While watching Japanese anime, we would notice the length of one general episode is mostly about 24 minutes. Why is that duration? This article will tell you the reasons for anime episode duration being 24-minute.
Japanese Anime Broadcast System
In fact, Japanese anime are broadcast on major TV stations in Japan. The average anime episode duration in Japan is roughly 30 minutes with ads. However, it comes down to 24 minutes when playing online without ads. Interestingly, the reasons for anime episode duration being 24 minutes originates from the development of Japanese anime history.
Brief Japanese Anime History
In 1948, Japan introduced foreign colored animation feature films, which then occupied the Japanese anime market. Disney productions were the most popular at that time, especially after releasing Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.
Under this circumstance, Toei Corporation established the Department of Cinema in 1955. This department planned to make an animation targeting for “Oriental Disney”. Later on, the first Japanese colored feature film Hakujaden was produced in 1958.
At that time, Toei Corporation appointed the cartoonist Kazuhiko Okabe to make the production. After creating the character, Okabe made a storyboard similar to the American way. He connected the paintings of 24 frames per second for the animation effect. In order to make actions look more smooth, the general animation needs 12 frames per second to connect, which known as two-frame shooting. Therefore, a work for more than 20 minutes will require at least 20,000 pictures. It took a year and nine months to complete the dynamic segmentation in the preparation of Hakujaden.
It’s a time-consuming and laborious process. But the effect was not satisfied. There are too many long shots, lack of position changes and motion lenses.
What’s worse, they still kept the cartoonist’s way for each storyboard. The dynamic splitter made in more than a year was finally not available. It was a catastrophe for the animation at that time. Most importantly, they had less than half the production cycle of Disney but only one-tenth of key animators. As a result, the animation cost per episode of tens of millions of yen.
Osamu Tezuka’s Great Innovations
In 1963, Osamu Tezuka received the production fee of 550,000 yen from Fuji TV. There he produced the world famous Astro Boy. Meanwhile, he created the “limited animation standard” and completed 30-minute episode per week. It became incredibly popular both in Japan and international market at that time.
“Drawing On Threes” Standard
According to the principle of visual residue, human eye produces a dynamic visual effect on a picture of about eight frames per second. Osamu Tezuka managed to make the painting scenes represented by 8 frames per second, instead of 12 frames. This is called “Drawing On Threes”.
Mouth Movement And Eye Blinking System
Osamu Tezuka also originates a set of techniques which become standards in Japanese anime. For example, when in a conversation, he put the character into a comfortable shape. And key animators only needed to draw the mouth and eyes movement in a separate layer. That’s why sometimes the character only move their mouth in scenes. This method is called mouth movement and eye blinking system. They both takes 3 frames respectively.
Osamu Tezuka’s method made an episode of anime require less than 3,000 original paintings. This time and labor-saving animation production model was quickly followed by other companies, even Toei Corporation.
Duration Standard
The 30-minute anime episode duration initially set by Osamu Tezuka later become duration standard. It satisfies Japanese people’s fast-paced lifestyle. Furthermore, it gives the animation company a relatively long production time every week. Over time, Japanese anime industry stipulate a 30-minute production format with advertising, as shown below. All duration are roughly estimated.
- 1.5 mins of OP
- Sponsor’s information & advertising
- 10 mins of anime’s upper half
- Advertising
- 10 mins of animation lower half
- 1.5 mins of ED
- 15s trailer for next episode