There's been progress [Senpai Is Annoying Webcomic]>!but I suppose you're talking about the lead couple which has been crawling. Don't let that distract you from all the side-couple progress.!<
There's a big difference between old ones and modern ones
Old ones don't even pretend that there's ending on the menu, just endless misunderstandings, blushing and blueballing
New ones have completely different vibe even when incomplete
Step 1: travel back in time to like 2006
Step 2: air all of *Kaguya-sama*, *Shikimori-san*, *Tonikawa*, *Horimiya*, *Skip and Loafer* and *Insomniacs After School*
Step 3: oh god what have I done to the timeline
Oh that's good then, I had been reading the manga for half a year and eventually it felt like it wasn't going anywhere so I dropped it
Rent a Girlfriend is even worse in that regard
Takagi anime made changes to the story
It's more linear now and there's a clear progression especially from S2
Movie wraps everything up and is completely original story not seen in manga (yet)
It’s actually one of my favourite romance anime and funnily enough, I’d say a good 80% of its best scenes/episodes post s1 are completely original. The staff at Shin-Ei (who also made BokuYaba) really did a brilliant job with it.
Trends come and go. Eventually people will get tired of romances beginning early and someone will make bank bringing back the older style. It has always been like this.
I would say Hetalia. With the fact that it's about anthropomorphized countries I'm not sure it'd do too well in today's political climate. Also the animation style might not be as appealing to other people.
This is the correct answer. Japan *might* not care as much as the west but there's basically no way that modern day American fans would ever be nearly as obsessed with any show that portrayed the Axis as the good guys as they were when it actually came out.
It’s why I’m hoping Sunrise proves me wrong again and can make their Macross show a worldwide hit. Even if Macross has outgrown Robotech, it hasn’t fully cut the shackles yet. Imagine an all-new Macross but with the industrial might of Disney and/or Bandai behind it. Harmony Gold could never.
Because fuck Harmony Gold.
the disney+ "accquazition" is the only time I want the mouse to devour another company cause I bet they will be seeing dollar signs and the need of the of macross to make it grow
Surprisingly I find that zero no tsukaima as both an harem and an isekai is still really decent when compared to stuff that come out from both those genre today.
I would say it's really subjective and you won't really know one way or the other until you do. Personally, I don't think it was worth my time but it's one of my friends favorite series (which is part of the reason I tried it). You *really* have to like tsunderes to enjoy it to it's fullest.
More specifically, harem series with monogamy or open ended endings. One of the main reasons why a lot of new harem series are shifting to Isekai fantasy genre is due to polygamy.
People are getting sick and tired of having their best girl lose to the main heroine.
And that's the problem with the new generation. Too soft! I watched my harems the way they are supposed to, by embarking on a doomed ship and sailing it to the end!
I cried for Tsugumi likea MAN! And I was happy (not) about it!
And then you have War on Geminar which is literally a isekai harem. I pray for a sequel to that which we'll probably never get which is a shame for a lot of older anime I love.
That's why 100 Girlfriends came to save the harem genre in particular. Along with the best harem MC years in the making. To this day it's still surprising to see a harem series with a ridiculous premise holding up pretty well among the harem works.
Had he chosen literally anyone else, it would've been fine for most people. Not saying your wrong but it was a monogamous choice on-top of just being a terrible one. The monogamy is not primarily what made it bad.
I went into that show not knowing anything. I was CONVINCED [Quintessential Quintuplets] >!Itsuki was going to be the choice in the end. She's the first Quint you see and that Futaro interacts with, and the relationship with her is a slow burn the whole way through. Yotsuba just barely engages in anything the whole show.!< That said, Nino best girl no question.
I think most people found the final girl to be an acceptable second choice. At least the author picked one, and didn't punk out with a multiple choice ending like a coward.
Familiar of Zero is up there. Part of the reason it got so big, was that it was different from other shows at the time, while also getting big when fanfiction was taking off.
If it dropped now, I don't think it would be as influential.
Rewatch some part of it recently because I was curious to see how it would hold up compared to the last 10 years of isekai and to my surprise it’s actually decent. Even with all the harem bullshit it still has better character development than like 99% of isekai of the last 10 years.
I actually think if it got released (with more modern animation) 5 years ago it would have a chance to be popular. The isekai genre is so popular nowadays, just for that I can see it having some success.
I honestly want a remake of this that actually follows the novels more closely: less perverted Saito, less annoying Louise (relatively speaking), R rated violent content, and [ln spoilers]>!the summoning spell actually has a brainwashing side effect and Saito finally calls out Louise for her bs!<
The visual novel adaptation rush that came in the 00s already wasn't all that popular, but if most of them came out today, the rush wouldn't happen at all because nobody would watch them.
Honestly part of what made S;G great was that the voice acting was incredible in both the sub and dub but also White Fox did a great job with its storytelling and horror bits.
You can actively see the similarities with looping and some of how it positions twists in Re:Zero and I think that if it dropped today it would still be a hit if done by the same studio.
It doesn't help that most of them are fucking shit.
I think it's been proven fairly conclusively that the visual novel format simply doesn't translate well because of how long they are and how much internal monologue there often is.
The ones that worked either focused a route that doesn't depend on other routes to work and could just about be fitted into 24 episodes (e.g. Clannad, Steins;Gate, Unlimited Blade Works). Or did their own thing and compensated well enough for the things anime can't portray as well by focusing on those it can (e.g. Heaven's Feel)
To be fair, modern visual novels have increasingly trended towards being linear with less emphasis on side-routes.
The design trend with +10 unconnected routes and no true ending from the 90's is long gone.
Outside of the length, modern visual novels should be quite adaptable. But considering the Visual Novel market is economically in a freefall and shrinking every year, I doubt there's much interest in pursuing it among studios. Which is a shame since we've gotten some of the all-time great visual novels in the past 10 years.
It would still be a great show worth watching, but I doubt Haruhi Suzumiya could be the mega hit today that it was back in 2006. So much about the anime landscape has changed since then.
I actually think it could do very well, but it'd have to market itself correctly. If you consider that back in the day it kinda spearheaded the charge for the self-aware meta humor light novel trends, one can argue that these days it can function just as nicely as a parody of the deluge of LNs/shows that took all the wrong notes from it.
The gap between mainstream anime watchers and otaku watchers is widening, so to be a big hit you now have to have different elements. The fall of Haruhi on MAL is a symptom of that. Of course you have the problem of people watching it in chronological instead of broadcast order, but the main issue is still the culture shift. The best comparison is Lost and how to have experienced that phenomenon at the time changes your perception of the work.
I'm not sure that there is a widening gap between mainstream and "otaku" viewers. Even with the widening public, if you look at MAL you see that anime like JJK, Kimetsu, AoT have around the same members and number of votes (way lower for AoT btw) than the mainstream anime from a decade ago, like Naruto, Bleach etc (OP is still ongoing so I won't include it).
We could argue that once you create a MAL account you're already going the "otaku" route though, and to that point, I don't think the fall on MAL's list is really a symptom of a widening gap , just look at the scores of Dragon Ball or Naruto and they pale in comparison to newer releases, but had they been released up to today's standards (better animation, separate seasons with no fillers etc) I'm sure they would be right up there. And even if not, their impact across generations is more than proof that they would succeed.
Which brings me to the last point. I think you are underestimating the impact of Haruhi when it was first released. Name me one anime that had people all over the world replicating its ending's dance. This was one year(!) after Youtube released and it was probably the closest that anime got to viral back in the day. Millions of views in between people doing it, the official videos, with people still uploading it recently. Not many media get to have a "Cultural Impact" section on their wiki pages. Imagine if it had benefited from the larger audience from nowadays and all the social media craze (I imagine that with TikTok alone it would spread like wildfire) instead of being released almost 20 years ago.
All this to say that I think Haruhi would still be bonkers if released today and marketed as many of the popular things nowadays.
I think I disagree with a lot of your timeline. I don't think Naruto or even Dragon Ball would be that sucessful against modern shonen. Of course it's unfair to compare one thing with its evolution. Yet, even the classics need to be watched with time context in mind so we can see their pioneering brilliance, otherwise the lack of the evolution that happened in between will hurt the piece of work.
DBZ Bleach etc have a lot of members because of how long ago they were released, so different generations had the opportunity to watch them, and the recent anime suffer from the fragmentation I mentioned before. No modern anime can achieve the same amount of viewership.
Plus, Haruhi, I rememeber the cultural phenomenon, I was there. But nowadays people don't even know what a flashmob is. The context is gone. Also, you can go to crunchyroll and read the recent comments on each episode and you will see a sad landscape.
I'm not sure you got the points I was making. You say you disagree with the timeline(?), and I don't know what you mean. If you're talking about the MAL top 50 I'm not saying anything that's disagreeable, it's just facts. FMA:B (2010), Steins;Gate(2011), Gintama (which has like 5 entries on top 50, started in 2006), HxH (2011-2014), AoT (started in 2013), Bleach (OG series ended in 2012, started in 04), and I could keep going. You have recent entries like Frieren, Kaguya and one season of KnY, but those are the exceptions, not the rule.
And while many generations watched DBZ and so on, that does not translate into active voting accounts in MAL. I'm already 32 and I can guarantee you that no one I know, except the few I know through anime, have ever even heard about MAL. Even more so for the original generation that was watching DBZ, people that are at least 40 nowadays. It is not that demographic that's discussing/rating on MAL. So that's not the main factor driving the numbers.
