The Quality Rate of Original Animation: A Retrospective

Previously on:【No one cares】The current situation of JELEE, and my thoughts on the classification of original anime.

Following this line of thought, what if we look back a little further? So I went to check the list on yuc.wiki.

My history of watching anime is very short. It should be around 2019 when I suddenly started watching “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind,” and that was my first exposure to Japanese animation. Then came the Dingdong Chicken period, and while stuck at home, I encountered the second season of “Kaguya-sama: Love Is War? ~The Genius’ Love Battle~” which started airing at that time, and I couldn’t stop. So perhaps it started in 2020, and now it’s been 5 years, and the world has changed since Dingdong Chicken.

January 2020:

22/7, number24, ARP Backstage Pass, BanG Dream! 3rd Season, OBSOLETE, ID:INVADED, Shana’s Heart, Hula Girl Petit, Breakers, Healin’s Good Pretty Cure.

Among these, Pretty Cure is a seasonal anime, and the first four are idol-themed animations (what happened to 22/7 later…), Breakers is themed around the Paralympics, and Shana’s Heart and Hula Girl Petit are about local revitalization. The only ones that seem noteworthy are OBSOLETE (a mecha CG animation with Gen Urobuchi’s name attached) and ID:INVADED. The former I had never heard of at the time, and looking back, it seems there was no follow-up. As for the latter, there was controversy at the time about whether it landed smoothly, but now it is regarded as an excellent suspense anime.

In the classification on yuc.wiki, “game adaptations” and “original animations” are separated, but sometimes games are released alongside original plots. For example, the currently airing “Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story,” “Pokémon Journeys” (also known as “Travel”), and “SHOW BY ROCK!! Mashumairesh!!” can also be considered original animations.

April 2020:

Appare-Ranman!, BNA: Brand New Animal, LISTENERS, Argonavis from BanG Dream, Digimon Adventure:, Majin Hero Transmission: Seven Souls Dragon God, Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE Season 2, Fat Animal’s Life, Tatami-chan.

(Marked as “game adaptations” are) Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS, Shadowverse.

It’s hard to imagine that “Boys’ Love” aired at this time… This coincided with the Dingdong Chicken period, and various offline activities could not be carried out as scheduled. Overall, there were no original anime from this quarter that are still talked about today (Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE might count, but I haven’t seen much discussion from “Gundam fans”).

July 2020:

Lapis Re:LiGHTs, Deca-Dence, Great Pretender, GIBIATE.

Haha, Dingdong Chicken. I have no impression of the first one (but for some reason, a few old foreign idol anime fans in r/anime like it), while the latter three were considered to have high expectations but low follow-through at the time. However, Great Pretender has aired a sequel this year, which I think has done well among these.

October 2020:

The Day I Became a God, The Wings of Hegerlia, Strike Witches: Road to Berlin, KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!, D4DJ First Mix, Gymnastics Samurai, All Evil Kings, Let’s Go Magic Girl Kurumi Season 3, One Room Season 3.

(Marked as “game adaptations” are) Higurashi: When They Cry – Gou, LoveLive! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, Assault Lily.

Here, I immediately see several terrible shows like The Day I Became a God, All Evil Kings, and Higurashi: When They Cry – Gou. The audience at that time was really blessed. The Day I Became a God ruined Jun Maeda’s reputation (later he redeemed himself with “Fried Heaven”), All Evil Kings ruined Kazuma Kamachi’s reputation (did he have a reputation?), and Higurashi ruined Ryukishi07’s reputation (they even followed up with a sequel after sufficient investment). As for Assault Lily… I forgot, but it was just ridiculous. The Wings of Hegerlia had the gimmick of being written by the author of Re:Zero, but it seems it didn’t tell a good story.

The only decent work here seems to be LoveLive! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, but four years later, it seems the Nijigasaki group is also facing the crisis of fading into obscurity. It’s quite lamentable.

January 2021:

Uma Musume: Pretty Derby Season 2, VLADLOVE, Wonder Egg Priority, Back Arrow, Skate Leading Stars, SK∞, WAVE!!, IDOLY PRIDE, Idolls, Show By Rock!!, WIXOSS DIVA(A)LIVE, Aikatsu on Parade!, Tropical-Rouge Precure.

