Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Do You Get Over Anime Burnout?
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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Princess Tutu pulled me out of a long funk. I hadn't watched anything anime in months and was kinda going through a general depression at the time, but I was immediately captivated by how damn good the show was. Like "Oh, shit, I love anime!"
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SleepySkull
Posts: 36 |
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Ditto, well, aside from the grad school part. I've recently found myself a bit overwhelmed from the amount of anime I'd been consumed. After asking myself one of my favorite orientation questions, "For what purpose?", I realized that "keeping up" was turning something that could be enjoyable into a chore. Keeping up with washing the dishes is just a necessary part of life; keeping up with a bunch of anime shows that will still be around in a few months' time, not so much. I realized, for example, that my annoyance with the pacing Re:Creators could be easily solved by watching it in binge mode after all episodes had become available. Another aspect of valuing your time is willing to be ruthless when it becomes clear you and the author/director have diverging interests. I loved the first season of Psycho-Pass, but it became clear after a few episodes that the second season lacked the same magic. So I didn't force myself to watch the rest of the episodes to be "fair" or "complete". I just gave myself permission to save time by joining the many fans who pretend that second season doesn't exist. I'll add one thing that seems to be missing from Justin's excellent post: some of us can regain/retain our enthusiasm through the soundtracks. I enjoyed Aldnoah:Zero even though I'm not much of a fan of mecha or palace intrigues. I can recapture some of that enthusiasm by playing Sawano's soundtrack in the background as I exercise or do other things -- without the time investment that the anime series would require. |
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5560 |
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lol I laughed at this because that's what I go down to when I'm burnt out. Normally doing 20-30 shows a season for the last decade or so. Now and then I have to intentionally cut as much as possible. Summer 2017 looks like mostly garbage, thankfully....so I'm only looking at around 10 shows at best. and I full agree with the statements that no one should watch anime simply to "keep up". It's supposed to be enjoyable. Plain and simple, IMO. |
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TheMorry
Posts: 660 |
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Been only (a real) an anime fan for the past 4-5 years but this year i started to feel like im done with anime, a burnout. In those 4-5years that I've become a fan(im 29 a late bloomer when it comes to anime) in those few years i watched over 400 series (some BIG shounen series) over 100 movies and a bunch of OVAS. Yea due somereasons i had way to much time on my hands.
So much the same anime get released with just a few twists... I started to get a little bit annoyed xD. Also it didn't really help for me to have a HUGE dvd/blu-ray backlog to watch. I've spend a few 1000 euros over the past years to collect what is available and a bunch used old titles. Honestly that is sometimes depressing how much i "got to" watch. I wanted to watch those anime series that got me hooked again. So lately I've been rewatching my favroites while keeping up with Funimation weekly dubs and most of the weekly anime releases). I dont watch sub btw, subs take way to much time. I think a huge problem for myself is that i rushed fullspeed into the anime world, trying to catch up ASAP. Last edited by TheMorry on Wed Jun 28, 2017 3:37 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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My current burnout is a combination of increased workload and the fact no one talks about anime anymore. its all twitter strings or social media posting. The days of sitting in an IRC channel and discussing the new happenings of the week are over, especially amongst the younger crowd.
Why share thoughts with your friends when shallower statements can generate 'likes' and 'favs' and 'retweets'? Talking with your friends is nothing when compared to a non-consequential numerical value. |
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Parsifal24
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I burned out and completely dropped out of anime for a little over five years I can rember watching Corpse Princess and feeling nothing and combined the some "cruddy" treatment of other fans in my admittedly small circle.
I just wanted nothing to do with it. What rekindled my interest was going outside of what I had been consuming which was mostly the ultra violent 90s stuff that my local video store carried and what ever Toonami ran from 1999 to 2004 combined admitiedly depressing series. Discovering series like Oh My Goddess and Ai Yori Aoshi helped get me back in to it. Also having run a blog for a couple years got me back into watching stuff as well although that comes with it's own problems and challenges as well and I've had to refine what I write about or how I cover it. Also another thing to make sure of is that the burnout you are experiencing is not a sign of some deeper psychological problem like depression. As disinterest in things you like can sometimes be a harbinger of that. I know for a period of time what I thought was burn out was actually Seasonal affective disorder and my Dysthymia doing a "one two" combo on me. Also avoiding certain portions of the social aspects of fandom helped me get out of it as well. But that's more because I internalize anything negative said about me online and simply don't deal well with people in general. Being kind of anti-social and introverted. Trying to force yourself to be part of the "conversation" on something is the quickest way to end up detesting something you like. Also having a "pull list" of favorite series helps as well that way even if the current season is weak you still have something you can go back to and know why you like this medium. |
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Rasparr
 Posts: 21 |
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Minor Anime burnouts are something I encounter pretty much every few weeks. This comes as a side effect of my unhealthy iron rule to watch
1) mostly currently airing Anime, 2) every sequel/prequel/special/OVA to a show I watched before, 3) any Anime until the very end, if possible. Sometimes, this causes me to suffer through long, boring shows like Gundam IBO, Rage of Bahamut or Jigoku Shojo, which leads to burnout. Here is what I do to delay/avoid getting burned out too often: 1) Watch the boring shows first (recent examples: Clockwork Planet, Granblue Fantasy, Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS) and "reward" yourself later with more decent shows (recent examples: My Hero Academia, Nobunaga no Shinobi, Eromanga-sensei). 2) Take a day or two off from watching Anime and do something completely unrelated. Do a crossword. Or five. I also like to go into the woods. It really helps to just follow a small stream, collect some animal bones or search for prehistoric burial mounds and charcoal pile platforms (which is fairly easy where I live). 3) Reduce the absolute number of currently airing shows you watch. Focus exclusively on shows that seem the most promising. This might or might not be an easy task (see my three iron rules), but it helps to make way for other activities that can be help prevent getting a burn-out. In my case, I was watching a whopping TWENTYSEVEN currently airing shows during the Spring 2016 Season. 18 out of these shows turned out to be uninteresting or outright crap (pardon my French). Now, during Spring 2017 Season, I'm watching only 15 currently ongoing shows (plus a few from older seasons). Come Summer 2017 it will be no more than 8 - only sequels and those shows I deem most watchable. I don't know if that's any help, just sharing my two cents. |
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Brand
 Posts: 1028 |
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I'll just stop watching for a while. I just went through a couple of years where I watched a ton of anime and this past season I was just like ehhh. Ton of second seasons I was interested in, but just could not actually get interested in. I might watch something here or there once in a while but for now I'll move on to another hobby for a while and come back to anime later.
