Forum - View topicDropper's Remorse (Ballad of the Indecisive).
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23773 |
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Buyer's remorse, of course, is when we buy something and then end up regretting the decision. Like getting Samsung's Galaxy 7, for example.
Dropper's remorse - a phrase I invented and demand royalties for if you use it - is when you drop an anime title and then at some point change your mind and pick it back up again. Does this ever happen to you? Or are you the steely resolve type who, once a decision it's made, is final, never, ever to be revisited even upon pain of death? This current season I had dropped both Flip Flappers and Brave Witches after two episodes. However, the decision niggled at me and I decided to give both a second chance. I think I am probably in the long haul for both. I had also dropped March comes in like a lion after about 10 minutes of the first episode, but changed my mind and am very happy I did. Such decisions do not always turn out happily. In the Spring, I dropped Cerebus then brought it back and stuck it out, but I can't say that was the best use of my time. Ditto for both Ange Vierge and Qualidea Code from Summer. I think Dropper's Remorse is more likely to happen to a viewer like me who samples widely at the beginning of each new season. It's not unusual for me to check out 30+ shows. Of those, usually a third will get dropped at some point and of THOSE a few usually creep back in. I know some of you are very selective, do your research and only check out a few titles that you have reason to believe will hit your sweet spot. So what are your experiences with Dropper's remorse? Ever experience it? Ever drop something, pick it back up and been very happy you did so? Very sad you did so? |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9841 Location: Virginia |
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Blood- Wrote:
None, No, Yes, No. How is that ? I can't say I've ever felt any remorse for dropping a show in streaming since in the short term they are not going anywhere. Basically, my approach to a new season is nowhere near as structured as yours is. When a new season starts, I look at the information available here on ANN with emphasis on the general story direction and type of show. I also consider the available artwork. When the shows start to show up on Crunchyroll, I watch those that seem interesting. I usually start with five to eight shows and end up completing two or three. I usually don't formally drop a show, I just stop watching or think I will try it again later. In some cases I will intentionally stop watching with the intent to pick it up when it is offered on disk. That would be usually supernatural adventure shows. I have stopped watching some shows and picked them up at the end of the season in a marathon and been glad I did. This happened with both Strike the Blood (heh) and The Irregular at Magic High School. I can think of only one show I was sorry I completed (Popotan) and that was on disk before streaming was a thing. I kept thinking that the show had to have some point or that it would lead to some conclusion but it never did. |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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It has not happened to me recently but in the past I dropped Daphne in the Brilliant Blue and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya after an episode or two because I did not like the main characters.
I tried both of them again because of recommendations from people in other forums and I am very glad that I did. Both of the shows and both of the characters that I did not like became favorites. I also dropped and picked up again Elfin Lied, twice, but still never made it past episode four. I now consider it to be permanently dropped. |
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lesterf1020
 Subscriber Posts: 292 Location: Trinidad and Tobago |
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Droppers Remorse ™ used to happen to me a lot a few years after I became an anime fan and I was still fine tuning my tastes. Now it happens rarely. It normally only happens when a show is actually quite good but not my thing. I will drop it and then some time later the fans will swear it has gotten awesome. I will then pick it back up only to find while it is better it is still not my thing.
The last time I had a real case of Droppers Remorse ™ was Qualidea Code. Production values are not a deal breaker for me and the show was better than I thought. The last time I had a case of Droppers Remorse ™ and then ended up spending a lot of money buying the show was Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East. I dropped it twice and then later watched it anyway and realized I had seriously misunderstood the show and was thus evaluating it with the wrong criteria. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Perhaps I am simply fortunate—I always seem to remain at peace with the series I have abandoned over the years. Plentiful praise continues to fall upon the likes of Kurau: Phantom Memory or Planetes, to name but two, yet so much as a kernel of regret fails to bud when I remember my decisions to invest my time elsewhere. Often I can be almost indifferent to the details of plot or characterisation when an anime's aspects of tone or of audiovisual design fail to endear, and my decision to drop comes almost as naturally as a passenger's choice to alight a train at one station rather than another. Compared to the series one never starts, in which the question of what it's like can never be addressed prior to sampling, one always has a certain conception of what it was, more or less, that one forewent after dropping a series in medias res. Maybe that is why I feel so comfortable. |
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Cam0
 Posts: 4888 |
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It happens quite a lot to me. I always start watching a show with the intention to watch it all the way. I don't really "sample" shows. The process of dropping a show is a long one for me, usually. For me a feeling lingers for weeks, even months: "Oh, I'll still watch it, one day", but I'll just never go back to the show. I'll like wait for the right opportunity or feeling that just never comes.
