Forum - View topic

Answerman - Is The Anime Glut And The American TV Glut The Same Thing?

Saffire wrote:

this Wikipedia page should make it obvious at a glance.

I believe someone already mentioned the problem with just counting the number of series. Since the recession the number of 11-13 episode series has substantially increased, and the number of 23+ episode series has declined. Producers are now more cautious and hedge their bets with shorter initial runs. Akagami no Shirayuki-hime might well have been slotted for 24 episodes if it appeared a few years back. Instead it is being released as a "split-cour" series with installments last summer and next winter.

It might be harder to prove that the amount has increased since 2008, but there's no time frame set on the question. I stand by my statement.

2015 wasn't the first year of short anime series. Chi's Sweet Home (2008) is also only 3 mins per episode (but with 8x as many episodes).

@leafy sea dragon

Outside the major urban areas, most communities granted monopoly status to a private cable provider in order to entice them to come to town. I'm not sure how it works in areas like yours. For such communities, satellite provides an alternative form of TV service to people who do not like the monopoly.

Also cable is notorious for refusing to extend service to any area where the population density is not great enough. My parents lived a half mile from the nearest cable service and didn't get it until a housing development set up behind them. For people not covered by cable it is the only way to get most of the channels cable provides. Also a lot of those not covered by cable live in areas where broadcast reception is bad.

The only reason we have cable for both TV and internet is that it is the only service locally which will support streaming. I used to have Verizon DSL and it would choke trying to handle Crunchyroll at the minimum quality level. A lot of people have pointed out that Verizon FIOS is the best thing available for both TV and internet. Unfortunately, Verizon has reported that they have no intention of offering this service in our valley in the foreseeable future, no reason given.

Yeah, this was exactly the distinction I was wondering about. It's a little different to say there's "more anime" vs. "more anime series (but with fewer episodes per series)". If we're concerned with total hours, we also have to consider the episode length of shows like Wakakozake, which is only 3 minutes per episode. 2015 wasn't the first year of short anime series. Chi's Sweet Home (2008) is also only 3 mins per episode (but with 8x as many episodes).

Of course, I'm not saying any one metric (series count vs. episode count vs. total hours) is more "correct" than another. But it's probably a good idea to make a distinction if the metrics tell different stories.

Unless you are new to anime or in the industry professionally there is no need to try to watch everything.