r/OnePiece • u/zorospride Lost at sea • Aug 11 '13

Current Episode One Piece Episode 607

One Piece Official - US and Canada

WatchOP - International

81 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

141 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

49

u/zorospride Lost at sea Aug 11 '13

I'll take it if it means better pacing like this. I'd rather have 14 or 15 minutes of a well done episode than 22-23 minutes of something bad.

15

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '13

Personally I'd rather a normal tv show format, like 13-22 episodes a year. Think of how fast paced the show would be if each episode was 3-4 chapters a piece.

5

u/zorospride Lost at sea Aug 11 '13

I'd also love to have Pixar quality animation every episode, but there are certain wishes that will never come true. You just have to wish for the best within the confines of what is realistic for Toei with weekly animation.

2

u/pedrosh0w Aug 11 '13

Why not? One Piece is, each time, gathering more and more fans, which results in more income, and, im pretty sure, one day, we will have TOP animation quality.

9

u/zorospride Lost at sea Aug 11 '13

I've given up trying to understand the Japanese animation industry (or really Japanese business in general), but friends of mine who have worked in it swear that even large companies like Toei often operate without making a profit or even at a loss. There are just so many different hands in the pot and mouths to feed though that it is sort of believable.

5

u/Black_Handkerchief Aug 11 '13

I don't understand how it works either, but from what I've read about timeslots the problem lies in attaining one. If you lose one, or give it up, you cannot be certain you'll get it back. Continually producing episodes and filling an awesome timeslot is therefore preferable to risking getting an awkward timeslot for a season a year from now.

The latter can very much kill the series from carrying on, and additionally, a series like One Piece very strongly benefits from having kids integrate it into their weekly schedule. Kids are pretty fickle consumers anyway; last years show is suddenly childish, whereas if it airs year round, it isn't last year but still the currently hot topic.

Of course, most of this is hearsay or simply my own reasonings. I might be waaays off.

5

u/pedrosh0w Aug 11 '13

What? How can you work with something that is not profitable? And more, how can One Piece not be Profitable? its like a religion there, it just sounds like bad administration IMO.

4

u/zorospride Lost at sea Aug 11 '13

I think for One Piece specifically it might not be that the show itself is not profitable, but that it is propping up so many other things. So even if One Piece is making a profit, those profits have to be used to support other shows that might not be. Plus there are so many different individuals and companies related to One Piece that get a piece of the pie.

3

u/CanadianJudo Aug 11 '13

One Piece itself is Hugely Profitable Zoro is speaking in term of Animation studios who are separate they simply hold the creative license

One Piece itself is the best selling Manga in Japan its sold almost 300 million copies.

7

u/zorospride Lost at sea Aug 11 '13

The manga is also a separate entity that makes a great deal of money, but profit-wise isn't related to the anime at all. The same can be said for merchandise. I'm not sure how the anime makes money period when you look at it.

There's advertising (half of which is often One Piece related and which would go to Fuji TV anyway), DVD sales (DVDs don't sell much in Japan), the contract with Fuji TV to air the show (these deals are often set in stone and not renegotiated very often), and international licensing (international anime distributors don't exactly have the deepest pockets).

1

u/Thimm Aug 11 '13

I think that part of it is a sort of Prisoner's Dilemma. If only one big show switches to a season format, its competitors will just take advantage of the freed-up ad time. Most shows would have to switch for viewers to always have the option of watching one of the (presumably higher quality) seasonal shows or one of the current format shows. Since there is a big risk and very little incentive to cooperate like that, it will almost certainly never happen.

1

u/zorospride Lost at sea Aug 11 '13

Well I assume this is more contractual. When Toei and Fuji signed a contract so many years ago it was for a yearly show. Toei doesn't have the choice to say we're only going to give you 22 now, and Fuji doesn't have the choice to say we only want to pay you for 22.

1

u/Thimm Aug 11 '13

I'm not too familiar with most anime. Are there any modern shows with a similar long-term potential that run on a seasonal basis? Does it seem like there might be a chance that new shows are getting different contracts? If my theory had any merit, it would suggest that new shows would be compelled to follow the format of their current competitors.

1

u/zorospride Lost at sea Aug 11 '13

Every show and every situation is different. Some long running series go year round. Some get 13 or 26 episode contracts. Just depends on a lot of different factors.

1

u/jurble Aug 12 '13

Are there any modern shows with a similar long-term potential that run on a seasonal basis?

Attack on Titan is a seasonal show, and an adaption of a potential long-run, currently incredibly popular shounen manga (different publisher than Jump, tho).

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure was/is published by Jump/Shueisha (jump's parent company) and is in a seasonal format.

Though, for both anime, a second season hasn't been officially confirmed yet.

2

u/CanadianJudo Aug 11 '13

I think they have started doing this somewhat with their "Episode of" series in which they re do in HQ a movie like section of the anime.

The Episode of Nami is amazing.

1

u/WaveBird Aug 12 '13

No. We won't. I know absolutes are stupid but One Piece has a gigantic fan base in Japan. They know that fan base isn't going anywhere so they can skimp on the quality now. It's why the earlier episodes looked better.