A few months ago I wrote a post about six things that have disappeared from anime over the past decade. Today I’m doing a follow-up to that topic with six things that have increased in anime over the past decade…
Just to note, I’m including both things that have increased in anime over the past decade, as well as things that were not part of anime a decade ago but are now. Like the previous list, I’m not counting extremely obvious or inevitable things like “better digital animation,” “anime streaming sites,” or “anime on Blu-ray.” I’m more interested in things that are results of changes in the fandom and not just outcomes of better technology. The list is in no particular order.
Cold openings (and endings): For those who don’t know what this is, a “cold opening” is when an anime episode jumps right into the show before showing the opening song. Likewise, a “cold ending” (I think that’s what it’s called…) is when the episode continues even after the ending credits have finished, before the next episode preview or any omake. This has actually been one of the biggest increases I’ve noticed for TV anime in recent years. I don’t remember any anime from a decade ago having cold openings or endings. All old anime I remember followed the strict structure of 1) opening song, 2) Part A, 3) eyecatch, 4) Part B, 5) ending song, 6) next episode preview. Nowadays however, it’s more common for anime episodes to have cold openings than not. A few anime, such as the first season of Digimon Xros Wars and the first episode of Steins;Gate, don’t even show the opening song until halfway through the episode! Even anime that started airing without cold openings, such as Pokemon and Naruto, have them now. Cold endings aren’t as common but they’re increasing too. As for why anime episodes have started utilizing cold openings so rapidly, I’m not sure. Perhaps companies have discovered that the method catches viewers’ attention better than starting every episode off with the opening song.
Another similar trend I’ve noticed (though still too new to say for sure) is first episodes of TV anime not even showing their opening song until the next episode (this season’s Mirai Nikki and Guilty Crown for example), or showing them as the ending for the first episode (Working’!!). There are other deviations, like Madoka Magica not showing its ending song until episode 3, AnoHana merging its ending song with the episode, and many recent anime not having next episode previews or not even showing their openings/endings in an episode if they need the extra minutes for the episode itself. I think all this boils down to is simply the fact that anime is getting more freedom and less structure in its episodes compared to the old days.
Moe and its slice-of-life/harem genres: This is another major increase in anime that I’m sure we’ve all noticed. The typical moe anime girl archetype has been around for a long time actually – a few early examples I can think of are Sasami from Tenchi Muyo!, Sakura from Cardcaptor Sakura, and Shinobu from Love Hina. Recently however, they’ve gone from being an uncommon archetype to one of the most common in many genres of anime. And along with the increased love for moe girls came the perfect type of show to convey all the traits otaku love about them – the slice-of-life genre. Anime such as Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star, K-ON, Ichigo Mashimaro, and Hidamari Sketch are all prime examples of the “cute girls going cute things” setup that’s become the common theme for the slice-of-life genre. Though not all anime considered slice-of-life is a show about moe girls (some could be romance dramas or reverse harems for example), the majority are often these character-driven, plot-less, often 4-koma based series focusing on the daily lives of an all, or mostly, female cast doing cute, funny things.
The other type of anime that has increased along with the popularity of moe is the harem genre, which is often more ecchi and fan service-filled than the more universally appealing slice-of-life moe. Tenchi Muyo! and Love Hina were two of the original harem anime, but now this type of anime is a lot more common than it used to be. Even if an anime isn’t blatantly harem-focused, the setup of “the (often bland) male protagonist being surrounded by many girls with various personalities” has found its way into many genres of anime with mixed results.
Light novel to anime adaptations: I’m sure light novel adaptations have existed in anime for over a decade, but it seems like they’ve become increasingly more common than they used to be. Of the older anime I’ve seen, Slayers is the only one that’s based on a light novel series while the majority of others are manga-based. I don’t know much about Japan’s light novel industry, so I don’t know if this is simply due to light novels becoming more common overall or if it’s only anime adaptations of them that are becoming more common.
