12-Episode Anime: still tropeworthy?

Originally raised this question in ATT and was asked to move it here.

I’ve been concerned about 12-Episode Anime for a while now. There are two major issues that caught my attention.

First, I’m wondering whether it’s still tropeworthy in the first place. I suspect this is a very old page, especially since the description mentions the Spring and Fall anime seasons being much more important than Summer and Winter, which was once true but hasn’t really been the case for ~15 years now. There was a time when most new TV anime that weren’t open-ended serials had a standard length of 24-26 episodes, and 12 episode anime in that era were something of a novelty. But things have changed especially over the last decade or so, to the point where almost all new TV anime are being made 12 episodes at a time now, even the ones that are renewed for multiple seasons. So a 12-episode anime in the 2020s is effectively PSOC, nothing notable at all because it’s evolved into the industry standard. If anyone cared enough to add every new 12 episode series that premiered every season we’d be adding over 100 new anime to the page every year.

Second, even if everyone decides the concept itself is still a valid trope, the vast majority of the examples on the page are ZCE, and most of the examples that do have a description are in the ”Given More Seasons” and “Unusual Cases” folders, which are essentially the aversions.

I can see it being turned into an index, Useful Notes, or Definition-Only Pages, because it describes the production trivia of Japan's TV requiring renting air time in quarter-year blocks and doesn't sound like an actual trope.

Edited by Amonimus on May 8th 2022 at 5:14:57 PM

Perhaps a Useful Note?

useful note or definition only would be best, if we do that it might also be worth putting a bit of what used to be Baker's Dozen on there too (since the name comes from when 12 episode anime would have a bonus episode on DVD, hence "baker's dozen")

After posting my original question I thought about asking whether it might be salvageable as Trivia, but yeah, Useful Note or Definition Only probably makes more sense. I would be fine with either of those, whichever everyone decides is more appropriate.

I think definition-only works better, but I'd be fine with this as a Useful Note.

12-Episode Anime is a type of formatting, like 65-Episode Cartoon. I think the current sorting is bad, but a "single-cour season" is a format that is/was followed by many studios.

Move to Useful Notes

Yeah, I'll add to the "Useful Note" chorus.

A reminder that actually changing the trope type would have to be in TRS, though this discussion can be used in the opening statement as an argument.

Edited by Amonimus on May 9th 2022 at 1:02:12 PM

65-Episode Cartoon should also probably be a useful note or definition only admittedly

We should probably make a general decision about this page, 65-Episode Cartoon, Front 13, Back 9, British Brevity, and any other such pages I'm missing.

To move to Useful Notes, we would need to bring this in to TRS.

I'll add this to Tropes Needing TRS for the time being.

EDIT: Added.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on May 9th 2022 at 8:53:24 AM

I think you're missing Television Serial, Film Serial, and Julekalender, but that's it.

It looks like Front 13 Back 9 was already put on the Tropes Needing TRS page almost a year ago for Not Thriving, though the description mentions that it also reads like a Useful Note too. After looking into the suggested options some more I'm going to throw my vote to Useful Notes for this also. Some topics of a similar type as the ones we're discussing here, like Short Film and Block Programming, are already classified as Useful Notes, while I don't really see these kind of topics in the list of Definition Only articles.

Edited by zequist on May 9th 2022 at 5:40:45 AM

Short Film is a Format, but in the Main/ namespace. Block Programming is not a format, it describes how EMwave publishing companies distribute works, although it is in the UsefulNotes/ namespace.

Well that's interesting because Short Film is specifically listed on the Useful Notes page, in the Audiovisual Media folder. I guess I just assumed anything that was foldered on that page was actually supposed to be a useful note.