This has been on my to do list for a while but after careful consideration I have now picked my top ten guilty pleasure anime.
Dishonorable Mentions
Digimon, Pokemon & Sailor Moon
They all used to be guilty pleasures but are now appreciated classics, Sailor Moon as of it's new series has gone all contemporary, while the other two still run on decent money despite being over 15 years old.
10. Cutey Honey
Better known as the mother of all transformation sequences, Cutey Honey is on here for it's shameless attempts at adult fanservice, it's cheesy dialogue and sentai background, yet it still looks better than most Magical Girl shows in the last ten years.
9. Ultimate Girls & Hyperdoll
Sticking with sentai heritage, Ultimate Girls was an attempt to spoof the Ultraman series and make fun of ecchi shows in general, it never misses a moment to constantly rip off the girls clothes and make them fight the most dodgy looking monsters. Hyperdoll is an older series but follows a similar concept of skimpy clothes and crappy monsters. However both have amazingly catchy theme songs and the whole premise is so laughable that you can't help but enjoy it.
8. Debutante Detective Corps
Anyone who has followed me from day one knows that this show was the first series I ever reviewed, a minor OVA series about five stupidly rich girls forming a detective group to try and stop bad guys wanting to kidnap them and demand their money. It's laughable the amount of effort that went into this OVA and stands the test of time as a heckle worthy anime for the lazy afternoons.
7. Fighting Video Game Anime
Fighting Games have terrible stories and not one of them has ever managed to be good in anime form despite having enough of a diverse cast to allow it to be good. Anime like Powerstone, Virtua Fighter, Fatal Fury, Street Fighter II, Tekken, Variable Geo and Darkstalkers all have to share this position on this list, but say what you like about it, it's still very entertaining to watch these failures.
6. Angelic Layer
It's interesting to see CLAMP try a shonen series but ultimately still feels like a shojo, nevertheless the fighting dollies of Angelic Layer is still a million times better than some of the rubbish CLAMP have dug up over the years.
5. Those Who Hunt Elves
Anyone using the tagline, "Stripping Elves for Fun & Profit" will get serious looks of confusion from so many people, made even more weirder when the characters are a school girl, a martial artist, a Hollywood actress and a T74 Tank that later gets possessed by a cat spirit, all of whom are led by an elf woman who ends up turning into a dog. Despite all that it's wonderfully good fun to watch.
4. Love Hina
It's become a popular bashing subject between anime fans and I can see why but read much closely it still manages to be a decent love story, this is made more clear in the Manga whereas the anime feels cheap in comparison and lets face it, everyone always cheers when watching Naru get punched.
3. Rio Rainbow Gate
This show was written to be completely bashed by anime fans but it's attempts at being serious when Rio herself does her best by using the heart of the cards setup makes this such an enjoyment to watch if only to see how absurd the premise can get, the fact that this was made by Tecmo of Dead or Alive fame is plain to see as its never shy with it's fanservice.
2. Wedding Peach
The term "Sailor Moon ripoff" was common place in the 90s when many Magical Girl shows wanted to claim some of it's popularity, the most high profile being Wedding Peach, about a group of three girls who transform into their Wedding Gowns before going into their mini-skirts of power during a fight scene. It's a cheesy ripoff, the dub is one of the worst in anime history and feels like something Precure would come up with (which surprisingly they haven't). Saying that, it had a decent soundtrack, it ran at a higher quality than Sailor Moon and you just can't help but appreciate the ambitious attempt this anime tried to accomplish that it so nearly became a worthy rival.
1. Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch
Oh god, oh god, oh god. Yes another terrible magical girl show but it's so laughably stupid that it's become a hidden cult classic, it's also the only anime that manages to use it's whole color palette for both it's villains and mermaids and finally we have the songs. Even shows about Magical Pop Idols such as Aikatsu and the Pretty Rhythm franchise could never compete with Mermaid Melody's cheesy pop, for a long time it served the internet's meme community until the next bad anime took over.
Last year I did my Top Ten list on Worst dubbed anime performances, this sort of follows on from that but this time lets look at the character performances that really sucked. I'll also name the Voice Actor behind each character.
Please note that this list isn't a reflection of the Voice Actor themselves as most of them would have done better work.
Now lets begin.
Dishonorable Mentions
James from Pokemon voiced by Ted Lewis
Ted Lewis is better known for Giovanni and Tracey, however he didn't get a very good shot at James in the first few episodes of the original series as his acting range doesn't suit comic relief too well but seeing as the casting was replaced quickly he misses this list.
Hikaru Shidou from Magic Knight Rayearth voiced by Julie Maddalena
I just found the voice irritating, which thankfully was resolved in the OVA through change of casting. Saying that it's not a big enough criticism to go on the list.
Gourry Gabriev from Slayers voiced by Eric Stuart
Eric Stuart didn't start his portrayal of Gourry very well but because he improved over time he's escaped this list.
10. Italy from Hetalia voiced by Todd Haberkorn
Pulling off an accent is tough especially when you have to cover such a broad range of them and poor Todd Haberkorn cannot do Italian.
9. Tenma Tsukamoto from School Rumble voiced by Luci Christian
Luci Christian has done loads of voices really well, so what does she bring to Tenma from School Rumble, her Kaname Chidori voice. This does not suit Tenma seeing as her Japanese voice is much lighter in tone, I usually don't mind a change in tone between translations but Tenma's voice put me off the dub.
