Most of the movies and anime are usually arranged and broadcasted in chronological order. From the beginning, the climax, and the anticlimax, then it is closed with the final episode or the ending.
Unfortunately some recent animes that I'm watching now are trying to play with the viewer's curiousity by randomly broadcasting the episodes.
In one anime, you will find that it's started in the middle (or maybe the end, you never know) and then followed by the first episode (beginning chapter). Until this point, you might have thought that the plot is "flasback", a kind of plots that used to be in a detective or mystery story. In fact, in the next episode you will find that the episode jumps to some other stories, which should be the future of the story and no-relation at all with the first episode.
Middle (episode??)--> back to the beginning (episode 1)--> progress (episode 2,3)--> jump to 2 episodes afterwards (episode 5)--> back to the missing episodes (I forget)--> jump to another 8 episodes in the future (episode 9)--> pullback to one episode ahead (episode 8)--> next??
In other anime, you will know the ending first and then it start whole over again from the very first time until the day when you see the prelude scene. Yet, it is not the final episode. Some missing scenes will be presented afterwards. Obviously, those scenes are also flashback, far before the final event takes place. With other words I can scheme it as follows:
Ending--->beginning-->middle-->reach the ending again-->middle/missing scenes-->close to ending-->same ending with a solution (quite complicated)
As you might have guessed the first anime is
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu
and the second one is Higurashi no Naku Koro ni....I'm just wishing that I can follow those anime till end before I leave this country *sigh