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Yep, bet those new name-only Tenchi series crushed those dreams, huh? 
As for watching "Every currently airing Anime", you don't actually watch/stream every single new broadcast-network show that premieres in the fall, do you? And if you do decide to sample a first episode of each, and/or maybe play with Amazon's annual "Pilot audition", you don't assume that you're now obligated to continue your commitment from there on in. So why is the mentality implicitly there in anime?--Because you feel you're more "loyal" to it than broadcast or Amazon? |
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#Immie93
Posts: 54 |
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Been watching anime (consciously) for 11 years and by consciously I mean knowing it's an anime unlike when I was a child watching what I thought was all "cartoons."
Only just recently have I gone through my first burnout and it's exactly as Justin says. I was trying to pick up on any new anime which took my fancy and even when they began to get boring I relentlessly tried to persevere in the hope they would get better. And in the end I just lost heart, aimlessly wondering around the internet trying to find something to watch I hadn't seen. I'd pick something then quickly lose interest. So I did as Justin recommends and going back over old shows does work. I revisited AoT, Code Geass etc, all the shows that originally sparked my enthusiasm. He's so true: DON'T try to watch everything out there because you do stop enjoying anime and instead go for the ones you're genuinely eager to go back to every week. For example I've only picked up ONE anime this quarter (AoT2) because I knew it would be good. If hype from any other anime from this quarter continues into the summer etc then I'll check them out at a later date. Another good thing about a later date is marathoning is possible! 
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king 47
 Posts: 264 |
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I got severely burned out a few years ago. But I wasn't over-watching.
My issue was that many things that annoyed me were coming up in most shows, and so much. And season after season I started noticing that I was watching less and less shows. It got to the point where I would look at the "new anime" section on ANN and just from the pictures and the first few sentences in synopsis would decided that I'm not going to watch most of the shows. Eventually I hard quit anime and got back into video games (that coincided with me graduating college though, so I had time and money for video games). Now though I'm less annoyed with anime, perhaps the things that annoyed me are less prevalent, or I just don't see them. But because there's aren't enough good shows a season, I can't justify a Crunchyroll subscription. So unless it's on Netflix or Hulu, I'm out. My attitude towards video games, anime, and pretty much everything else is exactly as Justin says. I don't feel compelled to watch a show or play a game because everyone likes it, and I don't feel the pressure to watch everything or play everything. I only do it if I feel like it, and that makes them a lot more enjoyable. Just to be clear about the things that annoyed me about anime: 1) Almost anything that is based off of a light novel. 2) Loli and incest (a lot of times incest just happens half way through a show) 3) Shows that don't really have a definitive ending. I get they want me to buy the source material, but I don't want to. This was one of the most annoying thing. 4) Almost all of the protagonists are teenagers/high schools. They are almost always the same characters. 5) I've seen all the anime cliches, so every new show was just a rehash of things I've seen multiple times before. There were other smaller things, but these are the ones I can think of at the top of my head. I do keep an eye on the shows that come out every season in case there's some thing that interest me or if people talk about a show. I hope I don't come off as an anime hater. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4568 |
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I've never had a full burnout in my 15 years of watching anime, but I've had genre-specific burnouts. Eventually, the same tropes wear thin, so I watch other types of shows, and will work my way back when I find something that piques my interest later.
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Jonny Mendes
 Posts: 997 Location: Europe |
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Been watching anime since the 80's i never experience a anime burnout.
My trick is to only follow 1 or 2 anime simulcast a season. All others, let them end and watch them 1 episode a day, 1 anime at the time. But as am getting older i notice i lost my willing to watch certain genres. Sports animes and mainstream shonen anime with more than 1 or 2 cour, boring me to death. I was a big fan of Dragon Ball and Captain Tsubasa kind if anime but not i can't get the mood to watch them. Last edited by Jonny Mendes on Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:04 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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explosionforgov
 Posts: 80 Location: United States of America |
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I have a similar, but completely inverse problem.
I barely watch anything in any medium, and I always feel I should be watching more. But whenever I say, "Hey, friends, what's good," this ends up happening: Friend: "Watch [x]." Me: "What's [x] about? I'm not familiar with the title." Friend: "It's really famous and good, lol. Go watch it." I ask because there's certain tropes I want to avoid, ranging from "this makes me uncomfortable" (i.e. sexual assault, lolicon) to "I just don't like this cliche" (harems, love triangles), and I base my decision on a plot synopsis. I also sort of live in a pop culture hole, so to speak, so even if it's famous and well-liked, I probably haven't heard of it. Any tips for rectifying this? |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5483 |
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