101. Project ICE
What is it?: Two years ago, all men died off due to something or other. Only women are left, and they struggle to find a way to repopulate the planet. There is lots of violence and yuri.
What?!: One of the main characters has a voice that sounds like someone is pinching her nose when she speaks.
Akira Ishida: Fulfills his destiny by playing a woman.
Project ICE is bad. So, so bad. I can’t recall the particulars of the story; all that remains in my mind is a deluge of exploding heads, lame betrayals and a queen that is half-human and half-jellyfish. What the fuck. I think ICE is so biological MacGuffin bullshit that people think can help impregnate women, but what it actually does is something I cannot recall (and do not want to recall). That this shitpile got licensed is ludicrous. I guess Sentai Filmworks really is the reincarnation of ADV!
102. Eiken
What is it?: Some stupid fucking high school kid enrolls in a school where every girl he meets has giant fucking god damn titties FUCK THIS SHOW
What?!: MY EYES MY EYES AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH *claws them out*
Serious or parody?: When something is this fucking gross, WHO GIVES A SHIT?
There is an argument to be made that Eiken is a parody of high school shows where the main focus is getting an eyeful of teen boobies. Perhaps there is something to that argument: If you want to scare pedophiles off teenage bosoms for life, then show that person Eiken. I can’t look at adult breasts now without suddenly thinking I’m in Vietnam and a sniper has my buddies and I pinned down EXCEPT THE SNIPER HAS GIANT TITTIES OH GOD OH GOD STOP THE PAIN STOP THE PAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN
103. 6 Angels
What is it?: From the makers of Project ICE, the Rose Guard are a group of women who keep the peace on a former nuclear test site that has become a prison. Somehow prisoners (I think? This whole story left me scratching my head) get their hands on nukes and threaten to launch them on the world, so the Rose Guard has to stop them.
What?!: There is nothing more “What?!” worthy than the ending, which involves an angel or a goddess or something destroying the vengeful spirit of someone or other who wished to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons but then became one of the criminals threatening to use nukes, and then there’s a long lecture about how Bad Nuclear Weapons Are, and oh god I’ve gone blind
Subtitles: It’s like an Internet translator shat out some words, ate them and shat them out into English.
All right, here’s the thing: The first few episodes aren’t so bad. They’re not good mind, but they’re not legendarily bad. They just exist. Then the running time bumps up to 15 minutes, and it gets worse. Then an episode is 17 minutes, and it’s MUCH worse. Then the finale is nearly 30 minutes and it’s excruciatingly awful. The story makes fuck all sense up to that point; I think the one thing that makes sense is America wanting to nuke everything to hell, because there is no way a world this dumb should be allowed to exist. But, no, the story drags on and makes its big important point about nukes and how we’re all evil and stuff. I’m not such a fan of nuclear weapons, either, but Jesus. The funniest part is that the nuclear test site has a pentagram around it; nukes are the Devil’s tool! Also, poor Chernobyl is dragged into this mess. Haven’t the people of the Ukraine suffered enough? And, sadly, it somehow looks worse than ICE. The only thing it has on that OVA is that the nasally-voiced girl is nowhere near this. And thank Christ for that.
104. Lensman
What is it?: A spaceship crashes on a planet where some dullard and his father raise space crops or whatever. The sole survivor bequeaths onto this teenager a Lens, which is the tool of the Lensmen that grants them awesome powers to fight evil. And fight evil they shall.
What?!: The leader of the evil empire: Lord Helmet.
Lord Helmet?!: Yes. Lord fucking Helmet.
Lensman is basically Odin Jr. (still to come). It’s just 107 minutes but feels twice as long, the animation is nice but is in service to nonsense and the characters are on a journey that it’s impossible to give a shit about. Unlike Odin, there is a fair amount of action, but as I watched the movie, none of it moved me. I wasn’t excited or interested, even when the animation is legitimately excellent. Why? Because the enterprise is soulless. It’s a rote aping of sci-fi fantasy adventures without any of the fun. Even the requisite embarrassing rave sequenced passed with but the barest of acknowledgements from me. Lensman made me feel truly apathetic during every second. That’s terrible.
