I think any non-normalfag anime fan will agree that anime has never been worse than it is now.
The late 80s saw the OVA boom which allowed anime studios to make short series with very fluid animation catered towards niche communities due to high budgets of the time. After that, we had the 90s in which Evangelion made it so that TV anime became a respectable medium as well which didn't just cater to children and produced some very creative works such as Shoujo Kakumei Utena, Serial Experiments Lain, Cowboy Bebop and Berserk. Then we had the 2000s, at this point anime was already somewhat in decline but this was probably the period which saw the most experimentality in both visuals and concepts and gave us shows such as Brigadoon: Marin to Melan, Chikyuu Shoujo Arjuna, Metropolis, Afro Samurai, Princess Tutu, Haibane Renmei and Panty & Stocking.
But now, it seems that anime has become a market led by suits that caters to as large and as young of an audience as possible rather than the otakus of old who mainly consisted of adults. Every year, shows come out that all look the same, have poorly-done animation and the amount of CG in what are supposed to 2D-animated anime increases every year as well. They all follow an already existing set of gimmicks and archetypes rather than trying out new concepts and writing actual characters.
I did not make this thread to discuss the differences between the current era of anime and that of the past nor to be nostalgic about older shows. I'd like to ask the question: what do you think needs to happen for the current age of anime to end? Do you think the future holds more promising anime for us or will Japanese animation continue to decline until nothing is left but a parody of itself?
>inb4 hurr they said this in the 90s as well
They did say that anime was declining in past decades, yes. And they were right, I think the people such as Miyazaki who were already complaining about the state of the anime industry years ago will simply think to themselves "I was right" when looking at what it has become now. So that's not really an argument for why the current decade of anime is supposedly not bad compared to previous ones.