A summer of Part 2 fail?! Non-specific spoiler warning!

Just Passing Through

Just Passing Through

The Wildcard
I'm not talking about Manga's Blu-rays for once, but the actual series. So far of my viewing, four shows have delivered sweet pitches in their first half, only for the second half to swing widely and miss.

Casshern Sins...

Great visuals, interesting premise, intriguing characterisations in the first half, and plenty of questions and a whole lot of mystery. The second half blows it, by doing nothing with the characters, and going nowhere with the story.

The same thing happens with Xam'd Lost Memories. Pretty anime, great characters, great set-up for a story. I'd rate the first 14 episodes as some of the best anime ever made. The final 12 flushes it down the toilet. The story splits up the characters and then does nothing with them, while the story never explains anything. I lost investment in the show in ep 15, and never got it back, reducing it to a pretty fireworks show.

Shikabane Hime, similar stuff here. First half is a really entertaining episodic undead action show, a perfect mix of drama and fanservice. The second half switches from episodic and serial, spends six episodes spinning its wheels, then crams in its story in the final six episodes. The story gets darker dramatically, but it tries to counter it by making the fanservice more intense, rendering the show a joke.

Nabari no Ou, not an amazing anime to be sure, but it's a slow grower in the first half, the characters are interesting, the story set up is intriguing with ninja in the 'real world', and the way that the story twists and turns really appeals. Except in the second half, the characterisations suck, and the plot twist is revealed as the only string to the show's bow. It can't do anything but switch back on itself. And the conclusion sucks.

Are these production house burning out their creative talent on Part 1s?
 
I haven't watched any of those series (and am a little less likely to after reading that post) but I'd put forward Bamboo Blade. First half was great slice-of-life comedy with a bit of kendo thrown in for good measure. Then a short way into the second half the anime writers ran out of manga material to adapt, leaving them to make up their own ending. Enter ridiculous rival characters, contrived drama about the closing of the kendo club, and Kirino, Miyako, and Tamaki going emo. The only word for it is FAIL.
 
To be honest I think this is a problem with many anime shows and other forms of entertainment in general. They manage to establish an intriguing premise with a interesting world and characters, but in the end the promises aren't fulfilled and the creators fail to do anything with the groundwork or deliver satisfying answers or conclusion. Many of shows and books(The fourth realm trilogy anyone? The Windup Bird Chronicles?) usually go this way.

As for Anime, here are a few that spring to mind for me:

Gungrave- Really great first half but it loses it in the second by suddenly changing credible characters into boring psychotic villains, and well that ending....it tried to be different but just pissed me off more than anything.

Wolfs Rain- Personally I still like this show (wolves + Yoko Kanno= :) ) but yeah its like they couldn't decide which way to end it, so deliberately made something completely indecipherable, or maybe they thought they were being arty? Still like the show though.

Evangelion- I've never been as big a fan of this as others, but even I have to admit it had something going for it, that is until the ending. Its basically like Wolfs Rain ending except 100x worse. Worst ending EVA (oh come on that was good, lol)

Potential candidate: Eden Of The East- After the very disappointing first "Movie" my hopes for this ending strong are lowered considerably. I'm still hoping though.

A series that lives up to its potential and ends strongly is what seperates the aight from the great.
 
Well, it's like with any business really. The first part is the part that the more casual viewers would take a look at, so they put a lot of their attention into making that initial showing look great; and if people like that, they've pretty much guaranteed sales for the last volume.
 
vashdaman said:
To be honest I think this is a problem with many anime shows and other forms of entertainment in general. They manage to establish an intriguing premise with a interesting world and characters, but in the end the promises aren't fulfilled and the creators fail to do anything with the groundwork or deliver satisfying answers or conclusion. Many of shows and books(The fourth realm trilogy anyone? The Windup Bird Chronicles?) usually go this way.

A series that lives up to its potential and ends strongly is what seperates the aight from the great.
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Agreed. I find it's an interesting division between east and west, in that many western films and tv shows have a slow plodding, sometimes dull, start and a fantastic finale, while many anime shows have a very good opening arc but it then fizzle out toward the end.
 
