Are manga/anime/LNs falling into the same trap as western media?

[Representing_Tromba]

It's pretty apparent that western entertainment is struggling for various reasons including but not limited to, poor writing, bad production, and a moneycentric reasoning for creating rather than out of a desire to entertain. Recently, I've been seeing the exact same problems among anime, light novels, and manga and it's pretty sad. As a result, I have only enjoyed a few new productions that feel like they have heart while the rest feel forced, devoid of passion, and mainly for popularity and/or money. I get people need money and those in the industry are paid to create but it doesn't feel right. Early anime felt like it was being created because the people creating it wanted to, not because they were paid to. Now, I'm watching older anime, reading older LNs/manga, and enjoying it because it is actually good compared to the modern copy paste protagonist fantasy story. Don't get me wrong though, there is some good bangers in modern day but they are few and far between. I know this is the age old rant of "it isn't what it used to be when I was young" but when the modern stuff consists of repeatedly poorly written brainrot for the sake of a quick buck, it feels like I understand the rant. Hell, I found better writing in the Ugandan indie film industry than in most of what I see coming out of western and eastern entertainment today.

Is anyone else having this problem or is it just me? If you have a similar problem, what are your thoughts on it?

 

[HelloHound]

pretty much all art has been shifted away from creation to bow to an imagined profit margin

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I am not sure if it is only money involved, but I have noticed a trend towards low budget isekai fantasy. I think it is an industry problem as well as the consumers.

Many of the WN writers are coming from a site where I am sure they are just writing the isekai fantasy they want to. They like the genre, and it is popular. Maybe they did pour their heart into it, but that doesn't make the story good.

This is where I was thinking it was an industry problem. Since they are the ones that pick up these stories. The industry knows they can make money from the consumers that will eat it up anyway. They don't need to sift through all of the novels to find one that is actually slower paced and well written.

At the same time, the consumer is also to blame for shorter attention spans that yield to the market.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

I am not sure if it is only money involved, but I have noticed a trend towards low budget isekai fantasy. I think it is an industry problem as well as the consumers.

Many of the WN writers are coming from a site where I am sure they are just writing the isekai fantasy they want to. They like the genre, and it is popular. Maybe they did poor their heart into it, but that doesn't make the story good.

This is where I was thinking it was an industry problem. Since they are the ones that pick up these stories. The industry knows they can make money from the consumers that will eat it up anyway. They don't need to sift through all of the novels to find one that is actually slower paced and well written.

At the same time, the consumer is also to blame for shorter attention spans that yield to the market.

I agree. If the industry would pick and choose a lot more than it would probably be a bigger money maker for them. Though, yeah, the consumers are a part of the problem because they keep eating it up.

pretty much all art has been shifted away from creation to bow to an imagined profit margin

True.

 

[LilRora]

I think it's pretty much inevitable with fairly old and popular things. A point comes when an idea gets exhausted, but people keep doing it anyway even if it feels stale and unoriginal. There's less and less people that want to do it for the sake of it, not just for profit, and eventually the latter dominate until the idea gets buried under new ones or gets reborn when someone creates a fresh masterpiece.

I personally think that anime, manga, and web- and light novels are all currently in that transitory phase, although anime is noticeably the furthest along that downwards slope, and it's already virtually impossible to stop it.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

In my opinion the decline happened simultaneously.

 

[ManwX]

Facts. The reason I stopped watching anime in general was the lack of any effort put into stories. There now just isekai spinoffs and a lot of returning shows. The last thing I enjoyed was Dr stone.. they are really just milking isekai till it can't be milked no more.

Shows like stein gate or anything remotely interesting gets axed before they even pop off from a manga publication. Look at castlevania and how the completely butched it in the new instalment.

I now just want megas xlr continuation because I miss it too much lol

 

[Corty]

No, I don't think so, and I don't really agree with any of your points.

I always say this, but people who bring this up are simply catching up and running out watching evergreen stuff. The same amount of "good" animes/mangas were produced in the 90s, 2000s, etc., as now. And the same amount of trash and sub-par stuff was next to them. You just no longer have a wide range of choices only watching the good ones as you finally caught up.

The same is true in music. "The old music is better." Nope. There was shit, conveyor belt, manufactured music for radio back then too.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

No, I don't think so, and I don't really agree with any of your points.

I always say this, but people who bring this up are simply catching up and running out watching evergreen stuff. The same amount of "good" animes/mangas were produced in the 90s, 2000s, etc., as now. And the same amount of trash and sub-par stuff was next to them. You just no longer have a wide range of choices only watching the good ones as you finally caught up.

