Numerous plot twists are a trend that also dates back to the end of the Soul Society arc. It's revealed that the real reason Rukia's execution was arranged was so Aizen could get a powerful object called the Hogyoku that was implanted in her body. The Hogyoku itself didn't really get much build up beyond a vague mention in a letter, but because the story was still in its early stages and because it was important to the main villain's plans, most viewers didn't have a problem with it. Aizen himself was introduced as a kind hearted captain that was brutally murdered, before revealing that he had faked his death and was behind everything in the story to that point, a development that was widely praised at the time. Since then, the number of 'shocking' plot twists in the story has become perhaps the most common criticism about Bleach after Arc Fatigue, and every new twist tends to cause massive arguments in the fanbase about whether they make sense or not. This is most prominent during the Deicide arc, where Aizen becomes embroiled in a Gambit Roulette so ludicrous people stopped taking him seriously.
When Kubo kicked off the Soul Society arc, he more or less ditched the majority of the prior cast, and introduced around forty new characters, all of whom had distinct designs, powersets, and backstories. This worked extremely well, as it showcased Kubo's impressive skill as a character designer and a writer of Establishing Character Moments, with pretty much every new person to show up becoming extremely popular right off the bat. However, it resulted in the prior cast either not appearing or not getting that much development outside of one or two fight scenes. Fans waited for the Soul Society characters to get their dues... but then Kubo began the Arrancar arc, introduced another thirty or so characters, and gave them all distinct designs, powers, and backstories, while the Soul Society cast largely went into the background, only showing up to maybe get one fight scene. Then Hueco Mundo introduced another couple dozen characters, then Fullbringer, then Blood War... and by the end of the series, there were hundreds and hundreds of characters, and countless numbers among them had seen their arcs end up simply dropped. Thus the weakness was revealed: Kubo excels at creating characters, but he gets bored whenever he has to do anything with them.
One complaint about the final arc was that the Sternritter's had potential as antagonists, but only a small handful of them ended up being truly relevant, with many of them having barely any fights, or some dying anti-climatically. One video by a series fan discussed this by pointing out that this issue had existed with the Gotei 13 and the Arrancar's as well. The Gotei 13 had several characters who largely didn't contribute to the story and were just there, like Tetsuzaemon Iba, a character who never gets to do anything in the series and ends it as a Captain with no fanfare. The Arrancar's had similar issues, such as Luppi, who took over Grimmjow's spot as an Espada, got in one fight, and then was killed quickly by Grimmjow without much fanfare. What made some of the past examples less frustrating for some was that the previous factions had ranks in them, meaning fans could understand who was supposed to be important: The Captains and Espada. The Captains and Espada were given more importance then their Lieutenants or Fraccions, making it easier to ignore forgotten characters like the previously mentioned two. By contrast, the Sternritter's are all a unified group, lacking a distinct hierarchy until the late introduction of the Schutzstaffel, meaning fans expected them to be equal to the Captains and Espada in terms of focus and importance. When many Sternritter's were essentially fodders or had anticlimactic fights, it made the entire group look less interesting and fairly wasted as characters.
A common critique of Kubo's writing is his unwillingness to kill off any good guys, even in cases where it would make a lot of sense to do so. This has always been the case, and Soul Society alone saw more than a few instances of a character turning out to be Not Quite Dead after lethal-looking injuries or miraculously escaping certain demise, some of which even read as fairly reasonable moments to kill them off (Byakuya, Mayuri, Momo, Ganju, Renji on multiple occasions, and Hitsugaya all come to mind). Most people were willing to accept this at the time, because these characters were often big deals in-universe and not killing them off in the first big world-establishing arc could be excused as keeping them around for future plans. However, the manga continued to do this in later arcs, and it became clear that many characters, after their miraculous survivals, would see very little further development or growth beyond taking part in fight scenes. At this point, it became hard to get any sense of stakes or tension from fights when even the most purposeless or underdeveloped character could happily bounce back from any injury, and it contributed to the manga's cast bloat. The Vandereich arc in particular, despite being both the final arc and focused on a massive war, killed off a grand total of five preexisting named Shinigami out of a cast of dozens, two of whom weren't even killed by the enemy—and this was by far the most kill-happy arc.
Digimon Frontier was criticized for its use of Protagonist Powerup Privileges, which had been used since the very beginning. In fact, it's considered pretty normal for only a handful of characters to reach the highest stages of evolution, Taichi and Yamato are the only children to have their partners reach Ultimate/Mega and merge into another form, Daisuke and Ken had their partners go Ultimate/Mega and gain two extra forms, with Daisuke previously having three Digimentals while everyone else got one or two, and Takato got a Super Mode all to himself. From the beginning, this tended to create Spotlight-Stealing Squad tendencies, because it meant that battles often hinged on whether The Hero and The Lancer were there - but this was still kept in check, because the nature of Digimon (where assuming higher stages wears the Digimon out) meant that those superpowered stages were frequently out-of-commission, said stages only appeared late into the series (with Omegamon/Omnimon and Imperialdramon Paladin Mode debuting in the movies), and usually their teammates weren't so far behind as to be useless. In addition, Adventure treated the Ultimate/Mega stage as unique and had the characters acquire it by special means, as the whole concept was still relatively new, prior to this, the Perfect/Ultimate stage had been the last stage for all digimon species. Tamers had different rules and the Ultimate stage had been long established at the point and felt free to have all three main Tamers, alongside Ryo, achieve it. But in Frontier, not only were Takuya and Koji the only ones to reach the highest stages, and not only did they take the lead from their teammates very early on (MetalKabuterimon, Zephyrmon, and Korikakumon, the final evolutions obtained by anyone aside from them and Kouichi, show up fourteen, sixteen, and seventeen episodes respectively into a 50-episode series, when Takuya and Koji still had three stages each to go), but the last stages of their evolutions involved everyone else lending them their power. This particularly hits Kouichi, who, as the show's Sixth Ranger, ends up obtaining his Spirits of Darkness only two episodes before those aforementioned last stages see introduction. It was one thing for them to be stronger, but another thing entirely for them to be stronger and also literally make everyone else useless.
Later installments in the Digimon franchise such as Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time, Digimon Adventure: (2020), and Digimon Ghost Game have been criticized for doing a poor job integrating continuous, overarching plot lines into their episodic structures. In particular, Adventure: (2020)’s focus on episodic stories at the expense of worldbuilding and characterization resulted in one-note main characters, a threadbare plot, and the arc villains being taken down anticlimactically and very quickly. Young Hunters was composed of almost nothing but filler, which led to the show’s climax happening with little build-up and twists (Ryoma being evil and Quartzmon’s reveal) coming out of nowhere. Similarly, Ghost Game did little build-up of its plot threads (particularly the mystery involving Gulus) throughout 60+ episodes and hastily resolved them in its last three episodes, including an infodump in the finale, due to not being able to smoothly integrate them into an episodic structure. However, earlier Digimon series have been episodic to an extent, particularly in their beginning portions. In Digimon Data Squad, the first 11 episodes have an episodic structure before it introduced the larger plot through Merkurimon and Ikuto. Similarly, Digimon Tamers was episodic until the introduction of the Devas, and Digimon Adventure was episodic during the File Island arc and Dark Network arc before focusing more on its plot during the Eighth Child arc. People didn’t take umbrage with it back then because there was still long-term worldbuilding, progression of the story, and character development being done in earlier installments. However, later installments would focus less on character development and worldbuilding, resulting in an abnormally high amount of filler episodes, minimal build-up for whatever plot lines they did set up, and lackluster resolutions to said plots.
