7 years. If you were able to afford anime on VHS, or even find any at all, you would rewatch the same episode several times because that stuff was EXPENSIVE. I remember how I had the first two Sailor Moon tapes and I must have rewatched those 10 times each. A season of anime on VHS was physically large and could easily cost $200, often more. ($200 in 90s money btw, so $400 or more today.) Then DVDs came around, and if you were actually buying those instead of sailing the high seas, those were $30-40 a season. Now it's all streaming and you binge an entire series in two days for functionally pennies. Not that it was necessarily better in the 90s or that it's better now, but man how we consume anime has come absolutely so far

[@hypothalapotamus5293]

The actual answer is that the 2008 financial crisis shifted the earnings of the anime industry from normalish people to the worst otaku scum (who would spend almost all of their disposable income on merch) during the early and mid 2010s. In this environment, fanservice was cheaper and had better ROI than framerates or plot. Now that the cash flow of anime is shifting to a broader and more global audience, they are toning down their more hentai-like wish fulfilment anime.

[@ACSMEX]

@@marcodaddario3965You are thinking of the GREAT animes capable of keeping you hooked for years. There has always been a lot of trash and only some gems between them. I would even say there are more great animes today than before. Just the last few years we got a lot of soon to become classics like Vinland Saga, Mushoku Tensei, The Apothecary Diaries, Vivi's azure eyes, Frieren, Violet Evergarden, JJK, Demon Slayer, To Your Eternity, Call of the Night and a ton more I dont mention since I have not seen them yet or they belong to genres I dont follow.

[@HeavyTopspin]

@@hypothalapotamus5293 There's probably more "I can't believe it's not hentai" anime recently than ever, particularly with HiDive's offerings (Gushing Over Magical Girls and Chained Soldier) this season.

[@MechanicalRabbits]

I will not tolerate Initial D slander. 😡

[@reallyman6502]

what else can you do tho?

[@foregroundeclipse8725]

@MechanicalRabbits What I'm saying. I can't believe he threw Initial D under the bus like dat. It's a pretty good Anime and Manga series honestly.

[@PLKinka]

Ikr? I watched it about 4 years ago and it’s an only sports anime I like.

[@snazzydrew]

bro first stage is so good... and I didn't watch that anime until I was 30.

[@MechanicalRabbits]

@@snazzydrew It ruled so much, I don't think there's any other anime that's made me a fan of an entire new music genre

[@marcodaddario3965]

"Anime was good when I was the one who spent time watching it, everything is cr*p now". That's such a Hayao Miyazaki thing for Hayao Miyazaki to say.

[@missplainjane3905]

What shows

[@foregroundeclipse8725]

There's alot over staturation of degenerate stuff now in Anime. I know fanservice has been a thing since the 80's of Anime. But there wasn't as much of it then compared to now. I'm not saying the 80's or even 70's era of Anime was perfect. It was definitely flawed . But there is alot of good Anime that came out back then , that still hold up by today standards of Anime in 2024. I still like some new Anime coming out too. I just wish the Anime industry was more willing to take creative risks , instead of giving us bad degenerate fanservice Isekai Anime all the time. Like who asked for these shows? I want more Anime like Achient Magnus Bride or Heavenly Delusion or frieren beyond journey's end or Vinland Saga season 2.

[@missplainjane3905]

@@foregroundeclipse8725 How many series you watch so far and what other sort of creative ideas would you like to see ?

[@MCArt25]

He really is the old man of the industry.

[@MCArt25]

@@foregroundeclipse8725how to tell you've never watched 80s/early 90s anime without telling you've never watched 80s/early 90s anime

[@GutsOfRivia]

Oddly comforting to see that not much has changed. Im sure in the 2030s people will look back at the 2010s and 2020s bundle up all the great shows that came out in the decades and say "Wow anime was so good in those days" when we are currently living through it and saying "There is only a few gems in the sea of trash".

[@nobodyimportant2470]

Same goes for every decade in every fandom. With pretty much every thing there are hundreds of movies/songs/books created every year but most are forgettable, 10-20 years later people only remember the few really good ones and compare them to the forgettable examples of the current year.

[@GutsOfRivia]

@nobodyimportant2470 well almost all media. Video games used to have more bangers per year than now. After 2010 the amount of good video games a year has dipped.

[@itsblitz4437]

My thoughts exactly

[@Ermakshually]

@@GutsOfRivianah your just biased cause you haven’t found any good games

[@gustavoduarte3507]

@GutsOfRivia that is just a straight up lie. More than 10 fantastic games came out this year and we're only at March. And there's more to come in the next months. Just from the top of my head i can cite Persona 3 Reload, Yakuza 8, Tekken 8, Under Night in Birth 2, Penny's Big Breakaway, Balatro, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Unicorn Overlord, Duelists of Eden, Granblue Fantasy Relink... With Helldivers 2 and Dragon's Dogma 2 coming in the near future along with many more

[@the_Pleiades]

This is my personal opinion as a Japanese. modern anime tropes became stronger after shows like Haruhi and Lucky Star in the mid-00s. This is the time when anime started to go from being a repressed subculture to a mainstream hobby. In the 80s, the Japanese economy was simply prosperous, so there was cultural leeway. From the 90s to the early 2000s, Japan was in a recession, but this gloomy atmosphere gave birth to various masterpieces filled with philosophical creativity. I like this era of anime the most. And what about from the late 00's to the present day? The employment rate has improved since the 90s, but the economy is even more shitty. In my opinion, during this period anime went from being a simple subculture to becoming an essential monoculture for the declining Japanese economy. Although these changes brought about growth in the market, they also led to conservative pandering to otaku. In this way, anime has become a huge industry, but at the cost of it, it has brought soulless isekai hell.

[@AC-dk4fp]

Isekai hell doesn't exist because of pandering to Otaku it exists because of cross promotion with novel series and publishers being prepared to invest marketing budgets. Does 'Pandering to Otaku' really make sense to a Japanese production staff since Otaku aren't a single group they're divided up by special interest (military, music, trains, science fiction, video games, horror, maid uniforms and yes animation)? Hardcore animation otaku don't watch badly drawn isekai trash so it can't be pandering to them.

[@Krysnha]

Souless isekai, souless shonen, repetitive sloop, wich are always the same, if he want a date, for me early to mid 2000, and i can say that the two most important nails, dragon ball z and evangelion

[@ConnortheCanaanite]

There’s two Isekai that I’ve personally enjoyed, Re:Zero and Konosuba. But both are fairly different in their method of execution. But I’ve always been a big fan of time related plots, although, I still have nightmares about ‘Endless Eight’.

[@Crow7878]

"Was it 2007 as it became clear that the old studios were overheating and working their staff to death?" I think that would have raised Miyazaki's opinion of anime.

[@TheBellman]

Indeed

[@sarahhirsch8919]

I'm not so sure. Miyazaki was trying to unionize animators in the 70s.

[@sarahhirsch8919]

There's a video where a guy talks about Miyazaki and his ideas of environmentalism through both the movie version and manga version of Nausica of the Wind and he touches briefly upon this.

[@kooolainebulger8117]

lol

[@kostajovanovic3711]

​@@sarahhirsch8919stevem?

[@tartoflan]

When you were born the year anime died

[@jonathanj.3695]

Anime nowadays is like surfing through TikTok and KZbin. 90% of it is a sea full of brainrotting cat vomit that you have to swim through to get to the 10% that's actually good.

[@AdamantineAxe]

Titles these days that are longer than any dialogue Kenshiro ever had.

[@adamastor9869]

That comment got a good chuckle out of me. Unappreciated meta-reference.

[@nine_tails137]

Oh man! I am so fed up with long-ass titles. Seriously! You don't need that many words! Just keep your series title short and to the point! Specifically 5 words or less.

[@wandregisel6385]

​@@nine_tails137 I notice this phenomenon particularly with LNs, especially true of fantasy/isekai (as one might imagine), but even with normal rom-coms. There's just so much crap to sift through that to for a series to stand out even a good front cover is not enough to distinguish from competitors: the general plotline has to be told in the title (because who has time or motivation to read the description when there is so much?)

[@nine_tails137]

@@wandregisel6385 That whole: "who has time to read the description" excuse is complete BS, and just another way of saying: "I'm too lazy to read the back of a book". I've visited my local book store, and I'm smart enough to take a book off the shelf, flip over to the back and read the description. Hell! I even skim through some of the pages of the book to see what it's like! And you're telling me Japanese people can't do that? What, do they have no arms or something? Do they do all their tasks with their feet or their teeth? Also, I tend to gravitate to the shorter titles, because 1. they're easier to remember, and 2. I have 2 working hands I can use to flip through books. Plus the stories tend to be a lot better. There's a reason I enjoy "the Boy and the Heron" over crap like: "Do you Love your Mom and her two-Hit Multi Attacks?"

[@wandregisel6385]

@@nine_tails137 now do that with all the dozens upon dozens of isekai with slightly different premises. Yes, they can read the back, but will they? Just as people can read the ingredients, yet most people are not going to read them, certainly in their entirety

[@ade1174]

There are more anime than ever so there is more crap anime than ever. But we continue to get a lot of great anime. In the 2020s so far we've received JJK, Akudama Drive, Vivy, Mushoku Tensei, 86, Ranking of Kings, Odd Taxi, Urusei Yatsura (2022), Spy x Family, Chainsaw Man, Summertime Rendering, Bleach The Thousand Year Blood War, Cyberpunk Edgerunners, Heavenly Delusion, Oshi no Ko, Rurouni Kenshin (2023), Frieren Beyond Journey's End, Suzume, and The Boy and the Heron as far as premieres go and continuations/endings for Attack on Titan, Mob Psycho 100, My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Dr. Stone, Gintama, Fruits Basket (2019), and Vinland Saga. I think anime is in a very good place right now in terms of number of quality shows. What anime needs to improve on is providing better working conditions for animators who are overworked and underpaid and training more future animators.

[@markwatson8714]

The Pareto principle always applies - 80% of everything is dreck.

[@baron6797]

People never take the numbers into account. All they see is a ton of crap anime and it's just because the difference in quantity from then to now!

