Impressions

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When I started watching the recent Iron Man anime series, I stopped after 3 episodes and recorded a disappointed initial review. Iron Man came across as a monster-of-the-week show that got its characters right but its pacing wrong. I was bored.

Then I finished the series, and recorded a much more positive review. The show finally came together, and the last half worked beautifully.

Which led to a few interesting comments. Folks were, shall we say, surprised at my change of heart.

Some folks complain when I review just the first few episodes or volumes of a work. "That's not fair," they say.

But my first review wasn't wrong.

My first review looked at the first three episodes, and formed an opinion based on the information presented there. The first three episodes were monster-of-the-week stories. They were uninteresting.

If a show is uninteresting for its first 3 episodes, that's an important data point. As long as you, the reader, understand the context of the review--how many episodes or volumes the reviewer saw or read--you can glean useful information.

I'd love to watch every episode and read every volume of every anime or manga that comes across my desk. But there are some works that don't appear to be worth my time. I maintain that it's useful to state that.

Just saying.