About five years ago, Nate spearheaded an effort to gather a bunch of friends to (in his words) “pretend we’re hardcore by watching all of some Japanese cartoon in a single sitting.” The idea, and name, were inspired by a series of features on Insert Credit where a couple people would sit down and play a Final Fantasy game in a single sitting. These grueling video game marathons were called Project FFDOG.

The show he selected was Neon Genesis Evangelion. That event, dubbed Project Shinji-Dog, pretty much ended in tears. Too many people had seen the show before, too many people weren’t actually committed to the central reason for gathering together, the show (26 half-hour episodes) was just too long. The event was also held during the day on a beautiful summer day, which didn’t help anything.

Shinji-Dog II, held about a year ago, improved on the first event’s flaws in many ways. The December weather in Oregon is generally rather gloomy. Far fewer people had seen the show we were going to watch, and it was only (“only”) a 13-episode series. The guest list was limited to people who had actually watched anime before.

It also took place four years after Shinji-Dog I—giving people time to forget the burning sensation we had all experienced.

Most importantly, though, was that we selected a can’t tear your eyes away from the trainwreck show to watch: School Days.

Project School-Dog, as the event became known as, was a complete success.

…

Now Nate is looking towards holding Project Shinji-Dog III sometime soon. Problem is, we don’t have a show that is as perfectly suited for marathon viewing, with our particular group of friends, as School Days was. Our best guesses, so far, is to watch a couple arcs of Higurashi or (more promising, since fewer people will have seen it) Umineko… but neither Nate nor I am totally sold on either one—especially since there’ll be no satisfying conclusion to either show with that plan. Decisions, decisions…