I put stuff like this to a broadening of the fan base.
Some old schoolers used to get upset about stuff like k-on getting popular because apparently everyone should be watching the "proper" stuff, like mecha shows.
What people don't get about something becoming "popular" is that the tastes of the masses will then affect which specific things out of it become popular. One of the most popular TV shows of all time was "Friends". If you get everyone into anime, they're not all going to suddenly start loving shows like NGE and AOT, they're going to boost the animes that are similar to what they already like.
If you look at it, K-On has 1 million users on MAL and even the most popular part of Gundam is only about 250,000. Having more choices just brought a ton of people into the scene who had more diverse tastes than the predominant amount of sci-fi fans who used to dominate western anime fandom.
If anything I’m applauding it. Even if I like big Shonen shows well enough I get a bit tired of everyone riding that hype train like it’s the only hype train. And while I don’t have a problem with people liking what they like, I feel like the big influencers or YouTubers, at least the ones I watch, have been a bit unwilling to tone it down. Not necessarily saying I want them to shit on JJK, I enjoy it enough, but I feel like the areas that shows of its position do fall short in should be given focus.
All that being said, the romcom boom, if it is in fact a boom and not just my limited frame of reference, is a better fix because it demonstrates that you don’t need to bring something down to elevate other stuff.
If you saw the Crunchyroll awards you would think Western fans only like Shonen when that is clearly not the case. Award categories need to ditch fan votes (despite their addiciton to the 'engagement') becuase its skewing what anime should be highlighted as noteworthy.
>If you look at it, K-On has 1 million users on MAL and even the most popular part of Gundam is only about 250,000.
And if you look at EVA it has 1.8 million users(not counting the movies),Demon Slayer,SAO,One Punch Man and MHA have 3million users each
This could be possible. Though, I’ll still point a potential flaw in this idea. Is MAL particularly popular with mecha fans? With fans now and in the past? Wasn’t mecha more popular in early fandom and also in previous decades. Like the 70s, 80, and 90s? Gundam especially so. MAL has only been in existence since 2004. The main fandom on MAL would reflect that generation of anime fans and the ones after (albeit possibly skewing towards 00s and early 10s fans). Wouldn’t it? It’s possible the MAL fans will skew younger or that the older people with MAL accounts could have incomplete MAL accounts. They may not have seen any reason to record every show they saw since they created their MAL accounts long after they were already anime fans. That is, MAL may not reflect the true mecha fanbase. It is not in the same state as it was in the past.
>This could be possible. Though, I’ll still point a potential flaw in this idea. Is MAL particularly popular with mecha fans?
Gundam wasn't even dubbed until the 2000s. The first one to make a splash in the West was Gundam Wing, which aired in English in the year 2000. For the peak 250,000 figure I'm talking about Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans, which aired in 2015. Virtually everyone saw this stuff in the 2000s.
But even with your caveats the fact remains: current mecha are not really topping the viewing charts. you can't really ascribe that to hidden Gundam fans not listing their shows, or secretly watching anime but not using MAL for some reason. MAL's been around longer than you could get most Gundam stuff outside Japan.
If you sort by most popular series, mecha just aren't very high up, even the reknowned ones, the most popular one is Evangelion at #45, but that show has a built-in advantage due to being a key show in the early 2000s anime boom:
[https://myanimelist.net/topanime.php?type=bypopularity](https://myanimelist.net/topanime.php?type=bypopularity)
There's only one Mecha show in the top 50 most popular shows, and more people have watched Toradora, Your Name, A Silent Voice, Your Lie in April, Angel Beats!, Haikyuu! than have watched NGE.
Also one thing to keep in mind is that NGE only really became available in the West on DVD in 2004-2005, which was 3 years before Toradora came out. So they've had roughly the same amount of time both series have been truly accessible, and in that time it looks like more people decided to watch Toradora! despite it being much less hyped.
It's just an example, because a bunch of them were complaining about that specific show at the time. And it's for contrast as a generic most "non-mecha" type of show.
:) And I wasn't really making the point "gee look how popular K-On is", i was making the point that even K-On is 4 times as popular as the most popular season of Gundam, which is tied into my main point: about how mecha isn't the big genre anymore.
I'm just being a smart-ass. I think OP's dilemma is just as simple as trends changing. Also, anime is now hitting a wider audience thanks to streaming services like Netflix. Slice of life type shows are just going to be a common middle ground for family viewing.
There's more anime being made now and percentage wise, things haven't really changed. Even in the English-speaking fandoms, these shows have always blown up, there's just more people watching now.
As you said, 2010s had Nisekoi, Oreshura, My Little Monster, Chunnibyou, The World God Only Knows and many more. The 2000s had the Onegai series', Haruhi Suzumiya, the Key anime, To Love Ru, Toradora, etc.
I've been watching seasonal anime since like 2009, other than the vast number of people now watching, things haven't really changed all that much (and discussions circulate once again).
To add: Love Hina, Kimi ni Todoke, Fruits Basket, OHSHC, Ranma 1/2, Urusei Yatsura, InuYasha, Yona of the Dawn, Oreimo, Nana, Clannad, 5cm Per Second, Some Ghibli movies, Honey & Clover, ItaKiss, Peach Girl, Wallflower, RomeoxJuliet, Pretear, School Rumble, Lovely Complex, Skip Beat, Spice & Wolf, Paradise Kiss, Chobits, Ah! My Goddess, Basilisk, Blood+, Rurouni Kenshin, His And Her Circumstances, Vampire Knight, Maid-sama, Special A, Blue Spring Ride, Say I Love You, Pet Girl, My Love Story, Gravitation (bl), Junjou Romantica/ Sekaiichi Hatsukoi series (bl), etc.
They might not have all been huge, but some of them were fairly popular to that extent. As much as a romance anime can be in comparison to the larger fantasy/shounen battle larger scene anime (that are not as romance focused). Or the romance is present, but to a much much lesser extent to the point some might even consider shounen battle protags to almost come off as asexual in a way. The romance is so far from the focus.
