Forum - View topicWhen Anime Series Jumped the Shark
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Morry
Posts: 756 |
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I agree Code Geass was never well written, (it's my second favorite anime ever, mind you) but honestly it's when Lelouch casually suggests spoiler[Euphemia kill the Japanese as his example] that I thought the show jumped the shark and never looked back. Really, Lelouch? You couldn't spoiler[suggest she make you a sandwich or anything less forced and obviously written to set-up an already obvious plot twist]?
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eltodesukane
Posts: 14 |
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z z
Last edited by eltodesukane on Wed May 17, 2017 10:06 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3876 Location: New York state. |
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Interesting subject to discuss...
-Code Geass- I was okay with the series until near the end of its first season when the melodramatics of it got too laughable and overblown for me as such where it was still hard for me to take its later developments seriously due to how the series presented them, even well into R2. -Dragon Ball Z- Even as a diehard DBZ fan during the anime boom of the 2000s, my interest in the series started to wane toward the Majin Buu saga when it got too dragged out from having random powerups or gimmicks being employed against main baddie Buu, until the resolution of things ended in a rather anti-climactic matter. -Gundam 00- Had a strong start in its first series with establishing the members of Celestial Being and the conflict they have with the militaries of the government blocs, but the second series suffers from quality slippage due to fast pacing, trying to cram too much to develop or resolve in its 25-episode run, Setsuna becoming too overpowered with his Gundam, and Ribbons Almarck being among the worst villains I've seen within a Gundam anime. -Rurouni Kenshin- A well-known "jump the shark" for anime fans with the TV series. The show's quality peaked in the Kyoto arc with Kenshin's conflict with Shishio and the Juppongatana. But since the anime had caught up with its manga source material by the end of that point, the final third of the series turned into all filler arcs that caused the show's ratings to tank and eventually led to the TV anime's cancellation in Japan, robbing fans of a proper anime adaptation of the well-known Jinchuu arc from the manga. |
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nobahn
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Top Gun
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I have to seriously disagree with people calling Kill la Kill out for this. (As other people have noted, very few of the entries in the article have anything to do with the proper usage of "jumping the shark.") Personally, I enjoyed the second half even more than the first, and while it had its share of unexpected twists and turns, it felt like a natural thematic extension and expansion of what had come before. I can't say I found the plot points all that difficult to follow, either. (Vague hint: there's a lot of Chrono Trigger in there.) Nick really must have been unfamiliar with the creative staff involved, because it was most definitely in the same overall vein as Imaishi's earlier work on Gurren Lagann. Now if you really want to see an Imaishi work that throws out all pretext of logic and reason, watch Dead Leaves. It's amazing.
And while I will agree that Code Geass R2 wound up becoming substantially more...shall we say, "on crack" than its first season, I honestly think I wound up enjoying it more because of that. At some point I just completely switched my brain off and held on for the ridiculous ride; it became something of a drinking game along the lines of, "Okay, what batshit insanity can they possibly one-up themselves with this week?" As this was largely before the days of legal streaming, much less simulcasts, I had a few friends who actually watched R2 premieres via restreams of live Japanese TV broadcasts. Just picture watching all of that happen without having any translation whatsoever.  Goro Taniguchi's a fascinating sort: he's directed relatively-subdued character studies like Planetes and Infinite Ryvius, but then he turns around and delivers things like Geass or s-CRY-ed's rainbow-tinged insanity.
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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I'm surprised no one mentioned Guilty Crown" . That one started with great moments of world building and character developments only to have Director Tetsuro Araki not jump the shark, but pushed it into the tank with the shark.
But my worst shark jumping viewing display that will last with me til the end is Tenchi Muyo OVA III |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5317 |
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I wouldn't say Kill La Kill jumped the shark.
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Asterisk-CGY
 Posts: 398 |
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I am trying to remember a series that in the second half the show, which was already pretty existential as is started just cutting in random scenes of big breasted girls in cow print bikini's appearing to be milked. That second half of that series as a whole just completely dipped by my recollection.