仙之人兮列如麻。 Not only did Uma Musume: Pretty Derby Season 2 break sales records, but Wonder Egg Priority also gained a lot of discussions (a fun fact, Wonder Egg Priority still has the most ratings on r/anime for an original anime). There was also Back Arrow, which received high praise in the mecha community (Absolutely! Absolutely! Absolutely!), and the “hidden gem” Show By Rock!!, along with IDOLY PRIDE, which was written by Haneda Tohka, and VLADLOVE, which was written and directed by Mamoru Oshii…

However, looking back three years later, the only sequel that came out beyond the planned schedule here (excluding seasonal shows like Pretty Cure) is SK∞, which was written by Ichirō Ōkouchi. At that time, everyone was dissatisfied with the ending, and few people saw the market potential hidden within. Oh, and IDOLY PRIDE’s mobile game has safely passed its third anniversary this year, which is quite reassuring.

April 2021:

Zombie Land Saga Season 2, MEGALO BOX Season 2, Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song, How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, Backflip!!, ODD TAXI, D4DJ, The World Ends with You: The Animation, B: The Beginning Season 2, Fairy Ranmaru, Eden, Mazica Party, Cardfight!! Vanguard overDress, Dinosaur Days, Ice Cream Kun.

(Marked as “live-action adaptations” are) Godzilla: Singular Point, SSSS.DYNAZENON.

Among these animations, ODD TAXI created the highest rating increase ratio between the first and last episodes of original anime on r/anime (though now I suspect this inspirational story has some commercial operations involved); Zombie Land Saga Season 2 has yet to release a third season, and I am very skeptical about whether it will encounter a fate similar to Yuri on Ice; Vivy is the second writing attempt by Re:Zero author Tappei Nagatsuki, and at the time, the ending was said to have landed smoothly, but it seems that a smooth landing is no longer enough for original anime to explode; MEGALO BOX Season 2 and Godzilla: Singular Point are both “good shows,” but that’s about it; the follow-up of SSSS.DYNAZENON is the theatrical version “Gurren Lagann: The Universe”.

July 2021:

White Sand Aquarium, LoveLive! SuperStar!!, RE-MAIN, Drifting Home, Night Six Sense 2041, D_CIDE TRAUMEREI.

PA Works is quite interesting, and it still remains a sensitive topic of discussion regarding straight girls and yuri in the hundred variety shows, and it seems there will be no sequel (this was also the first work that made many realize how bland PA is without director Takahiro Omori); the star group animation… Oh, the million-play little star slice was taken down by Bandai’s big hand; Drifting Home, because it told a complete story, probably wouldn’t have a sequel, and it’s worth noting that the new director Keiichiro Saito made his debut in episode 8, and a year later, he would shock the world in “Kono Oto Tomare!”.

October 2021:

Fate/Grand Order: Solomon, One Piece: Red, SELECTION PROJECT, Orange Pride, Battery Girl Reversed World, Yuuki Yuna is a Hero: The Great Awakening Chapter, Shiki Sakura, Invincible Hero: Dancing Hero, Visual Prison, Lost Children of Abyss, Creation of the World: The First Season, Digimon Ghost Game, Border Battle Machine, Wonderful Magic, Deji Meets Girl, Can 180 Seconds Make Your Ears Happy?

It seems that most of the shows here ended quietly. The mobile game of Fate/Grand Order took another year or two to develop, and then it inevitably failed (which is also related to the connection of the mobile game plot with the anime’s ending). The failure of SELECTION PROJECT (data didn’t come out, and it hastily ended after holding a first live with less than a thousand people) might be regrettable, but more importantly, it should be pointed out that this production team actually gathered several masters like Hinako Yano (Sakura Momoko), Sakurako Matsumoto (Yuki Yanagi), and Hina Kawai (Anna Yamada). Oh, and Orange Pride, which is a企划 similar to Uma Musume but replaces horse racing with ice hockey, shows how crazy some企划 parties were to make 2.5企划 back then…

January 2022:

Tokyo 24th Ward, TRIBE NINE, Ryman’s Club, Indoor Soccer Boys, Sky Utility, Pretty Cure: Delicious Party, Earth Boy and Girl.

(Marked as “game adaptations” are) CUE!, Colorful.

In January 2022, after continuously failing to deliver on the promises of the second season of The Promised Neverland, Wonder Egg Priority, and Horimiya, people’s goodwill towards CloverWorks dropped to freezing point. Tokyo 24th Ward was also a “disappointment” lacking imagination. However, in the same quarter, the work led by Shouta Umehara, “My Dress-Up Darling,” became a huge success, marking the beginning of a new era.

