Organizing Your Anime: My Methods for Tracking and Completing Anime

Let’s get it out of the way, I am a freak. I first started watching anime in 2013ish. I realized quickly that there were too many anime I wanted to watch to keep track of them all. I also found it annoying to try and remember which episode you were on in a show, it would take the fun out of watching it by trying to remember and starting an episode only to realize you had already watched it. I also did anime reviews back in 2013 on Instagram. My name was _anime_tips_ which is how I thought of this name. They weren’t as in-depth, but I posted almost daily reviews of my finished anime. I started using the best thing I could think of to create a watch list, the notes app on my phone. This has slowly evolved throughout the years and has been the most effective way I have found to track the anime I want to watch, I am currently watching, and the ones I have finished. I know they have sites like Anime-Planet, where you can also track what you are watching or finished, but I have been using my method for so long that it's what works best for me.

This is a warning that I am a pysco so don’t judge me.

Let's start with my 2013-? List

I put a ? because I am not sure what year this list ended. I used to think I just wanted one massive list, However, when I started watching anime again in 2022 I figured it was more fun to start a new list every day to look back on the anime you watched that year.

I would have the anime I wanted to watch at the top of the list which you can imagine made the list extremely long and caused me to scroll a long ways to get to the anime I was currently watching. Since then I have created a separate list for all of the anime I want to watch which just grows throughout the years.

With all of that in mind here is my 2013-? List, minus the anime want-to-watch list.

There are a few things I don’t even remember what they meant, Like the black check mark. What I kept from this version of the list are the emojis for the number of episodes, the normal numbers for what episode I am currently on, and the green check mark which meant the show was completed and separated into genres. Now let’s look at 2022's list. Keep in mind I didn’t start rewatching anime until June of 2022 so this would be half of a year.

You can see I am much more organized and now have an emoji system and the emojis explained so I know what I was talking about. I only put in the movies and OVA episodes I watched.

2023’s list is pretty similar. I did watch significantly less anime than the year prior. The emoji system was still the same.

In 2024 I started to make my list more organized and it has worked great for me.

I broke the anime I am currently watching into 4 sections. Anime I am watching, which means ones that I am paying full attention to. Releasing weekly, I used to never watch an anime with weekly episodes. I would wait until the show was completed and then watch it. With so many good shows coming out I find it hard to wait. They get their category so I can keep track of which ones I am watching weekly and what episodes I am on. The next category is background anime. Don’t come at me but if I am not super invested in an anime but still want to watch it I will watch it while I cook, clean, do my makeup, etc. These anime I don’t feel the need to have my eyes locked on but I still want to finish them, or know what show I can put on while I work out. The last one is a long anime. I struggle with long anime, but you can see this year I have tried to get better about watching it. I like it having its category. I also track every Saga and Arc from One Piece as I complete it.

Now that you know I am a complete psychopath I hope this helps! There are so many wonderful anime out there it’s hard to keep track of what shows your watching or ones you liked. I can quickly look up an anime title that I want to recommend and know exactly where to find the titles I don’t like. I could go more in-depth on each anime I finish and my thoughts but I feel as if I do that through my blogs. As you can see I am nowhere near caught up on all the anime I could write about. If you see an anime on my lists that you want me to write a review about comment it below. I only write reviews on anime I have finished, and I give my honest opinions.

Lastly don’t compare with my lists or others. Anime is meant to be enjoyed. If you watch one show in a year or 100 doesn't change the fact that it's there for our enjoyment. I work remotely, and I stay home a lot, so I have anime on at 1.5x speed for most of my day which is how I can watch so much. I also have mental issues that I don’t want to deal with right now, so instead of sitting in my thoughts, I have anime playing which helps my mentality stay positive.

Do you have an anime list? I’d love to hear how you keep track in the comments below.

Thanks for reading!!

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Bye for now!!