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  • BanG Dream! was highly unpopular when it first aired, with merchandise warming shelves and one single-fandom doujin event expecting hundreds of groups and attracting nine. Then came the mobile rhythm gacha game, Girls Band Party, which not only made twenty background characters into Ascended Extras with their own bands and stories, it was similar enough to Love Live! School idol festival to attract its millions of players but still very different (and more challenging) to play, and most of all, it attracted new fans by having half of the setlist be covers from other series. Maybe you didn't know BanG Dream!, but if you loved Digimon Adventure, Your Lie in April, Naruto, and many others, you still had a reason to check it out. The franchise picked up instantly, and after it launched a worldwide version, they announced two more seasons of the anime, a chibi gag spinoff, another web series based on the Idol Singer Cast Herd Pastel*Palettes, a sixth band added to the roster, and a Spear Counterpart series with another new band. Not bad for a seemingly DOA franchise.
  • Digimon Tamers: When the series first aired, many fans of the Adventure series were disappointed and confused by the lack of relation between the stories, and much of the themes and subtext were lost on younger viewers. Coupled with Real Life problems outside of the writers' control (Pokémon being at its peak during this time, Fox Kids going out of business) it lost much of the fanbase. Over a decade later, thanks to both access to the Japanese version and a higher demand for more cerebral, deconstructive series, Tamers has gained a large amount of popularity, and is easily the second most popular Digimon series.
  • Dropkick on My Devil: When it premiered, the series was considered at best an average comedy, and at worse extremely mediocre, with little to no praise as its anime adaptation came and went in summer 2018, with the expectation it would fall into obscurity like many of its kind beforehand. Over the years however, as it shockingly continued with further anime seasons thanks to being funded by tax payers and crowdfunding, many either came back or discovered the series, applauding it for its 2000s-like dark comedy, character writing, score, and its unique spin at slapstick humor that isn't found much, if at all in modern anime or manga. The welcomed addition of Hatsune Miku in the third season that made the series at least somewhat known in the west also likely helped, enough for a fourth season to enter production when it was scheduled to end with the third season.
  • Galvion: Back when this obscure mecha series first aired in 1984, it bombed horribly leading to it getting Cut Short and cancelled at 23 episodes, leaving many plot threads hanging. Nowadays, the show has become a cult classic among mecha fans in recent years due to its opening and its unique concept. Said cult status led to the series having new toys and an production artbook released as well as giving the show an official soundtrack release in 2009 note  and its first official home video release in 2013 on Blu-ray, a treatment that some more popular series have yet to receive.
  • Gundam: G Gundam and Gundam X were not well received on their initial release, with Gundam X being the first (and to date only) Gundam show since the original to be prematurely cancelled. Now they are thought of as among the best entries in the franchise. In a complete reversal, the manga spinoff of Gundam X even had its run extended due to being unexpectedly popular. The same could be said for ∀ Gundam, which over time has come to be seen as one of the best in the franchise.
  • Hamtaro was always well-received but it caught heat in America from older Toonami fans who wanted action anime, not cute hamsters. However, the eight-and-under crowd loved the show and it was a Pet Fad Starter for hamsters. As time went on, the younger fans that enjoyed the anime grew up and became vocal in their nostalgia. The reception of the series cleared up and it's known as a Toonami classic.
  • Hitoribocchi no OO Seikatsu had a lukewarm-to-decent response from critics and audiences back during its run in the 2010s, and ended up (in terms of the anime at least) a disastrous commercial failure, selling less then 1000 Blu-rays in sales. However, with the rise of more socially awkward protagonists in anime and manga in the 2020s becoming more mainstream, including another, much more successful Bocchi, Hitoribocchi in turn was retroactively given more attention, and was praised for being a great example of social anxiety in media and favorably has been received better nowadays then on its original release.
  • Idolmaster: Xenoglossia was bashed by fans of the original game for being an In Name Only adaptation when it first came out. Nowadays it's seen as a more decent robot anime as long as you don't consider it as an adaptation of IDOLM@STER. This is mostly because there has since been a more faithful adaptation and because Xenoglossia was directed by Nagai Tatsuyuki, who later went on to direct other animes, most notably Anohana.
