Thoughts On How I Completed 1000 Anime

I’m not usually one who looks at my anilist statistics, which you can find here: Link, but this one caught my eye recently. Ever since I hit around 980 anime series titles when I checked it out, I’ve been more and more curious about this aspect because I want to know when its going to happen. I’ve only hit this count recently, but before it happened it either was going to something in Saint Seiya: Hades saga, Love Live School Idol Project season 2, or Blade Runner: Black Lotus. In the end it was Saint Seiya: Hades Saga Inferno Chapter. Crazy, huh? I think it is.

So how did this happen? Most anime fans born out after a small amount of time. Perhaps two years before seeing similar things and then never watching any ever again. How did I get this far? Well, let’s discuss that because I think that should tell the tale about this whole experience.

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1) I’ve Been Watching Anime for a very long time

Yeah, I’ve been an anime fan ever since the toonami days during elementary school. There was just something so unique about the animation, styles, and genres that really drove the art form forward for me. It’s easy to say that I grew up watching anime because its been so long. In fact most of my life. Compared to so many things that I’ve done and achieved through out my life. I guess having watched anime for so long that it just feels natural to just watch some of it.

I think the fact that its almost like breathing for me in some ways? I can’t imagine having a day where I don’t watch at least an episode of something. It would feel like drowning if I don’t. Unless I had a day where I had no way to watch any of it at all or am too exhausted for it. Those days happen, but watching only half an hour show isn’t that hard either. Especially when finding something that has a dub when I don’t have anything attention span to read subtitles. Either way, it’s a full experience to do it there as well.

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2) Watching at a Slower Pace

When I used to watch anime when I was younger, I used to just binge through entire shows. I could finish a fifty-episode series in five days because I have nothing else to do. I felt like I was built differently and just had nothing else but to do but watch anime for extended periods of time. Nowadays, I don’t do that. During the weekdays I could watch as little as two episodes of different series to five depending on how many seasonal anime I’m watching.

Weekends are a bit different because I usually watch at least six episodes and that can be up to eight. It really depends on how busy each my days are. The point is that I don’t rush watching anime anymore. Not because I don’t like it as much, but because I love it more. I like watching and analyzing anime series as I go through them to a finer detail and sometimes that means watching it slower to let episodes set in easier. I think pacing oneself is very important to not burning out from the art form.

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3) Watching Different Types of Shows and Genres

One thing that still keeps me going in this journey is watching more genres of anime then just one. I imagine if I was stuck watching just shonen battle, space, and mecha shows like I was back in the day well…I would still be going because there is a lot of older shows fitting that description, but I feel like I would get bored. I like watching older series and seasonal shows at the same time. It keeps my experience a lot more varied and shows how creative the anime series was back in ancient times compared to now.

I also feel like I challenge myself to watch anime series that I usually wouldn’t. That’s why I have been trying more Yuri and BL series, a little bit more magical girl shows, romance series, and lately some mystery shows that I haven’t watched until then. If my viewing experience was stagnant, I wouldn’t enjoy watching anime as much as I do because it would feel so limited and colorless. I want to have better relationships for anime then I did beforehand. I just want a complete experience and see things that I haven’t seen before.

That doesn’t mean I still don’t watch mecha series, space series, or shonen battle series now. I still do watch those. I spend a small amount of time during my weekend watches making sure I still have a foot at least in those to keep them going. I still want to make sure I know more about certain genres then I do. I always feel very behind on everything. Its very slow learning and developing my mecha experiences, but that’s ok. I like taking my time.

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Conclusion

I don’t think that there is a correct pace in watching anime. There are some people I know who have watched over a thousand anime in one year. That’s incredible to me because I can’t imagine doing that anymore. But that’s ok. That means I know there is a lot of anime out there for me to watch and enjoy still. I don’t have to get to every single anime right now. I can just put some anime on my schedule and get to it later. It means that there is always something I am looking forward to and that keeps my experience interesting.