105. Koi Koi 7
What is it?: An Average Teenage Anime Boy, Tanaka Tetsuro, attends a new school that seems to be populated solely by women. What are the odds? He quickly makes friends with a group of girls known as Koi Koi 7 who are at war with the student council.
What?!: The girls all have crazy superpowers or are robots, and the student council members all have giant robots and helicopters and shit.
That ending: Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooly shit, that ending.
My god. My god. My god. Where do I even begin? How about with the extreme mood whiplash in like every episode? The series starts off like a goofy action comedy and shifts to bawdy harem comedy, but then also sprinkles in these dramatic moments that are never built on and promptly forgotten. The worst part about them is that one or two could be halfway interesting. Like, there’s one instance where one girl, who has been presented as pretty with it and practical, suddenly has some flashback moment where she’s in a pool of blood, implying she’s a suicide survivor. It’s never elaborated on, which isn’t the worst thing in the world. We don’t need to know her reasons — just that something’s up. But nothing ever happens! It never factors into her character AT ALL. It’s literally there just for shock value. That’s everything dramatic in this anime. Nothing matters in any way. And the ending … oh my sweet fuck, that stupid ending. The whole there’s been this shadowy conspiracy bent on revenge for something or other, and there’s this big thing about the main dude and main girl being special for some reason. In the penultimate episode the big evil scientist (the main dude’s dad, natch) opens the door to another dimension to reveal … a half-beach episode, half-hot springs episode for the finale. The whole thing is resolved with a half-hearted robot fight against the student council that ends with everyone naked. Joy. Thirteen episodes of terrible sex comedy jokes, bad parodies and limp drama for that. It’s a good thing I had no interest in the story whatsoever, or I would actually be mad. Instead I’m mad at the terribad group for wasting everyone’s time with this.
106. Violence Jack
What is it?: Violence Jack is a hulking beast of a man, invariably rising from the Earth during an apocalyptic age to protect the weak and downtrodden against generic Mad Max-style thugs. Oh, and it’s Go Nagai, so there’s lots of rape and distasteful violence toward anyone and everyone.
What?!: During the “Evil Town” OVA, a thug leader eats his transgender lover and transforms into a demon. I don’t even.
“Evil Town”: One of the most awful viewing experiences I’ve ever had as an anime fan.
I doubted our good friend kadian after watching the first Violence Jack OVA, “Harlem Bomber”. It’s certainly not great, but it’s not god awful, either. It just wants to be a dumb post-apocalyptic story where a dude helps people by ripping bad guys apart. Then I watched “Hell’s Wind” and understood a bit more. It’s pretty much the same, except super boring and with just a bit more damsel in distress (despite making half-hearted pretenses at making her a Strong Woman Who Can Stand Up for Herself) and sexual harassment. Then I watched “Evil Town” and understood completely. There’s not a single enjoyable frame in that OVA. It revels in cruelty toward humanity and exploits rape and graphic violence in the name of empty, soulless entertainment. It’s the sort of “art” you invoke when you make the Voltaire “I disapprove of what you make, but I’ll defend to the death your right to make it” free speech argument. I’ll argue the right of “Evil Town” to exist, but it’s something I actively loathe and do not respect in any way, shape or form. I’d rather watch Apocalypse Zero for the rest of my life than ever see “Evil Town” again.
107. Itsudatte My Santa!
What is it?: Besides utter god damn shit, you mean? Some shithead named Santa is mopey on Christmas Eve because his dumbass parents ditched him and named him Santa, so he’s mocked every Christmas. Then a Santa trainee named Mai comes and promises to cheer him up.
