With the news that announced anime for spring 2010 total only 25, down from an incredible peak of 60 or more in the heady spring of 2006, many cannot help but conclude that the anime bubble has finally burst.
Having approximately 25 titles announced so far (with at most a further 5-10 unannounced titles thought possible), the spring 2010 season is dwarfed by the output of previous years in the same season, which exceeded 60 shows by some counts, and represents the most precipitous decline yet.
With the bulk of recent titles made up by the products of the so-called “moe boom,” most observers seem to consider the collapse to have been caused by a surge of nondescript or outright dubious titles flooding the market.
Recent years have also seen the worst excesses of the anime industry reach absurd proportions, with the Endless Eight fiasco a case in point.
Sentiment increasingly seems to view this not as a debilitating crash but instead as a much needed return to normalcy, with the industry now having the chance to replace an unsustainable torrent of vapid and low quality shows with the kind of quality franchises which projected the industry into its boom in the first place.
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Dead or Alive Ero-SFM Doubly Dirty
Flying Witch “Cute But Boring…”
Phantasy Star Online 2 Phantastic: “What About the West!?”
Shounen Maid “A Fujoshi Delight”
Terra Formars Live Action Web Drama Announced
Dragon Quest Heroes II Quite Monstrous
KumaMiko Lovingly Innocent
Aqua Onahole Parody Hopefully Moist
A-Size Classmate Profusely Petite
One Day With Maria Raunchy & Romantic
The Reject Demon: Toko Chapter 0 Raises Its Voice
Hai-Furi in Troubled Waters
Star Fox Zero “Pandering To Kids!”
Kiznaiver Shares Its Pain
Love Live’s Koi ni Naritai Aquarium PV “Will Sell Thousands!”
Skimpy Kataigou Figure
Ellen Baker’s Illustrator: “Keep It Clean!”
Bullet Girls 2 Goes At It From All Angles
Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization A Real Grind
Koutetsujou no Kabaneri Immensely Gruesome
Goddess of 2ch “Another Bathing Beauty!”
Tantalizing Hestia Cosplay Busts Out
Kashiwazaki Sena Cosplay Pure & Innocent
Minami Kotori Casino Girl Cosplay Takes No Chances
Shimakaze Cosplay by Ema Sakura
Harley Quinn Cosplay by Miyuko Colorfully Crazy
Sonico Ero-Cosplay by Yuka Hoshikage Super Sexy
Kasugano Sora Bunny Girl Cosplay Absolutely Admirable
Goddess of 2ch: “Barely Legal Beauty!”
Highly Yuri Tenryuu & Tatsuta Cosplay by Garo & Usagi
Adapt or Die. It's that simple.
Let us hope the Video Game Market bursts in the same way. From the ashes, may old fashioned goodness be revived!
Be careful what you wish for. When the Video Game Crash occurred, Japan game to power in the gaming market. If the anime crash is happening, then you may find that the anime knockoffs in the US right now may become popular... *shudder*
Like what? Thundercats? Exo Squad? Transformers?
Avatar: The last Airbender has its merits.
Fucking Weaboo
I'd consider it a burst if percentage of moe series in total number dropped, but as it is now it's still rising, currently with majority of spring 2010 anime being moe...
Oh, and I'd love to see the casual gaming bubble burst as well, but it just ain't gonna happen :(
Thundercats and the old Transformers series were animated in Japan.
Why did Random Guy get called a weeaboo?
You obviously don't know how reply comments work here.
It will, it'll just be darkest before the dawn comes.
All industries work the same way. Remember how American TV was absolutely flooded with reality shows? It all seemed to go away when no one was watching, and now that plague is gone.
Of course, before that happened, every channel had reality shows, and they usually took up 80% of the available time slots.
So, yeah, the anime industry will eventually cool down on the Moe Fan-Service Anime and video games will eventually see less Open-World Adventures, Rhythm Games w/ Plastic Instruments and First Person Shooters - it just won't happen until we've reached absolute critical mass. They never learn until it's too late.
