Aug 17, 2019 9:27 AM
Gundam OVAs: Comparing Runtimes
Anime Relations:
Kidou Senshi Gundam Unicorn, Kidou Senshi Gundam: The Origin, Kidou Senshi Gundam Unicorn RE:0096, Kidou Senshi Gundam: The Origin - Zenya Akai Suisei
tl;dr:
Gundam Unicorn has about 5 fewer minutes of total footage in its TV version, and Gundam: The Origin has almost 100 minutes of footage missing from its TV version. See "Results" heading below for data.
Background:
In 2010, Sunrise debuted the Gundam Unicorn OVA series. Being an entry in the Universal Century timeline, it was bound to appeal to long time fans, and the mobile suit designs and model kit line were expertly tailored to empty all of their wallets. A few years later, the OVA had wrapped up its final episode. An entire line of model kits had already been produced, and thus a brilliant marketing tactic was implemented: They would recut the OVA footage into a TV anime to bring Unicorn to an audience that had not payed to see it in theaters, and reinvigorate sales of the kits. This would become 2016's Gundam Unicorn RE: 0096, a 22 episode series which would reportedly include new animation. Through all the years since its release, I have yet to find any details on exactly where this new animation could be found, and doubted its existence. The subsequent Gundam OVA series, Gundam: The Origin, has now received the same TV anime treatment with 2019's Gundam: The Origin - Eve of the Red Comet. The goal of this study was to compare the run time of the OVA and TV versions for both Unicorn and The Origin to deduce if there is possibly new footage to be found.
Hypothesis:
By accounting for all of the footage contained in each version, I hoped to show that both the TV versions and OVA versions contained the exact same content and runtime when adjusted for recaps, credit sequences, and other inserts.
Procedure:
To measure the amount of footage in each version, the episodes must be viewed somehow. For this study, the episodes of OVA versions were viewed on Hulu, and the episodes of TV versions were viewed on VRV. First, the total runtime of each episode is recorded. Then extraneous elements are timed, and their time is deducted from the total runtime. Totals are then calculated for the full runtime of each version. Elements which are deducted include: Theme songs, recaps, company logos, footage reused from previous episodes, and credits. Here, credits refer to either the duration of an ending credit sequence in TV episodes, or the amount of time credits roll after the background has faded to black. For Gundam: The Origin, all times were rounded to half minutes. Gundam Unicorn had some shorter segments of extraneous elements, so its times were rounded to intervals of 10 seconds, represented as a decimal with at most 2 digits of precision. At the end, we compare the reduced runtime of each version to see if they contain the same amount of footage.
Results:
*The TV episode 1 "recap" is only the Daisuki and Sunrise logos. TV episode 3 contains 1.5 minutes of footage present in episode 1.
(Click here to see the full spreadsheet and not these screenshots of the data)
Note that the Gundam Unicorn OVA contains no opening sequences or recaps, while its TV version includes recaps, opening songs, ending songs, and episode previews. Conversely, the Gundam: The Origin OVA begins most of its episodes with recaps, while its TV version only has opening songs and ending songs with no recaps or episode previews. For both cases, the TV version contains less total footage than their corresponding OVA. Unicorn is very close, with the OVA footage only 5 minutes longer than the TV version. The Origin, on the other hand, has almost 100 minutes of OVA footage cut for its TV version. Other interesting data points are the fact that the Origin OVAs subjects its viewers to a total of half an hour of recap footage, and Unicorn's TV version has almost 40 minutes of recaps. In total the Unicorn TV version has roughly 1.5 hours of extra content padding it out.
Discussion:
As much as I admire these TV recuts for the brilliant amount of money they saved in production compared to an original series, it is evident to me that the planning it takes to do such a recut is immense. Gundam Unicorn must have not contained quite enough footage to reach a full 24 episodes even with all the padding, and The Origin with almost 50 minutes less footage had no hoped of being stretched into a two cour run. I think this must be what led to the decision to trim Origin into a one cour abridged version of the OVAs.
As for the new footage for either TV version, it seems unlikely to me that either one contains new scenes animated for the story due to the fact that each one has overall less footage than their OVAs. Perhaps the new animation referenced lies in the opening and ending songs, which while they are mostly comprised of animation from the episodes arranged together with artistic filters, could easily hide new bits of animation inconspicuously. That said, there very well could be new footage embedded in the episodes themselves that slipped past me.
The main drawback of this study is that is only produces two scalar values of runtime to compare, and does not account for what is present within that runtime. For the most part this study was conducted by starting an episode, and recording the start and end times of each extraneous element then taking the difference. I did not take a fine toothed comb to go through each episode and make sure there were no flashbacks or replays of footage from previous episodes, however any such instances that I noticed were recorded and accounted for. A more thorough study would be to watch each version side by side on different screens, and at any point when the two deviate, note what scene is present in but but not the other, and what shots have been cut with precise timing information. If anybody decides to conduct such a study, please link me to the results!
