Anime Should Chart Its Own Course

Follow the example of Lelouch!
Chart your own course, anime!!

In recent years, the movie industry has primarily been an adaptation industry. It takes the most popular book, cartoon, comic book, and video game properties that are out there, and adapts them into live-action (and/or CGI animation) movies for the big screen. I don't have solid numbers for this, but I at least get the impression that a very solid majority of modern live-action feature-length movies are adaptations rather than "Hollywood originals" or "film originals".

In other words, Hollywood scriptwriters tend to now spend much more time adapting the most popular works of other entertainment or narrative forms than they do creating their own original works. Lately, we've seen them race through virtually every prominent Marvel comics property there is, even with such niche titles as Ghost Rider and Blade achieving star-studded splendor as Hollywood blockbusters. The days of Star Wars, Aliens, Rambo, Rocky, Robocop, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, the Matrix, and the Terminator appears to be fading into the background.

... Remind you of anything, anime fans? ;)

Anime in Japan is very much analogous to Hollywood movies in America, only with two big exceptions.

1) When a popular franchise makes it to the big screen, that in and of itself is considered a huge deal for the popular franchise. The movie itself is everything; it doesn't exist purely to increase the success of the popular franchise, but rather it is considered the pinnacle of success in and of itself. With anime, the animes that are adaptations of other works are generally considered the lesser cousin in its relation to that non-anime source material.

2) The ratio of adaptations to original works is probably even higher for anime than it is for movies.


This is, in some ways, a cause for concern, I think. Especially when you consider that anime is coming close to exhausting the full store of good Japanese light novels, visual novels, and mangas that are or were available for adaptations. Anime truly is running through light novels like Hollywood is running through Marvel comics titles. Eventually, you start to scrape the bottom of the barrell, at least as far as sheer popularity of the original work itself is concerned.

This, of course, leaves anime in a position of dependence. It makes it impossible for anime to fully chart its own course, as it must await the creations of artists and writers in other fields before it can bring much new material to the fore. In some cases, this means mind-numbing filler material, which is often little more than extremely limited and restricted fanfics.

Another negative of this dependence is one that frequent blog commenter tigermoon brought to my attention in his response to my "The Evolution of Anime" blog entry. And that negative is that it means that anime is left working with whatever narrative genres and settings and character types that happen to be popular at the moment (or a year or two ago) in other entertainment and narrative mediums. In recent years, that has meant a disproportionately high number of school-based anime, and a disproportionately low number of animes with epic stories.

Don't believe me?

Well, then lets consider five of the most prominent anime original animes of all time...


These are five of the most beloved and popular anime original animes of all time... and they all had epic stories...

Neon Genesis Evangelion - Story Premise: To try to save the world from "angels" that threaten the entire human race! Later on, a devious plot that would forever change almost every person on the planet is set into motion.

El Hazard: The Magnificent World - Story Premise: An alien world is at war! A battle of wits between two Japanese teenagers explodes into a conflict that will determine the fate of an entire alien planet.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha - Story Premise: Capture the Jewel Seeds to prevent a potentially cosmic disaster! Later on, deal with threats of similar magnitudes.

Gurren Lagann - Story Premise: In a dystopian future, humanity fights back against Beastmen oppressors! Later on, the Earth itself is threatened by beings of great cosmic power.

Code Geass - Story Premise: The world is at war! Japan seeks to rise out from under the bloodthirsty thumb of Britannia, and like El Hazard, two former friends chart the course of the conflict.


Considering that there's not all that many anime original animes to begin with, the fact that five of the most prominent all contain very epic stories, speaks to how the minds behind anime original works may tend to favor such stories.

I would say that a reason for this is that anime naturally lends itself to such stories.

One of the strengths of the animation medium is that it can portray certain scenes that would require very lengthy descriptions in a purely textual format (as the old saying goes: a picture says a thousand words), and that it can portray magnificently imaginative conflicts of a grand scale that would cost countless millions in special effects budgeting to do in a live-action format.

