2011-06-13, 20:19 | Link #1 |
Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: nowhere..
Age: 43
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anime trend
It seems the time of superpower anime, with fighting is kind of over.
Also robot animes are less common these days. Most anime today is more about talking instead of action. It seems to me, most anime is about regular life, nothing spectacular, and preferably happy episodes. That's in shark contrast with how I grew up. Sure there's the occasional superpower anime being released, but the majority of it seems to be directed towards the Y-generation and the millennia generation. Too bad the X-generation gets cut out |
2011-06-13, 21:10 | Link #3 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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Hmmm, Kurozuka, Gurren Lagann, Katanagatari ....
Perhaps the OP just hasn't seen very much anime? Yes, *trends* have changed... but somehow I fail to see how the "X-generation" has been "cut out" since many of them have expanded their tastes to include more than one narrow slice of the universe of anime. The type of shounen anime he appears to be referencing is designed for a young (pre-teen) male audience. Of course, out of those we'd have to ignore the four most popular anime series in the world which apparently never end.
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Last edited by Vexx; 2011-06-13 at 21:29. |
2011-06-14, 00:46 | Link #5 |
stuck in a harem genre
Artist
Join Date: Feb 2008
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Well my childhood was basically mech, mech, mechs.
Real simple plots, nothing like Gundam. Things like "Good robots vs. alien mutants" I feel like from 1990 to 1999 it was all about mechanical robots. Because now that I think about it, my mom would always bring back robots from Korea. Robots that transform into trains. Robots that transform into tigers Robots that transform into a dragon. Damn. So many robots... |
2011-06-14, 03:09 | Link #6 |
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2006
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For me I would like to say original work is getting less and less. Most of the anime now are adaptation from another media. If we look at the situation for the past five years, everything come from manga, light novel and game. It seems like the creativity of the animation studio lost for many years already.
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2011-06-14, 04:19 | Link #7 |
temporary safeguard
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Germany
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Many Superrobot animes were toy merchandise vehicles.
As such, you could count the Beyblade/YuGiOh stuff of today as their successors. Looking at the current schedule, a lot of those shows are running. They just get ignored by us. I personally think they are aweful, but children might disagree and so would 'me' of a distant past (perhaps ). |
2011-06-14, 07:44 | Link #8 |
Aria Company
Join Date: Nov 2003
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Stardriver? Super Robot Wars? Just to name some recent mecha anime off the top of my head. Though I can't think of one airing this season. Also there are plenty of action anime. I'm not sure what people are going on about.
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2011-06-14, 15:12 | Link #9 | ||
Administrator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Age: 41
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Plus, it's not as if there were dozens and dozens of superpower/mecha anime every year in the past either. It's just that there is a lot more anime being made nowadays than there was before, and the newer business models allow them to exploit smaller niche audiences than would have been justified in the past. The entire "late night anime" market is new (and largely replaced the OVA market where niche works lived in the 90s). If you were to only compare the prime time (family) and Saturday/Sunday morning (kids) anime blocks, I think you'd find the balance of anime content in "mainstream" time slots hasn't shifted as much as you think. Not to mention, unless you lived in Japan, the sorts of shows that were licensed and translated when you were a kid may further bias your perspective on what anime was all about back then. So all that to say I think the premise of this thread is a bit unreasonable. You've grown over the course of the last 20-30 years, but in a way you're asking why (or at least noticing that) the anime industry hasn't stayed the way it was when you were a kid. The anime industry has grown up too, and has expanded to include a whole lot of other genres and styles that were underrepresented/nonexistent in the past. But even still, there are shows being made today that appeal to your specific interests as well; they're just part of a much wider and more diverse ecosphere of shows, so you have to dig a bit deeper. Quote:
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2011-06-14, 15:18 | Link #10 | |||
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Join Date: Jan 2009
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The bulk of anime these days is late night anime which is mostly character driven and centers around daily (or should I say high school) life (usually with a touch of fantasy or the supernatural), I agree, but that's not that it replaced the other type. It's a fairly new market aimed at a limited audience with it's own tropes and conventions. Therefore I don't think it's fair to blame late night anime for the decline of action, mecha and epic adventure anime. (and way to often the source for irritating "old versus new" and "moe ruined anime" debates. Also there is also some material each season aimed at the nostalgia market. Most of it are OVAs and easy to miss. Still, that makes it hard to claim that the anime industry has forgotten about long time fans that want more advanced versions of the shows that they grew up with. Quote:
Still before the 2000s there was a category of anime, on daytime tv that is, that aimed to please both a young teen and an otaku audience. With the rise of late night anime, those mixed shows have largely disappeared, except maybe Gintama and whatever 2- or 4-cour anime studios like Bones or Sunrise put out. So I can in part relate with the OP having trouble finding anime in the "larger then life" category. There is some, but only a small fraction of total. Quote:
Don't forget, unless anime has artistic/cinnematic ambitions (and sometimes even then) it will try to sell you something. Whether it's toys, DVD's, manga, character goods or games, in the end most anime is a 25 min commercial. Last edited by Bri; 2011-06-14 at 15:29. |
