S. Korea expresses 'regret' over Japan’s approval of history textbooks, urges rectification

Is it me or has the *average* anime lost a lot of its counter culture qualities through the years? As someone born in the 80s that has watched a ton of it (both before my time and throughout my life including current stuff) it feels like the *average* anime has become less... pointed? experimental? political? counter culture? original? Let me try to phrase it better. Anime went from a stigmatized niche subculture in the 70s to a huge industry today with likely over a billion watchers worldwide. This ofc has changed it significantly. Mainstreaming, professionalization, massive increase in the volume of content (from around 15 series released each year during the 70s to 250+ in the 2020s, not to speak of manga), much more streamlined manufacture-like production processes, a stronger focus on marketability for many manga/anime, a bigger reliance on adaptations, etc. Whenever this happens to an industry it often comes with a regression to the mean. Profitability often goes from being the highest priority to further being the guiding principle of every aspect of the product. This is reflected in safer character designs and artstyles (meant to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible), defanged plot beats, embracing popular trends even when they might not entirely fit the show, more fan service (and I don't just mean the sexual kind), etc. Remember we are talking about *averages* here though. I'm not saying that the best anime are all from the 70s-90s or something. I don't personally believe that. Since the amount of anime from the 2010-2020s dwarfs the amount of old anime, you're far more likely to find incredible anime nowadays among all the mass-produced bland ones. It's just a matter of numbers. And ofc professionalization also comes with its perks and some shows/studios shine brighter because of it. But in terms of anime being counter culture, it does feel like on *average* that's just less true nowadays than it was in the past century. When I see an industry saturated with escapist wish-fulfillment shows, isekai, moe, ecchi, sakuga and battles for the sake of it, etc, I do think that the average show just deals less with politics, experimentation, prickly themes (and I don't mean easy edgy themes, I mean themes that interrogate the human condition in a way that's related to the IRL, outside, touch-grass real world, be it from a geopolitics angle, from a philosophical angle or just from a deep, human, interpersonal relationships angle). And when there are shows that do deal with politics or regimes or war they often either take vague, non-committed, empty-words stances, or in some cases they straight up spouse regressive views (which would be the opposite of counter culture in Japan considering they've always elected conservative governments). You can kind of see them same phenomenon with JRPGs. In the 90s the average JRPG had a plot of "we are revolutionaries against big evil empires/aristocrats/clergy/gods" with different variations (ecological vibes, focus on interpersonal relationships like friends and/or family, helping people along the road, etc). Nowadays, while there's still some of that a lot of it feels defanged: the evil empire is often a more abstract system or simulation or time loop or supernatural phenomenon the protagonists fight against, and the emperors and gods are thus often replaced with the administrator or architect of the system. The attempts at moral grayness and plot twists mean that when there is an evil empire it's presented as it (or its figurehead) having sympathetic reasons, or sometimes it's not about toppling a regime but about become successful individuals in this new world, or if there's a heroes vs empire plot it often gets abandoned in the third act and any attempt at political musing goes away with it in favor of superpowered battles. Also a good deal of JRPGs nowadays are just not about being counter culture at all: just low-stakes coziness, pseudo harem teasing, isekais, focus on being meta, etc. Anyway, to say something positive about anime in terms of it being counter culture nowadays, at least it has increasingly become more queer positive in the past few years. It went from horrid stereotypes and jokes to just using lesbians and occasionally gay men for titillation to nowadays some shows earnestly attempting to be better regarding queer people in a dialogue-explicit way. It's not like revolutionary, it's more like the level of stuff you would see 15 years ago (around 2010) in western shows and 25 years ago in literary novels from around the world but it's a good thing.

Eh, while you have some great countercultural series like Chainsaw Man or Dandadan and of course tons of before-my-time older titles, you also get your occasional GATE: And so the JSDF marched there, which uses the language of otakuisms to talk about how great it would be to go back to Japanese imperialism actually. It’s a mixed bag, and the contents of that bag are largely a product of the society that made it. So there’s gonna be both culture and counterculture.

In my opinion >!the Rumbling is unambiguously depicted as a bad thing: an act of unimaginable evil perpetrated by one emotionally immature young man, and assisted by those who believed in his plan for genocide. The victims of the Rumbling did nothing to deserve it, as the story explicitly tells us that all civilians are victims in the wars waged by their ancestors. Even if they believed Paradis should fall, it was only because this was the only truth they had ever known. Eren even admits that he did it only because he wanted to kill.!<

There are also Japanese animes that explores issues within Japan (ie JJK, one of the most famous anime’s of all time, which explores things like the criminal justice system) Although Naruto takes place in a fictional setting, it is still based off feudal Japan and it critiques the prevalent honor system and its creation of blood feuds and war crimes. In Devilman crybaby, another famous animes, a girl gets bullied for being half white… Not trying to be rude but I don’t think you guys have ever watched a lot of animes and are making tons of assumptions

I think it was more that Germans really really really hate employees being in the way and talking to us when we didn't seek them out ourselves to ask questions haha

Smiling is strictly regulated in Germany!

Tbf, a highly competitive market that now expands in the other direction, and being anti-union, as well as breaking some other laws regarding fair competition sure can do a number on the finances of any company.

They told the story along with Johnny Appleseed and John Henry. They made it clear that it was just stories. I guess I need to go back and thank my school district for not being the least terrible one out there.

You’re willing to believe people are unaware, instead of aware and malicious. And no, they weren’t teaching “we’re all better now” do you not remember Obama running on “change”? Do you not remember the outrage at the “war on terror”? Because I was in elementary then and it was very clear to me.