[@rosiello5100]

Yes, it's the sheer volume of releases. There is a LOT of really good stuff coming out these days, but there's also a crapload of junk like in every human artistic endeavour. The problem is also a matter of perception, because people has the unhealthy habit of consuming anime like Japan is gonna stop making animes tomorrow and watches stuff they clearly don't like just because it's "anime" instead of being a little bit more selective.

[@shaydboss1481]

Glad to see some Akudama Drive appreciation

[@iamLI3]

say what? they brought back fruits bascket and rurouni kenshin??

[@ramonantoniodejuanbennett6239]

Really to be honest, 2007 was when it became "bad", when alot of anime companies was going out of business or being bought up, like GENEON PIONEER, A.D. VISION FILMS, BANDAI, U.S. MANGA CORPS, MANGA VIDEO, ANIMEIGO, & CENTRAL PARK MEDIA.

[@erikwirfs-brock2432]

That initial? collapse of the Western DVD market definitely coincided with the decline of a certain type of grittier/philosophical sci fi show, seems like the industry became much more conservative and cuteness and battle shonen reign supreme.

[@ConvincingPeople]

⁠@@erikwirfs-brock2432Ehhhh, that's revisionist history. While Kyoto Animation's steady rise throughout the '00s through adapting established nijigen (manga/anime/light novel/visual novel otaku culture) hits from outside the medium to anime in their particular house style definitely pushed a particular modernised form of the bishoujo aesthetic into the mainstream, further popularising softer character designs with more open features outside of shoujo manga, that particular ethos of drawing female characters especially as "cute" rather than traditionally "sexy" goes back to the '70s and got huge in the '80s, while the term "moe" and its associated signifiers are a product of early '90s online fandom. As for battle shounen, are we just going to pretend that Dragonball Z and Yu-Gi-Oh! weren't titanic hits in North America, or that the biggest manga magazines in the field hadn't been largely dedicated to that genre for decades before that? That said, I would say there was a decline in a very specific style of "gritty, philosophical science fiction" as the '00s wore on which had arguably peaked in popularity in the '90s, but I wouldn't say it's so much that gritty and/or philosophical speculative fiction series stopped being made so much as they started to look a lot different after a certain point, with a lot of the later heavy hitters in that department assuming the visual trappings of cutesier series-consider Girls' Last Tour or School-Live-but even that glosses over the existence of similar subversive takes on that aesthetic going back to the '90s (e.g. Alien Nine, arguably Serial Experiments: Lain). Likewise, the battle shounen genre has been getting increasingly freaky and surprisingly thoughtful at its edges, at least in the manga space, as most aptly demonstrated by Chainsaw Man gradually showing its hand over the course of the first part, but even then, Hunter x Hunter gets similarly experimental and profound and has been running on and off since the '90s. Granted, I get being bummed about the decline of a fairly specific combination of storytelling style and visual aesthetic, but your framing is pretty narrow and inaccurate.

[@erikwirfs-brock2432]

@@ConvincingPeople I think you accurately point out how long term cultural and market trends lead to where anime is today, I was just pointing out the correlation where the dvd market in the west collapsing caused financial difficulties, change in priorities or closure for companies that were tailoring shows for a particular audience- thinking primarily of Madhouse, Production IG, studio bones or manglobe- a lot less original shows and a lot more adaptations of popular manga just to survive. My observation about battle shonen wasn't based on sales, more just a general vibe as an older western nerd who remembers when shows like DBZ were around, but didn't dominate discussion to the extent they do now.

[@nicodalusong149]

1) Watch a lot of anime from various eras and understand that if it isn't original, something definitely inspired it. Also understand that if whatever inspired it was "just that good", expect references to it to be made one way or another. 2) Watch a lot of anime from a lot of eras and realize that the horny always was and will be. A show being horny doesn't immediately make it bad just like how a show that tries to be serious or mature doesn't immediately make it good. 3) Watch a lot of anime from a lot of eras and understand that even trashy shows can be enjoyable viewing experiences. Even if you disliked a show and called it trash, somebody else absolutely enjoyed the same show in spite of it being trash or exactly because it was trash.

[@ConnortheCanaanite]

I often feel that Harem genres are a guilty pleasure. I wouldn’t say they’re masterclass or some Magnum Opus, I wouldn’t trade them for my favorite anime. However, I do find them enjoyable and the humor, cringe, embarrassment or bashfulness and absurdity of the plot can all be part of it. It’s something I usually use to take a break from the anime I usually enjoy. But I usually enjoy things such as Steins;Gate, Higurashi, Psycho Pass, Ergo Proxy, Death Note, Re:Zero and one of my very first, FMA 03’. I usually like tragedies, with darker themes, rich plots and existentialism or philosophy embedded into the anime. As well as psychological thrillers and horror of course. But unwinding after reading an arc of the Higurashi VN, with some harem anime or silly romcom is less likely to make me question whether ҉t҉҉h҉҉e҉҉r҉҉e҉ ҉w҉҉a҉҉s҉ ҉t҉҉h҉҉a҉҉t҉ ҉p҉҉r҉҉e҉҉s҉҉e҉҉n҉҉c҉҉e҉ ҉c҉҉o҉҉n҉҉s҉҉t҉҉a҉҉n҉҉t҉҉l҉҉y҉ ҉a҉҉t҉ ҉m҉҉y҉ ҉b҉҉a҉҉c҉҉k҉. ҉S҉҉t҉҉i҉҉c҉҉k҉҉i҉҉n҉҉g҉ ҉t҉҉o҉ ҉m҉҉e҉ ҉l҉҉i҉҉k҉҉e҉ ҉a҉ ҉s҉҉h҉҉a҉҉d҉҉o҉҉w҉.

[@MrElbowsmash]

As a giant robot fan, that tracks. It was all over in the 00's, or 10's, depending on how badly you cling to Gurren Lagann or Code Geass. Of course, there will always be Gundam, but Gundam is the anime equivalent of Star Wars, as stereotypical an observation that might be. Just because people line up in droves to watch the latest Star Wars movie doesn't mean sci-fi is saved! I will say my favorite mecha designer joined the industry after the 00's. Ippei Gyobu is the only reason I watch Gundam nowadays.

[@KingCam20]

I'd say that Gundam nowadays has been pretty great. I think Hathaway and Witch from Mercury were both fantastic. I will agree though that the mech genre has not been in the best state lately. The only other mech show from this decade that I've watched has been 86. I can hardly think of any others that even exist.

[@MechasterReal]

Bravern is doing pretty well, I mean it IS Obari after all. Plus Gridman and Dynazenon were also good

[@MrElbowsmash]

@@MechasterRealOh yeah, Bravern is amazing, and on top of that it's doing well over in Japan too. Hopefully uncle Obari is jump starting things like only he can

[@MechasterReal]

@@MrElbowsmash i do hope GaoGaiGar vs Betterman gets adapted as an anime but it probably won’t happen until the manga is finished

[@UltimateGattai]

I feel like Gundam had been in a bit of a slump since Build Fighters, nothing has really been outstanding since that entry. The occasional mecha show can be good though, like Metallic Rouge or Bravern (I'm really enjoying Bravern).

[@sonofragments7472]

My dad was born in Soviet union and he was a total anime fan back then. In 60-70s, USSR showed a ton TOEI anime in cinemas. "Puss in boots", "Taro son of dragon" , "Flying ghost ship" to name the most popular ones. However, Japan soon stopped making anything like that. Miyazaki did make some great movies which me and my dad really love, but other than that there's not much for him to like about 80s or 90s or 2000s or todays anime

[@ConvincingPeople]

Just an aside about the "it got too horny!" section: There's something incredibly funny about grognards whining about the excess of pervy fanservice in modern anime when there's an interview with Miyazaki from 1979 where he complains about otaku making racy figurines of Clarisse from The Castle of Cagliostro and a year prior Rumiko Takahashi had straight up named the protagonist of her hit manga Urusei Yatsura after the famous pinup model Agnes Lum. Criticising Japanese popular culture for its sexism and fetishisation of youth (sexual and otherwise) shouldn't be off the table-it certainly isn't among Japanese fans, artists or academics-but certain Western fans can be really myopic, ahistoric and frankly shockingly Orientalist about the subject, and that's before you can even get into the undercurrents of sex-negativity and kinkshaming. It makes having a conversation about this stuff in good faith really exasperating. As for the current state of affairs: I think the anime industry is kind of in a weird spot right now. There's a production bubble rivalled only by the mid 1980s which is inevitably going to burst and screw over a *lot* of people, but that looming threat is only fuelling the expansion of that bubble as different production committees and publishers try to get in while the getting's good and capitalise on the hottest trends as quickly as possible before that stops being viable. As a result, for all that there are many, *many* slapdash productions coming to television and streaming essentially unfinished and all sorts of bad ideas getting greenlit in the hopes of seeing healthy returns, the industry is also producing some truly incredible work at an unprecedented volume, some of it wildly experimental, some of it just representing mastery of the fundamentals. It's kind of an amazing time to be an anime fan, but there's a slight dread to it, too, I guess? When it comes to what period I think is "the best," however… I dunno, I think my nostalgia bias leans towards the '00s, as I only really started taking a serious interest in anime around 2009 or so-the first series I actually followed as it came over here was Madoka Magica-and so a lot of my formative experiences with the medium were watching series which had come out in the past decade or so mixed with series from the early 2010s which were new and exciting at the time. The '00s also saw the first wave of light novel adaptations when the medium was still fairly new and experimental, as well as the tail end of the post-Eva boom of deeply weird original television anime, both of which speak to my personal sensibilities. That said, there are plenty of newer and older series which I love to death, so while the nostalgia is there, it's not absolute by any means.

[@INFERNO95]

Evangelion ruined a generation.

[@UndeadSlayer5]

Theres nothing wrong with the pervy anime it is funny

[@MrNone-d5s]

Cut down on Thesaurus

[@lightspaceman5064]

90's or 2000's anime definitely had a specific vibe that can make a person say "They don't make them like they used to" that I think is worth remembering. Building on. That turns into "Anime is bad now because..." for a reason I think is more specific to anime than just nostalgic memories. I think there is a certain type of person who's ideal of what anime is is a genre or collection of genres, probably related to cool guys doing cool things. And not the full picture of what it is. So anything outside that looks like a perversion. I want to say you can boil it down to anime "becoming bad" whenever the person thinks anime became about "cute girl shows". Maybe Haruhi? I remember that being a bit of a turning point for some people. Remember, anime got a reputation in the west for being "more mature" than western cartoons, not just because GiTS, Akira and Bebop look a certain way and that perception still has some effect. The thing is, shows with that 90s feel still come out. Edgerunners and Megalobox come mind. And every singe time you will see comments saying that it's saving anime or they finally made a good show again. Yeah, I think it's a lot of people that just really like Ninja Scroll and can't admit that that's just they're preference and not what anime is.

