Ask John: How Should Fans Deal With Anime Series Withdrawal?

Question:
This is more of a personal question than a general one, but recently I’ve been experiencing a sort of sadness/depression after finishing a series, be it anime or manga. I’m not sure if other anime fans go through this or not but it’s just that after spending so much time waiting for the next installment and going through new stories, when there are no more new chapters or episodes, it bothers me. Is this common? If so, any suggestions on how to cope with it?

Answer:
I’m torn over how to react to your situation. On one hand I want to applaud your obvious devotion and attachment to anime. On the other hand I want to say that it may be unhealthy to be so addicted to a particular series that being without it causes depression. As both an anime fan and closet behavioral scientist, I’ve never encountered anyone expressing a feeling of emptiness or absence over reaching the end of an anime series. What I do encounter frequently is the expression of outrage or anger over the conclusion of anime series. But that reaction stems more from a sense of betrayal of expectation and a desire for further gratification than from a sense of loss or separation, which seems to be what you’re describing.

That you feel a sense of sadness over separation and finality with an anime series tells me that you really enjoy and invest a lot of your personality and emotion into the anime you watch. I can respect that, but all good things come to an end. Whether it’s the musical canon of a particular performer, a favorite novel or series of novels, or the final installment of an anime series, you should be pleased that you were able to enjoy what you’ve had access to, then move along to something new. That’s the way the anime industry works. In fact, that’s what the anime industry relies upon. New shows are created and released all the time instead of there being only a small handful of anime series that each have thousands of episodes in order to provide viewers with some variety. Rather than reacting to the ending of a favorite anime series as a conclusion, consider the ending a simultaneous ending and beginning: an end of one series, and an opportunity to begin a new one.

Becoming overly preoccupied with any particular anime series, to the exclusion of others, prevents you from discovering and enjoying many other anime series that you may like as much, or even more. There’s enough anime and manga available in America to keep even the most die-hard fan busy for years. Like many fans, you can prolong your involvement with a particular anime series by creating a website devoted to it, by sharing it with friends, by collecting merchandise related to it, and by creating your own extensions of it through fan fiction, doujinshi or video. When you finish watching an anime series, especially one that you’ve spent a long time with and really enjoyed, you should feel a little bit of sadness that you’ve reached its end. But at the same time, try to enjoy a bit of satisfaction over having completed the series, and a bit of anticipation over the quest to find a new show to devote yourself to. If you’re able to do that, then you’ll avoid the sense of burn-out that some anime fans feel, or the attitude that there’s nothing left that’s appealing or interesting to you. Be eager to watch anime rather than regretful. If you maintain that attitude, you’ll always find anime appealing and find yourself always eager to watch more.