What?!: The first few minutes of the second repeat a gag in the first episode step for step, except this time they’re at a beach.
Ken Akamatsu: If I ever meet him, I will punch him in the balls as hard as I can for this atrocity.
This is the most irritating anime I’ve ever seen. Watching it is akin to having your skin stripped off, and then having a bucket of salt dumped on your body, except instead of salt it’s high-pitched anime girls blathering about idiocy. This anime does more damage to Christmas than any bullshit Bill O’Reilly could ever drudge up. Ken Akamatsu couldn’t have ruined Christmas more if he found the corpse of Jesus Christ and skullfucked it. This is the type of show you make your child watch if you want them to not only not believe in Santa, but also peace, love and happiness. It fills me with a dark hatred I have never felt before, and never wish to feel again.
108. Odin: Photon Space Sailer Starlight
What is it?: A bunch of chucklefucks on a star ship that has a sail find a mysterious girl and embark on a journey to find Space Vikings and Space Valhalla but find Space Fucking Awful Piece of Shit Movie instead.
What?!: ODEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN
Credits sequence: The only good part of the movie by a god damn light year.
I am a believer that fiction needs to be entertaining. Now to some people, “entertainment” is an ugly word, perhaps implying empty, mass market thrills, but I think entertainment can come in many forms. A work of fiction can be entertaining due to plot, characters, action, ideas, philosophy, structure, dialogue, and more and in any combination. Odin is not entertaining in any way, shape or form. It is a black hole of entertainment, so dull, so mind-numbing and so tedious that I ranked it at the bottom despite taking a big, fat dump on Itsudatte My Santa! Joy cannot even be taken in the movie’s greatest strength, its excellent animation, for it is in the service of the drab inner workings of a space ship nobody could possibly care about. Falling asleep while watching MD Geist alone is one thing, but I fell asleep for 10 minutes during a live watch of this, and that was with people yakking in my ear the whole time (and, again, in the middle of the afternoon). The worst sin a piece of fiction can commit, in my mind, is inspire no feeling at all in the viewer, and I felt nothing while watching Odin.
109. One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e
What is it?: Some milquetoast loser returns to some stupid rural town to fulfill promises he made to several girls in his youth. All of these girls are either mentally vacant or are blind and/or mute. There also seems to be a ghost version of the protagonist who has a much better tie, and he’s also in some place that resembles hell. Presumably tears follow.
What?!: An exceedingly short bus shows up to take some of the characters away. The bus is a ghost. It is a ghost bus.
Proto-Key: Several of the folks in the company Tactics who worked on this game went on to form Key. Yes, Jun Maeda was involved with this.
When I first wrote this long ass article, I didn’t think anything would supplant Odin as the worst of the worst unless the terribad group watched some utterly boring shitpile like Sister Princess or something. But, my god, One is just the worst, the fucking worst. It matches Odin blow for blow in boredom and tedium: I could actually feel specific lobes in my brain shutting down for the evening as I made my way through each episode. Now, Odin is boring as fuck and is about 20 minutes longer than the entire One experience, to boot, so that alone could not topple the champion.
Onto that winning strategy One adds a thick layer of pretension. Now, I don’t use that word lightly: it’s definitely an overused way for people to pretend that creating a story that requires more than basic intelligence to enjoy it is somehow a bad thing. But this shit is pretentious as fuck. I’ve never seen so many teenagers gathered in one place vacuously pontificating about the meaning of life and death in breathy, meaningful voices, expressing nostalgia for bygone times in life even though they’re like 14 fucking years old. Jesus Christ. Shouldn’t you have lived through something of actual importance before you get all misty-eyed thinking about the day a kindergartner gave meaning to your miserable, 5-year-old existence? I don’t spend my time weeping over the time some kids played handball with me in kindergarten. You know why? I’m not a self-absorbed, miserable fuck, that’s why. Even this, however, cannot totally propel One past Odin.
