ayase said:
What does it matter if they're TV shows, films or OVAs? There was still more better, original anime being produced back then.
My main point was that most of them featured a little in 1988, and are more representative of the late 80s in general. If you look back over the last four or five years, that might be a fairer comparison.
If you're making an OVA, you only have to come up with (and hence the viewer only gets) 60 mins or so (or less) content. If you want to add films, this year has had Summer Wars and Eva 2.0 that I've seen, both have been excellent.
None of those anime were original (that I could think of immediately).
I'm pretty sure all the mech fans who grew up with anime in the 70s think a lot of stuff on that list is very similar to each other, and a bit of a sell out to whatever the fad of that time was. If Haruhi is similar to other high school shows, then Votoms and Patlabor are essentially the same thing.
Gall Force, awesome as it is, is the prototypical moe show.
Overall, if I was picking the best ten of the list of shows I made from this year, it might be something like Sengoku Basara, Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-Hen, Cross Game, Eden of the East, Bakemonogatari, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, Kimi ni Todoke, Aoi Bungaku, Kuuchuu Blanco - and if you genuinely don't think that stands up to the other lists of shows that have been mentioned, I think it's a case of your tastes changing, because I don't see how you could objectively argue that they are any less impressive, or any more or less derivative. As for the usual argument against modern moe trends, I'd say Bakemonogatari and Railgun lean on them somewhat, but it's hardly what they're about.
Pinning it down further, Eden of the East, Bakemonogatari, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Aoi Bungaku and Kuuchuu Blanco is a
ridiculously worthy handful of shows.