Last month, I revisited the topic of the worst anime ever following the fallout over High Guardian Spice; I asked people from the Minamicon Facebook group to provide examples of their worst anime to see what really is terrible.
At the end, I'll share my thoughts on my own top ten of terrible. If I miss an obvious one to begin with, there's a good chance it's in the Top Ten.
Again big thank you to the Minamicon Group.
Mars of Destruction
A laughable attempt at making a serious anime making every attempt to be shocking feel like a funny episode of South Park.
Twinkle Nora Rock Me
A creator's attempt at making his own waifu with no budget to actually animate properly.
Ultimate Teacher
I don't actually mind it but I can tell it's not exactly improving with age, it's defining feature is being declared unreviewable by Anime Abandon.
Fractale
Not seen it, the synopsis makes it sound like a weaker Dot Hack Sign and that's hardly a compliment.
Laws of the Sun
I actually had to look it up, it has an entry on the bad films wiki. Not seen it.
Hanoka
Wait, this is an actual anime? DeviantArt has better quality than this.
Mobile Suit Gundam: G no Reconguista
Considering the mouthful I had to splutter to even pronounce the title, I'm already dreading it, not seen it.
Chargeman Ken
It came back into the Public eye recently, it's definitely on the funny bad scale.
Hell Girl
Mostly indifferent to it's existence, never really interested me.
Apocalypse Zero
God help you if you watched this, you must have a steal trap mentality.
Dragon Half
I don't actually mind it, I don't see it as the legendary comedic gem it used to be since better comedies now exist.
Ex-Arm
How? How are we still producing dodgy cgi animation in 2021, there is no excuse for such a train wreck, glad I've not seen it.
Ikki Tousen
I get the design aesthetics and the fight scenes were well done but why it has to be a romance of the three kingdoms thing is beyond me, a wrestling match plot is easier to follow.
Dragonaut: The Resonance
Not seen it, looks fine I guess, probably a C tier at best.
Nazca
Probably more famous for having a cameo in the Malcolm in the Middle opening, not seen it but the art style is a little on the cheap side.
Divergence Eve and Misaki Chronicles
Both are pretty dull despite looking vibrant.
World of Narue
The early days of Anime News Network dubbed this the worst anime of all time, while that title has been fought over these days it doesn't excuse the fact that this is the most generic romance anime of all time.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
I hope the person who decided to make Endless Eight got fired.
Tsukihime
Not seen it, being the same creators as the Fate series I doubt story is going to be anything special.
Akikan
Peak levels of scrapping the barrel here, because someone really wanted to have sex with a can of soda.
Kampfer
Kampfer would've been good if not for the direction choices, a well made anime with a great plot with the absolute worst execution.
Ninja Scroll
It was always high on the must watch checklist for early otaku until effort was made to get better titles, it's barely watchable now.
Mad Bull 34
Pretty much a visual representation of every sexist trope imaginable along with plenty of things you can't unsee.
Violence Jack
On any other list, this would be top 10 terrible but then I remember it's by Go Nagai which makes it automatic terrible.
Landlock
Found it very meh.
Angel Cop
I found that the dub made this more legendarily terrible.
Odin
Honestly this is the only anime I've seen which I've constantly forgotten straight away after watching it.
Terra Formers
This is the other terrible cockroach anime. The other is Twilight of the Cockroaches.
Garzey's Wing
Like Angel Cop, it's very much the dub that made this one so terrible.
Ai Tenchi Muyo
I found Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar alot worse, at least the original characters come back.
Neo Yokio
It looks like it was made by bootleggers.
AD Police
I'd recommend watching Bennett the Sage's review for this one, he gets the point across better than I can.
MD Geist
I can write a ten page essay on why this is terrible but in short, the head of an American anime distributor loved it so much that we had to wait quite a while for decent anime.
Goku Midnight Eye
Someone who watched Golgo13 and thought "how can I make this character worse?"
Fushigi Yuugi Eikoden
I never enjoyed Fushigi Yuugi to begin with, knowing there's a sequel doesn't make it any better.
