History Main / ArcFatigue

* One single fight on the ''Manga/{{NEEDLESS}}'' anime takes '''nine''' episodes out of 24.

* The whole deal 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.

* ''Manga/WolfGuyWolfenCrest'' had a very, very, {{squick}}y arc fatigue when [[spoiler:Ms. Aoshika was horrifically gang-raped by Haguro and his {{yakuza}} for nearly 18 chapters]].

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' took about 65 chapters just to start explaining what the titans are and where they came from. That may not sound like much, but [=AoT=] is released only around once a month or so. Most of the world-building comes almost at random in small bits and pieces, choosing to focus more on the character interactions and politics of living in a CrapsackWorld than the world itself. Also, one of the manga's biggest questions -- just what the hell Eren's father hid in his basement -- only got revealed in September 2016, more than five years after the manga first started publication.
* The entirety of ''Manga/BattleAngelAlita: Last Order'' qualifies as a Myth Stall. More specifically, there's the infamous "vampire" flashback arc that lasted two volumes, and the "Zenith Of Things" TournamentArc has been going on since Volume 4 of ''Last Order'', and finished in 2014 with the sequel being far longer than the original manga.

** The World War Arc took nearly three years to tell the story of a day and a half, with two of those years spent on a single several hour long battle. The initial action mainly serves to give the side characters ADayInTheLimelight, with the overall plot not really advancing until Naruto arrives. Once him and the BigBad arrive on the battlefield, the plot turns into a tug-of-war marathon, with each side endlessly churning out increasingly powerful techniques. The villain goes through all their gambits, absolute defenses, [[BreakThemByTalking psychological warfare tracts]], tragic flashbacks and final forms, and then [[spoiler: the entire process repeats twice when two different villains take control and declare that everything has gone AllAccordingToPlan for them]]. When the war finally ends, [[spoiler:Sasuke declares he will take over the world to reform the shinobi system, triggering the long-awaited final battle between him and Naruto]]. The anime also inserted plenty of {{Filler}} throughout the plot in order to keep the CashCowFranchise flowing.

** Even if some arcs kind of dragged out, none were able to reach the level of hair-tearing stalemate of the World War Arc -- which took nearly three years to tell the story of a day and a half, where two of those years were spent telling the story of a single battle which was presumably a few hours long. The first part is problematic enough, but the real nugget is that last battle, and particularly its pacing. The entirety of it is a tug-of-war marathon, with each side countering the other side with increasingly effective techniques that have very few lasting consequences. The villain takes forever to finally go through all their gambits, absolute defenses, [[BreakThemByTalking psychological warfare tracts]], tragic flashbacks and final forms, and when they do -- which would usually mark the end of the battle in any sane universe -- the battle segues into [[spoiler:two more battles of this exact same kind, back to back, with absolutely no letup and plenty of MythArc {{retcon}}s about how everything has gone AllAccordingToPlan for various people, one of whom we didn't even know existed until three chapters before]]. When the manga finally emerges, wheezing, at the other end of this ordeal -- all the villains are dead, everyone's exhausted and all the loose ends seem to be wrapped up -- [[spoiler:Sasuke promptly declares his intent to take over the world in order to reform the shinobi system, ''finally'' triggering the long-awaited final battle between him and Naruto]]. Oh, and to top it off, the anime has been inserting {{Filler}} left, right, and center in the absolute worst spots in the plot in order to keep the CashCowFranchise flowing.

* Those who criticize the premise of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' often cite this. In each expansion, the Alliance and Horde have faced enemies that threatened both of them, and instead of working together to end the threat, they bring their war with them everywhere they go. The fact that both factions are led by a couple of belligerent warmongers does not help matters, either. In ''The Burning Crusade'', the blood elves and the draenei (and their respective allies) put aside their differences to fight the Burning Legion under the naaru. In ''Wrath of the Lich King'', the orcs and humans escalate the war ''while inside of the home zone of the Lich King'', though the Argent Crusade still manages to create a successful joint offensive. In ''Cataclysm'', the war escalates to a full-scale war while Deathwing is trying to destroy the planet. In ''Mists of Pandaria'', the war is the primary plot, while the evils of Pandaria are dealt with and become weapons of the Horde later.
** This is lampshaded by Wrathion, who is frustrated with the inability of the Alliance and Horde to truly work together to defend against a larger threat: the Burning Legion, and tries to manipulate events so that [[spoiler:the Alliance achieves dominance over the Horde]].
** This is largely averted in ''Warlords of Draenor'', where both factions work together to fight the Iron Horde, and conflict is mostly limited to a competition to recover rare artifacts from a remote island. The promotional material for Legion also seems to indicate that the Alliance and Horde will truly join forces to battle the Burning Legion.
** Legion did indeed feature the Alliance and Horde putting their differences aside long enough to defeat the Burning Legion, but the aftermath of Sargeras's defeat reignited the feud. The next expansion, Battle for Azeroth, brought the faction war front and center as the primary driver of the plot. Endgame content was shorted in favor of ever-increasing [=PvP=] objectives, much to the dismay of [=PvE=] players.
* The ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' Iconian Arc, hinted at during an old mission back when the game was first released, then dragged along once Cryptic changed owners and began tightening up the game. The entire story took five years, ten seasons and two expansions to complete.

* ''VideoGame/AceCombat'' has suffered from this ever since [[VideoGame/AceCombat3Electrosphere the third game]], which was set [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture far in the future]] and concerned [[CorporateWarfare a semi-secret war]] between competing {{Mega Corp}}s and a shadowy conspiracy involved with both of them and the organization trying to keep the peace. Later games would go back to NextSundayAD settings, with the promise that they would show how the world got to that point... a promise which would be forgotten almost immediately with the introduction of [[VideoGame/AceCombatZeroTheBelkanWar the Belkan War]] [[NonLinearSequel and]] [[VideoGame/AceCombat5TheUnsungWar its aftermath]], where [[PlotTumor absolutely everything that has ever happened in the series since]] -- even retroactively, through [[VideoGame/AceCombatAssaultHorizonLegacy a remake]] of ''VideoGame/AceCombat2'' -- [[HijackedByGanon has something to do]] with [[TheManBehindTheMan Belkan infiltrators]] who [[SoreLoser really didn't take their loss well]]. ''VideoGame/{{Ace Combat 7|SkiesUnknown}}'' does suggest that [[spoiler:the narrowly averted RobotWar]] is the precursor to the events of ''Electrosphere'' (and its direct prequel ''[[VideoGame/AceCombatAdvance Advance]]'') due to the factions involved coupled with some blink-and-you'll-miss-it nods, but [[spoiler:this merely means Belka's behind-the-scenes meddling in foreign affairs is indirectly responsible for all that]] as well.
* ''Franchise/TheKingOfFighters'' managed to take two seemingly unrelated subplots and drag them out into [[VideoGameLongRunners a decades-long]] narrative slog. In ''KOF '99'', Chinese esper [[VideoGame/PsychoSoldier Sie Kensou]] [[BroughtDownToNormal mysteriously loses his psychic abilities]], only to learn they're linked to a hitherto unknown power shared between him and his teammate Bao: the Dragon Spirit. After these powers subconsciously manifest within Kensou in order to save Athena, he later makes a vow at the end of the arc to master them. Meanwhile, ''2000'' sees the introduction of Lin, a mysterious member of Hizoku (a clan of Chinese assassins) who has entered the tournament to find leads on Ron, the former head of Hizoku who betrayed his kin to join [[NebulousEvilOrganisation the NESTS cartel]]. Ron himself appears as a [[AssistCharacter Striker]] for Zero, the sub-boss of ''2001'', and both he and Lin disappear following the defeat of [[FinalBoss Igniz]] in the same game. ''2003'' then introduces players to Duo Lon, another Hizoku assassin and one of Ron's numerous sons, who joins KOF to do some reconnaissance of his own regarding his father. The next installment, ''XI'', has Kensou return from his training with newfound mastery over the Dragon Spirit--a development noticed by [[VillainTakesAnInterest an approving Ron]], who is now joined by a small group of supporters including the aforementioned Lin and Misty (Igniz's lover). While this takes a backseat to Ash's enigmatic nature and the machinations of Those From the Past (a cult seeking to unseal {{Orochi}}, the BigBad of ''KOF''[='s=] first arc), the main antagonist of ''XIII'' cryptically alludes to Ron in his pre-fight dialogue with Duo Lon, presumably setting the stage for Ron to take up the ArcVillain mantle in the future. Flash-forward to ''XIV'', released in 2016 ([[SequelGap roughly six years after its predecessor]])... and this is completely dropped for a story that is largely divorced from anything else that has happened up to that point, with Kensou in his usual comic relief role and the Hizoku [[PutOnABus nowhere in sight]]. Fans are no closer to having any questions on the matter [[labelnote:ex.]]What exactly is the Dragon Spirit? Why is Ron interested in it? How does he know about it at all? Is this connected to his defection from the Hizoku clan? Is the Dragon Spirit connected to Orochi somehow?[[/labelnote]] answered than they were back at the TurnOfTheMillennium.
* The ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' series faced this problem following the release of ''[[VideoGame/MetroidFusion Fusion]]''. The game is set after ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' with the Space Pirates virtually eliminated, and ends on the note of [[spoiler:TheFederation planning to weaponize Metroids for their own sinister purposes]]. For nearly two decades, none of the games released after ''Fusion'' built on the latter point, as all of them were either interquels (the ''[[VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy Prime]]'' subseries and ''[[VideoGame/MetroidOtherM Other M]]'') or remakes (''[[VideoGame/MetroidZeroMission Zero Mission]]'', ''[[VideoGame/MetroidSamusReturns Samus Returns]]''), with ''Other M'' in particular merely reiterating ''Fusion''[='=]s big revelation earlier in the timeline. The nineteen-year stall would finally come to an end with ''VideoGame/MetroidDread''. [[spoiler: Except not really as that game focused on the Chozo race and Samus's personal beef with a megalomaniac Chozo trying to take over the universe. There's virtually no mention of the Federation in it and in the end all Metroids are destroyed... save Samus whose biology now contains Metroid DNA and allows her to ''become'' one. A good plot setup for later but still not following up on what was promised.]]

* ''Webcomic/BittersweetCandyBowl''. With not a single arc or subplot to point to, it's been all angst and drama with no end in sight for years.

* ''Webcomic/SugarBits'' which started off with an interesting premise and a trip to a nightmare world. Things came to a screeching halt once the protagonists meet Licorice and have since been in battle with her forces that, (as of this entry) ''is still going''. Granted this is mostly due to the artist flip-flopping between this and his other comics. But one could cover three story arcs in the time it takes for the characters of this series to strike a blow. As of 2012, this fight has finally ended, but the artist has fallen into this with another one of his own series, ''Webcomic/PowerpuffGirlsDoujinshi'', which has been stuck on one fight scene for several months.

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' also falls under this category, as despite going on for years the heroes are only just as of 2015 actually managing to start moving against the villains and take steps towards completing their game session after essentially a whole act of teenage angst dominating the plot. Not helped by Andrew Hussie taking a year off to work on the Homestuck video game and other merchandise. Andrew Hussie intended to release the rest of Homestuck in one big burst, which was rendered completely null when circumstances forced him to go back to updating the comic as it's drawn. With a year-long hiatus behind it and another pause near the end of Act 6 Intermission 5, it took ''seven years'' for the kids to finish the blasted game. A common suggestion among the fandom is that the abrupt GainaxEnding was written that way just so the comic could finally ''be'' finished.
* Whether you consider Lord Tedd or Magus to be the subject of the myth arc for ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', both have been going on an interminably long time. Lord Tedd was introduced early in the strip's run and seemed to be building up to be the comic's BigBad, but he was basically PutOnABus after the Painted Black arc, and aside from implications that Tedd might be going down the same path he hasn't been even ''mentioned'' since 2008. This is largely due to Magus' storyline intruding at the start of 2007. That storyline is only just now hitting its climax, nearly ''eleven years later''. That there are multiple arcs peppering the comic's run that aren't much related to ''either'' plotline doesn't help.[[note]]See the comic's entry in the Story Stall section for at least one example.[[/note]]

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries''. Ash is no closer to being a Pokémon Master than he was back during the first season, despite [[NotAllowedToGrowUp still being 10 years old]]; some say that he looks ''younger'' than when he started. It doesn't help that with each new series, he hits a ResetButton on his team and his Pikachu's strength tends to fluctuate until later in that series. [[spoiler:It isn't until ''Anime/PokemonTheSeriesSunAndMoon'' where Ash finally sheds the label of "[[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut perennial choker]]" with a long-awaited Pokémon League Conference win in October 2019, becoming the Alola Champion in the process — '''''22 years''''' after the show started. In ''Anime/PokemonJourneysTheSeries'', he is the closest he's ever been to his goal, being recognized aa one of the eight strongest trainers in the world within the World Coronation Series.]]

* ''Manga/DNAngel''. The manga started November, 1997, and the only closure we have as-of-yet is the anime, which completely branched out into its own after it ran out of source material. But the fangirls are still waiting. Oh, yes, we're still waiting. As a matter of fact, Creator/YukiruSugisaki is infamous for her habit of starting another manga before finishing the one she was working on. The only manga she's ever actually finished is ''Manga/{{Rizelmine}}'', which was a one-volume series.
* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' has its first two volumes InMediasRes, with Griffith turned to TheDarkSide as Femto and an enraged Guts wanting Femto's head. Several years and volumes of flashback later, Guts begins setting off on a quest to restore Casca to sanity. This was in 1997. He only arrived at the place to restore Casca in September 2016, and finally managed to do it in February 2018, more than twenty years later. Of course, that's not nearly as long as it sounds ''chapter''-wise, but an insanely detailed art style led to [[ScheduleSlip a very slow and irregular release schedule]]. There have been only about 300 chapters total since the series started back in '''1990'''. And with [[DiedDuringProduction the death of the manga's author in May 2021]], the story stopped cold right then and there.

** Chapter 54 ends with the line "End of Prologue." If 54 chapters of a weekly-turned-monthly-comic being a "prologue" doesn't give you an idea of how long the author plans to write this, then nothing will. Guess he's living up to the name Vinland ''Saga.''

