How I select new shows to watch for each new season of Anime?
Unlike many, I don’t usually pick shows based on things like animation studio, original source, voice actors, animation style, etc… For me, I pick shows simply based on whether or not the show entertains me in one way or another. Be it through the comedy, character interactions, plot or premise.
Thus, I can only pre-pick my shows to a certain extent. Most of the time, I’ll avoid looking at the manga as I don’t want my experience with the Anime to be spoiled. Instead, I’ll only read the little story summary blurb that is available every season. This way, I roughly know what to keep an eye out for.
However, when it comes down to it, I will give each and every show a chance to hook me in about 2 – 3 episodes. Usually, the best shows will do so within the very first episode. The reason I do this it that it is very hard to predict how a show will be with just a story summary. A show that seems boring on paper can turnout to be a hidden gem. Case in point? This season’s Level E and shows like Eden of the East and Ga-Rei Zero that weren’t even in my sights till I gave them a watch.
And I’m sure Madoka fared the same for someone this season as well.
Another reason I don’t discriminate based on things like art style is because there are many a show that have questionable art styles but are simply brilliant,
…like Mitsudomoe’s beaver teeth
…and Kaiji’s heaven piercing nose and chin. I can understand how some people can get turned off by such things, but I’m not one of them as I don’t let art style affect my enjoyment of a show. The same goes for voice actors, animation studio, etc… These factors don’t always determine whether an Anime will appeal to me or not. For instance, an animation studio that I like can produce a show with a plot that I find tedious and boring and my favorite voice actress can voice an annoying character that I despise.
So, I’m interested to find out how you decide which shows to watch. It’s perfectly fine if your way differs from mine.
Actar's Otaku Life 
This is ported over from your channel comments:
Hm, a friend of mine will watch the 1st episode of every new show in a season as well. Honestly, it is a better method than mine, but I find it hard to put in that ammount of time, so I often have to end up going on something besides just the Studio and the mini description: my intuition. Sometimes shows end up being better than I thought (Yumekui Merry) and sometimes shows end up being worse than I though (Level E for me), but I’m usually happy with my choices.
But I do definitely agree that I won’t reject a show for it’s art style. I like all kinds of different art styles and very rarely do I count a show’s art style as a negative (the Xebec Negima is one example, but that also had to do with bad animation as well).
I will say though that when I’m marathoning an Anime that’s already finished, my criteria change. When marathoning a finished show, I rely almost entirely on the plot summary and my intuition. I care very little about the studio in these situations. Also it’s genre determines how quickly I’ll get to it. I am generally a Fantasy over a Sci-Fi person, so I usually have more incentive to see fantasy and supernatural series before say a Mecha one. I usually go for comedy more quickly than say a thriller or tragedy. Also because I am an amature Martial Artist (I do Capoeira), I have a great love of action, and more specifically series that utilizes hand to hand or archaic weaponry (swords, spears, axes, knives and daggars as well), over say guns and such.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll watch and like all kinds of series, but I just have my prefered genres and Anime I want to watch before others.
I usually see shows from the previous season, becasuse of three main things:
Better image quality
No censorship
Better fansub work
Better image quality and no censorship is easy to understand
My mother language is Spanish and I only know elemental things of Japanese. So for me, the fansub work is pretty important. Spanish subs generally are worst than English subs, but I can’t deal with English as well as I’d like.
I think I always look at myanimelist.net for a reference on statistics of the Anime. A score of 7.5 or more tells me that I’ll like the anime.
If the series seems to be very good, I prefer to read the original manga or novel from where it cames (if it has one), but here (in Argentina) that’s a problem. We almost don’t have ranobes and manga translations are awful
danball, hamtaro, and beyblade is definitely in my watchlist… I dunno about the others though…
What I do is watch three episodes to get a feel of what the anime is like. Simply watching one or two episodes isn’t enough, as the plot and setting is still being set up, and I believe the third episode is a good place to decide if I want to continue watching or not. Of course, this method doesn’t work all the time, which is why I check out reviews of series as well.
I do look out for things like certain studios and voice actors, but again, it’s not enough to simply judge an anime by that alone. A prime example would be Seitokai no Ichizon, produced by Studio DEEN (who are a bit infamous for their bad adaptations and I still haven’t forgiven them for wrecking Umineko) and featuring an entirely new cast of voice actors. Despite the studio not being great and the voice acting done by people I’ve never heard before, I can honestly say that this is one of the funniest shows I’ve ever watched.
I have taken a special note of noitaminA shows lately, especially after I enjoyed shows like Tokyo Magnitude and Kuragehime.
My definite to-watch list this season consists of Hanasaku Iroha, STEINS;GATE, Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi, Ao no Exorcist, Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II, C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control, Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai, and Deadman Wonderland.
For this season, my maybe to-watch list consists of Nichijou, Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai, Moshidora, Hidan no Aria, and A-Channel.
I try to pick a few shows based on the genre and the little blurb. I dont usually pick based on studio or anything like that. Theres stuff I know Ill watch for sure, like any new Gundam stuff (not SD, though) but for new shows that I dont know, Ill pick the ones that catch my interest and give them a few episodes. I try to not let myself get bogged down in 20 episodes because then it really interferes with school but well, that doesnt always work out (my currently watching list on MAL is at 19 and thats after I finished 3 series off last week. Granted, a few are OVAs but mostly they are TV shows.)
Still, if I get drawn in by a show, Ill watch it even if I have to marathon three or four episodes at a time.
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Choosing Which New Series To Watch | Actar’s Reviews – The Blog
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