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But, see, the huge number of episodes in some anime series is exactly what keeps people interested in them. If you spend weeks on a show with no long breaks, you're going to come out of the other end of that experience far more devoted to the eventual outcome of the series. The break between seasons of American television gives us time to cool off on shows. It's this gap that allows stuff like American Horror Story to stick around.

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That break is necessary for the show's longevity. With that break, every new season offers at least some glimmer of hope that it will be better than the last. The trailer will look great, the buzz will be deafening, and then about four episodes in we collectively realize this season will be as much of a disappointment as the past few have been. If they were capable of producing something every week and maintaining the overall quality and just generally dominating their time slot for time eternal, they'd probably do it. That break, in the long run, makes audiences more forgiving of terrible shows and, even worse, less willing to admit when they've carried on for way too long.

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If there's a new episode to see every single week in the foreseeable future, it's going to remain important to you even after you've binge-watched all of the old ones. There's a stereotype of people who are into these "forever" shows, like anime and soap operas and pro wrestling, that portrays them as fanatical gremlins. And while I'm far too tall to be a gremlin (I'm more of an anime bridge troll), I can't deny that the sheer amount of some of these shows has endeared them to me. In a few cases, I wish I could time travel back to 20-year-old me, smack his computer off the desk, and shout, "BLEACH IS NEVER GOING TO GET BETTER, YOU MONSTER." And One Piece is really the only long-running one that I've kept up with to this current date, because I dream about time travel a lot. But I enjoy it, and I can't deny the fact that part of the reason that I enjoy it is because it's always been around.