Forum - View topicThe Spring 2024 Anime Preview Guide
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23781 |
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On the surface of it, you'd think that getting anime continuations would be more common than it appears to be, unless of course the initial offering tanked hard. The reason why continuations should theoretically be fairly common is that it is (usually) cheaper to do a cours of a show that has already been created as opposed to the first cours of a new show. There are elements that have already been created: character designs, backgrounds, etc. You are not reinventing the wheel. Considering how miserly anime producers tend to be, I'm surprised this doesn't seem to necessarily mean that continuations are more common.
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18199 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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There are a few factors I can see affecting that: 1) Limited source material. This tends to be more of a problem with long-running shonen action shows, but there have been numerous other series either remade or continued years later because the next story arc wasn't finished. (Among prominent recent series, Reborn as a Vending Machine and The Ancient Magus' Bride have caught up to their source materials, SAO's next arc isn't finished in the novels, and DanMachi will be at the same point after its 5th season.) 2) The series wasn't expected to do well enough to warrant more animation, so plans weren't made from the start for a possible continuance. (This could include the production committee having been dissolved.) 3) Early content is the strongest, and the franchise drops off after that. Saga of Tanya the Evil is a prominent example of this. Not convinced the original author even has an end in mind.) Last edited by Key on Wed Apr 17, 2024 2:01 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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AverageAnimeFan
 Posts: 20 |
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The Grimm Variations was my most anticipated this season oddly enough, thanks for including it in the preview guide!
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Dayraven
Posts: 176 |
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Sorry for lack of sourcing, but I remember reading someone who was around at the time talking about how the idea that anime should be adaptations of a manga was strong then and only loosened afterwards. It might not be as obvious because a lot of the anime are based on untranslated works, but it seems to check out for the earlier part of the 70s — later you get World Masterpiece Theatre and its imitators on the one hand based on western children’s literature, and original mecha shows on the other. |
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 265 |
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Grimm Variations sounds interesting but I find the initial text pitch of "what if they didn't end happily ever after?" at the top kinda weird because a lot of the original Grimm tales are already dark and there are several that don't end happily ever after.
Still though, I'll probably check it out because I am a sucker for new takes on classic fairy tales. |
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2126 |
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Hang on, there. The tide may have been turning that way, but it was far from complete. In a thread a few months back, I noted that if you compare 2007's anime to today's, a hell of a lot more are single-cour now. And split-cour anime didn't really become a thing until Fate/Zero in 2011, IIRC. I took some time just now to go over MAL's seasonal pages, looking through new TV anime from a few different years to see how many were multi-cour. I may have been inconsistent with how I counted, especially with the page filters (they've never been that consistent about what goes under "Kids") and short series, but the proportion I came up with for 2004 was 49.57%. That's certainly much less than it had been as recently as 2000, when the number was 70%. (Only three of the 19 anime listed for Spring 2000 were single-cour: Boys Be..., NieA_7, and Banner of the Stars.) But by 2008 it had dropped further, to 43.17%, and even that's a long way from what we see today -- the proportion for 2023 was 12.88%. (In a reversal of Spring 2000, Winter 2023's page lists only three new anime with multiple consecutive cours, out of 56: Vinland Saga S2, Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure, and Me & Roboco.) This trend has progressed a lot in the past 20 years. |
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Yuvelir
 Posts: 1565 |
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I don't know how old this specific trend is, but I know for a fact that SHAFT did this with Natsu no Arashi in 2009 and Arakawa Under the Bridge in 2010. In both cases they named the second cour like a sequel, but for all intents and purposes they were split cours with both shows getting a cour in spring, skipping summer (ironically) and then having another one in autumn. There are probably older and contemporary shows that did so too, but I haven't bothered looking. |
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MagicPolly
 Posts: 1577 |
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I really liked the first episode of The Grimm Variations as a fan of both anthology series and CLAMP. It was really interesting to see how it was a completely original story based on the fairy tale rather than just an adaptation with a twist. I really hope we can see a full review from Rebecca at some point!