8. Kintaro Oe from Golden Boy voiced by Doug Smith
Another case of change for the worst, as Kintaro's voice became stupid for the dub, a poor direction to go for the character. I've already mentioned how bad the dub was anyway, I won't go through it anymore.
7. Ryoko from Tenchi Muyo OVA voiced by Mona Marshall
When Tenchi Muyo's cast returned, Ryoko's original dub voice didn't and instead they picked Mona Marshall, a voice better suited for tomboys and young boys rather than a sassy space pirate. That was not a smart choice, this led to Tenchi Muyo's downfall and since then the series has not been popular in the west.
6. Anthy Himemiya from Utena voiced by Sharon Becker
Utena is a notoriously bad dub to begin with but made worst when you come to an important character like Anthy. In short, she's too quiet and too flat sounding yet her design is meant to be striking enough to be backed up by an equally thought inspiring voice and yet it didn't happen and like the rest of the series, fell flat.
5. Angel Daisy from Wedding Peach voiced by Heather Kafka
Wedding Peach sadly was another train wreck of a dub and poor Angel Daisy suffered as a result, completely wrong voice casting was the blame for this one. If the dub is going to be bad anyway at least make the characters sound right.
4. Canal Volfield from Lost Universe voiced by Jessica Schwartz
Lost Universe is part of ADV Films forgotten dubs series, which remain forgotten for a reason but by virtue of Nozomi entertainment some of them came back. Sadly the old dub remained and Canal's voice is not only irritating but the entire performance is flat. Made even worst when you consider that Jessica Schwartz does have good range when putting on an accent.
3. Sai Nanohana from Jubei-Chan voiced by Byron Close
The Jubei-Chan dub lacked emotion which is something a lot of actors failed to accomplish in this series but nothing could top Sai Nanohana's voice, the performance was so bad that the series stopped being threatening and just became laughable.
2. Yuma Tsukumo from Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal voiced by Eli Jay
I've not known any performance to be the epiphany of failure like Yuma Tsukumo, this is the lowest Yu-Gi-Oh have ever sunk.
1. Miaka Yuuki from Fushigi Yugi voiced by Bridget Hoffman
Bridget Hoffman is a veteran actress and is really good at some roles but all it took to ruin Miaka Yuuki was the very first lines of dialogue, that took 40 seconds, it doesn't get any better from there. Just goes to show that there are just some roles you can't always get right.
After a break from reviewing, lets dive into something popular; time for Fruits Basket.
Fruits Basket is about Tohru Honda who starts the series off homeless thanks to a combination of her mother dying and her grandfather not being able to look after her due to renovation work on his house, less than five minutes in and it's not looking good but she seems to have boundless optimism despite her situation.
Anyway, it's during this homeless period that she meets up with Yuki Sohma who lives in a big house nearby with relatives Shigure and later Kyo; unfortunately due to a series of clumsy moments, Tohru accidentally discovers the secrets of the Sohma family, which is that they transform into animals from the Chinese Zodiac when hugged by members of the opposite gender.
This actually works in Tohru's favor as she gets to stay in the big house in order to not let out the secret she's just found out and the rest of the series is meeting up with the rest of the family, along with some raw emotional family feuds along the way.
I actually enjoyed watching Fruits Basket because the anime kept it's balance of heavy drama and comedy fairly equal, the manga that continues til the story's end is a different problem.
When the manga continued, it introduced a load of characters that either made the story more complicated or had no business being created to begin with, not helped by the art style that makes these characters look so similar to the Sohma family.
Another problem is that the plot is stupid and the motives and actions of one Akito Sohma are unjustified and selfish to the point of wishing the character would die. Equally Tohru Honda comes across as the Mary Sue type, which is a much hated character archetype, but thankfully escapes it thanks to a well done ending.
So while Fruits Basket is a sweet series, it's actually better in it's anime format as it doesn't bombard you with angst heavy scenarios.
Dub is top notch and is frequently listed in a top ten dubs throughout the internet.
Final Verdict: It's a decent series but needs some fine tuning to be better. Cutting half the cast and ridding some of the angsty subplots would benefit this series greatly.
A-Z Review season is over and were back to regular old reviewing so lets celebrate by reviewing a crappy OVA from the 1980s, Circuit Angel.
Circuit Angel tells the story of Mariko, a rebellious school girl with a love for motorcycles. Unfortunately this passion draws her into a race against a jerkass rich boy who won't leave Mariko alone because she is connected to some former bike racer who accidentally killed someone, and also because he wants to prove to his father that the rider is the one who decides the outcome and not the machine.
This OVA is horrible, it constantly wastes so much time trying to set up the big race at the end that it fails to properly introduce the characters and give us any reason to support them. Mariko seems to follow a strict template for female characters in the 80s and early 90s but you get the feeling she was destined for a better anime; equally I think that it was also meant to be more adult, the so called flashback Raita has about the accident is poorly choreographed as the person who died has such a wussy crash that the guy must've been made of glass, and this was the ultra violent anime era so no excuses really, although you still get some nudity for backup.
It's not that difficult to make motorsports anime look awesome especially the likes of Initial D and over the top karting anime Capeta. I think the main issue with Circuit Angel is that they draw the bikes better than the rest of the anime.
Final Verdict: It's crap; a poorly structured story performed by a cast of bland characters set in an era that should've given it more to work with. Give it a miss, which is very easy because it's not available in the west, only online on Youtube.
We've now come to the end of the A-Z review season as a final send off the last vote are all Top Ten lists.
Top Ten Lists
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