It has been suggested the franchise's loss of its original gritty aesthetic started with Patamon's first evolution in Digimon Adventure. While the other Adult/Champion evolutions were monstrous creatures like a dinosaur, wolf, fire bird, walrus, beetle, and a cactus with punching gloves, an almost completely humanoid angel was the final solution to defeating the first-season Big Bad. But Angemon was largely unique among the cast until Angewomon showed up, his design was still subtly unique and creepy rather than just being an angel, he served as a Good Counterpart to the Devimon, and he was clearly a special event. Later shows, however, would go to the well of humanoid forms, knight armor, and Christian imagery again and again, while making new designs more toyetic. The result was the original monstrous aesthetic falling away, leaving the original generation looking out-of-place in an army of sparkledogs and angelic swordsmen.
Leomon's habit of dying went from one-off incident to trend in Digimon Tamers, something the show's creator specifically acknowledged was a reference to the original series. Both the original death in Adventure and the death in Tamers were generally acknowledged as high points of those shows, because, first off, it was still a surprise when it happened in Tamers—after all, plenty of characters died in prior shows, so it wasn't a Foregone Conclusion that Leomon would kick the bucket. Furthermore, the moments in question were well-written and used Leomon's Sacrificial Lion nature to its fullest extent, having long-term effects on the characters and being integral parts of each arc. Later shows, on the other hand, turned it into a borderline Running Gag, making it more annoying and meta than heartrending, and were at many points clearly just doing it because killing Leomon was a Recurring Element. This hit its pinnacle in Digimon Adventure tri., which brought back the original Leomon from Adventure and then killed him a second time, in a brutal manner that had little effect on the story—people were predicting the show would find some way to off him the moment it was revealed he'd be returning, and they were invariably more groaning than shocked when it finally happened. The sin is finally addressed in Digimon Adventure: (2020) by having Leomon survive all the way to the end of the season.
Dr. STONE has always used Time Skips, which was necessary, since it otherwise wouldn't be feasible to tell the story of a small group of people rebuilding civilization from zero. But at least, the series still made it clear how much labor was needed to create new things, so it was satisfying to see Senku and co. finally create antibiotics, electricity, telephones, etc. There even was a major invention, the waterwheel, that was created off-screen, but it still felt satisfying because it was made by two villagers of the once-primitive Ishigami Village who believably managed to come up with the idea on their own. Later arcs, however, would significantly speed things up to focus more on the main plot, leading to the Kingdom of Science sailing between continents, building a stealth ship, rebuilding entire cities, re-establishing the internet, and even building several failed rockets (the latter being explicitly said to take years per attempt) in just a few pages or panels, making the timeline confusing (especially since the characters didn't seem to age at all) and downplaying of one of the story's major points of appeal, the opportunity to see how things you take for granted were actually made.
In the El-Hazard: The Magnificent World OVA, Makoto's a Chick Magnet from day one, with three girls initially attracted to him, but it isn't really a Harem Series at that point. Makoto chooses his girlfriend fairly early on, and Nanami and Shayla-Shayla's attraction is a side plot occasionally tapped for humor and fanservice. But when they reach the third series, El Hazard: The Alternative World, the writers seem to have run out of ideas, and Makoto's girlfriend is on a bus anyway, so they have the girls fighting over Makoto every episode and insert a Third-Option Love Interest to spice things up. As a result, The Alternative World was widely seen as inferior to the first and second OVA series, and was Cut Short, with only 13 out of 26 episodes completed.
The Tower of Heaven arc had Erza Scarletrequip to nothing but a sarashi and hakama pants, while dual wielding katanas, an outfit that is explicitly stated to not provide her any defense, or really any magic. What was supposed to represent her getting over her fear of pain associated with the Tower of Heaven and her own experiences with it became a predictable formula for all of her major fights from there on out: be on the receiving end of a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, have most of her other armors either destroyed or disregarded, only to have her make a token 'Nakama Speech' and then reequip to this, resulting in a swift victory for her.
Natsu winning fights in ways that border on being asspulls or suddenly having the Smart Ball has been something criticized heavily in later arcs, but was evident early on. For example, Natsu's fight with Erigor had him winning the fight by making a tornado of fire to weaken Erigor's wind magic, and in his fight with Jellal, Natsu wins by eating Etherium and overpowering him quickly. However, many of the early moments weren't seen as that bad because of the context around them; in the fight with Erigor, it was a way of showing Natsu was creative in battle, while for Jellal the mechanics of Etherium were explained as being made up of each major element, so it made sense for the power up to work for Natsu, and afterwards, Natsu was sick because of it, implying heavy drawbacks for something as drastic as eating it. Later arcs however lack any attempt at making Natsu's victories feel natural, such as having Natsu winning by pulling out random tactics that don't make sense yet somehow work out in the end, such as emptying his magic so he could eat Zancrow's Dark Fire God Slayer magic, something everyone present is just as surprised at as the audience is. By the time of the seven year timeskip, most of Natsu's victories are less him being creative like the fight with Erigor, and more of him suddenly having a new way to win because the writer needed him to, resulting in the fights becoming tedious to watch because he naturally is going to suddenly win.
The sheer amount of fanservice later in the series got out of hand for many viewers, even though fanservice was a large part of the series. Early on the series poked fun at the concept of fanservice, such as Lucy trying to seduce someone only to fail at it because either the person had their own warped sense of what was alluring or because the person was smart enough not to fall for it, or the series used it for comedy like Gray's accidental stripping habits. Later chapters however began throwing fanservice out frequently with no reason beyond the sake of it, resulting in many scenes being ruined from either fanservice shots, or the characters doing something like randomly getting naked for "plot reasons". A notable example is during the finale of the Magic Tournament arc, when during the fight with the Dragons, Zirconis' dragon breath is able to strip people of their clothing and he uses it on Lucy, only for Natsu to grope Lucy for a completely random and out of character reason, all for no reason beyond it being fanservice and to create a silly gag that causes Mood Whiplash.
The series use of Not Quite Dead or Back from the Dead was often cited as a major reason for the disappointing final arc, but it existed since the first real story arcs. For example, Makarov twice was put into near death situations and left his fate in the air, but the first instance was him being badly hurt but showing up to save the day in the end, while the second time was basically suffering a heart-attack due to the grief he felt for Laxus' actions. It was the Oracion Seis arc that this began to be an issue, with Jellal coming back randomly with a poor explanation for why, and the series just began to roll with it by having either previously thought dead characters come back, or teasing the audience a character was going to die only to not commit, such as Lisanna, Makarov (again), Frosch, the entire guild twice, and more. By the time of the final arc, almost every single character of important had a moment suggesting they would die, only to show they're fine a moment after, the most infamous examples being Juvia and Gajeel, both of whom actually did somewhat die or were in the process of dying, only for them both to be fine a few chapters later thanks to Wendy and sheer coincidence of another spell being used at the time inadvertedly interrupting the death respectively. It says something when the only major character that was not an antagonist to die in the series, was the Big Good Mavis, who was somewhat already dead anyway, and even then she and Zeref were implied in the finale to have been reincarnated, effectively making her death seem like it had never happened.
