What's an anime?
| I realized recently that with my 651 completed anime the statistic of "completed anime" has become an abstract integer to me. I once only consider main series to be anime and thought it was cool MAL also tracked OVAs and sequels as separate anime, but with all the random stuff I've seen 651 doesn't represent how much I've watched at all. I think 166 is more representative of how much I've seen since that's how many full length (100+ minutes) TV series I've completed. Here's an interesting case, how many anime would you consider Akito the Exiled to be? Is it 5 anime because it's 5 films, is it 9 anime because of the picture dramas, is it one anime because it's all one series and one continuous story, or is it not its own anime at all because it's just a spin-off of Code Geass? Do you set up tags to make sure you know how many anime you've completed that you still consider to be of appropriate size? What's your minimum for a full-length series (either in minutes or episodes)? Do you consider Death Note to be a short anime? Do you think of short movie series like Kara no Kyoukai and Towa no Quon as many films or do you treat them the same way you would a TV series? What do you think of longer non-TV anime like LoGH, Kiss x Sis, Flag, and Magic Kaito? |
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| I've been shaped by MAL for the last 9 years, since I was the tender age of 16 and just getting accustomed to having free rein of the internet. I think that anime with a different title, ie Witch Craft Works and Witch Craft Works OVA, are separate anime and should be listed as such. Whether I think like that because of MAL or whether I would have thought it on my own anyways will be forever unknown. |
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| I consider anything that counts as one series/franchise an anime(alternate versions of a series like Eva vs Eva Rebuilds or FMA 2003 and FMA:B are counted seperate). The Konosuba OVA is just Konosuba not a separate anime. Furiko, House of Small Cubes, and Shelter are each their own anime. |
| every single one of my forum posts is dumb and invalid except for 1, I don't claim them it was a different person it was all fake |
| MAL divided the shows for a reason even though it's on the same franchise. |
| I consider spin offs to be separate animes unless it actually contributes quite a bit to the main story. I consider Death Note to be more in the medium area in length. Akito may be 5 films but I'd rather refer to it as 1 whole story of his. So pretty much 1 anime. |
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| I don't really think about this. I just watch stuff I'm interested in and my list grows, but I don't care about the 'real' numbers. I watch ton of shorts because I find them interesting, I don't see why they should not count. Same for movies and independent OVAs. The only thing I really see as 'number farming' are the countless short specials, picture dramas and similar stuff belonging to bigger franchises. I tend to watch those for completionism and also because it never hurts to watch characters you like in a different situation than usual. But I can always go to MALGraph and look at my overall distribution to see how many TV Series, how many movies etc... I've seen. And despite how much shorts and specials and music videos I've been watching, TV Series still lead followed by movies. I'd say those are the two most uncontroversial options that everyone can agree on being 'legit'. To answer some of the questions: Do you think of short movie series like Kara no Kyoukai and Towa no Quon as many films or do you treat them the same way you would a TV series? What do you think of longer non-TV anime like LoGH, Kiss x Sis, Flag, and Magic Kaito? I think of them as multiple movies, just like I think of star wars or harry potter as multiple movies. Just because it was clear from the start that there will be more than one doesn't mean they aren't still a bunch of movies that happen to be sequels of each other. I generall mostly see either series, or movies. Whether something aired on TV or as an OVA doesn't matter to me as long as it's their own series with more than 1 episodes which is not just a special of some existing franchise. Which leads us to the third type, specials belonging to an existing franchise. And lastly there are shorts/music videos (which I also group together). That makes 4 main categories I group anime in although they don't correspond to any of the pre-set types. 'movies' can be either OVAs or Specials, Series can be OVAs, Specials can be OVAs or ONAs, and shorts can be specials, movies or ONAs when you look at the DB. For me grouping them based on a mixture of episode length, overall number of episodes and independence from existing franchises makes more sense tho. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| Originally I just used the TV series stat as a measure since I rarely watched stand alone OVAs. But now I add genre tags to the first entry I watched or the first entry that released for every group of related entries. Whether they're tv series, OVAs, movies, etc. So something like the Code Geass spin-off series I wouldn't mark separately genre wise because it's still the same franchise umbrella. But there is no appropriate size, minimum for full length series, etc. Some of the other questions are kind of random, I would consider death note to be medium length, I treat a film series the way I would a TV series, and I would mark any stand alone entry exactly the same. Now if I was really obsessive of knowing how many standalone entries/franchises I watch I could go through and number them with a 1 but that sounds like a touch too much effort at this moment. |
GamerDLMDec 28, 2016 11:56 AM
| Not really I know my completed isn't all the same kind of shows some are 5, 23, 45 minutes and so on long I rather focus on the days counter than the completed |
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| Well I watch anime for enjoyment.So that number is little important to me. For example Shelter.It was short but I really wanted to add that to my list because I enjoyed while watching it. So also that is why I still have to add some names to my list that I watched. |
| Honestly they should group franchises together but majority are attention whores so it's all +1. |
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| An anime....is an anime....what more could be said |
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| There's a difference between how many anime's you have seen (completed) and how much anime you have seen (days). Imo how many anime's you have seen makes you well rounded when it comes to the topic of anime compared to how many days you have seen. Which is why I would go to someone with 600 completed anime and 60 days vs someone with 10 completed anime and 100 days because their list is full of very long anime like One Piece and Detective Conan. And I consider anything with its own info page on MAL an anime, except music videos and things that fall into the category of something like Shitcom. So if it's a 5 minute OVA, I consider it an anime. |
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| I never took that very much into consideration, to be honest. When people ask me about shows that are good, I tend to group franchises in the same tag, because one way or the other I wouldn't for example recommend Clannad After Story to somebody who never watched Clannad (even if I like it significantly more than the first season). That is mainly because I think that continuity among seasons and/or other elements in a franchise always needs to be taken into account. When it comes to my list... I don't know, it's just a number. I have never cared about how much anime I've watched, and I certainly don't care if any of my entries should or shouldn't be there. The list serves to keep track, it works fine for that. I do not share some of the decisions MAL makes, mainly the idea of listing Korean or Chinese animation as anime (which kind of gives vibes of arbitrariness), but I don't take that seriously either. Length is not an issue, and I actually like that this site lists shorts as well, since their visibility is usually much lower than full series or movies and a lot of them have at the very least a strong artistic value. Speaking of how franchises are separated. Each case should probably be discussed separately, but for instance with Kara no Kyoukai I don't see a way to list it other than as separated entries for these films. I think it makes sense because to be considered a series it should follow some form of serialization, that is, some sort of regularity in its airing schedule. This didn't seem to be the case, since like Pullman points it's more of a typical movie franchise thing like Star Wars. About series with separated seasons, not that I'm completely sold on it, but I guess it's understandable when these seasons are separated by one or various cours and therefore do not follow a regular airing scheme either. |
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