[@markwatson8714]

I think the main change might just be the format. It's not just anime in that respect - back in the 80s and 90s episodic content tended on average to run to the 60 minute mark, or rather 45 minutes with the commercials. Today the 30 minute episode is more common (which is usually closer to 20 minutes with commercials). In terms of both the production and the consumption side that introduces differences - if you're splitting 720 minutes of content into 12 discreet blocks there's some big differences in what you can do in terms of storytelling compared to splitting it into 24 blocks. Similarly watching 720 minutes of story is going to feel different if it's in 12 chapters than it is in 24. I suspect when people talk about that '90s feel' a large part of it is hearkening back to those 60 - 120 minute OVAs rather than the 30 minute bite sized chunks we get today.

[@FullmoonPhantom-dn2sr]

Dororo 2019 had that old anime feel, too. I might give Edgerunners a chance if you say so. I had no clue it was another anime that has that old feel.

[@banquetoftheleviathan1404]

I mean if an anime made it all the way to f****** VHS in America was probably half decent in the first place. Our choices were more restricted back then than what we have now with piracy

[@adrianaslund8605]

90's anime can often be enjoyed by a wider variety of people. They take more influence from live action movies. You can show Cowboy Bebop to your normie dad and he'll likely be "That's pretty cool." You can't do that with alot of modern anime.

[@markwatson8714]

​@@adrianaslund8605 It's more a quantity thing. If anything it'd be more possible these days simply because there's a greater variety of anime available; in the 90s it was by and large either action or horror, today you can add in RomComs, slice of life, drama, thrillers and pretty much any other genre you care to name, you just might need to dig through a layer of isekai to find them.

[@averygamerdude7911]

I'm an older anime fan, but I don't think modern anime is bad at all per se, its just that I find a lot of popular anime very pandering, or I just don't like its style. Idk

[@TheKingWhoWins]

It absolutely is, and a lot if it just copy and paste nonsense seemingly.

[@iamLI3]

@@TheKingWhoWins might i humbly interest you gents in gushing over magical girls then? im finding it to be a very interesting mahou shoujo anime while also being peak culture c:

[@mewz6018]

I feel the same way about the modern anime style

[@ffenixrising]

You're not looking hard enough.

[@foregroundeclipse8725]

@@TheKingWhoWins To You're Eternity is a pretty good Anime. Idk if you've seen it, but I recommend it. It's relatively new and it dosen't pander . Which is a breath of fresh air honestly.

[@chza1181]

The art style and culture of the 80s and 90s has always been the reason Iv'e always liked it better than modern anime. Its like comparing Devilman 1987 to Cry baby. I liked both but they couldn't be any more different, its just an era of anime that defined those decades not because they were better but because some people just prefer it. There has always been bad/lazy anime but id rather watch a bad anime from the 80s than one from today. I guarantee the same thing will happen in 30 years for todays anime, either it be from nostalgia or a younger person who just likes entertainment from the past more than their current era. Its a tale as old as art has existed.

[@arlekino0792]

Decades have trends 70s - space and robots 80s - space and robots returns 90s - space and robots but cool 00s - space and robots but waifus 10s - no space no robots (it's all isekai XD) I want isekai with robots .....Yeah, I know that Rayearth exists, but you know what I meant. I know that one otome isekai exists, but I want a good one. XD

[@NozomuYume]

Aura Battler Dunbine? Orguss?

[@arlekino0792]

@@NozomuYume oh shoot, I forgot about them XD

[@mr.sinjin-smyth]

@@NozomuYume Trapped in a Dating Sim

[@mr.sinjin-smyth]

2010s and beyond had no mecha? Darling the the Franxx Broken Blade Back Arrow Cross Ange Kuromukuro Gundam Iron Blood Orphans Gundam The Witch From Mercury SSSS Gridman SSSS Dynazenon Aquarion Evol Aquarion Logos Trapped in a Dating Sim What are you smoking... BOY????

[@arlekino0792]

@mr.sinjin-smyth just a 1% of all 10s anime. Gridman is tokusatsu bro 😮‍💨

[@Machina03exe]

As a 90s person who grew up watching anime (and a bunch of other Asian media) on VHS regularly all my life thanks to access to local import stores, anime has kinda always been full of a little bit of everything both good and bad because like any other medium you just have to find what clicks with you. Now that other people have greater access to the entirety of the medium, that means they're being exposed to the stuff they never would've been before, day-slop included. It's like talking about how American daytime TV is bad because it's all soap operas and reality shows, while singing the praise of K-dramas, forgetting that you're only being exposed to the best shows after all the bad ones have been filtered away by time. People forget that when you consume art, that art is a mirror- it reflects the people who made it, the environment that created them, and the people who are there to witness it.

[@JohnathanEnder]

"Pingu in the City" killed me. Well done.

[@iamLI3]

i initially thought maybe op made an editing error? tell me what is the joke about goblin slayer i don't know here o: ??

[@zainmudassir2964]

Lol Goblin slayer

[@i_like_chomp6382]

​@@iamLI3You know that one meme with the penguin looking horrified...

[@iamLI3]

@@i_like_chomp6382 i do not

[@HeavyTopspin]

The problem is that a lot of things need to come together to make a truly great anime. Animation, story, characters, voice acting, and sound design/music, and what makes a show like Frieren stand above the rest is that it actually has all of these, just like Bebop did back in the day. Shonen series like JJK and Demon Hunter get a lot of attention because they're hitting the obvious ones, but will never measure up to the likes of FMA due to weakness of story and character. Then you have the reverse in shows like Ranking of Kings, which although true in style to the source material has art that is offputting to a lot of viewers, despite a fantastic story and characters. Where the Isekai glut fails is when the majority of shows are more or less doomed to failure because no attempt is made to make even one of these things stand out, so for every Mushoku Tensei (which I'd claim hits all those categories at least in S1, but a point can be made against one specific character) you wind up with a dozen of The Great Cleric, KamiKatsu, or the like that are so disposable that you know a second season will never happen. Worse still is that is seems to have devolved into ultra-specific subgenres like "reborn as an otome villainess", "kicked out of the hero's party", or "I want to lead a quiet life doing specific activity" where there's show after show after show when it should have stopped at one - it's like if every US network had made a "bar set in Boston comedy" in the 80s because Cheers was popular.

[@rogerc6533]

I've come to acknowledge that anime has never gotten bad but also that the industry and audience's tastes have completely changed from what it used to be. It is undeniable that some classic anime masterpieces are products of their time with charm and aesthetic that will never be replicated again. by the same token, a handful of anime from this era of anime will also become fondly remembered classics in due time. It is a shame the OVA format has greatly diminished; that was a great source of passion projects being brought to fruition. The multi part movie series Girls und Panzer has gotten really reminds me of those old days.

[@TheMightyPika]

I'm persnally the biggest fan of the 70's and 80's anime when it was the most personal and experimental. The 90's things start to feel more mainstrem/streamlined/business model. Belladonna of Sadness, Space Adventure Cobra, A Door into Summer, and even Nausicaa are so experimental and bizarre I can't believe it.

[@foregroundeclipse8725]

I still like 90's Anime. But I do agree. Older Anime was much more experimental compared to now.

[@siginotmylastname3969]

What about key: the metal idol, ignoring the we have no budget everything is terrible "films" which killed its conclusion EVERYTHING in that series was unique and interesting. That was in the 2000s.

[@Laz911]

Personally, as someone who has watched Animes from the 70s onward, while I dont think it ever got "bad"... but I do think there was a quality loss in the 2000s onward. It might just be an American's perception, but before the Anime explosion in the US in the late 90s, they were more selective about what was being brought over here. I used to go to Conventions and buy tons of fan subbed stuff. Stuff that would never come out over here. By the late 90s, everything I was buying fan subtitled was coming out commercially a short while later. I literally remember buying and watching the first few episodes of Cowboy Bebop fan subtitled and thinking "This would be fantastic if it came out in the US, too bad it never will". A few months later it was here, as was everything else I had bought in that last convention run. As Anime exploded, they started bringing over anything and everything Anime. Of course you are going to see a quality dip, but most of it was still top notch. Then you had Japan's economy crash of the 90s, and by the end of the decade is when I feel it really hit the Anime industry hard and I feel like you started to see quality dips, particularity in story, IMHO. When they started making stuff for America instead of the Japanese. It felt, at least to me, like crap was being churned out for money and less care was put into it. There was defiantly some good stuff too in the 2000s on, but it felt at the time like we had hit its peak and was going downhill. And today, it feels like many of the Anime coming out, using newer technology, don't look as good to me. There is a reason why shows like Meglobox boast "00s style animation" as a selling point.

[@marcosagrero2866]

When it became mainstream, so that would be 2019

[@Herr_Gamer]

Love seeing how writers like Yoshiyuki Tomino keep shitting on Miyazaki for being such a doomer while still not doing much to save the industry. Also regarding the point about mecha, Hathaway, WFM, Gridman, Bravern and 86 begs to differ. Mecha ain’t dead and it sure ain’t dying And the «horny and bad» point was entirely mute already by 1979. Another point for Tomino. Him, Anno and Miyazaki all adhere to a, in Tomino’s words, «masturbatory» writing style where it is impossible to think of the characters in screen without considering their sexuality (not in terms of sexual preference, moreso in terms of biology). Also GLT mentioned. Liked and subbed.

