Because while I could write about some of the best anime out there, let’s be honest – hating on anime can be so much more fun. And to be fair, some of these anime can be quite fun to watch if a) you have a masochist streak a mile wide, b) you’re drunk and/or high, or c) you enjoy watching something that fails so hard it’s genuinely funny. I believe any of these could easily applied to the below anime. Because I want to keep things relatively current, I decided to narrow my top 5 selection down to televised anime that have been released within the last several years.
Ro-Kyu-Bu! (2011)
Okay, so I lied. What this series is actually about is a guy who gets a sudden harem of grade schoolers after being assigned to coach a basketball team. Naturally, the five girls greet their new coach by wearing maid uniforms and calling him “master” in a bid to make a good first impression. Who doesn’t? And then there are shower scenes and stuff. And lots of comedy revolving around one of the girls’ extremely large chesticles. In all honesty, this series wouldn’t have even blipped on my radar if it hadn’t been posing as a sports comedy (yes, that’s what it’s actually listed under). Best of all, our main character stopped playing basketball himself because his team was disbanded after the coach was suspected of being a lolicon. I have to assume that even the creator of this series saw the irony in that.
Miracle Train (2009)
Everyone loves a good anthropomorphic train, am I right? No, that’s not a euphemism for anything. I have to give some kudos to this series – it’s certainly very informative. If you ever find your way onto the Miracle Train, six bishounen will give you more facts about their respective railway lines you could ever possibly want, while simultaneously solving whatever mundane problem it was that magically brought you onto Miracle Train in the first place (e.g. like being too organised or getting stressed from work). But only if you’re a young woman, because… well, just because. All educational intent aside, this show is the single biggest excuse for a reverse harem I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen quite a few). I’m also tempted to compare this title to Initial D, since to have any respect for Initial D you have to really, really like cars. Likewise, to find any kind of entertainment in Miracle Train, you either have to be a train otaku or else be head over heels in love with a bunch of anime guys no matter how ridiculous the narrative.
Devil May Cry (2007)
I feel a vague twinge of guilt in listing this one, just because any anime based on a video game almost guarantees that it’s going to be awful. Unfortunately, Devil May Cry is so bad that I just couldn’t help myself – it takes game-based anime to a whole new level of bad. Mostly this is because the anime tries to be bad-ass and fails miserably, and there’s never anything quite so cringe-worthy as a bad anime that tries hard to be cool. I’m well aware that the game itself is all about scoring points by attacking bad guys as stylishly as possible, but that’s no excuse for this anime’s patently ridiculous action scenes, or for the incredibly poor scripting. Even the voice acting for this is terrible – I had to keep checking just to make sure I wasn’t bleeding out of my ears (and the last time that happened I was accidentally watching Bible Black in English).
Manyuu Hikenchou (2011)
The title translates roughly as ‘Magic Breast Secret Sword Scroll’, and in a parallel-universe Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate has decreed that the bigger breasts you have, the higher social status you are bestowed. Those with small breasts are the lowest of the low, a subhuman species. Luckily, the main character has an amazing ninja technique that allows her to enlarge or reduce anyone’s breast size, and therefore makes it her ultimate goal to ensure that every woman in Japan has a decent-sized bust. Naturally there are two versions of the show. One of them has glowing beams of white light that quite literally takes up nearly half the screen whenever anyone’s breasts are exposed. The other version is the reason why ‘historical action’ as a genre is about as accurate as saying Ro-Kyu-Bu is all about basketball.
Rio: Rainbow Gate! (2011)
Now with added b00b-shine! This series also comes complete with lots of scantily-clad casino girls/babysitters (same thing, apparently), and an old guy with a most excellent beard and a gambling addiction. But then, it’s a gambling anime, so I’ll forgive him even if he does let his granddaughter wander around the casino befriending well-endowed card dealers at random. See, there’s this casino worker named Rio who somehow brings luck to customers just by walking past them, and when a young girl visits the casino with her grandfather (she can’t be much older than 10 but I guess it’s school holidays or something), she and Rio become BFFs as Rio competes to become the MVCD – the Most Valuable Casino Dealer in the world. … Now that I look back I’m not exactly sure why there’s a little girl wandering around with her stuffed teddy bear, but whatever. The point is, this is like Yu-Gi-Oh only with gambling battles instead of monster cards, and you know that’s gotta that’s a recipe for awesome right there.
