We are living in a golden age of anime. Thanks to the advent of the internet and streaming, finding quality shows to watch is easier than ever. Especially since more and more of them are being produced with every passing season. Whether you’re looking for comedy, action, romance, or some wacky shit beyond description, you’ll never be left wanting.
But too much of a good thing is, in fact, a bad thing. Take water. We need it to survive, but if there’s too much, you drown.
Admittedly, that may be a poor analogy for this situation. We the viewers aren’t drowning. If anyone is, it’s the poor animators. But that’s a given; Japan literally has a word for when you work so hard you die (Karōshi 過労死) and unfortunately, it’s probably used pretty commonly in anime production studios. If anyone in the world deserves a year long paid vacation to a paradise of their choice, it’s Japanese animators.
No, seasonal anime is more like a bucket of crabs. If one tries to escape, the others pull it back down. Better to all suffer together than for one to get away.
Making an impact as a seasonal anime is a monumental task. Competition is fierce, audience standards are getting higher and higher, and production deadlines are more strict than ever. Of the dozens of new shows that come out every three months, less than a ten of them are likely to find any mainstream success. If that.
Only the shows that make the biggest splash find any lasting success. Shows like Frieren, Chainsaw Man, Demon Slayer, etc. The ones that reach beyond the standard audience of hardcore weebs and break into the mainstream cultural zeitgeist. All the rest are left to be swept away in the tide. Watched by the few, forgotten by the many. They’re like TikToks at this point; you watch ’em, get your kicks, then swipe to another and immediately forget about the last one. On and on the cycle goes.
This is why there are so few ‘modern classics’ these days. Only the shows that make the largest impact even have a chance to reach that, and they typically become major multi-season long franchises that lose momentum, drop the ball, or end up cancelled and forgotten. New shows come and go so quickly that they’ve all but lost their staying power.
Take, for example, ‘Insomniacs After School.’ It was a simple seinen show about two insomniacs who meet up in the night, hang out, and fall in love. The characters were fantastic, the story engaging, the voice performances phenomenal, and the animation was gorgeous top to bottom. Despite this, the show didn’t see mainstream success, and was quickly swept away and forgotten.
That show came out one year ago.
A far larger problem occurs when you recall how streaming actually works. Nowadays, streaming platforms want as many shows as they can possibly get in order to draw in customers and boost their subscription numbers. But when a platform is shut down or absorbed into another more successful service, not all those shows are going to make the jump. Just look at what happened when Crunchyroll and Funimation were merged by Sony; a massive portion of shows from the Funimation side were simply tossed away during the transition.
This includes a good number of classic anime. Such as a little show you’ve probably never heard of called ‘Fullmetal Alchemist.’ Not Brotherhood; the original show. You can’t watch it anymore unless you feel like hoisting a Jolly Roger or fork over potentially huge sums for the physical releases, which are also becoming rare thanks to streaming. If one of the most monumental shows in anime history can disappear like mist on a summer day, what chance do niche seasonal shows have?
*By the by, if you want to know more about classic anime disappearing and what you can do about it, check out this video by Mother’s Basement. He does a far better job of covering this subject than my doofy brain ever could. I’d highly recommend it.
Is there a solution to this problem? Well, the obvious answer is to slow the production train down. But we all know that isn’t going to happen. Especially not when said train is making more cash than it has in its entire existence. If there is a proper solution, then I am not smart enough to find it. I spend my days blogging about anime, books, and video games, I’m not a business savant. I just like to bully corporate suits who are clearly somehow dumber than I am.
All I can really do is encourage you to appreciate the niche. Take a chance on smaller, less successful shows. If you find something you love, cherish it. Tell people about it. Remember it. Better that than them being swept away and forgotten.
We’ll all be forgotten eventually. Art, people, terrible streaming services, everything. That’s just how time goes.
Still. Better later than right away.
Jonah's Daily Rants 