Indeed. People often talk of relevance and grade shows by comparing them to one another. I think the creators on the other side do this too. I also think it's total a fallacy - just a sideways way of grading things and setting goals. Just completely missing the point of what immersion is. It's not necessarily about having better this or that, or including such and such idea. It's about the actual tact and execution. I.e., "Why does this need to exist?" If something's only reason to exist is to do something better than another, then it's not gonna hold up. You can do all of that without adding any real heart or sense of identity and probably get some attention for a while, but that's about it. Because next year somebody else is gonna step-up to one up you and just like that, you're not relevant anymore. You don't need a story worth telling to grip people and "make it" but without it, your stay in the limelight will be short.
The best stuff goes beyond that whole way of thinking. Good is just, well... good, without a reference point. Look at the typical gateway shows. Hell, think about your personal gateway shows. Ever find anything quite like them? Can you really even compare them to one another in any meaningful way? Never, ever are they the norm. Think about what they have that you can't seem to find, what impacted you and made you want more for years and years... that is what makes it timeless. That's why those shows draw you in, even knowing nothing about anime. You could know nothing about storytelling and they would still blow your mind.
A good story is timeless in that it transcends cultural relevance or standards of current mediums in order to convey something in a way that only it ever can. This is what people are supposed to mean when they say something "transcends the medium." You don't need to know it's better than this or that at such and such to
feel it. "There is no comparison," people will say. It stands on its own. It creates its own standard - its own set of expectations. And it does so with the goal of leaving something behind that you can take with you, after the experience is done. In the end, even the best of the best is just a distraction - an escape. But there's nothing worse than an escape with no higher meaning.
I think of this way. A medium is basically the embodiment of a set of ideas and way of expressing them. The idea is that every new addition is supposed to add something to that set. They take you aside and show you either something you haven't seen yet, or a new way of seeing something you already have. Every single one that doesn't dissolves the meaning of what's already included. It borrows things it doesn't return. There's encapsulating the standards of the medium - using them as tools for expression, which is what they're there for, and then there is finding new uses for them and/or setting new standards. If a new addition fails to do the latter, it wastes everyone time and is quickly forgotten as yet another meaningless diversion. And that's kinda that.
Everybody gets hit by it eventually. People will say you're too jaded to the conventions. But I think if it is possible to become "too jaded" with enough exposure to the medium, then the medium isn't in good health. It's not progressing like it should be. It's not supposed to be derivative. Tapping the well is okay and honestly to be expected, but in the end things should be additive enough to avoid the sense of repetition that anime is plagued by now. That only happens when enough works are taking without giving. Anime has the problem of trying to be good at the wrong things. These shows define themselves by the wrong aspects. And it holds back progress. I think the emphasis on certain side-traits and strange obsessions with niches often discourages the kinds of works that would progress things past all of the crap we are sick to death of (or at least make it worth sticking out in spite of it) and not only make people want to stay, but draw in new people. That's where all of this "more of the same" comes from.
But the thing about it... ...how do I put it... ...as an artist working on something for public consumption, who cares about the direction your art is moving in, you sometimes gotta ask yourself "Would it matter if someone else came along and did this instead? Would it be different?" or "Does anything change by me putting this out into the world?"
At the bear minimum, you need to find a way to speak to something about the human experience in a way that is unique to your voice. Everything else is extra. But it's like anime makes the extras the focal points. They try to pile on as many bonus points as possible, but their base score sucks, so even with multipliers it still doesn't reach the high score, most of the time.
I hope I don't come off as too negative. I like anime. I've been watching it for more than half of my short life and I can name a ton of works from the medium that have definitively shaped who I am, what I like, and the way I see things. But that's why I just want it to be better
And I want the creators of it to want to be better, instead of living in fear of not capturing a specific audience and chopping their shows' balls off every time.
"
maybe this is the foundation for a new type of Anime.... 