  • Ie Naki Ko Remi (or Nobody's Child Remi) was the last series from the World Masterpiece Theater before their ten year hiatus, and WMT was already having problems before then. The show did horribly in Japan, suffered from despicably low ratings, and was brutally lambasted for massive changes from the original Hector Malot book (like changing the main character into a girl, removing the boat, and expanding on one small part of the story and running with it all the way through). The critical reception was so bad, the final three episodes never aired on TV and were straight to DVD instead. Thankfully, thanks to a devoted fansub group, some international attention, and more appreciative fans, it has gotten more positive reception in the form of fans viewing it as its own entity as a cute, charming, somewhat dark series, a good show in its own right, and don't mind that it's not faithful to the source material. Those who like the source material try to view the show as a separate entity and appreciate what it does well, rather than nitpick at everything it did wrong.
  • Jewelpet: Magical Change was initally a Franchise Killer for the Jewelpet franchise, but eventually started to be seen in a better light for multiple reasons:
    • The previous season, Lady Jewelpet, introduced fan-favorites Luea and Larimar but heavily shafted the pets in favor of humans. This time, both Luea and Larimar are main characters, Magical Change is pet-focused, and they are far more badass and have far more action.
    • Luna, who is often considered underrated, is a main character for once.
    • Dian had a human form back in the first season. Nowadays, fans have warmed up more to the other pets' visually distinctive and appropriately cute human forms, especially Luea's already universally loved one, and admitted that Magical Change got more hate than it deserved. There's even fan demand to bring back the human forms in later seasons.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • The franchise has always been popular in Japan, but it took a while for it to catch on in the west. While it was never hated in western countries, it was always pushed aside by other Shonen Jump series and remained a Cult Classic at best, thanks to a lack of localization (primarily due to the character names creating a gigantic mess of legal issues), although Memetic Mutation caused a bump in popularity in the early 2000s. Then it gained a proper anime (as opposed to 13 half-hour OVAs) in 2012, and because it came nearly 25 years after the manga started, it has no filler and it doesn't have to worry about taking a different path in the story. Because of this and the tie-in game, JoJo became exponentially more popular in The New '10s, an era where fellow Shonen series were starting to fall off in popularity.
    • For an individual season basis, there is the fifth part of JoJo's, Golden Wind. For the longest time many Western JoJo fans considered Part 5 to be the weakest part of the series and the "bad one" due to a very poor translation job (which, unlike the infamous Duwang subs, was so basic that it barely showed any individual personality), a supposedly bland protagonist, and the at times admittedly confusing power sets that could make fights incomprehensible. It didn't help that the series was so isolated from the events of the previous four parts that it felt almost like a Filler Arc. However, in the late New Tens, this perception changed thanks in part to various JoJo YouTubers who praised the series as an underappreciated gem and a far superior translation that did a better job of establishing the characterization of its cast especially Giorno and showing of his Anti-Hero cred much more effectively. Finally the release of the anime made some of the more confusing fight scenes far more comprehensible, especially the infamous King Crimson battles, and now many fans of JoJo's have turned around and now consider Golden Wind a very enjoyable part in its own right, if not one of the series' best.
    • Throughout most of its existence, Stone Ocean barely made much of a splash in its native Japan due to how much it defied standard shōnen tropes compared to previous parts, which left many of its readers feeling alienated. However, thanks to the fine-tuning done with the anime adaptation, which has more standard shōnen elements at play while still keeping the overall story and characterization in tact, it's allowed for Japanese fans to revisit Stone Ocean and appreciate the more glossed over elements they had missed out on, especially since most of the work done in the anime adaptation is spearheaded by people who were fans of Stone Ocean to begin with and wanted to capture its essence.
  • Kill Me Baby didn't start out with the best of reputations. Back when it first aired, it got poor critical reception and flopped financially, with the first Blue-Ray selling only 686 copies. It managed to get a cult following in Japan thanks to Memetic Mutation, but it was still widely considered as bad in the West. However, by 2015 many people started warming up to the show. Also helping is the fact that it became a news sensation following Ai Takabe's drug case.
  • K-On! was originally very divisive amongst anime fans when it first aired in 2009, due to the sheer amount of Moe. Over the years, however, the show has become a widely loved story, because of its therapeutic, positive stories, and has even become an inspiration for many people to follow in the heroes' footsteps down the path of (rock) music.
  • Lupin III:
    • When it first hit Japanese airwaves in 1971, Lupin III: Part 1 was met with quite some controversy – the content was more adult-oriented than what was usually allowed on the air – and eventually succumbed to low ratings, being cancelled after just 23 episodes. Reruns then led to a considerable increase in popularity and it is now considered a groundbreaking classic, spawning a diverse multimedia franchise with two sequel series, a handful of movies, and dozens of TV specials. Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine actually gets away with much of the adult-content it has because of the fond memories Japan now has for the original anime series.
