What is your favourite length of anime?
As is becoming an ever-present sight in seasonal anime, there has been a tremendous increase in single-cour anime, in tern leading to a decrease in every other length of anime. Anime is evolving, and like it or not this evolution involves quantity over length.  Until 1997, single-cour anime took up approximately 10% of the anime between1-4 cours. Only in 2009 did single-cour become a majority of anime, and here we are now with single-cour taking up 85%+ of anime running less than a year. Four-cour and three-cour anime have essentially become redundant, with two-cour anime becoming the only other common length. This shift comes largely as anime production companies are becoming more and more wary of the dangers in over-investing in shows. With the higher quantity of anime, comes a more varied audience, and less market share. Shows that prove to do well are rewarded with sequels, and those that don't are left hung out to dry. Long-running anime is only made out of incredibly popular source material, or are continuations of previously long-running anime that have proved to do well. Questions
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 hiSets Last FM Anime List Manga List Clue no. 2: Somewhere in one of the pictures in my forum signature. |
| 1 Cour is too short. 2 Cour is the best. |
| All weebs creatures of the galaxy, hear this message. Those of you who listen will not be struck by western animation. You will no longer know hunger, nor pain. Your Anime have come to lead you now. Our strength shall serve as a luminous sun toward which all intelligence may blossom. And the impervious shelter beneath which you will prosper. However, for those who refuse our offer and cling to their western animation ways… For you, there will be great wrath. |
| @Cookies I just want to know where these charts come from. Thanks. "Is such a rapid decrease in long running shows surprising to you?" Nah, I already knew before. "Will single-cour continue to dominate, or do you believe something will change?" At least nothing will change soon and I think now is better. "What length anime is ideal in your opinion, why?" Ideal, don't know but the shorter, the better. Lots of stuff need to be animated. |
Cookies said:
Not really, just a matter inevitability if you ask me. It’s more economical and less prone to failure (business-oriented) with just one cour rather than more cours. It’s 85% now, as you say, so I’m expecting it to slowly creep up to the 90% mark and then possibly stay constant. I’d love something to change obviously since I believe in quality over quantity but the demands for anime adaptions are only going to increase from here onwards really. I’d say three-four cours. In fact, two cours are fine too but it’s hard to feel the same for a myriad of one-cour shows spread across a season. More than four cours are totally fine too but such shows nowadays aren’t as good as they used to be, such as Boruto: Naruto Next Generations and Black Clover nowadays v Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Hunter x Hunter of the past. Some pretty cool stats by the way. It’s depressing to see what the anime industry has come to now but like it or not, it’s only going to get worse from here on imo. |
#Anime4Life be my Life Motto! #PrayForKyoAni  |
| 1 cour anime is easier to pick up, even if it has next seasons.. Because you don't have to get ready to invest yourself so much, if it's not to your liking.. Also shorter seasons have to present quality right at the start, you don't have to wait to see, if it'll get good.. And if it'll be a successful show, anime can get next seasons, at least one or a movie, so it's not really a problem, if I'll like to get more.. Also, if I'll like to get more, there is source material, be it manga, light novel, visual novel or something else.. I don't really remember that I lacked material of show I liked.. Yeah, getting new season would be nice, but there is always other stuff.. |
| Uhmm there isn't only one answer. Generalizing a bit, it would be like this imo: 1 Cour: Slice of Life, Comedy, Romance. 2 Cours: Fantasy, Action, Adventure, Horror, Psychological, Mystery, Romance. 3 Cours: Fantasy, Action, Adventure, Psychological, Romance. 4+ Cours: Fantasy, Action, Adventure, Romance. |
 ❅Aoishi❅ ✿My Profile ✿MyAnimeList ✿MyMangaList |
Can't vote because movie-length isn't an option. |
This dance is the pinnacle of human achievement. |
| Tbh, this is good thing. How many times have you watched a long anime and said to yourself, "Wow, the animation really took a nose dive just now." I'm willing to bet that every long running except a handful have give you those thoughts with a few exceptions. The animators just aren't able to keep the quality to standard due to the constant airing of episodes as well as massive budget constraints. 1 and 2 cour animes are able to use the budget they're given more effectively as well as not letting the animation quality drop, in most cases. So overall, I'm fine with this shift, and its not like we won't ever get any 3-4 cours anymore. I mean hell, we got both Alicization (a 4 cour) and Vento Aureo last season. |
Do-do-donuts, let’s go nuts! |
| you should note that anime on mal only get their episode number filled in when they're 1000% confirmed so for example if a 4 cour series started in 2018, it wouldn't show up at all in the stats for 2018 until it gets close to ending and has a confirmed final episode number (i.e. stuff like black clover and fairy tail finale dont show up in that chart because their episode counts are still "unknown") that chart should have had one more colour for "more than 4 cour" and "unknown" to paint the full picture.. and preferably also show absolute number not just relative (e.g. 10% of 2018 is like 50% of 1988 when it comes to number of productions, so the actual number of longer shows would be closer than it looks on the chart i think ?_? also in a way the 1 cour shows nowadays are roughly equivalent to short standalone ova series of the old) |
romagiaMar 4, 2019 6:36 AM
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| I'm surprised that 2017 didn't have any 3 cours or higher, at least one. |
