Animeph

In Japan, episodes of an anime series air weekly. However, the amount of episodes a series will last is not chosen liberally. Each quarter of a year around a certain date, several anime will end and several new anime will start. Therefore those quarters are called seasons [Winter (~January), Spring (~April), Summer (~July) and Fall (~October)] and the amount of episodes is based on the amount of weeks till the next season. Still, anime series can differ in length. There are 3 common lengths: Anime with the length of 1 season can vary from 12 to 14 episodes; anime with the length of 2 seasons can vary from 24 to 26 episodes; anime with the length of 4 seasons usually consist of 52 episodes. Anime with the length of half a season (6 episodes) are rather rare, but another common format for anime are series with far more than 100 episodes. Those series usually are mainstream family shows like Pokemon, DBZ or Naruto, have a bigger audience and are the main targets of foreign licensing and distribution. They will last as long as the viewers and the author are still interested in this series. The Japanese term for this definition of seasons is “kur” and simply means 3 month of airing time. Above there are links to helpful preview lists I wrote of all the new anime shows/fansubs that will start during certain seasons with links to their official Japanese sites, links to the reviews I wrote about them, pictures and some general information. These lists will help you to get an overview of what anime you can expect to see in the near future, but also what anime your might have missed in the past.