Anime that disappointed with their poor quality

Over the past few days, a debate has captured the attention of the anime community on Reddit, under the question, "Has any other anime lost quality as quickly as Uzumaki?" This thread of discussion was born out of widespread disappointment with the anime adaptation of "Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror," based on the iconic horror work by mangaka Junji Ito.

The main trigger for the discussion was the strong contrast between episodes 1 and 2 of the series. One user summed up the widespread sentiment by saying, "The first episode was like a godsend, and then the second... you know what happened." The animation quality, which at first seemed to be faithful to the artistic and terrifying style of the manga, dropped abruptly in the second episode, leaving many viewers surprised and disappointed.

Fans who had praised the first episode for its immersive atmosphere and detailed animation, were met with a second chapter that, according to several comments, lacked the same level of detail and seemed almost made by amateurs. "The second episode felt like a massive throwback," commented another user, who noted that the drop in quality was so marked that it seemed like two completely different animation teams had worked on each episode.

This debate on Reddit not only reflects fans' disillusionment with the "Uzumaki" adaptation, but also raises a broader question: what other anime have shown a similar decline in quality in their early episodes? Several users shared their experiences with other series, in which they felt that the quality of the animation dropped drastically after a promising start.

«The Detective is Already Dead».
"I would say Uzumaki is definitely a unique case. You don't usually exclude the show's lead director from production meetings, or outsource half of the show to a small outsourcing studio and hire a banned director to get the episode done as quickly as possible."
"I remember that this year the quality of the animation of the anime Whisper Me A Love Song was progressively declining with each episode due to production problems at YAL and CloudHearts. It got to the point that the last two episodes were delayed indefinitely."
"Berserk 2016 practically dropped in quality by the time the opening ended."
"Ninja Kamui. I can't believe I loved episodes 1 and 2. The rest are mediocre or bad."
"Reincarnated as a Spider had a very drastic drop in quality towards the end. A shame because before that it was a pretty solid show."
"Ninja Kamui. I wish they hadn't worn mecha ninja armor."
"Magia Record was full of ups and downs, especially in the second season. The first few episodes are good, then the animation and pacing get spotty, then the show remembers how to be good for a few episodes, but then the quality drops again."
«Wonder Egg Priority».
"The Promised Neverland Season 2, it started off decently and then they removed the Goldy Pond Arc, and it was a downward spiral in terms of quality and content from there."
"Kare Kano had an episode in its second half where the characters were portrayed as crude cutouts stuck to popsicle sticks. At one point, one of them was set on fire to represent anger. Nobody makes production disasters like Gainax."
"Hikari of Me."
"Gundam Wing had a serious drop in quality in its second half. It's not so obvious unless you do a marathon, then you realize that there are so many recycled animations that it's crazy. Some fights are repeated frame by frame with only different music and background for about five episodes in a row. It got so bad that it almost became a meme to see Wing Zero spin with its two cannons, and that became its final attack in a lot of Gundam games, but it really just comes from a dwindling budget."
"Zom 100 went from having extremely vibrant, colorful, and passionate animation to having a fairly common technical quality in a few episodes. Part of this was due to the show's harsh production, which is ironic considering how anti-working the anime itself is."
"Dragon Ball Super episode 5 was pretty infamous. They fixed it up a bit for the Blu-ray, but oh my god. There was also an episode in the Frieza Resurrection arc that was super bad. The one where Goku grabs his tail and Frieza spins it. Yes, that one. It's good that they eventually recovered, but it was hard for a loooong time. I usually tell people to only watch the movies for the first two arcs."
"So fast, probably not. But I already mentioned Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse. It had a somewhat similar storyline to Uzumaki: the initial director spent too much on the first 3 episodes, he was demoted, and the rest of the series looked awful."
"Unnamed Memory. I loved the premise of the first episode, then everything went down a drain pretty quickly."
"The Girl and Her Guard Dog (that weird show where the male love interest says he's her husband, father and brother or something) didn't really have a drop in quality because it was never good from the start, but god, how bad it was. The characters' clothes changed randomly in the middle of the scenes and things like that too."
"Seven Deadly Sins is another obvious one, what a shame."
"I don't know if I've ever seen a show drop in quality after one episode, but there was an isekai that came out last year where the last episode was literally just ambient scenarios while the voice actors were talking."
"That Dororo episode".
"I don't watch that much anime, but in my opinion, Ninja Kamui fits into this category."
"Wizard Barristers fell hard in the second half, if I remember correctly, the final episode was mostly backgrounds and previous clips glued together."
"Hand Shakers. And that's saying a lot."
"One Punch Man season 2 was a big drop compared to season 1."
"That episode of Gurren Lagann."
"It's not terribly bad, but some of the new episodes of Tower of God have definitely fallen into animation quality, specifically in the fight scenes."
"Blue Lock had quite a few."
"I can't remember the name, but there's a SAO-style isekai where apparently the animators quit for episode 3. It has 12 episodes."