Typo

I don't really have too much to add, but a lil' general fact about some of anime, but especially RPGs. It's quite common to see the ultimate villain/final boss in a story portrayed as some kind of god (self-proclaimed in most cases). Our heroes are always on a quest to save the world from this "god" by defeating them in an epic final battle.

This ironic good vs. evil theme is something we see often, and tends to see the good, represented by the heroes who are usually bounty hunters, mercenaries, thieves, and other such less-honourable professions, against the more arrogant, but higher social class, better educated (and usually white-haired) smart guy who has found a path to "ultimate power". Deities, god-like beings are portrayed as evil ones quite alot.

I'm guessing that most story writers are atheists, or just enjoy pocking sticks at religious concepts in general ?:X

shirahime

...to some extent I agree. But "natural progression of our culture"? That's a bit too pessimistic. Admittedly most people still watch anime as a pure entertainment-->get out of reality once in a while, and the market provides that, it's pure economics: sex sells, to those who have low expectations. Yes I do find anime/manga plotline getting recycled more and more, especially if you read the shounen jump ones O_o, but fans ARE forgettful (most of them anyway), that's why the "magical girl" for shoujyo and "hero beats the super big villain" shounen themes can go on forever -_-

But Death Note is a shounen jumo series that I found surprisingly...deep, much more than other ones serialized on the same magazine. Now that's ORIGINAL, yes?

Rather than the anime itself, i would say the anime's ops and eds are getting super repetetive. It's so hard to find an op or ed that actually fits the series anymore, most of the time it's just a place for new singers to get some publicity. The one recent series that I found with BOTH fitting op and ed is LOVELESS, and both are composed by Kajiura Yuuki.

Dagger

Well, I think there are a couple of factors at work here. First of all, it has to do with your personal growth as a fan. The more anime you see, the less easily impressed you are, and the more it seems as if you've exhausted all the good anime out there. If two series of the same type/genre/whatever are released in different time periods, and you see the earlier one first, chances are that you'll be much less awed by the second. That's just life. It's why some claim that RahXephon (an excellent series) is a rip-off of Evangelion (another excellent series). It's why some claim that the golden age of anime was in the 70s or the 80s or the 90s, and that nothing good has come out of Japan since then.

As you become more familiar with anime, you have to work harder to find the good stuff. The nice news is that there's a plethora of good stuff out there. And once you've seen a lot of anime, it's pretty easy to figure out your basic likes and dislikes. If ecchi isn't your thing, fine. Trust me, you shouldn't experience any difficulty finding good anime without ecchi content.

Caiobrz

What I do think is that some people have to start watching animes based on good feedback and reviews and not on imagery and what the perv crowd is saying ...

There are a lot more titles without echiness than with, just because a person is watching only the ones with it, it dosen't mean it's all there is to it ¬¬

RathNatakaru

Eh? Well I watch a lot of anime, A lot of anime. Ecchi makes the anime funny, sometimes. But any sport anime is a bond between a team, and they're sport. Or Action and Adventure series, One Piece, Naruto or Bleach, they're plot lines are good and still going strong. I don't know what your watching, true, Sex Appeal catches my eye, but It doesn't determine if I'm going to like the series or not.

CodeWordChobits

It seems to me that you don't have alot of anime experience and may be basing what you believe only on what is in the mainstream. What is in the main stream? (at least with US viewers) Echii, shounen fighter shows, (the long shows thing is more atributable to marketing... more eps = more money from an american licence) tend to be what you hear about from the average fan on the street. They generally do not have the resources alot of us have that spend time on the net and consider Anime to be more of a hobby. So considering the hundreds of show out there, I don't really think that it is getting any worse than it has been all along.

MythDrannor

Umm...If you all can't find anime that is based on storyline and character development then your not looking very hard. First off, theres plenty of original things in anime, the problem is that anime itself has become normal to so many people that the originalness has worn thin. Second, if you think that theres nothing noteworthy being produced right now, theres decades of anime I bet you've never seen. Go and watch some of the more esoteric and less known anime; Jin-Roh, Banner of Stars, Betterman, Venus Wars, things like that...

PaladinBlue

Originality doesn't make an anime good, nor does unoriginality make one bad.

astroace222

Third, the US is getting lame with idea's, so its' no surprise to me that the rest of the worlds catching the US infection and becoming lazy with idea's. I mean they made a Sequal to BAMBI for Fu**** sakes. IT's not needed but hey there may be $$ signs in it for them so..........