Soda says: “It’s a sad, sad day”

As is the case with most anime fans (except hikkimori) I have quite a large backlog, about 3 ongoing animes I want to catch up with and MANY completed series that I have to marathon. But from about 12:00 p.m. yesterday to 8:30 this morning I knocked off quite a bit in the latter category. Leaving only for food and basic hygienic needs I marathoned Nanoha, Nanoha A’s and School Rumble 2 all in one sitting. That’s 52 episodes, at an average of 20 minutes per episode it totals to about 17.5 hours. This breaks my previous record that was somewhere in the 30s.

Expectedly, I’m a little sleep deprived so if this post goes horribly awry, I apologize.

Sad mages in the snow

Nanoha and Nanoha A’s were awesome, I usually don’t have much love for mahou shoujo, but these blew me away. The beginning of Nanoha was kind of slow but it picked up around episode 7/8 and was pure winnage from then on. Nanoha A’s was awesome in all aspects from about the fifth minute on, I eagerly await StrikerS, though am slightly disappointed they won’t be lolis anymore T_T.

Eri ftw <3

Sukuran2, on the other hand, started out really promising, but fell apart around the halfway mark and I had to struggle against boredom and sleepiness to make it through the rest. Interesting range of parodies, everything from Yakitake Japan to Initial D, even an Equilibrium parody (gunfight on the roof). Eri for the ultimate win, Yamo close behind, Tenma was infinitely more annoying.

With what little sanity and cognitive thought I had left after getting through the marathon, I started comparing the different styles of watching anime.

Ongoing: Seemingly the most prevalent way of watching anime, most bloggers and fans fall into this category. This method is basically watching series on a more or less weekly basis as they are aired and subbed. There are several advantages to this method. Firstly, the enjoyment of the series is prolonged over an entire season as the viewer anxiously awaits the next episode, refreshing TT or bakaupdates every few seconds. Also, the delay in time allows for the formulation of crackpot theories like who’s really Mion or Shion, Mizuho is really a guy, Makoto is an incarnation of Piro or Ayu is a time traveling alien ESPer.

However there are also numerous disadvantages to this method. Many series are released each season (spring 07 has a projected 70+) with such a huge volume of anime, the task of sorting the ones worth continuing from those that deserve droppage is a daunting task. Furthermore, when a schedule is finally sorted out you could have as little as 1 or 2 series leaving you with a very boring season. Conversely you could end up with upwards of 20 which means you have 20 plots to keep track of, not fun. Not to mention the interference of daily life: school, work, etc. I myself hadn’t watched ongoing until about a year a half ago when my stream of completed series to marathon began wearing thin.

Marathon: My personal favourite style, it consists of downloading large amounts of anime and watching it all in one sitting. I standardize the marathon minimum to be an entire season watched at once, (at least 12 consecutive episodes) usually of the same series, but I guess you can mix and match. Though many people will contend that as little as 3 or 4 episodes in a row would be enough to constitute a marathon. Marathoning allows you to completely immerse yourself in the plot because instead of seeing fragmented pieces of the story you get the whole thing all at once with a heightened sense of continuity and flow. It also gets rid of the anxiety and frustration of waiting for airing and subs, though some may argue that waiting for the next episode is all part of the fun.

The downsides to marathoning are pretty much the opposite of the advantages of ongoing. Since you compress all the goodness into a single sitting, your enjoyment of the series peaks higher but dies down much faster. Also, watching the entire plot unfold at once doesn’t give you the time to think up crazy theories about character and plot, unless there are plot holes. (teleporting boxcutters anyone?)

Furthermore, not everyone is capable of marathoning, those with short attention spans, ADHD, or a “life” may find themselves unable to sit down to watch anime for hours on end.

DVD: I have personally never done it, so I can’t comment much. But I can tell that it takes some sort of masochistic patience in order to wait for months for DVD releases. Many anime fans will watch the series ongoing and support the production company by buying the R1 DVDs, but to actually follow a series like this would be torture.

Pros? PLENTY of time to develop crackpot theories, and if you don’t forget what the hell is going on, your enjoyment and appreciation of the series is lengthy. Cons? Just about everything else.

It seems like the ability to think and type properly is leaving me, so I’ll end this post here. Since no one seems to like my “How did you get to AniAri?” poll, I’ll replace it with a style poll and see how that goes. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get some sleep.

~ Shirukii ~