Characters singing opening/ending songs: In the pre/early-2000 years, most anime had CD releases with image songs sung by the characters from that show (or their seiyuu if you will). It was rare, however, for the characters to sing the actual opening and ending songs for the show. The earliest examples I can think of are Slayers and Shaman King, but that could just be because seiyuu Megumi Hayashibara was also an accomplished singer. Back then most seiyuu might have an insert song or two in certain episodes, but usually their character singing was limited to CD releases. I think my beloved Haruhi was the first anime to start the trend of the actual characters/seiyuu singing the anime’s opening/ending with the popularity of “Hare Hare Yukai.” Since then, tons of anime have had their openings and endings sung by seiyuu from the show – Toradora!, Lucky Star, Macross Frontier, Kannagi, Bakemonogatari, Hayate no Gotoku, K-ON, OreImou, and Working!! to name a few. CD-only character songs are still common, but having the seiyuu sing the openings and endings is now common too. The fact that the majority of seiyuu that do this are female may also tie this in to the increased popularity of moe.
Frequently changing openings and endings: A lot of things on this list are related to openings and endings, huh? XD I actually wrote a couple of posts about this before. Old anime would usually change openings and endings each cour, or tweak its current opening/ending a bit if major plots or characters are introduced. In recent years however, anime openings and endings have been changing more radically than ever before. Hanamaru Kindergarten and OreImou have different ending songs and images for each episode, Bakemonogatari changes openings many times in just a few episodes, Angel Beats! tweaks its openings and endings for every episode, Madoka tweaks its openings every episode…the list could go on. Frequently changing an anime’s opening and ending song is most likely a way to increase CD and video sales, as well as keep viewers’ attention. Advances in computer and animation technology probably make it much easier to change them than it used to be.
One-cour anime TV series: This is directly related to one of the six things that have disappeared from anime mentioned in my other post, which was the disappearance of 13-episode-or-less original OVA series. The reason these kinds of OVAs have faded out is because now anime TV series can have an 11-14 episode length too. Before the mid-2000s, it was extremely rare for an anime TV series to have less than 26 episodes (two cour). Nowadays however, the one-cour length of 11-14 episodes has become more common than the old two-cour length. Even two-cour length has gotten shorter over the years as well, with 22-25 episodes becoming common instead of always 26 episodes. I believe this again goes back to advancing technology making it easier to produce more anime, and with more anime each series has become shorter to make room for others unless it proves to be a hit.
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I’m sure there are many other subtle increases or new trends in anime that I didn’t notice. If you know of any, feel free to share =)
Interesting post! I had never thought much about these things before, but now that you mention it, it all seems so obvious.
Wonder how it will be in the future… will we still have openings/endings in their current form, or might they go the American way with pretty much only having the logo and perhaps some very short song/piece of music? Talking about that, how come anime have openings and endings? That’s one thing I’ve been wondering for a long time. I love it though, it does a good job setting the tone of the show.
I’ve heard that it’s because the music industry in Japan funds a lot of anime–for example, you know how some fansubs keep the “brought to you by” section in? It’s usually companies like Sony, Universal or Pony Canyon, all of which have their fingers in the music business. Frequently, the OP/ED will be sung by an artist/group that has a contract with those companies, so it’s good advertising for them. That kind of setup doesn’t exist in the States though, which is why we have really short ten to thirty second “theme songs” which pretty much only show the title card.
So it it pretty much as I suspected. I would love to have the same style here in the west, but oh well. I mean, it’s better than, say, the intro of King of Thrones, which felt sloooooow.
Yeah, Muse’s explanation for anime OPs and EDs sounds spot-on. I had a vague idea that it was like that, but I didn’t know the details =) It seems like the market for the pop music industry and anime industry go together in Japan, which is why just about every anime series gets at least one CD release while few TV shows in the US get any CD releases.
One-cour anime series seem to be a paradime shift, because the series can be produced much faster and more cheaply than before, this gives studios more availability to produce more shows. But, unlike advancing technology, there can only be so many viewing hours in a day, which means it can make more “economical sense” to shorten series that don’t need two-cour, and allow competition to take place. K-On!, for example, had a first season of, I believe, 12 episodes, but, due to popularity and demand, returned for a two-cour second season.
Because of this shift, it might actually be harder, now, to pitch a new series for a two-cour roll. With only so much time to air, broadcasters have to be choosey (and rightly so) about what airs. They’d probably rather have 4 one-cour series that do fairly well over two seasons, than 2 one-cour series that do okay and 1 two-cour series that doesn’t do very well.
