To those who started anime during Covid, how has your experience been so far?
From those of us who have been around the space for awhile what has your experience been like picking up the medium in the last 6 year's? Did you take a stance such as "Anime is for Children" and then by your 10th title your like huh "Anime", Have you revisited some of the older eras like "The Golden Age" where it was aimed at no one therefore appreciated by everyone or do you tend to stick to recent due to animation quality, have you switched to manga or bought figures etc. just a open ended question on how your time has been in the space so far!
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Just to name a few titles: Urusei Yatsura Beautiful Dreamer, Dirty pair flash (girls in car), Angels Egg and Gunbuster.
Edit: A simple way to put it is like they were throwing shit at the wall and seeing what worked, now we have reborn as a vending machine in another world.
1980s: lupin iii, ultraman, Versailles no Bara, Astro Boy, dragon ball, Urusei Yatsura, Ranma, and about 50 “gundam themed” and “racing themed” anime.
Most of what came out of the 80s was very much hyper focused on either romance for the girls or robots/cars/battle shonen for the boys.
90s we got Serial Experiments Lain, Evangelion, Cowboy Bepop, Trigun, One Piece, Outlaw Star, Escaflowne, Ghost in the Shell, Berserk, Yu Yu Hakusho. (and more robot and cars anime but less and more refined). We also started seeing magical girl themes like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura.
For me, the 90s had far more unique and interesting anime vs 80s.
Then if we keep going we’ve got Haruhi, Clannad, Code Geass, Gantz, Beck, Death Note and FMA in 00s. And Angel Beats, Steins Gate, Deadman Wonderland, Usagi Drop, Another, SAO (starts off well), Attack on Titan, Norogami and Zankyou no Terror in the 2010s.
I’ve tried to leave out things like Bleach and Tokyo Ghoul that might fall into the “too mainstream” genre that you seem to dislike? But I’m really not sure how you can say that the 80s are the golden year for anime - there’s so much out there with so much variety. I’ve not even really covered any movies or OVAs either.
Mind bending shorts and OVAs: Twilight Q, Ai City, Nayuta, Birth, Goshogun: The Time Étranger, Harmagedon, Robot Carnival segments which is stuff that's pure stylistic, often psychedelic or experimental, made simply because artists loved the medium.
Even series had loose, episodic weirdness: Urusei Yatsura was chaotic comedy with dream sequences and genre hopping; Maison Ikkoku mixed romance with slice-of-life melancholy; Kimagure Orange Road blended supernatural romcom with character depth.
Sure, there were tons of mecha (Gundam clones) and shonen battles, but they coexisted with this wild diversity of one off OVAs, experimental movies, and genre defying works that studios could risk because funding was loose and the audience was niche. The 80s had more "made for love of the art" projects: violent, sexy, strange, stylish than almost any other decade. That bubble-era freedom encouraged pushing boundaries in ways that felt truly "unfocused" compared to the more polished, marketable sophistication of the 90s.When the economy crashed around 1990, funding tightened. Anime shifted toward safer bets: longer serialized adaptations, more emphasis on character drama and themes (which the 90s excelled at), but fewer of those pure "what if we just try something insanely weird?" experiments. The 90s refined and matured what the 80s birthed, Evangelion builds on Gunbuster's deconstruction, GitS expands cyberpunk roots from 80s OVAs but it lost some of that raw, unfettered strangeness.
So yeah, the 90s might win on "refined unique masterpieces" but if you're chasing that sense of anime being loose, creative, and sometimes gloriously all over the place... the 80s were the peak of that energy. The rose tinted glasses aren't just nostalgia: it's remembering when the industry had the luxury to be boldly, wonderfully unfocused.
Now that my rant is over... let's not stray away from what was asked ""The Golden Age" where it was aimed at no one therefore appreciated by everyone or do you tend to stick to recent due to animation quality" this was aimed at new comers into the space, I've meet many people who can't stand earlier works of anime due to quality and others who adore the 90's bedside's nearing 30 years old, it's a simple post but r/anime was not the right subreddit for it.
Everyone knows whats good, thats what Daicon IV is about. Anime isnt insular. Tokusatsu is a big part of anime too.
Youre straight up ignoring Go Nagai and other mangaka who shape the tastes that became anime. Probably cause youre lacking knowledge still.
I used to watch anime channel as little so the art appeals to me and yeah I would say that I changed opinion. I dont like the fan servicy/ecchi stuff, but the way the themes are so flexible, I am able to find something that is to my tastes, which a lot of anime isn't, but still....it can surprise.
Also I knew a lot of the Western animation I liked was influenced by anime too, so it was just a case of having the time and opportunity during lockdown to start giving tv anime a shot.
"Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!" was the first show I tried - why I have no idea but I thought it was great so just kept going! "Gundam: The Witch from Mercury" was the first show I watched week to week as it aired. I've mostly watched recent stuff, but have dipped back into the past as well - Future Boy Conan I watched as a direct result of it being referenced in Eizouken, plus a selection of some of the World Masterpiece Theater stuff, watched a bit of Dirty Pair which was fun, watched all of Patlabor: The TV Series. For the 90s have watched Cowboy Bebop, Lain and Revolutionary Girl Utena.
The main draw of anime for me is that it is mostly 2D animation still.
First anime was Senko-san, then followed by a lot of slice of life (Ika Musume, Dragon Maid, Lucky Star, K-On!). I have stayed where I began, with slice of life, though have shifted towards CGDCT exclusively fir a good part.
This also means I have never ever watched the big shonen or adventure anime. Isekai depends, sticking to CGDCT isekai (Kuma Bear, Slime 300) mostly.
In general, the more "general anime" from old are lost on me.
As for the older anime pre-2000, I have never tried them and with my tastes in genres, the oldest most likely will be Azumanga Daioh fom 2002 and not beyond that for the forseeable future.
It has never really gone stale for me, and only until recently have I not been properly following the seasonals (changed with Onimai).
I have also started reading manga along the way online, and also have been buying merch a lot (almost entirely plushies) and I did pick up collecting body pillows as a hobby as well.
I did joke about anime sometimes, but otherwise had no clue what it was supposed to be.
Also my personal golden age, which is different for everyone, would be something in the tune of 2006-mid/late 2010's and 2022 Fall-now. Reason being that the the former period was when CGDCT a mainstream genre and the latter where we have consistently high-quality CGDCT (mainly post Bocchi).