Forum - View topicThe Slog: Ever Run into a Series you had to fight to finish?
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24027 |
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If you are like me and you purchase a series on DVD, you have to finish watching it...no matter how little you may be enjoying the experience. Yes, logic dictates that you should cut your time loss and ditch a series once you are convinced that it is not for you, but my OCD mind doesn't work that way.
If I buy a series then eventually I have to check it off as "seen all." I can't do that unless I've actually "seen all." This is particularly painful when the series is 26 episodes as opposed to, say, 13. My recent slog was Blue Gender. Let me hasten to add that this is not a bad series. I can easily imagine someone watching and enjoying it. But it just could not find a purchase on my interest. I was into it for the first 5 or 6 episodes, but my enjoyment began to wane and by episode 12 or 13 I knew there was absolutely no chance this series would ever do it for me. But I wanted to check it off the list, so I gritted my teeth, and finally got through it. It took me over a month, but I did it. How about you? Are you one of these sensible people who ditches a series once it becomes clear that the Law of Diminishing Returns is in effect? If you have experienced a slog, what is the longest it has taken you to finish? Are you in the middle of a slog right now? Ever watch a series that seemed like it would be a slog, but then redeemed itself down the line? Share your tales of sloggage here. |
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PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
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The only series I've been unable to finish is Divergence Eve. And for finishing it? Never going to happen.
When I wrote my review of it, I compared its viewing to taking the most pain-producing instrument to poke my eyes out with to see if it's worse, and I've a feeling it won't be. Yes, yes, fans, I heard the story gets better, but when the phrase "Damn the torpedoes!" won't escape my mind, it's a problem for me. Unnecessary pantsu shots, impossible physics, and big eyes I can deal with. Purposely skewing the laws of nature for mammary glands is much too difficult for me to deal with. Sister Princess knocked me out while viewing it, but I managed to get through them. Hell, I even re-watched the entire 26 episodes, but sadly, still couldn't stay awake. DearS also had me nodding, but thankfully, its 13 episodes was a bit easier to get through. For a while, I thought Slayers would be a cop out, but damn if the thing didn't get better. Now I'm on season 2. |
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rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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The first anime I can remember finding hard to get through was Noir. It was a good series but it was slow going it parts. I managed to watch all the way to the end and I don't regret it. I own a few series; several of which I have a hard time getting through even though I like them. I'm having that problem with Kaliedo Star right now; I like the show but here lately I'm never in the mood to watch it. Another series I own is Gasaraki; it's older mecha anime with a beautiful OP but I've never been able to get past a few episodes. Maybe it's because I'm not a big fan of mecha, though I do like other aspects of the series.
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EvanUnisil
 Posts: 48 |
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Well I didn't own the DVDs but I just felt the need to finish this series while it was airing on Adult Swim for the sake of finishing it...
Code Geass, both season 1 and 2. Everyone hyped up this series so much and I just found the whole thing to be a little too... overdramatic. The only good thing was the brief moments of cliffhanger at the end of most episodes, but I really didn't care about anything even with them there to make you want to watch the next episode. I just wanted to finish it because people kept saying it had a "great" ending. I wish I could reclaim my time, but I guess at least if someone asks me if I've seen it and if it's any good I can say "I watched it, it's not all that everyone's making it up to be" Also Noein. The first five or six episodes were fantastic but the series' take on multiverse was laughable at best and it wasn't long before the series became another typical Kazuki Akane series. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Escaflowne and Heat Guy J is probably my favourite of his but they all have common factors: androgynous lunatic who will go between good and evil throughout the series and far too many occurences of Deus Ex Machina. Anyway the series deteriorated so much towards the end that I couldn't stand it but I just wanted to see how the hell he was going to explain everything. In case anyone is wondering what the answer to that is: Not well. I guess I do it for the sake of closure. I've invested all this time into these characters and the story that I want to see how it all ends. Last edited by EvanUnisil on Mon Jun 15, 2009 12:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Analog_Now
 Posts: 211 Location: Montréal, Québec |
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For some shoes I've forced myself to watch more the first 3 episodes and as It turned it it was great to force myself because I loved the shoes after. For some examples, umm Cowboy Bebop it's hard to believe but at first I wasn't sure if I was going to like it. Outlaw as well and there's many more. I haven't forced myself to finish a show though.
