It’s really hard to say… I don’t think I can pick just one to be honest…
I love the romantic beauty and natural charm of Ghibli. I love the realism and details of Otomo, Satoshi Kon. I love the wild, colorful, and chaotic nature of creators like Tsurumaki, Imaishi, Koike, and Yuasa. Then you have shows like CITY, which was an incredible fusion of Arawi’s cute, simple and colorful artstyle backed by the animation prowess of Kyoto Animation. There are just too many great art styles out there to pick just one!
I will say that I mostly feel that anime peaked in the late 80s and 90s. Of course, nice looking stuff is still being made, and today colors are brighter and frames are cleaner, but there is just something textural about painted cels on top of painted backgrounds that we have lost in the transition to digital.
My prediction for the future of high-quality anime is that many creators will want to return to more physical media based pipelines, due to the perceived cheapening of digital art brought about by generative AI. Because ultimately creators want to stand out, and viewers want to be impressed.
It’s really hard to say… I don’t think I can pick just one to be honest…
I love the romantic beauty and natural charm of Ghibli. I love the realism and details of Otomo, Satoshi Kon. I love the wild, colorful, and chaotic nature of creators like Tsurumaki, Imaishi, Koike, and Yuasa. Then you have shows like CITY, which was an incredible fusion of Arawi’s cute, simple and colorful artstyle backed by the animation prowess of Kyoto Animation. There are just too many great art styles out there to pick just one!
I will say that I mostly feel that anime peaked in the late 80s and 90s. Of course, nice looking stuff is still being made, and today colors are brighter and frames are cleaner, but there is just something textural about painted cels on top of painted backgrounds that we have lost in the transition to digital.
My prediction for the future of high-quality anime is that many creators will want to return to more physical media based pipelines, due to the perceived cheapening of digital art brought about by generative AI. Because ultimately creators want to stand out, and viewers want to be impressed.