I was watching a YouTube video recently where a guy expressed an interest in Attack on Titan but stated that he was afraid to start the anime because “there’s like a million episodes, I don’t know where to start”. The others explained to him that there were only about twenty episodes (this video was back in 2016 and they were referring to the 25 episodes that had aired before then). I was quite amused by this as I’ve seen plenty of people also make the assumption that all anime are long-running series. This viewpoint, while certainly never true, did seem closer to reality back when I first got into anime but it feels like a lot of series these days are much shorter.
Over the years, we’ve seen anime steadily go from producing multiple cours in the past down to most modern anime series consisting of only a single cour. Additionally, long-running anime has become increasingly uncommon with manga such as My Hero Academia, which in my opinion seemed tailor-made to be a long-running anime, instead being adapted into a one cour first season with several two cour seasons following.
So you might be wondering why this transition has taken place. According to Justin Sevakis, it all comes down to risk management. The longer an anime is, the more resources are invested into it from the very beginning. In the event that the show does badly in home video sales, critical acclaim, ratings etc., the investment spent on producing future episodes of the series will likely be viewed by the production committee as a waste.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that late-night anime is less interested in pleasing TV networks, especially since TV networks are paid to air these episodes, with income instead generated through other media such as home video sales and merchandising. With the concerns of TV networks being of less value, having longer series became less important and, more importantly, inefficient.
Instead, producing fewer episodes such as a one cour series can prove to be a much safer investment. By holding off further investment until the series has proven itself, the show can be abandoned if it proves to be unprofitable or continued with additional series in the event that it proves successful. With this in mind, it’s no wonder that so many anime series these days are so short.
While certainly more efficient, I do believe that it’s gotten to the point now where there are too many series that consist of a single cour. Let me know your thoughts on the reasons why so many anime series are shorter these days, whether you’ve noticed this trend as well, whether you are fine with all of the single cour series or if you also wished that there were more series that were longer 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 and amazon.com for all of your needs!