My biggest disappointments in entertainment

The original Ghost in the Shell is my favourite anime movie. This sequel is nowhere near its level, the dialogue is the most pretentious I'd heard (well, read) in anime until now and the storyline is pretty weak. I was completely bored while watching this movie and the only thing I liked about it was its soundtrack. To this day I didn't find a bigger letdown.

I heard a lot of good things about it but what made me decide to watch it was it being compared with Serial Experiments Lain, which instantly became my favourite anime, I mean, THING, ever. I watched this one right after Lain and hated it almost completely, mostly because of its chaotic narrative and inconsistent atmosphere. With that said, I consider it a great show, but I didn't like it, at all.

If it weren't for the previous two being related or compared to two of my favourite pieces of entertainment ever, this would be at the top. Imagine a show about a robot girl with existential issues, which makes her goes through a personality disorder, sounds like a combination between Serial Experiments Lain and Ghost in the Shell doesn't it? That girl also wants to become an idol, and said industry is showed in a pretty dark way, so it has a Perfect Blue vibe too. This show had absolutely everything to become an instant favourite of mine, but it didn't happen because of unsatisfactory resolutions, over the top character reactions and PAINFULLY SLOW pacing. I ended up being bored with this one.

Rappers, electro music, Akira watching porn in the school and references to the 70's series which has nothing to do with the original manga. The Devilman manga was never good but I liked it regardless, this adaptation made superficial changes to it and made me hate it completely.

To be fair, I enjoyed this title during its highlights, but for the rest of its duration I found myself very bored while watching it, the crude animation didn't help either. That aside, is an amazing series with an atypical, well explored setting; great characters and interesting handling of psychological and existential topics, as well as an interesting view on the afterlife, definitely a must watch within the anime medium, even if it requires a lot of patience from the viewer.

This title would often be referred as a "hIdden gem" or an "underappreciated masterpiece" so I was really excited to watch it, and once again the pacing was erratic, the tone and animation were inconsistent, the characters would react in exaggerated ways, and the main protagonist is too powerful, which takes away a lot of tension. With that said, it's a good show, but nowhere near as good as people claim it is. The only things I really liked about this one were some pieces from the score and the finale, everything else was really tough to sit through for me.

High fantasy and giant robots? Sounds like an amazing combination, even if it doesn't make sense at all. I really wanted to love it but I just couldn't. It was not the script or the pacing at fault here, since I expected it to be mediocre at best while reading its premise. My issue was the demography, despite all of its awesome and well balanced (up to a point) different elements, Escaflowne is still a show aimed at teenage girls, and that really shows in the second half with the love polygon becoming even more complicated and with the power of love breaking through destiny. I just couldn't take it anymore by the last 4 episodes, which were unbelievably bad and lame to me. With that said, I liked a few shows directed to girls so I guess it's the blend of genres which threw me off at the end.

If the tv series was already a letdown, this was a fucking outrage. the visuals were spectacular and the score was good too, but everything else was complete shit, and boring too. In this retelling the characters became suicidally depressed assholes and the story was all over the place. This killed my interest in reading its manga versions completely, huh, I could've place it on another section but the disappointment was such that I just had to place it this high. Rot in hell Escaflowne.

Hailed as one of the most spectacular retro giant robots anime, Dangaioh delivers what it promises. As far as dumb mecha action goes, it's really well done with its robot designs, music, sound effects, battle choreography and pacing. But I just didn't care about anything that was happening, with such a short duration, the characters didn't grow on me and the story was way too stupid to make me roll my eyes or fall asleep whenever anything that wasn't a fight was happening. I like dumb fun entertainment, but I need a reason to give a fuck about what is happening, this was not the case.

Another well received retro action anime, often referred as a better Devilman, ok I'm sold. To its credit, this short movie is considered the worst Guyver adaptation thanks to its rushed story and below average presentation. I wasn't really expecting anything out of this version, but I was already skeptical towards its franchise after watching it.

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I watched Guyver at a time when my computer was beginning to work badly and would often interrupt my navigations. Bad luck, I'd've probably like this one if it wasn't for that, but even then I watched some shows like Tatami Galaxy, Kaiji, the third season of God Only Knows (terrible name, right?) and Panty & Stockings with Garterbelt in the same conditions and liked them (specially the latter) so I'm not so sure about that. By the time I finished the second season, I was not engaged anymore, with that said, I'm still watching the tv remake and reading its manga in the future, because it was a good show.