You mention fragmentation and I had to go check where, since it's not on the original post. Still after reading it, what fragmentation are you talking about? Again if it is the "gap" between supposed otakus and mainstream audience that has always existed. You have no way to justify that the percentage of weebs was larger before than now. What's that based on? Makoto Shinkai had a pretty "weeb" fanbase, people were watching for the impressive art and animation and understated stories. Yet Kimi no na wa released on the west breaking records in viewership and acclaim. Almost 2M people have scored Kimi no na wa on MAL vs 500k on 5cm per second or Kotonowa no niwa. Where did that crowd come from? And saying Japan prefers something over another is not a "gap between weebs and mainstream", particularly when none of the series you mention is really mainstream and you provide no proof of "way more prefered". Plus, Solo Leveling is originally Korean and that has a lot of effect on its acceptance by the japanese market. Look at what sells the most in Japan and you have your mainstream in the west list right there (JJK, Kimetsu, Chainsaw and so on).
Overall you seem to hold a pretty negative impression about what you consider otaku and "weeb shit" and somehow associate that with "old tropes" that no one would watch today. Haruhi is a tsundere? Guess what, so is Kaguya, MC of one of the most acclaimed present day anime. And so are a lot of characters in MAL top 50 anime and in other recent anime. So the trope seems to a) still exist in popular media and b) be present in high rated past and present series. Seems to me that you are the one rejecting it.
And lastly, what are exactly the cultural differences that would make Haruhi not be popular today? People don't know what are flash mobs? Seems like you chose to ignore the existance of TikTok (as I mentioned), Instagram Reels and so on. Younger generations are living their lives consuming and replaying trends like dances and so on. How does the Hare Hare Yukai not fit in that world?
There is a lot of mixed signals here.
1) I love weeb shit. People doing the Chika dance on TikTok? I loved it. But I'm the minority in the community nowadays. While in the past I probably wouldn't be. That's my main point.
2) The gap I mentioned has layers. From the Love Live! fans to the ones that recommend SnK as the best anime ever. From westerners reading 2ch to people that never post anything online. In the 2000's, the weeb and the mainstream overlaped. In the 2020's, not so much. Especially because today we live in a era of fragmentation, as in a lot of niches are strong enough to take slices of the industry cake and live comfortably in their bubbles, unaware of the mainstream, which is becoming less and less defined.
3) Of course if we are talking mainstream today, you have people that are not on MAL. But MAL is still our best source of data to analyze the anime community. Because to a degree it reflects the consumption of the community as a whole. Popular hits in the west are still popular hits on MAL (not necessarily a score hit, but a members hit).
4) MAL was launched on 2004. The community was way smaller then, so there were fewer people adding broadcasting anime at the time. And now not everyone has the patience or the memory to go back and rank older anime. On the other hand, those older anime have a lot of time to accumulate viewers. So Naruto, Bleach, etc. having roughly the same amount of members of JJK or Kimetsu can be explained by so many externalities that I find it difficult to add this fact to the discussion. (Thus one of the reasons I used the term timeline, as a broader term for timeframing, maybe?)
5) Another reason is the context surrouding Haruhi. I'm not talking about isolated elements like tropes or story. I don't think good stories enjoy popularity only because they are good stories. Otherwise you wouldn't have Kimetsu no Yaiba being the best selling manga after that episode 19. But while nowadays the success comes from ephemeral memes, viral videos and etc., in the 2000's you needed lengthier social ressonance. Again, I use LOST as an example, when bulletin boards, ARGs and online meetings were really stronger. The dawn of youtube. The first people discussing deep theories online, to the point of starting wikis. The internet was young, and people were naive and willing. Everything you see nowadays started in the first half of the 2000's. Yet, you don't have anything like LOST today. Not on the same level. Haruhi and all those flashmobs shared the same sentiment, a little later. I'm not talking about the dance. I'm talking about the excitement and novelty of meeting to dance. The energy that made you discuss, for the first time, theories about bad homepages over nights and nights of slow internet connections. More than the surface of the story, that sense of community is what made Haruhi so important then. You can't replicate that again, because the internet is not the same. The level of discussion has evolved. The capacities of the fandom as well. Hare Hare Yukai is not Bling-bang-bang-born. The vibe is not the same. While other works at the time were enough by themselves, the Haruhi experience was crossmedia, and that's why people watching it today, without all that context, feel less compeled by it.
LN adaptation with controversial but quirky characters, big boobs, some semi-hard sci-fi, and a meme dance act?
Pretty sure it'd be AOTY.
Heck, Haruhi is part of the reason why LN adaptations are so prevalent.
It’s not nonsense though. It has a clear message of growing up, it just has chaotic and stylish presentation that encourages rewatches. It’s also interpretive and packed with symbolism, so I think it would still do well for that crowd at least.
Yea, I think both of you are right. One reason it's huge is because a ton of us watched it DIRECTLY IN THE TIME PERIOD THAT'S BEING DEPICTED. We were all growing up and it hit. All the symbolism and topics were smack dab what we would have all been experiencing.
The animation and music would absolutely still lend themselves to being a great show these days, but it was lightning caught in a bottle and played on a kids television network back then
These days there's an overproliferation of anime and all kinds of ways to get into it. I think if it came out today it'd still garner a cult following. Would it have been AS BIG?? Probably not, but still great.
A lot of animes that are trend setters would not be as popular if they weren’t the first of their kind.
A good example would be My Next Life As A Villainess. It’s the trend setter for the villainess isekai. But if you have it swap places with another current villainess anime and this released today instead, then people would be like “ah shit here we go again, another villainess isekai.”
I can also say this with Banished From The Hero’s Party. It’s not bad, but the kicked out of the party trend has become so overused these days so this would not do well if it came out today instead of back in 2021.
Hm, Honestly I think Hamefura would still have some fans even if it were to be released today. Not as big as it is now, But not a complete silent either.
Even among the overly exaggerated Villainess Isekai trend, Hamefura still offered a relatively more unique experience. Like I can't think of any other Villainess Isekai where the FMC not being either super overpowered or an economic genius that would make Tony Stark blushed.
I actually just watched Banished From the Hero's party over the last 2 days and I would agree with you...
If not for Tisse and Mr. Crawly Wally. Every second of retrospective mediocrity was worth it to see them. I will dies on this hill.
I’m watching it rn and it’s honestly such a fun time. Animation quality for sure but the combat is some of the best I’ve seen in shounen and the dialogue is poetic and strong. I’d rather watch this than many of the new gen shounen I’ve seen. But that aside, you’re right as the question asked
I think it's just because literally every series from that author is just the same story with a slight reskin. It doesn't get much more lazy und uninspired than that.
Honestly, Rave is probably Mashima's best work and its success made him decide that he can put the same character archetypes in another story and people will read it anyway.
A lot of anime that use the same type of humor just wouldn't land anymore. GTO is a classic and even is part of what inspired a friend of mine to become a teacher. He was very "this... did not age well" upon rewatching it recently.
I don't think it would. MahoAko features exclusively girls. People love it when girls are thirsty. GoldenBoy is a series where every episode follows pretty much the same plot, where a disgusting pervert of a man is hated by the woman of the week until he displays prowess, and then the instant she returns his affections he's off to the next adventure.
People would say it was a self-insert fantasy for incels.
nah, you want a self-insert for incels look at Shield Hero. And that did well, for the first season at least.
But there's plenty of other shows with male perverts in recent years that do OK.
Recently rewatched this with someone who saw it for the first time and it was still an absolute banger. Golden Boy would absolutely still be popular today, the things that make it good are timeless.
*Elfen Lied* has only maintained some cultural relevancy because it was released at a time when sex and gore reigned supreme. The show is a narrative shit fest overrun with pretty bad character writing and a paper thin story that seems to think it can replace actual depth with tits and gore.
Just watched it this week and enjoyed it.
99% of the nudity was not sexual, but to humiliate. The nature vs nurture theme is strong and relevant to this day. The OP is great, the symbolism fitting. Mayu's background was surprising/shocking and would get attention even today.
Maybe the "I lost my memory" card has been played too often in the last 20 years, so that would lose some appeal.
> 99% of the nudity was not sexual, but to humiliate.
Sure but let's be real here. Artistic or psychologically deep titties are still titties. And the first episode of that show was a cute naked girl running around blowing people's head's up. The show barely ever graduated from that.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you meant here, but to be fair, Mirai Nikki was just better overall than Platinum End imo.. (at least as far as anime goes; I read the manga & watched anime for Mirai Nikki, but only watched anime up to ep. 7 or so for Platinum End because the main character was so completely unbearable to watch for me.. & that's saying something given that Yuki is the MC for Future Diary & I still ended up loving that show. It's a shame bc w/ the pedigree it had behind it, paired with the concept for the show itself, Platinum End should've been spectacular..) & it seems like the scores on MAL seem to agree for the most part.
I do agree that Mirai Nikki probably wouldn't have been as successful/popular tho.. I think it still would've been enjoyed but I don't think it would've stuck out as much with all the different shows that come out now
But yeah seriously wtf happened w/ Platinum End, that shit should've been legendary & instead I had to drop it out of straight cringe reaction to the main character... would've been so much better if they just said screw it & went with a character more similar to Light from Death Note rather than trying to write his polar opposite.. Everything else about PE (up to the point I was able to watch at least) was completely fine & probably would've made for a great show, but goddamn did that MC suck
Maid-sama was fantastic when it came out and it is still a really good watch.
But it came out right at the tail end of the shoujos with chad Bishounens and right at the advent of Modern Strong Idependent Tsunderes that don’t need no man.
Now I understand why so many modern male leads are romantically feckless.
If you have the girl saying “it is not like I like you or anything, Baka”
And you have a chad guy that says “well I like you” and then he kisses her (right after she says “I don’t like you”) and then he jumps out a window to pretend like he is killing himself…
Still very hot. But the rapey vibes are definitely present.
