What’s something that you figured you’d love when you first heard about it, but you wound up being really disapointed by?
I was pleasantly surprised by Initial D. I put off watching this series for a long time in spite of hearing loads of good things about it. I really didn’t like the character design, and what I knew about the story didn’t interest me at all.
But friends talked me into reading some of the manga and checking out the series, and while I still don’t like the character design much, the rest of the show was extremely entertaining.
I haven’t been super disapointed by much anime. Obviously, there’s a lot of bad stuff out there, but I try and read up on stuff a lot before I watch it, and I can be pretty easy to please. All I can think of off the top of my head is Tenchi Muyo. They started showing it on Cartoon Network in the days of anime on vhs, so any new series was really exciting to me. I thought the first episode was fantastic, and I was thrilled to have something new and neat to watch. However, after that first one, I didn’t enjoy any episodes. I remember being so sad and frusterated.
Before anyone yells at me, keep in mind that Cartoon Network hacked Tenchi to pieces when they aired it. I’ve seen some Tenchi (not the same Tenchi series, though) outside of that, and I really enjoyed it.
I usually read up on stuff too, so it’s hard to disappoint me, but I do take chances occasionally. Just last week, I picked up a copy of Area 88, not expecting much out of it. It turned out to be something that instantly ranked high on my list of favorites. Gokudo is another show that really surprised me by being much more enjoyable than I ever would have thought.
I think the most disappointed I’ve ever been in a show was with Cosmo Warrior Zero. I mean, the show is about a guy assigned to hunt down Captain Harlock, one of my favorite characters of all time. It sounds like a perfect opportunity to show off just how badass the character is. Sadly, it featured a version of Harlock that just wasn’t up to snuff. The show was decent enough, but I couldn’t get over that one little thing.
EDIT:Yes Naruto is pretty good…..is it wrong that i have every single translated naruto movie and episode so far :S the wierd thing is every time i hit a new chapter in the anime i notice a flaw yet i still watch it.
also. a friend of mine kept telling me about naruto and i was like, man i bet its gonna suck. i’m not that much into brand spanking new anime. the quality sucks! damn half assed coloring jobs. so i wasn’t interested at all. but he kept telling me and i trust him cause that guys the type of people that are always ahead of everyone else. (i don’t know if you have a friend like that, whatever new thing you think you found, your friend knew about it years before? lol he’s like that) so i said, fine, and i d/led only the first 4 eps, and was surprised at how i cried during that one scene on just the first 4 eps. i was like, oh shit, imagine the later eps!
i’m not ashamed to admit i cry during some anime. :p sailor moon made me cry. which is why i love it to death. why neflite!!! come back neflite!!!!! 😥
i tried to hold them back when i saw X, its just damn sad. 🙁 a true tragedy!
also. i was paranoid like its not even funny, that i would end up hating neon genese evangelion after ALL THE YEARS OF HYPE!! and i don’t know if you guys know, but HYPE, can ruin even the very best movies!! even if the movie/anime itself was well done in every respect, casting, cinemotography, animation, color, voices, EVERYTHING, HYPE, will always manage to destroy it!!!! hype is a powerful enemy!
so anyway, after years of hype, i decided to buy the entire collection and watched it, and BAM!!! it blew my mind. i loved it. and i’m so glad i wasn’t influenced by the millions of idiots on the net. i just pushed all the hype aside, and forgot about it. the only thing i kept was, "i heard it was really good". and left it at that. and still watched it as if expecting nothing. and boy was i surprised. 🙂
Still wanting an actual resolution instead of an ending that’s so ambiguous, even with the movies.
Biggest disappointment would have to go to Gundam Wing. After having seen the old school original Gundam series, and hearing people say that series was so much better, I thought it would be pretty good.
Boy was I disappointed! Eye candy but no substance whatsoever!
I would like to put Hellsing in here somewhere, but I pretty much got what I expected from that one! Pretty cool, even in spite of the hellaciously spoiler filled AMV that got me interested in it.
Biggest disappointment would have to go to Gundam Wing. After having seen the old school original Gundam series, and hearing people say that series was so much better, I thought it would be pretty good.
They probably said it was better because they had a thing for the pilots or something stupid like that. =\ Gundam Wing was so terrible
I mean, a given Gundam does one thing and obliterates every single enemy on the field.
Ridiculous firepower.
Also, no skill is required when all you have to do is push a button and everyone opposing you dies.
Amuro Ray would kick Heero Yui’s butt any day, even if Heero was piloting that blasted Wing Zero (Amuro had the God Gundam by the end of the series, iirc).
Amuro had the nuGundam.
It was a really good story. ^^
No, actually I thought it was gonna be a Macross ripoff. I saw Macross before I saw Gundam.
ps. robotech owns them all anyway!
Toyko Godfathers is still the best thing I’ve seen in ages. ^^
Amuro had the nuGundam.
It’s been so long since I watched those other Gundam anime, wasn’t Amuro in G Gundam also? Or was it another character with a similar name or something?
Also, not a stickler hardcore anime fan, I just think Gundam Wing blows in comparison to the other Gundam anime.
Also, not a stickler hardcore anime fan, I just think Gundam Wing blows in comparison to the other Gundam anime.
as a non-stickler hardcore anime fan, for some reason, i found your opinion more valuable than every other opinion made in this forum combined. :p
makes me think twice about the other gundams i’ve seen. i just saw them but never got as involved. (emotionally). i just saw them for the sake of seeing them, got blown away at the cool scenes and that was it. but only in wing was i like "omg hurry! you can make it heero!" and "no quatre!! don’t give up damn joo!!!"
i actually got into it. :p
that’s why its my fav. 🙂
Try watching the series from the original timeline instead of the random alternate universe gundam series.