The very first important work made by studio Gainax, a studio which I tend to like. It has a bit of everything that would appear in their later titles, such as a young male protagonist going through a psychological crisis, inspirational messages and little bits of hard sci-fi. Its main problem, and what killed my enjoyment, was the presentation, it was kinda dry; the duration was not the best either since it left some things underdeveloped. It was a good movie but it'd've worked better as a tv or ova series. With that said, I don't think its upcoming sequel will make it any justice.

I never cared about the original Mazinger, it's silly, basic, and obsolete, but this remake has a better reputation and the soundtrack kicks ass, so I wanted to check it out and, at the very least, enjoy it. To be fair, I liked it to some extent but it was still the same old outdated Mazinger with better visuals and soundtrack, nothing more.

This one had a bit more polarizing reputation than the one above, some love it because of its MANLINESS or because they love almost anything related to Go Nagai, others hate it because it barely has to do anything with Mazinger. So I checked it out for similar reasons as the original Mazinkaiser, and I didn't enjoy this one either, but not for the same reasons. I didn't really like this much for similar reasons as Dangaioh, but at least Dangaioh had somewhat explored characters and did a great job with a terrible plot device such as amnesia. This show didn't do that and was just a good looking forgettable mindless action flick. I loved the robot designs and the METAL soundtrack, but nothing more.

What the fuck was that? Just like the title above, this one is loved for its soundtrack, its guts, its artstyle and its MANLINESS, but it didn't work at all for me. It's an anthology of very different stories with barely any connection between them, the voice acting is awful, and the whole thing is really stupid. Not even the quality of the stories is consistent, some are barely good while others are plain awful. Like I said before, I like dumb fun, but I need a reason to give a fuck about.

Why the hell would I expect to love this one? Well, I consider harem to be the worst anime genre there is, and the reverse harem anime are even worse in my eyes since the guys tend to molest the heroine the whole fucking time. Ouran has a reputation of being different, and to its credit, it was different, it makes fun of the cliches of its genre and later on it develops its characters, something unheard of in said genre. But still, it wasn't THAT good as a subversion/deconstruction of harem stereotypes, I didn't like the comedy or the characters and the show is still clearly directed towards teenage girls, it seems Kaleido Star is the only show for that demography I'll ever love.

Without much competition, Lodoss instantly became the most famous and adored high fantasy anime of the early 90's but to me it was kinda boring, the pacing is either snail slow in the beginning and Usain Bolt fast in the last episodes, something which really affects the overall. Despite the awesome premise and the multi layered conflict, not much happens during most of its duration and when something finally happens it feels like it came out of nowhere. I loved the visuals, I loved the music, I loved the fact that it's retro, which means no cutesy art style, no lolis, no fanservice and lots of other things, but the plot and characters made it a chore to watch for me. And the worst part is that I still have to watch the rest of the franchise...

I really wanted to love Moribito, just like with the previous entry, the visuals, soundtrack and premise were amazing or close to but once again the pacing was painfully slow and made it impossible to me to fully like it. Again, not much happens during 26 episodes, twice the length of Lodoss and it took me a whole week to finish it. It's a shame because I really liked the characters, oh well, at least, unlike Lodoss, this one is a decent series, the characters are good and it has a complete story with an ending that does not feel like it came out of nowhere or unsatisfactory.

I felt the same way with this series as I did with Haibane Renmei, it was amazing but I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected. It's not higher on the list because at this point I'm more than convinced that no Yuasa anime other than Mind Game will ever make it into my favourites.

My personal experience can be summed up like this: the first ten or fifteen minutes were absorbing, then an hour and a half worth of typical american stupid nonsense ever present in their war dramas came in and ruined my whole experience.

The movie picked up after that of course but I wasn't engaged at all by then, maybe if I watch it a second time, but that won't happen soon. I prefer Area 88, Das Boot and Spec Ops: The Line (its story, that is).

When I was a kid Atlantis was BY FAR my favourite Disney film, so I was really excited when I knew that it had a sequel, and it was SHIT. To be fair, I don't think I would enjoy the first one nearly as much as I did back then, but still, my disappointment on that moment was such that I still remember it to this day.

I don't really think I have to explain things with this one, the first Super Mario Bros. game was a really big deal at the time, it basically saved the videogame industry, and most of us 80's and 90's kids loved it. It still holds up pretty well too. So when the live action movie came up it was bound to caught a lot of attention, and boy did its own hype backfired. Aside from not having anything to do with its source material, the visuals were shit, the characters had no charisma, the story was all over the place, the setting was generic and not really explored, and the tone was too serious at points with how absurd the plot was. I can't believe there are people defending this complete pile of shit nowadays, that alone shows how much the bar of quality has fallen. It deserves all the hate it gets but, with that said, the things that happened to the people involved in the movie were ridiculous, especially Bob Hoskins. Whenever someone says fanbases from earlier decades were better, talk to them about this movie.