A big part of this shift is because of the “invention” of the late night time slot (which largely replaced the OVA). In the past, most anime depended on TV ratings and advertisers, so they were aired in timeslots that were conducive to gaining viewership (like primetime weekdays for families, Saturday mornings for children, etc.). Those timeslots are rare and valuable, and you can’t easily build a good, reliable viewership on your channel in that timeslot if you’re constantly changing the content dramatically, so it’s advantageous to have longer shows that are safer bets and appeal to mainstream advertisers. (In those timeslots even to this day, you have mostly shows with one-year commitments or more.) But when they went from TV stations helping finance shows (to get viewership and ad dollars), to production companies paying TV stations to air anime during “dead time” (thus it’s only about gaining exposure to boost merchandise sales), there’s no need for big commitments. TV stations were willing to sell airtime in one-cour blocks, and with the lowering production costs, that length became a feasible investment even for “risky” ventures.
Oh and as an unrelated aside to the overall post, two other things that are increasing these days are bonus episodes sold right along side a TV show’s DVD/Blu-Ray release (as opposed to separate OVAs produced separately and released later), and OAD releases (anime packed-in with manga and light novels). The former is mostly to give fans one extra incentive to purchase the DVDs/BDs in a now-crowded market, and the latter is to give the much larger manga/novel fanbase (who were going to buy the book anyway) an incentive to buy anime they might not otherwise buy if it were standalone (and, in exchange, the bundle is sold more cheaply than it would be for anime sold separately).
As always, thanks for sharing all of your knowledge and insight about the anime industry. I didn’t know the details about the late night time slots and the shift to production companies paying stations to air anime…very interesting.
And yes, what you said about BD/DVD-only episodes and OADs could definitely go on the list. With so much anime being produced nowadays than recent years, it makes sense that marketing strategies like these would be necessary to increase sales in an overcrowded market.
Good points. Better technology means it becomes quicker and cheaper to produce anime, which leads to more series produced each season and more competition between them. Like you mentioned with K-ON, it’s best to save money by making a one-cour series and bringing it back for another season or two only if it proves popular.
The only thing that comes to mind right now is really long and obnoxious sentence titles. And HanaKana moeblobs too I guess.
Another thing that I think has been on the rise are quick scenes after the endings; i.e. Tiger & Bunny and Usagi Drop. (Or maybe they’ve been around for a while and I haven’t noticed.)
The earliest anime I can think of with frequently changing opening songs is FLCL. I enjoy frequently changing endings/openings, it keeps my interest and gives the animators a chance to experiment with art styles (if they have the balls to).
I thought of another thing that disappeared though: the warnings/advisories to watch anime in a brightly lit room.
The long titles could be a possibility but I don’t think there’s quite enough of them yet to say for sure. As for HanaKana moeblobs, that could just go along with the increase of moe and its respective archetypes.
Quick scenes after the endings of episodes is sort of what I meant by cold endings, though such scenes are not necessarily integral to the plot, as is the case with Usagi Drop.
As far as I know, most kids anime still have that warning at the beginning of each episode. Pokemon Best Wishes and Digimon Xros Wars still have it – not sure about Naruto and Bleach since the official release from Crunchyroll would remove the warning. But you may be right that it’s becoming less common.
Regarding the delays in shows showing their OP and ED pieces, this manifests itself as a break in convention (and for some production companies like SHAFT has now become a convention of its own), but it’s also a clever way to deal with tight production timelines and missed deadlines. OP and ED segments are usually produced separately from the shows themselves (with their own staff, often including some of the key players), so if the OP or ED animation wasn’t ready in time for the show, they had to fill it with episode content instead. Sometimes the OP and ED also cleverly re-use some shots or footage from the first episode (or other promo footage), so if the first episode wasn’t ready early enough, that too might cause a delay. Some studios, struggling with deadlines, also started showing early/limited versions of the OP/ED and when improve them progressively over subsequent episodes as they had more time. That too became something of a meme, so you have shows like Oreimo that purposefully modified the OP every episode so it would be a bit of a game of “spot all the changes”. And yeah, the different EDs with each episode thing is partly because they often pack-in those CDs with the home media release, so it gives another incentive for people to pick up the Blu-Rays/DVDs.
