View Full Version : Long Running Anime
Am I the only one who can't watch long running anime?.
Shows that run over 50, 100 and sometimes 200 episodes.
I really stand them. Why? It started with Naruto. I was really into the series, then it got to about episode 110. I was kind bored of the series and took a break to watch something else. At the time I watched nothing else apart from Naruto, I couldn't find the time to watch anything else. But during my little break from Naruto I watched a very good 26 episode anime (I honestly can't remember the name of it) I found that I actually enjoyed the shorter series more than I did the 100+ episodes of Naruto.
Then it hit me. I am wasting my time with Naruto. So I stopped watching and instead took my time up much shorter anime.
So now I see anime on Fansub that run over 50 episodes or so and getting very popular (like, 2000 or seeds) and I'm thinking "Uck, it might be good but I just can't bring myself to watch it that long".
As well as that, I've noticed long running anime suffer a lot as they go on. Things like Filler, rushed animation, predictable stories and little to no character development plague long running anime.
I see anime like History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi get 4000 seeds. While little gems like the Animal Crossing Movie and The Fist of The Blue Sky get a measly 100 or so seeds.
104 episodes of a long running anime or 4 different 26 episode animes. Which one would you rather watch?.
I'm sorry if this offends anyone who likes anime such as Naruto, Bleach or any other long running anime. I personally just can't watch them.
The problem isn't that they are long-running, but the reason they are long-running. I dropped Naruto around the same time as you. I tried giving it another chance with the new series and felt utterly insulted by it. Those 22 minute episodes could easily, easily be condensed into 5 minutes of real content. I couldn't shake the impression that the creators were milking every second of air time for all it was worth, knowing thousands of feral-eyed Naruto fans were eating it up and would come begging for more.
I can't really have an opinon at the moment since the only really long-running anime I know (and watching) is Monster, and I can honestly say I'm really loving it and nowhere near bored. Of course when I've finished with it I WILL be looking for a shorter anime.
But forgetting that, I'll watch any anime, regardless of the length. Just as long as it looks interesting to me.
WanderingKnight
2007-10-02, 12:14
The point is not that they have a large number of episodes, but the fact that they seem to keep on pumping out episodes with no clear ending in mind. This may not be an issue with non-plot focused shows, like ARIA (whose third series has been recently announced) but in shounen shows like Naruto, where plot is everything, having 200+ episodes really gives an impression of lack of plot planning. The problem with these series is that the animation studio grabs onto a successful but still-running manga series, and then pretends to keep on pumping out anime episodes even when the manga content has been completely covered. So they end up making an entire season of fillers while waiting for the manga material to get to a decent state.
At any rate, like I said, large episode counts and a plot-based structure is not something I'm too fond of. The only series I've watched that got till the 50 episodes mark were Full Metal Alchemist (not particularly fond of it) and Eureka seveN, which I just recently finished watching, and I freaking loved it. But both of those shows had a well-formed plot structure (not so much with Full Metal Alchemist, but pretty clear with Eureka seveN: 26 episodes for character relationships, 24 episodes for plot development).
Mirrinus
2007-10-02, 12:17
I've pretty much given up on long-running anime as well. Conclusions are very important to a good story, and if no conclusion is in sight, I will likely be burnt out as a result. Sorry, but my attention span isn't THAT good...
Xellos-_^
2007-10-02, 12:21
The point is not that they have a large number of episodes, but the fact that they seem to keep on pumping out episodes with no clear ending in mind. This may not be an issue with non-plot focused shows, like ARIA (whose third series has been recently announced) but in shounen shows like Naruto, where plot is everything, having 200+ episodes really gives an impression of lack of plot planning. The problem with these series is that the animation studio grabs onto a successful but still-running manga series, and then pretends to keep on pumping out anime episodes even when the manga content has been completely covered. So they end up making an entire season of fillers while waiting for the manga material to get to a decent state.
