The "Most Overrated Anime" thread.

Someone is going to get stabbed by the end of this topic and I know it, but hay, who doesn't like a good discussion amirite? Basically just wanted to see what anime people think is way overhyped and personally don't like or think are just not good period.

I do not really like Sword Art Online and I swear people want to shiv me everytime I say it. I really, really enjoyed the first couple of episodes... like my mind was blown and I was ready for something just as great but it got progressively worse at an extremely fast rate for me to the point were I dropped it entirely. What felt like the next .Hack/ epic with a great premise felt more like it wanted to drop retard girls and terrible plot developments on instead. The plot armor in the show was so thick that any sort of drama or tension was non-existent as well.

At this point in time I'm pretty sure the writer of Naruto has no clue what he's doing, because what once was a charming and average anime about ninjas doing ninja things turned into wizards throwing planet destruction Kamehamehas at each other. Seriously, the last ninja-like character introduced was Itachi and Saucegay was complaining about him since day one so he wasn't a new concept. I thought the early villians of Naruto were pretty interesting, but make way for Sharkman, a fly trap and a Paperboy and these villains aren't even recent. Glad the hype on Naruto has died down because it I once found it average, now it's just kind of awful.

I'll post more as I remember more. WHAT DO YOU GUISE THINK?

There's a lot of overrated stuff as of lately so it seems. Here's my list:

- Naruto
- Bleach
- Dragon Ball Z
- My Little Pony
- Sword Art Online

Personally, I don't like Naruto nor Bleach. I mean, sure I love sword fighting and all, but the truth is I don't find the samurai/Dragon Ball fighting scenes all too interesting, nor does Naruto seem that appealing. Plus, they're only milking both of those nowadays, so I can safely say that it wouldn't be worth the watch. Also, it's too long, and with what little time I can find to watch either shows, it still wouldn't be enough.

Of course, we all love Dragon Ball Z, and even if not, everyone knows about it. I admit, I used to love DBZ waaaaaay back when I was a tee-wee little teenager. Now I look back at it and I realize how silly I've been; the plot was generic mainly because the show focused on the fighting scenes, although that was seemingly fun to watch, and the show moved way too slow for any anime I can remember (a better turtle than the original YGO). Despite the flaws, DBZ still had reasons to as why it turned out as a very popular anime, but I mean c'mon guys, it's twenty years or so old already.

And now for the notorious show that's been driving anti-bronies and their grandmas crazy. I used to love the show because of the good writing albeit being a show for little girls, and the characters stood out and were all lovable. I loved the first season, was okay with the second, but lost interest in the third after watching the premier that wasn't that good to be frank. Now, the show in itself is fine, it's the community I have issues with. The show has given bronies a sense of confidence which they should not have gained. It's annoying to talk to someone who only wants to talk about ponies, and when you disagree with him or try to change the topic, he just leaves. Also, some bronies think that the show should be treated equally like everything else, and disregard everyone else's privacy just so he or she can enjoy his ponies. Imagine a big buffed-up guy who plays MLP songs for four hours on the jukebox of the restaurant you're working in, and you couldn't say anything about it, because it's happened once. Plus, the way some of them force you to watch the show and then call you a "close-minded spoiled brat" if you refuse like a bunch of hypocrites. Aside from the songs, the show is great, but I hate the fandom, and I think MLP has the worst kind of fanbase ever, a record the Sonic fanbase held until recently.

Now SAO stole a lot of glory by the time it came out. I remember once when everyone went Sword-Art-crazy at a time on the forum. Now I haven't really watched the show, but by the reaction from all the watchers, I'd say it's an okay anime. Personally, I don't feel like watching it, but who knows? Maybe I could end up just doing that eventually.

Well what comes to mind would be SAO, Naruto, Bleach, the usual stuff.

and Boku no Pic- *shot*

Tbh, I can see Haruhi Suzumiya being overrated. Shoot me down, I'm still a Haruhiist myself. I also say Soul Eater and Hitman Reborn are overrated.

DigiDigi wrote:

Tbh, I can see Haruhi Suzumiya being overrated. Shoot me down, I'm still a Haruhiist myself. I also say Soul Eater and Hitman Reborn are overrated.

Have to agree on the Soul Eater one. Couldn't get into it no matter how much I tried.

I'd add in Guilty Crown, but it's already not well liked by some people.(I don't get why anyone likes it AT ALL for the story. The only good thing about it are the visuals and the soundtracks.)

When you omit the fillers, imo bleach is one of the better anime. It's one of those I will watch over and over by skipping the fillers (I am pretty close to memorizing the episode numbers fillers begin and end, just to make it easier on myself when I want to catch me some good bleach action), I would recommend it and I would say it is amazing, again if you skip the fillers. That is until Tite Kubo got bored. And that turning point (of tite kubo showing signs of being bored, not starting to be bored, I wouldn't know when that was) was right about the finale of the hueco mundo stuff, around the Uluqiora fight and certainly after Ichigo returned to the real world. It may not have been visible in the anime, but that was because they would squeeze over 5 manga chapters in each episode. Tite Kubo at the time would waste pages upon pages, sometimes having a black page with only a phrase on it, resulting in a manga chapter occuring in a time frame of less than a minute (and which bleach manga fan will forget Tite Kubo becoming completely bored with making up titles and naming 23 chapters in a row "Decide" towards the end of the Aizen arc, making you think that this isn't bleach anymore, it's just that new manga, Decide). From that point, yes, it has been getting "meh" in many parts.

