The Golden Years of Anime

[Gigano]

The continuous rise of Gen Urobuchi onto the anime scene would indicate that the golden years are yet to come.

As an ever greater backlog of great series in every genre develops, the new offerings seem ever less inspired in comparison. The good is remembered while the bad sinks beneath the waves. They're not any worse though, aside from several outstanding anime series such as Baccano! from 2007, there's been Oscar winning anime films in 2003 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirited_Away#Critical_reception] and 2009 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Maison_en_Petits_Cubes].

 

[Azriel Nightshade]

I miss the mechanical designs from back then too. Anime used to be able to have to most strange futuristic constructions, but still make them look totally believable and practical.

That too. Hell even Dragonball Z put enormous effort into the designs for the F-14s that Nappa tore apart. They showed up in one episode. That was cut for filler. But just look at the detail on the jets.

I always remember that shot of Nappa popping out from inside the jet.

And ofcourse there's also this...


Again, show me something current that has this level of quality. It's by the same guy that made Jin-Roh. By the way, was there a basset hound in Jin-Roh? Because Mamoru Oshii always puts one in his movies for some reason.

I think both of these hold up well. Afro is dope, redline is wicked, Berserk makes my man parts giggle.

 

[YazBar]

I find that its become more and more difficult to find anime that I like these days, actually I stopped watching anime altogether about... a year ago?! (just realized)

 

[bluepilot]

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/bt/the-sage/anime-abandon/38742-anime-abandon-macross-plus-part-ii
For those of you who follow him, Bennett the Sage's webseries, Anime Abandon, has spent the last two episodes talking about the OVA Macross Plus, which he considers one of the greatest animated series of all time. Towards the end of the second video, he talks about how he fell out of Anime for around six years, because the oversaturation of the market and the higher emphasis on fanservice drove him away.

It got me wondering: are Anime's golden years behind us? Whenever I see the bi-weekly anime list threads pop up around here, the majority of the shows I could not identify. Sure, they might be good shows, but I never felt the same impact that the heavy hitters of the 90s provided. There is just something that goes beyond mere nostalgia with older titles that really sticks with me. I'm not sure if it is the visual styles clicking better with my retro sensibilities, or if the market during the 90s helped distill anime of the time to its best shows only, weeding out lesser titles. (I know, a lot of crap came out in the 90s too, but most of them get forgotten)

I mean, shonen series for example. There are hundreds of them out there. The three giants in the industry at the moment are Shonen series. But I don't feel the same way about them that I do Dragonball. I'm not sure why that is. I mean, Naruto started airing in Canada in 2005. I was 12 at the time, so I would have been in the primary target demographic for the show. But it never stuck with me the way DBZ did, which I watched when I was six.

Is the more open market for anime, with sites like Crunchyroll, allowing more series to dilute the art form? Thanks to the law of averages, more shows being streamed means more good shows arrive as a statistical fact. But while we are getting more good series, are they truly "great" series, or just decent? With an anime market that aggressively targets smaller and smaller niches in Japan to appeal to the money splurging otaku, and a western market that has never been larger devouring any new release they can grab, are we seeing a negative effect on the medium? I can hardly tell two highschool anime apart these days, while I can immediately tell the difference between two sci-fi series like Macross/Gundam, or Cowboy Bebop/Outlaw Star.

I want to say that I am not trying to harp on modern anime here. Particularly with regards to films, I have found a bunch of really good things in modern stuff as well. (Sword of the Stranger is a fucking good movie)

What do you think? What would you consider the Golden years of Anime? This is not a lists thread, I am not looking for recommendations. Give me your opinions, not your list of stuff to watch.

EDIT
Allow me to reiterate: I do not want to see your goddamn lists. If you can't articulate your point without relying on a list saying "this is good stuff" without anything to back it up, just don't post until you have something useful to say.

