Having so many friends and a wife who watch seasonal anime as they come out is nuts. I pay no mind to this stuff myself but I hear about it so much. "No they killed off the girl with glasses that I liked in Attack on Titan", "Eminence in Shadow is so good", "Chillin in my 30s because the demon lord booted me out of his army such a neat show" etc, etc. On the rare occasion people ask for my opinion I have to say I can't weigh in because I don't watch that stuff. I've tried though. I know it's going to sound hypocritical, me saying this when so many posts here are dedicated to Gundam, and me praising newer Gundam series, but screw it. I am going to definitively give my opinion on prompted and prove some points and facts that's influence my opinion.
I see so many people online hate on anime for a lot of reasons I hate most anime for too. However when someone says they don't like anime, there is a 70% chance a guy responded to it saying why they should check out JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and why it is different. Trust me, as someone who has to an extent tried watching it, I can tell you JoJo isn't going to win over anyone who already hates or dislikes anime. The show is just off the wall weird and strange and sometimes nonsensical on purpose, and I get that is the point. It is different in many ways, but different doesn't mean it will win over some snob. However you notice JoJo is a way bigger deal among weebs here in the west than it is among Otakus in Japan.
Japan and America have a completely different paradigm in regards to anime. You can attribute the big success of anime here in the states to Toonami. Previously shows like Robotech, Sailor Moon Voltron, Speed Racer etc brought over anime in a rewritten format (sometimes combing shows together by hacking together scenes from different shows into one episode.) and presented as a new show over in the west, and they all had varied levels of success here. However Toonami was where it reached its apex. Cowboy Bebop and it's English dub (I have not scene a full episode of that show or it's dub) are both credited with popularizing anime here. Funny enough Cowboy Bebop was just a show some people at Sunrise did in-between bigger projects, it's seen as great, but not seen as some major milestone or anything there like it is here. A big part of why it is considered a huge milestone here is because it had a great dub and was one of the shows that popularized the medium here. Hell, Sunrise's Batman The Animated series inspired anime: Big O only got another season because it was doing really well in the west. Dragonball is probably the most recognized anime outside of Japan. Evangellion is big too for some reason. I've always likened Evangellion to Star Wars. Not because it's big (It's more so a nostalgic series with a dedicated cult following in Japan at this point) but because like Star Wars it was a passion project by a man who wanted to make something combining elements from a lot of their favorite media. Evangellion takes elements from stuff like Space Battleship Yamato, Gundam and it's various series, Space Runaway Ideon (yet another series by the creator of Gundam), Ultraman, Devilman and some others I am neglecting to mention because I can't be bothered to go on some community written website and read potentially erroneous parroted information most websites offer. However most the anime series considered huge in the west aren't as huge or influential in Japan as a lot of people may think. Just a humble reminder Gundam is Japan's biggest anime franchise domestically in Japan, and it's fanbase is a small disagreeable yet dedicated bunch in the west. Point is that what's big in the west doesn't usually equate to the same level of huge among Otakus and general audiences in Japan.
However the western fanbase played a big part on just what happened to anime. This year I have tried to branch out from Gundam into other anime series, and I signed up for My Anime List. This was immensely helpful in organizing the shows in my watchlist that I had been recommended. However it also helped me notice things and get a glimpse into the mind of a "consoomer" of seasonal anime. As of writing this the only show on my currently being watched is Giant Gorg, which I have been enjoying. However, one such anime series recommended to me by a dear friend of mine was UFO Robo Grendizer. Grendizer being a favorite of theirs, and said friend being a huge Mazinger fan. However I noticed that Grendizer is listed as one entry with 74 episodes where as most anime added in the last decade on MAL are listed as multiple entries and divided by seasons. This made me think it was strange until I talked about Gundam ZZ to a friend of mine who was unfamiliar and mentioned it has 47 episodes. They said "that's a lot. Like 3 or 4 seasons of a modern anime series worth of episodes" and it got me thinking and lead me down a rabbit hole. Anime back in the day was worked on differently than it is now. Back then you had a set amount of episodes brought to order, and whatever team was working on it would typically create episodes as the series was airing, being a set amount episodes ahead of what number episode would be airing. If your series was underperforming there would be a good chance it would get cancelled and you would have to work within the episodes of your series being cut down a significant amount, leaving you to try to wrap it properly with the shortened number of episodes. That was just how it was back then and continued to be for decades. So why the change?
