Cour is a term that is often thrown here and there by casuals and veteran anime fans alike. You may have heard of it, in anime forums or on the streaming sites. Unfortunately, there are plenty of misconceptions and misinformation surrounding the term. It seems like everyone has associated this term with any meaning they thought was sensible. So, we will be looking to educate the people with misconceptions and inform those who want to know all about the word and other terms associated with it like Split Cour or Single Cour.
Read More: What do Chan, San, and Kun mean in Japanese?
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
What’s the meaning of Cour in Anime?
Cour or ‘Kuuru’ in the Japanese language is a common term used by Japanese people associated with the television industry. It is believed that the word has its origins in French, where the literal meaning is akin to the word ‘course’ in English. Similar to a course in an educational semester it is associated with something happening over a specific period. In this case, the duration is three months and the something is an Anime season that is being aired.
Cour is a three-month period in which 10-14 episodes of anime are released. But before we move to the question of where exactly this term is used appropriately. It’s important that you also know all about what exactly are ‘seasons’ in anime as the two terms, season and cour are not interchangeable. Likewise, we will discuss how a cour is different than a season.
What is a Season in Anime?
The Japanese TV has four seasons of broadcast in a year, namely winter, spring, summer, and fall in this particular sequence. All broadcast seasons are equal in length and there are 4 every year, thus are also known as quarters. These are almost identical in length to a cour, and a single cour can be initiated over any of the aforementioned broadcast seasons, for example, the summer season.
But the confusion arises when we take into account the other meaning of the term season. Which is the kind that has episodes that air for more than three months, like in the case of AoT’s first season. Previously we were talking about the seasons of broadcast, but this is different as we are now talking about a season of a particular anime. I know that it’s confusing, but this is the most popular meaning associated with the term season, different from a broadcast season like summer or winter. It’s what we call a first or a second season.
The main takeaway should be that the word season can have different meanings in the context of a single anime like season one/two, or in the context of broadcasting at a specific time with a batch of other anime like Fall or Winter.
What’s the difference between an Anime season and a cour?
You can use the term cour when you want to be more specific. As we have discussed above the term season has two distinct popular meanings considering an anime or broadcast. The broadcast seasons and cour are the same, i.e they both refer to three months(quarters). Considering the meaning in the case of specific anime, a single season can have multiple Cours.
Perhaps, using the term cour is most helpful when you are specifically talking about how an anime was aired over the television. However, this does not concern most people, as almost all of the anime fans do not consume anime when it’s airing live, instead, we stream or download it. Although, it’s fairly beneficial when finding information on the anime season that is not fully aired.
It’s also helpful in dispelling the confusions associated with anime that have two-part seasons. People get confused, thinking, ‘aren’t those just two different seasons?’ (more information about this is given under the Split Cour heading). A great example of this is Shokugeki no Souma’s third season, which consists of a break in between the two parts of a single season that had two cours. The first part had twelve episodes initially released in the Fall season. And after that, the second season of the same length was released in the Spring season with a three-month/single-cour break in between.
Types of Seasons of an Anime concerning Cours:
Single Cour
This is the most common type of cour, in terms of anime released each year. Single cour anime are 10-14 episodes long which is also known as one cour long. Essentially anime titles are broadcasted over a single three-month quarter. Perfect to be watched over a weekend by more laid-back anime fans. Some examples/recommendations of some great one cour anime include Death Parade, Hinamatsuri, and Baccano.
Double Cour
As you may have guessed from the name, Double Cour anime have two cours. Which are a set of 24-26 episodes that are continuously aired throughout two broadcast seasons or half a year. Jujutsu Kaisen was a phenomenal double cour anime that kept fans hyped for 6 months straight.
Triple Cour
The anime seasons strictly following the triple cour broadcast format are quite rare. So, much so that the triple cour is not even an official word or anything, but there are few of them nonetheless. Mostly, the 33-40 episodes are not aired continuously to make them classified under this category. The season has breaks between the cours, however, it is still considered a single season with multiple parts. More information about this is covered under the next heading.
Split Cour
This is the one that confuses most people. Although, that’s pretty understandable since Split Cour has most variations. Additionally, these kinds of anime seasons are fairly new as the first one was conceived in just 2011. Moreover, in the past couple of years, we have seen a good chunk of the most popular anime adopting this format.
An anime season with two parts is called a Split Cour season. Where the first cour is aired then there is a break and the next part is released after skipping over one or two broadcast seasons. It’s generally accepted that a gap of more than 2 or maybe 3 quarters between the cours means that it’s a separate season and not a continuation of the same one. And if the break is less than that, it’s a two-part season, that has two cours.
There is also another kind of Split Cour season that has three cours. As we know, most of the three cour anime are split across different broadcast seasons. So, these anime have three parts of 1 cour each. Or sometimes two parts with two by one split between the three cours that are aired with breaks in between them. Durarara!’s second season was a three cour season aired for 5 cours (two cour breaks in between).
Four Cour
Finally, we come to the most exclusive kind of broadcast reserved for only the most popular of anime. Since the year consists of four cours, these anime are aired all year round every week. The length is around 50-54 episodes a year. But that’s only because 54 is the maximum number of weeks a year can contain. As it is entirely normal for an Anime to be broadcasted for multiple years straight like in the case of the big three. A more recent example is Black Clover that had 170 episodes.
Final Verdict
Let’s wrap this up, cour is a word that is a part of Japanese Television lingo. Additionally, a cour is a 12-14 block of anime episodes that are produced and broadcasted together. A single cour last for three months. These come in five different types, namely, single, double, triple, four, and split. Cour is different from a season of anime, as one season of a particular anime can have many cours. But a single cour can not be divided into multiple seasons. If there are anime that have fewer episodes than 10, these are generally not full-season anime. Instead, it’s most probably an ONA or OVA.
