Forum - View topicAnswerman - What Is The Purpose Of Recap Episodes?
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1817 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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North American animated TV shows tend to take more breaks and use mid-season reruns. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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That's true. NA shows aren't on the same tight "new season" every 12 weeks schedule.
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#hiros7039
Posts: 31 |
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I hate recap episodes, which you can skip without missing anything.
They're worse than Clip Show episodes saving time and money using flashbacks of previous episodes reminiscing their past scenes without the narrator. The first lines of Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series Episode 35 sums it up. The Simpsons since season 4 did this, Tom and Jerry was a big offender. Western media is not afraid of using Recap Episodes. Lost has this that air before a normal episode. Reality shows including Survivor and The Apprentice. Destinos to allow the viewers to understand. |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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I think this can generally be chalked up to industry expectations already being what they are, and no Production Committee really wanting to be the guy that loses money for an additional month or two so that their anime can look better. Whoever is working the numbers wants to see a return on that investment as soon as possible, they are used to anime production taking so many months(fewer than it really should, obviously) so they don't want to extend it(We've seen this happen a couple of times lately, notably with CyGames and Netflix, but that's about it). Generally a good anime production has 3 or more episodes complete when the season starts, from what I've read, but some do have longer production schedules for various reasons, like being under a good production committee, being a project that was worked on simultaneously with something else, etc. I think your average series probably has 1 1/2 to 2 episodes complete, but that's just speculation. It's hard to know something like that, even if you follow things pretty closely. Made in Abyss had a longer/better than usual production schedule because parts of the series were created independently of each other(backgrounds, key scenes, etc) so that they weren't rushing to put together highlights at the last minute(this was also just a product of how Kou Yoshinari and the background artist generally work outside of the standard production pipeline), and they just generally gave the series more time. In the case of CyGames's Bahamut, Sakugablog noted that there were at least 6 episodes complete before the series started. And as you'd expect, KyoAni shows tend to be pretty far into production by the time the show starts as well. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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As someone who DOES watch a lot of North American TV animation, technically, there wouldn't be many recap episodes even if they ran the same production schedule as your typical anime because there isn't that much to recap. By their nature, recap episodes only make sense for serials, whereas most North American TV animation is either semi-serial (where each episode is a standalone story but has strong continuity and character development that's only noticeable when viewed in order without skipping episodes, such as Rick and Morty, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Steven Universe) or fully episodic (episodes have no continuity or negative continuity and can be fully understood when viewed in any order, such as Sonic Boom, most of South Park, and Teen Titans GO!). There are some cases where it's more complicated, but the point is that recap episodes are usually not necessary. Of course, this is splitting hairs. North American TV animation has a lead time of between 1 to 2 years, so it's extremely rare for a show to run out of time and be in an incomplete state when it's time to air. For instance, The Simpsons has a lead time of about 18 months. Clip episodes and bottle episodes, the equivalent to recap episodes, do come up when a show has run out of budget, however. Because of this lead time, in nearly all cases, by the time a season has started airing on TV, every episode of that season has already been completed and submitted to the network (except for the first season in some cases). If the show has been contracted for additional seasons, by the time a season has started airing, they're already animating the next season's episodes, and if contracted further out, they're already writing two seasons ahead. That's how prepared they are, and that's why the situation as described in this article has almost never occurred in western animation, though, as I mentioned earlier, it did come close with South Park. I can see why anime has to strike while the iron's hot, and they get pressure from people who have never worked in animation and care only about getting a return as quickly as possible, but I do feel they could afford to provide a bit more lead time if there is a growing problem with episodes not making it out in time. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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Wait a minute! How could South Park, (Of all cartoons!) ever fall behind production schedule?! The damned series is barely animated at all! |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Because they procrastinate with beginning them. (I mentioned it in an earlier post, but "AWESOME-O" was finished in only 3 days, AND it was rushed to Comedy Central barely on time. That meant they only started working on it 3 days before the episode was to air. The South Park Studios website mentioned this bit of information but never explained why they began so late.) I should point out that John Kricfalusi was notorious for submitting in episodes right before the deadline too, though that was due to a combination of his perfectionism (he wanted to make sure everything was just right before he'd allow the public to watch) and a form of protesting the networks (he didn't want anyone messing with his episodes, so he would sometimes intentionally submit them at the last possible moment so the network wouldn't have any time to edit the episodes). |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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I guess Japan is the only country in the world where there are 4 seasons of TV per year.
