Therin of Andor said:
I can't see why you find lack of character-building across novels something to celebrate?
I prefer my character building within a novel. There's something elegant about a story that can be told within the confines of 400 or so pages, that don't need to refer to something else or lead on from something else, or lead to something else.
How many classic novels are part
x of
n? Very few I'd say. Even when they were part of a whole, the whole would have a beginning, middle and end.
The original series, and TNG to a degree were episodic television. Each week a different story. Few people complain about a lack of character continuity and serialisation in The Original Series. What's wrong with wanting the literature to reflect that?
The current vogue is for serialisation, for long arcs, for character continuity in all aspects of the media, film, TV, literature and comics. The motives behind it are always debatable. Some might say that the story telling opportunities are enhanced by it, that viewers and readers can gain more satisfaction and reward from it. It's certainly true. I doubt I would have enjoyed the first season of Heroes (recently concluded on UK TV) if it had been episodic. But the money men also know they are on to a good thing. Episodic or one-off stories have a limited financial scope compared to the serialised stuff. It's also far more easier creatively to keep on revisiting an existing property than to create new and fresh each time. It's also safer, one success practically guarantees another, and audience momentum is built up to guarantee the bucks. This past year of 'threequels' has proved that. An ambitious and risk taking studio would be making a new space opera, instead of remaking Trek.
But most pernicious of all is how they play on the old hunter gatherer instinct. That primal urge we have to feed our families and ourselves, to go out and beat a moose, or strip a tree bare of fruit, always to a greater extent than needed, has been converted into the urge to collect. Everyone does it, they pick something of meaning to them and pursue it to varying degrees of obsession, whether it's money, cars, trophy wives, Armani suits, or DVDs, stamps, coins, and even novels.
People also go through phases, a year or two of Mel Gibson movies, a decade of Elvis memorabilia, half a lifetime of Trek merchandise. There eventually comes a point, usually after marriage and just before children, that one looks at the groaning shelves, the vacant bank balance, and the lack of a social life and asks "What the fuck have I been doing all my life?" The salesmen want to put off that moment as long as possible, keep that desire for the next fix burning. What better way to do that than to put "To be continued" at the end of each novel, or "Last time on Buffy The Vampire Slayer" at the beginning of each episode.
I may be cynical, I may be totally off base, and I may be offending a few sensibilities. But before you rant off at me, ask yourself this.
Have you ever invested in something, be it books, music, movies, TV, whatever, that you collected eagerly as it was being released, experienced it once at the time of purchase, then never looked at it again? Did that collection wind up in a yard/car boot sale twelve months later?
(but not because I "had to" watch an anime short). 
