| I agree with everything you said, especially with this: Ri-KoRin said: What Maruyama said isn't necessarily completely wrong, it's just impossible to tell. And I also happen to think that it's at least in part wrong because it doesn't make sense to expect china to be able to recover from years of censorship straight away and be competitive on the international market. Especially since intellectual property theft is so engrained in society that I wonder how many generations would it take to get rid of it.Theoretically, would an uncensored China surpass Japan? Hard to say for certain, but no other east asian country is as "otaku" as the Japanese. |
RentNoGirlfriendMay 3, 2023 2:50 PM
| I personally wouldn't be watching anime, or donghua for that matter, if it wasn't for bishoujo. There are anime that aren't about cute girls that I enjoy as well, but I only made the effort to watch those shows because cute anime girls got me into the medium and brought those anime to my attention. Bishoujo can definitely be a gateway to anime as a whole and while they might not be that way for everyone, I think there are a lot of fans who also wouldn't be here if bishoujo weren't as prevalent as they are. |
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| Thank God China's biggest enemy is China. We would have been fucked if they decided to get out of their own way. Fucked in that if they changed fundamentally, they wouldn't even be a threat lol. |
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TheMechaManiac said: You're right, those are different matters. Anyway, good to know that even a big mecha fan won't deny the issue I pointed out.Nirinbo said: At least you can put cute girls in every genre, unlike in the 70s-90s when EVERY original anime had to be mecha. Don't bring mecha into this you absolute philistine. This has nothing to do with that. |
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| FYI: China does the exact same stuff Japan does, even loli. It's not bishoujo that's the issue but the stories themselves, especially with LN/WNs. It's 100% possible to make a good work with cute girls, but the author must resist one upping other authors. |
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zombie_pegasus said: Pretty much the same for me. 50% of me liking an anime is if it has cute girls. Anime wouldn't be as nearly enjoyable for me if it didn't have them tbh. I personally wouldn't be watching anime, or donghua for that matter, if it wasn't for bishoujo. There are anime that aren't about cute girls that I enjoy as well, but I only made the effort to watch those shows because cute anime girls got me into the medium and brought those anime to my attention. Bishoujo can definitely be a gateway to anime as a whole and while they might not be that way for everyone, I think there are a lot of fans who also wouldn't be here if bishoujo weren't as prevalent as they are. |
| "Well, she's flatter than a pancake" -Mimi Alpacas "Woof" -Tobiichi Origami "Are you trying to turn the dormitory into a strip club!?! -Atena Saotome |
| I do believe that Maruyama is making a valid point, from his perspective. But then again what is the point here, who is this supposed to make me mad at? Otaku culture? Anime industry veterans? cute girls are only briefly mentioned in the article, and that along with the Chinese animation industry is the entire takeaway in this thread, not the critique of shallow trend chasing in general? Edit* To specify cute girls were used as just one example, were they not? I hardly see why that would make for a valid name for the topic, is this not just sensationalism. I think they recently also ran this same story on animenewsnetwork and that one said nothing about bishoujo, so are they relevant to anything or not? The joke he made about being a masochist was also pretty funny, I wonder why that wasn't mentioned here. |
KumiveneellaMay 5, 2023 1:56 AM
| Bishoujo are far more interesting to watch than mechas. Good for people who like mechas, I'm happy for you, but this trend of bishoujo is good news for me. |
"Nobody could laugh at someone who's trying their hardest" -Machio- |
| welcome to another episode of anything i don't like is degrading the entire industry because i said so, |
| "among monsters and humans, there are only two types. Those who undergo suffering and spread it to others. And those who undergo suffering and avoid giving it to others." -Alice “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.” David Hume “Evil is created when someone gives up on someone else. It appears when everyone gives up on someone as a lost cause and removes their path to salvation. Once they are cut off from everyone else, they become evil.” -Othinus  |
| The plot of hero getting hot girls is timeless so I disagree with the idea it makes anime worse. In fact, uglyfying waifus makes for worse series. Ie Forspoken |
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rohan121 said: He never said anywhere that any waifu anime is bad. He was clear about abuse to the detriment of anyone else. Read carefully, please.The plot of hero getting hot girls is timeless so I disagree with the idea it makes anime worse. In fact, uglyfying waifus makes for worse series. Ie Forspoken |
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| His main point seems to be about fostering new talent. I have noticed some visually stunning films from China in recent years (I Am What I Am, Deep Sea) and a couple of interesting anthology projects (Capsules, Yao-Chinese Folktales); should there be greater freedom with storytelling, I could certainly see more attention towards the country in the future from critics (hence his comparison to Disney and French animation). |
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| Cute girls were quite common in anime 20-25 years ago too, so this is hardly some new worrying trend that Maruyama is picking up on. And I don't see Chinese censorship guidelines being lifted anytime soon, meaning that Chinese animation can pretty much only do martial-arts/swordplay works set in pre-modern times if they don't want to run afoul of the restrictions. |
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Everything that connects to MAL |
Zalis said: I just don't understand why people keep finding Maruyama criticizing cute girls as such and calling it new when neither my post nor interview says anything of the sort. Everywhere it is directly said about the abuse.Cute girls were quite common in anime 20-25 years ago too, so this is hardly some new worrying trend that Maruyama is picking up on. And I don't see Chinese censorship guidelines being lifted anytime soon, meaning that Chinese animation can pretty much only do martial-arts/swordplay works set in pre-modern times if they don't want to run afoul of the restrictions. |
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| As someone who watches anime casually, I honestly find less and less interesting anime from time to time. Most of the interesting ones are from a decade ago or so. Surely there are some good anime even nowadays, but yeah when they are buried under tons and tons of fanservice crap, it's hard for them to shine. The same problem can be seen in videogames - a type of media I have more knowledge about - where nowadays you can't pick a Japanese game without being forced to bare with the presence of fanservice characters. Which ultimately just make what could be a decent product worse - for example, the Xeno- games, which have superb storytelling but a terrible problem with fanservice - and less enjoyable or approachable. |
| Location: Turin, Italy |
| First moe thing in 2000s Then isekai thing in 2010s Now isekai+moe=waifu thing in 2020s ??? Whatever man I am all up for this, I only care about one piece, the rest of the anime industry can burn in hell for all I care |
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| I will be honest, there has been a slight uprise in outright remakes and continuation of series that were effectively ended years ago. Hell Girl: Fourth Twilight was nothing more than a cheap cash grab, same with Code Geass' sequel movie because of course, Lelouche survived/was revived. Then there is Trigun, Bastard, Urusei Yatsura...It is not to the point of problematic, but I do want to touch on this because everything else he has said has already been said before outside of the recent uptick in remakes. I am not too fearful for now, I am just glad I am not the only one seeing old properties brought back to life and thought "This is kind of weird". Other than that I agree with the general idea that appealing to your viewer's fantasy will often come between having a well-written and thoughtful narrative. An example of this is Raphtalia from Shield Hero; of course, you could have her struggle with her past abuse in a way that was believable, or you could have her kill her abuser 5 episodes from her introduction and skip all that uncomfortable, boner killing trauma and abuse and have her fall in love with Naofumi on the spot. One reason why sexual assault depictions has been so problematic in anime is that series don't like to depict the psychological impacts that sexual assault would entail; as far as many writers is concerned, if Suguo did not pentrate Asuna's vagina, then she will have no lingering trauma that would result from almost being raped and being imprisoned beforehand. Remember, Reki Kawahara only wrote those scenes in because everyone else was 10 years ago, and we scarcely got better in that time. Point is, wish fulfillment elements have to be carefully written if you want a serious stories. If you do not, then more power to you. Again, this all has been said before. I also agree China has improved pretty quickly over the last few years in this area plus in the mobile gaming market. |
PeripheralVisionMay 5, 2023 1:39 PM
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| This is just a classic case of a boomer going through a phase of jealousy. My man had affiliations with shows that aired a decade ago, so his seething on not having success in the modern age entertains me |
Nirinbo said: At least you can put cute girls in every genre, unlike in the 70s-90s when EVERY original anime had to be mecha. Tell me your entire idea of 70's - 90's anime comes from /m/ without telling me your entire idea of 70's - 90's anime comes from /m/. |
| My pronoun is he, because I'll never be him. |
