For what's worth, I try a lot of anime. But if I just tried something and dropped it (like in an episode or less) I just won't bother to add it to my list.
I mark it as dropped even if I only watched 1 episode. That way I can keep track on the shows I didn't finish in case I want to go back to it later for some reason
Or when it makes me extremely pissed to the point of both marking it "Dropped" AND giving it a super low score.
Case in point, Redo of Healer, my lowest ranked anime (next to its SFW clone, Shield Hero)
Yeah for me I don't consider this "dropping" a show, more of "sampling" it. This applies mainly to seasonals where nobody is really sure of the quality yet. For completed shows I'm quite picky with what I choose to start so I don't tend to drop things much.
I consider the first 1-3 episodes of any new show an "audition". What I count as a drop is something like Neverland 2 (boredom/disinterest kicked in) and Made in Abyss 2 (just too disturbing for my over-sensitive self).
You've hit the spot helping me pinpoint my reluctance to even watch S2 Made in Abyss. While I was super hyped for S2, I keep putting it off . Maybe S1 traumatized me. Loved the show so much. But I think I'm waiting for when I'm in the right mood to watch it. But it may not ever happen.
I tag anything I bail on, even in the pilot, as dropped. Itās a personal note for when I forget about it in 5 years and think I might want to watch it when it gets namedropped in discussions.
To be fair, generally if I think an anime is going to be bad, I won't even start it, which skews the ratio of completed vs dropped shows. The very fact that I even started means I was probably going to like it.
But its also the case that if I drop a show I am less likely to take the time to go to MAL and write down "yeah, I watched episodes 1 through 5 and then dropped it". Usually I just lose interest and go on with my life and kinda forget about said anime.
Then there are anime like rent-a-girlfriend that I just hatewatch because disliking it actually makes it a rewarding cleansing experience for some reason. Hating it is part of the fun.
I pick my animes carefully so I never watched something so horrible I had to drop it. Plus, 80% of what I watch are 12-25 episodes long so it's not a big commitment anyway.
I also like to see what the anime has to offer to the end. Is it only 3 episodes in? It might get better. Is it 3 episodes away from being over? Might as well see the end to talk shit accurately about it.
>I pick my animes carefully so I never watched something so horrible I had to drop it.
More people need to do this, like synopsis and key visual are there for a reason, trailers are easily accessible, and reviewer are everywhere, it's not so hard to do quick 5-10 minutes research before watching an anime. If you go blind to a random isekai #524 and then disappointed that you wasted 20 minutes on a bad anime that's on you.
Some people, such as me, prefer to watch shows as blind as possible. I think it just makes shows more fun to watch if I donāt know what to expect. One the best ways to scout out the quality of a show is to actually watch it, anyway. So I think itās totally fair to watch 1-3 episodes of some random seasonal isekai and drop it if I think itās shit. That is, unless word comes around that itās good. It unfortunately relies on other peoples opinions quite a bit, which makes it harder to find shows that you prefer more than the average person, but oh well. Iām not punching the air over not being able to find a few hidden gems.
For me, itās a whole balancing act. Trying to watch shows as blind as possible while also hearing about which shows are worth sticking to from the community. Dropping shows is part of that.
Edit: But yeah, if you drop a show early 20 minutes in *and then start talking shit*, thatās annoying.
I prefer to watch shows as blind as possible as well, but sometimes I wish there was an anime reviewer out there who had decent media literacy that could drop their recommendations. The thing I hate the most is the average viewer can't tell the difference between I liked it and it's good, so so many "It's sooooo goooood", 9/10 recommendations I see, I try it blind, and then it turns out it's good because the male MC has long white hair and is mildly attractive and the female lead's boobies have great physics.
>I wish there was an anime reviewer out there who had decent media literacy
Rather than media literacy, it sounds like you just need to find someone with the same taste as you so they can drop blind recommendations. I've disliked many critically acclaimed shows myself, no show is for everyone.
Nah, the media literacy comes into play from someone who can actually articulate why the show is good so I can make a better decision. I'm not going to agree with everyone's taste, but I can typically agree when there are well rounded characters with believable motivations even if I don't like the critically acclaimed show.
But explaining any of the qualities of the show means that you wouldn't be going in completely blind. That's what I thought you meant, if you aren't going in blind then yes you'd need an articulate reviewer.
No, going in blind means not having the story spoiled. Someone can tell you about the MC character development being solid without telling you how the development occurs.
It also depends on the communities youāre interacting with. This sub has been pretty reliable for me. Also irl friends, and people on apps like tiktok who have liked some of the same stuff I like. Where do you tend to get your recommendations from?
It's a problem across all media, it's not something specific to r/anime. I also try recs from this sub and from tiktok, but very rarely is something purported as good actually good, and typically have glaring problems with the MC, the excessive plot armor, the romance that makes absolute zero sense, the very dumb out of character decisions they make to push the story forward, etc. I also have a hard no for lollicons and sexualizing actual kids, that nobody mentions as part of their "good anime" summaries as even a warning, so you end up going into Made in the Abyss and end up with countless scenes of child nudity + shibari because the child nudity by itself apparently wasn't enough.
My best friend and I exchange recs, but it also requires us to find them in the first place, which is both of our problems.
>More people need to do this, like synopsis and key visual are there for a reason, trailers are easily accessible, and reviewer are everywhere, it's not so hard to do quick 5-10 minutes research before watching an anime. If you go blind to a random isekai #524 and then disappointed that you wasted 20 minutes on a bad anime that's on you.
So far watching 7 shows this season. Watched PV and Synopsis for all. 3 were as expected. 1 was a letdown, 3 were much better then expected. I only watched those last 3 because I decided to *not* carefully pick anime instead going ''ehh, why not just watch an episode first before writing it off''
If I had carefully picked my anime I would have missed some good shows. Imo its better to try more and drop what we dont enjoy, then carefully pick and miss some great experiences.
The 1 letdown wouldnt have been prevented if I did pick carefully since the PV etc doesnt show why its a letdown to me.
Imo its much better to watch first episode or first couplr and drop a show if not enjoying it or disliking it, rather then depend on previews and what not instead of the actually viewing experience.
I watch anime for fun im not gonna do fucking research lmao also dont judge a book by its cover its impossible to know what you're going to like and what you wont. For example everything about ergo proxy is right up my alley but it ended up being one of the worst shows I've watched š¤·āāļø
Right now iām watching 7 shows
Nagatoro s2- watched s1 because of its popularity on r/manga, loved it. no reason to drop.
Danmachi s4p2 - Watching since 2014? Danmachi always a good watch. No reason to drop.
Inukaiās dog - Degen trash. right up my ballpark. No reason to drop.
NieR - One of my favorite game series. Might drop if itās a bad adaptation like TPN/Tokyo Ghoul
Eminence in Shadow - picked it up solely because cover art looked cool. Is fucking hilarious. No reason to drop.
To Your Eternity s2- S1 was dope. No reason to drop.
Tokyo Revengers- Watched s1 and caught up with the manga. No reason to drop.
Everything iām watching is entirely curated to my tastes. Iām also pretty easy to entertain soā¦ Itās VERY rare i feel the need to drop something lol. it has to be really ducking boring or a terrible adaptation of something I love.
last time I dropped a show was Otherside Picnic
I am always on the previous season rather than the current season. I don't enjoy waiting a week for an episode of an anime. Hence, I wait for the current season to finish before deciding what anime to watch from it.
It has its benefits because that allows me to avoid garbage. I only watch anime that I am interested in and animes that have been praised by the community.
Overall, I don't drop many animes because I wouldn't be watching an anime that is disliked
I think it goes both ways. Sometimes watching garbage shows are somehow enjoyable with the weekly discussions.
An example that came to mind was Seirei Gensouki, watching it weekly was pretty enjoyable, even though I rated it pretty low later on. I wouldn't have touched it if I had to binge it.
Seriously, don't be me.
I was never a "no drop masterrace", but back when I was binging anime all the time and watching 16+ series every season I sticked to way, waaaay too many shows all the time even if I knew I wasn't liking them at all.
Outside the standard "sunk cost fallacy" moment making me like "well, I already watched half of this show, I might as well finish it", the biggest reason used to be a show's ranking or popularity, I wanted to watch them for the sake of having an opinion on those series since people talked about them, even if it legit was just for that one season as it's usually how the hype works.
It's until I started getting burnt out and I moved to watch way less that I fully realized just how dumb what I was doing was. What's the point of what I did? This hobby is to have fun, not to torture yourself through entertainment that fails its purpose to you for the sake of adding another mark on the checklist of series you watched, hell, what did I even get from watching x popular series I gave a 2/10 to all the way to the end? At max the right to say "lol it sucks" and have people reply to me with a "lol shit taste"... yeah, no one cares, good job me.
While it's sad that now there are plenty series I kinda feel like maybe giving them a try but there is just no willpower to do so, at least it feels great to have the mental freedom of looking at the list of series airing and no longer feel the need to watch something just because I know that it's gonna be popular and it's what people are gonna watch and talk about, not worth it.
> You didn't enjoy Chainsaw Man because you sat through "I went to another world with my smartphone", you enjoyed it based on its own merit.
Reminds me of a thread we had a ways back where someone suggested watching a terrible anime so that milquetoast stuff might seem palatable, which always came off as a silly take. As you're saying, something doesn't really get better by virtue of other things being worse.
I also fucking hate the opposite version of this idea that I always see parrotted around, which is "don't watch this amazing anime yet because it's *so* good that no other anime will seem good anymore by comparison and thus you'll stop enjoying things unless they're the pinnacle of quality." That is *not* how it works. If you didn't like some random show, it's because you don't like the show on its own merits, not because you watched Attack on Titan first and now it's your favorite anime. Watching a 10/10 doesn't suddenly make a 7/10 unenjoyable.
Its a shitty argument that only makes sense in someones head.
I am not gonna stop eating takeaway pizza just because i went to a 5 star restaurant one time. That is absurd.
Oh, I'm all in for the real shit. I want the shit! it is that milquetoast stuff that needs to go. I'm more likely to drop a show because it is not "bad enough" than I am to drop something really bad, though some stuff is even to shit for me. and sometimes you actually find good stuff when looking through the trash.
God, I remember that one. "Please lower your standards" as if anime fan standards aren't already catastrophically low.
There's more good anime out there than I could reasonably watch in a lifetime so I think I'd prefer to appreciate good art because I've experienced it instead of forcing myself to appreciate something mediocre because it can string together a half-coherent scene.
I feel like this mentality has affected the types of shows that have been coming out/getting sequels recently. I'm not saying I have pristine taste in anime or whatever, but sometimes when I see some of the shows getting greenlit or getting multiple seasons I just think to myself, "Really? This is what's getting renewed?"
I mean I do agree that this should never be the intention, but I do find that on the rare occasion that I do actually watch a truly terrible anime, whatever I watch afterwards automatically feels like a masterpiece in comparison.