Sometimes I'll even stop watching shows that I mostly liked. It just happens. I constantly feel like "I'm gonna watch that episode, just... just not now." I stopped watching Eureka 7 after 40ish episodes for some reason. The show was reaching climax, final battle was getting close and then just for some odd reason I never watched another episode. I actually liked the show too, to an extent. Something just sucked away my desire to watch that show. Same thing has happened with a few other shows. Those shows forever exist in the back of my mind and I feel like I wanna watch them someday. I'm just waiting for that sudden, miraculous urge to watch them. I originally dropped the 2nd season of Gundam 00 around halfway through for some reason, but actually went back a few years later to rewatch the whole thing and found myself really liking it. Gurren Lagann is a weird thing as halfway through I was suddenly struck by a massive urge to rewatch Toradora. After rewatching Toradora in a miraculous god-given mindset, I never went back to finish Gurren Lagann. It has probably been like 5 years since then, but I swear I'll rewatch Gurren Lagann, someday. Probably. Hopefully. Of course there are shows that I have dropped simply because I didn't find myself enjoying them. With those I try to make a solid effort to like them, at least for shows that have gotten praise. I smash my head against a brickwall trying to force myself to like the show. There's a quiet voice in my head telling me I should give up because you can't like everything, but somehow I just can't help but feel regret for not liking a show. I wanna be entertained. So just enjoy the show stupid brain! This weird mentality of trying to force myself to like a show has started to diminish over the years, but it's still there. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23773 |
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What's interesting to me is the difference between considering something officially Dropped as opposed to it being on indefinite hiatus. Oddly enough, some of my Indefinite Hiatus shows have been cited here: Gurren Lagann and Kurau: Phantom Memory. I really do plan to finish them, some day.
When I Drop a series it is with the intent of never giving it a second chance. I have a bunch of shows I started and like Cam0 never got around to finishing. The drag thing with some of them is that there is has been such a long period since going on hiatus that I'm going to feel compelled to go back and rewatch episodes I've already seen to get back up to speed. And then, with some of the titles I own, I have forgotten how far I got, so I'll have to check episodes to find out where I left off if I don't feel like going back to the beginning. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9841 Location: Virginia |
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You would bring that up. A substantial portion of my anime on disk is on "indefinite hiatus". However, if it has been more than a few weeks since I last worked on watching the show, I will always start from the beginning. In some cases this means I've watched the first five or ten episodes several times and can't seem to get further. Gasraki would be an example of that.
There are, however, some shows that move from "indefinite hiatus" to "not going to try that again". Almost always these are shows where I passed on them initially and then let the general buzz convince me that I had to get them. In this category I include Gurren Lagen, Panty and Stocking and Madoka Magica. @Cam0 I share with you the problem of enjoying a show and finding it impossible to complete it. Some times I can be within a couple of episodes of the finish and just quit. I usually get back to those eventually. I will admit I'm not a very disciplined watcher of anime. However, it is entertainment and not a job. I can't think of any quicker way of burning out that to force yourself to watch shows you don't enjoy. |
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getchman
Space Cowboy Posts: 9120 Location: Bedford, NH |
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Lets see, several years ago when Bakemonogatari was the only monogatari, I tried the first episode, and then stopped. bored me to tears. Then when I heard that Nise was going to happen, I thought I'd give Bake another try. I'm glad I did, I really liked it.
