That author's note at the end of Marry Grave always bums me out. It wasn't the most groundbreaking series up to that point, but the poor guy really had a lot of passion poured into that story. I appreciate his trying to explain what would have happened. Hope he gets back in the saddle.
As for a series that became good only thanks to the axe, Godspeed is my pick. It didn't have that good a premise, and looked like it was shaping up into a generic shonen battle series. The axe however did away with all that and forced it to focus on its strong point, the villain. I'm happy it did, since it's stuck with me over the years.
@dsid2814
The backstory chapters were the series' strong point, and where the plot was actually starting. Before that the series felt like it was too busy finding its footing to even give much attention to the overarching story.