    • In the English-speaking world, licensors have been trying to market Lupin since the early 90's, but always fell short of achieving the popularity they wanted. Lupin III: Part II got an airing on [adult swim], but due to a two-front backlash by modern anime fans against the dated animation and by longtime Lupin fans who hated the dub, the show's ratings were low and it was cancelled after airing just 30 of its 155 episodes. Its video release was halted not long after. Even so, that short run was enough to finally earn Lupin a large enough fanbase to justify a small licensing company, Discotek Media, releasing every Lupin anime it can get its hands on.
  • Metroid: When an official manga was released for the series, as opposed to the various gag guides before it, it was largely ignored in comparison to the more comedic works. Even ignoring the common criticisms concerning it as a standalone work, the next game released in the series, Metroid: Zero Mission, contradicted the events of the manga to the point that to consider it Canon was to accept that Metroid had a lot more plot holes than most fans were willing to admit. However, the manga got a lot more attention following the release of the controversial Metroid: Other M. Fans of the game would use the manga as justifications against the issues detractors had with it, while detractors of the game decided they'd rather have the manga, its shortcomings, continuity issues and all, if it meant ignoring Metroid Other M, which despite drawing more heavily from the official manga than any other game before it managed to contradict the manga at least as much as Metroid Zero Mission.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion's first English dub by ADV was, back in The '90s and early 2000s, frequently held up as a Macekre (and was frequently put onto the page as such on this very wiki despite not fitting the trope). The actors even received some hatred for playing the characters as over-the-top and overly emotional, bringing in some unintentional comedy. However, as time went on, fans of it started to crawl out of the woodwork, reaching its peak on June 21, 2019, when Netflix aired the re-dub, which gained criticism for the new voice actors' performances coming off as Dull Surprise, the script having dead-on literal translations, accusations of Bowdlerization in the way it wrote the lines in Shinji and Kaworu's relationship, and on top of that, they couldn't even license the original closing song "Fly Me to The Moon" due to licensing issues. Even Anime News Network looks back at the ADV dub as underappreciated.
  • Numerous Humongous Mecha anime have been pulled from obscurity by Super Robot Wars like After War Gundam X and Combat Mecha Xabungle.
  • Penguin Memories was so reviled by its parent companies that it has never been released outside of Japan or officially re-released on a contemporary modern format. As of 2018 it has grown a cult following from both animation and Club Penguin fans thanks to the infamous Club Penguin in Vietnam clip and the movie being much better than the dark premise with cute penguins made it out to be.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • The Orange Islands arc was originally disregarded as Filler that didn't really amount to anything since the Gym challenges weren't always actual battles and the League itself wasn't based on an in-game region. Nowadays, whenever a debate starts concerning Ash's competence as a trainer, people will often mention it immediately, since his victory there technically means Ash qualifies for the title of Champion, and that also marks the first real sign of his growth as a Pokémon Trainer. It is also pointed out that the Orange Islands brought several fan-favourites such as Ash's Lapras, Ash's Snorlax, and the Crystal Onix, and that the battle between Ash and Drake was the series' first full battle. Furthermore, the Orange Island arc acting as a precursor to regional variants and Teraststalization gives the arc more weight to the franchise's history. The parallels between Ash vs Drake and Ash vs Leon in Journeys also made the battle with Drake a bit more popular as well.
    • When the Ruby and Sapphire series was airing its reception at best was overall lukewarm, with many considering it stuck in the shadow of the Original Series for numerous reasons such as Misty and most of the previous Pokémon being dropped from the cast, May gaining contest victories too easily, the mishandling of the Magma vs Aqua Arc, and Max being The Load. However, following far more controversial series fans have begun looking back on Ruby & Sapphire with more fondness. Fans highlight Ruby & Sapphire as being one of the funniest seasons of the show, while still allowing for superb Character Development for Ash and May and increasing the anime's focus on battles and strategy. Later series improving upon the foundation of the new formula established here would cause many to see its flaws as growing pains rather than major issues. While it’s rare for anybody to list Ruby & Sapphire as their favorite series, its reputation has increased exponentially since its initial airing.
    • The first three movies have a much better general reputation today than they did upon release. Back when they were brand new, they were critically panned as shallow films that served no purpose but to entertain little children. Nowadays, with the Pokémon franchise still going strong and being a touchstone of the Millennial Generation, the harsh initial reviews are largely seen as backlash against Pokémania coming from people who were too old to understand or appreciate the series. They aren't considered masterpieces or anything, but they're generally recognized for their merits and they're no longer debated as some of the worst movies of all time. In the first film's case, discovering the more mature original Japanese version has also improved its reputation.
