Did these anime get bad over time? Me commenting on anime with good premises that crashed

Based on this list by Anna Lindwasser plus a few of my own.

Sword Art Online Season 1

Yeah, everyone’s favorite thing to trash about.

I did enjoy the first half of season 1. SAO was everything: fantasy battles, detective, family melodrama, dumb fanservice, and Sachi’s trauma on Kirito that didn’t apparently have any lasting effects on him. I felt that SAO arc itself should’ve been the whole series… but then the f*cking Alfheim happened and I lost all my love for this series right then and there. I read the original light novel for SAO and the first half of Alfheim, and while I did enjoy the SAO arc, Alfheim wasn’t as interesting. It doesn’t have much tension; just Kirito waltzing around his new fantasy world. GGO novel was great though. I’m still stuck on the first 20 pages of Alicization and I don’t think I’ll buy any more volumes at this point.

Season 2 was arguably better than the wreck that ALO was, despite this thing that happened to Konno Yuuki.

Sunday Without God (Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi)

Kaminai was solid—up until the ending of the Ortus arc. While a lot of people say it dropped off right after the Hampnie arc, but I felt that the Ortus arc was compelling as well and it’s personally my favorite arc.

I have wrote summaries of the light novel up until volume 8, so you can find out what happened after the anime. I’ll try not to spoil too much, but much WTF happened. Hey, this is a fantasy novel after all.

Fractale

Solid start but fell apart somewhere in between. I really liked Fractale’s setting and all that, but I felt that it’s missing 6 episodes or something so it crashed horribly. Maybe turning it into an episodic slice of life thing may work better, but who am I to criticize.

It would have been so much better if the MC didn’t get stuck with the anti-Fractale faction. Most of all, one thing their leader said turned me off so much: *spoilers* in the end, he said ‘welp we didn’t actually wanna destroy Fractale after all! And I was like WTF bro then what have you been doing?! *end spoilers*

Clain in the manga felt like he had some kind of ‘mystery’ to him, maybe just wanna keep to himself or maybe a traumatic past, but in the anime he’s just a standard MC. Despite the cast being somewhat unremarkable, the scene where Phryne tried to wipe blood off her hands stuck with me ever since I saw this anime in 2013.

Guilty Crown

I dropped it at 1 episode so I don’t know what went wrong with this anime.

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress

I will defend Kabaneri if anyone dare trash the movies, but for the series, I’m with the majority that the villain was bland and it was lackluster after episode 8. It started off really strong and I think they had to find a way to end it within the time constraints so… Biba happened.

I did a review waaaaaay back here and here.

And Unato Kessen was amazing. You cannot change my mind.

Darling in the FranXX

I wrote a bit about how I felt about the series in my reviews. I’ll say it again here, though. Darling in the FranXX should not have gone to space. It should have been about a dystopian world and puberty and it should have ended when the APE was destroyed. As much as I find the ending to be great, it really shouldn’t have gone into the far off universe.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed it before that thing happened, that’s for sure.

I wrote a review of the manga here. It had a different ending than the anime.

Aldnoah.Zero

Have not seen this series but read every spoiler. I think I’m not going to trash the ending of season 2 because it made sense when I read about it, but I heard the entire season was already a mess. (People told me Asseylum made the ‘respectable’ decision as a leader, but idk)

Tokyo Ghoul rootA

Actually, I should consider the Tokyo Ghoul anime adaptation as a whole, not just rootA. I did have fun with the first season, but not so much with the second. The problem with rootA is that it’s just slow and painful, and when I finished it I was like ‘oh thankfully it’s over’. It does have its moments, but I didn’t really enjoy it that much.

Kotoura-san

Only watched the first half so idk what happened so that it ended up here. I didn’t like the fanservice too much although I found it kinda cute because they never really went overboard with it (the main guy was just teasing Kotoura for fun, as I see it)

Mekaku-City Actors

I think Mekaku-City is consistently confusing from beginning to end. The thing is that this anime is intended for those who at least know the songs or have read the manga/novel, since the ending of the anime is the ‘true’ ending of Kagerou Project. Did I like it? Not really. I loved the songs but not the anime. I kinda have a bitter feeling afterwards as well. Animation quality is… rushed, to say the least.

I wrote a bit about it here.

Kyoukai no Kanata

I loved this anime despite its shortcomings. To me, this series dropped after episode 6 filler. While it’s still a really good anime, I think they should’nt put that filler in if they’re going to drop off the ending just like that. Speaking of it, I haven’t watched the second movie yet after all these years. Gotta see it after Evergarden then.

Zankyou no Terror

I haven’t finished Zankyou. And I don’t know why I haven’t really been able to bring myself to keep watching even though it’s really my kind of anime. I heard it actually got better with the new antagonist and I don’t know why people trashed this anime.

Pupa

Pupa did get worse over time. It started from episode 2 onwards. The manga itself wasn’t bad, I even have the collector’s edition, but man the anime was bad on a whole other level. I can find some redeeming points but it was just… bad.

Black Butler

Yes, Black Butler should have ended on that damn cliffhanger. It should have ended there. That ending was beautiful. Why, oh why, did they decide to continue?

The Promised Neverland

I actually won’t even bother watching the second season. I think it’s the same deal with Rokka no Yuusha: it’s a second season that’s meant to sell the source material, and the first season set the bars too high for the second season. I heard it’s trash (Emma plot armor etc). It probably isn’t that bad (because Norman), but compared to the manga, yeah. Shit happens when you try to rush through a story. I’m a writer myself so I know how it feels.

See my Promised Neverland reviews here.

That’s it for today. If you would like to support my blog, consider searching for anime stuff here in my affiliated link with Playasia, or buy yourself a merch so my mom doesn’t call me an unemployed baby <3.