A Note on Marathons: No More Code Geass Please~

orz.

Some people only watch anime in bulk, others do it slice by slice. Bloggers tend to do the the weekly way for a wide variety of reasons, but I think sometime it’s good to do it the long, hard way.

It has been a while that I marathoned something. This time? Code Geass. I’m glad I held off on it when it was a hot topic, simply because this is the kind of show that can well be watched all at once. However the more I think about it, the more this show comes off as a very solid production and its tight pacing works well no matter you watch it episode-by-episode or, in my case, half-series by half-series. I feel a bit left out of the fan loops during its airing, but now I can at least go back and identify random Code Gass pr0n or cosplay or parodies. Oh well.

That said, when it comes to its narrative, Code Geass stands above many others. I think it still suffered some conventional pit falls (Like how will it end? How can it possibly end (better)?) but it’s pretty rare that you can find shows like this, at least for me. Often the choice to watch an entire series at once, for a lot of people IMO, is to avoid the pang of cliffhanging. But for someone who doesn’t give a damn about waiting a few weeks for the next fansub, what is there for them? I always thought that because TV and OAV anime tend to be screened episodically there is a purpose and intent behind many of the shows that they should be watched episodically and not all at once, subject to the style of narrative. Killer cliffhangers are just part of the deal.

Could it be something that’s habitual? I never was a big anime marathon kind of guy even way back in the days. At the most I’d watch a couple tapes a day (something like 4-6 episodes tops). Maybe old habits die hard.

Sadly, I did it with Code Geass simply because I just didn’t have the time last half year to squeeze in so much anime, and I have some time now. It was nice to enjoy the luxury of watching anime in an accelerated pace–I can skip around as I wish and I didn’t have to force myself to consume what’s in front of me in full. On the flip side I think I probably missed some stuff because I didn’t really think about the show besides its per se presentation–I was busy eating it up. For Code Geass, that’s a bit of pity because you can tell the show is thought out in terms of some of its shocking (but predictable) paths it took. Savoring a show with a ton of Minami Omi and Yukana lines is hard when you are done with it in the space of 2-3 days. It takes time to come up with smart-assed things to say, after all.

But, I think, only really quality narrative can withstand both a piece-by-piece and marathon. As of 2007 there were only so many shows that I can even stand watching beyond 2 episodes, let alone 25-27 of them without much of a break. I guess I still have a soft spot for this kind of mainstream mecha nonsense; even if at time it’s just silly (like much of the second half of the show), it’s still prime entertainment. Too bad it didn’t give me an ending to laugh at and finish this thought. Instead, just as they planned, I’ll be on board for whatever comes next.