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Spring Anime 2012 II | Welcome Home Eureka

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Well a few years ago I did something which I would never ever have time to do these days: I sat down with the internet and complied some information about the length of various shows. It wasn't the worlds best research because I only looked at four years (and even that took hours) but the results are as follows:
.

You ignored the OVA market. Back in the days we had some long tv animes and many OVAs with less than 12 episodes.
 
I didn't ignore OVA's, I was only looking at anime TV series'. The OVA and TV markets are completely different.

The anime market was completely different in the 80s and 90s. There were no 30 new tv shows each season but just some long runner and the big OVA market.
It's not comparable.
 

Jex

Member
The anime market was completely different in the 80s and 90s. There were no 30 new tv shows each season but just some long runner and the big OVA market.
It's not comparable.

It's still the same market. It's clearly undergone a number of changes since, say, the 60's and 70's but that doesn't mean that you can't compare them. That doesn't even make sense.

The fact that things are different is what makes the comparison interesting, it's not trying to say that things are similar to how they were.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Bamboo Blade 1



G7Nef.jpg


Not sure if creepy or moe. In any case, this show will suffice as my sports show to watch since Chihaya is no more. In between I might watch the prequel thingy for Saki Moejang.

Bamboo Blade is pretty self aware of the possible creepy moe factor and usually makes light of it and never "goes there"
 
Shit, I'm imagining it right now, and this is the most amazing thing. Imagine it with me! The camera is on the hand delivering the slap, and its moving towards the screen in slow motion. While this is happening, we hear an internal monologue from the guy who is about the receive the slap, and he is talking about the angle of the hand and the momentum applied, and how much force he has to exert to block it. Then just before the slap connects with the camera, a open palm blocks it at the wrist with a dramatic sound effect. Close-up on the eyes of the person doing the slapping. Internal monologue about the audacity the guy has to block a slap he deserves. Close-up on the eyes of the guy blocking the slap. Internal monologue about how he doesn't deserve this, and he won't let himself be humiliated any further. Camera pans across the legs of both parties from the ground angle, showing how they are both holding their ground. Staring montage. Growls of determination from both parties. Super slow motion scene of the aggressor removing the blocking hand with the free hand. Close-up of the slapping palm moving one frame per second as it slowly moves towards the guy's cheek. Suddenly, just before it connects, a third party's voice interrupts. Bird's eye view camera of the entire classroom, with the two characters in the middle, interrupted mid-slap by a teacher at the door. Freeze frame. To be continued end card.

That reminds me of a little fan video me and my friends made a long time back. Boring every day tasks like watering the plants or drinking tea, but with shaky cam, matrix style camera rotations. Kungfu sound effects. Explosions. Flashbacks.

Wonder where I kept that gem.
 

Cwarrior

Member
Yeah, that looked really shitty and really lazy at the same time.

Fun fact: while there is some fanservice in the manga that isn't in the anime the anime has added in some extra stuff.

Last episode:

- The scene where Rea's mother leans over the bathtub and we get that stupid breast-jiggling effect.

- The shower scene had some extra fun added to it.

This week:

- The scene early on with Rea on top of wasshisface.

- A number of shots of Wanko.

- The whole final sequence in the anime is present in the manga, but it's only in the manga very briefly, where as in the anime it's far more detailed and lengthy.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of this stuff is in manga, but it's certainly being extenuated in the anime.

Perhaps the directors hentai background is really shinning through.


yeah the loofah scene happens off screen in the manga(the spray is an extra scene), plus the mc gazing at rea breast and cousin fan service shots on the bed with her rubbing her breast on his head are not the manga(in the manga the cousin is introduce on the way to school not in some bed room scene other then that her lines are the same).
 

madp

The Light of El Cantare
Rick's Bread 04:


It was (kind of) a bathing suit episode, giving Neris and Xiaomei the opportunity to show off their tight buns and svelte breadbaskets! Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a fun excursion nearly turned tragic when Neris filled up on bread too soon before taking a swim, causing her to sink like a loaf of Texas toast. Fortunately, Xiaomei was able to rise to the occasion and rescued Neris from her jam. Rick and the girls managed to dredge up some treasure, but their prospects for making dough suddenly soured when
the kingdom seized every last crumb
. Everyone was steamed, but on Windaria island you just have to roll with the punches.
 

cajunator

Banned
Welcome to one of the greatest anime of all time. I hope you enjoy your stay.

