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Answerman - How Do You Keep Up With So Much Anime?


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Valhern



Joined: 19 Jan 2015
Posts: 916
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:15 pm Reply with quote
Well I usually watch anime weekly, and what I do is check the charts and type down the days the anime I'm watching come out, I prefer having most anime split in two days (usually friday and saturday) and having sunday free, and all other days free or with no more than one show to watch, so I can watch something else those days, that gives me a schedule and a rhytm.

As for what I choose, besides second seasons, I'm a titlte-type of watcher, I usually go for interesting-sounding titles, and just after that, the designs of the promotinal art, and then the premise, the premise is not particularly reliable, since at this point it's easier for me to understand where will the anime go, more or less.

I don't watch more than 10 or 11 anime a season, sometimes I watch less, because I drope one or two along the line.
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Greggo



Joined: 06 May 2006
Posts: 35
Location: Charlotte, NC
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:17 pm Reply with quote
I'm at conventions more or less every other weekend, so I'm almost always flying home on Sunday or Monday. The next day is my "day off" as it were, so that's where I catch up on the latest episode of what's usually the two or three shows I follow each season (although this past season that was more like six or seven). I catch up on my regular television when I can't work on things (when video is rendering on the PC for example).

This season looks like an off-season for me, so I'll likely switch to binge mode on my day off. There are a couple things I didn't watch (Mob Psycho 100, 91 Days) and some new things over from the Funi/Crunchy marriage, so I'll probably tackle about 1/3 of a cour each week until I've seen everything I missed the first time around.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5400
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:33 pm Reply with quote
My secret is to NOT try to keep with all the new anime that debuts every season. I try to only watch staff that is going to capture my attention for the majority of the season. It is true that 40+ new shows starts airing each season, but to me at most 20 are worth a try, the rest is very forgettable crap or dumb kids shows.

I keep up with new shows, but I usually only watch around 10 shows per season.
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chito895



Joined: 22 Jan 2015
Posts: 512
Location: Lima, Peru
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:35 pm Reply with quote
Every time a new anime season is about to start, I looked through the seasonal AniChart to see if there are any new titles that catch my attention. Once it starts, I tend to rely on the Preview Guide ANN reviewers make and usually give a try to the ones that get a 3 or 5.

If there's a show that I didn't consider before but got a lot of reactions around it once it started, I give it a try as well, at least to know what's all the fuss about (that happened with Rakudai and The Asterisk War a couple of seasons before).

By doing it, I tend to end up watching 3 or 5 shows. Sometimes I drop them after 5 episodes and sometimes I catch up with a very popular show several weeks later (I'm planning to do this with Twin Star Exorcists).
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DmonHiro





PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:40 pm Reply with quote
OK, so here's how I do it. A little background on me: I'm a 30 year old anime fan. I've been watching anime for about 15 years now. When a new season comes up, I have a very simple yet effective method, in simple steps:

1a. Get list of all new shows starting this season. I recommend Neregata.
OR
1b. Get a text list of all new shows starting this season.
2. Remove/cross out any shows that I have absolutely no interest in. For me that means all kodomo/shounen ai/sports/historical anime. Why not cross out reverse harems as well? Because sometimes those are good comedies.
3. Watch one (but ONLY one) episode of each remaning series. It's really important to watch just one episode if you don't have time to watch a lot of anime.
4. Remove from the list anything that doesn't even remotely catch your interest with its first episode.
5. Separate the remaining shows into two groups: watch weekily and watch at the end of the season. If you only watch weekly or only binge, then skip this step. How to separate? Well, that's different for each person. For me, I want to watch weekly the shows that you can have a good forum thread about the next week. Stuff like Re:Zero, Mob 100... things that tend to be spoiled really quickly. More episodic shows can be watched at the end of a season, but some people preffer to unwind with them weekly.
6. Immediately drop shows that lose your interest. It's utterly meaningless to continue watching something you do not enjoy.

This nets me about 15-20 shows to watch each season. Out of those, about 3-5 will end up dissapointing.
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Brand



Joined: 30 Jan 2006
Posts: 1028
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:45 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, I also like to look at a seasonal chart (I just use the MAL one at this point) see if there anything that vaguely interests me at this point. I'll be pretty picky at this point. So, something like a show from a director I love, or a manga I really liked, would be chosen here. Then when ANN does the season previews, I'll check those out and see if anything else catches my interests.

Sometimes, I'll pick stuff up later. I missed the boat on Your Lie in April but people kept mentioning it so much on message boards I picked it up. Or I ended up watching all of Re: Zero this month because we started it in anime club and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:45 pm Reply with quote
Justin wrote:
If it's any consolation, there are industry rumblings that the tide will start to turn soon, and anime production might slow down to a more reasonable level. But those are just rumblings right now.

