D. Gray Man question

[KougaHane]

for those of you who don't know I love D. Gray Man and I was wondering if anyone knows why there is no season 2 or anything like that in the works. Someone told me it was because Hoshino-san fell ill or hand hand problems and was forced to take a break, but I looked that up and that happened a couple of years ago.

[Atria35]

No, it's because the anime was made too early with too much filler to be really good- and the manga was only fairly popular in the beginning. It started out in Shounen Jump, but has since been downgraded to another magazine. It's been labeled a lot as an inferior shounen manga- while I really enjoy it, I can see the impression that the manga would make, as the characters do start out as fairly typical shounen stereotypes.... it's pretty much the situation that is decently unique for a shounen, and has a nice gothic feel to it.

[MasterDias]

Actually, given the amount of breaks Hoshino has taken, I don't think there is enough unanimated material that they wouldn't run into the same problem as the first series.

and the manga was only fairly popular in the beginning. It started out in Shounen Jump, but has since been downgraded to another magazine.

Downgraded? That implies it was a bad thing. Jump Square may not have the popularity it's weekly cousin does, but it's a respectable magazine that quite a few former weekly mangakas have migrated too, or done one-shots in, and it does run popular titles like Claymore and Tegami Bachi.
So, calling that a downgrade doesn't really make sense. Monthly manga has certain advantages.

[Atria35]

Actually, given the amount of breaks Hoshino has taken, I don't think there is enough unanimated material that they wouldn't run into the same problem as the first series.

Downgraded? That implies it was a bad thing. Jump Square may not have the popularity it's weekly cousin does, but it's a respectable magazine that quite a few former weekly mangakas have migrated too, or done one-shots in, and it does run popular titles like Claymore and Tegami Bachi.
So, calling that a downgrade doesn't really make sense. Monthly manga has certain advantages.

.... I think you also might be onto something with that break thing. The manga hasn't really gotten enough material for a finishing season.

But I do think that, while monthly manga does have it's advantages, it was a bit of a downgrade since it doesn't have as much exposure as Jump, and again, it was moved there because it just wasn't as popular as the other shows that do get 100+ episode series. So that also makes it far, FAR less likely to get a full, complete anime series.

[MasterDias]

Nah, it was moved due to all of Hoshino's breaks. If I remember correctly, D.Gray-Man was typically hovering around the middle of the TOC. That's not Naruto, but that's not bad either. Or, look at it this way. Jump's editors most likely moved it because they decided Hoshino couldn't keep up with a vigorous weekly release schedule. Jump wouldn't have done this for a series they considered unsuccessful. It would probably just get canceled. Also see: Shaman King.

I don't remember what the anime ratings were, but I don't think ratings issues were involved. They ran out of material to animate. It was popular enough to get 50+ more episodes, and that's after 20+ episodes of filler, so it can't have been doing that poorly. I wouldn't hold my breath on more episodes though. It is pretty rare for a long series like this to get more episodes years after they stopped, in any case.