It is definitely one of the greats. there's good reason even the sub-only Pioneer sets cost so much. Its a very cute and (mostly) innocent series.

http://www.ytv.co.jp/uchukyodai/info/#20120505

We finally have our first confirmation that Space Bros is definitely long than 13 episodes. The first blu-ray box set containing ep1-13 will be released at the end of September, and there will be more to come.

HOOK IT TO MY VEINS.

Fascinating. We really are seeing a number of shows break free from the current 13 episode (or less) trend. Penguin Drum, Tiger and Bunny, Rinne no Langarange, ShikiFate/Zero and now Space Brothers.

I think this is definitely a good thing because the current trend of extremely short shows naturally precludes certain types of stories from being told. It wasn't always like this, a few years ago practically zero shows where 13 episodes or less.

I honestly don't think this is the case. I have owned or seen dozens of shows spanning over the last ten years that are an example of both, and this doesn't include OVAs. It doesn't really seem that any more or less 13 or 26 episode (or 24,25) shows have been produced lately.
There are just way too many shows to know for sure. A lot of shows have just been ignored by people and run various lengths, so I doubt that studios just stopped making longer shows. Maybe for a year or two the number has varied.
 
Well a few years ago I did something which I would never ever have time to do these days: I sat down with the internet and complied some information about the length of various shows. It wasn't the worlds best research because I only looked at four years (and even that took hours) but the results are as follows:

So the change is pretty apparent over time.

There are two major changes which this chart reflects, and which I feel should be clearly distinguished:

1. The rise of late-night anime. During the 1980s and most the 1990s, almost all TV anime aired during the daytime, was aimed at general audiences, and usually ran for a large number of episodes. There were also much fewer shows per year than over the past decade. Anime aimed at the smaller niche and/or with more risque content made up the thriving OVA market. Around 1997, more and more anime began airing during late-night TV slots, siphoning off the more otaku-oriented and adventurous content from the OVA market, and steadily grew into the market we have today. Early examples would be Those Who Hunt Elves (2 12-episode seasons in 1996 and 1997) and Serial Experiments Lain (13-episode season in 1998). Late-night anime has always been 26 episodes or less, with rare exceptions such as Monster, probably because the production committee has to bear the financial burden without being able to rely on steady income from outside advertisers. If you restricted your examination to daytime anime, which is still aimed at kids and families, I believe you would find that even today most shows tend to be long-running, often around a year. Space Brothers, as it airs at 7 AM on Sundays, falls into this category.

2. The shift within late-night anime. As you can see from the above examples, 1-cour shows have always been a significant part of late-night anime, but what is undeniable is that there were a fairly large number of 2-cour shows during the height of the anime boom in the mid-2000s, and that number has steadily dropped as the industry has contracted. What is somewhat counterbalancing that decline now is the recent trend of split-cour shows, such as Natsume, Fate/Zero, and Rinne no Lagrange. The split-cour format allows longer stories to be told while making it a bit easier on the production staff to crank out episodes, so we'll see if it continues to grow in future seasons.
 

duckroll

Member
Well a few years ago I did something which I would never ever have time to do these days: I sat down with the internet and complied some information about the length of various shows. It wasn't the worlds best research because I only looked at four years (and even that took hours) but the results are as follows:

So the change is pretty apparent over time.

These stats are less meaningful unless you also have graphs for total number of episodes produced per year, and number of series produced per year. I think you'll see an interesting climb in that area which directly correlates to individual shows being shorter. Since it would cost money to produce any given episode of animation, it makes sense that as more and more shows are funded each year, the average length of a given show is generally shorter.

There is no way every studio can make five on-going 52 episode shows for example, but if they previously made one 52-episode show per year, and now they make one 52-episode show and four 13-episode shows every year, the average length of episodes by this statistic would still go down, but the reality remains that they're not making less anime but more.
 

RurouniZel

Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
Rick's Bread 04:

It was (kind of) a bathing suit episode, giving Neris and Xiaomei the opportunity to show off their tight buns and svelte breadbaskets! Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a fun excursion nearly turned tragic when Neris filled up on bread too soon before taking a swim, causing her to sink like a loaf of Texas toast. Fortunately, Xiaomei was able to rise to the occasion and rescued Neris from her jam. Rick and the girls managed to dredge up some treasure, but their prospects for making dough suddenly soured when
the kingdom seized every last crumb
. Everyone was steamed, but on Windaria island you just have to roll with the punches.

