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This Week in Anime - Will We Ever Know Why Anime Get Cancelled?


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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 2702
Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 8:22 am Reply with quote
An especially notorious cancelled anime was the originally planned Saint Seiya: Tenkai-hen back in the early 00s. The fifth Seiya movie, Tenkai-hen Jousou ~overture~ was meant to be the introduction to a full-on TV anime that would continue the Saint Seiya story from where the manga ended off at, but the final product had a bunch of controversy.

Apparently, director Shigeyasu Yamauchi diverged too far from original creator Masami Kurumada's plans with the movie, & after seeing the final product in early 2004 Kurumada decided to simply can the entire Tenkai-hen TV anime, as well as (allegedly) removing Yamauchi from all future Seiya anime productions, in general. Kurumada would then debut the manga Saint Seiya: Next Dimension in 2006, which would act as the canon sequel/prequel (because time travel) to the original manga, and only now with the final run of chapters about to come out are there indications that the "Tenkai-hen" portion will finally be told in the future. To be fair, the Tenkai-hen movie is a really weird one in some regards, so I can believe that it strayed from Kurumada's original plans, at the time.

Not just that, but Kurumada also felt that the original voice actors for the Bronze Saints had gotten too old to properly reprise their roles after both the Hades Sanctuary OVA & the Tenkai-hen movie, so Kurumada asked for them to all be recast. The only exception was for Tohru Furuya as Seiya (because, seriously, that guy's voice doesn't age), but Furuya refused to reprise Seiya if everyone else was recast, & that's what resulted in all five Bronzes being recast for the Hades Inferno OVA, and aside from the rare exception (like Saint Seiya Omega) it's the Hades recast that continues to voice the Bronzes to this very day.

Personally, I can't fault Kurumada for feeling the way he did, because outside of Furuya everyone did sound notably older in Hades Sanctuary, and even though Ryo Horikawa tried his best to still sound young as Shun in that there was the occasional moment where you could hear his older voice crack through. Was it worth recasting everyone? Maybe not, but what's done is done & the current Seiya voices have more than earned their spots in the years since.

Wikipedia also tries to argue that a fifth season of the Ring ni Kakero 1 anime was in the works until Shingo Araki passed away in late 2011, even citing ANN's own news article about Araki's death, but there's been literally no proof of such a thing happening at all.
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AsleepBySunset



Joined: 07 Sep 2022
Posts: 245
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 8:54 am Reply with quote
I suppose you could say the arifureta cancellation left a sour taste in my mouth. I did see the key visual/teaser visual that was posted on here pre-redesign, while I have no interest in watching either version, it was just slightly 2005 (think tokyo underground) character designs... The fact the author was so shocked and objected so strongly that he got the animators to reanimate the whole thing, even though arifureta, is as far as I can tell, a C list, dime a dozen, generic webnovel, sure a bit more popular than some other web novels but its not a once in a life time hit like harry potter or something.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to authors risking it and letting someone else adopt their "baby" (as much as a web novel can ever be a "baby"), and the fact the author just doesn't get creative control of how it looks, unless they do the pitch package and adapt it themself... But yeesh...

To me the arifureta adaption being infamously bad is a little bit schaudenfraude.
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Glordit



Joined: 11 Sep 2020
Posts: 696
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 9:38 am Reply with quote
I don't follow the industry very much but the few times I am aware of the details of a cancellation or reboot of the production, it's generally because the director or writer has a completely different vision for the show than what the original creator does.
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InNeedOfAName



Joined: 13 Feb 2023
Posts: 237
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 9:53 am Reply with quote
AsleepBySunset wrote:
I suppose you could say the arifureta cancellation left a sour taste in my mouth. I did see the key visual/teaser visual that was posted on here pre-redesign, while I have no interest in watching either version, it was just slightly 2005 (think tokyo underground) character designs... The fact the author was so shocked and objected so strongly that he got the animators to reanimate the whole thing, even though arifureta, is as far as I can tell, a C list, dime a dozen, generic webnovel, sure a bit more popular than some other web novels but its not a once in a life time hit like harry potter or something.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to authors risking it and letting someone else adopt their "baby" (as much as a web novel can ever be a "baby"), and the fact the author just doesn't get creative control of how it looks, unless they do the pitch package and adapt it themself... But yeesh...

To me the arifureta adaption being infamously bad is a little bit schaudenfraude.

iirc the author said the script and storyboards were painful to look at.
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FilthyCasual



Joined: 01 Jun 2015
Posts: 2420
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 9:57 am Reply with quote
I'm just glad that Arifureta got a well-deserved second and third season.
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Kicksville



Joined: 20 Nov 2010
Posts: 1261
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 10:12 am Reply with quote
I'm reminded of anime magazines with ads for OVAs that would never come out.
Lord Geo wrote:
Not just that, but Kurumada also felt that the original voice actors for the Bronze Saints had gotten too old to properly reprise their roles after both the Hades Sanctuary OVA & the Tenkai-hen movie, so Kurumada asked for them to all be recast. The only exception was for Tohru Furuya as Seiya (because, seriously, that guy's voice doesn't age), but Furuya refused to reprise Seiya if everyone else was recast, & that's what resulted in all five Bronzes being recast for the Hades Inferno OVA, and aside from the rare exception (like Saint Seiya Omega) it's the Hades recast that continues to voice the Bronzes to this very day.

