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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