Way. Too. Much.
If I had to characterize one thing about this fall-winter wave of anime it would be simply one thing:
There are way too many above-average but below-awesome shows that I don’t want to follow but I don’t want to drop.
Kind of like this guy, but probably worse. It’s hard work to hop, step and jump.
After you’ve been watching anime for a while you start to notice a few things. One of them is that it’s hard to watch and follow a lot of anime and still keep a level head. And when I say “a lot” I mean, a lot. Massive amounts. Like 50% or more of the shows being aired at any given time, plus the OAV/movies that trickle out on a regular basis.
A lot of anime out there is relatively terrible. I’m not saying this on an objective sense. It’s just that a lot of anime out there has low entertainment value to any one person. Now what is bad is subjective, of course, but it’s hard to find someone who enjoys even 50% of the shows every given season, simply because the diversification of anime as a medium has made shows increasingly and narrowly focused. That focus alienates a lot of people, even if overall it can improve the work in the specific. (And of course, make it very appealing for its target audience.) For example, people cry about cookie-cutter harems all the time, so one way to make a more palatable harem show is to make it a tongue-in-cheek parody. But unless you’ve had more than a few harem shows under your belt that parody is going to shoot over your head.
Another thing you might realize after following a lot of anime for a while is that your level of acceptable quality for shows to follow has started to drop. Or maybe these people don’t have much of a taste and are voracious. Actually I’m thinking people who do and can enjoy (or put up with) watching a lot of anime probably have a diverse set of tastes. And it’s something that you get better at the more you do. People who have no taste will probably get driven insane by the amount of mediocre crap out there some of the steadfast folks (like this guy) had to wade through.
I guess all that is to say that, yeah, I watch a lot of crappy anime and I can’t help myself.
Maybe the vocal minority bias (LOL BLOGGERS LOL) effect is at work here? Lots of bloggers whine unnecessarily about lots of things–because, y’know, they’re being forced to watch the shows–but what about your average fan? Do they even care about things like “genre” to begin with? Or do they just go with what works for them, casting aside all possible bias?
Having said that, I’m definitely an average fan when it comes to consumption. Casshern Sins, ef melodies, Ga Rei -Zero-, Kannagi, Kuroshitsuji, Gundam 00 S2, One Outs, R+V2, Skip Beat, Index, Toradora, and Tytania are all good in their own way, and have entertained me immensely. I couldn’t drop any of them even if I wanted to (Kurozuka is a different story, and Hyakko is slow on the subs).
Or maybe I’ve a different set of tastebuds for each show so it doesn’t get under my skin and set me into a debilitating RAEG like some are known to do. sux2ballofu, in any case. I’m glad I’m not a one-genre man. All hail diversity.
50% is quite a feat. I’d say 10 per season is heavy (or 50/year). In the context of seasons it is crazy hard because it takes squishing 6 hours/wk somewhere. I guess it’s not that much, but when busy 6 hours is a lot of time.
When it comes down to it, 2008 is looking like I’ll be hoping for improvements in 2009. So yea, sort of mediocre. (edit: but enjoyable) Luckily, not ever series is objectively a 9/10.
@Owen S, genre lol. Yea I think, most anime bloggers have an 80 % spread, where they will enjoy a solid series in 8 genres, but dislike the two 2 other solid series, simply via the genre. I don’t think that’s something found in other media, say music (not everyone likes every genre, I’d say the average music fan likes 20% or less of the various genre).
Owen: most bloggers out there do not qualify my “a lot” filter. Or even the “for a while” filter. Very few qualifies both. In fact I have a hard time thinking of even more than one of them that’s still actively blogging now.
As to casual fans, I think it’s worse for them because they do not have that wide taste palette that some hardcore fans have, so they have to rely even more on judging-book-by-the-cover, knee-jerk reactions and genre pigeonholes to help them select what to watch next. Everything is getting so hit-and-miss these days.
Maybe “casual” is pretty hardcore now? I looked at your list of shows and it seems like a typical array of stuff. You should be happy you’re even watching 10 shows this season. That’s a heavy load, like what Ryan said.
There’s more like 40 shows on the air right now. 10 is about half of what’s aimed at late night otaku. So we can toss in some clock shows like Naruto or One Piece, plus whatever to hit 15 or 20 or whatever the real 50% number is.
>I guess all that is to say that, yeah, I watch a lot of crappy anime and I can’t help myself.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one…
I thought I was the only one running into the same problem. There’s a huge pile of shows this season that I’m following and I enjoy enough that I’m not about to drop them, but they’re also not that good - in fact, despite the glut of titles, there’s really only three or four which are undeniably good.
I suspect eventually what’s going to happen is what happens to me just about every season. I basically stop watching most shows regularly and instead go back and raid older seasons for stuff I haven’t finished. Meanwhile I let piles of episodes from current shows stack up and then watch them in big chunks. And anything I don’t finish gets tucked away fro subsequent seasons where I end up doing the same thing.
I’ve been bitching about this for over two years, and yet I still can’t cut back on how much I watch. Sigh.
One man’s crappy anime is another man’s awesome classic anime ;)
10 shows a season? These days it’d be impressive if I finished watching 10 shows a year, but that’s mostly because of time constraints rather than quality issues. Plus I’m still moving along slowly with older stuff (Patlabor), & I don’t have the need to watch what everyone else is watching now - I can always come back to it later.
