It never gets good – Judging Anime by its first episodes

Ach ja, the 3-episode rule is an interesting topic. While at first glance seeming like a sound idea, it predisposes an unhelpful way to look at narratives and strictly following it may lead to more harm than help. So, let’s take a look at it.

While not having an entirely universal definition, the 3-episode rule claims that one needs to watch the first three episodes of an anime before being able to pass a fair judgment on it, mostly in the context of whether one should drop the anime or continue watching it. The basic premise behind this idea is that most anime don’t play all their cards immediately. Not convinced now? Maybe something happens later that will really pull you in. And while this may absolutely be the case, why should it matter?

Every time the 3-episode rule is discussed, there is a certain anime always put to the forefront in favour of the rule: Madoka Magica. It’s first two episodes play out like your typical magical girl anime (or at least what one would assume is a “typical magical girl anime”), only for the third episode to break that illusion and take a sudden dark turn… except it absolutely does not!
I am genuinely confused as to why so many people think of Madoka Magica that way, since the only way one could think that is by skipping its fist two episodes. Do people only gauge the “darkness” of an anime by how flowery the imagery of its ending theme is? Madoka Magica was “dark” from minute one! Did y’all have your eyes closed while this absolute fever dream of foreshadowing played out in front of you? Didn’t you think it is weird how ominous most of the scenes were shot? The mascot character being covered in blood when first met? Madoka Magica has no twist that suddenly changed what it is or isn’t. It is, however, great from its start.

I find it confusing as to why one would need three episodes to get at least a feeling for an anime. The very moment you press the play button, the anime presents itself to you in its natural form. You should immediately feel something, even if that something is not quite telling yet. It is possible to judge something on a microscopic scale. A single scene, a single sentence, or even just a single frame. Is it necessarily representative of the entire thing? Of course not, but it is what you just watched and that should count for something, right?

Maybe it is just me getting jaded of interesting ideas playing out badly. I eventually stopped reading synopsis of anime, as the actual story hook rarely interests me anymore and I am more eager to find out if said story is actually done well. This goes double for all the anime that don’t really have a story in the the conventional sense, as well as whose story cannot be explained that well. Sure, Rakugo Shinjuu is about Rakugo, but is also so much more and while the Rakugo in it is fantastic, it is not the thing making this anime so great.

Whatever story is told, I can always feel how well the story is told, or at least how much it appeals to me from the get go. I don’t need three episodes to know that the anime, opening with a contextless, badly choreographed fight scene and a pathetic attempt to create drama or foreshadowing, won’t be to my taste. On the other hand, it took me almost no time to immediately fall in love with So I’m a Spider, So What? or My next Life as a Villainess and so many more. Despite nothing happening yet, I could already appreciate the vibe of the anime, and it is this certain vibe I seldom feel ever changing throughout watching anything.

Will the anime get better or worse at a later point? Probably, but never was this first impression so wrong, that I feel I made a mistake. Certainly not after only three episodes down the road.
Being interested in only what happens and not how it happens is not a bad thing. Who am I to judge the way people engage with media? I just can’t believe, that so many people think in this very narrow view, as if the art of storytelling goes completely over everyone’s head and the only worth of an anime is in whether it can engage people fast enough in its larger story. Again, giving an anime a chance beyond immediate satisfaction is perfectly fine, but ignoring everything before a certain point feels just stupid and not at all helpful to me. Isn’t the 3-episode rule supposed to be a good indicator for deciding whether one should watch an anime or not? In this way, the 3-episode rule feels really random and entirely based on good faith. Good faith being a scarce resource for anyone that does not have all the time in the world or just wants to watch something good.

There are however more arguments in favour of the 3-episode rule so I will go over some of them and see why they don’t hold up.

“Three episodes is not a lot”. This argument is based on the fact that the effort to watch three episodes will most likely be outweighed by the enjoyment one would get I they were to decide to continue watching the anime, instead of dropping it after its first two episodes. This is certainly a possibility, but how much it might actually outweigh it is up to debate, considering each person would have a different opinion on that with each anime. It also ignores the fact, that one might still decide to drop an anime after its third episode. “Three episodes is not a lot”, but are they though? One hour is a good amount of time in a day not everyone has. It also is an hour spent doing something not fun and essentially wasted. I also know a guy that watches only a single episode a day. Being able to only start a new anime after three days will add up. Remember, you will only live so many years until receiving your ticket to hell. It should be clear at this point, that the 3-episode rule is mostly used in the context of seasonal anime, meaning those people applying the rule are also those trying out several anime at the start of each season. Those guys watch so much anime, I am almost jealous, and for them, the 3-episode rule might actually help as a time-saving mechanism, rather than an indicator of quality. But not everyone watches seasonal anime. I don’t and when I do, the anime I watch already underwent so many filters that it is almost not a question of wether I will drop it or not.
If three episodes are a lot of effort or not is up to everyone themselves. The point still stands regardless that it is an hour of your life that could be spend different.
Also, shoutout to this one nutjob in my comments under the Gangsta. video basically claiming I shouldn’t have dropped the anime, because “Twelve episodes is not a lot”. Legendary.

“You need three episodes to see where the story is going”. No, I absolutely do not. Besides sometimes simply not caring where the plot goes, three episodes are quite arbitrary. I mean, 3 is a pretty good number, but beyond that? I assume the rule came to fruition after Madoka Magica aired, but I already spoke about it. While three episodes certainly give you time, they are not necessarily tied to the story in any meaningful way. Attack on Titan has an two episode opening act, before coming to a halt and “starting” at episode five. Most Light Novel adaptations are paced in a way that the first book ends at episode 4. To see the first arc come to conclusion, one might need even more episodes. Episodic anime start and end their plot in an episode with the overarching narrative mostly only coming together at the end. On the other hand, some anime need only half an episode for most of its story to unravel. There is an argument to be made by binding the 3-episode rule to narrative structures instead, but as it is now, three episodes are more random than telling where the story goes.

“Episode three often includes something interesting”. Episode eight would like to have a word with you.

Beyond those argument, let’s look at the actual applications of this rule. Most new single cour anime coming out average at around twelve episodes. If you have to watch at least three episodes, you are already a quarter in. What about OVA series with an even smaller episode count. At some point, the sunk cost fallacy sets in. Even if one didn’t want to initially, they will continue watching the anime if they have reached a certain threshold. Do three episode reach that threshold? Again, this will differ from person to person and anime to anime, but the possibility is there that one might continue to watch an anime they don’t like to justify the time they have already spent on it.
Looking the other way around: What even are three measly episodes in the light of something like One Piece with its current (at the time of writing) 995 episodes? I truly believe you Wano Country to be awesome, but I am not watching literal hundreds of hundreds of episodes to get there.

Every narrative has the potential for drastic changes in its story and waiting for it may reward you, but counting on them to happen in three episodes is maybe a bit naive. Crunchyroll did a video on it and as it turns out, the data is not that decisive. It is weird that the 3-episode rule is so prominent and has not died yet. Also, I think we all agree about those people, insisting that you have to watch at least three episodes before dropping an anime, being idiots.

Bottom line, drop it if you don’t like it! This may sound weird coming from me, as I rarely drop an anime, but I am absolutely in favour of dropping a series one doesn’t like. Nobody owes the anime their time. You don’t have to justify a reason as to not watch something. The 3-episode rule is a scam and I will not rest as long as it stays relevant.