The American Way™ of plot construction is the 3-act play. Act I is where the story concept and conflict are set up. Act II takes the reader through the journey towards the climax, while Act III is where the climax and resolution are found.
Anime approaches things a little differently. Most anime seasons are twelve or thirteen episodes and are broken up into four acts. Episodes 1 through 3 set the story’s concept and introduces the protagonist. Episodes 4 through 6 define the conflict and/or goal of the story and introduce the villain of the story (if there is one). Episodes 7-10 build towards the story’s climax, which come in episodes 11 and 12. Occasionally, there is a 13th episode which shows the story’s happy ending and/or sets the stage for the next season. An interesting thing occurs when you get into an anime with a longer season (usually 24-26 episodes): the structure doesn’t change except for Act III. What was four episodes suddenly becomes twenty-two to twenty four episodes.
The anime form works incredibly well for young adult novels. Young adult novels average between 55,000 and 80,000 words with the average chapter being 3,000 words. When you do the math, that comes out to 18 - 26 chapters. Does that last one sound familiar? It’s exactly the same as the anime long form. Shorter novels can be modified to fit the anime short form, too, by simply lengthening the chapters to between 4,000 and 5,000 words. In fact, it doesn’t matter how long the novel is; chapters 1 through 3 create the setting, chapters 4 through 6 define the concept, while the last two or three are the story’s climax and resolution.
See? Watching TV can be good for you.
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