Is The Anime Finished?

Accurate Anime Status & Watch Order – At a Glance. No Spoilers.

Each time I’m about to start a new anime series, I always ask myself two simple questions:

  1. Is it finished?
  2. In what order should I watch it?

And every time, I end up digging through long discussions, mixed opinions, and accidental spoilers.

This site is my way of cutting through all that noise and giving you a straightforward answer to just those two questions.

How do I do that?

I found that most of the confusion comes from two places:

  1. Not knowing exactly which seasons belong to a franchise.
    In Japan, anime seasons often get released as standalone entries. Sites like MyAnimeList treat each season as a separate page, which makes it tough to tell what actually belongs together. If you don't know which parts make up the full series, you can't tell if it's finished—or what order to watch it in.
  2. Not knowing if the franchise is truly complete.
    Even after grouping everything, how do you know there's nothing else coming soon?

Figuring out what belongs in the franchise

I start with TheTVDB, which takes a more western-style approach to organizing shows, and then blend that with data from MyAnimeList’s “related” sections. MyAnimeList helps fill in any gaps TheTVDB might miss—especially when sequels, prequels, or source manga aren't grouped correctly.

This combo lets me clearly define which shows make up the core franchise. It also gives me a clean, objective watch order: the original release order. No overthinking it.

Figuring out if it’s finished

Once I’ve pulled everything together, I check two main things:

First, I look at the latest release dates for both the anime and its manga. If the anime ended before the manga did, there’s a strong chance the anime isn’t complete.

Second, I cross-check that with MangaUpdates. They tend to have reliable info about whether an anime adaptation is complete or not.

Putting that together, I tag each franchise as one of the following: FINISHED, UNFINISHED, or AMBIGUOUS (when the sources don’t quite agree).

Also, if any main part of the franchise is still ongoing, I mark the whole thing as UNFINISHED—no extra checks needed.

On every franchise page, you can see exactly why a certain status was given and where that info came from. That way, you can decide if it’s worth watching, and what to expect going in.

I hope this makes things easier. If you’ve got feedback, feel free to share it here.