Chapter 324
If I had to pick the phrase I saw the most in the anime I watched as a child, it would undoubtedly be:
"Same time next week."
I wasn’t sure how it worked in Japan, but the anime I grew up watching often had their openings and endings cut short so the network could squeeze in more advertisements.
They never cut the main episode, of course. But the opening sequence would be reduced to just the title screen before jumping straight into the episode. And instead of playing the ending, there would just be a commercial break, followed by the words:
"Same time next week."
And seeing that phrase always reassured me.
It meant exactly what it said. That the same time next week, the show would still be airing here.
I would sit in front of the TV, watching the latest episode, feeling a pang of disappointment when it ended—only to be comforted when those words appeared. Then, I would spend the entire week looking forward to that next episode, filled with anticipation.
But even that had an end.
No matter how long an anime ran, the final episode always arrived. Even for episodic series with no overarching plot.
When the scheduled episodes for the year were over, the words on the screen no longer read, "Same time next week."
Instead, they said: