- Manga is usually better than TV series, and TV series are usually better than movies
- Too many internal struggles that drag on and on
- Frequent flashbacks. Things that happened in the same episode they would have to remind you with flashbacks
My biggest pet peeve is when an action/adventure type anime takes forever to get to what they set out to do with just talk no actual action.
Like One Piece’s Alabasta Arc was a perfect example of it. I left the series for a solid like 6 months before going back to it because that arc was so tedious to watch. Tons of episodes of what is going to happen, and what needs to happen, but no episodes of actually doing what needs to happen.
And then there’s filler arc that pretend to be canon. And then there’s One Piece canonical arc that pretend to be filler. That large chunk of long ring long island arc is skippable.
I get it…
When you read manga, you can go at your own reading pace and fly through a story. So, a plot point that drags on and on doesn’t feel as painful (the exception is if it stupidly drags on past the point of plausibility…looking at you Rent a GF). However, the anime format makes you sit through the whole thing, warts and all.
Your point about flashbacks I have found to be less of a problem in recent seasonal stuff. Flashbacks are pervasive in shows that are continuously airing during their run (Pokémon, One Piece, Naruto, etc). Usually, the flashbacks are a way to take up time and save animation budget. However, shows that just run for 12-24 episodes and wrap up do this a lot less.
If you want to see a show that does flashbacks the right way, I would point to Frieren, where flashbacks add new things to the story.
