The Three Flavors of Anime - TV, OVA, and Movie

Welcome back for another edition of Anime for Newbs. By this point, we've gone over the basics - what anime is, dabbled a little in its history, taken an over view of the sub-genres to be found, and discussed how to get hold of it. You should have also gotten a decent list of series to take a look at, either through suggestions made in the article series, or else via your own research and experimentation. Hopefully in that experimentation, you've run across what I'll be dealing with today - the three ways in which an anime series is produced.

I decided, when I first chose the topic for this chapter, that I wanted to focus on an anime that had a representative of all three types of series, to use as a comparison point. For a little while, I thought about Tenchi Muyo, but the truth is that it's a series that has outlived its popularity. I do have a use for it, though, so it'll show up late in the article. A better option, I've decided, is Ah! My Goddess!, a series that I have used as an example before. It first reached animation format as a five episode OVA, debuted on the TV screen as Adventures of the Mini-Goddesses, and then reached the big screen as Ah! My Goddess: The Movie. Most recently, it has come back to TV in the form of an outrageously popular retelling of the manga storyline.

Unlike American style series, anime series are rarely designed with a long-term run in mind. Quite to the contrary, most are planned around a very specific amount of time for any given arc. The most common durations are thirteen or twenty-six episode long television runs. Each run is pretty much self contained, though sometimes questions are left unanswered. It's very uncommon, however, to find the season-ending cliffhanger. Instead, an anime run builds over the duration of the series to the last few episodes, climaxes, and handles the bulk of the cleanup so that the story can finish clean. These are the TV series, designed around the commercials and time slots of broadcast television. They usually follow a thirty minute format, and sport decent production values.

Similar to the TV series is the Original Video Animation, or Original Animation Video - the two terms are interchangeable. These runs are typically much shorter, four to six episodes, but also with a longer duration per episode, often an hour. The production values are also typically higher, resulting in better quality animation and higher caliber sound production. They could be considered akin to a mini-series, and sometimes do play that role. However, it would be folly to think that an OVA is absolutely in the same continuity as a TV series, or even a movie - I'll touch on this a little later.

There are, of course, also true, feature-length movies to be found. Though vastly shorter than either of the other two formats, movies are often the source of some of the most important and controversial events in an anime series, and certainly make for the most immediately rewarding experiences. It should go without saying that you'll find the highest production values here, just like any movie made here in the States. Some series use movies as a sort of self-contained OVA format, with everything happening in one big gulp of storyline and animation, but there are also truly original movies where the movie is the only animation ever created.

So, you might be asking, what makes taking the time to explain the distinctions between TV, OVA, and movie anime worth while? After all, I've just summarized the differences fairly well right there, and haven't even made it out of the introduction for the lesson. There are a couple reasons, honestly, but one of the biggest is the question of continuity. You'll find, as you continue your journey into the world of anime, that often some of the hottest debates about any given series rages around how events from this bit fit with events from that bit, or how character a could possibly like character b when her best friend character c was running around on character d, who really really loves character... you get the idea. A primer on the differences between the three types of series, and what those differences mean to the continuity of a story, should help to get you ready for joining those community debates, when you decide you're ready to.

Pictures? Through the Air? What Sorcery is This?

I'll start with a look at the television series. This is arguably the most mainstream form of anime to be found today, though the same wasn't true not so long ago. Most of the series that get picked up by State-side companies these days are, indeed, TV seasons. In part, I think that Cartoon Network is to blame for that, but the simple truth is that the 13/26 episode format allows for multiple releases of a popular series, raking in the dough for the animation company, where as an OVA or movie release only comes out once. Still, that's not to say that having such availability of TV series is a bad thing, because with the extended duration of the series that the writers get, the TV arcs get the most time to develop and play out.

Winter Wishes

The Ah! My Goddess! manga has been running for a very long time, and the TV series started last year has thus far been the most accurate portrayal of the events that have gone by within it. Unlike its OVA counterpart of fourteen years ago, the writers were able to space Keichi and Belldandy's introduction out over three episodes - 90 minutes for what was covered in 30 in the OVA. They even included another three episodes before Belldandy's sister, Urd, appeared for the first time, allowing even more time for the series to settle in with viewers. This is perhaps the single most clear-cut difference between a TV series and OVA - the pacing of the storyline. Despite the lower production values, you're far more likely to get a good, evenly paced plot line with a television series than OVA, simply because the writers have much more room to work with.

