This thread is intended to demonstrate the inherent weaknesses of Episodic Anime as it exists today, and its inferiority to Manga and other forms of Animation.
Reason 1: The Business
The way that the anime business is set up creates a complete lack of intellectually stimulating, complicated anime that are suited for people who are looking for more than meaningless beat-em-ups or love stories involving hackneyed episodic plots.
The reason for this is simple: Anime is based off of popular manga. Manga that's popular is overwhelmingly Shounen and Shoujo, which are aimed at 10-18 year olds. They do not delve into more complex themes and psychological character studies, because these things are not appreciated by their target demographic.
(Note: There are examples that are not demonstrative of this, such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Planetes, Cowboy Bebop, and Fullmetal Alchemist)
Reason 2: Pacing and Animation
There are benefits and drawbacks of placing a story within a moving-image narrative. The benefits are the aesthetic pleasure of viewing something move, the addition of Audio to create a more immersive experience, and the simulation of reality. The drawbacks are of a more complicated pacing structure, a longer time required to get the same narrative across, if done badly, animation will jar a viewer from the experience, and the fact that it's not the medium the narrative was created for.
The thing is, Anime generally gets all of the drawbacks, which diminish the benefits significantly. Even in the event that the animation is done decently, thus reducing the drawbacks to at least make the experience aesthetically palatable, it still suffers from narrative incoherence. The increased amount of time it takes to view anime over manga because of its audio-based narrative basis (It often takes 4-5 times longer to watch an anime than to get the same narrative from its corresponding manga) will destroy the original narrative's pacing, which in my mind is one of the most, if not the most important element in storytelling.
In addition to that fundamental flaw with the translation of manga into Anime, most contemporary Anime include filler episodes, which destroy any SEMBLANCE of narrative structure and flow. This leads me to question why should Animation, a beautiful and gorgeous art form, be demeaning itself to only retell manga stories created for their own respective medium? Sure, there are some classic examples of amazing anime (Like those I listed as exceptions to reason 2), but they're either different enough from their manga counterparts to be structurally incomparable, or inferior to them. The greatest works of Anime are not based off of any manga counterparts, and aren't made episodically, and are instead made for at most a 6 hour running time. These include many of Hayao Miyazaki's works, Grave of the Fireflies, and Ghost in the Shell.
To further demonstrate the discontinuity between Anime and Manga, most anime based off of manga are confined to the structural identity of manga, and are unable to utilize the full creative potential of the animated form. They keep a simulation of reality, held prisoner by the form of their counterpart, and will hardly ever play significantly with animated space, or the malleable nature of their medium.
TLR
Anime is inferior. Anime destroys a manga's narrative with disharmoniously slower pacing, is created almost exclusively for immature viewers, and does not use animation to any degree other than a malleable facsimile for reality.
If you watch for story, Manga is better.
If you watch for animation, Animated short films are better.
QED
Reason 1: The Business
The way that the anime business is set up creates a complete lack of intellectually stimulating, complicated anime that are suited for people who are looking for more than meaningless beat-em-ups or love stories involving hackneyed episodic plots.
The reason for this is simple: Anime is based off of popular manga. Manga that's popular is overwhelmingly Shounen and Shoujo, which are aimed at 10-18 year olds. They do not delve into more complex themes and psychological character studies, because these things are not appreciated by their target demographic.
(Note: There are examples that are not demonstrative of this, such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Planetes, Cowboy Bebop, and Fullmetal Alchemist)
Reason 2: Pacing and Animation
There are benefits and drawbacks of placing a story within a moving-image narrative. The benefits are the aesthetic pleasure of viewing something move, the addition of Audio to create a more immersive experience, and the simulation of reality. The drawbacks are of a more complicated pacing structure, a longer time required to get the same narrative across, if done badly, animation will jar a viewer from the experience, and the fact that it's not the medium the narrative was created for.
The thing is, Anime generally gets all of the drawbacks, which diminish the benefits significantly. Even in the event that the animation is done decently, thus reducing the drawbacks to at least make the experience aesthetically palatable, it still suffers from narrative incoherence. The increased amount of time it takes to view anime over manga because of its audio-based narrative basis (It often takes 4-5 times longer to watch an anime than to get the same narrative from its corresponding manga) will destroy the original narrative's pacing, which in my mind is one of the most, if not the most important element in storytelling.
In addition to that fundamental flaw with the translation of manga into Anime, most contemporary Anime include filler episodes, which destroy any SEMBLANCE of narrative structure and flow. This leads me to question why should Animation, a beautiful and gorgeous art form, be demeaning itself to only retell manga stories created for their own respective medium? Sure, there are some classic examples of amazing anime (Like those I listed as exceptions to reason 2), but they're either different enough from their manga counterparts to be structurally incomparable, or inferior to them. The greatest works of Anime are not based off of any manga counterparts, and aren't made episodically, and are instead made for at most a 6 hour running time. These include many of Hayao Miyazaki's works, Grave of the Fireflies, and Ghost in the Shell.
To further demonstrate the discontinuity between Anime and Manga, most anime based off of manga are confined to the structural identity of manga, and are unable to utilize the full creative potential of the animated form. They keep a simulation of reality, held prisoner by the form of their counterpart, and will hardly ever play significantly with animated space, or the malleable nature of their medium.
TLR
Anime is inferior. Anime destroys a manga's narrative with disharmoniously slower pacing, is created almost exclusively for immature viewers, and does not use animation to any degree other than a malleable facsimile for reality.
If you watch for story, Manga is better.
If you watch for animation, Animated short films are better.
QED