Sometimes you can just watch too much anime even if you don’t watch that much. The amount of new series being released can be overwhelming to the point where you just have to step back for a while because you can’t tell if a series is good or if a series is bad anymore, it just exists. Time for a holiday away from anime for a while.
I’m no rampant anime watcher. When I come home every day I don’t sit watching hours and hours exclusively of anime until the small hours of the morning. I quite enjoy sleeping at night. I like to take a series in my stride, watching them through at a steady pace so I can really take in everything
about them. The music, the characters, the animation but even at that slow waltz every now and then you feel series are blending into each other. Trying to find a standout series amongst the poor ones can be the most difficult task of all. I can’t count the number of series that I’ve started only to drop after a few episodes. The problem is in that state of mind could I have dropped potentially one of my favourite series? It’s happened before.
So how can you tell when you reach this point? It might not be so obvious at first but one of the things that hit me like a George Foreman punch is that you start to really take notice about what you’re watching. In a bad way. It could be anime stereotypes like characters having tragic pasts, enhanced jiggling breast areas or close up crotch shots, perhaps some big eyed character design that irks you, that old mary jane pushover girl, maybe music that just seems completely out of place or worst of all tiny little animation errors that no one in the world cares about except you. You notice everything and it’s usually the most negative aspects but mainly it’s the point where you start to fool yourself that it’s all the same and nothing is fresh.
I’m in that rut right now. I was meant to submit and article about anime a few weeks ago and simply couldn’t muster one despite my best efforts. In every attempt I’d end up turning the article into something that was a stretch to even relate to what I originally started with and it wasn’t even much to do with anime or even Japan anyway. So what am I writing this for? Just to say that it’ll come back and somewhere down the line you’ll be jogging on some beautiful country park with your pet labrador and decide, ‘Oh! I feel like watching Cowboy Bebop!’. It happens to me with James Bond movies too, I get bored of them so I don’t force myself to watch them (that would just be stupid) only for something to suddenly reignite my interest and then you can’t keep me away. As of right now I’m quite enjoying my break, though I have a copy of Berserk volume one recommended by Martin that’s starting to look very tempting…
Has anyone reading this ever felt in a similar way and decided to just give anime a break?
I feel pretty much the same way right now
! I was avidly watching 20-so different series a few months ago, but I went on vacation for two weeks, and when I got back I just didn’t feel like watching anything. I was pretty surprised about it too, ’cause prior to this fall season I was reaaallly excited about Clannad 2 and Gundam 00 2. The only thing I’m watching now is Casshern (’cause it’s majorly awesome imho), but I’m sure the good ‘ol anime gene will kick in anytime now. Just gotta give it time.
I’m “apparently” on a break, I’m constantly bored and lack the motivation to watch something; even if it looks spectacular. I look at my anime list every day, and I have several times, just got annoyed and dropped series – without getting past the first or second episode.
Even if I’m on a break from cartoons, My fire for the US TV show has ignited to mass effect, where I used to watch anime, from the first to the last episode and research everything to know about a story, I now use these skillz on US dramas.
To be honest, It’s refreshing to watch shows passionately and discuss the same shows with people you know!
Nice article, Sy.
I do but unlike you I don’t pack it away. I sell it to bookoff never to be seen again lol
At present, i’d actually say i’m in a kind of “break” from anime, and thats probably for the best at the moment as well. Probably like many others, i’m in the midst of exams, and as always, they destroy whatever free time you may have. Its not always the case that i don’t want to watch anime because of it, its just that after constant studying or in the case of an exam day, being up all night before studying then going out after the exam to get your mind off it, usually leaves me too tired to even concentrate on what i’m trying to watch.
Originally i was never the most sociable of people, so anime was a kind of escape for me, but since starting university last year, i’ve been trying to become more outgoing, to the point where anime has become part of “a relaxing night in” where i just shut myself from the world for a couple of hours to watch a few episodes of this or that. In a sense i’ve found that thats made whichever series i’m watching, that more enjoyable, that way i don’t miss the odd detail which would normally be ignored if you where to marathon it, say.
