In a recent post that Kai wrote last week about watching weekly or marathon shows got me thinking: How do people generally watch Anime? With streaming, powerful tablets and smartphones, there are more places where one can watch it. Even so, people are going to have different preferences on how much they watch and where they watch it. (Image Source)
Marathoning and Watching Weekly: Which is Better?
People will have different preferences when it comes to watching a certain series that consists of two ways: Marathoning the whole show or watching each episode weekly. Marathoning refers to watching every episode non-stop, which is more applicable to previously aired shows. Conversely, weekly refers to watching episodes on a weekly basis, which applies more to airing shows.
To me, I tend to prefer watching shows on a weekly basis not because I have other things going on in my life, but I like to have things settle in and perhaps talk about it before watching the next episode, especially if the show has a lot of drama. The obvious downside is that some episodes may have cliffhangers or see something exciting in the next episode previews that make us become eager to watch the next episode right away. Not only that, some shows may have a lot of small details such as a story that has mystery, one might forget some of the smaller details and have to look back at the synopsis to remember it.
On the other hand, while I don’t like to marathon shows, I still think that there is some advantages to watching several episodes at once opposed to once a week. The story sticks better with the viewer while one doesn’t have to wait to find out what happened in a cliffhanger. When I caught up with Nagi no Asukara, although I enjoyed and understood the story a bit more, I didn’t have to wait several weeks to find out what happened to everyone in the time skip.
To me, it’s easy to marathon a cheerful shows such as Dog Days or Love Live School Idol Project. More dramatic or shows I typically don’t watch like Anohana (which is heavy in drama) or Jellyfish Princess is usually difficult for me to watch all at once. As always, marathoning a show pretty much takes away any time for any discussion, unless you are watching it with your friends.
How do I watch Anime?
I typically watch all my Anime on my 15 inch Macbook Pro since I am usually at school or at my desk. I use headphones when I’m watching anything in public such as a library or cafeteria. While I don’t watch them on my television in my room since my video game consoles are hooked up to it, thus it doesn’t support all the formats despite having home theater PC hooked up in the living room , I do watch any DVDs I own on the TV, but I rarely do that since I only own a handful. Regardless, I usually watch shows during the afternoon.
When I’m on vacation, I used to whip out my laptop and plug it into an inverter when I’m in the car so I don’t have to worry about draining my battery. I did this in 2011 when I watched the entire first season of Dog Days and the first Nanoha movie. However, the setup is a bit more cumbersome compared to watching it on an iPad or a PlayStation Vita, which require one to convert the file to another format with the subs hard-coded to the video file. Thankfully, this is not a problem anymore since I own a Surface Pro 2, meaning that I can just copy the files to a micro-sd card and play it in Media Player Classic like any laptop. But when I’m in the hotel room, I just use my Macbook Pro since it has a bigger screen.
Final Thoughts
As a whole, it’s interesting to see people having different preferences when it comes to when they watch Anime, the location, watching preferences and what device to watch on. With advances in technology, I think people can experience it anywhere since one can just stream an episode on Crunchyroll to their smartphone, tablet or whatever. Even so, some may enjoy the old-fashioned way and watch it on a television or on a laptop or desktop computer.
On the other hand, I think there will always be a benefit in watching a show weekly or several episodes at once. While it’s based more on preference and the amount of free time he/she has, it also depends on the show. Some shows are more enjoyable if you watch two or more episodes back to back opposed to just watching one and vice versa.
With that, what is your preference when it comes to watching Anime? Do you prefer watching it all at once or once a week? Feel free to share your experience on what you use and where you watch Anime. ¶
Since you mentioned watching in public (I personally watch in the university library as a study break), do you set any limits on what you choose to watch?
I’m always having to ask my flatmates whether a certain series is appropriate for library viewing XD
Funny you mention that. My friend actually has a folder on his laptop and various hard drives called “NSFU” (Not Safe For Uni) because we watch a lot of his anime on campus. We keep joking about watching High School DxD in public, but… yeah, it never happens. Probably a good thing.
I don’t set any limits as I don’t usually watch shows with a lot of fanservice, but I would be kind of nervous of watching it in public. The same goes for games like Monster Monpiece which has a lot of fanservice. I keep it to myself.