Legendary Voice Actress Megumi Hayishabara laments loss of originality

“Anime in the ‘90s was overflowing with ambition…Anime [today] which are trying to be similar to previous hits can never be better than the originals. Going forward, I want to be part of projects that aren’t trying to be ‘like’ something that came before.”

en.rocketnews24.com/2016/05/25/legendary-voice-actress-megumi-hayashibara-laments-derivative-anime-loss-of-1990s-ambition/

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youtube.com/watch?v=9-HZ9wtJLOA
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nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/aboutanime.html
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>Things were better before!
And in the 90s, Anno was saying the 80s were the golden age. And in the 80s, Miyazaki was saying it was the 50s. It never changes.

Oh yeah, she was Ranma and is still Jessie right?

She's right. I don't dislike anime these days, but it does get a bit repetitive.

>Implying that was the point of her comment

>can never be better than the originals
I blame all the butchered manga and LN adaptations.

Megumi Hayashibara was a mistake.

Still is Jessie, still gets tons of roles, has success as a singer.

She's concerned about how young seiyuus are "pumped and dumped" and are pseudo-idols, along with anime being deriative as fuck

What do you think her point was?

>implying LNs can be worsened

Haruhi was better than Evangelion.

Whether it was her main point or not, it's clearly something she's claiming, and it's what OP is focusing on. Take your Costanza shit back to your homeboard.

It's funny because her most well known 90s role was "Ideon but with a pussy MC"

She's totally taking a dig at those shit LNs adaptation isn't she.

youtu.be/Q4nAnJAgfE8
youtu.be/k2IGRs2_a0Q
youtu.be/OM3sx2s-fj8

Why is she so perfect?

They weren't necessarily saying the past was better, just that the present wasn't.

I don't see any reason to believe she means that in specific.

Most adaptations could probably raise LNs into at least something watchable if the people making them actually put any effort. Also battle harems are a dead genre, it's possible for any of them to be good by design.

People know her for being Lina fucking Inverse and Ranma as well

No, they all are. Hayashibara's saying 90s had more ambition, Anno said that people had been rehashing stuff for about a decade (this in 1996), and Miyazaki specifically said that the 80s were shit compared to the 50s.

>was

Perhaps there was a millisecond in history when that was true. Probably just before the writer wrote the first kanji.

most well known != only

I haven't read that about Miyazaki, where did he say it?

She's my seiyuufu

Obviously they can't all be right, but they aren't necessarily all wrong either.
Maybe ups and downs, highs and lows, gradients in quality, originality, or spirit, aren't just a myth?
Food for thought.

That's just my bias talking. I default boring and unoriginal=LN adaptations.

You really can't get any better.

>She's concerned about how young seiyuus are "pumped and dumped" and are pseudo-idols,

That's certainly a thing

Remember when Mai Nakahara was the hot shit? Or Rie Kugimiya? Or even Kana Hanazawa?

>Anno said that people had been rehashing stuff for about a decade
Well he isn't wrong

Because battle shounen and sports shounen and shoujo romance and SoL and mecha and harem manga adaptations are all hotbeds of constant creativity? I mean, I'm not trying to say that LN adaptations are, obviously, but the majority of the industry being forgettable is just how it works - if LNs disappeared you'd just get more forgettable things of different stripes.

And now M.A.O

>She's concerned about how young seiyuus are "pumped and dumped" and are pseudo-idols, along with anime being deriative as fuck
She's right.

Hanakana is still hot shit.

I love her so fucking much she's flawless

>she sang Rakugo's OP

Holy shit literally how did I miss this, I used to be legitimately crazy over what she did back when she was active, and I still love listening to her music.