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2011-06-14, 15:34 | Link #11 | |
fushigi ojisan
Join Date: Jan 2011
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Looking back on some of my favorite old shows, I really would like to know more about how TV series were funded before late night anime. Shows backed by toys obviously relied on their toy sponsors, but I assume the rest had to actually survive on ratings? I can't imagine they relied on video sales, since back then it seemed that video releases were well after the end of the show (and often in super-expensive low print run LD boxes). Many shows based on manga didn't air until the manga was finished (or close to it) so it's not like the publishers were brokering the anime to increase manga sales. |
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2011-06-14, 18:41 | Link #12 | ||
Japanese Culture Fan
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Planet Earth
Age: 33
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Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai 「C] - The Money of Soul and Possibility Control Canaan Code Geass Darker Than Black Fractale Ga-Rei: Zero Hanasaku Iroha Heartcatch Precure Heroman Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt Sora no Woto Star Driver Tantei Opera Milky Holmes Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 Those are all original TV anime that I've seen that have aired within the last five years. This doesn't count OVAs, movies, or anime that I haven't watched yet. Enjoy. Quote:
This is a pet peeve for me when it comes to the length of an anime. If your anime airs late at night, most of the time it ends up with ~12 episodes. If your anime airs in the morning, most of the time it ends up with ~50(!) episodes. This is all regardless of the amount of actual plot. So we have late night anime with complex, intricate plots that are truncated to around 12 episodes (Angel Beats, and most currently 「C」), while we have morning children's anime with plots that can be summarized in a 2-hour-long movie stretched out to 49+ episodes. |
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2011-06-14, 19:38 | Link #13 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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The difference between a season run showing one a week an done showing 5 days a week. Or intended to be rebroadcast 5 days a week later on.
The other option is knowing you will have a reliable audiance every time the show airs. Children are a much more reliable audiance since they have a generally set schedule with school. Knowing you have an audiance means you can get away with a show that will be on for an entire year (50 out of 52 weeks..those two weeks off are only due to holidays), or that a lot will be home for your programming 5 days a week, thus huge runs of shows. The late night crowd...while loyal and might have money, is now where as reliable of a demographic as children. There is a lot of risk in those brackets. And a lot of competition.
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2011-06-15, 05:44 | Link #15 | |
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Join Date: Jan 2009
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I guess there were also some other factors. Before the rise of cable TV the audience was far less fragmented so it could have been worthwile to apeal to more the core demographic with a single show. Also the capital/labor cost ratio might still have been in favour of animation at the time. |
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2011-06-15, 05:51 | Link #16 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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I had a discussion a week or two ago about American television and how writting was better in the 70s and early 80s than it is now. I pinned this down to there really being only three networks at the time and few of anything else. This meant the pool of writers was concentrated and there wasn't as much competition for content. Today there are hundreds of channels and thus the number of writers is spread out and have to come up this lots and lots of content. Thus the quality of the content goes down.
It wouldn't be a large stretch of the imagination to say that the Japanese would have the same trouble.
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2011-06-15, 06:49 | Link #17 | |
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Join Date: Jan 2009
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2011-06-15, 07:42 | Link #18 | |||
Senior Member
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It is a bit unfortunate, yeah. One thing I lamented a year or two ago is the relative and very recent decline of two cour long action-oriented "super power anime with fighting". Basically, shows like s-Cry-ed, Buso Renkin, Mai HiME, and Fate/Stay Night (granted, this is a VN adaptation, but it functions perfectly for what you are referring to here). You still get some shows like these, of course, but they do seem less frequent now to me than they used to be. One thing to keep in mind here, though, is that shows like these were always predominantly aimed at people under 20. It's just that you didn't notice this as much when you were younger because you were, at the time, a member of that under 20 demographic. Finding action-oriented anime shows aimed at people our age has never been easy. But there is a recommendation I'll make to you here, since I think it's something that would really fit what you're looking for right now. And that's Tiger and Bunny. Due to the age of one of the two male leads, and the superhero subject matter, I think this show would really be a good one for you. Quote:
Perhaps mecha anime needs another NGE, or at least its version of a Madoka Magica. Quote:
While tastes rarely change easily, you might find it worthwhile to try the same. If so, I can recommend some good "bridge" anime shows for you. Ones with bits of action here and there, but also a fair bit of talking and "regular life" activity (at the foremost of this list would be the 2006 airing of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). Long story short, I do see where you're coming from, and empathize with you, but a certain degree of change within an entertainment medium is inevitable.
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2011-06-16, 09:32 | Link #20 |
Aria Company
Join Date: Nov 2003
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Transformers is an odd property. It's a mix of American and Japanese series when it comes to TV. There might not have been an anime for a while, but there has been transformers animated and Transformers Prime in the US, the latter of which is current.
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