Extra: What has the rapid rise in popularity done for anime; good or bad

Joey The Anime Man, AkiDearest and Gaijin Goomba discuss how they feel about anime's rapid rise in popularity. Aki thinks there was more creative freedom in the past; more gore and weirdness. Nowadays there's more censorship and a lack of demand for the gory, weird content. People love the cute girl, bright animation and simple slice-of-life storyline in 12 episodes because of patience (or lack of). In saying that, some gems have come out recently.

Not everyone appreciates the anime with deep messages, which leads to a discussion on whether all anime has to have deeper meaning.

Anime's not dying, but there are parts of it that have faded away. People debate that the quality has declined, but the trio think it's just changed. What the audience sees as a good story has changed - the demand is different. What do you think?