PSA: Skipping the OP on watch parties actually ruins the pacing

Ran a rewatch group for Frieren last month with 6 friends and everyone wanted to skip the opening theme every single episode to save time. I kept quiet about it at first but by episode 8 the emotional beats felt flat, nobody was hyped for the big moments and I realized it was because we had no windup. So for the next arc we watched every OP and ED on full, and it was a totally different show. The transitions hit harder and the quiet scenes landed way better. Anyone else notice this or do you all skip theme songs on purpose?

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andrew69325d ago

Nah, that's just the ritual talking. You guys got invested in the routine, not the show. Skipping the OP means you get 90 seconds more actual story per episode, and over 28 episodes that's basically a whole extra episode of content. Frieren's pacing is already slow as hell, I don't need two minutes of the same song and animation telling me the same thing every week. The quiet scenes land because the writing is good, not because you watched a music video first. You just trained yourselves to feel something when the theme hit, that's all.