Catalano said: maruyama: complains about cute girls in anime maruyama: credited with planning for Rideback - a show which destroyed the dark manga making the anime adaptation cute and moe maruyama shouldn't be taken seriously, that was just one example It is likely one of the things he had in mind while making these comments. I get the feeling it wasn't his idea to go cute and moe, but rather the higher-ups who were riding his ass. Nothing ruins a creative project faster than damn pencil pushers with chips on their shoulders and control over the purse strings thinking they know better than the creators actually working on the project. The moment a director tells them to f*ck off they are likely going to get blacklisted from the industry unless whatever project they are currently working on craps out a pile of gold bricks the size of Mount Fuji and even then they will be on thin ice. You do not get to make a fool of a high-ranking executive and get away with it, even if you are right and win the fight, you are likely now on the fast track to ruin, especially in Japan. Just look what happened to that one Golden Goose director that somehow turned Kemono Friends from an already dead mobile game into one of the hottest anime IPs in Japan that year using like a 30 dollar budget, a couple of interns, a pack of gum, and some duct tape. After turning the ultra-low budget show into a raging success he pissed off the higher-ups by releasing a cute little bonus animation at the end of the season made on his own time without their permission and they fired and black-listed him for it. The entire team quit in solidarity when they heard the news of what happened and got themselves blacklisted as well for daring to quit their jobs. |
| The 2 problems Maruyama complains about are lack of originality and lack of young blood. He fears Japan will be surpassed by China. I don't agree. Yes, most anime is centered around the cute girl concept because they sell better and that sufocates creativity in anime, but why is this so? Japan has millions of people, mostly men, that have very little sex and even less romance. And this is not going to change. Cute anime girls are surrogates and so they will keep dominating anime in the years to come. There won't be many new things to come, if any. But if you think China will be a fountain of creativity once censorship is gone guess again. China is in the same boat as Japan. There are 60 million chinese men that cannot get a partner, there are not enough chinese women, you could send all british and french women to China and it still wouldn't be enough. So yeah, chinese anime will also center around cute girls and it will crap on originality. As for young blood, they are not going to be needed very soon. In the last year the unemployment rate of chinese video game illustraters skyrocketed because of AI art. It will happen to anime staff too. |
Nobita-X said: The 2 problems Maruyama complains about are lack of originality and lack of young blood. He fears Japan will be surpassed by China. I don't agree. Yes, most anime is centered around the cute girl concept because they sell better and that sufocates creativity in anime, but why is this so? Japan has millions of people, mostly men, that have very little sex and even less romance. And this is not going to change. Cute anime girls are surrogates and so they will keep dominating anime in the years to come. There won't be many new things to come, if any. But if you think China will be a fountain of creativity once censorship is gone guess again. China is in the same boat as Japan. There are 60 million chinese men that cannot get a partner, there are not enough chinese women, you could send all british and french women to China and it still wouldn't be enough. So yeah, chinese anime will also center around cute girls and it will crap on originality. As for young blood, they are not going to be needed very soon. In the last year the unemployment rate of chinese video game illustraters skyrocketed because of AI art. It will happen to anime staff too. Your argument seems to depend on the idea that Japanese anime only caters to Japanese fans and Chinese animation to Chinese citizens, if I understood it right. This however is false. A lonely man is still a lonely man however, and how their needs are met need not be from domestic producers of their own countries. From a market perspective, China can be competitive with the domestic Japanese market simply due to their size, which is more relevant by the fact that Japan has a shrinking population. Functionally, there can only be so many anime that will turn a profit, either in blu-ray sales or mechandising or what other metric could become relevant in the future. So if China in the future somehow produces the majority of popular anime and also produce experimental and interesting anime, how can Japanese animation compete as it is now? China can theoretically do what it has always done and inundate the market with cheaply made Chinese goods, which if gone on long enough will decrease the amount of competition against these product as people buy more of it, snowballing its way into market dominance. This time with animation. I am not sure how AI would factor in, but it is not like AI doesn't use computing power either. China could simply use its weight there too. |
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| Well, absolutely. Its not even a question. looks at the recency bias anime of the year for 2022 |