What does it? Well, One undercuts Odin where it truly hurts: the presentation. This is a supremely awful production from start to finish from that era of anime where studios had no fucking clue how to use digital technology without making it look like a dog crapped on a cel and dragged its ass everywhere. At one point the miserable teenagers are drinking coffee. One of them puts his drink down, and for a split second, the steam from the coffee is literally frozen in the air and quickly disappears. That’s not a one-off mistake, either: that’s the consistent quality you get from this unholy mess. The walking animations caused uproariously laughter among the group with whom I watched One. The cloud movements look like the bulbous mutations of Tetsuo in Akira. Scenes are reused again and again and again in each episode. God damn, guys, at least Odin has the courtesy to look nice even while it’s being a boring piece of shit! This is just . . . offensive.
The cherry on top is that the story makes zero sense — none whatsoever — and the characters are impossible to care about. Apparently this OVA is based upon the endings of each route (or possibly incredibly condensed versions of each story), which is a great strategy to take on if you want only fans of the visual novel to care about your title and literally nobody else in the world. It’s all vague nonsense and ghosts and kids making stupid promises in their youth that they are damned to hell for not keeping and girls following in love with any idiot who spouts fucking bullshit with a faraway look in his eye. I’m fairly forgiving with Key-type stuff, but this is god damn weepy garbage. It’s begging — pleading! — with the viewer to cry. We’ve got a blind girl! A mute girl! A girl whose ferret died! A girl who dumps cherries in a lake and screams as the wind blows at her yukata! Cry, damn it, cry so that Jun Maeda can collect your tears in a vial and masturbate as he pours them onto his bare chest and rubs his body!! Cry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Cart Driver 
Holy cow! Five pages of this! Will have to finish reading when I get back from work.
I BROUGHT THE BIG GUNS FOR THIS, MY FRIEND
I don’t have the chance to do Terribad much myself either but I do wish you were there more when I do! It is truly the highlight of all anime watching, much as Cosprayers was the highlight of all anime production.
Re: Vampire Wars:
There was one line, when the guy wakes up and swears totally inappropriately but I can’t remember what it was — “WHAT THE ASS??” or something like that that had us rolling. But nothing on par with any of Sleepy’s lines.
Haha, now that you mention it, I remember something similar to that in the movie. Manga UK was really at the top of its game for that dub.
Garzey’s Wing is my favorite anime.
But I can see why you’d put Kenya Boy at #1.
I might just fandub Legend of Duo for you.
and then I noticed five pages. Where’s the Sisters?
Or Shuffle for that matter?
I should have explained it better in the intro, but I included only anime that has been watched in the SCCSAV wing that watches such things. I doubt you’ll see Shuffle! or Sister Princess on here, because they’d never touch them, but I assure you they would be at the bottom. Both lower than Odin, I might add.
Kenya Boy was my first terribad group experience. That somehow makes me very happy; it could have been Apocalypse Zero shudders. Still, Garzey’s Wing will always be my champion on this list, if only for the line, “I’m not lying, 12th and 13th century foreigners surround me!”
Also, no Urotsukidoji? Granted, it’s by no means the worst thing here, but it should have some recognition, if only for scaring the shit out of me when I was 15 years old.
I only included stuff that has been watched in the SCCSAV terribad group.
The only one I watched was Itsudatte My Santa!, which only got a ~ out of me. Maybe you’d like it more if you watched it dubbed.
Maybe, but that would also mean watching it again, and I’d rather my penis took an acid bath.
I watched Itsudatte My Santa twice. I maintain that the first episode isn’t dreadful
Thanks for a fantastically entertaining read. The dialogue in Angel Cop, your scorn towards the nested plot flashbacks in Legend of Duo, your moeficiation of Dracula – every step of the way is paved with gold.
Thanks!
Oh wow. That Prince of Tennis clip. The universe has nothing on Tezuka. I’m glad a newer anime has made it to the top 10. I swear the show is just shamlessly cheesy. It embraces shounen exaggeration like nothing else.