Gundam Unicorn has about 5 fewer minutes of total footage in its TV version, and Gundam: The Origin has almost 100 minutes of footage missing from its TV version. See "Results" heading below for data.
Background:
In 2010, Sunrise debuted the Gundam Unicorn OVA series. Being an entry in the Universal Century timeline, it was bound to appeal to long time fans, and the mobile suit designs and model kit line were expertly tailored to empty all of their wallets. A few years later, the OVA had wrapped up its final episode. An entire line of model kits had already been produced, and thus a brilliant marketing tactic was implemented: They would recut the OVA footage into a TV anime to bring Unicorn to an audience that had not payed to see it in theaters, and reinvigorate sales of the kits. This would become 2016's Gundam Unicorn RE: 0096, a 22 episode series which would reportedly include new animation. Through all the years since its release, I have yet to find any details on exactly where this new animation could be found, and doubted its existence. The subsequent Gundam OVA series, Gundam: The Origin, has now received the same TV anime treatment with 2019's Gundam: The Origin - Eve of the Red Comet. The goal of this study was to compare the run time of the OVA and TV versions for both Unicorn and The Origin to deduce if there is possibly new footage to be found.
Hypothesis:
By accounting for all of the footage contained in each version, I hoped to show that both the TV versions and OVA versions contained the exact same content and runtime when adjusted for recaps, credit sequences, and other inserts.
Procedure:
To measure the amount of footage in each version, the episodes must be viewed somehow. For this study, the episodes of OVA versions were viewed on Hulu, and the episodes of TV versions were viewed on VRV. First, the total runtime of each episode is recorded. Then extraneous elements are timed, and their time is deducted from the total runtime. Totals are then calculated for the full runtime of each version. Elements which are deducted include: Theme songs, recaps, company logos, footage reused from previous episodes, and credits. Here, credits refer to either the duration of an ending credit sequence in TV episodes, or the amount of time credits roll after the background has faded to black. For Gundam: The Origin, all times were rounded to half minutes. Gundam Unicorn had some shorter segments of extraneous elements, so its times were rounded to intervals of 10 seconds, represented as a decimal with at most 2 digits of precision. At the end, we compare the reduced runtime of each version to see if they contain the same amount of footage.
Results:
*The TV episode 1 "recap" is only the Daisuki and Sunrise logos. TV episode 3 contains 1.5 minutes of footage present in episode 1.
(Click here to see the full spreadsheet and not these screenshots of the data)
Note that the Gundam Unicorn OVA contains no opening sequences or recaps, while its TV version includes recaps, opening songs, ending songs, and episode previews. Conversely, the Gundam: The Origin OVA begins most of its episodes with recaps, while its TV version only has opening songs and ending songs with no recaps or episode previews. For both cases, the TV version contains less total footage than their corresponding OVA. Unicorn is very close, with the OVA footage only 5 minutes longer than the TV version. The Origin, on the other hand, has almost 100 minutes of OVA footage cut for its TV version. Other interesting data points are the fact that the Origin OVAs subjects its viewers to a total of half an hour of recap footage, and Unicorn's TV version has almost 40 minutes of recaps. In total the Unicorn TV version has roughly 1.5 hours of extra content padding it out.
Discussion:
As much as I admire these TV recuts for the brilliant amount of money they saved in production compared to an original series, it is evident to me that the planning it takes to do such a recut is immense. Gundam Unicorn must have not contained quite enough footage to reach a full 24 episodes even with all the padding, and The Origin with almost 50 minutes less footage had no hoped of being stretched into a two cour run. I think this must be what led to the decision to trim Origin into a one cour abridged version of the OVAs.
As for the new footage for either TV version, it seems unlikely to me that either one contains new scenes animated for the story due to the fact that each one has overall less footage than their OVAs. Perhaps the new animation referenced lies in the opening and ending songs, which while they are mostly comprised of animation from the episodes arranged together with artistic filters, could easily hide new bits of animation inconspicuously. That said, there very well could be new footage embedded in the episodes themselves that slipped past me.
The main drawback of this study is that is only produces two scalar values of runtime to compare, and does not account for what is present within that runtime. For the most part this study was conducted by starting an episode, and recording the start and end times of each extraneous element then taking the difference. I did not take a fine toothed comb to go through each episode and make sure there were no flashbacks or replays of footage from previous episodes, however any such instances that I noticed were recorded and accounted for. A more thorough study would be to watch each version side by side on different screens, and at any point when the two deviate, note what scene is present in but but not the other, and what shots have been cut with precise timing information. If anybody decides to conduct such a study, please link me to the results!
Posted by
MrLegitimacy
| Aug 17, 2019 9:27 AM |
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