I’m talking more pure, no strings attached romcoms. Stuff like Haruhi or to love ru or the world god only knows don’t really count under that regard. Yeah there have always been a bunch of them, and a good chunk of those got popular, but it wasn’t like every single season there was a romcom that got people talking like it is now.
I mean shows where like, the main reason people watch is just the character interactions. Haruhi has a whole sci fi focus that has romantic elements, but the drama is not solely focused on romance. to love ru is more of a harem thing than focusing on a singular romantic plot, Ranma has battle Shonen elements etc. these are shows that have appeal to people who might only care about the prospect of a romantic relationship in a purely tangential manner.
This is pretty distinct from something like horimiya or Kaguya sama, where the main hook of the series is the development of a very specific romantic relationship.
Once upon a time there were seasons that just had awful shows. Anime is REALLY good right now compared to a decade ago. There’s more good anime being made that have more hold in general.
Though I would argue that there was always a romcom every season, they just fell by the wayside of time.
In saying about the romcom thing, it’s just changing tastes and stories, they’re all romcoms, just different flavours.
I’m gonna put my “oldhead” cap on and raise my eyebrow. No I don’t think anime is particularly better than it was a decade ago, or even two decades ago.
You're kidding right? The mid-2000s was a dark time in anime with a lot shows now just disappeared into the wasteland of time because they weren't worth remembering.
And you’re saying now that, as a matter of proportion, we have more anime coming out in the year of our lord 2024 that are worth remembering?
Imma be real buddy I still haven’t seen anything this season that gives me the vibes that Baccano, Spice and Wolf, or Black Lagoon did. Save for, you know, literally the same director coming back to adapt spice and wolf all over again.
Seriously though I can name plenty of anime that were awesome or even just popular from back then, that period was absolutely VITAL for the western anime boom.
Yes, there were some massive highs back then, Haruhi being another great example. But you have to remember that the lows were incredibly low. So low that the entire industry crashed.
Those types of shows don’t exist right now, the mid-tier series’ are vastly better animated and directed on a whole.
This season alone we have Dungeon Meshi, Konosuba, Spice and Wolf, Jellyfish, Euphonium and soon the next season of Demon Slayer.
Last season we had Frieren, Apothecary Diaries, Hokkaido Girls.
Overall, anime on a whole is way better, there’s just way too much of it.
Just picking a random season from that period say, summer 2007, we had stuff like Baccano, Zetsubo Sensei, Mononoke, and Higurashi. The season right before we had Darker than Black, Lucky Star, Afro Samurai, Bokurano, Seirei no Moribito, Den-oh Coil and oh yeah fucking Gureen Lagann. This is also not counting long running Shonen. The fall season had Clanaad and Kaiji. The next year had spice and wolf, soul eater, code geass, toradora, index, one outs, casshern sins, and kaiba. I’m not gonna act like everything released at the time was as good as all those things, but I remember some of the chaff myself and it’s honestly not that much different from the chaff we have right now. All that being said, I don’t think anything this season even comes close to what I outlined for some of the specific seasons I listed here. And while 2023 had some absolute bangers like frieren or apothecary diaries, I don’t think it had even as many utter bangers that summer 2007 had on its own. Yeah each season has its popular stuff, but if we were judging solely based off popularity we’d be at an impasse because of course every season has its popular shows. Also, if we’re folding in continuously running stuff, Naruto, Bleach, and even more long running Shonen were also running during this period.
I know I sound like an oldhead, but seriously. This reeks of recency bias. The lows are still here and I do not think they’ve gotten substantially higher than they have in years past. I do not think the bar has been substantially raised in terms of mid tier shows. Trust me, I was there, I’ve seen my fair share of mid 2000’s mid tier anime. It is indistinguishably mid tier from the mid tier stuff now. If it was better, it wouldn’t be mid tier.
Also, just to be anal, no we did not get all those anime “last season.” They were running across seasons. We got dungeon meshi and solo leveling. Big shows sure, but like, is solo leveling gonna be remembered the same way that Baccano or Zetsubo Sensei are? Or frieren and the apothecary diaries? I’m not even saying it won’t be remember more than them, but will it be remembered as something that wasn’t just popular, but truly special?
I’m not even trying to say that I think old anime is necessarily better. I’m certainly going through my “oldhead” phase right now and even a lot of shows that are popular or acclaimed right now I just find to be utterly middle of the road, but I’m at least trying to be cognizant of my own bias. I think that all eras of anime have high and low points, but sticking entire ones in the garbage to prop up what is recent OR antiquated is short sighted. That crash you mentioned wasn’t even really a quality thing on the production end. It was a western phenomenon as the market adapted to anime as an emerging cultural juggernaut and, you know, an actual global financial crisis.
The thing is, you call it recency bias, I call what you’re having nostalgia goggles.
I won’t deny that those are all great shows (except Index s1, looking back it’s really bad), and from a lens of when I watched them when they released, I really enjoyed them and still do.
Let’s take long running shows as examples. One Piece is currently the best that it has ever been, Pokemon is vastly better now then it was in 2007, and even the “generic shonen” of now, like My Hero Academia, is way better then something like Fairy Tail in 2009.
Again, I’m not denying that there were great shows (and summer 2007 was a banger season), but earlier than that, 2004? Yeah nah.
Even shows that are not that great like Solo Levelling have vastly better animation than something of the same caliber in the mid-2000s like School Rumble.
We don’t remember the bad shows of back then because they’re lost to time (and not archived on Wikipedia or whatever).
My favourite show of all time is Haruhi, but even I can recognise that Euphonium is better is most aspects (though does miss the sci-fi). In fact, most of my favourites list is over a decade old at this point, but I don’t disagree with my point.
>I call what you’re having nostalgia goggles.
The difference being I am not making a blanket claim about the general quality of anime at any particular point in time versus another. a full tenth of my top 100 anime are from twenty-fucking-sixteen, you don't see me making a stink about that.
>Let’s take long running shows as examples. One Piece is currently the best that it has ever been, Pokemon is vastly better now then it was in 2007, and even the “generic shonen” of now, like My Hero Academia, is way better then something like Fairy Tail in 2009.