At any rate, like I said, large episode counts and a plot-based structure is not something I'm too fond of. The only series I've watched that got till the 50 episodes mark were Full Metal Alchemist (not particularly fond of it) and Eureka seveN, which I just recently finished watching, and I freaking loved it. But both of those shows had a well-formed plot structure (not so much with Full Metal Alchemist, but pretty clear with Eureka seveN: 26 episodes for character relationships, 24 episodes for plot development).
Go watch Legend of Galactic Heroes.
110 Eps of pure plot and no fillers. A couple of flashback and explanation eps but 99% of the eps is on the plot.
As other said, problem with the long series isn't that it has a lot of eps but why it has a lot of eps.
Same here: they give too little and take too much, which makes them just greedy. It's sad too, since if they just kept going on with the story and relationships we might actually see truly classic animes. As it stands, I think that the japanese know how to start a good story, but not how to finish it...
WanderingKnight
2007-10-02, 12:46
As it stands, I think that the japanese know how to start a good story, but not how to finish it...Oh, and all this time I thought Naruto and Bleach weren't the only series that air every season...
Autumn Demon
2007-10-02, 15:02
Long running anime tend to have fillers, which can be horrible. I started watching bleach when it wasn't that long (only 50 or so episodes) and loved it until the lengthy filler arch. That pretty much killed the show for me, but I still think very highly of the first 60 or so episodes.
Inuyasha ended at like 167 or something and I've heard many people say the later seasons were terrible. I've only seen the first 72 episodes, and even though I love them, I may never finish the show because of what I've heard of the end.
Enjoying long anime is just about knowing where to stop.
Not all long anime are bad and have unbearable fillers though. Hunter x hunter is my second favourite show and that's like 92 episodes.
Moonlith
2007-10-02, 17:50
I used to enjoy Dragonball Z and Pokemon! :P Still do, but only the first few seasons. After 50+ episodes it just gets repetive and boring. And especially when long-running animes grow more popular, you'll find the plots begin to falter as they are more and more forced to think up new retarded non-ending plots.
Watch Gundam Wing instead, grand plot!
Monster (http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=1539)
was pretty good in the long running category. At some point in makes you believe that there's some useless fillers but then you realize that it's all linked and it helped the plot development.
Sassarai
2007-10-02, 18:26
104 episodes of a long running anime or 4 different 26 episode animes. Which one would you rather watch?.
lol you don't have to watch them all at once. They are shown weekly. Besides there are a lot of long episode anime that dont have any fillers I E slam dunk, Hajime no ippo. Then you have those like Bleach's bount arc, nartuo's year o fillers prince of tennis etc. lol since you can just skip the eps you dont like or just fast forward to the part thats good long eps or not shouldnt matter. I stop watching naruto for a year heck even when you watch naruto its ghey how they explain every move in detail, flashbacks constantly, and fights that just keep dragging and dragging.. err forgot my point. But yea there are good ones and you dont have to watch them all at the same time. Plus skip the filler eps.
SeijiSensei
2007-10-02, 19:56
I would have watched Monster or Hikaru no Go for more than their ~75 episodes if they had continued. As Kyomi says, what looks like filler in Monster is definitely not. (The only true filler episode I can think of is the one where they hitch a ride from the English couple.) Hikaru no Go had some filler near the end, but most of it is very solid.
The only rather longish show I'm watching these days is Saiunkoku Monogatari. Season one had 39 episodes, and season two will be the same length. Not much filler in this show either except the occasional transition episode between story arcs.
genkidashite
2007-10-03, 00:31
I consider the process to the ending important, and as for me they are often interesting. But ofc, if the process is boring, i would dump the series midway.
But really the main problem is that after 100-ish episodes it is probably filler time or when the creator ran out of ideas, as long as the qualities are still good, I actually enjoy longer series just because there will be alot of developments and such. Another reason would be that I hate endings, about right now is the time when last season's series ended and the new ones haven't aired yet, it's just so empty.
Yu Yu Hakusho (anime) is a long series that had little filler at all and went "straight to the point".
It had 112 episodes but it moved from story to story real quick.
From one chapter, to the next, with no fillers in between.
