Yasuhiro Imagawa, director of G Gundam and Giant Robo, talk about the future of anime from 1997.
>Mr. Imagawa was a bit more bleak; he sees a dead end looming in front of the world of anime. Echoing critics of a lot of popular television in America, he sees too much of the same thing being repeated in different shows. Once a show or genre becomes popular, it gets copied to the point that it becomes difficult to tell one show from another; only the names seem different. In terms of technique this has improved things, as each show learns from the previous ones. But Mr. Imagawa sees this as only superficial growth, not the internal growth of stories and themes needed to sustain the art form. A flashy character design and good drawings can't make up for a bad story. As a result, he no longer watches much TV anime. He spends much more of his time watching American and European dramas—cinema which he feels has depth and substance.

>He agrees that this repetition in anime is leading to a narrowing of Japanese TV audiences' tastes. And like a food bias, this leads to a vicious cycle. Without exposure to other types of shows, audiences are less likely to "brave them" and give them a fair shot. Without confidence in a potential audience, producers are unlikely to make these "risky" shows. So audiences are not exposed to them, and and the cycle continues.

He predicted the disaster, but no one listened