An optimistic outlook on modern anime

Over the course of this week I had a discussion with a fan of old-school anime about modern anime and its current fandom. Most people who have follow my reviewing and other written trails on the internet on anime have probably guessed that I’m heavily into newer anime. In fact, I’d approximate that at least 95% of the anime I watch is less than a year old. Why my watching habits have gone in that direction is beside the point right now, and is maybe a topic for discussion in the future.

Though we both eventually came to the same conclusion and outlook on the issue, we both saw things from slightly different angles, largely, I’d speculate, due to our differing backgrounds in anime. My acquaintance has been, in a sense, captured by an era gone by, back in the 80s and 90s when mecha and action series were far more prominent, and when plot-heavy stories made up the majority of top calibre anime. I, myself, am a fairly recent entrant into the world of anime, and only began watching it incessantly during my undergrad years… during which time a large percentage of my ‘diet’ consisted of slice-of-life, romance, drama and shoujo (I was captured by shoujo very early in my anime “career” thanks to two particular series: Fruits Basket and Kare Kano)… in general, character-focused series. To put an exact number on it, I’ve been watching anime for just over four-and-a-bit years, and, even from very early on hot-off-the-shelf series made up a portion of that watching.

Admittedly, the debate itself is beside the point in this context, since it was more about the fandom than the anime itself, something which sort of relates to last week‘s article, in that different people are going to like anime for different reasons. The conclusion that we both eventually reached was that, while anime has gone through peaks and troughs over the years, the medium has always offered a mixture of gems and crap, no matter what time. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the quality of anime as a medium is, to within reasonable boudaries, time independent. Admittedly, the good-to-crap ratio was probably higher during the times when less anime were being made, but, with more anime being made, chance demands that at least a few of them must be good (which is the case if my opinion and experiences are anything to be believed). And, it’s not like people need to force themselves to watch the crap.

The advantage, in my opinion, of the modern mass production of anime is that, with a larger number of titles being released, anime can (and will, being, like most things in life, driven by a market) cater to a wider range of tastes. This point almost doesn’t need examples to be backed up, so self-evident it is (in my eyes), but spending most of my time in recent years writing to skeptics, I’ll give some. Noitamina is probably the best example, breathing life into a genre of anime that many were fearing was in danger of dying out. Visual novel conversions are starting to explore a larger variety of themes and settings than the standard romantic harem set up. Classical literature is (again, 70s not forgotten) becoming a prominent source material, with legendary Gonzo series, Gankutsuou – The Count of Monte Cristo, as well as 2007 plans for Romeo & Juliet and the (currently airing, but un-fansubbed) Les Miserables adaptation. Episodic fantasies with a philosophic focus (titles like Kino’s Journey and Mushishi) are starting to draw followings, where, in the past philosophy was almost entirely exclusive to the sci-fi genre. Even the staple genre of anime, shounen, is exploring places it would never have dreamt of going in the past. I mean, would we have seen an anime about a fearless gambler that plays mahjong ten years ago? (Ok, maybe it’s possible, but I’d say it’s more likely now). Now Akagi is an underground cult hit.

What modern anime does have that wasn’t as accessible in the past is greater technology, which, in the hands of the right people, means prettier animation. Yes, the past does boast art that has an amazing amount of detail that has gone missing in most titles these days… but such art can only generally be seen in big budget OVA and movies. The standard TV show back in the days isn’t as easy on the eyes as the standard TV show these days. Many people will argue that the easy accessibility of more powerful and cheaper technologies cheapens anime as a whole, but I still maintain that, while the ratio of excellent titles to generic forgettable anime has probably gone down, the gems that do come out still tell tales as good as (and arguably better in some cases) the classics of years gone by, and they also have the advantage of looking significantly better. Which, as an anime fan, is something I find incredibly exciting.

Another thing I find exciting is the trend in modern anime for more character development. We’re not quite at the stage where we can take character development for granted, but it’s not so scarce as it was in the past. Even the most generic and throwaway of series will tend to have at least some character development (even if their plots are predictable and recycled). And the top tier of series have characters with incredible depth, complexity and personalities which make them near impossible to forget. This trend of the medium as a whole to have more, rather than less character development is only a very recent one, which only really started (I’d approximate) in the last three years. But it all leads to more compelling drama and romance (as well as other things) in stories. Hell, there’s even a typecast which was labeled in the last couple of years that is technically a type of character development: tsundere. That character development has become so prominent that one of the more repeated types of it has become recognized enough that it is labeled does not, in my opinion, do anything but bode well for the direction and attitude modern anime is taking towards character development. Call me optimistic… or even delusional, but that’s how I see it.

Anime will continue to evolve. That, on its own is a reason to be excited about it, since it will always offer new ideas, particular now that there’s more money involved in the industry. It is when the entire medium begins to stagnate that things will begin getting worrisome. But, while that small percentage of outstanding, unforgettable series, such as are being produced, everything is still worthwhile and in its right place. These are the titles we wait out for, and the reasons we become fans of anime in the first place.