* The entirety of ''Manga/BattleAngelAlita: Last Order'' qualifies as a Myth Stall. More specifically, there's the infamous "vampire" flashback arc that lasted two volumes, and the "Zenith Of Things" TournamentArc has been going on since volume 4 of ''Last Order'', and finished in 2014 with the sequel being far longer than the original manga.
* The MythArc of ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' revolving around Negi's quest to find his father doesn't really start until around volume three, and even then it doesn't become the focal point of the series until volume 18 or so. Several volumes later, Negi isn't even close to finding him and although some details of the backstory have been revealed, they don't help much to figure out what happened to Negi's father, especially after [[spoiler:he's revealed to be the Lifemaker's current host]]. At the end [[spoiler:Negi manages to save his dad somehow, but the whole problem is resolved offscreen with many unanswered questions]].
* ''Manga/OnePiece'' was supposed to be five years long, but author Creator/EiichiroOda having fun with the plot stalled the bigger story's progression. A lot. Since the story's debut in 1997, protagonist Monkey D. Luffy isn't much closer to finding the One Piece than when he started. Besides that, there's not only been no answer as to where the One Piece is, there's been no answer as to ''what'' it is. No wonder so many people have CommitmentAnxiety when it comes to this series.
** Consider the case of Fishman Island. Around 2001 or so, a fan asked if it would ever feature in the story. Oda's response: "Soon". ''Six'' years later, the Straw Hats set sail with Fishman Island as their next destination, only to spend a year's worth of story on what boils down to a side trip. Then, they're finally one stop away from Fishman Island, all they need to do is finish preparations on their ship... and the story gets sidetracked yet again. The focus was off of the Straw Hat crew in favor of just Luffy, showing his backstory and a desire to get stronger. In late 2010, the Straw Hats ''finally'' made it to Fishman Island, nine years after Oda's proclamation that they would arrive "soon."
* ''Manga/HajimeNoIppo'': Regardless of which you consider the myth arc, Ippo fighting Miyata again or Ippo becoming the world champion, the series reached its 900th chapter with no signs of progress with either. In fact, the rematch with Miyata was steadily delayed for over five hundred chapters, a decade in real-world terms. Ippo and Kumi date for about as long, ''and never kiss once''. Even worse, [[spoiler:with Ippo losing his comeback match and mentally confirming that something's seriously wrong with him, readers had to confront the possibility that ''neither'' potential myth arc would be resolved. Certainly Ippo becoming world champion is dead as a story goal]].
* ''Manga/GlassMask'' has got to be some kind of record holder - despite the fact the comic started in 1976, we ''still'' have yet to find out who will be cast as "The Crimson Goddess". On top of that, the LoveTriangle hasn't actually resolved either. That's over forty years without resolution to two key plot points. The severe bouts of ScheduleSlip haven't helped any either. There have been ''three'' different anime that have come out in that time, none of which even attempt a GeckoEnding to provide some semblance of resolution.
* ''Manga/TheWallflower''. 28 volumes and counting, and Sunako and Kyouhei ''still'' haven't confessed seriously or even ''admitted they feel romantic love''. That drumming sound you hear is the fans' heads banging against the wall.
* The manga version of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' started in ''1995'', and it ''finally'' came to an end with Chapter 95. In July 2013. Yeah, that's 18 years later. Especially egregious considering that the manga only recounts what happened in the 26 episodes of the anime + ''Anime/TheEndOfEvangelion'' movie - all of which has been resolved since 1997. Unlike other adaptations, the manga stayed very close to the original anime and it didn't add any additional content except for slight change of order and the infamous scene of Kaworu [[KickTheDog killing a kitten]]. Understandably in a [[CreatorBreakdown similar vein to the original anime many fans began to question the sanity of the artist.]]
* ''Manga/HeavensLostProperty'' treads into this territory. You have two or three chapters with the plot moving ahead, albeit not very fast, and then four to six of {{filler}} that can range from "pretty funny" to "[[BizarroEpisode What the hell did I just read]]". Add to that it's a monthly manga and the fact [[TheChrisCarterEffect it's taking forever to get answers]].
* ''Manga/CaseClosed'' is, as of the end of 2019, at 97 books and 1036 collected chapters (uncollected chapters bring it over 1040 total, with the 300th case underway), although if you removed all the cases which don't progress the main or side plots, the numbers would likely be closer to 20 and 250.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'':
** The failed first attempt to retrieve Sasuke ended in 2005 after six volumes, and for ''years'' they were still nowhere near close to getting him back. It finally happened in ''2013'', and even then, he didn't ''really'' complete the damn turn until 2014, during the last three chapters of the manga. The anime has over 200 episodes in the first half and over 300 in part 2. Good luck trying to keep up.
** The ''Naruto'' anime and its sequel, ''Naruto: Shippuden'' are infamous for their awful pacing, no thanks to endless flashbacks that often dragged down action scenes. In total, the filler takes up approximately '''40%''' of [[https://www.animefillerlist.com/shows/naruto each]] [[https://www.animefillerlist.com/shows/naruto-shippuden series]].
** To wit: forty-five new episodes aired in 2015, and only '''eight''' were plot-relevant.[[note]]Naruto died in Christmas of 2014, and Might Guy only used the Eighth Gate in July 2015; those events happened eight manga chapters apart.[[/note]]
* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' took about 65 chapters just to start explaining what the titans are and where they came from. That may not sound like much, but [=AoT=] is released only around once a month or so. Most of the world-building comes almost at random in small bits and pieces, choosing to focus more on the character interactions and politics of living in a CrapsackWorld than the world itself. Also, one of the manga's biggest questions -- just what the hell Eren's father hid in his basement -- only got revealed in September 2016, more than five years after the manga first started publication.
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' was notorious for this with its utterly slow pacing after the Daily Life arc. The Soul Society, Arrancar, and Blood War arcs always stalled the story for fights, fights, and more fights just to give screen time to supporting characters. Granted, the characters showed off new abilities but the battles were always a tug of war, and a few wound up ending with an outside source having to step in to finish the battle. When Ichigo finally confronts BigBad Yhwach in the final arc, the battle is ridiculously short due to the fact the manga author's health was swiftly failing, leaving him unable to continue producing it and resulting in a rushed climax and ending.
* ''LightNovel/InfiniteStratos'': Instead of moving the plot forward, the show keeps introducing girls to Ichika's harem and putting too much focus on the harem antics. [[spoiler:By the end of season 2, the heroes are no closer to stopping Phantom Task than they were at the beginning, and the ''World Purge'' [=OVA=] is just an extended romantic fantasy almost entirely disconnected to the main plot.]] Not helping at all are {{Schedule Slip}}s caused by the author's health problems. As of 2016, the franchise hasn't released any new content.
* ''Manga/MonsterMusume'' has been suffering this for a while regarding the primary question of the series- which member of his UnwantedHarem is Kimihito going to marry? It's become increasingly ridiculous as the series has gone on since things have progressed from human-liminal relationships being forbidden to the point where there are now dating services and singles' events specifically geared toward interspecies relationships. It's not helped by the side arcs that have focused on the supporting characters or the fact that publishing has slowed from roughly a chapter per month to one every four to five months.
* While ''Manga/FlyMeToTheMoon'' manages to cut through the WillTheyOrWontThey by having the main couple get together at the start of the series, the series can suffer from this for other reasons.
** In Chapter 30, [[spoiler:Nasa's apartment building burns down]], resulting in [[spoiler:him and Tsukasa planning on moving into a new apartment together at the back of their friend's bathhouse place]]. This was finally resolved over 100 chapters later in an anti-climactic fasion after the finale: [[spoiler: because Tsukasa went missing and Nasa spent all his waking hours trying to find her, they missed their chance to move in, and decided to stay behind the bathhouse anyway]].
** The series occasionally drops hints at who exactly Tsukasa is, but only answered this question at the very end of the first series. In essence, [[spoiler: Tsukasa [[InsistentTerminology has been 16 years old 1,400 times]] but ISN'T the girl from the bamboo cutter story like everyone assumed. She's actually a girl from the village who fell gravely ill shortly afterwards: her father was assigned to burn the elixir of life but instead used it to save her non-consensually]]. So far the second series is much more forthcoming about exploring this side of Tsukasa, even devoting the opening story of the second series to it, but this is at the expense of the occasional CerebusSyndrome as SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome kicks in.
* ''Manga/SlowStart'' is about a girl who ends up entering high school a year late due to being sick for the entrance exams, resulting in her going to high school in a different town. A major plotline is her deciding whether to tell her friends about her unique situation since she considers it rather shameful. She only manages to do so after 92 monthly chapters.
* ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'' has the overall plot of Yuya rescuing Yuzu. It's properly introduced in episode 47, they have a second meeting in episode 92 and are ''immediately'' separated again, meet again in 113, are separated ''again'' in 115, and aren't permanently reunited all the way until episode 148, the last episode of the series. That's about five episodes out of 102 where the two were actively sharing screentime.
* A common complaint about ''Manga/RentAGirlfriend'' is that the story drags out much longer than it needs to be. There are several instances throughout the series where it seems Kazuya and Chizuru are actually taking several steps forward and getting closer to one another, but little comes out of it and they often end up taking many steps back. Most chapters also don't cover much ground themselves, with several only covering a single date or other outing. In general, the pace is suited for a binge read, but once caught up, the ongoing weekly releases feel like a slow crawl.

* A common criticism of ComicBook/XMen is that the mutants are no closer to their dream of normal/mutant equality than when they started. And whenever they do come close--say, the time in the early 2000s when an influx of mutants went public and the books started to explore what it actually means to be a minority--the ResetButton gets hit ''[[ComicBook/HouseOfM hard]]''. They come close again after ''ComicBook/AvengersVsXMen'', where they're getting a lot more support overall and [[Characters/MarvelComicsCyclops Cyclops]] has been getting Hero Worship because of using the Phoenix to nearly solve world hunger, stabilize the climate, and force peace between warring nations. However, the ResetButton was hit yet again with the divisive ''ComicBook/InhumansVsXMen''.
%%This appears to be finally changing via ComicBook/HouseAndPowersOfX

* ''ComicBook/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'' is a tie-in prequel comic of the [[VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs video game of the same name]] that has continued publication years after the game's release and has received general criticism from readers due to the ForegoneConclusion nature of the story and the overall feeling the story is loaded with {{Padding}} to fill the 5-year gap between the events that triggered the story and the beginning of the video game. For example, Year Three's climax is a stretched out fight between [[spoiler:Trigon and Mr. Myxptlk that begins unraveling reality]] beginning on Issue #17 until the end, lasting longer than it has any right to according to readers and by the fact no matter what happens, the end result of that fight is moot since continuity demands everything will be back to normal.

** The plot kept getting slower and slower and slower over the course of ten books, with books 8-10 representing the lowest point, though Book 11 had as much actual plot development as the previous three combined, and the last three books (completed by Creator/BrandonSanderson after Robert Jordan's death) continued at this pace.
** The most egregious case was Book 10 "Crossroads of Twilight" which is a multiple hundred-page-long book about people's reactions to the finale of the previous book. It plays out the day of and its following day or so ''over and over'' with all the main characters and most of the significant side ones. And this took place just after we had gotten out of 3 books wherein the ''3 main protagonists'' had maybe 5 chapters between them, and had focused solely on the exploits of the trio of Elayne, Egwene and Nynaeve, and all their various doings. Which were important admittedly, but still should not have displaced the ''main 3 protagonists'' roles.
* The prologue of the first book of ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', featured a Night's Watchman encountering an Other, a creature long thought extinct, and its appearance heralding an oncoming apocalypse. Five books later, the Others have still not reached the Wall, on the ''northermost'' end of the seven kingdoms, and have only had one significant 'on-screen' appearance since that first prologue. Daenerys Targaryen, the last surviving heir of the previously ruling Targaryen dynasty, has, five books in, still never set foot on the continent of which she claims to be the rightful Queen.
* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' was never meant to go on as long as it did, and it really shows towards the end - other than a single Megamorphs and ''Visser'', nothing between books 35 and 45 contributed to the overarching plot at all, instead defaulting to filler books the entire time.
* People started thinking that ''Literature/{{Gone}}'' would do this after the release of ''Lies'', which contributed nothing to the main plot, other than [[spoiler: [[BackFromTheDead Drake and Brittney coming back to life]] and SharingABody]]. But ''Plague'' changed their minds.
* ''Literature/TheKingkillerChronicle'' suffers from this in relation to Kvothe's pursuit of the Chandrian, which has barely advanced at all over the course of two huge doorstoppers. Kvothe only sporadically makes any effort to find information on them, leading to what is supposedly the series' myth arc falling by the wayside frequently as more mundane issues like Kvothe's student finances take centre stage for extended periods of time.
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'''s WillTheyOrWontThey plot between Murphy and Harry stretched for 11 books, with occasional moments of romantic and sexual tension that both people acknowledged but rejected whenever the subject was brought up. First it didn't work because Murphy didn't trust Harry. Then it didn't work because she only wanted a casual relationship. Then it didn't work because both were dating other people. Then it didn't work because Harry [[spoiler:was killed before they could consummate it]]. Then it didn't work because Harry was too ashamed of himself to renew their friendship. Then it didn't work because Murphy didn't trust Harry (again) [[spoiler:and feared the Mantle's effects on him]]. ''Then'' it didn't work because [[spoiler:Harry's demon brain-baby]] crippled his interactions with other people. Some actual ''fans'' of the relationship lost interest in it because A) the author took thousands of pages to provide a conclusion, and/or B) it became hard to believe in the characters' constant claims of affection and loyalty when they didn't do anything about these feelings. And then they ''finally'' get together [[spoiler: only for Murphy to get KilledOffForReal immediately after it]].
* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'' has Aleister Crowley and Lola Stuart being set up early on as main villains. In the first series - 22 books long, not counting side stories or other material - their plans aren't actually revealed, with only a few hints as to what they might be. These are only revealed in book 18 of the second series.
* ''Literature/TheHouseOfNight'': Neferet is the primary villain of the series and is plotting to TakeOverTheWorld. Zoey and her friends realize Neferet is evil and vow to stop her in the second book, ''Betrayed''. There are ''ten'' more books in the main series after this and stopping Neferet is the protagonists' primary goal the entire time. Notably, in-universe only about a year passes, but the books themselves were published over seven years. A lot of readers have mentioned finding the books more of a drag to read around the halfway mark, especially as they tend to be padded out with [[RomanticPlotTumor Zoey's romantic drama]] rather than actual plot progression.

* Invoked by ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000''. For 30 years in a row, absolutely no one on the development team had any ambition to let the in-universe timeline advance past December 31st, 40,999. [[WordOfGod Officially]] this is because ''40k'' isn't so much a story as a setting, so it doesn't technically have a storyline, only a backstory. More to the point, however, "advancing the storyline" would have logically meant killing off the Tau and possibly the Imperium as well; which were the two best-selling factions as of 2013.

** Fans of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'', the fantasy predecessor to 40k, were also familiar with this problem as the setting didn't really seem to develop much at all for years. Then came the End Times and the resulting reboot, ''[[TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar Age of Sigmar]]'', which... [[BrokenBase makes more than a few old players miss]] the Arc Fatigue days. Based on the example the End Times, not everyone is sure they want 40k to advance anymore.

* Chapter 2 of ''Webcomic/CaptainSNES'' began in 2002. It ended on November 13, 2009. That's over four years after [[http://www.captainsnes.com/2005/01/23/this-only-makes-it-harder-for-those-poor-kids-in-the-sweatshops/ this comic right here]]. It was then retroactively split into two acts of roughly equal strip numbers, but with Act 2 ending at the end of 2003 and Act 3 lasting from 2004 to 2009. As, with the exception of an early sideplot which was temporarily dropped (but resolved in Act 4 in early 2011) and a flashback or two, ''all'' of the action in the latter act happened in the same area, it could indeed be asked "Are they ''still'' in Nexus?" (And, if you're asking about the Gamemasta only, the answer, as of comic #786, is still "yes".)

* ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' spent well over a year of updates covering a single party, or to be more specific, sixteen months were spent covering the events of a single evening. The reaction amongst fans was [[BrokenBase mixed]]. Some liked the CharacterDevelopment, especially for Justin, Susan, and Nanase, while others felt a year-long arc with few wacky antics and no action sequences was not what they signed up for.

--->'''Lisa''': ''Squirrel Prophet'' ended on ''February 13''. Of ''2015''.\\
'''Amanda''': Their time. ''Comic timeline'' wise, it was ''yesterday''.\\
'''Lisa''': ''ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY TWO COMICS AGO!''\\
'''Amanda''': Still just one day.
* The Mecanicsburg arc from ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' while being very enjoyable and was the last arc in the first part of what is evidently going to be a ''very'' long comic still lasted 6 volumes and was released over the course of six years.

* Played for laughs in ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'''s "fantasy" arc. They started the quest on the 25th of June 2004, and finally finished on 31st August 2011 - seven years, two months, and six days later. In a daily webcomic.
* ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}''. The Brassmoon arc took two years and eleven months 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 one-three-pages-per-nineish-days schedule that everything else does.
-->'''Forgath''': Um, okay. I guess my first question would be, how did Brassmoon get a talking wall?\\
'''Talking Wall''': Oh geez, you don't want to know that. The answer is a story arc that goes on for, like, ''ever''. Ask me something else.
* The Webcomic/{{MS Paint Adventure|s}} ''Webcomic/ProblemSleuth'' has the interminable Demonhead Mobster Kingpin fight, which lasted for longer than the ''rest'' of the story. Later lampshaded when Problem Sleuth writes a StronglyWordedLetter containing the phrase "and where do you get off being so difficult anyway, we spent more than half the game fighting you."

* The massive Castle Heterodyne arcs of ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'', which have all been about Agatha trying to get into Castle Heterodyne to fix it, or Agatha trying to fix it, or other people trying to reach Agatha while she fixes it. Agatha entered the castle proper on February 8th, 2008, and didn't set foot outside again until November 2, 2011, three and a half years later.
--> '''Agatha:''' "[[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20091209 NO! I said: NO MORE DELAYS!]]"
** Definitely speaking for the audience there... and naturally, it's right before a holiday break.
** Then she spent over another year running around defending the castle, which was like the previous three years, but outdoors instead of indoors.
** ''Girl Genius'' has always been a slow-moving comic with lots of detail and development, but just to put this in more perspective, the comic launched online on April 18th, 2005, although the date given on the first comic is Nov 4th, 2002. Given the 2005 launch, more than half of the comic has been spent in the Castle. On top of that, the Foglios have said that everything before Volume Nine, which started in January 2009, is the first season of the comic.


