YMMV / The Pirates of Dark Water

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Konk's apparent Villain Decay is actually Obfuscating Stupidity so that Bloth will underestimate him. Notably, his scenes of great competence are well away from Bloth's view.
• Animation Age Ghetto: A definite attempt to work around this. In the end it was killed more by the production costs (compared to the income it was getting) than by breaking the "for kids" rule. As for the age perception, it was noted for really managing to work around this - it was still quite kid-friendly but was way more complicated than other shows of its time, with a Myth Arc.
• Badass Decay: When Tula is introduced, she is a capable sailor Action Girl with her own agenda. After she finds out about her magical powers, she not only gets a more revealing outfit, but is mostly shown either swooning and moaning because of using said powers, or just shouting at other characters and needing some sort of rescue.
• Complete Monster: The Dark Dweller is the being behind the titular "Dark Water," a menacing oily substance that devours whatever it touches and is spreading all throughout the world. By proxy, the Dweller is responsible for countless deaths of places that the Dark Water has devoured. The Dark Dweller is focused on domination and destruction who plans to unleash its Dark Water throughout the world, focused only on consuming and controlling what it can.
• Funny Moments: In "King Niddler", Konk has been captured for trespassing by the Mobo. King Niddler tells Konk he's free... to clean up his royal litter.
  Niddler: I hate sitting on minga-melon seeds.
  Konk: (being led by the guards) Noy Jitat. Konk rather pluck royal feathers.
• Narm: In the Andorus level of the Sega Genesis game, you have to work your way through networks of caves infested with savage beasts and pools of dark water, accompanied by an almost hypnotic while also creepy background tune. All of the quiet menace is a little undone by the farting noises made by blobs of dark water shooting out of pools, though.
• Nightmare Fuel: The Big Bad is a sentient black blob that can warp people and destroy everything it touches. And it's trying to engulf the world. (Also, the episode where the old woman tries using the Dark Water in a youth potion and winds up being consumed from the inside is probably one of the most disturbing things in a kid's show.
  • The Dark Water also has a mastermind controlling it, the inhuman Dark Dweller, a gigantic, vicious creature.
  • The Constrictus isn't particularly pretty either. And Bloth is bound to cause sleepless nights for anyone who stares at his face too long (i.e. any length of time).
  • The opening of episode four. Skulls and bones and creepy ship and carnivorous dragons...
  • Ren's eyes NEVER move. Especially since half the time he's looking directly at the screen when there's no way he should be able...
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The SNES game is a very competent Beat 'em Up, and the Genesis version is practically a 16-bit variation of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The Genesis one also gives fans the closure the series never did.
• Older Than They Think: This show is one that haters of its studio love to give a pass. But this sometimes crosses over into it being one of the studio's "not rip-offs", even though if we say Wally Gator owes a lot to early Yogi Bear, then this show owes a lot to Wildfire and Galtar and the Golden Lance. The Follow the Leader example gives in depth comparisons. To the majority though, most of these are examples of Tropes Are Not Bad.
• Seasonal Rot : After a great start, with changing loyalties, various factions, reveals, dramatic deaths and competent villains, there comes (from "Andorus" onwards) a sequence of filler episodes in which Ren becomes more naive and easy to fool, Ioz becomes dumb muscle, and Tula is chickified badly. Further treasures are found almost as an afterthought in otherwise Monster of the Week storylines.
• Shipping
  • There has been some debate among the years which other character Tula should be shipped with.
  • On the other end some people see some serious Ho Yay. Young and (as much as we can tell) pretty Tula runs about with a bare midriff among seamen (snicker) and the only one who really takes notice of her is Bloth, of all people. Ren seems pretty comatose when it comes to the opposite sex, and while Ioz does mention that he enjoys women, he keeps grabbing and hugging Ren by the waist. Also, Ioz and Zoolie are pretty shippable.
  • To give her a somewhat happier ending there is fan art to pair one-shot villain Cray with recurring villain Morpho.
• Squick: In the episode "A Drop of Darkness," Cray is insistent on marrying Ren while calling him Primus. A whole new level is taken when considering that earlier in the episode Cray muses that Ren might have been her son.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot : Ren learns that his father distributed the treasures he had found among his seven trusted companions. So when Ren and his friends are looking for them, they must have been hidden anew by these companions. However, there is no mention of this. It could have been a great addition to the story arc to see those seven, learn of their relationship to Primus, and the reasons why they chose such and such hiding places for the treasures.

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