Slow-Paced Beginnings in Anime and Manga.
- The first four episodes of Attack on Titan are somewhat slow after the Titan attack at the start of the series, focusing on character interactions and world-building. Once the Titans show up in Episode 5 and all hell breaks loose, though, the show picks up and becomes a much more enjoyable watch. Though this only occurs in the anime; in the manga, the author chose to put the training mini-arc after the Trost battle was over, probably because he precisely wanted to avoid this trope. The drawback being that we are introduced to a lot of characters we don't know anything about right off the bat.
- The anime version of Black Clover stretches 3 chapters into 5 episodes and takes the entire first episode before Asta gets his Grimoire. These episodes are slow and are filled with flashbacks. The series doesn't pick up until Asta joins the Black Bulls and then picks up faster once the Bulls enter the first Dungeon.
- Delicious in Dungeon takes a while to get going due to the Gag Series episodic feel at the start where Team Touden is mainly just going around the dungeon's first floors killing and eating whatever monster they come across. It only starts to delve into deeper storytelling once they encounter the Orc Chief in chapter 9, and Kabru's party gets introduced in chapter 10. The Red Dragon arc though is where things really get kicked up a notch.
- Digimon Tamers starts like a Slice of Life show with mons, battling the Monster of the Week and exploring the character's lives and personalities. Then they go to the Digital World with lots of hopes and dreams. THEN, Episode 34 happens and everything gets weird. The difference is quite shocking, to say the least. Word of God says this was intentional.
- Eureka Seven. In its earliest episodes, it seems like an average Shōnen series with a whiny Emo Teen protagonist; however, it improves as we learn more about the characters and their world, and it's the love story between Renton and Eureka that really sells it.
- The first episode of Fate/Zero is twice as long as the others, and mainly consists of the participants in the Holy Grail War delivering exposition about the war and preparing to summon their Servants.
- The anime adaptation of Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] begins with a double-length episode from Rin's POV that leads into her involvement in the Holy Grail War, followed by another double-length episode from Shirou's POV. This is then followed by Rin and Shirou going to meet with Kotomine, and things only pick up when Illya and Berserker attack.
- Season 1 of Fist of the North Star is pretty slow due to the large amounts of filler episodes and plot rearrangements done to keep the show from overtaking the manga, which was in the middle of the Cassandra Arc at the time,Explanation and the rather shoddy animation can be very off-putting to a first-time viewer. However, after Shin's defeat in the season finale, the show really picks things up and the rest of the show is faster-paced and more faithful to the source work, and the animation gradually starts to improve after the massive Animation Bump that came with the first Kenshiro vs. Raoh fight. Comparing the first season to the fourth, the latter is considerably better-paced, with filler being carefully intertwined with the source material's plot rather than having every filler story get pasted somewhere in the middle, and the animation is very detailed and pleasing to look at compared to Season 1's.
- An inverted example with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. One problem several people have with the show is that its first thirteen episodes cram about thirty chapters worth of material into them, compared to Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) which takes around thirty episodes to cover and expand the same amount of material with some light filler, resulting in the first fifth or so of Brotherhood coming across at a rushed pace. This can be particularly troublesome for those who are more familiar with the 2003 anime than the manga and aren't aware of the second one being more faithful. Once Brotherhood fully diverges from what was shown in the 2003 anime, however, while some material is still trimmed, it gradually slows down to a much more manageable pace without seeming too drastic.
- Heat Guy J appears to have attempted this, and suffered a Cosmic Deadline. It starts out very slowly and ends on quite an action-packed note, but many fans dropped off before even making it halfway through.
- The first couple episodes of the 1999 Hunter × Hunter anime are rather slow-paced and generic, in part due to Filler and Padding of the source material, and also having to establish the typical Shōnen tropes it would later deconstruct. Once things get darker, and the deconstructive elements actually start to show, the story and characters become more psychological and compelling (though the Padding never actually goes away). Also, the second anime has been criticized for repeating the same event from the first anime series while ignoring likable parts and even cutting parts from the first manga chapter. However, after 60 episodes the series will cover for the first time the material the first anime never adapted.