Many fans of Fate bemoan the series' newer entries' increased Continuity Lockout. However, this was present all the way back in the very first work in the FateExpanded Universe, Fate/Zero. The difference is, despite Zero being a prequel to Fate/stay night and using many characters and plot threads from its predecessor, the central narrative is still perfectly comprehensible even to those who have never encountered a Fate work before. The only thing a fan reading or viewing Zero first will miss out on are some worldbuilding and some Call Forwards—in fact, it ended up serving as a Gateway Series to many who read it or watched the adaptation, inspiring them to go play Stay Night or watch one of its many adaptations. However, the principles that Zero was built on—being an Expanded Universe work that was still understandable to first-time viewers—were staunchly ignored by later entries in the FateExpanded Universe, resulting in things such as Lord El-Melloi II Case Files having Continuity Cameos from almost every single Type-Moon character ever invented, Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA jettisoning its entire established cast to instead focus on an alternate universe version of Heaven's Feel, and the Fate/Grand Order anime series not even bothering to make sense to people who hadn't already played the games.
A major complaint about the story was that it had too many characters, leading to most of them, despite their potentially intriguing stories and cool designs, being poorly utilized. But large casts have long been a feature of Fate stories; the format of the Grail War basically requires fourteen characters to exist, and that's just the core Masters and Servants. Apocrypha, though, literally doubled its problems by doubling the size of the Grail War, meaning there were now over thirty characters to try to corral.
Complaints about Sieg being a Vanilla Protagonist with an unconvincing or uninteresting romance echo complaints made about Shirou in the original Fate/stay night, especially in the Fate route and the Deen adaptation of said route. The difference was that the Shirou of the Fate route was a bit flat on purpose, with the other two routes serving to explore his morals, doubts, and personal dysfunctions and showing off a vibrant inner world, until he ended up as a borderline deconstruction of his prior self. Even the Fate route did give him some characterization by showing the massive Survivor's Guilt he experienced, elevating him beyond being a Blank Slate. This wasn't so much the case in the case of Sieg, who, for the most part, really did end up as flat and uninteresting as he seemed at first glance, and unlike Shirou, who had three romance arcs, Sieg was stuck with Jeanne, a character who doesn't really develop a romantic arc with Sieg until the epilogue. It also didn't help that Sieg had to actively jockey for screen time against better-defined characters, especially Mordred, whom many felt had a much stronger arc and a better claim for protagonist status. By contrast, Shirou is the protagonist without question, and the story only occasionally diverted attention to other characters.
Fist of the North Star's second half is seen as a step down from the first (and that's the polite opinion), but many of the things that made it so disliked also happened in the first half. Both parts retconned things frequently, featured lots of downright silly ideas, blatantly recycled character archetypes and beats, and were clearly written on the fly. However, the first half had a single strong element to keep it focused: the story of the Hokuto brothers and the Nanto school, which provided the series with incredibly charismatic personalities in the form of Raoh, Rei, Toki, and the Nanto Stars to keep it anchored. When the first half ended with all them dead and their stories thoroughly wrapped up, leaving only Kenshiro and his Tagalong Kids, there just wasn't anything left to keep readers invested, and the manga's plotting issues came to the fore.
The anime adaptation of Gal And Dino was heavily criticized due to the actual animation adapting chapters of the manga only making up about a third of each episode, with the rest being devoted to claymation segments, Deranged Animationbumpers, and most notably atwelve-minuteNo Budgetlive-action segment at the end of the show. However, the filler problem was present in the previous anime made by Kamikaze Douga, Pop Team Epic, and in that case it was arguably worse: the animated segments that actually adapted the manga could be as short as thirty seconds, and the last twelve minutes of each episode were an exact repeat of the first twelve, just with different voice actors. The difference is that Pop Team Epic is a surreal and bizarre comedy that's packed to the brim with Non Sequiturs and without any continuity to speak of, so the anime's original segments starring the main characters of the series still felt completely in line with the tone and the humor of the original manga. By contrast, Gal and Dino is a Mundane FantasticSlice of Life manga that actually has an ongoing storyline, so when the anime did the same cutaways and original segments that it did for Pop Team Epic it was easier to see them as Padding.
The shift from a Grey-and-Gray Morality in the original work to a Black-and-White Morality in the sequel complete with the antagonist faction that is Love to Hate, which often leans to Too Bleak, Stopped Caring. This is often considered the moment the work in question will go downhill, as evidenced with Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny and the second season of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 being Contested Sequels. This trend started when Mobile Suit Gundam transitioned to Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, the latter being generally considered an Even Better Sequel. The reason Zeta (mostly) got away with the morality shift was because its overall improvements with better writing, action and animation compared to the original overshadowed any complaints about the villains being Love to Hate. Meanwhile, later entries usually didn't improve their other aspects when shifting the morality or have a similar reception due to a more perceptive and hard to please audience thanks to the internet.
The "Space Magic" element is often a contentious topic with some feeling like it takes away from the Real Robot feel in many series. This is something that was first introduced in the very first show and subsequently escalated in the following series. The idea of Newtypes were considered groundbreaking at that time and the powers provided usually don't result in fantastical elements and/or deus ex machinas that would make the audience feel like that they are watching a different show altogether, which allowed Newtypes to be mostly immune to the criticism later versions would suffer from. Not to mention, "Space Magic" was also used more often as time went on to justify plot holes and physics-defying feats, turning it into a writing crutch.
Jewelpet: Lady Jewelpet is so focused on humans that the pets have a drastically diminished role, giving it a Broken Base. While Jewelpet (2009) and Jewelpet Twinkle☆ were also human-focused, the pets' role in both series was as big as that of the humans'.
In Stardust Crusaders, DIO only directly appearing in full in the last battle of the arc sets up a trend that would become convoluted in later parts. DIO had the justification of appearing in a previous part and his mysterious nature was to build up the new dreaded powers he gained since that time so it wasn't a big issue, seeming silly at worst given he had appeared before. However, later in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, Diavolo would also be in silhouette throughout and only be fully revealed in full in the last battle except in his case, the vagueness of his character worked against him due to it coming across as his sole character trait, though he was also set up as the main villain from the start, with said vagueness also working as an very important part of his character and motivations when Diavolo's personality and actions were given proper context and fleshing out as time went on. It would become exaggerated in Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Jo Jolion where the final Big Bad, Tooru, only appeared in the final arc without any mention of his existence and is even more mysterious than the previous two, which worked even more against having a straight memorable impression due to having even less screen time than the previous two main antagonists.