Companies like Activision are in it to milk and it's ruining the games they already have. I hope the FPS and rhythm games start to slow down and devs start making original games.
Shareholders don't care so long they get enough cash then off to the next thing to exploit.
Whoever made Konata cry will feel the wrath of all Lucky Star fans.
I love everyone in this comment branch :'(
Sometimes I think I'm the only person who realizes how fucked games are right now.
I SERIOUSLY doubt it's some case of moe overflooding or 'lack of quality' and some such. Yes, though there has been many anime that has gone under the radar in the past years, it's not entirely because of bad quality. Many incredible anime didn't have the audience because it wasn't moe enough or did not have a family appeal. That is no fault of the anime at hand.
Also, every anime creator out there has mentioned the tough sell of today's economy being the biggest issue alongside the cooling visual entertainment and games in Japan today.
It's somewhat inexplicable as to why that is, but I don't think you can pin it solely on moe or the quality of anime.
For anyone who missed the story below, this is a big deal.
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/05/05/the-anime-bubble-is-burst-moe-fansubs-are-to-blame/
For those of us who saw it, we have expected this for damn near a year. This quality control is much needed and should be applauded, not met w/ cries of "zetsuboushita!"
Plain & Simple.
When the good stuff was out (Anime/Video Game). Nobody had no money (and we still don't), everything is failing. Manga/Magazine companies in japan are slowing going out of business, next it will be big anime companies. It's so bad in towns I'm seeing businesses going one after the other. Nothing is getting better. My friend at Mcdonalds, worked there for 4-5 years, employee of the month, lost his job because of slow sales after the holidays and the holiday ended like 2 weeks and the let him go. This is !@#$ing bull!@#$!!! Actually all my friends have lost their jobs last year and this month. I got a feeling i'm going to lose my job, because we're sure as hell are not getting that much business at the grocery store. Food is like skyrocketing to kingdom come. Grapes for $3 Dollars!?!? WHAT THE MOTHER!@#$!!! It used to be like $1.15 and it shoots up to $3 dollars. It !@#$en blows.
This isn't a Anime bubble, THIS IS A HUMANITY BUBBLE!!!
Yeah we're heading into some dark times, so dark that you'll have to drink water from a puddle of dog piss.
I mean come on, everyone is downloading everything where physical merchandise isn't making no profit whatsoever. I love the download era, but companies should've done this more carefully. Anime, video games, comic books, trading card games...it's all over even regular Theatres are losing money like National Amusements, they were in money trouble and got bought out by some weird company overseas cause they couldn't pay their bills.
This is a shit storm that's about to happen man, and i'm not goiog to be happy to see this.
just... AKUMETSU it!
byNiktesla
When most of the shit productions disappear that means there will be more ressources for the rest. I'd love to see some great titles emerge like phoenix from the ashes...
Most of you little fucks didn't start watching anime until the 2000s anyway. What the fuck do you weaboo brats know.
Talking like that shows no matter how old you are you still have the mindset of an elistist 16 year old.
Why does it matter when you started watching anime? It's not some sort of competition - people should do what they enjoy. It's also perfectly normal to watch and appreciate things that happened before your time.
This is very true. I happen to enjoy most anime with the exception of the mecha and horror genre. The moe genre appeals to me as to romantic comedies, harem, ecchi :P, action, adventure, etc. And you can't say that it's all bad. If the bubble bursts, in 5-10 years, it'll rise again. And the first burst has had an influence on people and how they think about such things. I think that most of the anime that rises from this so called "burst" will have many roots from this time.
Everything works in recessions and booms; why would anime be any different?
Because the fans care when the anime stopsa coming.
I agree. Even if all 60+ shows from around 2006 were of incredible quality and writing, I still don't see it being sustainable in this kind of economy.
As far as I can tell, it seems like not only do we have less than half the shows now, but the quality of the shows have gone down as well. Maybe we won't get disasters like Rosario+ Vampire but nothing new this year really stands out. No Blood+, no Ergo Proxies, no Ghost Hounds. Durarara might be good, but 1st episode was pretty lame. Railgun I do like but that's not a new title for the year.