* With almost a hundred pages coupled with sporadic updates, episode four of ''Webcomic/TheFan'' took almost two years to complete. In fact, it was so long that the author had to part it halfway. Even he was glad when it finally ended.
* ''Webcomic/{{Collar 6}}'':
** The initial story-arc took over a year to reach its climax (no, not that kind). This isn't really Myth Stall, since it hasn't fully developed a MythArc yet. The stall did get better, however, when the update schedule moved from twice a week to three times a week. Furthermore, unlike many examples of this trope, the author has been consistent in his updates.
** The second arc was even worse, beginning in March 2011 and lasting until February 2014 and that's with minimal slip and a further increase near the end to five days a week. It also had a lot of world-building and new characters, which were handled in the form of {{Info Dump}}s that lasted up to a month at a time.
* ''Webcomic/ClanOfTheCats'' beats all of the above by a long shot, with its "[[PublicDomainCharacter Vengeance of]] {{Dracula}}" arc, which started in August 2003 and is still going on, over 600 pages later (not counting {{Filler}}).
* ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'' 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. 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. The kitten arc was filler before a crossover with ''Webcomic/AxeCop'', and the ending was retconned.
* The muffin arc in ''Webcomic/OriginalLife'' went on for almost half a year, which is a lot for a comic that doesn't usually go over three pages before moving on to a new topic. According to most fans, it long overstayed its welcome.
* Wonder Woman's birthday party story in ''Webcomic/JL8'' started in November of 2012 (August if you count the buildup) and did not end until July of 2013. An infrequent update schedule was part of the problem, but what really dragged the story out was that it turned the LoveTriangle between Superman, Wonder Woman, and Power Girl into a RomanticPlotTumor.
* ''Webcomic/{{Jack|DavidHopkins}}'': The second half of the "Megan's Run" arc alone is the longest arc the series ever had, but adding the two halves up, it comes to a whopping 257 pages. Adding {{Schedule Slip}}s to the mix, it felt like the arc would never end.
* ''Webcomic/ParadoxSpace'' consists of several short and separate stories, but sometimes they are not short enough:
** ''[[http://www.paradoxspace.com/pones/1 Pones]]'', starring Webcomic/SweetBroAndHellaJeff, attracted this reaction despite only being 2 pages long (the comic gets one page every weekday). While [=SBaHJ=]'s StylisticSuck humor is funny in smaller doses, getting two days of Sweet Bro playing with a [[MyLittlePhony My Little Pony]] lookalike doll may have been too much.
** ''[[http://www.paradoxspace.com/night-at-the-100dseum/1 Night at the 100dseum]]'' is ten pages long, which means that with one page per weekday, fans had nothing but Karkat and Terezi going through Equius' museum for two weeks straight.
** ''[[http://www.paradoxspace.com/the-thirst-of-dornamon-gary/1 The Thirst of Dornamon Gary]]'' is another ''Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff''-themed comic, but, unlike ''Pones'', which was two days, this one is a full five days long. At least the story is more interesting than just Sweet Bro playing with a toy unicorn.
** Among Paradox Space's longest stories were [[http://www.paradoxspace.com/secret-sufferer Secret Sufferer]] (25 pages long) and [[http://www.paradoxspace.com/the-inaugural-death-of-mister-seven The Inaugural Death of Mister Seven]] (24 pages long). These stories, however, would have x2 Update Combos for a week, meaning that two pages would be done a day instead of one, so this took the sting out of it a little. However, not even this could alleviate how long [[http://www.paradoxspace.com/summerteen-romance Summerteen Romance]] was. At over double the length of the aforementioned stories, at 51, even two updates a weekday for a week only just made a dent.

* ''Webcomic/LsEmpire'' has an in-universe example. The {{Author Avatar}}s get bored with one of the story arcs so they just fast forward to the final battle. This comes back up as a minor plot point later on.
* The ''Utterly Dwarfed'' arc in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' lasted a while (beginning in earnest in March 2014 and climaxing in October 2018). A lot of fans expressed frustration at how long the comic was spending on a side story -- until the arc concluded in a way that made it essential to the main story with a twist that no-one saw coming.
* This happens a bit with ''Webcomic/{{Endtown}}'', as the arcs can go on for ''a while''. The very first arc featured the epic quest with a SelflessWish, complete with a backstory for an ArcVillain and an AlasPoorVillain. Then the characters spend several months just getting back home and getting clearance. This isn't going onto the "Milk and Eggs" arc or the flashback arc...

* The fan-comic ''Blog/AdventuresInLurning'' had the ''Colin is Dead arc'' that started on August 4th, 2017 and keep going until October 10th, 2018. Many fans felt like the Story Arc was going for too long for what was originally just a fun ask fan-blog; even the author admitted he was tired of the arc and renamed it in the Story Arc Guide as ''Colin is Dead Arc - The Never-Ending Story Arc''. Thankfully, after the arc ended, the blog returned to its origins.
* Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures: The ''Friends in High Places'' chapter has been going on since 2013 with over 600 pages at the time of writing with no indication of stopping. It wouldn't be so bad if things had actually happened during those six years, but the majority of it has just consisted of build-up (the cubi clan meeting, Piflak's party, etc.) or exposition.
* ''Webcomic/DragonBallMultiverse'' has the Budokai Royale/Majin Rebellion arc which started in 2017 and ended in 2021. A total of five years. While well-received at first, some fans feel that it ran its course and wish to get back to the tournament already.
* ''Webcomic/LookingForGroup'':
** Leena starts targeting the group in strip 902. The arc doesn't end until 1264, 362 strips later.
** The Archmage is slain in strip 788. Over ''700'' strips later and the party is still dealing with the aftermath, largely due to a whole bunch of side-arcs getting tossed in, such as the truth of Richard's backstory.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' fell into this to some fans with Volume 4, due to how much time was needed to tell each of the main heroines' stories and do some needed CharacterDevelopment and world-building. However, [[FourLinesAllWaiting because the stories were all told simultaneously, it took the entire season to tell each of them.]] This continued into Volume 5 as it took the entire season to finally get the main heroines back together, which only happens in the final few minutes of the final episode.
* ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'' fell into this hard thanks to ScheduleSlip, which is frustrating since the source material ended two years before the abridged series even began. Creator/LittleKuriboh started abridging the Battle City arc in 2007, and did not finish that arc until '''2014''', by which time, even he had forgotten some of the {{Running Gag}}s that ''he made up''. (He later {{lampshade|Hanging}}d this.) Keep in mind that the [[Anime/YuGiOh anime]] ran from 2000 to 2004, meaning that [[ExaggeratedTrope it took longer to abridge a single arc than it did to broadcast the whole original series!]] And there are still two seasons to go...

* The Avalon World Tour arc in ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}''. The creators weren't pleased about that, however, and when it was coming to a close, made some clear hints that the end was indeed in sight. Due to production issues, episodes couldn't be aired one after another. Hiatuses had to be endured, stretching twenty-some episodes over several months rather than weeks. It wasn't helped by the absence of half the main cast during most of the arc. Made worse by the arc's tendency to [[RecycledScript recycle plots]]. Toward the end of the arc, even ''[[LampshadedTrope the characters themselves]]'' [[LampshadedTrope were tired and longing for it to end.]]
* In the ''ComicBook/SecretInvasion'' adaptation in ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'', it takes the Avengers seven episodes longer than the viewers to realize one of their members became replaced by a Skrull, and another five to discover ''which'' Avenger fell victim.[[note]]It's Characters/{{Captain America|TitleCharacter}}, by the way.[[/note]] This wouldn't feel as bad if not for Disney XD taking inexplicably long breaks in between certain episodes, or the possibility that this arc contains more filler than any from the first season. Disney's [=DVDs=] arrange the episodes in production order. Because of this, the Avengers discover eight episodes in that an alien lives among them and take another five to find out who exactly the alien replaced. The viewer doesn't get to see what happened to the victim until after they notice a member has been replaced.

** The yet-unresolved continuing grand scheme of [[BigBad The Light]] has become this in the second season. So the heroes foil the season-long plans of the Light - surprise, all that was only Phase 1! And some other fans were already thinking this during the first season. Most of the show has a problem with this, actually: there are so many intertwining plotlines going on at the same time, all of them saturated with characters that only seem to be there for the sake of having another new hero/villain, that you can easily get lost between everything or get sick of it. Made all the worse that, by the season finale of Season 2, it's obvious what The Light's plan was: 1) use the Justice League's attack on Rimbor to alert the universe and The Reach to the presence of Earth as a major world 2) use The Reach to instigate Mongul into bringing War World to Earth 3) Destroy The Reach's plans and give The Guardians a reason to try them for war crimes, in order to take them out of the picture 4) Use The War World around Rimbor to alert the rest of the universe that Earth is hereby off-limits 5) All this is in preparation for Darkseid (Wherever There is Light, There is Always a Darkseid) and the legions of Apokolips to invade Earth... Season 3 would have been Apokolips invading Earth. The show was canceled before this could possibly have become more complicated. It really doesn't help that, thanks to multiple hiatuses, the show spent more time off the air than on.
** When the show was UnCanceled, the fatigue came back tenfold, and by the conclusion of season 3, very little progress is seemingly made on the overall series arc. Luthor loses his position as Secretary-General, but remains free and retains his position in the Light. Granny is being punished by Darkseid as a scapegoat, but will undoubtedly be free to continue as before. Despite everything that happened, the alliance between Darkseid and the Light remains firmly intact. There's talk of a great galactic war coming, but it's kept so vague that it's near-impossible to guess what the threat could be. The conflict of this entire season can be considered just setup for the actual central conflict that may or may not finally happen in Season 4. Either way, the arc of the series is moving a lot more slowly than many had expected. Most took as practically given after the Season 2 stinger that Apokolips would invade Earth in Season 3, which doesn't happen. The Earth is arguably never under direct threat in Season 3, unless you count the very few minutes it appeared Granny had won.

* The Jeff in Space arc in ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad''. It was dragged out over the course of three seasons (which amounted to a little more than two years in real life) and it didn't help that it was only focused on at least once per season and that it ultimately resolved via reset button where all the characters (barring Roger, [[KarmaHoudini the one who started it in the first place]]) would forget the events of the whole thing.
* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': Zuko's HeelFaceTurn doesn't happen until the final stretch of season 3, only a few episodes before the SeriesFinale. That's despite having the seeds planted as far back as the season 1 episode "The Blue Spirit". Viewers were guessing it would happen even before that. It was the main drive of his character arc from the beginning of season 2 onwards, including one case in the season 2 finale where it looks like it's finally going to happen, [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle and then]] [[WhamEpisode doesn't]]. While Zuko does still get in a few good moments here and there, it still felt like a long drag to resolve one character's story arc.
* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'':
** The main romance has become this due to its repeated lack of progress as well as the {{flanderization}} of Marinette. The show at this point has had THREE what-if episodes, but have never allowed the two to progress in the 100+ episodes that have happened. This has led many to either [[AbandonShipping drop the duo]] or outright drop the series.
** Chloé's arc has become this as well for similar reasons and a very similar {{flanderization}} in Season 4. Thomas has stated that his intention was to never redeem Chloé prior to the Season 3 finale and that she can still get a redemption if she learns from her mistakes. Even so, many who were aware of this choice were not happy with the result as well as the aforementioned flanderization.
** Hawk Moth remaining the main villain also applies to all of the above, with many believing that he has overstayed his welcome and the show's repeated attempts to justify his actions come off as [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic hollow]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/TotalDramaPresentsTheRidonculousRace'' the decision to return to a full season's worth of episodes (unlike its [[WesternAnimation/TotalDrama parent series]] which had been using half seasons) was warmly embraced by the fanbase at large. However, it did lead to some problems with this:
** Stephanie and Ryan, the Daters [[spoiler: a.k.a. the Haters SlapSlapKiss [[TheMasochismTango Masochism Tango]] arc, since its about the only thing they contribute to the series. Not helped by the fact they technically lose the race ''three times'' but every time just so happens to be a [[EliminationHoudini non-elimination round]], the third time in "Lord of the Ring Toss" really annoying fans, in particular]]. The general consensus is they should have [[spoiler: either stayed broken up and gone home or made up and gone home]] in half the time they did so more popular and well-developed teams could have time in the spotlight.
** Even fans of the duo felt that Carrie and Devin's WillTheyOrWontThey storyline dragged on for too long, [[spoiler: which wasn't helped by the fact it was resolved in ''one'' episode]]. However, this might actually have been the intended reaction, as even Don and the other contestants [[LampshadeHanging comment that they've gotten tired of it]].
** Chet and Lorenzo managed to have this [[spoiler: despite ''barely'' making it past the half-season mark, due to the entirety of their plot happening in the span of their last two legs in the race]]. Before this, all they did was argue for the entire time they were on screen which got very grating very quickly.
* Bloom's missing [[spoiler:biological]] parents in ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub''. They are first mentioned in episode 13[[note]]Her "mysterious past" was hinted at as early as episode 2, but this could have gone in any number of directions.[[/note]], but it takes three seasons and one movie before they are finally reunited. It doesn't help that there were other plot threads going on at the same time, with the show only coming back to her missing parents seemingly when it felt like it.
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': The formation of Malachite and her eventual defeat got hit with this. Jasper and Lapis fused to become said fusion in the Season 1 finale, at which point the fusion sequestered in the ocean. Lapis would make one appearance during the entirety of Season 2 via a telepathic conversation, while Malachite herself wouldn't reappear until the Season 3 premiere, which also resolved that plot thread by defeating and unfusing her. Between the Lapis episode and the Season 3 premiere were two consecutive story arcs; three, if you want to treat Peridot's HeelFaceTurn as separate from the concurrent Cluster arc.
* ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'' episodes ran five minutes a pop with two episodes bookending a half-hour program. Two story arcs went on for uncannily long periods. The first arc, "Jet Fuel Formula," ran from its November 19, 1959 debut to April 2, 1960, running 40 episodes (20 weeks). The third arc, "Upsidasium," went on for 36 episodes (18 weeks, from September 22, 1960 to January 12, 1961).

** ''Franchise/MegaMan''. The [[VideoGame/MegaManClassic original series]]' writing was immediately recognized as a [[ExcusePlot cheap excuse]] to shoot a line-up of [[OfficialFanSubmittedContent fan-submitted]] [[BossBattle robots]]. But then came ''VideoGame/MegaManX'', taking place 100 years later and touting a more serious story connected to its predecessor; followed by ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' doing the same to it. They were 3 tandem series promising linking revelations... but since the [[CashCowFranchise first two]] were [[NoEnding not allowed to end]], little came beyond cameos and [[ShrugOfGod intentionally cryptic]] hints that went [[MindScrew nowhere]]. The lone applied connection that Wily built Zero was [[RecycledScript endlessly reused]] and stretched, with three separate, mysterious scientist villains hinted at as possibly being Wily showing up while Zero died [[DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist just as often]]. Like Sigma's [[VillainDecay continued existence]], attempts at drama devolved into [[MotiveDecay overused jokes]]. Ironically, the endpoint of all this in the ''Zero'' series was the only one that ''actually finished'' with a GrandFinale (which allowed it specifically to {{avert|edTrope}} the fatigue, and even then it got pushed into having one more game than intended), so fans were left in the awkward position of knowing how it would all end up, but not all of how it got there. At least you could count on loads of new bosses... until Capcom internal politics pointed towards the franchise dying with a whimper rather than any real resolution. The surprise resurrection of the Classic series with ''VideoGame/MegaMan11'' in 2018 at least shows there's still interest in the series, though the game being a SoftReboot that adheres to the {{status quo|IsGod}} means no real narrative progress was made.

** Traversing the early jungle portions of Act 3 (the spider forest, the great marsh, and the flayer jungle) is met with a similar criticism due to the lengths of having to run around searching for the two dungeons that have the body parts needed for a main quest.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' has four major quests which must be finished in order to get to the final part of the game. However, one of these quests - "A Paragon of Her Kind" - is practically big enough for a DLC campaign, being larger than the other three put together. There are roughly six dungeons which ''have'' to be completely explored (and more in optional sidequests); there's never a chance to TakeAThirdOption, even if both of the options are stupid or out-of-character for the player; [[spoiler:the good ending comes out of siding with the corrupt jerkass between the two potential kings, because the NiceGuy's conservative ways cause a violent revolt after the events of the game]]; the player has to do quite a bit of running back and forth between the dwarven capital and the aforementioned dungeons; and several of the characters introduced are quite simply unlikable.

** ''Stormblood'' suffers from this in its Ala Mhigo arc, in that it's almost treated as an afterthought despite events in Ala Mhigo being the catalyst for the expansion. Its problem is twofold: one, it decided to also deal with liberating a second country from Garlean occupation (the in-universe logic being to divide the Garleans' attention by forcing them to deal with two rebellions at the same time), and two, that second country ended up with far more time spent on it - keeping in mind that you have to be at level 60 to start the ''Stormblood'' story, you head for the Far East at level 61 and don't come back until you've liberated Doma at level ''68'', which leaves almost no room for Ala Mhigo to have any real story. What makes this even worse is that Lyse [[ADayInTheLimelight gets much more story importance]] with this expansion, but her CharacterDevelopment is almost entirely tied to Ala Mhigo rather than Doma, and what little she does get in Doma is overshadowed by other plot points like trying to gain Hien's assistance - which means she spends almost 90% of the expansion never progressing past the "Lyse [[{{Wangst}} whines about feeling useless]]" phase of her development before very suddenly jumping to "Lyse is leading the Ala Mhigan Resistance", without even giving her any chance to prove herself worthy of the role until well ''after'' she's been thrust into it.

** One criticism of ''Endwalker'' is how the story grinds to a halt every time it chooses to focus on the Loporitts, largely because quests centered around them are more comical in tone, intended as {{breather episode}}s, which doesn't work because the two major times the story chooses to focus on them comes ''immediately'' after [[WhamEpisode very huge moments in the story]], which makes them feel inappropriately-placed on top of the fact that they, particularly the second time, focus on several quests that feel like filler.
* ''Franchise/TheKingOfFighters'' series has the Tales of Ash arc, which started in ''2003'' ([[CaptainObvious which was released in 2003]]), continued with ''XI'' (released in late 2005 for Japanese arcades before heading to the [=PS2=] the following year) and only ended in ''XIII'' (2010 for arcades, 2011 for consoles). Doing the math reveals that the arc basically lasted for ''seven-to-eight years''. Compare that to the Orochi and NESTS arcs, each of which lasted for three years. [[note]]''[='94=]'' doesn't count, as that's its own self-contained story, and neither do ''[='98=]'', ''2002'' and ''XII'' due to the former two being non-canon {{Dream Match Game}}s and the latter being an ObviousBeta.[[/note]] This could be explained by Creator/{{SNK}} opting to abandon doing yearly installments on account of the growing costs of game development as well as wanting to jump ship to the Atomiswave hardware for their games [[note]]that, and the whole mess involving their bankruptcy in 2000-2001, but that's another story[[/note]]. Not helping matters was the fact that its star protagonist Ash was quite a polarizing figure not just due to his flamboyant personality [[note]]even more so than [[CampStraight Benimaru]]![[/note]], but also due to him inflicting TheWorfEffect on the likes of Chizuru and Iori ''and'' [[BroughtDownToNormal stealing their powers]] (forcing Chizuru to go back to CommutingOnABus [[note]]her last playable appearance prior to ''2003'' was ''[='98=]'', whereas her last canonical appearance was ''[='97=]''[[/note]] and Iori's moveset to undergo significant changes in ''XII'' and ''XIII''), not to mention being outright billed as a VillainProtagonist, meaning that fans were getting outright fed up with him. That said, [[spoiler:[[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap many were willing to forgive him for his actions in the end]] when ''XIII'' revealed that he was in fact a GoodAllAlong GuileHero who did what he did in order to protect his sister figure Elisabeth, even going as far as to pull a HeroicSacrifice to erase the BigBad of the arc--his very own ancestor--from existence]].

