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Hi everyone
I 've been watching anime for 4 years now and I've had so much fun doing that. I've always been looking forward to watching new good anime with so much exitement and it really is one of the fun things in my life. But I'm afraid it has been a few months that I couldn't find an anime to fall in love with. I believe Japanese anime industry is paying too much attention to show their ability to make the series so perfect by showing the tiniest details of the scenes or people. Although this quality of japan's anime is what I love about them, I think the story the series based on has a great importance too.
Before there were series like Itazura na Kiss, kaichou wa maid-sama, saiunkoku monogatari, Blood+, Boys over flowers and so many others with great story lines although some of them should have been followed by another seasons but never that happened. Many animes are abandoned with no news or intentions to be continued like la corda d'oro or Kare Kano! That's too bad and disappointing I believe.
Also I think animes should have enough episodes (at least 26 eps) to convey the story in a way they should but again unlike before that there were long series, today they're mostly limited to 11 or 13 eps without any announcement for second seasons or so.
So I think Japanese anime should consider not only visual perfection that in fact they do very efficiently, but also what the anime is all about.
Please tell me if you're agreed or have other ideas. Very Happy

Sorry, but your perceptions are off on a lot of the issues you mention. The bulk of anime series have always been in the 12-13 episode range (and, frankly, some of them barely have enough content to warrant that many), but there have still been a goodly number of ones over the past couple of years with 24+ episodes. The last 2-3 seasons haven't been any shorter on series with strong storylines than seasons which preceded them, either. In fact, the general consensus so far this year seems to be that this is either an average or above-average year for quality content.

It is entirely possible that there just wasn't much the last two seasons that worked for you - that happens to everyone from time to time - but that doesn't mean that there wasn't good stuff out there.

I actually had a question myself that might be fitting, considering the initial question at hand here. I realize that the 12-13 episode range has been standard, but to me this seems to not make economic sense. Animation is naturally expensive, but as more stock footage piles up and more frames can be reused, shouldn't the process become less expensive over time? Some of the long running shonen fighting series clearly reuse a large portion of the animated content from episode to episode in the manner that I'm describing, but in many other types of series, this doesn't seem to be done as often. Is there a reason? I would have also expected frames and particular sequences to be copied from series to series within a studio to reduce costs.

It may be true that 26 episode series were never as common, but they fell like they have become less common. I certainly have not watched one recently, not since Ghost in the Shell.

vashna wrote:

I actually had a question myself that might be fitting, considering the initial question at hand here. I realize that the 12-13 episode range has been standard, but to me this seems to not make economic sense. Animation is naturally expensive, but as more stock footage piles up and more frames can be reused, shouldn't the process become less expensive over time? Some of the long running shonen fighting series clearly reuse a large portion of the animated content from episode to episode in the manner that I'm describing, but in many other types of series, this doesn't seem to be done as often. Is there a reason? I would have also expected frames and particular sequences to be copied from series to series within a studio to reduce costs.

Late night anime (aimed at dedicated collectors who pay a fortune for DVD or Blu-Ray discs) doesn't make money on broadcast, so the whole revenue structure works differently from long-running shounen series.

Doing a late night show requires hefty investment up front, and there's no guarantee that the video discs will sell. That's why the tendency is to produce a shorter series and then create a sequel if it takes off.

At any rate, repeat footage makes a series look cheap, which isn't the best way to market expensive DVDs.

Ah, I hadn't considered the idea of late night anime that's ideally more structured towards the sale of expensive collector's sets. However, I trust that the longer running shounen fighting series do make extensive use of such footage recycling? I'd have to imagine it really becomes necessary, and I've noticed a lot of repeat footage in shows adapted from Jump properties and the work of similar manga magazines.

Anymouse wrote:

It may be true that 26 episode series were never as common, but they fell like they have become less common. I certainly have not watched one recently, not since Ghost in the Shell.

Selective viewing.

Compare one season of anime VS everything in the past. Obviously we'll be able to name a ton if we have a range of even only a few years

Anymouse wrote:

It may be true that 26 episode series were never as common, but they fell like they have become less common. I certainly have not watched one recently, not since Ghost in the Shell.

Let's consider this year alone, shall we?

Gosick aired 24 episodes covering the Winter and Spring seasons.

Hanasaku Iroha started in the Spring season and is airing its 24th episode (of 26) on Sunday.

Blue Exorcist and Steins;Gate both also started in the Spring season and are heading towards 24 episodes.

My Ordinary Life and SKET Dance both started in the Spring season and are head towards 26 episodes.

Beelzebub, which started in the Winter season, is apparently headed for 36.

If you go back and compare this to the past 3-4 years, I'm sure you'll find that this has been pretty typical.

I suppose so. My viewing has become more selective probably.

