Anime series often have quite funny and very long names. But why is that? We reveal the reason behind this curiosity.
Whether you are a big anime fan or can hardly relate to the medium – everyone has certainly wondered about the strange names. Especially in recent years, the names seem to have become increasingly absurd.
Where series used to have short and snappy titles like “Bleach”, “Dragon Ball” or “Death Note”, today there are names that often represent whole sentences, such as:
- “After I got rejected, I shaved and took in a high school Runaway”
- “My Reincarnation as a Slime in Another World”
- “Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!“
- “The Misfit Of Demon King Academy: History’s Strongest Demon King Reincarnates & Goes To School With His Descendants”
I wish one of the four names were invented – but none of them is. These are all actual anime names, and they are all quite popular.
Why are anime names so long?
But the question remains: Why do creators give their series such strange names? Are they just running out of ideas, or are all the “cool” names already taken?
The real reason is much simpler:
Most anime begin as manga or light novels and are often offered digitally on the internet. The websites that offer manga, light novels, or webcomics have long not only a few dozen titles – but thousands or tens of thousands.
Therefore, the authors’ intention is no longer to find a “cool” name for the series – but one that essentially summarizes the whole storyline. What used to be a blurb or the back description of a book is now simply included in the title.
Since on the large websites with thousands of comics and mangas begging for attention and readers, fewer and fewer users take the time to click on each individual work and take a closer look – thus the title must already summarize what it’s actually about.
As these stories are often adapted into anime later, the name that was already used in the original emerges – and thus it is indeed a pretty long monster.
If you see the story “After my Rebirth as a Demon, I have to work in Online Journalism and collect souls” soon – then you know why the name is as it is.
