Added poll for you guys.

Personally I don't care about length as long as it's used where it's needed. If a series only needs 13 episodes or it requires 50 then so be it. As long as it's entertaining I'm cool. I watch and enjoy series of all lengths.

any length is good but most of the 52 episode animes get told right becoming cult hits most of the time

As long as it needs to last for the win!
I mean, some animes could use and extra few episodes at the end to finish the story better, but some animes are prefect at 26, some need 39 to make it perfect, and then if you made some 13 episode series 26 episodes, it would be way to freakinglong because well, i dont know about some people, but i know some animes that are 13 episodes, if they where anylonger they would have just been too much...although, im sure we all could have used abit more Golden Boy :p
Oh, and Elfen Lied was great, but if it would have followed all 12 volumes of the manga it would have been even better!...well i thin anyway...

I don't really care about the length of a series. But when buying them....I don't really go passed 52 episode series unless I really like the 100+ episode series enugh to buy the season boxsets.

When they get too long, i normaly just got it bootleg as opposed to geting it at all... like Kenshin i might get the first 2 boxes, but the 3rd one, for what its worth sucked ass. so i would never but the whole thing legit, but i foudn it on ebay for 20, so i got it...and i plan on getting the first 2 boxes legit now... XD....when/if i ever get money

It depends, really.

Most original anime, ones that are not based off a manga, should be 13-26 episodes. I think that is ample to get a story off the ground as well as keep a viewer interested. Any more would tend to drag. Unless of course it's already an established franchise, like Gundam or something.

As for manga based, 52 should be the absolute maximum. If anything, they should concentrate on a particular arc, or concentrate on the first half or something of the already published manga. Good example is Kenshin. Just finish the Kyoto or Edo arc and end it there. The revenge arc, although the better one, would make the anime series drag. And waiting for new chapters to come out ends up with crappy filler episodes, like Naruto. (Besides, manga is better).

I like 26-52.
Some stories sometimes go too long and others too short, between 26 and 52 almost everytime it fits just right. I take Love Hina for example, the anime would be a lot better if it were 52 instead of 24 or 26, because I had a feeling it was rushed a lot.

Tsubasa Chronicle, for example, they endend the 1st season while the story hadn't ended, but with the extra 26 episodes to come, making the total of 52, it'll be enough (I hope) to end the story.

When an series gets too long, it usually gets a lot of bad episodes, like Inuyasha, in my opinion, if it was cut down to half episodes it would be quite enjoyable.

My point is, there should be episodes enough to tell the story with a good timing, no rushes and no stalling either. Doesn't really matter much how long the anime will be, but most of the times, 26-52 get's mostly right.

I think that 26 or so it's more than enough for a season and maybe for a series, take Chrno Crusade for an example, twenty-something ( I don't remember exactly how many ) episodes, and the plot it's awesome, the quality and production it's excellent.
Besides the less episodes the more budget they will have for production equals to better anime :).
I've seen anime since the 80's and that's my humble opinion.

I think any length is ok as long as it stays fresh and interesting the entire time. Shows like Naruto was before this whole filler crap started, it had new characters, new development in plot as well as characters and the small segments of storyline were usually just long enough. Granted, there was a few parts that could have been shorter (like the rasengan training) but what are ya gonna do.

I guess it depends on the animé, some of them are so full of potential that they deserve to be a long series and others are shorter and they're better suited to that.

Love stories/Love comedy > 13
Generic Action > 26
Action with deep story > 52

I'd say that the animes that actually have ends are usually the animes worth watching. NGE, Cowboy Bebop, Escaflowne, Fullmetal Alchemist etc. are all great examples IMO. Power-up-anime's, such as Dragonball, Bleach or Naruto are all interesting to a point, but tends to get less and less interesting as you start realizing that it's never going to change. The heroes and villains are all going to get stronger and stronger and they will have more and more 5 episode fights that show basically the same shit over and over again.

I'd say the perfect number would be 26, two seasons. Not too long and not too short. If an anime can keep me interested longer than that, it's a great anime.

something between 52-100 is good, developing more characters and story is the best part in anime, but, if much of this eps are fillers tossed like naruto(that have more than 40 filler arcs) then i prefer a shorter anime.
26 eps is a god lenght if you want to collect the series in dvd, its cheaper, hehe

I'd say about 26-52 for me. Shows with around 13 episodes or show don't give me enough time to get to "really know the character," and shows that stretch out to close to a hundred episodes are usually loaded with fillers. I thought that Honey and Clover had a nice number of episodes, which was around 24, although it would have been nice if there were just a couple more. With this number of episodes, the characters were able to develop, and I was really impressed at their depth and "human-ness."

