It's Over 9,000!:

Rejoice!  Today is the day anime breaks all bounds of sanity and reaches a power level even Vegeta cannot believe.

Over 9,000 episodes of (English-translated) anime have been made that all qualify as top, great anime.  These shows all cohabit my anime hall of fame, which has 200 different franchise entries.

Some of the shows are 5 minutes long, some 12 minutes, most are 24 minutes, some are 48 minutes and some, the movies, last for hours.  But regardless of their length, they all count as one unit, and those units have now surpassed 9,000 for the very first time in world history.

If anything goes above 9,000, that indicates whoa, that's a lot, it's time to marvel at this big number over here.  For anime to reach this level of quality when it used to not even be reliably translated until the year 2000 or so is really something to stop and appreciate.  I would say it's the most important number in world history.

Anime is the best product the world has to offer, combining the talents of voice acting, music, art, animation, 3dcg, and writing into one glorious whole whose imagination can take us anywhere and do anything (unlike live action shows which, even with enormous budgets, can't film the things anime can animate on a shoestring).

When we launched our first voyager spacecraft, we embedded on it the music of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart because that was the best we had to offer God.  That's no longer the case.  These 200 franchises should be embedded onto our next golden record, because they are now the best we've ever been.

Anime > video games.  Games don't look as good and take too long.

Anime > manga.  Manga doesn't move and has no sound.

Anime > live action.  Anime can have any scale and do anything, it can also take its time and make very long shows because each individual episode is cheap.  This also allows a lower cost of entry which means more shows, more creative shows, more risk-taking in the production of new shows, etc.

Anime > music.  Anime is music and more.

Anime > visual novels.  Same as with games.

Anime > books.  Same as with visual novels.

Anime is better than everything.  It's better than everything else put together.  It's like Goku.  It's over 9,000.  And now that's even official.

The wonderful people who collaborate to make Anime Great are the best people on Earth.  From the fans who buy the stuff to the writers who create such wonderful plots, settings and characters, to the character designers who draw such lively and beautiful figures, far prettier than anyone in the real world, to the composers who have long surpassed all other forms of music, to the seiyuu who work for peanuts but express the full range of human emotions so naturally and passionately that anime comes to life and feels realer than reality itself.

The thousands of people in the industry, whatever job they work, are there because they love it, not because it makes a lot of money.  (It doesn't.)  Every single person who makes anime is someone who lives on a higher plane, a plane of ideals, a spiritual plane, that wants to create and express and enjoy Beauty more than any other worldly desire.  It's like an entire sect of ascetics slaving away every day at their own particular prayer ritual to divinity, which we can only behold from afar with awe.

Thank you, everyone, who made this happen.  You're the reason I love my life, humanity -- existence itself.  You're the justification for everything.