Re: characters singing OP/ED songs, King Records was one of the most prominent production companies to do this in the last decade, as a lot of their shows were financed in part to help push their own talent. One of the more famous examples was Nanoha, produced in 2004, where they cast Nana Mizuki in one of the lead roles and had her sing the OP song (along with Yukari Tamura in the other lead role, singing the ED). Both of these performers were rather famous in fan circles already, so they hoped to use this “star power” to help promote the show (and of course, sell CDs, concert tickets, etc.). With Da Capo, produced by King Records a year earlier in 2003, they even cut the first few episodes short (~18 minutes) so they could insert a music video with each of the show’s main stars, rumoured to be partly because financing shows based on visual novels was seen as risky in those days, so they figured they needed to push the “star power” angle instead.
Anyway, I remember hearing an interview once with a famous figure from the anime industry (forget who at the moment) explaining that a lot of the creativity in anime arose in direct response to budgetary and time constraints, along with marketing requirements. Funny that’s still the case with many of the changes we see today.
Thanks for all the great info! ^_^ I always vaguely think that that’s how things are but your explanations make it much clearer =)
Does it reflect badly on me that upon reading your title, the first thing I thought of was “breast size”? Maybe I just didn’t notice it so much back in the day, but it seems like in many otherwise decent series nowadays, those things are so unrealistically huge that they should come with their own wheeled support racks.
Big breasts were common in old anime too, at least in my experience. It may just seem like there’s more now because there’s simply more anime being produced in recent years than there used to be. And because of the popularity of moe, there’s more female characters, which equals a better chance that one of them will have big breasts. Personally, as long as the breasts aren’t flung in my face every minute, I don’t mind.
Fanservice. That is all I have to say.
LOL, that again goes along with the popularity of moe and the harem and slice-of-life genres. But if you just avoid harem/ecchi anime, you shouldn’t notice a big increase of fan service in other genres.
Good observations. And I have to agree that the change to 11-13 ep. series is one of the most notable changes. I used to dislike those short series, because it just seemed that there wasn’t enough time for character development. But they really proved me wrong on that one, and those series have become quite complete, even if it does not have may episodes.
Fanservice is also something that has increased a lot. It has always been there, with the long legs and mini-skirts, but it just seems to invade more types of anime now a days. Macross Frontier compared to the original Macross has way more fanservice than is actually needed (and that show actually does not have much fanservice). And it is a mecha-centered anime. It just seems to go into everything now.
I’ve also noted an increase in the more stereotypical anime (harem, slice-of-life, etc). While we still get the original releases (Haruhi), or the heavily plot-twisted ones (Madoka), there are just so many anime coming out that seems to lack originality. I guess that goes hand in hand with the shorter series, and better technology, so more short series are coming out over the older, longer ones.
Hum… Too many negative ones, but one of the positive ones is that series are also becoming much more complex. Audiences do not like the simple, or straight-forward stories anymore, so they have to be more creative in order for them to be real hits. Haruhis originality, Angel-Beats! mistery and surprises, Madoka extreme divergence from the magical-girl formula, AnoHana complex character relations, Oreimo controversial themes. Those are anime that would have never been released in the older days. I think this also goes hand in hand with the previous point about lack of originality. People now expect more complex stories and surprise twists, so if it doesn’t have any, it’s just “another” show :)
I agree that shorter series have improved over the years in terms of telling a complete story in just a few episodes without majorly lacking character and plot development. Not every series gets it right though, even for two-cour series. It just depends.
It’s interesting that you think stereotypical anime has been increasing but also that anime is becoming more original and complex. I think the reasoning again goes back to more anime being produced each season than there used to be. As a result, you’re gonna see more cliches, but at the same time, the true gems will shine through all the mediocre stuff. Complexity is most likely just a result of increased knowledge and thought progression in modern times.
Haruhi seems to be one of the anime that led to more light novels being turned into animes(although Full Metal Panic was a light novel adaptation and that came out around 2001 I think). Haruhi also started the “school concert scenes” trend that seems to show up more in anime.
