Burnout, what burnout? A year in anime consumption

squidgirl_watching_anime

It feels like every day, another friend is talking about being tired of anime or anime blogging. I sympathize; not all anime is good, and watching duds repeatedly can bring you down.

Well, I sympathize, but I do not relate. This has been an unusual year for me in that I was in the middle of a show pretty much constantly. This may be the Twelve Days of Anime series, but if I count up how many shows I watched this year, it was more like 17.

And that’s when I realized that while a lot of my friends are experiencing burnout, I’ve got the opposite problem:

  • Let’s say there are 264 minutes in the average show (12 episodes by 22 minutes).
  • And I watched 17 of them, conservative estimate. That’s 4,488 minutes of anime.
  • That’s 74.8 hours of anime. Or more dramatically, 3.116 repeating days of anime.
  • Averaging out to 12.3 minutes a day watching anime in 2013.

That’s a ton of TV. And what’s more, I probably did watch more than that. And for me? It’s way too much for one year.

So for next year, I’m setting a few resolutions to keep myself from a 2014 anime binge:

1) Do your homework

The aniblogosphere is a milieu of diverse opinions. Just because a show is getting a lot of hype from some corners doesn’t mean it’s going to turn out to be my cup of tea. Case in point: Samurai Flamenco—sorry, everyone else!

Otaku Journalist is not an anime tastemaker blog. If I’m honest with myself, it’s more of a mid-season or season’s end anime analysis blog. So instead of watching a bunch of first episodes myself, I’m going to wait and see other bloggers’ first impressions. This is the whole reason we have review blogs, so I don’t have to slog through the new season alone.

2) Drop bad anime

Be more discerning. If you realize you’re not going to enjoy the rest of a show—or, bonus points: it’s good but not great—then drop it.

I watched several anime this year just for the sake of finishing what I’ve started. I have nothing notable to say about Maoyu or The World God Only Knows: Goddess Arc. And readers know I had nothing good to say about the second season of Oreimo.

Nobody cares if I suffer through a show for completion’s sake. And here’s a hint for Future Lauren: if you don’t like it by episode four, you’re not going to like it.

3) Spend as much time creating as consuming

Watching three days’ worth of anime in 2013 isn’t something to be proud of. Spending three full days writing in-depth anime analysis, however, is something I’d be falling over myself to brag about.

Before I mindlessly turn on Crunchyroll for the night, I’ll ask myself: have I written three blog posts this week yet? Are they the most thought-provoking/helpful they can be? Have I worked on my digital journalism guides this week? (Remember those?)

Watching anime all year isn’t a bad thing, though different amounts satisfy different people. For me, the important part is that I’m always analyzing and dissecting what I watch on my blog, so it’s not just mindless consumption.

Thanks for joining me for the Twelve Days of Anime this year! How many shows did you watch in 2013?


This post is the twelfth installment of The Twelve Days Of Anime, a blogging series in which anime fans write about shows that inspired or impressed on them this year.

(Screenshot from fantastic 2010-2011 anime Squid Girl).