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Appreciation post: that one guy who explained anime pacing to me at the bus stop
I was waiting for the 4:15 bus last Tuesday at the corner of Elm and 3rd, and this older dude just starts talking to me about the show I was watching on my phone. I was trying to get through episode 14 of this 90 episode series, and I was so bored I almost dropped it. He pointed right at my screen and said "skip episodes 15 through 22, they're all filler that ruins the mood." I thought he was crazy, but I took his advice and skipped straight to episode 23. The story made way more sense and I wasn't slogging through random beach episodes anymore. Has anyone else had a random stranger save them from dropping a show with a simple tip like that?
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murray.cora7d agoTop Commenter
That old bus stop trick is LEGIT. I had a similar thing happen with a show called "The Gundam Wing" back in the day. Some guy at a comic shop saw me carrying the box set and literally crossed out episodes 7, 14, and 26 with a pen. He said they were all flashback episodes that just recap the same plot points three times. He was RIGHT. You gotta trust the old heads who've already slogged through the bad parts. They know the filler arcs by memory and can spot a beach episode from a mile away. A good rule of thumb is if a show has more than 50 episodes, always look up a "filler list" online before you start. It saves HOURS of your life.
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ross.lily6d ago
Not even joking, the same thing happened to me with Naruto. I was on episode like 80 something and this guy in line at a grocery store saw my phone and told me to just watch episodes 1 through 135 and then skip everything until the Shippuden time skip. I thought he was just being gatekeepy but I looked up a list later and he was spot on about like 90 episodes of pointless side missions. The older fans really do just know which episodes are nothing but characters standing around explaining what already happened. That bus stop guy saved you from experiencing the same three flashbacks repeated every single arc.
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