Ask John: Editorial – Will There Be a Yotsuba Anime?

Question:
I personally wonder if there will ever be an anime adaptation of Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba to! manga. There may be a trend in the anime industry that suggests an answer.

Answer:
I’d like to see an anime adaptation of Kiyohiko Azuma’s manga serial Yotsuba to! In all of its anime incarnations – web & TV anime and motion picture – the anime adaptation of Kiyohiko’s Azumanga Daioh was excellent, and it was based on a 4koma manga. While Yotsuba to! has a smaller cast than Azumanga Daioh, its stories are longer. So I think it has at least as much cinematic potential as Azumanga Daioh did. And while no Yotsuba anime has been announced yet, I believe there’s a convincing reason to anticipate a forthcoming Yotsuba anime. In fact, I believe that my reasoning for expecting a Yotsuba anime reveals a larger trend in the anime industry which many Americans may not have noticed. In my observation, manga creators who have one work adapted into anime usually have at least a second work also adapted.

There are many successful manga creators that have had multiple works adapted into anime, among them CLAMP, Masamune Shirow, Peach-Pit, Rumiko Takahashi, Go Nagai, Buichi Terasawa, Masakazu Katsura, Koge Donbo, Leiji Matsumoto, and Masami Yuuki. However, a significant number of manga creators have specifically two anime titles based on their original manga. Some examples include:

Takeaki Momose (Miami Guns & Magikano)
Mee-kun (Adventure of Kotetsu & Hyper Police)
Yuu Watase (Fushigi Yuugi & Ayashi no Ceres)
Yoshihiro Togashi (Yu Yu Hakusho & Hunter x Hunter)
Kousuke Fujishima (Ah! My Goddess & You’re Under Arrest)
Nobuhiro Watsuki (Rurouni Kenshin & Busou Renkin)
Rei Omishi (Sorcerer Hunters & Risky Safety)
Mohiro Kitoh (Narutaru & Bokurano)
Gosho Aoyama (Yaiba & Detective Conan)
Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira & Shin SOS Dai Tokyo Tankentai)
Hayao Miyazaki (Nausicaa & Porco Rosso)
Hirohiko Araki (Baoh & Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure)
Yoshihisa Tagami (Grey & Karuizawa Syndrome)
Morishige (Hanaukyo Maid Tai & Koi Koi Seven)
Yoshizaki Mine (Keroro Gunso & Arcade Gamer Fubuki)
Johji Manabe (Outlanders & Capricorn)
Takehiko Inoue (Slam Dunk & Buzzer Beater)
Sakura Kinoshita (Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok & Tactics)
Norihiro Yagi (Angel Legend & Claymore)
Hiroki Yagami (Dear Boys & G-Taste)

In fact, many of the manga creators that have had only one anime adaptation of their original manga have only published one significant manga series. Illustrations of this fact include Michiaki Watanabe (Violinst of Hameln), Takashi Hashiguchi (Yakitate Japan), Kazushi Hagiwara (Bastard!!), Yasuhiro Nightow (Trigun), Kouta Hirano (Hellsing), Kentaro Miura (Berserk), Hitoshi Ashinano (Yokohama Shopping Log), Kazuki Takahashi (Yu-Gi-Oh), Minene Sakurano (Mamotte Shugogetten!), Lynn Okamoto (Elfen Lied), and Rikudou Koushi (Excel Saga).

Anyone who wishes to look will certainly find exceptions, but the trend seems to be that manga creators whose work is once adapted into anime are frequently returned to for more anime source material. I believe that most manga creators don’t consciously set out to create comics that will be turned into animation, but circumstances do seem as though lightning often strikes twice when it chooses the work of manga artists to translate into anime. Most likely, manga artists whose work lends itself to easy adaptation as anime by having a highly visual narrative or having compelling stories that work well in cinematic form become a useful resource for animators.

I haven’t done enough research to confirm this theory as valid, but superficial examination does seem to support the theory that manga artists whose works is chosen for anime adaptation once often eventually have multiple works adapted as anime. There seem to be relatively few examples of manga artists with a large body of work who have one title adapted into anime but never a second adaptation. This trend, if it is indeed an actual trend, bodes well for the eventual production of a Yotsuba to! anime, and may provide an effective barometer for predicting which manga series are more likely than others to be adapted as anime.