Forum - View topicShort Series or Long Series: Which is Better?
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DemonDragonJ
 Posts: 116 Location: Somewhere in the United States |
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An anime series can be either short or long in legnth, and this makes me wonder if the length of a series has any impact on how popular it becomes.
I shall use several well-known series as examples. Hellsing, Onegai Teacher, and Onegai Twins were each only a mere thirteen episodes in length. In the case of Onegai Teacher and Onegai Twins, thirteen episodes were all that were needed to tell the story, but Hellsing could have been longer, in my opinion, because there were several questions that were left unanswered. Trigun, Scrapped Princess, Chrono Crusade, and Peach Girl, all of which were awesome series, in my opinion, each lasted 24 to 26 episodes, and that is all that was necessary, although the ending of Trigun did leave a few unanswered questions. Full Metal Alchemist ran 51 episodes, of which I have seen only the first 20 or so. Since I have not seen the entire series, I am not certain if 51 episodes were sufficient or not to tell the entire story. The ever-infamous Dragon Ball franchise ran a whopping 508 episodes (153 in DB, 291 in DBZ, and 64 in DBGT), but despite having so many episodes, the series most unfortunately did not have a decent plot. Although, in my mind, the ending of the final episode of DBGT was the best ending for a series ever. Yu-Gi-Oh!; Duel Monsters ran 224 episodes, and a new series, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is currently airing in Japan, which is currently at 62 episodes. I thought that Yu-Gi-Oh!; Duel Monsters was an awesome anime (and when I say that, I am referring to the original, unedited Japanese version, not the, in my opinion, pathetically edited, poorly dubbed English version), and that the story was well-told, and that the ending left nothing unfinished. My current favorite anime, Bleach, has so far had 60 anime episodes and 206 manga chapters, with no end in sight. Now begins the actual discussion. I believe that when an anime series ends too soon, such as Hellsing or Trigun, it leaves many questions unanswered. When an anime is dragged out, like DBZ or Yu-Gi-Oh!, it becomes tedious and predictable. DBZ could have been better if all the fights had been condensed into fewer episodes, if the Garlic Jr. filler arc had never been added, and if the series had ended right after the final fight against Cell, because that was a perfect place to end the series, in my opinion. Yu-Gi-Oh! had few flaws, save for the fact that almost all of the battles were card games, and that two filler arcs that did not happen in the manga were added to the anime between the Battle City arc and the Pharaoh's Memory arc. These two filler arcs, in my mind, almost ruined the series, but fortunately, the ending more than made up for that. Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, in my mind, is to Yu-Gi-Oh!; Duel Monsters what DBGT was to DBZ; it is an attempt to make more money, and will never live up to the legacy of its predecessor. Trigun and Hellsing could each have been slightly longer to tie up some loose threads, in my opinion. Bleach, however, so far seems to have the best of both worlds. It has awesome fight scenes like DBZ, albeit not quite as long or as boring, but has an awesome plot and well-developed characters like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Full Metal Alchemist. I predict that it will exceed one hundred episodes, but will not quite reach two hundred episodes. What does everyone else think? (WOW! I am terribly sorry about the length of this post. I seem to have a habit of making long posts. I hope that I do not get banned for making all these long posts! 
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6921 Location: Kazune City |
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One quick note: Some sort of end is in sight for Bleach, as the series is rapidly catching up to the manga--the anime is at chapter 160 or so of the manga, so they'll have to do something like a filler arc pretty soon.
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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It really depends, can they fill those episodes with decent stories and not just filler? If it's short does it feel rushed or too short? I prefer them short, at most 60 episodes, which is still long but not incredibly so. The mid 20's is ideal, but some titles need more time and some can't fill that much so it really depends on the title and how well it's paced.
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Pleroma
 Posts: 443 Location: Eromanga island |
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Personally I avoid long series. They are good for a helping of action, but if they had a truly good story they would not be so long. Its the same as book like "Wheel of Time" or "Sword of Truth" that despite starting out well just go on and on and on and become bore eventually. If you have a good story to tell TELL IT AND MOVE ON, if not then why bother in the first place.
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ksuno1
Posts: 3 |
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It depends on the story.. and if i really like the anime or not
For shows like Elfen Lied, I really would have liked it to run 24-26 episodes, because it just seems like the show is being rushed to get in a powerful, deep story and drama. Key the Metal Idol is another example of this. It had to go so far as to have 2 movies made just to get the rest of the story in. But for shows like FMP Fumoffu, 13 episodes is perfect, since all the show does is goof around (atleast the first 2 dvd's). I hear, however, that FMP The Second Raid is only 13 episodes as well, and that troubles me a little bit. Does it have as good a story as the first season or is it rushed, like Elfen Lied? Shows like Excel Saga, however, possibly could have been better if only 13 or 14 episodes. Don't get me wrong, i LOVE Excel Saga as it is, but it seemed to stifle a little bit in the middle, until it picked up speed towards the end (and went 800mph towards the ending). Also, i think it is great for an anime to have an ending where it doesn't answer every question. It leaves the ending open to speculation (and fanfiction), and also to a movie or another season. I personally really like Trigun's ending. Buuut, thats just my opinion  ;
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DemonDragonJ
Posts: 116 Location: Somewhere in the United States |
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First, if you are reading the manga, you will know that the story is far from over. Second, why would they need to have a filler arc? So what if the anime catches up to the manga? I do not understand. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I am more a fan of the shorter serieses, because I like how tied together the stories in them are, because they have to be in order to tell a story in 13 episodes. I find sprawling series, such as Ranma 1/2 or Naruto, to just be too long. The longest thing I've ever really watched was Sailor Moon, and even then each season by itself is it's own story, thus I watch a season at a time (so far have done S and Stars).