Sky Utility recently announced it will be adapted into a full-length TV anime. So was the short video released initially just for practice? At least this can be considered a positive example of original animation.

CUE! is quite unfortunate; it was originally a promotional animation for a mobile game, but the game stopped updating before the anime aired, and during the airing, it was directly shut down, thus becoming an “original anime.” This animation tells some knowledge about voice acting, and interested readers can now see the official version on Bilibili.

April 2022:

Gunjou Fantasia, Estab Life – Great Escape, Demon Pants, Healer Girl, Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story, TIGER & BUNNY 2, Border Battle Machine Season 2, Creation of the World Season 2, Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush.

(Marked as “game adaptations” are) Magia Record: Final Season, LoveLive! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Season 2, Shadowverse F.

Estab Life (Runrun House) is a good show, and I personally recommend everyone to watch it. It even released a theater version earlier this year, completing some of the story.

Demon Pants is worth mentioning as the main characters are played by a group of JKs (high school girls) around the same age as the protagonists, so the reading is quite severe. One of the main characters, Nao Nakanishi, later joined the LoveLive! Ren’s Sky Academy Idol Club.

Magia Record… Later, the mobile game gradually shut down, and then announced a new mobile game, not knowing which one will come out first. By the way, I am a fundamentalist TV party; I deeply hate all subsequent plots, including Rebellion of Fate.

In this second season of Nijigasaki, the problems started to show. The phrase “not participating in the Love Live competition” was innovative when first used, but by the second season, it meant that they could only keep finding trivial inner conflicts to drag out the plot. In my understanding, although Moe Battle was still giving good reviews at this time, the popularity was already starting to decline.

July 2022:

Contract Kiss, Licorice Recoil, The Idolmaster: Shiny Colors, Shining Road, Peak!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Extreme Heart, You0 DECO, Bakumatsu Substitute Legend, RWBY: Ice Empire, LoveLive! SuperStar!! Season 2, League Air Force Magic Music Team: Glorious Witch, Cardfight!! Vanguard will+Dress, Musashino, Ice Cream Kun Season 2.

True God has arrived; let us welcome Licorice Recoil! If the sales miracle created by Uma Musume can be explained by Japan’s horse racing culture, mobile game power-ups, 2.5企划 advantages, etc., then Licorice’s success seems to be a success that any manufacturer could replicate. Find a good-looking character design, choose a catchy song (RIP sayuri), select a clip that will definitely go viral on short video platforms (Chitose dodging bullets), and add the most popular yuri elements; people will really forgive your plot (laughs). In contrast, Contract Kiss… Although it also released a mobile game as promised, it quickly shut down after completing part of the story. Otaku are very ruthless; they were still shouting “wife” last quarter but turned their backs the next quarter.

Shining Road, I heard this animation has the best hand-drawn live performance among idol animations in 2022, and the plot far surpasses the same quarter’s Star Two. However, it still failed, which is regrettable.

Peak!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! was the first time I realized the existence of samurai-style voice actors (especially Team Y). As for the show itself, if you are interested in manzai, you should be able to enjoy it. Of course, I have some criticisms about this kind of “dual-use card” method of voice acting from Samurai.

October 2022:

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, Akihabara Medoto Wars, Love FLOPS, Ninja One Time, Eternal Boy: Eternal Boys, Do It Yourself, TIGER & BUNNY 2 Part 2, Exception, The Day I Woke Up as a Human Head Mic.

(Marked as “game adaptations” are) Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

The Witch from Mercury is very strong; no matter how various groups say, it commercially sold well.

The protagonist of Akihabara Medoto Wars is actually Reina Kondo?! The problem with this work is that the promotion and introduction were vague at the beginning, and while I can’t say the middle content is bad, it really does not live up to the previous vagueness (I think you can compare it to jellyfish). It also ended after executing the required action after the anime ended.

Love FLOPS represents a situation of original anime, where the original work just has a story it wants to tell. Although it is not particularly outstanding, it does finish the story. It’s hard to say it’s commercially successful, but it seems unreasonable to call it unsuccessful.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a true god; it indirectly boosted the sales of the original game.

January 2023:

Arus’s Beasts, Buddy Daddies, HIGH CARD, Avengers, Ice Snow Extreme, Technoroid Overmind, UniteUp!, D4DJ Season 2, Pretty Cure: Vast Sky.

