BasharOfTheAges wrote:I'm just kinda shocked by the preference of medium. Judging by the fare of anime nowadays, the industry is also apparently shocked that there are still people that want that. Maybe you'll get to be niche and underground like everything they show now was 10 years ago and then spring to resurgence some time in 2020 or so. The circle of life fad?
Well, escapism necessitates that the viewer wants to escape from something in their daily lives. I have much too much fun in my daily life for me to want to escape it by watching outrageously exaggerated forms of it. My students are infinitely more interesting than the cast of K-ON or Lucky Star. And in many ways, they're just as completely totally insane, but have much more dynamic personalities. Also, they're not fictional. The problem with moeblob is that it doesn't do well with problems. It presents the wackiness of Japanese school life fairly well (I still think Azumanga Daioh is probably the most accurate depiction of the insanity I have seen from my students and fellow teachers, and not any of the moe anime), but it doesn't explore issues of school violence (Japan has it), issues surrounding sex education and premarital sex (in a way that isn't superficial and wholly skewed, at least), nor the problems of broken homes, or even the very really pressures of the testing regime (again, not in way that treats the subjects with respect, at least). Anime that does explore these issues in a way that is respectful and engaging, not only present me with a world I have come to know, but it also teaches me more about that world. There has always been meat and potatoes anime, and there has always been cotton candy anime. The problem with the rise of moe, is that we have lost the balance, and way, way too many shows are cotton candy. Nice to eat, once in a while, but it shouldn't be the basis for a diet.