The Pirates of Dark Water/YMMV

• 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.
• Complete Monster: The Dark Dweller, the source of the Dark Water and thus the reason for countless deaths.
• Ho Yay: young and (as much as we can tell) pretty Tula runs about with a bare midriff among seamen 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 Zooley are pretty shippable.
• Nightmare Fuel: It's never pretty when Dark Water gets a hold of anything or anyone. In one episode, one drop consumed someone from the inside out.
  • 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).
  • Opening of episode four. Skulls and bones and creepy ship and carnivorous dragons...
  • Ren's eyes NEVER move. Although that may be more Uncanny Valley. Especially since half the time he's looking at the screen head on when there's no way he should be able to...
    • That seems to be a function of the animation.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: Averted. 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.
• Squick: In 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.
• Uncanny Valley: Bloth. Please let him be a non-human species.
  • And any of Bloth's crew. Scratch that. Any bad guy.
• Villain Decay: In the miniseries, Konk is a very capable bad guy saddled with incompetent minions, capable of giving the heroes a difficult time on his own. He is later downgraded to being an incompetent minion himself.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Konk's apparent Villain Decay is actually Obfuscating Stupidity so that Bloth will underestimate him. Notably, his scenes of great competence were well away from Bloth's view.