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?
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.
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?
Eh if you want to scratch that itch I’d say just watch Yu Yu Hakusho instead. It’s slow to start in season 1 but it has the best animated martial arts combat I’ve ever seen. Absolutely worth a watch IMO
I’m not super into martial arts (I can definitely enjoy a well animated fight scene though), I was more curious about the world of Dragonball (because there were little snippets in the credits of Dragonball Z, which I hadn’t thought about in years until your comment) … does Yu Yu Hakusho have a good story?
I think so. It’s the story of a punk kid who dies pushing a small child out of the way of a speeding car. Because he died committing a selfless act he gets a chance to earn his life back.
This leads to him being a “spirit investigator” where he has to track down rogue spirits and other evil influences of the “other world”. There’s a lot more to the show too, but I don’t want to spoil anything. I’d say it’s definitely worth a watch.
Ok, that does sound good - I’ve added it to the watch list, thank you :-)
Happy to help! :]
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.
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.
Surprised nobody mentioned Tokyo Ghoul, it’s probably one of the most legendary fuckups in anime history.
Also the second season of The Promised Neverland.
What happened with Tokyo Ghoul?
Have you watched Tokyo Ghoul: re?
Completely butchered the plot from the original and ended up being a hot mess with no structure or understandable story whatsoever.
I haven’t, I haven’t watched a huge amount of Anime … I’ll remember to avoid this one though, thanks to your summary!
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.
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.
