Forum - View topicWhen Anime Series Jumped the Shark
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4729 |
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B-but that episode is great!  It's Watanabe playing around with Night of the Living Dead and other Hollywood horror tropes. (Hell, two of the zombies in the episode are direct references to prominent horror creators.) Apparently the main character in the episode is a take on the creator of the Mother/Earthbound game series, who sunk a ton of his own money into (unsuccessfully) trying to locate a fabled lost treasure. Plus it's immediately followed by the glory that is NINJA BASEBALL, so that improves it just by association.
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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That's how I felt about KLK too!
The first half is a great ride with some good themes packed in. Then Nui appears, Ryuko re-runs her already completed character arc several times. Seriously, count how often Mind Control is used to remove or detour around character development. I think the staff got way too pleased with their success and felt they needed to keep pleasing the fans rather than give us a proper show. And yeah, Geass S2 was a worse version of the first season. I remember everyone was all "I'll support this guy no matter what" for nearly two whole seasons. Then someone is all "He's got a secret identity!" and all his loyal subordinates unquestioningly turn on him without so much as a second guess. It was Amateur Hour in the writing room. As for Jumping the Shark, Genshiken Second Season comes to mind. The first season is a nice fun comedy about an anime club. the Second is a rather dour chunk of infighting amongst them as Reality hits. Then we get Nidaime the "3rd" season but official the 2nd? It does the comedy and the drama better. But thats just how I remembered it. Next time I rewatch the show I'll probably skip the middle again. Wasn't that season all Original Content? |
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Heishi
 Posts: 1343 |
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I can't agree on the DBZ part.
For me, the Buu saga is actually my favorite because of the well...unpredictability from Buu. He was like this horror movie monster gone awry and he is so powerful that even Frieza was to fear him and I really enjoyed seeing Mr. Satan form a friendship with Buu. Not to mention I really thought the scenes with Great Saiyaman were hilarious and I thought he deserved to live a normal life after all the crap he's been put through. Last edited by Heishi on Thu May 18, 2017 6:38 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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omiya
 Posts: 1844 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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Regarding Nadia...
Thanks for the warning, I've only watched the first disc in the blu-ray set so far. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13590 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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I heard that "Shippuden" movie was actually Studio Pierrot's idea ("The Last") not Kishimoto's. I'm sorry, but having a movie be the way NaruHina get together is lame. Even if it was filler, Pierort could have developed those 2's relationship more in the TV show. It was the fact that NaruSaku didn't happen that my enjoyment for the series fell.
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Just Passing Through
Posts: 277 |
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Thanks. I had just managed to put that out of my mind in preparation for the UK BD release of OVA I and II. 
Oreimo is one for me. I was expecting the worst from the show given the title, I tend to flee from the sibling incest storylines, but Season 1 surprised me by not actually going there, and actually being more of a commentary on otaku culture, and the sort of people that do actually like those storylines. It was funny, witty, and incisive. Along comes season 2, and I'm "Oh, you went there." When it comes to jumping the shark, one word would suffice... Gonzo. Their sci-fi action series, especially those adapted from unfinished manga and requiring studio created conclusions all jump the shark with ridiculous, over the top, throw everything at the screen eye-candy (a term I use advisedly given Gonzo's animation quality) explosive endings that have pretty much no story them. From Kiddy Grade, to Black Cat, via Trinity Blood, Shangri-La and Burst Angel, they all turn pants. It's easier to count the shows that don't jump the shark, Speedgrapher and Witchblade. EDIT: A follow up question might be which anime feature films 'nuke the fridge'? I'm put in mind of Gonzo again and Origin: Spirits of the Past, which was going pretty well as an eco-fable, until the spoiler[volcano on legs] appeared! |
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I_Drive_DSM
 Posts: 217 |
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From a personal stand point with my general automotive fandom I thought that Initial D's tone towards the fourth and fifth "seasons" (roughly manga volume 33 onwards) was just utterly ridiculous and maybe not necessarily full jumped the shark but for sure sail on a different ship than it came in on.