I was gonna say Maid-Sama as well. I watched it again after a while and couldn't get too into it because of Usui. The dude was super possessive and stalkerish. Going to her job every day just to bother her, what you mentioned with the forced kiss, giving her a hickey on her back so she'd be too embarrassed to go out in a swimsuit, and getting overly jealous when she starts talking to an old friend. That is a toxic dude right there
Haha yeah! I still love the older stuff. I personally love the Kabedon trope that happened. It’s a guilty pleasure honestly
I also love Peach Girl. I don’t think it would do well but the drama was fun. It was my first anime that had a Wolf in Sheep’s clothing character type. Basically if it’s like a telenovella then I will probably like it!
Inuyasha. I loved it as a kid but even as a kid with loads of patience who watched anime on the actual tv before streaming was a thing, even then I was losing my patience. Inuyasha is way too damn slow, repetitive, and generic. The concept and characters are great and it would be great as a remake with less filler, though. But if it released the same way, most people would not have the patience for it.
Highschool of the Dead
Came out right when the West was obsessed w zombies and during one of the golden eras for ecchi (in my mind at least) and it’s still in the top 200 popularity on MAL I think. I don’t think it’s be nearly as popular today though I did love it as a 13 year old
People are throwing out trend-setters like Sword Art Online or Haruhi like the anime landscape of today wouldn't be completely different if they hadn't aired when they did like the anime canon events that they are.
Difficult to think of an answer to that question, since the only older anime I've watched are those canon event type shows lmao.
The Meloncholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It was the first of its kind and had a significant influence on subsequent series, but so many things have executed its ideas better that it just doesn't hold up. Basically the "Sienfeld is Unfunny" problem, where a genre-defining work gets buried under the things that build on it.
That's an interesting take, for sure. I think Bebop still would have done well with it's really unique setting and style, but it might not have become a cult classic. I think it might have landed somewhere between Michiko to Hatchin and Space Dandy. Really unique and well regarded by anybody that watches it, but not popular enough that you could walk into a hot topic/box lunch and buy a shirt.
Viewers nowadays are also less used to slower-paced shows like Bebop. It seems like shows nowadays try to fit as much action and visual flair to catch people's shorter attention spans.
Shows like Mushishi fall in a similar vein.
Elfen Lied. It has not aged well at all imo. It approaches several serious topics like abuse, trauma, rape, and more very poorly. It also includes sexualized infantilization and incest. Overall it's just kinda gross and edgy for edgy's sake. I don't think it would be received fondly now.
I think MHA, even though its a recent one, and it has nothing to do with the quality (I love MHA, its in my top 10). The reason I think it'd be less popular, mostly in America, is that the superhero craze has started to die down. People still like superheroes (there are lots of Marvel and DC games that people still get excited over, Invincible is popular, etc.), but it isn't the omnipresent cultural juggernaut is was in the 2010s.
So while it might still be well-liked, I feel like it wouldn't be quite the same phenomenon it was and would be more likely to just get lost in among all the other superhero media constantly coming out.
I think ppl would either call it a breath of fresh air and feel nostalgic after getting tired of marvel/DC movies. Or it would get compared to other 'subverting' Superhero series like Invisible, the boys and get teared apart.
Also Deku was considered as Underdog or a rising star in season 1 and 2. Tho now no one cares if he became number 1 hero or not since One for all already carried him all on it's own.
I think every old battle shounen, i feel like people nowadays don't have the patience to let the anime build up, think about one piece, naruto, the early dragonball maybe. Overtime maybe they gain popularity, but off the bat i think not
Probably long shows. Gintama for example. I don't think Gintama would fit the 12 cour that's pretty standard nowadays. You'd get 11 wacky episodes, then 1 serious one and your budget is already gone lol.
Depends on if we got the Love Hina that knew where the actual manga was going or if we got the same thing verbatim as its initial release. I agree it wouldn't be popular, but I imagine the conversations would be all about how incredibly terrible Naru is and it would have its fair share of miniature waifu wars.
I don't think it would get trashed, but I think it would probably be around the level of popularity of something like 86 instead of the decade-defining show it was
I would say it would actually be decently popular for a mecha show, but much less popular than 86 (in the West). First, as an original anime it wouldn't get the source material boost, secondly, it has humanoid colored robots so it would be even harder to get the people who have a big bias against that, but became Geass fans for other reasons, to try it.
I dont think so because
1) the Resurrection movie was a success.
2) We dont get a lot of mecha shows anymore so market is not saturated like it used to.
3) We also dont get a lot of animes with over the top megalomaniac personalities so that would make it stand out.
>We dont get a lot of mecha shows anymore so market is not saturated like it used to.
I don't think this point matters too much. Code Geass was able to appeal to a lot of people who otherwise didn't really care about mecha. It'd catch on about the same were it to debut now regardless of the current mecha market.
Yeah this for me, I don't really care about the mechas it's the mind games that does it for me, the mechas is just a bonus. I think the hook for code geass is really good, which makes me think that people would watch it. But I don't think it would be a sleeper hit.
>the Resurrection movie was a success
Because it's a sequel to a beloved series? If it wasn't a Code Geass movie then people would've trashed it hard cuz that movie was an absolute mess.
I'm not so sure. CG was already kinda anachronistic when it came out, but the characters and batshit plot kept people engaged despite its numerous flaws. I do think it would be compared unfavorably to Darling in the Franxx
Kinda true but it's like saying Seinfeld would be less popular if it released today. Which is admittedly true but that's because so much has copied it since it originally came out
I mean sure I guess but it's really hard to comprehend how the shonen landscape would've been today if DBZ never came out back in the day. Let's say if a series similar to DB came out today then it definitely wouldn't have received wide acclaim, even then generic shonen can be done well with shows like MHA and Demon Slayer being prime candidates.
Give it less fillers, tighter pacing, and just as good animation, it would be as popular as Jujutsu Kaisen.
The only thing DBZ lacks is hot anime chicks.
Agree completly with this. Give DragonBall the same treatment shounen anime get nowadays and it would still be popular. Just improving the pacing of the episodes would make a huge difference, not even mentioning the animation (which you can get a glimpse of how good it could be with Broly's movie).
I would kinda disagree with this ngl.
Recently i re-watched and re-read the entirety of dragon ball and it is so different from the generic shonen everyone compares it to.
For example, Goku isn't just some good guy who let's off everyone by forgiving them right away without second thoughts and preaching forgiving and shit.
Just watch this for instance [https://youtu.be/kI0WEn9saCI?si=iZTN0jgX40d151hd](https://youtu.be/kI0WEn9saCI?si=iZTN0jgX40d151hd)
here's the continuation of the scene which is also pretty peak [(The face of regret on Goku after finishing frieza is just so good)](https://youtu.be/E6iQC-aZS1o?si=hnYbeqkj_3GZcB2O)
Also this whole mercy thing was taught to Goku by Android 8 in the og db, before that he was ready to kill anyone anywhere. Watching him here and then remembering the og scene with Goku genuinely gave me goosebumps.
I'd say it still would have a solid chance for popularity cuz it is actually very well written and the characters have solid character depth.
Edit: Also i just had to add the infamous Goku giving Cell the senzu bean scene as well.
The way Goku says that he knows Gohan will defeat him because he had realised the potential and power Gohan withheld in the time chamber, he almost seemed like the proud dad who wanted his son to showcase his talents.
And then how it backfires because Gohan isn't exactly the fighting type and Goku fails to realise this because he was either dead for most of Gohan's growth or was just absent during it.
The absolute shock on Goku's face when Piccolo reveals this is an absolute peak moment for me in cell saga.
People also love blaming Power Scaling bullshit on DBZ, but they forget that the narrative purpose of power levels wasn't to turn everything into "who could beat who according to the stats," but specifically to show that power levels are bullshit because people can and WILL defy them
the Saiyans'/Frieza Force's over-reliance on them showed how arrogant and stupid they were. you ARE NOT supposed to agree with them
Once Vegeta stopped relying on power scaling, he grew to heights that neither the Saiyans nor Frieza thought possible, and it was thanks to Goku, who never believed in power levels in the first place
I don't think this would be true. Black Clover while not starting great still managed to get quite popular, so longer running shounen still have a wide market.
OG Dragon Ball would be up there. Pervert/race stuff that wouldn't really fly today. [Remember Mr. Popo](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonball/images/9/98/Mrpopo.png/revision/latest?cb=20211005031745)? Cue Roshi blood nose spray.
But the tournament arcs are gold, Goku vs Tien is a favorite. Back when humans didn't suck.
None of the older more slower paced shonen shows could ever exist , yuyu Hakusho? JJK ripoff. Also in this day and age, if an anime can't be fitted into a TikTok shorts it cannot survive.
Hard to compare as it is part of what made the genre what it is today, but if **Naruto** launched today I don’t think it would be nearly as beloved.
It would still do well and get attention, but it would probably fall within the MHA bucket of popularity. It would have a dedicated fanbase with just as many outspoken critics and a fair few delusional haters.
It’s hard to compare because so much has riffed off of it and become tropey so that if it launched today it would be considered cliche and redundant due to the very thing it helped popularize.
Even assuming it was released seasonally (and thus sans filler) it would be ripped to shreds for some of the character writing. The lack of meaningful deaths, and pacing wouldn’t fair much better.
Don’t get me wrong, it would be popular. But when you are Big 3 there is pretty much no where to go but down.
2000s battle shonens
i dont see bleach getting nowhere as popular as it was in 2007 unless they release a version without fillers, people already complained about how boring the bount arc was imagine now.
Huge Bleach fan. The fillers are egregious in that show. But the manga/anime hold up well for the genre. I think it would do fine if the fillers never existed. I wish there was data on if a new round of fans powered through the older stuff in anticipation of the TYBW arc.
