Thanks for another great question to deal with this week. As always, I’d love to know your answer to the question and remember that if you have something you would like for me to answer, please fill in the survey below.
Question: What is the longest series that you have finished, that you regretted watching afterwards? From Yomu
This is a hard one to answer mostly because generally speaking I drop long anime long before I start regretting watching them. Of course, that means I have a number of long anime that I just haven’t finished. Hunter x Hunter, which I was meant to finish last year is still in my unfinished list and I’m really close to the end I just haven’t completed it. Fairy Tail is another one where I got about 70 episodes in and didn’t actually continue.
Now, neither show actually made me want to drop it. They are both really fun and there are some great characters and great moments in both. However, what I find with longer anime is that events get dragged out, there’s a lot of bloat in the story-lines, there’s arcs that focus on characters or events I’m less interested in, and ultimately I tend to just veer away from these or put them on hold and forget to get back to them.
If I’m going to look at slightly shorter stories, I’d probably have to say the original Full Metal Alchemist anime was one that I regret watching. Mostly because it doesn’t really end and the movie follow up is actually a little painful to get through. Brotherhood doesn’t do the beginning of the story as well but the conclusion is significantly better and so I end up with a much better feeling about the story overall even though realistically the original series does a much better job in the set-up.
Thanks Yomu for a great question this week. Over to the readers now and I’d love to know what long anime series you have watched that you regret (if any). Otherwise, please remember if you have a question for me, just fill in the simple survey below and I’ll hopefully get to it soon.
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Karandi James
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Seraph of the End and Tokyo Ghoul (both seasons). Ugh, what a waste of time..
I’ve only watched a few series that have gone over 50+ episodes, and I don’t really regret any of them – I’m the type that doesn’t stick with a show that long if I’m not feeling it. That said, if I’d known from the start where Naruto was going to go, I would have stopped after episode 135/volume 27. That, as far as I’m concerned, is where the story should’ve ended. The rest of the original anime run was nothing but filler except for the very last episode (220), and while I liked the early arcs of Shippuden I still dropped it after episode 88, partly because I was really getting burned out by then anyway and partly because I was also getting really unhappy with the direction the manga was going (and that turned out to be a good decision, because if I’d dragged myself all the way to the finish line just to be “rewarded” with the ending we got, I absolutely WOULD have regretted it).
I just never managed to get into Naruto. No real idea why but I’ve tried the first few episodes on more than one occasion and just can’t get hooked by it so let it go.
The first extended arc (roughly episode 4 to episode 19) with the initial formation of Team 7 and going on their first mission together is actually a good self-contained story, even if you never watched any of the rest of the series. So if you weren’t even feeling it with that arc, then yeah, the series probably isn’t for you.
Bleach. That one taught me to quit watching shows with endless non-payoffs and stupid giggling villains. The place to stop was after the rescue of Rukia. And there’s hundreds of episodes after that. Slayers was hundreds long, but it was more coherent plot. So was HunterxHunter, Full Metal Alchemist, even Yakitate Japan was worth watching. So were so many long shows. But Bleach wasn’t. It was pretty, sometimes, but it’s creator needed a kick in the head by his editor to do something else.
I always find the end of season three (after Rukia is rescued) an easy place to stop a rewatch of Bleach. Those first three seasons are definitely the most satisfying. I don’t regret watching the rest, or even watching it more than once, but I will definitely admit the payoff is never as good as what you get from the first three seasons.
That’s the place to stop, alright. After that it gets progressively weaker and more silly, and not in a good way. Even the manga fans wrote off the series when they published a special edition finale with a two page spread with the kanji for “heart” in the middle. Like that was plot-worthy or something. It mostly said “dementia” to me.
Let’s just say I hate cable ties very much now lol
Arslan Senki. 50 episodes of my life down the drain.
I still need to get to that one. I keep putting it off for some reason.
Seriously just skip it. I had to watch it because my ex tied me down to a chair and made me watch it with her.
I’m assuming metaphorically and we aren’t dealing with an actual hostage situation.
Unoriginal answer, but I’d go with most long-running shounen. At some point, it becomes difficult for the stories to reinvent themselves. The core characters eventually overcome their personal conflicts, their relationships with each other gradually become set in stone, their once charming interactions start feeling stale, the story constantly retreads the same emotional beats, power scales start succumbing to the need to artificially inflate stakes, so these new non-grounded stakes feel unearned, etc.
I’d put Fairy Tail, Naruto, Bleach in that category. Dragon Ball too… Exceptions for me are One Piece & (especially) Hunter x Hunter.
