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Anon was bullied
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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the moment that anime went mainstream is the moment that it got stupid and uninteresting, that's when i stopped watching it. the quality just dropped to adapt to the mainstream
When was that moment and which anime was the first stupid one?
idk maybe bad anime was always a thing and i just ignored it until then, but i'd say around 2015 maybe.
the thing that specifically bothers me is when these themes recur: "you just have to work hard" (boys speaking to boys or any young people talking to each other) - as if it would solve our problems. it's just capitalist propaganda. you only need to try hard then you're gonna make it
another thing that bothers me is when anime doesn't dare to be cringe. like, when it stops crossing socially acceptable boundaries, to explore new fields and topics and themes. when it adheres to what normal people would call "acceptable". an example of that might be when anime stops being unhinged and when it stops feeling like a dream. when it tries to depict things too realistically, as if it were a movie that has to adhere to the laws of physics. for example, i like stuff like spirited away because it starts out with a completely bonkers assumption, namely that there's a portal to a completely unrealistic world. which is good because it makes people dream.
another thing that bothers me is when it's obvious that the characters are forcing themselves to smile, as if that's some kind of social expectation. i hate that anime characters stopped displaying how they actually feel, again this plays into the "ganbare" (work hard!) theme. like, you have to try hard to smile. i hate that anime instills this sense that you can't display how you feel to other people. very mainstream, very neurotypical, it brings us nowhere, has no vision and can be replaced by a machine. i don't get why we're doing this.
They did everything you hate back when you said liked anime. They still have bonkers shit today. There's variety. It's not like the entire extremely prolific animation industry of an entire country is moving in lockstep to deliver exactly the same product across the board.
Sure, there trends like the onslaught of bland isekai shit we had for a while but even the worst seasons of that had their gems. Heck, even that genre has gems; there a reason KonoSuba is well-regarded (and it's full of people who would be utterly unacceptable in Japanese society).
You probably have the same problem that gets people to think that all music became shit approximately 20-30 years after they were born: They mainly remember the hits of their youth and forget that 80% of airtime went to shitty music back then as well.
The "work hard" isn't meant as capitalist propaganda. Well, at least it didn't start as such.
It was first and foremost an advice given from themselves because drawing manga and anime was seen poorly and a dead-end job. The creators faced a lot of opposition and few opportunities, so every success was heartfelt and attributed to them working hard for their dreams and not giving up.
Despite entering the mainstream having diluted the situation these words were meant for, it's important we don't forget that the first creators were pioneers who dedicated their entire lifetimes to their craft.
Interesting. I have to say these are nuaces I never really focussed on so I didn't notice any differences there. I'm in my 40s now and I started watching Anime in the 90s. So there was this stuff on public TV like "Mila Superstar", "Sailor Moon" and some football and racing shows and the rest I had to get from friends or video rental. There I focussed on SciFi and Fantasy extreme stuff (super violent, scary or pornographic). I'd say there where some masterpieces like Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Evangelion, Berserk, Patlabor, Lupin the 3rd, Memories, Spriggan and many more. Later, I guess in the early 2000s there was Dragonball and Dragonball Z on public TV, wich I liked. Then with access to the internet I discovered more stuff like Death Note, Cromartie High, Samuari Champloo which had a completely different vibe etc.
Well, long story short: I never really cared for those more "social" and school related animes which I guess have been there a long time so I didn't notice any shifts there. Some of the animes I watched had a school theme but that part always just confused me (e.g. Spriggan), I guess school in Japan is very different.
I think there have always been "cheap" animes which where mostly there to sell merchandise and toys but that was not what you meant. What really pissed me off was the early shift to 3d rendering which made a lot of interesting anime completely unwatchable for me.
Regarding the "bonkers stuff" I actually feel there is more available now. I don't use Crunchyroll but there seem to be lot's of shows like "what if you reincarnated as a vending machine in a mediaval fantasy city?", "what if you reincarnated as an intergalactic emperor".
You must wear plaid and have a beard with a curly mustache.
i ... don't? i don't get it? is this some reference?
They're calling you a hipster for liking something until it went mainstream and then disliking it because it was mainstream.
noo haha i don't reject mainstream because it's mainstream, i reject mainstream because it's often stupid and bland.
for example i do dress more feminine nowadays which is mainstream in the social circle that i frequent, which i wouldn't have dared earlier. but i do it because i like it, not because it's mainstream.
It’s because OVA doesn’t exist anymore. Like all the interesting niche anime were almost always OVA.
Adaptations can be niche, weird and interesting too, but original anime just tend to utilize the medium more fully and even push the boundaries occasionally. It really is a shame that almost no studios are willing to take the perceived risk of original concepts without an established following.
I mean, basically same?
There was a kind of... cresting wave effect, where it was getting more popular, and some really good stuff was coming out... and then yeah, it became super popular, and the overall quality of any random show just tanked, with the occasional bright spot of course still showing up.
I'm baffled that this is apparently a controversial opinion, this has happened in basically every format of art ever.