Cliffhangers in anime!

[golthin]

It seems to me that recently the way that Anime deal with big cliffhangers has taken a trend. I am talking about having a cliffhanger and then the next episode skipping ahead and leaving you in the dark. They give you some glimpses of what happened but you have to wait maybe one or two episodes before you find the outcome. I will give three recent anime that had a cliffhanger and they pulled that trick. Ergo proxy, Z-HiME and Tactical Roar. There is more but those are the two most recent one. I understand that this is probably done to keep the audience in suspense and have them come for more. It works very well, but It is really driving me crazy.

In my opinion I rather have the cliffhanger solved in the next episode and keep the continuity of the story. Do you enjoy this way of handling the cliffhangers? This is not a new thing, I understand that. It just feel to me that in the last season and the current one that technique is being used too much.

[remo]

I wouldn't want it to be exclusively one way or the other. I do think anime would become terribly stale if it was mandated that all stories be told in a strictly linear fashion. But both are equally valid storytelling techniques -- I'd leave it up to the creator to decide.