Copypaste from DevArt
Think of the children by ~swussian on deviantART
I used to be into anime. I'm not really anymore, which is of course somewhat due to me being an adult now, and not a teenage fangirl, but also a little because I nowadays rarely feel "whoa, I must see this!" when I see a trailer, opening, Newtype article or someone telling about something new.
Yesterday and today I've watched a couple of episodes of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai and the first episode of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Right now I'm outraged. When I was getting into anime fandom - which I did from the "I draw, and I surf artist communities, and many people are into anime, and it seems inspiring" side - there was not that much anime available. It was just before everything god downloadable, so you had to rely on what has been officially released in america, but dammit there was character design, and just general visuals, to be inspired by. CLAMP productions, Utena, Bebop, Eva... hell, even Love Hina! Call me nostalgic, but I really feel that the design of the characters, as well as colurs, lines and backgrounds that inspired me and other manga influenced artists of my generation were way more exciting that pretty much everything I have seen of newer anime.
If nothing changes, there will be no new generation of western manga artists, because there's no way th...THAT can inspire kids. Will somebody please think of the children?!
After watching the first ep of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya I wanted to procrastinate and not watch the second episode, so I tried, angrily, to draw Utena characters in that horrible "how to draw manga dating simulator game" style. Naturally, I couldn't.