So I watched Familiar of Zero, and my thought is WTF happened after season 2

[mrhateful]

So I was looking for new anime to watch and I looked up someone top ten list and he placed this show(Familiar of Zero) among some of my all-time favorites, and I thought hey this guy like the things I like maybe there is something to this show. When I saw it I noticed how strikingly similar to another one of the animes I have watched, which was The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which I enjoyed a lot. As in:

Haruhi Suzumiya = Louise
Both loud mouthed strong willed girls which both has a crush on the main character, however where haruhi was genuinely funny Loise is more annoying, furthermore Haruhis character flaws are used in the stories to either progress the plot or the make jokes, which doesn?t really happen with Louise.

Yuki Nagato = Tabitha
Both blue haired girls which are quiet and read books, where both of them have awesome powers when called upon, and secretly are much more powerful then is seen by the eye. Yuki is an android from the future and Tabitha is secretly of royal decent. I realize however they are sort of an anime stable as the same girl is also sort of in Neon Genesis Evangelion(and again color coded blue for your convenience) and probably in a ton more as it is sort of an anime cliché at this point.

Mikuru Asahina = Tiffania Westwood
Both blond overly nice girls even when treated like crap, they both feel a need to assist the main character and they both have big breasts which are used/referenced a lot in both stories. Again what the Suzumiya show did with it was of course a lot more funny. In that haruhi used her blatantly for sex appeal to promote her crazy schemes and the reason she is so nice is because it?s part of her job. While Tiffania doesn?t have any motivations and it?s a lot more creepy in general with no reasoning or idea why her breasts are such a big deal(but that?s more about season 3 which I will get to later)

Itsuki Koizumi = Julio Chesaré
The ?cool? laid back guy that is sort of there to support the two main character while they atleast have different hair color their overall reason for being in the show is very similar and they offer almost the exact same to the plots of the story.

Furthermore the setting idea of suzumiya and Familiar of Zero is strikingly similar since both shows take place in crazy universes where anything could happen. The only problem is that while Familiar of Zero ?borrows? almost everything from the suzumiya one, its very much a just an imitation and doesn?t even come close to suzumiya, which is sad since I really liked The melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and I kinda wanted more.

So far I have watched 2.5 seasons, season 1 was decent pretty typical anime wasn?t really that good but wasn?t anything to write home about either, season 2 however was in my opinion pretty good. It tried to move to a bigger story which I thought was really good, where it moved away from just being about high school drama to about a larger scale war, the world really comes to life as you can feel the impact of this war affecting everyone. Also there were the miniplot of Colbert which was very well handled, it was setup well in advance and the payoff well executed, which lead to the main character having some character growth. Season 2 had some fan service but never to a point where it became unwatchable.
So after watching it I went to season 3 with a lot of hope?. ?..dot dot DOT DOT DOT

Hope that was instantly crushed, I am currently half way in and I literally cannot watch it as the quality of the plots went from decent to porn plot quality(/actual porn plots) I mean there is the one about Tiffania large breasts which leads to Louise having to check them out/fondle them in the shower(with all the boys peeking through a hole) or the one where a magical lust drug is dropped into the face of one of the girls and spread to all the other girls which makes them incredible horny, running around attempting to fondle each other. And I honestly can?t take this level of cringing plots anymore I feel like I love my brain too much to continue watching it. This is especially annoying as I feel like some of these plots shouldn?t even be possible given that the characters had so much growth in season 2 and things like this shouldn?t happen anymore.

So I wonder if anyone actually watched the rest of season 3/season 4 and know if it is worth to continue watching anymore because at this point my opinion of the show is pretty low.

However all that said, I'd still recommend watching season 1-2, especially if you liked the melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

 

[Elfgore]

Yeah the third season is a massive wad of ecchi and really bad comedy episodes. Your best bet is to skip to about episode seven, the plot actually returns and it focuses on a very interesting character who you would not expect to receive much attention.

The fourth season has, in my opinion, the best plot of all. The entire season besides one episode is actual plot/character building. The ending is very open, yet still very satisfying.

So stick with it. After such a great second season, that's ending had me in tears (until the director ruined it... bastard), the show gets a little weak but improves rapidly.

Note: Do NOT watch the OVA, it is a beach episode with an octopus and skimpy swimwear. I will leave it at that.

 

[mrhateful]

Note: Do NOT watch the OVA, it is a beach episode with an octopus and skimpy swimwear. I will leave it at that.

I was wondering where the beach episode was since almost all other anime clichès was covered.

 

[mrhateful]

Yeah the third season is a massive wad of ecchi and really bad comedy episodes. Your best bet is to skip to about episode seven, the plot actually returns and it focuses on a very interesting character who you would not expect to receive much attention.

The fourth season has, in my opinion, the best plot of all. The entire season besides one episode is actual plot/character building. The ending is very open, yet still very satisfying.

So stick with it. After such a great second season, that's ending had me in tears (until the director ruined it... bastard), the show gets a little weak but improves rapidly.