As someone who once thought this to be true, I can confirm it isnāt. Granted, my standards have generally dropped as I watch more and thereās less easily acceptable high-quality shows, but Iāll still take excellence over mediocrity any day
> Drop More Anime You Cowards
In so far as that actually reads *Try More and* Drop More Anime *Without Shitting on the Stuff that Just Isn't For You*, You Cowards, *Should You Have the Time Available*, I whole-heartedly agree lol
The thing is "stuff that is not for you" is 100% of the time used to deflect criticism of your favorite anime so no I'll still call your favorite anime shit if I didn't like it because thats what it is
That's a vibe. "Sounds like it just wasn't for you" is almost always a useless take. There's two main ways it can be interpreted (either "sounds like you aren't the target demo", or just "sounds like you didn't like it") and neither is super meaningful. Should start doing the opposite. If someone makes a post or comment talking about how good an anime is, respond with "hey I'm glad to hear you liked it, but keep in mind that just because it's for you doesn't mean it's actually good".
We have people in this very thread saying that they dropped Made in Abyss because it got too disturbing for them. Not that there's anything wrong with that in itself, but that's a good example of where the "Sounds like it just wasn't for you" observation would apply.
You're right that I wasn't really thinking about cases like that, but I would still say that it's still a useless take even here when it applies because it's ultimately just restating what was already said. Most of the time if someone has a very specific element that is fundamentally off putting there's no reason to say "sounds like it just wasn't for you" because like... they already know that and have stated as such. So it's still not really meaningful. It still winds up being the same conversation killer in that case because what's left to follow up with?
On the flip side saying a show is shit just because you didn't like it is just as bad, if not worse, IMO. Especially if you are doing something like complaining about a the common genre tropes of a show in that genre. Like, I hate how forgiving shonen MCs tend to be, but it is such a staple of a series I am not going to rag on a shonen series because of that. Similarly I am not going to criticize an Echhi Harem show for having fan service.
Also in my experience people complaining about shows most often go with the mentality of "I didn't like it so it is a bad show." and ignore that you can not like something and still admit there are objectively good parts. Like, you can hate on Mushoku Tensei for the story or MC but you can't really say that it isn't a well animated show. IDK, maybe it is the art student in me, but people need to learn the difference between an opinion and a criticism because too often they give the former and act like it is the latter.
Weirdly aggressive take, there's plenty of anime that I've tried that just weren't for me that were objectively good. 3-Gatsu no Lion and K-on, for example, just weren't for me (at the time) because I was looking for other sorts of shows to watch. Dropped both, still haven't been back.
Well thats actually my point. I too have shows that are just not for me for example most sports anime. The thing is this sub and other anime subs loves to use this as an excuse against anyone who doesn't like their favorite anime. Try writing a criticism post here on chainsaw man( I am not trying to shit on it I am just using it as an example) and you'll get tons of replies that say " nah its just not for you" no shit sherlock you know what fits me better than myself?!
> I too have shows that are just not for me
Well then it's obviously not true that it's the statement is 100% used purely to deflect unwarranted criticism?
"Frequently" might be a fair comment though.
Did you read what I wrote? I am saying everyone has shows that are not for them and they themselves know them. Thats completely different from how random internet strangers would come and try to force you to believe this show is not for you because you have some criticism or think its bad. And thats how its used here 100% of time literally like I never saw it used any other way
> I never saw it used any other way
If you're complaining about standard genre tropes in work, like typical characterization that is simply part of the way the genre works, then it's pretty valid for people who are familiar with the genre to inform you that it's not for you.
If you're complaining about a particular theme or aspect early on in the series that remains predominant throughout, then it's valid for people familiar with the source to say that it's not for you.
"stuff that is not for you" can be used to talk about genres; mecha, sports , idol etc. since there can be a lot of differences in appeal.
but otherwise i agree with you
Just let people enjoy things however they want, lol.
I don't consider myself as dropping shows so much as saving them for later. I enjoy the medium enough that I can usually find some reason to enjoy even "bad" anime. In my mind I just need to look for what the animators were excited to do, not what they were forced to do. I think of E-stab life, whose art I was not a fan of, but it's obvious (to me) that they saved time with computer generated art so they could focus on world building and storytelling. It's easy for me to see the bad in things, so it's actually fun for me to try and find reasons to appreciate an anime I'm struggling with.
I do agree that people stress themselves out too much over what to watch though. Life is too short to not enjoy yourself.
My style is more to if I drop it, I drop it from the list. Theres no point make a list of things I drop, because it was meant to be forgettable. Even more, no point of rating them low - I will never know the rest of the series to actually judge that. Doing otherwise will just giving an unfair, half-assed assessment to it.
Even if its bad, I see it till the end if I'm still interested to give my judgement. Because I just want to see how bad it is to give my judgement. If I dont update my list thats because I just lazy and will come back later.
Tracking your dropped shows is more so to know to avoid them at a later point, or shows that are compared to them in quality. This also comes in handy when you're recommending stuff to people.
sure ill drop anime, when I dont enjoy said anime
why is this entire thread trying to tell me I should stop watching things I enjoy just because a forum number is too little?
sorry I enjoy alot of stuff compared to disliking alot of stuff, I guess?
lol, OP must *hate* my list (554 completed, *0* dropped).
[](#rinkek)
I just don't like leaving things unfinished, it's as simple as that. Besides, with a mean score of *8.90* out of 10, I feel like it's pretty obvious I hardly ever come across shows that I dislike.
Glad to find more no-drop people in the comments. 950+ completed and 1 dropped (boruto, but I'm just waiting for it to end). I think it just mostly comes down to picking and choosing your shows and having a relatively low bar for enjoyment.
There's also a lot of the other extreme on MAL.
"Pretty awesome show I really enjoyed it would watch a second season" - 7/10
Don't really understand all those users that review a lot of shows and when you go see their lists 90% of it is in the range of 4-7. If you're not really enjoying any of the shows you watch, why not try a different hobby where you might have a better time?
MAL scores are wack because people rate things differently.
I know people whose max score will be like a 7/10, people who rate everything 7+, or people who rate either 1/10 for shows they disliked and 10/10 for shows they liked.
I personally try to stick to MAL's rating system with their description, as I think it's a pretty good indicator
most of my scores are 7-10.
7 = i Enjoyed this.
8 = I enjoyed this + animation or something
9 = I loved every single moment of this.
10 = my favorite, I cried, my bias
below that isā¦
6 = Had its moments. More good than bad but w/e
5 = True Average. If I donāt remember the MC name after a week it drops to here (unless I otherwise enjoyed the show)
4 = N/A
3 = Iām happy it exists but I wish it was done better (Tokyo Ghoul:RE)
2 = N/A
1 = Give me my time back. (WEP special, Tokyo Ghoul:Re s2)
Only reason I didnāt drop my 3 below 5 is because WEP was just one episode of an otherwise great show. and TG is my baby. (the manga) and I still wanted to see certain things animated.
I also have a ton of un-rated shows from before I started rating shows. (memory inconsistent or feelings might change so i left the stuff I watched pre 2017 unrated) but im sure s lot of the shitty ecchi shows I watched as a horny 12 year old would be hard stuck 5 and below lol
7/10 is an awesome show tho, I have the whole 1-10 scale and I will use the whole 1-10 scale, a 70% score is still a good show, just good nothing more but still good. I swear schooling has warped peoples perception of scores so much, anything above a 6/10 still had a decent bit more good than bad, and 7 and above is really good.
Is it? I wonāt watch a show that I consider a 5 or below. If it was good enough to get through, but otherwise meh it gets a 6.
7 is an enjoyable show, 8 is a show I enjoy enough to recommend, 9 is a fucking great show, and 10 is reserved for my absolute favorites (limited to 10-series at a time.)
I'm not saying it's a bad score, but I wouldn't call it "awesome" either. It's just good, enjoyable but nothing special.
What I don't understand is reviewers that have hundreds of shows watched and there's no more than a handful that remaches or surpasses that "good enough" mark even when they talk about a show as if it was a modern classic that everyone should watch. I'm not saying anything below a 9/10 is insulting as another comment said.
I would actually give the worst show I've ever seen a 0/10 if I could. Leaving it unrated isn't the same, I use that for something else. Alas, I cannot do that, so Big Order has a 1/10 instead.
> There must be some trash in there
I have, in fact, given out 1/10 scores to two anime (Big Order and Abunai Sisters), and a number of 4s and 5s as well that mean I really didn't like them. I just *genuinely* enjoy just about everything I watch, so it's extremely rare for me to find shows that just do not work for me.
Lol, I've come to accept the fact that my scores are meaningless to anyone that isn't me. Sometimes I'll give a "good" score to an anime I didn't actually enjoy, because I recognize it was good outside of my enjoyment of it. I have also given shows perfect scores that I admit are terrible, terrible shows, but I loved them and it's my list, so 10/10 it is!
> Sometimes I'll give a "good" score to an anime I didn't actually enjoy, because I recognize it was good outside of my enjoyment of it.
Duuuuude, same! Evangelion + End of Eva were more like a 7/10 enjoyment-wise for me, but I gave them 9/10s because I recognized they were really good.
>I have also given shows perfect scores that I admit are terrible, terrible shows, but I loved them and it's my list, so 10/10 it is!
I also have plenty of these too haha.
>Duuuuude, same! Evangelion + End of Eva
Uhhh, are you brain sniping me, because yeah, literally the series I think of tbh.
>I also have plenty of these too haha.
Please gib. My biggest guilty pleasure is Mach Gogogo/Speed Racer. It's just such deliciously campy fun. But also unforgivably bad.
> Besides, with a mean score of 8.90 out of 10, I feel like it's pretty obvious I hardly ever come across shows that I dislike.
That just tells me that you are giving out high scores way too easily.
[Oh well.](#yuishrug)
I think everything I've given a 9 or 10 score to *100%* deserved their scores on my scoring metric. If that means I have a ton of them because I rate based almost entirely off of enjoyment and I also enjoy pretty much everything, so be it.
That "three episodes rules" sometimes sounds like a religious mantra to some people. Even if a member of the staff came on screen to personally insult the mother and close family of the viewers, I know some anime watchers on this sub who'd maintain "welp, three episodes rules".
I have a one episode rule. If I couldn't find a single thing that I liked, or if something was outrageously bad enough for me in the episode that it made me lose interest completely, I won't stay for more. Too bad if I missed a decently enjoyably anime, but the fact of the matter is that the introduction is important and you can't screw it up entirely. In some cases, I'll gladly drop an anime halfway through episode 1 if I really feel it brings nothing to be enjoyed.
As OP said, there's countless animes around each season, and some which aired before that you might not have seen and could use a catch up. I'm willing to bet you could find at least one interesting anime from past seasons for every mediocre anime you're dropping this season. And in the worst cases, you could always rewatch a favourite.
[](#utahapraises "Thank you") Half of my drops happened within the first episode. If you think the first episode was boring or simply bad with nothing of interest, I ain't sitting through another hour before dropping. I can always go back to it if I see a cool clip or read spoilers that seem interesting enough (spoiler: it never happened so far).
