Ask John: Why Are Some Openings & Endings Not at the Beginning & Ending of Shows?
Question:
Why are recent animes like Star Driver and Digimon Xros Wars making it a habit of showing the supposedly “Opening Theme” ten to fifteen minutes into the episode rather then in the VERY BEGINNING?! This has been driving me nuts! (Please ignore my mentioning of Star Driver. It is not one of animes following the trend of delayed OPs.)
Answer:
If I’m not mistaken, last year’s Minami-ke Okaeri television series was the first show to regularly put its opening and ending credit animation sequences well into the episode instead of at the beginning and ending of the episode. More recently, the first episode of Star Driver did so, but following episodes have adhered to a more conventional structure. I agree that abruptly seeing the opening credit sequence ten minutes into the episode is jarring. Its sudden appearance seems counter-intuitive and impractical. If an opening animation is designed to introduce a show, it doesn’t serve its purpose by appearing after the show is already well underway. However, the rationale behind the scheduling may be that foregoing a routine opening animation sequence followed by a commercial break immediately draws viewers into the weekly episode and may serve to capture and hold the attention of channel surfers that might otherwise switch to another program after seeing the routine opening credits sequence.
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I don’t mind if this is done for the first episode only. It gives the show some time to grab your attention and interest. Then once you are firmly stuck on wanting to know what just happened, why, who are the people involved, etc. The intro sequence can be used as kind of a brief overview of what is to be expected. I think this can be very effective if done right and anime should experiment with it more.
Dropping someone in a world they are not familiar with, hit them with some quick action, but don’t drag it on too long. Once you have them a little confused and off balanced, you can use the intro to show/explain the basics (who are the good guys, what they are up against, scale of how big the action can get, etc.). This will give them something to look forward to because now you have to explain what just happened, who these people are, why this happened, etc. I think delaying the intro for the first episode for 7 to 12 minutes can be a good thing and has gotten me to watch a few shows in the past because of it.
I also like the shows that give you an entire first episode and then end that episode with the introduction. For the second episode, you jump right into the action and end with the standard closer. Then go back to the basic formula for all the other episodes. This worked very well for Full Metal Alchemist in my opinion.
Example: You turn on a show, fight breaks out. Two people in fight seem rather normal, one tries to run away. Chase scene. Person running away runs through a solid wall like it was not even there. Chaser answers with, “Damnit! You are not getting away this time.” he puts out his hands, strange symbols appear on the wall and the stone turns into goo and falls into a heap. Chaser jumps over goo, looks up and gets shot in the face with a similar power, but this time the guy he was chasing manifests a tree out of the symbols in mid air. The tree branches wraps up the chaser. “Hahaha. Did you really think a punk kid like you could catch me?” Chaser replies, “No, but I make a good distraction.”
Guy who was running away gets creamed by a bus made of glowing outlines from behind. When hit the light wraps around him, leaving him completely trapped. We get a few remarks from this new character who was driving the “bus” and how this was all something the kid should be able to handle by now. Kid mouths off and walks away. Camera zooms in on symbol on his back, he says something like, “One day….one day I will be the greatest Weaver in the world. Or my name isn’t……” Symbol glows on his jacket, flashes…..start Intro.
You come back, explain the current situation. Give names to the other primary cast members, explain the basics of this world’s “rules” or just what to call their “powers”. Then you hint at a complicated past and/or future doing what they do, start ending on cliffhanger note like the name of a character you have not seen that evokes an immediate emotional response from the primary cast.
If framed well, it can be very attention grabbing.
Naruto does it often, to give you a tease of the episode. It feels like the director is saying “this one’s not to be missed!”