Why I love short anime.

[GAINAX]

After watching Gunbuster, the reason I dislike these types of anime (Bleach, Naruto, Inu Yasha) has been cemented in my mind. The reason is because these shows can't do in 100, 200, 360 episodes what a complex show can do in 6. Why fool ourselves into thinking that these animes will be anything but grindstones for future seasons? what will make season 8 any different then season 7?

While not bad in itself, this stagnation leads many viewers to stick with a single series and never branch out into other great series. I always hate it when I talk to an anime fan, and all they've ever seen is Bleach or Natruro. Instead of 360 episodes of Bleach you could have seen over a hundred 6 or 12 episode series, and have had a much more comprehensive anime viewing experience.

Pretty much the best thing you can do for yourself is break away from these types of anime, they'll only have more and more plot twists that require another season of viewing. You'll never think back and say "holy crap episode 123-129 of bleach was unforgetable", but watch episode 1-6 of Gunbuster and you'll never forget it.

A little bit of a rant, but I'm interested in what CAA thinks about this

(edit, title should be "why I love short anime", the irony of typos.)

[Yamamaya]

This is the reason the only long series I've watched is Bleach. I just don't really feel like getting into the other ones.

[Roy Mustang]

I have always been a fan of short series animes. I still have watch some series that are longer then 52 eps, but that is very rare and Bleach, Naruto, Inu Yasha were never on my list to really watch. The only time that I have sat down and watch Bleach was when I was bored and watch it. I watch Inu Yasha about 12 eps in and then the last 12 eps of the end and it was still the same thing going on. I will watch the last eps of the final chapter of Inu Yasha, so that I can say that I have seen it and don't have to deal with the fanbase of the show that think that anyone is crazy for not watching IY.

Right now, the only show that I know that I will watch that will be long is FMA Brotherhood as I did watch all of the first series of FMA.

The most anime that I have watch as a series is about 26 eps long or shorter.

[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

[ShiroiHikari]

Nothing wrong with long series. In fact, I usually prefer them.

[blkmage]

You aren't necessarily wrong, but your comparison is a little unfair. You're comparing a 6 episode mecha OVA to a bunch of shounen shows that air on TV and have n episodes as n goes to infinity. The problems you're getting at have to do more with the conventions of the genre than length. And of course, there are many differences in production between OVAs and TV series that work their way into shows that you won't pick up unless you're aware of them.

[Radical Dreamer]

I tend to gravitate toward shorter series because they're cheaper to own, but I've enjoyed some long series, as well. Bleach, InuYasha and Naruto aren't necessarily good examples of what can be done with a longer series. Monster is a good example of how a long series can be used to tell a story that simply needs that much time to be told, and not waste time on filler episodes. The same goes for series like 20th Century Boys and Rurouni Kenshin, 22 and 28 (manga) volumes long (respectively). Sometimes, the story stretches across an expanse that just needs a lot of time to be told.

Then again, the only series I've seen that you mentioned is InuYasha (shhhhhhhh, I was young and impressionable). XD I've not seen any of Bleach or Naruto, so I can't comment on the quality of story there. Either way, I don't think it's the length of an anime that qualifies it for being worthy to watch or not. It's what the writers and directors do with that length that turns it into a great story.

[RainbowSounds]

I like short animes as well. I generally prefer them to be within the 20-26 episode range. I'm sort of scared to watch 300 episode animes......that would take me forever to complete!

[Roy Mustang]

RD and blkmage have good points.

The long ones that I don't care too much about are the ones that go pass 100 eps. Bleach, InuYasha and Naruto would get sloppy artwork, when they go into the filler episodes. But you have series that don't use fillers episodes and the artwork stays the same and doesn't change to the point that they don't care what gets put out.

Some stories work in short format and others do not.

I can list some animes that wouldn't work if they were shorted down.

