Good media that should never have been made

[Shart Attack]

So here's another one, free of charge: Anime in general was a mistake, for the few good animes there are, there are a plethora of shitty ones, it would've been better for humanity if anime was banned on a worldwide scale.

The same thing applies to Western animation, movies, books, and TV shows. The vast majority of everything is terrible. There are countless reasons to criticize anime, and you chose the dumbest possible one.

For me it's Minecraft. I blame Minecraft for the current gaming landscape in which every game that looks even remotely interesting releases as an alpha 0.0.0.1 build that the creators fiddle with one half-assed patch at a time until it's finally a complete game five years later. I don't know if Minecraft directly caused it, or if it was inevitable with the perpetually lowering bar for entry to making games, but Minecraft was the first game to use that model and make enough money to buy a first world country. It had to have had some influence.

 

[Combat Wombat]

For me it's Minecraft. I blame Minecraft for the current gaming landscape in which every game that looks even remotely interesting releases as an alpha 0.0.0.1 build that the creators fiddle with one half-assed patch at a time until it's finally a complete game five years later. I don't know if Minecraft directly caused it, or if it was inevitable with the perpetually lowering bar for entry to making games, but Minecraft was the first game to use that model and make enough money to buy a first world country. It had to have had some influence.

Minecraft literally was just some guy in his room making a game for fun before it blew up though. I feel like it can be excused in that case

 

[Thiletonomics]

The Sims also comes to mind as a game, while it was revolutionary due to it being in a genre of it's own, that would lead to nastier things in the future. I would never expect that Maxis making it so men can get pregnant by Alien Abduction, as a joke, forsaw the trend of the term "birthing people" becoming a thing. And The Sims team going all out on the woke factor in TS4, i.e. gender customization and pre-made troon Sims, the recently added pronouns feature, and things such as adding a trans flag in a child's room in the Dream Home Decorator game pack trailer, and the forced "story" aspect of My Wedding Stories, including the Russia controversy, doesn't help either.

 

[独人13]

Scott Pilgrim ruined a whole generation of women, Taxi Driver ruined a whole generation of men.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

While I think western media, especially animation, was destined to go down the drain due to terrible hiring practices, I will blame Sailor Moon at making it, and a ton of individuals, worse than any other anime.
There's just something in it that pulls degenerates, moreso than other localized magical girl anime.

The Sims also comes to mind as a game, while it was revolutionary due to it being in a genre of it's own, that would lead to nastier things in the future. I would never expect that Maxis making it so men can get pregnant by Alien Abduction, as a joke, forsaw the trend of the term "birthing people" becoming a thing. And The Sims team going all out on the woke factor in TS4, i.e. gender customization and pre-made troon Sims, the recently added pronouns feature, and things such as adding a trans flag in a child's room in the Dream Home Decorator game pack, and the forced "story" aspect of My Wedding Stories, including the Russia controversy, doesn't help either.

Besides that making a PG-13 game something for adults only. It's outright contradicts the woke narrative. If you are a troon then you'd supposedly want to play your "real" gender rather than be reminded of your condition, shouldn't it? If anything being reminded constantly in-game would make you want to commit suicide by troon logic. Likewise making a troon character would be considered evil because you are ruining the person's life. In the end it's the devs just admitting troonery is not a gender identity but rather a sexual fetish.
Besides that, unless the Devs make everyone fuck everyone (which is really the only safe thing to do when catering to troon), having any sexual identity customisation is asking for trouble, like having lesbians attracted to troons.

 

[Oats12345]

It's hard to even see early adventure time and the latter seasons as the same show with how much the tone shifted, and reliant it became on plot and lore over more lighthearted stories and comedy. I don't think the late seasons are bad or switching to that direction was bad, but it's clear it set up a bad precedent for future show runners.

Actually watching the first season of Adventure Time. You notice that they really don't hint at the lore that so many cartoons it would later inspire would do in their first seasons.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Pokémon is also another big example of this trend, given how massive the franchise is, with games, the anime, the niche competitive scene, and the massive amounts of merchandise available. Here's my comments that I mentioned in the Unpopular Opinions about Video Games topic:

I just realized that a lot of the hated parts about gaming, (i.e. loot boxes, DLC, obsession with cosmetics, removing features in later games, FOMO, and remakes), were not pioneered first by companies such as EA, Blizzard, Ubisoft, Paradox, Valve, or Nexon, but by Game Freak, with the Pokémon games. Examples that include:

-Pokémon had the idea to split up the series into two games for their mainline games. It is said that it is done to encourage trading, but it can be seen as a slimy way to get people to buy both versions of the game, i.e. by completionists, consoomers, competitive players, etc.