If anyone's curious to hear more of her music thats similar to Rakugo's OP listen to these

youtube.com/watch?v=9-HZ9wtJLOA
youtube.com/watch?v=a3ewBgbMo28

God I want to pump and dump a seiyuu

Rei - Evangelion
Ai Haibara - Conan /Case Closed
Faye - Cowboy Bebop
Lina Inverse - Slayers
Anna - Shaman King
Jessie - Pokemon
Female Ranma

Among others like Sophia from Cross Ange or Rebecca from One Piece.

nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/aboutanime.html
And in this one he complains about lolicons and anime, also in the 80s. nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/heroines.html

She's okay I guess

Tangentially, I think it's funny how he complained about mecha anime before the 70s were even over.

I haven't seen that one, source?

>Anime [today] which are trying to be similar to previous hits can never be better than the originals.
Not true. 00 > Original gundam

>I want to be part of projects that aren’t trying to be ‘like’ something that came before.”
What else is there? Can anyone think of a series that can't be seen as similar in some way to another? She's just being an autist like Sup Forums, which is sad cause I liked her roles and songs.

>Anime is not as original as it was when 1000 less shows existed
No shit is going to be harder to come up with an original idea after 20 years.

I don't know why you're so curious about my taste but okay. I'll tell you what I think about other genre too.
Shonen=skippable but can be fun
Sports=too gay for me
shoujo/romance=no interest whatsoever
Harem=shit
Mecha=just gay enough for me
Sol=love it

Guess I to me, only LN adaptations are boring and forgettable.

>Going forward, I want to be part of projects that aren’t trying to be ‘like’ something that came before
Fucking self-entitled VAs who don't have to worry about a burger-flipping salary and shit not selling

Kagerou Daze isn't similar to anything.

I'm not talking about your taste - those genres are all full of derivative works and reused cliches. Whether you like those cliches or not, they are not very original genres.

I'll try and find it.

In the interview you posted, and this is sort of semantics, he specifies that he's talking about the few works that inspired him both in and out of Japanese animation; not the anime industry as a whole. Ah, whatever.

It is funny that both him and Anno dislike Disney.

You don't understand.
She means series intentionally want to be like something that came before.
Of course series are similiar, but she wants that it's not done intentionally and that producers come up with something themselves instead of creating a series BECAUSE they WANT it to be like something that already exists.

it doesn't take a genius to conceptualize a series that's better and more original than the entirety of this season

>Anime back then was better, let my prove my point by giving you examples of some amazing shows from the past 50 years, never mind the endless list of duds and flops from that time. See? This is why anime is better because I'm comparing 50 years worth of anime history to the last 5-10 years of modern anime

Every 'anime back then was better' argument ever.

>Shounen
>Shoujo
>genres

Megumi Hayishabara paid her dues, user. She earned the burger flipping salary and had to suffer through derivative shit

Now her time is worth something and she has the luxury of choosing what project to pick

That's fucking great. I'd rather die than see the voice of Lina Inverse play a haremette like Megumin

So something like, I dunno, Luluco, would be considered an improvement?

...

>She earned the burger flipping salary and had to suffer through derivative shit

Yeah, the suffering of voicing fucking Rebecca.

That studios don't have the ambition to take risks like before. That they'd rather stick to a formula or aesthetic that will yield them a nice safe profit.

It's ok, I hear that autistic people have trouble on picking up on things like this.

Yes, but there weren't exactly a lot of anime in the 1950s to begin with. I get the impression he's largely talking about the movies Toei did at the end of the 50s/early 60s, starting with Hakujaden, which he mentions. I'm also basing that off of some other interviews on that site from the 80s/90s where he basically blames the weekly TV production model.

Okay? That's cool. Don't care either way.

That doesn't have anything to do with me explaining my bias though.

Rebecca makes me think that Oda legitimately just hates woman

seeing as you clearly didn't read what she said, i'll point it out for you that none of that was even implied even once in her entire interview.

They're certainly are a ton of anime every season that are just trying to mimic the popularity of series before. But there are still some series that try to be original, too.

Is that really any different than anime has ever been?

It becomes less of a comparison at that point, I think, and more of an unaffiliated complaint about the current industry. But like I said, it's semantics.

