I find D-Gray Man has a lot of recaps at the beginning of the episodes, especially if their all part of a 'chapter'

I like Kyou Kara Maou because it doesn't do that; you have a clip at the beginning to from the episdode, theme song, then the episode. It's not too long though there's 78 episodes, 5 OVAs and another 39 to come starting in April (I can't wait).

Hehe youre completely right, Ive never completely finished watching long animes, and I cant even be bothered to. Promising animes like Bleach, Ive never started watching them cause I knew it would be the same thing. I enjoy short but good animes, maybe thats why I like films better than series:3

I see alot of anime that survives past it's time to die, Dragon Ball (Z/GT) for example, I watched every episode, every movie and when the end of the series was released I felt totally and completely dumbfounded...
anime like the one mentioned above shouldn't exist but it does and we can't help it... other anime, such as air gear (25 episodes) and pet shop of horrors (4 episodes 10 books) in my opinion, were cut off way to early to my taste, though I've never read the air gear manga, I'm pretty sure it would be a good read...
then come the horrible anime sequels, like yugioh GX (or DMX for my friends who've watched the abridged series, mad props and all that) these animes that have nothing whatsoever to do with the original series (which I can handle, it's the cheesy ameri-me' angle they use to keep viewers hooked that drives me insane, that and the catch phrases of course) whatever happened to the good old days of anime??? will they ever come back? I dunno myself
what it all boils down to is when dealing with anime/manga series always do a bit of homework, if you can find episode number 189 on youtube, chances are it's going to end up another DBZ/Bleach/Naruto style anime... haven't seen any anime that lasts that long and keeps up continuously peeking your curiosities... if I'm wrong, please by all means write me and I'll check it out... my mind's always open when it comes to new animes