Though, the Dark tournament saga was a little longer than it should have been.
Another problem is:
The last battles between Yusuke and <insert random super villain here> are usually fairly long and somewhat predictable. Yusuke and the villain are evenly match at start, then villain powers up and beats up Yusuke, then Yusuke finally powers up and barely beats villain, repeat for every season/chapter.
But besides those, I didn't feel that any parts were "much longer than it needed to be".
I feel a series like Yu Yu Hakusho makes great use of its 112 episodes.
About long running anime:
A long running anime series doesn't have to be "drawn out" or have tons of pointless episodes.
It depends on "Why is the series so long?":
1. If a series has so many episodes because there are a lot of fillers or "useless" episodes or the baddies keep coming back to life, then that series would be a "drawn out" series that you may want to avoid.
2. If a series is long because it has different chapters but "little fillers", then it might not be a bad series or pretty good. Nanoha is an example, season 1-3 were all fairly different and each had its own plot. Season 1 and 2 had only 13 eps, but season 3 26 eps, add them up and that's a good 52 eps but Nanoha wasn't really drawn out, though season 3 could have used fewer training episodes.
Yu Yu Hakusho is also the same deal as above.
anime_layer
2007-10-03, 12:58
I call it the Shounen-Syndrome as it generally happens to run of the mill shounen series (not only anime - same usually goes for the manga as well).
Shounen anime already take the largest part of the anime and manga market. A large part of the shounen-slice is made up of these long-running shounen series. They are very good value for the producers and they use them to generate as much money as possible.
There are generally two problems with those series:
- The authors are often newcomers, landing a huge hit with their first published manga. Usually, they haven't the story all planned out and make it up as they go.
- The producers force the authors to continue the series as long as it's popular. They constantly have to come up with new subplots to continue the story.
What this usually means is that the initial good idea of the series gets diluted since the author can't take his time to plan the story or even collect experience in writing long stories. The plot then looses itself in the details. New subplots get introduced and the pace at which the story continues grinds to a near-halt. While fight scenes in the first few volumes (when the author had a story to tell) never filled a volume, they tend to span multiple volumes later on and the story only progresses really slowly.
This happens to a lot of shounen series. There are exceptions and some manage to recover but it usually takes the fun out of the series.
While those series make up a large part of all long-running anime, there are also others. So I wouldn't recommend to condemn a series for it's length but only to be weary against long running shounen series.
Terrestrial Dream
2007-10-03, 14:24
Most long anime I get bored, because it's not fresh anymore. Inuyasha is the best example, beginning I thought it was somewhat interesting later on it was the same thing over and over and over. I think as the show gets longer and longer the writer seems to be running out of idea let' look at DBZ, it was suppose end at Freezer but fan wanted more and more so it went on longer and it got little boring. I would say that I like anime that is between 26 or 50 episodes.
Most long running animes start out great but later becomes just an average anime, filled with fillers.
Pendevous
2007-10-03, 18:36
^ My thoughts exactly. The problem of long-running animes is, like what others stated, the tendency to have fillers. There are a few exceptions like Monsters and Hunter X Hunter, but other animes fail at this. DBZ, for example, has a lot of episodes, and even if it technically only has a few fillers, each "plot" of the anime's new season is the same: enemy kills heroes, heroes gets stronger, heroes revive, defeat enemy.
Honestly though, some if not most of the best animes I've seen number only a few episodes such as Kanon (among others), Air, Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu, Lucky Star, and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
RavenHawk
2007-10-03, 20:17
Most long running animes start out great but later becomes just an average anime, filled with fillers.
Yeah I agree with you there. I used to go for DBZ, but got bored of it. So far off all 50+ episode anime I watched, the only favorites I have so far are Hajime no Ippo (76 episodes) and YuYu Hakusho (112 episodes).
Personally, I find Hajime no Ippo one of my favorites because the 76 episodes show how Ippo improves in his boxing skills. Well only a few fillers were there, but it's still enjoyable.