Anyway, here's the quote I was talking about:

>In Japan today, animated TV shows filled with all kinds of fancy, robotlike ,mechanical creations are all the rage. I have certainly drawn lots of mecha, or mechanical things, myself. but the general theme in currently popular shows seems to be that the protagonist jumps on a giant machine he couldn’t possible have created on his own, battles the enemy in it, and then boasts about winning. I frankly hate these kind of shows. I don’t care what types of robots are featured. For me, in a truly successful mecha show the protagonist should struggle to build his own machine, he should fix it when it breaks down, and he should have to operate it himself.

>Hayao Miyazaki, 1979 (Starting Point)

Actually, wait, it's the same interview.

>Let's get back to Japanese anime. Japanese anime make manga into anime, use character designs of manga, absorb the vitality of manga, and are made by staff members who wanted to be manga writers. Of course, there are exceptions, but I think that this is pretty much the case in general. Before 1963, when the TV series (anime) started, there were other styles of Toei Animation Studio than manga, but the mass production of TV series and manga severed this tradition (of Toei style). Based on manga, Japanese anime started as TV series with weekly production schedules, which is overwhelmingly shorter than feature-length movies. Due to limited time and budget, the number of drawings had to be reduced as much as possible. The lack of staff brought the mass introduction of unskilled and inadequate workers. That wasn't limited to animators. It was the case for all the divisions including direction and script, and there was unprecedented padding and promotion of staff. The horrific thing is that this trend continued for 20 years.[5]

>shit not selling

Anime isn't selling because it's derivative shit and even the low life otaku are catching on to that fact. She just wants higher quality shows.

You can list more good anime in the last 5 years alone than you can in the entirety of the 90s.

>Miyazaki
Miyazaki's a huge nostalgiafag, what else is new.

Would a biweekly series be a good idea?

Exactly, I don't know why some seem to expect that a majority of the shows should be risky anime originals, that has never been the case and will never be the case. As you say, there are shows that go against the grain most every season in different ways, that usually do poorly.

Something was up with her in Oda's mind.
Even her name means something like "strong woman".
I guess there's no use in thinking about it, but I'm certain something was off with Oda creating her.

Rie was voicing every tsundere every season. Now she just does character voices she wants to do, and Shana isn't so hot anymore.

Kana Hana domination is still sort of around. Can't think of any seiyuu who has toppled her, at least

She's right about animu becoming more forgettable. People still remember Lum and Ranma and NGE and Slayers, but do they even remember ONII-SAMA REMEMBERS a few seasons later, or has his show merged together into this amorphous mass of sameness?

Best Hayashibara role right here.

>they remember these four shows from twenty years apart, but do they even remember this one recent show?

Fuck the topic. Best seiyuu thread.

Best character:
Best OP:
Best ED:

>it's another Sup Forums gets butthurt that accomplished industry professionals challenge their sheltered, ignorant gaijin opinions about anime thread

if the series is specifically structured to a biweekly schedule, sure, why not.
but with today's series barely managing to maintain a viewer's interest for a whole week it'd be counterintuitive for any series that isn't extraordinary or exceedingly well done to have that kind of format.

Being derivative is relatively low risk compared to taking a leap of faith, and both approaches can yield high rewards. So it's only natural that studios, who primarily are businesses and not some kind of charity art organizations, most often choose the low-risk method. Look at stuff like Anime no Chikara, or Yamakan's projects, their terrible sales and tell me why businesses should do that.

Katanagatari did pretty well, albeit with longer runtime (but not proportional to the release time).

Like sailor moon crystal?

I am sure you misundetstood Hayashibara words and what she wanted to convey:
>Sailor Moon Crystal
>Dragon Ball Super
>FLCL
I believe Hayashibara took a stab toward anime like that, they're derivatives of the past. And, it could've meant the same with original anime too, to use a current example Kabaneri, some see as a derivative of Attack on Titan. Or, you can say the same about Daybreak Illusion being the derivative to Madoka.