Over in America seasonalized TV is very much the norm, and it's easier to market shows when you have those controlled waves of episode releases to build anticipation and keep ratings up. It's also easier to keep track of multiple shows you want to watch like this, and makes this a preferred method of viewing TV for a lot of people. As anime started growing in popularity in the west, so did the way it's made. Over time here in America so many things just grew to be made at an assembly line pace to keep a constant flow of content out seasonally for everyone to enjoy. You can see this now with Marvel and Star Wars stuff produced by Disney or for other examples shows on networks like TLC. Not to say this is bad, but it can lead to a stagnation in quality, again look at Marvel. As anime grew in popularity in the west and was aired on Toonami it helped encourage a change in how it was presented. For example, Gundam Seed (Gundam is the only anime franchise I am intimately familiar with) was 50 episodes, and its sequel series Gundam Seed Destiny was also 50 episodes. Following this was Gundam 00 in 2007, split into 2 seasons of 25 episodes each, a good example of around the time this paradigm shift started. By the 2010s this sort of thing has become standard. The big reason being because with seasonally produced anime it was made easier to watch these and keep track of them. This encouraged binge watching, and helped make them more easily consumable for average people. Though to be fair this can also increase a show's longevity and keep boosting ratings. For example it can lead to something marketed towards young boys such as Demon Slayer lasting long after the debut episode aired on TV. In addition, if you decide to cancel a show it can now just be the death of that series and not cost you anymore money. If you look at a series like "After War Gundam X", it was cancelled, and that meant they could only finish a set number of episodes past the one currently airing at that time of cancellation. Of 49 episodes, they only managed to make 38, as they had work around the cancellation to conclude the series proper. This meant losing 11 episodes and dedicated the last dozen or so episodes to the essential truncated plot points originally planned for much later in the show. Now with the seasonal form of producing and airing anime they can cancel shows easier. If you cancel one between seasons, it will just be over, no more. With no obligation to finish episodes already a decent way into production due to said show not currently airing on TV and meeting a large episode order, its so much easier to cancel shows. For an example, just look at Goblin Slayer. The other big reason for doing this is that in the last couple decades it has become increasingly more common to adapt anime from manga rather than create an original work for TV. Not saying this wasn't always a thing, just look at something like Mighty Atom or Space Pirate Captain Harlock. I'm just that it is more common now than it ever was before. This seasonal format can give shows a chance to let their respective manga continue so they don't have to worry about overtaking them or running out of material to adapt. This seasonal format of releases can help inflate longevity and lead to increase profitability and ratings spikes, a big reason why this has become the norm. So to be fair this seasonal style of releasing does have its merits, but it doesn't really change what I said.
Another big reason for me is the art style and animation, now I know that's surface level, but this sort of thing work vice versa for so many people, let me explain my point of view. I see so many weebs on My Anime List declare outdated art styles and animation to be a defining factor in not wanting to watch something from the last 15 years. Let me just say that hand drawn animation colored by hand will always look more lively and engaging than anything drawn on computers digitally. I am not sorry, that is a fact. Hand drawn animation will always be more lively, energetic and expressive. Digital animation has always stuck out to me in a way I don't like that much. I can understand not liking the way some old shows might look, I'll be the first to admit the strained and hellish production the original Mobile Suit Gundam went through made a lot of the animation in that show age like milk. However you cannot tell me really well done traditional hand drawn animation doesn't look better than digital animation any day of the week. Digital animation is almost entirely done for convenience sake, cost effectiveness and for the ease of adding in computer generated effects in post. There's this level of movement energy and flow to the movement you can't get otherwise. However it is cheaper, easier integrate CGI into and it takes less time and effort. So it has become the standard as companies adopted more assembly line style of production and creation and release. The other big problem presented by this is how it has lead to standardization with art styles. Art styles were pretty varied, especially back in the day. However, as digitally drawn animation has become the norm so too has more standardized art styles. As more and more shows are digitally made at an assembly line pace, it has become easier to just use more standard and generic art style. More typical art styles among popular shows was already becoming a thing in the 90s, and it's just the thing now. It's easier for studios to use a more uniform art style or variations of said uniform art style. I'm not saying every show is like this, but it's very clear a more industry standard art style has taken hold. Just look at My Hero Academia. (only widely popular modern anime series I have seen a lot of.) I have seen the anime and read a lot of the manga because a friend wouldn't shut up about it to me back in 2017. You look at the anime and then a likewise illustration from the manga, and it's night and day which one looks more interesting or detailed. The villain Tomura Shigeraki looks way worse and less creepy in the anime, I'm sorry but that's just a fact. So much visual personality is lost nowadays in the move from manga to anime because of this standardization. Sure I can still very clearly tell who's art they're adapting but so much of what I like about his illustrations just isn't there. Compare this to any classics shows adapting a Go Nagai manga such as Mazinger Z and his art style was carried over very faithfully in the transition to animation, even a lot of the quirks of his designs and illustrations were too.