LittleBuddy
2007-10-03, 20:41
Well I think that too long anime are bad... Like Naruto I stopped watching it at 36... I didn't like it much. For me 50 episodes is perfect! But if its really good well I would prefer another season ;). Well when its not enough episodes its really bad too... Like Elfen Lied... 13 episodes is really bad (I didn't watch it)... Well if the show became a filler spammer then they should just stop it.
Lonestar9
2007-10-03, 23:16
I like some long series, watching Akazukin Cha Cha and it's 72 + 3 ova...It's gonna take me a long long time though, I tend to watch my anime one episode at a time, and of course some days don't watch any anime, etc...
I guess it depends on the series, I perfer series 52 and under, but for me there's no magic number of episodes that are just too long.
Kaioshin Sama
2007-10-04, 01:55
I'll second Legend Of The Galactic Heroes as the counter example. The reason it's so long is it's actually based off of a 10 volume Novel series and they wanted to do it justice. So much so that it actually took them almost 10 years to finish the damn thing.
On the subject itself, I'd like to mention the all time worst offender for series that run too damn long is Toei Animation. Toei has a very corporate attitude to approaching anime and has very little respect for the properties they license both in and out (they just seem to love giving their licenses to companies that butcher them). So what happens when you get a very profit oriented company, they drag out series far longer than necessary to squeeze every last possible potential for revenue out of it, not really caring what happens to the quality of the story and art in the process, as long as the viewership is still steady. If there's a Toei series, you can almost be certain it will run a ton of episodes and have loads of spinoffs, and since they love recycling plotlines (Sentai and Monster of The Week), it's not hard to keep series running as long as they want.
NoSanninWa
2007-10-04, 02:10
Toei doesn't always blow it. For instance One Piece is hella-long, but it is still interesting and exciting. Of course there are intermittant filler arcs and episodes to give the manga a chance to stay ahead, but most of those have pretty decent writing so they don't make me hate the show. Despite belonging to Toei, One Piece is still a great long running anime.
yeah one piece is great, the fillers are mostly okay except the flashback fillers . . . I like gintama too. I didnt really hear gintama alot over here, always have the impression that gintama is very popular
Thanks for caring to reply guys, you're awesome!
I think my main gripe with Long running animes is that they distract people from watching other great anime. Like the Animal Crossing Movie. It's a joy to watch but barely anybody is talking about it or even downloading it (and it's not like people aren't a fan of the games). But as soon as this is dubbed and out on DVD, People will go nuts for it.
I was once in Forbidden Planet (British sci-fi/anime/comic store type thing) and I heard this guy showing his girlfriend all these great manga he's reading, but all his girlfriend said was "If it's not Bleach, I don't care." I was quite shocked, basically this girl ONLY watches Bleach, She's so engrossed in it, other animes don't matter to her. Which is really unfortunate. And I am worried that many other people feel this way, and that they're missing out on a lot of other great Anime.
Kaioshin Sama
2007-10-04, 02:52
yeah one piece is great, the fillers are mostly okay except the flashback fillers . . . I like gintama too. I didnt really hear gintama alot over here, always have the impression that gintama is very popular
Pretty sure Gintama is Sunrise. They have a lot of luck with long running series I find (Gundam, Keroro Gunsou, City Hunter. Assorted Mecha, and even Inuyasha, which while it got a bit stale, didn't completely go down the toilet).
Spectacular_Insanity
2007-10-04, 02:56
Some of the series I've watched so far...
DBZ was great up until the end of the Cell Saga. Everything after that was crap. Especially Dragonball GT.
Inuyasha was a great one too, until the freaking long pursuit of Naraku just kept dragging on. That's what killed the show for me.
I still like Bleach, and I'm up to episode 80-something or so, but I don't like how previously-powerful characters are beginning to get watered-down, or so to speak...
Naruto, for course. I still like it, but I think some of the filler arcs are very annoying.
Some people have mentioned Yu Yu Hakusho. I liked that entire series.
No one has mentioned it yet, but Crest/Banner of the Stars has quite a few episodes, having seen 3 seasons so far. Still gotta see Banner of the Stars III, though.
