@Would, I force myself to watch at least four episodes (as you mention) before deciding if an anime gets dropped. I would have missed out on some really cool anime if I hadn’t sucked it up in a few series which had really bad initial episodes.

@christi, are the voices still whiny if you switch the audio to Japanese? I notice I can’t discriminate whiny voices as well in Japanese as I can in English. Worth a shot.

@Choux, sounds like you have a low tolerance for BS. But one must consider most anime are about survival in one way or another, be it emotional, existential, or physical.

@Marie Turner, I love Hellsing for all those reasons ^^;;. I don’t like harem anime either, and dropped Negima after the first volume. The hints of shotacon made me queasy. Shotacon/ lolicon is an instant drop in my book.

@zqube, these days, there’s so much anime, people need to pick and choose what they watch, otherwise, we’d be spending waaay too much time watching something we despise. Let’s be thankful that this is an era we can be critics since it means there’s an abundance of anime.

@conankudo, yes, when an anime crosses that boundary in our heads, it’s definitely time to drop it.

@sairuh, I agree that too much fan service is annoying, but there are actually some really good comedies out there which poke fun at fan service. Ninja Nonsense is a raunchy comedy that crosses a bajillion lines yet is wildly hilarious. If you can stomach some truly bad “adult” humor, I highly recommend the series!

@Kuri, I usually watch anime with David, and he somehow manages to get me to watch past the two episode mark in anime. Thanks to him, I’ve seen some really good series, but I’ve also sat through some really bad ones as well….

@kdp, “Nothing worse than watching something then asking yourself why you bothered to waste your time like that. I second that!

@Caitlin, Yeah, it should be apparent after the first volume if an anime is worth the investment. And yet, somehow, I manage to end up watching all six volumes of a handful of bad series.

@Kamigoroshi, I wasn’t too thrilled with High School Rumble after the first volume, either. But after the second and third volume, I was hooked. It’s odd I liked it since I usually don’t go for something so simplistic.

@Setsukyie, Repetitiveness is repugnant, but I can usually stick with it if I do something else while watching an anime that repeats itself. Like working out, shelling peanuts, dusting, etc. I don’t really have to “be there” with an anime that does the same thing over, and over, and over, and over….

Also there have been plenty of times I pushed through unconfortable levels of fan service and was happy when it was over and was glad I held on because it was wrth it in the end (TMOHS for example).

But the reason most people drop a show is because they don’t think that certain thing that they don’t like will end. If a show doesn’t get over excessive fanservice (or what ever the annoyance is) and show something substantial then its not worth continuing.

Ridiculously long – I can stand just over 100 episodes, but for the love of all that’s holy and sacred don’t keep dragging it on in a never ending story. Bleach and Naruto are prime examples of this. A 5 minute battle takes 3-4 episodes and the anime is over 200 episodes long with the end nowhere in sight. It’s a hot potato.

Excessive stupidity – I really don’t mind cute animes that touch on ridiculous every once in a while but animes that seem to defy common sense altogether and I don’t mean all the sci-fi/fantasy genre) are off my book. Excel Saga and High School Rumble are just a few that I’ve dropped in the first couple of episodes because my brain can’t handle that much dumbing down.

Serviced Fanservice – Touches of crossdressing, yaoi, yuri, shotacon and lolicon to make the plot or characters more interesting are alright by my book. Make a plot out of it and I’ll run away screaming like I’ve been scalded with hot water. Aishiteruze Baby had me going that way. There is a cure for it however. Whenever I see things like that, I’ll watch Ouran High School Host Club and all the evil fanservice thoughts will go away.

No originality No Attempt – Yes, we’ve seen mecha genres plenty of times after what Gundam came out but surprisingly a lot of it are pretty good. It’s when people decide to rip off other animes and make no attempt to create some sort of originality on their part. The worst culprit Trinity Blood (merging the Trigun and Hellsing into a half assed show). Awesome crappage.

Epic Fail Ending – Not exactly dropping, but I’d regret actually picking the anime up with bad endings and they go off my collection into the bin or I’ll sell it to someone. It doesn’t matter if you have an awesome plot. If you’ve got a bad ending, that’s going to ruin it for us all. Trinity Blood and Samurai Deeper Kyo are my main beef. Enough for me to pretend I’ve never watched it.

I can usually use my first filter to drop an anime before the first ep even ends. My second filter usually kicks in by around the 3-6 ep range, depending on if its a 13 or 26 ep series.

The final filter of having a point to the story often requires waiting until the entire anime is complete. The episode bloggers really help here; I can sit back and wait for them to finish before deciding whether to see the entire show or not.

Overall, this set of filters doesn’t leave much anime worth watching. That’s fine with me, though. Nothing worse than watching something then asking yourself why you bothered to waste your time like that.