It's the same principle that explains why those that live closer to work/school are those that more often are late: since they think they can easily produce an episode they procrastinate the most and end up being delayed. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that the production schedule be extended. Let's say a production schedule is 30 weeks long. Fine, keep it at 30 weeks, just start earlier than you normally would so that by broadcast day you have six episodes in the can instead of three, thus giving you more room to maneouvre if things go south. |
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Sheleigha
 Posts: 1671 |
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Ahhh... I forgot about SARS! I guess I didn't even factor that in, since most anime during that time didn't seem delayed/overly recapped, compared to Wolf's Rain.
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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Adapting existing manga probably plays a big role here. The publishers presumably want an adaptation to boost sales of a work they think is on the cusp of wider popularity. Releasing an adaptation two or three years later would hardly have the same effect on manga sales. That raises the question of whether anime-original series operate on any longer time scale than adaptations. Shirobako would suggest the answer is no, but that's a fictional work. What about something like Re:Creators, Flip Flappers, or Princess Principal? Do they operate within the same time constraints as adaptations? |
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
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^They probably have more leeway with the timing, as they don't have the publisher of the original pushing them to release it when it is convenient for them and not the studio, but I can't imagine it is too much more than adaptations. For adaptations, at least some members of the production committee have some cash flow related to the project, but for an original series, the anime is the main product and the longer they wait, the longer it takes for them to see a return on their investment, from both the anime itself and merchandise etc. Original anime aren't unaffected by the production difficulties that produce recap episodes (among other things) as with the previously mentioned currently airing Just Because and Wake Up Girls New Chapter.
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Woody__alien
Posts: 19 |
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It was also the only good thing from that travesty of a series IMO. I remember being surprised by the fact that Excel Saga, a series with only 26 episodes (25 if you don't count the final "controversial" one), had not one but two recap episodes. Though, at least, one was a recap of the Pedro storyline up to that point and worked as a wacky parody of the typical soap operas/telenovelas. And the other one was a parody of Japanese New Year's special broadcasts, so at least they managed to do something different and funny both times. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4081 |
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Worst recap episode ever:
Air the TV has a recap episode even if you'd never know it from Funimation's DVD release. As it would seem, Kyoto Animation has issues trying to fit "Air in Summer" as part of the main series so they cut their loses and ended the series early. But since they still had an episode of air time, what better way to fill it than a recap episode? In hindsight, anything especially if they just ran episode one again. But no, you get to see what you just saw but in a fraction of the time. Special mention: Shuffle Memories or Recap the series. Every two episodes reduced to one with one new episode. So if you really hate Shuffle!, here's a series that's worth at least half your hate. Best recap episode: Higurashi season 2, episode 1. It's a recap episode in function only as it set the story ahead by a decade and a half, filled in new information and gave a baseline of "normality" for what was to follow. It was also almost all new animation with the reused footage only as flashbacks. All series that do "recap episodes" could do this... but that would take money and effort. Special mention: Excel Saga which has an actual entertaining clip show... or two... and Kujibiki Unbalance OVA which does a clip show parody for a show that doesn't exist. |
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Ziko577
Posts: 136 |
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This is why I dropped the anime and focus on the manga now. The anime is a hot mess with the opening running 2 1/2 mins! and even recapping parts of the last episode so that leaves 17 mins. of new stuff and a preview of the next episode. At least with the manga, that bullshit can be avoided. |
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