To be honest I would consider the Golden years to be in the works of Tezuka Osamu, Hayayo Miyazaki, Riyoko Ikeda... the all stuff from the 70s. Also, I would consider the stuff that you listed from the 90s/early 2000 to be the "silver years", but meh, potato potato. I suppose that you could also argue that the 70s stuff is the "classic", the 80s the "golden", the 90s the "silver" and...hmm, I do not know about the rest.

I love a lot of anime spanning from the 1970s to the early 2000s, I think that a lot of people find the stuff from the 70s pretty unwatchable due to the animation quality but my first Japanese comic was "Rose of Versaile" so this era has a special place in my heart. After this, I like a lit of 80s and 90s stuff like "Fist of the North Star", "Dragonball", "Sailormoon", "Evangelion", and "Cowboy Beepbop".

To be honest, I could never really get into any anime made post-beebop. I spent the last four years of my life in Japan, and the 'newest' series I got into was Keroro Gunso (sergeant frog?), but that is a series that relies on a lot of parodies from earlier anime in the 80s and 90s. Instead of watching new series, I found myself re-watcing the old stuff again and again and again.

I do not think that modern anime is bad or inferior to its predecessors, (I mean, Sailor Moon could be awful at times (and get so beautiful)), I just cannot get into it. I think that is has something to do with getting older.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

There is plenty of good anime but it depends on what you are looking for. I find that equate AAA games and movies to popular shounen anime and people may disagree with me there but I put my CoDs, Transformers and One pieces all in the same basket. Yeah they're decent and functional nothing wrong with them but they can be a bit run of the mill. If you want something that is instantly recognisable stay away from shounen, ecchi and to a lesser extent highschool based anime. Now it may be just me but those tend to stagnate the most.

So what I'm saying is you need to shop around more with your anime now that there is more around and ask on website towards the end of a season for good recommendations. That if you'd like some and you give me some genre you're interested in I might be able to give you some of the better ones from recent times.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

90% of everything is shit. I can?t remember who said that, but it applies in this situation. Anyway, one of the best anime came out around the start of the 00s. Fullmetal Alchemist (the manga and Brotherhood version). Not to mention that anime?s more widespread in North America and Europe now, and anime dubs have gotten way better since the 90s. Compare FUNimation?s original dub of DBZ to their one of DBZKai.

But, no offence, I?m getting quite fed up with everyone, even people my age (I?m 17, btw), talking about how everything was better ?back in my day?. It just sounds so pretentious. I just think people forget that there was probably just as much shit in anime back then as there is now. It?s like video games. I can?t even count the amount of Street Fighter clones and knock-off ?animal mascot? platformers that were trying to piggyback on the success of Sonic the Hedgehog.

The only thing I can unequivocally say was better for video games in the 90s were the longevity of the hardware (e.g. my GBA SP from 2003 is still working almost as good as it did back when I got it for my 8th birthday, while my PSP broke twice, along with those all-too-easy-to-smudge UMDs). And I prefer platformers to the shooters that dominate the market now, but I understand that?s just my bias, not a unanimous opinion.

Oh, and people should stop being so fucking prejudiced towards Shounen too. ?Too Shounen? is not a good enough excuse for disliking an anime, unless you can actually provide legitimate reasons for why you dislike the anime. Not just throwing out labels that only seek to further stereotypes.

atrocious 'Panty and Stocking'

Get out.

 

[TheDarkestDerp]

Golden Years...?

I suppose if anything would be, it'd be the original mini-boom of the early eighties in which the series started hitting stateside which would be the foundation for most of the garbage that's out now. All of the original giant mecha shows, hybrid romance/comedies, drama and kung-fu fighting stuffs, easily were at their best then. Boom. Finito. Done.

Anime is just like most any other item or niche in that it goes through a cyclical period of relative obscurity in which only a few shows can really make it out into mainstream culture. This is generally the phase in which we see the most creativity and passion in the work of the artists who produce their craft. These shows will set the stage for the much more widespread popularity of their copy-cats to soon be coming...
Sooner or later one show will catch on really well, as was the Evangelion Silver-age boom in the mid/latter 90's, and then shows spiral uphill. With increased popularity and stage time more shows come out, some good, some not so good, one or two great ones.
But then the fruit sours and the newer generation steps up their interest and the garbage starts shoveling into their open hungry maws, feeding them for every dollar those lovely suit-wearing types can get from cashing in on the popular trend. A plethora of samey trendy empty shows clog the market. The older fans are disenfranchised and leave the scene in disgust.
With over-saturation the order of the day, we see a crash back into relative obscurity and after a few years the whole bloody thing starts over again...