It's not that anime is worse... you're just catching up, is all. New fans have the notable benefit of being able to cherry-pick the best of the last several years, which creates a false perception of anime being 'worse' once you run out of triple A titles. I've been watching for about 10 years or so now, and I only get really into one or two new shows a year anymore. If it really bothers you, go old-school... the last 30+ years are full of amazing shows that don't get much attention anymore. I'm sure there's plently out there to help fill the void until something new grabs you again.

TitanXL wrote:

Selective viewing.

And selective memories. There's only one way to address this question -- actually counting series.

Using AniDB as the base I counted non-hentai TV series (with "synonyms" removed) that began on or after 9/1/2010. That results in 96 series for the 2010-2011 season. Of those, 80 are listed as having 13 episodes or fewer, or 83%.

For comparison, applying the same method to 2007-2008, counting series that began on or after 9/1/2007 and ended on or before 8/31/2008 results in a total of 135 series. Of those, 69, or 51%, ran for 14 episodes* or fewer.

So, to summarize, we have:

Code:

1-14 15+ Total
2007-08 51% 49% 135
2010-11 83% 17% 96

Not only are one-cour series much more common, the total number of series produced has fallen by nearly thirty percent. But don't let the evidence get in the way of random speculation; that's what online forums are best at.

__________
* One series in 2007-08 ran for fourteen episodes; in 2010-11, all series had either 13 or fewer episodes, or 20 or more.

Excellent analysis, yuna49. Let me add some of my own.

First, the market is oversaturated. For nearly all people, the budget for entertainment is limited. And due to the stagnant economy, the budgets are not expanding. So there is a limited demand for the product. In order to continue to make money, the anime companies must either increase demand or reduce supply. Efforts like noitaminA seek to increase demand by opening new markets of anime viewers, while the drop in titles produced (and the reduction of episode counts) attack the latter method. Personally, I believe the anime industry is still producing too many titles per year, but if you reduce supply too much you run the risk of losing fans and talent.

As for anime quality, 2011 has had some really good shows. Madoka is Masterpiece level, Penguin Drum could be better than Madoka, Usagi Drop is up in this area, everyone but me loves Tiger & Bunny, there was the market release of Redline, &c. There is some real talent this year. Here are the numbers of Masterpieces and Excellents (what I call a quality show) I've voted for (your experience may vary) broken down by year.

Year: # of Masterpieces: # of Excellents
1993: 0 : 2
1994: 1 : 0
1995: 0 : 1
1996: 0 : 3
2001: 3 : 0
2003: 1 : 1
2004: 0 : 1
2005: 3 : 1
2006: 1 : 1
2007: 1 : 3
2008: 4 : 3
2009: 1 : 4
2010: 2 : 2
2011: 1 : 0
And if Penguin Drum lives up to it's standard, we'll have an additional tally in 2011. For the decade of the 'aughts, there was an average of 2.8 quality shows per year (28/10) and if you take out the outlier of 2008, you get 2.3 quality shows per year (21/9). 2011 will most likely have 2 to 3 quality shows (depending on whether Usagi Drop makes the cut) and so it will remain on average for the last decade. Of course, 2011 looks weak compared to the last five years, but I view that more as a regression to the norm and with a possible observer bias on my part.

yuna49 wrote:

Not only are one-cour series much more common, the total number of series produced has fallen by nearly thirty percent. But don't let the evidence get in the way of random speculation; that's what online forums are best at.

Statistics are once again our friend. Thank you! It is not just my imagination, things have changed.

That is, indeed, an interesting statistical analysis. Hearing about the decrease in the number of series doesn't surprise me, but I am quite surprised to see that the proportion of longer series really is down by that much.

An interesting follow-up would be to see if the proportion of series that get follow-up series has also substantively changed - i.e. if the lower number of longer series is being partly or completely balanced out by more sequels. It certainly seems like the number of series getting OVA follow-ups has dramatically increased; fan service-intensive ones in particular have become commonplace the last couple of years, and I don't remember as many of them being around a few years ago.

vashna wrote:

I actually had a question myself that might be fitting, considering the initial question at hand here. I realize that the 12-13 episode range has been standard

Scheduling is in seasons, and that is how long a season (a real season, not the US TV/DVD concept of seasons) lasts. Longer anime simply run for more than one season.

Quote:

Animation is naturally expensive, but as more stock footage piles up and more frames can be reused, shouldn't the process become less expensive over time?

That only applies to shows that actually do have stock sequences like:

Quote:

long running shonen fighting series clearly reuse a large portion of the animated content from episode to episode in the manner that I'm describing, but in many other types of series, this doesn't seem to be done as often. Is there a reason? I would have also expected frames and particular sequences to be copied from series to series within a studio to reduce costs.

Shows that aren't based around a monster-of-the-week or other repetitive format don't have much footage that can be re-used. Those kind of shows are also aimed at a younger demographic who doesn't care about the repetition.