Next up is the Ancient Magus Bride.
Chise having grown up in horrible circumstances sells herself to slavery taking the Japanese girl to Great Britain to be sold, at the auction she is purchased by Elias an intimidating tall figure baring an animal skull over his head, hiding his true face.
Elias has great interest in Chise as she has the power of a Sleigh Beggy, a special Magus who can draw power from her surroundings and herself but limits her life, as a couple they each hope to rediscover their lives through each other in a wondrous recreation of a Great British fairy tale setting.
This is a wonderfully created world, I've always enjoyed anime set in Britain as old British and Celtic myths make for a good anime and Magus Bride doesn't disappoint, it's a spectacular master piece of anime production that really deserves more credit, set to a soundtrack that easily ranks in my top ten. I can gush over the setting all day but how is the story and characters?
Story is pretty solid if a little difficult to follow, they can't always decide the rules on Chise's powers and the villains can really test your patience.
The majority of the cast does a great job, especially when it comes to the dub, it's one of the more respectful offerings particularly Chise herself.
Final Verdict: I can't recommend this enough, it's a grand British Fairy Tale, compelling, beautiful and will last in your memory for a long time.
To kick things off on anime review month we have Zeta Gundam.
After the events of the One Year War, along with the tragic events that transpired during Stardust Memory, the Earth Federation create an organisation known as the Titans to sniff out remaining loyalists to the Zeon regime, the more power the Titans obtained, the more the populous believed that they were corrupt leading to previous rivals Char and Amuro to enter a tense alliance to take out the monsters that the Earth has unleashed on the colonies along with the unease of another faction hoping to benefit from the power struggle.
And our protagonist is a whiny little bitch who can't take it when people make fun of his name.
I'm trying to avoid talking about Kamille Bidan, because he's the most annoying redundant character in all of Gundam. Zeta Gundam as a war epic is beautifully written and takes an angle where the Earth Federation have created the bad guys instead of Zeon, and also the Titans are an organisation built to hunt down Zeon sympathisers as a front to invade colonies, sound familiar!
Politics aside, Kamille could completely be removed from the story and we still would've got a good anime, heck he gets dragged into the conflict in the first place when a Titan makes fun of his name, if he had half a brain cell to ignore it then he would've avoided the disasters that would unfold.
Dub I've not seen but based on other media would work well.
Not the best way to start but I have a long playlist.
Final Verdict: A glorious war epic let down by a poor protagonist, would easily rank one of the best anime if Kamille didn't exist.
For some reason, this was among the worst rated anime of all time, I disagree, let's see why.
Momoko is a ditzy school student who dreams of becoming an idol, but is still chasing more popular idol Akiho; the situation changes when aliens led by Warudemon attack; another alien gives Momoko a new power transforming her into Wonder Momo, the perfect super hero to fight the hordes of Warudemon, however Momoko is a bit amateurish often being chastised by Akiho who is the hero Amazona, as her lack of experience shows even more, the Original Wonder Momo steps in who happens to be Momoko's mother, knowing that her own daughter is fighting Warudemon, she trains her up and joins her in battle along with the reluctant Akiho to form a new Superhero team, sadly the series ends before anything else can happen.
I see the issues this web series has, the original Wonder Momo was always a ditzy klutz so seeing her even more ditzy and klutz daughter doesn't make for a compelling character in 2014 when this mini web series was released, for many reviewers they usually can't get passed Momoko's design or her choice of actress and janky script, I'm not going to pretend it's some hidden misunderstood masterpiece, it's not good but it's hardly top 100 bad, effort was made, the animation is fairly decent, the premise works really well and the fact that the original Wonder Momo is Momoko's mother is a nice touch of continuity in a franchise dying to get the side scrolling reboot that brought back Wonderboy, Streets of Rage and most recently Ninja Turtles.
No dub, it was more of a promotional web series to plug a comic strip series.
Final Verdict: The ditzy heroine Momoko doesn't really last in the modern era but the series doesn't deserve to be lumped with the traditional terrible anime crowd of Skelter Heaven, Mars of Destruction and Ex-Arm.
We are complete, the Top 100 Worst Anime for all to see.
Now a live list that will change frequently.
Update: Twin Signal and Flame of Recca off.
