Joseph Luster
May 26, 2015 
Don’t get too alarmed now, but anime is dying! Well, that’s how Neon Genesis Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno sees it, at least. Anno spoke with Russian news agency RIA Novosti, giving the industry about five to twenty years before it collapses.
While Anno doesn’t think animation will completely end in Japan, he explained that “Japanese animation is in decline,” adding that, “it’s already peaked.” Anno sees this death as inevitable. “After it does collapse, there will probably be a new resurgence,” he told RIA, wondering if said return is something people will wait for.
Some of the contributing factors Anno cites include the fact that there will be less money in Japan as compared to other Asian countries, who are getting richer and richer and will be able to produce more animation of their own. There are also fewer animators in Japan. Thus, Japan’s dominance will soon come to an end.
According to Anno, one of the countries on the rise is Taiwan, which he recently visited. He witnessed plenty of energy and passion there, as opposed to the way animation is “moving by inertia” in Japan.
Anno has some solutions, though, such as Japan being more flexible toward adapting new techniques like computer graphics. If things stay the way they are now, Anno’s crystal ball might be more than idle doomsaying.
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