    • The Pokémon Company International (the company responsible for dubbing the anime since the ninth season) received major backlash back in 2006 due to its several differences compared to the 4kids dub, mostly notably the change in voice actors being its biggest criticism, with many Pokémon communities online even starting petitions to bring back all the original voice actors for the subsequent seasons and giving death threats to the replacement actors. These days, the backlash towards TPCI has decreased with the newer seasons, with some fans even warming up to some of the newer actors, namely Sarah Natochenny (the current voice for Ash) being much better received for her performance in the later seasons and now voicing Ash long enough to be regarded as his definitive voice for a new generation of younger viewers, and the dub now receiving more praise for keeping much of the script and music from the original Japanese version (especially in Diamond and Pearl and Black and White seasons) and having a lot less dub edits.
  • Pokémon Adventures:
    • The Black/White arc. Initially, a common reaction was that people would dislike Black for supposedly being a generic shonen protagonist, and White for being a weak female character. However, many fans (at least in the West) have warmed up to it and its main characters overtime, citing how much they improve as the story progresses, and many would now even say that this is the best arc or at the very least the peak of the manga prior to its perceived Seasonal Rot.
    • The following Black 2/White 2 arc as well. For a long time, fans (particularly in the West) disliked it for the constant hiatuses it went on and how long it took until any resolution on the dangling threads from the Black/White arc were resolved. Once the arc finally finished and those threads were resolved, however, more fans have begun deeming it a worthy follow-up, flowing very well together without the hiatuses.
  • Pretty Cure:
    • Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star. Initially, the series didn't do well, and until Suite Pretty Cure ♪ came along, this series had some of the worst ratings in the franchise's history (though even then, it still did much better then most other series that aired at the time). It was also seen as a bad Retraux of the original two seasons, having the two main character being Nagisa (Saki) and Honoka (Mai) expies, and also garnered some detractors for toning down the realistic Seinen elements of the original, as well as favoring zippy flight and beam spam over hard-hitting fisticuffs for quite a bit of the show's run as a result of Moral Guardians attacking the original show and its sequel. After Growing the Beard, it still never made as much money as the original series or series after it ever did, regardless of quality (even when it didn't make 10 Billion Yen that year, it still made more money then most other big anime franchises could even dream of making, just not as much as what Toei wanted). As the years have gone by since then, however, the fanbase sees the series with much more prestige, due to managing to make Saki and Mai their own characters, Michiru and Kaoru being the first true Dark Magical Girl characters introduced in the franchise, the latter half of the series gaining back some more classic elements, like hard-hitting attacks, and many of the elements introduced here being mixed in with these original elements, setting new standards for the series to have when it comes to the fight scenes, and the villains as a whole are considered much more memorable, well written, and generally menacing in their own way and not too wooden either. It is currently held on many fan lists as amongst the best seasons in the franchise, alongside the likes of the Ensemble Dark Horse of the franchise, Heart Catch Pretty Cure, which says quite a bit for the series after its initial sour reception amongst the fanbase.
    • Despite the toy sales being higher the series it was a sequel to, Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GO!GO! suffered the fate of not only having mixed reception, but airing opposite the 2007 adaptation of GeGeGe no Kitarō, which got higher ratings. note  Years after it ended, fans began to see the series in a more positive light, causing it to rank as the third most popular series in an 2019 NHK poll about the Pretty Cure franchise. note  And then both Splash Star and Yes! Precure 5 were the ones to get an Adult sequel in 2023, namely Power of Hope ~PreCure Full Bloom~.
    • Fresh Pretty Cure!. Due to the English-speaking fanbase's Old Guard Versus New Blood divide, the old guard initially dismissed Fresh because it discarded many series traditions (the original art style, mascots with Verbal Tics based on their names, monsters with "naa" in their names, etc.) and the new blood came flowing in with the next season, Heartcatch. Over time, though, both groups had more people go back to give Fresh a chance, as its changes had also been embraced by later series, so the older fans had gotten used to them and the new fans could easily adjust to this season. It also helped that word came out that, on the Japanese side of things, the changes in Fresh were an Author's Saving Throw after 5GoGo's heavy use of filler and focus on the fairies over the humans had tanked its ratings; Fresh had saved Precure as a whole, and the fanbase owed it that.
  • Robotech saved from obscurity Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross entirely (it wasn't well liked and was cut short with no obvious ending) and possibly Genesis Climber MOSPEADA (which is at least rumoured to have a small cult following in Japan).