I’d like to think that interesting male characters have increased in anime but outside of Kyon, Ryuuji and Keima, I don’t know of that many interesting male protagonists(since I forget when FMP first came out I don’t know if I can add Sousuke to that list).
It does seem that Haruhi proved that adapting an anime from light novels can be done successfully. The “school concert” is another theme it invented, which was followed up with examples in K-ON and Angel Beats!.
I feel that interesting male protagonists have decreased, but again, that’s only because of the rise of the moe/harem genre which is focused on female character archetypes and doesn’t necessitate a good male lead. There are plenty of exceptions of course, like the three guys you mentioned, and that’s one of the reasons their series are praised above others.
And FMP came out in 2002 so it may be a bit too old to count.
Definitely agree with you with all of these. If I watch newer anime I can no longer skip to roughly the same spot in the progress bar to skip the opening, because quite often there will be some story before it of varying lengths. Although not all anime can use this well, it works great for genres such as mystery and slice-of-life because the opening provides a divider between the first bit of the ep to suck you in at the beginning and the rest of the ep later on. Not to mention TV shows pretty much always use cold openings, so perhaps it’s no surprise that anime has caught on.
And speaking of the dramatic increase in slice-of-life/moe shows – I’ve found that I actually quite enjoy them, so that’s a good thing to me. XD They’re great to unwind to at the end of the day, and you don’t have to think too much because it’s almost like reality except you don’t have to contribute anything.
If I think about it, I guess I like cold openings because they can hook you into the episode before the opening song finishes it up with that extra boost of getting you into the “feel” of the show. When they merge the OP and/or ED with the episode, like they did with AnoHana’s ending, that’s a nice touch too. Only problem with cold endings is now I can’t just close the video file when the ED comes on or skip to the preview. I have to make sure I’m not missing anything in between XD
And what you said about moe/slice-of-life is why I love them too ^^ Being able to think, analyze, and philosophize with anime is great, but being able to relax with and be soothed by it is great too.
Opposed to the raise of Moe shows, I think Iyashikei (いやしけい) type shows got relatively popular on the second half of 2000. These are typically the shows that give a calming and refreshing feeling to the viewers, shown most notably in the Aria series. K-ON, Hidamari Sketch, Ikoku no Croisèe, and Tamayura are considered this… There’s others, but too much to list.
As for seiyuu singing songs, not new but it got more attention. There is even one group of four of them who made a group called Sphere (Toyosaki Aki, Tomatsu Haruka, Kotobuki Minako and Takagki Ayahi) and quite a few of them have parts in shows. Most notably, Mizuki Nana is a very good example of this not only for the openers of all the Nanoha Anime, but the ending themes for Dog Days, Blood-C, etc. TVTropes has a sizable list of this.
Yes, it does seem like Iyashi-kei is becoming its own genre nowadays, separated from regular slice-of-life. I’ve grown to like Iyashi-kei over time too =)
Thanks for the info about the seiyuu sphere!
Hm… art by other artists in the end of the episodes is another new thing, if I’m not mistaken? I have heard that it was Shaft who started with it, but I have no idea if that’s true or not…
I’d say that’s a bit too new to say for sure, but it’s definitely there. OreImou and Madoka are the only examples I can think of off the top of my head, at least for other artists’ art appearing in the actual episodes (the EDs) instead of just in promo art.
Very interesting observations. I certainly do remember most of the things on the list, and I have just now noticed how right you are, seeing the recent anime series!
About the cold openings, I think it is another way of hooking viewers. People usually judge a series by its OP, (which calls to mind the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover!”), so I believe that the creators decide to hold off the OP and ensure that viewers are going to judge the first episode solely by its direction and prospective entertainment to see whether they will stick to it.
You’re right that cold openings can be used to hook viewers. Back in the day, the openings, with their catchy songs and superior animation, were what hooked viewers. Nowadays, with so much more anime in existence and more competition, it seems like companies have had to change their hooking strategies =P
I noticed the light novel and one cour series increases as well, for better or worse. At least the latter are less risky than a “full” two cour series.
I also noticed more extra bits of the episode after the ED most times, sometimes important to the story, as a way to make you sit through the credits until the end.