- I Am a Hero spends the first two hundred pages making you suffer through the everyday trials and tribulations of the protagonist before it actually gets on with the plot. To say it starts slow is like saying continental drift takes a while.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Part 1, Phantom Blood starts off as a generic period drama about an English nobleboy whose life is turned upside-down by his evil adoptive brother Dio Brando; it isn't until Dio becomes a vampire that the manga undergoes a massive Genre Shift into action-horror and the adventure truly becomes as bizarre as the series title claims.
- Part 4, Diamond Is Unbreakable, has an unfocused plot at first, with the only overarching goal being finding the bow and arrow, while the heroes encounter a long series of Plot Irrelevant Villains who only get minor appearances afterwards (if they show up again at all). But once the Big Bad, Yoshikage Kira, makes his appearance, everything gets kicked up a notch and for this reason, part 4 is a common sight in the high rankings of many a fan's favorite parts list.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha starts off like it's going to be a standard Magical Girl show with a Gotta Catch 'Em All plot, but a few episodes in, it changes, as Nanoha runs into Fate Testarossa who is out to stop Nanoha and is more powerful, better trained, and a lot more desperate to complete the task.
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED is rather slow-paced for the first 30 or so episodes (basically, every episode generally follows the ZAFT-attacks-Kira-saves-the-day routine; that these episodes are more or less a remake of the original Gundam series doesn't exactly help), but after a few Wham Episodes SEED finally escapes this routine and sets off on a path to its own original, epic Grand Finale. To its defense, the first episodes do a good job of familiarizing and endearing the characters to the audience.
- Monster suffers from a first book/few episodes filled with mustache-twirling villains and a protagonist who is a little bit too pure to be interesting. Fortunately, the villains become more complex and the series pulls back the focus a bit from the overly pure character for some more interesting ones.
- Pacing issues like this are one of the biggest obstacles for new readers of the Negima! Magister Negi Magi manga; the first few volumes of the series are a fairly generic Love Hina-ish Unwanted Harem comedy series, and the actual plot doesn't show up until around at least chapter 15, and even then it isn't until around half a dozen volumes in that the series hits its stride. The official translation makes it worse, as the adapter of the first few volumes didn't realize that the early chapters do contain some important characterization and foreshadowing, so a lot of it ended up getting cut, bordering on a Macekre and making the opening material even weaker.
- One Piece suffers this through various ways. The actual beginning of the story is notably not as action heavy as later arcs, and has been negatively compared to some of its contemporaries (Naruto and Bleach). Fans often state that "once you get to Arlong Park, the series gets REAL good"). Later arcs in the story will also spend several chapters building up the location and the characters in it (Wano being a good example).
- PandoraHearts can be difficult for new readers in the beginning due to its Jigsaw Puzzle Plot nature. Interestingly, it isn't because of a lack of action, but rather because of the many odd occurrences that are given no explanation or context to help the reader understand. The Cheshire Arc is where many fans believe the story truly begins to hit its stride, acting as a clarifying point for what the varying goals of the main characters are, and from there the reading experience improves drastically.
- Perfect Blue, while often considered to be one of the great Psychological Horror movies, and possibly the greatest where anime is concerned, takes a while to pick up. Until the first victim dies about a third of the way in, what we get is mostly exposition and foreshadowing, and the freaky scenes that do pop up almost come off as the filmmakers saying to the audience, "Wait for it..." Once "it" happens, however, the horror really begins, and that's when you see what all the fuss is about.
- A common criticism of Pokémon Horizons: The Series is that the plot in the initial episodes takes a while to really get going. The "Liko and Roy's Departure" storyline doesn't really pick up until the characters visit Paldea and Galar. The "Terapagos' Shine" storyline is a bit better about this.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica: To transcribe the average reaction:Episode One: Seen It A Million Times. Horror, Scenery Porn, but otherwise meh.
Episode Two: Oookay, little Darker and Edgier, but whatever.
Episode Three: HOLY SHIT!
Episodes Four through Twelve: ...meep! - Rave Master has a slow start and poor artwork at the beginning of the manga. It isn't really until Sieg shows up that the series really kicks into gear, even if he leaves shortly afterward. This leads to the infamous Tower of Din arc, and the story escalates from there.
- The first 50 or so chapters of the manga Reborn! (2004) are just there to introduce the characters and the world. It would be easy to think it was a comedy manga instead of the actual high-paced action manga it evolved into.