On the other hand, the longer duration of a TV series also allows for a much greater chance of managing to screw the storyline up. A lot of the problems revolve around the same pacing that television arcs can claim as their greatest advantage - twenty six episodes is a long time to plan for, after all, and if not done properly you end up with a plot that can move forward with sudden jerks, or fall into ruts of intense character development without the benefit of action to break up the monotony. A recent example that fell victim to the latter pitfall was Innocent Venus, a story that started with great pacing, but wound up stuffing everything into the last two episodes. Equally dangerous for a television series is trying to compress too much into the 'extra' episodes, something that most OVA's are remarkably good at avoiding. Zero No Tsukaima falls into that category, with the material for at least twenty-six episodes crammed into the play of thirteen.

OVA? Isn't That Part of the Reproductive System?

An OVA series is a much shorter, and higher quality production of a series. The acronym stands for Original Video Animation, and it's not uncommon to see the last two words swapped around, leading to OAV. OVA's are characterized by better audio quality, more detailed animation work, and much more direct story lines than their syndicated counterparts. Because the series usually only runs 4-6 episodes, money is freed up to be spent on other things. In addition, OVA episodes are usually a fair bit longer than any individual TV episode would be, often forty-five, or even an hour long. In the classic days of anime, when the boom first hit American shores, it was primarily the OVA that was brought over. Unlike today's age of placing entire OVA sets on a single DVD, they were released an episode to a tape, or if you were really lucky, two to a tape.

Sisters Divine

Ah! My Goddess! Falls into the former category, having been translated by AnimEgo productions. As an aside note, the studio that did the actual voice over work for the OVA tapped a pair of daytime soap actors for the roles of Keichi and Belldandy, by the names of Scott Simpson and Juliet Cesaro. What they didn't know when they chose the pair is that they were engaged to be married - an actor rapport that translated exceedingly well onto their screen roles. As I alluded to above, the OVA series was a short, five thirty-minute episodes long, so where the TV series has been able to spend time on smaller events and put real effort into showing the major ones, the OVA series had to be quite succinct at times. The first episode is a thirty-minute long romp that starts with Keichi dialing a wrong number, and finishes with him finally finding a moment alone with Belldandy - and yet, it's not rushed. That's not to say that some events weren't compressed a bit, but the format of the OVA allowed for rewriting the story as needed to allow for that compression without damaging the overall story. The rest of the OVA followed the same trend, introducing Bell's two sisters, and then wrapping up with a two episode long finale that I still consider to be one of the best in anime - fourteen years and countless series later.

OVA's are not without their failings, though. The format really isn't designed for a long story - something that the AMG OVA, while excellently re-written, couldn't hide. Instead OVA's are best used for precise, high-impact story telling that doesn't need a full TV season to accomplish, but does need more flexibility than a movie would allow. An excellent example of this usage would be found in Armitage the Third. You might be familiar with the title as a movie, but here's a little secret - the Poly-Matrix 'movie' was in fact just a four episode long OVA series with a little added animation used to directly tie the four together. Still, in terms of overall quality vs runtime vs story, I have to rank OVA's as my preferred format for consistently good anime.

Lights, Camera, Popcorn - Anime Movies in Action

The movie production is something of a fluke in terms of the forms of anime. While they have, hands down, the highest production values of the three formats, they are also the most inconsistent in terms of quality, story, and most importantly, continuity. Some series treat movies as nothing more than two hour long TV episodes. Dragon Ball and Inu Yasha are two particularly grievous offenders of this practice, while others use them in their traditional, feature role. Ah! My Goddess! and Tenchi Muyo followed this second category. Then there are the occasional movies, like Armitage the Third: Poly-Matrix, that are in truth just OVA series woven together with a little bonus animation.

