Forum - View topicNumbering scheme for second seasons
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
 Posts: 3782 Location: Montreal |
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We currently have various anime where the second season is a separate series (as per our policy) and we start the episode count from 1, but the streaming services continue the episode numbers where the first season left off.
Assassination Classroom restarts at 1 but Funimation continues at 23 GATE restarts at 1 but Crunchyroll continues at 13 Snow White with the Red Hair restarts at 1 but Funimation continues at 13 1. Did we ever make a policy about episode numbering? (I don't recall so...) 2. Is there a reason why our numbers start at 1? Like an official Japanese numbering? 3. Does it seem reasonable to use the official streaming episode numbers instead? 4. Should we make that a policy? Please post your feedback. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9835 Location: Virginia |
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With Funimation, I feel we should follow the streaming numbering system. It is likely they will use the same numbering system on any disk release. With Crunchyroll I would suggest following their numbering system but revisit the decision if there is a disk release.
This, of course, assumes that a DVD or Bluray release will be the definitive one. We may reach a point where streaming becomes more "permanent" than a release on disk. |
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 2209 Location: Springfield, MO |
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My opinion is that we should stick to how they're officially numbered for Japanese broadcast/release. Gate and Snow White with the Red Hair are split cour series, essentially one two-cour series with a break in between, and in those cases the numbers usually pick up from where they last left off (particularly if there's no change in title as with those two). Assassination Classroom is a newly produced season, though, and its numbers do officially start over at 1.
I think we should ignore what FUNimation does for streaming as they consistently continue numbers where they left off for sequels regardless of how it's supposed to be officially. For home video, they do the numbering correctly (for instance, Haganai NEXT is 1-12 on their home video release as it should be, though they have it as "14-25" on their website). Crunchyroll tends to follow the official numbering most of the time from what I've seen, as do most other companies. |
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Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
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IMO, the numbering on ANN should always be the official numbering, especially for series where ANN splits seasons into separate entries.
Reason 1, and, IMO, the most important one, is that this is the official numbering, and just as ANN uses the official English title as the main title, regardless of it's the most accurate translation of the Japanese title (see Case Closed vs. Detective Conan, among others), the official numbering scheme should be used as well, regardless of if it's listed in ANN as a separate entry. The second reason, is that there are many series that we have split into multiple entries (Sailormoon Crystal comes to mind, which, for the record, I still disagree with), that Japan doesn't consider even separate seasons. Officially, Sailormoon Crystal is a 26-episode series, and, as such, the numbering continues on, even though ANN has it as separate entries (IIRC, 14 is the last episode listed in the first part). If I were someone who didn't know anything about Crystal, or about ANN's policy regarding separating seasons, and the numbers were restarted (so, 1-14 and 1-12), I'd be incredibly confused. I'd be questioning why Crunchyroll has the first season with 26 episodes, and where's the second season? But if I saw that the "second season" was episodes 15-26, I would understand that the show is just split up. With more and more shows, it seems, getting the "split cour" treatment, and having the numbers continue as if there's no gap, keeping the numbering continuing on. Really, it's to the point where it's no different than the "winter break" in American shows. Once Upon a Time season 5's episode 11 aired on December 6th. The next episode won't air until March 6th, but it's still episode 12. What gets tricky, but would be interesting to find a way to do, is when a series has a clear-cut separate season, and restarts the episode numbering, but showing the overall episode numbers. Kinda like how Wikipedia does it, listing the overall episode number as well as the season episode number. So, like, the aforementioned OUaT episode is officially S5e11, but if it were to be entered on ANN, it would be something like "11 (99)", to show it's officially numbered as episode 11, but it's the 99th overall episode of the show. [posting this 6 hours after typing it, now that the site is back up and I'm home from work again] |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2941 Location: Email for assistance only |
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I initially felt the same way, however the third series coming out in April is official titled Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal: Season III so it turns out that the split ended up being the right judgment call on that one. |
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
Posts: 3782 Location: Montreal |
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Ah, but which official numbering? U.S. or Japanese? Based on what EmperorBrandon said, I believe we'll stick to the Japanese numbering regardless of what Funimation or Crunchyroll uses. I fixed the episode numbers for Gate and Snow White; if you find series where the episode numbers restart at 1 when they shouldn't, please let me know in this thread so we can take appropriate steps (without having to redeem and re-enter a ton of info). BTW, what prompted this topic is that we need to have consistency between the episode reviews and the Encyclopedia. Based on the "official Japanese numbering" rule, the new Assassination Classroom episode reviews have been split into a season 2 group and renumbered starting at 1. |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 2941 Location: Email for assistance only |
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My concern with that is that the episode reviewers are going off of Crunchyroll/Funi/Hulu and probably aren't in the habit of cross checking the Encyclopedia entry's episode number link to see what's listed there. That cross checking is going to end up falling on editorial to correct creating more work for staff at the other end too.
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 2209 Location: Springfield, MO |
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Is this just for episode titles, or can staff/cast precisions be pointed out as well?
