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I was wondering if a studio is told that it has X amount of seasons to tell
its full story, or if there's some other situation where their time is
extended based on ratings and similar statistics.

I would imagine that the first way wouldn't be great, as if the show doesn't
do very well, the producers don't get much money.

But on the other hand, the second situation would mean studios would have to
hold back plotlines and etc. until they have more confirmed time.

Perhaps it's neither of these two cases. Does anyone know how seasons are
allocated to anime?


CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-08-21T18:33:40.240
4905
2015-06-12T09:51:09.917
2015-06-12T09:51:09.917
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question
anime-production
When do animes get subsequent seasons?


In this particular case, anime is not different from any TV-series (if you
want an example, take
[caprica](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprica_%28TV_series%29), which was
canceled mid-season due to low ratings). Let's start with some simple points:

  * The production of anime episodes costs money.
  * To get your work aired on TV, you need even more money.

Actually, you could check [this
question](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/4175/how-much-does-a-
typical-anime-episode-or-series-cost-to-make) which approximately shows how
much does it cost. It's _a lot of money_.

So, obviously, when you make an anime, you want your incomes to be larger than
your expenses. How can you achieve that? Commercials. And, of course, the more
popular is your show, the more people will see it. The more people will see
it, the more people will see the commercials. So, basically, the more popular
your show is, the more money you make from ads.

The second way is to sell different merchandise like t-shirts, figurines, and
stuff. Once again, the more popular the anime is, the more people will want to
buy this.

The above explains how things go if everything is fine. Sometimes everything
is not fine. If your show is not popular enough, and the incomes do not cover
the expenses, you bear losses. So, if you ended up loosing money after making
the first season of an anime that was supposed to have 2 seasons, will you
risk making the second one? I doubt that.

Now, as for the point on how the story is divided into seasons, it may also
matter. For example, if a manga is very popular, then you might expect the
anime based on it being popular as well, and plan X seasons in advance. On the
other hand, if you are not sure, you may plan the first season only (with
enough episodes for the story to reach some point where it can be stoped), and
see how things go.

It also depends on the genre and the plot itself. For example, if each episode
tells a small story which is not-so-strongly connected with the previous and
the subsequent episodes, you may end a season at any time. But if episodes are
closely connected story-wise, you may only stop when the plot comes to some
kind of a logical conclusion (note, that doesn't mean "the plot ends", it just
means that there is a point in the plot when you can end one season, and start
another one without breaking the story and without losing viewer's interest,
e.g. Code Geass).


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2013-08-22T06:27:46.037
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2013-08-22T06:34:32.140
2017-04-13T12:54:49.090
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answer