On your recommendation I watched the rest, and while you are correct in that it stops most of its sillyness it still didn't really work for, season 4 had a lot of really bad episodes where the show circlejerks the exact same plot aka he gets caught in a spot that makes it look like he is cheating on louise which was already overdone in season 3. There was some gems for instance I really loved the elves episode. However I am really annoyed because it didn't do the one episode I was looking forward to since I started watching and that is the episode where they go to our world and see how it is to live there, maybe learns a thing or two. I got my hopes up in episode 11 only to be kicked in the face by having it be the complete opposite, it is not before the end credits in episode 12 that we get a short glimpse of this dream episode of mine. So now I am left being annoyed, I had to sit through so many terrible romance episodes and never once get the episode I really wanted Overall I wish I never saw this show to begin with as it has left a really bad taste in my mouth. So many threads(Why was the mercenaries sent to kill them, where did that ring the water spirit want go, what happened to the ring's owner. Just to name a few) are left unfinished which the writers had plenty time to do but instead spent on some twisted sense of romanticized romance. For instance when he became a lord the show had a perfect oppotunity to show what it means to have responsibilities and take a more serious approach(In that we could have episodes where hard decisions needs to be made as a landlord) but no instead we get a hubtub episode where nothing but carefree life is the conflict, I don't even know who would enjoy this shit, I mean a lot of season 4 was clearly made for young girls(Planning to live together, find a house, go to fancy princess parties) but that was after season 3 which was clearly made for guys(which only needed actual sex scenes in the episodes to be considered straight up porno, I mean take the opening of episode 7 WTF) so I don't understand this. This show shows the worst aspect of anime, if I watched this as my first anime I would have said yup now I know anime is not for me. Luckily for me I have seen actual good anime and I know better then this.

Just thinking back on the whole thing makes me realize how much was wasted, for instance there is a scene in season 2 where the cutesy happy princess says "I will not go to war", then her ad-visors manipulates her obviously by saying that otherwise the people will rebel and from this one line she is convinced, this all setups that she has no real willpower and is obviously weak. Does this come up again? does this ever come a problem? No of course not since this is a good world where only good thing happens which makes it all feel unbelievably unrealistic and cartoonish. Maybe after watching shows like code geass and madoka magica my expectations are too high but this just gets on my nerves. Furthermore why did they revive colbert??? he had a perfect meaningful death there was no point to it they didn't even use him for anything meaningful.

Anyway I am too pissed off at this show that I am gonna stop now. It took great ideas and squashed them into a unrecognizable pulp of sugar sweet stories without any depth to them. In hindsight I probably should have picked up on this when the main character in season 1 gets tied and tortured by being starved to death just accepts his situation that this wasn't going to take itself serious but still this is an embarrassment of a show. I'd only barely recommend(as in if you are really really bored and are the biggest fan of Haruhi Suzymiya) watching season 1 and 2 since the major flaws of the show isn't that apparent yet. And it still has some of that mystic left.

 

[Tegual]

Unfortunately Season 3 the guys who made it forgot they story element for most of it. As for season 4 it is ok but they left out a good chunk of story so their is a lot which is never explained. Considering both season 3 and 4 seemed to be mainly fan service for one group or another, they did wrap up at least part of the main story however silly the rest of the story got. Is season 3 and 4 worth watching? Depends there are a couple of good episodes in season 3 and season 4 tries to spread out the story evenly across most of the episodes so skipping some of them is a little difficult. I guess you could go to somewhere and read the episode synopsis and then judge which episodes you want to watch your self.

Kinda gotta say though the ending is pretty predicable from about episode 7ish but the ending is at least satisfying if you do watch it.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I don't think Zero no Tsukaima and Haruhi could be anymore different if they tried. And to my knowledge Haruhi doesn't have a crush on Kyon at all, she just decided to latch on to him. And in all honesty Haruhi is just as if not more annoying then Louise.

You mentioned the similarity between Yuki and Tabatha, but this is anime, friend - You can't NOT have the silent mystery girl. It's basically demanded of every anime ever since NGE. The only thing similar about Zero and Haruhi are the character tropes, which exist in about 80% of all anime.

...

Hmpf, I guess people who claim all anime is the same aren't too far off.

 

[HardkorSB]

Haruhi Suzumiya = Louise
Both loud mouthed strong willed girls which both has a crush on the main character, however where haruhi was genuinely funny Loise is more annoying, furthermore Haruhis character flaws are used in the stories to either progress the plot or the make jokes, which doesn?t really happen with Louise.

Yuki Nagato = Tabitha
Both blue haired girls which are quiet and read books, where both of them have awesome powers when called upon, and secretly are much more powerful then is seen by the eye. Yuki is an android from the future and Tabitha is secretly of royal decent. I realize however they are sort of an anime stable as the same girl is also sort of in Neon Genesis Evangelion(and again color coded blue for your convenience) and probably in a ton more as it is sort of an anime cliché at this point.