-The Pokémon games moved away from having a third "definitive version" of game (Yellow, Emerald, Platinum), released after the second, because they realized that they can sell more copies by making more paired games. And those games would be considered a full-priced game, as a DLC. Also, it was only with Sword and Shield that introduced the actual DLC monetization method, as well as updating the base game, since Game Freak doesn't like to update base games to include features in later games for some reason. One example of this is the ORAS Mega Evolutions not being usable and X & Y.

-Pokémon games always have had a habit of removing features, to "keep the games fresh". And while people tolerated it for a long while, the Dexit situation (as well as 100+ or so moves being unusable in those games too), was when it became obvious as a crying baby of those "removing features" practices. Sword and Shield (as well as the other Generation VIII games in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and Legends Arceus), also did not carry over Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves from past games.

-Pokémon games were one of the earliest to go with the remastering trend, and subsequent remasters would get lower and lower in quality. FireRed and LeafGreen was just around, HeartGold and SoulSliver were considered to be the best remakes (even though I don't feel like playing them), Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire was not as good, (the game's UI was a massive downgrade compared to X & Y's, and Hoenn being a boring region to play meant that I didn't enjoy ORAS at all) and Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were just turds, due to those games being outsourced to ILCA, presumably due to how much flak Game Freak got due to the Dexit situation. BDSP also was missing some quality-of-live improvements for some reason (i.e. TMs being consumable items again), while having some other QoL features (i.e. not needing HM mules anymore), and didn't even include the gimmicks introduced in the same generation. (BDSP didn't have Dynamaxing, while ORAS at least included some new Mega Evolutions, and Primal Reversion for the cover Legendaries)

-The animation of a Pokémon egg hatching, or starting a Legendary Pokémon encounter (and then soft resetting), for the purpose of Shiny hunting/breeding, is a dopamine-spiking pre-roll action, and is no different than playing at a slot machine, or watching the animation of a loot box open, until it reveals the contents inside. And some people are so obsessed with Shiny hunting, to the point that those people could have easily gotten addicted to gambling at either casinos, or with loot boxes in games. The odds of getting a Shiny is so low (1/4096, and it used to be 1/8192 in the older games), that it is pretty much a form of gambling. The games do have various gimmicks to increase the odds of getting a Shiny, but you still will need to spend a large amount of time, to get one.

-Speaking of gambling, the Game Corners in the earlier games were just that. It was also very telling that they were removed in later games, while loot boxes in today's games were only recently cracked down on, and only in some countries.

-Pokémon sometimes does give away events, namely for Legendaries, Mythicals, and Shiny Pokémon, that are only available for a certain period of time. So that means that if you weren't playing the game at the time of a give away event, you're out of luck.

Some of their spin-off games, i.e. GO, Masters EX, and Unite, also come off as being cash-grabs, and would be absolutely flamed by the entire gaming community, if it wasn't a Pokémon game. It seems like Pokémon also seems to have the same immunity to criticism, that Valve has, in that just like when Valve introduces either a new CSGO crate, a new DOTA 2 Battle Pass, or new TF2 hats, when a new Pokémon game comes out, people instantly go into the "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY" mode, even if the criticism of the games are very loud and noticeable, i.e. when the Dexit situation was revealed.

I would also add that the fanbase, due to how large and popular the franchise is, has similar toxicity issues, i.e. the shipping wars (the Ash + Serena shippers were on their own levels of toxic), the excessive Generation 1 pandering due to the loud minority Genwunners and the mixed reception of some decisions with Generation 5, the lack of difficulty in the games, due to back-then director Junichi Masuda, along with his successor director Shigeru Ohmori's views that the games have to be simple, to keep up with mobile gaming, and massive game design blunders such as the Dexit situation, and the poor handling of it. And given the young age of the characters in the games and anime, as well as some people shipping a human + Pokémon, some people have done things such as pedophilia and beastiality, with those characters.

The sheer amount of games, and merchandise available, is absolutely ripe for consoomerism, i.e. opening up Pokémon TCG packs, "as an investment".

The franchise as a whole is in the "Too Big to Fail" state, as the other monster collecting competitors are very minor compared to how much of a juggernaut Pokémon is. In fact, the difference is so massive, that it could be just as bad as how The Sims is, in that there's effectively no major competitor. At least when other games such as SimCity 2013 and RollerCoaster Tycoon World turned out to be terrible games, competitors rose up to the challenge, i.e. Cities Skylines for the former, and Planet Coaster and Parkitect for the latter.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

Arkham Asylum. I'm sick of detective vision in games.

X-Men (the first movie). If Bryan Singer had gotten MeToo'd back when he was perving on underage boys in the shower during the making of Apt Pupil, we might have dodged the bullet that is capeshit.