- It can be very hard for a contemporary viewer to understand the hype behind the original anime for Sailor Moon. When marathoned, the first few episodes are Strictly Formula, and watching the same recycled animation can be very tedious after a while. Once the initial three are assembled though, the story becomes more complex and character-driven. When people praise the show, they generally talk about the second half of the first season, as well as R and S. You just have to sit through ten boring and repetitive episodes to get there.
- The first season of Slayers can seem rather directionless, with the humor and pacing kind of awkward for most of the first half, not helped by a rather mediocre English dubbing if you're watching that. By the time Amelia is introduced though, the show starts finding its groove although others think the show only got good when Sylphiel was introduced in episode 18. On top of that, the English dub gets better halfway through the season when Veronica Taylor and Crispin Freeman join the cast and really give Zel and Amelia their voices. It also starts off a more interesting plot and introduces cooler villains, like Zangulus and Vrumugun, who continue to chase the heroes so even the filler episodes don't feel so pointless. By NEXT, the show really finds its stride, reaching its signature level of humor and solidifying the characters' personalities and quirks, as well as having what is arguably the best plot and character development in the whole franchise.
- Space Battleship Yamato gets off to a slow start in both of its seasons, though the exposition and character introductions are interesting. For a show dealing with a giant space Battleship, the Yamato doesn't lift off and fly from earth until the end of the third episode.
- The anime adaptation of Steins;Gate is so infamous for this that it is unofficially dubbed the "Steins;Gate effect". The show takes 12 episodes (out of a total of 24) to establish its characters, setting, and mechanics of time travel. Once it reaches the second half, however, it becomes much more fast-paced and plot-driven.
- Sword Art Online: The Alicization arc begins with a young Kirito and Eugeo chopping away at a massive tree and hanging out with their mutual friend Alice. They then go to a cave in the End Mountains, resulting in Alice being arrested and taken away. The story returns to the real world, with Kirito discussing his work with Asuna and Shino, eventually leading to Kirito being attacked and the story beginning. The opening episodes provide necessary exposition and show events that become important later, but it takes a while for the arc to get going.
- Very few people have actually made it past the first three episodes of Texhnolyze, if not the pilot. It isn't until halfway through the first episode that the first line of dialogue is spoken.
- There are often complaints that roughly the first third of Trigun (the anime) is silly, stupid and episodic, with only vague allusions to the fact that Vash's story is remotely deep or complicated. With the arrival of Nicholas D. Wolfwood (episode 9), Legato Bluesummers and the Gung-Ho Guns (episode 12), the story arc of the series actually begins. Ironically when the reboot Trigun Stampede came out, fans felt it was too rushed.
- You can read the first couple chapters of Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- and then skip around 90 chapters (a little over a third of the manga's run). Story arcs before then have very little to do with the overall larger story, save for a handful of minor events, and can be summed up as "Syaoran and Co. travelled to X world to solve X problem and get a feather".
- Wedding Peach got a very bad reputation when it first made its way to the West due to this. Animerica magazine slammed the show in its review, although it was clear to anyone acquainted with the series that the reviewer had only seen the first six or seven dubbed episodes. After Jama-P stops being the Monster of the Week every episode due to a Heel–Face Turn and weddings become simply a motif and not the central focus of each episode, the series improves greatly.
- The first half of the first season of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX was so full of pointless filler duels, it hurts. By the second half of the season, it gets a bit better, and it gets a lot better once season three comes around.
- Something similar can be said of Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL. About half of the first 26 episodes are little more than Monster of the Week scenarios where the only plot progression is Yuma obtaining another Number from a random duelist. While Kaito does spice things up a bit, it's not until the Arclight siblings arrive that the plot is primarily moved by Number Hunters.
- The start of Yuri is My Job! tends to turn off many potential viewers. The first scene after the flash-forward has protagonist Hime Shiraki establish herslf as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing whose goal is to marry a wealthy husband(although it later turns out that there's more to her character than this). Then, in a development highly reminiscent of Ouran High School Host Club, Hime accidentally injures the owner of a salon and is forced to work at the salon while the manager's arm heals, with Mitsuki Yano being immediately hostile to Hime despite acting like a kind Onee-sama while "in character". Most of the first volume deals with Hime's misadventures at the salon, and it's only at the end that it's revealed that Mitsuki is Hime's former friend from elementary school, which sets the stage for the major plotline of their reconciliation.