It is a strange state of affairs, is it not, for an anime fan to suggest to his fellow aficionados that fewer anime are going to be made, and for this to be presented as something positive. I recently wondered if it would be feasible for anime studios to reduce the sheer number of series they produce for the sake of their artistry, within the constraints of economic elasticity. Perhaps we shall find out.
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Videogamep



Joined: 10 Jun 2014
Posts: 564
Location: CA
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:50 pm Reply with quote
I mostly don't keep up with everything. I'll usually watch at most 4 or 5 shows each season, depending on what interests me, and wait on the rest. There's always a few shows I decide to wait on and get back to also. As for stuff that's already aired, I usually look up anything that sounds remotely interesting and put it on my list if it has a reasonably good reputation. I'd also advise keeping an eye out for shows that fell through the cracks like From the New World since there are a lot of good shows out there that don't get noticed for whatever reason.
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Anime World Order



Joined: 05 May 2006
Posts: 389
Location: Florida
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:00 pm Reply with quote
To repeat the most important piece of advice: do not even begin to attempt to "keep up" with so much anime; there are too many shows coming out every few months, and of those shows only a handful are good from the beginning and even fewer remain good by the end. My advice to whomever wrote in is "see what people are still favorably talking about or remembering the existence of once it's ended," since as mentioned in my Anime 1986 feature, that significantly cuts down on the number of potential titles. Since the question writer missed much of the last decade, they might want to check my "2000s/10s" in review summaries here and here. There's a lot of good stuff that came out while you were gone, and thanks to the legal streaming services you can still watch a great deal of them, often free of charge at that.

Ah, but suppose you wish to remain current for the sake of socialization, or you feel there's a possibility that there's a forgotten gem which others aren't talking about that deserves more attention than the general fan base seems to have given it. In that case, do what I do when it comes to new anime seasons:

You ever heard the saying "don't judge a book by its cover"? DISREGARD THAT. You are so, SO going to judge anime "by its cover."

Go to one of those websites people make consisting of image charts for every new anime title airing for each given season. http://anichart.net/ is one such example. Use those promotional images and short blurbs to decide what you'll give a shot and what you don't even need to bother watching a single episode of! The resulting list of potential titles per season to follow will decrease dramatically. If you're understandably concerned that something you dismissed out of hand for such seemingly shallow reasons will turn out to be great...worry not! Because if an anime you didn't even start watching turns out to be THAT good, you'll hear about it!
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Heishi



Joined: 06 Mar 2016
Posts: 1311
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:08 pm Reply with quote
So much anime...
So little time...


But in all seriousness, I try to keep up but there also alot of past shows that I want to see but never really gotten to for some reason, like Serial Experiments Lain and Haruhi.
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Kruszer



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 7978
Location: Minnesota, USA
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:11 pm Reply with quote
I don't try to watch everything. I just pick the 5-10 titles that sound interesting each season and ignore the rest. First because most of the season isn't worth watching anyway and second because it would be impossible for me to keep with 30-35 shows each season.
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ultimatehaki



Joined: 27 Oct 2012
Posts: 1090
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:12 pm Reply with quote
Here's the tried and true method. After looking through the preview list and picking shows you might think is good, remain apathetic and hate everything that way if a show manages to impress you in the first 1 or 2 episodes in that state you know you struck gold.

Seriously
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ABtheOtaku



Joined: 02 Sep 2016
Posts: 3
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:17 pm Reply with quote
I still a high school student so I have more time than most adults but, since the start of this year time has gone down to the point where I can just barely keep up with about 20 shows with a generous amount of them being shorts by just keeping track of everything I have watched for the week and binging the ones I haven't at once which does tend to make the less impressive anime kind of mix together but then I get a better I idea of what to drop. At the start of the season, I watch every single show that doesn't immediately sound horrible then I go with the three episode rule for most except the most cringe-worthy animes then go from there steadily dropping ones that seem horrible and pick up shows by keeping and eye on the chatter if the shows I have previously dropped gained some traction. This normally results in me finishing about 15 half season (12 ep) shows and 5-6 short animes at the end of the season reasonably satisfied. Of course, this method will only work for someone like me if the amount of free time with about 2-3 hours a day for purely anime so anyone with a job and possible children can't do this until you keep a tight schedule which doesn't really seem fun but yeah. looking at the coming season not too many gems just yet other than possibly good sequels which might let you catch up on the ones you missed.
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Spike Terra
Subscriber



Joined: 21 Mar 2016
Posts: 358
Location: Maryland
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:18 pm Reply with quote
I'm a single 27 year old with a full time job and I end up watching a unhealthy amount of shows each season. When I was working part-time/going to school, I would end up watching 23-32 shows a season. As soon as I got my current job, I learned to drop shows that didn't interest me, but I still end up watching between 16 to 24 shows a season. To make things worse, I occasionally start watching at least 3 older shows each season and I meet up on weekends with friends to watch at least one cour of anime in a single sitting. So I'm not the best example to follow but what I try to do to better manage my time is to limit my watching time to like two hours a day.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



Joined: 20 Apr 2009
Posts: 3524
Location: Bellevue, WA
PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:32 pm Reply with quote
Like most folks, I read the blurbs in the list of upcoming anime and see if any of them catch my fancy. This alone usually cuts down my list to about 3-5 titles, sometimes more, sometimes less. Then, when the season starts, I'll watch the strong candidates right away, but the rest I'll wait and track what the reviewers have to say about them (and I have a reasonably good idea of what sort of shows many of the reviewers like/don't like), and then what other posters have to say. If a show ends up being really popular, I *may* end up watching it, depending on the genre (some things I *know* I'm not going to like, no matter how well others receive it). But depending on the exact sort of buzz it's getting, I might even try something I'm pretty sure I won't like, just to make sure, because anime can be strange and unpredictable.

These days, I don't watch many new shows each season, as I mentioned above, and I've probably seen most of the backlog titles that would interest me, so I probably spend a good chunk of time re-watching stuff I've already seen (and often, already own). I'm not tired of anime yet, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot coming out these days that interests me, which means it's pretty easy for me to keep up with it.


Last edited by Tuor_of_Gondolin on Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:37 pm; edited 1 time in total
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