I only completed 5 anime’s that released in 2018 and that’s a pretty low number when you consider that included one two episode OVA, one film and one season 2.
So I thought I’d just explain why I don’t watch it really since to a lot of people seasonal anime is synonymous with anime fans.
If the shows that had come out last year were representative of all the anime that exists I would not be an anime fan. Simply I don’t really like it and more importantly the shows that are popular are awful to me for the most part.
Finding stuff to enjoy and appreciate from the current anime seasons is difficult for me to do since theirs so little that I might actually like that it’s hard to find in the first place.
Being weekly really hinders the show for me. If I have to wait for it to finish airing I’m probably going to drop it and not come back to it even if I do really like it.
For example I got really invested in a place further than the universe but I dropped it. It was just a show that I forgot about, and now when I went back to it the show was just something I didn’t care about because I had left it for so long.
I also find it much easier to find shows that I want to watch outside of seasonal anime and if I can do that why watch seasonal anime at all?
Also I don’t even watch anime that much. Due to the fact that I had a big anime film phase there were 4 months where I didn’t watch a single series. And in total I saw 16 anime’s this year to completion (if you take films and other things that aren’t pure anime seasons away) so it’s just not as interesting to me as it once was.
So if I want to find something to interest me then I tend to go looking for it through other means than just seasonal anime.
Now is this a problem? I think so, since there are so many seasonal shows there should be something for everyone and that clearly doesn’t happen, there are tonnes of shows for very specific audiences and the people with other interests just get what’s left. If you don’t like action shounens or light novel comedy then the amount of shows that become available to you rapidly decrease.
So there are 41 shows this season, of these 25 of them fit into those two categories though some quite loosely. But all of them look like that to me. Then theirs 5 which have thumbnails so bad that nobody would want to click on them or care about them. As well as that theirs also one random live action show thrown in there for no reason which sucks a lot.
That brings the total to 31 which means theirs ten shows left for other people who don’t like those two categories. That seems like a problem to me.
These shows will all be different and fall into these tropes in different ways or be very different to the tropes. Regardless on the outside looking in they look very similar which to new fans is quite off putting. It makes all anime look the same and it makes all seasonal anime look the same which is bad because if people decide they don’t like that they’re sort of stuck.
But it’s also a problem of the industry that those kind of shows are the only ones that get made and the only ones that are kind of popular. It’s too risky for a lot of shows to do anything else. But at the same time you don’t want to support the new shows that are coming out so you can’t give money to them so the studio doesn’t have the money to take any risks.
I guess what you can do is support the shows you do like, but who wants to spend money? I know I don’t. Theirs enough free stuff out there that I find more worth in seeking other things outside of anime than supporting the dying industry.
So yeah anime’s going to be dead soon basically. Either that or enough studios will go bankrupt that the ones remaining will get more money since there will be less competition. That means some will be able to continue.
My Brain Is Completely Empty 
I see where your coming from and I agree with you as to why I don’t watch seasonal anime on a lot of it. Of course I also think your being unfair to the industry in saying they only create content for two audiences. Basically you could say the same for just about industry if you look at it through the right Lense, it could be that the industry in question is creating content more specified to your own interests. Also, anime doesn’t seem to be dying. It seems to continue to grow, perhaps just not in the way you think it should. And remember it’s a Japanese based medium. Look at the in country numbers, not just the ones outside it regarding sites that grant free anime access to English speaking audiences. It would be like japan saying that American tv content is dying because they only watch bootleg Netflix.
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Yeah it’s hard to say because it fluctuates all the time. Like there was 15 less shows this season, it doesn’t mean that anime is going to drop by that much consistently until theirs nothing left at the end of 2019. But how do you even judge if a medium is dying? I’d say that even so much as growing in popularity at a lower rate to the population could count, though that would probably be called stagnating.
Oh yeah it’s absolutely unfair to the industry. The reason for that is that I’m giving the perspective of a person on the outside looking in to seasonal anime. The anime when you watch it of course will be different but first impressions are what cause people to even watch it in the first place. And really hating so much as two shows could lead to a significant amount of good anime being dropped leading to a large amount of shows being overlooked.
In what way is anime growing in contrast to the way I’d want it too? Do you just mean growing in number of shows, because that’s definitely growing!
I don’t really know if number of people will help because money made will decide whether it dies or not. It doesn’t matter how much people like it, if it’s not profitable they will go bankrupt eventually.
I don’t really get the last example because I live in England and don’t know what American TV is like outside of netflix. I think netflix’s great though!
I get that the burden of proof is on me since I said the idea in the first place and provided no statistics at all. So sorry about that, it was a fitting way for me to end the post basically and I’m more than happy to be wrong. In fact this is a situation where that would be a good thing!
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I suppose what I mean to say is that I don’t think an industry like anime can really die. It’s like saying an entire country will stop making cartoons. While it can shrink and go down in popularity, it won’t die. I suppose that shrinking is what you mean. Of course, that could be a good thing if we get quality over quantity, like before the digital age of the medium.
As for my Netflix example. It would be like you only watching American television through free websites. I’m saying that American consumers (or as the analogy applies, Japanese) which the content is originally made for would support the industry at its fullest. Ad revenue and the like is probably a huge supporter (that’s an assumption) worst case in that scenario is they cut back on streaming outside the country.
Yeah, launching the argument without the facts really made me want to argue the point with you.
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Yeah it’s not really going to die completely because there will be an audience for it. Shrinking would be the right word.
Yeah I get that now, you’re saying the Japanese support the industry the most so westerners changing to something else won’t really stop them.
Yeah the thing is by doing that it makes it seem like we’re arguing with not a lot to base it on.
It seems like the anime industry is making more money than ever but it’s at the expense of making a lot more shows so it’s hard to know. You hear that both the industry is making more money and that studios are struggling to turn a profit.
I think it’s more a problem if this trend of seasonal anime continues for a lot more years without any shows like mob psycho or one punch man, so it’s good to get season 2’s of those. Essentially more shows that have high production value basically and are really good to break up the trend.
I get that whether or not a season has those kind of shows is just opinion but I don’t think I saw anything outside of sequels with that kind of level. Then again it’s not like I watched anything from 2018.
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I kind of wish I could get an inside look on some of this stuff now. I feel like no one knows what’s actually going on, but your right I have heard about the struggles of the studios. Again though, I don’t remember if it was a credible source or not.
Regardless I didn’t watch anything either. I guess I’m frustrated to not know. Maybe I’ll research it and write my own post. You just wanted to talk about why you don’t watch seasonal anime. Hehe I’m horrible 😜
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Yeah me too honestly.
No it’s fine, I was thinking of doing the same but it’s so hard to know. To be honest I did want a discussion about this because it is interesting.
I sometimes have a thought/idea that I’m not really sure about so I just talk about it in the hope that I’ll read an interesting counter argument. That was basically the point of the “We should ban loli/shota hentai” post, and probably the most successful example of me doing something like that.
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P.S. just set up Twitter. @Shaddowcat99 with the same picture of little kitty Chi 😁
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Nice! I’ll add you!
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It’s really easy to just something if you don’t watch anything.
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I thought you were just correcting a mistake I had made in the post. But using ctr+f it wasn’t there. So I’ll just take the comment at face value.
Yeah sure, I guess.
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