That’s a fairly good point about most longer running shounen and the characters. While Bleach is the only one I’ve really followed, after awhile it really just felt like the anime was throwing more things at Ichigo for him to hit with his sword because they just didn’t have anything else to do.
None really, yet because of my reviewing I get a lot of titles I wouldn’t normally watch that become a chore like Bakemonogatari and its offspring, which I would dread whenever they arrived. 🙁
I’d been debating watching the original fma, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.
As for myself with this question, I’ll go with… Zero no Tsukaima & sequels.
Just one of those anime that I watched relatively early on in my anime watching career. I tried to rewatch it recently and couldn’t get past the first few episodes – too much tsundere / himedere for me to handle. I also remember next to nothing from the entire series, so I think it’s fair to look back at it and think that I might as well have never watched it to begin with.
I had a similar experience with Zero no Tsukaima. I don’t really regret watching it, but I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again.
I don’t think I regret watching anything over 26 episodes…the only shows I might actively count for regretting are short-ep shows or 10 – 12 eps (or the rewatch of Osomatsu-san I did at the start of 2017, but I didn’t regret the first time so it doesn’t count). Everything else I’ve dropped, not started or put on hold.
Fairy Tail
Good lord in heaven what a fucking disappointment THAT turned out to be, after it had so much potential.
Gotta be honest–if I don’t like it, I don’t continue it. I’ve finished nothing that I regret, thankfully.
Wow. My answer has to be Bleach and it kinda sucks that I view like that now. Back in the day, Bleach was my show! Rukia and Nel were my favorite female characters. I had everyone opening and ending on my phone. It was the show I couldn’t get enough of. But when they continued the series after finally beating the big bad, I continued because I was invested… not because I was enjoying it.
Naruto had a payoff at the end. Every episode of Boruto is a testament to the original show as I grew up with Naruto and we are both adults now who going to similar issues. Bleach… I ended up having to read the manga to finish it and even then with everything that was going on with Shonen Jump, it didn’t have the ending it deserved.
I felt cheated.
I still love Bleach. Admittedly, there’s almost no chance that I would stick with it if it came out today, but nostalgia is a powerful thing and it was one of the first anime I got into as an adult (along with the likes of Death Note and Evangelion) so it has a very special place in my heart regardless of its faults.
Dont get me wrong, I just heard Rie Fu’s “Life is like a Boat” not too long ago and the wave of nostalgia and memories made me rewatch the first three episodes. I cherish the series… oh my…I think I might have found a new post. *Hugs* Thanks!
I’m currently re-watching Bleach, the Soul Society arc was pretty good. For me, it was the highlight of the series by some distance when I initially watched it, so I’m not sure if I should keep going until Aizen gets defeated.
To be frank with you, I don’t even remember what comes after his defeat — I don’t think I was half as invested as you seemed to be, so perhaps I should count that as a blessing?
The only thing that I can say is that I wouldn’t watch a long running series all the way through if I wasn’t enjoying it. Maybe that’s a lack luster answer, but it’s very truthful. I would have dropped the long running show otherwise.
I agree. While I might sit through a twelve episode series of questionable enjoyment just to see if it improves, I’m not exactly signing on for fifty plus episodes of something I’m not really into.
Wow..this is a tough question to answer. I don’t think so far that I have ever seen a series that had an episode count that went over 24 episodes that I have regretted watching. In fact there aren’t many longer shows that I have seen so far in all honesty. The really long ones like Naruto or One Piece, I just haven’t started on because the sheer amount of episodes just feels way too daunting. I have Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood on dvd, and I have yet to watch it 😊 So…sorry…don’t have an answer for you 😊
I know. This one was hard for the simple reason that I don’t tend to get into long series unless there’s something about them I really like. That is why I never watched Naruto or One Piece because the first episodes don’t grab me and it is too much of a time commitment.
Yeah same here. I think the longest show that I have watched so far is probably Sword Art Online…and we have quite a number of episodes to go for that one as well (and I can pretty much say with complete confidence that I won’t drop that one 😊😊).
Yeah, SAO would have to do something pretty terrible at this point for me to drop it. I’ve been hooked since the first arc and even though I have fairly mixed feelings about everything that has come after it, I’m still wanting to watch the show so fingers crossed Alicization manages to be entertaining.
You haven’t watched fma , but you’ve watched fma brotherhood right? 😃
Erm…nope: both are still on my to watch list (did I mention that it’s a very long list 😂😂).