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| I think 1 cour is the a good formula for a new adaption.. For average 1 cour anime is enough to adapt at least 4 volumes of manga or 2 volumes of LN with a good tempo.. And I think 4 volumes of manga and 2 volumes of LN is enough to determine if you like a series or not.. If the source material is VN it may be different though, because I see many animes adapted from VN took more episodes before reaching a good part, for VN adaption maybe 2 cours is ideal ... For original, I also think 1 cour is good, because I see many 2 cours original have some filler episodes.. But of course they should make a sequel for this original if it's good.. But this rarely happen as I see, they rarely make a sequel for original anime, this is also a problem ... |
"The Slave is the have-not, the oppressed one with nothing to spare. But because the Slave is in that despairing situation, having nothing, it can kill the Emperor !" |
Cookies said: As is becoming an ever-present sight in seasonal anime, there has been a tremendous increase in single-cour anime, in tern leading to a decrease in every other length of anime. This graph is bullshit : there has been no noticeable decrease in the number of long anime over the years. If anything, they've been slowly increasing. Looking at a simple metric (TV anime with 40+ episodes), we get : - Less than 10 such shows per year from 1961 to 1973 - An average of about 15-20 such shows per year (with a few outliers at 26) until 2000 - A jump to the 20-35 range since then - The peak was 37 such shows in... 2014 ! (And of course my numbers don't include shows that are still running.) With 3-cour show very rare in any timeframe anyway, the only category in actual decline is the 2-cour show... and that's very relative : we still get far more 2-cour shows per year nowadays than in any year pre-1998. - Before 1998 = rarely more than 15 2-cour shows a year, with most years at a single-digit - from 1998 to 2007 (barely a decade !) : a progressive rise up to 65ish per year (for barely two years) - Then a crash down to only 26 in 2010 (which has more to do with the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis than anything) - Since then, it's climbed back up to 30-40 a year (41 in 2018 !). So yes, there's been an explosion of 1-cour anime is spectacular (150+ per year for the last 5 years !). But it's hasn't really harmed any of the other categories. That's the reality the opening graph completely fails to depict. |
JhidayMar 4, 2019 7:59 AM
| I don't see a problem here, why make a 150 shingeki no kyojin episodes full of filler and bad animation when you can make 12 episodes for one year amd continuing? It's not like the old stuff were good adaptations, for ex kimagure orange road and touch. And if the anime didn't sell why make more of it? |
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TodAboT said: 1.- Not surprising. Long-running shows are very low quality in general. 2.- I doubt anything will change, since it's a good strategy: keep higher quality and not go quicker than the manga. 3.- 1-2 cour. Pretty ironic when in reality, the vast majority of bad to crappy anime, is generally....short. |
| There shouldn't be a restriction on number of episode anime have. The ideal thing is to have as many episode as possible to fully convey what the story want to told. |
NeoAnkaraMar 4, 2019 8:17 AM
 Kickstarter for Rokujouma is fully funded. Good work everyone. Lets wait for the result of our hard work together. |
| I think part of it is that 15-20 years ago, a long running show was treated as one show, that ran long spanning many seasons, whereas today they tend to segment the story into 1- or 2-cour chucks that end up being treated as separate shows that are part of the same franchise. For example, the original series InuYasha, which ran 167 episodes over a 4-year period, if it were being produced today, would likely be produced as a succession of 1-cour and 2-cour shows, perhaps slightly reorganized to make story breakpoints fit the cours. |
A møøse once bit my sister... |
| For me it's 1 or 2 Cour. Preferably 2 Cour. |
 plz @ me |
| Id be interested to see actual numbers of shows per year that fit into each length category. |
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| It's better this way. By following the Seasonal format, potentially long manga adaptations like MHA can keep a consistent quality and not have to rely on awful filler arcs to avoid catching up to the manga (Bleach, Naruto) or dragging out the pacing of canon episodes for the same effect (One Piece). |
Stygian_PrisonerMar 4, 2019 9:58 AM
| I think it is better this way mainly for long running shonen so many in the past had their pacing and animation butchered as result. Honestly even personally 2 cour for me is the best as anything more and slowly get tired usually but at the same time there are a few cases of 1 cour shows that I thought were rushed or left me wanting more. Though again it depends on what type of story your telling if your going to make an anime original quite a few stories are going to need more than 2 cours. As for the trend itself I don't think its surprising and I do think the trend will dominate. Anime production is risky and studios don't want to waste time or money on something that doesn't necessarily sell. |
BilboBaggins365Mar 4, 2019 10:31 AM
