Personally, I hope it's a return to both.
This will also never not piss me off. Even modern Gundam is plagued by 3d models. I couldn't watch Aldnoah.Zero because of it. Just filled with fucking 3d models dropped into 2d scenes and it was so distracting.
Just about the only magical girl property that's still around is Precure, which is effectively the Gundam of magical girls show that shit will never die.
We need more high-school street gang MMA shit. Kenichi was recently storytime'd on /a/ and the entire Ragnarok arc should've been the whole manga. That was fucking comfy.
I'd like a link to that, please. I've been watching KenIchi with a club group lately on request by one of the members, and we've been enjoying ourselves so far even with the numerous off-model moments. I looked up to see if there was filler for the anime and there's not, which I think was rather unusual for the time.
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If more studios could stop making school anime that would also help
You might as well ask them to all commit seppuku right there on the spot.
why the fuck are you posting this here
My guess is that they'll look at what's doing well, that is your Demon Slayer, your JJK, your Chainsaw Man, your Frieren, your Dungeon Meshi. Then they will see the through line is Fantasy, but they'll throw up their hands at the high fantasy like Frieren and Dungeon Meshi because technically isekai is all high fantasy and settle on low fantasy again even though we just got out of the low fantasy high school spam of the 2010s.
The difference was the demographic it was made for. Since anime is (or at least used to be) just an expensive commercial for the manga, it really only was forced to air 50 episodes a year if it needs to maintain exposure for merchandise sales. The Kenichi anime simply caught up with the manga, and by the time the manga had pulled ahead it had fallen into too niche a market to justify producing more seasons without a continuous merchandise run to keep it afloat. Anime that gets filler usually airs on Sunday mornings when kids are home from school; Kenichi aired late at night and was aimed more towards adults who are less likely to purchase plastic garbage.
The fact Sasaki is only 30 fucks me up.View attachment 9023976
Reminds me of when I looked up Mamoru Takamura's age and found out he's only 20 at the start of the main story.
I think that was the plan under the original version. The DofD tournament was pretty good and there's a bunch of great moments against Yomi. I'll concede Kenichi imitating his senseis when fighting Odin may be the peak of the series.
I wouldn't mind a return of old-fashioned isekai where the protagonist is just magically transported to a fantasy world without fucking dying and has to go back home to a normal life at the end.
Some people think that Madoka is what killed the magical girl genre, but it was actually Pretty Cure when it got so damn popular that nobody wanted to bother competing with it.
The kosher tendrils weeding ever further into Nipponese properties...
it's just some netflix trash "anime"
I think it's a bit of column A a bit of column B, personally. Madoka made sincere and honest magical girls seem passe for about a decade which lead to a lot of studios torpedoing the genre with dark edgy bullshit, and a lot of established IPs committing ritual suicide to try to chase the trend. Pretty Cure was the only IP that managed to actually stay the course and weather the storm which has created a de facto non compete clause with every other animation studio.
I think that's an often overlooked problem with modern isekais is that the protag just immediately goes "whelp, guess I live in wacko world now." and never once spares even a single thought to their friends and family that they're leaving in the lurch. Then the author solves this by making the protag both a total loser and an absolute autismo jackass so that there is no room for regrets.
Mao is doing a great job about this problem right now. Nanoka is torn between staying by Mao's side in the past - a safe bet for her, since the guy is a powerhouse and can protect her - or returning to the present to take care/live with her grandad. All this while hunted by a giant homicidal cat head who wants to basically possess her. Episode 7 shows this exact dichotomy, you can feel her doubts and insecurity hitting her hard.