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Old 2012-10-29, 22:50   Link #1
NinjaRealist
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Do mini-series not get the same respect as full length series?

Case in point, I'm the only person out of 22 people in the Fall 2012 Reactions thread that had anything to say about Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki. (Almost all of these people mentioned Pyscho Pass for example)

At first I thought that maybe people were overlooking it because of the cutesy style or the semi-niche/slice of life subject matter, which may be the case, but in thinking about it, I think it's far more likely that Poyopoyo is simply ignored/marginalized because it is a mini-series, which seem to get very little attention in general.

If I try to think hard about it, I really can't think of very many mini-series at all, and they never seem to get very much attention. Am I just not aware of a ton of incredible mini-series' out there? Or do mini-series really not get the same attention as full-length series? If so, why do you think this is?
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Old 2012-10-29, 22:53   Link #2
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I think being mini itself is just too short to really enjoy it....
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Old 2012-10-29, 22:59   Link #3
Midonin
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I don't participate in those reaction threads (I prefer to just participate in the actual threads), but I can offer some answers for this.

Three minute anime, while not a new concept, are only rising to prominence lately because so many of them are being subbed. They're not bad by any stretch, it's just that discussion isn't quite as easy to do compared to something that's ten or twenty minutes. I wouldn't mind more analysis of them, but in a forum where even normal-length series can be easily overshadowed, shorter ones have a tougher hill to climb.

I have enjoyed quite a few of these mini-series, though. Morita-san wa Mukuchi was my first exposure to them, and a fine series in itself. Yurumates 3D+ got almost no attention at all, but the Mahoraba style of humor running through it (and hyper-catchy theme songs) made it a nice contrast after Campione on Fridays.

One of my favorite new series of the season is a three/two/one-and-a-half minute series - Teekyuu!. It requires some advanced speed reading skills, but the humor. Oh man, the humor. Almost every joke hits, and all of them are insane. The concept of Softenni with the humor of Milky Holmes. It's one of those moments where I feel like I've found something that was created to appeal to me specifically.

I don't know if the day will ever come when these shorter anime get the same respect as their normal length counterparts, but as long as they continue to have a strong presence, I don't think people will ignore them entirely. Some of them can even "graduate" to full length series, like Nyarko. Our definition of what an anime is is widening, and that's a good thing.
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Old 2012-10-29, 23:30   Link #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NinjaRealist View Post
If I try to think hard about it, I really can't think of very many mini-series at all, and they never seem to get very much attention. Am I just not aware of a ton of incredible mini-series' out there? Or do mini-series really not get the same attention as full-length series? If so, why do you think this is?
There's just not very much time in a short to develop characters and a story in a short piece of work. It just doesn't work for creating an involved narrative and so it's incompatible with many kinds of shows. They're also a bit hard to watch if there are lots of short episodes.

There is an exception to all of this thought: Azumanga Daioh was originally released as a series of 5-minute shorts. And it's about as well-loved as any comedy gets.
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Old 2012-10-29, 23:55   Link #5
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I like the concept (REC! was one of the first ones I remember and I still consider it a classic). I just haven't heard of PKN (haven't watched much anime at all this season).
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Old 2012-10-29, 23:56   Link #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vexx View Post
I like the concept (REC! was one of the first ones I remember and I still consider it a classic). I just haven't heard of PKN (haven't watched much anime at all this season).
Yeah, REC is an exception. I loved it...
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Old 2012-10-30, 01:44   Link #7
NinjaRealist
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Originally Posted by 4Tran View Post
There's just not very much time in a short to develop characters and a story in a short piece of work. It just doesn't work for creating an involved narrative and so it's incompatible with many kinds of shows. .
That's true, but for some formats, namely comedy, shorts work incredibly well. When I think about the hard hitting jokes in a show like Poyopoyo I can't imagine that they wouldn't have been more diluted if the show was broadcast in a 23 min format.

