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Comment by world2vec | Hacker News Reader

Anime has never been more popular but honestly its quality has declined a lot. It's all isekai and supernatural-sexy-schoolgirl-whatever (kinda creepy) these days. Or the same old animes that go on forever.

Every year there's less and less animes that are worth the time to watch IMHO.

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Of course quality is subjective, but my own stats on AniDB show no decline.

I've watch at least one anime produced every year from 1977 to now. For 2000-2025 I've watched 24 to 62 anime of each year. My average vote by year is surprisingly stable at 5 ±0.6.

My top votes also don't show any significative tendency. Out of my 25 favorite anime, 6 were produced in 2020 or later. Notably the film "Kaguya-hime no monogatari", but also seinen series like "Nami yo Kiite Kure", "ACCA" or "Eizouken".

BTW, "Eizouken" (2020) is wonderful, and it's about a young girl wishing to become an animator, and how she creates short animes with her friends. I strongly recommend it!

> 6 were produced in 2020 or later. Notably the film "Kaguya-hime no monogatari", but also seinen series like "Nami yo Kiite Kure", "ACCA" or "Eizouken".

Huh? Kaguya-hime was in 2013, 7 years before 2020 (after a notoriously protracted development). You really think Isao Takahata and Studio Ghibli were releasing that post-COVID? (Isao wasn't even alive in 2020.)

Maybe they meant “Chou Kaguya-hime!” (2026). I haven’t watched it yet but Cosmic Princess Kaguya was really well received on release.

Sturgeon's Law: “[…] they say 'ninety percent of science fiction is crud.' Well, they're right. Ninety percent of science fiction is crud. But then ninety percent of everything is crud, and it's the ten percent that isn't crud that is important.”

The same ratio of garbage to quality was available back then, there just wasn’t the same level of exposure to the range of output so the worst ones faded into history.

What? This is a golden age of anime.

You could count the number of anime available in the west and worth watching 25 years ago on one hand, maybe two.

Now? If you can't find something, you're not looking hard enough. Off the top of my head, current anime that do not remotely fit your categories:

- Spy x Family

- Dandadan

- Dungeon Meshi

- Apocalypse Hotel

- Yumi no Tsugai (Daemons of the Shadow Realm)

- Kaiju No. 8

- Marriage Toxin

- Steel Ball Run

- The Summer Hikaru Died

- Akane-Banashi

- Dorohedoro

edit: formatting. edit 2: added Dorohedoro, good call down below

I did not know they made an anime of The Summer Hikaru Died. The manga was amazing, I need to check out how they adapted it.

Nippon Sangoku and Witch Hat Atelier are worth mentioning, on the strengths of both their animation quality and generally amazing storylines.

Dungeon Meshi is a good well-rounded recommendation even for those who aren't particularly into anime. I'd personally add to that list:

- Clevatess

- Kusuriya no Hitorigoto

- Tongari Boushi no Atelier

- Sousou no Frieren

- Yuusha-kei ni Shosu

- Shoushimin Series

- Chi. Chikyuu no Undou ni Tsuite

With my recommendation criteria being: good (or decent budget) art/animation, good story and characters, and nothing too "weird" in it for the general population.

Off-topic rant for dandadan:

One of the main character Takakura is initially portrayed as being obsessed with aliens and UFOs, to the point it affects his social life. But the morning after their actual encounter with paranormal, the dude literally can't think about anything but pussy. I couldn't get past what a grifting poseur the protagonist was and I dropped the anime after that. Petty reason, but I'll probably change my mind and retry again in the future. Or not.

To add a couple more into this list:

- Orb: On the Movements of the Earth

- Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia (upcoming)

Honestly, a lot of great anime fall into the cracks. Orb almost slipped me by, but that was a fantastic watch and I am eagerly anticipating Jaadugar.

edit: one more I couldn't help but add: Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray. Just let go of what you may feel about having a story centered around horse-girl hybrids, ultimately Cingray is a fantastic female-led shounen sports anime.

https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/cmumj/everything_wa...

Given the sheer volume of the output, it is conceivably difficult to maintain the quality of the plots/characters, even if the animation is stable or even improving. As a byproduct of that, more and more ambitious/batshit source texts are being animated, which sometimes works well (Dandadan) and sometimes doesn't (Uzumaki).

Funny, that was already true in 2006. It's the thing people keep saying, and yet anime keeps coming out.

Right now they're stuck in the whole "ten shows from the same budget, each run by their own 'committee' and each competing for cash that runs out well before the show's over, and the poor performance very quickly get less per episode". Great for networks, shit for shows. Even worse for animators who need to get paid a living wage.

A cursory glance of anime tv shows released in 2006 and there's a lot of good things I'd watch again: Honey & Clover, Kemonozume, Ergo Proxy, Code Geass, Haruhi Suzumiya, etc.

In 2026 the only thing that has captivated me, so far, was the Chainsaw Man movie and Dorohedoro S2.

Akane Banashi was probably the best directed show this season.

Higurashi when they cry does the whole concept of time reset well (2006).

Trigun sequel is coming out this year.

2026 titles have caught on that trend of a really long specific title though.

“The Laid-Off Cheat-Granting Mage Enjoys a Second Lease on Life”

I think anime is a big enough category that every year there’s always at least a few good ones but it’s hard to get good signal to noise. But the whole tiny girl thing is 100% a trend that’s stuck around.

Those titles are a result of the webnovel -> lightnovel pipeline. Users won't click unless they like the concept so authors started to just put the tagline directly in the title.

> Trigun sequel is coming out this year.

Aren’t there a few Trigun sequel series already out (Stampede (2023), Stargaze (2026)), or do you mean something different?

You're into Chainsaw Man and Dorohedero but not JJK?

Is Dorohedoro S2 out? Wa wa wee wa!

Kidding aside, did you pick those 2006 releases at the time they were being released or are you picking them up from a list after years of refinement and discovery? It's completely possible that 2026 will be as fruitful from a 2046 perspective.

Very nice! But seriously, it's like one of the only good anime in the last 6 years or so.

>In 2026 the only thing that has captivated me

I mean, you are twenty years older, if you didn't watch those anime in 2006 and tried to watch them now, you probably wouldn't watch most of them. It's not really any different than the people that say "oh, the best music came out in my formative years".

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