The Law Of Ueki was originally satire

The Law Of Ueki was the satirical, genre-aware Action Anime of it's time, decades before One Punch Man, so what actually happened?

Why is it going down as Tournament Arc Slop like YuYu Hakusho and Flame Of Rika before it

Basically The Law Of Ueki sabotaged itself twice over

The first thing it did was something nobody saw coming for a work of genre-aware satire, it decided to take itself seriously

So I don't know what happened but my conjecture is Tsubasa Fukuchi, who has since exclusively worked on Comedic Anime since Ueki felt like he wasn't making as much money as the mainstream Action Mangaka, which is a real thing, Action Mangaka, especially those who attain Club 24 status are basically Rockstars in Japan

This is going to sound biased and reductive but in Japan they do not care if a Mangaka retcons, changes the original premise or even changes the entire Genre that they started with

Look at YuYu Hakusho, it was about a Private Detective who could communicate with Yokai, it was a quintessential monster/ mystery of the week Manga

Look at Naruto, it was about a prankster ninja kid who was still in ninja school and it was limited to that and nothing consequential actually happened

Look at Bleach, it was about a High School Kid who had to lead a double life as a Shinigami to aid an actual Shinigami - Rukia Kuchiki, he did that with the aid of Don Kanonji, a reality TV Star who claimed to be able to talk to spirits and was widely claimed to be a hoax, only for him to not only be spiritually aware like Ichigo but also be adept at combat like Ichigo as well, then of course there's - Kon, Ichigo's Mod Soul, who normally occupies a doll, he was Ichigo's body double for when Ichigo Kurosaki had to go be a Shinigami, that entire original premise got blown to smithereens

So the point is in Japan the Mangaka don't get called out even when they change the entire Genre that they started with, apparently that's so belligerent that even a genre-aware satire was allowed to change premise and start taking itself seriously

Here's where The Law Of Ueki really screwed itself over, it didn't know how to make the turn

It didn't know how to somehow start being serious

So wouldn't you know it Tsubasa Fukuchi turned to the hottest Action Anime of the time, YuYu Hakusho and Flame Of Rika, bear in mind neither Naruto nor Bleach were mainstream then

So that was a time when idiotic Tournament Arcs were celebrated, case in point both YuYu Hakusho and Flame Of Rika Tournament Arced themselves to death

So Tsubasa Fukuchi, could not distinguish that you didn't need idiotic Tournament Arcs to make an Action Anime successful, given how popular they were at the time

So Tsubasa Fukuchi in his attempt to make the Law Of Ueki serious, copied the entire Flame Of Rika storytelling pattern

You got a low stakes regional tournament for laughs and giggles which was actually a feeder tournament for a secret tournament being held in the basement of some rich guy's mansion for even more giggles but this time it's high society

What was the point of either tournament? some idiotic excuse the Mangaka made up haphazardly of course, which Anime am I talking about? both

So there you go, The Law Of Ueki started off as a parody, then the Mangaka wanted the rockstar treatment so the Manga turned serious and then it copied Flame Of Rika's structure and like Flame Of Rika, today it is considered unwatchable Tournament Arc garbage and it wasn't until One Punch Man decades later that we got a parody that remained a parody