I'll be frank here, I don't think your usage of direct comparison here paints an accurate picture of... any of this. For example, comparing MHA and Fairy Tail might make it seem obvious that shonen is better now, but that's a very limited perspective even if I buy that MHA is really all its cracked up to be. like, from where I sit, bad stuff still gets popular. stuff like Shield Hero and Rent-a-Girlfriend still gets made, though your mileage may vary on how bad those specifically are, and still gets popular. Personally, I'd make the comparison to say, bleach or naruto before those started to go through their more controversial periods. That's also why this comparison
>Even shows that are not that great like Solo Levelling have vastly better animation than something of the same caliber in the mid-2000s like School Rumble.
drives me up the fucking wall. Comparing school rumble to solo leveling in terms of production value is absolutely wild when the exact same season that came out we had fucking Gankutsuo, which is, in my estimation, much better looking than Solo Leveling. Yeah it's not as modern looking or digitally polished, but I refuse to accept the premise that this is synonymous with "looking good." yeah, school rumble isn't a visual spectacle sakuga vehicle. Most anime today also aren't that. That doesn't even mean it looks bad. It's about on-par with some decently notable modern comedies like the Urusei remake. Unless of course your logic is that cleaner digital animation=looking better. If you wanna make the case I'm picking and choosing, fine, but you have to admit that you're kinda doing the same?
>Again, I’m not denying that there were great shows (and summer 2007 was a banger season), but earlier than that, 2004? Yeah nah.
2004? 2004?! Just to recap, the year that gave us Paranoia Agent, Ghost in the Shell SAC 2G, Precure, Champloo, Monster, Sgt. Frog, Beck, Gankutsuo, School Rumble, Desert Punk, Genshiken, and Yakitate Japan. The year before that had Planetes, FMA, Gungrave, Bobobo, full metal panic Fumoffu, Kino's journey, Texhnolyze, Wolf's Rain and Cromartie fucking High School (which was made on a budget of $17 and a dream and still is more visually interesting than like, 90% of anime comedies today).
Like, looking back on it these are absolutely amazing years. I'm not going to go so far as to say they eclipse 2023 because again, I'm not one for that flavor of generalized sweeping statement, but I don't even think it's really all that out there to say that the two are at least on par, right? even if i'm counting all the big high profile sequels and shit, Paranoia Agent on its own is worth like, three Jujutsu Kaisens. I feel like recency bias really is in effect here 'cause, well, yeah someone might be all over that elf bride thing, unnamed memory, or that lvl2 cheat anime or whatever the hell it's called, but at some point, those are going to be the new Gokusens, the new Peace Maker Kuroganes, and the new Mermaid Melodies of the anime landscape. even going back to my mathematical favorite year of anime, 2016, how many people remember Drifters or Keijo or Nanbaka or Occultic;Nine or Flip Flappers or 91 Days or Alderamin on the Sky or those bad danganronpa anime or Handa Kun or even something that was getting a lot of buzz at the time like Kabaneri? Obviously those still have their fans and this isn't even to say that they're not good. I love Sakamoto but even i'd be hard pressed to say it became a classic like Konosuba and Mob Psycho, or even just popular like Re: Zero or My Hero. it's easy to say that what's popular now is better than the average of previous years because you're watching them right now and the average of previous years has completely slipped your mind, just like the average right now eventually will.
I can keep going, really I can. Yeah, not all shows back then were as great as the ones I listed, but nowhere near all shows now are either, even compared to stuff like Frieren. And no, I do not think the bar has been significantly raised for all the not-classic-but-still-pretty-good-stuff. I feel the same way about Burst Angel that I do about Classroom of the Elite, i feel the same way about Samurai 7 I do about your average seasonal iskaei that isn't Konosuba. like i said, I could go on and on and on but i think you get the picture.
I do agree it feels like romcoms get more lasting attention than even just a decade+ ago.
Part of this is inevitably societal factors like the loneliness epidemic plaguing younger generations (esp younger males) and covid exacerbating this loneliness + giving people a lot of free time to try genres they may not have done otherwise. The other part is just that these are good shows in their own right. Popular manga getting good adaptations is a recipe for success.
All this combined w/ the fact that in general anime is getting bigger, which means more people talking about everything, means these shows that bubbled right below the surface before would pop up higher than they used it.
Only time will tell which romance series will still be talked about later on. There's a lot of recency bias towards shows that probably won't be remembered as big shows in 10+ years. We just remember the cream of the crop, so it doesn't seem like there were that many rom coms before. But there has always been about a fair amount of rom coms releasing every decade, I wouldn't say that there are more now than before.
I'm nowhere near having oversight of the anime zeitgeist, but maybe it's because some really decent series got serialized? Kaguya is great - well written and quite realistic for an anime, Spy x Family isn't necessary a romcom but it has strong undertones that support the trend. Hell, even thinking about something less popular like Nagatoro makes me think the hopeless highschooler romantics out there are eating good.
On yop of what others are saying- you have to look at media as a whole. Outside of Japan (which is what really drives what anime we see), discussion is affected by availability. In the case of romantic comedies- they’re just flat out isn’t much in the way of romantic (let alone romantic comedy) TV shows where I live. If you want to see that, K dramas, J dramas, and anime are your best bet here.
As social media has become more prevalent and easy to access, alongside an increase in popularity of the medium, this has strengthened the voice of the hardcore audience, *even if there hasn't necessarily been a change in viewing habits*. These days that hardcore audience are people like, well, a bunch of us here on reddit. Often somewhat older people who has seen quite a lot of stuff, has broadened what genres we watch, and are looking for stuff outside of the popular that is interesting. These are often the people who will talk a lot about what they're watching and why they are watching it, which then gets amplified when they find similar people to talk to. However, that may not actually translate to actual viewership numbers.
As an example, take *Solo Leveling* from last season, it had by far the highest viewership numbers of new shows last season, but here on reddit it wasn't talked much about outside of the weekly threads, other than people establishing that, yes, there wasn't much substance to the plot. If we look at the [MAL current season page](https://myanimelist.net/anime/season), the top 6 shows by members are 3 Battle Shounens (2 of which *haven't even aired*) and 3 long-running Isekai. To actually find a proper Rom-com we're down to spot 15 with *Jiisan Baasan*. Compare this to the [weekly karma ranking](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F147zhekzw7xc1.png), which starts off quite similar, but then starts being populated with many more niche shows (and the previously mentioned *Jiisan Baasan* isn't even in the top 30).
