Works that surpassed your expectations

Sometimes, when you read/watch/play a work that is highly acclaimed, you find yourself actually being disappointed, because it didn't meet your expectations. Sometimes when you RWP a work that is supposedly bad...you get exactly what you expected.

There are times, though, when you RWP a work with high expectations...it turns out even better. You check out a work without much expectations, and it turns out to be surprisingly good.

What are some works that surpassed your expectations?

As for me, it would be The Shawshank Redemption and Casablanca. Not only were they deep and emotional, they were also insanely entertaining and completely satisfying. (if you watched them, you'd know exactly which parts I'm talking about).

Green Lantern The Animated Series.

I thought it was going to be some stupid kid's show to cash in on the Green Lantern movie, but it was actually really emotionally engaging.

That's the most recent one that I've seen, anyway.

My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic (my reactions were a bit like Midna's initially) and the original Full Metal Alchemist anime.

edited 10th Jul '14 9:28:06 PM by terlwyth

House of Anubis- I originally was complaining about a show I didn't watch, but when I actually watched it, I enjoyed it despite the flaws.

Also,

Happy Gilmore

Another one was Stargate SG 1.

I had actually seen some of it first and didn't care for it, but then I watched it from beginning to end as opposed to random episodes on tv and it was excellent.

The reason I thought it was meh, is because I didn't understand it. There's a lot of continuity and it's very serialized.

edited 10th Jul '14 6:48:05 PM by BaconManiac5000

I used to love that programme, until it turned into Farscape for some reason.

Yeah, so did I.

They just brought in the two Farscape characters and are like "Here's characters you love from Farscape!" and I'm thinking "Uh, who the hell are these guys?"

Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm A Supervillain.

Wasn't expecting much, tbh. It's a young adult book and I eventually got my hands burned off with the last Harry Potter... thing. But I have to say it's utterly brilliant as a piece of work. I love it. The characters, plot, setting, motivations, scenarios etc are really good at making me go "Sense of disbelief? What's that?"

The Vampire Diaries (the TV series, and only season 1—I haven't yet seen any of the other seasons):

I expected something pretty vapid and uninteresting, but found some interesting characters, enjoyable setting, vampires that manage to convey both their dangerous, predatory side and their continuing humanity (as well as a decent enough explanation for that dichotomy), and an enjoyable selection of other supernatural elements.

In particular, having read about Twilight's lamented female lead, I was quite impressed by two of the main female characters: Elena, despite being the local muggle, often manages to be strong and proactive, entering situations well beyond her theoretical power-level; Bonnie, on the other hand, is genuinely powerful, and is fairly well handled as a character, I feel.

Another work that comes to mind is the Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant: I went in fearing a fairly shallow cash-in on Tolkien's work, but while there are similarities (and I might write a longer post on this topic in the Literature forum some day), I was quite impressed by Donaldson's world.

(I will confess that it's a bit on the turgid side, however—and that from someone who likes The Lord Of The Rings.)

edited 10th Jul '14 7:08:14 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

My reaction to MLP can be summed up as thus:

• What the... is that a My Little Pony? Seriously? Why do you have a My Little Pony as your avatar, that shit is for like 7-year-olds.
• Why do you have a different My Little Pony as your avatar?
• Why does EVERYONE have a My Little Pony as their avatar
• "Bronies"? Are you serious?
• Fine. Fine. I'll watch your dumb pony show.
• ...
• ...
• ...
• You know, this is actually kind of good.
• Really good.
• Brony is still a stupid name though.

Hart of Dixie.

Shut up. So I like sappy, nothing-that-major-ever-really-happens, comedy-soap-opera things. I admit it. I blame The Wife.

Revolutionary Girl Utena.

Because the amount of symbolism and subtlety in the relationship between Anthy and Utena is not only huge, but well written and made.

My reaction to MLP: FIM was about the same as Midna's, except the part about "brony" being a stupid name.

Steven Universe. My brain often gets snagged on anything with a fantasy element, and the art style with the "star" motif didn't seem overly appealing at first. But this show has enough down-to-earthness not to trip me up, and lots and lots of feels moments. And the art style has grown on me massively.

Office Space. I went in expecting nothing but the same stale "dumb/boring boss, stale coffee, pointless paperwork, nothing you haven't seen a billion times in Dilbert" kind of office "humor" that I think pencil-pushers find funny only because the jobs have sucked their souls out. The first part of the film does have a lot of that, so it wasn't grabbing me much at first. But then it went off in its own direction and I was thinking, "oh, okay, I can get behind this, this is pretty funny and engaging now!"

Also, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, for me, went something like this.

