Anime, even as it is more popular and mainstream than ever before in the West, has really lost its relevance. What do I mean? Anime doesn't really inspire people anymore. It's not a statement about its quality, but I mean its real life impact.
In the 70s, 80s and 90s anime was almost a youth movement. In the Philipines, Voltes V was a symbol against the Marcos Regime and was banned because of this. Gundam inspired millions, it caused massive quasi-political rallies of young people who followed the show's idea of a new generation building things better. The police literally had to shut this down. Then by the 2000s there was Haruhi and so on which, if maybe not so political, really did get people out onto the streets and again got the police called on them. Conventions were a serious culture. Even if anime at this point was really inbred, it still brought people out. But nowadays there's no such thing. It's not really that subversive or exciting. Conventions go on but they aren't like what they were (no yaoi paddles). We do still get like loads of children wearing Demon Slayer cosplay but it's not like Yamato. There's this energy that just isn't there anymore.
Perhaps this is because in Japan itself the street movement has died down and become so neutered? It's sort of related to how anime has lost its left wing creators. The people working in the 80s grew up in a really radical time where socialism and anti-imperialism were normal and most people directly interacted with that crowd. Naturally, even if works weren't explicitly socialist, the attitude was reflected. Nowadays that political movement is completely dead. Radicalism is hated in modern Japan. Serious topics are still covered in progressive ways, but something is lost. I don't know, lets take season 2 of GITS SAC where Hideo Kuze is just openly right, the show tells you he is correct. And then in Psycho Pass which is only 10 years later but with a completely different set of people making it who have a different philosophy (the director only really started working in the 2000s), the bad guy just does bad things and is a psychopath, and then the only reasonable option is to uphold the system when given a chance to change it. Maybe the issue here is just GITS is much better written, but I think this can explain a sort of change in anime.
It's not that radicalism can't be shown since the 2000s, its just they are always single characters acting as lone terrorists. I think t
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