[ZERO <ibis>]

No, but many anime have multiple series with almost the exact same name so in instances such as that it can case issues. Such shows will often error out or not get scrapped or get scrapped incorrectly. If you are trying to scrap hundreds of shows it is easier to just create the simple tvshow.nfo file for each show than scrap each manually. This also resolves issues of ever needing to re scrap a show.

Here are some examples of anime show names:
Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!
Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o! 2
Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o! Kono Subarashii Choker ni Shukufuku o!
Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o! 2: Kono Subarashii Geijutsu ni Shukufuku o!

Now I believe the scrapper does have fixes for popular shows like this where it can auto correct but you also need to remember that some of those shows could have also been names any of the following by users:
Konosuba: God`s Blessing on This Wonderful World!
konosuba
konosuba OAD 2
konosuba OAD
Konosuba: God`s Blessing on This Wonderful World! 2
konosuba 2

I have even seen series where people do not generally agree on the spelling of the title. Or take Gintama and Gintama' those are two different series. Also as you may have noticed above series titles in anime like to use : which can not appear in file names. Having needed to scrap hundreds of series and do so multiple times I can assume you having a system that works 100% of the time in every case is preferred and the only way it ever works is by creating that tvshow.nfo file. Even if you were scrapping shows individually would you rather be given a prompt to select the correct option and prey you select the correct thing or just have the tvshow.nfo file and be done with it.

I can say that generally you can scrap without the tvshow.nfo file. However, once you run into an issue you are going to want to use it and that that point you were better off just using it to start with and save your self the trouble. I suppose you can say that if you want to scrap over 100 shows it is recommended but less than that if you do not really watch much anime it does not matter. The problem comes up when you have massive collections and get one series that did not scrap or scrapped incorrectly, trying to find it can be difficult and it takes less time to just do the tvshow.nfo method.

Also I do recall in rare cases the show title actually being changed on anidb after there was what I can assume to be some big issue back in japan about the spelling of the title or how they wanted it. In some cases there can be a lot of back and forth from the studio as to what the official title of the show is when written in romaji.

There can also be instances where the only difference between two different shows is an illegal character in file names so you got to name it something else and then it is just not going to scrap without tvshow.nfo

Lastly, sometimes users want to title the show something other than the exact official title and the only way around this is to use the tvshow.nfo file as this will act as an override.

The tvshow.nfo thing popped up a long time ago:

Feature suggestion.

To aid in preforming a full db update from scratch without needing any additional human input I propose the detection of a .txt file or something that can hard link a folder to a particular series.

For example a series like K instead of just relying on the title of the folder the scrapper can look for a file called anidb.txt and read the first line for a9043

The scrapper would then know that the data in this folder is for a9043 making scrapping 100% successful at finding the correct series.

Is there any way to implement such a feature where as we would have the "adi" declared from our file system directly as to ensure that the scrapper always gets it right 100% of the time?

 

This is already possible. Just create a file called tvshow.nfo (exactly that, don't replace "tvshow" with the title of the show) and place in it "aid=9043". Technically, you should include the entire URL to the page on AniDB.net, but only the "aid=..." part is searched for. That will short-cut the title search and jump straight to getting the details for that show, regardless of the folder name.

Check the wiki for details.

 

Cool, I will try that method in the future

If you read the thread starting from one of the quotes above you can get some insight into why many of us started using the tvshow.nfo method.