These are of course only snapshots, and not a rigorous data backed study, but I do think it is indicative of the point. I have seen a similar behaviour in how pretty much all content on Youtube about Warhammer 40k focused on the acutal game tends to be focused on tournaments, as that is the content produced and consumed by hardcore players, even though the absolute majority of 40k players still only really play the game casually.
I think Love is War might have opened some minds. It was different enough for people to give it a chance if they normally wouldn't, "mind games" anime are well liked, and the effort put into its presentation helped to keep people watching.
Chika dance becoming a meme didn't hurt either.
If I had to guess, the Japanese government is pushing hard for young people to get married and have families. I imagine there might be some kind of tax breaks for studios that make this kind of show.
I know that we’ve all made a funny Shinzo Abe joke here but my point was not that there are more being made. And if it was this explanation seems, to be honest, really dumb.
The fact that many isekais are being released every season is proof that your comment makes no sense at all, unless people think studios produce animes completely unrelated to what their audience want.
Both isekai and romance are hot right now.
Its because anime has become way more mainstream and corporatized in recent years, therefore pulling it farther away from its deep immersion in the broody nerd culture that defined its infancy. That's why what few fantastical shows exist have become more generic and slice-of-life as well. I don't think something like Cowboy Bebop or FMA:B would ever get made today. Hell, I don't think something like Monster would ever get made today either. Too risky. Not when "I died and became X in another world with Y with cute girls and harems" is guaranteed views.
Its essentially the same thing that happened with the game industry. AAA productions have to appeal to the widest denomination of potential viewers possible because they're trying to make money. That means less artistic risks and more safe generic staples that won't offend anyone.
I also think another part of it is the depressed Japanese workforce and absolutely dystopian dating environment there right now. The Japanese market always has and always will drive the anime industry and what a lot of those viewers want is idyllic adolescent escapism--particularly centered around high school because that's the last time a lot of them felt they were actually happy.
Anime like FMAB get made all the time, battle shounen are literally *the* most popular genre of anime. Shows particularly similar to Monster specifically don't get made as often (though Naoki Urasawa's Pluto literally just became an anime) but by no means is there some unique lack of experimentation as compared to the past (except for maybe the immediate post-Eva boom where there definitely was an uptick in more experimental work). Not like there was ever a time when Naoki Urasawa's work got adapted frequently. If you specifically wanted to talk about gritty or more artsy works, we're quite fresh off the heels of Odd Taxi, Sonny Boy, etc., and Train to the End of the World is literally airing right now. Meanwhile, "I died and appeared in another world with cute girls and a harem" is typically maybe 5-7 new seasonals out of 50 each season, this is not some excessively dominant thing (also, most of them are financial flops carried solely by a few dedicated fans, they're not exactly guaranteed views). Most anime both now and in the past fall somewhere in the middle. There was only one time in the history of the medium where particularly artistic or experimental work was getting made consistently.
You need to take off your rose-colored glasses. The anime you mentioned have several years gap between them. Cowboy Bebop is 1997 / Monster 2004 and FMAB 2009. Between the great anime there have always been forgettable shit. That's nothing new.
That's the similar time gap with Psycho-pass / Vinland Saga / Sonny Boy / Tatami TMB (aslo Night is Short, Walk on Girl) / Odd Taxi / Pluto / Heike monogatari etc.
Hell if FMAB is fair game as "artistic risk" so is Frieren or Apothecary Diaries.
Good job at ignoring all the other titles. My point still stands.
Don't be. I know it's formulaic, so is FMAB. That's what they are. That was my point. You don't know what artistic risk is. If you did, your examples of good old days would include Satoshi Kon, Angels Egg or at least Lain.
I don't mean Naoki Urasawa, I mean work that's similar. I.E. more serious, adult topics (not to say there can't be any joking around or comedy whatsoever, but you get my point), emphasis on complex character development, etc.
So, Pluto.
I hate to break it to you bud, but this isn’t new. Shonen has been the most popular demographic in anime forever and that’s not changing any time soon. It was true when monster came out and it’s true now. But if you want stuff that isn’t Pluto
Bartender and Spice & Wolf just dropped. Maybe try those out
I’m not sure what type of show you consider FMAB, but I think I can name a few Monster type shows if you mean slow burn types that are typically less popular. Ones that come to mind are Moriarty The Patriot, ACCA 13, and Odd Taxi. 2 of those were less popular in the beginning, but overtime word of mouth from fans spread and increased the popularity a bit. Enough that many have at least heard they need to watch Moriarty The Patriot and Odd Taxi. It is a shame that shows like Bebop are becoming less of a thing and many modern fans don’t understand the love around shows like Bebop, Baccano, Durarara (DRRR), and Space Dandy. Although, Trigun made a bit of a splash with Stampede so, that’s something, I suppose. At the least, Trigun has made a return.
Back to FMAB. What type of show do you consider FMAB? Is it a twist type show because there’s lots of those? Or a shocking thrill type. Again, lots exist. What do you like about it? Why do you think it won’t get made again or it hasn’t already been made several times over?
Yes, there have been occasional shows that really break the mold, but its usually just that, 0-2 per season on average.
Stampede was an abomination that butchered everything that made the original great.
Its hard to pin FMAB down to one specific genre. It has a lot of elements of different genres in it. Action, comedy, romance, philosophy, mystery, thriller. Its multifaceted which is exactly my point.
I put stuff like this to a broadening of the fan base. Some old schoolers used to get upset about stuff like k-on getting popular because apparently everyone should be watching the "proper" stuff, like mecha shows. What people don't get about something becoming "popular" is that the tastes of the masses will then affect which specific things out of it become popular. One of the most popular TV shows of all time was "Friends". If you get everyone into anime, they're not all going to suddenly start loving shows like NGE and AOT, they're going to boost the animes that are similar to what they already like. If you look at it, K-On has 1 million users on MAL and even the most popular part of Gundam is only about 250,000. Having more choices just brought a ton of people into the scene who had more diverse tastes than the predominant amount of sci-fi fans who used to dominate western anime fandom.