I dunno, I don't think the market was flooded with "moe" at any point in time as I believe very few shows were considered that, just that they had a very devoted following. If anyone can list all the anime from the past 5 year and point out which ones are moe then we can see if they make up the bulk of the releases otherwise it's just simply not true.
I agree. Really what was moe last season? only thing i can think of was saki and k-on. Two out of how ever many shows there were and unless there under ten shows thats still only 20%. Also for a boom to happen its usually the most popular shows that cause it. I mean k-on could be a factor, but a boom is most likely to come from bleach or naruto; something in the shounen catagory because it appeals to more people.
If Saki and K-On are the only moe shows you can think about last season you neither read this site very much or watch much anime. Its all shit to cater to fat lonely weaboo these days.
then Thanks God i only watched those two. those two aren't bad. those "all shit to cater to fat lonely weaboo these days" are but mere portions of all trash animes in that season. trashes are trashes, moe is moe, no relevancy. most moe animes are trashes, so are most non-moe animes.
Because apparently when there's only two dozen anime floating around at one time, it's the end of the world.
Couldn't be that people are making something currently or just don't want to.
It's apparently the end of anime, full stop.
Probably caused by Final Fantasy 13 or something, it's hard to keep up on this site.
Of course, we don't want people having the choice to see different kinds of anime. Choice is good people, it encourages competition. Study ecomony.
/sarcasm.
Adapt or die from drowning in the tears of butthurt Haruhi fans apparently.
Moe whingeing ~ Check
Haruhi whingeing ~ Check
FF13 ~ Surprisingly absent
What the fuck is 'whingeing'? Your browser doesn't have a spell check? Oh my bad, you're probably in grade 11, and 11th graders aren't literate these days.
I'm sorry that the meaning of a word is completely lost to your genius level intelligence because the "e" wasn't dropped upon making the word pural.
You'd think such a smart person who types number due to his inability to be able to spell them would understand.
It's because they keep making HORRENDOUS decisions..
Where's that article on here about K-on getting a 2nd season..
uh oh this is bad.....I want my anime........and if it goes away I don't know what'd I do
*crys in the fetal position*
I'm sure there's still a shit ton of older anime that is a lot better then what comes out today that you haven't watched yet.
Old things suck cause they're old
the best things are the classics
without them
we wouldnt have the stuff we have today
Or would we?
nope, you're right considering the more popular anime from '05 to '09 are parody anime
That's right. As a matter of facts there are lots of anime out there and I won't be able to watch them all. I'd say 25 anime per year is still a lot of anime, but even if anime dies out I have like, more anime I could ever possibly watch at my disposal. (And don't get me started on manga,... )
It's people who swim with the mainstream that loose, cause they are the ones too to find good anime for themselves.
*sigh*
It was suppoed to mean "cause they are the ones too 'insert word' to find good anime"
But somehow the "insert word" didn't make it. >< ... is something wrong with those characters? >< >< ><
already digging deep
re-watching old gundam (good old UC and not any of this seed shit) some old fashioned LOGH and HnK
When the moe boom ends nothing of value will be lost.
Too true.
disagree, the sad fact you said that doesn't mean that nothing will be lost. i rather watch moe than pretentious crap like ergo proxy or other lame boring drama like nana any day of the week.
AND NOTHING OF VALUE WAS LOST
That's why you fail, dear Anon.
Three words. Axis Power Hetalia.
As much as I love K-On this blows K-On out of the water as it's humour with meaning with cuteness.
Moe artstyle isn't a bad thing. It just depends what you do with everything else. Good to see Sora no Woto is focusing on both cute characters while expanding on background.
And if that's not to your taste as satire.
Mudazumo Naki Kaikaku
Gross misinterpretations of history mixed with quasi-sexualized kawaii bullshit = "humour with meaning"?
Good lord.
Your bad taste is showing, anon.