One of the biggest reasons Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Diamond Is Unbreakable was considered an Even Better Sequel was its willingness to experiment with what a Stand could do and be, allowing for strange, unconventional, and unique fights that almost never degraded into the punching matches legion to shonen. A Stand that drained your blood from miles away, or comprised an army of tiny soldiers, or turned people into books all led to memorable set-pieces and encounters. This experimental attitude to Stand design escalated with time — but by Stone Ocean, the widespread opinion was that Stands had become so unconventional and ridiculous that they headed right into nonsensical, with Heavy Weather's "create theoretical weather pattern of rainbows that causes people to think they're snails, which causes them to turn into snails" being the last straw for many, and frequently fights were so consumed with figuring out what a person's Stand did that there was very little actual fighting going on in favor of having the protagonist figure out an equally nonsensical solution.
One of the biggest and longest complaints about JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind was that Giorno played second fiddle to Bruno for the majority of the story, to the point of Giorno being viewed for a long time as the weakest-written protagonist in the series by some fans. This isn't new to Part 5; past Parts had characters who tended to take focus away from the main JoJo, with Polnareff and Koichi in particular being given more focus at times than Jotaro and Josuke. Part 5 is where where many fans deem the issue to being at its worst, however, as Bruno appears incredibly early in the series and establishes himself as important right away, whereas past Spotlight-Stealing Squad characters like Polnareff and Koichi would take up major screentime after they joined a bit into the story, or at least would have only certain sections where they were the focus, and usually would still be important, but often less so as the story went on. Bruno is not only more directly important to the story than Giorno, but because Giorno is the one joining his crew as opposed to the main JoJo getting people to follow them or their group, it makes Giorno have almost no major relevance until the finale when Bruno dies.
English-speaking viewers often complain about the names of various characters and Stands being changed due to legal issues. While most of the complaints began in Part 3 and 4, the changes had started as far back as Part 1. However, most of the changes were relatively minor, and could almost be attributed to Spell My Name With An S (e.g. Bruford becoming Blueford). Part 3 and 4 had more noticeable changes, such as Oingo and Boingo becoming Zenyatta and Mondatta, so fans started to complain.
A lot of people who complain about the Reset Button Ending in the CLANNAD~After Story~ anime seem unaware that it was in the original visual novel as well. Not to mention that Kanon, which originally came out in 1999, uses the same trope in both the visual novel and the anime.
Charlotte and The Day I Became a God are so despised that even Jun Maeda's most loyal fans turned against him. These series' problems can be traced back to Air, Kanon, and CLANNAD:
He wastes most of the episodes on comedy, then throws in a terrible event as a plot twist that is meant to make the show more serious, only to undo it with magic that takes away all the negative consequences. This is also the case in Kanon and CLANNAD, but in CLANNAD, this happens once in the span of 47 episodes, making viewers more forgiving. In Charlotte, this not only happens 3 times in just 13 episodes, but too often and very close to each event, making it impossible for even fanboys of melodrama to overlook it.
Charlotte is also heavily criticized for being rushed. Air, also 13 episodes long, was also rushed and had two recap episodes, including the last episode, close to each other. The final episode of Charlotte crams a whole season into 20 minutes, turning even Maeda's biggest fans against him. The Day I Became A God even has the misfortune of coming after Charlotte.
Lyrical Nanoha's particular claim to fame has always been its superimposition of sci-fi mecha tropes over a MoeMagical Girl series, and for the most part this has been a good thing, allowing it to stand out from the crowd and earning it much of its fanbase. The problem, however, is that over time the franchise has shifted more and more into being a Magitek sci-fi epic, and the magical girl tropes were increasingly downplayed. This led to Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force, where the "Magical Girl" was dropped from the series title entirely, along with nearly all the magical girl tropes, in hopes of telling a sci-fi war story. In doing this, however, it lost sight of the particular formula that had made the franchise such a hit to begin with, and combined with some poorly-received characters, the series has been roundly criticized by old-school fans- and was even Quietly Cancelled before it could reach a resolution.
Many have read or watched Mad Bull 34 and/or Crying Freeman and wondered how Kazuo Koike could go from making his seminal masterpiece Lone Wolf and Cub to them. Lone Wolf and Cub features many of the same elements that critics have eviscerated those stories for: ridiculously over-the-top action, pulpy and unrealistic story beats, a juvenile and borderline-misogynistic attitude towards rape and sexuality that affects almost all the female characters, scatological humor, and ridiculously, even hilariously evil villains. But, Lone Wolf and Cub did a much better job of landing its dramatic and personal stories, grounding the excess so that it still comes across effectively as human drama. It was also set in a distant, violent past, rather than a contemporary setting, dissociating the audience from events to a point and increasing the ceiling of Willing Suspension of Disbelief, and was often heavily-researched and showed it, in stark contrast to the ridiculous depictions of New York or the Chinese triads more informed by action movies than anything else.
Both Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion and the anime adaptation of Magia Record Puella Magi Madoka Magica Sidestory are largely criticized for having fairly hefty Downer Endings- in the former, Homura usurps Ultimate Madoka, turning her human again, and traps the entire world in a Lotus-Eater Machine, while in the latter a large number of characters are killed off and it's stated that the efforts of the main characters were in vain. Many were quick to note, however, that Puella Magi Madoka Magica was always heavily built around tragedy, and nearly every story in the franchise (including the original) is a Bittersweet Ending at best. However, the original series ended with Madoka having successfully changed the world for the better, even if it wasn't without great cost, meaning that many saw it as a rebuttal of the nihilistic "you can't make things better" attitude that much of the series had suggested. Additionally, the Magia Record arc adapted by the anime was an exception to the above rule in its original form, in that it has a completely happy ending where all the main cast survives — in fact, it's stated in-universe that Magia Record is meant to be the one universe where Madoka and Homura can be together. Due to this, many saw the endings, rather than making their respective anime more tonally in-line with the original, actually validating the ideas that the original refuted—because an unambiguously happy, conclusive ending can't be milked for more money and sequels.
Magia Record is also criticized for its drastic tonal shifts which often seemed unmotivated and confusing. Of course, the original Madoka's third episode features Mami being killed by a Witch, drastically changing the show's tone as it forced Madoka and Sayaka to confront the reality of being a Magical Girl. However, Madoka consistently grows darker and more tragic after Mami's death, which proves to be a jumping off point for its Genre Deconstruction and Character Development rather than a shocking moment for its own sake. In contrast, Magia Record spends much of the time acting like a more traditional Magical Girl show, only to abruptly shift into a darker tone whenever the show needs a dramatic highpoint, with little attempt at consistency. In particular, the various deaths in Season 3 seem unmotivated beyond providing brief emotional jolts, which do little to advance the story or develop surviving characters, in contrast to Madoka treating its major character deaths with considerable gravity.
