Lost Originality?

[Inferno]

I've been watching a lot of anime lately, and noticed some similarities between them. My question is, has anime been losing its originality? These days I can sort them into two categories:

a) Straightforward Action
This category would be like Dragonball Z where most of the story is pure fighting. The bad guy appears, the good guy fights him. One of the two die, and if it's the good guy, he's revived somehow. Also, there really isn't much of a plot to it. Just keeps repeating itself with different bad guys, basically.

b) Thoughtful Planning
This would include Naruto in it. Basically, there's still a lot of fighting, but there's also a plot that has been well thought out. For example, the author knew that Sasuke would eventually leave the village probably before the series even started, so the beginning he made sure to add reasons why he did it, including his difficult past. Full of planning, and usually the more liked category.

So, do you think that originality has been lost? (Anyone notice that there are like five other shows based off of Yugioh?)

[kris]

I started to think the same way. Of course, after watching Inu and Naruto for three years...it became quite a bore. I could predict the plot line and started to wait for it to end. Then, my thoughts changed when Death Note came around. Wow, just wow. That anime and manga turned my sights around - it was a complete 180 for me. There were so many things about it, the planning, the little details, even as I researched it now, there were little things I never noticed. I love reading the mangas, and I adore the anime. (Both will help me during Human Behavior this year) Although, in some parts, the fact Light got away was getting a bit annoying, I find it worth reading and watching again and again. (and L's conviction to convict him.) Then, I also have a wide variety of anime / manga I watch and choose from. I've been straying from most of the popular titles for manga /anime like :: From Far Away, Sensual Phrase, Mars (omg have to read that), Kare Kano, Kare First Love....There's just so many more. Most of the titles I read are not mainstream...I see similarities, but at the same time, they are much different from the Pokemon, Yugioh, Bleach (I love Bleach, though), Naruto ect..
Wow, I wound up rambling...
So, I would agree to the extent of mainstream titles, not so much the non-mainstream.

[Inferno]

Yeah, Death Note was one of the few exceptions. I read the manga almost every day now. Anyways, there are some exceptions, but most of the manga we have these days aren't original. From what I can tell, people see that people really like this manga because so and so, and decide to add it to their own story. Then someone sees there's, and it goes on and on. Even in character designs, I see the same things over and over. At the beginning of Naruto, he had goggles. When Naruto became a big hit, some mangas started putting goggles on their characters (I'm no exception, since my rp character has goggles XD). When Bleach started becoming a hit, everybody had to have giant swords that most people can't even hold upright.