[@thr333stars]

There's a ton of weebs i can ask here but i will ask you. So i always wanted to know, why anime has "genres" that are so arbitrary, like "mecha" or "isekai". Like why anime industry even needs to separate such thing because in hollywood no one calls movies about giant robots "mecha" (if there were movies about that at all), they just call them generic genres like "action", "epic". I just fricking don't understand the reasoning there and it bothers me so much

[@Herr_Gamer]

@@thr333stars because each genre has a lot of very distinct characteristics that tell you a lot about what to expect about a film or series before going in. If something is called isekai, you can get hyped or ignore it based on your previous experience with such series without wasting time watching it and not liking it. Then again, it really is no different than hollywood, it’s just that anime has more genres and dares to branch out. You have anime that is purely action, pure drama, pure tragedy, pure comedy, etc. The more specific tags are just the same as a hollywood film being labeled a war drama, romantic comedy, splatter, action horror, reality, etc. The only difference is there are different genres, but when something does cross over, the same terms tend to follow. People who knew what mecha was, would call Pacific Rim mecha. And just like in hollywood, there are genre combos aplenty. Other subcategories are just more creatively worded versions of things hollywood alsp uses (shounen being essentially PG13 and below, Seinen being between PG16 and M rated, both of these govern shows targeted towards a male audiences while shojou and josei for female audiences). TLDR, it is no different than western genre conventions, though at times they’re more descriptive

[@thr333stars]

@@Herr_Gamer Thanks for the explanation

[@AC-dk4fp]

@@thr333stars The anime industry doesn't seperate those things and western anime fandom doesn't use the same genre terms as Japanese Otaku. Nobody in Japan uses the word 'mecha' to refer to giant robots they call them 'roboto'. Isekai isn't a genre in Japan either its just 'other world' in Japanese so it appears in titles a lot. The equivilant term 'portal fantasy' exists in English language fantasy fiction fandom so it isn't special. Robots have been a popular Japanese toy since the post-war period where scrap tin was one of the few things available for making toys out of most robot toys are Japanese in origin. Robot anime are just common because Science Fiction anime relies on toy companies for funding but Gundam was always intended to be a young adult Science Fiction franchise not a 'mecha' franchise. Americans use the term 'mecha' because of the Battletech table top wargame which used the term 'battle mech' to refer to the imported Japanese model kits it was originally intended used as gaming pieces. Harem show isn't a thing in Japan those are just romcoms. True harem plots exist in anime and manga sure but most stuff Americans call Harems aren't even harems they're just love triangles with a clear monogamous endgame couple and a few girls who meddle from the sidelines. Anime and Manga as a term makes no sense in Japan since just like 'cartoon' in English can mean stuff like Tom and Jerry as well as political cartoons in newspapers in Japanese 'manga' can also apply to animated media. In Japan everything animated is an 'anime' no matter what country its made in.

[@Sonicfalcon16]

Something else to consider is people who worked on the 80s and 90s are super old. The guy who directed some of the best action OVA anime goku midnight eye and cyber city oedo 808 is the storyboard for demon slayer. So thats partially the reason why its good.

[@Asmallcorneroftheinternet]

I can not stress this enough. The reason why we have so much nostalgia for different eras of anime. Not only that, movies, tv, cartoons, music, etc. Is because we now have the power of hindsight. We know where to look. The problem with the new decades is that we don't know where to look. That is scary for a lot of people, so they retreat into this mindset of past great future bad. In reality, they were just as scared back then as they are now.

[@MCArt25]

tbf there used to be a more limited selection of shows you could even find subbed/dubbed, there is just so much anime available nowadays and it's so easy to find, compared to just even just 1-2 decades ago

[@Asmallcorneroftheinternet]

@MCArt25 True, but there was still a lot of quantity over quality, just like today.

[@eatsleepplayrepeat]

I've been waiting for a video like this. About damn time KZbin gets it's recommendations right for once.

[@HonestObserver]

Black Lagoon is canonically (or back on some 2000s forums) the most Cowboy Bebop-like anime, at least in the category of “anime for people who don’t like anime.” I didn’t see it in your list of ‘00s classics…

[@TheBellman]

I think visible edge of Black Lagoon turns a lot of those people off. I'd be inclined to agree with you if we were just talking about like the first season but the second season and the OVA leave such a bad taste in my mouth that I'm probably a little unfair towards it. It becomes way more self serious than it can support

[@HonestObserver]

@@TheBellman BL is definitely not as singularly great as CB but I'd argue that a lot of its sensibilities (especially its heavy western cultural influences) puts it in the neighborhood of Bebop, and even their subject matter is very similar. I think Second Barrage does ramp up the violence and content matter, though my distaste with it is more like I find the last arc pretty boring (the details of Balalaika's Soviet career aside). I do admit the OVA feels like senseless nihilistic violence, even if the Grey Fox subplot activates the same part of my brain that's into Metal Gear Solid and Spriggan.

[@lightspaceman5064]

BL is one of the best in the loose genre of "things like Cowboy Bebop". It's problem is that while there's enough humanity in the characters to stop it from being what I call edgy it's still too crass and violent to scratch the same itch for some people. The Bebop crew are basically aristocrats compared to Lagoon crew

[@FullmoonPhantom-dn2sr]

@@HonestObserver😂 I read that as bl (boys love) and was super confused how bl came up. 😂

[@HonestObserver]

@@lightspaceman5064Bebop crew are an Ocean’s 11 suave heist team while the Lagoon Company features a Tarantino ultra-violent archetype.

[@kuronekomema]

anime hasn't become bad, it's just that anime adaptations now mostly come from shounen jump and light novels. a few good light novels and shounen jumps are just around there, nowadays it's rare to find original anime from the studio, except Gundam from Sunrise.

[@S00NERD0G]

Huh, can't say I agree. Just the last 5 years has seen original anime such as: Akiba Maid War, Akudama Drive, Appare-Ranman!, Artiswitch, BNA: Brand New Animal, Buddy Daddies, Carole & Tuesday, Deca-Dence, Great Pretender, Healer Girl, Id - Invaded, Do It Yourself!!, Joran The Princess of Snow and Blood, Lycoris Recoil, Sarazanmai, Sonny Boy, Taiso Samurai, The Aquatope on White Sand, The Orbital Children, Vampire in the Garden, Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song, Wonder Egg Priority, Yoru no Kuni, Yurei Deco. (& from the movie side: Promare, Ride Your Wave, Weathering with You, Belle, Goodbye Don Glees, Suzume, Summer Ghost) I looked at 1998 (as the year of Bebop and Lain), and most of the titles then also started as manga/novel adaptations: Cardcaptor Sakura, Initial D, Outlaw Star, Record of Lodoss War, Spriggan, Trigun, Yu-Gi-Oh! and many others lost to the mists of time.

[@Moircuus]

Huh, I guess for whatever reason, I thought Trigun was an anime original, but in retrospect, its pacing does feel far more akin to an adaoted work. Learn some'n new everyday

[@otaku-sempai2197]

I've literally been watching (localized) anime since the 1960s*. I'm sure that we can find bad anime during every year that there's been anime. * Astro Boy; Marine Boy; Prince Planet; Speed Racer: King Kong; etc. I don't remember seeing any Super Robot shows locally until the 1970s.

[@iamLI3]

elder anime fan o:

[@otaku-sempai2197]

@@hairchasers69 My public school days ended in 1979. Were YOU in C/F O San Antonio watching Ben Dunn pencil his first pages of Ninja High School? Because I was and I don't remember seeing you there. I don't know how well Ben remembers me (I haven't seen him for almost 40 years), but he MIGHT recall that I pointed out to him that he was misspelling "ANTARTIC" when he was founding Antarctic Press. But since you brought it up, I've been using Otaku-sempai since at least 2010, well before my 60s.

[@iamLI3]

​@@otaku-sempai2197lol i know none of what you're talking about XD

[@otaku-sempai2197]

@@iamLI3 That's okay. Look it up if you want.

[@iamLI3]

@@otaku-sempai2197 oi im not the other person you were replying to o: i have respect for my elderweeb lol

[@mk-ultraviolence1760]

I think if anything is responsible for the state that anime is in its the commercial aspect of it, the exact same reason people use when they blast hollywood when it shovels out movies about already established properties. Companies want safe bets to put their money in.

[@Kikoman589]

Your conclusions are very agreeable. The main issue is that I can't tell sometimes if you're referring to your own opinion or those of other people whose arguments you're talking about, especially with the ecchi stuff. Some clarifications and additional appreciations of detail would've been good too. For example, you called the tsunderes you showed palette swaps of each other but as someone who assumes there's always differences, there's no credence to that claim if I don't understand why they are almost "exactly the same" character-wise. I see RogerSmith2004 already wrote a comment about this. Also, Initial D First Stage is good! But yes I agree that people need to look more broadly to understand that anime is more than just what's popularly trending and to find stuff that appeals to them.

[@leucome]

Palette swap tsundere are Louise Shana Taiga and Aria. They are voiced by Rie Kugimiya aka the "Tsundere Queen". The character are particularly notorious and really similar. The voice actress also played a lot of other popular tsundere to the point that she almost defined the character archetype. You can probably find louise Shana and Taiga right away by just searching for the word "tsundere" instead of their name.

[@jerhom2787]

15:10 seeing a guilty crown clip in a anime video essay is not on my 2024 bingo card but it is appreciated

[@iamLI3]

guilty crown eh? k thanks that clip looked cool may check it out

[@foregroundeclipse8725]

Guilty Crown had issues with it's writting unfortunately. :(

[@octosalias5785]

Anime has always been an oversaturated market with a few true diamonds in the rough

[@summerwinter89]

this is it. people look at the past 20 years and only remember the good stuff. then compare that to this year and say the old stuff is better.

[@GabAssbreaker]

​@@summerwinter89the thing is, those few gems from the past got so much exposure back in the day, either by promotion or word of mouth from dedicated fans. The problem today is not the lack of good shows, but the lack of reach thes shows had. I blame the streaming industry and the modern way of media consumption more than the anime studios honestly.

[@TheFourthWinchester]

@@summerwinter89 This is why I only watch 1 or 2 anime that's called the best of the best every year and even then I keep getting disappointed cuz they aren't all that good anyway.

[@nowie4007]

​@@TheFourthWinchesterI only limit myself to watching only 4 new animes each year for similar reason

[@williamgeorge2580]

Been watching since the 80s. Sturgeon's rule applies- It was always 90% shit.

[@markwatson8714]

Pretty much. I'm sure I've forgotten more crap anime than I remember. The funny part is how often today's 'great' anime jogs the memory - Frieren? Basically 3x3 eyes for Gen Z ....

