Indeed, I suspect the problem is that anime evolved in the oppressive pressure cooker that is Japanese culture to be hyper appealing to those with neurotic or autistic traits, then it escaped out into the rest of the world to exploit the same rising vulnerabilities in other countries.
That's honestly not far off.
Manga at least started out great. Osamu Tezuka got the ball rolling, and he was a genius--ironically, one who was into western media like cartoons and pulp sci-fi stories--with an additional dash of having a medical degree (he could've been a doctor and been assured of a safe income, but he chose to draw comics), spiritual beliefs, and having lived through some of Japan's darkest days.
People tend to remember he was the "Father of Manga." What often gets lost in the conversation is
his stuff was damn good. His manga, at least--anime adaptations of his work tend to watch like a safe, watered-down version. Fortunately in most cases the manga are easier to find in English. Anyway, while his art tends towards simplistic and cartoony, his stories tend to have themes and ideas that I've honestly seen nobody else attempt. Recommendations are Phoenix (at least try to finish the first two volumes), Ayako, and the short story collection Clockwork Apple. Those are all manga... anime selections are sparse and tend to not be good adaptations.
Okay, enough praising one man.
So here's the thing.... much like how J.R.R. Tolkien set off a boom of people who saw his work and said "I wanna do that too!" so did Tezuka, so now manga (and soon anime) was becoming a regular industry. But also like Tolkien, a lot of his imitators were just... nowhere near as good, and often were only distinguished by a gimmick (like Go Nagai being known for sex, blood, and demonic themes). Even the best stuff tended to feel like it was just aping the main man.
And then he died, and with that, the only person who actually made works of
art in either medium was gone, and the slow decline into slop began. Without true visionaries, mediums tend to decay, and eventually end up being just corporate brainrot. That's where anime is now: people don't tell stories anymore, they just try to hook you with obvious emotional manipulation--often descending into Stephen King-esque hackery of "let's just arbitrarily have bad things happen to the cutest character in the room in order to coax a reaction out of the audience."
And then people who weren't around for the old days and have an irrational fear of watching or reading anything from before they were born, get into the medium and elevate the goyslop, and the slide into hell is complete.
