Steven began to watch Ranma 1/2 from the Season 2, and it sure looked like fun. Now he's buying Season 1 and 3.

This reminds me how I started watching Naruto from ep.32: it was awesome out of this world. And the next episode was known as Sakura Blossoms in English.

Yesterday Avatar said on #animedvd that he started Nanoha in the middle too, and most likely would not become such a fan if he had to start from the beginning.

Only three examples, but I wonder. Perhaps it's a good way to approach long-running franchizes.

This is not to say you have to like it. We watched an episode of Dennou Coil at TV in the hotel, and Ana-sempai said it was "pretty, but creepy", which I thought was apt for an episode with a flashback to a talking Illegal. Don swore off Naruto because one of his friends saw an episode where Hinata was beaten up savagely (I'll provide link when I get back to America). Random selection does not always work to the show's advantage. But it might help the correct judgement.

UPDATE: Could not find the relevant link in time, but here it is now:

Or, if you're like me and spoilers don't ruin a show for you, you could actually watch an episode or two of A's -first-. Total accident - downloaded the wrong episodes, started watching, said, "Hey, this show is throwing a lot of characters at me like I should know who they are..." "You're watching A's, stupid." "Ohhhhh..." With many shows, this would be a major turn-off; with Nanoha, it was something of an advantage, because the start to A's is VERY strong, especially compared with the first season. But a little confusing, so ideally you should watch it the right way around.

Yeah.