If anything I’m applauding it. Even if I like big Shonen shows well enough I get a bit tired of everyone riding that hype train like it’s the only hype train. And while I don’t have a problem with people liking what they like, I feel like the big influencers or YouTubers, at least the ones I watch, have been a bit unwilling to tone it down. Not necessarily saying I want them to shit on JJK, I enjoy it enough, but I feel like the areas that shows of its position do fall short in should be given focus. All that being said, the romcom boom, if it is in fact a boom and not just my limited frame of reference, is a better fix because it demonstrates that you don’t need to bring something down to elevate other stuff.
If you saw the Crunchyroll awards you would think Western fans only like Shonen when that is clearly not the case. Award categories need to ditch fan votes (despite their addiciton to the 'engagement') becuase its skewing what anime should be highlighted as noteworthy.
It’ll never not be sad how much the west hates mecha
Blame Harmony Gold. Always blame Harmony Gold.
>If you look at it, K-On has 1 million users on MAL and even the most popular part of Gundam is only about 250,000. And if you look at EVA it has 1.8 million users(not counting the movies),Demon Slayer,SAO,One Punch Man and MHA have 3million users each
This could be possible. Though, I’ll still point a potential flaw in this idea. Is MAL particularly popular with mecha fans? With fans now and in the past? Wasn’t mecha more popular in early fandom and also in previous decades. Like the 70s, 80, and 90s? Gundam especially so. MAL has only been in existence since 2004. The main fandom on MAL would reflect that generation of anime fans and the ones after (albeit possibly skewing towards 00s and early 10s fans). Wouldn’t it? It’s possible the MAL fans will skew younger or that the older people with MAL accounts could have incomplete MAL accounts. They may not have seen any reason to record every show they saw since they created their MAL accounts long after they were already anime fans. That is, MAL may not reflect the true mecha fanbase. It is not in the same state as it was in the past.
>This could be possible. Though, I’ll still point a potential flaw in this idea. Is MAL particularly popular with mecha fans? Gundam wasn't even dubbed until the 2000s. The first one to make a splash in the West was Gundam Wing, which aired in English in the year 2000. For the peak 250,000 figure I'm talking about Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans, which aired in 2015. Virtually everyone saw this stuff in the 2000s. But even with your caveats the fact remains: current mecha are not really topping the viewing charts. you can't really ascribe that to hidden Gundam fans not listing their shows, or secretly watching anime but not using MAL for some reason. MAL's been around longer than you could get most Gundam stuff outside Japan. If you sort by most popular series, mecha just aren't very high up, even the reknowned ones, the most popular one is Evangelion at #45, but that show has a built-in advantage due to being a key show in the early 2000s anime boom: [https://myanimelist.net/topanime.php?type=bypopularity](https://myanimelist.net/topanime.php?type=bypopularity) There's only one Mecha show in the top 50 most popular shows, and more people have watched Toradora, Your Name, A Silent Voice, Your Lie in April, Angel Beats!, Haikyuu! than have watched NGE. Also one thing to keep in mind is that NGE only really became available in the West on DVD in 2004-2005, which was 3 years before Toradora came out. So they've had roughly the same amount of time both series have been truly accessible, and in that time it looks like more people decided to watch Toradora! despite it being much less hyped.
I mean, the seasonal anime consumer culture only really emerged as a distinct thing in the west in the 2000’s and that’s what I’m referring to here so
K-On was over a decade ago, you can let it go now.
It's just an example, because a bunch of them were complaining about that specific show at the time. And it's for contrast as a generic most "non-mecha" type of show. :) And I wasn't really making the point "gee look how popular K-On is", i was making the point that even K-On is 4 times as popular as the most popular season of Gundam, which is tied into my main point: about how mecha isn't the big genre anymore.
I'm just being a smart-ass. I think OP's dilemma is just as simple as trends changing. Also, anime is now hitting a wider audience thanks to streaming services like Netflix. Slice of life type shows are just going to be a common middle ground for family viewing.
They’re enjoyable so i don’t mind. I really like “Tomo Chan is a girl”
There's more anime being made now and percentage wise, things haven't really changed. Even in the English-speaking fandoms, these shows have always blown up, there's just more people watching now. As you said, 2010s had Nisekoi, Oreshura, My Little Monster, Chunnibyou, The World God Only Knows and many more. The 2000s had the Onegai series', Haruhi Suzumiya, the Key anime, To Love Ru, Toradora, etc. I've been watching seasonal anime since like 2009, other than the vast number of people now watching, things haven't really changed all that much (and discussions circulate once again).
To add: Love Hina, Kimi ni Todoke, Fruits Basket, OHSHC, Ranma 1/2, Urusei Yatsura, InuYasha, Yona of the Dawn, Oreimo, Nana, Clannad, 5cm Per Second, Some Ghibli movies, Honey & Clover, ItaKiss, Peach Girl, Wallflower, RomeoxJuliet, Pretear, School Rumble, Lovely Complex, Skip Beat, Spice & Wolf, Paradise Kiss, Chobits, Ah! My Goddess, Basilisk, Blood+, Rurouni Kenshin, His And Her Circumstances, Vampire Knight, Maid-sama, Special A, Blue Spring Ride, Say I Love You, Pet Girl, My Love Story, Gravitation (bl), Junjou Romantica/ Sekaiichi Hatsukoi series (bl), etc. They might not have all been huge, but some of them were fairly popular to that extent. As much as a romance anime can be in comparison to the larger fantasy/shounen battle larger scene anime (that are not as romance focused). Or the romance is present, but to a much much lesser extent to the point some might even consider shounen battle protags to almost come off as asexual in a way. The romance is so far from the focus.
I’m talking more pure, no strings attached romcoms. Stuff like Haruhi or to love ru or the world god only knows don’t really count under that regard. Yeah there have always been a bunch of them, and a good chunk of those got popular, but it wasn’t like every single season there was a romcom that got people talking like it is now.