Although I heard good things about Battle Angel Alita in the past, and wanted to read it for like 4 years, I never expected to love it as much as I did, so it was a pleasant surprise. The Last Order sequel was not as good, and I didn't like it nearly as much, but I enjoyed it to the most part and I thought it was still very good.

On the other hand, I absolutely hated this entry here, the beginning is somewhat promising as it baits you into showing you the war in Mars while at the same time developing Alita (and Erica) even more, but nah, when it gets to the past of those two it became a mess of one dimensional evil villains, justified by being victimized by even more awful characters, and the manga became so gross with its graphic content and constant torture and revenge porn, ugh.

Maybe in the future when this shitty arc finally ends and moves to the present it becomes good and I will like it, but coming from this author I wouldn't be surprised if he ends the manga right there and leaves you with blue balls just to continue the history in another upcoming title, let's see.

Ah Hellsing, one of my firsts and favourites anime, I was always interested to see the previous events they kept referencing in its storyline, and it finally came up in the form of this prequel. But what do you know, the author is so lazy he would publish a chapter whenever he felt like it until he completely abandoned the project. And also, despite its fast pacing, there's really nothing to care about in it, the events don't matter and the comedy was way too much and way too misplaced, even by Hellsing standards.

And of course they had to adapt the damn thing even when its shit, and slap it on the Ultimate ova series. Just read what I wrote above.

Rebuild of Evangelion, another unnecessary addition to something amazing that ended in a somewhat satisfactory way. To its credit, the first one is a good tribute, and the second one, despite distancing itself a lot from the original, still preserved some of its magic. So we had reasons to be positive about this one, and it pissed all over us. They started with a huge time skip, used too much cgi, the characters were all rewritten and the pacing and the tone were all over the place, plus amnesia. The manga version is the only alternative version that does the original justice, but after this movie, I don't expect good things about the final film.

Although far from a masterpiece, and with noticeable flaws in all of its departments, Tekkaman Blade (Teknoman in the west) is a good show, and I loved it. To be honest, its sequel always had a bad reputation, but I wanted to check it out regardless of that. And, man, it's even worse than its own reputation, they killed Tekkaman completely with this girly shit. These characters have no charm whatsoever, and are even useless since it's the old timers who have to resolve everything at the end, the production values leave a lot to be desired, the soundtrack was bad, there's no much of an ending, and there are even plot holes with the previous series. And to add more salt to the wound, the whole thing played out like a stupid romantic comedy for girls with magic girls-like transformations, and even more, there's a lot of nudity in here. Do you want more? They killed a lot of suspense from the original by making the Tekkamen a mass product when it was supposed to be only one, and the last hope of mankind. But wait, there's more! Remember how there was a lot of personal drama in the original? Well forget about it because here they fight against monsters and people you have no reason to care about. They completely killed something that had a fine ending just for milking and I absolutely hated it.

It was always a bad show, no one can deny that, but I liked the first episodes because it was referencing old Gainax shows I love. Well, it wasn't really referencing but more like plagiarizing, but at least, I could enjoy the things it was ripping off as a form of fanservice. But, there's a limit to how much one can tolerate when it comes to something you like. Darling in the Franxx is an insult to every Gainax robot show there is and all of their fans, simple as that. And even if you leave the references aside, it can not stand on its own either because it's horribly written, they spent most of its duration with romantic comedies clichés and remembered this was supposed to be an apocalyptic war against aliens in the last episodes, resulting in a complete mess of ideas and resolutions at the end. Rot in hell, modern anime.

"Oh God I'm playing the original Street Fighter!"
"Oh God it's one of the worst games I've ever played"

This sums up my experience with this thing, I loved Street Fighter as a kid and I still enjoy playing it from time to time, so when I crossed upon its very first realease, completely clueless about its bad reputation, it was a punch to the balls for me. But I guess things turned out very well to this atrocity.