Shuichi Shigeno seemed to be introducing some interesting concepts, such as having Takumi alternate driving an AWD car. Unfortunately something would be introduced, and then it would almost be seemingly "hung out to dry". He then seemed to really go off to some deep ends with some of the established characters, and I'm fairly sure he must of had some tremendously bad luck with the ladies in how he portrays romance in his works with his characters. He also "ran out of time" in a way that I don't think is talked about enough among fans. As he originally started the manga in 1995 the cars and setting was supposed to remain relatively period correct. Eventually Shigeno had to implement cars, and even fashion that would not have existed in the mid to later 90s. However if you read the entirety of the story it's supposed to effectively take place within roughly a year and a half worth of real-time. It produces a very strange bridging of the times. |
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jroa
Posts: 546 |
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To be honest, I don't think this is an accurate description. In particular, the situation with Suzaku wasn't that simple. On the one hand, he still had the same set of formal reasons to continue disagreeing with Zero's methods in the medium term. On the other hand, his initial reaction to Euphemia's fate and especially what happened with him throughout R2 put him on the path to abandoning his misguided ideals and their underlying hypocrisy. Which, as a matter of fact, ties back to his past and accepting what he had done then rather than continuing to run away from it. The exact way that this happens can be considered melodramatic or even crazy, but there is a method to the madness at work. Regarding Nina, I'd say she was mocked by the show as mostly insane rather than truly being treated as a victim (which can also be questioned as not exactly progressive in its implications, either way, but I digress). I don't think Cornelia was ever really presented as one of those either. Perhaps you might be referring to the fact she's not punished for her crimes, but in that case I'd point out how even the history of the real world has not been fair in this respect. In short, many of the individuals who end up on the "winning" side of a conflict are often allowed to get away with murder. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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I'm honestly shocked it took 5 pages of comments for anyone to mention Death Note. That's the anime most near to universally noted as having a "jump the shark" moment. Also, I don't think any 1-cour (maybe even 2 cour) shows can really be said to have ever "jumped the shark", they're not really long enough. I mean, generally speaking, if you don't like what a show does 4-5 episodes in, then you just don't like what they're trying to do (the first 2-3 episodes (at MINIMUM) are just introduction) and if your problem is with the last couple of episodes, then it didn't "jump the shark" it just had a terrible ending (like Oreimo). |
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2526 Location: Germany |
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Samurai Flamenco deserves to win THE lifetime achievement award, so i can´t add anything major.
How did i finish it? It´s interesting to see KLK eat some crow too. I ain´t the first to say it but that 2nd half took the bad kind of acid. To think that the show won a Japanese award for writing .
I´ll throw Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress into the mix. It stood no chance to begin with, due to being a cynical clone, but the well animated first 3 eps. quickly lead to a no-budget disaster. Not that i lasted till the end. A typical case of front loading we get to see every season, yet the extreme drop in animation quality needs to be noted. It was the only reason why i continued after ep.1. Psycho Pass S01 went from just being good enough to watch to anti-intellectual nonsense with the girls' school killer arc. Some of the very worst detective work i even saw on a cop show! At least i stopped halfway though here too (i speed read the manga adaptation later), even if cyberpunk is my jam. The barley connected S02 is an over the top delight though. That one grew a beard. I am noticing that i have a laundry list of shows, so let´s just crucify the worst. Which brings me to RIN: Daughters of Mnemosyne. It went from kinda interesting to one of the worst anime of the 00s, after just 1 (double length) ep! #ing Xebec. The strongest example of 180% whiplash i can name. I sadly fished it, as dropping trash outright was still not quite in my vocabulary then. I now drop meandering media VERY quickly though, meaning that i now rarely get to see a shark being jumped. Thank you Peak TV... and media in general. PS: Does Gundam ZZ count? It starts right after Z but the quality disparity is legendary. It doesn´t "get better" either, even if 1 arc somewhere in the 20s was good-ish. |
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Baggie_Saiyan
 Posts: 152 |
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Dragon Ball jumped the shark in the Android arc where EVERY SAIYAN GOT SUPER SAIYAN! It destroyed the legend surrounding it, it was established in the Freeza arc why Vegeta was never able to go SS but the next he just shows up with it.
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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But your avatar is of Super Saiyan God Goku. How can you be mad at the series making every Saiyan go Super when you seem to be a fan of the next step up, considering that was invented because Super Saiyans had become so mundane they needed a next level? |
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3946 Location: New York state. |
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Wouldn't necessarily qualify as "jump the shark" since the majority of its run was a mess due to the show's infamous tonal shift from the first two Gundam TV anime and even while the return to its more serious roots in its second half redeem it somewhat, many Gundam fans still consider it one of the worst installments of the franchise. |
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ultimatehaki
Posts: 1090 |
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The story didn't verge and the ending, although in a different setting (hospital roof instead of suspension bridge) was the same as the manga. They wisely chose not to drag it out for that extra arc like in the manga because frankly it couldn't hold any interest for that long. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6196 |
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Has been debunked more times than Nicholas Cage has made flops.
His vision is why we have Chi-Chi and Goku spontaneously become a couple after only a couple of scenes together (in one arc). And apparently nearly got Androids 19 & 20 and then later 17 & 18 almost made the main villains of that arc until he came up with Cell.
Not for a sustained period of time and if Raditz had seen the attack coming and been able to dodge it that whole sequence would've turned out a lot different
The thing though is that Gohan was never a fighter like his father and with the earth not being at risk of any (known) danger there wasn't any pressing need for him to train. That's not the say that Chi-Chi's incessant need to make sure he does more studying than training was a good thing (especially stupid in the fact that Chi-Chi is the daughter of one of Roshi's pupils and later showed up near the end of the series suddenly dressed as a martial artist which was in sharp contrast from her first appearance) but I digress.
It was?
Has nothing on the last game of Mahjong between Akagi and Washizu in "Akagi" which apparently only just concluded after something like 10+ years of real time for what's a multi-hour session of mahjong in the book. The anime adaptation ends right before Akagi and Washizu pick up the game after Akagi drives the latter under the table. |
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