Alot of peaple say anime is going down hill in recent years, is it really ?

People growing out of anime? I think that entertainment should be entertaining. What may account for people "growing out" of anime is that what once was entertaining as they were younger is no longer so. But I don't think that entertainment is age-restricted. Some, precocious, children are bored of Sesame Street and the like. They may prefer to watch shows that suit their level of development and maturity. Likewise with anime. When we were younger, shows like Dragon Ball and other typical shounen would entertain us. As we grow older, the anime that targets our age group grow rare. Ghost in the Shell, some Gundam, Patlabor, the works of Satoshi Kon and others appeal to those of us that want someting more meaningful from our entertainment. I don't believe that anime is going downhill. It's just that anime that appeal to teenagers are in mass production with tsunderes and moe and ecchi and "hero of justice" type characters who must save their damsel in distress and the world. These weathered and worn cliches come coupled with ultra-predictable plots and leave us feeling like we wasted our time as there was no meaningful message or character development. So, to answer your question. I don't believe that anime is going downhill, but that it is a mixture of us outgrowing the mass-produced anime and the low availability of titles targeting the older audience. This is all my opinion of course. I have no data of statistics to back this up.

I definitely think that any genre/ medium can start to get "stale" after a certain amount of consumption. But, the real problem here isn't the anime it's the consumer. I believe over a period of time a medium will usually change and the consumer will be so accustomed to the old, he will just simply interpret it as "bad" or "it got worst".

I agree with you about a medium getting stale, Stephan. I posted some comments on Brent's Youtube video about The 2010 Young Animators Training Project, sometime last month:

"I believe that, while good animation quality is nice, telling a story should not be tied to fancy animation gimmicks. I first got into anime because the Japanese creators were so very adept at crafting their stories and characters that the result was a beautiful work of art regardless of the animation quality. It stood in stark contrast to a lot (not all) of Western story telling where everything seemed superficial. I think, though, that anime has been following a saddening trend as of late.

This trend where story and plot seems to go out the window in favour of fanservice and expensive animation. I don't think that story and animation quality are mutually exclusive, but that seems to be the trend. The wondrous creativity and ideas with which the Japanese storytellers first captured my imagination are waning and recent anime are becoming nothing more than mindless entertainment. Not that mindless entertainment is bad, but there is enough of it in our cinemas.

If I wanted to discard my mind and soak in some garbage, I'll go to the cinema. Titles such as High School of the Dead and Demon King Daimo are becoming replicated in almost every anime I see today. My point in this rant is that, although searching for promising animators is important; of greater importance (my opinion) is the search for a Master storyteller(s) that can return anime to its former splendour."

The anime director Yamamoto ("Yamakan") shared very similar views but went on to direct Kannagi and Fractale. Two anime series steeped in anime clichés and he "retired" when the latter flopped. His animation studio will be producing a Black Rock Shooter anime series this year; another series bound to be mired in ecchi/fanservice.