| Well, I didn't need that data to know that's what's happening but it's still kinda sad, albeit not surprising. People just have zero attention span nowadays, you can see it every season, they don't even make it through 1-cour worth of episodes before they get distracted, start AOTS threads and focus on the upcoming season. No surprise they don't want anything longer if even 1-cour is too much for them. In my experience longer shows just have more tools to tell their stories, to flesh out characters, to do everything. You don't need them for every kind of story, but the kind of stories that we often get in anime are more often than not long-term oriented and would especially profit from getting more than 1-cour. You need time to tell epis stories and adventures, for example. 12 episodes aren't an adventure, that's a weekend trip. If it's good, it's just already over before I really start getting into it, and when it's bad even 12 eps are too much. There is also the fact that spending time with someone will make you grow closer after a while even if you might not have initially liked them all that much. In my experience the amount of time you've spent with a character is an important factor in how much you care about them. I often find myself starting to really care for the characters after 50 or 100 episodes and by the end of it they might be among my favorite characters ever and I'll miss the shit out of them. 1-cour shows never even get to that point. It's much harder for them to make me care remotely as much about the chars when they have so little time to achieve that. When they succeed it's awesome, and arguable the best 1-cour shows are better than the best 100-ep shows because they manage to achieve the same level of immersion and appreciation with so much less time and everything, which is really impressive. But at the same time these kind of 1-cour shows that feel complete and just hit all the right notes are extremely rare. Usually the best case for 1-cour shows is that they would have been great long-runners but ended in the middle or just at the start of the story and maybe there will be more season in 2-4 years, but maybe not. In any case by that point my hype and immersion will usually have simmered down and might or might not be reignited. If I could just continued on the spot for another 40 eps, I'd have had a blast for sure. So yeah, even if they do get sequels, I'd generally prefer not having to wait years in between. The ones that really tell a complete story AND are great, are very rare. So in my experience shows that are 50-100 eps long have the highest average score on my list followed by 25-50 episode shows and then I think 100+ episode shows (those can suffer from slow pace or fillers, but unless the characters are horrible like in Bleach my attachment to the characters still only grows over time and will carry those shows for me even in the worst case scenario (like Naruto fillers or One Piece pacing issues). But aside from that, my average score just gets lower the shorter the anime are. They have less time to impress me, less time to make me care, less time to deliver on what they're building up. Aside from the occasional masterpiece like *insert yuasa anime here* there's mostly downside to having almost everything be that short. Anything longer than 2-cour will immediately make me interested because I know it will have the time to really get me immersed and not end right when I start getting into it (which is often after 12-25 eps) if it's good. And if it's bad I'm gonna drop it anyway, 12 eps of badness is already too much so whether it's that or 50 eps is irrelevant. But when it's enjoyable, it can really propel a show to the next level if it can continue beyond ep 12 or 13 and actually cash in on all the immersion it created early on, without giving me (in the best case scenario) 1 or 2 years until the sequel during which that immersion dissipates. Even for split cour shows I never watch season 1 before season 2 ends because it's just so much more enjoyable to be able to watch 25 eps at a pace of my choosing, than to watch 12 eps twice and have to wait 3 months in between while all the hype just dissipates. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| 2 cours are great for adapting material that's still being published, I feel like it removes the danger of having to include filler material. 1 cour is a bit too short for most stories imo, it's hard to really immerse yourself with that much time. anything above 3 cours has to be really good for me to get invested. |
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| You can't call it a "decrease" if it turns that there are actually more long running shows nowadays. That's the issue with playing with percentages instead of total numbers. |
and you're my favorite MAL user for the day for actually reading my wall of text :> jal90 said: You can't call it a "decrease" if it turns that there are actually more long running shows nowadays. That's the issue with playing with percentages instead of total numbers. Pretty sure 'decrease' can refer to different things, numbers, percentages and so on. Plus I'm not even convinced there are more (new) 4-cour or longer shows even in absolute numbers. And even if there are there's many additional factors to consider, like how many of the 'modern' long-runners are just ones that started 20+ years ago when they were still more popular? What genres used to get long runs and which get them now? If it's only kids shows, mahou shoujo and the occasional battle shounen, when it used to not be limited to any particular genres and we got long mecha, long rom-coms, long dramas, long sports anime, long shoujos, long everything, then does the total amount even matter? Getting BonoBono & co doesn't really make up for losing 4-cour+ shows in almost every other genre, even when I enjoy Bonobono. You can get all technical about the 'decrease' (if you can prove that in absolute numbers there hasn't been a decrease of new long-runners (4cour+) coming out) but there is a decrease in percentage of long anime being produced and there is a decrease in the variety of genres that get the privilege of getting runtimes over 2-cour so it's not wrong to use that term. Those reasons alone are good enough for me to mourn them. So many shows are getting robbed of their chance of becoming as iconic as their predecessors because they are cut short after 12 or 13 episodes. Nobody would probably remember Urusei Yatsura or LOGH or Ashita no Joe if they only got 1-cour of anime, with maybe another season 3 years later that is 12 episodes again and not getting even close to finishing the story. Who knows what modern shows could have gotten on that level if they got long adaptions but instead they are being forgotten now because they ended right when they started. I know you mostly watch slice of life and that is not a genre where the amount of episodes hugely matters, but for tons of other stuff it does. I can't even count how many times I saw shows that had the potential of becoming some of my favorites but they were just cut short and never even got to try to live up to that potential. And basically all of them are modern ones, it just rarely happens with older ones because they were that much longer on average. You have to kinda try pretty hard to even find 1-cour shows in the 80s, that just wasn't an issue back then. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| Nice data, would be interesting to see how it would look with numbers instead of percentages, or combining all seasons of each show into one. In my experience 2 cour tends to be a good length, it allows for more complex narratives and character growth without repeating itself or running dry. 3 cour+ shows are also a good length for single stories until they reach about the 100s, then they tend to be arc based as cohesive long stories are harder to write and retain the quality. 1 cour shows have been the norm for quite a while, it's no shock to see that they've been on the rise. Single cour shows have plenty of merit but if their dominance persists I think anime will lose a lot of variety, this could be mitigated somewhat if second seasons become more commonplace. I don't expect multi-cour shows to become any less prominent than they already have but it's quite possible that they'll bounce back somewhat if consumers start to feel too starved of more in-depth stories. |
| No, it's not surprising at all The longer something runs the higher the chance that it will suck and totally disappoint you. It's extremely rare to find something over100 episodes that maintains it's initial level of greatness without feeling repetitive or resorting to filler. At 300 episodes it's an absolute guaranteed disappointment. If fans are disappointed or not entertained they're not going to buy your product or they will cherry pick and the filler portions of your show which is usually like half of it, won't sell. Unfortunately one season shows will remain the norm because they're cost effective. 2 seasons is the perfect show length in my opinion plenty of time for characters, story, and world building, and short enough where it doesn't usually get repetitive or dragged out. |
KruszerMar 4, 2019 11:36 AM
| "Laws exist only for those who cannot live without clinging onto them." -Souske Aizen "Bleach"  |
| I think about this quite often. I miss 26 episodes being the standard and also having ~50 episode series to really get into. Its all part of this ceaseless "gimme gimme gimme" that the whole world is gripped in nowadays. You gotta have everything now, no one has time or the attention span for things any more. |
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| Wow, looking at that data I gotta say I'm lucky to be watching anime in the period that best suits my preferences. My fav length would be 2 cour, but I'm more than ok with 1 cour anime as well, not a fan of 3+ cour series tho. I both think and hope things will keep going in this direction. |
| Mostly depends on Anime itself. As I do enjoy long running Anime. Still watching One Piece and Detective Conan. Although issue with long running is you get burn-out period. Which will lead to putting Anime on-hold for really long time. Thus why with long running I do the following. Watch few arcs, put anime on-hold for few months or so. This way it's fun to return and while watching won't get "sick of it" or burn-out per say. Aside that it really depends on genres and how enjoyable is the Anime itself. But for most part I think 26 episodes is the most optimal length to deliver either full story or part of the story with satisfactory content. If 26 ep series do well enough and I personally really enjoyed that Anime, then either hopefully it already has a sequel or will get a sequel. Although 12/13 episode series tend to feel rushed or too packed. Or simply they are type of Anime where "HEY! This is our promo Anime of our source material manga/LN/book/game . If you want more , go consume that source material." This is typical for 12/13 ep series and I'm quite used to that. So if it's good Anime, it manages to keep that short time entertaining and wraps it up in an acceptable way. Then I don't mind 12/13 episodes. But few essentially rush so quickly or give such absurd ending that forces you to turn towards source material. Which I obviously don't.. as I can't be bother to read manga/ln/vn .. not a reader type. Do read manga and stuff now and then. But for own other reasons. To sum it up. Well done 26 episode seasons are optimal and if good, then sequel seasons to them are a bonus. Long running ones are fun, but only if you don't cause yourself a "burnout" 12/13 episode series can be really enjoyable, but might suffer for rushed pacing or horribly concluded in that short span of episodes. Or simply serve purpose of advertising source material. |
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| @Pullman I don't need to "prove" anything. Other users in this same thread have bothered to bring data. And the problem is that the OP is bringing, perhaps on purpose, data that is arguable under the very basis that percentage and total amount is not the same thing, not when we have like 6-7 times more stuff now than we had at one point, and therefore it becomes clear that percentage and total amount are not equal metrics to drive this conclusion. They have also pointed at issues with the data recollection and how MAL's is problematic with long-running shows because if they are not close to ending then the number of episodes will appear as Unknown. Anyway, not that I want to get in the way of your claims and I can see why you miss long-running stuff in many different genres, which I can guess is quite true. Neither am I going to deny your statements on longer running shows being allowed to form a stronger attachment almost as a rule of thumb, even though I strongly disagree given how well the 1-2 cour format works for fleshing out characters