[@TheBellman]

@@markwatson8714 This is my absolute favorite way of discussing(dismissing) new anime ngl. Bunny Girl Senpai? Haruhi for Zoomers Darling in the Franxx? Gainax for Zoomers

[@foregroundeclipse8725]

@@TheBellman What are you're thoughts on Vinland Saga season 2 or Gundam Witch From Mercury? Both are pretty good Anime in my opinion. I really liked the Anime ID-Invaded, Pet , Sonny Boy, To You're Eternity and Acca 13 as well.

[@foregroundeclipse8725]

@@markwatson8714 I never expected someone to mention 3x3 eyes. I renember watching the Anime ova and seeing the Manga in middle school online. I was born in 2001. I think Frieren is pretty good. I totally get that it's not for everyone. Some people like other Anime more than Frieren.

[@TheBellman]

@foregroundeclipse8725 I like the Vinland Saga manga a lot and it seems like a decent adaptation. Haven't gotten to GWitch yet but my friends like it which is a good sign. Have only watched one or two episodes of those other shows but I liked them all well enough. I have a Plan to Watch list a mile long and a lot of the shows are recent

[@AsukkaTV]

I plan to finish this video (and binge a lot of your other videos) when it's not 5 in the morning, but i totally agree with your points so far. You clearly have a rich knowledge of not just anime, but of Japan and it's economy as a whole, and I look forward to seeing more!!

[@TheBellman]

I wouldn't puff myself up that much but thank you

[@ASIDDEVIL12]

What many don't understand about what director's like Miyazaki say when they talk about anime having fallen is that they grew up in a time where anime barely existed. There was a wondrous feeling that anything was possible with this medium. they are primarily disgusted with the indulgence and gluttony that the medium has become known for. It's part of the reason that many in the west can't take anime seriously. It has never been grown up and seemingly never will so long as people continue to "consume" anime. Miyazaki has talked about certain big budget Hollywood studios and American television in the exact same way he talks about anime. The artistry of the medium has been subsumed by the profit motive and in this effort the vast majority of what gets made (or funded) tend to all be the same shade of stupid designed with tropes that exploit lonely young men (with some rare exceptions here and there). A work of art to someone like Miyazaki is meant to comment on life, not make you escape from it, not delude you into ridiculous unhealthy fantasies. This in essence is the problem with not just Anime, but Cinema as a whole. A sentiment I imagine many great director's of time past like Tarkovsky, Bresson, Kurosawa, etc.. would all agree with.

[@shawnatlast]

This is most likely the point lmao. It got sidetracked as soon as it was brought up. It may as well not be there. And with it, the same old tired discussion

[@rabornevines7399]

GITS. Trigun, Zoids, Gundam, Dragonball, Sailormoon, X, Fushigi Yuugi, Digimon, Dragonquest, Project Arms, Berserk, Yuyu Hakusho, Ruroni KEnshin, Princess Monoke, Pokemon, Great Teacher Onizuka, Golden Boy, Voltron, there were plenty of great anime in the 90's that were mostly handdrawn, or atleast started that way.

[@RawPowerComics]

It became bad when they were able to use 3d assets and didn't have to draw or paint everything.

[@greenlight385]

3d can work for anime if don't right but i agree with you

[@johns8369]

In the 90s I kinda followed anime. But mainly videogames. Today I document videogame history, and I thought I had some grasp on anime. This video has shown me that I don't know anime even remotely, outside of a tiny window subscribing to Manga Mania.

[@iamLI3]

uh , where? there's literally nothing on your channel....

[@johns8369]

@@iamLI3 This "channel" is sadly just what I'm forced to use with my phone - I wanted to keep my Google and KZbin accounts separate, not merged, which is fine on my desktop, but this phone demands a Google log-in, thuse this is a "burner account".

[@johns8369]

@@iamLI3 I suppose I could point you to my work, but I kinda like the anonymity of this. O_O

[@iamLI3]

@@johns8369 ah , lucky you , the merger was mandatory for me....

[@johns8369]

@@iamLI3 my condolences :(

[@KeyleeTamirian]

I watch 90's anime simply because i like styles and animation. While good animation of 90's impresses me more than good animation of modern anime, even bad animation of 90's Anime looks more appealing that bad animation of modern anime. Not to mention i love when characters sometimes move like cardboard cutouts. I also just love limited animation style. I love watching obscure 90's stuff as well. I like it even more than mainstream stuff. I love GS Mikami.

[@neoliberalshill]

You had me till the Initial D slander. Everything about the show from the music to the horrid 2000s cg cars gives it the perfect level of goofy that has endeared it to people for so long.

[@milkman6218]

The way the characters look and acted as well. It's so unique compared to the generic slush we get today. I don't drive nor am I a fan of cars and I loved the first season my brother first watched it when he was 30 and he loved it, went further than me. It has a certain charm to it.

[@oudeis94]

Crunch and terrible working conditions in the anime industry have been there since Ashita No Joe all the way back in 1970, when Mushi Production severely lowballed the necessary budget to make a TV adaptation. Other anime creators would only hear "if Osamu Tezuka himself asked for that budget on Ashita No Joe, why would you ask for more?" from that moment onwards.

[@televisedfeedback6660]

I think that the 90's were peak anime. While there are anime gems started post 2000, like early Naruto, Hunter x Hunter, Ranking of Kings, Gurren Lagann, Odd Taxi, One Punch Man, Mob Psycho 100, and a few others, they feel far and between the diversity, freeness, and absolute madness of the 90's. To name some I love: Saber Marionette J (got my whole family into anime), Tenchi Muyo OVA, Photon the Idiot Adventures, Dragon Half, Yu Yu Hakisho, Ruroni Kenshin, Ramna 1/2, Magic Users Club OVA, Experimental Lain (more fun on rewatches), Outlaw Star, Trigun (first half of the show), Great Teacher Onizuka, Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Escaflowne, Evangelion, Oh My Goddess, Mini Goddesses, Blue Seed, and Berserk. Technically One Piece (1999), but that's splitting hairs since it's greatest years are much later after it's start. Even some of the more average can be fun like Magic Knight Rayearth, Golden Boy, Love Hina, Sargent Frog, Demon Eyes Kyo, Gasaraki, FLCL, Yamato Nadeshko, Generator Gawl, Gokudo, video girl AI, Slayers, Fushigi Yugi, Lost Universe, Nadesico, etc. It is lower budget than the 80's, but it feels more experimental, and free. It's the decade I return to when I want a good laugh or high kinetic energy. This is no shame to later decades, but I feel this decade just had far more hits for me than any other. I wasn't a fan of Gundam Wing, never finished it, but it was fine. Digimon Tamers is fine too. I love the soundtrack for .hacksign but it's unbearable to watch after the first 6 episodes. Overall mostly positive memories of these shows and I have gone back many times to rewatch a bunch of them. A few notable manga for me since I read far less manga than watching anime. Yu-gi-oh's first 7 volumes before it focused on card games. I also strongly recommend Angel Densetsu.

[@AC-dk4fp]

Hikaru no Go, original Fruits Basket, Samurai Deeper Kyo and Angelic Layer aren't 90s anime. Due to there being no year 0 in the calender you can count 2000 as the 90s as long as you count 1990 as in the 80s but you've still listed shows that began or ended in 2001 and later.

[@televisedfeedback6660]

@@AC-dk4fpUpdated. I saw a lot of these as a kid. So some of them I assumed were 90's when not. I'll replace them with Escaflowne, Oh my Goddess (and Mini Goddesses, and Fushigi Yugi). Still tons more of great titles, hope you found one or two on the list you hadn't checked out and get to enjoy. :D

[@AC-dk4fp]

@@televisedfeedback6660 You should watch Gungrave, Jubei-chan the Ninja Girl (both seasons) and Kurau Phantom Memory if you haven't. Going to assume you know what Samurai Champloo is. Trying to watch Red Garden right now pity the American dub is dated. Also need to finish Uta Kata but maybe I should finish Mahou Tsukai Tai first you may be correct. Sacred Slayer Matoi and Dimension W had descent retro energy if you didn't catch them. Oku-same wa Mahou Shoujo and This Ugly and Beautiful World kind of killed my interest in stuff being high energy and nothing else. Futakoi Alternative is still smart and interesting. Mini goddesses was unwatchable when I tried to rewatch it. World God Only Knows, School Rumble and Monthly Girl's Nozaki-kun just hold up better for me than 90s comedies. 16-bit Sensation Another Layer was pretty deep recently as well.

[@foregroundeclipse8725]

You forgot Key The Metal Idol. That's a pretty good Anime ova series.

[@foregroundeclipse8725]

@@AC-dk4fp I know most these Anime but there's some of them that I don't know. I'll definitely write them down to watch . I like watching Anime I never heard of .

[@DDRMR]

Agree on every single point in your video brother. The main nostalgia I miss is the cell animation, color depth contrast anime like bebop rocked. Feels like today even the best animated shows are under intense pressure to come out as fast as possible, and while they look good there's just this warmth missing unlike before. But in terms of banger anime, we get more per season this decade than we have ever.

[@NamhadiNdemufayo]

Who cares what they think? The industry is larger and more popular than ever. They can die mad. The opinion of a few malcontents is irrelevant. The market has spoken.

[@NoidoDev]

Correct. And it's even a market with a lot of niches.

[@henri3170]

Almost my thoughts exactly and I love the variety of clips you pulled making this a very engaging watch. You did good, dude!

[@RetroSpark13]

Anime from 1988 too 2020 were goated

[@greghauser742]

*1988-2010

[@SirRedwall]

Outlaw Star is like Cowboy Bebop

[@IkeSan]

For me it was in 2015 when Anime starting to decline approaching more on the degenerate side and also so many childish series focusing on going to another world. I still say it a show like Digimon that is aimed at kids is more mature as an isekai than those isekais that are oriented to "mature" audience.

[@IskandarTheWack]

Anime is getting better, there’s just a lot of bad shit too like always

[@flavioalbatrozz2557]

It's because there are too many animes.