That'll do.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Toradora? One the most cliché and predictable animes I've ever seen?

Cliché? Sure! Predictable? Sure! Well done? Yes!

Then again, it's all opinion. To each their own in this and all other subjects aside from...well, mathematics and such. ;D

 

[Dr. Cakey]

Fate Zero mature

While I agree Fate Zero is more for a mature audience, specially compared to Fate Stay Night, I think it could have been much better, the dialogue tried to hard when in fact wasn't that 'deep' and there were some forced or simply melodramatic parts. This review of the first 6 episodes subscribes my views on the show http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/fate/zero/episodes-1 Though I think he was too harsh on the score.

Ands the second part (from 12 to 24) the anime was worse than first part.

But...but Gilgamesh...

Eh, when it was pointed out to me that every single important character in the show is an adult, I nearly had a stroke. I was like, "Jesus fucking christ, when's the last time this happened?". More importantly, I just wanted to float by an anime that wasn't about fucking highschool students.

As for whether or not it was 'deep', well, I've found the things most people consider to be deep, like Ghost in the Shell or Serial Experiments Lain, to be just the opposite, so I'll actually take that as a point in its favor.

Oh, and people should stop being so fucking prejudiced towards Shounen too. ?Too Shounen? is not a good enough excuse for disliking an anime, unless you can actually provide legitimate reasons for why you dislike the anime. Not just throwing out labels that only seek to further stereotypes.

Frankly, we need more long-running shounen. I keep on having an urge to watch Bleach only without, you know...having to rewatch Bleach. These 12-24 episode shonen series aren't cutting it for me.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

I would say that what are perceived by Western fans as 'golden years' are only seen as such because we were insulated from a lot of the shitty shows that got made during that time. Throughout the early 2000s the amount of anime being made each year increased by something like a factor of four and a significantly greater portion of those titles were available in English in some form. That model saturated the market with mediocre junk and was ultimately unsustainable, but I would argue that while stylistic trends have certainly shifted the number of exceptional and inventive series has remained fairly constant. The good stuff just became harder to find because it was surrounded by a sea of not-so-good.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

You can't really have a discussion about what is considered "good anime" or if anime has fallen. Yes, it's true that a majority of shows now appeal to a demographic that loves:

1. Style over substance
2. Generic plots done over and over again

Does that mean good shows aren't made? No. And even shows with those genres can be done well. Girls und Panzer could be summarized as "cute girls with tanks." But that doesn't mean it wasn't well made.

People complaining about fanservice irritates me as well.

Complaining about shows made for fanservice (HOTD, Queen's Blade, Ikkitousen) ignores the fact that the whole point of the source material is fanservice.

And fanservice itself isn't bad, just the way it's done can be good or bad. You can use it to make a point, it's just when its randomly thrown in it doesn't add anything to the show.

As for whether or not it was 'deep', well, I've found the things most people consider to be deep, like Ghost in the Shell or Serial Experiments Lain, to be just the opposite, so I'll actually take that as a point in its favor.

Different people consider different things deep. I don't think Fate/zero or GitS are deep.
Lain is kind of trippy, but that doesn't make it deep.

Fate/zero merely has world-building, and people mistake that for depth (not to imply that you did).

 

[Casual Shinji]

So you liked anime because of animation, not the story, or characters. Isn't that kinda of shallow?

There are still anime with awesome animation, but it's true they are often too clean. But anime hasn't decreased quality because of that. It's just different and easier to make.

In my opinion, if you use the medium of animation, you'd better strive to use it to its full potential. If an animated movie or series looks bad or mediocre, I'll criticize it just as equally as I would its story or characters. Same with live-action movies in general.

