Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Are Anime Series So Short These Days?
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Jonny Mendes
Posts: 997 Location: Europe |
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The BD sold like crap but the manga get a big increase. Got to top 30 of manga sales after the anime (23st top selling manga) so mission accomplish for the anime. Like i said before, the number of BD/DVDs sold are not really important for manga/LN promotion anime. The most important is how many manga/LN volumes sales increased after the anime. If there is a good increase, there are a chance for more seasons. Is noting to do with streaming on Netflix. Last edited by Jonny Mendes on Tue Sep 27, 2016 8:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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relyat08
Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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I think what it comes down to for a lot of people is seeking an ideal that has never existed, and probably won't ever exist. I know that's the case for me. I'm not forgetting what anime used to be like, but I also don't love what the production committee has created these days. I know it's probably impossible, but I want a world where the majority of shows are made to tell a complete story and advertise whatever they are selling(regardless of length, though I personally do prefer shows between 12-27 episodes). I don't think it needs to be one or the other, but it seems like most of these committees seem to be under the assumption that it does. |
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Joe Carpenter
Posts: 503 |
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I miss the days when 26 was the standard as well, 26 episodes is long enough for you to really feel like you can sink your teeth into it if a series you like but 13 episodes always feels a bit truncated. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Oh, I actually meant adaptations. Theoretically, a writer can adapt a story to a wide variety of lengths, provided the writer knows what happens in the source material and why, and the source material has ended. I think there is a way to adapt Naruto, for instance, without having to resort to insane amounts of filler while keeping whatever number of episodes Pierrot intends to have it end at, as the manga has now ended.
It sounds more like an issue with adaptation than with length. Hollywood has been making good adaptations of novels condensed down to 90 to 150 minutes, from Gone with the Wind and Pinocchio to Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series. How do they do it? They remove some characters, combine multiple characters together, skip over unimportant plot points, remove some side stories, and cut out all the steam-of-consciousness writing, while at the same time adding narrative glue so that it doesn't become like those checklists. (This is a pet peeve I have with the SyFy Channel's editing. It turns every movie it shows into this sort of checklist narration, and same with all of their anime in their Anime Unleashed block.) I'd imagine there are a lot of anime fans who will get infuriated if an anime adaptation of a manga or light novel does this, but I suspect there are many well-acclaimed anime that already do.
I think the Fullmetal Alchemist manga could've been adapted to an entertaning story told within 12 episodes. It would've had to be drastically changed, but it could be done. For one, take out all of the characters except Ed, Al, Winry, Bradley, Hohenheim, and Father. Maybe keep Kimblee as a shady exposition character. All other characters are removed entirely or as background characters to keep the world believable. Dedicate 2 to 3 episodes to the Elric Brothers, introduce us properly to Hohenheim and Father for 1 or 2 more episodes, then get straight to Father's conspiracy. Ed and Al hurry back to Central and the battle takes place there. In this one, Father works alone and has already done most of the work himself. Backstories are to be kept to indirect exposition. Will this story be as rich and detailed as the manga's story? Of course not. Can it still be entertaining when greatly simplified? Of course. Madoka has been brought up a few times as an example of a story that works at the length it has. That's because it's simple enough to move at the pace it wants to and end satisfactorily at 12 episodes. Even more so for Planetarian. Going back a couple of decades, Tenchi Muyo! was just fine at 13 episodes, with the following episodes set in a different universe. FLCL worked at only 6. (And I don't mind it getting extended. I'll treat it as a sequel.) The key is to shrink the story down so it fits within the time given to tell the story. Sculpt it down, not hack it. And I don't buy the idea that you can't properly relate to the story and understand the setting in that short a timeframe. Carl Fredericksen drove lots of people to tears 15 minutes into Up. There's no reason anime can't do that too. |
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Heishi
Posts: 1330 |
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IMO, it would be nice if anime would be more than just simply 13 episodes.
Sometimes, I wish a show would have at least 26 episodes. Maybe then, a show would feel more complete. |
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Aphasial
Exempt from Grammar Rules
Posts: 122 Location: San Diego, CA |
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The issue isn't the length *directly*; it's the length in relation to the story wanting to be told. If everyone knows something is only going to be 12 episodes long, then the full breadth of the story can be condensed down into that (however unsuccessfully). But what's worse than a highly-abridged version of a story (like a 12 ep FMA would be) is an unevenly paced one, where they have little choice but to split the difference between the likely results (either 1 cour or 2) and plan out around 16 eps worth. By episode 9 they either find out they won't be getting an extension and have to squeeze 7 eps of plot into the final 3, or find out they have more room and have to stretch that 7 out info 15. That doesn't serve much artistic benefit compared to the case where a 26 episode series is planned and they either a) adapt more of the source material to fill it, or b) spread more character development and world building into the series from the beginning. I think that's my problem most of all here: 12 eps gives you room for plot, but not world building, and the overall story of the characters' development suffers. A 12 ep series (eg, Lain, Madoka) is fine if handled properly as a coherent, well-paced story. But that's like asking every novel to be 100 pages in length. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Yeah, the fact that much of anime is adapted from something else, combined with the season system being something pretty new to anime, is what's giving them problems. They're not sure how long they can go, so they get conflicted over whether to adapt all the way to the end or to find a stopping point and keep going. I'm thinking of American television serials, which are original stories far more often than in anime, and so they don't have to deal with as many problems as when they adapt from something else. But I think that can be done in an elegant way too. The solution is, well, to find said stopping point and build towards that. If the show flops, it still ends on a high note. If the show continues, they keep drawing from the source. This is what Game of Thrones does. The writers pick some point ahead in the books that looks like a climactic finish and write the season towards that. Same goes for The Walking Dead, which also descended from print media. I can think of at least one anime that's already doing this, which is One Punch Man. The season finale is not the series finale, but the conflict does raise the stakes more than it ever did and not only does it feel climactic, it also feels like something the series could've ended on. The following arc appropriately scales things back as one would expect from a season premiere. As for world building, I think that's something that doesn't need to be prioritized. You want to make your characters relatable and your plot going forward, and world building does neither of those. Part of the reason why The Force Awakens was liked way better than any of the Star Wars prequel movies is because, unlike the prequel movies, there is almost no world building in The Force Awakens other than the background, and any world building done in that movie is plot-relevant. The movie is set in some other galaxy with space travel and aliens and all that, but it only tells you what it needs to tell you, and nothing more. To continue using Fullmetal Alchemist as an example, do we really need to know what happened to the kingdom of Xerxes? It fleshes out Father as a villain and introduces us to his grand plans, but no, we don't. Ed and Al don't learn about it, and by extension, we, as viewers, don't need to either. In a 52-episode series, that flashback enriches the series as a whole by giving us insight into how Father thinks. In a 13-episode series, you want to stick to a single person's perspective, as this is how you can end a story in a short amount of time while keeping an emotional core and keeping the story coherent. (Notice that almost all good movies pick a character and rarely drift away from that character's point of view. You have exceptions, like Nashville, but they have simple, easily introduced characters with simple plots.) |
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relyat08
Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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I don't know if this is a common problem, but a couple of friends of mine who aren't huge anime fans, will occasionally ask for recommendations and two things that they ALWAYS ask are how long is it, and does it have a conclusive ending. If a show is one cour, and doesn't have a conclusive ending, they won't watch it. Ever. Even if I tell them it does have a conclusive ending, sometimes it is hard to get them to watch it. It took quite a few tries to convince one of them that Madoka was worth their time, for example.
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DerekL1963
Subscriber
Posts: 1117 Location: Puget Sound |
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The Force Awakens could get away with that for the same reason that Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows could get away with leaving out some of the finer points - the worldbuilding, the finer points, these were already established in previous movies and well known to the target audience. An anime adaptation of an existing property is explicitly targeted at a very different audience - an audience that is unaware of your property and which you wish to convince to buy the property you're advertising. You can't simply drop the characters in and push the "go" button. The problem with worldbuilding is that so few authors are any good at it, let alone conveying the necessary details to the audience. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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One cour show from this past summer season with a conclusive ending: Orange Time Travel Girl Qualidea Code Ange Vierge If you expand the definition to "shows that went full circle" I would add; New Game! Amanchu! So it is not like one cour series that tell a full story are scarce, but if you add the "coolest series" tag you would be asking to have your cake and eat it. |
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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Yes, but your examples are mostly OVAs. That is largely the point Justin made, that the modern late night anime is as much or more like the old OVAs than daytime TV series anime (new or old). (Single discs bundled with manga volumes are still around though most of the OVA market has gone away except for huge franchises like Gundam, Yamato, and recently Code Geass.) It is a compromise because now we are guaranteed thirteen instead of even more abrupt stops with OVAs. |
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relyat08
Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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Even if you list them out, that's still a pretty small number. We had 45+ shows this season, and only 6 of them have solidly conclusive endings?! That's pretty weak sauce. If you include 2 cour shows, you could probably(hopefully. I haven't started it yet) add Kuromukuro as well. And maybe Twin Star Exorcists(?). (Interesting, didn't know that Ange Vierge had a conclusive ending was that an original?) |
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zrnzle500
Posts: 3767 |
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I don't know that they list was meant to be comprehensive. I suspect at least one show that hasn't ended to end conclusively (91 Days).
Yes Ange Vierge ended conclusively. Since it is based on a TCG I believe it is original. Now that doesn't mean the ending or show was good. Only episode without a bath scene. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I would say The Force Awakens had a bigger change in its setting than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, due to The Force Awakens being set after a timeskip (and thus technology has improved, and the political landscape is also very different) and having no locations common to previous movies except the Millennium Falcon, and I use that as an example because it could've easily fallen into a focus on worldbuilding, but it never does. It could've dwelled on the planet Maz Kanata's castle is on, but because all that's important to the story is that her castle is there, nothing is shown except her castle and the area immediately around it. Deathly Hallows, even if it also has a timeskip, is set in a close geographic range as the previous stories and the same characters. There are also movies like Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, The Wizard of Oz, and Kubo and the Two Strings that have wildly exotic settings that look like they might need a lot of explanation AND, as non-sequels, do not have an already established setting for viewers. They spend most of their time on the characters and only build the world when necessary to understand the plot. I don'tmean to say that world building is bad and should always be removed. They definitely have their place, but only in stories where they can have the time to tell them. When you're restricted to just a few hours, or even less than that, however, then you have to make way for fleshing out the characters. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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Hey, I neither can nor want to see all the series broadcast on a season, there might be a few more outside of my radar. Kuromukoro (and Seven Sin and Sinbad I will watch on Netflix later on) I have no idea, but I can asure you that Twin Star will not have a conclusive ending since the manga is still going strong. Ange Virge (aka soft core lesbians in paradise island fight with the evil phalic looking aliens) is better than Valkyrie Drive, but the story is weak (but the technobabble is funny) and the lightbeams are obnoxious. There were TWO episodes without bathing scenes! So yeah, when production committees think they have a hit series they usually get two cours (or split cours). So better pray that crunchy/funi start stocking in movies if you want short but awesome animes. |
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