Magia Record's use of Bizarchitecture and surreal imagery has also been criticized for making some scenery and images look almost nonsensical, with no real way of telling what is literal and what isn't. Again, this was also present in the original series, but there is a key difference: most of the surreal imagery was limited to the Witch Labyrinths and a few visual metaphors that were clearly meant to be metaphors (i.e. Madoka being suspended by rope in front of clockwork gears as Kyubey explains how Homura repeating the same month over and over again has caused multiple timelines to converge on Madoka, explaining why she has so much potential as a Magical Girl). Meanwhile, Mitakihara, while still a high-end, 20 Minutes into the Future city, still looked mostly plausible enough to pass for a place that people live in (it being based on numerous real-world cities and using lots of Real-Place Background). This surreal imagery also appeared in Rebellion, but there it was acceptable by audiences because the bulk of the film takes place in a Labyrinth formed from Homura's Soul Gem, and was clearly meant to represent her slowly realizing that something is wrong. In Magia Record, however, there is little way to differentiate between the surreal, supernatural imagery of the setting and the more mundane, real-world parts. This is most likely the result of a change in the creative team between the original show and Magia Record: it's clear in interviews with Gen Urobuchi that most of the surreal imagery was created by Gekidan Inu Curry, while Urobuchi's script was apparently more grounded and mundane in its descriptions (most of the Faust allusions also stem from Inu Curry). With Urobuchi's departure from the franchise after Rebellion (save returning to write the third movie), Inu Curry took over as writer and director of the Magia Record adaptation. With no limitations for how to portray the more fantastical elements of the story, the imagery was allowed to run wild, with mixed results.
At the beginning of the manga, a lot of praise was given to the manga's pacing, with villain-centered arc driving the plot forward interlaced with school-centered arcs that drove the characters and the addition of a multitude of vibrant, interesting characters in each arc. Eventually, some fans started to complain about these exact elements. These fans believe the amount of school-centered arcs has led to the plot advancing at a snail's pace and leaving enough unresolved plot threads to weave a blanket, while the sizable cast has become sizable enough that most characters will never get any focus, no matter how much fans want.
Ironically enough, this has started to go in the opposite direction, as while the story is moving at a faster pace after the Paranormal Liberation War arc, it has also resulted in a lot of story concepts and characters feeling extremely rushed or woefully under-explored. Some examples include the evil side of the Hero Safety Commission via Lady Nagant's backstory, the developing of One For All's other Quirks and their relation to Deku's emotional state (with each subsequent Quirk after Black Whip being developed at increasingly absurd speeds despite their initial difficulty), Deku's solo vigilante arc and his degrading mental state from his self-destructive behavior, the loss of the Hero System, etc.
Some of the more contentious parts of the Internship Arc, such as most of the cast being pushed aside in favor of new characters, were present in the Field Training Arc. Back then, however, it wasn't as much of a problem because that arc was much shorter, most of the cast who wasn't shown came back having learned new things in their absence, and there were fewer new characters.
The manga's artwork was never particularly great compared to its brethren, and Kishimoto began to simplify it as early as the second chapter (Naruto swapped out his goggles for an easier to draw headband). But it was still solid stuff, and the character designs remained lively and detailed. When Shippuden rolled around, Kishimoto gave many of the characters simpler and blander redesigns for the same reason, and the art became noticeably stiffer. The War Arc (when the manga's schedule was taking its toll on Kishimoto the hardest) saw this hit its peak, with some incredibly boring composition and lackluster fight scenes, which coincided with pretty much every other character wearing the same generic battle uniform.
The elements of Hard Work Hardly Works were always present, thanks to the entire plot being that Naruto carried the Nine-Tailed Fox and uses its power to succeed. This was counterbalanced somewhat by the Fox's power being incredibly dangerous to use, and often caused more harm than good, such as collateral damage and the village ostracizing him as a child. Later arcs kept piling on details to make Naruto more amazing (he's the son of the Fourth Hokage and the prior carrier of the fox, is from a clan that gives him extraordinary amounts of chakra, is the reincarnation of one of the most powerful ninja ever, and multiple people only train him because of the above reasons) which ended up turning him from a kid in a rough situation to a kid fueled almost entirely by his inheritance.
Naruto's "Talk No Jutsu" was always present in the series but become heavily criticized during the final arc when he did so to Tobi, aka Obito Uchiha. In the past, Naruto did this because he felt he was like the person he fought, or him beating his foe challenged their beliefs and views. Gaara and Pain both represented what Naruto could have been under different circumstances, and he was able to connect to them over their similarities. In cases like Neji or Zabuza, it was supposed to be Naruto's determination getting them to realize their flaws and move on. His usage of it against Pain was contentious still, because although Naruto's refusal to kill Pain was designed to prove Pain's philosophy wrong, Naruto still had plenty of justification to kill Pain, but even still it was a case of Misaimed Fandom. With Obito Uchiha, however, Naruto suddenly made attempts to redeem him even though it ignored all of the atrocities he committed to the world and to Naruto personally, which was hard to accept. Furthermore, Naruto only did so after having time to think about the person he was fighting, such as learning of Haku's loyalty to Zabuza before the battle on the bridge or learning of Pain's past well in advance. The same could not be said of Obito due to Naruto not learning anything about him until essentially minutes before he did "Talk No Jutsu" him.
In the original version, problems that affected later parts of the series started showing up early on. Pacing problems were present since Skypeia, and the plot having way too many characters started in Enies Lobby. The Dressrosa Arc later became the pinnacle of both of these issues, with Oda attempting to cram too many new developments into one arc that resulted in 2 and a half years in real life spent on the same island, about 10 extended flashbacks, a little over 50 named new characters, the reintroduction of several old characters, and 101 chapters of content.
Somewhat related to the pacing, while people have started complaining about padding in the anime adaptation since just before the Time Skip, the anime has always expanded on the manga in various ways, from adding new scenes and lines of dialogue to reaction shots and shots of characters walking. The difference is that in the past, the anime covered more than one chapter per episode, and used filler episodes to allow the manga to get farther ahead. Around the time the series got up to Sabaody Archipelago, leading to long arcs with no opportunity for filler arcs, the anime had to fall back on making anime episodes cover manga chapters, thus leading to the padding problem getting that much worse.
For much of the series, some of the more epic battles happened almost entirely offscreen. In the early series, people didn't mind, since those glimpses of the most powerful fighters generally served to build up excitement for future battles (for example, Shanks and Whitebeard clashing aboard Whitebeard's ship post-Enies Lobby, or Ace vs. Blackbeard ending on a cliffhanger). However, as the series goes on, some people are starting to see this trope as a bit of a cop-out, such as when Kanjuro Kurozumi, the traitor in the Red Scabbards(a significant antagonist) is Killed Offscreen, or when Jack, one of Kaido's Lead Performers apparently loses to Dogstorm and Cat Viper in their Sulong forms offscreen.
The series has long been reluctant to kill off characters outside of flashbacks. At the end of the Baratie arc, the fatally poisoned Gin's fate was left ambiguous, and while Igaram's survival seems farfetched, the fact that Robin pretended to kill him retroactively makes sense as an act of betrayal against Crocodile. It only became a problem when characters' surviving is rather improbable (Pell surviving the detonation of a city-destroying bomb, Pagaya avoiding Eneru's lightning) and/or ruins the emotional impact of supposed character deaths (Bon Clay performing a Heroic Sacrificetwice and surviving). The series managed to buck the trend by killing off Ace and Whitebeard in Marineford, but later developments, like Sabo surviving his supposed death in Luffy's flashback, and Pound coming back in a cover story prove that this trend hasn't quite gone away.
