Crawling Out of Backlog Purgatory

For the past couple of years, the period between January and the end of March has been spent in preparation for the local anime convention where I volunteer as a staff member. What this has meant is that I spend the time period heavily involved in scheduling events and panels for the convention, as well as putting together my own panels (of which there have only been a few lately). One of the panels I put on is focused around new anime from the prior year (between the end of the previous convention and the start of the current one) and of course the pre-work for that one involves watching a lot of anime. Some years ago this was easy, because I didn’t have a lot of other responsibilities. Nowadays that isn’t the case – not only do I have a kid that I love and want to be around, I also have *gasp* other hobbies. Historically as the convention has come to a close, I’ve fallen into the trap of moving along in my “hobby cycle” (the last few years it’s been knitting, since I like to enter items into my local state fair competition). Anime becomes the last thing I want to deal with after marathoning a whole year’s worth of shows in a short time.

A logical person might say “why don’t you just stay on top of series as they come out each season?” and yes, that would be the way to do it so that I don’t end up so overwhelmed. If someone could crack my head open and explain that to my brain in a way that it would agree, I would be very thankful. Barring that, though, I’ve sort of been a victim of my brain’s dopamine-seeking behavior for most of my life. What’s been helping me lately is that the last couple of years I’ve signed up to be on another local media convention’s “Year in Anime” panel (the way their panel process works is very different from most anime conventions – they define the topics and people sign up to be panelists) and so in order not to make a complete ass of myself in front of my potential co-panelists I’ve had to stay on top of what’s come out prior to that convention.

Even so, there have been several series over the past few years especially that I’ve just abandoned. Sometimes their release schedules are to blame; because of convention timing their broadcasts may not be complete by the time the convention occurs. Sometimes, though, the only person I can blame is myself for not seeing them through to their conclusions (or their “go read the manga” endings, as the case may be).

There are things on my backlog of shame that I truly am ashamed to have not finished, because they’re series that I’ve really liked. Mob Psycho 100 season 3 was a big one looming on my list. I got about halfway through when it was being broadcast, but fell asleep partway through episode 5 (not because of the show, because I have sleep issues) and it sat there mocking me for like 4 years. Similarly, the previous season of Golden Kamuy sat unfinished because it had a weird broadcast break and restart which caused me to lose my momentum. And Delicious in Dungeon was just something I watched halfway and meant to get back to, and just didn’t.

There are other series that, as previously mentioned, were broadcast in such a way that I had an episode or 2 left when the convention rolled around and then I kind of forgot all about it afterward. Ameku M.D. is a good example of this; it was literally in the last story arc and I was enjoying the series and ready to find out what happened, but then just didn’t get back to it. Silly.

Like a lot of other anime fans before me, I think in order to clear out my AniList “currently watching” list I’m going to have to make a project of it so that my effort doesn’t get misplaced. The idea here is to reduce my unfinished backlog so that it’s mostly currently-airing series as well as the odd older series that I’ve picked up outside the current seasonal rotation. If there’s something I’ve paused, my desire is to be more aggressive about marking it as such or just straight up dropping it if further evaluation reveals that I wasn’t really vibing with it. There was a time where I’d force myself to watch things I didn’t really enjoy all that much, because I do think it’s good to do that every so often (it’s a good way to remind yourself about what you think makes something “good,” and where media missteps leave their effects). With like 20+ series I want to seriously check out this season, though, an aggressive approach is going to be more important than ever.

I’m going to try to document the process here, though like many long-term projects I’ve previously committed to I don’t necessarily know how long this will last or if it’ll just fizzle. Obviously I’ve only recently gotten my writing mojo back and even that seems to ebb and flow with a cycle that I can’t predict, but these are muscles I’d like to be stretching and using more often (I actually went to the library this past weekend so I could have some uninterrupted time to write, which seems to have helped me focus), so I’ll at least try to put in an effort. All I ask from readers is not to make fun of me too badly for watching half-seasons of very good anime series and then not following up on them. At least I’m getting around to them now!

Below are some series that I’ve either committed to finishing, or have already watched in the past couple of weeks and about which I might have something to say:

• Ameku M.D. – Left off 2 episodes from the end.
• Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End– Left off on episode 15 of season 1.
• Golden Kamuy Season 4 – Left off halfway through the season (whenever the broadcast stopped, episode 5 or 6).
• Delicious in Dungeon – Left off around episode 7 or 8 (though I know what happened in it through reading the manga so this wasn’t a total biff on my end).
• Mob Psycho 100 Season 3 – Left off on episode 5.
• Blue Box – Left off on episode 12.
• Kaiju No. 8 – Left off on episode 6 of season 1.
• Summertime Rendering – Left off on episode 14.
• The Aquatope on White Sand – Left off on episode 16.
• Trigun Stampede – Left off on Episode 6.
• Ya Boy Kongming – Left off on Episode 8.

There are some more (many of them are a couple episodes in and it wouldn’t be a problem for me to just restart them completely) but these are the ones I want to focus on. Encouraging words are welcome! I know so many of us have this issue from time-to-time, especially when life does its best to make you reprioritize how you spend your time.