Do you love old anime and manga? Maybe it's not just nostalgia.
Often when the topic of retro anime and manga is brought and people express strange feelings towards them, like admiration stemming from an unkown reason, people usually ascribe it to nostalgia, probably because many people who bring up this topic have lived in that "golden era" as some describe it, but to me, the beauty and admiration towards old anime and manga is beyond just nostalgia, it seems as if there's a somewhat objective reason for why we love it so much, first I'll descibe my reasoning for saying this and second I'll explore what are the reasons.
Okay so I watched anime when I was a kid, but the anime(s) I watched weren't plenty compared to what true anime fans watch, and they were the ones streamed through a channel or two, I also didn't watch some of the most known titles around the 2000s for example I barely watched an episode or two of Inuyasha (which I watched it fully a few years ago), neither did I watch Naruto nor One Piece nor any school-life anime, I also didn't read any manga back then, and I don't remember watching an anime to the end, probably except for the first season of Digimon, then and for a long period anime was almost abscent from my life, until a relative recommended me Death Note, this was in the mid 2010s I remember, afterwards, I became watching anime a lot, and I started reading manga too, my first attempts after this comeback were for major titles: Naruto, Bleach, Maid-Sama, Code Geass, Blood+, Kuroshitsuji, Fairytail, etc... you see, the world of anime and manga has a lot to bring and inspire, great epics and stories such as Attack on Titans, Dr. Stone, Golden Kamuy and others, and I started watching new stuff, titles that came out recently at that time, and a lot of them were good, I really enjoyed Mairimashita! Iruma-kun for example, the creativity is still there and with new advancemnts in technology and software, works are coming out with new artstyles and effects, and quicker than before but one day I felt something missing, something lacking, and to be honest, I felt something repetitive with many works that came out for example (and this is something I will write about later) I was actively pressured by some friends, and passively by the constant reminders on anime groups and fanbases, to watch some new and trending titles, especially what I call the trending 3: Black Clover, Jujitsu Kaisen, and Demon Slayer these are 3 great anime titles, with lots of great fights, drama and techniques, I watch a lot of clips and videos about them, but I couldn't get myself to watch them at all, not because they were bad in anything, actually they were so good, the animation and the plots were on another level, yet I felt as if I was able to predict them, and I admired the level of animation artistry but it didn't touch me, please undertand that I'm in no way trying to depreciate how amazing these titles or others, I just felt that I needed a break (and of course I may get back to watch them later) that's when I was re-exposed to old anime, from the 1990s and the 2000s, I re-watched Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and Digimon 1 & 2, I also watched Inuyasha (the first two episodes), Trapp Family Story, Hiatari Ryōkō! Maison Ikkoku (these last two are some of my favorites of all time), I continued reading Kuroshitsuji, started reading Shaman King, and I was so satisfied, I acutally couldn't stop myself taking screenshots from these works, the artstyle is so unique and the storytelling is carefully crafted, so here we go, this is my reasoning: for me, I wasn't really exposed to old anime and manga, I usually watched the recently published or still-streaming ones, just like retro console games, I've never owned or played a Gameboy Advance console, nor a Playstation of any kind, yet now I love them way more than modern console or mobile games, so it's not just nostalgia for me, there are factors that draw me more to the old school anime, and I can sum them up like this:
More of the human touch: While the more advanced technology brought the animation studios more convience by reducing the time and the cost of making the anime and adding more visual effects way easier, it has also stripped the works out of their human touch to a big degree, because when you have plenty of tools that are more capable, you automatically strive for perfection, you want to add to the scene more visual effects, enhance the images and make them hyper realistic, you want to immerse the viewer more using all of those flashy lights and effects, but perfectionism usually erodes beauty, there is so much beauty we can find whith human imperfection, old anime was either mostly hand drawn or with limited CGI usage, this is why it feels more pleasant to view, it's not as cluttered, nor as stimulating, it's simpler, cleaner and cozier.
Values quality over quantity: Since studios can publishers can now produce anime faster, they do it, this is driven by competition and meeting deadlines and viewers thirst for the next season of the anime, and despite what I mentioned in the previous reason of how the usage of modern technology strive for perfectionism, the industry and the intense competition often result in the studios abusing thier animators and artists and burnouts, this is why viewers sometimes criticize anime studios for low quality animations, on the other hand, this problem is less relevant in old anime, as the volume of anime produced was less and the competition was thus less intense, and also since more manual work was involved these problems were easier to spot and fix before publishing, and the problem of quality is not only relevant to animation but to storytelling for example when I was deciding whether to read Shaman King as a manga or watch it as an anime, I came to know that it had a recent reproduction in 2021, almost every post and forum on the internet I read recommended the manga, but when comparing the original anime vs the newer release, most people said that the newer release squeezed the story and left out many details from it despite trying to follow the manga (the original release diverged from the manga at one point) because it had to meet the deadline, leaving the viewers with a poorer version of the series. We can see this point clear even in new anime movies that still adhere to the old school of anime making, for example Studio Ghibli movies are so unique and value quality over qunatity as they are hand drawn and so much effort is put in the storytelling and plot, also Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and Dr. Strone are another examples, their stories build up slowly but carefully and makes use of technology very well
More unique and original: Let's not generalize here as there are always original ideas coming out (again Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and Dr. Stone being two of them) but most newer anime are either attempting to replicate each others or older animes, of course there's a thin line between being inspired by something and actually trying to replicate it, but if you paid a close look to commercial anime, the characters are shallow, and look alike or look like characters from other anime, while many studios use the same character design in their other works (Studio Ghibli and Disney did this) to save time or build a brand and character identity, those characters are still unique with different personalities, newer commercial anime characters feel shallow, with flat designs, they are hard to distinguish in many cases, also stories became overly repetitive, many viewers just got tired of the 2 boys 1 girl anime group that go on to save the world, or the clumsy anime hero who is suddenly world's last hope, or the hero who is a mixture of different species at once and possesses the only power capable to defeat the enemy, it's just more predictable nowadays, old school anime definitley got inspired from each others, I can see (and maybe I'm wrong) that Code Geass was inspired by Death Note, but it's easily distinguished from it, it's unique in it's own ways, even the stories end differently, and the main characters show different evolution and they have different endings.
