You get settled in, enjoy whats shaping up to be a great series, look forward to seeing what happens with the characters once they’re introduced … aaand the writing trips over it’s own feet and faceplants into the ground like so many defeated enemies.
What’s the worst one out there, and what happened to it?
Controversial, but Attack on Titan.
When they realised how much money they could squeeze out of the IP, they decided to stretch the story way to long. It should have ended already.
Hot take on your hot take–I disagree that AoT fits as a fumble, but I disagree because I didn’t like the writing from the outset. I’m glad so many people enjoyed AoT, but that’s one I never really “got.”
I don’t know the pacing of the manga, but holy mother of CG was the armored Titan arc some bullshit. I checked out from poor storytelling, and I’ve been told the manga reveal is no better.
It’s not stretched that much, in my experience it’s just the way they’ve broken up the series for animation that makes it feel longer than it really is, since they spend so much time inbetween each cour.
Anything where the older role model ends up dating the child they just spent the whole start of the series essentially raising. It has happened twice now, and I’m repulsed every time q.q why is this even an issue??
Usagi Drop’s anime interestingly removes this part. In the manga, they timeskip to her teenage years where she’s dating him. In the anime, they story just ends right before the timeskip. Vastly improved lol
Eww, yes absolutely that! (and the “but that little girl is actually a 400 year old dragon” trope is similarly nasty)
Promised Neverland, though I only watched the first season due to how much they changed for the worse in season 2. I’ve read most of the manga so I knew what was supposed to happen, but I’ve never got around to finishing it.
I’m reading the manga right now, and was curious about the anime, but judging by everything I’ve heard about it, I think I’m going to skip it. A shame, because a well done adaptation would make some of the action scenes a little easier to follow.
strong second on this
I thing that was so frustrating about season 2 was that they were leaving breadcrumbs, clues, and hints that in fact things ARE different. Characters werent just conspicuously absent, there was scrawling on the walls stating that they left.
It felt like the series was going to dive into some multiverse/time travel/alternate reality/reality warping shenanigans and do things a little differently than the manga while still tying into the original . Then the anime wasted a lot of time, skipped ahead a bit and resolved the majority of the manga in the form of a slideshow.
I really wonder what happened during production to lead to this change and issue and why the series just ended the way it did.
I’ve not seen it myself, but I’ve read the story … IIRC nobody knows what actually happened, there’s been no information from those involved and the only public info was regarding staff changes (which didn’t help deduce anything either)
Interesting responses here, lots of weird stuff! The most recent I’ve seen went a bit different - Super Cub, a slow-burning SOL that seemed to be headed to a relatively exciting and satisfying conclusion. But it just turns out to be full of plot holes and queer-baiting at the end.
Ousama Ranking recently comes to mind. Such a bizarre and wonderful setting filled with intrigue and all I can remember about it by the end was the made the MC op and the other prince wants to marry his father’s childhood sweetheart and villain, after she basically killed him
Oedipus complex from the protagonist? That really does sound off putting.
Not the protagonist, but his brother
Ah ok, sorry I totally didn’t understand!
Oh yeah that was quite sad to see the second half. I see a second season had come during Spring 2023.
I imagine almost anything with a Gecko Ending fits. Also here should be the series where something happens and they’re rushed to finish it in the next 2-3 episodes instead of 10-15 as planned or something on those lines, faintly recall seeing a few like this before. But both of these are special cases, more interesting is when there’s no external pressures and there’s plenty of material, yet they screw it anyway. Rosario to Vampire comes to mind, the manga had the usual harem and comedy shenanigans, but went full shonen. The anime discarded most if not all of the shonen for the harem/comedy shenanigans and ended funny but less good as a result. Never watched S2 because of this, no idea if there’s more. I suspect nearly every case in the thread is behind the scenes a result of executive meddling, but that’s just gut feeling.
Didn’t know about Gecko endings being a thing but it makes perfect sense … it’s bewildering to me that there isn’t more general planning when it comes to making something that costs a lot of money
I don’t watch a lot of anime, but how about the original Evangellion? My understanding is that the last few episodes were deeply confusing and disliked when they came out, to the point that the movies were created partly to “fix” the ending.
I loved the original ending, after having seen the others, I can’t imagine a more fitting ending. They’re all kinda the same but the presentation differs.
Since the worst examples I can think of have already been mentioned, I’ll just throw in that Boku No Hero Academia is making me pretty sad these days. It’s like they decided to stretch out a few things that were shorter in the manga for a reason and it’s gone on for so long that it doesn’t feel like the same story at all anymore. I miss what the show used to be.
ETA: Ascendance of a Bookworm was really fun right up until she decides to dump everything in the trash and join the church.
How long is Buko no Hero Academia? There’s been a couple of long series I’ve seen where it hasn’t been all that surprising that the story lost it’s way on the altar of profit!
So for me it would have to be the original Dragon Ball tv show. I fell in love with the show around the Tien Saga for how meticulously animated the fighting was. Every punch and kick was seen and the focus was on martial arts. This continued through the King Piccolo saga, which I also loved.
However, I was massively disappointed with the Piccolo Jr saga. To me, it seems like the show switched from being focused on martial arts to generic energy blasts and poorly animated “flurry of blows” that really watered down the quality of the fights. Where before we had well drawn punches and kicks now we had people yelling loudly while blasting energy beams.