Bravo!!
 

Ultimadrago

Member
Hidamari Sketch Hoshimittsu SP 1-2

XZSd8.jpg

Ever feel like you're being watched?...

SP 1
A new restaurant opens up nearby so everyone wants to check it out...
"Maid Cafeeeee!"

I guess it gives insight into the foods they like? I dunno, change of setting was well-to-do though.

66N01.jpg

Time to move along, little one.

Afterwards, we shift to a flashback of Natsume who is rushing to her entrance ceremony. The whole segment is given a washed out palette for the viewer to see as Natsume is uncertain about leaving her middle school friends.

Just as everything seems to be going wrong she meets
Sae
who "brings color back to her day" and also makes her yuri hard.

She then gets
NTR'd by Hiro.

THE END!

SP 2

QIzhO.jpg

Men are clueless.

Yuno goes home to see her old peeps. Gives us a showing of her room and default caring parents...and fat cat.


Then BBQin'.
Anyways, just some extra summer episodes.
 

Jex

Member
I honestly don't think this is the case. I have owned or seen dozens of shows spanning over the last ten years that are an example of both, and this doesn't include OVAs. It doesn't really seem that any more or less 13 or 26 episode (or 24,25) shows have been produced lately.
There are just way too many shows to know for sure. A lot of shows have just been ignored by people and run various lengths, so I doubt that studios just stopped making longer shows. Maybe for a year or two the number has varied.

I went and counted. By hand. It took awhile.
 

Jex

Member
These stats are less meaningful unless you also have graphs for total number of episodes produced per year, and number of series produced per year. I think you'll see an interesting climb in that area which directly correlates to individual shows being shorter. Since it would cost money to produce any given episode of animation, it makes sense that as more and more shows are funded each year, the average length of a given show is generally shorter.

There is no way every studio can make five on-going 52 episode shows for example, but if they previously made one 52-episode show per year, and now they make one 52-episode show and four 13-episode shows every year, the average length of episodes by this statistic would still go down, but the reality remains that they're not making less anime but more.

Well there's absolutely no reason I couldn't go find all that information, apart from the length of time it would take to compile. Thankfully, I already did some of this earlier:

anmefactsacrosstime.png


I am fairly certain that, on the whole, more anime is being made than before, but the whole reason I looked for this information was to see if individual titles were getting shorter in length, as opposed to the output of a studio which will naturally span many shows.

Anyway, for all I know some intrepid academic or blogger has already compiled all this easily available information into useful charts and graphs (as it's freely available) but I haven't come across it myself. Presumably because it's very tedious to do.
 

cajunator

Banned
I went and counted. By hand. It took awhile.

Its probably within the last couple of years then, because Im pretty sure I have seen plenty of recent shows in the 24-26 episode range. A lot of older shows I have seem to be OVA releases so who knows. A lot of recent shows have been split cour and have multiple seasons, instead of a single running show. Could also have been a lack of good ideas for a show. I just know that I have a shitload of short shows dating way back to the 90s even, so I havent noticed a change. Just the release methods have seemed different.
 

cajunator

Banned
Regardless, I prefer shorter shows.
I hope the industry moves that direction.
Longer shows are a pain in the ass to watch thoroughly.
 

Jex

Member
If you restricted your examination to daytime anime, which is still aimed at kids and families, I believe you would find that even today most shows tend to be long-running, often around a year. Space Brothers, as it airs at 7 AM on Sundays, falls into this category.
Even though I did not bother to record that data in my tables that's largely true, from what I remember. It's one of those constants, like long-running shounen shows which have been long-running since the early sports titles.
What is somewhat counterbalancing that decline now is the recent trend of split-cour shows, such as Natsume, Fate/Zero, and Rinne no Lagrange. The split-cour format allows longer stories to be told while making it a bit easier on the production staff to crank out episodes, so we'll see if it continues to grow in future seasons.
I can't imagine that this won't continue. It makes too much sense for everyone involved. Heck, even American shows have used the same format.
 

Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
I can't imagine that this won't continue. It makes too much sense for everyone involved. Heck, even American shows have used the same format.
Doctor Who (I know, different country) did it last year. Do you have any idea how that worked out for them?
 

cajunator

Banned
It also allows for Us companies to sell multiple sets in a given series. Like Toloveru for example was released in two separate sets and so was amagami SS.
 

duckroll

Member
Well there's absolutely no reason I couldn't go find all that information, apart from the length of time it would take to compile. Thankfully, I already did some of this earlier:

anmefactsacrosstime.png

Cool. Those statistics more or less look like what I expect.