I'm up to episode 49 in Mär, and so far it's quite good. I hope it continues.
Edit: nevermind, it didn't have as many episodes as I thought. I still love it, though. :p
WanderingKnight
2007-10-04, 06:17
And I am worried that many other people feel this way, and that they're missing out on a lot of other great Anime.Don't push it on people. I know how you feel, but don't. People know what they like, and you're not one to tell them what they should like. You might become more of a bother if you start pushing your tastes so much onto people.
Don't push it on people. I know how you feel, but don't. People know what they like, and you're not one to tell them what they should like. You might become more of a bother if you start pushing your tastes so much onto people.
I'm not pushing it on people. All I mean to say is that people could be missing out on something they'd love. I'm not pushing my tastes on anyone, I'm just saying they shouldn't narrow themselves to just one anime. They'd have way more fun watching MORE anime. That's what I found when I tore myself away from Naruto.
SolarNova
2007-10-04, 07:56
Personaly i dont mind long running series,
however there not somthing you wanna try get into if you found out about them late, cuz there is just to much to catch up with. granted some do start to suck ..DragonballZ for instance..yes i watched it , but i was in high school so bleh :p .. that went bad i would say end of cell saga, and DBGT was just a flop. Pokemon ..never really got into it ..to childish ..but iv seen a couple of the latest and its just been dragged on to long its sad.
Anyway so yea, they can be very good, but can also go very bad.
right now The long running anime is :
Naruto : because it has more than 200 episodes + movie + now shippuden
bleach : because it has more than 100 episodes and maybe it can attain more than 200 eps. like naruto
One Piece - more than 300 episodes by now.
Ranma 1/2 - runs over 190 episodes but it still only finished half way.
Dragonball Z - especially in Saiyajin and Frieza arcs are longer compared to Cell arc.
-KarumA-
2007-10-05, 04:01
the reason why i stopped with Bleach, Naruto and One Piece (well One Piece was a little different)
with Naruto it was the year of fillers, i first tried to watch them but eventually stopped because i disliked them so much.. then i started to forget about the series for a while, but the only reason i started watching the second series is because i still read the manga, but now after reading the manga im a little dissatisfied with the sseries, im not sure why.. maybe because i want things to go faster than what they are, i only watch several episodes that i might find interesting nothing more
Bleach, once again fillers.. i was kind of pissed when they did the whole Bount (or whatever its called) saga, not only that the 2nd ost wasnt as good as the first either... it pissed me off that i stopped watching, i was annoyed by the filler plot and the music int he background it was nothing compared to the music they had on OST 1, then they ended hooray and i started watching again, but after some months we suddenly had more fillers and that is what made me stop watching, the fillers ruined it for me and i lost the drive i still have from the manga which i still read every week, other than that i also think that the milking factor has a lot to do with it as well, some long running series i can enjoy because they never get old but Bleach is just being milked now, there is no end to it.. they alwasy meet someone stronger, train and fight again.. you would think they would be at god mode by now >.<
One Piece, i stopped watching cause i couldnt catch up that fast o.o; im planning on giving it another go but it takes a while to catch up with ALL the episodes, i sometimes find the manga pretty boring but it always makes me wanna read more, or watch more, i think the anime is pretty amazing but also pretty milked
DBZ, well cause i grew up kinda, i took more interest in beter series than DBZ i saw up to the Cell saga and eventually noticed that every season was almost the same, meet someone stronger, beaten, train and battle, almost lose, get stronger in battle due power up and defeat, eventually i found out about that and stopped cause i didnt wanted to waste my time on such a plot...
Inuyasha, i love this series and i find it funny that when you watch episode 1 to the almost last one or atleased a LOT later on you can see the growth in animation technology, thats one thing i love about it, but as the series went on int he last 50 eps or so i got extremely bored with it because it was the same thing dragging on and on, even with the current manga i stillc ant believe that the story is still going
Yu Yu Hakusho, only saw several eps of it with Kurama in it :3
but i didnt wanna pick it up because it was such a long running series
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