Wednesday, November 11, 2015

T5W#13 -Top 5 Most Disappointing Anime Series


Not every Anime is a sure fire hit, nothing in media ever is.  Expectations can be high, like Dark Knight Rises high.  And when the production cant live up to that hype, you feel it, badly.  These are 5 such examples of Anime I was looking forward to, watched (mostly in some cases) but ultimately walked away wanting those hours of my life back.

 

#5-Trinity Blood

This show had the potential to be the next Hellsing.  A Vatican special unit with a Vampire at it’s head, this is a golden premise.  But not only is it unoriginal: A Vampire with a shoddy past who acts like a goofy priest but has a demonic side when pushed too far is so totally Kenshin Himura or Vash the Stampede, it is BOOOOOORING.  Trinity Blood spends most of it’s episodes in long arcs that never really go anywhere and it’s mostly Father Nightroad doing all of the work.  There are other members in his special unit but their either don’t show up too much or when they do, they’re such as waste of time it isn’t even funny.  I don’t think I ever watched Trinity Blood all the way through as it did enough damage early on for me to write it off as a failure.  Even when I gave the ending a chance, the door left open for a sequel should be bolted shut, covered in cement and tossed into the deepest ocean cavern, never to be found again.

 

#4-X-Men: The Anime

Again, this show had so much golden potential.  Hell even the Japanese airings of the 90’s X-Men series had custom Japanese Anime style openings that were more bad ass than the show.  Show why was this one such a let down?  Underplay, pure and simple.  For all the bad assness the X-Men are capable of, theyre put on a pretty short leash.  Even when Wolverine is allowed to cut loose, he doesn’t for very long.  I loved the designs of the characters, especially Storm and Emma Frost.  But throw in unnecessary repetitive character arcs like Cyclops being a very incapable leader, an annoying mutant spirit mecha girl (figure that one out though I hear she’s in the comics) and a finale that turns into another Akira rip off and I see why the Marvel Anime Universe is kind of reviled besides the Iron Man entries (and even then the Iron Man: Rise of Technovore movie totally turned into Akira at the end).  Come on Marvel: your characters plus Anime should be a no brainer…so do it like your movies and do it right.

 

#3-Gundam Seed Destiny

This one is pretty bad and by bad I mean im not alone in hating this entry in the Gundam franchise.  Any chance of glory this saga had after Gundam Seed is squandered pretty fast.  The show starts off well enough with upped stakes and a bold new start of conflict.  But then we have to travel around with the worst put together cast in any Gundam series, complete with a protagonist I cant even call a protagonist.  Any reason we have to root for Shinn Asuka is never warranted and even when forced I wasn’t willing to like him.  The reused animation is too often a handicap for big battles, characters change allegiances based on how long they’ve been off screen and the end battles suddenly turns in the direction of the good guys just because it’s time to wrap things up with the best happily ever after it can manage.  It’s sad when your most positive thoughts come from the cool theme songs from TM Revolution and Nami Tamaki.  But this was the first time I had watched a Gundam series, wishing episode after episode that it would get better.  Ultimately though, I wanted my 50 episodes of watch time back.

 

#2-Dragon Ball GT

I had heard things before.  Somehow I didn’t want to believe it.  From the moment me and my friends started delving into Dragon Ball Z, learning the story far beyond what was being shown in the US at the time, it was inevitable we’d find GT.  Giant Super Saiyan Monkeys?  Gohan, Goten and Trunks grown up and looking serious?  Those same monkeys doing Kamehameha waves?  What the heck was going on?  And then I watched the show…dear God.  There’s a reason that GT never reached the 291 episode count of it’s predecessor, Z.  First off, the show ditches the formula winning fighter set up that made Z a hit in exchange for a return to Dragon Ball’s earlier adventure roots.  Fail automatically, especially after Z’s high.  Trunks has nothing to do.  Pan is easily the series killing cancer and Kid Goku is just as annoying as he ever was.  By the time GT tried to get things back to Z level quality, the damage was done.  Even a cool fusion between Goku and Vegeta into a Super Saiyan Level 4 Gogeta and the brief return of Frieza and Cell couldn’t save GT from being cancelled at 64 episodes.  Many fans consider this series NON CANNON since series Godfather Akira Toriyama didn’t have a hand in it’s production.  But is GT really that bad?  Well just look at Dragon Ball Super and see how theyre completely wipping the slate clean of GT’s mess.  Yeah GT is that bad…nevermind the incredibly cringe inducing rap theme song they put in the English Dub, talk about a bad sign of things to come.

 

#1-Gundam Build Fighters Try

Come on, you didn’t see this coming?  Not sure how much detail I want to pour into this one since I did a full blown rant on this a few months back(http://gundamanimeblog.blogspot.com/2015/09/gundam-anime-rant-gundam-build-fighters.html ). 
 
Short version: Gundam Build Fighters Try took the fun and optimistic feel of Gundam Build Fighters and turned it into an overdramatized, depressing and downright scary take on a fun looking sport.  Sekai is a terrible clone of Reiji, the less said about Yuuma the better (Go die in a fire).  Even the inclusion of a cute female lead in Hoshino cant mask how really disappointing this series was for me, downright heartbreaking.  And here I thought it couldn’t get any worse than Seed Destiny…I was wrong, I was soooooo wrong.

 

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