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18199 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Black Lagoon in 2006 had a similar arrangement. F/Z was, I believe, the first title whose two parts were specifically advertised as a single series despite an off season in between, as opposed to a series and a sequel. Pretty sure the term "split cour" didn't exist before that. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23781 |
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@ Shay Guy - thank you for crunching those numbers, that's fascinating. I would love to know what drove this startling change from multi-cours down to single cours.
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2551 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Fair enough, but from what I've looked at by seeing what anime air in late-night, 2004 (or even 2003, to be fair) was the point where it truly started becoming a regular thing. However, that also combines taking into account shows that ran for more than one cour, which was still a thing in late-night by that point to some extent, so there's where the discrepancy comes out. Stuff like Monster & Monkey Turn both debuted in late-night in 2004 & both ran for a year+ (75 for Monster, 50 for MT), so while I was accidentally counting them in my numbers (since late-night & single cour are so strongly connected I admittedly forgot to exclude them here), they wouldn't in you count due to their length & lack of being split up. Over time, as late-night continued to become more prevalent a place to air anime, it was decided to make shows that aired in late-night slots shorter, or at least split them up so that they don't run for more than a single cour at once, and that would track with your numbers.
Easy: Money. Late-night anime is essentially nothing more than a giant infomercial, whether it be for the later home video release or the source material it may be adapting from (among other stuff), and if the networks want to maximize being able to work with as many different partners as possible then they start enforcing how long a show can run in that time slot. After all, a network gets more money by having four different shows air in a late-night time slot over the course of a year, one cour at a time, then it would by having only one or two shows air, each of which running for two cours. Even having three shows, with one of them being split up, is preferable when it comes to money. |
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Yuvelir
Posts: 1565 |
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I remember those two shows I mentioned being described as "split cour" when I was catching up and I think by that time the Fate Zero anime was either not announced yet or just announced. The crowd noise when that happened was... noticeable. Even conceding how FZ was named, it was still just marketing and didn't have any impact on how anime was being produced... although in retrospect I wish they had even less impact than that because having stuff like "season 3 part 2" is not only confusing, it becomes ridiculous when there's like a full year gap between parts. How many final seasons did Shingeki no Kyojin have in the end? |
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Snowcat
Posts: 190 |
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Production committee (TV broadcaster) and planning needs for studio. From the 80's, there were the usage to have 26 or 52 episode show produced by a TV network. In the 2000s, it was still 26 episodes in general and often 52 episodes but the TV broadcaster started to produced 13 episodes for late night anime (risk averse and still compatible with TV broadcasting planning). Around 2007, it became the majority but the evolution was inescapable, illustrated by Noitamina on FujiTV which started in 2005. The studio adapted themselves and with the rise of advertising productions for LN, manga and games, the format became the standard in the industry. The problem that arose was, in case of a successful show, the renewing of the show would get the sequel produced after 2 or 3 years. So the format of split court was the solution to produce several 24 episodes show again (with at least a split season to manage the horrendous time constraint they have in the production nowadays). On a side note, Netflix is bringing back irregular formats like those of the OAVs. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11368 |
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Why should that be so? If I'm a network, wouldn't I charge whoever would pay my rate for that slot, period? I wouldn't care if it was one 4-cour series or four 1-cour, as I'd still get the same amount. Actually, I'd rather one production committee buy all four slots, just to cut down on negotiations and paperwork. The only way it would matter to me is if nobody wanted the air-time at the rate I was charging, so I had to offer lower rates or other incentives to draw takers. That doesn't seem to be a problem though? |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23781 |
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Exact same question I had, Gina. Also, I've heard the broadcast fees and advertising rates for late night anime are very low given the small viewership, so I don't think it is broadcasters who are driving the multi-cours versus single cours issue. I suspect strongly it is the anime producers who are driving this, I just can't figure out why.
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