I think its interesting... the older I get, the more I roll my eyes whenever anime is mentioned. In my formative years, cowboy bebop was my favorite show... maybe my hesitation towards anime today is some concern that nothing could be as good as cb; or is my imagination not as good and i require live action filming? Curious if others have experienced similar; im 30+

Unfortunately, space opera and science fiction don't seem to be as popular in anime now as they once were. I wouldn't say nothing could be as good as Cowboy Bebop, since "good" is subjective. There are certainly anime with the same quality of animation, and now that Japan actually cares about the international market, the quality of English dubs and subtitles has gone up.

There is still good anime being made IMO, just not in the same genre as CB, since that no longer sells. Most new anime seems to be isekai (please God make it stop), shonen fantasy/horror, slice of life and, to quote Gigguk, "I can't believe it's not hentai."

But there's so much new anime out now that Sturgeon's Law kind of guarantees most of it is going to be crap.

Cowboy Bebop is a great show with nothing else like it. I feel the same, but I still enjoy CB, Princess Mononoke, Grave of Fireflies etc. My immediate association with anime is a over sexualized cartoon with way to many episodes (knowing that's not true for the anime I have watched).