Question of the post: What’s the worst anime you’ve seen within the past few years? Is it so bad that it’s good, or is it something that’s made you want to develop amnesia?
OTAKU LOUNGE 
The worst anime I’ve watched? Probably Full Moon wo Sagashite and Campione! While I liked the music in Full Moon, I wasn’t too keen on the fact that the plot didn’t stick to the original from the manga. Campione! is one that I really disliked due to whole harem idea and constantly snogging each other’s faces. I’m not into that.
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I haven’t seen anything of Campione!, but I tried out Full Moon a couple years back – I didn’t get very far. A pity because the artwork seemed nice enough, but yeah, unfortunately that just didn’t cut it.
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For me, I’ll say Guilty Crown(And this is before I found out who the staff behind it was), or maybe Sword Art Online(Although that is more because of the hatedom inside me, hence why the ‘maybe’). GC was just, terrible. It’s concepts and themes weren’t too well developed, but taken too seriously. The main character is boring, and Inori even plainer. I honestly found that guy who the main character drew out the killing scissors thing from more interesting than most of the cast. SAO, romance is seriously underdeveloped, Asuna is plain as heck, Kirito about just as broken as Asuna is plain, the world of SAO has potential, but was barely developed. Akihiko Kayaba would’ve been quite the fascinating villain, but they kind of brushed his motives and characterization away and portrayed him as THE villain(Which he is) and nothing more.
Anyways, I was interested in Rio Rainbowgate, but now I have one more title to add in to my avoid list(And why the hell were you watching Bible Black in english? xD)
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I haven’t seen anything of Guilty Crown and don’t intend to – although that has nothing to do with the infamy the series has garnered since its come out and everything to do with the quality. I actually have a lot of love for Sword Art Online though. Its flaws are obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes in their head, but despite its problems, I think the positive aspects of the show outweigh them for the most part.
Believe me, watching Bible Black in English dub (I lasted about 30 seconds) was completely unintentional. This was back when I was writing my PhD, and I had to do a brief chapter on the topic of hentai. Unfortunately there are some things you just can’t un-hear.
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A PhD that required hentai as research material, eh? WHAT COURSE IS THIS? MY CURIOSITY, YOU HAVE IT.
If nothing else, yes avoid Guilty Crown. SAO was bad, but in the end between having watched it and haven’t, I’d choose having watched it. At the very least, it entertains.
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I majored in English Lit., but in New Zealand, so long as you get things approved by the department and get at least two qualified supervisors on board, you get to choose your own topic for your doctoral thesis. So I wrote my PhD on representations of sexuality in anime. 🙂
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Welp I’m even more sure I should take Eng. Lit as my major now, even if I can’t take that topic. Probably not gonna aim for NZ, but how’s the course like?
Heard that college is hard enough that students don’t have time for anime. Guess that rumor was wrong.
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A PhD really depends on a lot of things – what your supervisors are like, how much you enjoy independent research, etc. etc. Personally I really loved it, but experience greatly differs from person to person. Some weeks/months were far busier than others, so I sometimes had time for anime in my free time and sometimes not. I finished my PhD last year though – now I’m working as a teacher in Japan.
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I’d be interested in reading an expanded post on your opinion of SAO. I was pleasantly surprised by it (that is, season 1), and shocked when I discovered it generated anti-Twilight levels of hate from a lot of people.
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I’m definitely planning on writing a full review of SAO at some point! 🙂
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Valvrave the Liberator from this season is pretty bad. At any given moment, I have absolutely no idea what’s happening or why, who the characters are or what they want and who or what anyone is actually fighting against. There’s lots of bright colors and fast paced action, but I’m pretty sure that’s there to distract you from thinking about how it makes zero sense. Don’t let the twist in episode one convince you to watch it. I made that mistake. I regret it.
