Why are there only thirteen episodes for anime nowadays?

[SeijiSensei]

You're dreaming if you think 99% of the population in most parts of the world, or even most parts of the US, will have access to the high-bandwidth connections required for decent streaming. Even if the infrastructure were in place, the cost will continue to put it out of reach for many people. In 2011, people in second "quintile" of the US income distribution (the group falling between 21 and 40% of the population ranked by income) had an average annual pre-tax income of just over $29,000. After paying for housing, food, and other necessities of life, there is not much left over for things like high-speed Internet.

I do think physical media will not be very common in another decade or so, which means that a chunk of the population will be excluded from the streaming marketplace.

[hyl]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Also, I wonder how long physical media is going to last.

Unless it's for movies, possible uncensored or extended scenes or whatever content it has that didn't air on tv or on some stream, i don't think most people are buying discs for actually viewing them when it comes to animes in japan.
Even in the mentioned scenarios, people can still download most of it on the internet.

edit:
Meh, no point in sidetracking this thread into a streaming media vs physical media debate.

[NoemiChan]

Why are there only thirteen episodes for anime nowadays?

My guess:

>Budget
>Amount of material ( Chapters and Volumes ) available
> 13 episodes to assess if it worth enough to have a sequel....

[Guernsey]

I guess I can see it working from business standpoint and it don't get as much filler as we use to. What about the Shuiesha and JUMP manga adpatations? One Piece and Naruto are still running and I don't see them stopping anytime soon.

[Magin]

Not sure about Naruto, but I do know that One Piece is the best selling manga in Japan, and I think someone said it outsells its next 50 competitors combined. So as long as the manga is running, the anime will also continue to run.

[Westlo]

Kadokawa is evil for doing 12 volume 2 cour series
Everyone else does 9 volume 2 cour series, they are the good guys *cheerr*

VVV is split cour....

VVV list price bluray is ￥ 7,350

2 cour VVV = 9 volumes, is 9 x ￥ 7,350
split cour VVV is 6 volumes for pt1, 6 x ￥ 7,350. 6 volumes for pt2, 6 x￥ 7,350

Hey we're back to 12 volumes for 2 cour series! :O

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

The usual definition of "filler" is episodes that include additional made-for-TV material not in the adapted work.

That kind of definition only applies to long-running adaptations of long-running manga (of which there are few to begin with and now less than ever).
I was referring to episodes which don't move the plot forward and only exist to fill out the cour, yes.

[Drkz]

Money, time constraints, but mainly its money. It also depends on what your trying to adapt. Somethings can be really low budget, like for instance Samurai Girls or Ichizon. In other cases they tend to break the bank something like Horizon? But mainly its all about money and how popular your series really is. If it wasn't popular enough you won't have people spending money. You also take note they need to hire VAs, and artist for OP songs and what not. Its not always 13 either. Its roughly from 10-14. How well it sells usually denotes if you'll get a sequel or not. Or if the series is cheap enough to pump out they'll make a sequel if they have nothing else to work for. We can use Samurai Girls for a example. Its not really popular. But animation wise its pretty cheap. It also has a little cast. The OP/ED songs don't need to be awesome either. So they made another season. In the case of something like Index. Its really expensive. Especially with the high intense action scenes. Its probably why they're not making it yet. They can milk it with movies or what not. That and the animation studio got bashed pretty hard when the frames started to drop. Its rare in itself to get a second season. Its even rare to expect a third. In the end it comes down to two things. Money, and how popular the series is. If it won't sell, they usually won't make another one. Take note. Anything remotely ecchi related usually has one of the poorest animations to date. The OP/ED usually is bad as well. Its pretty much since your selling you tits they don't need any quality control. And well... it seems it works people buy it droves so don't expect it to improve anytime soon. Don't bother to count mainstream they don't even matter. Jump has enough money atm from OP and OP merchandise to pump them out. Other than Jump very rarely will you find a company with kind of funding. In the case of fillers you usually have three kinds. One is the script writer basically is bad, so he decided on a filler. Second case is the series is behind on schedule so they decide to make a filler so they can catch up. Lastly this mainly only applies to mainstream. You need a certain gap between the overall material and adaption. So yes, you'll always see a butt ton of naruto fillers and it'll never stop. Its all about milking what you have.

