Aging of a Show

When we say a show didn’t age well, we mean it doesn’t feel as good as it did when it first came out years ago. The easiest reason one can provide regarding that is:

The animation is dated

Technology is progressing and older series don’t have the fidelity of newer ones. It’s not true for all titles, but it is something most younger viewers have a problem with, when it comes to retro titles.

There are many more reasons than that of course, and I feel Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is a franchise that envelops most of the major ones. If one doesn’t bother to check the history behind it, he will assume Vivid is just another run of the mill loli show that was made for some fast cash, and then got forgotten by everyone. This though wasn’t the case when the first season came out back in 2004. I remember well how it was praised by many as a jewel in the rough for several reasons.

The most commonly used one was how it came out at a time when most of what it was about wasn’t as overused as it is today. It felt quite special as a mahou shojo with dark overtones, magic meets technology, and loli fan service. Was it the first show to use any of that, or even the best amongst them? No, but it was the first to combine all of them together in a tv series, instead of being in OVA format. Although not the best in any of its elements, as a whole, it really seemed to be way above any other magic-themed anime up until then. But look around at what we have today, and what do you realize?

The themes aren’t fresh anymore

And you can thank for that light novel and visual novel adaptations becoming a common thing. You literally get a handful of shows every season that have the exact same elements in them. But is that really enough to call a show badly aged? Titles like Dragonball are reusing the exact same things for decades and nobody calls them badly aged, even if they are constantly using the same classic formulas. Why did such a thing happen for Lyrical Nanoha? Well, the reason for that is:

A hiatus kills peoples’ interest

It took 8 years for the 4th season to come out. While it was absent, most of the fans it had either dropped out of anime, or moved to other titles. You want dark mahou shojo? We have Madoka Magica. Magic meets technology? Try A Certain Magical Index. Loli fan service? There is Fate Kaleid for that. This is also what happened with other titles that continued after many years, like Inu Yasha and Slayers. People didn’t care about them anymore, because they were absent for too long.

This is also why many series use fillers and have very slow pacing. The producers know very well that if they stop for even a year until more source material is out, it will be very hard to regain the audience. Most of them would have lost interest and moved to other things. Fillers and slow pacing lower the quality of a show a lot, but it doesn’t matter if in return they manage to keep a title relevant and noticeable, simply for airing without any hiatus.

Speaking about moving to other things, the problem with Lyrical Nanoha in particular, is how it did that even in-series. Meaning, even if it hadn’t stopped for 8 years, it would still find it hard to maintain the interest of its fans. The reason being:

The show no longer focuses on what made it good

The first two seasons of Lyrical Nanoha follow a very recognizable structure when it comes to magical girl shows. The other two though, moved away from that. It no longer feels like you are watching the same show anymore, and that is a huge problem if the fans wanted more of the same. The story is not focused on Nanoha gathering trinkets, saving the world, and becoming friends with other girls that have lesbian tendencies. There are now way too many characters, the plots became more like military missions or training sessions than protecting the world, and Nanoha is not the protagonist. Hell, she is not even a little girl anymore. The title of the show has now nothing to do with what is going on in it. It moved away from everything that people liked in the first two seasons.

As if all the aforementioned reasons weren’t enough, the fourth season suffers from another thing:

Different studio & lowered budget

This is very common for franchises that can’t afford to spend an equal amount of money once they establish themselves. They have already advertised the source material, and the only reason they make more seasons is simply for preventing the fanbase from dissipating. This still doesn’t prevent the aesthetics from being off-putting for those who watched the previous seasons.

So as you see, a show ages badly for several reasons, and in the case of Lyrical Nanoha Vivid, the animators did their best to drive away the few remaining people who could have still be interested in it.

///

10 Reasons for why People are Growing Out of a Show

Novelty Fade: New shows appeared. Why are you still watching old stuff that showed almost all there is about them, when new stuff are coming out with prettier colors and concepts that are still unexplored? (aka Newfags)
Hype Deflation: The initial glamour faded, and proved the show was something average or worse that was simply overestimated by a big portion of people. (screw Fantards)
Repetition: You lost interest in a show because its themes are going nowhere, or the plot is moving in circles. (screw episodics)
Staleness: The plot is constantly halting and fillers are thrown in for the sake of staying away from the source material. (milking ftl)
Plot Decay: The writing gets progressively more erratic as the show goes on. Plot holes and inconsistencies pile up to the point you no longer turn a blind eye to them. (your tolerance ran out)
Alienation: A show changes too much as time goes by, to the point it no longer has the things you liked about it in the beginning. (the magic is gone)
Theme Aging: A show can be fine in everything within a certain time period. It can be very relatable because it deals with themes that resonate with the audience. But once the world changes and different issues concern the population, a show no longer feels relevant because it is no longer in sync with what concerns the audience. (it didn’t age well)
Mental Aging: Its subject matter is no longer in your age group. The things you like the most, change as time moves on. (unless you are a manchild)
Different Mentality: Your opinion of a show is no longer positive, because you realize (through other people or by yourself) that it has major flaws. (screw tunnel vision)
Experience: The more you watch, the more you understand, and the more you understand, the higher your demands become. (improving your brain chakra)