Shows like Monster, however, can easily get away with over 50 episodes, especially with a great plot, good pacing, and constant sense of suspense and mystery. ;)

26 is usually the best. In most cases the story seems too stretched out up to the 52 mark. But there are always exceptions. I like to stick to OVAs and Movies, but I'll take a longer, solid series anyday.

I personally like either, as long as the series don't go on for TOO long.

Samurai Champloo was perfect for 26 episodes. There could be only so many times that Mugen, Jin and Fuu escape or one-up (sans Fuu lol) their adversaries or scrap for food, despite the um, stuff, that happened in the last 3 episodes (I'm not spoiling anything).

I felt at finality with Fullmetal Alchemist's 51 (or 50?) episodes.

I loved DBZ, despite others' hatred of its length. It had a fourth dimension (no censored dub pun intended) with its characters that is not seen in many animated shows: they all aged.

And I'm not talking about "everyone gets one birthday" aging or "they all grow up in the last episode" nonsense. I'm talking a generation of characters brought into the mix, young kids to teenagers to adults, wrinkles on the ladies' faces, etc. I felt that having this rarity in a cartoon show gave DBZ more reason to be on for so long, so that it wouldn't feel stale, minus all the filler except when Goku and Piccolo was learning to drive lol. This sign of longevity is really appreciated for those who had watched Goku, Bulma, Krillin and the rest on Dragon Ball.

HOWEVER, DBGT took shit too far with its rapage of...everything not named Goku.

Just my 2 cents.

shoot, i didn't even see "somewhere between 26 and 52 is the sweet spot".

anything between 26-52, fullmetal alchemist was perfect. really they didn't even have to make the movie. but cowboy bebop was also perfect and that was only around 24?

Sorry folks, but I prefer animes that drag on for ages. I just get more out of it. (IE: DBZ, Naruto..) however, animes about 100 episodes long, tend to be pretty good as well. Yu Yu Hakusho, is a good example.

Yeah, I don't watch a lot of anime, but I prefer animes that are over 100 episodes, or so.

Short animes give me a thirst for more. FMA is one of them.

I am of the opinion that, so long as the pacing is fast enough, it doesn't matter how long the anime is. Juuni Kokki was ~48 episodes, and I think that they could have done the overall story much more justice if they at least added another season, if not two. The potential for expansion and further storytelling is huge, and I would have loved to see more of the characters develop.

However, something like Dragonball Z was utterly pathetic. The pacing of that show was so tedious that I almost pulled out my hair on occasion. Needless to say, I abandoned all interest in DBZ, and have not looked back since.

So, ultimately, it varies solely on a case-to-case basis.

26-52 is perfect.

Although shorter 1x episodes anime are good sometimes, while you wait for longer anime to download. ^^ I don't think I actually enjoyed an anime that spans for 100+ episodes.

Usually 26 episodes is enough the flesh the story out without too much filler, but sometimes you just want more.I voted 26-52 for that reason, some examples of wanting more, imo our SCRYED, Berserk (at least we have the manga), Trigun, etc.

26 works well for anime that has a definite ending and beginning planned. 52 is good for series that have a wider story and many plot points to take care of.

13 is just too short, unless they do like 2 seasons of the show or something.

100 Episode Anime are good for long martial arts based series with lots of enemies and battles... although the longer ones like
DBZ and Naruto just go apeshit with the format and have like 10 Billion episodes.

DBZ should have ended after the Frieza Saga, or at the end of the Cell Games.
and on that note, One Piece should find the bloody treasure already.
Haven't even tried to watch Naruto so no comment on that.

Depends on the storyline. If it's long, then 50+ to 60+ would be nice. If it's short, maybe 5 to 20. Pokemon, Dragonball are too long. And 100+ aren't good IMO because it's kind of hard to catch every single episode.

I think Full Metal Alchemist was a perfect length (52 episodes) given the content (it has action and an involved storyline, so something like this works. I haven't read the manga, though. I only note this because someone always yells about reading the manga). Long-running series tend to fall into a rut of too much filler, which makes it hard for me to want to watch the show again. I think Inuyasha would have worked much better had it been a 52 episode series rather than... however long it ran (6-7 seasons?). Naruto's falling into this trap as well. I was interested in the main storyline at first, but I think the last 40 episodes have been sidestories that no one really cares about.

I like getting involved over a really long period of time, but not dedicating my life to a series. fifty-two episodes gives a series a long enough time to tell a great story and still bullshit around occasionally without having to cram everything in in the last few episodes.

Indeed. Animes that have tons of extra contents at start and middle then placing too many cramped things at the end is a bit annoying.