and narratives in the anime I usually consume... which admittedly is less of adventure and more of routine as you point it. However on your rant about attention spans, I really dunno. Sounds judgmental and ultimately sterile, and is giving much unneeded repercussion to comments from a minority of the fanbase in an already limited environment. Speaking about trends in anime and associating them with a MrNicePantsu2018 opening a thread in MAL is a bit of a confirmation bias. And we can play both ways because seasonal watchers here tend to try a lot of stuff, and I'm quite sure that watching 30 1-cour shows is perfectly comparable in terms of time spent to watching 10 3-cour shows. Or I could go about movies and talk about how they tend to be longer nowadays. The problem either way is that your sample is irrelevant. Like for instance PreCure series are very popular in Japan, they are constantly being made, and yet here on MAL not many people watch them and they are barely talked about. MAL's comments and specially the vocal fanbase of MAL are not a reliable indicator of anything. |
jal90Mar 4, 2019 11:45 AM
| >Is such a rapid decrease in long running shows surprising to you? No, and its cause is kind of obvious imo. Spending money on just doing a one cour adaption is cheaper than going for a 2 cour right of the bat. Instead you can just throw the fans (if you accumulate enough to make it worth it for the ones producing it) another season at them and repeat this until you milked them out enough. >Will single-cour continue to dominate, or do you believe something will change? I mean there are a lot of 2 cour+ Anime out there each season too, though mostly just for more established franchises. Though then again that makes sense since if you already have a huge/'loyal' fanbase you can just keep on producing more and more episodes for them. A reason to adapt a Manga is usually the best way to make people aware of it. If they liked the adaption and won't get to see another season/the end of the Manga they will have to stick with the Manga if they are interested in it. This is not that uncommon either. 2 cours for this purpose are a waste of money. >What length anime is ideal in your opinion, why? This solely depends on the Anime. It could be 5 minutes or several hundred episodes. It really does depend on what is going to happen in an Anime. You cannot just simply say that, say, 12 episodes are the best, or, say, 24. If you have a fixed length you will either have to cram a lot of stuff into a smaller time slot or have to drag it out in a larger one. There are many 2 cours that would have been off better if they would not have bothered with filler episodes but instead just going for less than 24ish episodes. But then again there are way too many people not giving a shit about watching through filler episodes because it is their 'beloved favorite'. :^) |
The dearer you hold a memory the more painful it becomes. |
| I honestly wish there were more 3 cour anime since it is a good length for anime. I'm not surprised and there are anime with many sequels nowadays which is much safer economically than greenlighting something to be 4 cour from the beginning and risking a major loss. If anything this trend will get even more intense with studios making more anime with 12 and 8 minute episodes. |
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jal90 said: @Pullman I don't need to "prove" anything. Other users in this same thread have bothered to bring data. And the problem is that the OP is bringing, perhaps on purpose, data that is arguable under the very basis that percentage and total amount is not the same thing, not when we have like 6-7 times more stuff now than we had at one point, and therefore it becomes clear that percentage and total amount are not equal metrics to drive this conclusion. They have also pointed at issues with the data recollection and how MAL's is problematic with long-running shows because if they are not close to ending then the number of episodes will appear as Unknown. Anyway, not that I want to get in the way of your claims and I can see why you miss long-running stuff in many different genres, which I can guess is quite true. Neither am I going to deny your statements on longer running shows being allowed to form a stronger attachment almost as a rule of thumb, even though I strongly disagree given how well the 1-2 cour format works for fleshing out characters and narratives in the anime I usually consume... which admittedly is less of adventure and more of routine as you point it. However on your rant about attention spans, I really dunno. Sounds judgmental and ultimately sterile, and is giving much unneeded repercussion to comments from a minority of the fanbase in an already limited environment. Speaking about trends in anime and associating them with a MrNicePantsu2018 opening a thread in MAL is a bit of a confirmation bias. And we can play both ways because seasonal watchers here tend to try a lot of stuff, and I'm quite sure that watching 30 1-cour shows is perfectly comparable in terms of time spent to watching 10 3-cour shows. Or I could go about movies and talk about how they tend to be longer nowadays. The problem either way is that your sample is irrelevant. Like for instance PreCure series are very popular in Japan, they are constantly being made, and yet here on MAL not many people watch them and they are barely talked about. MAL's comments and specially the vocal fanbase of MAL are not a reliable indicator of anything. Well fair enough, I am generalizing of course, but I do kinda stand behind my rant. I see it every season, people losing interest before it even finishes and already focusing all their attention on the next season or making aots threads after 6 eps. It's not just a few people, it's someone else every time so it feels like it's part of a trend that many people are part of. And that isn't even mentioning the way that people talk about longer anime a lot of the time, like 50 episodes of 20 minute episodes is an unsurmountable amount of time to spend on just one thing. And then they watch 4 1-cour shows like it's