Now I think a big part of this style is the inspiration from shoujo works. Stuff like Sailor Moon and some of the works adapted from manga by Clamp were a big factor into what got women into anime in general. This a big factor into why so many shows in the 2000s had these super bishi art styles, to try and make things that appealed more to women. Then you look at the production of something like Code Geass where hiring Clamp to do character designs was a move deliberately done to help the show appeal to as wide an audience as possible. The fact that many of these shows would be released in the west too also played a factor in the process behind making these shows. The western market is undeniably a big part of Dragonball's success, and it is undeniably a big part of what has been keeping the franchise going the way it has. It's undeniable that mass marketability in and out of Japan, and a seasonal release system made for easier mass consumption has influenced the way these shows are made and how they are presented. It's big part of why art style in a lot of these look the same. This cheaper more cost effective digital animation just makes it easier for these shows to be made and this more uniform art style a lot of shows have adopted makes it easier watch all these shows one after the other, especially considering that in the west it is very common to binge watch television shows. I just can't really get behind the digital animation the same way I can hand drawn animation. It's not bad, but a lot of these shows have an uphill battle in winning me over because I am not huge on modern digital animation quite like I am hand drawn stuff. I also miss the variety in art style. It's just a shame. Most people who can't stand most older animation are just so used to these kind of shows made in an assembly line type efficiency and pumped out for mass consumption they just something that looks different and feels too different is just too big of a shift than what they are used to, the kind of anime they like to watch. It's incredibly shortsighted and biased on their end, but it's understandable given what they are used to. The industry has conditioned them to one uniform style with minor variations built on it.
Last reason is fandoms and culture. You want to know why I don't talk about My Hero Academia or keep up with it like I used to? Most of that fandom is toxic. There is a reason why My Hero Academia cringe compilations are a thing on YouTube and why My Hero Academia fans appear on TikTok cringe compilations. A buddy of mine put on a My Hero Academia cringe compilation and I saw things ranging from one girl LARPing as an OC that is the biological daughter of two boy characters who had no romantic interest or huge comradery. Not so bad I know, but then in that same compilation another one where two people dressed as two male characters from the show pretended to have impregnated each-other and then proceed to give one another abortions with a wire clothes hanger. Yes that's a very extreme leap, but that's what I saw. I knew some people who were hardcore JoJo fans, and one of them told me that the fandom is extremely toxic and told me many a horror story about her time dealing with that fandom. I can tell you a lot of Gundam fans here in the west aren't nice people and a significant number of them are elitist snobs. This isn't even mentioning weeb culture in general the general fetishization of Japanese culture that comes with this. Do you know how many people just say a Japanese phrase like "yare yare daze" because they heard it in an anime. A buddy of mine actually got in trouble over a misunderstanding using choice Japanese phrases he learned watching anime. I know it's unavoidable I want as little association with those kind of toxic people as possible. This is why I am never active in online fandoms or big communities. I'm sorry, but a lot of modern anime just bring these toxic communities. Yeah a lot of old anime do the same thing, but at least those communities aren't as vocal or common, and they aren't just consuming product. I can just act like they don't exist and continue to enjoy things how I want to, which at the end of the day isn't too much to ask for.
In the end though I really just like enjoying stuff that interests me at my own pace. It's just a simple fact that the way these shows are made now doesn't give shows a lot of the same appeal anime that got me into the art form has. The cheaper animation, style of production, and how how art styles have of become all so stock and standardized. It just makes many of these shows seem uninteresting to me at first. I've tried watching some of these seasonal anime, but they just don't appeal to me. I'm sorry that's just it. As I branch out into other shows recommended by friends maybe I'll write articles on those, I'm not sure. If you disagree with or take issue with anything I said feel free to contact me and debate me, just know that this is all my opinion and it's not worth raising a big fuss over.
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