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Murasakisuishou
 Posts: 1469 Location: NE Ohio |
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The biggest slog series I've ever encountered was Mushi-Shi, but not because I didn't like it - I thought it was brilliant and very beautifully animated. The only problem was that the bleak, minimalistic atmosphere of it, coupled with the thought provoking stories, tended to freak me out, especially since I watch my anime alone and at night. I also happened to be watching Mushi-Shi at the beginning of something of a health-related scare, so I also began associating it with fear. It took me about five months to get through the whole thing, but I forced myself in the end because my reasons for not wanting to watch it were silly.
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murph76
 Posts: 3291 Location: Akron, OH |
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Sister Princess was my most recent slog, too. I wrote about it in an unused response a recent AnswerFans question, asking what series you forced yourself to finish.
I'll post it here: I knew I wasn’t going to like Sister Princess after the first few episodes, when the main character, Wataru, discovers he has 12 little sisters. Does Wataru bother to examine their claims? No. Does he ask the obvious questions: Are we actually related? How so? Never crosses his mind. Instead, he accepts their statements at face value, establishing a strange, codependent relationship in which the sisters -- who before they met were able to function independently -- seem unable to do anything without involving their big brother, either directly or indirectly. I forced myself to watch the series in the hopes it might turn into a fun slice-of-life title -- one where interesting characters and their interactions drive the story and not much goes on in terms of a long-range plot. Instead, I discovered that not much goes on in this series, ever. The sisters are all one-dimensional, one-joke characters who show no growth over 26 episodes. They’re led by a wimpy older brother who only grudgingly goes along with the activities they inflict on him. And while hints about the ending had been dropped from the very beginning, it still felt contrived. It was as if after 20-some episodes of nothing, the creators believed they needed a crisis to wrap up a series going nowhere. At the end, I thought Sister Princess had the kernel of a good story in why Wataru didn’t know his sisters, what purpose the island serves and why everyone is there. But these items didn’t get enough time to be sufficiently explored. The story got lost showing cute girls doing cute things (with big brother along for the ride), and giving more than a dozen supporting characters nearly equal screen time. On the positive side, I was impressed by the character designs. I thought the sisters were all very cute and distinctive, a plus for having so large a supporting cast. |
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Generic #757858
 Posts: 1354 |
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Nadesico was a pain. Not quite bad enough to be dropped, I forced myself onward on the promise that it would get better, but it never did. Though I still gave the lingering doubt that the entire series was in fact some huge metajoke...
And then there's of course Elfen Lied. I tried, oh how I tried, but by episode 4 it was painfully obvious that the only way I could wring any satisfaction from the series would be the ultra violent deaths of the entire cast. Had to quit while I was still ahead. |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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Full Moon wo Sagashite is turning out to be a real slog for me. I've got, 12 or 11 episodes left to watch, and I'm just sad how it changed so much from the manga. The manga, I thought, was a deeper than average magical girl series with a number of surprising twists, but this is just repetitious silly filler. I knew there would be a good bit of filler since the anime started when there were only four chapters of manga, but once I hit episode 30 and realized that I was still in filler land, then I got worried. Doesn't help that the art looks really strange, wasn't surprised to find it was Studio Deen work...
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Anumari
Posts: 38 Location: germany |
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I agree 100% with this. Also cant remember the name of it but it was about a little girl who was supposedly the last survivor of earth and lived with some robots. watched it until the end and regret ever doing so it was just bleh. |
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Sakura of Avalon
 Posts: 143 |
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This happens rather frequently when I read manga, and a friend of mine describes me as a masochist because of such behavior. However, it doesn't happen frequently because of anime.
