Shaddy wrote:ABED wrote:You bring up "today's standards" as if it's immediately obvious that they are better. DB is certainly a product of its time, but that's not a bad thing. Barney Stinson wasn't right when he said "new is always better". DB is anything but lifeless.
I didn't say they were better, I said they were
standards. As in, a basic set of expectations people have when watching a show, that, regardless of it's other values, Dragon Ball often fails to meet due to having been created at a time when they weren't in place, especially for western audiences.
And y'know, for the most part they kinda
are better? Like, I enjoy Dragon Ball and I respect the influence it had on anime and manga as a medium, but I would put Hero Academia, Hunter X Hunter or even something older like Yu Yu Hakusho over it in almost every way, except Toriyama's skill in art, design and battles, which is more of a manga thing than the anime anyway. It's the same reason I don't take claims like "Mario 64 hasn't aged a day" seriously.
Network is a movie from 1976, making it more than 40 years old now. Back when "standards and expectations" for films were, as you said, WAY different. So because this movie is "dated" by when it was made, does that make it innately of less worth or value than a much newer movie, like say... Boo! A Madea Halloween?
Or how about literature. Cat's Cradle is a book from 1963, over 50 years old. Standards and expectations were clearly VERY different then. So I suppose that a book like Twilight from 2005, just a little over 12 years old, is probably MUCH more worth my time, right?
Or perhaps I should junk aside Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, which was released in 1967, and opt for something much more current and with the times, like say... something from Brokencyde or hit singles like What Does the Fox Say? or Selfie?
To bring this back to anime... Akira is now 30 years old. Am I to take it that something more recent like
this thing here is somehow innately superior and more artistically worthwhile because it was released sometime in the 2010s and is this "more in line with current expectations" from anime? Or should I toss aside the original 1986 Area 88 OVA (held to as one of the most breathtakingly impressive and painstakingly animated war dramas in anime to this day) in favor of its much more comparatively recent 2004 TV series (which infamously had a total animation budget of roughly $1.25)?
Hey, why waste time on Grave of the Fireflies, one of the most powerful takes on the average Japanese civilian's perspective of WWII, when that shit's also 30 years old and totally ancient and out of date? The new Pokemon movie, "Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to be) that just came out in 2016 probably has WAY more to offer. After all, its MUCH more in-line with today's standards and expectations, right? Ghost in the Shell? Pfft. My grandpa probably watched that. Lets see what the latest from Pretty Cure's got going on instead.
So yes, I'm being a total asshole here, but I'm also making a point: that this entire premise that you're working from is utterly fucking asinine in the extreme and is the kind of rationale that a stereotypical ADD addled 12 year old would subscribe to. EVERYTHING is "dated" by the time in which it was made, and EVERYTHING is going to become "old" and out of step with current trends eventually. That's not INHERENTLY a negative (or a positive) to be held against (or for) anything, and works in any given media released over a long period of time is NOT some constant upward climb to greater and greater heights of quality. Not ALL trends are purely as good as their level of recency. Things ebb and flow constantly, and quality across any given set of works across any given timeframe will fluctuate and vary WILDLY.
I remember quite clearly when this entire forum was totally gaga over titles like Shaman King and D.Grey-Man and Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (actual title, no I did not just suddenly have a seizure at my keyboard) about a decade ago: titles that are now all but totally forgotten and swept aside in favor of the new darlings of the moment.
Generally speaking, you don't judge shit solely based on age: you judge it by its individual strengths and qualities. Sometimes those strengths (and weaknesses) are direct products of their day... sometimes though, some things are just timelessly fucking good (or bad). Other times, some things are re-evaluated after a certain stretch of time and their seams (or virtues) become more readily apparent.
Regardless, people are going to watch and talk about things like The Wizard of Oz or Citizen Kane or Metropolis or Pulp Fiction or The Shining or The Matrix or Raiders of the Lost Ark or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Fight Club or Do the Right Thing and so forth from now until eternity: it doesn't matter how old or how out of step they get with current at-the-moment trends (which are only going to completely change five seconds from now anyway), because some works just stand the test of time and are universally resonant across generations.
On the flipside, Avatar (the James Cameron movie) was tearing up pop culture and making critics and audiences freak the fuck out over it as recently as barely 9 years ago now (2009; most people here should still freshly remember 2009, right?), with some calling it a new standard setting classic, something that has "changed the entire game" and will be remembered for ages to come as "the next Star Wars" and a high water mark of mainstream crowd pleasing cinema...
...today? The general attitude towards Avatar is roughly along the lines of "Ooooooh yeah, that was a thing for half a second, wasn't it?"
Trends come and go: quality and substance lasts.
Dragon Ball (which make no mistake, I am putting nowhere NEAR the same lofty pedestal as some of the above mentioned classic titles) first started in 1984. I'm older than a VAST swath of this forum, and I was only less than a year old when it first began. Within that time, its relevance and level of fan passion and interest have only INCREASED across entire generations that weren't around at all for its original run. It managed to sustain a staggeringly immense level of widespread appeal and public goodwill despite having a widely-seen English dub that can most charitably be described as dog vomit. I loved the series dearly growing up, but it well surpassed even my most WILDEST expectations and predictions from back then as to how long it'd continue to last as an A-list, predominantly relevant anime/manga.
People see the series and become die hard ravenous fans of it even through its most rock bottom worst presented forms. The old FUNimation dub still (somehow) remains THE most widely seen and known of version throughout the English speaking world, and that thing has WAY more fundamentally serious and crippling problems going on than the anime inherently in itself ever has with its various filler material. Nonetheless, people manage to fall head over heels in love with it, with its absolutely WORST possible foot forward, even now in 2018.
I'm hardly a genius: but its safe to say that its clearly been doing SOMETHING right since the mid-1980s, and that something still works like a charm today.
Then again though, conversely: its been more than 20 years, and massive gobs of people still apparently intensely give a shit about Pokemon as well for some unfathomable reason while breathtaking newer stuff like Redline or Tatami Galaxy remain way out there on the outter margins where only diehard animation buffs are aware of them.
So... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ...the fuck do I know?
Also: not everyone universally subscribes to the idea that titles like Hunter X Hunter or My Hero Academia are these incredible, cutting-edge new trailblazers of awesomeness. I would argue that HxH is largely boilerplate generic and standard issue Shonen (with some small bits of self-aware commentary on modern "Battle Shonen" tropes and themes that are hardly at all especially deep or revelatory) and My Hero Academia is sappy, maudlin, flowery mush that's pathologically obsessed with tugging on "the feels", same as something like One Piece; and with a transparently vapid and cringe-worthy middle schooler's Nerd Wish Fulfillment power fantasy of a central concept to boot.
