Anime is Dead!

Why I believe Japanese animation lost its popularity

I think that Anime's decline is due to the incredible evolution of Hollywood computer effects over the last decade. Plus, I think a lot of Japanese ideas and talent have been lured away from the medium. I've been into Anime since the VHS days and I believe that  the main reasons for Anime's decline are 1) lack of quality directors like Anno, Otomo, Watanabe, Kawamori, Kawasaki, Kawajiri, Oshii, etc. And the death of Perfect Blue's Satoshi Kon and retirement of Hayao Miyazaki didn't help. All you have left now are the "big eyes" cutesy-looking anime that turn most real Otakus like me completely off. The Evangelion Rebuilds are the only bright spot in Anime I see but they are so far and few in between. Redline a couple of years ago was great but, again, these anime take a while to come out. The new Ghost In The Shell live action movie didn't help, either, from what I read about it. And I hope Hollywood doesn't try to do the same with Akira. Akira is ideal as an Anime but this is only because of its top-notch animation. As a live action film it wouldn't work because 1) It lacks a human element 2) the story's not that original anymore and 3) if it were made into a live-action film, Hollywood would bleach it out with an all-White cast and alienate the Anime's grass roots fanbase. Some of Anime's decline is probably the fault of the Japanese directors themselves. When Anime got real hot around '99 up to about 2005, I noticed a lot of Americanized Anime, Anime stripped of the edge and intelligence Anime had always distinguished itself from American animation. I think 1 of the 1st was Rin Taro's 2001 Metropolis and Otomo's awful, highly-anticipated Anime Steamboy (what a waste of good animation). These 2 films were (in my opinion) trying to reach out to American audiences. The reason this brother liked Anime was because it was JAPANESE, but it got away from this and became conscious of itself, tried to please everybody, and after this I noticed the 'Anime' sections in the now extinct video stores and the soon-to-be-extinct Best Buy stores get smaller and smaller and smaller until they started getting mixed in with regular movies. 

Anyway, I'm glad Anno is still able to squeeze some juice out of Evangelion. Still the best Anime ever, imo.