I felt like I was supposed to have sympathy for him
Quite a few characters in a lot of animes fall into this "sympathy character" setting, but yeah the authors sometimes struggle to actually make us feel bad for them. Sometimes I'm literally rooting for the bad guy lol
them not saying the attack move EVERY time
Actually I can sometimes deal with that. Probably depends on the anime or the attack name itself. Sometimes the name of the attack is like the chant/spell for it, like the attack spells in Bleach, which helps to make it less cringe worthy.
Something else that gets me annoyed, but sort of can't be helped is that in a group setting (ie classroom) there is always ONE AND ONLY ONE OF EVERYTHING, such as a class will always have one otaku, one library/quiet girl, one group of three deliquents, one sporty girl ,one bishounen, one transfer student etc. This is understandable as the story has to be interesting, and having character "doubles" can reduce their individual value, but it's hard to swallow when its every anime that does it, and you start to pick out the stereotypes in like 5 seconds. having one stereotype is hard to avoid, but having a whole bunch is a tad annoying.
Don't know what I would do to avoid it though, without giving everyone screen time you can't develop them in depth, and if they really are not important they won't get the time, so its necessary that we understand who they are quickly.
I suppose in that sense I prefer completely background characters (sometimes faceless) who are only there to fill up numbers, like extras in a cafe or something. Either have someone who is of good value or have someone who has no value at all.
this is what is better than bad extra characters
NO extra characters