Does anyone think that there is too much anime?

[tuniki]

having good friend always helps.

[.:SR:.]

Does anyone think that there is too much anime?

I don't freaking care.. I just watch the animes I like..

[OtakuMan22]

Over-saturation of the anime market? Always a threat if not handled properly!

I remember back in the good old days when anime titles were few, but with a higher ration of awesome-to-crap anime released.

Some early releases were REALLY good:

Ranma 1/2
Urusei Yatsura
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Ghost In The Shell
Akira
Project A-Ko

...but not all of them:

Girl From Phantasia
Wrath of the Yotoden
Ultimate Teacher (actually this is more of an acquired taste)
Wind of Amnesia
Heroic Legend of Arislan (Sweet merciful crap, is this BORING!)

Of course, in the early days, most of the anime that did come off as crap was in fact good, but POORLY dubbed! I'm talking God-Awful here people! (See Anime News Network's review of Iczer-1 on DVD) This gave rise to the whole sub vs. dub wars which are now FINALLY over thanks to DVDs and better dub quality just about all-around.

HOWEVER, with the rise in popularity of anime, thanks to anime on TV such as DBZ, Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Adult Swim's stuff, that not only influences the titles that come over here, but it also influences what is made in Japan, especially if they expect it to be a hit here AND there. This makes for less Japanese-esque new anime releases, and that takes away some of the charm that makes anime... well... anime!

The other problem comes with anime digging in TOO deep into the sub genres that are core to anime, such as harem, giant robot, sentai, magical girl, romantic comedy, and then some! Any genre that has TOO many titles coming out at ONCE (Spread over time, it's okay) can lead to some sub genres getting real stale REALLY fast! This is when the cash cow being milked is about to die from de-hydration.

For anime, the ration of great-to-crap anime released here and in Japan is relatively good. Since it takes a good amount of time and effort to make an anime, only really good titles make it all the way to becoming animated. Others that are so-so usually make it to OAV where it's either hit or miss, and if it's a miss, no biggie.

MANGA, however, is where I feel the threat of great-to-crap is lowering VERY FAST! Since translating and re-typing manga is becoming easier and easier, tacked on with the acceptance of not having to reverse the print anymore, it is VERY easy for companies like TokyoPop to snatch up titles and release them faster than you can say "Wubba?". What's more, major publishers such as Del Ray are getting in on the act, and with Viz, CPM, ADV, Dark Horse, TokyoPop, AND Del Ray releasing Manga along with other companies such as CMX, then it just becomes a hodge podge of titles that no one has heard of.

Some of these new titles are very good, or even first time English releases of manga that came out years and years ago (Like Dark Horse's publication of Osamu Tezuka's "Buddha" and "Astro Boy"). Others, like various titles from TokyoPop, are just so numerous, that you can't tell what's what (Peach Girl, Princess Ai, and much more). What's especially surprising is that outside of Viz, Dark Horse, and ADV, most of the other publishers are releasing Shoujo manga in DROVES! Sure it's good to get girls into comic reading of ANY form, but shoujo manga is practically a dime a dozen now, while really epic manga such as Buddha, Akira, and Lone Wolf and Cub are squeezed off the shelves.

What's more, classic titles such as Sailor Moon, Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikkoku, Black Jack, and others become harder to find as they stop being published in order to make room for newer series.

Each time I go into a shop with manga, I look to see if they carry some of the older English translations of manga (Ranma 1/2 for example) and see if they also have the recent translations of classic and/or epic manga (Astro Boy, Black Jack, Buddha, Phoenix, Akira, Lone Wolf and Cub, etc.) If all they carry are the newest releases and can't get some of the forementioned titles, then I have to find my manga elsewhere!

Some new releases from the new companies are VERY good. I am very happy with Del Ray's handling of Genshikan. TokyoPop, on the other hand, tries to make things too mainstream, and I am still quite miffed at what they did to Initial D!

To summarize: The saturation of anime is not as troublesome to me as the saturation of manga, which to me is already quickly becoming over saturated. Worry not about the anime... worry for the manga!

~Otaku-Man

[CerebralAssamite]

I have noticed that some anime's do tend to overlap each other, student loves teacher... student loves student, warriors with special ki abilities, so on and so forth..

However as long as those freash animes that come into the scene every now and again such as: (for their time) Berserk, Hellsing, Azumanga Daioh, Slayers/Orphen and even Nadesico, Ill be happy with what comes out.
You cant expect something new to come out each year, of course their going to have freash stories but the foundation their based on will always be the same..

[BasharOfTheAges]

Though i've never looked too far into it, I've always felt it wasn't the
number of titles per year" that was growing that fast, just the "titles per year translated into English." As with any trend that attracts large amounts of money, state-side anime lisencing has begun to grow in popularity. Given that there always has and always will be crap out there, and that the number of series being liscensed is increasing, it seems as if more crap is for sale than before... But i firmly believe that just more crap is for sale OUTSIDE OF JAPAN. It was always there, we were just shielded from it because liscensing companies wouldn't take the risk... focus groups and all that...

Folowing this trail of logic, i believe it's possible that more crap is being made in Japan solely because the animation studios think they'll be able to sell it to foreign companies that have no standards; but they do know that not everything will sell outside of Japan; take Prince of Tennis for instance...

[Kathreen]

No, I don't think there could be too many animes

In fact, it's better to have to many animes
so that a lot of people could have many choices that would suite them

and I also think that if there were only a few animes,
not a lot of people of all ages would like animes right now

[narcted]

ANN has posted some stats on the state of the anime industry.

[DinaDani]

Anime is a huge portion of Japanese tv. Every season an influx of about 70 new anime series are released in Japan. With that many new series its incredibly difficult to keep up with.

My only problem with this influx is the lack of creative put forth in most of them. For example, this new season seems to be almost entirely harem based. Harem's have always been the trend but now it seems to almost completely have saturated the market. It's reached at stale point where they've run out even somewhat believable plot lines.

The real trouble isn't keeping up with all the anime, it's finding the few that are worth watching.

I'd say. Usually at a start of a new season, I would check out the new ones. Now, I don't bother with that anymore since most of them are cookie cutter ecchi comedies anyway. I'd much rather play it safe, getting what I know will be good, like the new FMP.

[A2L]

To the poster who said that in the mid 90's he could walk into any store and honestly say he's seen each and every one of them... same here.

I could walk into any video store and just nod off what I saw and I was head of most people I knew because I watched animes before they became licensed and headed to the US. I, same as you, slowly started lagging... and then soon there were way too many titles to catch up on.. and now I really don't care.

I just go ot forums and find people who have the same general taste in anime (or go to my brothers) and watch what they recommend.

[Kyarii]

There's never too much anime!!