1 I can understand that Macademi Wasshoi is not for everyone.  But then he went and dissed Potemayo.

2 Well, I can certainly respect how folks watch things in different ways, but stopping after four episodes is like leaving the restaurant after the salad.

There have been a number of series that started out really, really weak...even to the point where I thought, "There's no way this is going to be good."  A fair number of them, though, surprised me after that and I ended up liking them a great deal.

Some, though, just confirmed that initial impression and proved to be a waste of time.   So it's a bit like using salt at dinner (to continue the food metaphor).

(Of course, I am just anal enough that I *have* to finish the shows I start, no matter how un-promising they begin.  I suspect I'm not typical.)

3

I used to try to give a series 4 episodes before giving up on it if it wasn't working, but these days I have less patience than that and may give up much earlier.

There have been cases where I gave up after only a couple of minutes. I bought the first collection of Maisson Ikkoku and gave up after about two minutes of the first episode. It was just blatantly obvious it wasn't for me. (But there isn't a single Takahashi series I've ever watched all the way through. The furthest I got was in Ranma 1/2 in which I gave up about halfway through the third season. I think I gave up on Uresai Yatsura after about three episodes, and Maisson Ikkoku was the third Takahashi series I watched, and by that point I'd had enough.)

Anyway, I can't reasonably complain that Pete didn't give Macademi Wasshoi a reasonable chance. He watched a third of it.

4

I don't know yet, but I think there's a fair chance I'm going to dump Dragon Crisis after the third episode, which is one less than Pete gave Macademi Wasshoi.

And I dumped Infinite Stratos halfway through the second episode. I only watched one episode of Rio.

5 After two minutes of moping around, Ryuuji gets his act together, thanks to some browbeating from his cousin. By the end of the episode, I think you'll be satisfied.  I was worried about how they were going to go from "mostly powerless Ryuuji" to "Hero for Rose" Ryuuji, and they finessed it fairly well.  It's not explicit, but apparently, a "breaker" is someone who can activate a Lost Precious, and I'm guessing that the level has something to do with how powerful an artifact they can use. Also, something from the OP shows up, a wild-card that no one expects, that connects Rose and Ryuuji..

6 Potemayo is a good case study in judging a series. The longer it went, the harder it was to watch. Potemayo and Guchco were lots of fun, but the humans, not so much. I got to the point where I was fast-forwarding past any scene that didn't have potato-cats in it. If they hadn't been so charming, I would've abandoned ship around episode three.

I've found generally that I need to be engaged very quickly, one way or another, and there are things that will cause me to lose interest almost instantly.

7 On the other hand, its the job of the writer/director to hook the viewer.  If after a couple episodes, the viewer is bored and uninterested, then that's a failure on their part.  Of course, some times its unavoidable, if the writer is doing a thematic bait and switch, for instance.

( *coughGurrenLaganncough* )

8 I gave up on Gurren Lagann after the fourth episode (I think it was) and even the visage of Yoko isn't enough to entice me back again.

9 I found that I only rewatch the later parts. In particular, after the Simon's trial onward. Not very hot on all the deaths, especially Nia's, but I understand they were necessary and/or unavoidable. It's epic upon epic, awesome upon awesome, episode after episode. But when I watched all of it initially, it seemed way too grim and gritty.