I really need to experiment more with bingeing so I can clean my on-hold list…
You’ve heard the argument before – watch weekly! Binge! Simulcast!
…ugh, can’t people decide on one argument?
Therefore, I’m going to put forward both arguments and as part of the half-year festivities for the Spellbook, you can choose the one that works best for you in the poll at the end.
Sound good?
Okay, let’s go.
Bingeing
Pros
- You’re able to take in information as fast or as slow as you need to. There’s no need to make sure you got the details right once so that you can watch the next episode.
- You can judge a show by its overall quality and fame (or lack thereof) from the season it originally aired.
- It’s a lot faster and easier to commit to than watching a show for 12 weeks./You don’t need to wait for the show to leave that new episode behind if it’s already finished its original run.
- Some shows (normally long runners) work better with the binge pacing so that you can pick and choose whatever content you want to watch from the show.
Cons
- You can’t talk about a currently-airing show because you have to wait for it to finish its run.
- Spoiler-dodging is a hard art to master. Especially on the internet, where not all spoilers have alerts.
- That show you had your eye on and dodged spoilers for? It might just be decried as “a really bad stinker of its season”, even though you weren’t looking for a new hatewatch.
Simulcast
Pros
- It’s a lot more fun on the speculation side of things. Of course, for the adaptions the guessing game is for what’ll get adapted, while for anime-original content, what’ll happen next week is a mystery. If it’s an adaption with some anime-original content, it’ll be interesting to see how the two work together.
- If you’re completely caught up, you can talk to people about the hottest episode while it’s still on their minds (and lips).
- Some shows work better with the simulcast pacing of one episode per week. Some people like to think through certain episodes of shows or let their minds settle before moving on and then getting the next episode.
- You get to see the hottest shows so you’re not left in suspense about “that one show you had your eye on”.
Cons
- The one-week wait can completely annoy a person, especially if you’re a fan who fell/falls hard for a show.
- Spoiler-dodging is a hard art to master if you adhere to the art of the One Week Wait for Free Legal Content which is adhered to by Crunchyroll.
- You need to choose whether you are an adherent to the art of the One Week Wait for Free Legal Content or a subscriber, and of course if you’re a subscriber, you lose money you could easily use on something else.
- Sometimes you fall behind and yet you don’t have the time to binge, but you just have to binge a set amount of episodes to catch up. (Some people get really deterred the moment the backlog starts to build against them…and so they have to move fast.)
So, this is just a short list to spark discussion…but did I forget any arguments for anything?
Okay, okay…you want the poll. Here it is:
I used to prefer binging in moderation, but now that I have less time for anime, simulcasting works quite well for me.
Congrats on reaching the half year mark!
Hmm, I’m the same way.
Thank you. Your blog’s just over the halfway mark itself, so hopefully you’ll stick around for one year and then many more after that.
Oh whaaat? I did not realize that I’ve been around for that long. Um…thanks for telling me! 😂😃
I definitely combine the two. I only ever used to binge because I didn’t have access to streaming anyway so anime were almost always finished by the time I could see them. Now I like to watch seasonal to discuss what is current, but there are some shows and genres that I enjoy more in a binge.
Anyone who read my blog knows my struggles with weekly watching. Yeah, I binge. I am pretty good at avoid spoilers. My biggest sadness if you can call it that is that there are many posts I can’t read from people I really want to read because they write about (seasonal) anime I want to watch eventually. That’s a con I think.
Well, think of it this way – even if seasonal posts aren’t relevant to you now, they’ll definitely become readable at some stage if they’re not deleted whenever you get around to the shows being talked about.
That’s true and I do read some afterwards, when I happen upon them. Some bloggers posts are just too funny to not read. And series reviews are always interesting to read no matter when in time you read them I think.
I enjoy shows most when I binge them, but it feels like now when I try and binge watch simulcasts it ends up taking as long for the series to come out anyway! I’ve become a very slow consumer of anime recently! I don’t know if you’ve seen my episode reviews but it often takes me two weeks to write one review because I let things get out of hand.
Whoa, I didn’t expect those poll results to be that uneven.
Congratulations on that half-year achievement!
Considering the culture around simulcasts, I would’ve thought there were some people who only stick to simulcasts. Maybe there’s some kind of perception thing to it?
Thank you, and congratulations on the 2 years (since I realised I didn’t say it on the post itself).
Hmmm that’s a possible explanation.
Of course! And, oh, thank you.