SUPAFLAVIN’s CORNER

Tsuneo Imahori - Bitter Ending

When things… just don’t go your way. 

I haven’t been watching anime since about five years ago. Most of the new shows coming out just weren’t interesting enough for me, too much Moe and too much slice of life anime centered around characterization than storytelling. I’m old school, I grew up watching VHS tapes as a kid and having to buy anime to watch it, and that was also during a time where anime was all over the place in it’s approach. The OVA was an art form then, major motion pictures were being produced, and ambitious creators were walking around attempting to gain credibility for themselves. 

Those days are gone though, the Japanese economy has a lot to do with it, according to a Japanese friend of mine some years ago. Slowly, anime wasn’t booming anymore and budgets grew tighter for many studios, so eventually everything became tighter and more calculated on what would keep many of them from closing. Fan service takes more of the place of storytelling or in many cases the mature dialogue of a lot of older plots are gone or absent altogether. These are generalizations, but it’s why I got shoved out in the first place, Anime has gotten too concentrated in certain areas to stay alive and variety is limited in this response. I’m sure there might be a few shows I could like out there, but I’ve retired from anime in general, I just like the oldies nowadays.