[@IskandarTheWack]

@@flavioalbatrozz2557 Which is not actually a problem. Just watch the good ones and avoid the bad ones, ezpz

[@foregroundeclipse8725]

@@flavioalbatrozz2557 The Anime industry needs to take more creative risks and write something worthwhile and not something degenerate. Thankfully we have gotten good new Anime, but there's not enough of it. You really have to get through the garbage to find the gems worth watching. I still like Anime. I just dislike the over staturation of fanservice and degenerate/generic tropes . I feel it holds the medium back from reaching it's full potential.

[@Dontclickmychannellll]

@@IskandarTheWackthere is not good or bad it’s all subjective

[@NoidoDev]

​@@flavioalbatrozz2557 No one said you have to watch all of it. Just learn to use tags and recommendations to filter.

[@Nomatophobic]

The annoying thing about Isekai is how it limits creativity. So often I find myself thinking, "why does this NEED to be an Isekai?", and the answer I keep coming up with is that the author couldn't be bothered to build a world distinct from videogame mechanics, Japanese cultural familiarity or with characters that didn't need gary-stu foreknowledge of a previous life to exploit. Does Ainz Ool Gown need to be a Japanese salary man? The author tries to have his cake and eat it too by having all the important decisions essentially decided by Ainz's Lich intelligence and nature that overwrites any impulse the human may have anyway. The human internal monologue is only a comical façade for the actual lich character of Ainz. Does Rudeus Greyrat need to be an Otaku NEET? Why couldn't his be the story of a prodigy of his age unravelling the mysteries of the world? Is it because the author is a disgusting Otaku who can't help self inserting into an incestuous sexual relationship with a twelve year old? What impact does Naofumi Iwatani's origin from earth have on his story? None at all, but we need an excuse to shoehorn videogame mechanics into a fantasy setting. Why does Ken Usato need to be Japanese? or Rimiru? or Tanya Degurechaff? Why does she HAVE to be a Japanese salaryman? What is added except an excuse to contrive this character into a cute little girl instead of an alternative history Clausewitz or von Manstein with magic artillery and a personal story with alt-God? I'm sure every author self-inserts, and I'm certainly not against power-fantasies, but it's just so shameless in most Isekai and the quality of the authors in the junk food literature that is the LN market really strains my patience. Look at the eminence in the shadow, I like it but it's mainly just 70% comedy and 30% flashy action for it's own sake, it does fall flat sometimes when it tries to drag along it's serious story, but that's the tension that this type of genre entails. It makes serious stories contrived and funny stories weighed down. Maybe the only option is to commit one way or the other like Konosuba or SaO, (even if the latter wasn't well executed).

[@spindledoesstuff7074]

I’m a genuine fan of late 60s- early 70s anime, I wish more people would talk about how the first ecchi was a shoujo magical girl anime😭

[@g.p.ryecroft]

Spindle, am I right that you talking about the original Uresei Yatsura? I'm a big fan of that era's anime as well. Currently watching Sentai's big bluray box of Gatchaman, which I grew up watching as Battle of the Planets. I wish more anime of that era would come out on DVD/blu, but there's so much new stuff nobody wants to look back 40, 50 years. Even Macross has fallen off many anime fans' radar, and that was the gold standard in the '80s, often likened to Star Wars. Keep the faith, my friend.

[@spindledoesstuff7074]

@@g.p.ryecroft no no, I’m talking about cutie honey, the FIRST ecchi, from 1973

[@g.p.ryecroft]

@@spindledoesstuff7074 Oh, yeah! I forgot Cutie dated back over 50 years now. Thanks for the clarification!

[@RogerSmith2004]

This video left me with a lot of thoughts on it, overall I thought the video was interesting. Sorry for the long wall of text: 1:13 This was a strong point to start the vid with, considering people always seem to use these Miyazaki quotes and think he's talking about isekai anime or something, I highly doubt the guy even knows what those are. Normally when you hire animators for a production, you look at their past work, but Ghibli sidesteps this completely. For How Do You Live, there was a very strict test to apply with specific things they wanted you to reproduce, including sending your submissions via snail mail. 3:47 Aw, Iketeru Futari isn't a classic, but it had its funny moments. 4:11 Is there a source on this? People tend to say that, but a friend of mine who is trying to watch every OVA ever made seemed to think that the production value from 90s OVAs was better. Either way, I can't say for sure as my knowledge on OVAs from the time is quite limited. 4:45 Ok, I love this! I've been constantly making a habit of trying to organize everything by what president was in office. Like for Precure seasons, "Bush era Precure", "Obama era Precure", etc. I mean you already see this when people talk about Showa era anime or tokusatsu, or like Heisei era. Why not with presidents? 4:56 I agree with this, especially when people obsess over "90s aesthetic" and it's legit just Sailor Moon or Toshihiro Kawamoto designs. Like there were other aesthetics nor were those really the dominating look of the decade lol 6:58 This is a bold statement. I haven't watched Initial D so I can't say for sure what I'd think. 9:09 I recall Sho Aikawa talking about this many years ago, where he felt like late night was the new OVAs in that you can show a lot more kind of stuff. And I do think that is applicable in a number of ways, though TV anime at the time could also be pretty racy even before late night. The Rumiko Takahashi works from the time (UY, Maison, Ranma) had a lot more fanservice than say Inuyasha in 2000 did. There was also stuff like Machiko-sensei and Pastel Yumi. 11:36 While I'd say the Rie Kugimiya shows had similar appeals, I think Shana, Taiga, and Louise are all very different characters (I'm not too familiar with Hidan no Aria, so I can't say about that). Shana is more focused on her duty as a Flame Haze, and so a lot of the show is about her experience with Yuji changing her from being overly focused on her mission to being more open with herself and being more open to other people. She doesn't even have a name at first. You can really see this development in Season 3 where Shana and Yuji kind of change positions in the show, where she has to face off against him. There's also a strong family dynamic between them, where you see Wilhelmina interact with them but also Yuji's mom, so they feel closer with their general circle than in the other two works. With Toradora, one of Taiga's main conflicts is her problem with her father, which isn't really a conflict in Shana at all. And Taiga herself is portrayed as someone who acts really tough, but then you see the real her and she's a total klutz, she is messy, she sneezes due to all the dust in her home. Ryuji has this selflessness about him, and he isn't viewed well by the school either due to his eyes making him look scary. So they end up agreeing to help each other out, grow closer as a result, and they win appreciation of the school, whereas Yuji from Shana doesn't really have an issue with the other students. In Zero no Tsukaima, it's speaking a lot more to a greater societal issue with the world. Louise is a product of her society. Her family is very high class, and she wants to prove herself, but is bullied and looked down on by her classmates because of her poor magic ability. When she summons Saito, she has to grow to reconcile with her feelings for him considering he's a "familiar" and far from this high class noble (not to mention Louise gets jealous easily due to her own insecurities). The story of ZnT focuses heavily on what it means to be a "noble" and challenging a lot of the formalities. I think very much of the conflict later on in the series where Louise tries to make Saito act more "noble like" in order to win the approval of her sister, Eleonore, only to prove how ridiculous all of this is. The other important thing is that Saito isn't exactly a great person himself either, since he tends to be incredibly lustful and thoughtless. Unlike in Shana and Toradora, there's this very antagonistic dynamic between the two of them, where Saito will try to get back at Louise. Ultimately, in the series, Louise being able to perform void magic and Saito inheriting the power of Brimir is what allows them to stop the war and prove themselves. You can find this common thread in all of them where they "open up more" but the backdrop and their general attitude I think are different. Shana is definitely most mellow of them, and she starts out a lot more quiet. Louise is the most abrasive due to her upbringing and her society. I could go on, but I realize that perhaps I am just being the database animal here lol. 12:42 I remember Outbreak Company. Ichiro Sakaki is a pretty prolific light novel writer with many successful works that have been made into anime including this, Scrapped Princess, and Chaika. 13:13 It's hard to really ignore that a lot of the isekai and how they are written are influenced by the platforms they are on (Arcadia, Shousetsuka ni Narou) by amateur writers trying to cater to a KZbin-esque algorithm. In those conditions, it's really difficult to write a story the same way as you have to keep sort of adjusting the story to what the audience wants, otherwise you are just going to lose your audience. So there is a difference between works like Outbreak Company and Marchen Madchen, which were written by light novel authors with years of work under their belts, compared to something like Death March. 15:18 Yeah I get kind of bummed out by that fact, because I do think there's tangible differences between a number of these works that make them interesting to me for different reasons. But certain genres kind of get simplified down a lot by people unfortunately. 16:48 Was Girls' Last Tour a commercial failure? I remember it being one of the more loved shows that season. Admittedly it wasn't as popular as Blend S (in both BD sales and MAL popularity at least), but the manga for GLT is quite beloved, and the show had its audience. I wouldn't say it was like Warau Salesman New or anything. 19:13 I think the problem is the lack of proper training, so you can't really bring enough new animators in to offset the older ones that are dying or are retired. I don't think getting people off of Twitter is the answer if all of their stuff is being corrected heavily. People's perceptions are definitely coloring it, because it's happening to anime they care about. When series like Kiss Dum and Polyphonica were melting in real time in 2007, it wasn't the big shows (people would say this about Gurren Lagann not knowing who Osamu Kobayashi is). Now it's happening to One Punch Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, originals like Wonder Egg that garner a huge audience, so they are seeing it. But I don't think it's unfair to say that it is getting harder and harder to make a great production every year due to the industry circumstances and how fragmented it's become. Either way, I do understand this video is talking about very specific people. I don't have any particular issue with more niche or otaku aimed stories, as long as it's interesting to me is all that matters. But I get a lot of people are into anime for the social aspect and just want something they can talk about with their friends. That's why I always have a hard time believing that stuff will get "rediscovered as classics" years later, because it feels like to me people are caught in the seasonal grind specifically so they can be part of the conversation every week. I feel like it's even happening with "classics" where something like Spice & Wolf is getting remade specifically for people who don't want to watch a show from 2008. But that's where I am at, thanks for putting the vid together. I'd love to see the sources in the description or pinned comment, just as a general practice so I can read more about it.

