"On Second Thought...": Anime You Changed Your Mind About

Well, it helps out greatly that during the last few episodes, May and Leon are no longer doing everything they can to screw Sora over, though that final stretch may seem like a deja vu of the training scenes from the end of Season 1.

The final 2 episodes, though, focus pretty much entirely on Sora and Rosetta.
 
I have a few I changed opinions of...

I used to dislike One Piece a lot, and now I just think it's okay. I just can't get over the ugly characters. >_>;

I went from liking Bleach to almost disliking it. The manga is better, I think though.

Obviously Haruhi, with the weird opener.

I used to love Lucky Star, but I can't laugh at it anymore. :/
 
Oh hey. Sure, I'll bite. Not sure I have a lot novel to add here but eh, late, tired, thing happens.

Negative Impressions Over Time

Naruto - Already talked about a lot. I got into this very close to the time it started airing, back in 2002 when my interest in anime was beginning to broaden and turn towarRAB the import side of things. And I will maintain that, for a shounen, it started out very strong and stayed there for quite awhile. It started to slide post-Chuunen Exam, largely from pacing issues, and lost me completely several episodes into the desert of filler. I attempted to get back into it once they finally started Shippuuden, but realized fairly quickly that the pacing had not only failed to improve but had actually gotten worse. In an ironic twist, I'm STILL watching Bleach to this day. Somehow, I just accepted from the beginning that it was going to get bogged down in parts. I don't know how long that'll last given the current state of things, but Bleach has occasionally had some really great filler material, so we'll see.

R.O.D the TV - This had a really strong start, and I was incredibly excited about it since it came off the end of a truly excellent OAV. But the second half of the show just ruined everything. I mean they made Joker EVIL, WTF guys. They made Yomiko LAME! Hell, all the good guys seemed to come down with a case of Good Is Durab towarRAB the end. Incredibly unsatisfying, but I bought the whole thing anyway because I'd already sprung for the artbox.

Elfin Lied - Actually I just wanted to bring this one up because it was being talked about. My opinion of it pretty quickly went from "I heard this was good", which lasted for the first ten minutes or so, to "God are there ANY likeable characters in this show at ALL?" I finished it up kind of hoping it would redeem itself, and to be fair it almost did around the middle, but it just couldn't overcome the fact that the only character who seemed to have any brains at all was Lucy, and she was a psychopath. A psychopath who got to spend half her screen time with the brain of a Down's patient. And am I the only one thinking that if Kouta and Yuka actually shacked up, they'd have like double super retard babies? I'm already skeptical about the quality of their genes to begin with, so inbreeding just makes it so much better. Thanks Japan!

Positive Impressions Over Time

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - So, I really didn't like Elfin Lied. Or more like, I thought it was a show with huge potential that was absolutely ruined by poor execution, which is even worse to me than a show that's just bad. And Higurashi struck me as a very similar show, and I already felt like Maebara bore far too many unpleasant similarities to Kouta. Not to mention a cynical first episode that gave a sense of "hey we'll tease you with some images of actual violence, but the rest of this show is just banal, sugary harem bulls--t." Once things got into the second arc however, and the story became a little more complicated, I found that it grew on me. Especially seeing that there were iterations of the characters that didn't grate on me so much. It's still not really my bag, but I at least enjoyed watching it enough to feel satisfied at the end.

Cowboy Bebop - I came into this show predisposed to hate it for having a stupid name and being a ripoff of Outlaw Star, because I watched that on Toonami before and it was awesome and there was just no way I could like TWO similar shows. I came out, like most people, with a new favorite show and an appreciation for good anime that probably blossomed into the complete addict for it that I am now. I have a feeling that if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else, but that's definitely where it really took off for me.

Cross Game - Okay, admittedly I had a pretty favorable impression based on reviews going in, and this is mostly here in the hopes that more people might notice that there's a completely amazing show airing this season that no one is talking about. But I do have to say, I did not expect to be this enthralled by an anime that is basically about 1) Baseball, and 2) High school romance. I think it must be because both things, particularly #2, are usually handled with such complete fail that when someone actually does them WELL, it's just one massive, cathartic "oh!" Maybe my tastes have just mellowed to the point that I think slice-of-life stuff is pretty neat, but I think you guys are missing out.

"What do you mean there are no superpowers or giant robots?"
 
At least she does her mass murder in the nude. Nah, I agree that the things done to her were evil, but that doesn't change the fact that her mass murder in response was evil as well.
 