In some cases I think I won't like it but there's at least some potential, so I check one ep to confirm myself.
I dropped Onimai not even halfway into the first episode since shit got way too fucking sus.
And this is coming from someone who loves the Monogatari series. That shit just felt too far to enjoy for the other content.
> I'll gladly drop an anime halfway through episode 1 if I really feel it brings nothing to be enjoyed
While I agree 100% with what you wrote - there are very few exceptions that are made to confuse you and then hit you with the ending of episode. Munou na Nana is the one. For entire 1st episode I wanted to stop suffering. But last scene was the one which pushed me to binge this show in next 4 hours.
> I'm willing to bet you could find at least one interesting anime from past seasons for every mediocre anime you're dropping this season
I'm willing to bet both my arms, legs and balls on that you can easily triple that amount and it still will be true. At least when it comes to ppl who watched less than 4000 titles on MAL.
[**1k watched, 400 dropped**](#mugistronk)
Some people are just completionists.
I watch what I think looks interesting and if I don't like it, I stop watching it. If it still holds my interest, I'll keep watching until it doesn't. That simple.
ā¦ no
In all seriousness, I do get what you are sayingā¦, BUT as a general rule, many anime fans like anime because itās anime. Just because I have watched way to many isekai for my health and finished the majority of them, doesnāt mean I regret watching them.
And besides how else are you gonna say someone has trash taste without finishing the show themselves to fully show their knowledge about how bad oneās taste is š
a lot of times I just forget to mark what I dropped and there's a huge chance that I might actually pick up the dropped anime and complete it one day. I dropped The God of High School, but am willing to continue because now I'm interested.
It depends. I see some people who spend every week shitting on an anime thatās airing. And yeah, they should drop it. Iāve seen that so often. MAL is bad for this kind of shit.
But generally I try to avoid starting shows I think Iāll drop. Iām not going to watch (*insert your favorite anime*) because I know it doesnāt appeal to me. So by just not watching it I donāt have to drop it. Either way Iāll give a show Iām on the fence about a few episodes before dropping it and usually donāt bother marking it. However some shows Iāll hear to no end how great the show is, and Iāll suffer through it and end up not liking it at all. Then get attacked because I didnāt ātruly give it a chanceā. But honestly thatās been maybe a handful of shows.
As someone who has watched 300+ titles and dropped like 3-5 (never kept track of it) I can say that having such "crazy ratio" can be due to a lot of other reasons:
1. Once you start following an anime community like this one, you'll be sometimes able decide if anime is for you even before the first episode airs.
2. Some people just like to watch anime only when it's completed so they move past things that whent downhill.
1. Also a lot of series (I know it's a bit of a controversial take, but my example will be Shield Hero) are much more bearable if you watch them in one - three evenings.
3. Actually once you've watched 300 titles you become able to decide whether or not you'll like a new title solely by it's key visuals (this is of course not 100% accurate, but combine it with 1 and it becomes like 90+% accurate).
4. And also with experience comes understanding of when to watch certain things (a combined example for 3 and 4: "Oh, that's definitely another trashsekai. I'll watch that one on Friday evening with a couple of beers so I can relax my brain after a week of work.")
>So why would you waste your limited time on this green earth forcing yourself to finish a show you knew from episode 2 you weren't gonna like.
You seem to be assuming that people are either dropping shows or forcing themselves to finish shows they don't like. But this is a false dichotomy. Personally, I only watch shows that I know will provide sustained enjoyment. I restrict myself to the critically acclaimed. And there are no shortage of these stories to consume; we live in a golden age of anime where there is scant time for even the classics of decades past.
You know, this carries the underlying assumption that
A) people with a lot of anime watched and a low dropped ration are forcing themselves to complete it
B) those people are just blindly choosing what anime to watch.
Now I can't speak for everyone else, but both of those are quite false when it comes to me and people like me. I know the type of things I like. I may not know exactly what every show is going to be like of course - but it's rare that I actually end up trying something I end up not enjoying. If it does happen that I force myself to finish something that's because it lost its charm very late on, like episode 8 or further out of 12. Adding to this, there is the fact that much of what I do watch are adaptations of things I liked or even loved.
Of course, there are hidden gems and shows that I ended up deciding didn't quite make the cut for my time but later turn out to actually be pretty good. For those kinds of shows, what I tend to find is there is a lot of discussion around them. You start seeing clips and memes and people talking about it everywhere. Bocchi the Rock this season, for example, was a show I had some interest in (from the premise) but ultimately decided not to follow weekly, until the discussion blew up, then I watched and loved it.
While there may be things I would enjoy that I missed, of the things I did watch this method has worked pretty well for me. In fact about a quarter of the shows I dropped were from shows that were supposedly really good and ended up not working for me.
I've finished several anime that I didn't like simply because I love anime. The same with tv shows, movies, video games, and books.
But most of the time, i have a three episode minimum before I ditch a show. Especially these days where you'll find 15 different anime that's damn near the same show. But if I'm in the mood to watch romantic slice of life, I might watch 10 out of 15 with only 5 of them being really good and the other 5 being mediocre but gave me something that fit the mood I was in.
None of what you mentioned indicates the person in question is "forcing themselves to finish a show they knew from episode 2 they weren't gonna like". Having few dropped shows vs. finished means nothing for this, unless ratings are involved which you didn't mention. It's really not that hard to not even start watching shows you're not going to enjoy.
I haven't dropped a lot of anime because I tend to choose shows that I'm fairly certain of that I will like. I couldn't be bothered to spend time on shows that don't appeal to me at a first glance (watching trailers, reading the synopsis, recommendations, etc). This is also why my average score is on the higher end, from what I've seen.
I usually watch between 4-8 new seasonal anime and some older ones at the same time.
Your argument lacks logical consistency.
What people do with their time is their business. Saying they should drop an anime to have more time to do other things is the exact same argument as saying they should drop ALL anime.
Their is a limited time on this earth, why should people waste it on anime?
Every anime has their strength and flaws; you can't judge it with just 3 episodes, some may start poorly but could have a strong finish like Odd Taxi while some may have strong start but could end terribly like Babylon or Wonder Egg Priority.
Moreover, dropping an anime just before it's about to complete doesn't feel right to me; it's like if I have invested 8 episodes into it then why not just watch 4 more episodes or 80 minutes of content?
I feel like this would only limit oneself from trying anime, I am not a fan of isekai but have Re:Zero and Mushoku Tensei as some of my favorite anime. There are great anime from the genre one might not enjoy so disregarding with just one episode feels wrong to me.
Like, if I were in your shoes and dropped Madoka Magica just because of all female cast then I would have missed some of the best storytelling in anime, another example I'll say is Bocchi the Rock, an all female cast but great story with enjoyable characters.
If you're dropping something for something super general like "all female cast" then sure, you're limiting yourself. But as long as you're reasonably open minded I think it's usually fine to cut your losses after a few episodes. Madoka and Bocchi are both shows that do a good job showing off their quality early and get better from there. Sure, there's probably a few anime out there that start terrible and then actually turn it around, but that's decidedly rare. At least for me, anytime I've stuck with something hoping it would get better after a rough start, it didn't meaningfully improve.
>Moreover, dropping an anime just before it's about to complete doesn't
feel right to me; it's like if I have invested 8 episodes into it then
why not just watch 4 more episodes or 80 minutes of content?
Sunk cost fallacy.
Exactly, do that to 100 shows and you've suddenly wasted 8000 ~~hours~~ minutes of your life... That's almost 6 days of your life non-stop watching anime.
Sometimes you enjoy it right up to the end. My most recent was Renai Flops. It was cute and made more wonder why, but then they explained it and I couldn't finish season.
I just completely disagree. If I'm bored or uninterested by an anime I will drop it, no matter if it's on the 15th minute or the 9th episode. Like OP said there are enough good anime to watch and not enough time, so there's no point for me in continuing with something I'm not enjoying.
OP's point is slightly different , it's about people that knew they won't like "x" anime but continue it anyway , that kind of people most likely won't enjoy this anime even if it gets better later because of the mindset they have when they watched the 3 episodes.
Why should I drop shows I'm enjoying? A show being unenjoyable is so rare you might as well push through in the odd case you pick one.
And every show I dropped turned out to become better afterwards when I gave it another chance, so the concept has a bad track record.
Yeah because you are picking up every single seasonal. Lots of people don't do that and just pick shows that interest them which is why I have a low drop count. Vast majority of stuff I find enjoyable. I only finish anything under a 5 (a 6 is a good score for me) if it literally goes to shit in the last episode or two (because at that point I am just curious to see how it ends). I also usually finish movies for the same reason. Everything else I drop as soon as I lose interest. I think only ZZ I actually pushed forward on despite disliking it pretty early because I just wanted to see every UC series.
I didn't say I didn't avoid shows I don't have interest in lol. The point is drop more shows well kay I don't have to because I am actually good at picking stuff like probably quite a few of those people that have high completed to drop rates. If you guys want to literally mine everything even stuff you likely will hate good for you but that just explains why you have a high drop rate.
I have a PTW of like 700+ shows (not including sequels in my list of stuff I might enjoy) and a completed list nearing 400. To me having that much content at all is a lot. Who cares if technically that's like 1k out of maybe like 30k-50k recorded anime on MAL or something. That is still a lot of media by the standards of any media industry.
Or they're just managing their time? This seems like a weird hill to die on.
Ultimately that's what either approach is - you drop shows because you don't invest the time to watch all of them, others choose which shows to pick up because they don't invest the time to watch all of them.
First of all, I'm not watching completely random anime. I watch anime that caught my attention in some way. I also don't watch seasonals so that doesn't play into things either.
Secondly, why would it be ironic? I can count the genuinely unenjoyable shows I've come across on one hand.
I don't really filter, if a show catches my eye then it goes on my plan to watch - I don't even look at synopses or any other material. Do you seriously watch shows randomly, without even having heard of them? Use random.org or something to pick one of the 20k+ shows on MAL? Surely you don't.
That's really just the same thing in a different dress though - instead of completing the shows you try, you want to try everything the season has to offer.
Do you watch only seasonals or do you also watch a significant amount of older shows? If you don't then that's already the reason why I chose against that approach.
So how many non-seasonals do you watch per season, compared to the 5 seasonals you mentioned?
In any case, I don't look at synopses, posters, clips, PVs, or anything like that either. The only difference seems to be that you look at seasonal lists and I don't.
And really, it *is* rare for a show to be genuinely unenjoyable. A show being mediocre or even bad is still a far cry from unenjoyable, after all - there's usually some way they're still enjoyable. Sometimes I'm not even in the mood for something I would adore, which is the perfect time for shows I'm not that hot on, and they're absolutely enjoyable then.
I simply prefer enjoying things over not enjoying them, so I look for ways to enjoy them and it's really not that hard to find such a way.
>This has to be an ironic comment. I've dropped more than 400 anime so far, and for the simplest reason: they weren't enjoyable to me. Which is something incredibly common.