But now it's going to bother me all day until I can find the name again. |
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TurnerJ
Posts: 481 Location: Highland Park, NJ |
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That's exactly what happened. Hideaki Anno stepped out of the director's chair after episode 22 and didn't return until 35, which is why the episodes in between stick out like a sore thumb so badly. For me, episode 34 wasn't the episode that brought down the show -- it was episodes 26, 32, and 33. All three of those were absolutely rock-bottom barrel bad. Episode 26 is guilty of character derailments and poor handling of developments (particularly Marie's tantrum with King and the derailing of Jean & Nadia's kiss on the beach on account of a stupid incident with mushrooms), and wasting its second half on a pointlessly repetitive dream sequence, while episodes 32-33 are the absolute worst episodes in the show, period. There was practically NO reason for that Africa sidestory to happen, especially since nothing of any significant importance happens there. That's why I always say skip those episodes -- save episode 30 and 31 -- both are the least offensive of the otherwise dismal island arc (23-29 and 32-34). I can't remember the last time I was so badly disappointed by a show derailing this spectacularly. |
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jroa
Posts: 537 |
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I believe that's Melody of Oblivion. I never actually saw it for myself, but those visuals were pretty infamous back in the day. |
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TurnerJ
Posts: 481 Location: Highland Park, NJ |
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They are indeed awful and THE absolute worst episodes in the show, period. So is episode 26 and the whole island arc in general. |
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ParaChomp
 Posts: 1018 |
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From everything that I watched, Sgt. Frog, it just got really bland once the episode number hit the 100s. That said, there were some standout episodes. While part of me wishes Funimation dubbed further they stopped at a good spot.
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tintor2
 Posts: 1820 |
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About Dragon Ball, the Z series was a bit ridiculous and convenient when you think about it. When Goku was about get killed by his brother, the five year old Gohan jumped out of nowhere ambushing Raditz and weakened him a lot. It's like Gohan was already stronger than Goku.... then, we later find out that pure Saiyans can get stronger just by getting their asses kicked. However, because Gohan isn't a pure Saiyan, he needed to force himself as a kid to at least fight at their level. In the Cell arc, Gohan manages to surpass everybody within the cast, but because he never trains again in the timeskip due to his mother forcing him to become a child prodigy in scholarship, he becomes weaker almost as if Toriyama got bored of him. This could have been easily avoided if Gohan kept training with Piccolo or even Vegeta but no, he needs to become a prodigy in school. Thankfully, DB Super managed to fix this but isn't this a bit late. Both Goku and Vegeta already surpassed the Super Saiyans by becoming Super Saiyan Gods and whatever.
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harminia
 Posts: 2000 Location: australia |
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Meanwhile the Great Saiyaman arc is, like, my favourite arc. But then, I'm someone who loves fillers in anime more than the proper episodes (for example, my favourite Naruto episode is "Naruto vs. Mecha Naruto)... I lost interest during the Buu saga though. I can't remember much of it. I do agree with some of the commenters that some of these don't seem super Jumping The Shark so much as Jee That Was a Bad Idea or just plain Bad Writing. I can't think of anything I've seen that particularly Jumped the Shark, but I feel like there's some shows in the back of my memory that are in the "halfway through it got ridiculous" camp... I just can't think of which ones they were. Guilty Crown seems to pop up in my mind a lot, but seeing as the show was a trainwreck from basically the beginning I can't tell if it jumped the shark or just continued falling down a hole of badness. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Well, you never know. Dragon Ball Super is not over yet. And the direction they seem to be taking Gohan is the dorky, bespectacled, quiet reserved man who can blow up a planet if he wanted to. I'd like for Gohan to be able to keep up with Goku and Vegeta too, l but I'd also like for him to remain the bookish type--it was pretty clear that he doesn't really want to fight, but just live as a normal person. It happened each time Gohan was dropped into something involving fighting and clearly hated it, with Goku assuming his son would enjoy it simply because Goku would.
I'd definitely say Naruto is a case of this towards the end: It's clear Masashi Kishimoto's superiors wanted to milk the Naruto franchise dry and kept pressuring him to continue, and the result was the most dragged out, overblown battle in the entire series, if not in all of Japanese fiction, consisting most of characters emerging from the woodwork to show the techniques they learned and then exiting out. But the major difference, I'd say, is that Japanese companies seem to milk franchises differently from western companies, in which they'll do so through spinoffs (such as movies or TV shows) and merchandise, whereas western audiences tend to be a lot less accepting of spinoffs and merchandise. |
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