By contrast when I think about how diluted Nichijou was, I think it would have been so much better if it had been restricted to a shorter episode length. Because for every 23 mins of episode, that show had about 5 minutes of actually funny material.
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Old 2012-10-30, 02:20   Link #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NinjaRealist View Post
That's true, but for some formats, namely comedy, shorts work incredibly well. When I think about the hard hitting jokes in a show like Poyopoyo I can't imagine that they wouldn't have been more diluted if the show was broadcast in a 23 min format.

By contrast when I think about how diluted Nichijou was, I think it would have been so much better if it had been restricted to a shorter episode length. Because for every 23 mins of episode, that show had about 5 minutes of actually funny material.
While not as extreme as what you're suggesting there was a "director's cut" rerun on nhk-e that was 1 cour insead of 2,they didn't just air half the episodes,they reorganized everything

Poyopoyo is also probably suffering from prejudice due to being aimed at young audiences ,it airs sunday mornings on tv tokyo,and I'll be the first to say that's unfair.

And yes,I wish more 4komas adaptations used this format,Azumanga daioh which is a classic was originally a daily 5 minutes show,the version we watch is a weekly recap that puts a few of those episodes together.

However appart from comedy shorts,I'm not sure what else you can do with the format.
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Old 2012-10-30, 06:59   Link #9
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In the US, the term "mini-series" was invented by network television producers and meant a series intended to run for less than a full season. Midonin thinks it means series with short episodes.

I've enjoyed both. I loved Higepiyo and the first season of Chi's Sweet Home. Charady's Daily Joke was more hit-or-miss. All of these are in the 3-5 minute range. None of these were short in terms of episodes though; Chi has two seasons of 104 episodes each.

The best mini-series in the traditional sense I've seen recently is Thermae Romae, about a bath designer from the Roman Empire who gets transported to modern-day Japan. There are six episodes of about fifteen minutes each. The manga has also been adapted into a live-action film.
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Old 2012-10-30, 07:39   Link #10
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There are some anime shows that are fun to watch, but aren't necessarily easy to talk about, at least not at length.

A good comedy mini-series is probably a good example of this. Even if it's very good and funny, what (more) is there to say about it? Dissecting jokes is more or less the same as explaining them, and we all know what they say about how explaining jokes ruins them...

Now, a full-length anime show, even one that's close to pure episodic comedy (like Nichijou is), will tend to have more in the way of easily-discussable content. Even if the characters spend most of their time joking around (or in situational comedy moments), discernible personalities can start to come to the fore after a certain amount of time has passed. A full-length series is more likely to hit that certain point within a lone episode than a comedy short is.
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Old 2012-10-30, 08:33   Link #11
Midonin
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Dissecting jokes is more or less the same as explaining them, and we all know what they say about how explaining jokes ruins them...
Not necessarily true. There are things around the jokes that can still be analyzed, namely the characters. And things like the matters of timing and the possible implications of the joke can still provide a good discussion. I've been trying for years to show that comedy can be discussed with just the same passion as anything else, but the board always defaults to drama and romance and plot (even though comedy isn't necessarily separate from any of those), leaving it underutilized. I think some of this may have to do with the cultural barrier affecting comedy more strongly than any of the other elements, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. The one example I can think of wasn't really the style of comedy I enjoy the most...
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Old 2012-10-30, 12:44   Link #12
NinjaRealist
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
In the US, the term "mini-series" was invented by network television producers and meant a series intended to run for less than a full season. Midonin thinks it means series with short episodes.
I know what it means the US. I'm using the Anime Definition which is, as you've said, a series with short episodes
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Old 2012-10-30, 13:02   Link #13
Midonin
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I don't think there is a community definition for these kinds of series. At least not a widespread one.
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Old 2012-10-30, 17:39   Link #14
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Originally Posted by NinjaRealist View Post
Case in point, I'm the only person out of 22 people in the Fall 2012 Reactions thread that had anything to say about Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki. (Almost all of these people mentioned Pyscho Pass for example)
While I do agree that shorts get little attention, I think the lack of Poyopoyo mentions might also be due to the show having started in Winter 2012. What can you say about it you haven't already?