I don't get it. For all the shit people say about post 2000 Street Fighter anime adaptations, they are nowhere near as bad as this one, it's what happens when you try to make a faithful adaptation to that source material, and try to make it seem like serious business. And it wasn't even that faithful since the main antagonist wasn't even Bison or Akuma, it was a random weirdo who makes ridiculous sounds, at least in the original dub. He's not even the only one, every character who uses the Satsui no Hado makes ridiculous noises, I get it, they try to make them sound demonic but the result comes off as ridiculous instead. And that's only a minor problem, the plot is as stupid as it can possibly be, the animation is awful, and the soundtrack is forgettable. At least later adaptations distanced themselves a little from the games and went more for personal drama, this one faithfully adapts its source material and makes it look pathetic. But, look on the bright side, it's undeniably better than the live action adaptations.

I got to play SKN games a decade ago and really liked them, despite not being close to Street Fighter in terms of proper controls, so I watched the anime adaptations of their works I could find and aside from a few of them, they were some of the worst anime or martial arts movies I have ever seen, thanks for nothing. Even Street Fighter Alpha is better than these movies.

This one is better than the one above for being closer to its source material but still, how can a creative team not realized that it is not a good idea to make movies about fighting video games? Well of course and they know it, it's just that they know they will milk the crap out of their fans, 20 years later and they still go to watch more lame attempts to make a story out of something it never had one.

I spent a whole vacation playing the first three Tekken games in my childhood, and although they obviously aged, they're still good products of their time. Ten years later I bought Tekken 5 and man was it great. The base game was great, the side game was ok, and it even had versions of the first three games, what better fanservice can someone get? So while googling about Tekken I found about its two anime adaptations, and although both of them are bad, this one is clearly the worst. At least the other one looks decent and the final fight was bloody amazing, but this one? It sucks ass from the very beginning to the very end, despite being quite faithful to its source material. It takes itself too seriously despite being based on a terribly cheesy video game franchise, it's the same thing as the Street Fighter Alpha movie, only slightly worse.

To be honest, Zorro was never one of my favourites things, but I still liked the few episodes with a latin american dub I watched as a kid, and the first movie with Antonio Banderas too, in fact I consider it to be even better than the series because it doesn't overstays its welcome. This second one destroys it completely by ridiculing its characters and coming up with terrible villains, plus they added a kid for silly slapstick comedy instead of the cool fights from the previous one. Thank you so much.

I never really loved Steins;Gate yet I still enjoyed it. With that said, I never expected this spin off to be good, even less after hearing and reading so many people saying it was shit, but I still expected to somewhat enjoy it, and I didn't. They just had to keep milking something watchable that more or less stands on its own. To be fair, seeing the future where the WWIII happened would've been cool, but that's not the case at all with this alternative timeline. It's just something unneeded that nobody asked for with worse animation, character designs, sound and directing than the previous season.
If that wasn't enough, it is also horribly done in every aspect: tone, pacing, writing, everything. It was a chore to watch.

Note: Only watched half the show because that was more than enough. Peacemaker calling out Batman's bullshit was the only good thing about it.

I was not interested in a series focused on this character when it came out but I decided to check it out because it is said that it's good, and I was right. It turnes the badass that went against terrorists, aliens, Flagg and Bloodsport into a weakling that gets hurt by jumping and is owned by everyone, it presents a bunch of new characters that are both stupid and uninteresting, and half the show nothing happens in it because the characters are more preocupied in making bad and immature jokes (bad references included), and hammering you in the head with jokes and themes about racism and stuff, what does any of that has to do with the alien invasion? Plus it doesn't feel as the stakes are as high as they want you to think they are and not even the production is that good. What a crappy follow up to a good movie and a big disappointment from James Gunn.

Suna no Bara is a most unknown little ova which although not great in the least I thought it was fine and I had a good time with it the two times I watched it. When I went into its source material, a manga, I found an overdramatic, simplistic, onesided, mildly pretentious, over the top long action series of mini arcs, while the main plot is left on the background. Dropped fast because I was left very disappointed.

Rei Hiroe making a battle royale anime, if it was more style over substance and closer to his previous work, this could've been decent. Instead, it tried to imitate the Fate franchise and makes the exact same mistakes, only this one is even worse by being more pretentious and reviving characters out of nowhere. I dropped it once, I went back to finish it later, and I can say I did right the first time. The author should've throw the Black Lagoon cast here and kill them in this series, so he could drop that project while it was still on hiatus instead of eventually turn it into a pile of shit as well. Just saying.

A modern anime that starts off well, with an interesting premise, a plausible way to make the story move forward, not too much complicated exposition and not awful cgi? This was way too good to be true, it eventually goes for magic bullshit, ridiculous plot-twists, and character rewrite. Too bad, the first half was actually good.