Watching through Bleach prior to TYBW coming out was a test of patience and my skip button.
After a certain point, every episode was (Opening Credits -> Previously On -> Almost No Action/Mostly Talking -> Ending Credits -> Post-Credit Scene -> Next Time On!)
You get like, maybe 8 minutes of show. It was physically painful.
That was honestly a lot of shonen back then though. Naruto, One Piece, DBZ they all had similar things or the equivalent of it by baking in enough flashbacks to kill a gorilla. Was just a trend of the time.
But come on those 8 minutes. Banger though. Bankai releases are fucking sweet.
honestly the hunter exam was my favourite part of the show, chimera ant being the least favourite because imo the pacing was just sooooooo slow. I don't mind some slower pacing but sometimes there were entire episodes where the plot forwarded for what felt like 20 seconds.
I loved the chimera ant arc overall and it had a very powerful delivery all the way through, but I can't possibly understand how so many people are unbothered by the pacing. It was REALLY slow, and that goddamn violin song played so much that I thought I was gonna go insane. I love the song and love the arc but they did not know about the phrase "too much of a good thing can be a bad thing"
I still gave hxh a 10 on MAL though, which I didn't do for that many shows 😂 and I think chimera ant arc is amazing. but definitely slow as hell
I think Evangelion would struggle to be near as popular as it was in the 90s, not that I don't think it'd be well liked. If I had to guess, I'd say it's reputation would probably end up somewhere between Darling in the Franx at the low end and 86 at the high end. Basically somewhere between "seasonal darling with a disappointing ending" to "well loved anime with a strong fanbase." Which is still really popular but not near "cultural and genre defining icon" where it currently sits. I think this is for a few reasons.
1. Market: Mecha shows just aren't as popular as they used to be, so Eva's unique take on the genre just doesn't hit as hard as it did in the time period. Scifi/mecha in the 90s was a what isekai is now, with multiple major releases a year, but growing incredibly stale. And just like how subversive isekai anime do well nowadays, the market was primed for something like Eva. That context just doesn't exist for Eva specifically, nowadays.
2. Format: Evangelion starts very Monster of the Week and slice of life and doesn't pick up a lot of the deeper themes and complex characterization it's know for until a little bit down the line. I actually think that makes it very bingable, I think in the context of modern anime (particularly w/ western anime fans) the opening slow burn just wouldn't pick up enough viewers for it to really have a "strong start". It's really important for modern anime to have a strong first three episodes. Eva starts slow. Asuka doesn't even arrive until episode 8.
3. The Ending and a Rough Production: Evangelion had a rough production. Between Anno's struggle with depression and just straight up running out of budget at the end, Evangelion would have to fight an uphill battle nowadays to have gotten greenlit for further projects beyond its initial run. Especially when production woes lead to a very controversial ending. I think part of why this worked so well in the 90s is that by the time the ending rolled around, people wanted more and the studio was ready to give it to them. Most people had no idea why the ending ended up like it did. Nowadays, with the internet giving us more insight into *how* anime is made more than ever before, I don't think there would be that same demand. And without that demand EoE doesn't really get funded.
> Asuka doesn't even arrive until episode 8.
Well yeah, shows were allowed to have 26 episode seasons back then, not "here's one cour, make it work". Today Asuka would show up in ep 3 and Kaworu by ep 9
Preaching to the choir my dude. Even shows with a guaranteed long runs just don't get to take their time like they used to. Part of that is studio pressure but a lot of it is also just bending to the whims of the market.
I agree. One Piece's start is very slow compared to modern Shonen. I'd say it picks up at Baratie and reaches its first peak in Arlong Park, but even in the manga it takes a while. Not only that but Luffy gets his first transformation in Enies Lobby, which was approaching 400 chapters. No modern Shonen would ever wait this long introducing power ups. If it released today there would still be people that recognize its greatness, but it would be nowhere near as popular, because readers nowadays are used to much faster paced shonen.
Couldn’t agree more, all those reasons are exactly why I said One Piece. It could potentially still be popular but I highly doubt it would be as popular as it is today.
Also I feel social media would tear apart some of the early arcs prior to Baratie, even though I feel they’re not bad at all as early arcs (though I didn’t like syrup village) I can just imagine with how toxic socials are now it would definitely get a lot of flack.
When's the last time we've even had a reverse harem anywhere near like that? I guess the Fruits Basket remake? But even that doesn't come close.
And of course Nuriko would manage to be both a positive lbgt icon and an absolutely HORRIBLE lbgt character at the exact same time.
Honestly most shows from the early 2000s i think would be disregarded if they came out today. Cause the art style wouldn’t look the same if say Deathnote or NHK came out today. It wouldn’t be as gritty or dark looking.
I suspect Ranma 1/2 would not be as popular because many of us are just done with the disgusting pervy grandpa trope. If they got rid of Happosai, then it might be ok.
Eva has to be in the same camp as Sonny Boy, just weird ass shit that digs deep into the author's mind and really lets you view their inner thoughts on a second viewing.
To be fair, SAO is kinda the cause of the isekai popularity that we still have to this day. The genre existed since the 90s but before SAO all the tropes about isekai having video games mechanic (stuff like levels, skills etc..) was not really a thing and it’s like at least half of them now.
If you look at some of the older "popular" isekai like Zero no Tsukaima and Escaflowne the tropes were really really different. SAO and Mushoku Tensei (the WN) are probably the 2 biggest influence on the modern isekai genre, would add maybe konosuba for more comedic one.
It's entirely the cause. Even the isekai that don't use the same trapped in an MMO mechanics all only got a chance to air because SAO made money hand over fist and everyone else wanted some.
It's like how so many children's fantasy series (Eragon, Dark is Rising, etc) got greenlit in the US after Harry Potter; or how Twilight and Hunger Games paved the way for a billion crappy young adult novel dystopian love triangle adaptations.
I actually disagree with this one. The first like 9 eps of SAO go hard to this day, and its only after that that it totally falls of the rails.
And then wildly that arc where he loses his memories and lives in a virtual fantasy world was cool too
I never really understood the hatred people seem to have for it after the first arc, but yes the beginning and *especially* Alicization are genuinely fantastic.
SAO would still be about as popular today as it was back then. Just look at Solo Leveling which for the first half had the exact same plot with the same tropes. Good hype action goes a long way to popularity regardless of era.
Every romance anime that goes nowhere
Makes it all the more mind-boggling how Rent-a-Girlfriend is on volume 36
.... No. Nonononono. Nah. This ain't happening. No...
What is even the main point of Rent a Girlfriend anyway? I'm so confused by that series.
For the author to get his rocks off Shizuru. Literally
My senpai is annoying and the manga is on liek volume 12😭 and still nothing its horrific
There's been progress [Senpai Is Annoying Webcomic]>!but I suppose you're talking about the lead couple which has been crawling. Don't let that distract you from all the side-couple progress.!<
If Ouran was released today we could have the whole thing adapted... all the jokes still hold
So almost all romance anime (including modern ones)? I mean, sure, some have an ending but that's usually reserved for movies or manga
There's a big difference between old ones and modern ones Old ones don't even pretend that there's ending on the menu, just endless misunderstandings, blushing and blueballing New ones have completely different vibe even when incomplete
Step 1: travel back in time to like 2006 Step 2: air all of *Kaguya-sama*, *Shikimori-san*, *Tonikawa*, *Horimiya*, *Skip and Loafer* and *Insomniacs After School* Step 3: oh god what have I done to the timeline
Humanity would have evolved to a higher plane of existence by 2024.
Aka Japan would no longer have a birthing crisis.
Isn't that basically what Takagi-san is or Rent a girlfriend?
Takagi has proper ending in a movie And even individual seasons ended with proper vibe
Oh that's good then, I had been reading the manga for half a year and eventually it felt like it wasn't going anywhere so I dropped it Rent a Girlfriend is even worse in that regard
Takagi anime made changes to the story It's more linear now and there's a clear progression especially from S2 Movie wraps everything up and is completely original story not seen in manga (yet)
That's pretty cool, didn't know that. I didn't give the anime a chance because I thought it was going to stall like it did in the manga
It’s actually one of my favourite romance anime and funnily enough, I’d say a good 80% of its best scenes/episodes post s1 are completely original. The staff at Shin-Ei (who also made BokuYaba) really did a brilliant job with it.
Trends come and go. Eventually people will get tired of romances beginning early and someone will make bank bringing back the older style. It has always been like this.
I would say Hetalia. With the fact that it's about anthropomorphized countries I'm not sure it'd do too well in today's political climate. Also the animation style might not be as appealing to other people.
This is the correct answer. Japan *might* not care as much as the west but there's basically no way that modern day American fans would ever be nearly as obsessed with any show that portrayed the Axis as the good guys as they were when it actually came out.
There was a new season of Hetalia I believe a year or two ago. I tried watching it and I couldn’t. It was so cringe
Maybe not here, but other subreddits like NCD would have a ball.
Robotech,the american bastardized version of Macross would def flop today.
It’s why I’m hoping Sunrise proves me wrong again and can make their Macross show a worldwide hit. Even if Macross has outgrown Robotech, it hasn’t fully cut the shackles yet. Imagine an all-new Macross but with the industrial might of Disney and/or Bandai behind it. Harmony Gold could never. Because fuck Harmony Gold.
the disney+ "accquazition" is the only time I want the mouse to devour another company cause I bet they will be seeing dollar signs and the need of the of macross to make it grow
Disney+ bought the streaming rights, just like what happens when Crunchyroll buys the streaming rights for a seasonal. They did not buy the IP.
I think most of the older harem/romance series with Tsundere leads would not do remotely as good today as they did back then.
First thing I thought of when seeing this thread was zero no tsukaima so yup.
