Some of you avid Anime Academy students may know that I was introduced into anime during the early 1980s when Harmony Gold brought Robotech to the United States. Since then, I have seen and been involved in my fair share of diverse anime and various aspects of Japanese culture. Here's my take on the progress (or perhaps it's regress?) anime has undergone in the last twenty years...

Many people consider the 1940s and 1950s to be Hollywood's Golden Era. In comparison, the Golden Era of anime would be the 1980s. During this period, if one didn't possess a stunning screenplay and hired the best artists, there would be little chance of getting the work published.

You must recognize that producing anime at this time was a painstaking process, involving painting every backdrop and character by hand, as well as utilizing inferior equipment. Consequently, some of the best anime appeared during this time: Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, Wings of Honneamise, Grave of the Fireflies, My Neighbor Totoro, Maison Ikkoku, Bubblegum Crisis... the list goes on and on. I'd be hard-pressed to name even one bad anime for every good one that appeared during the 1980s.

Because of vast improvements in the melding of hand-drawn cels and CGI, it has become increasingly easier and less time-consuming to pump out anime like Model Ts on a Henry Ford assembly line. The result of this is that every Tom, Dick and Takeshi believes they can turn a profit-making anime, despite the fact that he or she may not be qualified to do so. What happens because of this is that the talent pool out there for artists, animators and storyboards becomes considerably thinned out. Quantitatively, there were many more anime produced during the '90s than the '80s (forgive me for not knowing exact figures off the top of my head). What this means is that there are a lot more quality anime in the '90s due to sheer volume, but proportionally their numbers have dwindled. As a result, the artistic relevance of anime has lost some of its power; what you have now are some anime whose entire purpose is to provide ecchi fan service.

What does this mean for the 21st century? At this point my crystal ball grows hazy. My mind is put at ease with the recent releases of some inventive and inspiring anime (FLCL, Serial Experiments: Lain, Love Hina, Inuyasha). Regardless of the outcome, I look forward to what future offerings the art has in store. I welcome Anime: The Next Generation with open arms.