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Blade+
 Posts: 13 Location: Top of the World! |
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I don't agree with you saying that short series leave many open questions, but then again it depends on the series.
I prefer series with 13 to 26 eps, the only serie i'm watching with alot of eps is bleach wich is at episode 60. I take elfen lied as example for a short series, elfen lied is quite a sad serie and if it where longer then 13 eps i might not have liked it so much becuase the would have probably milked it to its limits. |
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Nionel
 Posts: 635 Location: Nebraska |
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The anime catching up to the manga is a bad thing. If the anime were to catch up it could have to deviate and create it's own storyline, which could be very bad since that could cause the series to go into filler anyway. Two series that have run into this in the past are FMA and Trigun, both series caught up to their manga counter parts about half way though but kept going anyway, which caused the manga and anime to become very different. Doing things like this also causes characters to be changed or left out completely or an anime ending prematurely due to the show losing popularity or the studios writting themselves into a corner |
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DemonEyesLeo
 Posts: 844 Location: Japan |
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I think it really depends on how the story is handled. If they, the anime companies, can put the whole story into 24-26 epsiodes then they should do so; but if more is needed then they should do more. Like Full Metal Panic: TSR; the last episode felt rushed and a bit abrupt, if they had made maybe two more for the final I think that would have made it better.
I like long series if the story is well developed within the numerous epsiodes. But those series can get boring if the episodes themselves are "stand alone" episodes, meaning they don't require the viewer to have seen the previous episode. Bleach is a good long series; the current Soul Society arc has been going on for about 40+ episodes. But what makes it good is that there is a central story that develops as the episode count grows. |
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Spotlesseden
Posts: 3514 Location: earth |
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over all i like long series better because most anime that i watch are long series like FMA, Bleach, Naruto, Hikaru no Go, inuyasha, so on. i don't might fillers like in Naruto. i just don't watch those until it starts go back to the manga story.
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Qvalster
 Posts: 20 |
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Short series like Elfen Lied, 13eps, is realy good, but i want more couse the ending was wierd...
Gundam SEED, 50eps, is normal and the thing with Gundam is they make many series coming after. Gundam SEED -> Gundam SEED Destiny -> Gundam SEED Future ... Hikaru No Go, realy good serie and could have watched 100 more episodes.. Then theres Naruto that never ends.. The Naruto serie is getting bored, but when we have watched 162 episodes you cant just say "this serie sucks!" and stop watched, you like have to know how it ends. And when the Naruto serie ends, and i even cant picture the ending, but then we gonna say "I wanna know what happends next!" or atleast i would do... Well the thing with short and longer series is: Longer series is more Dramatic, it happends new stuff all the time while Short series just have "red line" as some people would call it... I cant say if Short or Longer series are better... I watch them all 
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Deltakiral
 Posts: 3338 Location: Glendora, CA (Avatar Hei from Darker than BLACK) |
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Till next time, Delta Kiral |
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Lolotakun
 Posts: 45 Location: Luxembourg |
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So, Delta Kiral, you're saying that the storyline of Monster is so tight that it easily suffers its 70 episode length? Maybe I should give it a try....
I like short series better, but mainly for practical reasons. As a kid, I had no problem following very long series like Dragonball or Captain Tsubasa. I only had to sit down with my cornflakes every morning and watch. I didn't bother that the main plot was leading nowhere (even today I don't care that much), as long as the entertainment value was high. But the impact of the first concept series (i.e. with a clearly defined ending from the beginning) I saw, Bosco Daiboken, was considerable, because the level of suspense was so much higher if you anticipated the inevitable during only 26 episodes. Today, as I watch most of my series on DVD, I am no longer impelled by programming schedules, but therefore must always make the effort to find half an hour of spare time and additionally put a DVD in the player to enjoy (life is cruel, isn't it?  ).
The artistic problem with longer running series is that they're being produced mainly as a commercialy lucrative companion to an already well selling manga that is still being published. If the companies waited until the end of the manga to produce the show, it would be of much higher quality as the story can be arranged more effitiently over a given number of episodes (as done with Saikano for example). Let's face it: you simply can't blow a 18 page manga chapter to a 26 minute episode without being idle. That's why I don't count any 52+ episode series to my favourites, the longest being The Moomins (no comment), followed by Space Adventure Cobra with already only 31 episodes. I zap in every once in a while, but long series can't keep me hanging on nowadays, with their loose suspense and inferior production values. I really wish there were series which kept me going on for more than a year, but there aren't. 
Last edited by Lolotakun on Thu Dec 08, 2005 8:44 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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remember love
 Posts: 764 Location: Germany |
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I would say it depends on the storyline. If the story is well developed and can be done within 10 episodes then all's good. If it takes over 100 episodes to get the story across and for people to get emotionally attached to the characters and not have alot of filler episodes then so be it. I don't think longer or shorter really has an impact unless it deals with the storyline...if it was just all fillers then I'd probably skip the fillers (if I've seen the series before) and just watch the episodes that count and go with the story and character development.
When you have a shorter series though you tend to have a lot less of filler episodes but that doesn't make it better because sometimes they leave things out that would normally wanted to be in there and want more of...Gunparade March is a good example of this. |
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