Your controversial anime opinions.

Lord Bacchus

Lord Bacchus

Student Council President
I thought I'd start a thread to see the opinions of people here that fly in the face of the generally accepted consensus. This can be, opinions on things you consider overrated/underrated, guilty pleasures etc. I'll start.

1. I do not care for the films of Hayao Miyazaki. I've watched a fair few of them out of what felt like an obligation just to see if I was missing something, but found them insufferably boring. I do like Grave of the Fireflies though, although that isn't Miyazaki or even Ghibli. I get annoyed when people compare Shinkai to Miyazaki, because I think Shinkai is much better than Miyazaki. :D

2. I quite liked the School Days anime. I thought the concept of watching a harem protagonist who is a complete monster inflict psychological trauma on people around him, before having brutal retribution brought down on him a stroke of genius. The ending is amazing.

3. I don't think Attack on Titan is that good, and I don't care about series 2 or how long it is.

If this thread has already been made somewhere else then I apologise.
 
Lord Bacchus said:
2. I quite liked the School Days anime. I thought the concept of watching a harem protagonist who is a complete monster inflict psychological trauma on people around him, before having brutal retribution brought down on him a stroke of genius. The ending is amazing.
Click to expand...

While I haven't watched the anime (shocker!), I did however spend about £60 on the visual novel (blame the overpricing at MCM Comic Con London back in October 2014). To my surprise the visual novel was pretty damn good imo, heck the characters were more likable compared to what I heard from the anime adaptation. I didn't get the violent endings (myself and the folks in my flat tried to, but we ended up with the Christmas Eve ending instead lol) but it was pretty entertaining all the way.

Oh and the sex scenes are practically gifs replayed all over, it was so hilarious that I almost died from laughing.
 
1. I find Attack on Titan one of the most boring anime I've ever watched with an absolutely convoluted plot that the author just makes up as he goes along. The only saving grace for the anime is its animation, but that can't make me watch that shitshow.

2. I find SAO the most overrated anime of all time. The characters are flat, and barely any of the anime is actually spent on interesting online features of MMORPGs, which is based off. The only decent parts of SAO are the first half of Season 1, and the Calibur Arc of Season 2. The rest was just either boring, or extremely cringy.

3. Chaos Dragon isn't as bad as people say. It does have horrific pacing problems especially when you get a screen with 1-2 paragraphs of text trying to give depth to the world story, but instead just go ignored with some weird characters and flaky CGI. I found the entire show though to be entertaining and watched it fully.


Can't think of any others atm.
 
Oh I've got a couple more.

1. I don't know why Elfen Lied is considered an anime classic, or why it's on so many "must watch" viewing lists. I think it was a mediocre, unmemorable anime that is only remembered by some because it had some gore in the first few minutes.

2. The Evangelion movies are better than the series.
 
Probably kind of moot, as I think the number of people who actually care is tailing off now, but I'd rather watch the tv version of Hellsing than sit through Ultimate again. People cry salt tears over the insertion of anime original content and sure, the animation is not a patch on the OVAs, but I at least appreciate that Gonzo tried to flesh out the setting and characters into something resembling a developed narrative, as opposed to Ultimate, which might as well be a blood and guts highlight reel. Honestly I got bored of Ultimate after the third one.
 
Professor Irony said:
Probably kind of moot, as I think the number of people who actually care is tailing off now, but I'd rather watch the tv version of Hellsing than sit through Ultimate again. People cry salt tears over the insertion of anime original content and sure, the animation is not a patch on the OVAs, but I at least appreciate that Gonzo tried to flesh out the setting and characters into something resembling a developed narrative, as opposed to Ultimate, which might as well be a blood and guts highlight reel. Honestly I got bored of Ultimate after the third one.
Click to expand...

While I myself prefer Ultimate, I did not think the series was horrible by any means. The music in the series was also top notch, especially the opening.
 
One more for now.

Despite what the long lived meme insists, the Tsukihime anime does in fact exist, and we are all just going to have to accept this knowledge at some point (and hope that the kind people at ufotable eventually make an anime that's worthy).
 
Ooh, I think I'm gonna like this thread. :D
Lord Bacchus said:
I do not care for the films of Hayao Miyazaki. ... I think Shinkai is much better than Miyazaki.
Click to expand...
I personally find Nausicaa, Laputa and Princess Mononoke highly overrated. I find Goro Miyazaki to be tremendously underrated as a director: I much prefer Tales from Earthsea to all of the aforementioned three, and I'm a huge fan of Poppy Hill. I'm also a big fan of The Cat Returns; again I much prefer it to those first three.

