Serialization and franchising
Winkletter • 9 May 2025 •
I’ve been researching Japanese media recently because I see it as a model system for encouraging creativity. Practically anyone has the potential to become a novelist and have their story turned into an anime while the story is still being written. The two main features that create this environment are serialization and franchising.
A story might have many different iterations that receive immediate audience feedback. The story and visual identity are being built in public, as the hip devs say.
- Online serialized stories with raw text written quickly
- Magazines that serialize stories
- Light novel series shapes the text and story and starts building the visual identity with a few illustrations
- Magazines serialize manga
- Books for the manga series further refine the character design and visual style
- The anime cour (season) with each episode being produced as it’s being aired
There’s risk and investment involved at each stage, but it’s kept to a minimum. An anime adaptation, for example, usually has a production committee made of different parties who share the risk and each take a slice of their own pie. So even though the anime itself might not recoup it’s budget, the franchise sells a lot of records for the music producer, collectables for the toy maker, and books for the publisher. Here’s a comparison I had ChatGPT make to the classic U.S. pipeline for media.
| Japanese pipeline | Classic U.S. pipeline |
|---|---|
| Many $50k–$3 m bets across formats before a $5–10 m cour is approved. | One $150–250 m feature + $150 m marketing up front; Disney self‑finances and carries 100 % downside. |
| Audience sees drafts in the wild (web chapters, serialized manga) and shapes them. | Audience meets the IP after five years of closed‑door production. |
| Failure is quick and cheap; the next Narō novel goes up tonight. | Development‑hell drag: Artemis Fowl was optioned in 2001, reached screens in 2020—19 years later. |
The US system seems so bizarre in comparison. A writer might toil in obscurity for years writing a manuscript and shopping around for an agent who then helps them find an editor to publish the story. The book is sold for an advance and the publisher takes an additional year or more to print and distribute it.
In the US there’s usually not a graphic adaptation. The best an author can hope for is to sell an option–the rights for a movie or TV show that kicks off an often multi-year process called “development hell.” And even after all that investment, the story might never get made into a movie or show.
Thankfully, the indie author movement has an opportunity to work with a more sane, iterative, and open process.