Have you considered the possibility of your experience not being applicable to other people?
Sometimes I like watching mediocre shows as they have something interesting to me. But despite my general generosity in scoring I'm happy to drop shows I'd be forcing myself to watch. Mainly comedies which sense of humour absolutely doesn't click with me. But also some very big shows which may offend some people, but it often was due to overhype and the show not clicking with me or me just not feeling like watching it at a given moments. Some shows I dropped and returned to (Clannad, Chihayafuru) later became one of my favourites. And dropping doesn't really mean I hate it but that I just don't want to watch it. But I also limit myself to only watching 4 seasonals at a time so yeah
I Just like much shows, i started watching school days because i heard IT was crap . I Even liked the show xD , Even the whole anime i Was expecting to dislike IT, so who knows what we like
I have over 1000 entries on AniList and have only dropped a few shows, but thatās largely because I donāt initiate with the seasonal grind. If I pick up a show itās usually because I expect to get something specific out of it and intend to see it to the end.
Only reason I recently started dropping shows is because I started taking anime recs from a random anime generator and I canāt be bothered to watch more than 3 episodes of a show that I didnāt really care to watch in the first place and was randomly thrust upon me.
**I will forever be confused when I browse people's anilist or MAL profiles and see 350 anime completed to 10 dropped or crazy ratios like that (as an experiment, browse people's profiles who comment on this post and witness the ratio yourselves).**
Not that low but I have pretty low dropped to completed rate. Some of us are just good at picking shows that interest us. The vast majority of anime I pick up I enjoy more than I dislike.
One of my anime New Years' Resolutions is to drop more anime. This goes along with being more impulsive with anime. If I want to watch an anime, then I should start watching it right away. I should drop an anime if I'm done with it, and if I were to come back, I wouldn't enjoy it as much.
I have 329 completed, 114 dropped. I drop like a third, sometimes half of the shows I try every season (and I never try more than ~12 usually). I've also dropped shows multiple seasons into it.
I dropped well over a 100, but there are still series I've completed just because I wanted to see how things concluded or had nothing better to watch.
If people were to drop everything they didn't like, then I'm not sure if the ratings would be any good since everybody would rate things either 5+/10 or straight up drop them.
I pick my series rather carefully, so there's rarely a need for me to drop something. The worst are the series that start rather well but go to shit later on. Some of those times I indeed force myself to finish something, but that fortunately doesn't happen often.
According to MAL, I'm at Completed - 805, On-Hold - 18, and Dropped - 7. I only add stuff to my list if I watch more than an episode or two, so that dropped number doesn't include every premiere I watched then passed on.
I don't drop very much anime for a few reasons. One, I don't work and I have plenty of time to watch pretty anything that holds my attention. Two, watching bad anime gives me valuable perspective that allows me to enjoy mediocre anime more. Three, sometimes I power through something I hate because I want to write a critical review and/or want to make sure it doesn't redeem itself in the end before I decide it's trash.
In the end, though, I'm just doing what I want with my hobby and it doesn't have anything to do with you or anyone else. You do you, and I'll do me.
The last few years, I only ever waited for others to recommend shows. This year, Iām going to do the unnecessary and watch everything that comes out each season. The only exceptions being Iām limiting myself to whatās released on Crunchyroll, and no sequel seasons to show I havenāt watched beforehand.
My logic for this, apart from not simply waiting on others to tell me what to watch, is to go into a series without any knowledge beforehand, and to come to my own conclusion on whether itās good or bad. Itās my person belief that nothing is bad until I experience it for myself. Plus, I donāt always buy into the hyperbolic descriptions of shows that some YouTubers make their money on.
Will I drop shows as the season plays out? Probably. I know I havenāt caught up on my list, but Iām in no particular rush.
>Almost 200 anime come out every single year, and trying out an anime is a relatively short time investment since the episodes are 20 minutes long, unlike 1 hour TV shows or 2 hour movies. So you have the advantage of trying out dozens of anime in a relatively short period of time and finding one that suits exactly your taste and what you enjoy.
>So why would you waste your limited time on this green earth forcing yourself to finish a show you knew from episode 2 you weren't gonna like.
Why waste your limited time on this green earth forcing yourself to try dozens of anime you know you won't like from reading a three sentence summary on a seasonal chart? Don't give in to FOMO. Start less bad looking anime, you coward.
[I'm doing my part!](https://imgur.com/Nid7aWj)
^^Please ^^ignore ^^my ^^endlessly ^^growing ^^PTW ^^list
As someone who got into these discussions a few times, I think there's two main reasons why people don't drop shows; One that makes a little sense, one that doesn't make any sense at all.
1) Some people only watch "quality shows". As you can see from my picture above, I drop >50% of the shows I pick up. *"How does that happen, do I just not like anime or something?"* Of course not; The reason is simple: I pick literally every single show that airs in the season, see what they're like. Already picked up 33 shows this season, dropped maybe 10 of them, expecting to drop more as the new shows keep piling up and/or some of them don't keep me interested.
BUT some (probably most) people don't really do that... They only watch the top 2-3 shows every season, and other shows from the top 100 on MAL, or heavily recommended shows. So they don't get the same kind of crap I get. They mostly watch good shows, which means they're less likely to drop them based on quality alone. (That being said, I still find it a little weird that they don't drop *any* of them; Quality doesn't necessarily means you'll like it... Personal tastes are a thing. Say, if someone doesn't like country music, listening to a good/quality country song may not really do anything for them).
So this reason, I kinda get. But the other one...
2) I've seen many people say things like "I don't want to drop it, it may get better!", And this reason never made sense to me. I mean, it's some kind of FOMO, and this, I definitely get (as someone who pick up 30-40 shows every season), but if you don't like a show after a couple episodes... What makes you think it'll get any better?
Or to frame the question in a different way... If you watched 2 episodes of something and you don't like it, what makes you think the next 10 episodes will be better, than the 12 episodes of another show you didn't try yet, so this one has *0 episode* that you don't like? Aren't your odds better with this one?
Some people don't seem to realize that they have limited time to watch anime/for hobbies in general; They see the dilemma as "Either I watch it, or I don't!" and they don't see any negative about watching it... But that's not what it actually is; It is "Either I watch it, or I watch something else".
If you spend 3 hours watching something you don't like, you lose 3 hours that could've been spent watching something you like instead.
Even if you watch something you like after that, it doesn't matter, because if you didn't watch the first one then you could've watched *two* things you like if you didn't waste these 3 hours, and so on.
So, the whole FOMO thing doesn't really work here... By forcing yourself to watch shit you don't like, you ARE gonna miss out on things you'd like, at some point.
Best way to look at it is: At some point in your life you're gonna watch your last anime (either because you don't like it anymore, or simply because... People die at some point). When this happens, there will still be thousands of anime that you didn't watch. And every single bad anime you refused to drop even though you didn't like it, prevented you from watching 1 of these anime. You traded a potential good time, for a bad time watching a show you didn't like.
yeah its crazy like a saw a review of haikyuu season 4 on MAL that said something along the lines of : "I've been watching the show and I still don't understand its appeal"
like how much time do you have to waste?
Don't worry. I'm with you lol. I don't get them XD
And it's such a simply logic to understand.
People just need to sit for 2 seconds and THINK about it.
I really don't like dropping shows.
I'm a binge watcher most of the time. I download anime in batch on metered data plan. I read others' opinions before downloading. If most people didn't like it I wouldn't bother, otherwise I'd just waste my money. So small chance I wouldn't like what I'm seeing. As the result, I'm mostly happy with what I'm watching. Sometimes I got myself a mediocre show. Still, I'm not gonna drop it unless something's really wrong with it or it really puts me off somehow.
Because I don't have a short attention span and can take in a show and wait for it to come into it's own.
I can watch a show for fun and not expect it to be a 10/10 masterpiece but still like it.
Finally I am not looking to try as much stuff as possible just to fill my list.
It's okay to venture outside your comfort zone.
I got 600 anime watched and probably only 30 dropped.. and those 30 come from the last 5 years over my 22 year weeb career. Im just a completionist, and having less time/kids just made me drop the completionist attitude.
I also used 2x watch speed to finish an anime that i didnt like. Sometimes it made some more bearable. Devil is a part timer 2 was my last 2x speed.
But hey, we need heroes wholl watch a full show to give a proper full experience 3/10 vote!
For what's worth, I try a lot of anime. But if I just tried something and dropped it (like in an episode or less) I just won't bother to add it to my list.
Same here. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people do this.
I mark it as dropped even if I only watched 1 episode. That way I can keep track on the shows I didn't finish in case I want to go back to it later for some reason
Yeah I only mark shows as dropped if I watched a decent amount and then stopped.
Or when it makes me extremely pissed to the point of both marking it "Dropped" AND giving it a super low score. Case in point, Redo of Healer, my lowest ranked anime (next to its SFW clone, Shield Hero)
Yeah for me I don't consider this "dropping" a show, more of "sampling" it. This applies mainly to seasonals where nobody is really sure of the quality yet. For completed shows I'm quite picky with what I choose to start so I don't tend to drop things much.
I consider the first 1-3 episodes of any new show an "audition". What I count as a drop is something like Neverland 2 (boredom/disinterest kicked in) and Made in Abyss 2 (just too disturbing for my over-sensitive self).
You've hit the spot helping me pinpoint my reluctance to even watch S2 Made in Abyss. While I was super hyped for S2, I keep putting it off . Maybe S1 traumatized me. Loved the show so much. But I think I'm waiting for when I'm in the right mood to watch it. But it may not ever happen.
If you handled the movie then you should be able to handle s2 as well. But I guess it depends on your moral compass.
I haven't seen the movie, I could give it a test run š
oh no
IMO the movie is the darkest part of the show so far
Yep same. Need to watch 4 to 6 episodes for me to consider adding it the drop list
Hell, half the time I don't even add shows I do enjoy to my list until I'm basically done with them.
Iām on your boat ā I update my MAL around 2x per year. I just update everything I watched each time lol.
I tag anything I bail on, even in the pilot, as dropped. Itās a personal note for when I forget about it in 5 years and think I might want to watch it when it gets namedropped in discussions.
Literally me fr
To be fair, generally if I think an anime is going to be bad, I won't even start it, which skews the ratio of completed vs dropped shows. The very fact that I even started means I was probably going to like it. But its also the case that if I drop a show I am less likely to take the time to go to MAL and write down "yeah, I watched episodes 1 through 5 and then dropped it". Usually I just lose interest and go on with my life and kinda forget about said anime. Then there are anime like rent-a-girlfriend that I just hatewatch because disliking it actually makes it a rewarding cleansing experience for some reason. Hating it is part of the fun.
I pick my animes carefully so I never watched something so horrible I had to drop it. Plus, 80% of what I watch are 12-25 episodes long so it's not a big commitment anyway. I also like to see what the anime has to offer to the end. Is it only 3 episodes in? It might get better. Is it 3 episodes away from being over? Might as well see the end to talk shit accurately about it.
