Forum - View topicAnswerman - Where Do "Seasons" On Long-Running Anime Begin And End?
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rizuchan
 Posts: 980 Location: Kansas |
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I'm surprised no one has brought up the easiest and most obvious way to tell... it's when the OP/ED changes. For the most part, in long running anime, the OP and/or ED still change every 1-2 cour. Plus, most writers for long shows still tend to like to wrap up long running story arcs at the end of a cour. Obviously there are exceptions, especially cliff-hangers, and filler arcs can be all over the place. Although shows do still tend to return to canon at the beginning of a cour.
And of course this doesn't apply to older shows like Dragonball that keep the same songs for the entire or majority of the run. |
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Maidenoftheredhand
 Posts: 2634 |
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And this isn't true with modern long running series either. Well I don't know about every series but Dragon Ball Super gets a new ending song every 12 episodes I believe but that doesn't necessarily mean they have started a new season especially when the story-line hasn't changed. I just don't think there are seasons when it comes to long running shows and that is an easier way to look at it. It is just easier to think in terms of story arc when it comes to long series in my opinion. That makes a lot more sense than season. |
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UkiyaSeed
Posts: 117 |
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When Naruto and Naruto Shippuden aired in the Philippines, each "season" has at least 52 episodes and that's consistent whether it is airing on Animax or in ABS-CBN (one of the largest TV networks in the Philippines) and its affiliate cable channels. Both have Naruto learning Rasengan stuff up until the first Naruto vs. Sasuke compiled as Season 3.
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13597 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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@Otaku-sempai: yes, a change in the OP/ED is perhaps the easiest way to tell when a season begins/ends, which is also done when a story arc changes (nod to @Raikuro).
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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I'd like to say that America got it wrong first, using the word "season" to refer to something that doesn't bear any relation to an actual physical season. It because of this confusion with a flipping English word that we have to keep falling back on bastardised French so as not to get confused. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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And I'd like to point out that the word "season" can simply refer to any period of time with a common characteristic. The New Oxford American Dictionary (not sure about other dictionaries, but that's the one I looked up) has this as its 1a definition: "a period of the year characterized by a particular climatic feature or marked by a particular activity, event, or festivity." I mean, you have that line from the Christmas song "Deck the Halls" in which "'Tis the season to be jolly," which isn't referring to tne entirety of winter, but only to the week or so pertaining to Christmas.
A period in which TV or radio show rolling out new episodes would definitely qualify for that definition. (Besides, the Answerman answer points out that its origins DO relate to climatic seasons in that people would not really listen to the radio during the summer months because it's hot.) That being said, I also live in a desert climate where we don't get the normal spring-summer-fall-winter seasons, and to us, those are simply 3-month periods of time for convenient referencing. Instead, we have a rainy season that goes from December to roughly April or May and a dry season that spans the rest of the year. The four classic seasons only really exists in temperate climates, considering the tropical regions don't see much difference over the year and wouldn't really have distinct climatic seasons at all. |
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Gatherum
 Posts: 773 Location: Aurora CO |
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The problem with the OP/ED method is that, in some shows, one changes far more frequently than the other, one example being One Piece. Why does the ED change twice as often as the OP? I haven't the faintest clue, but the execution suggests a blatant disregard even for story arcs.
The Wikipedia entries, in that case, are actually fairly apt, since they do generally follow major arc divisions. "Season 1" covers the entire East Blue saga; 2 covers Laboon, Whiskey Peak, and that island with the giants (can't remember the name right now), 3 covers Drum Island, 4 covers Alabasta, 5 is a collection of interim filler arcs, 6 is Jaya and Skypiea, and so on. It's numerically inconsistent in terms of episode count, but otherwise quite sensible. It's useful for Wikipedia to take notes from Japanese DVD releases because a straight list of episodes for a show like One Piece or any of these others with no divisions would account for a very large article through which it would be difficult to scroll or navigate. Personally, when ripping and organising my media, I follow Wikipedia's format, whether their source is a Japanese DVD, some division made by some American company (as is the case with the YuYu Hakusho list), or what else. It's convenient and makes my database easier to navigate without me having to make determinations myself about where to have divisions or whatever. Last edited by Gatherum on Mon Oct 30, 2017 2:12 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Emperor Fred
 Posts: 32 Location: Ottawa, ON |
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The loose definition of a TV season these days is basically how many episodes a production staff made in one go. That clearly doesn't apply to a perpetually running anime.
Honestly, if you're going to apply the concept of TV seasons to this type of anime, I think the simplest way is to note how many episodes air in a year. Ignoring the usual summer hiatuses, traditionally primetime broadcast network TV shows have a season that starts in September or October, and the next season begins the next September or October. It gives you a good sense of how many episodes they crank out on an annual basis, since they very rarely do a full 52, but also rarely do they break down into neat little sets of 12 or 13. Barring of course any obvious "season" changes like a lengthy hiatus, major production staff or design changes, or the anime itself flat-out telling you which Season is which. |
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Lord Oink
Posts: 876 |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Besides official statements of cutoff points for seasons (or official merchandise or home video releases), it would definitely make sense to have seasons that long. Nowadays, most TV shows that run in seasons, besides weekday shows like game shows or soap operas, have seasons that are 26 episodes or shorter. However, children's television in the 80's and 90's would often have been done all at once, 52 episodes or even more. DuckTales (the original one) and The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog are both treated as one single large season (though TV.com splits them into a few very short seasons, which seems to be based on breaks in the broadcast, and DuckTales was released in "season" sets).