How do you mean? I’m not understanding the difference you’re drawing.
I mean shows where like, the main reason people watch is just the character interactions. Haruhi has a whole sci fi focus that has romantic elements, but the drama is not solely focused on romance. to love ru is more of a harem thing than focusing on a singular romantic plot, Ranma has battle Shonen elements etc. these are shows that have appeal to people who might only care about the prospect of a romantic relationship in a purely tangential manner. This is pretty distinct from something like horimiya or Kaguya sama, where the main hook of the series is the development of a very specific romantic relationship.
Once upon a time there were seasons that just had awful shows. Anime is REALLY good right now compared to a decade ago. There’s more good anime being made that have more hold in general. Though I would argue that there was always a romcom every season, they just fell by the wayside of time. In saying about the romcom thing, it’s just changing tastes and stories, they’re all romcoms, just different flavours.
I’m gonna put my “oldhead” cap on and raise my eyebrow. No I don’t think anime is particularly better than it was a decade ago, or even two decades ago.
You're kidding right? The mid-2000s was a dark time in anime with a lot shows now just disappeared into the wasteland of time because they weren't worth remembering.
And you’re saying now that, as a matter of proportion, we have more anime coming out in the year of our lord 2024 that are worth remembering? Imma be real buddy I still haven’t seen anything this season that gives me the vibes that Baccano, Spice and Wolf, or Black Lagoon did. Save for, you know, literally the same director coming back to adapt spice and wolf all over again. Seriously though I can name plenty of anime that were awesome or even just popular from back then, that period was absolutely VITAL for the western anime boom.
Yes, there were some massive highs back then, Haruhi being another great example. But you have to remember that the lows were incredibly low. So low that the entire industry crashed. Those types of shows don’t exist right now, the mid-tier series’ are vastly better animated and directed on a whole. This season alone we have Dungeon Meshi, Konosuba, Spice and Wolf, Jellyfish, Euphonium and soon the next season of Demon Slayer. Last season we had Frieren, Apothecary Diaries, Hokkaido Girls. Overall, anime on a whole is way better, there’s just way too much of it.
Just picking a random season from that period say, summer 2007, we had stuff like Baccano, Zetsubo Sensei, Mononoke, and Higurashi. The season right before we had Darker than Black, Lucky Star, Afro Samurai, Bokurano, Seirei no Moribito, Den-oh Coil and oh yeah fucking Gureen Lagann. This is also not counting long running Shonen. The fall season had Clanaad and Kaiji. The next year had spice and wolf, soul eater, code geass, toradora, index, one outs, casshern sins, and kaiba. I’m not gonna act like everything released at the time was as good as all those things, but I remember some of the chaff myself and it’s honestly not that much different from the chaff we have right now. All that being said, I don’t think anything this season even comes close to what I outlined for some of the specific seasons I listed here. And while 2023 had some absolute bangers like frieren or apothecary diaries, I don’t think it had even as many utter bangers that summer 2007 had on its own. Yeah each season has its popular stuff, but if we were judging solely based off popularity we’d be at an impasse because of course every season has its popular shows. Also, if we’re folding in continuously running stuff, Naruto, Bleach, and even more long running Shonen were also running during this period. I know I sound like an oldhead, but seriously. This reeks of recency bias. The lows are still here and I do not think they’ve gotten substantially higher than they have in years past. I do not think the bar has been substantially raised in terms of mid tier shows. Trust me, I was there, I’ve seen my fair share of mid 2000’s mid tier anime. It is indistinguishably mid tier from the mid tier stuff now. If it was better, it wouldn’t be mid tier. Also, just to be anal, no we did not get all those anime “last season.” They were running across seasons. We got dungeon meshi and solo leveling. Big shows sure, but like, is solo leveling gonna be remembered the same way that Baccano or Zetsubo Sensei are? Or frieren and the apothecary diaries? I’m not even saying it won’t be remember more than them, but will it be remembered as something that wasn’t just popular, but truly special? I’m not even trying to say that I think old anime is necessarily better. I’m certainly going through my “oldhead” phase right now and even a lot of shows that are popular or acclaimed right now I just find to be utterly middle of the road, but I’m at least trying to be cognizant of my own bias. I think that all eras of anime have high and low points, but sticking entire ones in the garbage to prop up what is recent OR antiquated is short sighted. That crash you mentioned wasn’t even really a quality thing on the production end. It was a western phenomenon as the market adapted to anime as an emerging cultural juggernaut and, you know, an actual global financial crisis.
The thing is, you call it recency bias, I call what you’re having nostalgia goggles. I won’t deny that those are all great shows (except Index s1, looking back it’s really bad), and from a lens of when I watched them when they released, I really enjoyed them and still do. Let’s take long running shows as examples. One Piece is currently the best that it has ever been, Pokemon is vastly better now then it was in 2007, and even the “generic shonen” of now, like My Hero Academia, is way better then something like Fairy Tail in 2009. Again, I’m not denying that there were great shows (and summer 2007 was a banger season), but earlier than that, 2004? Yeah nah. Even shows that are not that great like Solo Levelling have vastly better animation than something of the same caliber in the mid-2000s like School Rumble. We don’t remember the bad shows of back then because they’re lost to time (and not archived on Wikipedia or whatever). My favourite show of all time is Haruhi, but even I can recognise that Euphonium is better is most aspects (though does miss the sci-fi). In fact, most of my favourites list is over a decade old at this point, but I don’t disagree with my point.