• I don't "get" the superhero thing. It all seems so boring. The costumes look dumb, and why bother when we know they're gonna win?
• Hmm, I'm at a con, and the only other thing going on at the moment is a Steam Powered Giraffe concert. There's a multiplex right in the office/hotel/retail complex that the con's in, and Winter Soldier is showing…
• I am so gonna regret spending this $7.50.
• Wait, who's that? What's going on? Who's that? What's going on?!
• Oh hey, that was funny. That was touching. That was badass.
• Who's THAT?! WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?!
• Oh, okay, that's who that was, that's what was going on, and that's who that was.
• You know what, that was pretty damn good. I might want to check out more of the Marvel Cinematic Universe when I can.

I had a similar "delayed reaction to awesomeness" when I watched the first two Terminator movies. First one was actually kinda underwhelming, but the second one took me about an hour of processing what I'd seen before I realized I'd seen some awesome shit. Aw, don't let Arnold die! His character's a good guy now!

Kotoura-san. I cannot Entry Pimp this show enough! It's probably the greatest Cerebus Rollercoaster known to fiction despite being a Romantic Comedy, and it has so many Hidden Depths that are subtly and intelligently ingrained into the show. The characters all have unique touches to their typical archetypes to make them powerfully motivated enough to drive the plot, and the Character Development is among the most dynamic I've ever seen. Then, there's the music... Damn! It's either Playing the Heart Strings to excellent effect and/or being an enjoyable Ear Worm. Sadly, many elitists have missed the point entirely and don't care to think about what they've watched.

Corrector Yui. A Magical Girl in Cyberspace? Okay, that's pretty unique for 1999-2000! The main character is one of the earliest Otaku Surrogates in Anime with an interesting and hilarious personality to boot? Yes please! The Big Bad and his minions are rouge A.I. who try to exploit Everything Is Online? Also neat for its time! An upbeat soundtrack that sounds like really soft yet catchy, cute, and awesome Techno? Of course! Visual Effects of Awesome that really do Inside a Computer System justice in portraying how vast the Internet really is? You bet! A severe No Export for You, especially when your home country was ripe to receive the show and others did? Oh, that's pretty messed up! English subtitles stop after episode 18 of 52? Ok, that is seriously the most insulting thing to happen to a great show. It's not like the show is becoming any less obscure...

edited 1st Aug '14 7:25:51 AM by aNinjaWithAIDS

My reactions process to:

• Dragon Ball;
  • Ugh, that looks so boring.
  • —cut forward to 2007—
  • What, that guy's in Super Smash Flash 2? I guess I'd better give it a try to get familiar with the character.
  • —cut forward to 2013—
  • WHY CAN'T I STOP WATCHING HELP

• Competitive Super Smash Bros. and Pro Gaming in general
  • Look at those -slur blocked-s. They're making things up as they go along. Look at them over analyzing a kids' game with their artificial "tier lists" and shit.
  • *finds self talking about the mechanics*
  • Wait, what the hell did I just say?!

edited 1st Aug '14 10:38:10 AM by BaffleBlend

Magical Drop III (and, to a lesser extent, V). I don't usually like versus puzzle games because I suck at thinking ahead, thus I can't form chains, but luckily Magical Drop lets you get chains just by being quick enough, as in if you make a separate connection while another is in progress, it'll add to the chain.

I'm still staying far away from the likes of Puyo Puyo or Panel de Pon, though.

...At least as games. As designs both are pretty neat.

edited 1st Aug '14 3:18:38 PM by TheMike

Adventure Time. It seemed too "lolrandom" from the things they showed in the commercials, especially in the first season or so, and I was bored with "random" at the time. But I heard more about it and figured I'd check it out, and now I'm hooked.

Gunbuster.

I went in expecting 3 hours of softcore porn, with some space combat tacked on.

Instead, I got a nice little sci-fi story with a great score, some genuinely heartwrenching moments, the most cathartic hero's journey I've seen in a while, and 15 minutes of softcore porn.

Elektra(live action movie). I heard it was kind of mediocre, but it was actually really really good. Albeit, the random romance was pretty forced, but beyond that, great action, not an overabundance of swearing, a really neat "life lesson", fun jokes, and Elektra herself is a really neat "superhero". I don't know much about her actual official origin outside of the movie, but I got no complaints about how it was portrayed in this version.

Toradora definitely. I was expecting a stupid, annoying "tsundere meets everydude and knocks him around so funny lol" Rom Com that'd be tolerable in the vein of The Familiar Of Zero or MM, but I was not expecting heartwarming love story with deceptively deep characters, a realistic portrayal of someone with crippling insecurities, good writing, charming and likable characters, and decent humor. Sure, it gets a little melodramatic near the end, but besides that, it's a wonderful anime.