Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - The Anime-Binging Bugbear
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2559 Location: Online Terminal |
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A lot of what the streaming models tried to do was get around the structure of contracts with the various performing arts unions in the US (a 10-episode series pays differently than a 22-episode series, for example). The problem is that they eroded viewer interest and trust, but the damage has already been done and probably can't be repaired.
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mdo7
 Posts: 8226 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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When it comes to streaming in general whether it's Crunchyroll, Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max. I have a love-hate relationship with streaming, and I can list many reasons for my hate for streaming has increased in the last few years (which I'm not going to do unless some of you on this thread seriously asked me).
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omiya
 Posts: 1945 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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Whether watching streaming or physical releases, the OP is the "get ready for the episode" and the ED is the "reflect on the episode".
Judging by the official PV views on YouTube and crowd reactions at shows like Animelo Summer Live 2015 and 2016, Angela's songs for Knights of Sidonia were not filler material to be skipped. |
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garfield15
 Posts: 1557 |
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The column spoke to me directly this week. It's funny how when Netflix first started doing the binge model in the beginning for live-action shows, I was all for it. But I sobered up on that real fast when ti came to anime. The binge model for anime just isn't it and if there was any test study for that, it was the failure of Stone Ocean to not leave any impact when it came out because of that ridiculous release model. The community just isn't really built to discuss anime in short binge bursts. It is weekly because it keeps people talking and the more people talk the more others get interested and start wanting to support it.
Pluto. 100% Pluto is this for me. That show had years of buildup, people waiting anxiously for it, Urasawa was back, the trailer was so well-received. Then it came out, got praised by those who watched it and it disappeared a couple of weeks later. Nobody talks about it anymore. You mentioned how imagine if Dungon Meshi came out in a binge format and I agree. I'd say the same for any big anime. Imagine if Frieren was dumped or Oshi no Ko or Dandadan. Definitely wouldn't have become a phenomenon if it got dropped all at once. |
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DigiCom
Posts: 18 |
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It seems to me that a lot depends on the type of series, as well.
An episodic or arc-based show where multiple stories are going on lends itself more to a weekly model than something that's more like a miniseries, with one plot stretched out over the entire cour/season. In brief, I'd be more likely to binge something like Black Butler than My Hero Academia.[/i] |
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Rinhime
Posts: 5 |
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I've always been a fan of the weekly release model (20+ years of training on it certainly helps) but whether that is the best way to actually watch the show always just varies on the type of show. Like I've always enjoyed watching mysteries in batches, either 1 arc at a time or the whole thing depending on the type of show, since it helps me focus and remember the details of the show versus watching it and then watching/doing a bunch of other things and just forgetting about it. But dumping a whole show at once definitely hurts most shows in the "making the community remember it" aspect.
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pi8you
 Posts: 281 Location: Minneapolis |
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Apart from the flash-in-the-pan conversation around them, shows that get batch released (and that I'm not hyped for ahead of time) very much become another 'whenever I get to it' title on the backlog. I have a stack of shows I still haven't touched like Great Pretender or BNA, or others where I watched a few episodes and just haven't gone back like Bastard or Grimm's Suite.
If it's releasing weekly, even if it's not one I'm big on, I'm much more likely to stick it out as it drops. Very much in agreement on Ballpark, it's the coziest show of the season for me when served up weekly, but I would never even consider watching it as a binge. |
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 864 |
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I'm actually kinda okay with the skip intro button as long as it disappears after a few seconds and it becomes obvious that I'm gonna watch the OP/ED, because sometimes if I am watching a show in batches, I don't need to hear it every time. THAT SAID though, I cannot forgive it if they still have it come up when the sequence is deliberately different, like Witch Watch episode 3's. Or of course the always awful subtitling situation where sometimes they just decide to not translate text on screen in an OP (I'm thinking specifically of recently when I watched Konosuba season 1, where the episode title is specifically in the OP itself). But then, subtitling on-screen text seems to be wildly random across every streaming platform and it's crazy that in TYOOL 2025 fansubbers are still managing to outdo these multi-million dollar corporations (even the freakin' service dedicated to anime) on seemingly one of the easiest-to-fix problems in the world.