School Days
The only reason it doesn't make my top ten is because the lead got what he deserved.
Battle Programmer Shirase
I had to look this up and yikes, a dead inside protagonist in a yikes relationship.
Cutie Honey Universe
Biggest insult to a franchise since the Cowboy Bebop netflix series.
Daitarn 3
Pretty much the reason why Tomino made Gundam as this Mazinger clone fails to even compare to Go Nagai's series.
Straight Title Robot Anime
An experiment that never caught on.
Virus Buster Surge
The most fascinating thing about this anime is the animation, chiseled men that can pass as JoJo characters and women who look like they ate a coat hanger.
Burn Up
It's the only anime I can point to that showcases every era of anime from the violent to the ova era to the decent to the utterly terrible in that order.
Ghost Stories
So bad that the Japanese asked the dubbing team to make it better by any means necessary.
Eye Shield 21
Anyone wanting a generic sports anime should watch this.
Ninja Slayer
Not seen it, looks like another terrible experiment.
Bounty Dog
Another anime I forgot immediately after watching it.
Abunai Sisters
Someone tried to make an anime using the Bratz doll art assets and made this abomination.
Onegai Twins
A lesson on how not to write a sequel.
Now I've gone through a number of other suggestions, what do I consider the top ten worse?
Well you'll be surprised by my selections.
10. X/1999 and Movie
I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Clamp and X is a great example of a story stuck in writers block hell with no official end in sight. The anime itself is terribly written.
9. Spiral Suiri no Kizuna
Speaking of terribly written, my god, I've never seen such a poorly thought out plot in my life, there are Shonen Jump plots less convoluted than this anime.
8. Psychic Force
A fighting anime that is outright insulting with it's plot as it can't even get it's basic DNA right, nor can you make an overlord named Keith intimidating. (Apologies to all Keiths I know)
7. Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-Chan
This was actually a former number one worst anime but in retrospect, I rated it lower for two reasons, it's better made and the protagonist always gets punished, doesn't excuse it from having one of the worst plots in anime.
6. Diabolik Lovers
An example of the type of uncomfortable harem anime can become if given to the wrong writer, but then again this is the same group that did Mars of Destruction and one other infamous terrible anime.
5. Kill Me Baby
The title says everything really, an unfunny one joke comedy of basically the joke character pissing off someone who can snap your neck in seconds.
4. Jungle De Ikou
Aged worse than milk in a sauna, deeply uncomfortable and unfunny, the Movie 43 of anime.
3. Idol Densetsu Eriko
The most depressing shojo anime of all time.
2. Skelter Heaven
Most people would agree that this anime is hands down the worst of all down and many would agree as well.
1. De:Vedasy
But this anime is so much worse, the anime is an Evangelion ripoff but took every bad element from it and some how made it worse.
There you have it, a run down of some really terrible anime as suggested by myself and the minamicon convention facebook group.
After so long of waiting and all the backlash, does High Guardian Spice deserve it's hatred? Let's find out.
Rosemary and Sage are off to High Guardian School to learn how to be Guardians, together with Thyme and Parsley they'll fulfil their potential and become the best Guardians they could be.
I could easily name ten franchises that did this better and this is what really defines High Guardian Spice, it's so called influences did it better.
Soul Eater, Little Witch Academia, RWBY, Precure, She-Ra and Steven Universe to name a few did everything much better.
But wait, High Guardian Spice has strong LGBT representation, isn't that what counts?
Yes and no, yes this is one show that nails the LGBT elements but no I argue still that there are better options out there.
Visuals are amateur, characters are amateur, except Parsley who might be the show's only decently written character, voice acting is amateur, it's just one big lacklustre experience.
Look I'm going to be blunt, it's just amateur, on it's own merits it doesn't warrant half of the problems that YouTubers kept going on about, but I'm not going to offer it a free pass, overall it's a disappointment for not even living up to it's discord.
Final Verdict
It's not terrible, not even close to Top Hundred bad or funny bad, it's just mediocre and amateur, throw in controversy and you give this series way more coverage than it deserves.