Lucky Star- At first, I turn down the show. It was way to girly for me. And, out of no where, it becamerican big. I been seeing some many different kind of videos with that Lucky Star intro. So, I've avoid the series. But, when I saw a dub trailer of the series, I say “Why not?”. (Sorry, I don't like subs. Not a big fan of reading.)
I saw it and yeah...It was ok. I'll be honest, the show is cute and same goes for the jokes. Though, I do question the fanbase off that series. A bit to much Otaku-ion, in my opinion. But in all...THUrabS UP!
 
Code Geass: A nuraber of things drew me in: the character designs by CLAMP, compelling music score, the concept of the geass and lastly, the idea of two frienRAB pitted to fight against each other..to a point. Initially I liked the relationship between Lelouch and Suzaku, but by the second season the poor communication between them was grating my nerves to the point where I could side with neither character. I also lost interest in the series due to a handful of "moment killers" throughout the series.

Zorabie Loan: Opening song aside, I liked this show, even if the zorabies weren't what I expected. Then about...five episodes or so, the gist of the show quickly became redundant. What I think was the trouble wasn't the concept of the story, but actually the cast of characters. As unique as their designs were, a good chunk of them lacked the intrigue to keep the loose plot going.

Bleach: I tuned in on the anime up until the end of the Soul Society arc---then redirected myself back to the manga. Despite this, I will pop in on a recent Bleach episode to catch the latest opening or ending song since I am a fan of the music.

Toradora: This wasn't so much out of pure disappointment, but just because...and I guess I'll spoiler tag it. Still a decent romantic comedy.

Just because of the highly predicable outcome of the story. Guy and girl do not like each other and end up falling for each other. Was hoping for a different ending for a change.

Axis Powers Hetalia: Admittedly very funny in the beginning but the humor gags quickly became repetitive. I'm not much of a history person so that could also be why I'm missing out on most of the humor.
 
And then there's Death Note. When I first heard about this I was extremely cautious. (37 episodes just don't sound right.) And the fact that it had no action made me even more skeptical. Being hyped up by the fans had me wondering if I should even bother with it. (Seriously. People tend to overhype things and I just wind up getting disappointed and lose interest altogether.)

With that said, the very first episode I saw was episode 2. To be more precise, I caught the last 8-10 minutes of it. That little snippet with L pretty much had me hooked. And then my sister went and brought me volumes 3 and 4 of the manga for christmas. I read them. (After I saw the episodes.) At this point I kept telling myself do not read ahead of the anime. (Because I was 0 for 2 when it came from reading manga and then watching the anime. Bleach and Naruto are bad adaptions.) I held out pretty much until Mello and Near stepped into the picture. I just had to know how it was going to end.

By the time I finished the manga, I believe adult swim was around episode 28-29-ish (yeah, I powered through it lol), I think. (Trying to avoid spoilers) Now, I have a tendency to pay attention detail. (lots of it. But can't tell you what a story is about for nothing, haha.) To cut a long story short. I noticed from episode 27 and up there was entirely too much missing (some small, and some important), and it started to lose steam, and I eventually lost interest in it. The manga is great. The anime on the otherhand, the first half of it is awesome, but fails when Near and Mello steps in.

So yeah, Death Note went from skeptical, hooked, to meh.

I should've just made this short from the beginning.
 
Maze: The Megaburst Space: This show starts out as a fun and silly story about a modern-day Japanese college girl who gets transported to some generic fantasy kingdom, has amnesia and can't remeraber her home life or her name, and transforms into a man at night for some reason. The first half of the series is totally dopey, but I still enjoyed it because I thought it was light-hearted popcorn entertainment.
Then, toward the end of the series, the main character gets sent back to the real world, regains her memories, and all of a sudden...
...it turns out that the main girl's Ranma-esque transformation power was a result of her deep (and mutual!!!) longing to "be one" with her own damn brother!
And suddenly this silly popcorn fantasy show became a bizarre incest melodrama. It was really weird and now I have a hard time watching the early fun episodes without gagging a little.


I have a really hard time believeing that the last 2 episodes could possibly be good enough to make up for all the bulls*** in the beginning of the second season. But if you say its good maybe I'll Netflix the DVD someday.
 
Inuyasha: I liked it in the beginning, but after it dragged on to be a never ending story, I began to loath it. Now, when rewatching old episodes which were once beloved, I still don't like it. Though, to be fair, the Bankotsu arc is still enjoyable.

Bleach: Liked it at first, but now its sort of meh.

Detective Conan: Same as with Bleach.