| Keep scrolling |
trulywaath said: "entire idea" Nirinbo said: At least you can put cute girls in every genre, unlike in the 70s-90s when EVERY original anime had to be mecha. Tell me your entire idea of 70's - 90's anime comes from /m/ without telling me your entire idea of 70's - 90's anime comes from /m/. I said original anime, which have always been way less than anime adapted from a source material. |
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| hurr durr don't watch slops real men watch paint dry |
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RobertBobert said: https://news.yahoo.com/anime-luminary-maruyama-warns-japans-040056423.html According to a new interview with Masao Maruyama https://myanimelist.net/people/8170/Masao_Maruyama?q=masao%20maruyama&cat=person, student of Osamu Tezuka believes that due to the modern industry's obsession with commercializing shows as much as possible, including with the help of cute girls, the industry is irreversibly degraded by a lack of creativity. And more importantly, in his opinion, Japan would have ceased to be the center of anime long ago if Chinese animation had not been limited by Chinese censorship. https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/05/02/anime-insiders-worried-japans-growing-lack-of-creativity-will-allow-china-to-overtake-the-industry/ His stance was taken up by one of the anonymous insiders who revealed that the anime industry's modern love for reboots, remakes and sequels is caused by the same issues as similar trends in Hollywood and that people in the industry are really concerned about it but don't want to make it public out of -for fear of causing conflict with Chinese producers or animators. For example, there was a rumor that some popular franchises still live off the Chinese market, while in Japan it has long been not so interesting to people. For my part, I want to say that such complaints have existed for more than a year. For example, even Shunichi Watanabe complained that the producers ignored his interesting ideas, saying that in return they are ready to give him a lot of money for another waifu or hasubendo bait. But I do not know enough about it to draw such global conclusions. What do you think about it? Is the anime industry really starting to lose out to China due to the lack of creativity and commercialization of the genre? Or is it just moral panic or old people complaining about new trends? It is partially old man screams at cloud. Like look I am happy he is adapting Pluto it's a good breath of fresh air in the industry but honestly when was the industry original? In the 80s we just had tons of mecha anime, battle shonen, sports titles, rom coms etc. If it wasn't for the dearth of Sci Fi/Mecha right now I actually would argue we have more genre variety than ever before. SOL shows which have a lot of variety weren't anywhere near as common. Entertainment industries have become more risk adverse. Hollywood especially I don't think anime got less risk adverse though they just always were with some exceptions. Also China is not going to be beat out anime/manga. At least not anywhere in the West. They can make insane profits in their own country but where is the demand internationally for Donghua? It's just stuff like Genshin (which hardly is that inspired) and that adaption is again going to be done by JP studio. The real alternative they have is the better employee treatment, big domestic market etc. Still I mean if we were going to the cesspit going to be honest the cesspit of isekai is far better than some of those Chinese webnovels lol. I think his own desires for what he wants anime to be are kinda projecting a lot. Like I do not like the dominance of super heroes in Western media but I can't say oh yeah Hollywood is going to die lol no (I wish). I am the outsider most people are happy with the status quo. Money talks. The anime industry in that regard is pretty good in responding to what makes money. At times you just have to accept this is how things are because this is what most people want you simply are not in the majority. Still just like in the past you get some weird pet projects that come out. It's not like shows like Lain were common even in the 90s nor stuff like Sonny Boy now. |
BilboBaggins365May 6, 2023 7:38 AM
| Whether Maruyama is right or not in blaming cute girls in anime or whatever, the problem (If it's fair to call it that) ultimately comes down to the fans. Why bother with creativity if "in another world with (insert anything here)" will do just as well if not better in popularity and sales? The industry might try to aim higher if fans wanted them to. |
on BatoKusanagi said: If you approach the problem from this side, then you can say the same about many other genres, especially the various waifu and hasubendo bait. After all, Shinichi Watanabe was literally talking about such an experience.Whether Maruyama is right or not in blaming cute girls in anime or whatever, the problem (If it's fair to call it that) ultimately comes down to the fans. Why bother with creativity if "in another world with (insert anything here)" will do just as well if not better in popularity and sales? The industry might try to aim higher if fans wanted them to. |
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