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I hadn’t planned on watching it (with a couple of exceptions, mecha isn’t really my bag even at the best of times), but thanks for the heads-up. You’re not the only one I’ve seen complain about it, but I respect your opinion on these things more so than many others.
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I aggre with every one of these except Devil may Cry I liked that one. Sure I’ve only seen 1 episode but I think it was rather bad ass. I might buy it on DVD as soon as I get some green in my pants. Anyways I’ve subscribed to you’re blog can you subscribe to mine.
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I honestly couldn’t make it more than a few episodes through Devil May Cry – it was bad enough to literally make me cringe.
In any case, your blog looks quite interesting, and I’ll take a proper look at everything when I get home from work.
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Hmmm, between Ookami Kakushi, Kurokami, and Sacred Blacksmith. I’d have to say Sacred Blacksmith is the worst. So bad it’s good? All I can think of is Valvrave at the moment. But I think I’ll go with Kill Me Baby. I know it’s garbage, but I get enjoyment out of it anyway. And I’ll leave it at that. I could talk about horrible anime all day long.
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I guess that’s both the good and bad thing about anime. On the one hand, it’s great that there’s so many titles available, and with so much variety in terms of genre and storylines. On the other hand, with the sheer amount of material out there, it’s natural for there to be boatloads of crap along with the good.
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Out of recent shows, the worst thing I’ve survived is Total Eclipse. First it tried to be a horror/suspense sci-fi thing, then a philosophical political drama, then it just broke down into boobs and robots. Somehow it failed at ALL of those things, with terribly written dialogue, cardboard cutout characters and some awful dips in animation quality. The worst thing though is it had what it needed to be good, it just couldn’t put the pieces together. I mean as terrible as something like Manyuu Hikenchou or Rio: Rainbow Gate is, you pretty much know what you’re getting into. I think it’s much worse when something has potential and then totally drops the ball.
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That’s true – you pretty much know that shows like Manyuu Hikenchou or Rio: Rainbow Gate are going to be train wrecks before you even watch the OP, but it sucks when something has a lot of potential and then turns out to be a disappointment. I haven’t actually seen anything of Total Eclipse so can’t really comment, but it does sound as though it’s pretty bad. I’ll be avoiding that one then.
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I watched Rio: Rainbow Gate! when it first aired and have a draft post ridiculing it. I had no idea what it was when I first started watching it and just sat through the first few episodes wondering why I was wasting my time. Total Eclipse was pretty bad as well. As far as the worst anime I’ve seen in the last couple of years… Apart from Rio and Eclipse I have managed to avoid them. I used to watch quite a few back in the 90’s. I still have the scars.
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Ouch, anime scars from the 90s. No doubt that would be a whole separate blog post all on its own…
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I’m familiar with all the shows here but I didn’t finish any of them. I guess they were really bad like this list said. Devil May Cry was so bad I dropped it after the first episode. Shame since the games are fantastic. Now they’ll be in business if they were to release more than two games.
Still for all the (hilariously) bad anime here, I have to confess that Miracle train has an awesome name. It already has train in it. I mean, how can a show with such name go wrong?
As for worst anime that I still inexplicably enjoyed? I wouldn’t say the best (of the worst) but Code Breaker was so ridiculous that I began to think the author was a bit of a genius, in such way that makes her work so terrible that it was enjoyable.
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Haha, Code Breaker was pretty bad, wasn’t it? It’s far from the worst anime I’ve ever seen, but I also wasn’t able to finish that one. A real shame too, because some of the visuals were quite lovely during the action sequences – very fluid. Unfortunately, it took more than good animation to save it, and at the end of the day Code Breaker just didn’t deliver.
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Hey, Artemis, nice to meet you. About bad anime, it’s not in recent years, but the voice acting in the Samurai Deeper Kyo English dub really butchered it. The leads were okay, but the ensemble was…yuck.
