Anime's future in doubt to some.

Otaku2 wrote an fascinating article on the future of anime. Sato Dai, one of the writers behind "Cowboy Beebop" and "Ergo Proxy" has major concerns on the industry as a whole.

I for one agree with Sato-san. The animation industry in Japan is a joke. Many of the good stories that were well known to anime fans in the 80-90's are now dried up. The stories seem to repeat over and over again. It breaks my heart to read about how the industry is loosing ideas or not sharing their techniques to other Asian Countries.

On the other hand many of the US animation studios are learning from their mistakes of the past and producing some quality content, especially on TV with Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. One huge mistake was laying off a majority of their work force during the "Dot Com" bust of the late 90's.

Robot Chicken comes to mind as great original show. Using a combination of stop motion animation and great writing. The show uses many references to pop-culture and also keeping the audience entertained is a difficult thing to do. I think the Japanese equivalent of Robot Chicken is "The World of Golden Eggs." The show uses rotascoping and some brilliant funny writing. Though this show is in the minority.

If the Japanese Anime industry wants to shoot themselves in the foot, they only have themselves to blame.

Something needs to be done to bring back Anime.