13 26 52+

[Ishbalan]

I tend to get turned off by anime that are 52+ episodes. With the exception of Monster (74 eps), the only anime series I have watched over that length were either airing on Toonami/Adult Swim and I loosely followed them, or Naruto and Bleach.

Generally for me, its the shorter the better, and the newer the better.

[CodeZTM]

24-26 = best

12-13 can be good, but more often than not there's not enough time for the story to be told properly, many side characters just get ignored after the second half etc and it has to speed things up.

52+ is well, just too long really. The only one of these I can remember really enjoying was Eureka Seven.

Generally the formula for awesome. The only argument that I'd have to make for 52+, is with second seasons for awesome seaons like Code Geass and School Rumble, when we need moar awesomeness. :O

[BasharOfTheAges]

Yakitate Japan was 69 episodes and I thoroughly enjoyed it right until the end

x2

Also, what i've seen of D.Grey-Man seems to break the typical mold of "high-action, high-energy, and high-stress only for a short while near the end of the series." It's a long one (still ongoing I think) that seems to climax as often as a string of OVAs.

[Sukunai]

I can only compare a 13 ep show with a great book. It's only one book but can be a great read.

26 feels like a good trilogy. And anything past 52 gets to feel too much like it has Jordanitis It rarely gets pulled off well by shows that stick around to long.

Much as I hate to admit it, but even some of my greatly liked shows jumped the shark half way through their lifespan.

The best "story" driven animes I have seem to be 26 shows.
BGC 2040, Noir, Madlax, Blue Gender.

Most slapstick animes eventually end up running out of material after 26.

Some animes are too gag driven. After 26 shows, it's too much like retelling a joke too often.

I also find some shows are doomed to be finite. If a high school drama finishes a school year in a season, then you've basically established how many seasons you can hope for.

[BasharOfTheAges]

To add to that - most 12-13 episode series are 7 or 8 episodes of character development (usually following a predictable pattern) followed by 4 to 5 episodes of the actual plot or substance. It's a full-length OVA with enough prelude so that you don't have to learn anything about the characters while the real meat of the story is delivered. There are some series that get the pattern right and start with a story that expands (backwards, in production) to encompass all the time they can be given on a short contract, and then there are others that feel like the story isn't building to anything and WHAM you have a 3-episode OVA style tangent at the end with characters that you just happen to know.

Too many short series feel like tangents at the end for me to take the format seriously more than a handful of times.

[XiaoMovieMaker]

i just like OAVs O__O
they make searching for good footage easier >__>

Pale Cocoon