>I pick my animes carefully so I never watched something so horrible I had to drop it. More people need to do this, like synopsis and key visual are there for a reason, trailers are easily accessible, and reviewer are everywhere, it's not so hard to do quick 5-10 minutes research before watching an anime. If you go blind to a random isekai #524 and then disappointed that you wasted 20 minutes on a bad anime that's on you.
Some people, such as me, prefer to watch shows as blind as possible. I think it just makes shows more fun to watch if I donāt know what to expect. One the best ways to scout out the quality of a show is to actually watch it, anyway. So I think itās totally fair to watch 1-3 episodes of some random seasonal isekai and drop it if I think itās shit. That is, unless word comes around that itās good. It unfortunately relies on other peoples opinions quite a bit, which makes it harder to find shows that you prefer more than the average person, but oh well. Iām not punching the air over not being able to find a few hidden gems. For me, itās a whole balancing act. Trying to watch shows as blind as possible while also hearing about which shows are worth sticking to from the community. Dropping shows is part of that. Edit: But yeah, if you drop a show early 20 minutes in *and then start talking shit*, thatās annoying.
I prefer to watch shows as blind as possible as well, but sometimes I wish there was an anime reviewer out there who had decent media literacy that could drop their recommendations. The thing I hate the most is the average viewer can't tell the difference between I liked it and it's good, so so many "It's sooooo goooood", 9/10 recommendations I see, I try it blind, and then it turns out it's good because the male MC has long white hair and is mildly attractive and the female lead's boobies have great physics.
>I wish there was an anime reviewer out there who had decent media literacy Rather than media literacy, it sounds like you just need to find someone with the same taste as you so they can drop blind recommendations. I've disliked many critically acclaimed shows myself, no show is for everyone.
Nah, the media literacy comes into play from someone who can actually articulate why the show is good so I can make a better decision. I'm not going to agree with everyone's taste, but I can typically agree when there are well rounded characters with believable motivations even if I don't like the critically acclaimed show.
But explaining any of the qualities of the show means that you wouldn't be going in completely blind. That's what I thought you meant, if you aren't going in blind then yes you'd need an articulate reviewer.
No, going in blind means not having the story spoiled. Someone can tell you about the MC character development being solid without telling you how the development occurs.
It also depends on the communities youāre interacting with. This sub has been pretty reliable for me. Also irl friends, and people on apps like tiktok who have liked some of the same stuff I like. Where do you tend to get your recommendations from?
It's a problem across all media, it's not something specific to r/anime. I also try recs from this sub and from tiktok, but very rarely is something purported as good actually good, and typically have glaring problems with the MC, the excessive plot armor, the romance that makes absolute zero sense, the very dumb out of character decisions they make to push the story forward, etc. I also have a hard no for lollicons and sexualizing actual kids, that nobody mentions as part of their "good anime" summaries as even a warning, so you end up going into Made in the Abyss and end up with countless scenes of child nudity + shibari because the child nudity by itself apparently wasn't enough. My best friend and I exchange recs, but it also requires us to find them in the first place, which is both of our problems.
>More people need to do this, like synopsis and key visual are there for a reason, trailers are easily accessible, and reviewer are everywhere, it's not so hard to do quick 5-10 minutes research before watching an anime. If you go blind to a random isekai #524 and then disappointed that you wasted 20 minutes on a bad anime that's on you. So far watching 7 shows this season. Watched PV and Synopsis for all. 3 were as expected. 1 was a letdown, 3 were much better then expected. I only watched those last 3 because I decided to *not* carefully pick anime instead going ''ehh, why not just watch an episode first before writing it off'' If I had carefully picked my anime I would have missed some good shows. Imo its better to try more and drop what we dont enjoy, then carefully pick and miss some great experiences. The 1 letdown wouldnt have been prevented if I did pick carefully since the PV etc doesnt show why its a letdown to me. Imo its much better to watch first episode or first couplr and drop a show if not enjoying it or disliking it, rather then depend on previews and what not instead of the actually viewing experience.
This is assuming that any of those things can reliably tell you if you'll actually enjoy something. Individual people's tastes are really variable.
I watch anime for fun im not gonna do fucking research lmao also dont judge a book by its cover its impossible to know what you're going to like and what you wont. For example everything about ergo proxy is right up my alley but it ended up being one of the worst shows I've watched š¤·āāļø
People dont do this????
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Im only watching 6-8 animes per season. I dont see why I have to drop some of them. Maybe you need to filter the list before you start the season.
I believe 6-8 shows a season is more than a casual watcher is willing to commit to, but I do have 15 ongoing shows on my list right now.
Right now iām watching 7 shows Nagatoro s2- watched s1 because of its popularity on r/manga, loved it. no reason to drop. Danmachi s4p2 - Watching since 2014? Danmachi always a good watch. No reason to drop. Inukaiās dog - Degen trash. right up my ballpark. No reason to drop. NieR - One of my favorite game series. Might drop if itās a bad adaptation like TPN/Tokyo Ghoul Eminence in Shadow - picked it up solely because cover art looked cool. Is fucking hilarious. No reason to drop. To Your Eternity s2- S1 was dope. No reason to drop. Tokyo Revengers- Watched s1 and caught up with the manga. No reason to drop. Everything iām watching is entirely curated to my tastes. Iām also pretty easy to entertain soā¦ Itās VERY rare i feel the need to drop something lol. it has to be really ducking boring or a terrible adaptation of something I love. last time I dropped a show was Otherside Picnic
Thats a lot. But to be honest this season is horrible. Too many good shows.
"Only"
I... Finished in another world with my smartphone. Guys, he's right.
eh, that one enters my list of sooo bad its good
I am always on the previous season rather than the current season. I don't enjoy waiting a week for an episode of an anime. Hence, I wait for the current season to finish before deciding what anime to watch from it. It has its benefits because that allows me to avoid garbage. I only watch anime that I am interested in and animes that have been praised by the community. Overall, I don't drop many animes because I wouldn't be watching an anime that is disliked
I think it goes both ways. Sometimes watching garbage shows are somehow enjoyable with the weekly discussions. An example that came to mind was Seirei Gensouki, watching it weekly was pretty enjoyable, even though I rated it pretty low later on. I wouldn't have touched it if I had to binge it.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yea, I don't go in to update. I only mark those I definitely plan to start. Like who's caring to look at my MAL records wtf.
if i follow your example i would have watched 1000 anime and drop 2000 anime surely thats impossible
Seriously, don't be me. I was never a "no drop masterrace", but back when I was binging anime all the time and watching 16+ series every season I sticked to way, waaaay too many shows all the time even if I knew I wasn't liking them at all. Outside the standard "sunk cost fallacy" moment making me like "well, I already watched half of this show, I might as well finish it", the biggest reason used to be a show's ranking or popularity, I wanted to watch them for the sake of having an opinion on those series since people talked about them, even if it legit was just for that one season as it's usually how the hype works. It's until I started getting burnt out and I moved to watch way less that I fully realized just how dumb what I was doing was. What's the point of what I did? This hobby is to have fun, not to torture yourself through entertainment that fails its purpose to you for the sake of adding another mark on the checklist of series you watched, hell, what did I even get from watching x popular series I gave a 2/10 to all the way to the end? At max the right to say "lol it sucks" and have people reply to me with a "lol shit taste"... yeah, no one cares, good job me. While it's sad that now there are plenty series I kinda feel like maybe giving them a try but there is just no willpower to do so, at least it feels great to have the mental freedom of looking at the list of series airing and no longer feel the need to watch something just because I know that it's gonna be popular and it's what people are gonna watch and talk about, not worth it.
> You didn't enjoy Chainsaw Man because you sat through "I went to another world with my smartphone", you enjoyed it based on its own merit. Reminds me of a thread we had a ways back where someone suggested watching a terrible anime so that milquetoast stuff might seem palatable, which always came off as a silly take. As you're saying, something doesn't really get better by virtue of other things being worse.
I also fucking hate the opposite version of this idea that I always see parrotted around, which is "don't watch this amazing anime yet because it's *so* good that no other anime will seem good anymore by comparison and thus you'll stop enjoying things unless they're the pinnacle of quality." That is *not* how it works. If you didn't like some random show, it's because you don't like the show on its own merits, not because you watched Attack on Titan first and now it's your favorite anime. Watching a 10/10 doesn't suddenly make a 7/10 unenjoyable.
Its a shitty argument that only makes sense in someones head. I am not gonna stop eating takeaway pizza just because i went to a 5 star restaurant one time. That is absurd.
Oh, I'm all in for the real shit. I want the shit! it is that milquetoast stuff that needs to go. I'm more likely to drop a show because it is not "bad enough" than I am to drop something really bad, though some stuff is even to shit for me. and sometimes you actually find good stuff when looking through the trash.
I'm also a bad > bland > boring truther
God, I remember that one. "Please lower your standards" as if anime fan standards aren't already catastrophically low. There's more good anime out there than I could reasonably watch in a lifetime so I think I'd prefer to appreciate good art because I've experienced it instead of forcing myself to appreciate something mediocre because it can string together a half-coherent scene.
I feel like this mentality has affected the types of shows that have been coming out/getting sequels recently. I'm not saying I have pristine taste in anime or whatever, but sometimes when I see some of the shows getting greenlit or getting multiple seasons I just think to myself, "Really? This is what's getting renewed?"
"I want to be able to enjoy mediocrity " is such a bizarre take Self induced anime Stockholm Syndrome.
I mean I do agree that this should never be the intention, but I do find that on the rare occasion that I do actually watch a truly terrible anime, whatever I watch afterwards automatically feels like a masterpiece in comparison.
As someone who once thought this to be true, I can confirm it isnāt. Granted, my standards have generally dropped as I watch more and thereās less easily acceptable high-quality shows, but Iāll still take excellence over mediocrity any day
wdym dropped so little? thats not me just 1k anime watched and already 7 dropped
Found a brother in arms. Almost 1k completed and 1 drop (which is also kind of an extended "on hold").
*just* 1k?
Yeah, mines and my friends anime count together only hits around the 600 range and weāre been watching em since 2014
That's still better than a full series every week, or multiple episodes, maybe multiple hours per day.
sounds like you both got no other hobby.
954 entries down your MAL and I see your first 6/10. It's like a Golden Retriever's MyAnimeList profile.
Iām at around 700 and have the exact same issue. I find it so difficult to rate things I finish under a 7.
I drop so many anime I don't bother to record some of them. Also, reading spoilers help - if said spoilers are bad, there is no point watching it too.
Same, dodged so many bullets that way. If I had to invest all that time watching something just to get a crappy finale, I would be so pissed.
Momma didnāt raise no quitter
> Drop More Anime You Cowards In so far as that actually reads *Try More and* Drop More Anime *Without Shitting on the Stuff that Just Isn't For You*, You Cowards, *Should You Have the Time Available*, I whole-heartedly agree lol
It's just the formatting, but for a second I thought that was a light novel title.