Since Hulu was brought up, I checked and see that in the case of both Snow White with the Red Hair and Assassination Classroom, it's consistent with the official Japanese numbering (the former starts "Season 2, Episode 13" while the latter starts "Season 2, Episode 1"). Generally, FUNi's streaming page (where they seem to have their own rules that override official numbers) is the exception: other official US outlets (including those streaming titles from FUNi, like we see with the Assassination Classroom example) will usually have the correct numbers. I think there might have been the rare occasion where they're different from the official Japanese sources, but I can't recall any right away. EDIT: Now I finally remembered one that I was trying to recall: AKB0048 next stage. Officially it's 14-26 in Japan, but Crunchyroll, Sentai, The Anime Network, and Hulu all number them 1-13 instead. |
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
Posts: 3782 Location: Montreal |
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I understand your concern, but part of the reason why I settled on this standard is that it has very little effect on episode reviews. Apart from a few exceptions for Funimation, the streaming episode numbers are the same as the official Japanese numbers. And for those few exceptions I've always been the one who does any necessary renumbering, so there's literally zero impact on reviewers. |
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
Posts: 3782 Location: Montreal |
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Definitely both. If the episode numbers change in the episode list, they have to change as well in the staff/cast precisions. They have to match up otherwise it doesn't make sense. |
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GrayArchon
Posts: 393 |
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Series so rarely stop and resume at the same episode number they stopped at that people just automatically default to starting over from 1 without paying much attention.
I'd recommend mainly going by what the official Japanese websites say, or Japanese ads that give episode names and numbers. I would advise against making it a policy to go by the streaming numbers. They can be wrong. The example that leaps to mind is Fairy Tail. The series ended, new production deals were made, a continuation announced, streaming announced, and then the confusion started. They made the decision to keep the same name, and continue the same numbering, but not everyone got the memo to start with. It took a few weeks for even the official Japanese sites to straighten things out. However Crunchyroll flat out ignored the memo, invented their own name for the continuation, and continued to number it starting from #1. Every other official source disagrees with them, including Funimation who got the streaming rights before them, but even two years later they haven't fixed it. I'm pretty sure Gintama's had similar confusions in the past as well. I would not be surprised to find if I looked around that there have been times split cour series have been listed by streaming sources as #1-#13, and #1-#13, when they should be #1-#26, and vice versa.
I'd advise against making it a policy that must be followed. As with the example for Fairy Tail, there can be confusion even among official Japanese sources. That's a minor example that was sorted out in a few weeks. Another example would be Naruto. Everyone knows that the first Naruto anime ended at episode 220, then Naruto Shippuden began and is now up to episode 446(soon to be 447), right? Try explaining that to TV Tokyo and Studio Pierrot. As far as they seem to be concerned, they're up to episode #666. If Fairy Tail and Naruto can have such oddities and confusion in their numbering, that takes a couple months to resolve, or can persist for years, it'd be easy for much shorter series to have confusion in their numbering that doesn't get sorted out for most of their run, or until after they've concluded, if it ever gets sorted out. So like I said, I'd recommend against making a hard rule. This is the sort of thing that probably needs to be done on a case by case basis. Otherwise you could end up with a situation where the source you pick to go by as per the rules, disagrees with every other official source for the series. Addendum: To put it another way, if you try and go by official English streams, there will be times where Funimation, Crunchyroll, Daisuki, or other official sources disagree with each other on the numbering. There will also be times where even they all agree with each other, they disagree with the numbering on official Japanese websites for a given series. If you try and go by the official Japanese websites for a series, there will be times where the website for the broadcaster disagrees with the stand alone website for the series, or the animation studio's numbering for the series. You can have official twitter accounts for studio and series simultaneously using both numberings regardless of what the website they're linked to says. You can have different members of production staff each using their preferred numbering on twitter. Magazine advertising and DVD numbering can disagree with official websites. There's no one source you can pick and always be correct. Any of these sources could end up in the minority, or the sole voice. Plus, some of these differences will be deliberate. There will be times it makes perfect sense to take what are technically two series in Japan, and market them overseas as a single series. For that matter, there will be times it makes perfect sense to take what are technically two series in Japan, and market them in Japan as a single series. A single, simple rule will not be guaranteed to account for this. Making a rule to go by a given source in this case simply guarantees there will be times where going by the rule ignores reality. |
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 2209 Location: Springfield, MO |
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Huh, that's odd. Seems the Japanese DVD's number them as such too. However some prominent non-official Japanese sites do not, such as Wikipedia and Syoboi. Was there an official basis for starting over at 1 in Japan that those two sites followed? I think the most important source is, if a number happens to be shown or spoken there, the episode itself. Not following the numbers there invites the most confusion because anyone watching the anime will see them. |
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 2209 Location: Springfield, MO |
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One series in need of a partial fix is anime#16946. Just the Animation Directors and Assistant Animation Directors. Most info already has the correct episode precisions. |
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GrayArchon
Posts: 393 |
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Not that I can find offhand, though I haven't put too much effort into it. This is just an odd situation I ran across a few years ago. I've never gotten much of an explanation for it. Obviously they rebranded the series as Naruto Shippuden at that point, and watching the "first" episode of it they clearly intended it as something of a relaunch. But that's about all I know.
Definitely if the episode number is stated in the episode itself, that would be the thing to go by. The main problem there is most series don't bother listing the episode number in the episode, they just list the title. |
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 2209 Location: Springfield, MO |
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The episode precisions on cast and staff for Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal: Season III need to be fixed. They start at 1, but official sources (Japanese broadcast, Crunchyroll, Hulu) start at 27. The episode titles and reviews are already numbered correctly.
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