Clerks. While Whedon and Abrams are certainly more successful, I think Kevin Smith is the Patient Zero of so much of what is annoying about current "nerd culture."

 

[Sanshain]

Madoka Magica. One of the greatest anime ever made. Spawned a thousand awful, shallow, cynical, mean-spirited Magical Girl deconstruction/death game/suffering shows that completely miss the point of the original.

Neon Genesis Evangelion. Another great show that people insist on taking all the wrong messages from.

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

Neon Genesis Evangelion. Another great show that people insist on taking all the wrong messages from.

Yeah. The only thing imitators took away from it was "Bland protagonist + bitchy women = great romance." I'd argue that Tenchi Muyo was also Patient Zero for this type of shit, even though in the original OVA he's not as much of a doormat as he was in later iterations of the franchise.

I don't like CLAMP, even though a lot of it isn't objectively bad per se. It still spawned a lot of troonism thanks to that whole "Love is love, and it doesn't matter who or what you are" bullshit.

 

[Product Placement]

Anything by Roman Polanski, he should have died in the holocaust and saved a lot of little girls from getting raped.

 

[tehpope]

X-Men (the first movie). If Bryan Singer had gotten MeToo'd back when he was perving on underage boys in the shower during the making of Apt Pupil, we might have dodged the bullet that is capeshit.

If you're going that route, then take it all the way back to Batman 89. Without it, super heros would be relegated to TV and B movies.

Honestly, modern capeshit probably starts with The Dark Knight and Iron Man.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Madoka Magica. One of the greatest anime ever made. Spawned a thousand awful, shallow, cynical, mean-spirited Magical Girl deconstruction/death game/suffering shows that completely miss the point of the original.

Was Madoka Magica also what made the "Subverting Expectations" trope become popular later, especially with today's media? Assuming that it was even an actual subverting of expectations, to begin with.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Was Madoka Magica also what made the "Subverting Expectations" trope become popular later, especially with today's media? Assuming that it was even an actual subverting of expectations, to begin with.

Not really, in the end everything is pretty telegraphed and events make sense in-universe (and Magical Girl subversions are not something new, like in Rayearth). And while I agree it started a trend of bad copycats (though some of them were good) it never caused the extinction of the original genre (Precure is still ongoing) like Eva did to Mecha.

Edit: If we're talking Magical Girls then Utena purely on its cultural effects on the west. Probably causing more troons and their resulting rapes and suicides than anything else mentioned here (maybe with the exception of Sailor Moon).

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Arkham Asylum. I'm sick of detective vision in games.

X-Men (the first movie). If Bryan Singer had gotten MeToo'd back when he was perving on underage boys in the shower during the making of Apt Pupil, we might have dodged the bullet that is capeshit.

Clerks. While Whedon and Abrams are certainly more successful, I think Kevin Smith is the Patient Zero of so much of what is annoying about current "nerd culture."

Without some gameplay mechanic limiting it (like being a meaningful resource) detective vision(im assuming is the same as eagle vision) is just a nuisance where you have to mute all the colors and be reminded it’s a video game to see things that could have been marked out to start with.

 

[The Great Chandler]

If any of you guys make a cultural phenomenon that gets inferior imitations, don't blame yourself. Blame the bitches!

 

[BrunoMattei]

Anything by Roman Polanski, he should have died in the holocaust and saved a lot of little girls from getting raped.

Consequently, if there was no Polanski there would be no Rosemary's Baby which wouldn't have been a big hit that would have allowed Robert Evans to produce The Godfather.

Think about that.

 

[Colon capital V]

The MCU and other studios' insistance that their media properties should be in a interconnected universe have been a disaster for cinema.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

If you're going that route, then take it all the way back to Batman 89. Without it, super heros would be relegated to TV and B movies.

Honestly, modern capeshit probably starts with The Dark Knight and Iron Man.

False. Batman was well and truly dead after the Schumacher movies with their bat-nipples and bat-codpieces. X-Men was the first real capeshit and everything that came after was the result of Singer proving it could be profitable and not a laughingstock.

Edit: You could also make a case for Raimi’s Spider-Man, at which point I’d add Evil Dead to the list as well.

 

[Agent Wet]

I would initially go with what ever game popularize the use of the free to play mobile game format that's becoming more and more common as time goes on and pretty much became the standard for most multiplayer games nowadays, but that applies the game would likely be good in the first place.

So my second choice would be Grand Theft Auto for being one of the main influences that popularize open worlds as a mechanic that few developers and companies ever do well because all they do is sprinkle copy and paste missions in between actual missions and became a staple for games who want to inflate content with very little unique assets.