I hastily swept her face

[Joshawott]

Before you ask about the topic title:

ilmaestro told me to.

Moving on...

Sometimes a series can start out with promise before eventually, for one reason or another, the quality takes a nosedive from the high skies to the murky depths. Are there any series' that you wish ended while they were ahead instead of being dragged out?

For me, I'm going to have to say Hiro Mashima's Fairy Tail. The story started off with a premise: Natsu wanting to find Igneel, the dragon who raised him. 262 manga chapters later, Natsu is still nowhere near his goal. At least though, the earlier story arcs were still fairly gripping (Tower of Heaven). However, it seems that each new arc is just another reason for Hiro Mashima to create a group of around half a dozen villains who will get friendship punched before never being seen again. The latest manga story arc, with it's rampart misuse of timeskips and the billionth return of Jellal has got me questioning where the hell Mashima plans to go with this series.

Bleach is another one. Okay, I'll admit - I enjoy the Fullbring arc. Well, I did until the Soul Society intervened, resulting in Giriko, Jackie, Tsukishima and to a lesser extent Yukio, getting trolled). As Aizen was built up from early in the story, I've been apprehensive as to how the series can continue without the big villain at the top.

As I said in animefreak17's "series you wished didn't existed" thread; Mobile Suit Gundam SEED shouldn't have continued into SEED DESTINY. For me, the Cosmic Era has now been stained with Shinn Asuka (As if Kira wasn't bad enough 9.9).

I also feel that Nichijou probably would have been better as a 13-episode series as opposed to a 26. For that kind of series, staying focused week in week out for half a year is pretty demanding, also often I found episodes being padded out with really long 'jokes' or sequences that I didn't even find amusing.

 

[Professor Irony]

Aww, the original spam topic's gone

In the interests of content, the first one that springs to my mind is probably Planetes. While I suppose it was a culmination of plot points that were hinted at during the rest of the show, I didn't really care for the final eight or so eps that made up the 'Jupiter mission' arc.

Broadly speaking, I think it just felt like a different show to what had come before it. The rest of the series was slower and more contemplative, so to suddenly have this much more conventional training/contest sequence pushed upon us, culminating in "GUN BATTLE WITH TERRORISTS, OH MY!", felt like a decision from the money men concerned about viewing figures or reader numbers, rather than something that had evolved out of what came before. Not only that, I also thought the writers were ill-equipped to handle the battle scenes, wimping out from killing either Hakim or Claire and thus rendering that particular part of the story rather inconsequential.

And killing the ninjas instead only makes it worse.

 

[ilmaestro]

I am ilmaestro, and I endorse this thread title.

The most significant miscreant in this category is Death Note, for me. I will assume that the point at which it should have stopped does not need to be spelled out.

 

[Joshawott]

I am ilmaestro, and I endorse this thread title.

The most significant miscreant in this category is Death Note, for me. I will assume that the point at which it should have stopped does not need to be spelled out.

It's where I did stop =D.

 

[Sparrowsabre7]

I think Death Note gets a bad rep for that. It's not like the series was completely horrible after the event.

I also would like to anti-nominate Code Geass R2 which will surely be mentioned, because, rampant fanservice aside, I think R2 was a good extension of the R1 plot.

I do however wish that Gundam 00 Season 2 hadn't happened. It wasn't bad, but I feel like it didn't add much and all the silliness with the innovades and such was unecessary. I liked the closure, but not the way it happened.

 

[Rui]

I think the only example for me is Gundam Seed Destiny. It's quite difficult for part of a show to stomp all over the previous events in quite such a spectacular way. There were some moments where it was watchable, but so many of the events cheapened previous ones or just annoyed me that had I the choice now to go back, I wouldn't have watched it at all.

R

 

[Lupus]

Xam'd
Gantz (manga)
Second half of Blue Gender (Not that it was bad, but part 1 is better)

Bleach should've been canceled after the end of volume 7.

Gundam WING should've been an OVA.