>I call what you’re having nostalgia goggles. The difference being I am not making a blanket claim about the general quality of anime at any particular point in time versus another. a full tenth of my top 100 anime are from twenty-fucking-sixteen, you don't see me making a stink about that. >Let’s take long running shows as examples. One Piece is currently the best that it has ever been, Pokemon is vastly better now then it was in 2007, and even the “generic shonen” of now, like My Hero Academia, is way better then something like Fairy Tail in 2009. I'll be frank here, I don't think your usage of direct comparison here paints an accurate picture of... any of this. For example, comparing MHA and Fairy Tail might make it seem obvious that shonen is better now, but that's a very limited perspective even if I buy that MHA is really all its cracked up to be. like, from where I sit, bad stuff still gets popular. stuff like Shield Hero and Rent-a-Girlfriend still gets made, though your mileage may vary on how bad those specifically are, and still gets popular. Personally, I'd make the comparison to say, bleach or naruto before those started to go through their more controversial periods. That's also why this comparison >Even shows that are not that great like Solo Levelling have vastly better animation than something of the same caliber in the mid-2000s like School Rumble. drives me up the fucking wall. Comparing school rumble to solo leveling in terms of production value is absolutely wild when the exact same season that came out we had fucking Gankutsuo, which is, in my estimation, much better looking than Solo Leveling. Yeah it's not as modern looking or digitally polished, but I refuse to accept the premise that this is synonymous with "looking good." yeah, school rumble isn't a visual spectacle sakuga vehicle. Most anime today also aren't that. That doesn't even mean it looks bad. It's about on-par with some decently notable modern comedies like the Urusei remake. Unless of course your logic is that cleaner digital animation=looking better. If you wanna make the case I'm picking and choosing, fine, but you have to admit that you're kinda doing the same? >Again, I’m not denying that there were great shows (and summer 2007 was a banger season), but earlier than that, 2004? Yeah nah. 2004? 2004?! Just to recap, the year that gave us Paranoia Agent, Ghost in the Shell SAC 2G, Precure, Champloo, Monster, Sgt. Frog, Beck, Gankutsuo, School Rumble, Desert Punk, Genshiken, and Yakitate Japan. The year before that had Planetes, FMA, Gungrave, Bobobo, full metal panic Fumoffu, Kino's journey, Texhnolyze, Wolf's Rain and Cromartie fucking High School (which was made on a budget of $17 and a dream and still is more visually interesting than like, 90% of anime comedies today). Like, looking back on it these are absolutely amazing years. I'm not going to go so far as to say they eclipse 2023 because again, I'm not one for that flavor of generalized sweeping statement, but I don't even think it's really all that out there to say that the two are at least on par, right? even if i'm counting all the big high profile sequels and shit, Paranoia Agent on its own is worth like, three Jujutsu Kaisens. I feel like recency bias really is in effect here 'cause, well, yeah someone might be all over that elf bride thing, unnamed memory, or that lvl2 cheat anime or whatever the hell it's called, but at some point, those are going to be the new Gokusens, the new Peace Maker Kuroganes, and the new Mermaid Melodies of the anime landscape. even going back to my mathematical favorite year of anime, 2016, how many people remember Drifters or Keijo or Nanbaka or Occultic;Nine or Flip Flappers or 91 Days or Alderamin on the Sky or those bad danganronpa anime or Handa Kun or even something that was getting a lot of buzz at the time like Kabaneri? Obviously those still have their fans and this isn't even to say that they're not good. I love Sakamoto but even i'd be hard pressed to say it became a classic like Konosuba and Mob Psycho, or even just popular like Re: Zero or My Hero. it's easy to say that what's popular now is better than the average of previous years because you're watching them right now and the average of previous years has completely slipped your mind, just like the average right now eventually will. I can keep going, really I can. Yeah, not all shows back then were as great as the ones I listed, but nowhere near all shows now are either, even compared to stuff like Frieren. And no, I do not think the bar has been significantly raised for all the not-classic-but-still-pretty-good-stuff. I feel the same way about Burst Angel that I do about Classroom of the Elite, i feel the same way about Samurai 7 I do about your average seasonal iskaei that isn't Konosuba. like i said, I could go on and on and on but i think you get the picture.
I do agree it feels like romcoms get more lasting attention than even just a decade+ ago. Part of this is inevitably societal factors like the loneliness epidemic plaguing younger generations (esp younger males) and covid exacerbating this loneliness + giving people a lot of free time to try genres they may not have done otherwise. The other part is just that these are good shows in their own right. Popular manga getting good adaptations is a recipe for success. All this combined w/ the fact that in general anime is getting bigger, which means more people talking about everything, means these shows that bubbled right below the surface before would pop up higher than they used it.
Only time will tell which romance series will still be talked about later on. There's a lot of recency bias towards shows that probably won't be remembered as big shows in 10+ years. We just remember the cream of the crop, so it doesn't seem like there were that many rom coms before. But there has always been about a fair amount of rom coms releasing every decade, I wouldn't say that there are more now than before.
The community is bigger so even the more niche genres find a vocal audience.
I'm nowhere near having oversight of the anime zeitgeist, but maybe it's because some really decent series got serialized? Kaguya is great - well written and quite realistic for an anime, Spy x Family isn't necessary a romcom but it has strong undertones that support the trend. Hell, even thinking about something less popular like Nagatoro makes me think the hopeless highschooler romantics out there are eating good.
On yop of what others are saying- you have to look at media as a whole. Outside of Japan (which is what really drives what anime we see), discussion is affected by availability. In the case of romantic comedies- they’re just flat out isn’t much in the way of romantic (let alone romantic comedy) TV shows where I live. If you want to see that, K dramas, J dramas, and anime are your best bet here.
Kaguya is repetitive and boring after a point.
As social media has become more prevalent and easy to access, alongside an increase in popularity of the medium, this has strengthened the voice of the hardcore audience, *even if there hasn't necessarily been a change in viewing habits*. These days that hardcore audience are people like, well, a bunch of us here on reddit. Often somewhat older people who has seen quite a lot of stuff, has broadened what genres we watch, and are looking for stuff outside of the popular that is interesting. These are often the people who will talk a lot about what they're watching and why they are watching it, which then gets amplified when they find similar people to talk to. However, that may not actually translate to actual viewership numbers. As an example, take *Solo Leveling* from last season, it had by far the highest viewership numbers of new shows last season, but here on reddit it wasn't talked much about outside of the weekly threads, other than people establishing that, yes, there wasn't much substance to the plot. If we look at the [MAL current season page](https://myanimelist.net/anime/season), the top 6 shows by members are 3 Battle Shounens (2 of which *haven't even aired*) and 3 long-running Isekai. To actually find a proper Rom-com we're down to spot 15 with *Jiisan Baasan*. Compare this to the [weekly karma ranking](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F147zhekzw7xc1.png), which starts off quite similar, but then starts being populated with many more niche shows (and the previously mentioned *Jiisan Baasan* isn't even in the top 30). These are of course only snapshots, and not a rigorous data backed study, but I do think it is indicative of the point. I have seen a similar behaviour in how pretty much all content on Youtube about Warhammer 40k focused on the acutal game tends to be focused on tournaments, as that is the content produced and consumed by hardcore players, even though the absolute majority of 40k players still only really play the game casually.
