Ask John: Why Are So Many Sequels Not Like their Originals?

Question:

Recently, I was recalling a lot of the random animes that I’ve seen over the years and how almost all of the sequels to them blatantly show no respect for the original story. Kite was an adult-themed assassin story with ultra-violence set in some sort of similar setting to our own reality. It’s sequel, Kite Liberator, disrespected and ignored that first movie’s concepts by turning it into a (bad) monster-themed tale that didn’t continue any of the plot lines from the first movie. Another anime, Gunbuster, created and explained a science that was being used in a war against space bugs. Its sequel, DieBuster, moved away from the original characters and gave the viewer a different world of “more cartoony” giant robots and fan service girls. And even though the final five minutes bridged the original anime and this one together, they were completely different stories that had nothing to do with each other. I could go on and on: Mazinger Z compared to Mazinkaiser SKL; Street Fighter the movie to Street Fighter 2V and Street Fighter Alpha; the various Fist of the North Star OVAs changing back story elements that the original series had already told; the three original Dangaioh OVAs ending on a cliffhanger because of the cancelled fourth OVA and how the new series never brought it up; Ninja Scroll changing from a serious, semi-magic sword story into a comedic/magical mini-series; etc.

Why are such drastic changes made to a majority of older anime titles that fans want to see a direct continuation of? Is it the studios that think fans want something entirely different from what came before? Is it the directors/creators that are maybe bored and want to make a completely different anime, hoping that using a popular franchise name will give them a boon in sales? Is it just a coincidence that when most older titles are brought back for sequels that the new stories have nothing in common with what came before?

Answer:
The drastic differences in tone and content within certain anime sequels are heavily influenced by time and circumstances. Observation reveals that typically the greater the span of time between installments, the greater the disparity in tone between the installments. For example, the current Rozen Maiden television series is airing seven years after the most recent prior adaptation. The current series is distinctly different yet still maintains an identifiable tone and visual style. The time difference between the Jubei Ninpucho movie and television series and the A-Kite OVA series and Kite Liberator was ten years. The span of time between Gunbuster and Gunbuster 2 was 16 years. Observers have to consider a variety of circumstances that impact new productions. While sequels are typically expected to deliver more of the same, they’re also expected to deliver more and bigger. The Mazinger Z franchise absolutely has become increasingly exaggerated in subsequent iterations. The Gunbuster & Jubei Ninpucho installments reached practical perfection in their original installments; there was nowhere to stylistically go with their sequels apart from entirely different directions. Gunbuster 2 couldn’t have been more dramatic or serious than the already very dramatic and serious original series. A Jubei Ninpucho television series would have been very hard pressed to be more exciting, to say nothing of more graphic, than its feature film predecessor. If the sequel can’t possibly live up to the original, the only reasonable option is to move in an entirely different direction.

Furthermore, we should consider the era in which titles were created. Gunbuster was created in an era lacking overt “fan service.” When Gunbuster was released in 1988, the moé and maid fetishes, the Evangelion-inspired deconstruction of the mecha anime genre conventions, and the fan service extremes of AiKA and Hanaukyo Maid Tai were literally unimagined. When Gunbuster 2 appeared 16 years later, Gainax was a very different studio, and the content of popular anime was much different in 2004 than it was in 1988. The Jubei Ninpucho movie premiered in 1993, serving as a swan song to the typical violent excess of golden era anime. Ten years later, the Jubei Ninpucho: Ryuhogyoku Hen television series premiered the same month as Last Exile, Matantei Loki Ragnorak, Scrapped Princess, Uchu no Stellvia, and Di-Gi-Charat Nyo. Ultra-violent anime simply wasn’t trendy in 2003; anime that was successful that year was fun, lighthearted, comedic. So when a production committee decided to fund the production of a Jubei Ninpucho television series in order to capitalize on the title’s international fame and the possibility of an American live-action film adaptation, director Tatsuo Sato, the director best known at the time for the lighthearted Nadesico anime franchise, applied his own sensibilities to the show and created a show that accommodated the audience demands of the era.

Director interest must also be taken into consideration. When Media Blasters commissioned A-Kite creator Yasuomi Umetsu to create a Kite sequel, the productions Umetsu had most recently worked on included Beck, I”s Pure, Welcome to the NHK, Joshikousei, and Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora. Kite Liberator was released in 2008, yet the most recent intensely violent anime that Umetsu has worked on was 2004’s Elfen Lied. From 2005 onward, Umetsu has exclusively worked on comedy and drama anime. Obviously, in 2007 and 2008 when Kite Liberator was released, Yasuomi Umetsu had evidently lost interest in creating and directing grim, bloody anime like his earlier works A-Kite, Yellow Star, and Mezzo Forte. In similar instances, although Tatsuo Sato directed the Nadesico motion picture only a year after the TV series ended, the movie had an appreciably different tone. Likewise, Mamoru Oshii directed Ghost in the Shell and Innocence, but despite Innocence being a direct sequel, it looks and feels significantly different than its predecessor, possibly because the directors themselves want to do something fresh and new with their franchises instead of retread the same stylistic ground.

Sometimes we do get stylistically faithful revivals or sequels. Slayers Revolution premiered 11 years after Slayers Try yet evoked exactly the same tone as its predecessor. The Trigun movie premiered 12 years after the TV series yet perfectly recreated the tone and visual design of the TV series. The 2000 Vampire Hunter D movie premiered 15 years after its predecessor and still recreated a similar atmosphere. The 2006-2008 Hokuto no Ken “Shin Kyuseishu Densetsu” revival, just like the current St. Seiya Omega sequel, exhibit an appreciable faithfulness to their predecessors while updating and retro-continuity revising narrative elements for contemporary viewers. Ultimately, consumers have to recognize that anime is a commercial art. Like all art forms, anime is constantly evolving and changing, and artists themselves have a natural evolution to their style and interests. As a commercial product, anime has to recognize and conform to contemporary market trends in order to be marketable and profitable. Popular anime have inherent strong narrative potential and nostalgic name recognition, but what’s popular in one decade is usually not so ten or more years later, so belated sequels have to decide whether their primary demographic is nostalgic fans that may still be in the viewing audience or an entirely new generation of potential new fans, and also determine whether the style and approach of the original is still viable and appealing to contemporary viewers.