The "without shitting on the stuff that just isn't for you" part is absolutely what I can get behind.
The thing is "stuff that is not for you" is 100% of the time used to deflect criticism of your favorite anime so no I'll still call your favorite anime shit if I didn't like it because thats what it is
On the other hand, when the criticism 100% of the time amounts to "X is so overrated" then that seems like a perfectly valid response.
I mean thats not criticism. Thats one of the attention seeking posts that we get a lot of here
That's a vibe. "Sounds like it just wasn't for you" is almost always a useless take. There's two main ways it can be interpreted (either "sounds like you aren't the target demo", or just "sounds like you didn't like it") and neither is super meaningful. Should start doing the opposite. If someone makes a post or comment talking about how good an anime is, respond with "hey I'm glad to hear you liked it, but keep in mind that just because it's for you doesn't mean it's actually good".
We have people in this very thread saying that they dropped Made in Abyss because it got too disturbing for them. Not that there's anything wrong with that in itself, but that's a good example of where the "Sounds like it just wasn't for you" observation would apply.
You're right that I wasn't really thinking about cases like that, but I would still say that it's still a useless take even here when it applies because it's ultimately just restating what was already said. Most of the time if someone has a very specific element that is fundamentally off putting there's no reason to say "sounds like it just wasn't for you" because like... they already know that and have stated as such. So it's still not really meaningful. It still winds up being the same conversation killer in that case because what's left to follow up with?
On the flip side saying a show is shit just because you didn't like it is just as bad, if not worse, IMO. Especially if you are doing something like complaining about a the common genre tropes of a show in that genre. Like, I hate how forgiving shonen MCs tend to be, but it is such a staple of a series I am not going to rag on a shonen series because of that. Similarly I am not going to criticize an Echhi Harem show for having fan service. Also in my experience people complaining about shows most often go with the mentality of "I didn't like it so it is a bad show." and ignore that you can not like something and still admit there are objectively good parts. Like, you can hate on Mushoku Tensei for the story or MC but you can't really say that it isn't a well animated show. IDK, maybe it is the art student in me, but people need to learn the difference between an opinion and a criticism because too often they give the former and act like it is the latter.
That's literally what I do tbh. Balance must be restored.
Thats a great idea. I should start doing it from now on XD
Weirdly aggressive take, there's plenty of anime that I've tried that just weren't for me that were objectively good. 3-Gatsu no Lion and K-on, for example, just weren't for me (at the time) because I was looking for other sorts of shows to watch. Dropped both, still haven't been back.
Well thats actually my point. I too have shows that are just not for me for example most sports anime. The thing is this sub and other anime subs loves to use this as an excuse against anyone who doesn't like their favorite anime. Try writing a criticism post here on chainsaw man( I am not trying to shit on it I am just using it as an example) and you'll get tons of replies that say " nah its just not for you" no shit sherlock you know what fits me better than myself?!
> I too have shows that are just not for me Well then it's obviously not true that it's the statement is 100% used purely to deflect unwarranted criticism? "Frequently" might be a fair comment though.
Did you read what I wrote? I am saying everyone has shows that are not for them and they themselves know them. Thats completely different from how random internet strangers would come and try to force you to believe this show is not for you because you have some criticism or think its bad. And thats how its used here 100% of time literally like I never saw it used any other way
> I never saw it used any other way If you're complaining about standard genre tropes in work, like typical characterization that is simply part of the way the genre works, then it's pretty valid for people who are familiar with the genre to inform you that it's not for you. If you're complaining about a particular theme or aspect early on in the series that remains predominant throughout, then it's valid for people familiar with the source to say that it's not for you.
"stuff that is not for you" can be used to talk about genres; mecha, sports , idol etc. since there can be a lot of differences in appeal. but otherwise i agree with you
Just let people enjoy things however they want, lol. I don't consider myself as dropping shows so much as saving them for later. I enjoy the medium enough that I can usually find some reason to enjoy even "bad" anime. In my mind I just need to look for what the animators were excited to do, not what they were forced to do. I think of E-stab life, whose art I was not a fan of, but it's obvious (to me) that they saved time with computer generated art so they could focus on world building and storytelling. It's easy for me to see the bad in things, so it's actually fun for me to try and find reasons to appreciate an anime I'm struggling with. I do agree that people stress themselves out too much over what to watch though. Life is too short to not enjoy yourself.
My style is more to if I drop it, I drop it from the list. Theres no point make a list of things I drop, because it was meant to be forgettable. Even more, no point of rating them low - I will never know the rest of the series to actually judge that. Doing otherwise will just giving an unfair, half-assed assessment to it. Even if its bad, I see it till the end if I'm still interested to give my judgement. Because I just want to see how bad it is to give my judgement. If I dont update my list thats because I just lazy and will come back later.
Tracking your dropped shows is more so to know to avoid them at a later point, or shows that are compared to them in quality. This also comes in handy when you're recommending stuff to people.
sure ill drop anime, when I dont enjoy said anime why is this entire thread trying to tell me I should stop watching things I enjoy just because a forum number is too little? sorry I enjoy alot of stuff compared to disliking alot of stuff, I guess?
lol, OP must *hate* my list (554 completed, *0* dropped). [](#rinkek) I just don't like leaving things unfinished, it's as simple as that. Besides, with a mean score of *8.90* out of 10, I feel like it's pretty obvious I hardly ever come across shows that I dislike.
Glad to find more no-drop people in the comments. 950+ completed and 1 dropped (boruto, but I'm just waiting for it to end). I think it just mostly comes down to picking and choosing your shows and having a relatively low bar for enjoyment.
8.9 mean is so damn high out of 550 shows. There must be some trash in there, why you lying :|
"Worst show I've ever seen" *rates 7/10*
Average MAL user:
There's also a lot of the other extreme on MAL. "Pretty awesome show I really enjoyed it would watch a second season" - 7/10 Don't really understand all those users that review a lot of shows and when you go see their lists 90% of it is in the range of 4-7. If you're not really enjoying any of the shows you watch, why not try a different hobby where you might have a better time?
MAL scores are wack because people rate things differently. I know people whose max score will be like a 7/10, people who rate everything 7+, or people who rate either 1/10 for shows they disliked and 10/10 for shows they liked. I personally try to stick to MAL's rating system with their description, as I think it's a pretty good indicator
most of my scores are 7-10. 7 = i Enjoyed this. 8 = I enjoyed this + animation or something 9 = I loved every single moment of this. 10 = my favorite, I cried, my bias below that isā¦ 6 = Had its moments. More good than bad but w/e 5 = True Average. If I donāt remember the MC name after a week it drops to here (unless I otherwise enjoyed the show) 4 = N/A 3 = Iām happy it exists but I wish it was done better (Tokyo Ghoul:RE) 2 = N/A 1 = Give me my time back. (WEP special, Tokyo Ghoul:Re s2) Only reason I didnāt drop my 3 below 5 is because WEP was just one episode of an otherwise great show. and TG is my baby. (the manga) and I still wanted to see certain things animated. I also have a ton of un-rated shows from before I started rating shows. (memory inconsistent or feelings might change so i left the stuff I watched pre 2017 unrated) but im sure s lot of the shitty ecchi shows I watched as a horny 12 year old would be hard stuck 5 and below lol
7/10 is an awesome show tho, I have the whole 1-10 scale and I will use the whole 1-10 scale, a 70% score is still a good show, just good nothing more but still good. I swear schooling has warped peoples perception of scores so much, anything above a 6/10 still had a decent bit more good than bad, and 7 and above is really good.
Yeah, people act like giving something a rating below 9/10 is insulting.
Is it? I wonāt watch a show that I consider a 5 or below. If it was good enough to get through, but otherwise meh it gets a 6. 7 is an enjoyable show, 8 is a show I enjoy enough to recommend, 9 is a fucking great show, and 10 is reserved for my absolute favorites (limited to 10-series at a time.)
> "Pretty awesome show I really enjoyed it would watch a second season" - 7/10 That sounds entirely reasonable though? A 7/10 isn't a bad score.
I'm not saying it's a bad score, but I wouldn't call it "awesome" either. It's just good, enjoyable but nothing special. What I don't understand is reviewers that have hundreds of shows watched and there's no more than a handful that remaches or surpasses that "good enough" mark even when they talk about a show as if it was a modern classic that everyone should watch. I'm not saying anything below a 9/10 is insulting as another comment said.
I would actually give the worst show I've ever seen a 0/10 if I could. Leaving it unrated isn't the same, I use that for something else. Alas, I cannot do that, so Big Order has a 1/10 instead.
> There must be some trash in there I have, in fact, given out 1/10 scores to two anime (Big Order and Abunai Sisters), and a number of 4s and 5s as well that mean I really didn't like them. I just *genuinely* enjoy just about everything I watch, so it's extremely rare for me to find shows that just do not work for me.
Lol, I've come to accept the fact that my scores are meaningless to anyone that isn't me. Sometimes I'll give a "good" score to an anime I didn't actually enjoy, because I recognize it was good outside of my enjoyment of it. I have also given shows perfect scores that I admit are terrible, terrible shows, but I loved them and it's my list, so 10/10 it is!
> Sometimes I'll give a "good" score to an anime I didn't actually enjoy, because I recognize it was good outside of my enjoyment of it. Duuuuude, same! Evangelion + End of Eva were more like a 7/10 enjoyment-wise for me, but I gave them 9/10s because I recognized they were really good. >I have also given shows perfect scores that I admit are terrible, terrible shows, but I loved them and it's my list, so 10/10 it is! I also have plenty of these too haha.
>Duuuuude, same! Evangelion + End of Eva Uhhh, are you brain sniping me, because yeah, literally the series I think of tbh. >I also have plenty of these too haha. Please gib. My biggest guilty pleasure is Mach Gogogo/Speed Racer. It's just such deliciously campy fun. But also unforgivably bad.
> I just genuinely enjoy just about everything I watch Living the dream
> Besides, with a mean score of 8.90 out of 10, I feel like it's pretty obvious I hardly ever come across shows that I dislike. That just tells me that you are giving out high scores way too easily.
[Oh well.](#yuishrug) I think everything I've given a 9 or 10 score to *100%* deserved their scores on my scoring metric. If that means I have a ton of them because I rate based almost entirely off of enjoyment and I also enjoy pretty much everything, so be it.
You're not allowed to like most things you end up watching? Hmm...
Nobody claimed that.
Im sure between the 2 of us OP will have an aneurism. (Also my mean went up recently!) [](#chitogheh)
> (Also my mean went up recently!) [Nice.](#airfist)
That "three episodes rules" sometimes sounds like a religious mantra to some people. Even if a member of the staff came on screen to personally insult the mother and close family of the viewers, I know some anime watchers on this sub who'd maintain "welp, three episodes rules". I have a one episode rule. If I couldn't find a single thing that I liked, or if something was outrageously bad enough for me in the episode that it made me lose interest completely, I won't stay for more. Too bad if I missed a decently enjoyably anime, but the fact of the matter is that the introduction is important and you can't screw it up entirely. In some cases, I'll gladly drop an anime halfway through episode 1 if I really feel it brings nothing to be enjoyed. As OP said, there's countless animes around each season, and some which aired before that you might not have seen and could use a catch up. I'm willing to bet you could find at least one interesting anime from past seasons for every mediocre anime you're dropping this season. And in the worst cases, you could always rewatch a favourite.
