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Hideaki Anno predicts decline of anime in 5 to 20 years

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I hope he's right

Edit: That said I wonder how animation from other Asian countries like Taiwan and SK will develop. I think especially SK has yet again the potential to build up a dominance in an area, and as usual bring in some of their own flavors.
 
Gaf, what I've always wondered about is if anime producers (or Japan in general) knows how loli/moe anime is perceived outside of Japan, or hell what is the general opinion of the country towards the issue? I've never seen any comment from mangakas or or producers about the creepiness of certain animes or mangas, is it just socially accepted or...?
 
Kill La Kill was garbage, I'd rather have a season filled with crap and 1 show like Silver Spoon or Ping Pong than have the industry tend towards it.

hipbabboom said:
Anime is not a Japanese art form. It's a idea planted by the Western invaders to poison the minds of youth and destroy the Japanese economy by attacking the male-female relations and hence reducing the birth rate. The real sad footnote to this story is that 5 to 20 years may be too late. This filth can't die soon enough.
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I've all but stopped watching anime. It takes a 'major' series such as Attack on Titan to get me back into watching it, but otherwise I'm just a little fed up of all the moe pandering and fan service that's going on in most series these days.

I'm not going to pretend as if 90's and 2000's anime was this gold standard that current stuff isn't matching, but I feel tastes have changed and studios are more worried financially than ever. Of course they're going to follow the money.
 
The Technomancer said:
Nichijou is actually on my depressingly large watch list, good point. The gifs I've seen make it seem like it has a really good sense of the timing of physical comedy, which yeah is one thing you can't quite do on the page
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Unfortunately the comedy in Nichijou is terribly and bizarrely unfunny. It's a waste of some amazing production values.
 
The hate and apathy is strong in this thread (it is funny and entertaining though so keep it coming). Anime will truck along. Sure I can see it become less important the same way Disney used to be relevant for any age (I mean what Disney cartoon is made with an adult audience in mind today?) but as long as one or two great series squirt out every year I'm content.
 
VanillaCakeIsBurning said:
Because the people making those comments don't watch anime and/or don't care to know what there actually is available.

Far easier to just jump on the bandwagon and make some shitty comments.
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Exactly. Especially because it would mean that would have to admit they were wrong, and that's too much to ask of your average GAFfer, hell, anyone online. The electric wall of anonymity that is message boards and the internet will keep them in their own little worlds unchanged.
 
Probably right, but funnily where 5 or so years ago I wouldn't have been too bothered, in recent years there have actually been a lot of anime series that I've really enjoyed. I just finished Your Lie in April recently and started on Heroic Legend of Arslan. Both have been really nice.

Be a shame to lose the good stuff just because there's so much trash around.
 
There is a lot of bad and boring series around right now, but this has always been the case.

The "decline of animé" according to Hideaki Anno is something that casual viewers will not experience in any way. Hardcore viewers might notice that something is amiss, but the decline will happen in conjunction with an incline. Meaning it's all good.

On a side note, watched the ending of Unlimited Blade Works. They completely fucked this nice storyline, didn't they.
 
2d animation in general has been on a decline, Disney the like masters of western animation just like completely gave up with 2d animation in the past few years. They have been churning out 3D animation movies with mocap faces like crazy.
 
Dugna said:
2d animation in general has been on a decline, Disney the like masters of western animation just like completely gave up with 2d animation in the past few years. They have been churning out 3D animation movies with mocap faces like crazy.
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To be fair, Disney have been researching 3D to 2D techniques, so it's not like they've completely forgotten the medium.

If anything, I think it's going to be CGI that will revive 2D animation in the near future.
 
There will be a resurgence here, like in games, if and when Japan begins targeting the global audience. Having an inconsequential domestic market has been a boon for Korean cultural exports and the same pressures arriving in Japan may be healthier for long-term relevance.
 
I feel like anime is a little popular in many countries outside Japan and if they could have leveraged foreign licensing better, and stopped pandering to otakus, they could be makin the bucks right now.

Anime may die...but please don't let Gintama end.
 
zeshakag said:
I feel like anime is a little popular in many countries outside Japan and if they could have leveraged foreign licensing better, and stopped pandering to otakus, they could be makin the bucks right now.

Anime may die...but please don't let Gintama end.
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The pandering to otakus thing is both tricky and unfortunate. The timing of things seems like it hadn't quite gained the foothold necessary in the rest of the world to begin a larger global play before the economic contractions hit hard enough that they had to rely on customers who would obsessively buy every figure and highly priced DVD/Blu collection featuring their "best girl"
 
BocoDragon said:
I remember the days when I thought that's what anime was.. *sigh*
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I miss the fucking tentpole movies. You'd have one or two per year that even excited the (at the time, mostly ignorant about anime) mainstream US press. Sure you were sharing bootleg DBZ, Sailor Moon, Tenchi tv shows, but you went to Suncoast and fucking paid your 30-40 bucks for that VHS of Blood.

ATXAlchemy said:
You don't know there are also teenage animu in the 80s and 90s?
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Oh I watched my fair share of Oh My Goddess! and Tenchi. I still have a ton of OMG comics in fact.