The same is true in music. "The old music is better." Nope. There was shit, conveyor belt, manufactured music for radio back then too.

This is a good point too. There are a lot of old anime that are equally bad.

 

[RepresentingPride]

It's pretty apparent that western entertainment is struggling for various reasons including but not limited to, poor writing, bad production, and a moneycentric reasoning for creating rather than out of a desire to entertain. Recently, I've been seeing the exact same problems among anime, light novels, and manga and it's pretty sad. As a result, I have only enjoyed a few new productions that feel like they have heart while the rest feel forced, devoid of passion, and mainly for popularity and/or money. I get people need money and those in the industry are paid to create but it doesn't feel right. Early anime felt like it was being created because the people creating it wanted to, not because they were paid to. Now, I'm watching older anime, reading older LNs/manga, and enjoying it because it is actually good compared to the modern copy paste protagonist fantasy story. Don't get me wrong though, there is some good bangers in modern day but they are few and far between. I know this is the age old rant of "it isn't what it used to be when I was young" but when the modern stuff consists of repeatedly poorly written brainrot for the sake of a quick buck, it feels like I understand the rant. Hell, I found better writing in the Ugandan indie film industry than in most of what I see coming out of western and eastern entertainment today.

Is anyone else having this problem or is it just me? If you have a similar problem, what are your thoughts on it?

Well, when you look at the old one, there a lot who get forgotten due to not be liked by the majority and lose money. The problem is the public who just look at what is liked by the majority and don't try to look for "hidden" gem. No wonder authors now go to the easy way when they see the older one struggle with there work with just a low fan base compared to generic story.

 

[Jemini]

It's pretty apparent that western entertainment is struggling for various reasons including but not limited to, poor writing, bad production, and a moneycentric reasoning for creating rather than out of a desire to entertain. Recently, I've been seeing the exact same problems among anime, light novels, and manga and it's pretty sad. As a result, I have only enjoyed a few new productions that feel like they have heart while the rest feel forced, devoid of passion, and mainly for popularity and/or money. I get people need money and those in the industry are paid to create but it doesn't feel right. Early anime felt like it was being created because the people creating it wanted to, not because they were paid to. Now, I'm watching older anime, reading older LNs/manga, and enjoying it because it is actually good compared to the modern copy paste protagonist fantasy story. Don't get me wrong though, there is some good bangers in modern day but they are few and far between. I know this is the age old rant of "it isn't what it used to be when I was young" but when the modern stuff consists of repeatedly poorly written brainrot for the sake of a quick buck, it feels like I understand the rant. Hell, I found better writing in the Ugandan indie film industry than in most of what I see coming out of western and eastern entertainment today.

Is anyone else having this problem or is it just me? If you have a similar problem, what are your thoughts on it?

It sounds to me like you might be experiencing a time-filter problem.

It's true there's a particular problem with Western media right now, but it's more related to an activist ideology and people getting preachy and shoving unwanted political opinions down the viewer's throat, and activism before entertainment or even money mind-set, that's responsible for the fall in quality of Western media.

As for anime/manga/LN, it's been my experience that it's all slowly getting better on average. Note, I said ON AVERAGE!!! As in, there can be good ones and bad ones every season, but the general overall quality when taken as a whole is higher.

Of course you're going to find more examples of good anime/manga/LN if you look to the past though. This is because, if you look to the past, you only get a collection of all the good anime with all the bad ones removed from the mix. It's the same reason everyone says that older music is better, it's because they don't remember there was absolutely atrocious music put into the mix and only remember the real gems through the filter of what's preserved.

That time-filter really has a way of distorting the picture. It'll get you every time.

EDIT: WTF!? In the time it took my to type this up, not one, not two, but THREE people ninjad me and posted almost the EXACT SAME point I was making!? It's like the 4 of us were on the same psychic wave-length or something and all of us who realize this truth jumped in here at the same time!

EDIT 2: Ok, I HAVE to contribute something original to this thought. I'll just mention that there was an additional filter, not just the time filter, to anime in the past. Those of us consuming it here in the West also had the translation filter. Only the really good anime that made serious money back in Japan managed to get picked up for translation. So, yeah. The overall average that was seen by the West was better back then, but only because they chopped the bottom off and only gave us the few top-quality ones hand-picked from the selection. The overall for the season though was quite likely much worse than what we're seeing today if we were to see everything for that season.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

In my opinion the decline happened simultaneously.

That may be the case and it was just hard to notice but I feel like Hollywood started going downhill in the 2000s while the other felt like it happened around the 2010s.