nothing, so obviously it's not about the overall time as you said as well. It's about not being able to pay attention to one single thing for that long. And that's attention span to me, or at least what I mean by it. How long can you do the same thing, watch the same thing, listen to the same thing. And in that sense I do not think 20 1-cour shows is the same as 5 4-cour shows. If you constantly need new input, new series, new stuff to be able to still stay focused, that just signals a lack of attention span and patience to me. If 1-cour is the longest you can watch, that is your max attention span and anyting longer you simply can't focus on. You aren't paying attention to one thing, you're just replacing it all the time to reset your attention span and ride that hype of 'watching something new'. That's how it feels to me when people refuse to watch anything long and just gobble up 30 seasonals every season. They obviously have the time, but they lack the attention span for longer stories. So yeah, idk if attention span is the perfect word for that, maybe patience is better, but that also doesn't feel right. It's more like the desire to distract yourself renews itself so quickly that almost nothing can live up to it unless you 'renew' what you watch just as often. The implication in rejecting longer shows is always 'it can't be good enough to not lose my interest after 13-25 episodes'. Basically, the quality is irrelevant because they find it inherently hard to pay attention to one story for that many episodes. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| Most of my favorite series ran from 12-24 episodes. I never did care for the long running series like Naruto, Bleach or One Piece. I loved the 52 episode series like School Rumble & Cheeky Angel, much better than that weird blond haired ninja any day! |
| My favorite types would be 2/3 cours. I don't like anime too long and too short. |
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| Unfinished shows that are left hanging have the worst payoff tbh. Doesn't usually matter for cute/chill SOL or for full-on comedies, but for anything relying on a storyline, it's insanely frustrating to have to come to a stop without any kind of satisfying closure. They could've been good, great even, but itdoesn't matter since I'll never get to see the characters again, nor know how the story ended, except if I pick up the original, which obviously isn't the same experience. This issue is probably my main grip with the medium at this point. It's just become tiring and tedious to wait for a sequel that may never come out, which led me to pick up mostly finished things now, or at least, that have enough content for it to be satisfying. |
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Pullman said: jal90 said: @Pullman I don't need to "prove" anything. Other users in this same thread have bothered to bring data. And the problem is that the OP is bringing, perhaps on purpose, data that is arguable under the very basis that percentage and total amount is not the same thing, not when we have like 6-7 times more stuff now than we had at one point, and therefore it becomes clear that percentage and total amount are not equal metrics to drive this conclusion. They have also pointed at issues with the data recollection and how MAL's is problematic with long-running shows because if they are not close to ending then the number of episodes will appear as Unknown. Anyway, not that I want to get in the way of your claims and I can see why you miss long-running stuff in many different genres, which I can guess is quite true. Neither am I going to deny your statements on longer running shows being allowed to form a stronger attachment almost as a rule of thumb, even though I strongly disagree given how well the 1-2 cour format works for fleshing out characters and narratives in the anime I usually consume... which admittedly is less of adventure and more of routine as you point it. However on your rant about attention spans, I really dunno. Sounds judgmental and ultimately sterile, and is giving much unneeded repercussion to comments from a minority of the fanbase in an already limited environment. Speaking about trends in anime and associating them with a MrNicePantsu2018 opening a thread in MAL is a bit of a confirmation bias. And we can play both ways because seasonal watchers here tend to try a lot of stuff, and I'm quite sure that watching 30 1-cour shows is perfectly comparable in terms of time spent to watching 10 3-cour shows. Or I could go about movies and talk about how they tend to be longer nowadays. The problem either way is that your sample is irrelevant. Like for instance PreCure series are very popular in Japan, they are constantly being made, and yet here on MAL not many people watch them and they are barely talked about. MAL's comments and specially the vocal fanbase of MAL are not a reliable indicator of anything. Well fair enough, I am generalizing of course, but I do kinda stand behind my rant. I see it every season, people losing interest before it even finishes and already focusing all their attention on the next season or making aots threads after 6 eps. It's not just a few people, it's someone else every time so it feels like it's part of a trend that many people are part of. And that isn't even mentioning the way that people talk about longer anime a lot of the time, like 50 episodes of 20 minute episodes is an unsurmountable amount of time to spend on just one thing. And then they watch 4 1-cour shows like it's nothing, so obviously it's not about the overall time as you said as well. It's about not being able to pay attention to one single thing for that long. And that's attention span to me, or at least what I mean by it. How long can you do the same thing, watch the same thing, listen to the same thing. And in that sense I do not think 20 1-cour shows is the same as 5 4-cour shows. If you constantly need new input, new series, new stuff to be able to still stay focused, that just signals a lack of attention span and patience to me. If 1-cour is the longest you can watch, that is your max attention