I haven’t seen most of this but I definitely enjoyed Garzey’s Wing, Mars of Destruction and of course, Kenya Boy. I’m not sure what to make of those last minutes of the film. But let me assure you that it was mindblowing. I might have to check out Mad Bull 34 now.
It was a blast watching that because before then I knew only cursory things about Prince of Tennis. I didn’t expect anything that ridiculous!
Project ICE though, was mindnumbing boring and bad. I guess it’s licensed due to ties with a certain 48 member idol group…
I hadn’t really thought of that. Not really sure how popular they are over here, since I don’t follow that scene at all, but I could see that marketing angle being pursued.
If it wasn’t for shit like this, I wouldn’t give a damn about anime. I’ll take Vampire Wars or California Crisis over Madoka or some Ghibli movie or whatever else any day.
Many of these do make anime quite a bit more fun.
Watch the first episode of Charger Girl Juuden-chan. Thank me (read: hunt me down with a spork) later.
I’ll see what I can do! (Though I really need to get back to putting a dent into my not-terribad anime pile, haha. Too many good shows I’ve been putting off for too long!)
TENNIS KILLED THE DINOSAURS
And nuclear missiles brought them back.
I remember that back in high school, the anime club had a tradition (which they dropped pretty quickly after the seniors left, unfortunately) of watching this OVA called Tattoon Master. I dunno if it’s bad enough to occupy a place on this list, but I remember it being pretty terrible and having a hilariously bad dub as well.
Now at college my friends and I randomly blurt out “I must make sense of my convoluted situation!” I think we’ve got it bad.
(Also, note: randomly came across Vampire Wars in the DVD cabinet of a pretty great hotel on the south side of Jamaica. I was pretty surprised, but unfortunately was unable to watch it because a) didn’t have time and b)I was there with the rest of my family. Still though–space vampires. Envious.)
I will certainly keep that in mind!
And, wow, that’s kind of awesome, haha. I remember seeing a while back that Vampire Wars was on Netflix Instant — don’t know if it’s still on there, but that might be a way to see it.
Quick Top 5 Terribad experiences:
5) Mad Bull 34
Spanning two weeks, it was quintessential Terribad. The accents, the misogyny, the bloodspray, the hilarity. That I actually forgot most of the first 3 episodes the first time I saw this is just a testament of how much Mad Bull keeps on topping itself. I’m sure the NYPD has never been more proud.
4) Prince of Tennis
When I first saw this, I knew it was something I wanted to show to other people. When I finally got the chance to show this, I knew Terribad was here to stay.
3) Garzey’s Wing
I’ll never forget the first Terribad. After the first episode, I remember Amelia declared, “Okay, there are no more bad anime.” Dream on, Amelia. Dream on.
2) Kenya Boy
As the keeper of the Terribad Vault, I already had seen roughly half of the shows we’ve watched up to this point, so things rarely surprise me. Kenya Boy blew my fucking mind. The exhilaration of discovery, the sheer joy of sharing the experience with friends; Anime never seemed so vast and full of potential as it did that night.
1) Apocalypse Zero
Simply put, a vivid reminder that, yes, some anime is too bad even for Terribad.
Btw, did you see Shinesman? It was accidentally the sole “good” thing we ever saw.
Wish I could have been there for the top three, particularly Kenya Boy. I was crushed when my vacation day for that day wasn’t approved. 😦
Haven’t watched Shinesman yet — so you all didn’t skip it? Who knows when I’ll see it … it would certainly be out of place in this group, from the sound of it, haha.
You’ve seen some shit.
I’ve seen a shit ton of shit!
You my friend have outdone yourself. Most epic post you’ve ever done, I will enjoy this post for a long time.
It really make me sad though that I never get to join you guys for this sh*t. It sounds like a lot of fun.
The best part is that I will continue updating it as I watch what the terribad folks watch!