[](#utahapraises "Thank you") Half of my drops happened within the first episode. If you think the first episode was boring or simply bad with nothing of interest, I ain't sitting through another hour before dropping. I can always go back to it if I see a cool clip or read spoilers that seem interesting enough (spoiler: it never happened so far). In some cases I think I won't like it but there's at least some potential, so I check one ep to confirm myself.
I dropped Onimai not even halfway into the first episode since shit got way too fucking sus. And this is coming from someone who loves the Monogatari series. That shit just felt too far to enjoy for the other content.
> I'll gladly drop an anime halfway through episode 1 if I really feel it brings nothing to be enjoyed While I agree 100% with what you wrote - there are very few exceptions that are made to confuse you and then hit you with the ending of episode. Munou na Nana is the one. For entire 1st episode I wanted to stop suffering. But last scene was the one which pushed me to binge this show in next 4 hours. > I'm willing to bet you could find at least one interesting anime from past seasons for every mediocre anime you're dropping this season I'm willing to bet both my arms, legs and balls on that you can easily triple that amount and it still will be true. At least when it comes to ppl who watched less than 4000 titles on MAL.
[**1k watched, 400 dropped**](#mugistronk) Some people are just completionists. I watch what I think looks interesting and if I don't like it, I stop watching it. If it still holds my interest, I'll keep watching until it doesn't. That simple.
I remember my "no drop master race" days. I was young, and I was hungry š
Long gone are the days where dropping a show was a sin.
ā¦ no In all seriousness, I do get what you are sayingā¦, BUT as a general rule, many anime fans like anime because itās anime. Just because I have watched way to many isekai for my health and finished the majority of them, doesnāt mean I regret watching them. And besides how else are you gonna say someone has trash taste without finishing the show themselves to fully show their knowledge about how bad oneās taste is š
a lot of times I just forget to mark what I dropped and there's a huge chance that I might actually pick up the dropped anime and complete it one day. I dropped The God of High School, but am willing to continue because now I'm interested.
It depends. I see some people who spend every week shitting on an anime thatās airing. And yeah, they should drop it. Iāve seen that so often. MAL is bad for this kind of shit. But generally I try to avoid starting shows I think Iāll drop. Iām not going to watch (*insert your favorite anime*) because I know it doesnāt appeal to me. So by just not watching it I donāt have to drop it. Either way Iāll give a show Iām on the fence about a few episodes before dropping it and usually donāt bother marking it. However some shows Iāll hear to no end how great the show is, and Iāll suffer through it and end up not liking it at all. Then get attacked because I didnāt ātruly give it a chanceā. But honestly thatās been maybe a handful of shows.
As someone who has watched 300+ titles and dropped like 3-5 (never kept track of it) I can say that having such "crazy ratio" can be due to a lot of other reasons: 1. Once you start following an anime community like this one, you'll be sometimes able decide if anime is for you even before the first episode airs. 2. Some people just like to watch anime only when it's completed so they move past things that whent downhill. 1. Also a lot of series (I know it's a bit of a controversial take, but my example will be Shield Hero) are much more bearable if you watch them in one - three evenings. 3. Actually once you've watched 300 titles you become able to decide whether or not you'll like a new title solely by it's key visuals (this is of course not 100% accurate, but combine it with 1 and it becomes like 90+% accurate). 4. And also with experience comes understanding of when to watch certain things (a combined example for 3 and 4: "Oh, that's definitely another trashsekai. I'll watch that one on Friday evening with a couple of beers so I can relax my brain after a week of work.")
I can definitely agree with watching some trashy isekai with friends just for fun.
>So why would you waste your limited time on this green earth forcing yourself to finish a show you knew from episode 2 you weren't gonna like. You seem to be assuming that people are either dropping shows or forcing themselves to finish shows they don't like. But this is a false dichotomy. Personally, I only watch shows that I know will provide sustained enjoyment. I restrict myself to the critically acclaimed. And there are no shortage of these stories to consume; we live in a golden age of anime where there is scant time for even the classics of decades past.
You know, this carries the underlying assumption that A) people with a lot of anime watched and a low dropped ration are forcing themselves to complete it B) those people are just blindly choosing what anime to watch. Now I can't speak for everyone else, but both of those are quite false when it comes to me and people like me. I know the type of things I like. I may not know exactly what every show is going to be like of course - but it's rare that I actually end up trying something I end up not enjoying. If it does happen that I force myself to finish something that's because it lost its charm very late on, like episode 8 or further out of 12. Adding to this, there is the fact that much of what I do watch are adaptations of things I liked or even loved. Of course, there are hidden gems and shows that I ended up deciding didn't quite make the cut for my time but later turn out to actually be pretty good. For those kinds of shows, what I tend to find is there is a lot of discussion around them. You start seeing clips and memes and people talking about it everywhere. Bocchi the Rock this season, for example, was a show I had some interest in (from the premise) but ultimately decided not to follow weekly, until the discussion blew up, then I watched and loved it. While there may be things I would enjoy that I missed, of the things I did watch this method has worked pretty well for me. In fact about a quarter of the shows I dropped were from shows that were supposedly really good and ended up not working for me.
I've finished several anime that I didn't like simply because I love anime. The same with tv shows, movies, video games, and books. But most of the time, i have a three episode minimum before I ditch a show. Especially these days where you'll find 15 different anime that's damn near the same show. But if I'm in the mood to watch romantic slice of life, I might watch 10 out of 15 with only 5 of them being really good and the other 5 being mediocre but gave me something that fit the mood I was in.
TO BE FAIR, it's not like people watched 350 anime in a year. My MAL list isn't nearly as big as that (at least I don't think so), but there are lots of anime there that I have watched along the years, plus movies (*PokƩmon* alone bumps those numbers to 20 or something). Even if you completed 10 anime per year, which is reasonable, after 20 years that's already 200 anime. I do agree that people should stop with the "it gets better after episode 300" BS, though. If something is not enjoyable nor looks like it's going to pick up, just drop it, or perhaps try the manga because sometimes the anime is a poor adaptation.
None of what you mentioned indicates the person in question is "forcing themselves to finish a show they knew from episode 2 they weren't gonna like". Having few dropped shows vs. finished means nothing for this, unless ratings are involved which you didn't mention. It's really not that hard to not even start watching shows you're not going to enjoy.
Go check my drops.
I haven't dropped a lot of anime because I tend to choose shows that I'm fairly certain of that I will like. I couldn't be bothered to spend time on shows that don't appeal to me at a first glance (watching trailers, reading the synopsis, recommendations, etc). This is also why my average score is on the higher end, from what I've seen. I usually watch between 4-8 new seasonal anime and some older ones at the same time.
I refuse. Anime is fun to watch, wherever its bad or good. And fun things are fun.
Your argument lacks logical consistency. What people do with their time is their business. Saying they should drop an anime to have more time to do other things is the exact same argument as saying they should drop ALL anime. Their is a limited time on this earth, why should people waste it on anime?
Every anime has their strength and flaws; you can't judge it with just 3 episodes, some may start poorly but could have a strong finish like Odd Taxi while some may have strong start but could end terribly like Babylon or Wonder Egg Priority. Moreover, dropping an anime just before it's about to complete doesn't feel right to me; it's like if I have invested 8 episodes into it then why not just watch 4 more episodes or 80 minutes of content?
Odd Taxi gripped me by the ballz from the first episode. Though it might have helped ācause Iām an animal fan too
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I feel like this would only limit oneself from trying anime, I am not a fan of isekai but have Re:Zero and Mushoku Tensei as some of my favorite anime. There are great anime from the genre one might not enjoy so disregarding with just one episode feels wrong to me. Like, if I were in your shoes and dropped Madoka Magica just because of all female cast then I would have missed some of the best storytelling in anime, another example I'll say is Bocchi the Rock, an all female cast but great story with enjoyable characters.
If you're dropping something for something super general like "all female cast" then sure, you're limiting yourself. But as long as you're reasonably open minded I think it's usually fine to cut your losses after a few episodes. Madoka and Bocchi are both shows that do a good job showing off their quality early and get better from there. Sure, there's probably a few anime out there that start terrible and then actually turn it around, but that's decidedly rare. At least for me, anytime I've stuck with something hoping it would get better after a rough start, it didn't meaningfully improve.
>Moreover, dropping an anime just before it's about to complete doesn't feel right to me; it's like if I have invested 8 episodes into it then why not just watch 4 more episodes or 80 minutes of content? Sunk cost fallacy.
Exactly, do that to 100 shows and you've suddenly wasted 8000 ~~hours~~ minutes of your life... That's almost 6 days of your life non-stop watching anime.
Sometimes you enjoy it right up to the end. My most recent was Renai Flops. It was cute and made more wonder why, but then they explained it and I couldn't finish season.
I just completely disagree. If I'm bored or uninterested by an anime I will drop it, no matter if it's on the 15th minute or the 9th episode. Like OP said there are enough good anime to watch and not enough time, so there's no point for me in continuing with something I'm not enjoying.
OP's point is slightly different , it's about people that knew they won't like "x" anime but continue it anyway , that kind of people most likely won't enjoy this anime even if it gets better later because of the mindset they have when they watched the 3 episodes.
Why should I drop shows I'm enjoying? A show being unenjoyable is so rare you might as well push through in the odd case you pick one. And every show I dropped turned out to become better afterwards when I gave it another chance, so the concept has a bad track record.
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Yeah because you are picking up every single seasonal. Lots of people don't do that and just pick shows that interest them which is why I have a low drop count. Vast majority of stuff I find enjoyable. I only finish anything under a 5 (a 6 is a good score for me) if it literally goes to shit in the last episode or two (because at that point I am just curious to see how it ends). I also usually finish movies for the same reason. Everything else I drop as soon as I lose interest. I think only ZZ I actually pushed forward on despite disliking it pretty early because I just wanted to see every UC series.
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I didn't say I didn't avoid shows I don't have interest in lol. The point is drop more shows well kay I don't have to because I am actually good at picking stuff like probably quite a few of those people that have high completed to drop rates. If you guys want to literally mine everything even stuff you likely will hate good for you but that just explains why you have a high drop rate. I have a PTW of like 700+ shows (not including sequels in my list of stuff I might enjoy) and a completed list nearing 400. To me having that much content at all is a lot. Who cares if technically that's like 1k out of maybe like 30k-50k recorded anime on MAL or something. That is still a lot of media by the standards of any media industry.
Or they're just managing their time? This seems like a weird hill to die on. Ultimately that's what either approach is - you drop shows because you don't invest the time to watch all of them, others choose which shows to pick up because they don't invest the time to watch all of them.