I've never figured out Toei's logic in when to change up their opening and ending sequences. That being said, for One Piece, some of the arcs are so long (due to the one-chapter-per-episode pacing) that they'd have to eventually cycle to the next one mid-arc. |
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Gatherum
Posts: 773 Location: Aurora CO |
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List of things that don't make much sense in Japanese media and marketing:
Like, just look at the Japanese trailer for volume 3 of RWBY. Without a doubt, it's a very powerfully emotional trailer, true enough, but it spoils so damned much--basically everything--that if somebody told me that it was made more for American audiences to coax them in to importing their Blu-ray sets for their dub, I'd seriously consider it a credible claim.* ...Until I come to realise that this is not far from the way OP's and ED's are handled, especially in shōnen. What is the prevailing mentality over there? Do they just assume that their audiences are less concerned about what happens than they are about how or why? Meanwhile, said OP's and ED's change every full moon or so, if that. Why? Like, it might not be the best comparison, but something like, say, House, M.D. had one theme through its entire eight-season run, as far as I know (two, if you want to split hairs about licensing difficulties in the United Kingdom). To be fair, Massive Attack's "Teardrop" beats most anime OP's and ED's by a country mile, and probably has more staying power in general. Even that, though, wouldn't explain why we need another two or more theme songs every thirteen to twenty-six episodes. What's the deal? Does music just not have any staying power even amongst their domestic audience? Are the producers assuming that their viewers will got bored with it after a season? Is it somehow cheaper to license dozens of songs in the life span of a given show, as opposed to just sticking with one? I mean...I'm gonna be honest: the first theme for Boruto was...pretty perfect for it, from the song itself to the visuals. Really nailed the mood of the show. I think they could have stuck with it as the theme for the show until the next time-skip, or until the Village Hidden in the Leaves stopped being relevant as the hub town (which...probably wouldn't happen, honestly). Hell, I would have been more than happy with them keeping the song, but changing the montage to reflect the current arc in the Village Hidden in the Mist, or doing the K-On! thing and altering it slightly to showcase a new main character (Azusa being the reference, here). Instead, we got...whatever it is we have now. Like, it's been several weeks and I can't even recall the song at all. There's no consistency anywhere, and it bugs me. * ...It totally worked on me. |
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1840 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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Record labels sponsor a lot of anime. The OP/EDs are basically advertising for the CD singles. Once a single is OOP, there's not much point in using it as a theme song on a long-running show. |
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Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
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There's no real point to having seasons in Japan since the long shows air every week, barring holidays. It's not like here where a show only gets 13 episodes a year. Seasons in Japan only work in the context of shorter anime that take breaks, like Haruhi 1 and 2. If an dubbing compy tries to tell you a long running show has seasons, they are pretty much lying and making things up.
Quite the opposite. Anime songs regularly top the music charts and become hit albums and singles. Their timeslots are highly coveted, which leads to companies buying them for the exposure. Anime changing songs is one of the great things about it. It helps reflect the show's change in direction, plot, or themes. Keeping the same theme for hundreds of episodes shows no sign of progress with the story or characters, and leads to things like the Dragonball Z opening where you have Saiyajin saga stuff in the OP despite it being the Cell arc. Granted, it's not a big deal for American TV, since they rarely have actual theme songs anymore, but in Japan they are still a big deal. They're so popular they hold large concerts that can play theme songs exclusively. Theme songs have a lot more staying power in Japan than here. Also have to mention House used a license song from the 90s for its opening, they didn't create it. -Stuart Smith |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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As far as spoilers in the sequences go, that's actually something I've been wondering about myself, really. My guess is that since most of these long-runners are adapted from manga, they're assuming either the viewer has already read the manga or is aware of what happens later on (and in this day and age where there's a race to pick up on plot events as soon as possible, with YouTube spoilers even in their thumbnails, it's very difficult to avoid spoilers without sequestering yourself). Another possibility is that what you're interpreting as spoilers are what they're interpreting as teasers. It may be that they believe that, to an uninformed viewer, they'll think, "Who is this character?" or "What is the significance of this shot?" You can see it in the closing sequence of Attack on Titan Season 2, for instance, in which all of the artwork looks cryptic and confusing at the beginning of the season, then some of them (but not all) start making more sense when you reach the relevant plot points, such as spoiler[Ymir's awakening as a sentient Titan]. Something I've noticed is that to someone who truly has no prior knowledge of a story, there will be some things they will not even recognize as spoilers if it goes by quickly enough or is ambiguous enough. For instance, merchandise for Inside Out commonly includes Bing Bong as a major character--and in a way, he is--but the circumstances in which he's introduced, why he is a major character, and even his very existence, can be spoilerish.
Depends on what you mean by theme song. If you mean an established licensed song (like "Who Are You" for CSI), those have never been frequent to begin with. If you mean a song made specifically for the opening sequence and used for no other purpose other than the TV show's leitmotif (like for The Simpsons), that's still extremely common. It just comes down to the fact that opening themes are used for different purposes between Japan and the United States. |
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