I’ll die on the hill that this was a “jumping the shark” for the Dragon Ball franchise that it never fully recovered from. Future DBZ seasons were a bit more creative (thinking of Goku holding Raditz while Piccolo blasted him) but the show as whole never really returned to being about “martial arts” the way it was before.
I feel like an old man shaking my fist at a cloud though, as I’ve yet to meet one single person who misses that focus/aspect of the old show.
I saw a lot of DBZ when it was on Cartoon Network, and was always interested in seeing the original series but at that point I didn’t have any way to … DBZ was never my sort of thing (too many episodes spent “powering up” with no real story), do you think going back and seeing Dragonball is worth it despite the lapse in martial arts quality?
The last season of Food Wars felt really rushed, like a shell of the former seasons. Absolutely everything felt unnecessarily shortened.
In general the entire series kind of took a nose dive when the focus switched from cooking to how many superpower level absurdist cooking skills can we cram into the story to cook something.
Which is unfortunate, but I think the shifts in the manga over the years really foretold the changing priorities of the creative team (editor included).
Wonder Egg Priority. No, WEgg,
commit dieis not caused by a jealous android and her weird program friends.This still hurts. I absolutely loved the characters and it had a really solid start but damn it crashed and burned at the end.
I can still see the awful run animation in my head from the special episode at the end.
At least the OP and ED are solid.
Yeah that was a show that didnt really have an end game properly planned out and thanks to the production woes it had that caused it to get delayed and cut short, the ending really does hit the fan.
It’s such a shame too because the animation was solid and the concept was fascinating. I feel like the biggest crime this series has is how they knew they were running out of time, money, episodes, and instead of wrapping things up they just kept adding more and more undercooked ideas. I think the series would be more fondly remembered if it just hastily fizzled out instead. It would still be disappointing but it really is one of those shows where the back half manages to retroactively make the front half worse.
The final TV episode still ends on a strong note. YMMV on whether or not it’s worth sitting through the whole show for the payoff.
Just don’t bother with the special episode. The first half is just a recap, and the second half just throws out even more loose ends without resolving anything, and then writes “The End” at the bottom. Incredibly dissatisfying.
This isn’t like awful, but it’s noticeable. Full Metal Alchemist (brotherhood? I forget who came first) we started great and strong, good pacing, but then they ran out of source material too quickly. SO, they started making it up as they went. I stopped when the general planning a coupe flips to a genocidal maniac, the character shift was so jarring. Apparently further down this path they lose their alchemist abilities and get shot to WWII to fight some Nazis. It was so off the rails, when the manga started up again they completely redid the anime from the beginning. I love this anime, but I have to make a guide on how to watch it every time I suggest it. The second attempt didn’t do as well with the early episodes like the first one did, probably because they were trying to catch up. Wild ride, still worth it.
It’s not Brotherhood, just Full Metal Alchemist. Brotherhood was made in response to what a mess the original series was. Fans largely pretend the original series never happened and just tell people to watch Brotherhood instead.
Aside from being more accurate to the manga, Brotherhood is darker and more geared for an older audience than the original show was.
I would say the same, Brotherhood is best. But one episode changes it for me a little; Nina. I think the first took their time with this arc, while the second didn’t hit as hard. It’s been a while though, I’m not sure the first series is worth it beyond Nina.
That sounds confusing as hell!
This is probably far from the “worst” example, but the most prominent and notable example for me is anything from the FATE series–Stay Night, Apocrypha, Zero… Really, pick any of them. I don’t know if they’re “bad,” but the drop in writing between the first half and the last half (and last handful of episodes particularly) is so consistent across the series that I just go into any FATE show expecting that it’s going to fall off to varying degrees by the end.
In fairness to the FATE series (not that it particularly deserves it, it was just important to me growing up so i feel the need to defend it lol), it is adapting a visual novel that takes 30 hours for the first route alone, with more if you count unlimited blade works and heaven’s feel. A lot of what gets cut out is internal dialogue that provides the MC’s actual justifications/logic for his actions, making him a lot dumber in the adaptions. Additionally, there’s a lot of VERY JUSTIFIED censorship near the end of basically every fate VN route adaption which is why we get CGI dolphins all the time.
That said, neither Zero nor Apocrypha have this excuse, they were adapted from a light novels and not visual novels and to the best of my knowledge they’re pretty straight forward adaptions.
Totally unrelated but Zero and F/SN mutually spoil each other, which i’ve always thought was pretty funny. There’s no correct entry point because you’re literally incapable of watching both shows without one spoiling the other.
That’s so odd, one would hope the writers could learn from their mistakes … but I’ve felt like this is such a recurring problem that I wonder if written narrative structure simply isn’t a big deal in Japan
I feel like 90% of anime starts with an interesting idea but couldn’t continue for long. The ones that doesn’t fumble are the exceptions.
The best anime, IMO, are one or two seasons long. Cowboy Bebop is one season and it’s a masterpiece.
Maybe in total that’s true, there’s certainly far more being made than I’ll ever watch and there’s no shortage that doesn’t get good reviews!
Charlotte rushed the ending and fumbled it bad.
This one’s a CLASSIC fumble. I really liked the show too so it was a shame. If they were given, say, 12 more episodes to work with they probably could have made it work.
You could say the same thing about Angel Beats. Same director, someone needs to give him time to cook