Brilliant post! I salute you for watching so much of this on your own!
Seeing it all listed out like this makes me truly appreciate how much crap we’ve watched in that group – and I wouldn’t change it for the world, some things just require group support to sit through (and without Terribad I’d have never watched some of my awesome Manga Ent. DVDs!)
Memorable events for me have to be Legend of Duo (first Terribad session I ever joined), Kenya Boy (blew me away with how utterly inexplicable it was), Mad Bull 34 (just wow – that dub!), Love, Love? (half the group ragequit midway – new rule, no more paedobait) and the 2nd Garzy’s Wing watch (I was actually crying with laughter during that 1st episode – could not breathe, god love the group’s ears from my cackling).
Yeah, the thing that really struck me while writing this is the sheer amount of garbage we’ve seen. I counted everything out beforehand, and there still ended up being more than I expected. It’s kind of ridiculous.
Awesome to see Kenya Boy is #1. I am so glad I decided to type Africa Anime into a search, just to see what would come up.
Indeed! I am very glad that you reviewed Kenya Boy, and that Kylaran pushed me to see Kenya Boy after reading your review and watching it. Whenever people ask where I found it, I make sure to credit you! 🙂
Oh you don’t have to do that! I just think it’s hilarious how far it’s spreading.
I think you’re missing Idol Fight Suchie-Pai 2 (there is no 1).
And Golden Wings, but you’d probably like to see LotGH proper first before tarnishing your image of it.
Oh yeah, that’s right. Totally forgot about that. Yeah, I think I’ll leave that off until I finally (someday) finish LoGH.
I’ll make sure it ends up on the next batch of crap with which I update this post.
Hanappe Bazooka is a Nagai/Koike joint. Koike as in Lone Wolf and Cub and Mad Bull, Kazuo Koike. It’s something that Go Nagai actually hated when it was finished because it depicted rape in anything but a bad light.
Just letting you know.
I actually learned that a bit after first publishing this post but have been too lazy to correct it. But thank you all the same!
I guess I better check these out for my own blog. Sure is a lot of these though. It’s going to take a while to get through all of them, even if I have already seen some of them.
I’d say everything through The Golden Laws is immensely entertaining. The stuff after that depends on how much you can stomach what is wrong with them.
Super relieved not to see any series I enjoyed, but admittedly a few I watched, on this list.
Sorry if my English is confusing, it’s not my first language.
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Okay, you caught me, it is my first language, I’m just really tired and generally not very good at it in the first place.
lol
Hey, if I were you, I wouldn’t be ashamed to see any series I enjoy end up on here. Well, the ones at the top, anyway. If you reveal that you like Eiken, though, then the shame will be cranked up to 11!
BAOH HAS A LASER CANNON
I’ve only seen a tiny portion of the things on this list, but that Odin credits theme is addicting, quite possibly the best thing in this whole list.
It IS awesome. I legit have that song on my mp3 player.
I guess all of our warnings couldn’t prepare you for the awfulness that is One. We have truly failed. 😦
Capricorn is only notable for a finale that pretty much apes DYRL’s almost shot for shot.
Oh god, I was so bored of it by that point that I didn’t even make note of that.
But did you watch Baby Princess with 3D goggles?!
Full disclosure: I did NOT watch Baby Princess with 3D goggles.
You know what really kills me about Dangaizer 3? It was something I said during the call that went like this: “This anime is about a bunch of skimpily dressed magical girls piloting mecha that brutally beat each other to death with some decent animation. How is this NOT entertaining?”
I still don’t get it to this day because the thought alone should make people laugh by default.
Gotta try to watch everything on this list.
I admit that I haven’t watched any of the animes shown (and applaud you for retaining your sanity after watching all that) but I have to thank you for showing me that somewhere in the vast and magical realm of anime, there’s a show about a pile of dog shit. That alone made me laugh for longer than it should.
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