 

[owotrucked]

The constant is that authors have always been horni

or smoking weird shit:

 

[Deleted member 84247]

It sounds to me like you might be experiencing a time-filter problem.

It's true there's a particular problem with Western media right now, but it's more related to an activist ideology and people getting preachy and shoving unwanted political opinions down the viewer's throat, and activism before entertainment or even money mind-set, that's responsible for the fall in quality of Western media.

As for anime/manga/LN, it's been my experience that it's all slowly getting better on average. Note, I said ON AVERAGE!!! As in, there can be good ones and bad ones every season, but the general overall quality when taken as a whole is higher.

Of course you're going to find more examples of good anime/manga/LN if you look to the past though. This is because, if you look to the past, you only get a collection of all the good anime with all the bad ones removed from the mix. It's the same reason everyone says that older music is better, it's because they don't remember there was absolutely atrocious music put into the mix and only remember the real gems through the filter of what's preserved.

That time-filter really has a way of distorting the picture. It'll get you every time.

EDIT: WTF!? In the time it took my to type this up, not one, not two, but THREE people ninjad me and posted almost the EXACT SAME point I was making!? It's like the 4 of us were on the same psychic wave-length or something and all of us who realize this truth jumped in here at the same time!

EDIT 2: Ok, I HAVE to contribute something original to this thought. I'll just mention that there was an additional filter, not just the time filter, to anime in the past. Those of us consuming it here in the West also had the translation filter. Only the really good anime that made serious money back in Japan managed to get picked up for translation. So, yeah. The overall average that was seen by the West was better back then, but only because they chopped the bottom off and only gave us the few top-quality ones hand-picked from the selection. The overall for the season though was quite likely much worse than what we're seeing today if we were to see everything for that season.

It is a problem of rose tinted glasses, and I have it too. There are still some good studios that only adapt quality, but when you are living it it's harder to see. Especially given that you are currently looking through the bad anime to find a gem.

In the before times you had already done that, but you tend to not remember the bad anime in the search for the gems.

 

[Tempokai]

It's falling into the 2000s state of "confusion", I'd say. Stuff gets produced, but it's either cliche as hell or profit driven, or both, with good in between of the crap. I guess it falls to the bottom in the few years until some revolutionary thing like isekai (or, in the 2000s case, Naruto, Bleach, and similar) was rises up and the cycle continues yet again

 

[RepresentingWrath]

That may be the case and it was just hard to notice but I feel like Hollywood started going downhill in the 2000s while the other felt like it happened around the 2010s.

To somewhat counter the opinions of those who say this isn't right. I've been reading and watching stuff in my native language back then. And things that were getting translation weren't moderated by anything. It was passion projects and people rarely got money for translations. And obviously there were no unified site for doing it, so, again, no moderation. There was a lot of popular works, a lot of hidden gems, and a shit ton of trash. The amount of trash manga I read is enormous, though to be fair, I forgot the titles of those works. But I do remember that they existed, and I do remember that there was a lot.

Anyway, good works, as you said yourself, certainly come out. But how should I say it. If previously after looking through ten mangas I could find a single 9\10 work. Nowadays, if I do the same I can find at most a 6\10 work. And as I said in the previous reply, it's not exactly nowadays, the decline started somewhere around 2013-2015.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

To somewhat counter the opinions of those who say this isn't right. I've been reading and watching stuff in my native language back then. And things that were getting translation weren't moderated by anything. It was passion projects and people rarely got money for translations. And obviously there were no unified site for doing it, so, again, no moderation. There was a lot of popular works, a lot of hidden gems, and a shit ton of trash. The amount of trash manga I read is enormous, though to be fair, I forgot the titles of those works. But I do remember that they existed, and I do remember that there was a lot.

Anyway, good works, as you said yourself, certainly come out. But how should I say it. If previously after looking through ten mangas I could find a single 9\10 work. Nowadays, if I do the same I can find at most a 6\10 work. And as I said in the previous reply, it's not exactly nowadays, the decline started somewhere around 2013-2015.

Maybe the trends of tropes don't currently align with what you enjoy?

 

[Representing_Tromba]

No, I don't think so, and I don't really agree with any of your points.

I always say this, but people who bring this up are simply catching up and running out watching evergreen stuff. The same amount of "good" animes/mangas were produced in the 90s, 2000s, etc., as now. And the same amount of trash and sub-par stuff was next to them. You just no longer have a wide range of choices only watching the good ones as you finally caught up.

The same is true in music. "The old music is better." Nope. There was shit, conveyor belt, manufactured music for radio back then too.

This is a good point too. There are a lot of old anime that are equally bad.