I think the need to stick to a set number of episodes per series screws things up sometimes. Imagine that you have a fantastic idea for an anime, but you plot it out an realise you only have enough story for 15 episodes. You then have a choice, do you cram it into 13 and sprint for the finish, or make it a 22-26 and pad it out.

Its a shame that OVAs dont seem to be made as often anymore, in theory it would give you more freedom over episode numbers or content

Sometimes it feels like they are wasting to many episodes on stuff that just shouldn't be that important. I can remember watching Eden of the East when they started of the 'Johnnie Killer' subplot, it seemed to go on for ages. It was fun to watch, but it was eating up episodes that could have been used to make the ending less rushed.
 
vashdaman said:
Wolfs Rain- Personally I still like this show (wolves + Yoko Kanno= :) ) but yeah its like they couldn't decide which way to end it, so deliberately made something completely indecipherable, or maybe they thought they were being arty? Still like the show though.
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[DEEP SIGH] No.

I simply do not, nor, I suspect, ever will, understand why people have a problem with the ending of this show. It's bloody GENIUS.

You know how some folks who see 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time say 'Oh, what a clever ending?' Well, Wolf's Rain pulls the same sort of trick, except it does it for real.

The crux of it is, everything starts over again, the world begins anew, and we see in the final seconds that what we thought was the future for the whole series was actually the ancient past.

That's probably an unnecessarily snarky response, so apologies in advance (and I'm glad to hear you still like the show, Vashdaman) but when I see people complain about the ending being incomprehensible I weep a little inside.
 
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The last two episodes of Evangelion come to mind, they're so ******* random, thank god we got End of Evangelion to try and make sense of them. I've also heard some bad things about the second half of Fullmetal Alchemist and the final story arc for Rurouni Kenshin, but I can't comment on them as I've not seen them, and I haven't seen Dragonball GT in ages so I can't say anything about that either.

But what gripes me more than substandard second halfs is cliffhangers that lead on to nothing, like in Love Hina and the original Hellsing, they would've been much cooler if they lead on to a second series, but no, they had to be ditched, leaving something substandard, if Love Hina actually managed to stay to the end I might have more respect for it.
 
memorium said:
The last two episodes of Evangelion come to mind, they're so **** random, thank god we got End of Evangelion to try and make sense of them. I've also heard some bad things about the second half of Fullmetal Alchemist and the final story arc for Rurouni Kenshin, but I can't comment on them as I've not seen them, and I haven't seen Dragonball GT in ages so I can't say anything about that either.

But what gripes me more than substandard second halfs is cliffhangers that lead on to nothing, like in Love Hina and the original Hellsing, they would've been much cooler if they lead on to a second series, but no, they had to be ditched, leaving something substandard, if Love Hina actually managed to stay to the end I might have more respect for it.
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Berserk also springs to mind... worst. Cliffhanger. Ever. I think the only way it could've been worse is if... no, there is no way. It's like if the Star Wars movies got made in order and then they never made 4,5,6. That's the kind of cliffhanger it is.
 
The first time I watched the series, I was glued to those last two episodes of Evangelion like nothing I have ever witnessed before or or since (and can attest having welled up multiple times). I consider EoE pretty much superfluous. I'm starting to think that perhaps you need to have experienced being as f*cked up in the head as Hideaki Anno was when he made them to appreciate them.
 
I liked the Wolfs Rain and Eva endings.

In general I don't really mind if things peter out later on in a show so long as I've become attached enough to the characters at the start to enjoy their antics, so weak endings in general don't really upset me. I suppose a lot of people would add Death Note as a candidate for having a weak second part, though I enjoyed it nonetheless.

I think a lot of the time it's when a series is extended partway through its run that things fall apart a bit, since the studios can't plan out a balanced show if it's suddenly given an extra cour to run (similarly things don't tend to wrap up well if a show is denied the extra cour it badly needs).

Endings I don't really like probably include Gundam Seed Destiny (love Gundam Seed, but Destiny was largely redundant and too-often annoying) and Flame of Recca (another Berserk-style waste of time). When they hook you for a full series then suddenly give up and present the ending as nothing more than an advertisement for the manga rather than a legitimate open ending, it's frustrating.

