VyseLegendaire

As for my own post, I am sorry if you interpreted that comment as politics, but rather it is fact….I only brought it up to talk about the times. Feel free to ignore that fact if you so wish….

And for why does Miyazaki post-1970 make Tenchi better, maybe he is saying Miyazakis work became watered down? But a funny way to beat around the bush.

I recently re-watched in after a bunch of years in HD/Blu Ray. I noticed that many of the scenes and remarkably well detailed and artfully drawn, and quite a bit of the animation has a great fluidity of the hand-drawn kind that you only got from that period of 1990s animation.

I remember reading a review about how the members of AIC were dedicated to hand-drawn animation when they got their start, but over time realized that the amount of working involved in something like El Hazard was way too much to do on a regular basis. Its a sad fact really with the way things have become so digitized in anime today….

As for whether El Hazard is better than Tenchi? No, lol…. Tenchi OAV 1-2 & the Movies just outweigh the Hazard OVA 1 by way too much in my mind.

Part of this has to do with the fact that the internet only hit its mainstream penetration towards the mid to late 1990s when anime also was hitting and overtopping its popularity crest in Japan, and setting in motion the mainstream popularity of anime in the US and other countries abroad, heading into the year year 2000-2002.

SO because of this time/confluence of factors, I surmise that most anime fans in communities such as these were kids or teens during the 1990s, with a lesser group a bit older being fans since the 1980s and less even for the 70s and earlier. Thus our hype for series of the 90s is huge, and Tenchi was a key series bringing about hype abroad because of Pioneers marketing – which was substantial for the US – and as well as the show being aired on Toonami in 2000 which immediately placed it among the most recognizable anime outside of Japan.

In Japan anime popularity was rising into the late 70s and 80s and experiencing a phase change in the 90s when the economic collapse happened, and generational differences changed attitudes and feelings about anime heading into the 90s.

In some ways overseas fans missed the cultural cues embedded in animes released in Japan in the 90s , but seemingly their appeal echoed with overseas fans years and sometimes a decade + later because Japan was simply ahead of curve in its cultural development arc, due to something like a coincidence of economic and social trends playing out on an accelerated scale in Japan as compared to the general developed world (speaking mostly of economic deflation and demographic implosion.)

So in a bunch of ways, the 1990s -the 2000s was an unrepeatable trend that was a one-off time for anime (not to mention manga, and video games just as much so) which can never be repeated, in which a great deal of creativity and ingenuity had to be poured into new properties to try and squeeze profits out of a crunching economy, and overseas licensing was a major part of this effort – which increases today even as anime industry is frankly not very lucrative at all compared to the old days of 1980s (just look at simulcasts, overseas releases of manga picking up steam and being closer to their original than ever before, and this trend is reflected in the gaming world as well with smaller US publishers releasing smaller budget games from Japan at a regular pace, something once deemed impossible).

The way the industry is now is sort of like trying to squeeze blood from a stone, so to speak – desperation for profits at every turn, ingenuity falling by the wayside, and a move toward mobile devices, pay-to-play reading/watching subscriptions, f2p games with in-game purchases, etc. – all new business models to try and counter the loss of purchasing power on the part of consumers over time. And consider how pathetic BD/DVD sales generally are in Japan, and yet anime companies rely on these for profit. Videogames sell alot more #s wise but they also cost more to develop… and expectation levels for a *success* have fallen over the years.

Consumption tax isnt helping btw Abe.

Neither is Obamacare which is actually a tax on the residual wealth of Americans just at the time as their savings is decreasing and going towards food and gas which are taking up a greater portion of their income as before, during this recession/depression. Blood from a stone.

I also agree that ANN is a better metric for average ratings on anime, its where I always check if Im trying to gauge the general feeling on a series/title. Although its a bit sad since many series are lacking in total ratings counts but they tend to reflect the general *consensus* of reviews you can find around the net.

Akira did do poorly at the box office, but in a way its massive success at home video sales marked the beginning of the importance & viability of OAVs and video releases as a major profit center for anime.