I am fairly certain that, on the whole, more anime is being made than before, but the whole reason I looked for this information was to see if individual titles were getting shorter in length, as opposed to the output of a studio which will naturally span many shows.

Right but what I'm saying is that "individual titles" is also not a very specific thing. Are shows which tend to run for long seasons getting shorter? I'm not sure they are, since we still get long shounen series like FMA, Soul Eater, FMA:B, Toriko, HxH, etc getting made.

If we were to compare it with shows in the past, I would say the difference was that in the past these sort of shows were the most common form of titles, while the more boutique sort of series we see popping up these days which run for 13 episodes or less are stuff which would not have even been made in the 80s and 90s. Or they would have been OVAs, which might run at the same length or even shorter.

Obviously this doesn't apply to everything. There are certainly genres where shows have gotten shorter, but like hosannainexcelsis pointed out in his very detailed post, there are a ton of reasons for it, and sometimes episode length can be rather deceptive today, since it is all in how you broadcast and sell it, rather than how long a series "really" is. See: Gundam 00.
 

cajunator

Banned
Cool. Those statistics more or less look like what I expect.



Right but what I'm saying is that "individual titles" is also not a very specific thing. Are shows which tend to run for long seasons getting shorter? I'm not sure they are, since we still get long shounen series like FMA, Soul Eater, FMA:B, Toriko, HxH, etc getting made.

If we were to compare it with shows in the past, I would say the difference was that in the past these sort of shows were the most common form of titles, while the more boutique sort of series we see popping up these days which run for 13 episodes or less are stuff which would not have even been made in the 80s and 90s. Or they would have been OVAs, which might run at the same length or even shorter.

Obviously this doesn't apply to everything. There are certainly genres where shows have gotten shorter, but like hosannainexcelsis pointed out in his very detailed post, there are a ton of reasons for it, and sometimes episode length can be rather deceptive today, since it is all in how you broadcast and sell it, rather than how long a series "really" is. See: Gundam 00.

I think a lot of them were OVAs. the way they are packaged lists them as if they are normal series, but ANN lists a lot of older stuff as an OVA. They are full series length though. You are right about how the stuff is marketed and broadcasted seems different today than the way I remember it being years ago. SPlitting up seasons midway and such. although it used to all be released by volume in the states anyway.
 
Will it ever be feasible for most TV anime productions to have ~40 minute episodes? Western TV productions have spoiled me, and I think everything except for comedies would benefit from it. Anime would definitely need to have much wider appeal, especially in Japan, for it to work.
 

duckroll

Member
Will it ever be feasible for most TV anime productions to have ~40 minute episodes? Western TV productions have spoiled me, and I think everything except for comedies would benefit from it. Anime would definitely need to have much wider appeal, especially in Japan, for it to work.

Call us back when western TV animation productions are 40 minutes long per episode.
 

cajunator

Banned
Will it ever be feasible for most TV anime productions to have ~40 minute episodes? Western TV productions have spoiled me, and I think everything except for comedies would benefit from it. Anime would definitely need to have much wider appeal, especially in Japan, for it to work.

This will probably never happen. I wont say it definitely wont, because industries do weird shit, but its not very likely.
 
Call us back when western TV animation productions are 40 minutes long per episode.
Just about all of them are aimed at children, though. That is not the case with anime, am I right? The American animation industry and the Japanese animation industry are two different things.
This will probably never happen. I wont say it definitely wont, because industries do weird shit, but its not very likely.
As CG improves, I think it will be more feasible.
 

duckroll

Member
Just about all of them are aimed at children, though. That is not the case with anime, am I right? The American animation industry and the Japanese animation industry are two different things.

Anime running at any decent hour is aimed at children. No question about it. The rest of anime is not really aimed at anyone at all! Manchildren maybe. Lulz. Sales and ratings also reflect that.
 
Will it ever be feasible for most TV anime productions to have ~40 minute episodes? Western TV productions have spoiled me, and I think everything except for comedies would benefit from it. Anime would definitely need to have much wider appeal, especially in Japan, for it to work.