More recently, I stuck with Endride to the halfway point, and then stopped, with the intention of finishing it at a later date once Funi finished their broadcast dub. I still have interest, but it wasn't enough to continue the simulcast, and I think watching in English might be easier for me I have a hard time dropping shows. I like just about every genre anime has to offer, which generally means I watch a lot every season. I'm also optimistic, and will give a show more chances than I really should, and by the time I realize this isn't going to get any better, the show is half over. So at that point I've already gone that far, so why stop now. I should have dropped Big Order, Divine Gate, Sky Wizards, Triage X, and a large majority of magical harem light novel adaptations you find every season. this season, I started with 32 new shows and 12 shorts, with 4 carryovers. altogether, that's a new record for me. However, I've done something I rarely ever do, I've dropped two shows. Touken Ranbu after ep 3 and Occultic;nine after ep 4. Might finish the first one once it's simuldubbed, but there is no way i'm ever going back to O;N |
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5505 Location: Mexico |
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I don't have many memorable experiences. Last year I had decided to drop Beautiful Bones, but I read good reviews of the immediately next episode, so I picked it back up, gave it two more weeks and ended dropping it again, that was the end of it. I've also been tempted to give Sound Euphonium and BBK/BRNK another shot, but I've managed not to cave just yet.
Now, rather than from remorse, it once happened that I dropped Guilty Crown halfway through when it was airing after spoiler[the only character I liked |
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Zin5ki
Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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From the New World is an exceptional case out of the series I have dropped. Having heard it being hailed as a masterpiece of the current decade, I made an effort to watch the first half-dozen episodes until the first major plot event occurred. Thereafter I decided to leave things at that. Nobody can fault it for the concepts it covers; the show is commendable for everything it says about liberty, conformation, sexuality and many other things. But it is so cold and heartless! The world in which it occurs is amongst the most hopeless I have seen in anime, its characters seemingly being doomed to be receptacles of otherworldly cruelty. Had the themes of interpersonal bonding been embraced rather than subverted in the early episodes, or had there been a place in its world for small but life-affirming pleasures to be dwelled upon and celebrated, then I may have found some emotional foothold in this series. What I watched was instead a sheer drop; precipitous and deep in equal measure, but quite unaccommodating all the same. |
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Cam0
Posts: 4888 |
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I guess I'm a bit like getchman in that I wanna give shows a proper chance. Then I find myself having seen over half of the show so at that point I feel like I should just finish it. It's weird that I sometimes manage to finish shows that I mostly found kinda meh and then other times find myself incapable of finishing a show that I liked, to some extent anyway. I just have some sort of weird fluctuating mentality. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23773 |
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I too suffer from the Point of No Return Syndrome. When you've gone more than half way with a series, you're not digging it, but you are closer to the end than you are the beginning so you just soldier on. I'm ashamed to admit that part of my motivation for this is that I keep track of all titles that I watch to completion and sometimes I think, yeah, not grooving on this, but at least its another title to add to the "Seen All" list.
The one exception to the PoNRS I've had was with Scarlett Ammo. I wasn't really liking it and suddenly at some point during episode 10, I believe, I just said eff it and stopped, even though it was a one cours. Oddly enough, I checked out its spin off series and kind of liked it - enough to watch the whole thing, anyway. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9841 Location: Virginia |
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Most of the time when I drop a show it will be in the first few episodes. I have a pretty good idea what I like and don't like. The "tone" of a show, the characters and the direction the show is going is usually obvious very early on.
Those shows that I've watched more than half way but didn't finish have all been shows that I was enjoying. They are not dropped, just on hiatus. I have no idea why I don't finish them, I just got out of the mood I guess. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23773 |
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A sub-themelet to this thread just occurred to me as a result of a personal experience. I watched and enjoyed the first season of Sound! Euphonium. I was happy to learn it would get a second season. Then, literally 2 minutes into the first episode of the seocnd season, I suddenly decided, out of the blue, I actually had no interest in more. I retroactively realized that I was "full." The first season of Sound! gave me all I wanted from that story. I have no interest in watching another round of practising like mad to get to, whatever.
Ever do that? Enjoy a first season but then not decide to pursue future helpings? |
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