Macross: 36 episodes. They tried short it and made a movie out of. Where the artwork was good for Macross:DYRL, some people didn't like the fact that it did cut out key parts from the series.

Monster: 74 episodes. There is no way that this series would good, if they had short it. There was too much story in it make it a short series.

Gundam: 43 episodes, Gundam Z 50 episodes, Gundam 47 episodes. All of those were fine and if they had cut them down, they wouldn't have told the story right.

The only Gundam series that I feel should have been cut a bit, was Gundam Wing. It did kind drag a bit and there was some episodes that I feel could have been cut.

[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

[ST. Attidude]

I honestly thought that the first FMA was too long (around 50 episodes) especially since the anime was loosely-based to the manga that you can barely call it based...

FMA: Brotherhood on the other hand, also had episodes like the first one, that were not necessarily part of the original manga and yet it feels nearly perfected. The ep. count is just right! * V *

[Nate]

After watching Gunbuster, the reason I dislike these types of anime (Bleach, Naruto, Inu Yasha) has been cemented in my mind.

Comparing Bleach/Naruto/Inuyasha to Gunbuster is like comparing Ben 10 to Robocop. They're for different audiences and have different limitations on them.

The reason is because these shows can't do in 100, 200, 360 episodes what a complex show can do in 6.

Watch One Piece and tell me how that could be done in 6 episodes. Watch Monster and tell me how that could be done in 6 episodes. Watch Full Metal Alchemist and tell me how that could be done in 6 episodes.

See where I'm going with this? Yes they "can't" do it because their plots and characters are too grand to be condensed down.

Why fool ourselves into thinking that these animes will be anything but grindstones for future seasons?

Guys something that is popular shouldn't be allowed to stay on the air seriously when people enjoy it they should just end it.

what will make season 8 any different then season 7?

I don't know, ask One Piece where the theme is that every island they visit is different and unique.

While not bad in itself, this stagnation leads many viewers to stick with a single series and never branch out into other great series. I always hate it when I talk to an anime fan, and all they've ever seen is Bleach or Natruro. Instead of 360 episodes of Bleach you could have seen over a hundred 6 or 12 episode series, and have had a much more comprehensive anime viewing experience.

How dare people watch something they like! They should watch other things, like things that I like! Everyone is entitled to my opinion!

Pretty much the best thing you can do for yourself is break away from these types of anime, they'll only have more and more plot twists that require another season of viewing.

OH NO NOT PLOT TWISTS. I hate plot twists! I like all my anime trite and predictable, thank you very much!

You'll never think back and say "holy crap episode 123-129 of bleach was unforgetable"

Holy crap episode 236 of One Piece was unforgettable, that was Luffy vs. Usopp in a duel of a guy who's beaten super powerful bad guys with crazy powers against someone who is a normal human with absolutely no powers, and the duel isn't one-sided! Whoa!

but watch episode 1-6 of Gunbuster and you'll never forget it.

I saw Gunbuster once. I remember some boobs and talk about some couple reaching the "C-stage" but that's about it.

Conclusion:

TV anime is sometimes horribly long in Japan because it is released at the same time as a manga, meaning that filler episodes have to be made while the manga tries to get ahead of the anime enough to make more episodes. Is this bad? Mostly yeah, but it's how Japan does it.

OAVs are different because you don't want a long OAV series. It's expensive! Thus they have to condense everything into a shorter time frame.

By the way, Gundam Unicorn will be only 6 episodes and fans of the light novels are upset because only 6 episodes to cover a 10 volume manga? They're gonna have to cut a LOT of plot and character development. In other words, the shortness will make it worse! Gasp.

It's almost as if sometimes a longer series is more compelling, like with Monster, and sometimes shorter series are bad because they can't tell as good a story in a limited time frame. But wait! That means that the value of a series has absolutely no relevance to its length! There are good and bad long series and good and bad short series.

Trying to say a series is bad because it's long is just a non sequitur.