Now I know not every anime show has a budget to pull off spectacular animation, but a good animation director generally knows how to work within the confines of their budget and still make it look good.

To me anime has decreased in quality because of the sterile digital animation. The fact is that it's now much harder to make anime look as atmospheric as it was back in the celluloid days. Studios like Ghibli and Gainax are usually able to work around this, but most other studios won't or can't. So now we get a lot of overly crisp clean flashy stuff that lacks a "smell".

Sword Art Online is praised in many a review for its visuals, but all I see is just a bunch of flashy, shaky stuff all over the screen.

Live-action movies are more or less suffering from this same issue. The ease of digital filmmaking and digital grading makes a lot of movies look fake and manufactured. Ofcourse movies are fake and manufactured, but the magic lies in making us buy into what we're seeing. Which many movies (and anime) don't seem too keen on doing anymore.

Yeah, I miss old animation too, but the fact is there are more good anime from the last 15 years than all the rest before that.

This is just as much a personal opinion as mine is that there isn't. Don't get me wrong there are a lot of anime from the past 15 years that I love, but none of them reach the level of awe inspiring sensation that the ones from before do. And this is not simply nostalgia, since I was only able to watch a lot of these anime with the advent of DVD.

 

[EvilMaggot]

I could never get into DBZ, or Bleach, or Naruto. Anything like that really.
Big fan of Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Ghost in the Shell, and Berserk though.
The new Berserk films are the only anime I've watched recently.

There was also a Devil May Cry series, it was not too bad.

Where have you seen the new Berserk stuff ? O_O YOU MUST TELL ME SIR!!

 

[Ishigami]

.Well, it's not just an opinion in the quantity of great animes in the last 15 years, check any anime database and you'll see the majority well rated animes are after 2000.

Rated by whom? - Professionals or consumers?

Because there is a problem: Animes were rather obscure before they reached the mainstream.

When something like Clannad After Story (2009) reaches higher ratings than Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal (1999) or for that matter Steins;Gate (2011) outranking Cowboy Bebop (1999) I have to doubt the audience.
Or lets take movies: 5cm per second (2007) is nice, I really have nothing against it, but telling me that it is ?better? than say Patlabor (1989) or Ghost in the Shell (1995) is simply outraging.
For arguments sake the acclaimed and influential Akira (1988) is rated as ?slightly above average? these days.
(User ratings taken from AniDB)

Yea... no.

 

[knight steel]

Everyone knows that the only anime worthy of attention whatsoever is HOTD and Naruto ^_^

 

[Julius Terrell]

.Well, it's not just an opinion in the quantity of great animes in the last 15 years, check any anime database and you'll see the majority well rated animes are after 2000.

Rated by whom? - Professionals or consumers?

Because there is a problem: Animes were rather obscure before they reached the mainstream.

When something like Clannad After Story (2009) reaches higher ratings than Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal (1999) or for that matter Steins;Gate (2011) outranking Cowboy Bebop (1999) I have to doubt the audience.
Or lets take movies: 5cm per second (2007) is nice, I really have nothing against it, but telling me that it is ?better? than say Patlabor (1989) or Ghost in the Shell (1995) is simply outraging.
For arguments sake the acclaimed and influential Akira (1988) is rated as ?slightly above average? these days.
(User ratings taken from AniDB)

Yea... no.

Just because everyone likes something doesn't mean it's a quality show

I've spent a lifetime watching japanese anime, and there are very,very few shows that can compare to patlabor or Samarai X. A lot of people like to jump on the bandwagon of liking a show, because that's all they can watch or have access to.

A LOT of people love Dragonball. Most people I talk to pretend that dragonball is all there is when it comes to japanese anime, but Fist of the North Star came out at the same time. It's martial Arts series like Dragonball. How come there aren't legions and legions of fans? Most shows are about accessibility. Dragonball is instantly accessible where fist of the north star is only after watching a few dozen episodes.

accessiblity does not equal quality IMHO.