What do you think may have caused anime to become much darker recently?

The last five years or so have seen a lot more anime in general, but the last three years have seen more dark anime, ranging from action-horror anime like Attack on Titan to horror anime like Dead Dead Demon's Dededededestruction, and even anime that are dark enough to be classified as body horror. This has extended the trend of dark anime that has been ongoing for the last ten years, but the last five years have seen a lot more of this type of content.<br><br>This is not a value judgment. I am just trying to figure out what is causing this trend. I have my own theories, but I would like to hear what other people think.<br><br>I have my own theory about what is causing this trend. I would say that this trend is due to the fact that Japanese pop culture is now more majoritarily based on horror today than it was fifteen years ago. Fifteen years ago, it was mainly sci-fi that had the most influence on the horror genre and then there was a wave of body horror that came with the rise of "Ero Guro" art in Japan. Today, Japanese pop culture seems to be more influenced by internet creepypasta and internet urban legends, which has really changed how horror is depicted in contemporary Japanese media. Today's horror is more atmospheric and subtle, with more of an emphasis on creeps and jump scares. This is not new to anime, as anime has been historically influenced by horror, but I think that the ways that horror is depicted in today's media is distinctly different than how it was depicted in previous eras.<br><br>I think that this trend in Japanese media reflects a changing global culture that is more horror-centric. I think that horror is becoming more and more popular globally, and that Japanese media reflects this. I think that horror is becoming more mainstream, with the border between horror and non-horror becoming more and more blurred, and that reflects how much more horror-centric Japanese pop culture is today than it was fifteen years ago.<br><br>But I do not think that changes in Japanese media alone can account for why there has been so many dark anime recently. It seems to me that today, Japanese media is more connected to global culture, and that there are more shared trends.<br><br>Over the last ten years, I think that the global trend has been towards more dark media, but I have noticed that the last five years have seen even more of a shift in this direction. I think that there is a global trend towards more dark media. I also think that the last five years have seen a lot of trends from global pop culture reflected in anime, such as AI, virtual reality, video games, zombies, and global catastrophes. I think that today's global pop culture is more horror-centric and dark, and that this appears to have influenced Japanese pop culture as a whole, and obviously anime.