The possibly unavoidable problem the Abridged Series medium faces.

(This can potentially apply to a lot of Internet Content that is serialized and composed of more then just a person talking.)

Most of the fun I've had watching Abridged Serieses on YouTube has been me discovering ones that were already old and so had a lot of episodes I can binge (like how I've gotten into a lot of Anime).  Starting with SMA (Sailor Moon Abridged, the one made by Megamie33), and then Wedding Peach Abridged and a number I looked for based on Attack on Titan and Code Geass and so on.  I've had hours of fun with stuff like that. 

But when one that's just starting catches my eye, and it's inevitably months or even over a year till we get a new episode, it's kinda hard for me to stay interested.  I'm currently subscribed to two channels airing Abridged Serieses of Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works, and by the time a new episode drops for either my memory has no longer even kept tract of which one was which.

This is not me criticizing the people making them, I know this long amount of time between episodes in unavoidable.  It may seem at first like they're easier to make then an actual Anime since it's using already animated stuff.  But however true that may be is more then counteracted by these being done by single individuals not entire studios, they have far less resources and usually are doing it as a hobby and so also have school and/or a real job to worry about.  So I don't expect them to drop their lives and do nothing but slave over dumb comedy videos for my amusement.

And yet the consequences of this problem are still real.  It's much easier for me to invest in something if I have a reliable schedule to expect new installments, even if it's more then the standard weekly wait of old media, but A Slap On Titan season 2 failed to keep even it's attempt at a monthly schedule.  These shows do build fan bases in-spite of this obstacle, but they could be much larger.  Because I greatly value the potential of this medium, I love Mel Brooks style parodies, but it's much funnier to me now to simply see the actual original show I love dubbed over comically.

Basically it's an art-form I feel has a lot of potential being held back by the fact that it only ever will be done by amateurs.  Professional studios won't treat works they own this way because they want them to be respected, and they also won't engage in something so copyright ambiguous with another studio's work because they want to maintain a moral high ground when they defend their own IPs.

The first thing that enters my mind as a potential solution is the idea of simply not releasing anything till you've completed a whole season.  But again while something like that is a viable risk for professional studios working with Netflix, an amateur probably won't want to put all that work into the later episodes before they even know if they can get a fan base.  Plus I think they value the fan interaction influencing future episodes, sometimes jokes they make about the comments section are part of the fun.

One thing I don't know is whether or not it was always so normal for new episodes to take so long.  Those old SMA videos don't look as polished and sophisticated as the new Fate/ ones I've been following, and it looked like most of the VAs were like actually living in the same city.  In fact it doesn't seem like that series even ran long enough for how long it'd take a current Abridged Series to cover 50 episodes.  But the current artists value the modern advancements and so aren't gonna want to sacrifice them for the sake of getting stuff done faster.

There is one feature of modern Abridged Series production that I personally think is worth throwing out whether or not it would save any time.  The Cartoon Cipher did a video about why Anime Dubs don't edit the lip flaps which of course had to bring up how Abridged Serises do edit them, or do now anyway, it doesn't look like SMA ever did. The fact is the actual Anime in Japan doesn't care if the lip flaps match. Thus I don't even agree with how much legit Dubs bend over backwards to make them match, so I certainly don't get why friggin parodies want to take this one technical aspect more seriously then the original product did.  But regardless I highly doubt dropping that alone would make Abridged Series production significantly more timely.  And I will say they sometimes do make the lip flaps look kinda funny.

I wish there was a way to fix this problem, but I can't think of it.

Well I think Abolishing Capitalism might for at least the creators who don't want to do anything else and only do because they need money to live.  But that isn't gonna happen under this President.


P.S. Abridged Series related stuff I wanna say irrelevant to the topic of this post.

(Sadly I don't think it's possible to easily watch SMA anymore, even the YouTube channels I watched it on as an already old relic seem to be gone now.) Update: Turns out one just unlisted everything and so the Playlist I saved has most episodes still.  Since that was done for Strike protection reasons I'm sure I don't wanna link to it publicly.

There is a new Sailor Moon Abridged series that I have enjoyed, especially for how it interprets Usagi as Pansexual.  But going forward I'd rather a new attempt at a Sailor Moon Abridged just skip right to S.