It has become a common discussion in the anime community as to whether old anime is better than new anime. In order to answer this question, we must first identify what ‘old’ and ‘new’ really mean?

For most people, 90s are the mark for designation old vs new, but here the line between older and newer anime is post 2010’s since the 2000s now easily classify as old. Now that the time is clear, the simple answer to this question is, yes, older anime is in fact better.

 That does not mean that new anime has nothing going for it now, but merely that old anime qualitatively has more going for it. A big factor for this qualitative difference is due to better storytelling, less emphasis on over-stylized action sequences, and better art style due to relying less on CGI and 3D models.

These models may look more refined but also feel way too industrial, cheap, lazy and lifeless especially when the 3D animation models lack any kind of fluidity making even 4k textures feel like cardboard pieces. Furthermore, old anime unlike new anime has too much repetition in character design attributing to studio laziness.

Character development is not always better in older anime as it many times remains incomplete, it has always been a focal point of driving the story forward as animators and storytellers were content on taking their time to tell a story rather than rushing it. This leads to an increase in the memorability factor as we tend to like things which make a greater impact on us.

 And of course, there is the factor of nostalgia which plays a huge role in this big attraction to older anime despite them having plenty of flaws. But most of all it packs a great deal of originality, as there is a lot of thought poured into the production, animation and storytelling process.

 This is unlike new anime where there is a general lack of thought in the process. But most of all new anime’s biggest failure is its strong focus on fan service while old anime’s focus was more on content and storytelling.