[goldenspines]

My anime watching habits lean towards shorter anime series because they tend to be more convenient for me to watch, but I don't really play favorites when it comes to length. Rather, quality is more important than quantity. If the quantity is 400 episodes, and the quality is amazing, I will watch it. And vice versa, if the quantity is 13 episodes and the anime sucks, I probably won't watch it. :\
Like people have mentioned, there are long anime that are not as repetitive and perhaps a tad tiresome as the examples you listed. One Piece, for example, has 441 episodes(and still airing), but I would consider it a very enjoyable anime to watch. AKA: It doesn't get boring after the first 50 episodes. Like Nate mentioned, they don't repeat the setting or the side characters, it's always changing.
Another example is Full Moon o Sagashite, which is 50+ episodes, and even though it contained tons of filler (the manga is only 7 volumes), the anime was still well worth the watch.

And, I agree with this:

I tend to gravitate toward shorter series because they're cheaper to own, but I've enjoyed some long series, as well. Bleach, InuYasha and Naruto aren't necessarily good examples of what can be done with a longer series. Monster is a good example of how a long series can be used to tell a story that simply needs that much time to be told, and not waste time on filler episodes. The same goes for series like 20th Century Boys and Rurouni Kenshin, 22 and 28 (manga) volumes long (respectively). Sometimes, the story stretches across an expanse that just needs a lot of time to be told.

[GAINAX]

Thanks for your input, I know the first post came out harsher then I meant it to so my apologies. I'm restructuring my point a bit so please bare with me .

I could use a better example rather then Gunbuster the OVA vs televised series, but in all honesty that was exactly the show that brought on the above mentioned realization. I used to watch Inu-Yasha and Bleach, I really enjoyed them, but it wasn't until I started branching out into shorter series that I found some of my absolute favorite series.

Looking Up at the Half Moon (6 episodes) and Binbou Shimai Monogatari (10 episodes) are both TV series, and I still remember them vividly. I worry that by staying with one or two long running series the every day anime watcher will miss the gems that float by.

I will retract my statement about repetitiveness, certain series such as Detective Conan do a great job of keeping fresh even with a long running series, and I have not seen enough long running series to make this judgment call anyway.

[Nate]

I used to watch Inu-Yasha and Bleach, I really enjoyed them, but it wasn't until I started branching out into shorter series that I found some of my absolute favorite series.

Yeah, but again, that doesn't have anything to do with the length of the series, it has to do with the quality of the series itself. How long it is is just incidental. If I were to meet five or six really tall people and they were all rude jerks, it would be silly to assume "Man, all tall people are horrible!" How tall they are has nothing to do with their attitude]I worry that by staying with one or two long running series the every day anime watcher will miss the gems that float by.[/QUOTE]
But how so? There's three situations concerning a person watching a long-running series. One, they've been watching since day one, meaning they see the fansubs or whatever once a week when the current episode airs. That leaves the rest of the week minus 22 minutes for them to watch all sorts of other stuff.

The second situation is that the person is getting into a series that's been running for a while. This means that as long as they watch more than one episode per week, they will eventually catch up to the current series position. And if they marathon it (which new viewers tend to do) then that means that they will catch up to the current episode even quicker, thus putting them in the same position as person one.

The third situation is the person is a good anime viewer who doesn't watch fansubs and buys DVDs. In this case, when they buy the DVDs they will watch that, then have to wait for the next set of DVDs to come out...thus meaning they have a lot of free time in between to do other things. Like watch other anime!

I really don't see any situation where following one or two long-running series would prevent someone from watching something else.

[Roz]

Everyone is entitled to my opinion!

Lol, this I have noticed.


