Seasonal Anime; what an idea!

[neflight86]

Most of us here probably remember the olden days of anime, where you had about 4 shows to watch in a given season, and capping off with maybe about 20 new series a year.

Of course, you can easily double that annual output every twelve weeks now; one look at the upcoming seasonal charts will tell you that. Somewhere around the mid-aughts, something about anime consumerism (light novel adaptations I believe) caused the production pipeline to erupt with a never ending wave of new content.

Taking a step back, I was hoping to discuss the relatively recent advent of the seasonal format in anime. Years back, your favorite manga (or LN of you're a proto-weeb) getting an anime was trepidatious, especially shounen, as there was essentially one chance for the production studio’s management, the Japanese economy, and available talent to align just so and make a show as great as possible for as long as possible before its inevitable ending or cancellation. One and done. Your only hope for continuation was a reboot (FMA) or an entire separate series (I think Inuyahsa did this to conclude years later). Seasonal installments were unheard of, much less annualized. When do you remember this change happening or coming to your attention?

It shouldn’t be surprising, and other television had been doing this for decades to make production schedules… humane, but I still remember plenty of series in the early 2010’s simply running their twelve episodes and disappearing never to see the screen again…

Nowadays, shounen is benefitting the most, as the long form storytelling can be condensed into yearly doses, instead of padding out content to not catch up in a weekly year round format- One Piece and Black Clover being the only series currently attempting to, to my knowledge. My Hero, Attack on Titan, and Haikyuu alone are three examples of series who no doubt benefitted from this production leeway. Of course, other genres as well have benefitted from annual installments like Golden Kamui, Danmachi, and Slime isekai (of course not forgetting Teen Romcom SNAFU). Of course, some fare better than others- Blue Exorcist, I'm looking at you.

It looks like there are only upsides to seasonal partitioning, but do you miss any of the old long form ways of Anime? Do you miss anime original endings, or commitments to complete a story within a one or two cour run? Any particular casualties you'd like to raise a glass to?

[MFauli]

I ... don't get it. Could you explain in 1 sentence was the topic is?

You mean that perma-airing anime are dead and only singular cours nowadays exist? You miss that, but then you say that shounen benefit the most of that? When shounen were perma-airing before? Huh?

I'm confused. Sorry.

[KrayZ33]

I'd rather have 1 season every 4 seasons than 4 bad seasons back to back.

If that's the topic.

I don't miss any of the old shows.
Anime original endings can be fine too. It would depend on what I expected.

I certainly do not miss any filler episode I had to suffer through (Naruto, etc.)

[DarthEnderX]

I'd rather have 1 season every 4 seasons than 4 bad seasons back to back.

Same. Though I think you could still keep the quality pretty high just by adopting the US model of "New episodes half the year."

But yeah, I'd gladly have shows like One Piece and Naruto not have terrible pacing, quality, or filler in exchange for not getting new episodes every week.

[Kraco]

I didn't even realise things had changed in such a way. But maybe they have. The anime industry has been dying slowly for a couple of decades, so it makes sense things change before the end. Well, it won't totally end any time soon, so maybe downscaling would be a better word.

[Ryllharu]

One disadvantage to longer running series that run multiple cours in a row is that we don't get much or any "slow burn" series. They get 12 episodes as a promo for the manga or LN and never get more because it was either rushed or didn't sell well.

[neflight86]

Sorry for not being more clear- my point was that I remembered in the past (90's through roughly 2015) that typically anime series didn't 'get' additional seasons, and after the initial run, however long that was, no more was made. Really, this would have been more topical three years ago when I first noticed that "season 2/3" of anime "X,Y,Z" was a thing.

@Ryll
Yeah, that was my understanding, too. Anime simply existed as marketing for its source material. If memory serves, anime production companies approached the print media license holders to green light anime; not the other way around, as they were the primary beneficiary who's needs the anime should cater to (advertising) in that relationship.

[Buffalobiian]

I remember Shakugan no Shana getting multiple seasons, as did Ah My Goddess and some others, if we're talking about some of the (relatively) older shows.

It's more the case that older shows got OVA runs instead I think, then had Series 2 as a different name (Full Metal Panic) etc..

It's better nowadays since someone realised how silly trying to sort out each "series" into chronological order was, and it's now just Attack on Titan S1, 2, 3, 4. Sure it has OVAs too.. and see how much of a pain in the ass it is to figure out where that sat in amongst the series?

Without being in the industry, I can only guess that nowadays producers recognise that long running series can be profitable and thus actually plan for multiple seasons, as opposed doing one long run while running into production issues (Naruto) or completing a series then erratically trying to figure out how to release more episodes (OVAs vs a new series).