There are few mediums of entertainment as limitless as anime. Anime continually pushes animation and storytelling to challenging new places and brings forward hundreds of satisfying new series every year. There's a wide range of genres that anime can experiment with, but there’s also freedom to be found in episode length.
The standard anime series is just under 30 minutes. There’s been a trend that embraces more bite-sized anime installments, some of which are only one or two minutes long. Short-form anime series aren’t for everyone, but they have their share of benefits and disadvantages that make them unique.
10 Harsh Reality: They Can Feel Disposable
One of the biggest issues with short-form anime series is they can be over before they’ve gotten started. The length of short-form anime can vary anywhere between a minute to ten minutes. The programs that skew towards the shorter end of the spectrum feel inconsequential as a result. There are lots of excellent short-form anime series that are 90 seconds and don’t waste any of time, but it’s also difficult for these shows to make a collective impact.
9 Perk: They're Easier To Binge
Binge watching is a popular way to consume anime, especially when so many programs have hundreds of episodes. A clear perk of short-form anime is that they’re much more digestible. Some people may be exhausted after watching two or three episodes of a standard anime, but short-form series allow the audience to consume five or six entries in the same amount of time. It’s easy to binge through the entire season of a short-form anime and still have time left in the day.
8 Harsh Reality: Scenes Don't Get A Chance To Breathe
Certain scenes in an anime are impactful because of their relation to other scenes in an episode. There are emotional moments and character beats that require nuances and the right amount of time to properly build.
This extra time is a luxury that short-form anime series can’t afford. They need to fit their stories in a single scene or fly through sequences at a fast. This pacing may be too fast for anything to sink in, strong pacing cannot be underestimated.
7 Perk: They Tend To Prioritize Serialized Storytelling And Cliffhangers
Short-form anime series may seem restrictive because of their limited runtimes, but their structure is used to create tension and suspense. Short-form anime can coast by on constant cliffhangers and twists. It’s harder to successfully pull this off with full-length episodes that need to take more things into consideration, like a three-act structure and character arcs.
6 Harsh Reality: Character Development Can Be Lacking
It’s only natural that concessions are made in any short-form anime series due to the truncated amount of time. Shorter anime can prioritize plot and story, which means that character development and backstory can fall to the wayside. It’s considerably difficult to give a protagonist a lengthy flashback sequence when there’s only five minutes of runtime available. Backstory needs to either be condensed or entirely removed, which in turns leads to individuals to be seen as caricatures and it’s harder to get invested in their journeys.
5 Perk: It Allows For A More Heightened Style Of Comedy
Short-form anime maintains the freedom to embrace absurdity and surrealism with restricted runtime. A standard-length anime is given opportunities to set up predictable jokes.
However, there’s an abundance of short-form gag anime series that deliver comedy that makes the most out of its limited time. Jokes can gain new life and become stronger when they’re exaggerated and condensed. This bewildering pace is often conducive to comedy and forces tight editing.
4 Harsh Reality: It Takes A Larger Amount Of Episodes to Cover Story
Short-form anime has to compensate for the time it takes to cover a story. If an anime is only three-minutes long, it will take 20 episodes to complete a story that could be told in two half-hour installments. It's impossible for a short-form anime with a ten-episode season to cover the same ground as a standard anime series. By design, short-form anime must set their sights on modest narratives or self-contained stories, otherwise they risk spending the entire season on something trivial.
3 Perk: Episodes Never Overstay Their Welcome With Filler
Seasoned anime fans understand filler material is an inevitability. Filler has its pros and cons, but it can disrupt a narrative arc or feel irrelevant in the end. Some anime are avoided because they have reputations for being dense in filler. Filler isn’t something that most short-form series need to take into consideration since the structure is designed to focus on what’s important. Short-form anime can streamline their stories without worrying about slowing things down.
2 Harsh Reality: They Don't Receive The Same Attention
It’s a lot easier to market an anime series that’s a conventional length, these programs routinely receive the most attention. These shows go on to receive anime feature films and it’s much easier to produce home video releases for lengthier anime. Anime that are shorter and run odd lengths become harder to program or expand upon as a result. There are instances where several episodes of a short-form anime are stitched together to form one half-hour episode so it's more palatable.
1 Perk: There Can Be A Greater Budget For Animation
While the anime industry has accomplished a lot with animation, studios face budgetary restraints. This isn’t always the case, but a short-form anime series can benefit from having to produce less content. By receiving the same budget as a 22-minute episode, short-form anime can produce higher quality material. Short-form anime can push aesthetic boundaries and sustain fancier work than full-length programs.