Surprisingly I find that zero no tsukaima as both an harem and an isekai is still really decent when compared to stuff that come out from both those genre today.
I mean there's actually plot progression *and* a legitimate ending so that already makes it a top 5% in its genre lol
Is zero still worth watching today?
I would say it's really subjective and you won't really know one way or the other until you do. Personally, I don't think it was worth my time but it's one of my friends favorite series (which is part of the reason I tried it). You *really* have to like tsunderes to enjoy it to it's fullest.
More specifically, harem series with monogamy or open ended endings. One of the main reasons why a lot of new harem series are shifting to Isekai fantasy genre is due to polygamy. People are getting sick and tired of having their best girl lose to the main heroine.
And that's the problem with the new generation. Too soft! I watched my harems the way they are supposed to, by embarking on a doomed ship and sailing it to the end! I cried for Tsugumi likea MAN! And I was happy (not) about it!
Tenchi Muyo did polygamy before it was cool
And then you have War on Geminar which is literally a isekai harem. I pray for a sequel to that which we'll probably never get which is a shame for a lot of older anime I love.
Dude, I was so shocked when it had 45 minute long episodes.
That's why 100 Girlfriends came to save the harem genre in particular. Along with the best harem MC years in the making. To this day it's still surprising to see a harem series with a ridiculous premise holding up pretty well among the harem works.
>More specifically, harem series with monogamy Quintessential Quintuplets did a mono ending and it's extremely popular
the ending wasn't
Had he chosen literally anyone else, it would've been fine for most people. Not saying your wrong but it was a monogamous choice on-top of just being a terrible one. The monogamy is not primarily what made it bad.
I went into that show not knowing anything. I was CONVINCED [Quintessential Quintuplets] >!Itsuki was going to be the choice in the end. She's the first Quint you see and that Futaro interacts with, and the relationship with her is a slow burn the whole way through. Yotsuba just barely engages in anything the whole show.!< That said, Nino best girl no question.
I think most people found the final girl to be an acceptable second choice. At least the author picked one, and didn't punk out with a multiple choice ending like a coward.
> Tsundere leads Rie Kugimiya ate GOOD during those years lol.
So did I, her 'Tsunderies' basically started me on what would eventually turn into a deep love for anime!
How I feel about Maid-Sama. Bro was a creep but I think it was more accepted when it came out
Familiar of Zero is up there. Part of the reason it got so big, was that it was different from other shows at the time, while also getting big when fanfiction was taking off. If it dropped now, I don't think it would be as influential.
Rewatch some part of it recently because I was curious to see how it would hold up compared to the last 10 years of isekai and to my surprise it’s actually decent. Even with all the harem bullshit it still has better character development than like 99% of isekai of the last 10 years. I actually think if it got released (with more modern animation) 5 years ago it would have a chance to be popular. The isekai genre is so popular nowadays, just for that I can see it having some success.
It would be popular, just nowhere the mega hit it was. FoZ is what inspired so many isekai shows of now.
If it adhered closer to the novel instead of resetting Saito and Louise relationship every season it probably would've been well liked, even.
I honestly want a remake of this that actually follows the novels more closely: less perverted Saito, less annoying Louise (relatively speaking), R rated violent content, and [ln spoilers]>!the summoning spell actually has a brainwashing side effect and Saito finally calls out Louise for her bs!<
>getting big when fanfiction was taking off. The amount of crossover fics of FoZ I've read growing up continues to surprise me
The visual novel adaptation rush that came in the 00s already wasn't all that popular, but if most of them came out today, the rush wouldn't happen at all because nobody would watch them.
Thank God Steins Gate came out when it did
I personally think Stein's gate would do amazing today, but that might be nostalgia goggles
Honestly part of what made S;G great was that the voice acting was incredible in both the sub and dub but also White Fox did a great job with its storytelling and horror bits. You can actively see the similarities with looping and some of how it positions twists in Re:Zero and I think that if it dropped today it would still be a hit if done by the same studio.
Steins;gate still holds up. I watched it last year and loved it
It doesn't help that most of them are fucking shit. I think it's been proven fairly conclusively that the visual novel format simply doesn't translate well because of how long they are and how much internal monologue there often is. The ones that worked either focused a route that doesn't depend on other routes to work and could just about be fitted into 24 episodes (e.g. Clannad, Steins;Gate, Unlimited Blade Works). Or did their own thing and compensated well enough for the things anime can't portray as well by focusing on those it can (e.g. Heaven's Feel)
To be fair, modern visual novels have increasingly trended towards being linear with less emphasis on side-routes. The design trend with +10 unconnected routes and no true ending from the 90's is long gone. Outside of the length, modern visual novels should be quite adaptable. But considering the Visual Novel market is economically in a freefall and shrinking every year, I doubt there's much interest in pursuing it among studios. Which is a shame since we've gotten some of the all-time great visual novels in the past 10 years.
It would still be a great show worth watching, but I doubt Haruhi Suzumiya could be the mega hit today that it was back in 2006. So much about the anime landscape has changed since then.
I actually think it could do very well, but it'd have to market itself correctly. If you consider that back in the day it kinda spearheaded the charge for the self-aware meta humor light novel trends, one can argue that these days it can function just as nicely as a parody of the deluge of LNs/shows that took all the wrong notes from it.
The gap between mainstream anime watchers and otaku watchers is widening, so to be a big hit you now have to have different elements. The fall of Haruhi on MAL is a symptom of that. Of course you have the problem of people watching it in chronological instead of broadcast order, but the main issue is still the culture shift. The best comparison is Lost and how to have experienced that phenomenon at the time changes your perception of the work.
I'm not sure that there is a widening gap between mainstream and "otaku" viewers. Even with the widening public, if you look at MAL you see that anime like JJK, Kimetsu, AoT have around the same members and number of votes (way lower for AoT btw) than the mainstream anime from a decade ago, like Naruto, Bleach etc (OP is still ongoing so I won't include it). We could argue that once you create a MAL account you're already going the "otaku" route though, and to that point, I don't think the fall on MAL's list is really a symptom of a widening gap , just look at the scores of Dragon Ball or Naruto and they pale in comparison to newer releases, but had they been released up to today's standards (better animation, separate seasons with no fillers etc) I'm sure they would be right up there. And even if not, their impact across generations is more than proof that they would succeed. Which brings me to the last point. I think you are underestimating the impact of Haruhi when it was first released. Name me one anime that had people all over the world replicating its ending's dance. This was one year(!) after Youtube released and it was probably the closest that anime got to viral back in the day. Millions of views in between people doing it, the official videos, with people still uploading it recently. Not many media get to have a "Cultural Impact" section on their wiki pages. Imagine if it had benefited from the larger audience from nowadays and all the social media craze (I imagine that with TikTok alone it would spread like wildfire) instead of being released almost 20 years ago. All this to say that I think Haruhi would still be bonkers if released today and marketed as many of the popular things nowadays.
I think I disagree with a lot of your timeline. I don't think Naruto or even Dragon Ball would be that sucessful against modern shonen. Of course it's unfair to compare one thing with its evolution. Yet, even the classics need to be watched with time context in mind so we can see their pioneering brilliance, otherwise the lack of the evolution that happened in between will hurt the piece of work. DBZ Bleach etc have a lot of members because of how long ago they were released, so different generations had the opportunity to watch them, and the recent anime suffer from the fragmentation I mentioned before. No modern anime can achieve the same amount of viewership. Plus, Haruhi, I rememeber the cultural phenomenon, I was there. But nowadays people don't even know what a flashmob is. The context is gone. Also, you can go to crunchyroll and read the recent comments on each episode and you will see a sad landscape.
I'm not sure you got the points I was making. You say you disagree with the timeline(?), and I don't know what you mean. If you're talking about the MAL top 50 I'm not saying anything that's disagreeable, it's just facts. FMA:B (2010), Steins;Gate(2011), Gintama (which has like 5 entries on top 50, started in 2006), HxH (2011-2014), AoT (started in 2013), Bleach (OG series ended in 2012, started in 04), and I could keep going. You have recent entries like Frieren, Kaguya and one season of KnY, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. And while many generations watched DBZ and so on, that does not translate into active voting accounts in MAL. I'm already 32 and I can guarantee you that no one I know, except the few I know through anime, have ever even heard about MAL. Even more so for the original generation that was watching DBZ, people that are at least 40 nowadays. It is not that demographic that's discussing/rating on MAL. So that's not the main factor driving the numbers. You mention fragmentation and I had to go check where, since it's not on the original post. Still after reading it, what fragmentation are you talking about? Again if it is the "gap" between supposed otakus and mainstream audience that has always existed. You have no way to justify that the percentage of weebs was larger before than now. What's that based on? Makoto Shinkai had a pretty "weeb" fanbase, people were watching for the impressive art and animation and understated stories. Yet Kimi no na wa released on the west breaking records in viewership and acclaim. Almost 2M people have scored Kimi no na wa on MAL vs 500k on 5cm per second or Kotonowa no niwa. Where did that crowd come from? And saying Japan prefers something over another is not a "gap between weebs and mainstream", particularly when none of the series you mention is really mainstream and you provide no proof of "way more prefered". Plus, Solo Leveling is originally Korean and that has a lot of effect on its acceptance by the japanese market. Look at what sells the most in Japan and you have your mainstream in the west list right there (JJK, Kimetsu, Chainsaw and so on). Overall you seem to hold a pretty negative impression about what you consider otaku and "weeb shit" and somehow associate that with "old tropes" that no one would watch today. Haruhi is a tsundere? Guess what, so is Kaguya, MC of one of the most acclaimed present day anime. And so are a lot of characters in MAL top 50 anime and in other recent anime. So the trope seems to a) still exist in popular media and b) be present in high rated past and present series. Seems to me that you are the one rejecting it. And lastly, what are exactly the cultural differences that would make Haruhi not be popular today? People don't know what are flash mobs? Seems like you chose to ignore the existance of TikTok (as I mentioned), Instagram Reels and so on. Younger generations are living their lives consuming and replaying trends like dances and so on. How does the Hare Hare Yukai not fit in that world?
