Media you regret not giving a chance back when they premiered

I regret not giving the Wacky Races reboot the time of day. It's AMAZING and a reboot done hilariously right... and I found out it was cancelled by Warner Media due to taxes... Yay.

And the same goes for Patlabor. Its an awesome Anime First Franchise that I never gave the time of day. It was broadcast on Fox Kids, aired constantly, dubbed awesomely... and I just never cared except for the REALLY awesome opening. I watched the opening and then changed the channel. My friendship with The Gunheart made me see mecha anime as amazingly awesome and now I desperately wish I had given it a chance.

For me it's less about purposefully not giving it a chance, but I got the opportunity to sample Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles way too late. Not until the movie came to Netflix did I get the chance to experience this version of the franchise properly, and I fell in love. I adore that movie and and I panicked when I found out that the show was already cancelled.

Yet another cartoon that was made for me in hindsight. The battle animation was insane and it was so awesome I think the storyboards were "Insert Fucking Awesome Fight Sequence Here."

I don't generally feel bad about not getting involved in the latest thing at the same time as everyone else, but I did put off reading The Murderbot Diaries for far too long.

I steered clear of Undertale when it first came out because the fanbase was terrifying. I finally watched my sibling play through it while we did a dramatic reading of all the lines in autumn, and I get it now. I teared up a little. What a game.

I really wish I were paying attention to Final Space as its seasons were dropping, sounds like the hype and fandom at the time would've been fun to partake in.

I steered clear of the Fate Series for years on end, only knowing the memes, mostly because I just... wasn't interested. (That and the original VN first came out when I was nine djgkdghfjkggh) Then last year, an online friend got me to check out Fate/Grand Order (just watching the cutscenes on YouTube; I still won't actually play the damn thing bc ew gacha) and from there... I got hooked and was like WHY DIDN'T I CHECK THIS STUFF OUT SOONER. Partly because the story is so damn good and partly because... help why are there so many hot people

I have a bad habit of getting into stuff at a fairly glacial pace, so I experience this a lot. In a particularly extreme case, I think not watching all of Gravity Falls until years after it ended genuinely tampered my ability to fully enjoy it. There's shows where I'm sure it would've been fun to follow along with other fans as they aired, but I feel like Gravity Falls having a short run spread out over several years with long hiatuses that gave fans time to get really invested in speculation is a core part of why it was such a big thing. It's not an experience you can really replicate when you're binge-watching on DVD/streaming.

Being into other cartoons with lots of fandom overlap when it was still airing didn't help any either, because basically every major twist was spoiled for me through secondhand osmosis. There was a time when I swear people cracked jokes about the big Wham Line about as often as one would say "hello".

I think, the most I see Scooby Doo: Mistery Incorporated in these days, the most I notice that it needed some more atention, while I know that they made it to work well with only 2 seasons.

So sad that, apart from the crossover with Courage (I loved that film!), they never managed to have the same impact in the next animated series.

Mainly due to the fandom's notoriety, I stayed away from Steven Universe for years.

I finally gave it a chance in 2017-ish (when either Season 4 or 5 was still running), and to this day it's one of my favourite Cartoon Network shows.

Gravity Falls

Hey Arnold. As a kid I'd often choose to dislike shows for completely arbitrary reasons, and then be rather stubborn about it. Hey Arnold was one such show, so I never gave it a chance, even though I recognize now that it's great.

I remember one time where a VHS copy of The Fox and the Hound was playing in my living room, but I wasn't paying attention to it. Throughout my childhood, I didn't watch it (and I even remember refusing it on one occasion) because I thought it would be boring. I have watched the movie now that I am a VHS collector and enjoyed it.

Here's another thing: it's odd that, even though I still liked watching Treehouse TV shows at the time, I didn't watch any of the new shows circa 2010-2011. Maybe this was for the best, given their censorship of the word "loser" in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic would have added to my weird perceptions of censored curse words, which I gained from watching the Arthur episode "Bleep" and misremembering the number of syllables in the mouth movements of the bleeped word.

Has happened to me too many times to count, including with some works I haven't even gotten to see yet. Some examples:

As some users have mentioned, Gravity Falls. For some reason, there was a period of time where I was convinced that I wasn't gonna like it, and didn't properly give it a chance until I was about 15-16. Now it's one of my favorite shows, though admittedly I do kinda wish I got to watch it when it was originally airing (even if I probably wouldn't have understood some of it back then).

Also, The Owl House. While I did watch the first season close to the time it first came out, and I really enjoyed it, I didn't watch any more of it afterwards. I've just recently started rewatching the show from the beginning, and I'm enjoying it a lot, but I'll admit I wish I got to watch it while episodes were still coming out.

Milo Murphy's Law also comes to mind, though in my defense, I barely knew that the show even existed for some amount of time. On the plus side, I have heard that the show may be getting more episodes someday...

But, hey, better late than never. And at least I've been able to find active fanbases for these shows, so... that helps, somewhat!

Ok, to be fair, when it "premiered" I was way too little, but I still wish I got into the Pokémon TCG way earlier than I did. Honestly, over the course of a year and a half, I got better at it than I ever did at competitive battling in the video games. Plus, it's more fun to play face to face than random online matchmaking in the video games.

i remember seeing Shelter (2016) in my recs a lot back when it was released, yet i never really gave it a click until a few years later. absolutely sucker-punched me in the gut when i finally did

…better late than never, i suppose?

Edited by coemedypink on Feb 24th 2024 at 8:14:05 PM

I didn't get into the Splatoon series until the third installment. Imagine all the Splatfests I could've participated in, all the Miiverse doodles in the first title! (Which would've been easier for me to draw on the Gamepad since the Switch doesn't seem to accept any kind of stylus for drawing)

Edited by wooden-ladybug93 on Feb 24th 2024 at 10:15:40 AM

Hero Factory. I was pissed at it when it first came out since it came off the heels of Bioncle's ending. By the time I actually got a interest in it, it was already in its death-throws.

Having just watched the second one, I wish I got into the Kung Fu Panda franchise sooner. ^_^;; I was probably still carrying that dumb idea I picked up from my old comrades at the website I used to be a member of. I remember they made it sound like CGI animation is a terrible soulless thing that's going to destroy the world. x_x

Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers. I want to know how it felt watching this series before 2023. I think it would be an interesting experience to have

I was too late to get into BioShock and I truly understood why it is a beloved classic even after all those years. It is still a top G for games in my book. I say this because I did not get the hype around the game at the time and now I fully understand. Even then I am still blown by the ending of Infinite.

Edited by Echidna on Mar 23rd 2024 at 9:09:26 AM

Same!

I was put off by the hype that surrounded the game prior to being released.

(forgot I already said this regarding Splatoon)

Edited by wooden-ladybug93 on Mar 23rd 2024 at 8:54:30 AM

I forgot saying this. But Ojamajo DOREMI. I actually didnt get a chance to see it unlike Patlabor because the dub never aired where I lived, and it's actually for the better that I waited for it, the early subs were a DISASTER (I am the unluckiest BISHOJO!!!!!) and the subs didnt end the series until recently but I would have loved watching this growing up subbed or dubbed.

Ice Princess. Watching it now on Disney Plus because it has it.

Now, why this movie? Aly & A.J.'s No One. I found it surprising they would air the music video in Disney Channel Asia (I live in the Philippines) commercials and not air the movie there a year or two after the theatrical and home video releases.