Ask John: What Are the Most Disappointing Anime Ever?

Question:
What are the biggest train wrecks in anime, in your opinion? Not neccessarily the worst anime titles, per se, but fatally marred by awful direction, animation, etc, or just completely ineffective at accomplishing their purpose, if they had one in the first place.

Answer:
Biggest train wrecks of anime, eh? That’s a tough one because it’s not as simple as “bad anime.” Bad anime are often bad because they had very little potential in the first place because they were sadled with a minimal budget or other shackles, or didn’t aspire to tremendous literary or cinematic greatness. On the other hand, this is a question about which anime titles I’ve seen that most obviously failed to live up to their promise or potential. I find that most of the examples that come to mind are relatively recent ones. That’s not to say that prior decades didn’t have bad anime because they certainly did. However, I think that over the past decade or so anime has become far more sophisticated, allowing much more room for an anime to potentially not deliver on its promised quality or not live up to the expectations it creates. During the 1970s, 80s and 90s we didn’t expect as much from anime as we do now, so I think that during those decades it was far more likely for an anime to be either good or bad, rather than disappointing. Of course, this refers to only my own observations as an American anime fan. The 1970s and 80s had many wonderful anime titles, and many bad ones. But more recent anime titles like Gunbuster, Evangelion, Giant Robo, Perfect Blue, Fushigi Yuugi, and so forth have elevated our expectations for the potential of anime, so it’s now more possible for an anime to have lofty aspirations that it fails to reach in spectacular Icarian fashion.

The first example that comes to mind is Gunparade March, a show based on a critically acclaimed Playstation game, and one that within the show itself hinted at character development and intriguing moral and philosophical explanations for its setting. However, rather than develop as an exploration of the effects of war on children, or as an ethical/theological musing on poetic justice on a universal scale, the show reduced itself to being an unconvincing and superficial romantic comedy of errors. Sadly, director Katsushi Sakurabi seems to have made a career out of helming underwhelming anime, being also responsible for the exceptionally disposable Fight! Spirit of the Sword OAV, and the my second example, Shingetsutan Tsukihime. Once again, the Tsukihime anime took one of Japan’s most beloved video games and stripped all of the depth and character development out of it, and criminally abbreviated the story development, leaving behind just an anime TV series with nothing to recommend about it except a moody atmosphere.

I hope it won’t be necessary for me to once again rehash my disappointment with Wolf’s Rain.

I eagerly anticipated both the Ikkitousen and Tenjoh Tenge anime series, hoping for both of them to provide a follow up to the severly under appreciated Air Master. Sadly, both were major disappointments. After the amazing fight choreography and animation of Air Master, Ikkitousen didn’t even bother to actually illustrate most of its fights, and Tenjoh Tenge relied on editing tricks and dynamic camera angles to obscure the fact that it had relatively poor animation quality for its fight scenes. Ikkitousen at least had a story, albeit a poorly developed one. Tenjoh Tenge seemingly had a story that got so marginalized by flashback scenes that added virtually no character depth to the show that after 26 episodes we’re left with nothing more than a mere introduction to a story. Ikkitousen had a strong combination of fan service and action but plied its fan service so bluntly that it became numbing and idiotic. And sadly the show did almost nothing with its action, leaving the show nothing but unfulfilled potential. Tenjoh Tenge had an appealing cast and good production values, but allowed awful story composition to ruin any hope the show had of being compelling or involving.

I almost feel guilty for picking on Gundress, but if anything in the history of anime is a train wreck, it’s got to be this film. As the first anime project involving Masamune Shirow after the international success of the Ghost in the Shell movie, and a major theatrical motion picture featuring remarkably representative Shirow character designs and landmate armor suits, Gundress should have been an amazing, breathtaking cyberpunk action spectacular. Instead, what viewers got was an unfinished feature length film produced with a 30 minute long OAV budget and a straight to video quality story. Rather than blame the animation staff for this debacle, I pity them. With the film as horrendous as it is, I can only believe that the staff was confronted with circumstances beyond their control. I just can’t believe that any professional animators in Japan would willingly choose to allow something this bad to see public release. In fact, I can’t even unreservedly call it bad because it seems unfair to critique a film that was released in work-in-progress condition.

I’ll mention the Violinst of Hameln television series only briefly, not because it was bad, but because it didn’t meet its potential. What there is of the show is amazing. The television animation has outstanding music, strong characters, wonderful art design, and an exceptional story. What it doesn’t have is good animation. If it had been given an adequate budget to provide smooth, full animation, the Violinst of Hameln television series could have been one of the all time classic anime TV shows.

I’m torn over whether to call the Cosmo Warrior Zero and Samurai Girl: Real Bout High School series ones that dramatically failed to live up to their promise, or just plain bad shows. Perhaps the very fact that I can’t be certain of whether either series had unfulfilled potential, or if either series was just a plain wretched production qualifies both as “train wrecks” that are terrible but fascinating, aggrevating failures.

Likewise, I was initially hesitant to mention the Secret of Blue Water movie because I’m more apt to think of it as a terrible anime than as a disappointment. But I also consider it a blasphemy to the Nadia TV series, which makes it qualify as a disappointment. For an OAV that follows the outstanding Nadia television series (desert island episodes nonwithstanding), I think it’s impossible not to expect and hope for a certain level of quality out of the Nadia movie. But the movie’s hideous animation quality and art design, poorly concieved story, and ill concieved characterizations are so bad that they virtually taint the excellent television series that carries the same name.

Finally I come to the Mezzo TV series. As a tremendous fan of Yasuomi Umetsu’s Yellow Star, Kite, and Mezzo Forte anime, I had high hopes for this show. My anticipation was amply rewarded with the initial two or three episodes, then just as equally disappointed by the horrifying plumit in the show’s production quality. I get the feeling that, as the first mainstream anime TV series by Studio Arms, a company well known for producing adult anime, the animators tried their best to make the show succeed to validate their studio’s legitimacy in the mainstream anime market. Especially the show’s first two episodes are an outstanding follow-up to the great original OAV series. But like a true train wreck, the series’ writing, animation quality, and occasionally even art quality all derail and sink to shocking depths throughout much of the rest of the series. Even though the animation quality redeems itself in the final two episodes, the story climax is still weak, leaving the climactic saving grace a bit too little, too late.

Thanks to Jonathan Hertzog for serving as a sounding board for me to bounce ideas off of.