* Summer Vactation, or the 4th Palace arc, in ''VideoGame/Persona5''. The palace itself is [[BreatherLevel one of the shortest and simplest in the game]], but you're given the ''longest'' deadline in the game to complete it. (It opens up in late July, and the deadline isn't until ''late August'') Since the plot can't progress until the deadline is up, this leads to a ''long'' stretch of time without much dungeon action. And not going to school locks out a decent chunk of non-dungeon content as well, leaving players with little to do.

* The Webcomic/{{MS Paint Adventure|s}} ''Webcomic/ProblemSleuth'' has the interminable Demonhead Mobster Kingpin fight, which lasted for longer than the ''rest'' of the story.
** Lampshaded when Problem Sleuth writes a StronglyWordedLetter containing the phrase "and where do you get off being so difficult anyway, we spent more than half the game fighting you".
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'':
** The ''Hivebent'' arc got some flak for taking too long, especially since the End of Act 4 immediately before it ended on a CliffHanger with the kids. Then Act 5 Act 2 began and showed no signs of stopping, to the point where by the end Act 5 as a whole was longer than the first four acts combined. It grew so long that it may have inspired the "damaged disc" arc where Terezi accidentally scratches Homestuck Disc 2, prompting Doc Scratch to narrate the story while the disc is repaired. At first Scratch says his narration will be abbreviated, but a '''long''' time (just over three months) later, Hussie himself is so fed up that he [[BreakingTheFourthWall breaks through the "fifth wall"]] and attacks Scratch with a broom to put a stop to his "condescending self-indulgent narrative style". Finding that the disc had been repaired for quite some time, Hussie comes to the conclusion that Scratch "likes the sound of his own voice." All PlayedForLaughs.
** Act 6 is even worse, being longer than Act 5. To name a more specific example, it took the original main characters over a year's worth of updates to [[spoiler:get from their old session to the one of the newer characters]]. As a whole, first 4 Acts take about 25% of pages, Act 5 26%, with Act 6 taking remaining 49%. Timewise, they take about 17%, 20%, and 63%, respectively, of webcomic's lifetime.
* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'':
** The "Oceans Unmoving" arc attracted a lot of this sentiment, largely because it focused around a brand new cast, with most of the main characters stuck off-screen for months at a time.
** The "4U City" arcs did this as well, as Riff is the only major character present for them aside from all the alternate reality versions of other characters. The entire arc took place over several years, started and stopped randomly to return to the antics of Torg and Co. in the prime universe, and was particularly annoying since it not only kept Riff out of the main plotline for all this time but also [[spoiler: refused to resolve the dangling plot thread about Zoe's fate until the ''last'' panel of the ''last'' arc]].

* The Mecanicsburg arc from ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' while being very enjoyable and was the last arc in the first part of what is evidently going to be a ''very'' long comic still lasted 6 volumes and was released over the course of 6 years.

* Chapter 2 of ''Webcomic/CaptainSNES'' began in 2002. It ended on November 13, 2009. That's over four years after [[http://www.captainsnes.com/2005/01/23/this-only-makes-it-harder-for-those-poor-kids-in-the-sweatshops/ this comic right here]]. It was then retroactively split into two acts of roughly equal strip numbers, but with Act 2 ending at the end of 2003 and Act 3 lasting from 2004 to 2009. As, with the exception of an early sideplot which was temporarily dropped (but resolved in Act 4 in early 2011) and a flashback or two, ''all'' of the action in the latter act happened in the same area, it could indeed be asked "Are they ''still'' in Nexus?" (And, if you're asking about the Gamemasta only, the answer, as of comic #786, is still "yes".)
* ''Webcomic/DominicDeegan'':
** The March Across Maltak storyline. Said arc started January 2009, with an accompanying blog post wishing everyone an "[[HilariousInHindsight epic new year]]", and wrapped up at the very end of January 2010.
** The Storm of Souls was also accused of this, but that was more forgivable since it was the culmination of everything that had come before.
* The massive Castle Heterodyne arcs of ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'', which have all been about Agatha trying to get into Castle Heterodyne to fix it, or Agatha trying to fix it, or other people trying to reach Agatha while she fixes it. Agatha entered the castle proper on February 8th, 2008, and didn't set foot outside again until November 2, 2011, three and a half years later.
--> '''Agatha:''' "[[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20091209 NO! I said: NO MORE DELAYS!]]"
** Definitely speaking for the audience there... and naturally, it's right before a holiday break.
** Then she spent over another year running around defending the castle, which was like the previous three years, but outdoors instead of indoors.
** ''Girl Genius'' has always been a slow-moving comic with lots of detail and development, but just to put this in more perspective, the comic launched online on April 18th, 2005, although the date given on the first comic is Nov 4th, 2002. Given the 2005 launch, more than half of the comic has been spent in the Castle. On top of that, the Foglios have said that everything before Volume Nine, which started in January 2009, is the first season of the comic.

* Bordering between this, Myth Fatigue, and likely EndingFatigue is ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater''[='=]s final arc, which was getting really long if not drawn out before it spent several ''months'' on the Light Warriors' failed attempts to get strong enough to [[spoiler:defeat Chaos]] [[WebcomicTime in 24 hours]]. [[spoiler:However, this turns out to have been ''[[IntendedAudienceReaction completely]]'' intentional, just for the sake of making the AntiClimax that much bigger.]]

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' fell into this to some fans with Volume 4, due to how much time was needed to tell each of the main heroines' stories and do some needed CharacterDevelopment and world-building. However, [[FourLinesAllWaiting because the stories were all told simultaneously, it took the entire season to tell each of them.]] This continued into Volume 5 as it took the entire season to finally get the main heroines back together, which only happens in the final few minutes of the final episode.

* In ''Fanfic/AttackOnTitanABlacksmithsTale'' Psychic MC, Dillon's character arc of learning to live with himself and his girlfriend Annie has been essentially in a limbo state for years at this point, with nothing really changing his situation. The second he gets "better", something else dramatic happens and we're back to square one. this is in addition to canon storylines taking much longer than necessary due to a slow update cycle.

* Rey's family background dominates her story arc for the entire ''Franchise/StarWars'' sequel trilogy (2015-2019). ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' establishes that Rey was abandoned by her parents on Jakku for unclear reasons. In ''Film/TheLastJedi'', Rey and the audience are confronted with the knowledge that her parents were junk traders who sold her for drinking money and are irrelevant to the story, rather than anyone important. Creator/RianJohnson (writer/director of ''The Last Jedi'') said learning she was "nobody" was the most devastating answer Rey could get, but that she could now move on, which seemed to close this arc. ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' instead reopens it by abruptly revealing that Rey is actually [[spoiler: the granddaughter of Palpatine]]. Lots of viewers found this frustrating, both because it comes off as an AssPull and has [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks already been done]] in ''Star Wars'' (and elsewhere), and because they wanted Rey's story to focus on other things, such as her Jedi training. And there are ''still'' unanswered questions around her heritage by the end. Rey's actress Creator/DaisyRidley later revealed there [[WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants wasn't a concrete plan]] for Rey's heritage and the answer kept changing between films – even during the filming of ''The Rise of Skywalker'' writer/director Creator/JJAbrams wasn't fully committed to [[spoiler:Palpatine being Rey's grandfather]].

* ''Literature/LightAndDarkTheAwakeningOfTheMageKnight'': The 'normal school' arc in the beginning dragged on and on until the 8th chapter. It served its purpose, introducing the characters, in the first. One can only assume Daniel Fife wanted [[AudienceSurrogate to make sure the reader identified with Protagonist Danny.]]
* ''Literature/{{The Black Magician|Trilogy}}'' series seems to have a problem with this, particularly in the second book, Novice. Most of the over 500 pages consist of a bog-standard bullying story. The overarching plot only makes an appearance halfway through, and then only in the form of a hostage situation that remains at a perfect standstill both when it comes to understanding motivations and resolving the situation until the epilogue. By contrast, there is another subplot in Novice that consists of a scavenger hunt across the world, a budding romance and a major character development and exploration of the character and the politics of the world that is given 50 or so pages to develop, flashing by on one or a couple of pages in between dozens of pages of yet more bullying and blackmail.

* It's not as bad as some examples due to only taking up one book, but the plotline involving Leila stalking Ana in ''[[Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey Fifty Shades Darker]]'' starts to show signs of this. It lasts nearly the entire book (which is over 500 pages long) and yet nothing truly significant happens with it until the last third when Leila unexpectedly shows up at Ana's apartment with a gun. It doesn't help that it has pretty much [[TrappedByMountainLions no impact on the story in the next book]] and that the situation [[IdiotPlot could've been resolved early on]] if Ana and Christian had just called the police, instead of trying and miserably failing to deal with the problem themselves.
* In ''Literature/TheBadGuys'', Prof. Marmalade is introduced in the second book as the BigBad - and just about every book until the tenth book involves him trying to one-up the titular Bad Guys, only to end them all on a CliffHanger that something has gone wrong or he has something new. After a few books, this can get a little annoying, despite all the [[HilarityEnsues wacky hijinks]] and CharacterDevelopment our heroes get up to in the meantime.

* Similarly, the "Higher Power" story from Wrestling/{{WWE}} was disliked since it revived the Austin-[=McMahon=] rivalry which had long since stopped being fresh and interesting. At the expense of the far more interesting Wrestling/MinistryOfDarkness storyline at that. Even Wrestling/TheUndertaker admits that was a JumpingTheShark moment in a later interview.
* Many fans grew tired of the Wrestling/JerryLawler vs. Wrestling/MichaelCole feud, believing that it should've been resolved by [[Wrestling/WrestleMania Wrestlemania XXVII]]. Made worse by Cole frequently getting away with his villainy and constantly gaining the advantage over Lawler. Not even the King humiliating Cole at ''Over the Limit'' (along with an assist from both Wrestling/JimRoss and Wrestling/BretHart) brought a satisfying ending.[[note]]It also didn't stop Cole from being an overbearing jerkass, unfortunately, and it only ended once his colleague suffered a heart attack.[[/note]]
* The latter part of the fifth season of Wrestling/{{WWE NXT}} became this after months without an elimination. Then, they dropped all pretense of it still being a contest and it became a C-show with their lower midcarders. When season 5 of NXT finally ended, it had aired 67 episodes. It was then retooled into a show that showcases talent from their developmental system.
* And lest you think that the original Wrestling/{{ECW}} gets a clean slate from this, it doesn't. Two notable feuds that went on way past their expiration date (even if they did result in some still good matches) were Wrestling/MikeAwesome's ridiculous amount of "We got nothin' else booked so just go out there and wrestle Wrestling/MasatoTanaka with tables and chairs again" matches, and the absurdly long-standing Wrestling/TommyDreamer vs Wrestling/{{Raven}} feud that still never actually did quite end, or, at least, only ended just long enough for it to be [[Wrestling/VinceRusso revived]] when they both went to [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]].
* The Wrestling/JohnCena[=/=]Wrestling/RandyOrton feud has been going on, on-and-off, for years. The feud itself never quite connected with the audience as being anything legitimately special, despite WWE's attempts to portray it as being one of the greatest rivalries in not just WWE itself, but in all of sports. Fans are so sick of it that around 2014, Cena/Orton matches began being received by live crowds with anything ranging from silent apathy to outright hostility. Luckily, the company eventually got the message and they haven't wrestled a match against each other since then, partially because 2015 is when they both started transitioning to part-timer status (Cena more than Orton).
* The "Anonymous GM" of Raw was either this or a Myth Stall (since it was supposed to be the overarching essence of Raw itself), or something altogether different (since WWE made no effort to explore the identity of this GM, meaning it wasn't even a storyline). A few wrestlers interacted with the laptop that the GM sent emails through but no one since Wrestling/ChrisJericho actually demanded the GM reveal themselves. The "character" was disliked by the viewers not for being a {{heel}} (it had a track record that skirted the line between heel and {{face}}), but simply because people were just ''tired'' of it. It's almost like it was a vehicle solely to make Cole look bad.
* WWE's controversial Invasion arc, which technically kicked off when Wrestling/ShaneMcMahon (in {{Kayfabe}}) bought out WCW in April of 2001 through to Survivor Series in November of that year likely counts, largely due to how the majority of former WCW and ECW talent weren't pushed. The initial concept seemed somewhat meaningless towards the end, where Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin and Wrestling/KurtAngle, [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] and Wrestling/ChrisJericho were feuding with each other, all of whom were with the WWE at the start of the arc.
* [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]]'s monster masked wrestler Wrestling/{{Abyss}}, portrayed by Chris Parks, was attacked after a match in January 2012 and disappeared from the show. In March his identically-built brother Joseph Park showed up on the show looking for him. Joseph's search for his brother and supposed legal training allowed him to get involved in a few storylines and he eventually went to wrestling school and was able to compete in matches (albeit poorly due to his mild manner and lack of experience). However, after suffering enough punishment or getting cut open he would [[BerserkButton Hulk out]] and/or perform his brother's finishing move. This went on for almost two years until December 2013 and the [[AssPull not so shocking swerve]] that Abyss and Joseph were the same person. Not only had all but the dimmest viewers known or at least suspected this for months but it effectively meant that Chris Parks had been forced to wrestle [[StylisticSuck badly]] for an extended period of time for a character whose potential would never be maximized. It didn't help that it was a combination of Kaz, Daniels, and Eric Young who worked out the secret since they were not exactly portrayed as the brightest members of the roster.
* Some people feel that the 2013-14 WWE "Wrestling/TheAuthority" storyline went on far longer than it should have. In short, [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]] wins the WWE title at Wrestling/SummerSlam, gets Pedigreed by Wrestling/TripleH and cashed in on by Randy Orton and screwed out of the title, and the screwjobs continued for months afterward, as Triple H, Orton, and Stephanie [=McMahon=] (and later Wrestling/{{Kane}}) spend months bullying and beating Bryan, getting no lasting repercussions for their actions in the process. It wasn't helped by random detours in the plot, such as Bryan feuding with Wrestling/TheWyattFamily for a few months for no particular reason, especially since Bryan ended up ''losing'' the payoff match to that feud, and that doesn't even touch on the inexplicable, two-week period where Bryan suddenly turned heel and joined the Wyatts (the idea was actually to write Bryan out of the Authority angle, meaning he'd get no payoff twice over but he remained too [[PopularityPower popular for that to be feasible]]). Eventually, though, Bryan would win the title back at Wrestling/WrestleMania, overcoming Triple H, Wrestling/{{Batista}}, and Orton (though that was an AuthorsSavingThrow following the overwhelming negative fan reaction to Batista winning the Wrestling/RoyalRumble a few months prior).\\

