For anime originals it’s fine, but for adaptations it’s often overly restrictive. See things like Chainsaw Man’s second major arc being relegated to a movie because it wasn’t long enough to be a full season, while the third arc is.
It is still better than just doing a bunch of movies.
It’s fine
Absolutely. It’s long enough to tell a good self-contained story, and short enough not to have filler.
As far as my favourite animes go, no. So few are 12 episodes long.
It depends on the anime! Stardust Telepath? 12 episodes. Should’ve been 26. The ending is just kind of abrupt and unsatisfying to me, and the drama comes on way too soon without enough buildup. Love Live! School Idol Project? 13 episodes. Should’ve been 26. And I know that LLSIP did get a second season of 13 episodes a year after the 13-episode first season, so it’s 26 episodes long in total, but that’s not what I mean: season 1 should’ve been 26 episodes long to begin with, because 13 episodes is nowhere near enough time to flesh out and let people grow attached to such an enormous cast of characters. Though I suppose if I’m complaining about idol characters not being fleshed out I’m missing the point, anyways.
As for the reverse case: Angelic Layer? 26 episodes. Should’ve been 13. It just dragged on a bit. There’s also some other anime that dragged on a bit for me but in those cases it’s harder to say whether it was the fault of the number of episodes, the length of the episodes, or just because I wouldn’t have cared for it no matter what. Sometimes even a 12 episode show will drag on for me. For the most part, though, I kinda feel like anime shows tend to be exactly as long as they should be. Which is really just to say that back in the days when 50+ episode shows were the norm, stories that were 50+ episode worthy tended to be the ones to get picked up; when 26-ish episode shows were the norm, likewise for 26 episode worthy premises; and now that 12 episode shows are the norm, the anime shows that get made are mostly going to be the ones that work with that formula. Right?
I’ll have to calculate the average episode number of my five star shows later.
You should watch SPARKLE ON RAVEN: The Life of DrillGirl; it is a very good show. Cēterum cēnseō iūs auctōris esse dēlendum.I actually really like 12 episode format anime. It makes for usually a really quick watch and if its good it still can hit hard.
EDIT Also if you enjoy trashy anime like me you dont feel like you are wasting your life away.