(Marked as “game adaptations” are) Pokémon: Aim to Be a Pokémon Master.

Nothing to say; I previously said that Buddy Daddies is a poor imitation of “Spy x Family,” but now it seems it’s far from enough. The failure of Wonder Egg Priority is still being mentioned three or four years later, and now even PA fans might not remember that there was such an anime.

UniteUp! seems to have a second season, but as someone not interested in female-oriented works, I cannot confirm how this idol group is doing.

April 2023:

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Part 2, Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story Season 2, World Dai Star, Magical Girl Destroyer, Opus.COLORs, THE MARGINAL SERVICE, Bonds of Allele.

(Marked as “game adaptations” are) Pokémon 2023 (commonly known as “Horizon”), Uma Musume: Road to the Top.

Birdie Wing is somewhat bland, but as far as I know, it has not failed commercially. World Dai Star seems to be less comprehensive than “Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight” except for content that excites pufferfish. THE MARGINAL SERVICE is another incomprehensible work like Buddy Daddies.

July 2023:

Illuminated Night Feather, BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!!, AYAKA -あやか-, Border Battle Machine: Extreme Steel.

(Marked as “game adaptations” are) SYNDUALITY Noir, Shadowverse F: Seven Shadows Edition.

How is “Oni’s Warplane” still being produced?! Every time I hear related news, it’s all about how the toys of this work are not selling, and even Japanese people are complaining. So why can it still be animated?

In conclusion, the only true god of this quarter is MyGO, although MyGO’s later BD sales didn’t reach those of Illuminated Night Feather, haha. A dead camel is bigger than a horse.

October 2023:

GOD.app: God Selection, OVERTAKE, Our Rain Color Agreement, Kawagoe Men’s Choir, The Power of Hope: Adult Pretty Cure ’23, Gundam: Creation of the Universe.

(Marked as “game adaptations” are) Uma Musume: Pretty Derby Season 3.

(Marked as “manga adaptations” are) 16bit’s Emotion: Another Layer.

I vaguely remember someone saying that the god selection behind it might be a企划 by a company similar to GBC to test CG production technology. Last year, when this anime was airing, I selectively watched a bit in the Pan-style live broadcast room, which indeed laid the foundation for my later acceptance of GBC’s CG. However, the direction of the second season currently airing is becoming increasingly confusing…

Uma Musume has “passed its peak.” However, a dead camel is still bigger than a horse.

16bit’s Emotion actually used original characters to tell a new story, which I think can be considered original animation. This group of old-timers in the galgame industry got a taste of investment, but in the end, it was just a fantasy, and the abrupt development in the last few episodes completely exposed this fact.

January 2024:

Metal Lipstick, Courage Explosion BangBravern, BUCCHIGIRI, Meiji Kendo 1874, Monthly Delusion Science, Collision Path, HIGH CARD Season 2, Great Pretender Season 2, Cardfight!! Vanguard DivineZ, Wonderful Pretty Cure.

(Marked as “game adaptations” are) SYNDUALITY Noir Season 2.

April 2024:

GIRLS BAND CRY, Keirin Girls, Speed Star Dance, Where Does the Last Train Go, The Jellyfish at Night Can’t Swim, Alien Notes, Secret Idol Princess, Shinkansen Transform Robot: Change the World.

(Marked as “game adaptations” are) Mahjong Soul: Kan.

…After experiencing so many works, I now feel that I had a serious misunderstanding before.

In fact, there are many original anime related to idol企划, card-playing企划, and those that simply tell a story without caring about the profit and loss of a single anime; the arguments I previously used to judge commercial success might be unreasonable.

If we limit it to original anime that “have no backing企划, gained immense popularity after airing, and can produce new content,” it seems there are only the following: Great Pretender, SK∞, Sky Utility, Licorice Recoil, GIRLS BAND CRY. That’s still quite few, isn’t it?!

I think perhaps there is no longer soil for an original企划 to become a social phenomenon. Just like when Jay Chou rose to fame, young people all over the streets were listening to Jay Chou. Now, even though we are exposed to songs more frequently and for longer periods, it is difficult to create an environment where all audiences listen to the same song.

Translating to original anime, this means that when they compete for audiences against adaptations—or advertisement animations—they can reach fewer new viewers. If this reduced number of viewers is not enough to reach the “critical mass,” then it can only become a niche masterpiece like Drifting Home and cannot expand further.

That’s about it.