R
 
HdE said:
vashdaman said:
Wolfs Rain- Personally I still like this show (wolves + Yoko Kanno= :) ) but yeah its like they couldn't decide which way to end it, so deliberately made something completely indecipherable, or maybe they thought they were being arty? Still like the show though.
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[DEEP SIGH] No.

I simply do not, nor, I suspect, ever will, understand why people have a problem with the ending of this show. It's bloody GENIUS.

You know how some folks who see 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time say 'Oh, what a clever ending?' Well, Wolf's Rain pulls the same sort of trick, except it does it for real.

The crux of it is, everything starts over again, the world begins anew, and we see in the final seconds that what we thought was the future for the whole series was actually the ancient past.

That's probably an unnecessarily snarky response, so apologies in advance (and I'm glad to hear you still like the show, Vashdaman) but when I see people complain about the ending being incomprehensible I weep a little inside.
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No, no thats not snarky at all, and to be honest I think your right :) . At the very least its not actually incomprehensible.

Although there a few reasons reasons why I can understand people's frustration with it:

1. So there was no paradise for wolves? The flower girl only had the power to restore nature? Is that the jist.

2. Why did that idiots eye have to contaminate the world again!!

3. I wanted to see them make it to paradise! Not some murky city , only to inevitably go through the same stuff all over again.

Still the more I'm thinking about it now, the more I'm starting to like it. And I still think its a good show, I shed tears when Hubb and Cher died manly tears though ya hear and don't let no one else tell you otherwise!


As for EVA though, I'm sorry but there's no redeeming that ending.. it was GIBBERISH, I like genuinely esoteric stuff but that was just GIBBERISH and pretentious. They just threw a bunch random things together, pretentious Christian symbology: check,
Shinji choking Asuka for no reason at all
: check, hmm what else can we get in, how about a giant head sliced in half and a red sea: check. When they made that they blatantly thought " We are so 8) , they gonna be trying to figure this **** out for decades!". I thought the last line was entirely appropriate though, as that was exactly my thoughts on what I had just watched! Ahem sorry, I went on a bit of a rant there.

In general I don't really mind if things peter out later on in a show so long as I've become attached enough to the characters at the start to enjoy their antics, so weak endings in general don't really upset me
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I'm somewhat the opposite. If I come to like and be attached to the cast, I really want it all to end strongly and live up to the potential. I only feel more disappointed when a show reels me in with great characters and stories only to flush it all down the toilet at the last hurdle.
 
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vashdaman said:
As for EVA though, I'm sorry but there's no redeeming that ending.. it was GIBBERISH, I like genuinely esoteric stuff but that was just GIBBERISH and pretentious. They just threw a bunch random things together, pretentious Christian symbology: check,
Shinji choking Asuka for no reason at all
: check, hmm what else can we get in, how about a giant head sliced in half and a red sea: check. When they made that they blatantly thought " We are so 8) , they gonna be trying to figure this **** out for decades!". I thought the last line was entirely appropriate though, as that was exactly my thoughts on what I had just watched! Ahem sorry, I went on a bit of a rant there.
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That was all in End of Evangelion though, not the series. I'm not that fond of EoE, and would certainly view it as distinct entity from the series. If it's accurately reported that EoE would have been the original ending were it not for executive meddling, then I'm glad they pissed Anno off enough to turn it into the profound and beautiful meta-fictional mindf*ck that is episodes 25 & 26.
 
Rui said:
I liked the Wolfs Rain and Eva endings.

In general I don't really mind if things peter out later on in a show so long as I've become attached enough to the characters at the start to enjoy their antics, so weak endings in general don't really upset me. I suppose a lot of people would add Death Note as a candidate for having a weak second part, though I enjoyed it nonetheless.
R
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I feel the second half was weaker (though stronger than the Higuichi arc) but I still very much enjoyed it.

I have to say the ending that disappointed me most was Gundam 00 Second Season. The actual ending was ok, but I think the second half of that series just didn't do it for me. The whole innovator thing is not something I enjoyed.
 
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