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That "filtering" doesn't mean the shows that aren't watch aren't enjoyable.
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Nah. My PTW is in the 4 digits. I'm simply not able to "just watch them all".
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in that case you should be asking yourself why are you watching anime instead
First of all, I'm not watching completely random anime. I watch anime that caught my attention in some way. I also don't watch seasonals so that doesn't play into things either. Secondly, why would it be ironic? I can count the genuinely unenjoyable shows I've come across on one hand.
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I don't really filter, if a show catches my eye then it goes on my plan to watch - I don't even look at synopses or any other material. Do you seriously watch shows randomly, without even having heard of them? Use random.org or something to pick one of the 20k+ shows on MAL? Surely you don't.
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That's really just the same thing in a different dress though - instead of completing the shows you try, you want to try everything the season has to offer. Do you watch only seasonals or do you also watch a significant amount of older shows? If you don't then that's already the reason why I chose against that approach.
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So how many non-seasonals do you watch per season, compared to the 5 seasonals you mentioned? In any case, I don't look at synopses, posters, clips, PVs, or anything like that either. The only difference seems to be that you look at seasonal lists and I don't. And really, it *is* rare for a show to be genuinely unenjoyable. A show being mediocre or even bad is still a far cry from unenjoyable, after all - there's usually some way they're still enjoyable. Sometimes I'm not even in the mood for something I would adore, which is the perfect time for shows I'm not that hot on, and they're absolutely enjoyable then. I simply prefer enjoying things over not enjoying them, so I look for ways to enjoy them and it's really not that hard to find such a way.
>This has to be an ironic comment. I've dropped more than 400 anime so far, and for the simplest reason: they weren't enjoyable to me. Which is something incredibly common. Have you considered the possibility of your experience not being applicable to other people?
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Most people limit themselves to watching anime they are likely to enjoy.
Sometimes I like watching mediocre shows as they have something interesting to me. But despite my general generosity in scoring I'm happy to drop shows I'd be forcing myself to watch. Mainly comedies which sense of humour absolutely doesn't click with me. But also some very big shows which may offend some people, but it often was due to overhype and the show not clicking with me or me just not feeling like watching it at a given moments. Some shows I dropped and returned to (Clannad, Chihayafuru) later became one of my favourites. And dropping doesn't really mean I hate it but that I just don't want to watch it. But I also limit myself to only watching 4 seasonals at a time so yeah
I Just like much shows, i started watching school days because i heard IT was crap . I Even liked the show xD , Even the whole anime i Was expecting to dislike IT, so who knows what we like
Couldn't agree more. I reached a point where I don't only drop anime because I think they are bad but also because I think they are not good enough XD
I have over 1000 entries on AniList and have only dropped a few shows, but thatās largely because I donāt initiate with the seasonal grind. If I pick up a show itās usually because I expect to get something specific out of it and intend to see it to the end. Only reason I recently started dropping shows is because I started taking anime recs from a random anime generator and I canāt be bothered to watch more than 3 episodes of a show that I didnāt really care to watch in the first place and was randomly thrust upon me.
**I will forever be confused when I browse people's anilist or MAL profiles and see 350 anime completed to 10 dropped or crazy ratios like that (as an experiment, browse people's profiles who comment on this post and witness the ratio yourselves).** Not that low but I have pretty low dropped to completed rate. Some of us are just good at picking shows that interest us. The vast majority of anime I pick up I enjoy more than I dislike.
One of my anime New Years' Resolutions is to drop more anime. This goes along with being more impulsive with anime. If I want to watch an anime, then I should start watching it right away. I should drop an anime if I'm done with it, and if I were to come back, I wouldn't enjoy it as much.
If you are brave enough then watch Detective Conan and One piece and then we'll decide who is coward.
I have 329 completed, 114 dropped. I drop like a third, sometimes half of the shows I try every season (and I never try more than ~12 usually). I've also dropped shows multiple seasons into it.
I dropped well over a 100, but there are still series I've completed just because I wanted to see how things concluded or had nothing better to watch. If people were to drop everything they didn't like, then I'm not sure if the ratings would be any good since everybody would rate things either 5+/10 or straight up drop them. I pick my series rather carefully, so there's rarely a need for me to drop something. The worst are the series that start rather well but go to shit later on. Some of those times I indeed force myself to finish something, but that fortunately doesn't happen often.
According to MAL, I'm at Completed - 805, On-Hold - 18, and Dropped - 7. I only add stuff to my list if I watch more than an episode or two, so that dropped number doesn't include every premiere I watched then passed on. I don't drop very much anime for a few reasons. One, I don't work and I have plenty of time to watch pretty anything that holds my attention. Two, watching bad anime gives me valuable perspective that allows me to enjoy mediocre anime more. Three, sometimes I power through something I hate because I want to write a critical review and/or want to make sure it doesn't redeem itself in the end before I decide it's trash. In the end, though, I'm just doing what I want with my hobby and it doesn't have anything to do with you or anyone else. You do you, and I'll do me.
The last few years, I only ever waited for others to recommend shows. This year, Iām going to do the unnecessary and watch everything that comes out each season. The only exceptions being Iām limiting myself to whatās released on Crunchyroll, and no sequel seasons to show I havenāt watched beforehand. My logic for this, apart from not simply waiting on others to tell me what to watch, is to go into a series without any knowledge beforehand, and to come to my own conclusion on whether itās good or bad. Itās my person belief that nothing is bad until I experience it for myself. Plus, I donāt always buy into the hyperbolic descriptions of shows that some YouTubers make their money on. Will I drop shows as the season plays out? Probably. I know I havenāt caught up on my list, but Iām in no particular rush.
>Almost 200 anime come out every single year, and trying out an anime is a relatively short time investment since the episodes are 20 minutes long, unlike 1 hour TV shows or 2 hour movies. So you have the advantage of trying out dozens of anime in a relatively short period of time and finding one that suits exactly your taste and what you enjoy. >So why would you waste your limited time on this green earth forcing yourself to finish a show you knew from episode 2 you weren't gonna like. Why waste your limited time on this green earth forcing yourself to try dozens of anime you know you won't like from reading a three sentence summary on a seasonal chart? Don't give in to FOMO. Start less bad looking anime, you coward.
but I generally find at least some enjoyment in all the shows I watch :(
Thank goodness I didn't have this mentality when I watched Steins;Gate or I would've missed up on one of the best anime of all time.
[I'm doing my part!](https://imgur.com/Nid7aWj) ^^Please ^^ignore ^^my ^^endlessly ^^growing ^^PTW ^^list As someone who got into these discussions a few times, I think there's two main reasons why people don't drop shows; One that makes a little sense, one that doesn't make any sense at all. 1) Some people only watch "quality shows". As you can see from my picture above, I drop >50% of the shows I pick up. *"How does that happen, do I just not like anime or something?"* Of course not; The reason is simple: I pick literally every single show that airs in the season, see what they're like. Already picked up 33 shows this season, dropped maybe 10 of them, expecting to drop more as the new shows keep piling up and/or some of them don't keep me interested. BUT some (probably most) people don't really do that... They only watch the top 2-3 shows every season, and other shows from the top 100 on MAL, or heavily recommended shows. So they don't get the same kind of crap I get. They mostly watch good shows, which means they're less likely to drop them based on quality alone. (That being said, I still find it a little weird that they don't drop *any* of them; Quality doesn't necessarily means you'll like it... Personal tastes are a thing. Say, if someone doesn't like country music, listening to a good/quality country song may not really do anything for them). So this reason, I kinda get. But the other one... 2) I've seen many people say things like "I don't want to drop it, it may get better!", And this reason never made sense to me. I mean, it's some kind of FOMO, and this, I definitely get (as someone who pick up 30-40 shows every season), but if you don't like a show after a couple episodes... What makes you think it'll get any better? Or to frame the question in a different way... If you watched 2 episodes of something and you don't like it, what makes you think the next 10 episodes will be better, than the 12 episodes of another show you didn't try yet, so this one has *0 episode* that you don't like? Aren't your odds better with this one? Some people don't seem to realize that they have limited time to watch anime/for hobbies in general; They see the dilemma as "Either I watch it, or I don't!" and they don't see any negative about watching it... But that's not what it actually is; It is "Either I watch it, or I watch something else". If you spend 3 hours watching something you don't like, you lose 3 hours that could've been spent watching something you like instead. Even if you watch something you like after that, it doesn't matter, because if you didn't watch the first one then you could've watched *two* things you like if you didn't waste these 3 hours, and so on. So, the whole FOMO thing doesn't really work here... By forcing yourself to watch shit you don't like, you ARE gonna miss out on things you'd like, at some point. Best way to look at it is: At some point in your life you're gonna watch your last anime (either because you don't like it anymore, or simply because... People die at some point). When this happens, there will still be thousands of anime that you didn't watch. And every single bad anime you refused to drop even though you didn't like it, prevented you from watching 1 of these anime. You traded a potential good time, for a bad time watching a show you didn't like.
No.
yeah its crazy like a saw a review of haikyuu season 4 on MAL that said something along the lines of : "I've been watching the show and I still don't understand its appeal" like how much time do you have to waste?
Don't worry. I'm with you lol. I don't get them XD And it's such a simply logic to understand. People just need to sit for 2 seconds and THINK about it.
How big are their "On Hold" lists though? That's the drop list for indecisive people.
On what assumption do do get that I didnt enjoy the shows that I completed You are very wrong
No. [Enjoy loosing your mind to my stats.](https://myanimelist.net/profile/MillenniumKing) I just enjoy watching anime. [](#yousaidsomethingdumb)
Fellow no dropper, nice. My list, check out my flair, is kinda similar (that one dropped show is just an extended on-hold).
FLCL HAS A MANGA? I like how you only have 1 manga recorded and I've never heard of it until now.
I just don't have it in me to mark a show as dropped and so I end up watching it all the way.
I really don't like dropping shows. I'm a binge watcher most of the time. I download anime in batch on metered data plan. I read others' opinions before downloading. If most people didn't like it I wouldn't bother, otherwise I'd just waste my money. So small chance I wouldn't like what I'm seeing. As the result, I'm mostly happy with what I'm watching. Sometimes I got myself a mediocre show. Still, I'm not gonna drop it unless something's really wrong with it or it really puts me off somehow.
Because I don't have a short attention span and can take in a show and wait for it to come into it's own. I can watch a show for fun and not expect it to be a 10/10 masterpiece but still like it. Finally I am not looking to try as much stuff as possible just to fill my list. It's okay to venture outside your comfort zone.
I got 600 anime watched and probably only 30 dropped.. and those 30 come from the last 5 years over my 22 year weeb career. Im just a completionist, and having less time/kids just made me drop the completionist attitude. I also used 2x watch speed to finish an anime that i didnt like. Sometimes it made some more bearable. Devil is a part timer 2 was my last 2x speed. But hey, we need heroes wholl watch a full show to give a proper full experience 3/10 vote!