* Wrestling/{{Paige}} and Wrestling/AJLee's feud in the summer of 2014, particularly after Paige won the title back at ''[=SummerSlam=]''. It got to the point where the feud had originally featured sneak attacks and intense promos - and ended up with random segments where AJ walked out on her tag partners and the two only exchanged stern looks - despite supposedly hating each other's guts.
* Wrestling/{{Layla}} and Wrestling/SummerRae's storyline was heading in this direction when they decided to team up and make Wrestling/{{Fandango}}'s life hell. For four weeks they just appeared at ringside to interfere in his matches - and it was obvious there would be no pay-off match since it's a women vs man feud. Thankfully it actually was ended pretty quickly and the two were integrated into the women's division as a tag team.
* Much in the vein of the Cena/Orton feud, fans got sick of the Wrestling/AJStyles[=/=]Wrestling/ChristopherDaniels feud ''years'' ago. While the matches were amazing, the feud always had Chris as the heel and his turn always happened for the same damn reason. It eventually culminated in the AudienceAlienatingEra that was Claire Lynch, which would win the [[Website/WrestleCrap Gooker Award]] for 2012. Thankfully, that was the final run of the feud in TNA, and most agree that if anything, they at least got Bad Influence out of it.
* Played with in the case of the feud between Wrestling/JohnCena and Wrestling/TheRock. The feud, overall, ran for '''26 months''', beginning with the Rock's return in February 2011 and ending at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania 29'' in April 2013. However, despite that incredibly long run-time, the Rock spent the majority of this time away from the show, leaving Cena to do other things until it was time to resume their feud. It still stands for the most part, however, since most fans felt it at least should have ended with their "Once in a Lifetime" match at ''[=WrestleMania=] 28'' instead of reviving the angle just to give Cena his win back.
* The love trapezoid angle in 2015 between Wrestling/RusevAndLana, Wrestling/DolphZiggler, and Wrestling/SummerRae went on for an unreasonably long time and seemed to get the heel/face dynamic backwards. Ziggler came off as a thorough DesignatedHero who acted like a smug prick about Lana leaving Rusev for him and taunting him over it every chance he got. Rusev, on the other hand, was seen as the most sympathetic party in the story despite WWE's attempts to portray him as some sort of {{Domestic Abuse}}r, since he lost his undefeated streak and United States Championship to John Cena, was sidelined with an ankle injury, and then his girlfriend leaves him for a guy that actively devotes time to mocking him about it, he came off as a legitimately broken man and fans saw his hatred toward Ziggler as being completely justified. The seeds of a Rusev and Lana breakup were planted as early as March and didn't "resolve" for at least another ''six months''. Part of the problem was that the storyline hit several nasty snags along the way, like Rusev and Lana each being injured at different points and Ziggler taking time off to film a movie, but rather than just scrap the storyline since it wasn't really all that popular with the crowd, they kept stalling and extending it until the missing party returned. Rusev and Lana's involvement didn't end until Lana posted photos of herself wearing an engagement ring from her real-life engagement to Rusev, at which point WWE effectively let them bail on the angle, and even then they extended and rewrote the angle to be Ziggler and the debuting Wrestling/TylerBreeze feuding over Summer Rae.
* The feud between Wrestling/{{Charlotte|Flair}} and Wrestling/SashaBanks has been received this way by plenty of people. While neither of them are bad, WWE decided that what they needed to give the new-look Women's Division and new Women's Championship legitimacy was to have a long, great rivalry. Unfortunately, they went about it in a very forced and hamfisted way that only made many fans sick of the angle, with many directly comparing it to a compressed version of the Cena/Orton rivalry above. All-in-all, the angle lasted (with a bit of on-and-off here and there) somewhere in the ballpark of ''16 months'', featured many "first time ever" matches like the first women's Hell in a Cell match for no real reason aside from being able to promote it was the first time ever, and worst of all, featured the new Women's Title hot-potatoeing back and forth between the two so often that they each racked up a number of title reigns in this span of a little more than a year that even many legitimately legendary wrestlers never touch in their entire careers ironically did much more to hamper the title's legitimacy than it did to build it, as well as the fact that the feud was so prominent for so long that it became a SpotlightStealingSquad, all of the other women on the show were DemotedToExtra, and ironically did more harm than good to the division as a whole. The fact that the feud was mostly one-sided in Charlotte's favor, with most of the hot-potatoeing being Sasha winning the title and then almost immediately losing it back to Charlotte, also did the new title no favors.\\

* Wrestling/BrockLesnar's first Universal Championship reign, far more than any other reign in recent memory. Initially his reign started out well when he defeated Wrestling/{{Goldberg}} for the title at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania 33'' -- who the fans soured on after he defeated the previous champion, EnsembleDarkhorse Wrestling/KevinOwens, in a SquashMatch. By the end of 2017, however, fans were bitterly reminded of why they disliked having a part-timer as champion, as Lesnar barely showed up outside of the occasional title defense, to the point that many even forgot that RAW had a world title, with some even considering the Intercontinental Championship the top title on RAW. It had reached a point where many were actually happy at the idea of CreatorsPet Wrestling/RomanReigns winning at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania 34'', as it meant they'd have a full-time champion again, and Reigns was far more likely to lose the title in a smaller time frame. [[AssPull Except he didn't win]]. And then he didn't win his next title match at ''The Greatest Wrestling/RoyalRumble'' in Saudi Arabia. In fact, Reigns didn't win the title from Lesnar until ''Wrestling/SummerSlam 2018'', at which point Lesnar's reign had surpassed Wrestling/CMPunk's historic 434-day reign by '''two and a half months'''. By that point, not only had Lesnar's reign entered ArcFatigue but so did his feud with Reigns; when Reigns finally won the title, the fans actually ''cheered'' for it because they figured that would be the end of it all since Reigns defeating Lesnar for the title had been his goal since at least 2015. Unfortunately, two months after that, Reigns had to relinquish the title and go on hiatus from wrestling to start treatment for his leukemia, which had returned. His next title defense, a triple threat with Lesnar and Wrestling/BraunStrowman, became a one-on-one match for the vacated title...[[HereWeGoAgain which Lesnar won]].

* Creator/{{Capcom}} has done this for decades, as a side-effect of [[CapcomSequelStagnation milking its properties]] harder than most.

** ''Franchise/MegaMan''. The [[VideoGame/MegaManClassic original series]]' writing was immediately recognized as a [[ExcusePlot cheap excuse]] to shoot a line-up of [[OfficialFanSubmittedContent fan-submitted]] [[BossBattle robots]]. But then came ''VideoGame/MegaManX'', taking place 100 years later and touting a more serious story connected to its predecessor; followed by ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' doing the same to it. They were 3 tandem series promising linking revelations... but since the [[CashCowFranchise first two]] were [[NoEnding not allowed to end]], little came beyond cameos and [[ShrugOfGod intentionally cryptic]] hints that went [[MindScrew nowhere]]. The lone applied connection that Wily built Zero was [[RecycledScript endlessly reused]] and stretched, with 3 separate, mysterious scientist villains hinted at as possibly being Wily showing up while Zero died [[DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist just as often]]. Like Sigma's [[VillainDecay continued existence]], attempts at drama devolved into [[MotiveDecay overused jokes]]. Ironically, the endpoint of all this in the ''Zero'' series was the only one that ''actually finished'' with a GrandFinale (which allowed it specifically to {{avert|edTrope}} the fatigue, and even then it got pushed into having one more game than intended), so fans were left in the awkward position of knowing how it would all end up, but not all of how it got there. At least you could count on loads of new bosses... until Capcom internal politics pointed towards the franchise dying with a whimper rather than any real resolution.
** ''Franchise/StreetFighter'', especially regarding Ryu's [[BecauseDestinySaysSo endlessly mentioned destiny]] to become a "[[MeaninglessMeaningfulWords true martial artist]]." Being the [[{{Shotoclone}} lynchpin]] for countless installments and [[VideoGame/CapcomVs crossovers]], he is inherently not allowed to change much despite having personal growth as his big theme. This being the {{fighting game}} genre, character popularity also takes precedence over plot. Which means Ryu will regress in and out of his [[SuperPoweredEvilSide evil version]] without [[CanonDiscontinuity affecting anything]], villains will never be taken care of so long as enough players main them, and their victims don't have [[{{Retcon}} consequences]], [[DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist either]]. The writing may not be the main appeal of the games, but all the grand promises that go nowhere with [[ExcusePlot little attempt to innovate]] do wear out.
** In a case of this happening within a single game's storyline, the first ''VisualNovel/AceAttorney'' had a rule that trials could last a maximum of three days. Doesn't sound like much, but when you had to go through three investigation segments and three trial segments for every case, it ended up stretching a lot of cases out. Consequently, though the three-day limit is still a thing, every following game has used two-day trials.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'':
** ComicBook/TheCloneSaga was originally supposed to be a six-month arc, but after initial sales were good, [[ExecutiveMeddling Marvel's Marketing Department]] forcefully stretched out the story by ''nearly three years.''
** The ''ComicBook/SuperiorSpiderMan'' arc lasted nearly fifty issues, or a year and a half in real time. By the end, even people who had liked the premise were pretty tired of Spider-Man acting like a jerk and [[IdiotPlot normally competent characters completely failing to notice Spidey was acting nothing like himself]] [[spoiler:due to being [[GrandTheftMe possessed]] by [[Characters/MarvelComicsOttoOctavius Dr. Octopus]]]].
** And before all of them, there was the original Hobgoblin mystery, which suffered from endless fake-outs as well as changing writers with differing ideas about who should be under the mask until the readers and creators just wanted it to be over. Eventually, having killed off their only viable suspect, the creators revealed that it was [[spoiler: the dead guy after all]]. And then almost twenty years later a {{Retcon}} by the original writer resolved the whole thing rather more satisfactorily.
* The "Thy Kingdom Come" arc in ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica''. It's actually a rather well-written arc, but it's pretty padded out (the three specials towards the end could have easily been worked into the main issues). It took up almost all of (if not every) 2008 issue of the title.

* There has been a couple of these in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'':

** Although the clear winner for this trope in Archie Sonic is the Shattered World Crisis, an [[AdaptationDecay incredibly loose adaptation]] of ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' that officially began in Issue 257 and then ended after ''30 issues'', taking up three entire years of the comic! Although this can be somewhat {{justified|Trope}} as the whole arc was meant to be a FramingDevice for smaller stories that would provide quick WorldBuilding for the comic after the forced [[CosmicRetcon reboot]] erased the then established world-building. And things probably wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for [[ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogMegaManWorldsUnite Worlds Unite]] interrupting the story and Archie Comics delaying the release of the book for the entire winter of 2016, making the arc last even longer than it should've.
* The ''ComicBook/NewKrypton'' arc in the ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' titles unfortunately went down this path. The introduction of a wholly new population of Kryptonians was a strong and daring idea. The entire status quo of the Superman family was reworked and people were pleasantly surprised that writers had actually done something with the eternal MacGuffin that was the Bottle City of Kandor. But at some point along the way, it became apparent that the story was not going anywhere, that the entire World of New Krypton title was in a holding pattern while the associated titles (''Superman'', ''ComicBook/ActionComics'', ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'', later ''Adventure Comics'') were engaged in crossover storylines. In the end, most of the arc served as setup for successive event stories.
* Characters/{{Superman|TheCharacter}} was killed off because ''[[Series/LoisAndClark Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman]]'' was in production and the executives wanted to have them marry at the same time in both media leading to a stalled marriage arc. This led to ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'' which, if you include the return, ran over a year generating huge sales and leading the writers to run long event arcs for the remainder of the decade at which point the fans were finally tired of it.
* ''ComicBook/XMen'':
** Many of the X-Men's outer space stories feel like this since they're always a departure from the book's mutant theme and are almost always economy-sized story arcs.
** Many fans were hoping the ''Phoenix: Endsong'' miniseries would be the last Phoenix story after writers ran the concept into the ground. It wasn't.
* ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'' arcs tend to get accused of suffering from this due to Bendis' ridiculously slow pacing.
* ''Comicbook/TeenTitans'':

** ''The Culling'' in the ''ComicBook/{{New 52}}''. The first eight issues (most of a year) were built to get to this crossover with Legion Lost, and at the end, they don't even manage to defeat the bad guy.
* The "Back From The Dead" arc from ''ComicBook/XStatix'', in which a generic celebrity ([[ExecutiveMeddling executive meddled]] from the planned Princess Diana) suddenly returns from the dead and, for no clear reason, takes over the team and forces them to do charity work, dragged on for months thanks to Marvel's Executive Meddling, and it seemed increasingly evident that Peter Milligan had no idea where to go with it. It almost singlehandedly killed the series (the move to the Marvel Knights line and the lackluster subsequent crossover with the Avengers finished the job.)
* CrisisCrossover ''ComicBook/ForeverEvil2013'' ended up falling into this. The main reason was that ''ComicBook/TrinityWar'', an event DC had been shilling for over a year, turned out to merely be a lead-in to ''Forever Evil''. Add in a generally sluggish pace magnified by the main series being delayed - the 7th issue came three months after the 6th - and you've got readers making a ''lot'' of jokes about the title.
* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'':
** The ''ComicBook/{{Knightfall}}'' story arc (including its two "sequels", ''[=KnightQuest=]'' and ''[=KnightsEnd=]'') dragged on for about a year and a half – and that's not even counting the buildup that began months before the arc took off, with plenty of {{Early Bird Cameo}}s and [[ChekhovsGun Chekhovs Guns]]... ''or'' the aftermath, including the story arcs ''Prodigal'' and ''Troika'', which took another year or more to wrap up [[LeftHanging quite a few loose ends]]. The story also crossed over into every Batman title. All told, the ''Knightfall'' saga cast its shadow over the ''Batman'' mythos from 1992 to 1996 and encompassed more than 200 individual comics. Worst of all, untold numbers of fans ''hated'' it.
** This is one of the biggest criticisms of [[ComicBook/BatmanTomKing Tom King's run]] on ''Batman'': it was originally supposed to last 100 issues, and the story arcs were seemingly stretched out to fit. Batman and Catwoman getting engaged got over a year of buildup, with the series dedicating itself to featuring their relationship and impending wedding for ''seventeen straight issues'' plus a "Prelude to the Wedding" tie-in miniseries, before finally ending at issue #50 with [[spoiler:Catwoman abandoning Batman at the altar and the status quo being restored]]. Later came "Knightmares", a five-month-long arc where Batman lies in a machine hallucinating his worst fears one at a time. The run was ultimately shortened to 85 issues, but even the final story arc "City of Bane" spent whole issues with Batman and Catwoman working out their relationship on a beach, as opposed to the [[TheBadGuyWins fairly urgent main plot]] (Bane taking over Gotham City and controlling an army of villains).
* Creator/BrianMichaelBendis's [[WritingForTheTrade decompressed style of storytelling]] tends to turn ''any'' arc into this, primarily because it involves a lot of issues where... nothing happens, only to be resolved suddenly in the last issue. The end result is readers screaming "Get on with it!" even for relatively brief six-issue arcs:
** ''[[ComicBook/UncannyXMen2013 The Last Will and Testament of Charles Xavier]]'', which is tied in to the ''ComicBook/OriginalSin'' event, has not only run longer than the event itself but has ''also'' overrun both ''ComicBook/DeathOfWolverine'' ''and'' ''ComicBook/{{AXIS}}'', though it seems to finally have an end... just before ''ComicBook/SecretWars2015''.
** The crossover between ComicBook/AllNewXMen and ComicBook/UltimateMarvel is also exasperating fans with the fact that ''very'' little has been done to advance the plot after four issues, and not helped by the ScheduleSlip of a missed shipping date.
* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'' has had brushes with this on a few occasions:
** The ''Elegant Chaos'' arc dragged a bit, not due to length or quality issues (it's only three issues long and has a lot of plot-important events) but because unexpected problems IDW encountered that resulted in issues suffering delays. This meant that there were ''massive'' gaps between issues and the plot-heavy nature of the arc meant that nothing could be skipped.
** The Scavenger plotline sometimes gets this. The problem being that there are fairly large gaps between the Scavenger-focused arcs, so events and plot points set-up for them don't get paid off until about ten issues or so later.
** ''ComicBook/TheTransformersDarkCybertron'' crossover event wasn't this for ''ComicBook/TheTransformersRobotsInDisguise'' but it ''did'' cause fatigue for MTMTE. Whereas the crossover wrapped up a bunch of plotlines for RID, the events and characters in MTMTE didn't really have any link to the crossover's driving force. Thus the crossover was essentially a massive PlotDetour that just created a huge wait between seasons 1 and 2 of MTMTE. By the end, the only things the crossover accomplished for MTMTE was the introduction of several important characters, only two of whom couldn't have just been introduced in a normal MTMTE arc.
* The Nexus Prime storyline in ''Franchise/TransformersTimelines'' took a total of ''nine years'' to finish, thanks in no small part to Hasbro taking custody of the Thirteen for their future plans with the franchise, forcing Nexus Prime to be ExiledFromContinuity for five years straight. This was eventually concluded with another arc that suffered this, the plot of ''Invasion'', the comic story released in 2012 that saw [[spoiler: the Classics universe being destroyed and its characters ending up in Shattered Glass]], that didn't see proper continuation for a good three years.
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogIDW'''s lead writer Ian Flynn freely admits to WritingForTheTrade, so some of this may have been inevitable. While the first arc more or less avoided this, the following [[UnwillingRoboticisation Metal Virus]] storyline dragged on for over a year... which may not have been so bad if said arc didn't mostly involve the heroes constantly losing everything they have, lovable characters turning, being [[BreakTheCutie horrifically broken]], or otherwise suffering, and the villains being borderline {{invincible|Villain}}. It was so dark that [[TooBleakStoppedCaring some readers found it hard to care what happened]], and even fans who enjoyed the drama admitted it was starting to wear out its welcome after about eight full issues of it. The fact that the last few issues of the arc were subjected to mass ScheduleSlip due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic didn’t help matters. By the time the arc finally came to an end in late September 2020, it had lasted ''21 issues'' (13-32 plus the 2020 annual)... nearly 2/3rds of the entire comic’s run up to that point!

