User blog comment:Aay Bralor/One Thing/@comment-13616152-20131211054624/@comment-4010415-20131211071951

To be fair, Volume 1 is only about 1 hour 50 minutes long. So, it's about 5 episodes of a normal anime (estimated. Aren't TV show/anime episodes about 20 minutes each?)

A normal anime, seen on TV, wouldn't be super far into the story in a mere 5 episodes.

We're likely about to see traces of the other regions of the world in Volume 2, due to the fact that people from all over the world are gathering in Vytal for the festival and tournament. This also means that we're going to see several, if not many, new characters in the upcoming volume.

We need to stop thinking about it in terms of "There are 16 episodes out, and we've gotten nowhere" and more in terms of "There are an equivalent of a little more than 5 episodes out, and we're getting somewhere."