[Magin]

Something else that I've noticed, if I think about, when it comes to source material and the amount of episodes. If I think about a lot of the 26-episode series that I've seen, or at least the ones that were produced 3~5 years ago, very few actually had source material. And if we go by the big three anime that got a lot of older teens/adults into anime (at least in the US), namely Trigun, Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw star... Trigun is the only one I can think of off the top of my head which I know for a fact has a manga. Heck, even good ole Eva, and most likely many of the Gundam series, didn't have a source material.

The whole point of that is the fact that as someone pointed out, the 13-episode series, unless its for a really popular series, really serve to just promote the source manga/LN. Once the anime has made its run, then its goal will have been served: as an advertisement for the original material.

[SeijiSensei]

Adaptations that extended over two or more seasons were a lot more common than that. I can list at least a dozen such shows released in the past few years from just my personal favorites list alone:

Novel adaptations
Twelve Kingdoms
Seirei no Moribito
Kemono no Sou-ja Erin
Saiunkoku Monogatari

Manga adaptations
Claymore
Welcome to the NHK!
Cross Game
Monster
Nodame Cantabile
Hikaru no Go
Daughter of Twenty Faces
Shion no Ou
School Rumble
Planetes
Azumanga Daioh

And that list doesn't include more recent series like Hyouge Mono, Chihayafuru, Magi, or Space Brothers.

In contrast the equivalent list of original productions is much shorter:
Noein
Dennou Coil
Ghost Hound
Real Drive
Sky Girls
Oh! Edo Rocket (actually adapted from a stage play)
Mahou Shoujotai Arusu (10 minute episodes)

One thing those shows have in common, except for the last one, is that they are all science-fiction. Sci-fi, especially "hard" sci-fi, has been in decline as a genre within anime over the past few years. There are always a few sci-fi shows like Suisei no Gargantia or Madoka Magica, but as a proportion of all releases I think they constitute a smaller share today than they did in the the 2000-2008 period. The short episode length for Arusu means that 26 episodes of that show is akin to 12-13 regular episodes in terms of content.

I've also left out more episodic shows like Lucky*Star which is based on a 4-koma comic.

[ArchmageXin]

You guys forgot a GLORIOUS benefit from 13 episode or less a season.

It actually force the writing team to "HURRY UP" and not use filler material.

Anyone remember Dragonball Z's infamous 3-episode power ups or Inu Yasha's 400+ Demons (Or however many pieces the magic ball shatter into?)

So therefore, less eps are a good thing, not bad.

[Triple_R]

Honestly, I'm kind of with ArchmageXin on this.

In looking over my all-time favorite anime shows, quite a few of them were 13 episodes or less in duration. I think that many of those would have sacrificed plot tightness and felt overly dragged out/decompressed if they were two full seasons long.

You can tell a good, thorough story with solid character development in 13 or less 20-something minute episodes. It's just that you can't waste much time while you're doing it - You have to minimize fluff to what's essential, and avoid recap episodes. For most anime shows, I like the idea of minimizing fluff. For all anime shows, I like the idea of not having to put up with recap episodes.


Personally, I see a few trends/potential trends in the anime industry that are far more troubling then shifting to more one cour shows. Those are...

1) Airing low-quality pre-airs the entire way through (this really fractured the RDG viewer-base in a way that I think negatively impacted discussion on the show).

2) Multiple plot relevant episodes airing long after the weekly TV airing is done. This often can drastically hurt narrative momentum, as well as the momentum of online discussion.

3) The rise of shorts. Now this is what really cuts down on content. 13 20-something minute episodes feels like a wonderfully deep pool of content compared to 13 5-minute episodes.

[GundamZZ]

The first anime with 13 episodes, if I remember correctly, is Those Who Hunt Elves. The show is also broadcast at late night. It was when everyone was sleeping. Well, it was cheaper choice.

The lower cost would be not moving at all, such as NHK weather news, Haru-chan.
www9.nhk.or.jp/nw9/haruchan/character/
ww.youtube.com/watch?v=S70fS4iKYxQ

[Drkz]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

You guys forgot a GLORIOUS benefit from 13 episode or less a season.

It actually force the writing team to "HURRY UP" and not use filler material.

Anyone remember Dragonball Z's infamous 3-episode power ups or Inu Yasha's 400+ Demons (Or however many pieces the magic ball shatter into?)

So therefore, less eps are a good thing, not bad.

Uh. No. DAL had a filler . Once again, your using a horrible comparison. Its shounen. They do whatever the hell they want cause they have pretty much unlimited funding. You can't compare shounen.