 

[Warmaster]

One which comes to mind for me was 'The Third' Started off as a very good Post Apocalyptic Anime with a nice use of several story arcs. However the last couple of arcs just turned really damn weird and didn't work (Though I was already losing interest after an episode mid series where the art work was completely different (and terrible) from all the others in the series)

Fantastic Children was another one. It started well, plenty of clever hints, but never advanced that and sort of faded away.

Agree with you Lupus, Blue Gender did get a little weaker in the second half, though never quite lost its way. Same with Birdy the Mighty - the second half is slightly weaker but not 'bad'

 

[Ryo Chan]

you people have no taste, fairy tail and gundam seed are ace, but if we're going down this road

gundam 00: the movie. the bad guys were a great idea till feldt defeated them with flower power

Kiddy Girl, other way round, the series only picked up once the 2nd half of the series started up.

Maken ki : no, ju..just NO

 

[Joshawott]

you people have no taste, fairy tail and gundam seed are ace, but if we're going down this road

Except that in the last five manga chapters we've had a 7 year timeskip that ended with the main characters being frozen in time throughout. The promise of a training arc, THEN another 3 month timeskip instead where ****-all was done off-screen as well. then we have

Spoiler

Jellal returning again. Has there been a SINGLE arc since their introduction where we haven't seen Jellal or Mystogan? I thought end of Oracion Seis was enough for Jellal, but no - Mashima just keeps on pushing him out there.

Now, I absolutely loved the Tower of Heaven and Fight of Fairy Tail arcs, but since Oracion Seis I've felt that the series has been going down the pan. I wonder if Natsu even remembers that he and Lisanna were actually once more than main character-background character?.

With Gundam SEED...note how people said SEED DESTINY, not SEED =3.

gundam 00: the movie. the bad guys were a great idea till feldt defeated them with flower power

Personally, I loved season 1 of Gundam 00. I loved season 2 until towards the end when it became all about the Innovades. The movie was more like "Okay, we've had all the clever thought - let's get to the beat the **** out of everything phase". The whole thing with Setsuna becoming one with the ELS was a bit "Eh?!" though. Still, I enjoyed it.[/i] In regards to Feldt, I personally felt her feelings for Setsuna were a bit forced though. I mean, didn't she have a crush on Neil Dylandy back in season 1, which caused confusion initial when Lyle came on the scene?

 

[Sparrowsabre7]

you people have no taste, fairy tail and gundam seed are ace, but if we're going down this road

Except that in the last five manga chapters we've had a 7 year timeskip that ended with the main characters being frozen in time throughout. The promise of a training arc, THEN another 3 month timeskip instead where ****-all was done off-screen as well. then we have

Spoiler

Jellal returning again. Has there been a SINGLE arc since their introduction where we haven't seen Jellal or Mystogan? I thought end of Oracion Seis was enough for Jellal, but no - Mashima just keeps on pushing him out there.

Now, I absolutely loved the Tower of Heaven and Fight of Fairy Tail arcs, but since Oracion Seis I've felt that the series has been going down the pan. I wonder if Natsu even remembers that he and Lisanna were actually once more than main character-background character?.

With Gundam SEED...note how people said SEED DESTINY, not SEED =3.

gundam 00: the movie. the bad guys were a great idea till feldt defeated them with flower power

Personally, I loved season 1 of Gundam 00. I loved season 2 until towards the end when it became all about the Innovades. The movie was more like "Okay, we've had all the clever thought - let's get to the beat the **** out of everything phase". The whole thing with Setsuna becoming one with the ELS was a bit "Eh?!" though. Still, I enjoyed it.[/i] In regards to Feldt, I personally felt her feelings for Setsuna were a bit forced though. I mean, didn't she have a crush on Neil Dylandy back in season 1, which caused confusion initial when Lyle came on the scene?

Yeah but in season 2 it starts to hint she has feelings for Setsuna. I generally liked the movie better than season 2, but it was rather unnecessary in terms of plot development, I feel like if a movie had been made instead of season 2 then everything would've been perfect.