span and anyting longer you simply can't focus on. You aren't paying attention to one thing, you're just replacing it all the time to reset your attention span and ride that hype of 'watching something new'. That's how it feels to me when people refuse to watch anything long and just gobble up 30 seasonals every season. They obviously have the time, but they lack the attention span for longer stories. So yeah, idk if attention span is the perfect word for that, maybe patience is better, but that also doesn't feel right. It's more like the desire to distract yourself renews itself so quickly that almost nothing can live up to it unless you 'renew' what you watch just as often. The implication in rejecting longer shows is always 'it can't be good enough to not lose my interest after 13-25 episodes'. Basically, the quality is irrelevant because they find it inherently hard to pay attention to one story for that many episodes. I can't talk for everybody, but as one of those people who usually avoid long series and prefer to watch shorter series, I feel your assumptions are kind of unfair. For example: "the quality is irrelevant". No, it's actually the opposite. Every time u start a series u "bet" your time and hope that series will be worth it. The longer the series will be, the higher the amount of your time you'll be betting on that series will be. If I watch a 1 cour series and it happens to be mediocre/average (I drop it if it's straight up bad), who cares, it's like 4 hours long, if I watch a 100 eps series and it happens to be mediocre/average, well, that feels like a bigger waste of time. Also, based on my personal experience; longer series usually tend to have worse pacing or to be too "episodic" for my taste, so that's an issue as well (not saying that's an undeniable truth, but it sure discurages me from giving a chance to longer series) And there are plenty of other people who might have plenty of other issues with long-running series, those are only mine. Labelling them all as a "lack the attention span" or whatever u wanna call it seems a little unfair to me. Also, I'd say that the fact that aots threads appear after only 6 eps is more like impatience to have the series u like getting some recognition/praise rather than impatience to move to the next thing. |
| 1. I’m not surprised by the decrease in long running anime because it’s a lot harder to keep fresh ideas rolling for the same premise. Additionally a lot of people either lack the attention span, or simply don’t have the time to follow the ones that do manage to keep it fresh like Naruto, FMAB, OP, heck even HxH. 2. I think single and two core will be the most prominent for the foreseeable future. Attention span in modern generations is dropping, mental illess prescriptions for things like ADHD are at an all time high. 3. I voted for the longest option but I like everything as long as it’s done well. Something long running like naruto is nice because it has more time to develop. You simply cannot cram the same amount of character development, symbolism, world building etc into a one or two core series that you can in something with hundreds of episodes. However long running shows are typically slow paced, so shorter series can provide a lot of the same touching/moving factors in a significantly shorter time with better pacing. I.e. Your Lie in April absolutely crushed me and made me more sad than any singular scene in Naruto, so from an emotionally standpoint it was able to carry just as much of a punch in significantly shorter time. However because of this limited time, it lacks a LOt of other things naruto did exceptionally better, like character development, evolving plot, symbolism, world building etc. Tldr: I like any length as long as it has a good story and/or characters. 1-2 core will stay prominent, 5+ core anime are less practical in many senses, and the decreasing attention span of newer generations is lowering demand/interest in them. |
| Lolicons are scum. BABYMETAL is more metal than Metallica. Naruto is objectively the best anime ever. HxH 99' is decent. HxH 11' is bad. |
| Here's a thought... Is it possible the technology might have something to do with the shift? Speaking purely from the fan's side of things, between 2000 and 2004, DVDs were overtaking VHS as the primary home medium, not many people had fast enough Internet connections to stream video or to download it, nor the storage media to save it if they were so inclined (we used to think a 650M CD-R was a *lot* of data; that wouldn't even hold one 25-minute episode at HD quality). People were largely limited to whatever anime were being carried by cable channels, unless they had friends who bought and were willing to share home video editions. Sites like MAL didn't exist to give immediate feedback on how well a show was being received; producers still had to rely on old-fashioned tools like TV ratings. I haven't even gotten into how technology would factor into things on the production side, which I'm a lot less familiar with but which may play an even greater role. Could all of these things be contributing factors to the trend from longer-running to shorter shows? |
| A møøse once bit my sister... |
vhagar8 said: Pullman said: Well fair enough, I am generalizing of course, but I do kinda stand behind my rant. I see it every season, people losing interest before it even finishes and already focusing all their attention on the next season or making aots threads after 6 eps. It's not just a few people, it's someone else every time so it feels like it's part of a trend that many people are part of. And that isn't even mentioning the way that people talk about longer anime a lot of the time, like 50 episodes of 20 minute episodes is an unsurmountable amount of time to spend on just one thing. And then they watch 4 1-cour shows like it's nothing, so obviously it's not about the overall time as you said as well. It's about not being able to pay attention to one single thing for that long. And that's attention span to me, or at least what I mean by it. How long can you do the same thing, watch the same thing, listen to the