Well, when you look at the old one, there a lot who get forgotten due to not be liked by the majority and lose money. The problem is the public who just look at what is liked by the majority and don't try to look for "hidden" gem. No wonder authors now go to the easy way when they see the older one struggle with there work with just a low fan base compared to generic story.

It sounds to me like you might be experiencing a time-filter problem.

It's true there's a particular problem with Western media right now, but it's more related to an activist ideology and people getting preachy and shoving unwanted political opinions down the viewer's throat, and activism before entertainment or even money mind-set, that's responsible for the fall in quality of Western media.

As for anime/manga/LN, it's been my experience that it's all slowly getting better on average. Note, I said ON AVERAGE!!! As in, there can be good ones and bad ones every season, but the general overall quality when taken as a whole is higher.

Of course you're going to find more examples of good anime/manga/LN if you look to the past though. This is because, if you look to the past, you only get a collection of all the good anime with all the bad ones removed from the mix. It's the same reason everyone says that older music is better, it's because they don't remember there was absolutely atrocious music put into the mix and only remember the real gems through the filter of what's preserved.

That time-filter really has a way of distorting the picture. It'll get you every time.

EDIT: WTF!? In the time it took my to type this up, not one, not two, but THREE people ninjad me and posted almost the EXACT SAME point I was making!? It's like the 4 of us were on the same psychic wave-length or something and all of us who realize this truth jumped in here at the same time!

EDIT 2: Ok, I HAVE to contribute something original to this thought. I'll just mention that there was an additional filter, not just the time filter, to anime in the past. Those of us consuming it here in the West also had the translation filter. Only the really good anime that made serious money back in Japan managed to get picked up for translation. So, yeah. The overall average that was seen by the West was better back then, but only because they chopped the bottom off and only gave us the few top-quality ones hand-picked from the selection. The overall for the season though was quite likely much worse than what we're seeing today if we were to see everything for that season.

I agree with all of you that there were bad animes then as well. The difference I see is that back then it was a risk to produce an anime or manga that wasn't good. It's why shonen jump did so well because they have really high standards for stories. If a company made an anime in the 80s and 90s and it wasn't good then there was a good chance that that studio would go out of business soon. Now, companies are producing at a much higher rate, increasing the amount of bad animes and good animes without many negative consequences. There's just so much that it's hard to sort through to find the hidden gems.

 

[DeviousColony69]

It's pretty apparent that western entertainment is struggling for various reasons including but not limited to, poor writing, bad production, and a moneycentric reasoning for creating rather than out of a desire to entertain. Recently, I've been seeing the exact same problems among anime, light novels, and manga and it's pretty sad. As a result, I have only enjoyed a few new productions that feel like they have heart while the rest feel forced, devoid of passion, and mainly for popularity and/or money. I get people need money and those in the industry are paid to create but it doesn't feel right. Early anime felt like it was being created because the people creating it wanted to, not because they were paid to. Now, I'm watching older anime, reading older LNs/manga, and enjoying it because it is actually good compared to the modern copy paste protagonist fantasy story. Don't get me wrong though, there is some good bangers in modern day but they are few and far between. I know this is the age old rant of "it isn't what it used to be when I was young" but when the modern stuff consists of repeatedly poorly written brainrot for the sake of a quick buck, it feels like I understand the rant. Hell, I found better writing in the Ugandan indie film industry than in most of what I see coming out of western and eastern entertainment today.

Is anyone else having this problem or is it just me? If you have a similar problem, what are your thoughts on it?

I've read dozens of WN made by Japanese people and I gotta say, some are good, some are bad, but in a nutshell, they're just following what's trending in the industry. Anime these days exists to promote the work of an author and make a quick bucks in it. It ain't gonna get another season unless if it's popular in the following volumes, which is sadly, most of them doesn't get one. same thing in the old animes/mangas/LN, they also follow what's trending back in the days but with passion.

 

[ThrillingHuman]

As a result, I have only enjoyed a few new productions that feel like they have heart while the rest feel forced, devoid of passion, and mainly for popularity and/or money

I am pretty sure black companies making stuff in Japan have been a problem since forever but anime is the only media I really know Japan from so who knows? Maybe the office slaves in the anime studios back then were more enthusiastic?

Early anime felt like it was being created because the people creating it wanted to, not because they were paid to.

Lemme correct you: early anime felt like it was being created because people creating it wanted to, because they stood out among the heap of all other garbage that is now mainly forgotten by people.

Don't get me wrong though, there is some good bangers in modern day but they are few and far between

To prove the point.

The industry has simply grown a lot since before and there is now a lot more content.