For me, the quintessential case of a series I tried a bit and then bailed is Inu Yasha.
The reason being: I put a LOT of effort into getting myself up to speed on the series. It first came out a little while before I joined the U of O anime club, and I wanted to catch up to where the rest of the club because it looked cool. I borrowed a friend's manga and read about 16 issues so I could join in watching the series.
After I caught up, I watched it for quite awhile. But it just never
ends. When a progressive series goes on for a long long time, you instinctively expect the ending to be better and better. After awhile I realized that no ending could possibly be good enough to watch that many episodes (or seasons), and I lost interest.
Oh, Ms. Takahashi... how many great new series could you have created during the last twelve years you've been churning out Inu Yasha episodes?...
Other examples of "bailout" anime for me:
- The Twelve Kingdoms (too much like Fushigi Yuugi)
- Naruto (lost interest long before it was popular)
- Star Ocean EX (watched the whole series except the last episode, strangely)
...I'm sure there are many more.
I think that its pathetic that people bail on something because it gets popular. How do you discuss it with others if they've never seen it? Just because its mainstream doesn't mean it's not a good show. Do not, however, misconstrue this as a thumbs-up for the same old crap that comes out each year with the same plots and character designs, but different visuals (I'm looking at you, shounen!)
In short: if you like it, watch it! If you don't, don't! But for god's sake, do it because you want to, not because others do or do not watch/like/know about it!
I definitely agree with you, but I wanted to point out one valid reason why a show going mainstream can be a bad thing (for the enjoyment of the show, that is): often when an anime goes to cable, the translators start to become much more "free-minded" with the localization. The dubbing is often cheesier and sometimes sub-par, and in worst case scenarios they "play" around with the episode order and mutate the plot.
Yeah, I know, at that point it's usually better to buy/rent the DVDs and switch to subs. That usually solves the problem, but sometimes it doesn't.
Fortunately for me, I'm so uncool that my top anime picks ALMOST NEVER go mainstream!
This makes me sound all snotty and indy, but in actuality it's kind of annoying for me.