I started playing Chibi Tamago earlier this year, but all it’s done is make me that little bit less sane…

At one point, I discovered the MyAnimeList watching challenges and thought that maybe it would be cool to participate in them (but that was out of the question since I would rather not get an MAL account, especially after the mass exodus).

Then in recent years AniList got their own watching challenges – notably they did ask in their forums about whether such a thing would be well-received and I remember saying “yes” to it.

Come May this year, I joined in the aforementioned Chibi Tamago (henceforth CT)…and it’s made me realise where my limits are, much more than I used to.

See, both challenges and CT insist on you finishing your anime in order to get your rewards (normally a badge and some points for the AWC or a badge and maybe some points to use towards exclusive perks for CT). Sometimes this is in a restricted time period, the lowest being 2 weeks.

Generally, I don’t think too far ahead when I sign up for a challenge, so somewhere between procrastination, blogging and normal life things, if you don’t even count simulcasts or backlog anime…these things are best done when you actually think ahead (although it’s far too common that I miscalculate slightly and end up staying up past midnight to finish a show). This is why I’ve never completed a monthly challenge, which tend to have some really fun and inventive criteria like “Button Mashing: Watch an anime that begins with “A”, “B”, “X”, “Y”, “L”, “R” or “Z”” as well as the restriction that all anime must be watched within the month to count. Not to mention, the insane amount of badges some people have makes me start comparing the amount of anime I’ve watched to theirs, although the biggest culprit for my own comparisons is actually data mod Watashi, who doesn’t even participate in the AWC or CT and simply gains my temporary envy because they create status updates so frequently.

I’ve also noted in the past I’m slower than a geriatric snail on my backlog (or something to that effect) and I feel burnt out for the rest of the day once I’ve finished a series, which really doesn’t help matters. Obviously, those who can speed watch without getting burnt out and those who have enough time to finish everything – or manage their time effectively enough to do so – will be the biggest winners in these challenges. You’ll see during the (upcoming) A Magical 2019 post that I’ve massively amped up my backlog watching this year, but I’m definitely nowhere near the people who’ve only just started out and consume episode after episode without stopping – I don’t think I’ve been able to hit that since 2011 – 2 (which, you might notice, was around when I started getting back into anime and into manga). 

That isn’t to say I haven’t enjoyed my time playing Chibi Tamago or doing the AWC challenges, nosirree. In fact, just going at my own pace – even if I do have to step it up for Badge Battles and other restricted events – I’ve gotten quite a few badges between both and in the CT ranks, I’ll definitely be a junior collector by the time the 12 Days rolls around in 2020. In CT, I only watch like crazy whenever there are sales or badges I want and due to the amount of waifus and series I haven’t watched or familiarised myself with yet being present on the badges, the amount of times I’ve gotten worked up for badges is rare…

So, if you have an anime list, what’s your experience like in comparing yourself to those with much more impressive stats? For the record, I know I shouldn’t compare myself to Watashi, but it keeps happening anyway.