I still think Hayao Miyazaki is much more consistent than Shinkai, though. I'm very fond of Kiki's Delivery Service and Ponyo, and I'm an absolutely colossal fan of The Wind Rises. And Your Name. :p

Lord Bacchus said:
I don't think Attack on Titan is that good, and I don't care about series 2 or how long it is.
Click to expand...
Lambadelta said:
I find Attack on Titan one of the most boring anime I've ever watched with an absolutely convoluted plot that the author just makes up as he goes along. The only saving grace for the anime is its animation, but that can't make me watch that shitshow.
Click to expand...
Amen to that! (See rant.)

Lord Bacchus said:
The Evangelion movies are better than the series.
Click to expand...
I would largely agree with this. Maybe. I can't decide. Eva 3.33 is the stumbling block for me.
 
Here's mine:
1. The original FMA has a terrible ending (
Ed and Hohenheim ending up in our world and Nazi Hughes
).

I also feel that Dante was a pretty lousy villain with weak motivations and little character development (
Still not sure how she even dies in that elevator since Gluttony didn't even have a jaw at that stage
)

I feel the anime is a little too grimdark in places, but up until the second half is really good and then kinda stalls in places, and the homunculi are barely developed aside from Lust (something Brotherhood lacked). Wrath makes me want to smack something. The filler-ish episodes involving the Tringam brothers and that phantom thief episode are a complete waste of time, though I loved the side story involving Mustang and his men.

Robo Frank Archer is both the funniest and the stupidest thing I've ever seen in an anime and it's a hilariously terrible creation that wastes a solid villain (an early Troy Baker role too).
Finally, Hohenhein here is a wasted opportunity, so I'm glad that Brotherhood and the manga utilised him properly and made him into my favourite father in anime.

2. I much prefer the anime ending of Evangelion to EoE, I find EoE to be too out there and relentlessly grim, and it strays too far from what I feel the show was trying to convey. The film is certainly intriguing and is an interesting counterpoint but I can't say I enjoyed it very much.

3. I seem to prefer dubs for a lot of the anime I watch, though I can acknowledge that there are some truly terrible dubs out there, old and new, and that the subs for the anime I watch are also good (I often test out both and sometimes deviate between the two)

4.
Aces death in One Piece didn't really do anything for me, I didn't feel enough of a connection to the guy to care about his passing. It acted as more of a vital plot point than anything else.

That's all of mine for now, I'm sure I have some more but I'll hold off. I find this topic very interesting since it's possible that you'll find agreements you didn't expect to have or unpopular opinions that others share :p
 
Last edited:
If I were asked to pick any one anime that I've watched to get a second season I would pick Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou.

Watching 20 eps of Gintama was one of the biggest wastes of time in my life.

I firmly believe that the Japanese otaku fandom is far better at picking good stuff to make popular than the western anime fandom is.
 
Martian Successor Nadesico isn't very good.

Gall Force and Gundam ZZ are great.

I've enjoyed western cartoons of the last few years more than anime from the same period.
 
kuuderes_shadow said:
I firmly believe that the Japanese otaku fandom is far better at picking good stuff to make popular than the western anime fandom is.
Click to expand...

Wasn't Kemono Friends the most popular anime in Japan last season? The Japanese fandom sometimes favours some real off-kilter stuff, and I love that. Since whenever there is a new Monogatari series in Japan it immediately goes to the top of the charts, I have to agree with your assessment, the people have good taste. Often the top thing among the western fandom can be downright baffling. I think according to the CR popularity ranking, it is almost always Naruto at number one (at least here where we can't get One Piece), but I swear that for a long time Twin Star Exorcists sat at number two...and I don't know why. :D

The western fanbase is usually quite easy to predict in that way. It is almost always gonna be the biggest shounen shows occupying the top spots at any given time, whereas in Japan there tends to be a bit of variance, with real off the wall stuff appearing from time to time and shaking things up.

kuuderes_shadow said:
#
Watching 20 eps of Gintama was one of the biggest wastes of time in my life.
Click to expand...

Though I myself love Gintama with a passion, I completely agree with your assessment of the early episodes. It's one of those ones that doesn't get really good for a long while. I wouldn't expect anyone to sit through it if they found it unbearable to watch, and that has turned a lot of people off from watching it (including several people I've tried to recommend it to in the past). :D
 
Last edited:
Venus Wars was a let down. Jumpy story and a character with screechy vocals (and a faux southern belle accent).

I actually like Landlock (can't explain it).
 
Back
Top