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New Poll - Good, bad, and the Ugly

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12:14 am, Jun 10 2017
Posts: 10648


This week's poll is from jacob66. I find this one really interesting! Of course ideally you'd want every part of a story to be great...

You can submit poll ideas here
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: What's the top reason preventing you from acquiring (more) anime/manga related merchandise?
Choices:
Not enough money - votes: 3486 (51%)
Not enough space - votes: 496 (7.2%)
Difficult to find/buy what I want - votes: 1207 (17.6%)
Worried about what people might think of me - votes: 366 (5.3%)
Not a safe place (children, pets, etc) - votes: 71 (1%)
Already have everything I want - votes: 84 (1.2%)
Not interested in the first place - votes: 1132 (16.5%)
There were 6842 total votes.
The poll ended: June 10th 2017

Now I'm curious about a combination of this poll and your age

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12:32 am, Jun 10 2017
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Bad, okay, great.

I don't mind if the story is bad at the beginning if it get better as it go, but i really hate when story don't end well, so many great stories had bad ending and while i enjoyed reading the story, because of the bad ending i felt like i had wasted all my times.

Post #692414
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mmm...
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12:39 am, Jun 10 2017
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Oh this is a great question, as someone that will start reading almost everything, as long as I already read it I will come back eventually so bad beginning is not a problem for me mmm...

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1:07 am, Jun 10 2017
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Picked okay->bad->great, but I'm really fine with anything with at least an okay ending. Although if it has a bad beginning, ideally the bad parts doesn't go for long otherwise it'll be hard for me to get interested even if it does end up great.

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Post #692416
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1:09 am, Jun 10 2017
Posts: 182


You would want at least an okay start to lure readers in. I'm not really sure on how you would get people to read your work with a bad start.

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Lone Wanderer
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1:25 am, Jun 10 2017
Posts: 2127


Nice poll!

I went for "bad beginning, okay middle and great ending." Though any combination with a "great" or "okay" ending is acceptable, really. What drives me absolutely up the wall, and which is unfortunately common in not just manga/anime but most works of fiction (especially long-running ones) is "great beginning, okay middle, bad ending."

I guess this stems from the feeling of having wasted all that time, effort, and maybe even money on something with little to no pay-off. But when a book/show steadily improves, your satisfaction keeps rising and at the end you're left with a really good feeling. Also, I have enough patience to push through a mediocre start as long as I can see glimpses of potential, and even provided you dropped something because the beginning didn't impress you, you can read comments, etc., find out whether the story improved and come back to it with the assurance that your perseverance will pay off. But once you start something great, you want to keep going, hoping for at least an all right ending...which will more likely than not never happen. A prime example of this is the summer 2017 anime Seikaisuru Kado: it started out wonderfully, became a bit cliche towards the middle, and has currently (at the 9/12 point) hit an all-time low, though the majority of fans seem to be digging the sudden turn into "hot magical girl vs creepy alien" territory that the plot took.

I wonder about the "bad middle," options, though. I don't think I've even remotely enjoyed anything that doesn't have at least an "okay" middle part. In my experience if the middle is bad, the conclusion's bad as well: there's usually no coming back from such a drop in storytelling quality.

Last edited by calstine at 1:32 am, Jun 10 2017

Post #692418 - Reply to (#692416) by Anima
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1:31 am, Jun 10 2017
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Totally agree eyes

Post #692419
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1:59 am, Jun 10 2017
Posts: 3457


I went for bad, okay, great in the end.
It's so disappointing to read a manga with a great beginning for it to slowly fall from grace. I decided on a bad beginning because usually these days I don't read stories that have freshly started, so if I know it gets better as the story goes on, I'm willing to push through the bad in order to get to the good.

Series having great endings is very rare but they usually make the end of the series pretty satisfying when they do pop up.


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3:26 am, Jun 10 2017
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With regards to the previous poll, I voted 'a lack of money'. I'm 28, but a full time student. When I was working I had the money to buy merchandise, and I did, but then I suffered more from a lack of space since Japanese apartments are tiny. Also, I often didn't want what was on offer since I don't always like the current trendy anime/manga.

With the current poll, I can forgive a poor beginning. I hate a bad ending, especially if it started so well. I chose bad beginning, okay middle, great ending since I prefer things to get better as I go along, but I could deal with an okay beginning and bad middle if the ending was great enough.

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4:00 am, Jun 10 2017
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Bad beginning, great middle, okay ending as act 2 is where the actual story happens. Not that such a messy quality range would lead to a good product. Okay beginning, great middle, bad ending also works.

How closed off stories tend to work but ongoing manga don´t usually apply, for obvious reasons:
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The most up-voted option can´t work, as one could never connect to the characters or story if the journey to the resolution wasn´t good at some point. The reader would just accuse the writer of doing a twist for the sake of it, or not "earning" the ending, or...

It´s also highly unlikely most would plow though at least 2/3 of ALL content if they didn´t like what they read. Not that a truly bad beginning would help. Most wouldn´t even reach the jouncy middle but starting good and just falling apart as you go on is about the worst writing sin you can commit. Setting up a functioning 1st act, aka the premise of the overall story, ain´t that hard after all. So Okay beginning, great middle, bad ending would work too.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 7:09 am, Jun 16 2017

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4:02 am, Jun 10 2017
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I went with "okay, great, and then bad." I can't start a story if the beginning can't hook me, so it just has to start off as okay or better. It can't just fall from glory mid way, or I'll drop it, (unless the stories short to begin with). A bad ending is okay, because I won't be reading the story after it ends, anyway.

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Seinen is RIGHT
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4:10 am, Jun 10 2017
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Here is an excerpt from a TED talk about the hero´s journey, as coined by Joseph Campbell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhk4N9A0oCA

Star Wars IV famously follows it 1 to 1. His book The Hero with a Thousand Faces is about the best book on effective storytelling that exists.

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5:09 am, Jun 10 2017
Posts: 421


This is a tragedy. But, well...
I'll be going with Okay beginning, bad middle, great ending.

Okay Beginning, so that I don't quit reading just after few chapters or volumes; or simply don't put the series on hold.
Bad middle, critics will talk Batshit about it here, some will quit or put it on hold. And most will have hope for it.
Great ending, this is where it makes a awesome comeback, critics talk positively about it, fans start dancing in euphoria, ratings starts overflowing. All's Well That Ends Well.

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Post #692432 - Reply to (#692424) by kurotaito
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5:53 am, Jun 10 2017
Posts: 29


I agree with this.

Post #692435
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6:23 am, Jun 10 2017
Posts: 144


Great beginning, bad middle, okay ending

Allows me to enjoy the good parts and quickly drop it afterwards.

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