I can't even think of 1 other than Figure 17.
 

cajunator

Banned
Some pilot episodes might be that long, but there is a format that seems to last roughly 30 minutes including commercials and opening/ending credits. The actual shows seem to run about 20-25 minutes total. Moving to 40 minutes would fuck up a lot of channel formats.
 

duckroll

Member
Some pilot episodes might be that long, but there is a format that seems to last roughly 30 minutes including commercials and opening/ending credits. The actual shows seem to run about 20-25 minutes total. Moving to 40 minutes would fuck up a lot of channel formats.

When people say 40 mins, they mean it would have an hour block.
 

Jex

Member
Right but what I'm saying is that "individual titles" is also not a very specific thing. Are shows which tend to run for long seasons getting shorter? I'm not sure they are, since we still get long shounen series like FMA, Soul Eater, FMA:B, Toriko, HxH, etc getting made.
Absolutely, although I don't know if there was ever a time when those kinds of long running shows weren't getting made at those lengths, because they're all targeting the same demographic.
If we were to compare it with shows in the past, I would say the difference was that in the past these sort of shows were the most common form of titles, while the more boutique sort of series we see popping up these days which run for 13 episodes or less are stuff which would not have even been made in the 80s and 90s. Or they would have been OVAs, which might run at the same length or even shorter.
I will certainly agree that certain boutique titles (e.g. Wandering Son) would probably have never been made before, or they'd be OVA's. For example, yuri titles like Aoi Hana didn't really exist at one time (and I guess still don't exist now).

However, nearly 80% (roughly) of titles in 2008 were 13 episodes or less. These aren't all 'boutique' shows in boutique genres that no-one watches. I mean we've got stuff like rom-coms (Ano Natsu, B Gata), general comedies (Haiyore! ), action shows (Sacred Seven), slice of life stuff (Hanamaru Kindergarten), horrorish (Highschool of the Dead), drama (House of Five Leaves), supernatural (Otome Yōkai Zakuro) and so on.

To really find out more I'd need to look at how many episodes each work in a certain genre had over time because that would give us a better understanding of how, or if, this has changed.

I did a very basic study of the number of shows in a given genre produced over the years, but it's not very helpful.
[...] sometimes episode length can be rather deceptive today, since it is all in how you broadcast and sell it, rather than how long a series "really" is. See: Gundam 00.
Right, you have to pretty careful when classifying this stuff.
 
Will it ever be feasible for most TV anime productions to have ~40 minute episodes? Western TV productions have spoiled me, and I think everything except for comedies would benefit from it. Anime would definitely need to have much wider appeal, especially in Japan, for it to work.

It certainly helped the first episode of Fate/Zero. I think a lot of drama could benefit from 40 minute episodes, but I doubt it ever happens. You're effectively doubling the amount of work that would need to be done for each episode, which would make sticking to a strict TV schedule very difficult unless a show had a ridiculous amount of lead time. Most studios seem to have a hard enough time as it is.

40 minute episodes would really help shows like Kids on the Slope and Wandering Son, though. It's a nice idea, but probably not feasible.
 

cajunator

Banned
Absolutely, although I don't know if there was ever a time when those kinds of long running shows weren't getting made at those lengths, because they're all targeting the same demographic.

I will certainly agree that certain boutique titles (e.g. Wandering Son) would probably have never been made before, or they'd be OVA's. For example, yuri titles like Aoi Hana didn't really exist at one time (and I guess still don't exist now).

However, nearly 80% (roughly) of titles in 2008 were 13 episodes or less. These aren't all 'boutique' shows in boutique genres that no-one watches. I mean we've got stuff like rom-coms (Ano Natsu, B Gata), general comedies (Haiyore! ), action shows (Sacred Seven), slice of life stuff (Hanamaru Kindergarten), horrorish (Highschool of the Dead), drama (House of Five Leaves), supernatural (Otome Yōkai Zakuro) and so on.

To really find out more I'd need to look at how many episodes each work in a certain genre had over time because that would give us a better understanding of how, or if, this has changed.

I did a very basic study of the number of shows in a given genre produced over the years, but it's not very helpful.

Right, you have to pretty careful when classifying this stuff.

I wonder if this might have to do more with the shows being adapted now cutting out a lot of "filler" to save money. Older shows used to have tons of filler episodes and the longer ones didnt really get going until halfway through the series. Noir for example. Lots of shows would get to the teens before really taking off in a decisive direction.
 
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