Blog Talkback: Anime in the Coming Decade

An accurate, if depressing read.

Entertainment always reflects the mood of society and Japan is no different. The 70's anti-establishment period led to anti-heroes and storylines outside of the realmn of the traditional. Anger. We reacted to our issues with escapism in the thankfully dead variety show genre.

When the bubble burst, we got a lot of after-the-end type work. And now, with a country having no hope for the future, and no direct target for their frustration (unlike the 70's when the establishment was a clear target) the creepy crowd goes into self-indulgence hoping to reclaim some lost innocence and hope rather than face the scary future.

Hey, if there are lonely twenty-something Japanese women looking for a man, I'll fly right over. I always wanted to fight in SHOOTO.
 
No wonder Eddie Alvarez doesn't go there anymore.

Well, something has to give in the realm of ideals. Either the men man up or the women go for foreign tastes to get their men.

Because I AM A MAN! *punch*
 
Well, Roland Kelts did a brilliant bit on for NPR's Studio 360 that ties to that to that element. I think it suggests that as people recover from hikikomori-dom and other extremes, they seem to take one look at the current systems, and then cut their own path because the system's lack of understanding of the individual and the psychological issues an individual deals with, especially in a culture as driven by conformity as Japan, is why they lost so much of their life tilting at windmills and chasing the imaginary. There is the possibility of a radical shift in the creative and business worlds of Japan as young people look at how stagnant, stilted and insular the existing paradigms in Japan are, and simply opt out and do their own thing.

In this, some of the excesses of otakudom may actually prove critical in the turn around - independent production methods for media and physical objects of various sorts already make people livings in Japan (see: doujin circles,) and that may grow as people think "why do I want to work for a monolithic firm if I can run on my own business, or why do I want to sign with a gigantic publisher if can publish my own novels or music?" This may be the other reason why there is a such a brain drain in anime and manga - already, the individual can have more freedom and possibly just as much money by simply working in doujin manga and games. Even if they can't, working a part-time job and doing doujin on the side is preferable to the grind that'd fighting your way up the publishing chain, or up the chain at a some other large business, and the women who have dealt with the same alienation will probably inclined to be with men who understand that.

Or the high suicide rate amongst 30-somethings will accerlate the already below replacement birth-rate, resulting in a nation so aged and with so few people to take the reigns that immigration will have to blow open to keep it from falling apart entirely.
 
Not trying to derail the discussion about Japan's woes, but I just wanted to chime in on how much I agree with the article.

I've been an anime fan for about 10 years now, and while I think I have a fairly broad taste in show types, there's just so little out there now that appeals to me, it mostly seems to be either stuff I've seen before or so full of Otaku-pandering it makes me want to puke.
I'm down to maybe 2 or 3 shows a season that I actually finish let alone would buy if licenced, and it only seems to be getting worse, I totally lost interest in everything I was watching last season, and have no interest in trying anything this season.
I find myself focusing more and more on digging old stuff out of the R1 industry's catalogue and animated superhero shows (which is probably going to take over as my main hobby if nothing changes).
Unfortunately its not just me, pretty much all the anime fans I know are either content to simply re-watch their collections, have so little to do with anime now they can barely be considered casual fans or have completely moved on to other things.

I do hope that the industry wakes up and realizes that simply churning out the same shows over and over, with the odd Otaku pleasing tweak here and the fan-service envelope being pushed that little bit further there, won't sustain them forever.
 
I feel ya man, I find my self watching older Anime More & more, (I'm afraid I'll wear my Tenci & Case Closed DVD's out! lol.)

I too hope the industry can overcome the countries woes & get back on its highhorse again someday soon!:sweat:
 
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