 

[Vashdaman]

For me the most obvious example would be the Eden of the East movies. I really loved the series and was thoroughly looking forward to the films, but in the end they completely disappointed me. They just provided me with a load of (seemingly irrelevant) gibberish I didn't want and none of what I was expecting. So, I try my best just to focus on the lovely series and forget the movies, which thankfully are very forgettable.

 

[ilmaestro]

I think Death Note gets a bad rep for that. It's not like the series was completely horrible after the event.

You're right. It's more like the series stops, and gets replaced with a more different series. :lol:

 

[alexrose1uk]

I think part the problem was the poor handover. If L hadn't died when he did, and the anime had had him passing over the job to Near and Mellow in a better manner, I think it would have been accepted better.

As it stands, they were dumped on us, and were far less charismatic in thier own way; which immediately made the show far less interesting, as the earlier section of the show was pure psychological cat and mouse.

 

[Sparrowsabre7]

I think part the problem was the poor handover. If L hadn't died when he did, and the anime had had him passing over the job to Near and Mellow in a better manner, I think it would have been accepted better.

As it stands, they were dumped on us, and were far less charismatic in thier own way; which immediately made the show far less interesting, as the earlier section of the show was pure psychological cat and mouse.

I dunno, the more I watch it, the more I understand the reasons. For one thing it created a climate of fear showing that anyone, even the secondary main character could die and as for the handover... well there was no reason for L to handover while he was still alive, he's the greatest detective in the world, it would be like Batman passing the torch to Robin when he's still in his prime As for Near and Mello, I like that they were different, if they were the same as L then they would've been seen as poor replacements and render L's death as meaningless. It also meant that the search for Kira could be pursued from two angles, a more official one and the more clandestine "end justifies the means" operation Mello was running.

I agree that there was a decline in quality, but I wouldn't say I wish it had stopped when the spoiler event occured because I like how it progressed from there, even if it wasn't quite as good.

 

[alexrose1uk]

Thing is, as I remember L's replacements were MEANT to be smarter than L (could be wrong, but I seem to remember they were seen as even bigger prodigies). This in mind, there was a fairly logical reason for a handover.

I see what you mean about the fear of main character death, but then this is Asian media, so main characters, except in Shounen material, usually aren't 100% bulletproof and it definately wouldnt be the first time one died in a series. L also could have died after he handed over with no detriment to the handover, whilst still showing the fact that he wasn't bulletproof.

Like I say, Near and Mellow just didn't have the same charisma, weren't introduced to us as well, and generally weren't as interesting.

And I think that's what killed it.
The Live Action films, whilst not amazing, made the wiser choice of not involving them at all, and simply being L vs Kira.

 

[ilmaestro]

I didn't have any problem with how they did it, or what happened, the problem was that they didn't just say "show over, Light wins" which would have been the crazy ending the series deserved.

 

[Sparrowsabre7]

Thing is, as I remember L's replacements were MEANT to be smarter than L (could be wrong, but I seem to remember they were seen as even bigger prodigies). This in mind, there was a fairly logical reason for a handover.

You are indeed wrong I'm afraid the whole reason there were two of them is because alone they couldn't do better than L. Ohba said that he felt it only fair that it would take two of them to do what one L couldn't.

Also remember at the time they were still children and I believe there was a ... I think 3 year time gap between them being put on the case and them actually doing anything about it. So a handover wouldn't have worked really.

I didn't have any problem with how they did it, or what happened, the problem was that they didn't just say "show over, Light wins" which would have been the crazy ending the series deserved.

But the point of the series was that Light doesn't get to win. Having Light die with no one to help him was basically Ohba's **** you to the fans who agreed with Light and thought he was in the right. It was meant as a kind of "look at who you're supporting" moment.

 

[alexrose1uk]

Haha, it wouldn't surprise me, as those are just the lingering memories I have of the show, not having seen it for probably 3 years, and watching WAY too many other series in between.

I do remember really not liking either of those pair as much as L though.