I recently watched through all of Saint Seiya and I found this infuriating, since honestly, the cast largely sounds just fine even by then. The then-newbies do their best of course (and I sure don't blame them), but it's incredibly annoying to go from actors who already knew these characters so well to starting over right at the end. Good for Furuya for standing by his fellow actors.


Last edited by Kicksville on Tue May 07, 2024 10:54 am; edited 1 time in total
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That Little Rapscallion



Joined: 31 Jul 2023
Posts: 61
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 10:17 am Reply with quote
Suisei no Gargantia's second season being dropped due to various circumstances was the show I'm most disappointed about. Great art, characters, and writing. At least it got some novels but I'd love to see them animated some time.

Is it a mystery if we know why a series was cancelled due to just not being popular? Stars Align cancellation makes perfect sense. The production staff were worried it wasn't going to sell so it got it had it's run cut short and when it came to look at the pre-orders and sales they were correct that it bombed. Being cancelled for low ratings/sales is the fate for many series and not very mysterious. It's when the popular stuff gets canned that it raises eyebrows.
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Akamaru_Inu
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Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 104
Location: Florida
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 10:31 am Reply with quote
What I heard is that Stars Align's got completely screwed over because 8 Bit (the animation company) also had That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, which became a breakout hit, so they thought "hey, we don't need this original tennis anime when we can divert all of our time and money to this hot manga adaptation instead!" and threw plans for the second cour out the window and forced the team to only use one cour.

I'd believe it. And it's so !&@&#^ frustrating that an amazing original series got kneecapped for a crappy generic isekai. What a freaking waste.
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Essedess



Joined: 03 Jan 2024
Posts: 116
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 11:15 am Reply with quote
Akamaru_Inu wrote:
I'd believe it. And it's so !&@&#^ frustrating that an amazing original series got kneecapped for a crappy generic isekai. What a freaking waste.


Let's be honest here. What was more popular? What was going to make more money? What did people actually wanted to see? The extremely niche tennis anime? Or the highly popular isekai? The company made much more money, and much more people got what they wanted. It was not a hard decision.
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dmanatunga



Joined: 12 Jan 2015
Posts: 80
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 12:00 pm Reply with quote
Every time I am reminded of the death of the Rage of Bahamut franchise, my soul darkens. I enjoyed Genesis so much, just for Virgin Soul to kill it.
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FrodoGate222



Joined: 21 Jun 2019
Posts: 107
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 12:57 pm Reply with quote
An anime cancellation I've always been curious about is the cancellation of Mirai Arise. Announced in 2015 with a planned 2016 release. Only one teaser was shown and it was never mentioned by Sunrise ever again.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4671
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 12:58 pm Reply with quote
The possibility of a cancellation is why I don't get too excited about a season ending with an announcement of another season unless it comes with a planned time. Even when things lined up, you're oftentimes looking at 2-ish years because studio schedules are that packed. A lot can happen in that amount of time.

For Panty and Stocking, I didn't take that ending to be anything other than a jab at how many anime, especially adaptations, end inconclusively, and frequently with a last little hook to get you excited about a continuation that they have no idea if it is happening. I didn't get excited about the announcement of season 2 since, at the time, it was still coming from Gainax, and the prospect of them doing it seemed pretty unlikely. I also recall seeing people being excited about the "announcement" of season 2 when it was coming from Trigger, but those people seemed to not know that it had already been announced well before then. I have more faith that Trigger will get it done since they are actually active, but at the same time, odds are that between Gainax's announcement and Trigger's, little-to-no progress was made.
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Triltaison



Joined: 03 Jul 2011
Posts: 800
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 3:00 pm Reply with quote
I've always been curious about the infamous sequel movie for Maze. The series was decently popular at the time and they made a sequel that (I think) was a proper ending for the show.

It aired in Japanese theaters in 1998, and never ever released again on home video or anything else. 1998 was long enough ago that it's hard to find conclusive information about the thing at all, and I'm just curious if everyone hated it or what the deal is with it that it warranted becoming lost media. So strange that it was scrubbed from history.
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#Droneku



Joined: 28 May 2022
Posts: 38
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 3:41 pm Reply with quote
I don't think Stars Align would ever comeback, is pretty much a Ragequit finale If I ever seen one
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5525
PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2024 3:42 pm Reply with quote
I recall someone involved with Outlaw Star, it might have been the Mangaka, say that there had been plans for an OVA, which didn't happen because of low viewership or something along those lines, but nothing about a second season.
Greed1914 wrote:
For Panty and Stocking, I didn't take that ending to be anything other than a jab at how many anime, especially adaptations, end inconclusively, and frequently with a last little hook to get you excited about a continuation that they have no idea if it is happening.
That's how I've always seen it, even after season 2 was announced. It was such a random plot twist, that it could only have ever been thought up as a joke.
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