Daily Anime Thoughts

After having bought a bunch of Miyazaki films I decided to start watching a few of them dubbed. Out of Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Nausicaa I only ended up watching Nausicaa completely dubbed. I didn't really give any of the others a chance though so I might have to actually rewatch them all dubbed just for shits and giggles.

As for Nausicaa it's probably my favorite Miyazaki film and the dub was surprisingly good. The only time I even blinked was when I heard Shia LaBeouf's voice. His first appearance as Asbel sounded like he was trying to actually hide his voice a bit but after that he just went with his regular voice. That was the only real reason it stood out to me.
 
Millepensee
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It's the best kind, sir. I'll have you know that that single panel is representative of my entire state's culture, from Jersey City all the way to Cape May. It's a traditional New Jersey greeting. I'm so glad that my culture is being represented in this particular Comiket doujinshi, whatever it is.
I can confirm this is a traditional NJ greeting. Afterwards you have the traditional handshake that includes the devil's dance through the pine barrens. Alas, I moved years ago and have not decultured in quite some time.
 
I think about the quality of anime and what the anime industry turned out to be everyday. After the 2000s, studios have been making less and less original works. Instead, they give us all these cookie-cutter adaptations of battle shounen manga and light novels with cringey, crass humor.
 
I think about the quality of anime and what the anime industry turned out to be everyday. After the 2000s, studios have been making less and less original works. Instead, they give us all these cookie-cutter adaptations of battle shounen manga and light novels with cringey, crass humor.

Actually a quick search of the DB shows original works are way up in the last decade. From 1999-2010 there are 535 anime marked as original work. From 2011-2021 there are 1035 anime marked as original work.

Discounting 2o2o, anime production is way up these days. As anime becomes less niche the production of anime has increased as well. It means a lot more trash, but more gems as well. The gems are harder to find just because of the sheer amount of content available. Then there are the good old nostalgia glasses that let us remember all the good times of previous decades without reminding us of the piles of mediocrity that we waded through to get to them.
 
I think about the quality of anime and what the anime industry turned out to be everyday. After the 2000s, studios have been making less and less original works. Instead, they give us all these cookie-cutter adaptations of battle shounen manga and light novels with cringey, crass humor.

I don't think it affects the final product if its original or based on manga/light novel tbh. I'll give it to you that from my point of view, plot point are less original because they are basing themself on previous ideas but in 100+ years of anime history, its becoming harder and harder to try and come up with something totally original. And not having an original plot point, doesn't mean the anime is bad per se. For example, demon slayer doesn't have a very original plot point, but I feel the execution made the anime so much better and enjoyable, making it one of my favorite shōnen.
 
Adding to the ongoing discussion, as someone who hasn't edited their top anime list since 2008, I can't help, but agree with modern anime being of poor quality.

Never noticed the production amount to increase, though. The 70s seasons seemed smaller indeed, but the 90s and 00s had the same amount of titles or so I thought.

Looks like I suffer from the aforementioned nostalgia glasses in its acute stage. The more content one consumes, the worse it gets. For it's not all that bad when it comes to anime, actually. Much better when compared to other types of media. I manage to find a 10/10 every year even!

Because the same could be said about movies. I don't even check the new ones out generally, and the top is as old as the anime one, really. Seems to me that the most decent literature had been written centuries ago lolz. Don't even get me started on games. And so it goes with everything.

Must be a psychological phenomenon of sorts. Can't be real, rationally speaking, right? Yet appears quite objective to me all the same. Wish, there was a cure.
 
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I would actually call myself prone to nostalgia, because sometimes I just long so much for the 2000s desaturated look and an 'atmosphere' present in a lot of sci-fi and fantasy and oh there's too many bright colours and -

BUT. I genuinely think we have a lot of great anime being made now.

Probably strong nostalgia comes partially from the fact, that....... the past is long and gets longer, what is considered modern is only ever going to be a small cup of what is in media overall. And, the younger you are when you experience something, the fresher it feels the first time around.

I think of it like this: there's so many great things in the past to explore, and so many good things in the future, you'll never run out. And thought the 80s, 90s, or early 2000s will never come back, they'll always be there. And so will the future.

And some of it is stuff you'll never know is good or bad until you consume it. Or is kind of bad but you miss that flavour. Or.... etc. I find both modern and classic anime I never got to appreciate before all the time. They're different flavours, but both of them are interesting. I find old and new series that make me rearrange my favourites all the time.
 
I would actually call myself prone to nostalgia, because sometimes I just long so much for the 2000s desaturated look and an 'atmosphere' present in a lot of sci-fi and fantasy and oh there's too many bright colours and -

BUT. I genuinely think we have a lot of great anime being made now.

Probably strong nostalgia comes partially from the fact, that....... the past is long and gets longer, what is considered modern is only ever going to be a small cup of what is in media overall. And, the younger you are when you experience something, the fresher it feels the first time around.

I think of it like this: there's so many great things in the past to explore, and so many good things in the future, you'll never run out. And thought the 80s, 90s, or early 2000s will never come back, they'll always be there. And so will the future.

And some of it is stuff you'll never know is good or bad until you consume it. Or is kind of bad but you miss that flavour. Or.... etc. I find both modern and classic anime I never got to appreciate before all the time. They're different flavours, but both of them are interesting. I find old and new series that make me rearrange my favourites all the time.

Yeah, even right now I'm liking a LARGE number of shows I'm watching this season quite a bit that I would consider great to excellent. I don't think my overall investment has diminished much in anime where I still love hopping in on seasonal discussions. The future builds on past material, and I think that's just pretty exciting. Seeing a lot of shows I actually love today taking some obvious inspiration from past classics, only shows how intrinsically linked they are together.
 
I've never really had nostalgia glasses. I've always felt that no matter the era you look at, if you actually watched all of the shows of a given season you'd find that the majority weren't very good (this sounds more pessimistic then I actually intend it lol). Most people don't do that though. If they go back and watch shows from previous decades they do so on recommendation of what is good, rating, reviews etc. So they tend to see the best of an era and never encounter all of the crap that existed at the same time.

But by watching and/or following seasonal's you're seeing the crap of this era first hand. It's not being filtered out for you by previous generations. In all actuality if I look at my list by year and take ratings given in each year I find that the average score through every year doesn't deviate a great amount. In fact from 2000 to today, 6/10 marks the highest average in a given year, but 5.25 marks the lowest. That's pretty close all things considered. Prior to 2000 quantity of shows (or lack there of) in each year skews the averages too much, but two decades is a solid enough time span in this instance anyhow.

There are certainly artistic styles I miss, genre's that have fallen out of popularity that I'd love to make a comeback, etc. But there's also been new artistic styles with digital art that has led to some impressive colour play, other genre's having their time in the sun and so on. Things ebb and flow, but I do legitimately believe that the ratio of good shows to bad, for the most part remains stable.

At least that has been my experience with anime over the years.
 
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