Mikuru Asahina = Tiffania Westwood
Both blond overly nice girls even when treated like crap, they both feel a need to assist the main character and they both have big breasts which are used/referenced a lot in both stories. Again what the Suzumiya show did with it was of course a lot more funny. In that haruhi used her blatantly for sex appeal to promote her crazy schemes and the reason she is so nice is because it?s part of her job. While Tiffania doesn?t have any motivations and it?s a lot more creepy in general with no reasoning or idea why her breasts are such a big deal(but that?s more about season 3 which I will get to later)

Itsuki Koizumi = Julio Chesaré
The ?cool? laid back guy that is sort of there to support the two main character while they atleast have different hair color their overall reason for being in the show is very similar and they offer almost the exact same to the plots of the story.

Furthermore the setting idea of suzumiya and Familiar of Zero is strikingly similar since both shows take place in crazy universes where anything could happen. The only problem is that while Familiar of Zero ?borrows? almost everything from the suzumiya one, its very much a just an imitation and doesn?t even come close to suzumiya, which is sad since I really liked The melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and I kinda wanted more.

You haven't seen a lot of anime series, have you?
Those are tired tropes that writers keep rehashing over and over again since very few of them want to actually write original characters.
For example, the Haruhi/Louise one is called a "tsundere".
Seriously, half the harem anime series have the same exact characters.
The "crazy universe where anything could happen" is a cliche but it also has another purpose. It allows the writers to pull anything out of their asses and just go with it.

As far as I'm aware, this is a "thing" for at least 2 decades.

 

[spartan231490]

So I was looking for new anime to watch and I looked up someone top ten list and he placed this show(Familiar of Zero) among some of my all-time favorites, and I thought hey this guy like the things I like maybe there is something to this show. When I saw it I noticed how strikingly similar to another one of the animes I have watched, which was The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya snip

As someone who has watched both anime: What? Are you on crack? The characters may have some superficial similarities, but that's because they're tropic characters, not because the anime are similar at all.

As for the universes, Familiar of Zero doesn't take place in a crazy universe where anything can happen. It takes place in a universe that has magic, but that is not the same thing. The magic in Zero follows very specific rules, and is internally consistent. That is not a "crazy universe in which anything can happen"

 

[mrhateful]

So I was looking for new anime to watch and I looked up someone top ten list and he placed this show(Familiar of Zero) among some of my all-time favorites, and I thought hey this guy like the things I like maybe there is something to this show. When I saw it I noticed how strikingly similar to another one of the animes I have watched, which was The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya snip

As someone who has watched both anime: What? Are you on crack? The characters may have some superficial similarities, but that's because they're tropic characters, not because the anime are similar at all.

As for the universes, Familiar of Zero doesn't take place in a crazy universe where anything can happen. It takes place in a universe that has magic, but that is not the same thing. The magic in Zero follows very specific rules, and is internally consistent. That is not a "crazy universe in which anything can happen"

I think I mentioned it felt like an empty imitation, that said sure I haven't seen a ton of anime but I have yet to see an anime where the characters are this similar, furthermore I might be reaching when I said the universe was kinda similar but when nothing is explained to us then anything can actually happen and magic is used to explain away everything.

Also don't misunderstand I am not saying this was on level with Haruhi Suzumiya quite the opposite I just saw some as you said superficial similarities which got me initially excited. Now that I have seen the entire thing I know they are nothing alike in terms of core elements, such as story and humor.

 

[mrhateful]

You haven't seen a lot of anime series, have you?
Those are tired tropes that writers keep rehashing over and over again since very few of them want to actually write original characters.
For example, the Haruhi/Louise one is called a "tsundere".
Seriously, half the harem anime series have the same exact characters.

While that is true and the character archtype is completely overdone at this point, the setup is what truly makes their cases very identical. For instance in the suzymiya show Haruhi has to be constantly overlooked and treated by her will because she is this powerful being that can change the fate of the world. Where as Loiuse has magically bound Saito to do his bidding, which in return makes their relationship very similar to each other. Now I don't watch a lot of harem anime but that atleast is something I haven't seen a lot. Furthermore I just pointed out that all these minor similarities accumulates and gives me this sour taste of an attempt of a poor imitation.

 

[HardkorSB]

the setup is what truly makes their cases very identical. For instance in the suzymiya show Haruhi has to be constantly overlooked and treated by her will because she is this powerful being that can change the fate of the world. Where as Loiuse has magically bound Saito to do his bidding, which in return makes their relationship very similar to each other.

Yeah, the "person A is forced to obey person B because X" is also a trope in anime.

To be fair though, Haruhi's series was intentionally packed with cliches because it's a parody. If you were familiar with harem and school based anime (and with other ones as well), you would recognize the tropes and how the series plays around with them.

I used to watch tons of anime but I don't do that too often anymore since, for the most part, I can guess how the series is going to play out just by watching the 1st episode, sometimes even just by reading the plot synopsis.

 

[mrhateful]

Yeah, the "person A is forced to obey person B because X" is also a trope in anime.

Then maybe what I saw was that the shows was similar because they both follow the anime troupes very strict but where haruhi used it for jokes the familiar of zero was just plain bad ^^