Urd

The Ah! My Goddess! movie is an example of why it's important to understand the differences between the three release formats, and what those differences can mean in terms of series continuity. Rather than drawing directly upon the pre-established manga, or even the OVA series that had proceeded it, the AMG movie was an original story featuring the characters. A certain level of competence in the manga storyline was expected - there was no time spent with introductions, and quite a few characters that had been around only in the manga made their animated debut in it - but while the characters were familiar, the story told was not. Now, in the long run, it was a very good story, and a pretty good choice for a feature movie format. After all, if an OVA is not the place to describe a long-running storyline like the manga's, then a movie absolutely wasn't the right place for an open ended story. However, the AMG movie fell prey to something that neither the TV series nor the OVA did - it was rushed. They tried to put too much in, and while it didn't ruin the movie, it did make the plot line rather convoluted, with certain events happening without any real explanation as to why.

Luckily, the movie is in a separate continuity from the rest of the series - that is to say, while it does draw upon the established history and characters, the story told within it doesn't touch the 'official' telling of the world, nor does it effect the OVA or TV series. In some ways, this is a pity - some of the concepts and sub-plots touched upon in the movie were very interesting, and had a lot of potential. However, the trouble with the movie was that the overall scope of it would have irrevocably altered what is a delicate balance that makes the series itself such a beloved and solid tale. It's not so much that maintaining the status quo is important - it's that the track the movie would have taken the series would have destroyed many things that had gone before.

A better use of the movie format would be the Hideyuki Kikuchi horror classic, Vampire Hunter D, and its sequel, Bloodlust. Taken from the book of the same name, they play out much like any well done novel-to-movie translation. Used in this way, the anime movie is a very effective format, displaying a so-called one-shot story with a distinctive beginning, middle, and end. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that that's the only way to use movies - just that it tends to be the most successful use.

Keeping it all Straight - Continuity

As I mentioned earlier, the main point of all this comes down to a question of continuity. Continuity is exactly what it sounds like - it refers to how the story from one series to another relates to itself. Generally, OVA and TV series are completely separate storylines, sharing common characters and usually a common overall story framework if they happen to be based on a manga. Movies, on the other hand, can take place in either continuity, be in their own entirely, or even be a blend of all three. There are rare exceptions where TV series, OVA's, and even movies all take place in the same continuity, with the latter two taking the role of bridging material between one season and the next, but that's a fairly uncommon practice, as it's usually easier to just move from one season to the next.

To stay with my Ah! My Goddess! example, that's exactly the case in the OVA and the TV. Both tell the same story - the story being told in the manga - but they tell it in different ways. The OVA focuses on a more episodic retelling, keeping the lens primarily on Keichi and Belldandy, with other characters remaining fairly peripheral. In the TV series, on the other hand, while Keichi and Bell remain the primary characters, the series focuses on the vast, and rich universe of people that have shown up over the years. Urd, Skuld, Marller, Sayoko, Aoshima, Otaki, Tamiya... I could keep going, but I'm sure that you get the idea. Throughout the course of the two seasons completed thus far, each of them, and others, have had multiple episodes in the spotlight. The movie, as I said before, uses the manga universe as a basis, but doesn't take place in either the OVA or TV continuity.

The reason that continuity, and any given series's place in it is so important, is because without it, there's no real way to open a good, heartfelt discussion about a particular anime. That's not to say that series continuity is the only thing to talk about - far from it. A good, well established, and consistent continuity allows for a far richer discussion because everybody starts out on the same page. Most any fan of Ah! My Goddess! can pick up a conversation along any point of the series storyline, even if they come in in the middle of a discussion. That is the power, and importance of continuity - the capability of fans to have a common on which to draw arguments and interpretations.

Continuity Gone Wild - How Kajishima Destroyed a Good Series

I mentioned briefly that I'd have a use for the Tenchi Muyo series, and here it is. Despite being outdated and far from as popular as it once was, the TM universe involves multiple, prime examples of all three forms of anime production, and just what can happen when continuity is completely abandoned. Now, I'm not about to turn this article into a referendum on the progression of a great story into something devoid of originality and enjoyability. The simple truth is, though, that the digression from what the first OVA series was to what the third OVA series is, displays exactly what can happen when consistency and continuity is not preserved in a series - and indeed, gets outright tossed out the window.