For a flip side response, like those above I’m on a break as well; not from anime as such, but rather from the anime ‘scene’.
I’d spent the last several years quite heavily involved with society (and eventually convention) organisation, writing, forums, etc, but due to several fairly major personal situations I ended up getting pretty exasperated with the UK fanbase in general and tried to walk away from the whole thing, anime included.
The funny thing is, when it came to watching anime I just couldn’t.
I can relate when many of you say anime starts losing its appeal to you, and to be honest the spark that makes you interested in it will vary greatly from person to person. Quite often that spark will be lost and will never come back; you outgrow it and move on. It was just a fad.
Sometimes though the spark changes, the reasons why you watch evolve, and the experience can become something quite different.
To use myself as an example, I started off as the typical fanboy, ever excited about the latest series and looking for people to chat enthusiastically to about. I loved almost everything I saw and wanted to share that experience with others. Over time though this has changed, mostly in part due to the fanbases ability to bicker, moan, and pick fault with almost anything.
At first it disheartened me, but now I think it’s given me a greater understanding of just what anime is and why we watch it (and argue so much about it). I’m much mellower in my approach now, I watch because it entertains me.
For me now watching anime is a much more personal experience, and I’m still finding there’s so much out there to watch that I still can’t get bored. It’s a medium after all, filled with an array of genres in itself, so if you get bored of one thing, just try another.
Just make sure you always enjoy yourself watching it, that’s what it’s there for after all. It’s an entertainment industry, so let it entertain you! Don’t let it become a task, even if that means you have to stop being a reviewer for a while.
I hope your spark comes back again one day and doesn’t die out, much as I hope my spark for the scene doesn’t die out yet, and given time instead evolves into something new and stronger.
Enjoy your break!
Sometimes it pays to take a step back and do something else for a while. I’ve fallen out of love with anime more times than I can remember, occasionally for months at a time, but when I return it all seems a lot fresher.
It’s also forced me to become a lot more discerning, a position that earns me the scorn of some fans who’re outraged that I won’t consider watching Generic Shounen Fighting Show #81536. But it means that I spend less time watching the kind of anime with the kind of tropes and clichés that make me question my love of the medium, and that’s a Very Good Thing.
I can related to the “animation errors” part, too. If a character is even slightly off-model, or moves awkwardly, it jumps out and smacks me in the chops. Anime fans either don’t notice this stuff or have remarkable tolerance.
Never have personally, probably because my working habits effectively force me to take breaks from it. If I have something big going on I’ll largely drop anime/games etc for a while until I have more spare time.
I think in my case, it helps that everything’s already packed up already. And because I haven’t seen most of what’s packed up, that will make for good times when I find the time to watch them. :3
Just wondering if this ‘anime holiday’ has turned into a permanent vacation? Actually it’s interesting, because I follow a few manganime blogs, to see how often bloggers suddenly have anough …. there’s a sad post usually about how little anime they’re watching & how LIFE has encroached on viewing/reading/blogging time. Then they vanish into the distributed cyberspace – never to be heard of again, leaving archive posts of obscure manganime to be hunted down by obsessives such as myself! And hey – I’m 66, no term papers or finals to worry about.
I think I’m on the road to that permanent vacation Nico was just talking about. I’m trying to figure why I lost the spark,it saddens me,I was so much onto it,went to the conventions and stuff x.x
Here is a cliche you may relate to: Too much of anything is bad for you.
I’m currently abroad for a year and enjoying my limited access to anime muchly. I’m following some, but these are old shows that I can enjoy at leisure. Moreover, because of the third-world nature of where I am, I can only enjoy at most three episodes a day (perhaps to some that sounds like a lot, but my consumption of anime used to be stellar).
This ‘lack’ has increased my appetite for anime and allowed me to reflect more carefully on what I enjoy about it. Simply, it’s entertainment, it’s not important, it’s not a necessary staple, nor is most of it meant to be deep in any way. Bizarrely, more than watching it, I enjoy writing about it and discussing it.
Have fun with your downtime. If you don’t get back into anime, don’t worry. No biggie. If you do, hopefully your tastes will have developed and you’ll have learned to pace yourself a bit better.