Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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louis6578
 Posts: 1862 |
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^
You'd be surprised at how opinions can change. A good ending can make an "okay" show good. A bad ending can make a great anime an okay anime. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9844 Location: Virginia |
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This is, in my opinion, what is wrong with the Best and Worst of the week series. There is no overall summation of the series at the end of the season. A show is not just the sum of its parts. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23779 |
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So I caught the 6-episode Looking up at the Half-Moon on CR. I thought it was excellent. It had genuine emotion as opposed to contrived pathos and an ending that I found incredibly satisfying. Definitely recommend to any fellow romance enthusiasts out there. Although it will make you wonder about Japan's lax health care system...
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Cam0
 Posts: 4888 |
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And this is where I disagree. I'll never truly understand people who make the "The ending ruined the show for me!" statement. To me a show in fact is mostly a sum of its parts. Really, a terrible ending could never ruin an otherwise good show for me. I don't understand how people can somehow forget the great time they had with a show just because the ending sucked. To me it's all about the journey. As long as I enjoyed most of my time with the show, the show was good. If the show is mostly bad, then by the time I get to the ending, I won't really care, no matter how good the ending is. Why would I care what happens at the end of a story I don't care about? |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23779 |
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@ Cam0 - to a certain extent I don't disagree with your point. I remember rolling my eyes at some of the commentary about Katanagari (a show I loved from start to finish) because some posters didn't like the ending and for them that couple of minutes "ruined" the whole experience (apparently).
However, I don't really buy the "sum of its parts" argument where the ending is merely another part no more or no less important than any part that has preceded it (assuming I have your point interpreted correctly). Assuming you've been enjoying a show, part of that enjoyment is no doubt anticipation over the ending. So if the ending is bobbled , I think it's natural the goodwill built up on the assumption the ending would match in quality what came before would curdle into some retrospective withdrawing of enthusiasm. Again, I would never espouse the idea that a bad ending completely negates any good that may have come before, but for me at least an ending is definitely more critical than virtually any other single part of the show. |
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killjoy_the
 Posts: 2459 |
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Thematically speaking, an ending can completely ruin what a show had going for it (like Re: Zero just did. I just finished Re: Zero, also. I thought the ending was really bad). I don't think it holds that much weight, though. Nice series with bad endings are just that, not bad series in general. I think the Best and Worst column kind of sums up my feelings a bit: an ending episode gets counted twice, because it's more important than the rest of the episodes, generally.
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9844 Location: Virginia |
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I actually wasn't thinking about a planned ending where people disagree with how it worked out. Unfortunately much of each year's anime is based on and an ad for an existing property either a manga or novel. If the source material is ongoing or too long for the period allotted for the anime we get into the problem of an original ending or a too be continued ending. Either choice is going to upset a group of watchers. In addition, we have had a few shows where they either ran out of money or inspiration before they ran out of episodes. Fortunately this is rare.
The other possibility is a show that starts slow and either improves or justifies the slow start with later episodes. I think such shows tend to be under evaluated in the week by week evaluations. While I agree that the journey is important, if that is not enjoyable a good ending will not help the people who quit the show. However, with regard to the weekly evaluations I wish the final episode contained a paragraph or two evaluating the series as a whole and provided two places for viewers to provide their own evaluations, one for the episode and one for the series. They already have done this when a review covers two weeks. |
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Cam0
Posts: 4888 |
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I did say "mostly", but I'll have to take back a bit what I said. A show being simply "sum of its parts" isn't perhaps entirely accurate for me. Ending is definitely important. However, for example, I'll usually have already decided how I'll rate a show before the last episode. The ending will have to reach some otherwordly levels of suckage to change my overall opinion of the show. The ending might not change my overall opinion all that much, but I do definitely appreciate good endings. However the show will have to win me over first for me to care. P.S. Are you truly back Blood-? ANN simply isn't the same without you. |
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louis6578
Posts: 1862 |
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I probably owe an explanation. I don't think there's been a case where an ending was so bad that I stopped liking a show because of it. It just bumps it up or down a full letter grade. Soul Eater's anime ending was atrocious in my eyes, but I wouldn't say that it ruins the anime itself. It's just a little sad for me to think that all this plot and development is leading up to a forced ending like that. Granted, an ending I disagree with CAN potentially make me not wanna rewatch the show, but I'll rarely dislike it. I didn't care for Wolf's Rain's ending (it seemed way too cynical and unwarranted to have spoiler[everyone die]) but I don't regret having spent my time on the show. |
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Cam0
Posts: 4888 |
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No, no. It's probably me who owes one. I didn't mean that you in particular are that kind of person. I get that the ending can have some effect on people's opinion of a show and that I do get, but I don't get people whose opinion goes a full 180 after a bad ending. I've seen comments like: "I loved this show, but the ending made me absolute loathe it!" Comments like that boggles my mind. To me it just looks like an extreme overreaction. For me, an ending will only affect the grading in situations where I'm on the fence about the show. In those very few cases, the last episode might be the factor. But that tends to be rare for me. |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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I finished Those Who Hunt Elves and it maintained its Good rating by being true to its beginnings right through the end.
It might not be fair to call it an "end" because it is spoiler[really just a reset], but I did not need a conclusive ending from this show. Its only shortcoming is that it never did show me the nudity that I expected from a show that is based on stripping elves. But I did not reduce the rating because of that. I am not, quite, that shallow and superficial. Not quite. 
I will definitely be watching the second season, but I have not decided yet if I want to watch it right now or do something else first. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11364 |
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A bad ending (or a non-ending, which unfortunately I'm getting numb to) will usually at most make me knock it down a grade. How it affects rewatch value depends on how bad it was compared to the rest of the series, but a poor ending tacked on a series I'd rewatch otherwise will generally not keep me from rewatching. One exception for me was the ending of Kumamiko. I wasn't all that crazy about the series to begin with, but that ending made rewatching any of it impossible for how it poisoned the well of everything that came before, and that well was already a bit brackish to my taste. The other was Flowers of Evil. I was ready to rate it Good or better, but that last episode was such a bait and switch, middle finger from the author that it joined only Gantz in my Worst Ever pit. It pisses me off just thinking about it. I'd sooner rewatch Chaos Dragon.
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louis6578
Posts: 1862 |
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^
I wouldn't know because I read the Aku no Hana manga~. I heard the anime was pretty good until the ending though. They should've just made up their own conclusion instead of baiting us for a nonexistent second season. |
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Cam0
Posts: 4888 |
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The anime? I had very little expectations about the ending from the very beginning. It was based on a long running manga so I knew it was probably not going to have a proper ending. It went original in the last arc, but I thought that the last arc was pretty good. The manga had a worse ending in my opinion. That rushed ending really left me with blue balls. Still loved the manga from start to finish and the horribly unsatisfying ending didn't change anything. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11364 |
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Are you talking about Gantz or Flowers? I didn't hate Gantz because of its ending, I pretty much disliked it from the start. I kept watching because I kept thinking it had to get better and it just kept getting worse and worse. I was so relieved they stopped making more, I didn't care how it ended or not. I don't even remember how it ended - all I can remember is all the stupid, endless screaming at each other and nobody ever shooting the big honking guns they had. I wanted them all to die, including the damn dog.
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