Whenever I sit down to watch an anime series, I generally assume that the episodes will be somewhere between 20-25 minutes long. I’ll occasionally come across a series whose episodes are longer than that, Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne and Hellsing Ultimate being two in particular that come to mind, but there are also a surprising number of anime whose runtime is actually below the average, sometimes drastically. Therefore, I thought I might take a look at some anime that have short episode runtimes and how they air on television.
I should start out by saying that I have seen relatively few of these series. My focus on physical media as well as value has always limited the amount of anime with short episode runtimes that I end up seeing. I also get the feeling that they are a harder sell for licensors as I don’t recall seeing many of these series released here in the first place. Off the top of my head, the only anime that I can recall seeing that would fit this criteria is Hetalia: Axis Powers, a series which personifies nations and runs for about five minutes per episode. While the show can be a little uneven in quality at points, it’s one that, particularly as a fan of history, I ended up greatly enjoying.
As for other anime that I’m aware of having short episode runtimes, I remember being surprised when I learned that the Chi’s Sweet Home anime consisted of three minute episodes, of which there were 208. I also remember hearing about I Can’t Understand What My Husband Is Saying due to the premises similarity to My Girlfriend’s A Geek and Insufficient Direction and I was similarly surprised to learn that they were only three minute episodes.
As I heard more and more about these anime series, I started to wonder how they were marketed. The short lengths of these series reminded me of my childhood when I would watch TV channels on Sky in the kids section and how there were some short shows that would air between other shows that didn’t even appear on the schedule, instead presumably taking up ad space for whatever reason. I, thus, made the assumption that maybe these anime worked in a similar way.
In my efforts to find information about how these shows were released, I came across an Answerman article from Anime News Network where a reader asked “just [sic] exactly are these programmes shown on television?” The response notes the difference in mindset between American TV networks and Japanese TV networks, that being that American channels tend to have their content start and end either on the hour or the half hour while Japanese channels are not nearly as restrictive. While they are sometimes lumped together as a block of short anime, it’s not unusual to see these shows by themselves and starting at times that we’d consider to be strange. Of course, the main concern the channel has is that the show remain consistent in length so the schedule is not constantly shifting but these short shows are fine beyond that.
Let me know your thoughts on anime that have short episode runtimes, which anime with short runtimes you have seen, which you’ve liked and disliked, whether you know anything about the production of these series or how they are marketed, whether you think they are harder to market in the West than normal or longer length anime and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!