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Greed1914
 Posts: 5348 |
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Same here. I will find myself coming back to Crunchyroll each night because there is going to be a new episode of something I am watching during any given season. Netflix is full of good stuff that I mean to get to, but it doesn't feel like as much of a priority because a whole season is sitting there. Even my watch list on Crunchyoll has several things that they maybe went back and dropped a whole season dub at once, and it slides into the "when I have time" category. Logically, I know that nothing is requiring me to watch more than one episode at a time, but for some reason that just isn't what I end up doing. |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 5145 Location: New York |
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I think Netflix switching off to a weekly model for a lot of premiering shows has been a net positive for the conversations around them.
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Suxinn
 Posts: 258 |
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Eh, I guess I'm one of the few that isn't really bothered by the "dump all at once" model, since I rarely watch anime weekly nowadays. Instead, I usually wait for all of it to finish and then read reviews to see if it's good.
Honestly, I wish that I could go back in time and stop myself from watching some of the anime I did weekly, since I feel like I would've enjoyed them more as a binge watch. Bad anime episodes always seemed worse when you had to wait a week for the next one, and good anime episodes always feel better in context of the entire show. The really annoying thing about streaming for me is Netflix's hostility towards physical releases. There are so many Netflix originals (not just anime!) that I wish I could own physically, but that I doubt Netflix would ever bother. |
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Fluwm
Moderator
 Posts: 1624 |
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The biggest issue I have with the binge-model is that it really destroys our capacity to actually discuss the show, because the conversations about 'em never last all that long after all the episodes are dumped out. At least with the weekly model, things are spread out more.
I'm very much the same. Outside of a few standouts (like Apothecary or Gundam this season) I tend to let everyone *else* risk their time on shows that may or may not turn out to be worth all the investment. Or better yet, let time be my filter and just come back a few years later to see whatever shows managed to really stick in people's memory. An awful lot of each season's anime will ultimately wind up to be pretty forgettable. And, certainly, there's an enormous amount of older anime in my backlog to get around to, so I'm hardly starved for media -- anime could die tomorrow and I'd still have enough material to keep me satisfied, if not necessarily happy, for the rest of my life.
I don't really think you need to. The only real advantage of streaming is its convenience, and by this point we're all very familiar with all of the disadvantages. At which point I am now obligated, due to its tangential relevance, to remind everyone that Little Witch Academia is *still* in Netflix jail, with no physical release in sight -- not even in Japan. (And last I checked, PLUTO was also still lacking an overseas physical release, though there are BDs/DVDs in Japan, thank god.) |
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mdo7
Posts: 8226 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Well, there are some disadvantages that I can list that nobody has brought up, but as I said, I'm not going to derail this topic. |
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 864 |
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I mean, talk about it as long as you're not gonna write a 5 page manifesto about how we need to smash the state or something. I assume it'd probably be about how streamers/companies can just take down shows, seemingly at random, and basically banish them to the shadow realm never to be seen again, like how WB did with the Looney Tunes? Or about how they also frequently switch streaming platforms (again, seemingly at random). The death (or near-death) of physical media is probably one of the biggest screwups that we as a society stumbled our way into in the 21st century. |
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Lord Starfish
Posts: 185 |
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Okay that bolded part is just flatly incorrect. Japan did indeed get LWA on BD, both the OVAs and the show. https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Little-Academia-Blu-ray-production-Limited/dp/B01MT6BBAW iirc that show also was only ever in Netflix Jail internationally. Japan got weekly TV eps... and then the English-speaking world only got the first cour on Netflix after the full two cours had finished in Japan, with the second cour coming several months after that. I remember it being a prime example of "Why would I ever wait for the legal option here?" |
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