In the current age, anime is more accessible and widespread than ever before, making the age-old debate of preference more relevant than ever. Which is better, binge-watching or following anime week to week? With binge-watching or enjoying a completed series at one’s leisure, the appeal is straightforward. However, many fans still prefer watching anime week to week, as this is how anime was meant to be watched.
Tuning into ongoing series is how anime is enjoyed — often while joining the conversations about each episode, speculating about upcoming plot points, and participating in the relevant discussions about the most popular seasonal anime. Yet, this model of following anime series is not without its cons, and even avid advocates of watching anime week-by-week acknowledge its harsh realities.
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10
Retaining Information About an Anime Episode Can Be Difficult Week to Week
Remembering What Happened in Each Episode Is Harder When Watching Weekly
When there is an option to click on the next episode right after finishing the previous one, the memories and emotions stay fresh as you go through the story. With weekly anime series, fans have seven days to forget what has occurred in the plot over weeks. Retaining information might not be much of a problem with episodic series or simpler slice-of-life and romance anime.
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10 Most Complex Anime That Demand a Rewatch & Where to Stream Them
There are plenty of anime series, like Neon Genesis Evangelion or FLCL, that are so complex they demand a rewatch to fully understand.
However, plot-heavy titles with a lot of moving pieces, like Link Click or Attack on Titan, require viewers to pay close attention to narrative details and overarching story threads that carry over from episode to episode. As such, remembering the specifics and keeping track of the interlacing plotlines is a challenge for weekly watchers.
- Created by
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Hajime Isayama
- First Film
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Attack on Titan
- First Episode Air Date
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September 28, 2013
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You Never Know What You Are Getting Yourself Into with Weekly Anime
New Anime Series Don’t Have the Luxury of Being Tested by Time
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Steins;Gate — when getting into any of these immensely acclaimed series, fans can rest assured that they are committing to a stellar experience. Following a new anime series weekly is always a gamble; regardless of how beloved the source material is or how promising the production team appears, fans can’t be sure if embarking on this journey is going to be worth their time.
Sometimes, giving a shot to a fresh ongoing series results in witnessing a masterpiece in the making. Yet, just as prominent are cases of unexpected disappointment, like with Wonder Egg Priority or The Promised Neverland Season 2, where only waiting for the series to end could’ve saved fans from wasting their time.
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Watching Week to Week Is Not As Emotionally Involving
Binge-Watching Is a More Immersive Way of Enjoying an Anime Series
When binge-watching an anime series, the story feels like a continuous journey. Viewers experience all of a series’ highs and lows consecutively, and the immersion doesn’t have to be broken by the wait. With week-to-week watching, even the most gut-wrenching episode always has to end.
The viewer has to exit the world of the series, shattering the illusion of an ongoing story. A week is enough to dull how a loss of an anime character or a long-awaited triumph made you feel, and getting back into that emotional state is seldom easy. To many fans, anime series experienced an uninterrupted stay in their memory longer, having a more profound, lasting effect.
7
Spoilers Are Inescapable with Some Weekly Anime Series
You Are More Likely to Get Spoiled on the Source Material While the Anime Series Is Airing
At first glance, following an anime series week to week seems like a surefire way to avoid spoilers. After all, you are learning all the plot twists in the moment, with no time for them to become common knowledge. Yet, that’s only true of anime originals. Any fan who has tried to participate in weekly discussions about a series based on a manga or a light novel knows how rampant spoilers about the source material get when an adaptation comes out.
Once the hype surrounding a new adaptation dies down, spoilers tend to dissipate with it. However, in the age of social media, weekly watchers are the most likely to accidentally learn all the big reveals of an anime series with particularly inconsiderate manga followings, like Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man.
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Keeping Up with Multiple Weekly Anime Is Hectic
Most Fans Watch More Than One Weekly Anime at a Time
When a new anime season begins, most fans watching series week to week don’t limit themselves to a single anime series to follow. Between promising new releases, long-awaited sequels, and seasonal hits everyone is talking about, it’s easy to acquire more anime to watch than there are days in a week. With such a stacked schedule, less memorable series commonly get dropped halfway through.
The details between similar anime series are likely to overlap, and even the most interesting titles don’t receive the attention they deserve. Keeping up with weekly anime is never boring and ensures that fans can have a new episode of a new series to look forward to daily. Yet, being a week-by-week watcher also means diluting your attention between too many series.
5
Fans Are More Judgmental of Weekly Anime Episodes
Following a Series Week to Week Comes with Higher Expectations
No anime series is perfect from beginning to end. However, it’s much easier to forgive (or forget) an under-performing or needlessly slow episode when binging a series than when that lackluster episode is all you get after an entire week of anticipation. While the highs remain equally impressive regardless of how one watches an anime, the lows feel considerably more poignant in a week-to-week format.
Many fans end up judging a series too harshly for every less-than-stellar episode. Even if rewatching an anime series once it fully aired might make the disappointing episodes seem trivial — or even better than remembered — nothing compares to the in-the-moment frustration weekly watchers feel when the premiere doesn’t live up to their hopes.
4
Keeping Up with Weekly Anime Can Feel Like a Job
Anime Is Not as Enjoyable When It Becomes Routine
While some people view anime as casual entertainment they tune into whenever a new title catches their interest, many diehard fans take keeping up with weekly releases way too seriously. Incredible anime series come out in abundance each season, and checking out everything that sounds even remotely interesting can lead to discovering countless new favorites.
However, watching a dozen episodes of ongoing series can feel like a chore instead of a leisure. Fear of missing out is a big part of why devoted week-to-week watching seems so appealing. FOMO should never come before enjoying anime with passion, however, even if it means overlooking some weekly series.
3
The Hype Surrounding Weekly Releases Is a Double-Edged Sword
Too Much Exposure Can Negatively Affect One’s Enjoyment of an Anime Series
Being a part of the ongoing conversation about the most relevant anime series compels many to watch anime week to week. However, the desire to keep up with the trends is a mixed blessing. It’s easy to get influenced by the community’s excitement. It’s much harder to form your own opinion about a series that’s all the rage at the moment.
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In the current anime landscape, trends come and go rapidly. A good deal of worthwhile anime unsurprisingly get buried under the trailblazing wave of constantly changing smash hits. For those who keep up with weekly anime, jumping on the most hyped-up anime of every season can be exhausting – and far from always worth it.
2
Only Watching Weekly Anime Leaves No Time for the Classics
Those Who Prefer to Watch Week to Week Miss Out on Completed Anime
For most people, watching anime weekly is not a hard preference. However, there’s only so much free time one can dedicate to entertainment, and prioritizing seasonal anime can lead fans to dismiss completed series and older classics. Nowadays, the anime industry is more prolific than ever.
Weekly watchers are likely to find at least a single series to suit their tastes each season. Yet, whether jumping onto the seasonal hits is more worthwhile than digging for hidden gems in the decades of anime history is debatable. And, with most anime fans’ watchlists being notoriously enormous, taking a break from seasonal anime is not always a bad idea.
1
The Anticipation Gets Intense When Waiting on a Weekly Anime
You Are Always Left Craving for More When Watching Week to Week
The most obvious downside — and a big part of the appeal — of following weekly anime is the wait. There’s nothing quite like the anticipation that builds up while looking forward to a turning point in the plot, a resolution to a cliffhanger, or the grand series finale.
While the anxious excitement that develops between episodes makes the emotions that much more intense and memorable, this agitation isn’t something every fan welcomes with open arms. Following an anime series week to week is a test of patience. The more invested in the anime series one gets, the longer those seven days between episode releases feel.
