History Main / ArcFatigue

** yeah, but if you notice almost every episode before the season finale was a monster of the week: season 1 had the invisible girl, season 2 had [[YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries the Freaky Fish Guy]] Season 3 had the guy who wanted to release hell hounds (IIRC) to kill evereyone in the prom heck it wa in seson 4 that the show stopped doing that instead setting up the finale (season 4 for restless, the whole kidnapping of sawn, etc) and theres' the fact that most of the stuff in season 5 ended up being a ChekhovsGun

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* In ''AoiHana'', author Shimura Takako seems to have painted herself in a corner with Fumi's confession to Akira. Since the relationship between the girls is central to the story, this arc is stalled immensely, mostly by having a confused Akira run around in circles.

* Oda has been saying he's halfway through for a while now.

* ''OrderOfTheStick'' has occasionally flirted with this trope, the frequent ScheduleSlips not helping. One strip preemptively subverted another extension of one such subplot: "[[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0595.html Disintegrate. Gust of Wind.]] [[LampshadeHanging Now can we PLEASE resume saving the world?]]"

* ''TheAdvenuturesOfDrMcNinja'' began getting complaints of this when the progression of storylines started slowing around "D.A.R.E. To Resist Ninja Drugs and Ninja Violence." By the end of the many connected horror storylines, even the authors admitted their plots were taking too long. More recently, after another extremely long plot wrapped, the comic barreled right into "Judie Gets A Kitten" - which ran for ''one week''. Many fans have considered the shock brevity a slight jab at the complaints over this trope.

** YourMileageMayVary. Even in the days of insulated '90s Saturday morning cartoons, following the season long storylines was not extremely complicated in case viewers missed an episode or two. They were designed to reward viewers who don't skip around, yet prevent those who do from being too stranded. In fact, there are several standalone episodes or "mini-arcs" sprinkled within the overlapping storyline to prevent ContinuityLockout. Plus, the arcs usually lasted twelve or thirteen episodes at longest; hardly a challenge compared to the anime examples above.

* ''HowIMetYourMother'' is nearing the end of its fifth season, and yet the mother has been seen only once, from behind, quickly, and never spoken to a single one of the five main characters. Generally, the show's funny enough that you don't mind this, but the occasional arc episode brings it all back...

* The Five Kage Arc in ''{{Naruto}}'' came off as like that after what many people consider to be the best arc of the manga, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome the Invasion of Pain]], mostly due to the fact we didn't seem to get a time table, [[SpotlightStealingSquad Sasuke becoming the focus AGAIN]], Madara's...[[BondPlot plan]]...and the fact again-it didn't seem a single day had even passed (which it didn't). Despite seeing the awesomeness of the Kages (especially [[{{Badass}} A the Raikage]] and the start of the [[SubvertedTrope subverison]] of Kishimoto's perceived sexism with Mei Terumi the Mizukage), it truly seemed to drag on far too long. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And Naruto even FAINTED in the arc.]]

*** It's gotten so bad the the Anime has [[LampshadedTrope lampshaded]] the phenomenon. The overarching storyline since the start of Hueco Muendo has taken so long, that the anime had to break for a full length filler arc twice. Both times in the ''middle'' of the storyline.
*** Not helping is how little usually happens in a chapter of Bleach. If DragonBall was translating a 5 minute chapter into 20 minutes of animation, a chapter of Bleach offers about 2 minutes of material due to the large, empty panels and [[ExpositionBreak broken up speech bubbles]]. The studio knows they will instantly use up all the material [[ButThouMust whenever they touch the main plot]].

* Season six of ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. Every plotline and character arc seemed stretched out without any developments or changes. It took Buffy literally the whole season (21 episodes) to get over being dead and resurrected. The last time she died and was brought back to life (in season one) it took one episode of angst before she was back on her feet. Season Seven with the First Evil storyline suffered in a similar way.

->'''Other Rain Ninja:''' No, that's when [[TakeThat nothing happens for the entire series!]] You're thinking of Dragonball Z Syndrome!

* The Five Kage Arc in ''{{Naruto}}'' came off as like that after what many people consider to be the best arc of the manga, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome the Invasion of Pain]], mostly due to the fact we didn't seem to get a time table, [[SpotlightStealingSquad Sasuke becoming the focus AGAIN]], Madara's...[[BondPlot plan]]...and the fact again-it didn't seem a single day had even passed (which it didn't). It was drawn out from chapter 451-488, making it ''longer'' than the Invasion of Pain. Despite seeing the awesomeness of the Kages (especially [[{{Badass}} A the Raikage]] and the start of the [[SubvertedTrope subverison]] of Kishimoto's perceived sexism with Mei Terumi the Mizukage), it truly seemed to drag on far too long. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And Naruto even FAINTED in the arc.]]

* ''{{Goblins}}''. The Brassmoon arc took two and a half years to complete, not counting Fumbles' arrival. Made worse by the fact that, as always with Thunt, the battle scenes go into completely unnecessary detail on the same 1-3-pages-per-nineish-days schedule that everything else does.

** Ditto the Karakura Town battle arc that HM basically bleeds into. The soul reapers fight off the first wave of minions. Then the second wave... and one final wave... then the Espada decide to join in. After an issue or five the captains start to overcome them. But wait, NotSoFastBucko! While it seems to be wrapping up soon, you just know that they are not going to take down the BigBad just yet.
*** The FKT arc is at its end. and once [[spoiler: Yammi is taken care of]], the HM arc should be over too. Too bad [[spoiler: Aizen is still alive, and is more powerful than ever before]].

->''"A typical webcomic April’s fool prank involves pretending to give up on the comic. I’m likely one of the few webcomic artists who can shock people by pretending to carry on."''

*** The FKT arc is at it's end. and once [[spoiler: Yammi is taken care of]], the HM arc should be over too. Too bad [[spoiler: Aizen is still alive, and is more powerful than ever before]].

* ClanOfTheCats beats all of the above by a longshot, whith it's current "[[PublicDomainCharacter Vengeance of]] {{Dracula}}" arc, which started in August 2003 and is still going on, over 600 pages later (not counting {{Filler}}).

* ''TheWheelOfTime''. The plot kept getting slower and slower and slower over the course of ten books, and then when the 11th suggested that things were looking up... [[AuthorExistenceFailure The author died]]. They're piecing together an actual ending from the notes on his computer, though, so at least the fans will get some sort of resolution.