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Even though the first chapter of Dan Da Dan got people talking about turning it into anime, it takes a lot more than that to make a whole season of a show. Not only do you need to make sure the story has got legs but you need more material to adapt if you don’t want to run the risk of overtaking the source material. But how much manga does it take to fill a season of anime? We asked around and found out.

“To produce a single cour of anime, I think you typically need about four to five volumes of the original manga,” Hiroshi Kamei told us when we spoke to him about working as a producer on the Dan Da Dan anime. That would be around 40 to 50 chapters - depending on their length - of manga for each season of anime. Quick note for those who don't know: “cour” is how Japanese television describes its seasons, which usually run for 12 or 13 episodes at a time.

However, it isn’t enough for a manga to be popular or to have enough material to adapt. Hiroshi also explained that one of the key things he looks for when adapting a manga is making sure animation can add something to it. “I read the original work while thinking about what kind of adaptation would be ideal and what additional charm could be brought out through animation. It’s important to understand the core essence emphasized in the original manga while ensuring that the anime adaptation provides viewers with positive surprises.”

Some of that “additional charm” might be extending scenes from the manga, such as what Dan Da Dan did with Acro-Silky’s backstory in episode seven. Sometimes a shot-for-shot recreation is warranted, but anime is at its best when it brings something new to the table and changes how we view the source material.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• Why the finales of My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, and One Piece feel like the end of an era in manga
• Why is One Piece more popular now that the anime is 25 years old? We asked around and found out
• Dan Da Dan is weird, profoundly inappropriate, and the perfect anime this season
• Why One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy is the perfect anime hero for the dark times ahead
• 40 years after its debut, Dragon Ball is a pop culture force like few others
• Dan Da Dan's most emotionally devastating sequence proves that sometimes words aren't necessary
• Gnosia, the "Among Us meets Everything Everywhere All at Once" visual novel is getting an anime adaptation that needs to be as weird as possible
• Assassination Classroom is a Shonen anime well worth revisiting, ten years on
• Sony is making big moves to own the anime industry by buying Kadokawa, publisher of Oshi no Ko, Sword Art Online, and Konosuba