I posted versions of this graph back in 2017 and 2018… Seems I haven’t updated it since then… So I thought it might be fun to do so.
The graph shows the number of shows by season, by year, and the average by season (dashed line). You might have to click and see it full size to read some of it.
Some wandering thoughts…
- I expected the drop-off in 2019, given how that year went in my personal life… But I wouldn’t have expected it to be so consistent across quarters.
- I would have expected 2020 to go up given the additional amount of time on my hands during the plague year… But instead it continued down.
Of course, this graph only shows new (current season) anime. I have no real way of capturing the number of rewatches. And I know there’s been a ton of them over the last two years…
If you keep track, what do your numbers look like? How did your viewing habits change in 2020?
Apprentice Mages Lounge. 
Cool post. I track everything, although I haven’t put any charts together… yet! I can see a post in my future that caters to the stats nerds. However, 2020 was my worst year by a long way.
I almost never rewatch shows, until recently and I have to say I’m having a lot of fun watching shows I know I love.
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Rewatching is a huge part of what I enjoy about anime… whether it’s a “comfort food” series or something deeper and more complex that I get something new out of.
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I can totally see that now. Before, I was worried I’d miss something and to some extent I still do, but I went through a few seasons where I’d watched a bunch that I didn’t enjoy. Whereas with the rewatching, I know I will enjoy it and often see more than I did the first time.
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I don’t track though if I did I know 2020 I watched very little anime choosong instead to revisit a whole bunch of older tv shows. It was a nice nostalgia trip and now I am happy to vet back into anime and find new things.
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Considering your 2020, that’s understandable. As I said, I know I’ve watched a lot of “comfort food” rewatches over the last two years.
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Yes, when things aren’t going well we return to the comfortable and familiar.
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I finished a bunch of backlog in 2020, at the cost of having to catch up to simulcasts from then even now (which reminds me, I should get back to it…). I think I calculated a percentage at one point and I’d finished 12% of all my finished content on my anime list in the lockdown period alone, if you count a bunch of things I’d been working on for years as well. Just looking at the chart, there’s a big spike for 2020, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since 2017 in the case of hours watched (which is when I started filling in my list in earnest, so that might not be quite right).
I rewatched basically everything I watched in 2016 in 2016 – 7, so I took a break from rewatches until I did the Planet With rewatch last year.
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My backlog is (in)famous for never being touched… Pretty much the only exception is something (like Oregairu) where I’m catching up to catch the sequel.
If I had a way to track rewatches, I suspect they’d make up a good part of my watching. (Especially single episodes.) It’s one of my favorite ways to relax, and I have any number of “comfort food” series.
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I like rewatching single episodes or parts of episodes, but AniList only has ways of tracking rewatches of entire series.
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I don’t keep track, ever since I deleted my MAL by hand. I’m obsessive, and I found that if I keep a list I’m less likely to drop shows I don’t like. I expect 2020 to be slightly down, especially in spring, when not many shows aired, and less were good. When I re-watch shows, it’s usually something I barely remember, so it’s usually not favourites. But I do re-watch certain episodes from time to time. It’s much easier to re-watch fluff.
There’s quite a bit I’d like to clear off from my backlog: XXXholic, Pandora Hearts, Planetes, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Code Geass… Instead, I’ve been replaying video games.
Actually, last year (2020) I’ve finished Ar No Surge: Ode to an Unborn Star for the first time. And, boy, did the game pick up after I dropped it last time. It’s one of those games where the fact that you’re playing a game is part of the plot, but I don’t think I’ve ever played a game that goes this deep. I’m glad I finished it, but I also remembered keenly why I dropped it the first time round: combat just isn’t interesting, and there’s no good balance between activity and scenes, so much of the game feels repetitive. But what’s good about the game can get genius-level good. I doubt I’d have ever finished the game without a lockdown. (Interestingly, the game’s a sequel to a dating sim that never came out outside of Japan. I wonder how I’d have felt about the game, had I been able to play that.)
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Sorry for the crazy late reply… It’s been busy the last few days.
I can understand dropping a habit that doesn’t lead to a good end. And as much as you watch, keeping shows you aren’t enjoying makes very little sense.
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I don’t have numbers, but it’s funny how often these days I feel more motivated to rewatch something I’ve already seen before than to start something new. I wonder what that says about me.
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Sorry for the late reply… If it’s not a seasonal, I often find it hard to start. That’s why my “to be watched” list is crazy huge. But rewatching something, especially if it’s a comfort food series, makes a lot of sense with everything going on.
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