See Related: The End Is Nigh for Hollywood

But rather than hash that decline out yet again, instead, I'd like to discuss one nation whose film and television producers just keep hitting home runs - Japan.

My wife and I have spent a fair amount of time in Japan. In my previous life, I did a lot of business in the country. The first gig I took there was down in Kansai, the southern part of the main island of Honshu, where I stayed in a small city called Kusatsu in Shiga Prefecture, about a 45-minute train ride from Kyoto. I quickly fell in love with the place and have returned to Japan at every opportunity ever since. My wife speaks Japanese and reads some (written Japanese uses at least three different alphabets, I could never get the hang of it) so she gets along very well. We love the food, the drink, the scenery, the culture, and yes, we enjoy the television and films produced there. Many of these are animated - "Japanese animation" or "anime" encompasses a lot of genres. Some of these are happy and leave you smiling; others are heart-breaking and will leave you with tears in your eyes. Some are poorly made: bad art, lousy voice acting, bad character development, and scripting. But when they are good, they are very good. Here are some of our favorites - I'll keep it to three of each, but I could easily name dozens.

Television series

First: "Your Lie in April." Kousei Arima was a child prodigy on the piano until a traumatic event involving his overbearing mother cost him his willingness to play. Enter Kaori Miyazono, a vivacious, outgoing girl who brings Kousei out of himself and back to the piano, where he begins once again to find his former brilliance. Accompanied by Kaori on the violin, they turn in several memorable performances - but Kaori is hiding a tragic secret. This series ends on a tear-jerker, yet is somehow strangely hopeful and has the bonus of a brilliantly executed classical soundtrack.

Second: "Mushishi." The Mushi are ephemeral beings, alive but only barely corporate, undetectable to all but a few people who share a rare gift. The Mushi can cause all manner of problems to humans, including unexplained illnesses, weird weather, and other oddities. Ginko, one of those rare few who can not only detect the Mushi but who can interact with them, travels medieval Japan as a Mushi master, helping those afflicted by the Mushi. Great story arcs showing a lot of imagination, and the art is nothing short of beautiful.

Third: "Spice and Wolf." Kraft Lawrence is a traveling merchant, making his way in a world that, while fictional, resembles nothing so much as 17th-century Europe. Along the way, he encounters Holo, the Wise Wolf, a pagan harvest goddess in the form of a young woman with a wolf's ears and tail. Holo is bound to return to her original home in the far north, and Lawrence agrees to take her there, despite her being a bit overbearing and often over-indulgent with alcohol. The art is a bit better than average but the story has some very astute descriptions of economics, currency exchanges, and international trade.

Film

First: "Your Name." Taki Tachibana and Mitsuha Miyamizu are two Japanese high school students. Taki lives in Tokyo and has a part-time job in a cafe; Mitsuha lives in a small town in the mountains and expresses her frustration regularly with what she sees as the dull small-town life. But soon their lives intertwine as they begin, in their sleep, exchanging bodies. It's a neat love story that crosses the boundaries of space and time, and even so, the two manage to save Mitsuha's small town from a killer comet. Beautiful art, great script, great character development - this is one of the best.

Second: "Wolf Children." Hana is a student at a university in Tokyo when she meets and falls in love with an unnamed man who reveals himself to be a werewolf - not like the werewolves of Western horror films, but a gentle being who gives in occasionally to his feral side and hunts for small game. After they have two children, a daughter named Yuki and a son named Ame, the wolf-man is killed while hunting a pheasant, leaving Hana to care for two kids who are neither human nor wolf, but somewhere in between. To raise them in peace she moves to a house in the country, telling the children that she wants them to have the choice, whether to live as human or wolf, but she is not prepared for the choice one of her children makes.

Third: "Weathering With You." Hodaka is 15, and for unnamed reasons, he runs away from home and comes to Tokyo, where he finds an off-the-record job with Keisuke Suga and his niece Natsumi Suga, who runs a business gathering stories for various "Weekly World News" styled tabloids. In the course of running down oddball and fantastic stories, Hodaka meets Hina, a teenage girl who proves to be a "Weather Maiden" with the power to make it stop raining. Hodaka and Hina, taking advantage of an unusually rainy Tokyo summer, started a business ensuring sunny weather for those holding outdoor events. But even as Hodaka and Hina begin to fall in love, they learn that if you mess with nature, nature tends to mess back. But the film does manage a happy ending. Great art, great voice acting - Lee Pace of "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Foundation" turns in a compelling supporting performance as Keisuke Suga.

Entertainment is where we find it, of course. I could list dozens of Japanese productions; some are silly and make you laugh, others leave you with a sense of wonder, and others will make you sad. But the purpose of fiction, be it film, television, or written words, is to evoke an emotional response in the viewer/reader. These Japanese productions, along with many of the others, do that, and more.

American production companies are, as far as I am concerned, welcome to go on patting themselves on the back over mediocrities. 

See Related: Not Your Father's Golden Globes

As long as Japan's producers keep working, we'll always find entertainment to suit us.