To be fair, most Western shows are trash these days, too. There’s a few standouts, and plenty of them are still the stupid kind of enjoyable in spite of being trash, but that’s true of anime, too. Most modern media has just unfortunately become a vehicle for making money, not a vehicle for making art.
this is the way.
As someone who has watched more than enough anime: It is an aquired taste and most of it is trash, especialy most of the popular stuff.
To be fair, most Western shows are trash these days, too. There’s a few standouts, and plenty of them are still the stupid kind of enjoyable in spite of being trash, but that’s true of anime, too. Most modern media has just unfortunately become a vehicle for making money, not a vehicle for making art.
Most shows were trash back then as well.
It is just that survival bias makes it seem like it wasn’t.