Top 25 Anime You Wish Hadn’t Happened

Blaming the rest of the franchise for this isn't anyone's fault but your own, by the way. The mistake that was Endless Eight is a self-contained element, and it turns out I actually skipped one episode and didn't realize it ^^ Either way, just recognize that you're feeling betrayed by something that has no way of betraying you. If you already know it was meant to be handled in a single loop, then you already have the means to know that it wasn't the mistake of the franchise, but of the director.

K-on!! being on this list though just makes me kind of facepalm. I actually want more K-on. I enjoy watching them play around. It's no different than Azumanga Daioh or any of the other random-ass episodic anime out there. I can't even imagine the day when these idiots actually realize that they have the power to just not watch things they don't want to see.

And Madoka is a double-edged sword. The series was only memorable because of its very present and unpredictable drama. Remove those aspects, and it's just a magical girl anime. The darkness was the only real twist.

As they say, sometimes it only takes one bad experience to sour you on an entire franchise. For those of us who were watching the episodes as they came out, there was no way to no how long they had planned to keep going with that. To have been strung along for two months, keeping on with it for love of the franchise and wanting to see other parts of the story animated only to be spit on, yes that is the fault of the director. However, the blame isn't solely with him. Nor is it with the fans who wanted to see a good adaptation of a novel they quite liked only to be trolled and have over half the season wasted. Ultimately, the original author is responsible for how his story is adapted. Just as, for instance, if you had a bad experience at a beach it may sour you on beach visits in the future, sometimes just part of a show may ruin the whole series for you. You can see that in a lot of the entries on this list.

As far as K-On, well, it is different from those shows in that it's not really funny. While they're all slice-of-life, the other shows are "slice of life with crazy hijinx and jokes", while K-On is just "cute girls existing." It's not that people are idiots and watching things they don't want to see, but rather that because K-On existed and is so popular, the market is utterly flooded with moeblobs at the expense of every other genre. I don't watch reality shows, but my problem with them isn't that they exist, but because they're 90% of what's on television nowadays. If Survivor never having aired meant there would be much more variety and quality in television today, you bet I'd wish it never existed.

And as far as Madoka...well, I think it's less about the series and more about it's rabid fans, and how overrated it is.

Arc spanning filler material in general can be quite frustrating, especially when the series itself may not be particularly long.
Playing about with the episode or plot order can be similarly off-putting; i just recently started watching Haruhi, following the 'Kyon' sequencing and opening with the film project. I thought i'd somehow managed skip episodes and mix the order up myself; it was only after i checked that i realised the director had done it for me.

I can't disagree with you about reality shows, personally. I find those who enjoy the majority of them to be as dumb as the shows themselves (and I must admit, watching one episode of Repo Games makes it exceptionally difficult to not be racist), however there is something that should be recognized, and that's the flow of the desires that people have. If you follow the nature of the world, you'll see the ebb and flow of how our literature and media evolves based on our situation.

For example, in America back in the 70s and 80s, that tumultuous time brought about a lot of 'one man taking on army' hero level events. Vietnam and Korea and the dissolving of our national unity lead to the Hero overflow. In the late 80s and 90s, people began getting sick of it, and the 90s birthed a more intellectual hero suspense approach since we were sick of simplicity in heroes and villains, and comedy movies balanced them out like "Coming to America." Now in the 2000s, that continued for a bit, but you could see the fantastical element being brought back in, started by the Matrix and solidified by Lord of the Rings' return, around the turn of the millenium. You have recognition of elements outside ourselves having influence, but less like the gods of greek myth, and more like humanity discovering its powers beyond itself.

These days, with the world just perpetually acting like it's trying to shake us off, many people are recognizing they just want to have fun with friends and enjoy life in its simple elements and slow things down. And K-on exists for those reasons. The High School Life boom is not so much an abnormality, but a nostalgic draw. And these days, life is complicated enough without having world-destruction shows all over the place. Sometimes there is just a beauty and charm to enjoying watching friends being friends on a bad day.

So don't worry. You'll still get your "Breaking Bad" and "Walking Dead" on top of the reality shows to keep the balance, and anime is the same way. Just watch what you want and be patient. The world will shift again shortly.

Anon 6:28

That introduction is one of the reasons Haruhi is one of the greatest series to me. It's unfortunate that such a brilliant choice when airing the first season was countered by such a catastrophic failure when airing the second. Making you actually have to notice things and piece together what was happening in the movie episode with some pretty obvious clues, but clearly not holding your hand, was absolutely brilliant, because not only did you get to know the characters through how they acted badly and responded to the bad acting, but it was just hilarious how perfect all the random things going 'wrong' in the background fit something you'd totally see in amateur movies.

nah, after the second episode it was pretty obvious to tell how many episodes they were going to make it. Anyone telling themselves otherwise was just living in fantasy land, sad to say...

Watching the first, second, and 8th episode was more than enough to get the "whole" experience of all 8 episodes.