I personally like the shorter ones because, like RD said, they're cheaper to own and I've found that the story is much more to my liking in the shorter ones. The longest ones I've watched are The Twelve Kingdoms and Eureka 7, both of which I enjoyed a great deal. It's quality over quantity for me. However, if the quality is good and stays good I don't mind the quantity at all. ^_^

[AnimeGirl]

My view on this. I do like long series, but not FOREVER longer series (like Pokmeon, for example XD I like the first 3 seasons and then the movies). I loved Cardcaptors because it had 70 episodes. It's enough episodes to have alot to watch so you don't finish it too quickly, but not too long where you get bored and wonder "Oh, when will it end!". Tsubasa was 52 episodes, wish it WAS longer, but thankfully we have 2 OVA series which hopefully will be dubbed soon, and it still need another OVA series to complete the story, or perhaps a 3rd series. Then there are 1 season animes like Angelic Layer, which is good in only 26 episodes, everything all came together and tied up nicely at the end. Ooh, and Robotech the third chapter was the shortest chapter in the series, and it was awesome!

So my opinion on this is short series can be good, but I do prefer if there's a good amount to watch because you get attached to these characters and wish the series went on a little longer (like the Game Plan! manga. It was only 2 volumes! I wish there was AT LEAST 1 more, but it ended nicely, so I can't complain).

[ShiroiHikari]

Short series can be nice, and 26 episodes is usually a good length, but don't knock it just because it has more episodes than that. Big, sweeping war epics and other things of the sort just can't be done in 26 episodes. XD

[blkmage]

A better comparison would be Gunbuster to Legend of Galactic Heroes. I haven't actually seen LOGH, but it is the stuff of legends and pretty much universally praised and is almost twenty times longer.

The reason you can't compare OVAs to TV series is because of budgeting. OVAs often have a larger budget for a smaller number of episodes, which often leads to much better production. Also, most modern TV anime run for about 12 or 13 episodes because of the way TV is managed in Japan.

[KhakiBlueSocks]

Then again, the only series I've seen that you mentioned is InuYasha (shhhhhhhh, I was young and impressionable). XD I've not seen any of Bleach or Naruto, so I can't comment on the quality of story there. Either way, I don't think it's the length of an anime that qualifies it for being worthy to watch or not. It's what the writers and directors do with that length that turns it into a great story.

When it comes to Inuyasha, we were ALL young and impressionable...and slightly medicated, but that's another story.

Anyway, though I love the in depth character development and side-stories of long series like Fullmetal Alchemist, Eureka Seven, Death Note and Nadia: Secret of Blue Water, I do tend to favor shorter series around the 26 episode mark or less. Also, if I want to buy the disks volume by volume instead of box set, it uses a lot less room than a LONG epic anime. (The exception to this rule being Nadia, because it came in a thin-pack complete collection.

[MightiMidget]

For the most part it does seem like short anime are stronger. (newbie here, for a plural is it still anime? or animes? animes does not sound right) I definitely enjoy Bleach, but it has so much boring filler that I do tend to watch a lot of it on ffwd, or skip episodes altogether that seem to be boring.

Often it depends on plot type, though. If it's a quest I'd rather watch a short quest than a long quest...any day.

[Radical Dreamer]

(newbie here, for a plural is it still anime? or animes? animes does not sound right)

It is definitely "anime;" I know because I asked this question myself years ago on this site. XD I'm always excited to help out the grammatically concerned! XD

[MightiMidget]

LOL! Thank you!

[Tsukuyomi]

For the most part it does seem like short anime are stronger. (newbie here, for a plural is it still anime? or animes? animes does not sound right)

Correct 8D

It works for both the singular and plural form ^__^ Same goes with manga ^^

I enjoy the shorter series as well ^__^ Not too short though :-? Most anime are at least 26 episodes long, right ^^? I can also handle the 50 or so episode ones (OVA's are thrown into those.. I think) like Fushigi Yuugi <33

[uc pseudonym]

You'll never think back and say "holy crap episode 123-129 of bleach was unforgetable", but watch episode 1-6 of Gunbuster and you'll never forget it.

