Any time you create a place dedicated specifically to old nostalgic stuff there will inevitably be disagreement on what’s actually old and nostalgic enough. The older you get the less significant a passage of time a single Decade feels like.
So here I am in 2025 objecting to 2014 shows like Terror in Resonance (which I do like, this is not about hating on it) being seen as remnants of a bygone era even though in 2005 I absolutely did see 1994 stuff that way.
However this is justified by the connotative differences I see between the different words we use to convey this idea.
A Classic is something a piece of Art can become instantly, Frieren is a good example of a contemporary Anime gaining Instant Classic status in the eyes of many. We associate the term with old stuff mainly because the Classics of older eras have stood the test of time and so there is less dispute that they are indeed Classics. But then people call anything of a certain age a Classic even if it was never highly regarded at the time or in hindsight thus diluting it's meaning.
Retro however to me implies more than just age in a very different way.
As a Millennial I don’t know if this is unique to me or not but the first time I heard the word I was under the impression it specifically meant the 80s, as in something could be too old to be Retro just as much as it could be too young. I now realize that was never officially what it meant, it was just a product of living through an era when that was the most popular Decade to be Nostalgic for. Strangely that era seemed to begin while we were still in the 90s and hasn't fully gone away.
However what remains in my perspective is that to be Retro implies not just being old but being old in a way where what’s coming out today isn’t even made of the same stuff anymore.
Anime has in a lot of ways stagnated (In a way that Western Entertainment media has not.), the trends that are defining Anime now are for the most part the same trends that were defining it in 2014. Both in terms of popular genres and artstyles. I can absolutely see what someone might mean by looking at 2014 American movies and TV shows and saying "they don't make em like that anymore", I would disagree with that making them inherently superior or inferior but I can see how one would say that. With Anime however they definitely are still making them like they did in 2014.
I could show Terror in Resonance to someone who hadn't heard of it before even though they are fairly versed in Anime history and tell them it came out last year and they would have no reason not to believe me. However that same hypothetical person in 2015 would not be so easily tricked by a 2004 Anime.
That said it’s not like I can give a solid objective explanation of what it is Anime I consider Retro have that the rest do not. Being Cell Animated rather than Digital helps, but plenty of Early Digital stuff feels Retro now too thanks to how early Digital Animation hadn't standardized how it worked yet.
I'm glad Terror in Resonance is on a Free Website, but it’s also on Tubi.Tv where I feel it fits in better.
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