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Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality
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@TheGrimLich I know there are a ton out in Japan, but since I don't know Japanese, I can't really speak to the quality of those ones. Yeah, I figured it was over ten, but wasn't sure the exact count. Since they do like Volume 3 chapter 4 for the volume numbers the amount's not obvious without having to go and actually count, which I didn't feel like doing that late at night.
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I loved Bakarina Vols. 1-2 so much, but from 3 onwards it fell so much for me, couldn't get through vol. 4 at all. It just didn't grab me. It could have ended at 2 vols. and I'd be perfectly happy with it.
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I'll add to the Potion Loli pile. Got repetative, so I dropped it. Little Apocalypse kind of went downhill towards the end. Don't agree with everyone's dumping on Bakarina though. That series is in the "so bad it's good" class. Kind of agree on Me, a Genius. It just got lost.
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@Paul-Nebeling said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
Don't agree with everyone's dumping on Bakarina though. That series is in the "so bad it's good" class.
Yeah I got to go with you on this. The latest volumes seem to be going back to basics and the story is all the better for it. It's a stupid story but it's the fun kind of stupid.
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Volume 3 and 4 of Bakarina were pretty much the same thing.
Volume 3 (I think) and like a 1/3rd of the volume replaying the same scene over and over again just got repetitive.
I do agree that the series could have ended at volume 2.
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Biggest drop in quality: In Another World With My Smartphone (got too OP and boring); Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash (got too weird and hopeless) [Edit: I dropped Grimgar when it got weird but others claim it gets better after that arc so it might be more of the biggest dip in quality rather than the biggest drop.]
Maintained high quality: Ascendance of a Bookworm (still awesome, arguably getting better); Cooking with Wild Game (still love the core duo, but now with more complexity)
Biggest gain in quality: The Greatest Magicmaster's Retirement Plan (it started off pretty generic, but has definitely improved and gotten more interesting, with some great character development)
Stay shiny, y'all.
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@Amakaze I really should have detailed that. I stopped reading during the return to the Empire part. The vs Imperial invaders was fine, I just started to be able to predict the whole thing- and not finding it enjoyable. I was way more invested in seeing Veight figure out how to get the three vastly different cultures to integrate.
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@Shiny said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
Biggest drop in quality: In Another World With My Smartphone (got too OP and boring); Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash (got too weird and hopeless)
Maintained high quality: Ascendance of a Bookworm (still awesome, arguably getting better); Cooking with Wild Game (still love the core duo, but now with more complexity)
Biggest gain in quality: The Greatest Magicmaster's Retirement Plan (it started off pretty generic, but has definitely improved and gotten more interesting, with some great character development)
I will chime in with another vote for Bookworm being one of those rare titles that bucks the trend and has actually gotten better over time which is saying something since it started out quite strong..
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@myskaros Dude, I agree with 86 so much it hurts!
I have to say vol 1 was like a masterpiece, I loved it so much...
Then the other volumes felt like more of the same, except without the same charm of the 1st volume.
imo it should've been a one shot, if not then it was fine to end it when everyone finally reunited...
I still haven't read vol. 6 because I have a feeling it would be a tedious read... :( -
@lucascba I still haven't finished volume 5 because it just kind of feels like a slog :(
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For me, the largest drops in quality would be:
The Magic in This Other World - I was really hoping it was otherwise but it kinda became apparent the author really was writing by the seat of his pants. The quality of the later volumes really fell flat. I suspect it's partly because the author had already moved on to other works by this time.
Infinite Stratos - The early volumes were kinda okay and fun but damn, no matter what publisher SNAFU happened, the later volumes were just meaninglessly bad.
Suzumiya Haruhi series - For me, everything after Disappearance became harder and harder to read. But I suppose it's because the author develops even more elaborate plots and the quality drop apparently does pay off later on.
As for the opposite, IMO Altina, FMP, Least Interesting Master Swordsman, Wortenia, and Master of Ragnarok, have all become drastically better in their long run. Yes, some maintain their flaws, but they all develop constantly and their quality never drops past a certain point.
OTOH, I think Grimgar was bad only for a volume or two, before becoming interesting again in its final arc. Smartphone for me was always kinda a hit or miss. I agree that it's flawed, but I think it's been pretty consistent.
