The first season is only 92 episodes with 80 episodes of filler.
this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
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Black clover
There are lots of anime that are great in the first season but really dropped the ball in the second.
And you all have an example in your heads right now.
there is no second season of Psycho-Pass :)
Yeah, I really didn't like No Game No Life's second season, damn
This.
It almost never gets better later, in anime. It goes the other way around.
When live-action TV shows get better in second seasons, it's often because the acting cast find their groove and learn how to play their character, and the writers learn how to produce scripts that work for them.
Anime largely doesn't have this.
In anime it often starts strong because you have the excitement of new characters to meet, a cool new world to learn about, a great premise, some looming mystery. But once all that's done with it fizzles out.
Sometimes it doesn't even last a season before it takes a dive. And it's because all the writer really had was a grab bag of cool ideas, and not really a story. And once that initial excitement is over there's nothing left.
Anime largely doesn’t have this.
There are a few. Kaguya-sama: Love is War is arguably best in its third season and imho the first several episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood are its weakest part. Eureka Seven, Umamusume, and Gintama also come to mind. I had to wrack my brain for those examples though; they really are the exception.
Promis.....
Durarara.... Granted x2 isn't THAT bad it's just disappointing.
I've never once had an anime fan force a show on me.
I've had countless people try to force Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, Breaking Bad, whatever the current "omg you HAVE to be watching this!" show of the moment is.
Never met a Full Metal Alchemist or Steins;Gate fan before then I guess.
Who would need to force Breaking Bad on anyone? The show goes hard from minute 1.
Wouldn't know. Never looked interesting to me, and the high pressure sales pitch from all the fans only made me less interested.
It only picked up buzz at season 3. Almost nobody who did watch full series did start with s1 on release.
Imo, Breaking Bad is worth it. It kept being engaging from start to finish and haven't overstayed its welcome like some other mainstream shows.
Guess I'm one of the few. No idea what to expect, watched it because it was Hal. Then some guys make fun of his disabled son and he walks out of the store while his wife is hoping he'd do something, and I thought "ah, shit, this won't be any good, Hal is a coward in this one". And then he walks through the front door and punches them out, and they hooked me with that scene because Hal was a badass. And he kept being a badass, to the point where I didn't even really care about the morality (first viewing at least, I hated him the second viewing, though he's still entertaining to watch) and just wanted to watch Hal take over or burn down the world. It's a wild ride, even after multiple viewings.
Better Call Saul is even better, though I found that one dragged a bit at the start and it took a couple tries to get into it.
Never looked interesting to me either, but if the consensus amongst certain people is that a show is good, I'll give it a try to find out for myself.
lol yeah. I agree with that too.
I've seen it happen a decent amount of people do it with manga. Kagurabachi was a big one when the manga was coming out with it's first chapters.
I would say Black Clover gets better after season 1. They really toned down the annoying parts of it. That said, I haven't seen it in English to know if the same things annoy me. It was Asta's voice.
The discussion threads on Reddit when it aired had people dropping it due to Asta constantly screaming. Once he joins the Black Bulls he gets less dialogue and starts to cut back on the screams.
There are plenty of anime that are good in the first season. Frieren and The Apothecary Diaries are two recent examples.
Babylon 5. You don't fully appreciate season 1 until you watch season 4.
Watching season 1: "I can totally believe they shot this whole show in an old hot tub factory"
Watching season 4: "I can't believe they shot this whole show in an old hot tub factory!"
Even if you like shonen usually they have a downward trend in quality if anything. Everything else is usually sink or swim and has to be good from season 1 or season 2 never happens.
Now, you might think, “This isn’t an anime meme!”
Yes. Yes it is.
One Piece gets better after "season one"
The person I heard about One Piece from actively told me not to start watching it. They told me it was their favorite show, but they wouldn't wish it on anyone.
One Piece is now my favorite show, and I wouldn't wish it upon anyone.
This is my experience with One Piece fans personally; I ain't seeing OP fans going around pressuring people to watch.
There's definitely a contingent of Oda's angels, and their proselytizing has been growing louder and louder. I think part of it has to do with the Live-Action making the series more popular in the West.
That being said, I heavily agree with your take. It's the kinda thing that's pretty easy to get sucked into watching, and then you're cursed into watching more than a thousand episodes.
One Piece gets better after "season one hundred"
One Piece has aired 1000+ episodes over 26 years without a break. So technically it just ended the first season.
I know this is just headcanon and people will rightfully disagree, but as far as I'm concerned anytime the opening changes, that's a new season.
There are whole seasons of the anime that are a break, and im not even talking about the "catch up" ones that are 8 episodes long.