The Fall of Japan and it's impact on Anime of the 21st Century

Hello~ Mi-Cray again everyone. Today, I'd like to solve or at least attempt to do so, the apparent mystery to most Western anime fans agree on that in comparison to the old days, new anime are mainly total shit and just extremely sexualized and packed full of fanservice. Well for starters, it's not just the anime industry that this is happening too. Trust me, the shit the anime guys keep churning out is really nothing in comparison to how far video games have truly fallen in Japan in order to fulfill a need. What need is that you ask? What does it have to do with anything? I have only one word to give you: Recession.

Of the economic kind. Let's go back to the era of the 60's to early 90's in Japan. Free from U.S. control after WWII, Japan now has a booming economy and rising global market presence. More emphasis is placed on work than ever before and families can now enjoy a golden age of stability. Japan has what's known as a bubble economy. Now, fast forward to the mid-late 90's. Japan's bubble has popped, and the country is now in turmoil as a recession turns everything upside down and makes a giant mess that years later into the present, Japan still hasn't fixed. As a result, companies are desperately looking around to find a solution, seeing none, they put even more pressure and emphasis on work and getting every young person into a job while overworking the old people. As a result, the Japanese culture begins to change even further and begins a downward spiral that has caused it's rapidly shortening population and young to old ratio, with the expected result of wiping out much of the nation in a few years if this continues the way it has for the last decade plus. Now, to the elephant in the room. Because of a combination of overwork mixed with the changing gender roles and more picky/bitchy women due to the old bubble economy and disheartened men, the sexes are divided, meaning no one is really after a family anymore simply because they don't think they have the time for real relationships or are discouraged by the more difficult attitudes of others in terms of romance. And so, here is where anime and video games finally come into play. In order to capitalize or simply make money off of the now split and desperate genders, companies began producing, in the case of video games first, dating simulators in massive quantities, and some even made games that allowed the building and customizing of the digital "girlfriend" to suit the player's tastes. This stuff was a huge hit for many men as it allowed for the intimacy that they craved without any negatives that can come when dating a real person. Plus, since it was all in a game, they could carry these "girlfriends" around in their pockets on their DS's, so they could make time for the "relationship" whenever they wanted. Furthermore, as this trend caught on and gained more ground, whole towns began to cater to these types of men to service the "couple". A perfect example is the town of Atami. Originally a town that made it's money by catering to real couples who were looking to get married, they realized that they could no longer do this as the marriage rate in Japan dropped like a dead horse. So, out of need to survive, the town began to specialize in catering instead to these men and their digital love's to generate profit, and Jiminy crickets! did that escalate everything even more! It got to the point where one guy actually married the digital girl on his DS! In this way, you can see how this is really just making a serious problem even worse and further driving any romantic/sexual bonds apart, which means less babies, which means a dying population that is only borrowing time before the inevitable happens to the Japanese. Thus with these factors in mind, the same sort of thing has happened to the anime industry among other things like poor sales and social stigma in Japan. Our once beloved medium has become filled to the brim with product's rather than art, because in order to profit on these miserable guys who are deprived of sexual fulfillment, in an economy that is total shit and caving in still, what do you do? Sexualize. Pander. Create Harems with a generic male lead for the desperate guys watching to replace themselves with to feel a sense of their need and fantasies being met. Fill your show to the brim with butt, tits, cuteness, pedophilia, and obedience in females if possible. The result? You get an assload of profit to boost your own failing company. Take a look at Strike Witches for example. Granted, I love that show to death and love it's characters, setting, and incorporation of history. However, I will be honest and withdraw my bias. In reality, despite how the show can be interpreted, it doesn't change the fact that it's creator and the companies that work on the franchise, made and develop this to be empty, strictly sexualized, meant for boys and men to look at, fantasize and possibly pull a five finger discount on due to their attraction to the very exposed and pantsless appearance of the witches. Shimada even admitted subtly at this being its true purpose in an interview which I will link you to, where he says in one question that it just seemed natural to combine girls and machines (the Striker Units) since he feels young boys find it sexy and appealing, especially since in a lot of Western magazines, hot and sexily dressed models pose with vehicles. In short, the reason that anime is going down the drain in quality as far as the mainstream is concerned, is because of the shitty recession. There, boom. Now you can feel sorry rather than get pissed everytime a new anime season comes and you find a lot of it to sadly be trash.

Gaijin Goombah's video on Dating Sims:



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For more information and examples of these games.



Other examples of how companies cater to people

http://strikewitches.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Jugauld/Interview_with_Humikane_from_Nyantype_vol.6

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Shimada's interview

For my take on Strike Witches, please see my "Theory: Strike Witches and Feminism" on this General Anime/Manga forum