Try Knights and Naria Girls new entries
1st: De:Vadasy
2nd: Skelter Heaven
3rd: Idol Densetsu Eriko
4th: Jungle De Ikou
5th: Kill Me Baby
6th: Diabolik Lovers
7th: Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-Chan
8th: Psychic Force
9th: Spiral Suiri no Kizuna
10th: X/1999 and Movie
11th: Pupa
12th: Rumbling Hearts
13th: Sister Princess
14th: Junk Boy
15th: The Super Milk-Chan Show
16th: Princess Nine
17th: Virgin Fleet
18th: Maze the Megaburst Space
19th: Mars of Destruction
20th: Idolm@ster
21st: Green Green
22nd: Cutey Honey Universe
23rd: Sekirei
24th: Queen's Blade
25th: Mawaru Penguindrum
26th: School Days
27th: Girl's Detective Club
28th: Psychic Wars
29th: Garzey's Wing
30th: Violinist of Hameln
31st: Sailor Victory
32nd: Twinkle Nora Rock Me
33rd: Blood-C
34th: Vampire Knight
35th: Abunai Sisters
36th: Midori no Makibao
37th: Kampfer
38th: Yume De Aetera
39th: Sword Art Online
40th: Tales From Earthsea
41st: Demon King Daimao
42nd: Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
43rd: I Dream of Mimi
44th: Eiken
45th: Arcade Gamer Fubuki
46th: Venus Wars
47th: Darkstalkers
48th: Sins of the Sisters
49th: Dot Hack Sign
50th: Violence Jack
51st: Voogies Angel
52nd: Comic Party
53rd: Bleach
54th: Landlock
55th: Dragon Quest Movie
56th: Knights of Ramune
57th: Gundam F91
58th: Wish Upon The Pleiades
59th: Yumeria
60th: Vampire Princess Miyu
61st: Hunter X Hunter
62nd: Kyo Kara Maoh
63rd: Elf Princess Rane
64th: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni
65th: Battle B-Daman
66th: Onegai Twins
67th: Doraemon
68th: Girls Bravo
69th: Ghost Stories
70th: Battle Skipper
71st: MD Geist
72nd: Odin
73rd: UQ Holder
74th: Sonic X
75th: Circuit Angel
76th: Redo of Healer
77th: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles
78th: Xanadu Dragon Slayer Densetsu
79th: Relic Armour Legaciam
80th: Ellcia
81st: Mask of Zeguy
82nd: Tales of Vesperia
83rd: Disgaea
84th: RG Veda
85th: Busou Renkin
86th: Duel Masters
87th: Angel Sanctuary
88th: Fighting Foodons
89th: Ninja Resurrection
90th: Jinki Extend
91st: Art of Fighting
92nd: Akikan
93rd: Labyrinth of Flames
94th: Street Fighter Alpha
95th: Gravitation
96th: DNAngel
97th: Mahou Shoujo? Naria Girls
98th: Ex-Arm
99th: Chargeman Ken
100th: Try Knights
Depending on who you ask, localisation is a very dirty word amongst anime fans as it can make or break a franchise, with some of these decisions having consequences that still affect the series to this day.
Not all of this is censorship, keep that in mind.
10. Jelly Filled Donuts
A classic anime meme, as Pokemon's Brock calls rice balls, donuts; this is not an isolated case as other food gets edited around in Pokemon. Pretty low on the list as it's the official meme of Lost Pause.
9. Allowing Central Park Media to License MD Geist
I've brought up this story before, so I'll keep it brief. CPM liked this anime too much and kick started the ultra violent era of anime, this has always given older fans a bitter pill to swallow compared to younger generations of fans.
8. Next Dimension/Shadow Realm
Death was hard to sell for any network, especially when it had to be on TV. This was more the Ocean dub of Dragonballz as Funimation played it more straight seeing as death is merely a slap on the wrist anyway, Yu-Gi-Oh was much worse for it, particularly in Season 1.
7. Painted Bikinis
Tenchi Muyo's run on Toonami came with some strange forms of censorship, the weirdest one being the clearly MS paint job bikinis, although this had a more beneficial effect as early internet otaku sought out the uncut version, I know I did.
6. Naming HoroHoro Trey Racer
Shaman King despite being localised by 4Kids kept a fairly unchanged cast naming until you get to the whole Trey Racer moment, the funny thing about it is, it's used as a nickname as his actual name is kept, wouldn't mind digging up a back story for this.
5. Making Big Cheese a Rat
Tell me, what animal this is below.
If you said fox, you are right, if you say rat, you are as blind as the people at Saban. I know they had very little to work with but seriously?
4. Making Uranus and Neptune Cousins
A classic bit of early censorship, only it just made the whole thing creepier in context when it was more obvious that these two were much closer to the point it couldn't be ignored.
3. Giving One Piece to 4Kids
How and why this decision was made is still a mystery, the aftermath has caused it to slip behind other Shonen Jump powerhouses over the years but on the other side it made the series more adult back in Japan to avoid a repeat of it happening ever again.
2. Renaming Pretty Cure, Glitter Force
The sad thing about this one, it was already in English as Pretty Cure is the English translated title anyway, the Canadians got it right why didn't Netflix? Glitter Force is a stupid name and because of this disaster, Precure may never see localisation ever again.
1. Inserting American Political Commentary
This is an uncomfortable trend that started in the height of the Trump administration, Funimation were the main culprits for this. Within a few of their dubs, first noted in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, the dubbing team would go off script to bring up a political subject or something woke which has no context in the anime at all and was never referenced in the original script. Basically they've taken Japan's property and inserted political propaganda that has nothing to do with Japan, this is the type of bullshit I expect from Russia!
This is also why I don't watch dubs anymore.
