Ideal Length of an Anime
While getting set for my next release, I've found myself contemplating a thought I've had before. It's a common question - how long should an anime be?
In general the question can be applied as easily to any story, but I tend to think about it most as related to anime purely because of my regular exposure to anime. The fact is, knowing when to stop is as important as knowing how to begin.
When I refer to the length of an anime, it's not only the length of a given season, but the length of each episode. Anime seasons, or cours, are broken up to align with the natural seasons (fall, winter, spring, summer), and generally represent 10-14 episodes based on the anime.
I tend to group anime in four categories for seasons - long run, long splits, mids, and shorts. Long runs are you Bleach, Naruto, One Piece animes. They are broken up into seasons, but they rarely go even a week without a new episode, episode totals running in the hundreds. If I'm not mistaken Detective Conan is the longest running anime at the moment at over 650 episodes (not interested so I don't even know if it's streamed anywhere).
Long splits are shows like Pokemon and Pretty Cure; shows that are separated by seasons, and whose individual seasons show loose or no connection to one another. In this category I also place shows like this season's The World God Only Knows; shows whose total episodes are on par with some of the longer series but take anime seasons off in between their new seasons - show season one, take a break, then show season two.
The mids are the 2-4 cour series (half to full year). They last from as little as 22 episodes to as long as 52 episodes. These are usually continuous, but sometimes take one or two cour breaks between seasons and and 2 or 2 and 3 for the 26 or 52 episode seasons alternatively.
Finally the shorts. These are the most common - one offs, succinct stories, or cut-to-run stories. They only last up to 13 episodes not counting DVD/Blu-Ray specials or OVAs. They're often developed from manga stories and either don't gain the traction to run for an added cour, or are intended to be only one cour.
For the episodes in the series there are fulls, halfs, and shorts. Fairly self-explanatory, these are full half hour shows, ten to fifteen minute episodes, and 5 or so minutes for the shorts.
I usually don't like the shorts of either episode or season. It's hard to get into an episode that lasts such a brief period of time, and the 13 episode seasons are usually too short to provide much depth to the story in general, and often lack a real ending. They leave more questions than answers, making them genuinely difficult to look back on fondly. Those that have been adapted from a manga or light novel often cut much of the story in order to come in at both budget and length.
Those that extend too long, however, can suffer spikes and troughs in entertainment value. Some parts of the Naruto series are fine enough, but others you just need to skip. The long runs in general have to contend with the matter of filler. As they're often based on manga or light novels in progress, the anime has to wait for sufficient headway in the source material or run the risk of catching up and overtaking the story, which of course would mean creating their own story, which runs afoul of other problems.
The mids can run into issues of both the shorts and the longs. They are in the middle. They may or may not be from a series at its end, so they may or may not have story to animate. I think of Pandora Hearts, who began animating, went for two cours, but didn't have the popularity or support to run longer than that, so they made up an ending that was very different from the manga it was based from, and not a very good ending it was.
I think in general long splits of full half-hour episodes are the ideal setup. The anime runs for a cour or two at a time, taking one or two cour breaks, then resuming from where they left off. The issue of course comes with whether the show can sustain itself int he vacuum of time between cours this way. That is the reason there is sometimes reluctance to take this route - viewers move on, get tired of waiting, in general lose interest. But if one is handled well, I think a long running split would be ideal.
Of course the most important thing is the story and how it is managed. Introduction of characters, introduction of concepts, quality of animation, building up the story, and finally the finale. Case in point, until Inuyasha: Final Act, the anime was a low on my list of good anime. The original Inuyasha anime was a long running series, with its ups and downs. It probably handled filler the best of any show its length. But by the anime not having a real ending, the anime objectively was bad.
Every story needs to have an ending at some point. Finding that ending can be harder than figuring out how to get it started. You can have tons of ideas, or you can have only a few. Getting them all out may be easy or difficult. Figuring out a compelling way to tie them all together at the end is the hardest part. The audience needs to feel that their trip through the story was worth something.
A bad beginning can be salvaged along the way. A bad middle can be offset by a good start or finish. A bad ending can easily ruin everything that led up to it. It is the last impression an audience has on the story. If it is not handled well, the impression left, rightly or wrongly, is that the story itself was bad. Some of the worst anime actually had somewhat decent starts, or at least a compelling concept at the heart of the story. But they usually commit their most serious folly by way of a bad ending.
As sad as it may be, all good stories need to end at some point. As beloved as the Harry Potter series was, the wizarding world's battle had to reach a conclusion. I try to keep that in mind with my own story, but I'm far from a professional writer, so forgive me if I overshoot that point at some time in the future.