Fooly Cooly: Loved it at first. Now I can honestly care less.

Big O: This is going to be shocking, but after rewatching season 2... I actually like it better.

I was with everyone else about the whole "what went wrong" when season 2 debuted on Adult Swim, but I've recently rewatched all of Big O, and I actually really enjoyed the second season.

... I know.
I'm a freak.
 
It had a decent premise, but the execution was more along the line of Frank Miller's Chobits than the arthouse fare it played itself up as.
 
Not to keep dragging this out but, she brutally murdered
Kohta's father and sister, three or so classmates and countless people trying to have fun at a festival and oh yeah, that entire family living in an apartment so she could take a shower and raid the fridge
before she was locked up and had experiments done on her. So as far as I'm concerned she deserved everything that was done to her.
 
Dragon Ball:

Like a lot of people, I got into the DB saga with Z (first watching imported Japanese VHS tapes without the benefit of subtitles, then on Toonami) and always kind of saw the original Dragon Ball anime as its retarded little brother. In my own defense, I was in my teens at the time, exactly the right age to appreciate all the wrong things about DBZ and exactly the wrong age to appreciate anything at all about the original.

It took sturabling on the manga at the library years later (and subsequently snapping up the Vizbig volumes as soon as they come out-- so cheap!) to appreciate just how much funnier and more well-paced the Dragon Ball bits are compared to most of the DBZ bits. It helps that the black-and-white manga art has aged a lot better than the TV series' animation, which is definitely showing its age even when compared to DBZ, which itself premiered two decades ago now.

One Piece

This was another one that I couldn't really get into until reading the manga. I think the biggest sturabling block was that the first few arcs (that nonsense with Koby, the Zoro recruitment arc, the Buggy arc and the Usopp recruitment arc) were pretty simplistic and slow-paced and didn't do a very good job of hooking a first-time watcher.

The Sanji recruitment arc was pretty decent, but it was the Arlong arc and the bits where the crew first enters the Grand Line (which is about as far as I've gotten) that really hooked me.



While I wouldn't argue for her as a real standout as protagonists go, I'd hardly call Hitomi a "passive" heroine. She may not pilot a guymelef or wield a katana, but she grows as a character and makes decisions that are central to the narrative.
 
It's been discussed by EVERYBODY One Piece fan or not that across the board Arlong is where the series truly starts. But I'm really amazed at how the earlier stuff has a direct impact on future arcs (Kolby, Buggy, the whole Going Merry issue) and it shows the writer really planned out the series waaaay in advance.

O-chan
 
Chobits - Went from really good to pretty decent. Not so much for the storylines, but the beginning revulsion I felt in some sense to the paradoxical handling of Chii. Chii was unlike any other persocom since she had the capacity to
become more human and make decisions unlike other persocoms.
So why is it that in order for her to be THAT way, CLAMP or whatever decided that it'd be peachy keen, fine, and dandy to put Chii in the most frilliest dresses I wouldn't even DARE put on my own daughter if I had one. It seems paradoxical since if that's a primary part of the plot and certain characters know that, why do they dress her up like a doll? It confuses me.

Also for some reason I never really felt much for the Takako/Shinbo, Yumi/Baker guy backplots the more I thought about it, even if they have impact to the story.

Bobobobo-Bobobo - Now I am incredibly upset that I have to say this, because I loved the first two episodes of the series. But overtime, when I realized there wouldn't be much dynamic development that would emphasize Bobobo's eccentricities in unique ways I got really tired of it. Bobobo would do something weird, Don Patch would cross-dress into something, and Beauty would just pop her eyes out and be shocked at everything they do. Sure there are some unique twists here and there, but hte formula can get obnoxious. If this were an everyday show, I'm not sure if I could really stomach watching it everyday.

So... while I like the show... I can't really stand to watch it after the first two episodes.
 
Like was said earlier, because it's CLAMP.


I can kinda agree with this except for the English narrator. Week in and week out, the narrator was by far the funniest character in the show. Late in the series' run, there was an episode in which the narrator had either the most lines or close to the most and it was one of the best episodes in the series. This is one of the reasons why reading it in the manga was such a chore.
 
I agree with you about this. The first episodes seemed to drag. But as soon as the antagonist was revealed halfway through the series, I loved it. His protrayel as a psyco who regrets everything he has done as is obsessed with his secret plan, is superb. He sounRAB cliche but his overall character makes up for some of the disapointments in other characters. Voice acting for it wasn't bad. If you are looking for a short anime with some great moments, I would recommend it.
 
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