And I was reminded of Nausicaa.
I was looking forward to it because I’m a fan of the comic and a pretty critical friend of mine said it was his favorite Miyazaki film, but the movie was so bad =\ They took the story and just chopped it down and then filled it with cliches to round out the retelling. It reminded me kind of what happened with CG Appleseed, except I wasn’t dissapointed with that one since I was expecting it to not be any good =\
After I saw it the friend explained to me that he saw it a long time ago and was high and mostly just liked the art direction.
Also: I’m so picky about anime that I can’t remember any collossal disappointments. I’m only a casual fan. Also: I can’t think of anything I expected to dislike and then liked. All the anime I’m actually a fan of was stuff that I heard about and thought would be cool (and was!) or stuff that I’d never heard of until I happened to see it. So basically: I’m boring. ;_;
:O!! Naruto aint terrible
cuz all my friends said it would suck cuz they have seen it. but we were at the local anime store in reno and i couldnt find any good animes. well I dont ever wanna waste a chance to get a anime so i had to pick one. i chose Gunmarch Parade….but at the corner of my eye i saw FFU and i picked it up and took it and watched it …i have to say its a ok anime not as good as berserk of course.
friend o mine just basicly gave me the disc saying i should check it out if i got the time without a description wich is always a great way to discover new anime
i’m into experimental stuff anyways and its just visually the most brilliant thing in years
Steamboy
bein one of the biggest Akira fans out there i knew from the start i couldnt expect anything that would surpass it or even compare it to eachother seeing as the setting was totally different and just enjoy the ride for what it was wich i did and loved
One that I’ve been very pleasantly surprised with has been Madlax. At a glance, it looked like nothing more than a Noir clone and the first episode was almost enough to make me give up on it. Thankfully, I stuck with it and have now seen twelve episodes. The slow pacing would probably turn a lot of people off, but the way the two main characters are affecting each others’ lives without ever meeting is really neat to me.
Fushigi Yuugi is one of those series where I still can’t figure out why I had to buy the whole thing. (Including the 2 stupid OVAs…) Who knows.
The biggest surprise for me though was One Piece. When I first saw an episode of it way back in 2000 when it was unknown to the anime community, I thought it was some old anime since the animation was so simplistic. I continued watching it several years later and to my surprise I was addicted to it by the time I got to episode 10 and would continue watching it upto episode 70-something in just a few days!
As for a few other anime that really surprised me:
Full Moon wo Sagashite, which looked like some kiddie show at the start but then became really fun and entertaining and eventually a heart-wrenching drama I always remember. I finished it in a few days.
Gantz, which I had absolutely zero expectations and especially since I wasn’t really into the "very dark" kind of anime at the time but little did I know that it would became one of the best anime I’ve seen. It was surprisingly much deeper and more complex and thought-provoking than it seemed at first. Although the anime has ended, the manga is still continuing.
Groove Adventure Rave and Wild Arms TV, both seemed like sterotypical RPG-style fantasy anime in the first few episodes so I quite watching them but after watching them again after a few years and giving them another chance, I thought they were great!
As for dissapointments, the most recent one was Elfen Lied. After reading reviews by people saying its one of the best "darker" anime they’ve seen, I had my hopes up for it but was dissapointed since it just turned out to be a harem anime but with gore and violence. It didn’t really have anything new to offer nor did it have anything deep, complex or meaningful about it and most of the characters were quite shallow and stereotypical, which isn’t what I’d expect from a top anime… but it was still enjoyable despite those things.
I was also dissapointed by Spirited Away because I loved some of Miyazaki’s other anime like Laputa and Mononoke Hime but was expecting Spirited Away to live upto those standards. Although it had quite a few boring parts that made me feel sleepy, it was still enjoyable overall, since it’s still better than most of Disney’s efforts.
Another anime I was dissapointed by was Noir. It had many good reviews but after watching it, it was really boring with just some nice action scenes here and there. I tried to give it a chance but eventually quit watching it before getting to episode 10 as I didn’t really see the story going anywhere.
I wasn’t comparing shit! But I got to admit, Fast & Furious is rubbish.
Amen to that.
oh damn dude. i was just at best buy today buying a dvd burner, and i saw godanar. damn i wanted to get it real bad. seeing as how i love fanservice and all. i was reading the box set thing. (where its the box and the first dvd) it was funny. but i’m afraid of buying anime i wouldn’t like. you can’t return any media anymore for any reason at any store. some new bullshit law where they presume that everyone and their grandma copies and burns everything and returns it for the money back. (aka free stuff). i’m so pissed at that bullshit law. i baught my sister 2 cd’s and she dind’t like em, and i’m stuck with them cause best buy has the no return on that shit. fuck!
so anyway. yah. if i dind’t care about money, i would have walked out with godanar, saiyuki 1, slayers movies (a box set with all the slayers movies ever), and the entire complete collection of those who hunt elves. but i realized… i should prolly d/l a few eps first, and if i love it, i go buy. :p
I feel the opposite way about this show. I downloaded the first 13 episodes expecting to completely fall in love with the show, because it really looked like something that would appeal to me.
But I didn’t enjoy the episodes I’ve seen at all, and though I’m determined to watch all of it that I’ve downloaded, I’ve had a hard time bringing myself to do it. I wouldn’t have been too surprised if I’d only thought it was ok, but it shocked me that I disliked it so much.
An anime that I thought I was really going to love was Noir, dont get me wrong it was an ok anime but it was not as good (to me) as A.D.V made it sound. Too overated, not much of a story and reviews I read made it sound as if it were gold.
Plus, the night scenes had such stunning colours.