Given that the world we live in isn’t the one from Planet of Exile, a season typically lasts for three months. That in turn means an anime season lasts for roughly the same amount of time.
With that being said, a lot can happen in ninety days. It’s also so easy to lost track of time because of the daily grind from work or school. Twelve weeks can disappear before you know it!
Unfortunately, this post won’t really help you make time for anime, which is what the opening paragraphs shown above seemed to be aiming towards. Sorry to disappoint, but I just wanted to provide a bit of a background for those of who you aren’t familiar with seasonal anime before I proceeded to give an arbitrary and subjective summary of what happens during the ninety or so days which define an anime season / cour.
Week 0
Essentially, this is a period of transition. The previous anime season has more or less concluded but the upcoming anime season has yet to really start. Be that as it may, there always happens to be one or two early shows that debut during this week of solace offered to exhausted seasonal anime viewers. There’s also usually a few latecomer shows that are still airing since they started late.
During this week, critics and bloggers and vloggers are typically scrambling to wrap up their thoughts on the concluded anime season or to put out their series reviews for the latecomer shows.
Incidentally, this is happens to be where we currently are at for the Fall 2018 anime season.
Week 1
The new anime season finally begins since the majority of the series will begin broadcasting during this particular week.
Expect a plethora of first impressions posts or videos. People will also already begin summarizing the anime season and comparing it to previous anime seasons at this stage.
Week 2
There will be a few straggler shows that finally show up late for their debuts. This is probably when people first start dropping shows after becoming discouraged after the premiere episodes and not feeling like they are willing to invest in a series.
A few of the more detail-orientated content creators may have pieced together some interesting observations in order to shed some insight into these shows by now.
Week 3
The Rule of Three will have people deciding to drop even more shows since a quarter of the season would have already gone by. Some tough choices will be made and series which have failed to proceed in a direction viewers appreciate will likely be abandoned by said viewers.
Since viewers expect there to be some sort of major development or tonal shift by episode 3, some wild posts regarding predictions and the like will likely emerge during this period.
Week 4
After dropping several shows from Week 3, some individuals may fill up the void by picking up other series people have been vocal about or by pursuing non-seasonal anime.
This could be a quieter or louder week in terms of content. It really depends. If people do give overlooked series a shot, you can expect some binging which may result in content that roughly summarizes 3-4 episodes worth of content.
Week 5
Nothing of interest typically happens here.
Week 6
With only half of the current anime season left, people will again start making hard decision by choosing which shows to drop or keep.
You can expect more content which aims to describe the current anime season in a nutshell or express their thoughts on the shows aforementioned content creators are watching. I usually opt for a Midseason Musing post around this point.
Week 7
Nothing of interest typically happens here.
Week 8
Since I no longer do episode reviews, this is around the point where I lose focus and start drifting away from seasonal anime.
Even as I try my best to finish this post, I’m well aware that I have a handful of episodes of Asobi Asobase, Happy Sugar Life, Harukana Receive, Grand Blue, and Hanebado! to catch up on, oops.
Week 9
This is usually when the AnimeSongCollabo YouTube channel releases their band covers of various seasonal anime OPs and EDs!
The upcoming anime season chart is probably out by now (could be even sooner, actually), so you can expect some content regarding the shows the content creator is looking forward to watching.
Week 10
There’s a very select few series that end after episode 10. Other than that, business proceeds as usual while shows typically enter the final arcs (if the shows in question have some sort of overarching plot).
Week 11
People start admitting that their lives will be empty after next week since they have been preoccupied with seasonal series that are all about to end. Only a handful of shows receive double cours these days, after all.
Week 12
The season is more or less finished now except for the latecomer shows.
You can expect series reviews and the like. This week is sort of like the precursor to Week 0 for the next anime season.
And that’s all, folks. Do you agree with this timeline? Do you disagree? I’d love for you to share your thoughts in the comment section down below.
Thank you for reading.
The Lily Garden 
All of this seems pretty correct, but it’s a cycle that I don’t mind living in. The chains of seasonal anime are hard, but they don’t come with out their fun and joy too.
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Oh, definitely. I think it’s still worth it in the end.
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Your timeline applies mostly to episodic reviews from the perspective of the general reader. My blog is a strange exception: my mid-season posts get the most reader interest, and people tend not to interact with the more detailed (in my opinion, better written) posts I do for season finales.
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