Well, he does speak of how animes are becoming shorter: "the first thing that struck me was that many series did actually have endings... however... the classic stand-alone 13 or 26 episode series has fallen from favour in recent years."
I'm trying to say that:
1) there are still plenty of short anime series
2) there are popular anime series like Detective Conan which started before 2001 and still haven't ended
I believe that my assertion is relevant even if it does not directly contradict his. I apologize if I wasn't clear enough.
Also, irrelevant to the anime discussion, but relevant to the OP's post: remember Conan Doyle. His famous works were serialized in a magazine before being published in a book. Apparently, works can have literary merit even when sequelized to the extreme.
While Starcraft isn't mindless, clicking quickly is an important skill. It's as much of a sport as a strategy game.
On one hand you have games like Chess, Go, and Wesnoth, where you think about your move, then perform it in a manner that does not rely on lightning reflexes. On the other you have games like first-person shooters, fencing, basketball, and hockey, where reaction speed is very important.
But in the middle lies Starcraft. While claiming Starcraft is a pure click-fest is a bit of a stretch, it does rely partially on reflexes. If Starcraft is to be studied academically, sports theory is as important as game theory. Otherwise, purely turn-based strategy games are probably better for this kind of analysis.
2001? Long anime has been around before that. For example, Detective Conan started airing in 1996, and still is. Dragon Ball, though a bit shorter at ~150 episodes, aired back in the 80's in Japan.
On the other hand, there are still way more "stand-alone" animes than long ones. Though, if a stand-alone anime becomes really popular and well-received, they'll produce a second season for it, such as with Code Geass. I see nothing wrong with that as long as the second season is good as well (and in the case of Code Geass, it was good).
For some, working 4-8 hours straight (depending on when your lunch break is) on an intellectually demanding job is mentally exhausting to the point of being unrealistic. Some people need "personal time" so they don't get burned out, and are much more efficient if they have breaks more often.
The world "beyond the borders" *is* better in some respects. If I made it sound like the US is better than everyone else, what I really meant to say is that people in the rest of the world are growing up to be smarter around the age of 18 than in the United States, because their public school systems are better. I'm considering what will happen when people from other countries don't want to study in America's universities anymore - there will be few people left to study in them from here, because a lot of the intelligent people studying in the universities come from abroad.
American college is a whole different ball-game, and high school hardly prepares people for it anymore. There are already plenty of Americans coming into college unprepared and failing most if not all of their classes in their first semester. What do you think will happen as we loosen the standards in the public school system? If we keep relying on imported intelligence to pass our universities, we will be left with nothing as the rest of the world's universities catch up.
Also, if people have so much trouble with catching up after getting 10% or 20% on a major test, then I think it is better to just change the grade distribution than to create another artificial grade inflation mechanism. Make everything a lot harder (and grade things without fluff), but make 80+% an A, 60+% a B, 40+% a C, 20+% a D, and anything below than an E/F. That will make it easy for failing students to catch up without the educational system having to rely on ever-increasing grade-inflation schemes.
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Well, he does speak of how animes are becoming shorter: "the first thing that struck me was that many series did actually have endings ... however ... the classic stand-alone 13 or 26 episode series has fallen from favour in recent years."
I'm trying to say that: 1) there are still plenty of short anime series 2) there are popular anime series like Detective Conan which started before 2001 and still haven't ended
I believe that my assertion is relevant even if it does not directly contradict his. I apologize if I wasn't clear enough.
Also, irrelevant to the anime discussion, but relevant to the OP's post: remember Conan Doyle. His famous works were serialized in a magazine before being published in a book. Apparently, works can have literary merit even when sequelized to the extreme.
While Starcraft isn't mindless, clicking quickly is an important skill. It's as much of a sport as a strategy game.
On one hand you have games like Chess, Go, and Wesnoth, where you think about your move, then perform it in a manner that does not rely on lightning reflexes. On the other you have games like first-person shooters, fencing, basketball, and hockey, where reaction speed is very important.
But in the middle lies Starcraft. While claiming Starcraft is a pure click-fest is a bit of a stretch, it does rely partially on reflexes. If Starcraft is to be studied academically, sports theory is as important as game theory. Otherwise, purely turn-based strategy games are probably better for this kind of analysis.
2001? Long anime has been around before that. For example, Detective Conan started airing in 1996, and still is. Dragon Ball, though a bit shorter at ~150 episodes, aired back in the 80's in Japan.
On the other hand, there are still way more "stand-alone" animes than long ones. Though, if a stand-alone anime becomes really popular and well-received, they'll produce a second season for it, such as with Code Geass. I see nothing wrong with that as long as the second season is good as well (and in the case of Code Geass, it was good).
For some, working 4-8 hours straight (depending on when your lunch break is) on an intellectually demanding job is mentally exhausting to the point of being unrealistic. Some people need "personal time" so they don't get burned out, and are much more efficient if they have breaks more often.
The world "beyond the borders" *is* better in some respects. If I made it sound like the US is better than everyone else, what I really meant to say is that people in the rest of the world are growing up to be smarter around the age of 18 than in the United States, because their public school systems are better. I'm considering what will happen when people from other countries don't want to study in America's universities anymore - there will be few people left to study in them from here, because a lot of the intelligent people studying in the universities come from abroad.
American college is a whole different ball-game, and high school hardly prepares people for it anymore. There are already plenty of Americans coming into college unprepared and failing most if not all of their classes in their first semester. What do you think will happen as we loosen the standards in the public school system? If we keep relying on imported intelligence to pass our universities, we will be left with nothing as the rest of the world's universities catch up.
Also, if people have so much trouble with catching up after getting 10% or 20% on a major test, then I think it is better to just change the grade distribution than to create another artificial grade inflation mechanism. Make everything a lot harder (and grade things without fluff), but make 80+% an A, 60+% a B, 40+% a C, 20+% a D, and anything below than an E/F. That will make it easy for failing students to catch up without the educational system having to rely on ever-increasing grade-inflation schemes.
I really hope that this /. article serves as a wakeup call to Wikipedian moderators.