This is, in fact, a big part of the reason why I'm a huge fan of animation in general... both of the anime variety, and of the western cartoon variety. This particular entertainment medium simply lends itself to certain types of stories much moreso than any other entertainment medium (except, perhaps, video games) does.


Effectively conveying action scenes that are on an epic scale, and purely in words, is generally not easy. It is thus quite understandable why most light novel and novel writers tend to stay away from such scenes. Furthermore, visual novels and games involving romantic routes, tend to be very dialogue-based by nature. They certainly can have epic moments, but generally not an epic narrative or story.


There is another key factor here that I think bears looking at.

A common complaint that I've heard of many of the more popular anime that have come out since the start of 2009 is that the pacing of these animes is off. I've very recently heard this complaint applied to otherwise very well-recieved titles like Okakami Kakushi and Durarara!!

There' s a very important reason for why such animes may lack desirable degrees of pacing.

And that reason is this:

The sort of slow and methodical plot pacing that can work splendidly in a light novel, a novel, or a visual novel can seem extremely slow and tedious when cut up into 24 minute anime adaptated chunks. Because there's only so much written material that can fit comfortably within such 24 minute animated chunks.

Now, the anime can, of course, slash and burn vast quantities of source material in order to attempt to trim the story down to where it has good (or at least palatable) pacing for these 24 minute animated chunks. But that tends to result in this...

Beatrice is the Umineko Anime in this pic
Battler is the typical fan of the Umineko source material. ;)

The Umineko anime has been absolutely ravaged with harsh criticism for cutting out so much of the visual novel source material. And, having recently read though most of the first Umineko visual novel, I can certainly see why! I'd estimate that at least two thirds of all of the material within the first visual novel was murdered as though coming in contact with the Stakes of Purgatory... ;)

This is quite possibly the main reason why the first volume Umineko DVD bombed in sales. There are other possible reasons for such an incredible sales failure that I may bring up in a future blog entry, but for now, I'm focusing on the impact of enormous content chops made when adapting Umineko from visual novel to anime.

However... I also know why the producers of the Umineko anime sliced off so much of the source material content. The reason why is because there would be no other way for the Umineko anime to have an even sane level of pacing for an anime.

I think that most anime fans want to see something of plot importance happen each and every episode. This is a big part of the reason for why Endless Eight was not more well-recieved. For Umineko to keep even three quarters of its original source material would have resulted in an anime so plodding, and so uneventful in the first few episodes, that virtually every anime only watcher of Umineko would have dropped it like a rock.

Again... what feels like good pacing in a novel isn't necessarily good pacing in weekly 24 minute animated chunks.

Sadly, Umineko was caught between a Beatrice and a Virgilia, when it came to how much of the source material content should be carried over to the anime adaptation. ;)

To paraphrase Giovanni from the Pokemon musical... "It just can't win!"


Now, all of this being said, I largely liked the Umineko anime, and so I'm glad that it was adapted into anime form.

Still, just imagine how good an Umineko-like story could be if it was an anime original anime! Such a story would be made, in advance, to fit with the ideal pacing of an anime. The plot would be quicker and faster, but character development could still be maintained.

So... what does this all mean?

Well, what it means is that I hope that we see more anime original animes in the future. For that will lead to more animes like the five anime original animes featured in pictures in this post. It will also allow the animation medium to more readily control its own destiny; to shape its own future. And the animes themselves will have better pacing becaue of it.

Just as I hope to see Hollywood one day try to make another Star Wars , I hope to see anime one day try to make another Evangelion. :)

This blog entry and the previous one has been largely critical of the modern anime world, I will admit.

So, in my next blog entry, I will speak on what I think anime has done right, and continues to do right. My next blog entry will be a tribute to anime to balance out with these more critical blog entires.

And after that blog entry... I will finally get back to my Top 10 Countdown list, lol. ^_^;;

In the interim, though, any and all feedback is welcome. I eagerly look forward to your comments. :)