Though for it to be a fair comparison, you would have to watch 20 different series the length of Gunbusters. How unforgettable do you think each one of them would be after that many? Similarly, if you only saw six episodes of Bleach, what do you think your opinion of it would be?

That having been said, I think there is an argument against long adaptations of manga. Because it takes so many issues to make a single episode, when an anime runs alongside the unfinished manga it either introduces filler or it drags out the episodes. Imagine how much shorter DBZ (and better) would be without scene panning and reaction shots being dragged out forever.

[Yamamaya]

There's nothing wrong with a long series. Some plots can be presented in small packages, others may require bigger packages. It's just a matter of taste.

On and BTW, I remember episodes 166-167 of Bleach quite well. They were amazing.

[Fish and Chips]

Though generally I tend to prefer shorter Anime series, I've kept up with some pretty long running Manga, as well as a few shorter ones on the side. In my browsing I can definitely confirm that length isn't indicative of quality. Some of the worst things I've read were less than even ten volumes, whereas quite a few of the best stretched into their thirties, forties, fifties-

Though really, Manga is an industry that endears itself to long narratives. We're talking about Anime.

The real problem boils down to budget and creative control. OVAs are already a separate tier from regular television channels, in terms of broadcasting and creative direction. Their budget is concentrated, and they don't have to appeal to the everyman with a television. An OVA and a television series might receive the same budget restrictions, but the television series has to stretch it across their timeslot for several months, whereas OVA churn out new episodes at its leisure. Also, OVAs tend to live or die episode by episode; fund a single episode, or a time table for a concise series, pour your resources into the first, release it, profit, pour your resources into the second with the profits from the first, lather, rinse, repeat. By contrast, television allots you a staple episode count and an even budget across all of them. Really really long running cash cows though are, of course, a different beast all together.

I honestly thought that the first FMA was too long (around 50 episodes)

FMA: Brotherhood on the other hand, also had episodes like the first one, that were not necessarily part of the original manga and yet it feels nearly perfected. The ep. count is just right! * V *

Original series: 51 episodes
Brotherhood: 51+ episodes

[blkmage]

I wouldn't say Brotherhood is definitely set to be over 50 episodes quite yet. My current theory is that it'll end at 50 and we'll see a theatrical movie or two to finish it off, since the manga end is coming up and that seems to be the popular thing to do nowadays.

[That Dude]

I personally like the shorter anime, but I'll go for the long ones, if they work well that way like Monster. But yeah I generally stay more on the 26 or less episode side.

Manga though, I generally like the longer ones just as much or more. For an easy example, the manga of Naruto is much better than the anime, and is still pretty fresh. Also a good example of a long one would be 20th Century Boys.

[Fish and Chips]

I wouldn't say Brotherhood is definitely set to be over 50 episodes quite yet. My current theory is that it'll end at 50 and we'll see a theatrical movie or two to finish it off, since the manga end is coming up and that seems to be the popular thing to do nowadays.

Because 50 episodes is a tremendous drop in length from 51.

The quality of the new season is more even-keeled than the original, so maybe that tempers the feel for its length, but it's still basically the same airtime, if not then longer.

[blkmage]

What I meant was that I don't think we'll be seeing another cour, which is what I assumed you meant from the +. So, I think we can definitely agree that Brotherhood won't be ending the entire FMA story on episode 50/51/52/whatever the end of the cour is.

Anyhow, thinking on it some more, my belief was that it wouldn't end within the next 3-5 chapters. However, taking into account the last few chapters, I've realized again just how much goes on in a chapter. If it does end in the next few months, then yeah, I guess we could see another cour. Otherwise, movie.

[MightiMidget]

I personally like the shorter anime, but I'll go for the long ones, if they work well that way like Monster. But yeah I generally stay more on the 26 or less episode side.

*nods* yeah. Monster is one that would have been possible to squish into 26 episodes? But it would have lost quite a few awesome characters and plot points that made it so fascinating.