///

I constantly find people asking why an old title is considered to be revolutionary, when in their eyes it seems to be typical and forgettable. The usual explanation many use is how “you are watching it wrong” or “you didn’t get it” when in most cases it’s just a trope called Seinfeld is Unfunny.

Any show or movie usually gets its fame based on the sociopolitical circumstances of the time it came out. After a certain amount of time passes, said show or movie doesn’t resonate that well with a newer audience because the circumstances changed.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that a title ages badly as much as that whatever themes or messages can be found in it, no longer feel that special; usually because they have been reused many times by following titles. Watching today an anime which pioneered a certain formula, will obviously feel like it’s nothing special, and can even be mistaken as a rip-off of its own derivatives.

In other cases, it will be perceived as one the same but with worse animation, so newer fans will appreciate the copy cats for having prettier colors, and not the original which pretty much established something that others built upon it for decades thereafter.

This is in essence what we call historical value. It doesn’t have to do with how well animated a show is, or how much fun you had watching it, or if it was your first show, or how original the concept felt to you. It is simply what it achieved when it first came out, which for that time was fresh and special.

It may not mean much today, but we wouldn’t have others like it, if it was never made and paved the road for others to follow and build upon.

Something last that needs to be clarified, is that historical importance doesn’t have to do with hype. A show can become super popular and extremely overrated without ever having something special in it. It’s just fangasms from people with bad taste.

///

One of the hundreds of reasons modern anime suck, is the inability to portray misunderstandings in slice of life series. In case you don’t know it yet, the stakes in slice of life are so low to the point most of the conflict is always based on some sort of misunderstanding. He did something which she misunderstood, which he was too shy to explain, which she wasn’t willing to hear, and then this guy interfered and made things worse, and then that girl had this idea which overcomplicated the situation even further, and then a whole bunch of nonsense happen until 50 episodes later they finally realize it was nothing much to begin with.

Disregarding how cringy this whole situation is, when such misunderstandings take place in modern anime, it is ten times worse. The exact same situations feel completely different depending on the century they take place in. Just think what we have today that we didn’t have in the 80s. Social media, more public awareness, better technology, advanced medicine, and more people are educated. It may seem like we are still drowning in stupidity, but thanks to cell phones and the internet, the world has come much closer, and information travels way faster. It doesn’t take much time for superstitions and rumors to spread but they are exposed just as fast.

So when you see the exact same misunderstandings you grew up watching in romcoms of the 80s, in series of today, it feels way more retarded. All you are thinking is why they don’t just talk about it when they are educated people. If that is not enough, why don’t they use their cell phones, or the internet, or anything that would solve any everyday problem in a couple of minutes. All thanks to technology. I mean did you notice how smart children are today? Most 5 year olds know a thousand times more things than I did in their age and have a retort ready for most situations. Little brats can talk back and know what they are saying.

And I did mention the 80s because I grew up in that decade, but you can go back even further. The exact same misunderstanding would be way harder to be solved in the 19th century, than it would be in the 20th century. Because the average adult man had even less technology and education than a 5 year old of the 1980s. And why stop there; let’s go back to the dark ages when just being able to read was a big thing, a common cold could kill you, and learning the basics of any science was like an epic quest. You had to travel a world full of people who will not think twice before killing you for the pettiest of reasons, and then having to explore gigantic libraries in isolated monasteries in hopes of getting an answer. These are stuff you can do safely today in a few seconds, without even leaving your house. All thanks to the internet.

So every time I say retro always wins or the stakes need to be high, this is what I mean. One of the reasons most slice of life anime set in modern times, are nothing but moe and harems, and feel so dull and forgettable, is because their conflicts feel completely insignificant. Any issue that lasts for more than a few episodes makes everybody to wonder “why is this still going?” You wouldn’t say that if they were set in the past because the less technology and education the characters have, the more the conflicts are excusing their duration and importance.

And that’s just another reason of why retro wins all the time.