The darker stuff was, other than maybe Ghibli, the things that made headlines. Now it's the opposite. Like this guy says:

Moaradin said:
Stuff like that is still made today. Problem is that they don't seem to sell nearly as well as the pandering anime.
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Maybe I'm just not watching the right stuff, but anime seems to be lacking originality and "edgy-ness" lately that made it resonate with me back in the day. It feels like too many shows are playing into their own stereotypes.
 
I've mostly been watching older anime these days so I agree with them to a large extent. The new shows just don't do it for me. What will be interesting is seeing how other elements of anime influence other works around the world. We've already seen that to an extent in successful works like Avatar and Technotise (if you haven't seen that, go see it!), but that's only the beginning.

At some point I could see stuff like French/Serbian/Slavic nation animation becoming to the animation scene what anime was in the '90s, imho. There are some very inventive works from those places and they have a great number of graphic novels that could benefit from an animation adaptation.

Hopefully it can create a cycle where those works influence Japan animation to try more stuff that isn't so trope-ish and can appeal more to people globally, unlike the heavy otaku-catering stuff that dominates it now and for the foreseeable future.

angelcage87 said:
Gaf, what I've always wondered about is if anime producers (or Japan in general) knows how loli/moe anime is perceived outside of Japan, or hell what is the general opinion of the country towards the issue? I've never seen any comment from mangakas or or producers about the creepiness of certain animes or mangas, is it just socially accepted or...?
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it's....socially accepted :(
 
HammerOfThor said:
Maybe I'm just not watching the right stuff, but anime seems to be lacking originality and "edgy-ness" lately that made it resonate with me back in the day. It feels like too many shows are playing into their own stereotypes.
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You would think that if something came out that resonated in the same way that it did in the 90s, people would be telling us this. "Hey, did you like Appleseed? Check out this gritty, lived in feeling mech show...". But no, it's "Hey did you watch these half naked pirate emo kids..."

That Attack on Titan show seems to be the closest to what we actually liked.
 
Probably. It doesn't seem like a sustainable lifestyle since people have to work ridiculous hours for not much pay, and honestly anime seems to be getting lower and lower effort in general. So much stuff is just throwing the same pile of tropes into a blender and then making some shit out of whatever comes out.
 
HammerOfThor said:
Maybe I'm just not watching the right stuff, but anime seems to be lacking originality and "edgy-ness" lately that made it resonate with me back in the day. It feels like too many shows are playing into their own stereotypes.
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this was the case back in the day too but we had better filters in place that ensured you only saw the "edgy" stuff.
 
bengraven said:
You would think that if something came out that resonated in the same way that it did in the 90s, people would be telling us this. "Hey, did you like Appleseed? Check out this gritty, lived in feeling mech show...". But no, it's "Hey did you watch these half naked pirate emo kids..."

That Attack on Titan show seems to be the closest to what we actually liked.
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This is why no one takes you to the zoo.
 
bengraven said:
You would think that if something came out that resonated in the same way that it did in the 90s, people would be telling us this. "Hey, did you like Appleseed? Check out this gritty, lived in feeling mech show...". But no, it's "Hey did you watch these half naked pirate emo kids..."

That Attack on Titan show seems to be the closest to what we actually liked.
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Attack on Titan is a case of desperate to be edgy and mature when its anything but. But then that describes plenty of mediocre 90s anime too.
 
pants said:
Kill La Kill was garbage, I'd rather have a season filled with crap and 1 show like Silver Spoon or Ping Pong than have the industry tend towards it.



7dEttyu.gif
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Osamu Tezuka was inspired by Disney's work and animated movies, and he is known as the Father of Anime :P
 
GreatCharleston said:
Anno causing the crash of anime after how bad 3.33 was. God damn.
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Yeah, I'm not sure Anno is in a position to be throwing stones.

In general I still find 2~3 shows a season that interest me. No, they are not anything like the shows I would watch 15-20 years ago, but my tastes have changed over time as well. One way to quickly find fault in anything is to compare it to something you liked as a kid.

Anime will still be around in 10 years but it will likely be very different, who knows how or in what way. Same for any entertainment industry I suppose.
 
Anime industry is fine as it is. Everyone keeps predicting doom and gloom for whatever isn't popular on social media but niche isn't the same as dead. And popular doesn't have to mean quality either, for that matter.
 
My biggest issue with the industry how insular and reliant it is on ultra hardcore fans who are willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for overpriced merchandise when the ultra hardcore fans aren't really growing at a rapid rate. It's not sustainable or healthy. Especially with the "mainstream" otaku culture shifting towards idols, anime is going to have a hard time if there aren't some changes to their ongoing business model.
 
Superflat said:
My biggest issue with the industry how insular and reliant it is on ultra hardcore fans who are willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for overpriced merchandise. It's not sustainable or healthy. Especially with the "mainstream" otaku culture shifting towards idols, anime is going to have a hard time if there aren't some changes to their ongoing business model.
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The same with games and the idol music industry. That stuff will only continue to contract as it appeals to fewer and fewer people.
 
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