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I don't know if they are necesarily better but they had a different appeal to them. Back then the nuclear holocaust that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki still had people who either saw it first hand or felt connected to it via their parents or elders, and before that even, people who grew up in the 60s when Anime was brand new still had relatives who were born in the 19th Century when abjact poverty was a dime a dozen for many many Japanese families.
But now, in the current day and age, all of that is mostly history besides really old people who are separated by at least two whole generations from the people currently working on the newest Animes.
What do I mean by this? Well, back then older generationse tried to instill the younger generations with the core values that made it possible for them gather enogh resiliece to survive the hell they went though, so many stories from the 60s and 70s were truly guttwrenching because in order for some to thrive everyone suffered and even amongst those who suffered the most some didn't make it.
That's how you got stories like A Dog Of Flanders, Nobody's Boy Remi, 30,000 Leagues in Search of Mother, or, The Story of Perrine. But beyond that even Shounen and Sienen Anime had stints of tragedy to them, like Kamui Gaiden is a crude representation of Feudal Japan where hunger was rampant, injustice was codified into law, accepted and unavoidable, etc. and even shows like Speed Racer present stories about broken men, corporate corruption, dysfunctional families, powerless innocent people, etc.
While some of those topics are still prevalent, specially in retelling of old stuff like Gundam, The Rose OF Versailes, Anne (of the Green Gables) Shirley , etc. most creators now would feel like the stuff their elders went through would be like fantastic or overly dramatic twisted tales of fiction or just plain fabrication, so they chose to focus on stuff that are relatable to them today, like loneliness, alienation, social discrimination, etc. because even if you're told those stories and believe them at face value the impact from living them or from getting to know them by people who went through them from first hand experience cannot be match by what you get from record keeping, no matter how hard you try.
IE a few years ago I watched a drama series called Oshin from 1982 and quite frankly when watching it out of the blue you feel that it's gratuitous suffering for the sake of it, you feel its horrible and you feel horrible by watching it, BUT when you put yourself in the frame of mind of the people who wrote the story, probably the sons of the generation that was born with the change of century and survived WW2, and you ponder for a bit longer, being introspective not just about the people within the narrative but about your own oportunities and life choices you realize how beautiful it is that somebody took the time to preserve that story despite probably every fiver of their body telling them not to.
With that said, that uniquely Japanese perspective is not truly gone for good, it just really hard to land it within a specific narrative niche that is both structurally built with the cultural elements predominant today yet somehow encompassing of those core values. Those are somehow easier to find in films such as the Hayao Miyazaki and Naoko Yamada stuff, and a notable mention to Mari Okada for Maquia: When The Promised Flower Blooms, rather than episodic Anime as it was common back in the day. But so far I've seen an Anime you might've heard of that is pretty good at doing this: To Your Eternity. And yes, I highly recomend it.
But now, in the current day and age, all of that is mostly history besides really old people who are separated by at least two whole generations from the people currently working on the newest Animes.
What do I mean by this? Well, back then older generationse tried to instill the younger generations with the core values that made it possible for them gather enogh resiliece to survive the hell they went though, so many stories from the 60s and 70s were truly guttwrenching because in order for some to thrive everyone suffered and even amongst those who suffered the most some didn't make it.
That's how you got stories like A Dog Of Flanders, Nobody's Boy Remi, 30,000 Leagues in Search of Mother, or, The Story of Perrine. But beyond that even Shounen and Sienen Anime had stints of tragedy to them, like Kamui Gaiden is a crude representation of Feudal Japan where hunger was rampant, injustice was codified into law, accepted and unavoidable, etc. and even shows like Speed Racer present stories about broken men, corporate corruption, dysfunctional families, powerless innocent people, etc.
While some of those topics are still prevalent, specially in retelling of old stuff like Gundam, The Rose OF Versailes, Anne (of the Green Gables) Shirley , etc. most creators now would feel like the stuff their elders went through would be like fantastic or overly dramatic twisted tales of fiction or just plain fabrication, so they chose to focus on stuff that are relatable to them today, like loneliness, alienation, social discrimination, etc. because even if you're told those stories and believe them at face value the impact from living them or from getting to know them by people who went through them from first hand experience cannot be match by what you get from record keeping, no matter how hard you try.
IE a few years ago I watched a drama series called Oshin from 1982 and quite frankly when watching it out of the blue you feel that it's gratuitous suffering for the sake of it, you feel its horrible and you feel horrible by watching it, BUT when you put yourself in the frame of mind of the people who wrote the story, probably the sons of the generation that was born with the change of century and survived WW2, and you ponder for a bit longer, being introspective not just about the people within the narrative but about your own oportunities and life choices you realize how beautiful it is that somebody took the time to preserve that story despite probably every fiver of their body telling them not to.
With that said, that uniquely Japanese perspective is not truly gone for good, it just really hard to land it within a specific narrative niche that is both structurally built with the cultural elements predominant today yet somehow encompassing of those core values. Those are somehow easier to find in films such as the Hayao Miyazaki and Naoko Yamada stuff, and a notable mention to Mari Okada for Maquia: When The Promised Flower Blooms, rather than episodic Anime as it was common back in the day. But so far I've seen an Anime you might've heard of that is pretty good at doing this: To Your Eternity. And yes, I highly recomend it.