This is an actual spoiler:

And yes, if we factor fillers in, it is highly overrated. But I won't say its content falls to the level of Naruto. And yes, lately all bleach battles involving Ichigo can be explained in a simple flowchart:
Is Ichigo massively stronger than his opponent?
If yes: Proceed to swiftly win with a short dramatic emotional moment
If no: Proceed to become massively stronger than opponent, then return to beginning

DBZ may have many generic aspects and stuff that got old in it, but let's be honest, they are generic and they got old BECAUSE DBZ did them. For its time it was great, and to be honest I love the drawn out fights. I hate how fights lately are either replaced by pieces of soap opera, like naruto, or are simply about who will get the instant power up first. It's like all proper fighting has been left to giant robots. DBZ had the power up issue, but they also had big, proper fights. We may whine about frieza's 5 minutes but I love how that battle would continue. Buu was not the most impactful villain ever, but I loved the stages that battle took and how in the end they would try to tag team him and coming up with a strategy instead of trying to just get insanely more powerful than their opponent. If you don't consider its time and are to compare it with everything out right now, true dbz is not among the best. However I wouldn't say it gets old or bad until you watch it at least once. To someone that has not watched DB and DBZ, I would just recommend to watch them, they are worth the time. And yes, it is overrated, but mostly outside of anime related circles or among very young kinds.

The issue that comes up most often with overrated anime is vanilla. You keep an anime as generic as possible and with as little "flavour" as possible, so that more people will like it. Despite it being mediocre, its very wide acceptance rate is translated directly into popularity, and may be perceived as quality. 2 Vanillas have been brought up, Naruto and SAO. Just like Tite Kubo, Masashi Kishimoto is tired and he hates his job. Bleach and Naruto were probably meant to be shorter than that, or at least differently paced, but they were popular so they had to continue. That in bleach translated into black pages. That in naruto translated into plain boring. And it's understandable, it's been so long, what's weird is people like Eichiro Oda and Sorachi Hideaki being still interested in their stuff, goddamn heroes. I'd say Naruto even before that was not really amazing. For its time it was above average, certainly, but what it owes its popularity to is the vanilla status of wide acceptability, throw in something for everyone, don't make it too disagreeable, make it easy to understand, do stuff that works. Sorry if I sound biased, but I could never take naruto seriously, perhaps due to its generic soap opera, perhaps because it was always so easy to miss who the main character is.

I've gone through some issues of SAO in the SAO thread, and I truly believe it's way too vanilla, which is why people are going crazy about it. At least in bleach ichigo usually has to go through the process of becoming overpowered to go for his battles. No such issue in SAO, you become overpowered off screen so you have more time to spend on the issues that really matter in an mmo, girls and relationships.

The third big overrated vanilla that has not being mentioned is Fairy Tail. I will admit I am watching it. That does not change its enormous vanilla status. The depth of any given character is paper thin, and the motives of characters, especially of main characters, don't go much further (I do it because "nakama". Not because the "nakama" do/say something, not because something happens to said "nakama" or anything like that, no, just "nakama", that is the full reason, every goddamn time). The only interesting guy in is Jellal, who would be average in any decent story, but stands out in Fairy Tail as he is the only character with at least a sliver of depth (the itachi equivalent of fairy tail, and while he is not as deep, fairy tail actually manages to have a significantly smaller average character depth than naruto, so it matches). Any development a character may get they manage to completely lose in just a few episodes, unless they become an entirely different character. Of course, vanilla means it is widely acceptable, easy to understand (painfully so), tries to slightly appeal to many different target groups without being disagreeable. And while it is a bit annoying when it happens in One Piece, you can forgive it because it is a great anime and you know there is more to it (except from fillers/movie fillers, there they take the entire book from fairy tail, latest Z promo episodes for example), in Fairy Tail it's much different, and I'm talking about annoying speech patterns here. Every side character and especially villains is completely defined by a weird speech pattern, with its character starting and ending in the way they end their sentences (unless they are overly emo to compensate). It has often annoyed me to the point of wanting to hit something. Ok, I get it, you are so different than the last generic pointless villain, so please, I beg you, stop adding that incomprehensible, pointless noise to the end of your sentences already, it hurts my brain. And what is a main character again? Idunno, fairy tail certainly doesn't know either.
And again, despite all that, it's vanilla so it's insanely popular.

I didn't say anything on Bleach or Fairy Tail because both of them I haven't actually sat down and watch, otherwise I'd have more to say on them. Soul Eater I quit before I gave it a chance so while I want to agree, it wouldn't be justified, lol.

DigiDigi wrote:

Tbh, I can see Haruhi Suzumiya being overrated.

I actually 100% agree with that and didn't care for the show all that much, if only for the fact that Suzumiya absolutely grinds my nerves in every possible way and Endless Eight was the stupidest experiment in existence... though I do think "Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi" was like... the best thing ever and made watching the show worth it.

Kimo Force wrote:

- My Little Pony

*gasp*