[@TheBellman]

I can't find great sources to the effect, but Girls Last Tour but based on the BD sales GLT barely broke even for White Fox. Obviously there might be alternate revenue streams (BD sales were already a questionable metric in 2017) and the show might have had a long tail since it has seemed to gain some cult status, but it definitely didn't pop. It was just the best example of cult anime still being made and being passed over by the mainstream. The fact that there wasn't a season 2 or seemingly anyone else picking up Tsukumizu for animation seems like evidence enough that it wasn't rewarding. Yea I'm not being hard on Outbreak company, it's a fun series, it just has had limited staying power. I don't really read a lot of LNs so I'm not really suited to covering the topic but there's definitely a lot to be said about how there are structural incentives that shaped the storytelling of LN's after the early 10s. I definitely can imagine how there is a cause for concern in terms of the animation workforce but given how much better basically everything today looks compared to the dozens of A-1 Pictures shows from the mid-late 10s I have a hard time believing that there is that strong of a downwards trend.

[@RogerSmith2004]

@@TheBellmanYeah I see what you mean about Tsukumizu. It is a shame if the work didn't pop off, since I think the later developments in the manga really make the work come together in a big way. As well as it being a quality work, I think it had that memetic aspect to it what with the dabbing in the OP that could catch people's attention (though Blend S at the time also had the big OP meme). I feel like there's someone out there (not me) who could make a whole piece about how memes have helped certain anime gain more of an audience.

[@Knightfall8]

The video is on point. It just boils down to two things: 1. there's a LOT more of everything than there was 30-40 years ago. 2. There are a LOT more ways for fans to blast unqualified opinions and bad takes. Thats all there is to it. There's always going to be good anime and bad anime. Some genres die (real robot mecha for instance) but overall nothing changes. Well except for Shinkai lowering the standards of what people consider to be "artistic" anime If I would add a number 3, it would be, "3. people need to stop worshipping Cowboy Bebop."

[@FitzyCify]

"When did Anime become bad?" This is a trick question, right? Right.

[@danielg.w5733]

Most western (U.S) Japanese animation fans are not the best people to listen to when it comes to amation criticism. Sadly, a lot of people have a myopic and limited view of the animation on a global level. If they say what was coming out of Europe since the 40s they would lose their mind. Big mention to Soviet Animation and Hungarian animation in particular (France goes with out saying)

[@MechasterReal]

Is there any good place to see any?

[@danielg.w5733]

@@MechasterReal youtube is pretty cool. web archive as well. I reccomend looking up lists on loneliness and then looking for the ones that look interesting to you. Some really good ones are The Son Of The White Mare and The Time Masters

[@chaserseven2886]

nah its the weebs who shouldn't be taken seriously

[@steveqi9309]

@@danielg.w5733 what is ”loneliness”? Is it like a list hosting website?

[@juan-ij1le]

I think it’s because those sometimes don’t have english translation

[@AccessAccess]

IMO the "fall" was when the majority of series became eleven to thirteen episodes long. When I first got into anime, the shortest shows around had 26 episodes, and a typical show might be in the 35 to 50 episode range. Granted many of these shows were episodic and really didn't offer much in the way of plot or development, but it was at least an option back then. Now it seems like many shows which are very promising end far too soon, granted we still get shows with longer "seasons" but they tend to be stretched out over years or longer which makes it hard for the series and the fanbase to maintain any real sense of momentum. That said I don't really believe anime is any worse than in the past, maybe it would seem that way if you had to pick a show at random and were forced to watch that show to completion, but that's just not how people are actually watching anime irl.

[@eatsleepplayrepeat]

I really vibe with this channel. I hope more people can see the channel.

[@hisaceinthehole3426]

OP: you cant say you love 90s anime because you love 1 90s show! Also OP: shows multiple examples of great 90s shows, of which, i can add more examples, if i chose to. 😐

[@juan-ij1le]

Can add more examples

[@hisaceinthehole3426]

@@juan-ij1le berserk, slayers, any of the 90s gundam series.

[@alchemystudiosink1894]

I think its a little cheap honestly that you only looked at the new shows for two seasons in the 1990s. Cause scrolling down a little there was tons of bangers that were continuing DBZ, Yu Yu Haskusho etc.

[@S00NERD0G]

TBH, I also think people are a LOT more forgiving of flaws in older anime too, and will handwave away poor writing, weird pacing or limited animation for The Aesthetic (& I do this myself!)

[@denebstudios.8018]

I'm personally an incredibly picky person when it comes to media, and anime is not exception. I've probably only watched around 30 to 50 animes in my lifetime but I think 90% of them were quality ones and I constantly rewatch them. This is probably why I have a vastly different perception of the medium than most people (both avid anime consumers and non anime watchers) who tend to think of the industry as degenerate fetish cartoons for losers. The thing is, anime is just another form of expression. Saying that anime is bad as a whole would be like saying that cinema as a whole is bad. Even as someone picky with media, my favorite animes come from all decades (from the 70's to the 2010's), quality doesn't inherently belong to an era, even if certain periods had a better quality-quantity ratio than others. I believe nowadays anime is mostly garbage (quantity) but it's not dead, in the same way a form or expression such as painting or literature can never truly die.

[@Bamiyanbigasf]

For me I just like retro in general whether it’s from the 80s, 90s or early 2000s or even 2012 idc I’m a sucker for anime before the industry blew up around the world I grew up in the early 2000s so it’s definitely a nostalgia thing I’m not gonna lie I do look back on early 2000s shows and 90s shows and movies with rose tinted glasses because I was only a dumb kid

[@foregroundeclipse8725]

I think I'm more drawn to the older style of old Anime and it's experimental phase . I totally get where you're coming from. I think I'm a little biased towards old Anime myself . I like new Anime too, but I prefer older Anime .

[@meow-wv9yc]

getting older and not being able to relate to high school anime characters but can relate to spike from cowboy bebop is why , and the sexualization of really young characters is weird after you are 30

[@BillNyeTheBountyGuy]

My favorite anime is easily Ergo Proxy, but if I had to pick an era or style, it was when hand drawn had reached maturity, but before digital took hold (not to say digital is bad, the sakuga is actually only getting better). Cyber City Oedo, Neo Tokyo, Trigun, Akira, Memories, Big O, Ghost in the Shell, Zone of the Ender: 2167, Cowboy Bebop, they all have this intentionality to them, mixed with the maturity of the medium. Perhaps this is just a collection of the eclectic mix of my favorites, but there certainly feels like a greater emphasis on stories that keep going ever since 'The Big 3' in our modern times.

[@SalexReviews]

Love it when I find new creators! Good video!

[@seancatacombs]

Frankly in terms of the hit rate on artistically or even just aesthetically interesting works coming out, TV anime is in a much better place than Hollywood cinema. The latter truly is stuck in a rut of producer-mandated creative mediocrity and technical incompetence that there seems to be no clear way out of. You still have to do some digging to find worthwhile TV anime, but on average it's much less compared to the digging needed to find worthwhile mainstream cinema.

[@gutsmcgordan4184]

Bruh this video basically summarises my feelings on anime at this point, pretty much hit the nail on the head

[@dataportdoll]

I made a blog post about this when KILLlaKILL was released, and the "How saved is anime today?" memes were abundant, and I still maintain my thesis that western audiences are conflating "community" with "good". Your anime golden age took place when you were in your anime club in high school and it was easy to gush with others, to watch communally. Now that you're an old fart it's hard to find those communities, even in web spaces, especially the social media based in conflict, like twitter. Add in that there was the Adult Swim explosion circa 1999, and they had YEARS of backlog of GOOD series to flood the airwaves with, and there's just this perception.

[@MrNone-d5s]

I am amused of how murica people think that their expirience applies evrywhere in the world

[@g.p.ryecroft]

Thoughtful video essay! I took a lot away. I'm a 57-year-old returning anime fan who grew up watching Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman) and Star Blazers (Yamato) in the late 1970s. I missed the mid-80's Robotech and Voltron, which brought many into Japanimation, as it was known then. I disliked Akira but loved Harmageddon, a great anime movie now forgotten. I came back to anime just over a year ago after buying on a whim Those Who Hunt Elves (which I see got a cameo at 13:20 ). I'm hooked again and trying to sift wheat from chaff and this video helped. Thank you!

[@FullmoonPhantom-dn2sr]

3:49 Yes, but the difference is somehow I've become such a 90s fangirl all that looks better in 90s anime style. 😂 I'm 100% serious. I think I could watch any show from the era and come away loving every minute because I just adore the style and everything about the era of anime. I still like anime from all eras, but 80s and 90s is definitely my favorite time period. I’ve seen so many from the era I’ve come to adore even the ones I only watched last year or the year before. Attack #1 from the 60s is a new favorite as well. I really like this kind of art style. The strong hitters of the 90s like Kodocha and Kare Kano are genuinely high points. I also loved Marmalade Boy so I was there for the anime tropes, too. Orange Road was another from the late 80s which I adored and it reminded me of Ranma.

[@charaznable9209]

Anime was heavily curated by television companies back in the day, we only got to see the 3-4 good series that year that executives lovingly handpicked out of 100's of trashy yaoi/yuri fanservice anime. Now we get to see the 100's of series that wouldn't have made it onto Cartoon Network or SciFi channel. Of course most of them are bad. It's like if you exported every single daytime tv sitcom and soap opera to Japan and expected them all to be well received. There would probably be a few hits like Friends, but I doubt American comedy or drama would appeal to most Japanese and they would think we were just a bunch of horny people who make hamburger jokes all day.

[@edhenshuusha4666]

I don't know, man. I feel like you cherry picked your statements to make up a straw man argument to prove a point that is somewhat pointless. Not to say that there aren't any people who say that anime got bad or whatever, but this discussion could go a lot deeper and be a lot more meaningful. You ended up going on a lot of tangents that didn't add anything to the theme and didn't reach any conclusions. Something tells me that you didn't do a lot of research to make this video, and your statement comparing Madhouse to Mappa kind of proves it. This feels like a twitter thread stretched for over 20 minutes.

[@ogun6464]

I expected to get "what I like is good, what you like is trash" but you actually have some really good historical context intermixed with "what I like is good, what you like is trash." B-

[@NelsonStJames]

Seriously someone needs to do a video like this about every art form, from music to movies, to art, because you will see the same whinging by people who for one don't really look for the good stuff being currently done, and don't have a sufficient knowledge of what was actually being produced at the time the stuff they did like was being made.

[@daelusraine2989]

I agree with your point, but shit takes and delivery my guy. Don't tell me I misremembered all the great shows and OVAs I purchased. Early 00s are underrated btw, so I agree there as well

[@zangetsuCBA]

Overall great video... But c'mon, Initial D S1 is good!