Mistress Ryoko

The Tenchi Muyo universe consists, today, of three OVA series, two TV series, three movies, the Pretty Sammy OVA and TV series, and the Galaxy Police TV series, as well as countless manga and written variations. The series was created by Hiroki Hayashi, and Masaki Kajishima - though a fair bit of credit for the first OVA has to be given to the screenwriter, Nahoko Hasegawa as well. Similar to Ah! My Goddess!, the OVA series of Tenchi Muyo focused on telling its story, evenly, consistently, and well. It succeeded - wildly. Tenchi Muyo's first OVA series was an unqualified success, and the second OVA, while not quite as good as the first, maintained the same high overall quality. Not long after, a manga adaptation was created, and a TV series was announced.

However, the TV series, rather than retelling the same story, or else continuing the storyline, featured the same characters with an almost entirely new plot. There were similarities, of course. Ryoko was still the first character to show up, and she did still put Tenchi through a certain amount of living hell in doing so. But unlike the OVA series, she crash landed on earth after a space battle, Tenchi stumbling across her by accident, rather than finding her mummified body in the family shrine. It was a full departure from the continuity of the OVA, in effect a completely different series, with some common events. Many complained that the Tenchi TV characters felt flat compared to their OVA incarnations, less well rounded, and certainly less unique. Still, the TV series told a good, solid, and - within its own universe - consistent story. The TV series was followed by the first Tenchi movie, Tenchi Muyo in Love, which took place within the TV continuity, directly after the events of the series.

The first movie, which is generally considered to be the best movie, was to be the last thing in Tench Muyo to respect continuity, and it is not by accident that it was around that time that Hayashi and Hasegawa both moved onto other projects, leaving most of the ongoing development on Kajishima's pen. The next series to come out was another TV incarnation, Shin Tenchi Muyo. Ostensibly, it drew from the first TV series, but it acted as though the movie had never taken place, and the characters that had come to be known, and loved by many, were replaced by cardboard cutouts of their former selves. Dialog and storytelling was wooden, and events often contradicted established facts. Shin Tenchi Muyo had abandoned continuity with its 'parent' series.

A second movie was released, one that is generally agreed to have taken place in the OVA storyline, despite the presence of TV's Kiyone, and an animation style that more favored that of the TV series. Tenchi Muyo: Manatsu No Eve, while an excellent story in its own right, continued a drastic downward spiral that seemed intent on contradicting previously established facts, from both the OVA series AND the TV series. A third movie, Tenchi Muyo in Love 2: Tenchi Forever, abandoned all attempts to maintain links to its supposedly parent series, rewriting history as needed to make way for a very poorly constructed plot.

I'll stop the overview there, as by this point you should have a good idea of just what I'm talking about. When I first joined the ranks of anime fan, Tenchi Muyo was THE series to watch. All the greatest debates took place about the endless intricacies of the various relationships, the possible futures, and the little details of similarity and difference between the OVA and TV series. But the more power and control over the direction of the story that Kajishima got, as first Hasegawa, and then Hayashi abandoned the project in search of more fertile fields, the less and less it looked like an original, interesting series, and the more it became little more than a gross, poorly written self-insertion fanfic.

This is what lack of continuity can cause - nothing less than the complete, and utter destruction of a well written, constructed, and played out world. No series is immune to this - without attention paid to consistency, regardless of what format it takes, any series becomes an ineffective exercise. Tenchi Muyo started out as an extremely good series, was my gateway into the anime community at large, and even how I met some of my closest friends... yet today, the series has been utterly destroyed, and I've barely given it half a thought in years, until now.

Continuity, Like Community, Matters - So What's Next?

By this point, you should understand the fundamental differences between OVA's, TV Series, and Movies. At this early stage in your journey into anime, it might not seem that important - and for some people, that is an honest truth. If you like something, you'll watch it, regardless of what flavor anime it is. The purpose of this chapter, instead, was to educate you on the importance of understanding that just because an OVA and a TV happen to share the same name doesn't always mean that they are the same story. As you begin to join the ranks of the initiated, and begin to seek out others to discuss your favorite shows, a good grasp of the differences, and how continuity effects their interpretation will serve you well.