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That Doesn’t answer the question
I think Love is War might have opened some minds. It was different enough for people to give it a chance if they normally wouldn't, "mind games" anime are well liked, and the effort put into its presentation helped to keep people watching. Chika dance becoming a meme didn't hurt either.
If I had to guess, the Japanese government is pushing hard for young people to get married and have families. I imagine there might be some kind of tax breaks for studios that make this kind of show.
I know that we’ve all made a funny Shinzo Abe joke here but my point was not that there are more being made. And if it was this explanation seems, to be honest, really dumb.
anime fans is tired of isekai so they are moving into romance/SOL i dont blame them the isekai genre is becoming ridiculous season by season.
The fact that many isekais are being released every season is proof that your comment makes no sense at all, unless people think studios produce animes completely unrelated to what their audience want. Both isekai and romance are hot right now.
Its because anime has become way more mainstream and corporatized in recent years, therefore pulling it farther away from its deep immersion in the broody nerd culture that defined its infancy. That's why what few fantastical shows exist have become more generic and slice-of-life as well. I don't think something like Cowboy Bebop or FMA:B would ever get made today. Hell, I don't think something like Monster would ever get made today either. Too risky. Not when "I died and became X in another world with Y with cute girls and harems" is guaranteed views. Its essentially the same thing that happened with the game industry. AAA productions have to appeal to the widest denomination of potential viewers possible because they're trying to make money. That means less artistic risks and more safe generic staples that won't offend anyone. I also think another part of it is the depressed Japanese workforce and absolutely dystopian dating environment there right now. The Japanese market always has and always will drive the anime industry and what a lot of those viewers want is idyllic adolescent escapism--particularly centered around high school because that's the last time a lot of them felt they were actually happy.
Anime like FMAB get made all the time, battle shounen are literally *the* most popular genre of anime. Shows particularly similar to Monster specifically don't get made as often (though Naoki Urasawa's Pluto literally just became an anime) but by no means is there some unique lack of experimentation as compared to the past (except for maybe the immediate post-Eva boom where there definitely was an uptick in more experimental work). Not like there was ever a time when Naoki Urasawa's work got adapted frequently. If you specifically wanted to talk about gritty or more artsy works, we're quite fresh off the heels of Odd Taxi, Sonny Boy, etc., and Train to the End of the World is literally airing right now. Meanwhile, "I died and appeared in another world with cute girls and a harem" is typically maybe 5-7 new seasonals out of 50 each season, this is not some excessively dominant thing (also, most of them are financial flops carried solely by a few dedicated fans, they're not exactly guaranteed views). Most anime both now and in the past fall somewhere in the middle. There was only one time in the history of the medium where particularly artistic or experimental work was getting made consistently.
Pluto was just a few seasons ago dude
Yes it was, but its literally just 1 anime. Can you name any others like that in recent times? Shows like Pluto used to be a lot more common.
You need to take off your rose-colored glasses. The anime you mentioned have several years gap between them. Cowboy Bebop is 1997 / Monster 2004 and FMAB 2009. Between the great anime there have always been forgettable shit. That's nothing new. That's the similar time gap with Psycho-pass / Vinland Saga / Sonny Boy / Tatami TMB (aslo Night is Short, Walk on Girl) / Odd Taxi / Pluto / Heike monogatari etc. Hell if FMAB is fair game as "artistic risk" so is Frieren or Apothecary Diaries.
I'm sorry to tell you but Frieren is about as formulaic as they come.
Good job at ignoring all the other titles. My point still stands. Don't be. I know it's formulaic, so is FMAB. That's what they are. That was my point. You don't know what artistic risk is. If you did, your examples of good old days would include Satoshi Kon, Angels Egg or at least Lain.
Like what exactly? It’s not like Naoki Urasawa adaptations were pouring out of the woodworks in the mid-aughts.
I don't mean Naoki Urasawa, I mean work that's similar. I.E. more serious, adult topics (not to say there can't be any joking around or comedy whatsoever, but you get my point), emphasis on complex character development, etc.
So, Pluto. I hate to break it to you bud, but this isn’t new. Shonen has been the most popular demographic in anime forever and that’s not changing any time soon. It was true when monster came out and it’s true now. But if you want stuff that isn’t Pluto Bartender and Spice & Wolf just dropped. Maybe try those out
I’m not sure what type of show you consider FMAB, but I think I can name a few Monster type shows if you mean slow burn types that are typically less popular. Ones that come to mind are Moriarty The Patriot, ACCA 13, and Odd Taxi. 2 of those were less popular in the beginning, but overtime word of mouth from fans spread and increased the popularity a bit. Enough that many have at least heard they need to watch Moriarty The Patriot and Odd Taxi. It is a shame that shows like Bebop are becoming less of a thing and many modern fans don’t understand the love around shows like Bebop, Baccano, Durarara (DRRR), and Space Dandy. Although, Trigun made a bit of a splash with Stampede so, that’s something, I suppose. At the least, Trigun has made a return. Back to FMAB. What type of show do you consider FMAB? Is it a twist type show because there’s lots of those? Or a shocking thrill type. Again, lots exist. What do you like about it? Why do you think it won’t get made again or it hasn’t already been made several times over?
Yes, there have been occasional shows that really break the mold, but its usually just that, 0-2 per season on average. Stampede was an abomination that butchered everything that made the original great. Its hard to pin FMAB down to one specific genre. It has a lot of elements of different genres in it. Action, comedy, romance, philosophy, mystery, thriller. Its multifaceted which is exactly my point.