I'm just another person here to tell you this show is amazing, though difficult to start. I abandoned it twice, before I got to the point of "Ok, now I see why so many people say this anime is amazing."
It is amazing.
I don't think the first episodes are actually bad - I think I was the one who wasn't ready to understand and enjoy the show yet. It certainly gets a lot better and it doesn't take long - but as the story unfolds and amazing plots and jokes come along, there is also an understanding that comes slowly, from which a whole world of subtlety and nuances become accessible. This is what made the show amazing to me.
At the same period of time I was watching the first 100-and-something episodes of this show, I was also reading "The Complete Works of Zhuangzi" (a famous book from Taoism, that later would mingle with Buddhism in China and, eventually, become Zen Buddhism is Japan). It was a great combination.
The books describes the heart of the philosophy that later would give birth to Zen Buddhism - an important part of the Japanese culture, that helps to better understand the anime - and the anime demonstrates, in modern terms, some of the most sophisticated applications of that philosophy at practice. Even if it is fictional, it depicts behaviors and situations we can understand and relate to.
It is amazing.
I don't think the first episodes are actually bad - I think I was the one who wasn't ready to understand and enjoy the show yet. It certainly gets a lot better and it doesn't take long - but as the story unfolds and amazing plots and jokes come along, there is also an understanding that comes slowly, from which a whole world of subtlety and nuances become accessible. This is what made the show amazing to me.
At the same period of time I was watching the first 100-and-something episodes of this show, I was also reading "The Complete Works of Zhuangzi" (a famous book from Taoism, that later would mingle with Buddhism in China and, eventually, become Zen Buddhism is Japan). It was a great combination.
The books describes the heart of the philosophy that later would give birth to Zen Buddhism - an important part of the Japanese culture, that helps to better understand the anime - and the anime demonstrates, in modern terms, some of the most sophisticated applications of that philosophy at practice. Even if it is fictional, it depicts behaviors and situations we can understand and relate to.