The lack of it. It still had a lot of cool concept and imagery, but the pacing was way over the place. To be honest pacing issues with the 90s show started during the S season. We had tons of episodes with Kaolinate, Eudial and Mimete, while the rest of the witches were essentially monster of the day. This was the manga way, but was very different from the perfectly evenly splited Classic and R seasons when ut comes to villains. R in particular did a great job with the Black Moon clan, sadly it was a bit spoiled by the Pluto shafting and underwhelming finale. Then Supers suddenly decided they didn't need plot progression till the last 10 episodes at best. Ikuhara is a great director whenever he does something of his own. Utena, Penguin Drum are great and show his craftsmanship. I am sure it is not his fault SuperS failed. It was more likely higher ups that wanted a light-hearted seasin with minimal overall plot that could capture younger audience. I still think some of the SuperS seasons themes went a bit too far and a bit transphobic in a way, making Fish Eye interested in a young boy. And the uncomfortable rape-like dream mirror sequences. Ikuhara's weirdness is alsome, but he went a bit too far there. From me personally Black Moon arc is my favorite 90s season. It was great in developing all the characters. Sure, they dropped the ball near the finale, but so were S, SuperS and stars. The first six episodes of Stars were, however the best episodes in my opinion. They showed what a difference a non monster of the day formula could do. Sadly with the actual Stars season, everything got a downgrade.