This article in pictures
Anime compression, it’s a process of shortening an anime program that last for 20-24 without commercials into 15-20 minutes at minimum to put more spaces for ads not related to the show… such as laundry soap or soap opera commercials. Unlike abridging whose purpose is to shorten the anime program while keeping the theme and putting some pop culture references for the sake of fun, compression is about placing as many episodes as possible and air it on one episode.
The only way for you to watch the extracted version is if the company releases official DVD’s or re-air the title on their sister station. Here is the brief history about it. In case you want to add something in here, just post your comment.
Its roots can be traced sometime in the early Y2K decade in which some titles such as Yu Yu Hakusho had its opening and ending credits shortened within 30 seconds. I was happy back then since I want to see more action and not listen to the Japanese OP and ED. It was the practice on most anime titles that aired. Until Pokemon Master Quest came into picture.
The first episode of the said Pokemon season, an episode that was suppose to air just for one day aired for two days. The reason for the delay, 15 minutes of advertisements and 15 minutes worth of the show. This was the practice on Pokemon until they decided to eliminate the OP sequence and ED sequence. But still, it doesn’t satisfy their standards!
Pokemon was just the experimental stage, same with the other new titles that aired on the said station. The one who perfected it was their rival… yes they perfected it.
If you haven’t watched the original Japanese airing of Katekyo Hitman Reborn, you will not notice the amount of cuts they made for them to fit two episodes of KHR in one sitting. It was clean single episode if you are a mindless 4 or 7 year old kid who watched it but if you are an otaku, you’ll easily notice it. This later happened on Eyeshield 21 and Naruto Shippuden with Naruto, based on the comments found in the internet had 3 episodes aired in a 30-minute timeslot!
About their rival? They were able to air four anime titles in a one-hour timeslot, namely, from 9:30-10:30am.
This is not an accurate history since I only based it on my personal experience while watching anime on free TV.
Sure, there is cable but not all people can afford cable. Sure, there is the net but it is illegal unless you watch it on Crunchyroll but not all people can afford to rent a PC for 3-5 hours just to watch all the episodes that the TV station compressed in one sitting. Why I still and most people watch anime on free TV?
The reason why still people who have watched the anime that aired on TV even if they got the chance to watch it back then it is because they are supporting the official release. Since they know what they are doing is a form of piracy which steals the efforts the animators did and they watched it on the wrong place, namely not on their TV with ads streaming after an eye catch. In addition, they also knew that there are no plans on releasing the official DVDs which is another way on supporting the title.
I know that advertisements are the blood that runs the TV station but do not let the number of ads suffer the quality of programming you will give to your audience. To be honest, it felt like the big guns are cheating on their consumers. I mean, these people in the eyes of almost everyone are credible in airing high quality programming! Why don’t you give this kind of quality to your anime audience that still supports you even if they know that they are cheated with their time because they get less of what is suppose to be more.