Seasonal Anime Vs. Binge-watching

Not long after I was first introduced to anime, I started getting into the habit of watching shows weekly, as they aired.

Keep in mind, I was a teenager with heaps of free time and very few friends back then. Every day there would be three or four shows waiting for me after school. And on top of that, I would watch entire shows that were already finished in the span of a couple days. Those were the good old days. At least, that’s how I like to look back on it initially, but I’m not sure that holds up. Regardless, I was a big fan of the weekly show for a long time.

As the years went on, and I slowly started to become more of an adult. (I know, it’s taking a long time, but hopefully I’ll get there eventually.) I started to have less and less free time. Not only that, I started to have a lot less energy as well. I’m interning as a teacher while I’m writing this, and although it’s extremely rewarding and a very fun job, it’s also exhausting. I make it no secret that my autism interferes with my energy levels quite a lot, and that this causes me to be tired halfway through a busy day. As a teenager and even in my early twenties this wasn’t a big problem because I avoided challenges and things that cost energy. Now that I’ve grown a lot as a person, I’m more willing to try my hardest, which results in being tired a lot.
But Nick, you’ll say, what does this have to do with watching anime.

I think it brings me directly to the point of this text. And to the explanation of why I nowadays prefer to binge-watch a show as opposed to watch seasonal shows. When writing this we are currently in Winter 2021. For those of you living in the future, reading this way later; this season is stacked. It has sequels of every show that was mildly popular in the past decade, as well as several great new titles such as Horimiya, Mushoku Tensei and more. And I just struggle to find the time. There are 21 shows on my currently watching list, and the amount of effort it takes me to get through them is way too much. I would much rather vanish into my bed and watch Taskmaster or something else on youtube where I don’t need to pay that much attention to the narrative. Each weekly show feels like I need to remember a bunch of stuff, and then be awake enough to understand what is happening in this new episode. It’s exhausting.
And I know this is a first world problem. It’s not even a problem, really. It’s more of an observation that I’ve made as time has gone on. People change, that’s no secret, and so do our habits. We change on the daily, and sometimes we like things one day, and dislike them the next. I know I will start watching less weekly shows when this season ends. Maybe limit it to about 14 or 15. Two episodes, maybe an hour a week, should be reasonable, should it not?
That way I’ll at least have the time and energy to binge an old anime from time to time.

But enough about me, what do you think about this? Do you prefer to watch anime weekly, and join in on the

discussion as it is airing. Or are you someone who enjoys clicking the next episode indefinitely until itś 4 in the morning and you’ve lost it, you know you can kill. The truth is just behind the gate!

And yes, I did binge Darker Than Black until it was 4 AM, and it is one of my favorite anime-related memories, even almost a decade later.