In general the question can be applied as easily to any story, but I tend to think about it most as related to anime purely because of my regular exposure to anime. The fact is, knowing when to stop is as important as knowing how to begin.
When I refer to the length of an anime, it's not only the length of a given season, but the length of each episode. Anime seasons, or cours, are broken up to align with the natural seasons (fall, winter, spring, summer), and generally represent 10-14 episodes based on the anime.
I tend to group anime in four categories for seasons - long run, long splits, mids, and shorts. Long runs are you Bleach, Naruto, One Piece animes. They are broken up into seasons, but they rarely go even a week without a new episode, episode totals running in the hundreds. If I'm not mistaken Detective Conan is the longest running anime at the moment at over 650 episodes (not interested so I don't even know if it's streamed anywhere).
Long splits are shows like Pokemon and Pretty Cure; shows that are separated by seasons, and whose individual seasons show loose or no connection to one another. In this category I also place shows like this season's The World God Only Knows; shows whose total episodes are on par with some of the longer series but take anime seasons off in between their new seasons - show season one, take a break, then show season two.
The mids are the 2-4 cour series (half to full year). They last from as little as 22 episodes to as long as 52 episodes. These are usually continuous, but sometimes take one or two cour breaks between seasons and and 2 or 2 and 3 for the 26 or 52 episode seasons alternatively.
Finally the shorts. These are the most common - one offs, succinct stories, or cut-to-run stories. They only last up to 13 episodes not counting DVD/Blu-Ray specials or OVAs. They're often developed from manga stories and either don't gain the traction to run for an added cour, or are intended to be only one cour.
For the episodes in the series there are fulls, halfs, and shorts. Fairly self-explanatory, these are full half hour shows, ten to fifteen minute episodes, and 5 or so minutes for the shorts.
I usually don't like the shorts of either episode or season. It's hard to get into an episode that lasts such a brief period of time, and the 13 episode seasons are usually too short to provide much depth to the story in general, and often lack a real ending. They leave more questions than answers, making them genuinely difficult to look back on fondly. Those that have been adapted from a manga or light novel often cut much of the story in order to come in at both budget and length.
Those that extend too long, however, can suffer spikes and troughs in entertainment value. Some parts of the Naruto series are fine enough, but others you just need to skip. The long runs in general have to contend with the matter of filler. As they're often based on manga or light novels in progress, the anime has to wait for sufficient headway in the source material or run the risk of catching up and overtaking the story, which of course would mean creating their own story, which runs afoul of other problems.
The mids can run into issues of both the shorts and the longs. They are in the middle. They may or may not be from a series at its end, so they may or may not have story to animate. I think of Pandora Hearts, who began animating, went for two cours, but didn't have the popularity or support to run longer than that, so they made up an ending that was very different from the manga it was based from, and not a very good ending it was.
I think in general long splits of full half-hour episodes are the ideal setup. The anime runs for a cour or two at a time, taking one or two cour breaks, then resuming from where they left off. The issue of course comes with whether the show can sustain itself int he vacuum of time between cours this way. That is the reason there is sometimes reluctance to take this route - viewers move on, get tired of waiting, in general lose interest. But if one is handled well, I think a long running split would be ideal.
Of course the most important thing is the story and how it is managed. Introduction of characters, introduction of concepts, quality of animation, building up the story, and finally the finale. Case in point, until Inuyasha: Final Act, the anime was a low on my list of good anime. The original Inuyasha anime was a long running series, with its ups and downs. It probably handled filler the best of any show its length. But by the anime not having a real ending, the anime objectively was bad.
Every story needs to have an ending at some point. Finding that ending can be harder than figuring out how to get it started. You can have tons of ideas, or you can have only a few. Getting them all out may be easy or difficult. Figuring out a compelling way to tie them all together at the end is the hardest part. The audience needs to feel that their trip through the story was worth something.
A bad beginning can be salvaged along the way. A bad middle can be offset by a good start or finish. A bad ending can easily ruin everything that led up to it. It is the last impression an audience has on the story. If it is not handled well, the impression left, rightly or wrongly, is that the story itself was bad. Some of the worst anime actually had somewhat decent starts, or at least a compelling concept at the heart of the story. But they usually commit their most serious folly by way of a bad ending.
As sad as it may be, all good stories need to end at some point. As beloved as the Harry Potter series was, the wizarding world's battle had to reach a conclusion. I try to keep that in mind with my own story, but I'm far from a professional writer, so forgive me if I overshoot that point at some time in the future.
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