While the princesses post-timeskip (Shirahoshi, Rebecca and Komurasaki) were criticized for being useless and being overly reliant on the Straw Hats and other protagonists, to the point of seemingly only existing to give the protagonists a reason to fight, it's worth noting that some of this applied to Vivi, who was weaker than the Straw Hats and unable to win any fights on her own. The difference, however, was that Vivi was able to uncover Mr. 0's identity as Sir Crocodile, which was key to unraveling Baroque Works' conspiracy, and was able to convince Koza to end the rebellion, with only Baroque Works' interference thwarting her efforts. When you compare how Shirahoshi kept the identity of her mother's killer secret (thus allowing Hody to get as far as he did), Rebecca was unable to accomplish anything by herself and Komurasaki almost becomes a non-entity in Wano Act 3, only gaining relevance near the tail end of it, you can see why the other princesses aren't as well received. It also helps that Vivi was a far more proactive and goal-oriented character than the later princesses. She was the one who came up with the plan to take down Crocodile in the first place and was consistently driving the plot throughout the Alabasta arc.
The Day Breakers features several Off-Model shots and somewhat poor animation in the fight scene against Shadow Makigami. This was less of a concern than in the anime because in the latter case, the viewers hadn't had as much of a look at the game's striking aesthetics, and thus had less reason to be disappointed.
One of the major criticisms of P5A was that Joker didn't have much of a personality, and barely seemed to react to anything, but this also applied to The Day Breakers. The Day Breakers serves is an introductory episode to the Phantom Thieves(none of whom show much more than their basic personalities), so Joker didn't need a character arc. When Joker's lack of a character continued in the main anime, people complained that the supporting characters were a lot more interesting than the main character.
The "Akechi Quota," or frequently including Akechi in the story outside of his canonical appearances, especially in the spring and summer, got its start in The Day Breakers. Akechi makes two appearances in the OVA despite not playing much of a role in the plot- while doing an interview at the start, and glancing at Joker while watching the burglars' arrest at the end. In the OVA's case, it wasn't much of a problem, since they were mostly cameos to establish the OVA as taking place in June, with the latter serving as a bit of foreshadowing for his and Joker's relationship. It only became divisive when he started playing a bigger role in the anime, such as with Futaba and Yusuke's Confidants.
Several problems present in this adaptation were also present in Persona 4: The Animation, but were less impactful there.
P4A also condensed a 100+ hour RPG into 26 episodes. However, Persona 4 spread its story events much more thinly across the school year, and most of its Social Links weren't relevant to the main plot. This meant the anime could afford to cut more while still adapting the game's entire plot. Persona 5 has a much faster-paced story that spans most of the school year, making it harder to compress. Dungeons in P4 were randomly-generated mazes of generic doors and hallways, so the anime shortening them to a few scenes and a boss fight wasn't as jarring as in P5A, which adapts much larger and more elaborate dungeons.
P4A also had moments of Off-Model animation, but it was adapting a game that wasn't exactly known for impressive graphics (Persona 4 was made on a small budget due to Atlus struggling financially at the time), so it was easy to gloss over the imperfections and enjoy seeing the locations of Persona 4 fully detailed. P5A is adapting a game famous for its flashy presentation and amazing visual design, so not living up to that standard was far more noticeable.
The anime version of Ranma ½ catches a lot of flack for both the poor animation of its mid-seasons—aka, when the series was narrowly revived after having gone bankrupt in the first season and needing to be picked up by a new company—and its purported abundance of filler. Whilst, yes, the anime does engage in Adaptation Expansion for some stories and also has a plethora of stories unique to its continuity, the manga itself very quickly abandoned any pretense of being a proper ongoing saga and quickly became an episodic comedy; only the distinctive addition of new characters and stories subsequently featuring those characters adds any semblance of an ongoing timeline. As for the art, the manga itself had a very mixed approach to art; outside of the gorgeous covers and chapter title pages, characters could often be quite simplistic, and Genma's panda form in particular barely resembled a panda.
A criticism of the Hokkaido Arc is the number of returning characters and plot points surfacing from previous arcs. While the Kyoto and Jinchuu Arcs had notable characters previous arcs make a return, they were either woven into the plot with a proper story arc (Aoshi) or were a fun Continuity Nod that didn't otherwise harm the narrative (Chou). The Hokkaido Arc, however, has a lot more returning characters and plot points show up and aren't as properly woven in, resulting in the arc feeling bloated and unfocused.
Filler episodes in the anime get a bad reputation in general, particularly the ones post-Kyoto. However, during the first season, filler episodes weren't trashed quite as badly since many of them were decisively resolved towards the end and even slightly longer original stories involving the Jinpuu squad and the pirate captain Shura didn't last longer than two or three episodes. Many of them were also interwoven with actual canon stories from the manga and didn't feel too out of place. And a few filler episodes did give valuable character development, like "Run Yahiko!", which taught its namesake character the values of patience and humility. But then the third season began and the anime turned into nothing but filler, even for long-running story arcs. That became the point when many people completely soured on filler episodes due to a sense of Arc Fatigue combined with perceived Seasonal Rot.
The much reviled fourth season, SuperS, was founded on many of the elements people hated most about this arc: fairy tale inspired mythology, campy villains, a destined love between Official Couple Usagi and Mamoru, and spotlights on characters other than Usagi herself (namely Chibiusa). While all these elements worked wonderfully in previous seasons, by the time the fourth arc rolled around they just felt stale. The fifth season attempted to fight the Seasonal Rot by immediately sending Chibiusa back to the future, returning the series to magical sci-fi, introducing new characters for a fresh Love Triangle story, and making the Big Bad far more lethal than any previous season.
In the first two seasons, the villains' tasks were mostly resource gathering and direct invasion. The third season introduced plots revolving around minions targeting single random victims looking for a specific object. It worked fairly well in the third season, as potentially anyone with a heart pure enough could be hosting the Talismans, and in the fourth season, as anyone with beautiful dreams could be hosting Pegasus. But during the fifth season, this formula was carried on intact making the plot look idiotic: with Earth being the last unconquered planet in the whole galaxy, all the members of Shadow Galactica should have known a true star seed would only be carried by a Sailor Guardian. One would wonder why they attack random civilians instead of going after the Guardians when they showed up to fight. This renders much of the arc completely pointless and illogical until the final episodes.
The original DiC/CWi English Dub of the 1990's anime is oftenderided for its controversial changes and censorship to the show, altering character names, personalities and even changing entire stories and episode plots from the Japanese original. Fans often forget the fact that the 90's anime itself made several changes to the characters and stories when it was adapted from the original Manga. So much to the point that a Truer to the Text adaptation was created years later in Sailor Moon Crystal. What made the changes easier to accept in the original 90's anime's Japanese dub was the novelty of seeing Sailor Moon adapted to anime at all, and how said anime ultimately proved a major Audience-Coloring Adaptation for the majority of the viewers who first got introduced to the franchise by watching it. And as a result, when the eventual English dub of the anime got released with drastic changes attached well after enough people had become decently familiar with the original Japanese dub version, complaints of They Changed It, Now It Sucks! were inevitable.
Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online: While the second arc of the series established that it would essentially revolve around another Squad Jam, people didn't mind it being a rehash. Not only was the first Squad Jam a welcome return to a game that didn't get much exposure in the original series, but the second Squad Jam increased the stakes, forced LLENN to lead her and Fuka's team, and pitted her against her erstwhile allies and mentors, M and Pito. Then Squad Jam 3 rolled around: lacking a significant end goal, and with even main character LLENN not particularly interested in participating (and essentially only being guilted into joining just to fulfill her promise to battle Team SHINC), some readers also weren't at all invested in the outcome of the tournament.
One of the biggest complaints about Shouwa Otome Fairy Tale is how over-the-top dark and melodramatic it is, something that even the most die-hard Sana Kirioka fans find hard to stomach. Taisho Otome Fairy Tale itself dealt with a lot of dark subjects, and not always in the most graceful manner—fluffy slice-of-life chapters frequently abruptly segued into serious topics like Tamahiko's recurrent nightmares about abandonment and Ryo being the victim of Parental Abuse, for instance, and the fifth and final manga volume is a straight Drama Bomb Finale. The difference is that in Taisho the dramatic moments, while still played with the utmost seriousness, were clearly secondary to heartwarming character relationships, showing how broken people were healing through each other's platonic and romantic love. Even the finale, as dramatic as it was, was meant to show that Tamahiko had grown so much that he was able to stand up to his father—and the anime, which cuts that, is even Lighter and Softer. In contrast, Shouwastarts with a Drama Bomb, showing Tokuyo being abused in lurid detail, and never lets up from there, making the occasional slice of life chapter seem dissonant—essentially, the sequel manga takes the occasional dramatic moment from Taisho and turns it into the main focus of the plot, essentially shifting the story from a heartwarming romance to a Soap Opera.
One of the biggest complaints Tenchi in Tokyo received was how most of the cast had become flanderized. This was also apparent in the show's much more well received predecessor, Tenchi Universe, but with much more restraint.
Mihoshi, the childish and simple-minded galaxy police officer deserves a mention. While she was never really that popular in the fandom, she was at the very least tolerated in the original OVAs, as she was had a few moments that showed that she wasn't completely ditzy. Later adaptations, however, played up her up her comedic elements to the point that her only purpose was comedic relief, causing her popularity to wane considerably.
The use of Unintentionally UnsympatheticAnti-Villain or villains have been around the franchise since Daughter of Darkness with Yuzuha. A villain who is somewhat sympathetic, but you're clearly not supposed support or cry too much for her. Though she does get a sorta Alas, Poor Villain moment that undermines this a little. This form of "sympathetic" villains really rears it ugly head with Yugi from Tenchi in Tokyo, and Haruna from Tenchi Forever (In Love 2). The former comes off as a Karma Houdini for killing Sayaka, her good half. The latter villain, even more so for raping Tenchi. A Moral Event Horizon crossed so far, most fans lost all sympathy for her.
A recurring critique of shows in the franchise is their tendency to leave their supporting cast badly underutilized, with characters often making cool debuts and then being reduced tofodder for villains looking to pad their rap sheet or Combat Commentators with no relevance whatsoever once the writers no longer know what to do with them. This goes back to the original series, where, for instance, Hiroto Honda/Tristan Taylor lost his relevance almost completely after the Monster World arc of the manga, with the anime struggling to give him anything to do afterward, and Mai was infamous for never winning an onscreen match in the manga. The difference was that the original series' recurring main cast was a fair bit smaller than most of the shows to follow, which meant that most of them got at least some resolution by their last appearances, and more of them weren't Duelists or particularly special, which made it relatively acceptable that they didn't get big moments often. Meanwhile, later shows would feature much larger casts with more out-there concepts where basically everyone involved was a Duelist, which meant not only a much larger number of characters to screw up, but also a much greater likelihood that said characters could get cool moments and develop strong followings before getting shoved onto the bench.
The franchise has a notoriously poor record with female characters (until Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS), with many of them taking home few or even no onscreen victories, being accessories to other character's arcs with little agency, being duller personality-wise, developing crushes on the protagonist that never hit the Relationship Upgrade stage, getting mind-controlled at the drop of a hat, or being severely Demoted to Extra after promising starts. The original series also had some pretty clunky handling of its female cast, but doesn't seem to get critiqued as much for it (or at least, seems to be considered one of the less bad). This is likely because in the original, female characters simply don't tend to be major players: Anzu is the most important female character but never gets framed as a skilled Duelist, Mai is only a particularly talented Duelist Kingdom competitor and never joins the regular cast, and Ishizu only duels once. Outside of the core Yugi-Kaiba-Jounouchi trinity and the current Arc Villain, characters in general didn't tend to get focus or big duels. For the most part, female characters were actually treated considerably better than male characters in their tier of relevance: Anzu sees far more focus than Honda, for instance, and Mai has probably the most impressive showing of any Duelist Kingdom-era character bar Pegasus. Additionally, the manga was originally written in the 90s and early 2000s, when competent female characters in shounen were a lot less common.
Meanwhile, future shows did tend to introduce female characters as highly skilled core members of the main cast with a great deal of importance to the plot. For instance, Asuka is the third character to ever get a Duel in her series and is consistently treated as a peer to Judai's other friends, Aki and Ruka are Signers, with the former being framed as the third strongest initially and both having supernatural power, and Rio is part of the Barian Emperors and one of the two to be a Fallen Hero from the good guys. Yet all of them ultimately underperform or are pushed to the background relative to their peers, with Asuka suffering next to Sho and Manjoume, Aki next to Crow, Ruka to Rua, and Rio to her fellow Barians and especially her brother—making it much harder to justify their treatment as anything other than wasting them. This hit its peak with Yuzu, who should by all means be the second most important character in Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, being the focal point of much of the entire series and the only character besides the protagonist to have dimensional counterparts, but still suffers a massive falloff in competence and agency that ends in her and her counterparts being nothing more than batteries by the final arc.
Most of the criticisms of the second half of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, widely acknowledged as a major step down from the first half (promising plot arcs being resolved inadequately, out-of-place goofiness, focusing on Team Satisfaction characters and Yusei in particular to the exclusion of everyone else) could be found to varying degrees in the earlier Dark Signers arc and even the Fortune Cup arc, widely acknowledged as two of the pinnacles of the franchise. The debate is ongoing as to how the drop happened, but the easiest answer would probably be that the earlier arcs had strong serialized plots with good pacing and high stakes that kept the audience interested despite their flaws. Meanwhile, the second half started off with thirty episodes of nothing important to the the plot, then transitioned into forty episodes of a consequence-free Tournament Arc, making the show's growing problems with characterization, tone, and plotting hard to overlook.
