Everything about Metaseries totally explained
A
metaseries includes series of stories which include references to each other and some overall similar chronological or cast backdrop, but are not similar enough to be considered direct
sequels.
In some
anime fandom, the term can be used to describe all the works and adaptations of a single overall story or franchise, especially when it should be implied each adaptation isn't wholly consistent with another. For example, progressive market interest can get a
manga made into a short
OVA, later made into a
television series (animated, live-action, or both), and then a movie. Long-running Japanese anime TV programs are divided into separate series instead of seasons, as Japanese television doesn't have the concept of 'seasons' that American television uses, so the term 'metaseries' can be applied to the entire collection of series that make up one program.
The series
Macross,
Transformers,
Cutie Honey,
Dragon Ball,
Sailor Moon, and
Tenchi Muyo! have been comics, multiple TV series, and movies, but they don't have a rigid single
continuity, though
Tenchi Muyo! does have continuity within the same form of media.
Mobile Suit Gundam is a television anime series that has spawned at least four continuation series and at least five alternate universe series, one of which has its
own continuation series. In addition, countless movies, manga, video games, novels, and various other works have been created based on this anime. They all share the common theme of giant robots used as weapons of war, and, for the most part, distinguish themselves by portraying giant robots with a degree of shared aestetic elements. However, there's no single continuity, although one series,
Turn A Gundam, attempted to reconcile the various alternate universes into a single rigid timeline, only for
Gundam SEED to come along and break that continuity some years later.
Pokémon is an anime series, a video game series, a manga series and a trading card game but none of them seem to have the same characters. In the anime
Ash travels with his friends
Brock and
Misty (later,
May then
Dawn, and for a time, alongside with May,
Max) collecting and battling Pokémon. In the video games, the player controls the silent main character, who collects and battles Pokémon and wins the local Pokémon League. The trading card game can be considered plotless.
In American comic books, the term metaseries is almost never used to refer to all interconnected series in a large
shared universe, such as the
DC universe or the
Marvel Universe (or, even more broadly, the crossovers between such universes). More often, the term metaseries (or, in some cases, "megaseries") is used to refer to a small group of interconnected
limited series, often by the same creators.
Jack Kirby's Fourth World and
Grant Morrison's
Seven Soldiers of Victory are two notable examples of this.
Notes and references
Further Information
Get more info on 'Metaseries'.
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