I'm talking bottom of the barrel here folks, like, Master of Martial Hearts bad. An anime that fails on so many levels, or one so distasteful that it sickens you to your core.
Remember to be respectful of other people's tastes.
For me the bottom of the barrel is the 2014 Sunrise anime Cross Ange. A mech anime with a female protagonist sounded appealing, but of course this is from the people who made Code Geass so I already figured it would have fanservice.
This is gonna get long, and has light spoilers.
A warning to those who are sensitive to uncomfortable things. This anime IS made of them.
I do apologize if this ramble offends anyone. Feel free to share your thoughts or list an anime that you feel went horribly, horribly wrong.
Remember to be respectful of other people's tastes.
For me the bottom of the barrel is the 2014 Sunrise anime Cross Ange. A mech anime with a female protagonist sounded appealing, but of course this is from the people who made Code Geass so I already figured it would have fanservice.
This is gonna get long, and has light spoilers.
A warning to those who are sensitive to uncomfortable things. This anime IS made of them.
...That doesn't even begin to describe it. The show is sexualized to the point of being downright laughable. The uniforms the mech pilots wear are so exaggeratedly revealing that you cannot imagine they were made with any kind of logic in mind. They also can't go a minute without closing up on the bodies of our all-female protagonists, doing slow pans across their bodies and throwing logic away for any opportunity to get these girls naked.
The first episode brought the show into vaguely obscure infamy by ending with its main character being literally bent over a table and given a "physical" by a mechanical hand. It wouldn't have been so distasteful it if it wasn't clearly framed as fanservice, and it wouldn't have been so insulting if not for the fact that it has zero impact on the protagonist. No psychological trauma or anything that might build her character. It's just a thing that happened. They don't even explain it beyond calling it a physical. Fans like to justify it in so many ways like "Cavity searches happen in prison" and "it was a spinal operation so she could pilot the mech" but if it isn't properly explained and doesn't further the story, it doesn't need to be there.
The show seems to exist purely to pander to its audience, as it throws in mindless yuri scenes virtually every episode and constantly has the characters being stripped or demeaned in very unpleasant and always sexual ways. And the majority of the characters (particularly the protagonist) are so catty and nasty to each other that you'd swear it was written by some guy who got friendzoned and wanted to vent about how he thinks all women are awful and deserve the things that happen to them.
The animation is horrendously bad, blending constantly off-model animation and CG into an awkward mess that's just unpleasant to look at.
The writing itself is so laughably bad that a lot of the show's defenders claim it's some kind of parody or satire, when really it doesn't even try. There's a theme of racism in this show, but it's handled so laughably and illogically and in the end, the questions the show sets up (like why this racism has to happen in the first place) are answered so poorly that you'd think the writers were just going "Eh. who cares, they just wanna see more naked ladies."
At one point they introduce the idea that two characters met repeatedly in different lifetimes or alternate worlds, and that goes absolutely nowhere, has no relevance and is never mentioned again.
There's also the next-episode previews, which are often jokey in nature and lampshade how poorly written the show is, like having one character CLEARLY die one episode, only to come back perfectly fine and the previewers claim he's a ninja. Another character who got shot, stabbed, run over by a car and blown up with said car and they waved it by having her pull an impossibly large frying pan out of her clothes, which took the bullet. It doesn't work because of how seriously the episodes themselves try to be.
The show tries to do a lot of shocking and edgy things but when you have fanservice thrown in your face every ten seconds, it's impossible for me to take seriously.
The main character basically goes from being a whiny ignorant racist into being what a lot of people THINK a strong female character is, a character with no depth beyond being hardcore and trash talking, and despite this she still needs her male love interest to constantly protect her. Not to mention there's this hilaaaaaaaarious running-gag where the guy unrealistically trips and falls on her, with his face always ending up buried between her legs. And the main villain is literally a rapist. So yea.
I don't like to use the word "sexist" to describe an anime, and I know a lot of anime have ecchi fanservice and whatnot, but none that I've ever seen felt this mean-spirited and degrading toward its badly written female characters.
The first episode brought the show into vaguely obscure infamy by ending with its main character being literally bent over a table and given a "physical" by a mechanical hand. It wouldn't have been so distasteful it if it wasn't clearly framed as fanservice, and it wouldn't have been so insulting if not for the fact that it has zero impact on the protagonist. No psychological trauma or anything that might build her character. It's just a thing that happened. They don't even explain it beyond calling it a physical. Fans like to justify it in so many ways like "Cavity searches happen in prison" and "it was a spinal operation so she could pilot the mech" but if it isn't properly explained and doesn't further the story, it doesn't need to be there.
The show seems to exist purely to pander to its audience, as it throws in mindless yuri scenes virtually every episode and constantly has the characters being stripped or demeaned in very unpleasant and always sexual ways. And the majority of the characters (particularly the protagonist) are so catty and nasty to each other that you'd swear it was written by some guy who got friendzoned and wanted to vent about how he thinks all women are awful and deserve the things that happen to them.
The animation is horrendously bad, blending constantly off-model animation and CG into an awkward mess that's just unpleasant to look at.
The writing itself is so laughably bad that a lot of the show's defenders claim it's some kind of parody or satire, when really it doesn't even try. There's a theme of racism in this show, but it's handled so laughably and illogically and in the end, the questions the show sets up (like why this racism has to happen in the first place) are answered so poorly that you'd think the writers were just going "Eh. who cares, they just wanna see more naked ladies."
At one point they introduce the idea that two characters met repeatedly in different lifetimes or alternate worlds, and that goes absolutely nowhere, has no relevance and is never mentioned again.
There's also the next-episode previews, which are often jokey in nature and lampshade how poorly written the show is, like having one character CLEARLY die one episode, only to come back perfectly fine and the previewers claim he's a ninja. Another character who got shot, stabbed, run over by a car and blown up with said car and they waved it by having her pull an impossibly large frying pan out of her clothes, which took the bullet. It doesn't work because of how seriously the episodes themselves try to be.
The show tries to do a lot of shocking and edgy things but when you have fanservice thrown in your face every ten seconds, it's impossible for me to take seriously.
The main character basically goes from being a whiny ignorant racist into being what a lot of people THINK a strong female character is, a character with no depth beyond being hardcore and trash talking, and despite this she still needs her male love interest to constantly protect her. Not to mention there's this hilaaaaaaaarious running-gag where the guy unrealistically trips and falls on her, with his face always ending up buried between her legs. And the main villain is literally a rapist. So yea.
I don't like to use the word "sexist" to describe an anime, and I know a lot of anime have ecchi fanservice and whatnot, but none that I've ever seen felt this mean-spirited and degrading toward its badly written female characters.
I do apologize if this ramble offends anyone. Feel free to share your thoughts or list an anime that you feel went horribly, horribly wrong.
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