Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I whine on about every little thing in anime that bothers and annoys me. Sure, there IS a lot out there that almost seems to be intentionally placed there to make viewing difficult, whether it is some kind of anime trope or convention, up to the new trends that seem to be moving away as to what anime is all about.

But one thing that has always set my teeth on edge is what I refer to as the Bob Dylan Syndrome (No Direction Home).

There are three aspects to this rather unsettling condition.

The first is the Mid-Course Correction. You are watching your anime and it seems pretty straight-forward. You think you have a handle on it; then, it completely shifts the focus and now you are headed in another direction and that is not always for the best.

I really noticed this during the show “Burst Angel”.

At first, I thought it was a show regarding Kyohei Tachibana, a student at a culinary arts school with dreams of someday becoming a pastry chef. He runs afoul of these mercenaries while on the streets ofTokyoand ends up working for them as a cook. The tales would be how he tries to follow his dreams while getting mixed up with this crop of crazy ladies in their running gun battles (and they have a gundam as well.)

Somehow, around show five or thereabouts, the focus shifts and we then decide that Jo (one of the guns for hire) is more important and eventually shove Kyohei off the show. What happened? This was NOT what I bargained for.

Another one is “Blassreiter”. I thought it was going to tell the story ofGerd Fretzen,Germany’s greatest motorcycle rider. His career is cut short and he himself is crippled when a demoniac (some hideous monster that can fuse with machines) invades the track and wreaks havoc.

Later on, some very strange, very busty woman gives him a pill that allows him to overcome his affliction, but he, himself, turns into one of these monsters. Somewhere around show 10, he dies. He dies? But he was the star…..wasn’t he? Then it goes off on this totally absurd tangent that makes less and less sense as the show sputters on. I gave up and never saw the conclusion.

Now, not all corrections are bad for the plot and may, in fact, enhance the show, but most seem like they ran out of “A” Plot and then shift to the “B” Plot to fill out the 26-episode run.

I’m also not talking a plot device, where we discover that this oafish idiot is actually the twin brother of the Emperor! The point of the show hasn’t changed, just some more things added to the mix. I’m talking about a real direction-altering revelation, so it is nowhere near the same show.

The second malady is What Gives. This is when nothing happens, and I mean NOTHING HAPPENS! Even seen “Piano”? (OK, the official title is “Piano: The Melody of a Young Girl’s Heart”). The (supposed) plot is that Miu Nomura always played the piano and found it to be one the greatest joys in her life. Even when she was a little girl she desired to share her talent on with the piano to those around her. As time passed, she became an introverted teenager, far too shy to express her feelings and even unable to do it through her music anymore. It had gotten so bad that her playing suffered greatly.

I watched it to see if something happened or if something would ever happen and nothing of any real consequence happened. Wait, she almost had an emotion, but avoided it. Whew! That was close!

I felt the same way about “Honey and Clover” and that one easily covers the first two parts of the Syndrome. The series depicts the lives and relationships of a group of art school students who live in the same apartment building. Or so they say. It was mostly people doing things (or not doing things) and nothing really happens and then, there is a journey of self-discovery in the middle that changes the direction of the show (but not the tenor). I know some people feel “H&C” is really romantic; I found it tepid, and I know romantic comedy anime pretty well.

The last one of these symptoms is the Gotcha!, which is a total and complete copping out of the ending of the show. I’m not talking an ironic ending or one where it stops and not genuinely ends. No, I am referring to one where they slap together some really cheap-out conclusion, which does the most disservice to the people watching. That would be “Magikano” (Ayumi Mamiya is a witch cursed to lose her powers but there is one boy who can break the spell and save her. Maybe.)

Suffice it to say that you should watch all but the last show and then, run away. If you watch that last show, I will guarantee that you will do either a Keith Moon (flinging your TV set out the window) or an Elvis Presley (shooting your TV set), as you are racked with frustration.

It should be a joy to watch anime, to become involved with these people’s lives or even stand back in amazement at things goes really wild and crazy. There needs to be a real payoff at the end, not a push off.