* ''ComicStrip/ThePhantom'' is one of the biggest, and most famous, offenders. A single story arc, told daily, may take up to a year to tell, and this isn't including the unrelated Sunday strips.
* Perhaps an even ''worse'' offender is ''ComicStrip/PrinceValiant'', which is only printed on Sundays, and each issue represents maybe a few ''seconds'' of time in the story. It doesn't help that the size of comics has been steadily shrinking since its first issue in the 1920s, from half-page size to maybe 1/8.
* ''ComicStrip/DickTracy'' arcs are also notoriously slow-paced. Sometimes two-thirds of a comic retell the contents of a previous comic with one new panel. One day of Dick Tracy's life takes several months of comic strips. Of course, this was sometimes the fault of the fans, who occasionally enjoyed a story so much they demanded it be continued after it had decisively ended, often requiring a {{Retcon}} or two (for example, Flattop, the most popular villain of the series' history, was actually [[JokerImmunity brought back from the dead]] so that he could be killed ''again''). The new creative team is moving a ''much'' quicker pace of about one case a month.
* ''ComicStrip/MaryWorth'', as Blog/TheComicsCurmudgeon is fond of pointing out.
* ''ComicStrip/{{Candorville}}'' suffers from this trope. Big time.
** Lamont got Roxane pregnant around 2003. It took six or seven YEARS of strips, including the revelation that Roxane's a vampire, for them to break up, and even then it was only after [[spoiler:it was revealed that all of the vampire stuff and a giant monster destroying Mexico were just Lamont's delusion while he was in a mental institution. He then promptly prepared to sue her for custody of his child]].
** It gets even worse when you get to Lamont and Susan, who spent years of WillTheyOrWontThey finding out they have feelings for each other, but besides the Roxanne thing another thing has come up. [[spoiler:After pretending to date coworker Dick Fink in order to teach Lamont a lesson about the Roxanne thing, Lamont seems to think it's real and it becomes the cause of his HeroicBSOD and that he would be horribly betrayed if he found out the truth, stalling it LONGER. Later, Lemont started in a Facebook relationship with a woman he had a crush on in college, who's also married with kids but says her husband's abusive.]] And people say the [[Series/{{Friends}} Ross and Rachel]] thing went on too long!

* ''ComicStrip/NineChickweedLane''[='=]s decades-spanning [[WholeEpisodeFlashback Whole Arc Flashback]] involving Gram/Edna and Juliette's before-unseen father, Bill. [[note]]Who, it turned out, wasn't Juliette's biological father. [[LawfulStupid It was the Austrian lover Gram left to honor a promise to Bill.]][[/note]] Brooke [=McEldowney's=] taste for PurpleProse did not help in this instance. Nor did it help that the readership hadn't really gotten over the hangover of the ''last'' endless arc: Edda and Amos's six-month-long WillTheyOrWontThey adventures in Brussels. The strip got to spend almost a year telling the same WWII story, only from ''Bill'''s point-of-view. This has also included several months of Bill and Martine (a [[LaResistance French Resistance member]]) idly strolling through Normandy during the middle of D-Day.
* ''ComicStrip/GasolineAlley''
** The series started as a daily-gag strip, but only became popular when main character Walt Wallet found an infant boy on his doorstep, providing a springboard for serious story arcs. The boy (named Skeezix) grew to manhood without ever learning who his parents were. About 80 years later, with ''Gasoline Alley'' still running, and with Skeezix Wallet now well into his eighties, one of the strip's artists/writers finally decided to reveal who Skeezix's parents were.

* In ''ComicStrip/FunkyWinkerbean'', Les Moore has been mourning the death of his beloved wife Lisa since 2007. And it took her eight years before that to die of cancer. Recurring plot lines include books about Lisa, movies about Lisa (two separate attempts), tape-recorded messages from Lisa, Lisa appearing as a ghost (including one time where she called in a bomb threat), and annual "legacy run." To put it mildly, it's getting tiresome.

* In ''Fanfic/TheStalkingZukoSeries'', the second installment, "Not Stalking Zuko" mainly takes place on Ember Island- for those who aren't familiar with the series, that was the setting of the recap episode between "The Southern Raiders" (when Zuko and Katara finally became friends) and the four-part GrandFinale. It takes almost half of "Not Stalking Zuko," the longest installment in the series, to get up to "The Ember Island Players," and there's still more than a few chapters to go before it gets up to "Sozin's Comet."
* ''Fanfic/UnbreakableRedSilkenThread'': The Solomon Grundy arc, which the authors both admit has its flaws, even if it has served its intended purpose. The problem, however, is the abrupt shift of focus after fourteen chapters featuring Cody and Heather to their near-total absence.
* In ''Fanfic/AttackOnTitanABlacksmithsTale'' Psychic MC, Dillon's character arc of learning to live with himself and his girlfriend Annie has been essentially in a limbo state for years at this point, with nothing really changing his situation. The second he gets "better", something else dramatic happens and we're back to square one. this is in addition to canon storylines taking much longer than necessary due to a slow update cycle.

** For a manga that is generally good at keeping its arcs at a short length without rushing them, the series has the Grand Magic Games arc, which is over 70 chapters long. The first part of the arc (which is, essentially, about the Fairy Tail world's equivalent of the Olympic Games) was not too bad with most games and fights usually only lasting somewhere in-between a half chapter and two chapters. However, the final day of the Games keeps going for over 20 chapters. Meanwhile, several of the 20 chapters are spent on a side-plot about Natsu and his friends who are captured in the royal castle. They do almost nothing but fighting CannonFodder soldiers and executioners who just keep returning only to get beaten again.
** The arc dealing with the last dark guild standing Tartaros is also accused of this, despite generally being considered one of the best arcs in the story, for specifically two points near the end. The first is the countdown of [[TheMagicGoesAway Face]]. We start with it seemingly getting destroyed about 10 chapters after it emerges, only to reveal 3000 more and initiate another countdown that actually reaches 0, then we go back 20 minutes before this and have several chapters ultimately leading to the same chapter ending as when it went off just to keep the cliffhanger...[[spoiler:and it's destroyed by the Dragon Slayers' long-lost parents just as it goes off]]. The second is the way the chapters juggled through several concurrent fights, often without significant progression in all but one that the chapter would end on.
** The GrandFinale, the Alvarez Empire arc, lasted 107 chapters in all, but that's not what tends to bother fans. What does so is the fact that this arc has to juggle the largest cast of characters, both new and returning heroes and villains, while setting the stakes for the biggest battles of the series and dropping the last and biggest plot revelations. By the time of the final battles with both [[BigBadEnsemble Zeref and Acnologia]], several fans were of the opinion that so much time was spent on buildup, fights and rematches with the Spriggan 12, and twists that it made them feel rushed by comparison.
* ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'': "Is Raoh ''still'' alive?" Raoh's second battle with Kenshiro (which came after several near-death experiences for Raoh and several chapters' worth of what felt like padding) felt climactic and final, and Raoh's escape and continued survival for another ~10 chapters after ''that'' raised the story arc's EndingFatigue to new heights. ''Then'' in volume 24. BigBad's gone, everything resolved, story's over, right? Wrong.
* The "Fall Classic" arc of ''Manga/FoodWars'' lasted for more than 50 chapters, with the preliminaries spending 10 chapters or so to highlight the dishes made by numerous side characters (whom very few readers care about) and its subsequent judging. The main tournament itself contains 7 individual matches, each spanning at least five chapters, that by the time the finals come around, most readers have gotten tired of it and want the plot to move on already.

** The final Les Cuisinier Noir/BLUE Tournament Arc was 51 chapters long. As the plot progressed, the author began to skip too many rounds and the main Soma vs Asahi round was needlessly increased to 8 chapters. Rather than focusing on the cooking, the Arc is mostly dedicated towards [[TheScrappy Asahi's]] antics and Erina's parental issues.

* ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya''. Endless Eight. ''Eight episodes'' of the exact same events with minor variations, adapted out of a single short story. Especially since the novels' "Endless Eight" only concerned one particular time loop (the last one), and was about at most 30 pages. Eight episodes equals almost three hours. This angered fans who wanted an epic six-episode ''Disappearance'' adaption (adapted out of a single ''novel'')... The latter did come out as a feature-length movie, however: [[ExaggeratedTrope the second-longest animated feature ever created, at 2 hours 43 minutes in length!]] (One minute shorter than ''[[Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato Final Yamato]]''). In hindsight though, many still wish they would've adapted the arc into the anime, rather than dragging out a chapter across 8 episodes just so the arc could be adapted into a movie.

* The {{backstory}} arc of ''Manga/KazeToKiNoUta'' takes up '''six''' volumes out of a total 17. Usually, backstory arcs take up a few chapters and it does give readers some background to some characters, but that particular arc drags on ''way longer'' than it should have been.

* ''Manga/{{MAR}}'', the anime version has this problem not because of the length of the filler arcs per se, but because they threw so many at the most incorrect moments. It goes like this; [[spoiler: Snow is captured near the end of Round 6, Ginta wants to rescue her but first must fight Ian, okay fair enough. THEN they prepare to leave but Phantom shows up and says they need to do the final round first. Okay, fine, so they go through the Gate of Training, which turns into a filler arc about the cast being sent to an illusion of Tokyo created from Ginta's memories, THEN they get back and some minor villains from way back when are causing trouble so they have to deal with that, THEN the final round starts and goes on for a while, then once Phantom is beaten, they need a special ÄRM to get them to the castle to rescue Snow, which leads to a filler episode about hunting down the Referee of the tournament, then two more episodes about fixing Babbo who broke in the battle against Phantom and THEN one more episode about Ian for no reason. The ultimate irony is it only actually takes them 1 episode to rescue Snow. But due to so much unnecessary filler padding, it goes on forever. Snow is captured in Episode 58 and not rescued until freaking Episode 84!]].
* ''Anime/MarvelAnimeWolverine'':
** The series is only 12 episodes long; one entire episode is ''just'' Wolverine fighting Omega Red; the fight spills over into the start of the next episode; and Omega Red ''still'' comes back at the end of that next episode.
** The entire second half of the series is built around Wolverine going to the island of Madipoor, where the Big Bad has set up his base. There's a full three episodes (that's ''a quarter of the entire series'') between Wolverine arriving on Madripoor and actually going to fight the Big Bad. These episodes were spent building dull and completely irrelevant characters, side-plots that are uninteresting and have little payoff, and a filler episode where Wolverine has to rescue Yukio.
** ''Wolverine'' wasn't the only ''Marvel Anime'' series to suffer from this: the ''X-Men'' series completely switches plot lines halfway through the series, so a good 3 or so straight episodes are just ''solid exposition'' while nothing really happens. Again: 12 episodes ''total''.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' has usually been good with preventing arcs from lasting too long, but...
** Even if some arcs kind of dragged out, none were able to reach the level of hair-tearing stalemate of the World War Arc - which took nearly three years to tell the story of a day and a half, where two of those years were spent telling the story of a single battle which was presumably a few hours long. The first part is problematic enough, but the real nugget is that last battle, and particularly its pacing. The entirety of it is a tug-of-war marathon, with each side countering the other side with increasingly effective techniques that have very few lasting consequences. The villain takes forever to finally go through all their gambits, absolute defenses, [[BreakThemByTalking psychological warfare tracts]], tragic flashbacks and final forms, and when they do - which would usually mark the end of the battle in any sane universe - the battle segues into [[spoiler:two more battles of this exact same kind, back to back, with absolutely no letup and plenty of MythArc [[RetCon retcons]] about how everything has gone AllAccordingToPlan for various people, one of whom we didn't even know existed until three chapters before]]. When the manga finally emerges, wheezing, at the other end of this ordeal - all the villains are dead, everyone's exhausted and all the loose ends seem to be wrapped up - [[spoiler:Sasuke promptly declares his intent to take over the world in order to reform the shinobi system, ''finally'' triggering the long-awaited final battle between him and Naruto]]. Oh, and to top it off, the anime has been inserting {{Filler}} left, right, and center in the absolute worst spots in the plot in order to keep the CashCowFranchise flowing.

** The original anime had the lengthy Filler-arc, which is technically dozens of small filler arcs and episodes right after each other. Now, a few filler episodes here and there doesn't hurt. But when the last 80+ episodes in the series are all Filler... It starts to get a bit jarring. Even the final arc, which ends with Naruto and Jiraiya leaving to train isn't even canon, but it does set things up for his return in the first episode of Shippuuden.

** The Skypeia arc has also caught some flak for this, given its length compared to, at the time, its relative unimportance [[note]]While the arc contributes little to the MythArc, it introduces several concepts that would later be pivotal to the narrative[[/note]] to the rest of the story. The real punch to the gut in the Skypeia arc was that Luffy's fight with the BigBad essentially "ended" a full 17 chapters before the BigBad was finally "defeated." The seven-chapter-long flashback didn't help either, interrupting the arc's climax in favor of two months of exposition.
** The Straw Hat Separation Saga and ''especially'' the Marineford arc are also considered this, as the concept puts everyone but Luffy OutOfFocus, and the latter is largely one very long, drawn-out battle sequence. To put this into perspective: When the Straw Hats started heading for Sabaody Archipelago, that was chapter 490. After the Straw Hats got split up, TookALevelInBadass, met up again, and then finally headed down to Fishman island, that was chapter 602. For those keeping track, that's exactly 112 chapters, not even including the month-long hiatus that the manga went on for the time skip. Marineford is even ''longer'' in the anime, particularly the large string of episodes where it felt like Luffy was forever running across the ice trying to reach the platform where Ace was being held captive.

** Dressrosa eventually became the longest arc in the series up to that point by a large margin, lasting exactly one hundred chapters; the aforementioned Skypiea Arc lasted only 66 chapters. The fact that the arc had loads of characters, even by ''One Piece'' standards, did it no favors. It also set up other imminent events in addition to those already ongoing, building up anticipation for the arc itself to get itself over with. True to form, the Dressrosa Arc in the anime was ''historically'' slow. Much of every episode's content drastically extends the scenes with the [[LittlePeople Tontatta]] or the coliseum fights, as well as adding in tons of things to stall the Straw Hats. [[spoiler: In fairness, the huge cast was semi-justified as many characters in the arc would become part of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, but it still dragged in many fans eyes.]]

** The Wano Country arc ultimately dwarfed Dressrosa with a ''four year'' story that took awhile to get to it's climax. And said climax dominates a majority of the arc with shifts in fights either getting interrupted or swapped out with different opponents. Similar to Dressrosa, there's a lot of characters to cover that, by the time Luffy and Kaido have reached the apex of their battle, a good chunk of readers were more then ready move on. It didn't help that the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic happened around this point and caused a number of breaks in-between chapters.

** What can be summed up as the "Monster Association" arc or the Human Monster Saga in relation to Garou suffers from excessive {{Padding}} and redraws of already finished chapters. Beginning in July of 2017 with Chapter 78, the plot has fallen to a snail's pace because of the number of chapters spent on the Heroes fighting random one-off monsters that don't add much to the storytelling other than showing off the powers of the heroes. The "final battle" between [[spoiler: Tatsumaki and the Monster Queen Psykorochi]] started in early 2020, and they were only defeated in early 2021. To repeat, ''one battle'' lasted ''an entire year'', '''and that's not even the end of the arc as of yet''', with it continuing with [[spoiler: the rest of S-Class fighting the remaining Cadres]]. To say the least, while people agree that the arc has been chock full of some of the biggest revelations and most exciting fights in the manga, they're eager to finally catch up with ONE's original comic.

** '''Kanto''' was only around 80 episodes depending on the inclusion/disregard of a couple banned episodes. However, it had one particularly long gap that occurred between the 6th and 7th gym badges at 27 episodes (29 if you count [[Recap/PokemonHolidayHiJynx Holiday Hi-Jynx]] and [[Recap/PokemonSnowWayOut Snow Way Out]]). There were also about 10 episodes of {{Filler}} after the 8th badge, which amounted to Ash basically sitting at home waiting for the Kanto league to start. It was around this time that Japan had realized that they had an anime-hit on their hand, so they had to extend the series in some way before the release of the Johto games (Hence, the 36-episode-long '''Orange Islands''' which served as a substitute for an Elite Four arc).
** '''Johto''': 158 episodes. Compounded by the fact that there was only one main quest (Contests and the like would not be introduced until [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire the next season]]). Some contend that the Whirl Islands {{Tournament|Arc}} and [[TheCameo Special Guest]] arcs could've been removed, but that would have had the tied-for-4th longest gap between badges (27 episodes) succeeded by what would have been the ''shortest'' gap (1 episode, usurping Kanto's [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness Boulder-Cascade's and Marsh-Rainbow]] gaps of ''2'').[[note]]The Whirl Islands arc, in total, lasted only 14 episodes, 15 if you count the battle with Jasmine.[[/note]]
** '''Hoenn''': 132 episodes. It was made less bad by [[TwoLinesNoWaiting the addition of Contests]], though a case can be made for the Petalburg-Rustboro & Dewford Island arcs, which [[SlowPacedBeginning were early on]] and paced slowly. The Team Aqua and Team Magma arcs suffered the reverse of this, as many felt they could have had more focus and build-up than they got, and the conclusion to their arc was seen as [[AntiClimax rushed.]]