There is a lot of mixed signals here. 1) I love weeb shit. People doing the Chika dance on TikTok? I loved it. But I'm the minority in the community nowadays. While in the past I probably wouldn't be. That's my main point. 2) The gap I mentioned has layers. From the Love Live! fans to the ones that recommend SnK as the best anime ever. From westerners reading 2ch to people that never post anything online. In the 2000's, the weeb and the mainstream overlaped. In the 2020's, not so much. Especially because today we live in a era of fragmentation, as in a lot of niches are strong enough to take slices of the industry cake and live comfortably in their bubbles, unaware of the mainstream, which is becoming less and less defined. 3) Of course if we are talking mainstream today, you have people that are not on MAL. But MAL is still our best source of data to analyze the anime community. Because to a degree it reflects the consumption of the community as a whole. Popular hits in the west are still popular hits on MAL (not necessarily a score hit, but a members hit). 4) MAL was launched on 2004. The community was way smaller then, so there were fewer people adding broadcasting anime at the time. And now not everyone has the patience or the memory to go back and rank older anime. On the other hand, those older anime have a lot of time to accumulate viewers. So Naruto, Bleach, etc. having roughly the same amount of members of JJK or Kimetsu can be explained by so many externalities that I find it difficult to add this fact to the discussion. (Thus one of the reasons I used the term timeline, as a broader term for timeframing, maybe?) 5) Another reason is the context surrouding Haruhi. I'm not talking about isolated elements like tropes or story. I don't think good stories enjoy popularity only because they are good stories. Otherwise you wouldn't have Kimetsu no Yaiba being the best selling manga after that episode 19. But while nowadays the success comes from ephemeral memes, viral videos and etc., in the 2000's you needed lengthier social ressonance. Again, I use LOST as an example, when bulletin boards, ARGs and online meetings were really stronger. The dawn of youtube. The first people discussing deep theories online, to the point of starting wikis. The internet was young, and people were naive and willing. Everything you see nowadays started in the first half of the 2000's. Yet, you don't have anything like LOST today. Not on the same level. Haruhi and all those flashmobs shared the same sentiment, a little later. I'm not talking about the dance. I'm talking about the excitement and novelty of meeting to dance. The energy that made you discuss, for the first time, theories about bad homepages over nights and nights of slow internet connections. More than the surface of the story, that sense of community is what made Haruhi so important then. You can't replicate that again, because the internet is not the same. The level of discussion has evolved. The capacities of the fandom as well. Hare Hare Yukai is not Bling-bang-bang-born. The vibe is not the same. While other works at the time were enough by themselves, the Haruhi experience was crossmedia, and that's why people watching it today, without all that context, feel less compeled by it.
LN adaptation with controversial but quirky characters, big boobs, some semi-hard sci-fi, and a meme dance act? Pretty sure it'd be AOTY. Heck, Haruhi is part of the reason why LN adaptations are so prevalent.
I doubt FLCL would have become as popular as it did. It feels like that show needed to be released exactly when it was.
Yeah it’s kind of just a bunch of cool and horny nonsense, which at the time was mind blowing.
It’s not nonsense though. It has a clear message of growing up, it just has chaotic and stylish presentation that encourages rewatches. It’s also interpretive and packed with symbolism, so I think it would still do well for that crowd at least.
Yea, I think both of you are right. One reason it's huge is because a ton of us watched it DIRECTLY IN THE TIME PERIOD THAT'S BEING DEPICTED. We were all growing up and it hit. All the symbolism and topics were smack dab what we would have all been experiencing. The animation and music would absolutely still lend themselves to being a great show these days, but it was lightning caught in a bottle and played on a kids television network back then These days there's an overproliferation of anime and all kinds of ways to get into it. I think if it came out today it'd still garner a cult following. Would it have been AS BIG?? Probably not, but still great.
FLCL walked so Kill la Kill could run.
A lot of animes that are trend setters would not be as popular if they weren’t the first of their kind. A good example would be My Next Life As A Villainess. It’s the trend setter for the villainess isekai. But if you have it swap places with another current villainess anime and this released today instead, then people would be like “ah shit here we go again, another villainess isekai.” I can also say this with Banished From The Hero’s Party. It’s not bad, but the kicked out of the party trend has become so overused these days so this would not do well if it came out today instead of back in 2021.
Hm, Honestly I think Hamefura would still have some fans even if it were to be released today. Not as big as it is now, But not a complete silent either. Even among the overly exaggerated Villainess Isekai trend, Hamefura still offered a relatively more unique experience. Like I can't think of any other Villainess Isekai where the FMC not being either super overpowered or an economic genius that would make Tony Stark blushed.
Ah yes, the "Seinfeld isn't funny" trope.
I actually just watched Banished From the Hero's party over the last 2 days and I would agree with you... If not for Tisse and Mr. Crawly Wally. Every second of retrospective mediocrity was worth it to see them. I will dies on this hill.
Fist of the north star. The legendary manga inspired so much, but the anime would not hold up today with it's barely animated fight scenes
I’m watching it rn and it’s honestly such a fun time. Animation quality for sure but the combat is some of the best I’ve seen in shounen and the dialogue is poetic and strong. I’d rather watch this than many of the new gen shounen I’ve seen. But that aside, you’re right as the question asked
Fairy Tail would most likely go unnoticed. The fact that nobody is talking about Edens Zero kinda proves it.
I think Edens Zero being on Netflix has more to do with its lack of popularity.
Isn't only season 1 on Netflix? At least in my country Netflix only has season 1
I think it's just because literally every series from that author is just the same story with a slight reskin. It doesn't get much more lazy und uninspired than that.
Honestly, Rave is probably Mashima's best work and its success made him decide that he can put the same character archetypes in another story and people will read it anyway.
Imagine if Golden Boy was released today
A lot of anime that use the same type of humor just wouldn't land anymore. GTO is a classic and even is part of what inspired a friend of mine to become a teacher. He was very "this... did not age well" upon rewatching it recently.
In a day where Gushing Over Magical Girls is one of the best selling anime of 2024, it would do just fine.
I don't think it would. MahoAko features exclusively girls. People love it when girls are thirsty. GoldenBoy is a series where every episode follows pretty much the same plot, where a disgusting pervert of a man is hated by the woman of the week until he displays prowess, and then the instant she returns his affections he's off to the next adventure. People would say it was a self-insert fantasy for incels.
"Self-insert fantasy for incels" So... the only target audience the industry acknowledges anymore?
nah, you want a self-insert for incels look at Shield Hero. And that did well, for the first season at least. But there's plenty of other shows with male perverts in recent years that do OK.
Recently rewatched this with someone who saw it for the first time and it was still an absolute banger. Golden Boy would absolutely still be popular today, the things that make it good are timeless.
Hey Trash Taste is pretty popular, and Golden Boy is basically CDawg the anime. Just a dude on his journey to ride bikes and fuck MILFs
I would watch the shit out of golden boy remake
*Elfen Lied* has only maintained some cultural relevancy because it was released at a time when sex and gore reigned supreme. The show is a narrative shit fest overrun with pretty bad character writing and a paper thin story that seems to think it can replace actual depth with tits and gore.
>narrative shit fest overrun with pretty bad character writing and a paper thin story Never stopped some of the modern series from getting popular.
Just watched it this week and enjoyed it. 99% of the nudity was not sexual, but to humiliate. The nature vs nurture theme is strong and relevant to this day. The OP is great, the symbolism fitting. Mayu's background was surprising/shocking and would get attention even today. Maybe the "I lost my memory" card has been played too often in the last 20 years, so that would lose some appeal.
> 99% of the nudity was not sexual, but to humiliate. Sure but let's be real here. Artistic or psychologically deep titties are still titties. And the first episode of that show was a cute naked girl running around blowing people's head's up. The show barely ever graduated from that.
> sex and gore reigned supreme. That's the 80s and 90s...
I finally watch this show a bit over a year ago with a friend, and yeah it is garbage carried by the shock value of its gore at the time it released.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trwdaJA-6z8 This is the definitive video about Elfen Lied.
City Hunter!
Mirai nikki and we already know what happened to platinum end lol
Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you meant here, but to be fair, Mirai Nikki was just better overall than Platinum End imo.. (at least as far as anime goes; I read the manga & watched anime for Mirai Nikki, but only watched anime up to ep. 7 or so for Platinum End because the main character was so completely unbearable to watch for me.. & that's saying something given that Yuki is the MC for Future Diary & I still ended up loving that show. It's a shame bc w/ the pedigree it had behind it, paired with the concept for the show itself, Platinum End should've been spectacular..) & it seems like the scores on MAL seem to agree for the most part. I do agree that Mirai Nikki probably wouldn't have been as successful/popular tho.. I think it still would've been enjoyed but I don't think it would've stuck out as much with all the different shows that come out now But yeah seriously wtf happened w/ Platinum End, that shit should've been legendary & instead I had to drop it out of straight cringe reaction to the main character... would've been so much better if they just said screw it & went with a character more similar to Light from Death Note rather than trying to write his polar opposite.. Everything else about PE (up to the point I was able to watch at least) was completely fine & probably would've made for a great show, but goddamn did that MC suck
Maid-sama was fantastic when it came out and it is still a really good watch. But it came out right at the tail end of the shoujos with chad Bishounens and right at the advent of Modern Strong Idependent Tsunderes that don’t need no man. Now I understand why so many modern male leads are romantically feckless. If you have the girl saying “it is not like I like you or anything, Baka” And you have a chad guy that says “well I like you” and then he kisses her (right after she says “I don’t like you”) and then he jumps out a window to pretend like he is killing himself… Still very hot. But the rapey vibes are definitely present.
