The MADHOUSE Curse: Why is Madhouse Never Making a Second Anime Season?

Even though I said in one of my previous posts that I'll never watch a Madhouse anime again...I did. And guess what. The anime again ends halfway, unfinished, with no second season in sight. Some people in the community call it the Madhouse course, but trust me, it actually doesn't have anything to do with  the studio, and here's all why:

Madhouse is the STUDIO, not the PRODUCER

Many of us (I do too), mainly look at the studio that made the anime, we don't care much about the producers, right? I mean, the studio is the one that kinda brings the idea, the story and the screenplay into life, but it is the production or even the author of the original material that decide whether an anime gets a second season or not. Anime studios are nothing but contractors that, once picked by the producer, are given the budget money for the anime and then they are free to start. 

Now that we know that it is the producer's responsibility for not making a second season, why are they not making one? Well, there are two main reasons: MONEY and MARKETING. 

The main reason for mass entertainment production has always been and will be, MONEY. Studios often make their money by splitting the Blu-ray and DVD profits with the distributor who's on the committee, like Madhouse does for instance with Pony Canyon. That also works with merchandisers too, if a PVC figure uses the anime design created by the studio. That still makes low income which is why studios mostly try to save money by hiring freelancers and working on multiple series in one season. Bigger studios like Sunrise and Kyoto Animation often have their representative in the production committee. In that way, they can invest their own money in a show, creating a bigger profit for themselves. 

That is the reason why many shows don't get a second season-they juts don't make enough profit. But what about shows like High School of the Dead and No Game No Life for example, they are both extremely popular shows? That is true, for the west. Both HSOTD and NGNL are extremely popular anime, but in Japan HSOTD was a total flop whereas NGNL did a bit better, but still didn't make enough money. Same thing happened to other Madhouse anime like Batooom! and Mahou Sensou. 

Now we come to MARKETING. True, producers expect to make money with anime, but that is not always the case. It actually happens quite often that anime is produced only to serve as marketing for manga, light and visual novels and games that the anime is based on. Even if the anime flops, just the news that it is being produced results in a huge media coverage and increased awareness of the original work. Simply put, anime is just the best way to increase the sales of the original work. And well, one season of an anime is mostly enough to do that. Many Madhouse anime ended that why such as Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei (light novel), Overlord (ligh novel) and Nejimaki Seirei Senki (light novel) but other anime studios actually do that to: Ao Haru Ride (manga, Production I.G.), Black Bullet (novel, Kinema Citrus), Code: Breaker (manga, Kinema Citrus), Deadman Wonderland (manga, Manglobe) and I'd like to add my favorite anime: Akatsuki no Yona (manga, Studio Pierrot).

To conclude all of this, it is not just Madhouse that's been cursed by the 'One-Season-Witch'. Many anime studios do that, but not because they don't want to, it is because the producers don't. And they on the other hand aren't making sequels because it either a) doesn't make a lot of money or b) serves just as marketing tool for the original work.