I’d like to think I’ve gone from being ‘a little hardcore’ to falling into the ‘casual’ sort of viewing mode in recent years. If an anime doesn’t strike me as ‘awesome’ within the first 3 episodes then I’m done with it. I can’t justify wasting 12 hours of my life watching something in the hope that ‘it will get better’, when it usually doesn’t.
Stuff gets dropped the further the season progresses as well. Wouldn’t be surprised if I eventually dropped everything save for 00 and Tytania.
I say, bring on the cookie-cutter harems! I don’t care how bland it is, if it has even a remote one scene shot of interesting content I’ll be a happy customer. Having said that, though, I really don’t dislike any anime that I can think of. I’ve watched a good many shows that I think are horrible (Negima?! comes to mind; as does Buso Renkin), but I’ve always found something to like within them.
On the other hand, I’ve never approached anime as if it was a job, even if I started writing about, but as a thing I just happen to like a lot. So there’s never anything I’d absolutely dismiss as trash and I’ve never stopped watching any show that I started. That hasn’t stopped in the ten years or so since I began watching and I don’t see that changing any time soon. Although, I admit, it takes up a lot of my time. I’m watching like 15 or so things right now and it’s difficult to find time to get through it. Especially when I actually buy and watch things dubbed all the time too.
oh sh*t… er… I’m currently watching 22 series (only 4 continuing from last season). This will probably drop 1-5 series in the following weeks, but I don’t think I’ve ever been under 10 series a season no matter how “bad” they are.
Thinking back, most of my tastes are the mainstream “hardcore” I guess? For example I usually eat up any semi-decent harem series just for the heck of it. Any mecha series I’ll usual watch as long as the storyline isn’t too nuts. Series with specific seiyuus in ‘em help as well.
… hmm really no clue what this says about my tastes or willpower to watch the “good” and “bad” but at the end, at least it keeps me entertained. And really, that’s all that matters right? ^^;;
Seeing as I’m watching more than 15 series, I can’t help but relate. There are a lot of very-watchable-but-not-quite-awesome shows this season, and I can’t help but keep going. Over the years though, I think my taste in shows has at least improved from when I was a kid, but it seems to plateau at some point, where I end up subconsciously treating above-average and awesome shows just the same, even though my conscious tells me to prioritize the latter. I’ll probably end up dropping a few on the way since I get lazy though (Yozakura Quartet comes into mind).
Moy: I just don’t have the time to be like you! By the way what are you doing the week before new years? ^^;;;
Zeroblade: Yea, I normally don’t watch THAT much anime, but this season it might turn out that way, just like you said. I suppose at some point I’ll turn into a j1m0ne or NZ.
Anime is for losers. I only watch the best, that being Gundam 00.
Seriously though, I decided to only watch completed series because the quality is known and I don’t have to track torrents down every week. I recently watched Black Lagoon and it was nice. I guess the disadvantage is that I can’t talk about anime any more.
owen:
Define average. Anime bloggers follow lots of current shows, but I’ve noticed a lot of them don’t go into the back catalog that much. I know people who don’t blog and have always surpassed me in the amount of shit on their shelves. One way or another, allmost every anime fan will willingly admit to loving something they feel is horrible. And in my experience, most fans do go after particular genres — those who don’t watch fansubs ahead of time have very little else to go on. But all this is tangential to one statement.
Yep… It’s just the nature of our affliction addiction chosen activity.
DarkMirage: It’s just not the same experience to watch something after the fact. I did that with Code Geass season 1 and it was half as fun as watching it right as it comes off the press.
omo: that’s a good thing, trust me. And yea, I’ll let you know when I get Nana Mizuki’s Live Fighter discs. Let’s just hope it’s before the end of the year ^^;;
Hell no, my level of acceptable quality for anime has started to rise the mroe I’ve watched. When you first get into anime, you’re not really sure what’s good and what’s bad, so you have relatively low standards, but when you get to see better and better shows, you realise that shows you were watching (i.e Rosario+Vampire) weren’t as good as you thought they were. In the spring season, I watched every anime I could possibly get my hands on regardless of the quality, and I ended up being disappointed by many of them. As such, in succeeding seasons, I’ve decided to OMG drop things after 1 episode or completely ignore certain shows.
Case and point: Dragon Ball Z.
That’s quality with a capital Q. It’s not what I’m talking about.
“There are way too many above-average but below-awesome shows that I don’t want to follow but I don’t want to drop.”
Yep. This is also why I’m not starting on some other shows that people have been touting yet. I don’t want to juggle 15 shows at once, but that’s exactly what I’m doing right now. That being said, I’m basically a member of NZ’s camp in how he deals with it. Which is why my backlog is ever expanding. :P
You don’t have to watch everything the moment it comes out, y’know. I’m still backlogged from three or four seasons ago, with a couple of exceptions. Darned Lucky Star…
Did you just suggest I can watch anime at a slower rate? And thus watch less anime? Who are you and who do you work for? :p
I know your pain there.
There’s lots of anime out there this season that are watchable indeed, but not really “made of pure awesome” as I’d call it - for me, only Xam’d and maybe Tytania fits into that (or at least, they’re more than just “watchable” indeed).