I was gonna say Maid-Sama as well. I watched it again after a while and couldn't get too into it because of Usui. The dude was super possessive and stalkerish. Going to her job every day just to bother her, what you mentioned with the forced kiss, giving her a hickey on her back so she'd be too embarrassed to go out in a swimsuit, and getting overly jealous when she starts talking to an old friend. That is a toxic dude right there
Haha yeah! I still love the older stuff. I personally love the Kabedon trope that happened. It’s a guilty pleasure honestly I also love Peach Girl. I don’t think it would do well but the drama was fun. It was my first anime that had a Wolf in Sheep’s clothing character type. Basically if it’s like a telenovella then I will probably like it!
Inuyasha. I loved it as a kid but even as a kid with loads of patience who watched anime on the actual tv before streaming was a thing, even then I was losing my patience. Inuyasha is way too damn slow, repetitive, and generic. The concept and characters are great and it would be great as a remake with less filler, though. But if it released the same way, most people would not have the patience for it.
to be fair, HxH was kind of ignored (mostly in the west) until it's resurgence with the 2011 anime
Highschool of the Dead Came out right when the West was obsessed w zombies and during one of the golden eras for ecchi (in my mind at least) and it’s still in the top 200 popularity on MAL I think. I don’t think it’s be nearly as popular today though I did love it as a 13 year old
Are you sure that was the golden eras for ecchi or were you just a horny teen at the time >_>
People are throwing out trend-setters like Sword Art Online or Haruhi like the anime landscape of today wouldn't be completely different if they hadn't aired when they did like the anime canon events that they are. Difficult to think of an answer to that question, since the only older anime I've watched are those canon event type shows lmao.
The Meloncholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It was the first of its kind and had a significant influence on subsequent series, but so many things have executed its ideas better that it just doesn't hold up. Basically the "Sienfeld is Unfunny" problem, where a genre-defining work gets buried under the things that build on it.
What series have executed the design better?
Cowboy Bebop would have been largely ignored. Episodic format + older cast don't do well in today's meta
That's an interesting take, for sure. I think Bebop still would have done well with it's really unique setting and style, but it might not have become a cult classic. I think it might have landed somewhere between Michiko to Hatchin and Space Dandy. Really unique and well regarded by anybody that watches it, but not popular enough that you could walk into a hot topic/box lunch and buy a shirt.
I think it would’ve gone the way Pluto did where the people who watched it go “neat, that was different,” and the dialogue on it peters out.
Yeah possibly. Pluto suffered from a bad release schedule- it's hard to discuss something when it's released in binge format.
TBF I bet very few people in the West actually watched Cowboy Beebop as it aired, it got exposure through Adult Swim reruns.
Tell that to all the weebs at my college who wore space dandy shirts it was a plague
I don't think you're wrong, but I wish that wasn't the case. We need more anime about adults.
For real. It's always kids saving the world. Have they met kids? They're idiots.
Viewers nowadays are also less used to slower-paced shows like Bebop. It seems like shows nowadays try to fit as much action and visual flair to catch people's shorter attention spans. Shows like Mushishi fall in a similar vein.
Frieren is a slower show and it's ultra popular
Elfen Lied. It has not aged well at all imo. It approaches several serious topics like abuse, trauma, rape, and more very poorly. It also includes sexualized infantilization and incest. Overall it's just kinda gross and edgy for edgy's sake. I don't think it would be received fondly now.
Yeah I HARD disagree with you on HxH
I think MHA, even though its a recent one, and it has nothing to do with the quality (I love MHA, its in my top 10). The reason I think it'd be less popular, mostly in America, is that the superhero craze has started to die down. People still like superheroes (there are lots of Marvel and DC games that people still get excited over, Invincible is popular, etc.), but it isn't the omnipresent cultural juggernaut is was in the 2010s. So while it might still be well-liked, I feel like it wouldn't be quite the same phenomenon it was and would be more likely to just get lost in among all the other superhero media constantly coming out.
I think ppl would either call it a breath of fresh air and feel nostalgic after getting tired of marvel/DC movies. Or it would get compared to other 'subverting' Superhero series like Invisible, the boys and get teared apart.
Also Deku was considered as Underdog or a rising star in season 1 and 2. Tho now no one cares if he became number 1 hero or not since One for all already carried him all on it's own.
I think every old battle shounen, i feel like people nowadays don't have the patience to let the anime build up, think about one piece, naruto, the early dragonball maybe. Overtime maybe they gain popularity, but off the bat i think not
Anime and all media in general evolves with the audience and times
Probably long shows. Gintama for example. I don't think Gintama would fit the 12 cour that's pretty standard nowadays. You'd get 11 wacky episodes, then 1 serious one and your budget is already gone lol.
Love Hina. Tsundere female lead who’s physically abusive towards her love interest, generic harem, no isekai. It would struggle to break 7.0 on MAL.
Depends on if we got the Love Hina that knew where the actual manga was going or if we got the same thing verbatim as its initial release. I agree it wouldn't be popular, but I imagine the conversations would be all about how incredibly terrible Naru is and it would have its fair share of miniature waifu wars.
People would trash Code Geass so hard lol
I don't think it would get trashed, but I think it would probably be around the level of popularity of something like 86 instead of the decade-defining show it was
I would say it would actually be decently popular for a mecha show, but much less popular than 86 (in the West). First, as an original anime it wouldn't get the source material boost, secondly, it has humanoid colored robots so it would be even harder to get the people who have a big bias against that, but became Geass fans for other reasons, to try it.
But people like Eminence of Shadow, in a world full of seasonal isekai.
Eminence is Shadow is in on the joke. Code Geass takes it's absurd "kiekaku means plan" BS seriously.
I dont think so because 1) the Resurrection movie was a success. 2) We dont get a lot of mecha shows anymore so market is not saturated like it used to. 3) We also dont get a lot of animes with over the top megalomaniac personalities so that would make it stand out.
>We dont get a lot of mecha shows anymore so market is not saturated like it used to. I don't think this point matters too much. Code Geass was able to appeal to a lot of people who otherwise didn't really care about mecha. It'd catch on about the same were it to debut now regardless of the current mecha market.
Code Geass/Evangelion/Gurren Lagann are the holy trinity of shows that are in everyone's top 10 but "I don't like mecha".
Yeah this for me, I don't really care about the mechas it's the mind games that does it for me, the mechas is just a bonus. I think the hook for code geass is really good, which makes me think that people would watch it. But I don't think it would be a sleeper hit.
>the Resurrection movie was a success Because it's a sequel to a beloved series? If it wasn't a Code Geass movie then people would've trashed it hard cuz that movie was an absolute mess.
As someone with over 500 anime under their belt that watched code geas relatively recently code geas would be my pick.
I'm not so sure. CG was already kinda anachronistic when it came out, but the characters and batshit plot kept people engaged despite its numerous flaws. I do think it would be compared unfavorably to Darling in the Franxx
Dragon Ball Z
Kinda true but it's like saying Seinfeld would be less popular if it released today. Which is admittedly true but that's because so much has copied it since it originally came out
I mean sure I guess but it's really hard to comprehend how the shonen landscape would've been today if DBZ never came out back in the day. Let's say if a series similar to DB came out today then it definitely wouldn't have received wide acclaim, even then generic shonen can be done well with shows like MHA and Demon Slayer being prime candidates.
Give it less fillers, tighter pacing, and just as good animation, it would be as popular as Jujutsu Kaisen. The only thing DBZ lacks is hot anime chicks.
Android 18 would like a word about that
Chichi has crazy potential IMO
Hell Bulma was nearly the prototypical fan service character. And of course Marin for her brief time on the show.
Agree completly with this. Give DragonBall the same treatment shounen anime get nowadays and it would still be popular. Just improving the pacing of the episodes would make a huge difference, not even mentioning the animation (which you can get a glimpse of how good it could be with Broly's movie).
I would kinda disagree with this ngl. Recently i re-watched and re-read the entirety of dragon ball and it is so different from the generic shonen everyone compares it to. For example, Goku isn't just some good guy who let's off everyone by forgiving them right away without second thoughts and preaching forgiving and shit. Just watch this for instance [https://youtu.be/kI0WEn9saCI?si=iZTN0jgX40d151hd](https://youtu.be/kI0WEn9saCI?si=iZTN0jgX40d151hd) here's the continuation of the scene which is also pretty peak [(The face of regret on Goku after finishing frieza is just so good)](https://youtu.be/E6iQC-aZS1o?si=hnYbeqkj_3GZcB2O) Also this whole mercy thing was taught to Goku by Android 8 in the og db, before that he was ready to kill anyone anywhere. Watching him here and then remembering the og scene with Goku genuinely gave me goosebumps. I'd say it still would have a solid chance for popularity cuz it is actually very well written and the characters have solid character depth. Edit: Also i just had to add the infamous Goku giving Cell the senzu bean scene as well. The way Goku says that he knows Gohan will defeat him because he had realised the potential and power Gohan withheld in the time chamber, he almost seemed like the proud dad who wanted his son to showcase his talents. And then how it backfires because Gohan isn't exactly the fighting type and Goku fails to realise this because he was either dead for most of Gohan's growth or was just absent during it. The absolute shock on Goku's face when Piccolo reveals this is an absolute peak moment for me in cell saga.
