“They just don’t make them like they used to”, local self-proclaimed anime expert Nicholas Spencer starts the interview with Anime Maru with a strong and provocative statement. For Spencer, the 90’s was the golden peak of the anime industry, and he isn’t ashamed to draw parallels to the decline of the modern anime. He is utterly disappointed in the direction of new anime and afraid that ultimately there’s only destruction to come.

“It’s absolutely unbelievable how the 90’s was so full of anime classics, but nowadays it seems the selection consists almost solely of unimaginative harem anime”, Spencer shakes his head.

“Back then we had proper anime such as Tenchi Muyo, Aa! Megami-sama! OVA and Ranma.”

Another pet-peeve of Spencer is the recent rise of isekai anime, which doesn’t hold up in comparison against older anime such as Elf wo Karu Mono-tachi, Fushigi Yuugi and Magic Knight Rayearth.

According to Spencer, the biggest offense that modern anime makes is that most of the seasonal anime is of low quality and ultimately very forgettable. Spencer struggles to remember the names of the series he watched last season, but still remembers how in the good old days almost every anime was an ever-green classic. Who could forget series such as High School Mystery: Gakuen Nanafushigi, Ore wa Chokkaku or Genji Tsuushin Agedama?

“All in all I’m just very worried about where anime is going, as all these developments are very new directions in the industry that have never happened before”, Spencer ends the interview.

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