The Future of Anime

Greeting everyone!
So I was having this discussion with some friends of mine, and what it basically comes down to is, the question of the future of anime and perhaps even manga. Obviously technology allows Americans to read, stream, translate, and enjoy manga/anime from Japan and places of the like... but what will it do to alter it...
In essence, I want to hear what you all think will happen, as our world evolves, what do you guys think with happen to anime... will it too evolve? Will the way its produced and shown change, for example, will manga stop being on paper, but produced in subscriptions for online viewing? Will anime become more interactive, as other things such as video games have with their evolution. Will people have more say with the story and events, and could anime evolve to be unique to each individual? With time, could we in our own way become part of our own unique anime story, set up completely by us, with a plot that is controlled by the programs creator?

Should anyone chose to participate, the rules for this discussion are limited to your imaginations. Don't limit your responses to the times of now, but rather invention that is paving way in the future, your own logic is allowed. Present your case... I am just curious for the responses people may have, and perhaps we can come to a conclusion most seem to agree with. Bring outside sources if ya want, I hope this can be more like a think tank..

Anyway, to whoever cares to discuss, happy theorizing and I hope our discussions can be both fruitful and intriguing!
-The Butler

In japan, it's already changed so much. Every year there are only so many anime's that are "unique". And I use that word loosely. The big anime's right now are Terra Formars, and it was super censored. I mean, there are other more horrific anime's that show blood and gore, heads being ripped from their bodies, umbrellas impaling middle schoolers, intense torture and gore. All in the name of horror. Is this really horror? No. It's more or less macabre. Corporations are indeed looking to expand their reach, via crunchyroll and funimation and other things of that nature.

Sure people of all social status in japan, do indeed watch Anime. However, the majority of anime nerds in japan are either students with low grades, artists, and NEET's, don't let me forget to mention children. Funimation and Noitamina are sort of preconditioning their viewers to believe in crazy things. Many middle schoolers believe that one day, they will have special powers, or something devastating will happen to the world, and they will be the ones needed to stop it. This conditioning is a delusion known in japan as Middle School Syndrome, or Chuunibyou. This mindset sort of forces viewers to either grow up and realize, that the world is boring as fuck and become a NEET. Or, it forces them to smarten up and get their grades sorted out and get a job in the anime industry if possible. There are hundreds if not thousands of japanese blogs that watch and review anime religiously to make a little but of money, while they work their part time jobs. In Japan anime has become an addiction and will always remain.

That said, the Anime industry needs to evolve in order for NEETs to be able to view content without torrenting. The content of anime will rarely change, however, the way it is distributed definitely needs to change. Right now we have funimation, netflix, and crunchyroll, and I'm sure there are more depending on your region. The way it works with these streaming companies, is simple. They buy permission from the production company, say 40k for a popular shounen, and considerably less for anime's that fill a certain niche. Take the "Slice of Life" Genre and the "Magical Girl" genre. Roughly 1 out of 5 of these animes rank high enough on the blue ray charts for corporations to buy them. So, because of this, they are cheaper. However, the 1 out of 5 choice will always go to the highest bidder because they can use it to attract more customers to sign up for their service.

So, to summarize... I guess the anime industry has indeed changed a lot since 2005. The quality of anime's has worsened, but there's still something for everybody. Anime's are becoming less unique, and people aren't even noticing. There is so much fan service in anime, and the creators tend to be somewhat perverted or stuck in their ways to try anything different. Look at Sunrise, they've been making Gundam anime's since the beginning of time and now they're aiming for the children demographic. They made many masterpieces, but have given up on them. It's sad, but it's the true. Hayao Miyazaki said it himself. "An anime used to be a work of art, now they are slowly becoming more fan-oriented." What he meant by this is simple. People worship long running anime's like One Piece, Naruto, ect. At first it was because of what they were. Now it's simply because fans and content creators don't want to let go. They've become an obsession, and it's hindering creativity. HOW LONG DID IT FUCKING TAKE FOR PARASYTE TO BECOME A FUCKING ANIME. The manga was finished in 2001. What about Code Geass? The Ending was perfect but people were too obsessed to let it go. It seriously took years.

Anyways, this sort of turned into a rant. Read it all if you want, or just ignore it, I don't care.

I was going to share my input, then Dex posted.

I got nothing to add now lol

Though, I disagree with something. It's true that now there is many 'terrible' anime(s) but they always existed. It's not like they're only showing now. If we're talking about the long series, such as Naruto, One Piece, Detective Connan, etc. We can always relate to why people won't let these go. First, they were an 'original' idea. Before these series came out there was almost 0 successful animes of this kind. Why people won't let it go? Because they still remember the good old days when these animes first started. But, the idea of the bad animes has always been around. I watch tons of the older animes from back in the early 90's and older series, and the art is just terrible, you can't even focus on the plot with that sort of art.

More or less, It's true that now the number of bad animes has increased, still, the number of good animes has increased as well. At least from my perspective.

KAPPAnzo wrote:

I was going to share my input, then Dex posted.

I got nothing to add now lol

Though, I disagree with something. It's true that now there is many 'terrible' anime(s) but they always existed. It's not like they're only showing now. If we're talking about the long series, such as Naruto, One Piece, Detective Connan, etc. We can always relate to why people won't let these go. First, they were an 'original' idea. Before these series came out there was almost 0 successful animes of this kind. Why people won't let it go? Because they still remember the good old days when these animes first started. But, the idea of the bad animes has always been around. I watch tons of the older animes from back in the early 90's and older series, and the art is just terrible, you can't even focus on the plot with that sort of art.

More or less, It's true that now the number of bad animes has increased, still, the number of good animes has increased as well. At least from my perspective.

While the animation is terrible, the story lines were quite good. In the 80's to 90's the top anime's were Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Gundam Wing, and Saint Seiya. Don't even get me started on Akira. That shit was a masterpiece back in the day. I guess that only covers the 90's. I can't think of any 80's animes except for Astro boy and I think that was specifically geared towards children.

If you watch those anime's online, the image quality is indeed horrible. But if you watch them on an older TV, they're pretty decent.
However, when you bring up the story line, everything has been done already. And it's been done even better. Look at Sailor Moon, it was actually pretty good back in the day. But compare that to a short anime like Madoka Magica and Sailor Moon looses, hands down. The only element missing from Madoka Magica was love, and I really think it could have helped the series if the main character was a lesbian and fell in love with one of her comrade. Then to see her fight with all her power to end the cycle that killed her first love.

I don't know, that could be even more of a cliché. However, i don't think any main character has actually had a homo-erotic love story like animes have shown heterosexual love. Anyways, that opens a whole new can of worms which i really don't want to get into right now.