[@alecrambles3259]

I’m not trying to sound like an old head but, I feel like every anime now kinda feels the same now. More in the character archetypes I mean everyone getting a power up the main character always being a loser in the beginning and the side characters are just vegeta clones . Idk just feel like the creativity is at a stand still rn

[@suffering1901]

Great video, as someone who is only tippiing their toes in the 90s and 80s era myself and luckily never got through the slog that is watching anime seasonally (if something is good i tend to just watch it after its fully finished) i sometimes tend to forget that what im watching from those eras are often what people consider the peak of that era as all the trash has long since been forgotten. And while i have a strong preference for the aesthetic of this era of anime thats also something thats purely bias. Youre right its not fair to compare every show that comes out this season to the 3 best shows/movies from the 90s, mostly when the people saying they prefer the 90s would rarily have watched more than 5 shows from that decade. That being said as someone who has a strong preference for the mid 90s to the mid 2000s of anime i wonder if there isnt more to go off here or a deeper way to look at it. I feel like what might be a worthwhile comparison is to compare the last decade of anime to that decade in terms of what are the most highly watched / rated shows per year. What i found was that (of course alligned with my taste) almost every year after 95 to 2000 (i havent really compared past this), the top 3 to 5 anime shows or movies would consistently be better than anything that people rate highly or is popular from the last 5 years of anime. With maybe the exception of 2023 which i think was a really good year for anime all things considered. On the other other hand i feel like iim very biased because a lot of the shows i see that are popular are shows that i just dont like, popular shows like aot or spyxfamily arent bad they just arent shows i enjoy which might make me biased in this comparison. Uh this long winded explenation is here because im kinda curious on what your take is on this? comparing the best shows of the late 90s or early 2000s compared to the besst shows of the last decade would you say these 2 are still equal in quality or do you think there is a clear winner in terms of quality (be that narratively or visually) between the two. Uh anyway great video, ill stay watching your stuff in the future !!

[@obarich]

Frieren Beyond Journeys End is pretty good

[@suffering1901]

@@obarich oh yeah i havent checked the anime of that one out because ive been on some other stuff but i adored the manga and heard its a great adaptation so i have nothing but high hopes for it

[@MollyGermek]

Nah, you're right. The peaks of the 90s and 00s are higher than the current peaks, even if they were also just diamonds in the rough. As much as I like its spiritual successor, Madoka Magica, nothing is even remotely as ambitious and extremely thematically dialled in as Revolutionary Girl Utena.

[@NicolasAlexanderOtto]

Also one thing to keep in mind is. That we as an audience at the age we were introduced to Anime (for me in the early 90s) there was already a huge catalogue of past works available. But as we kept up with the current productions as well as watching past works at some point arrived where we had seen all the good stuff from the past and were starting to wait for new material that then felt fewer and further in between. I guess though that for me Anime stopped being good in 2010. I can't say why but I reckon it is also because of my age as I can no longer identify with character that are half my age most of the time. And I would say that movies like Ghost in the Shell or Perfect Blue which are addressing a rather Seinen audience do no longer promise the same profit margin as in the 90s. Anyway there are the occasional gems still being produced like Yuru Campu or Uchuu no You Ni and probably some I have not watched. Thanks for the take on this controversial topic!

[@kxgr9522]

It's always the small channels that genuinely talk about anime and manga and treat them like...ya know...ART Big animanga KZbinrs and their communities are the reason many people (including me, I won't lie) have started hating the modern stuff It's all that noise caused by what's mainstream and any controversies surrounding what's mainstream, that result in massive burnouts, especially if you've been watching anime for a long time. If I try to talk about the modern stuff with my more casual friends they will all start talking about how demon slayer is either the best anime or the most mid thing ever or how studio MAPPA has never made a single good anime and they ruin everything with their CGI. And then they proceed to quote KZbinrs as if they are the ones who formed the opinions on their behalf. Same thing happens in online communities where if you try to talk about something that isn't in mals top 500 most popular, they'll just ignore you and keep fighting over what modern mainstream shounen is the most mid All that noise was the reason I stopped watching seasonals and now I'm just going through AICs or Tatsunokos catalog (and many other old OVAs). Haven't really watched much from before 1980 but watching older stuff is not only fun but it also can create more appreciation for what we have now Bad anime have always existed and they will always exist. The problem comes when anime gets treated more like a product instead of art And yes, anime are products but we all know that masterpieces get made when the "art" aspect is not pushed back Of course, treating anime like art is something that needs to be done both by the community and the studios/producers

[@penofficial_]

I watch a total of like 1 or 2 shows a season. Manga and light novels are the real place to get the actual best stories.

[@samborms]

In my opinión it happends when you get old

[@ndh06]

Yep, pretty much the point where things are made without you as the target consumer. Things haven't gotten worse, just your rose tinted glasses and unreliable memory clouding your judgement.

[@samborms]

@@ndh06 waiting for an alíen call juno crash on my garden

[@samborms]

@@ndh06 I can enjoy some series yet, but this won't contues forever

[@choombas]

A lot of the vibes of the old stuff is gone, but the new stuff is more consistent in quality.

[@MuscleFuelInsider]

Bro missed a little something at 3:43

[@JahNgomba-ir2zi]

Well at least I’m not the only one that saw it lol

[@khanofkhans6546]

If you look at the widest range of ratings across the internet of which decades have the highest in those ratings consistently, it's pretty obvious to see that between 1985 and 2008 is the best time for anime. For movies and tv series. Most of studio Ghibli best work was between that time. You have Dragonball and Dragonball z, ghost in the shell (movies and tv series), cowboy Bebop, samurai Champloo, ninja scroll, millenium actress, paprika, perfect blue, Tokyo godfathers, berserk, claymore hellsing, ergo proxy, darker than black, full metal Alchemist, FLCL, code gaess,elfen lied, wolfs rain, neon genesis Evangelion, death note, monster, afro Samurai, devilman, trigun, rurouni kenshin, vampire hunter d bloodlust, Naruto, escaflowne, black cat, gurren lagann, hunter x hunter, Naruto. The list goes on. Without a doubt the 20-25 years between 1985 and 2010 have been the best. No single decade alone trumps this.

[@lePirateMan]

I personally like the look and feel of the old animation method

[@DozyBinsh]

Anime got bad right around the time my formative years ended and my tastes crystalized. I always thought it was very coincidental, but you know, sometimes coincidences happen.

[@thevisionary5699]

Am I the only one who doesn't like anime that takes place in a school? And another thing. I like the shading in older animes. Everything feels very over exposed/bright now. Does that make sense?

[@greghauser742]

It does.

[@Drstrange3000]

It makes sense. I just wish there was more variety in popular anime overall. I loved the shadows and contrast of the older anime. Anime today looks so flat with very little depth. I don't see any form and it also takes from the atmosphere. Also, the characters and backgrounds clash more since the backgrounds are so detailed with shadow while the characters have little to no shadow and lighting and so compositionally boring.

[@noahalcantar2431]

​@@Drstrange3000Anime that takes place in school used to be a breath fresh of air back in the 90s and early to mid 2000s back then when they had variety but now in the 2010s and 2020s that genre has overstayed it's welcome with plenty of harem trash and K-On clones

[@noahalcantar2431]

​@@Drstrange3000I miss animes where it had the catch them all Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh type Shonen animes aswell as old Mecha animes and Magical girl animes back in the 1990s and 2000s. It's so rare nowadays

[@Drstrange3000]

@noahalcantar2431 I couldn't agree more. I mostly moved onto Japanese dramas/live-action and much more satisfied.

[@mittageisen211]

In regard to Miyazaki’s comment, I think more context needs to be added. If I’m not mistaken, he’s talking about a cultural form of anime consumption that shifted from a child centered demographic, to a teenage/otaku culture that transformed anime to what it is now (good and for worse). I think that’s a distinctive cultural trend that you can’t just brush off as “my decade is the best era”, or simply a medium of consumption that is like anything else westerners consume. Anime culture is very integral to the identity of Japanese youth post war, and with that, a lot of the internal dialogue within the medium reflects that identity. I think people tend to forget that now that anime is mainstream and globalized.

[@lePirateMan]

I only watch old shows because I trust in survivorship bias to only give me the good stuff

[@GTONeko]

This video popped up on my feed to check out and I'm glad that even with the title being "click bait"-ey, this was a great look/discussion about anime as a whole for what's truly considered a good or bad show. You've gained a new sub for this, thank you.

[@sethmcavoy1800]

Anime didn't "become bad". 99% of it has always been garbage, just like every other form of media. You remember the good ones and think it used to be better. That's called survivorship bias.

[@TheBellman]

I am aware

[@Mr_Mistah]

What a horrible opinion

[@Mr_Mistah]

​@@TheBellman He's wrong btw

[@PeruvianPotato]

​@@Mr_MistahNah he's right. There's a reason why I don't talk about anime too often

[@irritatingperson7882]

@@Mr_Mistahif you're gonna call an opinion horrible, please share your own

[@ArtTheGaleWind]

Calling danmachi just "videogame setting" is unfair to it, Danmachi is way more dnd than it is just "videogame" having some videogame terminology like status or monsters dropping magic stones are there to enhance the story in the former's case and expand the worldbuilding in the latter's case and not because "it's easy to appeal to a videogame demographic this way" which is the actual issue with isekai anime that use videogame-y stuff

[@g.p.ryecroft]

Art, you are right. I have never played videogames yet enjoy DanMachi/Girls in a Dungeon because it takes me back to my long-ago days playing D&D. I see the videogame influence--slaughtered monsters turning into redeemable crystals instead of rotting carcasses--but it's not a distraction from the adventure. DanMachi also has characters we grow to care about and that is what elevates it above a generic hack n' slash adventure show.

[@ArtTheGaleWind]

@@g.p.ryecroft they actually do turn into carcasses, the anime messed that up but in the LNs they stay as dead corpses until their crystals are destroyed and then they poof away, if their bodies did poof away after dying, then no one would be able to collect monster parts like horns or scales

[@g.p.ryecroft]

@@ArtTheGaleWind Thanks for that added info from the LNs!V I appreciate knowing that.