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PJMax
Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 1
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:05 am
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Why do anime series often have recap episodes?
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louis6578
Joined: 31 Jul 2013
Posts: 1861
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 3:47 am
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A. To save animators effort and give them a break by reusing old footage.
B. To prevent an adaptation from catching up to its source material.
C. Because, while it may be easy to forget for people watching things all at once after they've finished, these shows are airing week to week. Some people may have missed a few episodes, so to keep the show marketable, the studio makes episodes to catch the uninformed viewer up.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter
Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23769
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 6:10 am
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There is only one reason recap episodes exist: to buy the production team time. When a show starts broadcasting, it is very rare that all the episodes are finished. Generally, the first, say, four or five might be done and the rest are in various stages of completion. In a normal situation, this gives the production studio time to finish all the episodes before they are broadcast. There have been cases when an episode literally arrives at the broadcaster minutes before its scheduled airing.
However, sometimes a production gets bogged down and the team knows there is no way on God's green earth that the next episode scheduled for broadcast will be done in time. So they quickly throw together a recap episode and that buys them time to get back in sync the following week.
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Beltane70
Joined: 07 May 2007
Posts: 3883
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 5:27 pm
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B isn't always true, quite a few original story anime shows have had recap episodes as well. Episode 14 of the original Macross tv series comes to mind as such.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter
Joined: 07 Mar 2009
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 5:51 pm
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Actually, there has never been a recap episode in history that occurred because of either B or C. There is only ever one explanation and I gave it. If you don't believe me, ask Answer Man.
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Key
Moderator
Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18186
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 5:57 pm
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What Blood- described is by far the most common case; it happens an average of once or twice each season to some series or another. (Saga of Tanya the Evil immediately springs to mind for the Winter 2017 season.)
On much rarer occasions more creative things are done with recaps which suggest that they may have actually been planned; see Neon Genesis Evangelion.
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Dessa
Joined: 14 Jul 2004
Posts: 4438
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 7:17 pm
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Nadeshiko, also, did something pretty unique with their recap (or was it just an episode of Gekigangar?).
For .hack//SIGN, given that it was a bit of a mystery series, the recap was used to bring certain things into focus, that you may have forgotten. There were also a couple of new scenes in there, that were important.
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