CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

it just hit me that there are a lot of animes that are 26 episodes long:
Samurai 7, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Witch Hunter Robin, Wolf's Rain, and many others. Is there a reason why they're all 26 episodes long or is it all just a coincidence?

Divide 52 weeks by 2. I think its because a season is half a year and they generally show one episode of a show a week.

It`s because February 6th is the day the Japanese will use anime to brainwash Americans to taking over the world for them. It just makes mw wonder why a year is never mentioned.....

Nah, I`m just playin.

Is it me, or the animes that are 26 episodes are usualy the best out there?

Exluding Full Metal Alchemist, Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach of course.

There are also a number that are 52 episodes, notably Full Moon wo Sagashite. They are two seasons as opposed to one. Many live-action shows follow the 26 episode per season thing as well.

yeah. i guess i know why FMA was 51 episodes. if they played one episode a week, then it would be a whole year for the series to end.

well most American shows follow the 26 rule as well.. actually the number of episodes for a show usually falls between 24 and 26... *shrug* It's not like its exclusive to anime.

Kawaiikneko wrote:well most American shows follow the 26 rule as well.. actually the number of episodes for a show usually falls between 24 and 26... *shrug* It's not like its exclusive to anime.

Yeah it's true... just thinking how some are aroudn there. Although lately anime has had a 23-27 season range, it seems (sometimes 13, so a quater of the year long).

Tenshi no Ai wrote:(sometimes 13, so a quater of the year long).

A lot of networks seem to be going to 13 episode mini-seasons instead of actually going for a whole half a year at a time.

i don't really enjoy short animes like that. i mean, the series starts off so well but it ends horribly because there aren't very many episodes.

jon_jinn wrote:i don't really enjoy short animes like that. i mean, the series starts off so well but it ends horribly because there aren't very many episodes.

There are exceptions. Haven't seen too many 13 eppers (only 2 now that i think about it: Air and Haibane) but Haibane can make a HUGE exception for a short series not being good. In 13 short eps, it was able to cover so much, and everything you needed to know!

There's also the becoming popular 6 eps a series. FLCL for the big example. Already one studio made 2 animes (one after the other so sort of like a "12 ep series") and they were Shinigami no Ballad and Hantsuki. Also in the short ep length Hantsuki covered quite a bit and Shinigami... well, it's one of those "no beginning no ending" series as a sort of Chronicle that'll keep going on...

13 ep= 3 mos
26 ep= 6 months
39 ep= 9 months (Nadia was 39 eps. I think Macross was too)
Longer than that is multiple seasons usually

There are some odd size ones, like Sailor Moon (season 1=46 eps)

American cartoons tend (or used to anyway) to be 13 weeks x 5 eps/week = 65 episodes minimum. This is why Carl Macek had to combine multiple series to get over that 65 episode minimum to televise Macross

Tenshi no Ai wrote:There are exceptions. Haven't seen too many 13 eppers (only 2 now that i think about it: Air and Haibane) but Haibane can make a HUGE exception for a short series not being good. In 13 short eps, it was able to cover so much, and everything you needed to know!

There's also the becoming popular 6 eps a series. FLCL for the big example. Already one studio made 2 animes (one after the other so sort of like a "12 ep series") and they were Shinigami no Ballad and Hantsuki. Also in the short ep length Hantsuki covered quite a bit and Shinigami... well, it's one of those "no beginning no ending" series as a sort of Chronicle that'll keep going on...

yeah, guess i haven't seen too many 13 episode (or less) animes. but most of the ones i HAVE seen don't really to be all that entertaining.