(BTW, I haven't read 86 yet, but once I learned about its premise, I couldn't help but think that its quality drop was kinda inevitable.)
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@jampodevral He gets 3 cultures and at least two if not 3 religions (depending on how we want to treat the fact the north and south treat things very different in a lot of cases) but you'll have to stop trying to predict things and go read it to find out how 😉
@Shiny pointed this out as well but Greatest Magicmaster is one that started out rough and I thought about dropping a volume or two in, only for it to find its footing and turn into a surprisingly enjoyable story. I'm not recommending you read more given you didn't like what you read of it, but worth mentioning just the same.
@Lily-Garden I don't think Bakarina got bad, I just think it got rather boring once they graduated. It sounds like maybe in Vol 8, which I missed reading past the first part or two, they have course corrected but I don't find any of the new "Fortune Lover 2" characters more than mildly interesting at best and the rest of the folks she works with even less so. Even Maria alone here away from the rest of the usual crew feels drab.
I'll still pick it back up at some point in sure, but got to call it like I see it.
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@shrike_al said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
OTOH, I think Grimgar was bad only for a volume or two, before becoming interesting again in its final arc.
I dropped it half way through volume 14. If it gets better later then that's good to hear.
Stay shiny, y'all.
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@Shiny said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
@shrike_al said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
OTOH, I think Grimgar was bad only for a volume or two, before becoming interesting again in its final arc.
I dropped it half way through volume 14. If it gets better later then that's good to hear.
Yeah, that volume was the one book that was just... yeaaah.
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@lucascba said in Series with the steepest/largest drop in quality:
@myskaros Dude, I agree with 86 so much it hurts!
I have to say vol 1 was like a masterpiece, I loved it so much...
Then the other volumes felt like more of the same, except without the same charm of the 1st volume.
imo it should've been a one shot, if not then it was fine to end it when everyone finally reunited...
I still haven't read vol. 6 because I have a feeling it would be a tedious read... :(Here i am struglling through v3 because it supposedly gets back on track.... what a shame because v1 was so good. author peaked too early.
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Other Side Picnic deserves a shout-out as another series that has maintained its initial level of quality.
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This seems more like a "What series started off with an interesting idea but failed because the writer ran out of ideas or got bored." sort of topic. I see this with a lot of fanfics, once the initial idea is out the writer realizes they have no idea where to take the story and either gives up or fills it with tropes. A truly planned out story with a clear beginning, middle, and ending is pretty rare. I don't think most writers are trained in school how to do that anymore, it's more "stream of thought" stuff where you just make it up as you go.
Reincarnated as a Sword, reincarnated as a vending machine, Sorcerer King of Destruction, all started out with cool or new ideas but ran out of steam pretty fast. (Especially The Sorcerer King of Destruction, God I miss that series.)
I think the biggest problem is OP MCs who get boring pretty fast because they have no challenges to overcome. I hate Overlord because he's OP, cruel, and generally boring. Give me How not to Summon a Demon Lord or Tanya the Evil any time over Overlord. -
Quickest drop in quality? Oversummoned and Over It. Author didn't even get through the first volume before the tone completely changed into a different book.
Average Abilities - My issue starting around volume 10-11 wasn't necessarily with the quality of the work but rather the quantity. The prices of the digital books seemed to jump a dollar or two while the page counts dropped. Plus the stories felt like filler to pocket some more cash.
Grimgar - The anime was amazing from my perspective. Enjoyed the light novels on catch-up until around the series of volume 14 rewrites. Was still enjoying the series until the cover artwork change however, when the story felt hopeless and dark.
Rising of the Shield Hero - Looking back, the first season and the corresponding books pretty much covered the "rising" of the shield hero. It was my second light novel series though and I still enjoyed the characters. My cut-off though was the iron chef volume, spent coming up with a new way of powering up the characters through cooking cheats, with a cook-off in town to save the citizens.
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@Kurzaa - you should spoiler the specific Shield Hero plot points, but that does sound like a sad bit of filler.
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Unfortunately, the nature of this topic naturally results in easy spoiling because not everyone has read all the series being cited, or the English release isn't as far as the original language release. Since requiring everything to be hidden in spoilers naturally kills the conversation, I think the best we can do is warn anyone reading this topic that there will be spoilers.
