What anime do you believe could've been a masterpiece, but messed up?

ChunTales said:
Sword Art Online
- The first episode had a lot of potential with the story and characters and the beautiful animation and amazing soundtrack just added to the epic experience of an MMORPG. However, throughout the series, the story just falls apart. The following few episodes seemed like a harem as one episode would revolve around a female that was never really emphasized later on, making it seem just like a useless episode. Also, the main female lead's relationship with the main character just seemed like an unrealistic and forced relationship. The first half of the series was okay, but definitely could've been much better in terms of story and characters. The second half was much more disappointing from the extremely flawed story, ridiculous villain, and weird love relationship with his sister. The overall series just felt like a missed opportunity.

Code Geass R2
- R2, in my opinion, was not as great as R1. The good qualities about R2 was definitely the ending, animation, and backstory of some of the characters. However, the strategic element of the series did not seem as fleshed out as it was in R1. In R1, you really had no idea what the outcome of some of the battles were gonna be and really was a clash between wit and reflexes. Yet in R2, most of the battles just seemed to have just sheer force involved through the use overpowered abilities. Also, some characters sometimes went through complete 180 when it came to development such as with Lelouch and Suzaku and some new characters weren't as interesting or well developed. By the end, it was a satisfying and memorable experience, but R2 falls just short from the awesomeness of R1.

Mirai Nikki
- The beginning of the series had a lot of promise. An all out brawl between totally messed up and mentally deranged individuals? Very interesting. A lot of the episodes were very interesting to watch and the female lead was definitely the driving force for the series. However, during the last episodes, it was a bit hit or miss for me. There were some great moments, there were some downright "what the hell" moments. Overall, it was okay, but it could've been much better when it came to the last couple episodes.

DramaEnthusiast said:
Of all the anime in the world that isn't already considered to be perfect or nearly perfect, what anime do you believe has the potential to really become a classic to be remembered forever, but due to some ridiculous circumstance, it failed?

I can't stop thinking about Angel Beats! really. It had amazing animation, an amazing soundtrack, and a fantastic setting, a rich cast of likable characters, but you can easily tell, the anime desperately squandered under the dreaded 13 Episode cap. When the anime looked like it had time for more than thirteen episodes and focused on the character development, it was truly something that could've been a 10/10. The more constrained it got towards the end however, it just fucked up so hard with that inane Shadow plot arc, and the majority of the cast not having any legitimate backstories to be told. It was saved by that ending, but it stumbled so hard...I don't know who fucked it up, or came up with the idea to make it thirteen episodes, but I swear to god I heard it was going to be 24 episodes at one point.

What could've been the best Key animation ever made, is now remembered as their greatest failure.

MoldyCereal said:
Sword Art Online. Excellent premise, flawless animation, amazing battle scenes, and the soundtrack was made by a modern Mozart.

The story and characters on the other hand....

Toucanbird said:

Sword Art Online - Let's face it. It had the source material, it had the premise, and it had the production to pull off being a masterpiece. Boy, did it ever fail. The problem I felt with this series had is it tried to cover two arcs in one season when it just needed to stick with the Aincrad arc. I felt the characters needed more development and the Aincrad arc was too fragmented.

MoldyCereal said:
Sword Art Online... soundtrack was made by a modern Mozart.

Rinth said:


The Aincrad arc covered the original volume 1, 4 side stories from volume 2, 1 side story from volume 7 and 1 chapter from Progression series volume 1. They literally dug up everything they could get their hands on that's related to Aincrad. The original Aincrad arc was written for a novel prize, had strict word limits, and can be finished in an anime in 6 episodes.

There simply isn't enough content for an entire 25 episodes season based on Aincrad alone. The original SAO story had very short chapters, and covered only events in the first few hours of the game, and events from level 74 onwards . I know what you mean though. I'd like there to be more on Aincrad, and that was my impression even from reading the light novels. However, it's simply impossible to correct that "flaw" without significantly modifying the original story.