I used to be a self-professed otaku. I was really into anime and was, what one might call, a weeaboo.  Thankfully I got out of that phase of my life, and it was at the right time too.  I stopped paying attention to anime around the time it started to become the mainstream (is it considered mainstream now?) phenomenon it has become.

I watched things like Ranma 1/2 (I even had some of the $30 tape that contained only two episodes), Neon Genesis, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, etc.  I felt that most things around then (late ’90s, early 2000s) was of good quality. But when it became popular and less underground, companies started bringing more and more shows stateside.

It used to be that there were 0 – 5 DVDs released a week.  Now?  I have no clue, but the market is saturated. Whenever I watch a show now that someone recommends, most of the time it’s crap, but people like it because it’s the hip thing. In reality, the quality, I feel, just isn’t there.  It’s sad.  Before, I could trust the localization companies to bring out quality shows I’d enjoy, now it’s rare.