There is way too much fucking anime being made right now
According to the seasonal chart on MyAnimeList, literally sixty new shows started this Fall season
Everytime a new season starts, I go over to MyAnimeList to look at the chart,
organized by how many members have each anime on their list
And usually it's the first twelve or so that people really care about
You've got your sequels to already popular franchises:
Shokugeki no Soma season 2,
Kekkai Sensen season 2,
Himouto! Umaru-chan season 2,
Kino's Journey season 2? Where the fuck did that come from?
Then you've got the adaptations of already popular manga.
Mahoutsukai no Yome
Black Clover, which is the new big shonen
Inuyashiki, the new thing from the guy who made Gantz
Other stuff tied to popular creators, like Juuni Taisen, which is the latest Nisioisin work
And usually as the season goes along
we'll see the original shows that people develop hype about rise to the top of the charts
currently just because it's sitting towards the top
And as you scroll below those you'll see a few cult favourites going on here and there...
Girls' Last Tour
Houseki no Kuni
Maybe a few sequels to shows that not as many people are watching
like another fucking season of Gintama and Love Live!
But from there you just dive into this endless cesspool of bullshit that no one gives a fuck about
This show is called Two Car
It's about cute girls on motorcycles 'cause that hasn't happened yet
Oh, but there's side cars in it so, y'know, that's unique!
Is it any good? Hell no!
It looks like garbage; half of it's just panning shots
We don't even like see a main character for minutes into the episode
Did anybody ask for this? Does anybody like this? Does this have a reason to exist?
Now I know what you're thinking: "How can too many shows possibly be a problem?"
I mean, if you're not somebody who has to make anime analysis for a living
You're probably just gonna ignore most of these shows anyways
And, hey, maybe somebody out there likes it?
Why would we deprive them of these shows?
Well, for the consumer, it really isn't a problem,
but for the anime industry it's definitely worth looking at
After all, what are the big problems we're always hearing about the anime industry?
Animators are constantly being overworked and underpaid,
Anime studios are constantly bleeding money because they make shows that don't sell.
Minor shows are just being pumped out by the dozens and then flying straight under the radar
where they honestly belong
Recently, a non-profit organisation called the Flying Colors Foundation
teamed up with YouTuber TheAnimeMan
in order to run a gigantic poll trying to collect
the top 100 anime of all time according to the western fanbase
Over 132,000 people submitted their top 5 favourite anime to this poll
And as much fun as it is to actually have that top 100 list,
the most important piece of information from this
(and the one which the Foundation was most trying to find)
is that the top 100 anime took up 70% of all of the votes,
while the top 10 anime took up 18%,
showcasing that anime fans' interest in the medium
is overwhelmingly geared towards the shows that are considered to be the best
That is to say, most people just want to watch good and popular anime
Ask yourself: what are the two main reasons that any show gets watched?
Either because it's really fucking good,
Or because people want to be a part of the conversation surrounding the show
Now, obviously, plenty of shows that you and I might consider to be total dogshit
make it to the top of these MyAnimeList charts anyways,
just because they happen to hit the perfectly right sweet spot
of what is popular in anime at the moment
this is how we get shit like the Asterisk War and Eromanga-sensei,
and A1 pictures are very specially attuned to hitting this mark
But it's a lot harder to accurately and cynically capitalize on a trend
while making a terrible product,
than it is to just make a good product
and try to draw attention towards it
And we're living in a time where this is easier than ever
Several of the best-ranked anime to come out this year
were not hyped before their release,
but became super hyped over the course of their runs because they were so good
Made in Abyss started around 20th place
on the Summer 2017 MAL chart,
and now it's hovering at #4 with one of the highest scores on the website
Word of mouth is working now
And, yes, you'll still have stuff that stays cult like Mahoujin Guruguru,
which, everyone who actually watches it seems to think is the greatest anime ever made,
but they can't convince anybody else to watch it
But that show also would probably never have been successful in the West in the first place
just given its style
(I can't tell you whether or not it's successful in Japan, I don't have the numbers for that)
But hey, here I am signal-boosting it right now,
so, uhh, y'know, youcancheckthatoneout
Meanwhile an incredible wealth of effort and money and talent is being poured into:
My Girlfriend is a Faithful Virgin Bitch,
which wouldn't even be charting if it didn't have Bitch in the title
(and even then it ain't doing so hot)
You see, while some of these shows might appeal to some people,
"some people" isn't enough to put money in the pockets of the people making the shows;
"some people" isn't enough to justify the insane amount of anime getting made
that no one cares about
Imagine if we consolidated all of that talent and effort from all those lackluster shows,
and put them into the good shows, boosting them to even greater heights
Shows like Mahoutsukai no Yome and Black Clover had big marketing pushes behind them,
But imagine if we took all the marketing for all these dogshit shows that nobody cares about
and put that into them as well.
If you want anime to crack the mainstream
and make way more money than it currently is, this is the way to do it
Don't be satisfied with these being the biggest shows of the season,
big fish in a tiny pond
A new anime should be a big event for everybody, in the world!
if Inuyashiki is supposed to be such a good show,
why isn't it on television, or, at least, being advertised at the start of a YouTube video?
In fact, why haven't the producers of the show tried to offer YouTubers like me
some kind of endorsement deal so we can promote their shows?
We've got the reach, we've got the willingness
You pay me to talk about a show I like? Oh, I'm never gonna shut up about it!
Would be a hell of a lot easier than, say,
removing my videos from YouTube after I just told 100,000 people
that your show was the best show of the year!
(The number of views on my Girlish Number video
is more than twice the number of people who have it listed on MyAnimeList
and it almost killed my channel!)
I think you get my point. If we want the anime industry to be successful,
there needs to be more faith in anime
there needs to be more faith in good ideas being able to succeed
and being marketed so that they can succeed
Less throwing a thousand plastic darts at the wall and hoping something sticks to the target,
and more crafting a fine metal dart,
putting it in the hands of a professional darts player,
and having him hit the fucking bullseye
Of course, this would require effort on the parts of lots of people
in lots of different parts of the anime industry
Thankfully, the anime industry is incredibly insular and incestious,
and word gets around very quickly
A lot of the industry is attached to old ways and business models
But as more and more young people join the industry,
making their own studios, trying to forge their own path forward;
and fans become more and more informed about what's really going on in the industry
and are desperately seeking to help;
I think it's time for communication to be opened up in a bigger way,
and for the anime industry to develop a fucking game plan
This is exactly what the Flying Colors Foundation is setting out to do,
and I really hope that they succeed,
and that anime companies will start wisening up about what the hell they produce
Less of this shit that nobody asked for and nobody's going to watch,
and more of the stuff that we're all hoping for.
I hope you enjoyed this ranty-ass video
I'm covering a pretty broad topic here, but hopefully I've made all my different points clear
If you want to hear more of my ranting and raving,
you should be watching my, like, 19 different channels,
or just subscribe to my Patreon, and every week I put out a content round-up which sums it up very nicely
Thanks again for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.