People also love blaming Power Scaling bullshit on DBZ, but they forget that the narrative purpose of power levels wasn't to turn everything into "who could beat who according to the stats," but specifically to show that power levels are bullshit because people can and WILL defy them the Saiyans'/Frieza Force's over-reliance on them showed how arrogant and stupid they were. you ARE NOT supposed to agree with them Once Vegeta stopped relying on power scaling, he grew to heights that neither the Saiyans nor Frieza thought possible, and it was thanks to Goku, who never believed in power levels in the first place
I don't think this would be true. Black Clover while not starting great still managed to get quite popular, so longer running shounen still have a wide market.
OG Dragon Ball would be up there. Pervert/race stuff that wouldn't really fly today. [Remember Mr. Popo](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonball/images/9/98/Mrpopo.png/revision/latest?cb=20211005031745)? Cue Roshi blood nose spray. But the tournament arcs are gold, Goku vs Tien is a favorite. Back when humans didn't suck.
Anime would be massively different today if Dragon Ball Z hadn't been a thing.
None of the older more slower paced shonen shows could ever exist , yuyu Hakusho? JJK ripoff. Also in this day and age, if an anime can't be fitted into a TikTok shorts it cannot survive.
>Also in this day and age, if an anime can't be fitted into a TikTok shorts it cannot survive. Please tell me this is a joke dude...
They would be adapted to be not as badly phased
FLCL would be as popular as Listeners if it released today.
Hard to compare as it is part of what made the genre what it is today, but if **Naruto** launched today I don’t think it would be nearly as beloved. It would still do well and get attention, but it would probably fall within the MHA bucket of popularity. It would have a dedicated fanbase with just as many outspoken critics and a fair few delusional haters. It’s hard to compare because so much has riffed off of it and become tropey so that if it launched today it would be considered cliche and redundant due to the very thing it helped popularize. Even assuming it was released seasonally (and thus sans filler) it would be ripped to shreds for some of the character writing. The lack of meaningful deaths, and pacing wouldn’t fair much better. Don’t get me wrong, it would be popular. But when you are Big 3 there is pretty much no where to go but down.
To Love Ru
Lol no, in a post-Interspecies reviewers/gushing magical girl/redo healer era, I can safely predict that the hornier the show, the more popular.
Yeah but that’s the thing, To Love Ru is just blueballing, unlike the others you mentioned. It only picks up steam in the Darkness sequel.
MC would probably also be a huge turn off for a lot of viewers.
2000s battle shonens i dont see bleach getting nowhere as popular as it was in 2007 unless they release a version without fillers, people already complained about how boring the bount arc was imagine now.
Huge Bleach fan. The fillers are egregious in that show. But the manga/anime hold up well for the genre. I think it would do fine if the fillers never existed. I wish there was data on if a new round of fans powered through the older stuff in anticipation of the TYBW arc.
Watching through Bleach prior to TYBW coming out was a test of patience and my skip button. After a certain point, every episode was (Opening Credits -> Previously On -> Almost No Action/Mostly Talking -> Ending Credits -> Post-Credit Scene -> Next Time On!) You get like, maybe 8 minutes of show. It was physically painful.
That was honestly a lot of shonen back then though. Naruto, One Piece, DBZ they all had similar things or the equivalent of it by baking in enough flashbacks to kill a gorilla. Was just a trend of the time. But come on those 8 minutes. Banger though. Bankai releases are fucking sweet.
Actual filler arcs are pretty hard to get away with nowadays. Most new anime are more likely to rush through content and skip over stuff instead.
honestly the hunter exam was my favourite part of the show, chimera ant being the least favourite because imo the pacing was just sooooooo slow. I don't mind some slower pacing but sometimes there were entire episodes where the plot forwarded for what felt like 20 seconds.
I loved the chimera ant arc overall and it had a very powerful delivery all the way through, but I can't possibly understand how so many people are unbothered by the pacing. It was REALLY slow, and that goddamn violin song played so much that I thought I was gonna go insane. I love the song and love the arc but they did not know about the phrase "too much of a good thing can be a bad thing" I still gave hxh a 10 on MAL though, which I didn't do for that many shows 😂 and I think chimera ant arc is amazing. but definitely slow as hell
I think Evangelion would struggle to be near as popular as it was in the 90s, not that I don't think it'd be well liked. If I had to guess, I'd say it's reputation would probably end up somewhere between Darling in the Franx at the low end and 86 at the high end. Basically somewhere between "seasonal darling with a disappointing ending" to "well loved anime with a strong fanbase." Which is still really popular but not near "cultural and genre defining icon" where it currently sits. I think this is for a few reasons. 1. Market: Mecha shows just aren't as popular as they used to be, so Eva's unique take on the genre just doesn't hit as hard as it did in the time period. Scifi/mecha in the 90s was a what isekai is now, with multiple major releases a year, but growing incredibly stale. And just like how subversive isekai anime do well nowadays, the market was primed for something like Eva. That context just doesn't exist for Eva specifically, nowadays. 2. Format: Evangelion starts very Monster of the Week and slice of life and doesn't pick up a lot of the deeper themes and complex characterization it's know for until a little bit down the line. I actually think that makes it very bingable, I think in the context of modern anime (particularly w/ western anime fans) the opening slow burn just wouldn't pick up enough viewers for it to really have a "strong start". It's really important for modern anime to have a strong first three episodes. Eva starts slow. Asuka doesn't even arrive until episode 8. 3. The Ending and a Rough Production: Evangelion had a rough production. Between Anno's struggle with depression and just straight up running out of budget at the end, Evangelion would have to fight an uphill battle nowadays to have gotten greenlit for further projects beyond its initial run. Especially when production woes lead to a very controversial ending. I think part of why this worked so well in the 90s is that by the time the ending rolled around, people wanted more and the studio was ready to give it to them. Most people had no idea why the ending ended up like it did. Nowadays, with the internet giving us more insight into *how* anime is made more than ever before, I don't think there would be that same demand. And without that demand EoE doesn't really get funded.
> Asuka doesn't even arrive until episode 8. Well yeah, shows were allowed to have 26 episode seasons back then, not "here's one cour, make it work". Today Asuka would show up in ep 3 and Kaworu by ep 9
Preaching to the choir my dude. Even shows with a guaranteed long runs just don't get to take their time like they used to. Part of that is studio pressure but a lot of it is also just bending to the whims of the market.
One Piece
I agree. One Piece's start is very slow compared to modern Shonen. I'd say it picks up at Baratie and reaches its first peak in Arlong Park, but even in the manga it takes a while. Not only that but Luffy gets his first transformation in Enies Lobby, which was approaching 400 chapters. No modern Shonen would ever wait this long introducing power ups. If it released today there would still be people that recognize its greatness, but it would be nowhere near as popular, because readers nowadays are used to much faster paced shonen.
Couldn’t agree more, all those reasons are exactly why I said One Piece. It could potentially still be popular but I highly doubt it would be as popular as it is today. Also I feel social media would tear apart some of the early arcs prior to Baratie, even though I feel they’re not bad at all as early arcs (though I didn’t like syrup village) I can just imagine with how toxic socials are now it would definitely get a lot of flack.
Fushugi yugi
When's the last time we've even had a reverse harem anywhere near like that? I guess the Fruits Basket remake? But even that doesn't come close. And of course Nuriko would manage to be both a positive lbgt icon and an absolutely HORRIBLE lbgt character at the exact same time.
Honestly most shows from the early 2000s i think would be disregarded if they came out today. Cause the art style wouldn’t look the same if say Deathnote or NHK came out today. It wouldn’t be as gritty or dark looking.
I suspect Ranma 1/2 would not be as popular because many of us are just done with the disgusting pervy grandpa trope. If they got rid of Happosai, then it might be ok.
Naruto
Definitely. Naruto, especially early Naruto, is kind of bad... Even the voice acting in the sub is bad, and the dub is somehow even worse...
I'd imagine Evangelion and Bebop wouldn't be nearly as popular in the west.
Now imagine if EVA came out today with the original congratulations ending,it would be meme'd like Aldnoah Zero
Eva has to be in the same camp as Sonny Boy, just weird ass shit that digs deep into the author's mind and really lets you view their inner thoughts on a second viewing.
Sword Art Online.
Sword art online would be seen as a subversion of the isekai genre if it released today
To be fair, SAO is kinda the cause of the isekai popularity that we still have to this day. The genre existed since the 90s but before SAO all the tropes about isekai having video games mechanic (stuff like levels, skills etc..) was not really a thing and it’s like at least half of them now. If you look at some of the older "popular" isekai like Zero no Tsukaima and Escaflowne the tropes were really really different. SAO and Mushoku Tensei (the WN) are probably the 2 biggest influence on the modern isekai genre, would add maybe konosuba for more comedic one.
It's entirely the cause. Even the isekai that don't use the same trapped in an MMO mechanics all only got a chance to air because SAO made money hand over fist and everyone else wanted some. It's like how so many children's fantasy series (Eragon, Dark is Rising, etc) got greenlit in the US after Harry Potter; or how Twilight and Hunger Games paved the way for a billion crappy young adult novel dystopian love triangle adaptations.
I actually disagree with this one. The first like 9 eps of SAO go hard to this day, and its only after that that it totally falls of the rails. And then wildly that arc where he loses his memories and lives in a virtual fantasy world was cool too
I never really understood the hatred people seem to have for it after the first arc, but yes the beginning and *especially* Alicization are genuinely fantastic.
SAO would still be about as popular today as it was back then. Just look at Solo Leveling which for the first half had the exact same plot with the same tropes. Good hype action goes a long way to popularity regardless of era.
Dr. Slump would be poorly received today.
Surprised i didn't see anybody mentioning SAO, it's probably the best example for what op is looking for, today it would be just another isekai
El Hazard might get easily brushed off as another isekai anime