same thing. And in that sense I do not think 20 1-cour shows is the same as 5 4-cour shows. If you constantly need new input, new series, new stuff to be able to still stay focused, that just signals a lack of attention span and patience to me. If 1-cour is the longest you can watch, that is your max attention span and anyting longer you simply can't focus on. You aren't paying attention to one thing, you're just replacing it all the time to reset your attention span and ride that hype of 'watching something new'. That's how it feels to me when people refuse to watch anything long and just gobble up 30 seasonals every season. They obviously have the time, but they lack the attention span for longer stories. So yeah, idk if attention span is the perfect word for that, maybe patience is better, but that also doesn't feel right. It's more like the desire to distract yourself renews itself so quickly that almost nothing can live up to it unless you 'renew' what you watch just as often. The implication in rejecting longer shows is always 'it can't be good enough to not lose my interest after 13-25 episodes'. Basically, the quality is irrelevant because they find it inherently hard to pay attention to one story for that many episodes. I can't talk for everybody, but as one of those people who usually avoid long series and prefer to watch shorter series, I feel your assumptions are kind of unfair. For example: "the quality is irrelevant". No, it's actually the opposite. Every time u start a series u "bet" your time and hope that series will be worth it. The longer the series will be, the higher the amount of your time you'll be betting on that series will be. If I watch a 1 cour series and it happens to be mediocre/average (I drop it if it's straight up bad), who cares, it's like 4 hours long, if I watch a 100 eps series and it happens to be mediocre/average, well, that feels like a bigger waste of time. Also, based on my personal experience; longer series usually tend to have worse pacing or to be too "episodic" for my taste, so that's an issue as well (not saying that's an undeniable truth, but it sure discurages me from giving a chance to longer series) And there are plenty of other people who might have plenty of other issues with long-running series, those are only mine. Labelling them all as a "lack the attention span" or whatever u wanna call it seems a little unfair to me. Also, I'd say that the fact that aots threads appear after only 6 eps is more like impatience to have the series u like getting some recognition/praise rather than impatience to move to the next thing. idk, it's only really 'betting with risk' if you force yourself to complete it no matter what. In that case, yes long shows are a risk. But in general I'm just much happier if I find a great long show than a great short show, because I get more out of it and don't have to gamble, And there isn't really a downside since I don't have to watch a single ep more than I feel like. There's just more upside, because if I find a great one I don't have to gamble again for a while. It's more like having to gamble again very soon no matter how good a show turns out, so even the 'wins' don't feel as rewarding because they're shortlived. I don't like gambling that much, so if I don't have to do it every 13 episodes that's a good thing. And 'worse pacing' is pretty vague. If you just mean 'slow pacing' then maybe, tho that isn't a bad thing in my book. The whole slow pacing = bad pacing that I see from a lot of anime fans is another reason why I believe in the attention span thing btw. Like they're unable to focus when things don't move at lightning speed. 1-cour shows often have to rush things because they have so little time and long-runners can take as much time as they need to do everything perfectly. Until they become too stretched, but that usually only happens to the long-long-runners, I don't think it's a big problem for 50-100 episode shows. In fact there's quite a few shows in that range that move at a steady pace and still don't manage to conclude their stories. I'm not saying it's 'all' because of attention spans, it's just the one factor that can be somewhat generalized. There can still be tons of personal factors/preferences involved of course, although some of those might also be related to attention span maybe. But beyond that I also think there is a lot of prejudice or irrational worries because I see so many people wish that 'insert 1 or 2-cour show that they love' would be much longer and concluded and hadn't ended so soon, but then avoid any show that would give them the chance of actually finding something they love that actually is much longer, concluded and didn't end too soon. That's why I mentioned that quality doesn't matter. They get avoided just on the chance of not being great. And that's kinda what I don't understand about a lot of people, they KNOW that they are just happy to have or get more once they really like a show, but never give themselves the chance to like a show that actually HAS more already. Or they avoid 50-episode series because they are too long, but have no problem of starting franchises with 3 seasons. It's all because of what I called 'irrational worries', as if a long-runner that you don't end up liking will haunt you for the rest of your life or something. I just don't think the fear of it not being great, when there are no strings attached and no unavoidable consequences, should ever reasonably outweigh the possibility of finding something you love that provides you with 2 or 5 or 10 times as many episodes as your other favorites while being just as enjoyable. Nothing beats Quality + Quantity. Why settle for one of them if you can try to get both? Of course if you have preferences, you shouldn't break with them just to give long-runners a shot. But if you find something in a genre you like that sounds interesting, the amount of episodes should only make it more appealing, not less, because of all the upside and virtually no downside. |
AlcoholicideMar 4, 2019 2:26 PM
| I probably regret this post by now. |
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