** '''Sinnoh''': 191 episodes. As much as the above 2-part saga in total. It also holds the record for both the longest and second-longest gaps between Gym battles, with 31 episodes between Gardenia and Maylene and '''52''' episodes between Candice and Volkner.[[note]]Kanto actually has the 3rd longest at 28 between Koga and Blaine.[[/note]] Granted, these gaps developed the buildup and resolution, respectively, of ''both'' the Contest and Team Galactic arcs, and further justified by the distance between those two Gyms, but that still meant that the [[MythArc main quest]] was demoted to '''[[ThirdLineSomeWaiting C-Plot]]''' status ''twice''.
** The '''Unova''' series averts this trope with its fast pace, but that results in the 142 episode saga suffering from [[EndingFatigue a different trope]]. Ash got all 8 of his badges in 84 episodes, though the gap between #3 and #4 was pretty long (27 episodes, T-4th). After the various filler and padding arcs,[[labelnote:Details]]In sequence: the {{mandat|oryLine}}ed [[TheBusCameBack reappearance by Sinnoh's female companion]], a few episodes with a [[TheDitz ditzy]] version of Ash (as opposed to the idealized and mature version) getting ''his'' 8th Badge, a short arc with Meloetta where [[BigBad Giovanni]] gives up his [[TheUnfought Unfought]] status, a pair of [[BreatherEpisode certified fillers]], and a 2-parter with Iris and Drayden,[[/labelnote]] there was the stock-standard TournamentArc with a stock-standard length of 7 episodes[[note]]including the introduction to the eventual champion and the Axew-centered BreatherEpisode[[/note]] which was more [[BrokenBase contentious]] for its results than its pacing. This was followed by a 14-episode arc revolving around N and Team Plasma which [[BrokenBase people are heavily divided on]]. The quick pace ultimately resulted in the last 5 months prior to the release of the Gen VI games having an Orange Islands/Battle Frontier-style round of pure, aimless island-hopping filler, only ''without'' a pseudo-tournament like those arcs had. The subsequent ratings drop [[SeasonalRot show the extent of the wear and tear]].
** '''Kalos''' has started off on a rough note with the drop in ratings that occurred during BW's Decolore Islands arc. Its first season was subject to {{Filler}} and {{Padding}} after the first ten episodes. Serena was virtually pointless until ''finally'' discovering a goal for herself around 40 episodes in, and the Kalos gang was forced to take part in a [[{{Sidequest}} side-journey]] with a GuestStarPartyMember in Korrina for several episodes that hardly anyone got invested in due to there being no payoff in the end for helping her complete her quest to properly use a Lucarionite. It took until Ash got his '''7th''' gym badge before Team Flare even appeared. At this point, the plot picked up momentum, especially when Ash's Greninja obtained an [[SuperMode exclusive form]].
** '''Alola''': Coming off the high from the XY&Z saga, the plot changes drastically from one where Ash travels from gym to gym to earn badges to one where he attends a Pokemon School. Not only is Ash generally staying in one place, but the human cast size is the largest it has ever been with Ash and ''5'' other reoccurring classmates. The Island Trials are present as well, but the pace is a bit slower due to how many characters the show must juggle. Of the 146 episodes, the first major arc that wasn't focused on a trial or obtention of a Z Crystal were mostly [[SliceOfLife Slice of Life filler]]. The plot went by faster by the third arc, but the tournament arc lasts ''16 episodes''. Not bad [[spoiler: considering this is the one where Ash finally wins a conference,]] but this even includes filler with the gang facing a GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere just to add some drama along to the climax.

* In ''Manga/Reborn2004'', the Future Arc, which lasted 146 chapters out of a total of 271 chapters. This means that arc is actually longer than the rest of the arcs combined! The storyline has been stretched to the point where battles have just been rehashed [[spoiler:e.g. The choice battle which ended up amounting to nothing other than a bit of exposition at the end]] as well as introducing new characters that could have only been done to stretch the plot [[spoiler:"Let me introduce you to the '''real''' 6 Funeral Wreaths!" Thus rendering all of the other battles utterly pointless.]] The introduction of the motorbikes also adds to the meaningless filler since they were only used for five minutes before being destroyed.
* The Asgard arc in ''Manga/SaintSeiya''. One of the main appeals of ''Manga/SaintSeiya'' is that the fights, while epic, would last about one episode with a couple of exceptions. The problem with the Asgard arc is that every fight consisted of one of the Saints encountering a God Warrior, fight for about three episodes, the God Warrior gives a backstory and it repeats all over again. One fight in particular lasts four episodes. Ratings dropped so much that the series was CutShort with the comparatively short Poseidon Saga and then no Hades Saga until years later. Unsurprisingly, this is the one arc that is 100% [[{{filler}} anime-only]].

* In ''Manga/SweetBlueFlowers'', there's this whole deal 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.
** The first SchoolFestival arc also drags on much longer than necessary.
** And then there's the whole story about Kyouko and Kou's engagement, which mainly seems to serve to show that Kyouko is [[spoiler:[[BaitAndSwitchLesbians not lesbian after all]]]].
* ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle'' suffers from this by the final world, [[spoiler: The Original Clow Country]]. It doesn't help that the story is one gigantic ContinuitySnarl with a very interwoven plot.

* ''Manga/WolfGuyWolfenCrest'' had a very, very, {{squick}}y arc fatigue when [[spoiler: Ms. Aoshika was horrifically gang-raped by Haguro and his {{yakuza}} for nearly 18 chapters]].

** ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'' started out with a number of fairly quick arcs that led into each other: the initial "escape from Satellite" arc, which lasts around five, the prison arc, which goes for seven, and the Fortune Cup arc, a tournament that is introduced in episode 13 and concludes in episode 26. The following episode introduces the Dark Signers, which lasts for around 38 episodes, but is still paced fairly well and has a lot happening. Then the following episode introduces the concept of the WRGP, another, grander-scale tournament, as well as the larger conspiracy of Yliaster... and then spends 33 episodes more or less spinning its wheels, hopping between one-off MonsterOfTheWeek episodes, plot points that [[AbortedArc go absolutely nowhere]], a whole six-episode arc dedicated to resolving a minor character's story, and minimal development of the actual ongoing narrative; you could cut the whole thing down to about five episodes and not be confused in the slightest when the actual tournament starts in episode 98. And then the WRGP Arc lasted another 39 episodes, which, due to the tournament's structure, consisted mainly of several ''very'' overlong Duels (the shortest one is a two-parter, the second-shortest is a four-parter, and two of them are ''seven''-parters), when prior Duels rarely went above two episodes in length and only one of the Duels (barring the attack on the city that takes place outside the tournament) is actually seriously tied in with the ongoing plot. Not helping matters at all is that the tournament's format also meant that pretty much [[SpotlightStealingSquad only three main characters ever get any Duels]], and nearly every match is ultimately won by local InvincibleHero Yusei. And if that wasn't enough, this ''still'' doesn't fully resolve the plot of Yliaster, leading to a further fifteen-episode arc. So that's a total of 87 episodes, more than half the show, that was dedicated to a single storyline that could likely have been wrapped up in less than half that.
** The Synchro Dimension arc ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'' started off with a clear purpose of rallying the dimension's people to fight against the evil Academia. The problem is that the characters are separated upon arrival (for some reason) and, given no direction, just run around like chickens with their heads cut off before getting arrested for suspicious activity. They then get thrown in jail, meet and befriend a prisoner, get caught during an escape, and are forced to take part in a TournamentArc in order to show the authority of the city they're in that they are powerful enough to fight against Academia. While the padding allowed them to do some worldbuilding and introduce Crow and Shinji, the plot could have easily gone straight to the Friendship Cup and built on things there, rather than spend 13 episodes of the characters wandering around without a goal beyond "let's just get back together and go from there." What makes it particularly problematic is that the arc effectively began in episode 54 and ended in episode 99, a 46-episode run, while the Xyz Dimension arc lasted about 14 episodes and the Fusion Dimension arc lasted around 23. This sounds bad ''before'' you realize that the entire first season had been about building up the conflict between Xyz and Fusion, while Synchro was tangentially involved at best, and most elements established in Synchro stayed contained to it.
** Though the Zarc arc in ''ARC-V'' isn't actually that long, lasting five episodes, it falls into this for being dedicated to a single duel, and for four of those episodes just being all the other protagonists [[InvincibleVillain trying and failing to scratch him]] before getting flattened. The fact that it was pretty obvious from the beginning how it was going to end didn't help it. And then, even though the BigBad is defeated, it gets followed up by [[EndingFatigue eight episodes of rather directionless duels]] held together with the excuse of [[ItMakesSenseInContext making an evil baby smile.]]

** How some fans think about the God of Death arc, which lasted around thirteen chapters. The anime averts this by a long shot, completing the entire arc in just two episodes... though, instead, it gets some complaints for being a rushed PragmaticAdaptation.
** In a variation, everything after Chapter 153, largely because, with [[spoiler: Class E firmly defeating Class A and Koro-sensei's life largely safe]], the series has very little to actually ''do''. As a result, much of February drags with the students doing various things, leaving many fans wishing for Matsui to just get to the final arc already.
* The Revenge Of The Love Failure arc in ''Manga/{{Beastars}}'' lasts for almost 70 chapters, roughly 20 chapters longer than the next longest arc in the series. The story keeps finding increasingly contrived ways for the arc's BigBad Melon to evade capture, while the development of all side characters is largely put on hold for the duration. Not helping matters is that the series is swiftly brought to a close a mere 4 chapters after it ends.

** The ''Weston College Arc'' was the beginning of a downfall. The arc was long and took place in a school, bringing a lot of boring chores that generally were not found in the manga before, and involved a sub-plot to reveal a BitchInSheepsClothing which many fans think could've been cut without impacting the important mission Ciel had been given upon infiltrating the school. The kicker came when the mission was stalled to involve a TournamentArc in the middle of it - once again, it was necessary to advance the plot but prolonged the arc to the point of the reader getting exhausted.

** The Blue Cult arc. Ciel infiltrated originally because Lizzie had gone missing, and it involved some wackiness in the sense that the P4 from the Weston arc have become an idol group, but with sinister on-goings behind the titular cult's original means. Ciel creates a rival idol group called the Phantom 5 to expose the cult more, then the arc diverts into a different plot-thread, including [[spoiler:the death of Agni]] and the revelation of [[spoiler:the 'true' Ciel Phantomhive returning, revealing that the 'Ciel' we've been following is his twin brother, having taken the name and identity of Ciel]]. After the latest revelation, the arc devolves into multiple Flashback chapters detailing [[spoiler:the twins' life and]] how the events of the ritual that summoned Sebastian came into being. Interesting, but definitely a big side-track.

** The Arrancar Arc spanned chapters 183-423, four publication years and an additional four anime years. Creator/TiteKubo had never intended it to be so long but ExecutiveMeddling insisted on the unexpectedly popular Arrancar each receiving ADayInTheLimelight. The arc slowed down to a crawl as even minion fights were given lavish screen time. The arc spawned the meme "Are they still in [[{{Spexico}} Mexico]]?" and the anime often interrupted the canon storyline in mid-action to insert {{filler}} arcs whenever it caught up to the manga.
** The first anime {{filler}} arc, the Bount Arc heavily padded its episodes to include content that was pointless to both the storyline and setting. Despite minimal new characters (by ''Bleach'' standards), the arc was at least as long as the Soul Society Arc.

** ''Anime/DigimonTamers'' dragged the Hell out when [[spoiler: the D-Reaper showed up in Tokyo, kidnapped Juri, trapped Culumon with her inside, and started spreading]]. Several episodes were dedicated to complicated research, lots of TechnoBabble, introducing new characters, [[spoiler: Juri]] angsting nonstop ([[BreakTheCutie not without reason]], but the narration stretched it to tedious levels), etc. And it keeps going, and going, and going, without any real developments...

** ''Manga/DragonBall'': Even before ''Dragon Ball Z'', the series had its fair share of filler and padding to avoid catching up to the source material, but it gets especially bad during the Red Ribbon Army saga, perhaps reaching its worst point in the General Blue portions, which include episodes where Goku and friends spend the whole time essentially running around in circles to escape a robot pirate, with certain shots and sequences of animation repeated over and over again. It all results in an arc that takes a lot longer to get through in the anime than it does in the manga.
** ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' overall is an example so infamous that ''Anime/DragonBallZKai'''s advertising flaunted it being a shorter recut as a ''selling point'', and is considered a better experience if you're not watching in Japanese. In the original manga, the Frieza and Cell sagas are of the exact same length and ''both'' the longest arcs (the Buu Saga has more chapters than both, but they tend to be a lot shorter). A classic joke is "How long does it take a Saiyan to screw in a lightbulb?"[[labelnote:Answer]]Twenty episodes, ten spent powering up[[/labelnote]]

*** The experience varied per region, but none got off without some hurt. In Japan the entire series was broadcast one episode a week, making all the problems described above even worse. In the US the anime went through a dubbing change as Creator/{{Funimation}} went in-house, resulting in the anime re-running several times over, so audiences sat through half the Namek Arc [[ShaggyDogStory only to be taken back to Raditz yet again]]. And the first episode when they eventually ''did'' get back? [[{{Filler}} Bulma and the Crabs]].
** The Cell Games. Midway through [[http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/The_Horror_Won%27t_End episode 190]], Cell starts to charge up a Kamehameha. Following a flashback, Goku telepathically tells Gohan that he can still win this, and Gohan starts preparing his own Kamehameha. The two launch their attacks right at the beginning of the next episode--and are deadlocked for the ''entire episode''. Of course, this lasted one manga chapter too, only 14 pages aren't exactly the same as 22 minutes. Overall however the Cell Saga gets off lighter than Namek simply due to actually being able to ''change location/scenery''.

** This phenomena has been Lampshaded in ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'' when Krillin randomly notes at one point that "We're ''still'' on Namek!" in the twenty-fourth episode. They'd landed on Namek in the ''thirteenth'', while the entire Saiyan Saga was covered in ten episodes. For the record, the Frieza Saga clocked in at twenty episodes, the last of which was again not half as long, not twice as long, but ''triple'' the length of the regular [[Creator/TeamFourStar TFS]] parody episodes, which means they actually spent approximately ''22'' episodes on Namek. Keep in mind, this is an ''abridged'' series.
*** TFS' ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESDAXKC2418 Dragon Ball Z Kai Abridged Episode 2]]'' managed to condense the Frieza Saga even further down to '''seven minutes in length'''... which is still around ''three'' times longer than DBZ Kai Abridged 1 covering the Saiyan Saga, which clocks in at two minutes and 10 seconds.
** The [[TournamentArc Universe Survival Saga]] from ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' has been inconsistently hit with this. After a setup that took twenty episodes, mostly spent gathering team members and watching the arena be built (for the former, the intro made Universe 7's whole lineup clear beforehand [[spoiler:except for Frieza replacing Buu]]), the actual tournament started and was initially well-received for its wild action and SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome. However, as the tournament has gone on significantly longer than even the Future Trunks arc -- despite, [[InactionSequence in classic]] ''[[InactionSequence Dragon Ball]]'' [[InactionSequence fashion]], the tournament only lasting 48 minutes in-universe -- it's started to fall into fatigue territory. While some fans enjoy the unique battles and non-stop action, others have criticized many of the fights for being glorified {{Filler}} that lack plot progression or emotional impact. This reached a head when [[TheAce Jiren]] took prominence as the clear ArcVillain, doing away much of the tension and appeal of a [[TournamentArc Battle Royale]] since it's clear from early on that it will come down to a final battle between Jiren and Goku (in his latest new SuperMode) while the other battles just serve to waste time and whittle down the cast. Not helped at all by Jiren himself being a very divisive character for his personality, [[TheWorfEffect effortless]] defeating of multiple popular characters, and what they perceived to be a poorly done FreudianExcuse.

* The Wrestling/JohnCena[=/=]Wrestling/RandyOrton feud has been going on, on-and-off, for years. The feud itself never quite connected with the audience as being anything legitimately special, despite WWE's attempts to portray it as being one of the greatest rivalries in not just WWE itself, but in all of sports. Fans are so sick of it that around 2014, Cena/Orton matches began being received by live crowds with anything ranging from silent apathy to outright hostility.

** ''ComicBook/TitansHunt'' was a complex and long story. It began with their members being kidnapped and [[Characters/BatmanDeathstroke Deathstroke]] hired to rescue them. Then we get a new villain society, a cheap Wolverine expy, a flying sheet, an unneeded trip to Russia, [[Characters/TeenTitansNewTeenTitans Cyborg]] turned into a complete robot, a new team of Titans from the future trying to kill [[ComicBook/WonderGirl Troia]], and so on, and so on…

* The Avalon World Tour arc in ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}''. The creators weren't pleased about that, however, and when it was coming to a close, made some clear hints that the end was indeed in sight. Due to production issues, episodes couldn't be aired one after another. Hiatuses had to be endured, stretching twenty-some episodes over several months rather than weeks. It wasn't helped by the absence of half the main cast during most of the arc. Made worse by the arc's tendency to [[RecycledScript recycle plots]]. Toward the end of the arc, [[LampshadedTrope even the characters themselves]] were tired and longing for it to end.

* The Avalon World Tour arc in ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}''. The creators weren't pleased about that, however, and when it was coming to a close, made some clear hints that the end was indeed in sight. Due to production issues, episodes couldn't be aired one after another. Hiatuses had to be endured, stretching twenty-some episodes over several months rather than weeks. It wasn't helped by the absence of half the main cast during most of the arc.

*** Several of the episodes consisted of just characters speaking or flying from one place to another, with very few fight sequences to break it all up (since the story was like a game of chess, told 22 minutes a week). One episode, "Bulma and the Crabs", was just Bulma tricking two of Frieza's henchmen into looking for the Dragon Balls, which turned into a BizarroEpisode after the henchmen were gone since it had no impact on the saga's plot at all. Part of this pacing is because the anime was right up against the manga: when Goku went Super Saiyan in the anime it was a scant three chapters behind the manga, so it had to constantly write in excuses to delay the events unfolding. After this point Toei opted to take weeks off and insert filler arcs wholesale, resulting in the ten-episode Garlic Jr. Saga after Frieza's defeat and the five-episode Other World Saga after the Cell Games.