A critique of Yusei that became very common in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds in the later seasons was that he wins every single duel he takes part in. This was actually true in the earlier seasons as well, where the closest things Yusei has to losses are a flashback Duel that's almost entirely offscreen and an cancelled match that he was about to lose. However, Yusei may have won individual battles, but the series kept the odds heavily stacked against him (being that he's a criminal pariah from society being targeted by the revenant agents of a world-ending cult), which meant that many of his wins came across less as victories and more simply survival. In the second half of the series, Yusei is no longer in constant danger, with him living a peaceful life, the villains being far less active, and the main plotline being his participation for fun in a tournament that isn't even single-elimination—the stakes and tension had lowered considerably, and yet Yusei was still winning every Duel, with the plot frequently bending over backward to facilitate him doing so and having his friends get their asses kicked so he could step in. While in prior seasons, it seemed like Yusei was winning because anything else would end the series, later seasons had it seem more like the writers just didn't want their golden boy to get tarnished. One could also point to earlier shows, which had similarly lopsided win/loss records for their protagonists, with Atem and Judai's total fair-game losses being such that you could count them on one hand. The difference was that Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX both overtly toy with the concept of an Invincible Hero, with Atem becoming a benchmark for other characters to surpass (and successfully, at that) and Judai becoming a Broken Ace who ultimately ends up with far bigger failures than just losing a card game, and both were willing to have the main character suffer a big loss if it was needed for the story. 5Ds, on the other hand, never really acknowledges Yusei's absurd talent beyond making him Famed In-Story, and tended to still play him as an underdog even against opponents he should by all rights be superior to.
A common point of mockery, particularly against later installments, is the insane amount of Anime Hair and Impossibly Cool Clothes. This has been a part of the franchise from the beginning; Yugi's tricolor spiky hairdo is practically an iconic example, and Kaiba's exaggerated Badass Longcoat is similarly notorious. It sorta worked back then, though, because Yugi was the only major character to have much in the way of Anime Hair, and even that was largely the result of Art Evolution, and the character designs, though over-the-top, at least looked nice. By the time of Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, though, literally every character has at least two hair colors, a ridiculous hairstyle, and an equally ridiculous outfit, and the whole thing moved so far into ostentatious character design that it turned out looking downright ugly.
The idea of the protagonists always being able to draw what they need is one of the oldest in the franchise; its entry on The Magic Poker Equation is downright monolithic. Good "drawing skill" being an explicit ability was implied or outright stated of many characters, with "trust in your deck, and it'll come through for you" being a common moral. Cards with ridiculously specific abilities being used to counter an opponent's strategy and never being played again had been showing up regularly from the beginning. And in some duels, protagonists would use supernatural abilities to play or create cards that there was no possible way they could have had before. It was when all these things were combined in Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL into the Shining Draw ability, which allowed Yuma to turn the cards he'd drawn into whatever he wanted, that fans really started to complain, as it took all the complaints about lazy writing, predictable outcomes, and unfair advantages and turned them into an explicit superpower for which the protagonist is constantly lauded.
The later seasons, among many other things, were criticized for gratuitous and poorly-executed Continuity Nods, poor pacing and wasting episodes on plot that goes nowhere, preachy and inconsistent messages, and bad usage of its cast. All these were present to varying degrees in the first arc, the only one uncontroversially regarded as good—cameos from older archetypes were thrown in willy-nilly, the "Yuya trains with Nico Smiley" arc is somewhat longer than it needs to be while the Maiami Championship arc is very stop-and-start and laden with rushed or barely-seen battles, the entire second quarter is made up of very obvious morality plays about the virtues of entertaining, and the supporting cast won infrequently. These flaws were forgivable because not only were they not as prevalent, and forgivable as Early-Installment Weirdness that the show could hopefully grow out of, but they had an intriguing mystery story wrapped around them that seemed laden with potential - and when the show didn't grow out of those flaws or live up to its promised potential, they became impossible to ignore.
Considering just how wholly loathed the concept of "legacy characters" became as ARC-V went on, it can be easy to forget the initial response to the revelation that Jack and Crow would be appearing, and their early episodes. In said early episodes, they even hit a lot of the major complaints - their appearance is fairly gratuitous, their personalities come off as arguably redundant in the cast, and they handily beat the show's own established characters. This was forgivable to many because of the assumption that their appearance would be confined to their arc, and that the focus would quickly fall back on the show's own characters. When they did not, and the show merely introduced more legacy characters to eat up screen time and had them staying prominent and getting Duels all the way to the second-last episode, the whole concept became something of a collective Creator's Pet for the franchise. Furthermore, while Jack and Crow were more-or-less dead-on to their Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds counterparts, the later legacy characters were all much less accurate, partly due to how unlike Jack and Crow, they already had some prior involvement within the inter-dimensional war, leaving them much less of a fanbase. There were also initial theories that their appearance would be to justify some future plot points or even reveal a larger timeline or links to the other series - as it turned out, this wasn't true, and their appearances turned out to serve no purpose at all aside from nostalgia. The concept went from people claiming that the series had finally saved Crow to them dreading the appearance of Jack Atlas.
It's fairly common for the protagonist to borrow cards from their True Companions or rival to defeat the Big Bad, or obtain new cards from elsewhere that only see use in that duel such as Yusei using the Signer Dragons to summon Shooting Quasar in the 5Ds finale or Yuma summoning Numeron Dragon against Don Thousand. However, in those duels, their victory was still largely based on their personal deck. ARC-V takes this to the extreme by having Ray take the four Nature Cards her father created to defeat the Big Bad Zarc, and never shows her using anything else. This results in Ray's character, and the story's attempt to paint her as the only one capable of stopping Zarc, coming off as rather shallow—especially since this is Ray's only duel in the entire series, meaning we never get a sense of her beyond her status as a plot device.
The Shadow Realm is an infamous example of Never Say "Die" in dubbing, but its effects on humans involved monsters tearing your soul to shreds, making it a case of Deader than Dead. Since the anime also had a World of Darkness where Shadow Games took place and the Realm's effects were similar to the manga's horrific elements, this was easier to let go at the time—but when GX used euphemisms like "sent to the stars" without the implications of lethality, it was easier to see it as Never Say "Die".
discussed this by pointing out that this issue had existed with the Gotei 13 and the Arrancar's as well. The Gotei 13 had several characters who largely didn't contribute to the story and were just there, like Tetsuzaemon Iba, a character who never gets to do anything in the series and ends it as a Captain with no fanfare. The Arrancar's had similar issues, such as Luppi, who took over Grimmjow's spot as an Espada, got in one fight, and then was killed quickly by Grimmjow without much fanfare. What made some of the past examples less frustrating for some was that the previous factions had ranks in them, meaning fans could understand who was supposed to be important: The Captains and Espada. The Captains and Espada were given more importance then their Lieutenants or Fraccions, making it easier to ignore forgotten characters like the previously mentioned two. By contrast, the Sternritter's are all a unified group, lacking a distinct hierarchy until the late introduction of the Schutzstaffel, meaning fans expected them to be equal to the Captains and Espada in terms of focus and importance. When many Sternritter's were essentially fodders or had anticlimactic fights, it made the entire group look less interesting and fairly wasted as characters.