kimw57•4d ago

Found a trick to binge-watch old anime without burning out

I was trying to get through the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, 43 episodes from 1979, and around episode 15 I hit a wall hard. The pacing felt super slow compared to modern shows. Then I started watching at 1.25x speed on my laptop, and honestly it was a game changer. The dialogue still sounds natural but the action scenes feel way tighter. I also switched to watching one episode during lunch and one at night instead of cramming three in a row. Now I'm at episode 38 and I actually remember the plot. Has anyone else tried messing with playback speed for older anime?

3 comments

3 Comments

barbara_jenkins664d ago

Oh jeez, I've gotta laugh at this one... because what you're describing is exactly how I used to watch every single show back in college when I didn't have enough hours in the day. But then it hit me that I was basically speedrunning my way through art, you know? Like, sure, you get through the episodes faster, but what's the point of watching Gundam if you don't really feel the weight of those quiet moments where Amuro's just sitting there staring at the ceiling feeling all depressed? It reminds me of people who fast forward through the boring parts of a movie and then wonder why the ending didn't hit them hard... you're just cheating yourself out of the full experience. But hey, if it gets you to the end of the series without falling asleep, maybe that's just the modern way of doing things, though I still think it's a little bit of a betrayal of the original pacing...

thea6024d ago

So did you find that bumping up the speed actually made the slower social/political scenes less boring, or did it just make them go by faster without really fixing the problem? I tried that with some older anime and felt like I was missing the intentional pauses and atmosphere they built, so I went back to normal speed for the quiet parts. Curious if you think the tradeoff is worth it for keeping momentum through a long series.

abby_cooper4d ago

Tried this exact thing with Legend of the Galactic Heroes, which is basically 90% people talking in rooms. Bumping it up to 1.3x made those political debates feel snappier without losing the weight of what they were saying. The key is not going too fast, 1.2x or 1.3x for dialogue heavy parts lets you keep the momentum but still catch all the little pauses and facial expressions that add to the atmosphere. I actually found myself more engaged because the slower scenes didn't drag and make my mind wander. For quiet atmospheric moments, I switch back to normal speed, so it's not an all-or-nothing thing. For a really long series, that little speed bump saved me from burning out on the slower stuff entirely.