** The [[TournamentArc Universal Survival Arc]] from ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', has been inconsistently hit with this. After a setup that took twenty episodes mostly spent gathering team members and watching the arena be built (for the former, the intro made Universe 7's whole lineup clear beforehand [[spoiler:except for Frieza replacing Buu]]), the actual tournament started and was initially well-received for its wild action and SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome. However, as the tournament has gone on significantly longer than even the Future Trunks arc -- despite, [[InactionSequence in classic]] ''[[InactionSequence Dragon Ball]]'' [[InactionSequence fashion]], the tournament only lasting 48 minutes in-universe -- it's started to fall into fatigue territory. While some fans enjoy the unique battles and non-stop action, others have criticized many of the fights for being glorified {{Filler}} that lack plot progression or emotional impact. This reached a head when [[TheAce Jiren]] took prominence as the clear ArcVillain, doing away much of the tension and appeal of a [[TournamentArc Battle Royale]] since it's clear from early on that it will come down to a final battle between Jiren and Goku (in his latest new SuperMode) while the other battles just serve to waste time and whittle down the cast. Not helped at all by Jiren himself being a very divisive character for his personality, [[TheWorfEffect effortless]] defeating of multiple popular characters, and what they perceived to be a poorly done FreudianExcuse.

** The most prominent case is the "Seventh Astral Era" quest chain, AKA the quests added after the original release of ''A Realm Reborn'' but before its first expansion ''Heavensward'', especially once the latter was released. Many complained about the need to actually reach the expansion content to play as its new classes for the primary reason that after the almost two-hundred quests of ''A Realm Reborn'', the Seventh Astral Era stretches on for ''another'' hundred -- every future expansion content cycle ended up with half as many main scenario quests as ''ARR'' and its patches did. Patch 5.3 streamlined the Seventh Astral Era to make it more approachable for new players, but it ''still'' goes on for a while - it was reduced from a hundred quests to eighty, but in practice is still ''ninety-one'' quests, because you still need to complete three hard-mode versions of primals you fought in the 2.0 story as a requisite for one of the later quests in the line (For no apparent reason), and the same patch also added a requirement to complete the Crystal Tower raids (which consist of another ten quests, eight of which you need to complete) because of the Tower's relevance to ''Shadowbringers''.
** ''Stormblood'' suffers from this in its Ala Mhigo arc, in that it's almost treated as an afterthought despite events in Ala Mhigo being the catalyst for the expansion. Its problem is twofold: one, it decided to also deal with liberating a second country from Garlean occupation (the in-universe logic being to divide the Garleans' attention by forcing them to deal with two rebellions at the same time), and two, that second country ended up with far more time spent on it - keeping in mind that you have to be at level 60 to start the ''Stormblood'' story, you head for the Far East at level 61 and don't come back until you've liberated Doma at level ''68'', which leaves almost no room for Ala Mhigo to have any real story. What makes this even worse is that Lyse [[ADayInTheLimelight gets much more story importance]] with this expansion, but her CharacterDevelopment is almost entirely tied to Ala Mhigo rather than Doma - which means she spends almost 90% of the expansion never progressing past the "Lyse [[{{Wangst}} whines about feeling useless]]" phase of her development before very suddenly jumping to "Lyse is leading the Ala Mhigan Resistance", without even giving her any chance to prove herself worthy of the role until well ''after'' she's been thrust into it.

** One of the first cases is the very specific instance of dealing with Titan in ''A Realm Reborn'', because you spend much of the arc performing several quests dragged out far longer than they need to be (21 quests in total, even after the ''ARR'' storyline was slimmed down in a later patch) for what appears to be little more than [[SkewedPriorities an ill-timed banquet]] rather than the SecretTestOfCharacter it was supposed to be - even the dungeon you do during this part of the story is simply trying to help a goblin gather cheese, followed by too many quests spent simply walking back and forth between two places, just far apart enough that the trips are annoying but not enough that skipping the return by teleporting is worth the gil, trying to get someone to please just give you a Goddamned bottle of wine already. What's more? At the end of this, you barely even get to ''see'' the banquet that ''you'' spent all that time singlehandedly preparing (you get a short scene of your character taking one bite of the meal as the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' victory jingle plays), and your advice for dealing with Titan ends up amounting to little more than "do your best". Many players felt they ''had'' to take the option to [[CatharsisFactor tell the Company of Heroes they will not be throwing a banquet this time around]] when they returned for ''Endwalker's'' role quest for Melee classes.

* ''VideoGame/{{Metal Gear Solid 3|SnakeEater}}'' (2005) was intended to portray the StartOfDarkness of Big Boss, the main villain of the MSX ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' games, and ended with a scene of him saluting the grave of the mentor he was forced to execute on orders from the US government after she defected. A combination of having to make sequels against the creator's will, PanderingToTheBase and AesopAmnesia led to a slew of games which all claimed would explain exactly why Big Boss turned towards evil, and all of which ended up showing little more than Big Boss being in morally dubious environments in which he has to do horrible things for justifiable reasons, and at the end of every game taking off his bandanna and saying he accepts the title of Big Boss. The final game in this arc, ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidV'' ([[VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVGroundZeroes 2014]]/[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain 2015]]), was hyped as being the one that would show the turn ''for real'', but this would turn out to be {{Superdickery}}, with the reveal that [[spoiler:the Big Boss who actually did all the horrible things he's responsible for before the MSX games was a BodyDouble]]; with Creator/HideoKojima gone from the series, it is fair to say that we have had five whole Big Boss games to explain how he eventually became an insane, despotic BloodKnight without any of them actually showing that, and we will never get one. For contrast, Solid Snake was able to transition from being a socially awkward young government commando, to a warm-hearted TricksterMentor and humanitarian, to a tired old man dealing with his eventual death, in only three titles.

* The ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' series faced this problem following the release of ''[[VideoGame/MetroidFusion Fusion]]''. The game is set after ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' with the Space Pirates virtually eliminated, and ends on the note of [[spoiler:TheFederation planning to weaponize Metroids for their own sinister purposes]]. For nearly two decades, none of the games released after ''Fusion'' built on the latter point, as all of them were either interquels (the ''[[VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy Prime]]'' subseries and ''[[VideoGame/MetroidOtherM Other M]]'') or remakes (''[[VideoGame/MetroidZeroMission Zero Mission]]'', ''[[VideoGame/MetroidSamusReturns Samus Returns]]''), with ''Other M'' in particular merely reiterating ''Fusion''[='=]s big revelation earlier in the timeline. The nineteen-year stall would finally come to an end with ''VideoGame/MetroidDread''. [[spoiler: Except not really as that game focused on the Chozo race and Samus's personal beef with a megalomatic Chozo trying to take over the universe. There's virtually no mention of the Federation in it and in the end all Metroids are destroyed... save Samus whose biology now contains Metroid DNA and allows her to ''become'' one. A good plot setup for later but still not following up on what was promised.]]

*** Several of the episodes consisted of just characters speaking or flying from one place to another, with very few fight sequences to break it all up (since the story was like a game of chess, told 22 minutes a week). One episode, Bulma and the Crabs, was just Bulma tricking two of Frieza's henchmen into looking for the Dragon Balls, which turned into a BizarroEpisode after the henchmen were gone since it had no impact on the saga's plot at all. Part of this pacing is because the anime was right up against the manga: when Goku went Super Saiyan in the anime it was a scant three chapters behind the manga, so it had to constantly write in excuses to delay the events unfolding. After this point Toei opted to take weeks off and insert filler arcs wholesale.

*** Namek also had a limited cast of characters stuck on planet Namek, a world where the sky, water and grass/trees are all green with [[SingleBiomePlanet nothing but ocean archipelagos]], topped off with an eternal daytime due to multiple suns. It's also very underdeveloped: the local population is low and occupy about seven tiny villages across the entirity of the planet, and almost all of them are wiped out by the time the heroes even arrive (there's a total of three living Namekians for most of the story, all of whom don't do very much). It says a lot that the planet starting to fall about is one of the most interesting things that happens simply because the weather was different. By contrast the following storylines, Androids and Boo, were set on Earth, about the most diverse location imaginable.

** This is also a common accusation given to the Boo Arc, since many different attempts are made at killing him and every single one fails despite weeks of build-up. It lasts 70 episodes, and for 60 of them the heroes are either fighting him or figuring out how to fight him, which not even the Namek Arc did!

** One of the first cases is the very specific instance of dealing with Titan in ''A Realm Reborn'', because you spend much of the arc performing several quests dragged out far longer than they need to be (21 quests in total, even after the ''ARR'' storyline was slimmed down in a later patch) for what appears to be little more than [[SkewedPriorities an ill-timed banquet]] rather than the SecretTestOfCharacter it was supposed to be - even the dungeon you do during this part of the story is simply trying to help a goblin gather cheese, followed by too many quests spent simply walking back and forth between two places trying to get someone to please just give you a damn bottle of wine. What's more? At the end of this, what is your advice for dealing with Titan? "Do your best". Many players had to take the option to [[CatharsisFactor tell them they will not be throwing a banquet this time around]] when they returned for ''Endwalker's'' role quest for Melee classes.

** The SchoolFestival got its third day of "dates with Negi" cut in favor of the Battle For Mahora. At least in this case, there was a TournamentArc thrown in the middle for variety. Akamatsu had realized the arc was starting to drag and decided to drop a few mini-arcs on the tail end to avoid making the problem worse.

* The Asgard arc in ''Manga/SaintSeiya''. One of the main appeals of ''Manga/SaintSeiya'' is that the fights, while epic, would last about one episode with a couple of exceptions. The problem with the Asgard arc is that every fight consisted of one of the Saints encountering a God Warrior, fight for about three episodes, the God Warrior gives a backstory and it repeats all over again. One fight in particular lasts four episodes. Ratings dropped so much that the series was CutShort with the comparatively short Poseidon Saga and the no Hades Saga until years later. Unsurprisingly, this is the one arc that is 100% [[{{filler}} anime-only]].

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries''. Ash is no closer to being a Pokémon Master than he was back during the first season, despite [[NotAllowedToGrowUp still being 10 years old]]; some say that he looks ''younger'' than when he started. It doesn't help that with each new series, he hits a ResetButton on his team and his Pikachu's strength tends to fluctuate until later in that series. [[spoiler:It isn't until ''Anime/PokemonTheSeriesSunAndMoon'' where Ash finally sheds the label of "[[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut perennial choker]]" with a long-awaited Pokémon League Conference win in October 2019, becoming the Alola Champion in the process — '''''22 years''''' after the show started. In ''Anime/PokemonJourneysTheSeries'', he is now the closest he's ever been to his goal, being recognized aa one of the eight strongest trainers in the world within the World Coronation Series.]]

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries''. Ash is no closer to being a Pokémon Master than he was back during the first season, despite [[NotAllowedToGrowUp still being 10 years old]]; some say that he looks ''younger'' than when he started. It doesn't help that with each new arc he hits a ResetButton on his team, his Pikachu's level, and his own experience as a trainer. [[spoiler:Even after Ash finally shed the label of "[[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut perennial choker]]" with a long-awaited tournament win in October 2019--'''''22 years''''' after the show started--it doesn't seemed to have helped. Of course, the anime will probably keep going for as long as the franchise is popular.]]

A CliffhangerWall is a possible cause of this. See also FourLinesAllWaiting, which moves at this speed ''by definition''. Compare ExponentialPlotDelay (the fatigue gets worse as the plot progresses), EndingFatigue (when it seems like it will end, but it doesn't), ProlongedPrologue (when the work is moving slowly before the story proper even begins), and TheChrisCarterEffect (which is a possible audience reaction to this).

** ''Franchise/StreetFighter'', especially regarding Ryu's [[BecauseDestinySaysSo endlessly mentioned destiny]] to become a "[[MeaninglessMeaningfulWords true martial artist]]." Being the [[{{Shotoclone}} lynchpin]] for countless installments and [[VideoGame/CapcomVs crossovers]], he is inherently [[StaticCharacter not allowed to change much]] despite having personal growth as his big theme. This being the {{fighting game}} genre, character popularity also takes precedence over plot. Which means Ryu will regress in and out of his [[SuperPoweredEvilSide evil version]] without [[CanonDiscontinuity affecting anything]], villains will never be taken care of so long as enough players main them, and their victims don't have [[{{Retcon}} consequences]], [[DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist either]]. The writing may not be the main appeal of the games, but all the grand promises that go nowhere with [[ExcusePlot little attempt to innovate]] do wear out.

** The ''Golem arc'' is known for being a very slogging read to get through since a good chunk of it is focused on Jaco's past, his being killed, the fight with the berserk golem and finally Jaco coming back to finish the battle with his newfound power. Did not help that this was meant to be in between a TournamentArc.

** Dressrosa eventually became the longest arc in the series up to that point by a large margin, lasting exactly one hundred chapters; the aforementioned Skypiea Arc lasted only 66 chapters. The fact that the arc had LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, even by ''One Piece'' standards, did it no favors. It also set up other imminent events in addition to those already ongoing, building up anticipation for the arc itself to get itself over with. True to form, the Dressrosa Arc in the anime was ''historically'' slow. Much of every episode's content drastically extends the scenes with the [[LittlePeople Tontatta]] or the coliseum fights, as well as adding in tons of things to stall the Straw Hats. [[spoiler: In fairness, the huge cast was semi-justified as many characters in the arc would become part of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, but it still dragged in many fans eyes.]]

** The story is built on the premise of the [[HeroesRUs eponymous organization]] [[OrderReborn rebuilding itself]] years after disbanding to bring justice to the villainous forces that have been running amok unchecked in its absence. Being an exclusively multiplayer title, this story is told through [[AllThereInTheManual external materials]] released sporadically online, the first of which debuted roughly two months before the game officially launched (in March 2016) and established a recall order had been issued to [[PuttingTheBandBackTogether reunite all the former operatives]], with at least two confirmed to be onboard. It took ''seventeen months'' to get confirmation that even a single character would join them, as the focus has been kept on characters' backstories, but not what they are doing in the "present" days. Due to the ''[[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters huge]]'' cast, constant flashbacks/backstories, and that the game just kept adding more and more heroes before fully fleshing out the existing ones, the narrative is always in a state of introducing plot threads and leaving them hanging to introduce another one, likely to be just as neglected. This has had the effect of making the story so far feel more like a prolonged opening act. It took until ''five years'' after the game was announced (and a bit under four years until after its launch) for a MissionPackSequel that would focus on the plot to be announced for a 2020 release date (later pushed to 2021, later moved to 2022).

** The most egregious case was Book 10 "Crossroads of Twilight" which is a multiple hundred-page-long book about people's reactions to the finale of the previous book. It plays out the day of and its following day or so ''over and over'' with [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters all the main characters and most of the significant side ones.]] And this took place just after we had gotten out of 3 books wherein the ''3 main protagonists'' had maybe 5 chapters between them, and had focused solely on the exploits of the trio of Elayne, Egwene and Nynaeve, and all their various doings. Which were important admittedly, but still should not have displaced the ''main 3 protagonists'' roles.

** One of the first cases is the very specific instance of dealing with Titan in ''A Realm Reborn'', because you spend much of the arc performing several quests dragged out far longer than they need to be (21 quests in total, even after the ''ARR'' storyline was slimmed down in a later patch) for what appears to be little more than [[SkewedPriorities an ill-timed banquet]] - even the dungeon you do during this part of the story is simply trying to help a goblin gather cheese, followed by too many quests spent simply walking back and forth between two places trying to get someone to please just give you a damn bottle of wine. What's more? At the end of this, what is your advice for dealing with Titan? "Do your best". Many players had to take the option to [[CatharsisFactor tell them they will not be throwing a banquet this tiem around]] when they returned for ''Endwalker's'' role quest for Melee classes.

** The most prominent case is the "Seventh Astral Era" quest chain, AKA the quests added after the original release of ''A Realm Reborn'' but before its first expansion ''Heavensward'', especially once the latter was released. Many complained about the need to actually reach the expansion content to play as its new classes for the primary reason that after the almost two-hundred quests of ''A Realm Reborn'', the Seventh Astral Era stretches on for ''another'' hundred -- every future expansion content cycle ended up with half as many main scenario quests as ''ARR'' and its patches did. Patch 5.3 streamlined the Seventh Astral Era to make it more approachable for new players, but it ''still'' goes on for a while - it was reduced from a hundred quests to eighty, but in practice is still ''ninety-one'' quests, because you still need to complete three hard-mode versions of primals you fought in the 2.0 story as a requisite for one of the later quests in the line, and the same patch also added a requirement to complete the Crystal Tower raids (which consist of another ten quests, eight of which you need to complete) because of the Tower's relevance to ''Shadowbringers''.

** One of the first cases is the very specific instance of dealing with Titan in ''A Realm Reborn'', because you spend much of the arc performing several quests dragged out far longer than they need to be (21 quests in total, even after the ''ARR'' storyline was slimmed down in a later patch) for what appears to be little more than [[SkewedPriorities an ill-timed banquet]] - even the dungeon you do during this part of the story is simply trying to help a goblin gather cheese, followed by too many quests spent simply walking back and forth between two places trying to get someone to please just give you a damn bottle of wine.