Although we may love anime a lot, there’s no denying that some of the elements can be frustrating to us as fans. The other day I tweeted a question to J-List’s followers, asking, “What anime has frustrated you?” For me, one anime that fell in this category was Gamers!, a good show about a cute girl who was in love with a boy and connected through their shared love of video games. Love could blossom between the two characters, but they just can’t get together because of an endless string of misunderstandings, along with “KY,” a Japanese slang words meaning kuuki yomenai or “can’t read the air,” e.g. people who are unable to pick up on social cues around them.
https://twitter.com/jlist/status/1119850792729628672
The post got a lot of responses, with everyone offering what anime has frustrated them, and why. Some of the responses to what anime has frustrated us included…
- Dense anime MCs who know they’re the target of serious romantic feelings by other characters yet never react one way or the other. It’s one thing to have a character who can’t make up his make and create drama from that, but some shows take it to the point of frustration.
- ”Neverending” shonen series that run for hundreds of episodes, beyond any actual story they may have to tell. One reason I got into anime over, say, reading Batman or Superman comics was the fact that it told tight, focused stories that actually resolved themselves.
- Taking fanservice to ridiculous levels, like parts of Queen’s Blade season 2 or Rosario + Vampire.
- Pretty much any show that fails to have a proper ending, either because it just doesn’t or because the manga/light novel is still ongoing (Hajimete no Gal).
- Shows that have such terrible execution, you wonder what’s going on behind the scenes, like King’s Game or Mayoiga: The Lost Village.
- Clever shows that have tons of potential, then don’t do enough with it (DanMachi).
- Shows that have highly developed source material yet move too quickly through it (Danganronpa).
- Good shows that get second seasons, but maybe shouldn’t have. You might list Psycho-Pass or Chu2koi here.
- Popular shows that don’t get another season…until they suddenly do, 10+ years later. Then anime studios wonder why the fans have moved on to other things.
- A small pet peeve is studios who can’t stop re-making the same show over and over again. Do we really need a 30th Monogatari or Fate/* series/movie? I heard an interview with Hitagi voice actress Chiwa Saito about how exhausted she was after completing Bakemonogatari because she’d spoken “a whole year’s worth of lines” after just the first series. I wonder how she feels about the series after making so many more of them.
So, what anime has frustrated you? Tell us on Twitter!
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