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Likewise – always great to meet like-minded people, and all the more so when they have a location in common. Japan’s a great place to be. 🙂
To be honest, most things about Samurai Deeper Kyo screamed ‘bad anime’ to me, dub or sub. I’ll readily admit to being fairly biased though; there are very few action shounen anime that I like, and Samurai Deeper Kyo reminded me too much of shows like Naruto, which frankly I loathe. That’s just personal taste though – I won’t bag on someone for liking something that I don’t.
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Watch Mars of Destruction. Nothing will seem bad in retrospect.
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I’ll put it on my drunken rainy day list. 😉
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My suggestion: Coppelion
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I wrote this article quite a while before Coppelion came out. That said, if I were to write another of these articles, Coppelion would almost certainly make the list. You’re right – it was really was terrible.
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Everyone here is just retard that like to complaint, and nothing else would fit your personality.
Drop dead.
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Sorry, but I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say. I assume you’re attempting to either insult me or the other people commenting, but based on your English, I actually have no idea which. In any case, if you genuinely have something to say, I think you should at least have the guts to not hide behind an anonymous comment.
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Hi there, I log on to your new stuff daily.
Your writing style is witty, keep up the good work!
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Thank you for saying so – I’m glad you enjoy it. 🙂
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Greetings! This is my 1st comment here so I just
wanted to give a quick shout out and tell you I genuinely
enjoy reading your blog posts. Can you recommend any other blogs/websites/forums
that go over the same subjects? Thanks!
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Thank you for saying so – I’m glad you enjoy my posts. There are a great many other blogs right here on WordPress that cover the same kinds of subjects, including those written by some of the commenters on these posts. You could try taking a look at their work for a start, or otherwise simply search WordPress with keywords such as ‘anime’, or even just a quick Google search for ‘anime blog’ or similar.
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Haha I watched a bunch of horrible anime and for me the worst is Legend of duo. The music is… well, there are two : one with an organ for “dramatic” scenes and the other one is 00’s techno for “action”… well, they tried., The plot looses you from the first minute, the voice actors seem dead inside, the drawings are pretty basic, the animation… well, at least they move I guess. 12 episodes of 5min each of crap, but wonderful crap as you won’t be able to stop laughing.
In that same category of “so bad it’s good”, eiken is great. Two ovas of one of the ugliest ecchi you’ve ever seen, physics of boobs like helium baloons and a wtf plot.
On the side of “horrible and wierd” is professor shameless (if you like hentai, piss, sexual harrasment and no censorship… this is the perfect anime for you) and rapeman (the title tells everything).
And then… yaois. There are some wonderfully bad yaois out there. Maybe you already know that scene of a guy fucking another with corn. If you don’t, you can discover it in… “My sexuall harrasment”. Sounds lovely huh ? Anyway, if you can laugh even in wierd situations like… porn/corn, these 3 ovas will be perfect when you need to laugh at stupid things around 3 am.
Level C is another yaoi from which you can resume by “-Hello young man I just met, could you let me sleep in your house even if you don’t even know me ? You see, I’m homeless and broke, so I’ll pay in nature. -Lol k”, I don’t need to say more I think.
If you already know Boku no pico and that you got out of this without being traumatized, well, congratulations, and then you can try being traumatized with some more child porn with “Maid Kuro” there is one anime version and one animated manga version (forgot the real name of that thing), both are pretty horrible and disturbing.
My list is finished for the moment but a lot more of horrible anime are still awaiting to be watched~ And don’t forget : if you think One Piece, Naruto or School days have flaws, nothing can beat legend of duo and eiken.
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I’ve seen some of these titles, though not all. Some do indeed are/sound hilariously bad, while others just sound plain bad…
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Wait… There was an anime where a chick could control the size of another chick’s breasts?
….
No… No I don’t think I’m on acid….
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There sure was. And despite the hilarious synopsis, it wasn’t even one of those ‘so bad it’s actually good’ things either – it was just plain awful.
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As bad as that sounds, nothing can be worse than Ore Tama, an manga who’s plot revolves around female demons trying to get a guy to ejaculate so that the Devil can be released from his balls and bring about Armageddon.
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… Yep. Probably not. 0_0
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