  • Sailor Moon was always a hit, but the original 90's DIC Entertainment dub was subjected to heavy criticism and extensive mockery for its weird and unfitting voices and extensive editing and cuts, that led to the show being erased off the face of the Earth (with no re-releases to this day) and the creators deciding to do the whole thing over again with Viz Media in 2014. Nowadays, the DiC/Cloverway version has become common for modern fans to discover online and enjoy it; compare to a few years ago when fans who grew up with it turned on the dub for any change made to the original. What really helped the old dub was that, with the existence of the completely uncut Viz Media dub, it's no longer the only way to watch Sailor Moon in English. Some fans have also grown to appreciate the 90's dub a lot more for despite its flaws, it possesses a certain charm that made it fun to watch, which they felt was lost in the newer Viz version, which drew its own criticism for its bland voice direction and performances. The vocal performances of the original cast also became praised for their effort, giving the characters distinctive personality, and DIC's soundtrack continues to be a fan favorite. The reception and attitudes to the original English Dub has changed considerably that articles like these are being written, which would be absolutely unheard of back in the 2000's and New Tens.
  • The Soul Eater anime's ending was originally not regarded well, due to Maka defeating Asura with a single punch note  being considered very narmy. It also has issues with the pacing, where many found the story quickly went through plot points set up before it Overtook the Manga, and didn't execute them to what fans wanted. However, with the end of the manga, many people found this ending a lot more satisfying by comparison due to the execution being more cathartic in some ways, such as Medusa in the anime getting defeated by the heroes, compared to the manga where she is killed by Crona in a My Death Is Just the Beginning gambit that made her a Karma Houdini, and Asura actually being defeated whereas in the manga Asura simply rage quits the fight and is sealed on the moon. It helps that the finale of the anime does set up this moment, whereas the manga was criticized for not doing a good job of actually setting up some of the stuff from the finale, such as Crona choosing to stay behind rather than be redeemed.
  • Space Battleship Yamato was Screwed by the Network, airing opposite the very popular Heidi, Girl of the Alps. The first season was reduced from 36 to 26 episodes, resulting in a planned appearance by Captain Harlock being cut. Later The Movie become wildly popular and revived the franchise, turning it into one of the most influential anime series in history.
  • Space Runaway Ideon was in a similar mess, but the fans caught on this time and it was given a full movie for its Grand Finale, despite being cancelled with only a few episodes left.
  • Super Milk Chan was considered a mediocre, if at best okay comedy during its original release, being quickly forgotten about once [adult swim] stopped airing it to western audiences in the mid 2000s. Nowadays, it's regarded as a comedic Cult Classic enjoyed for its eccentric characters, unique art style, and especially humor that is rarely, if at all seen in modern anime. When its reboot was revealed in 2021, plenty were happy to see it return.
  • Transformers: The first and last entries of the Unicron Trilogy both went through this, though Cybertron gets it more. Armada was released to very tepid responses thanks to its Gotta Catch 'Em All premise and its Troubled Production, but wound up Growing the Beard in its second half and came to be regarded more neutrally. Cybertron was dragged down by its limited animation and loose connection to the previous entries, but eventually won over a lot of fans with its surprisingly strong writing, Art Evolution, and Superlative Dubbing. Both initially suffered the stigma of being a Continuity Reboot, until such reboots became a common feature for the franchise. This helped them to shake the bad rap they got. This pointedly did not happen with the middle entry, which is still widely hated and generally considered the worst Transformers series ever.
  • Voltron: The Vehicle Voltron didn't enjoy half the popularity of the Lion Force Voltron. But that's only because it followed the Lion episodes in most markets (in some, it was shown in bits and pieces between several Lion episodes). The Vehicle series wasn't "bad" by any stretch. It simply had the unfortunate tendency to be compared to the "cooler", but more formulaic, Lion series. Kids of that time latched on to the Lion series probably because it had elements that they already identified with: Fairytales (magic, castles, princesses, evil rulers) and superheroes (the Super Robot and the Five-Man Band). Vehicle Voltron was adapted from the more Military Science Fiction show Dairugger XV, presenting a more mature hard science fiction Star Trek like format. It also had a lot of characters to keep track of on both sides as well as presenting a lot of shades of grey instead of good vs. evil. Kids just weren't yet ready for a cartoon that had a lot of character relationships, politics, and subplots. It was the early 80s after all. Kids like their formulas. They just wanted to see "action". But then Robotech would come along and then they'd be ready. Now Vehichle Voltron is looked at as wrongfully underappreciated. One will also now notice that Dairugger was far less Bowlderized than Golion, which even in its original form was formulaic Monster of the Week.

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