Watched my anime backlog go from 4 shows to 22 in one winter, and the reason was so dumb | Anime Discussions - Freelance Forum - The Community for Independent Professionals
Watched my anime backlog go from 4 shows to 22 in one winter, and the reason was so dumb
I used to keep up with 3 or 4 shows a season, easy. Then last winter I started watching everything at 1.5x speed and skipping openings, and my list ballooned to 22 shows in about 3 months. The weird part is I can barely remember any of them. Finishing a show stopped feeling like anything because I was just checking boxes. So what actually fixed it was forcing myself to watch one show at normal speed with the OP every time, and now I only finish like 2 a season but I actually like them. Has anyone else caught themselves speedrunning anime and had to dial it back?
The 1.5x speed thing gets blamed a lot but that part is not really what did it. You can watch a good show at 1.5x and still follow it fine. What actually blew up your list was skipping the OP and treating each episode like a task to clear. Once a show becomes a checkbox, your brain stops holding onto any of it, and then you need more shows to feel like you're doing something. Going back to normal speed with the OP every time works because it forces a pause before each episode, and that pause is where you actually decide if you even like the thing. So the fix isn't the speed, it's the stopping to pay attention again. I did the same thing two winters ago and got to 18 shows before I noticed I couldn't name a single side character from any of them.