And, her going foward meant, she want to explore different roles she never played in her past, as in, she don't want to peigonhold herself and want to explore new stories that haven't or rarely been told before. The Rakugo anime is prolly a good example of that.

Hayashibara is still the best and greatest.

>People actually disagree with her
>People actually don't realize that any anime that wasn't a cookie cutter SoL or comfyshit has been garbage or overhyped mediocrity for the past like seven 10+ years

Even the Japs are starting to notice and people on Sup Forums are too autismal to see.

i think Crystal had that airing pattern because they were phoning in every part of it so hard.

They sure weren't using the additional time to make it look less like shit, it required a new director coming on and saying FUCK YOU and demanding they give the show moar budget to make it look decent instead of QUALITY.

It's not like Crystal's main problem was that it was airing bi-weekly

Did you seriously just fucking compare World Break to NGE? World Break didn't even sell 1k. What the fuck are you doing?

>>People actually don't realize that any anime that wasn't a cookie cutter SoL or comfyshit has been garbage or overhyped mediocrity for the past like seven 10+ years
>the past like seven 10+ years
Yes, exactly, anime has always been cookie cutter shit and mediocrities, ever since Momotarou. Glad to hear you get it, nostalgiafags can fuck off.

>I have to make an embarrassing confession. I fell in love with the heroine of a cartoon movie.
Miyazaki confirmed for original waifufag.

And does she provide any evidence of that? Or is it just a vague assertion that things used to be better?

By budget do you mean impeccable scheduling or just super advanced production?

>>>People actually don't realize that any anime that wasn't a cookie cutter SoL or comfyshit has been garbage or overhyped mediocrity for the past like seven 10+ years

what about the Bakamonogatari series? it's not garbage or mediocre and it's not cookiecutter SoL.

>to taking a leap of faith, and both approaches can yield high rewards.

Because making weaker versions of what came before leads to stagnation. Nobody is asking for something completely original, people just want good versions of the already established formulas and not the lazy, low effort imitations we are getting nowadays.

>cookie cutter SoL is good
they're not, unless you're stupid. almost all of them are awful. the only ones that stands out are Yuru Yuri and Kiniro Mosaic, and Non Non Biyori too, if you're stupid enough to not realize that the only similiarity it has with the typical garbage SoL is that the entire cast is made up of girls.
i completely agree with the idea that the SoL genre tends to garner the greatest series in the past few years, but the ones that are good are not "cookie cutter".

The industry is new enough to have gone through several big changes in our lifetime. It's pretty different even from decade to decade, especially when you factor in things like the internet.

I'm assuming the problem was largely budget, because I can't imagine how bad you'd have to be at scheduling to produce something like that with two weeks to work on it if you had the money for the quantity and quality of manpower you needed.

>Sophia from Cross Ange
Wheres my fucking NanaXMegumi duet CD, Goddammit SUNRISE REEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>does she provide evidence of that?
>It's just different.
Good argument.

I bet this bitch hasn't even watched 15 anime this year, fucking disgusting.

>That they'd rather stick to a formula or aesthetic that will yield them a nice safe profit.

And that never happened in the 80's and 90's? fuck off.

Monogatari is a mess. Watching Monogatari Second Season was fun at times, but everything following that is literally autistic and unwatchable.
Everyone praises it for its "ingenious" dialogue, but if you watch anything after Monogatari Second Season and still think that, I think you're in need of a check-up.

I'm just pointing out that the possibility is there.

it's an autistic mess, yes, and so am i and that's why i like the monogatari series, but it's not mediocre nor garbage nor cookicutter

>I want to be part of projects that aren’t trying to be ‘like’ something that came before.”
But things should try to be like before, only better. The issue is not that everything is the same, just that they aren't better than what came prior.

Yep, look at the roles she played, she pretty much did the most generic popular shit possible like pokemon. I highly doubt she even watches anime except for the ones she actually has a role in.