That's actually pretty much wrong. They don't cause the script writer to hurry. It causes the script writer to urobutcher everything. Trying to compress 5 novels worth of information into 10-13 eps is pretty much pushing it. In the end what they do is kill off whatever plot existed and turn it to a generic harem story. Regardless if its 10, 11 whatever they can always fit a filler ep if not a recap ep.

[Magin]

a 10~13 episode series without filler? Apparently you need to get a good dose of harem rom-coms. So many of them have about 3~4 episodes of plot: the first, and then the last two.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Drkz

That's actually pretty much wrong. They don't cause the script writer to hurry. It causes the script writer to urobutcher everything. Trying to compress 5 novels worth of information into 10-13 eps is pretty much pushing it. In the end what they do is kill off whatever plot existed and turn it to a generic harem story.

Like I said, those adaptations exist to advertise the books, which the intended audience can actually read.
The quality ultimately doesn't matter beyond getting people interested in the series, and if the story is intriguing enough but obviously full of cuts, that might help in that regard. Think of Henneko this season, for instance.
If you're tired of this, learn Japanese and buy the books, or only watch original stuff that's designed around the TV format.

[Drkz]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Like I said, those adaptations exist to advertise the books, which the intended audience can actually read.
The quality ultimately doesn't matter beyond getting people interested in the series, and if the story is intriguing enough but obviously full of cuts, that might help in that regard. Think of Henneko this season, for instance.
If you're tired of this, learn Japanese and buy the books, or only watch original stuff that's designed around the TV format.

Actually it'd be. Play the visual novel, read the light novel or read the manga. I already knew that awhile back. Anime is usually for the sake of making money. On occasional they'll try to adapt something from left field or try to appease certain nitch fans with a original work. Your actually wrong on that end. Quality does matter. If the quality is garbage. People will drop it. No one will take notice of the series. Simple as that.

Perfect example? Highschool DxD. Without the art, I'm pretty sure the fanbase would be nonexistent. If they took that anime approach with something like say Monotagatari or even SAO people will rage. You buy with your eyes the same you eat.

[totoum]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Honestly, I'm kind of with ArchmageXin on this.

In looking over my all-time favorite anime shows, quite a few of them were 13 episodes or less in duration. I think that many of those would have sacrificed plot tightness and felt overly dragged out/decompressed if they were two full seasons long.

Just wondering,how many of those are anime originals?
A lot of the objection against the concept of one cour isn't based on the idea that it's not possible to "tell a good, thorough story with solid character development in 13 or less 20-something minute episodes." (I've seen animes that can do it in 15 minutes and I don't even mind the idea of 5 minute episodes) , it's that there's animes that attempt to adapt a source that can't be told with just 13 episodes and that leaves the anime viewer frustrated (other's have already gotten into the whole "anime is just promotion for the source material" explanation so I won't).

So I'm just curious if there's any adaptations on that list,how long were the sources?

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by totoum

Just wondering,how many of those are anime originals?

Most of them are, but not all. For example, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is one of my all-time favorite anime shows. It was a 13-episode anime back in 2006.

The problem with some one cour anime adaptations is that some animation studios bite off too big a chunk of the source material, and then try to rush through it (I think this hurt RDG quite a bit). One cour anime adaptations are fine if you pick a reasonable cutoff point, and then let sales and other factors determine if you get a sequel later on. Don't try to squeeze in as much as possible, just squeeze in as much as can work well in the one cour time-frame provided.

If the source material is adapted well over 2 separate 13-episode seasons, I think that's no worse than it being adapted well over 1 26-episode season.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Like I said, those adaptations exist to advertise the books, which the intended audience can actually read.
The quality ultimately doesn't matter beyond getting people interested in the series, and if the story is intriguing enough but obviously full of cuts, that might help in that regard. Think of Henneko this season, for instance.
If you're tired of this, learn Japanese and buy the books, or only watch original stuff that's designed around the TV format.

That's if you're attracting first timer viewers- What about follow up seasons? What if the show already has a large fan followings? Screw around with small titles is one thing, pull that stunt on series like Haruhi, Index, SAO etc and you'll have a shitstorm coming your way.

And besides, after a while you'll hit your saturation point and you can't really rely on getting anymore fans than you already have to buy your books to cover the cost.

Then again, I suppose they'll just stop making Animes for the series... Right FMP fans ?