This is my personal view of the topic, while nostalgia diffently plays a role for many of anime viewers, it doesn't count as the entire reasons, I think like with many critics of moder media and entertainment, the competition-driven industry is valuing easy and fast production (in many but not all cases of course) over the true joy of anime, stripping away the coziness I feel when I watch Maison Ikkoku, the scences of the maison rooms, the cooking, the laundry, their gatherings in Godai-san's room for partying, I feel more of the human connection, also in Hiatari Ryōkō! when any character self-reflects and thinks, how they sit or walk alone, or stare at the roof... these are things and feelings I didn't find in newer anime which is often characterized by overstimulation, not to mention the bias towards action Shōnen and Seinen categorizes in the modern industry, leaving less room for other ones to take their spots.
Often when the topic of retro anime and manga is brought and people express strange feelings towards them, like admiration stemming from an unkown reason, people usually ascribe it to nostalgia, probably because many people who bring up this topic have lived in that "golden era" as some describe it, but to me, the beauty and admiration towards old anime and manga is beyond just nostalgia, it seems as if there's a somewhat objective reason for why we love it so much, first I'll descibe my reasoning for saying this and second I'll explore what are the reasons.
Okay so I watched anime when I was a kid, but the anime(s) I watched weren't plenty compared to what true anime fans watch, and they were the ones streamed through a channel or two, I also didn't watch some of the most known titles around the 2000s for example I barely watched an episode or two of Inuyasha (which I watched it fully a few years ago), neither did I watch Naruto nor One Piece nor any school-life anime, I also didn't read any manga back then, and I don't remember watching an anime to the end, probably except for the first season of Digimon, then and for a long period anime was almost abscent from my life, until a relative recommended me Death Note, this was in the mid 2010s I remember, afterwards, I became watching anime a lot, and I started reading manga too, my first attempts after this comeback were for major titles: Naruto, Bleach, Maid-Sama, Code Geass, Blood+, Kuroshitsuji, Fairytail, etc... you see, the world of anime and manga has a lot to bring and inspire, great epics and stories such as Attack on Titans, Dr. Stone, Golden Kamuy and others, and I started watching new stuff, titles that came out recently at that time, and a lot of them were good, I really enjoyed Mairimashita! Iruma-kun for example, the creativity is still there and with new advancemnts in technology and software, works are coming out with new artstyles and effects, and quicker than before but one day I felt something missing, something lacking, and to be honest, I felt something repetitive with many works that came out for example (and this is something I will write about later) I was actively pressured by some friends, and passively by the constant reminders on anime groups and fanbases, to watch some new and trending titles, especially what I call the trending 3: Black Clover, Jujitsu Kaisen, and Demon Slayer these are 3 great anime titles, with lots of great fights, drama and techniques, I watch a lot of clips and videos about them, but I couldn't get myself to watch them at all, not because they were bad in anything, actually they were so good, the animation and the plots were on another level, yet I felt as if I was able to predict them, and I admired the level of animation artistry but it didn't touch me, please undertand that I'm in no way trying to depreciate how amazing these titles or others, I just felt that I needed a break (and of course I may get back to watch them later) that's when I was re-exposed to old anime, from the 1990s and the 2000s, I re-watched Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and Digimon 1 & 2, I also watched Inuyasha (the first two episodes), Trapp Family Story, Hiatari Ryōkō! Maison Ikkoku (these last two are some of my favorites of all time), I continued reading Kuroshitsuji, started reading Shaman King, and I was so satisfied, I acutally couldn't stop myself taking screenshots from these works, the artstyle is so unique and the storytelling is carefully crafted, so here we go, this is my reasoning: for me, I wasn't really exposed to old anime and manga, I usually watched the recently published or still-streaming ones, just like retro console games, I've never owned or played a Gameboy Advance console, nor a Playstation of any kind, yet now I love them way more than modern console or mobile games, so it's not just nostalgia for me, there are factors that draw me more to the old school anime, and I can sum them up like this:
This is my personal view of the topic, while nostalgia diffently plays a role for many of anime viewers, it doesn't count as the entire reasons, I think like with many critics of moder media and entertainment, the competition-driven industry is valuing easy and fast production (in many but not all cases of course) over the true joy of anime, stripping away the coziness I feel when I watch Maison Ikkoku, the scences of the maison rooms, the cooking, the laundry, their gatherings in Godai-san's room for partying, I feel more of the human connection, also in Hiatari Ryōkō! when any character self-reflects and thinks, how they sit or walk alone, or stare at the roof... these are things and feelings I didn't find in newer anime which is often characterized by overstimulation, not to mention the bias towards action Shōnen and Seinen categorizes in the modern industry, leaving less room for other ones to take their spots.