One example I remember is Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, though it illustrates another aspect of struggling to finish a series. I actually enjoyed each of the four 30 minute episodes in the two OVAs immensely. Or, rather, I should say that I enjoyed the parts for which I was awake immensely. Nevermind appreciating the beauty of the scenes. I had to watch the episodes multiple times just to make sure each scene had passed before my open eyes in some fashion. You see, YKK is a slow, relaxing series about the complacent inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic world, and the anime captures the mood of the manga too well. I feel asleep every time I watch more than 10 minutes of it continuously. Last edited by Sakura of Avalon on Mon Jun 15, 2009 2:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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nightjuan
 Posts: 1473 |
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Generally speaking, it's very hard for me to voluntarily and permanently drop a series halfway through, since I can usually find plenty of elements of interest to keep me watching, especially if I'm already too far into it, after I've most likely developed a certain amount of personal and intellectual investment in the story and characters. Whether that investment will be rewarded or not is, of course, a different matter. It's also much easier for me to stop watching a series early rather than later on, if it just doesn't seem to be of any real interest.
Yet when I do run into truly serious issues that can't possibly be resolved and that actively destroy my interest in a series...I will not hesitate to stop, because I am a firm believer in the concept of not forcing people to watch what they don't want to watch, so I can't help but cringe at seeing its opposite emerge as part of some of the above descriptions. Can't say that ever happened to me while watching Nadesico or Code Geass, but as for series that did present a significant obstacle to my enjoyment...Gasaraki would be one of them. Granted, I was younger at the time and my current self might have a more open mind, but after a few episodes everything seemed too slow and...overly political in a bad way. Which sounds quite ironic now, since one of my favorite series is the very political Legend of the Galactic Heroes, but Gasaraki just didn't catch my attention. On a different note, the "filler" episodes of Orguss were somewhere between utterly stupid and absolutely boring, but I liked its concept and main cast enough to stay fairly interested until the end (which left me with mixed feelings), in spite of how much the series seemed to drag on during certain parts. |
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Truered
 Posts: 515 Location: Uni |
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It took me about four months to work my way through Kyouran kazoku nikki recently. The randomness stopped the story from being any decent (actually it was a mess) but the randomness wasn't funny enough to make up for the lack of a story.
My main problem with slogging through stuff is with actual DVDs themselves. Possibly due to being slightly OCD, I always find I have to watch all of the episodes on the DVD in one sitting. So more episodes on a DVD is a double edged sword- I get more for the same money, but also occasionally face a slog of watching 2 hours or so on a DVD. Of course when it catches my attention like FMA it's fine, but alas in recent times my attention span has decreased, and by about four episodes I find myself wanting to do something else 
Also I can't understand Japanese, so I can't have it on in the background as I need to read the subtitles...well for series I'm watching for the first time at least. |
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nagato316
Posts: 306 |
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My one Slog series was Pilot Candidate. So glad it was only 13 eps, but it still felt like pulling teeth. I bought this dirt cheap from RightStuf, expecting a relatively painless EVA copycat (yes I realize the irony of that entire last phrase now that I've typed it).
If only. What ended up happening was my constantly waiting (ultimately in vain) for something to happen. Anything resembling rising action, climax, denouement or any other points on that classic dramatic pyramid we remember from English class would have sufficed. Yeah, lots of battles, but even they were meh, from what little I can remember. That's probably the biggest impression the series made on me...that it made _no_ impression on me, as I can't remember anything that would have made this series stand out from any other, except for that incessant waiting. To its credit, Pilot Candidate does give viewers some character growth...in the Very Last Episode, thank you so little. Ugh. EDIT: Corrections of misspelling and grammatical errors from sloppy typing. Last edited by nagato316 on Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:49 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7991 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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It happened a few times to me. I'm currently stalled, lacking motivation, to finish ZZ Gundam, Angel Heart, and Ninja Nonsense. I'll probabally get back to them eventually though.
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