13 Anime That Are Just Way Too Long
- Photo:
Pokémon is one of the longest running anime series of all time. While the show is certainly enduringly popular (and a consistent money-maker), that doesn't mean all of its fans are content with the anime running on for so long. Pokémon is a bit of a different case from other long-running anime, however.
The games are still one of Nintendo's best-sellers and even the phone-based Pokémon GO became a global sensation. The problem with the Pokémon franchise is that after all these years, it (ironically) has never really evolved. For more than two decades, we have seen Ash Ketchum attempt to "catch 'em all" as a 10-year-old boy. And for over 20 years the Pokémon anime has been holding on to the same cookie cutter plot lines. It makes the entire series rather predictable. The Pokémon anime just seems to be past its prime with no plans in sight to actually make the series more dynamic and less stagnant.
When it comes to dragging an anime series into the depths of repetitive plots, Detective Conan seems to be a bit of a champion. The anime has aired more than 800 freakin' episodes since it first premiered back in 1996. It actually holds the record as the fifteenth longest-running anime series.
But just having a lot of episodes doesn’t necessarily mean an anime has gone on for too long. The problem with Detective Conan is that after a few seasons it seemed like all the once fascinating detective tricks had been unveiled and recycled far too many times.
- Photo:
The Yu-Gi-Oh! series was easily the most popular "gaming" anime of its time (well, in terms of card games come to life, anyway). Maybe that's why creators felt the need to drag it on for so long. The first season of Yu-Gi-Oh! was a wonderful balance of character development, intense plotlines, and epic battles.
It seems to be the only season that truly understood that while the battles themselves were cool, they meant nothing without a dynamic plot surrounding them. The Duelist Kingdom arc was great for that. Afterwards, however, the series seemed to go off the rails a bit with arcs that focused too heavily on introducing new monsters and new battle mechanics without giving viewers much to enjoy from a storyline or character development perspective. It became a show all about the card battles, while a shallow plot plodded along in the background to make it seem like the duels were necessary.
featured
subscription
free
paid
- Photo:
The Dragon Ball franchise will forever be watched and beloved. Nobody will ever forget anime's longest battle ever between Goku and Frieza. And come on, every time a Saiyan achieved a new level of Super Saiyan, it felt like Christmas regardless of the time of year.
Unfortunately, this series is still trucking on and getting farther and farther away from its awesome roots. There are now a ridiculous amount of different timelines and universes, which means there are also too many different versions of one character. The villains are starting to lose depth in exchange for creators just trying to make a bad guy more powerful than any we have seen before.
All this has done is force the Saiyans to keep getting more powerful in obscure ways —Super Saiyan Blue, anyone? All of this means that human characters are increasingly pointless, since they will immediately be annihilated by any villain they dare try to challenge. The series could have easily ended after Dragon Ball Z and still kept fans happy.
featured
free
- Photo:
The entire Naruto series has more than 600 episodes under its belt between the original series and its successor Naruto: Shippuden. Of course, fans would hardly find reason to complain about Naruto’s length if the anime was packed with original content driving the overarching plot, while also still providing a decent amount of closure on subplots along the way.
Instead, the anime starts to just feel like it never ends. There are a lot of filler episodes that stretch the series out with multiple “big finish” fights that seem like they would be epic enough to end the series. The anime series is just insanely bloated, even down to the final arc.
featured
subscription
free
paid
- Photo:
A whopping 366 episodes of this anime ran between 2004 to 2012, and unsurprisingly the series failed to retain its value throughout the entire stretch. To be clear, Bleach is an anime that deserves what praise it gets. It has an interesting collection of characters, and some story arcs really keep you engaged. That is, until the end of Season 6.
There are no shortage of forums that focus on debating when Bleach should have ended its televised anime series, but no suggestion seems quite as popular as the end of the Arrancar arc. By the end of this narrative, Bleach just seemed to lose its luster in a sea of story arcs that felt repetitive and forced. Seriously, what the hell is a fullbringer?
featured
subscription
free
paid
- 7
Gundam
- Photo:
The Gundam franchise has been running since 1979, and throughout the decades has created a massive and confusing multiverse that can be difficult to keep up with. Sadly enough, it turns out that most of the sagas just aren't worth watching. Despite having more than 30 different sagas and movies throughout the Gundam series, roughly 10 of them are actually worth watching.
The rest seem to sway back and forth between being somewhat amusing and downright flat and one dimensional. Some of them don't even seem to fit well into the Universal Century, which is supposed to serve as the one quasi-foundation among all the different Gundam series.
- 8
Nadia: The Secret Of The Blue Water
- Photo:
Nadia: The Secret of the Blue Water was an anime that was originally slated to end far earlier than it actually did. The series' success encouraged creators to tack on some extra episodes and stretch out the anime, which (of course) ultimately resulted in a huge pile of filler episodes. Episodes 24 - 29 and 32 - 34 add little to no value to the story, which isn't surprising considering they were never originally supposed to be in the series anyway.
featured
paid
- Photo:
Another anime brought down by the desire to keep a good thing going well after its glory days are over, Shakugan no Shana was a big disappointment for many of its fans. The first two seasons were solid and actually enjoyable experiences.
The end of Season 2 brought a decent amount of closure, and it seemed like the show could have easily ended there. Unfortunately, Season 3 came anyway. It had an... interesting premise, but ultimately it failed to lead to a satisfying conclusion.
subscription
free
paid
- Photo:
Black Butler is proof that anime should focus more on quality and less on quantity sometimes. Once a story seems to take a turn for the worse and harm the standard of the storytelling, it’s a good time to end a series.
While the first season of Black Butler was met with rave reviews, many anime fans were disappointed with the second season. There was enough closure at the end of the first season that a second season just wasn't really necessary. Unfortunately, with an overly complicated and rather confusing plot, Season 2 of Black Butler was incredibly weak. It never seemed to regain the magic of its first season.
subscription
free
- Photo:
At a mere 37, Death Note’s total number of episodes doesn’t seem like anything too unusual or extreme. The way the plot carries on and ultimately hits a downward spiral, however, makes the series feel interminable.
Without spoiling the series, there is a clear point in the anime where things take a drastic turn. Two new characters are introduced and are expected to carry the rest of the series. These two newcomers, however, are flat and basically unlikable. What seemed to be an attempt to make the series unpredictable and dramatic really felt like an attempt to keep a popular anime going for the sake of easy ratings.
featured
subscription
free
paid
- Photo:
Rurouni Kenshin didn’t have a particularly long runtime, and part of the reason why is because fans quickly grew bored and uninterested with the overall story arc (because it felt like pure filler content). Once the Kyoto story arc was finished, it seemed like a great time for Rurouni Kenshin to wrap things up.
Unfortunately, it just kept going. Since Rurouni Kenshin had a pretty mature fan base compared to other anime, it’s no surprise that the remaining episodes of shallow content drove viewership way down. Ultimately, it just resulted in a lot of head scratching when the show suddenly vanished from Toonami’s lineup.
- Photo:
Yu Yu Hakusho is largely considered an anime classic, but that doesn't mean it didn't go on longer than necessary. The entire series was focused on building up to the Dark Tournament arc, which clearly served as the climax of the overarching story. At the end of this arc, however, the anime just kept on going.
What made the continuation of Yu Yu Hakusho particularly troublesome is that everything that happened after the Dark Tournament arc seemed to negate the entire adventure and Yusuke's overall development as a character. From this point forward, the series seemed to be competing with every episode before it to see just how dark and eerie things could get inside the Yu Yu Hakusho universe. In the end, it just really took the magic out of the entire series.
featured
subscription
paid