Although throwing cute girls doing cute things in a post-apocalyptic setting is a bad idea by default, at least the characters were somewhat likeable and the whole thing wasn't taking itself seriously for most of its duration. But the last two or three episodes tried to explore its setting, went for an anti-war message and revealed that the girls were 9 years old all along, which is ridiculous based on the stuff they did earlier. Everything was rushed. Oh well, to be honest, it's not like I was loving the show before that, but I really hated those last episodes. At least, a year later, Hakumei and Mikochi came out, and it was exactly what this show should've been until the very end.

This was recommended to me as a great deconstruction that turns a generic fantasy into a well thought mystery show, and it wasn't. The plot twist is revealed in the very premise, the mystery didn't work because the traitor was not foreshadowed properly, it went for ass-pulls and LUCK to reach a conclusion and, even more, nothing of what happened is really important, since by the end of the season they discover that there's another traitor amongst them, thus making them repeat the same thing later on. By the way the whole traitor thing couldn't work because of the show's own rules. Characters designs and animation were also average at best. Another big failure of a light novel adaptation.

I got to know this show thanks to the subscribers of the best english speaker anime youtuber there is, so of course and I was expecting something at least decent. It bored me since the very first episode and it was just a mediocre show because of terrible direction and tone, amongst another less noticeable problems. The second season takes a step forward in some aspects and one backwards in others, so it doesn't really improves anything, I don't like this show.

I got to know this show the same way as the one above, only this one was based on a retro manga so my expectations were a bit higher...and the show was worse. What a great idea to make gayshit out of a mafia premise. Just like the previous show, I disliked it since the very first episode. You can't trust on casuals, nor experienced watchers, you can't trust anybody. You can't trust shows that comes with their original script, nor shows which adapts modern or retro literature, you can't trust anything. Modern anime is dead, and it keeps haunting its viewers as a rotten zombie.

Just like a previous entry, this show was a passable cute girls doing cute things, but then it went for the harem route, with most of the girls being minors to make things even worse, and fan service, thus becoming shit. Oh well, the ova that came after was passable.

Cute girls doi-OH SHIT,THIS IS COOL!
In the firsts episodes the show was all about random nonsense with epic fights and great visuals. But then again, this is modern anime and it can't possibly be honest and try to be just mindless action. Later episodes went for a take on alternative realities and escapism, resolved with magic bullshit and imagination, and a final villain who appeared out of nowhere. Also, the cunt shots and lesbian undertones became even creepier when one of the main girls is revealed to actually be an adult. Well, to be honest, it's not like the first episodes were good either since the tone was quite serious despite being random bullshit that was ripping off other shows.

This was retarded from starting point, girls fighting with their boobs and asses in a pool. It inspired a Dead or Alive mini-game on some Beach Volleyball spin-off and people was comparing it with JoJo due to similar special effects. But, again, modern anime can't be honest trash entertainment, and later episodes attempted at psychological drama and inspirational messages, THROUGH GIRLS FIGHTING WITH THEIR BOOBS AND ASSES. And guess what, the manga lost all of its popularity and was cancelled hahahaha

Another show recommended to me, and it started as a passable style over substance type of show, due to decent fights and imposing characters with cool designs, but no, it just had to try and go for PTSD and unresolved drama. Hell, the very storyline was never finished since the studio went bankrupt, also the production values went to shit and the fights became ridiculous with improbable acrobatics and magic-like powers gained through drugs. The show just never decided if it wanted to be semi-realistic or not, and thus, it failed at everything. Black lagoon exists, there's no reason to check this one.

This one was partially recommended to me, but in reality I checked it out because I liked the premise and the opening, and boy, what a disappointment. It suffers from the same issues as the title above, with added buttshots of a minor-looking android girl and long explanations of some kind of energy, which eventually acts like magic. The ending was a mixed bag, since it was terrible, but at least there's one and it didn't went for an open ending to make you go read its source material, which I'm sure it's just as bad. No thanks, just like the previous show, it killed my interest in checking the manga.

Another show recommended to me, by the same person who recommended most of the shows that appears in this section (yeah, I don't listen to him anymore). Just like everything else, good production, good soundtrack ( I love the ending song), great premise, engaging first two episodes with interesting sci-fi themes. But then again, the show is eleven episodes long, there was no way it could've portrayed its ideas properly, even less if they keep wasting most of its duration on silly comedy, silly romance, and FANSERVICE WITH MINORS, AGAIN, GODDAMMIT.