I stopped watching the show sometime in spring, when the fansubs slowed down. I recently found out it's on Crunchyroll, now, and it's not region-locked. Once I find out where I stopped I'll rush through the rest. I loved the show.

Another short seems to be stuck at episode 10: Gakkatsu. Pity. The show's a bit hit or miss, but it can be brilliant when it works.

Shorts definitely don't get the same attention as full-length shows do.
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Old 2012-12-07, 15:49   Link #15
Midonin
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After the recent news regarding Yama no Susume and Mangirl!, two series that are in a genre I really like, were being broadcast as shorts only, I came to realize that this kind of anime may be more valuable to me than I realized. It's allowing the genre to live on, even if it's in a way where it won't gain as much clout as it might've.
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Old 2012-12-10, 13:43   Link #16
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I think the only mini-series I've watched all the way through was Chocolate Underground, and that was only because despite the somewhat unrealistic premise, it was executed as a serious story. However, I can't help but think that I would've enjoyed it more if it was a single long-OVA/short-movie though...

So I guess all of that is a long way of saying that the serious stories I like probably won't work as well in a bite-size format (~5 mins/episode).
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Old 2012-12-10, 15:46   Link #17
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What's the cut-off point for qualification?

If we're talking about the 2-3 minute series, I'm very underwhelmed by what I've seen from them so far. The comedy never hit home with me at all, and in shows like Recorder to Randsell it was terribly repetitive. However, the currently running Teekyu is actually really, really good for what it is. It's a mere 2 minutes, and rather than limit themselves to one-note short jokes, they truncate at least three times worth of material in there and just speed it up. It's absolutely bonkers, and leaves you wanting more.

If we're counting the "half-episode" shows that run as long as 10-12 minutes, I think there's a lot more enjoyable series to pick from. This format can do wonders for some shows, and there are a lot of full-length episode series that divide their episodes into two anyway, essentially giving us the same result.

Rec, which has already been brought up, used this format to great effect. You could breeze through the series, and the short segments were just cute and charming enough to leave you wanting more. I think Penguin Musume Heart was another series which benefited from the half-episode format. It was an extremely high-energy, anything goes comedy with yelling, random and absurd events occurring again and again. It could easily have outstayed its welcome if it went for the full episode length, as people say happened with Kill Me Baby. I didn't dislike it outright, but I also think it'd do better as a shorter show.

Conversely, the currently running Kyousougiga screams out for extended episode lengths to flesh out its intriguing world.

Overall, I'm all for more 10 minute episodes. That's a happy medium. They go down easy, and they have a good track record with me. 2-3 minutes, however, just doesn't do it for me. They're hardly worth tuning in for. If more stuff like Teekyu pops up though, I might just have to eat those words.
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Old 2012-12-10, 21:23   Link #18
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I think I can count on one hand, with fingers to spare, the number of 12-episode series that left me as fulfilled as my favorite 24-episode series, or the pretty-much extinct 50 episode classics.

But, to each their own.

As for shorter time formats, like 2 minutes, I think Fireball Charming is the only show ever that I came remotely close to enjoying, and that was probably a 50/50 hit or miss bit of humor for me.

I'm like this with all media. Never cared much for short stories in novels, and while many of my favorite authors also have award winning short story anthologies, I never cared for them either.

That said, the term mini-series, to me, has nothing to do with a 12-episode season, or a 2-min short. I consider something like Garden of Sinners a mini-series. Gundam Unicorn a mini-series. Viewed through that lens, I've enjoyed many mini-series, but their over-all lengths were usually not as short as their episode counts would suggest, due to longer individual episodes.

For me, I feel like most remotely decent stories require time. These days, I have a hard time even enjoying movies with all the great TV series out there (both in and out of anime), as I find the 1.5-2 hour format far too restrictive for telling a decent story.
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Old 2012-12-11, 10:47   Link #19
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2-3 minutes can't really do it for me. I feel that there's something lacking. 10-12 minutes though, I'll probably take a look and try since with that time, there would have been enough content and maybe that show may still be enjoyable to watch.
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