21. Yu-Gi-Oh!: Pyramid of Light
What is it?: Young Yugi Mutou wields the Millennium Puzzle, an ancient artifact that links him with the spirit of an Egyptian Pharaoh who gives Yugi the ability to cheat and win at children’s card games. The Egyptian god Anubis, who was once defeated by the pharaoh, has concocted a plan over millennia to exact revenge on the pharaoh by defeating him in a children’s card game. Seto Kaiba is Yugi’s rival and concocts a plan using millions of dollars in technology to simulate a scenario that will ensure him victory in a children’s card game.
What?!: Kaiba also spends millions of dollars on a jet in the shape of the monster in his signature card, the Blue Eyes White Dragon. Hair metal plays while he flies this jet. It is as awesome as it sounds.
4Kids: I wish I were part of the writing crew for this movie. It would be the most amazing job.
I remembered this movie being horrifically boring when I watched it before. I don’t know what I was thinking. There are most definitely boring parts — everything within the Escherscape of the Millennium Puzzle comes to mind immediately. But I feel like the writers are having fun with how seriously the card game is taken in this universe. There’s so much awful wordplay, so many dopey references and so much grandiose plotting and theatrics that I find it impossible to believe the writers weren’t at least somewhat self-aware. Literally nobody over the age of 10 could see Kaiba’s Blue Eyes White Dragon jet and not burst out laughing. This movie is everything great and hilarious about the 4Kids version of the Yu-Gi-Oh anime in a palatable 90-minute space.
22. Honey x Honey Drops
What is it?: A normal teenage girl goes to a rich school for assholes. She is able to afford this because she is part of the “Honey” program, in which a rich student pays the tuition for another student, in exchange for that student becoming an indentured servant. Somehow this is OK and not illegal, and, indeed, even lovable, if you’re into being the love slave of some fuckface.
What?!: A major conflict is resolved through awful, awful basketball.
Sexual harassment: It’s the new whirlwind romance!
Honey x Honey Drops is something that should be utterly reprehensible, and it definitely is on many levels. I am not exaggerating the plot at all in my synopsis. That is literally the basis of the story. But the anime tries SO DAMN HARD to spin romance out of this shit that I can’t take it seriously enough to be angered. I laughed hard during that whole basketball scene as the rich douchebag gets increasingly pissed off that his indentured servant is awful at basketball. I should feel bad that her self-esteem is getting crushed to pieces, but this piece of shit is so fucking stupid that it doesn’t deserve to have anyone care about it to that extent.
23. The Golden Laws
What is it?: A dopey young student is visited one night by a time traveler who wants to explore the 21st century with him. Unfortunately, because they’re kids and kids fuck up everything, they accidentally go back too far into the past and must make their way back to the present and learn about history along the way.
What?!: You know Hermes, Buddha and Jesus? All the same dude.
That kid: He’s the most important religious leader of his time. There’s hope for milquetoast losers everywhere!
The Golden Laws has the set-up to be the greatest and craziest of Happy Science’s oeuvre. Look at that screenshot — it’s not just that the movie features angels helping out Jesus when he’s being crucified, but it’s also that the protagonists can see the angels due to special technology in their time machine! The fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck?! The whole reincarnation deal adds to all the crazy, as well. Unfortunately, it also shares the same problem as the other Happy Science movies I’ve seen: namely, there are stretches where the movie is dull as shit. Look, Happy Science. All I want from you is a boatload of crazy. Nothing more. I don’t care about your characters or your spiritual values. Just dump a fuckton of crazy on me. That’s all I ask.
24. Ultimate Teacher
What is it?: Ganpachi is the “Ultimate Teacher” (TITLE DROP) hired to clean up a rowdy high school. However, he’s less Onizuka and more Terminator and attempts to put the squeeze on the gangs that run the school. The kids don’t like this and look to their sweet-looking leader, Hinako, to beat Ganpachi out of school.
What?!: Hinako’s powers come from her panties.
Wait, panties?: Yes, panties. This is anime, remember?
Ultimate Teacher has a familiar setup that spirals out of control. It’s the extreme versions of those kids movies where the cool, snarky kid takes on the big, mean teacher who wants to pile homework on the class. The OVA is basically one long war between Ganpachi and Hinako, with Ganpachi even recruiting students like an army. The one thing that really brings it down for me is the panties bullshit … it’s just so damn tired. I can’t even get offended anymore. It’s just like, “Yep, those are a teenage girl’s panties. I’m watching an anime.” At least the hilarity of the UK dub makes up for it a bit. Hinako’s voice actress gives up trying to sound American like 10 minutes in and has a distinct British accent the rest of the way.
25. Kekko Kamen
What is it?: There exists a school where the leaders engage in depraved behavior, which includes torturing students. It seems that nobody will think of the children — that is, until superheroine Kekko Kamen (who wears nothing but a mask and red boots) shows up and shows the folks in charge what’s what.
What?!: The school’s principal is named Principal Toenail of Satan.
Catchphrase: Nobody knows her face, but everybody knows her body.
Go Nagai — especially when he’s in crazy sex comedy mode — is an acquired taste, to say the least. I’m not really that into what I’ve seen adapted from the guy’s work, but for whatever reason, Kekko Kamen clicked with me. There’s definitely a goofy spirit that runs through Go Nagai’s works, a need to gleefully push the boundaries of taste as far as possible. Kekko Kamen is no more or less offensive than any other Go Nagai adaptation, but somehow, that goofiness just reached me more than other works that will end up on this list.
26. Catblue Dynamite
What is it?: Blue, a woman with cat ears and a tail, gets caught up with a couple of couriers who are being hunted by masked men. What do they want? A cassette tape of Frank Sinatra. But what’s on the tape … ?
What?!: Blue can see ghosts and gets help from a ghost friend. He is like Casper the Friendly Ghost in that his ghost rules are SUPER inconsistent.
What video game does this visual style remind you of?: Fear Effect with fewer old guys and Chinese folks.
Catblue Dynamite is shockingly OK for something that is 1) ass ugly and 2) makes barely any sense. Watching it is like seeing all the cutscenes in a 20-hour video game strung together with no context whatsoever. Catblue Dynamite is more successful at this than a related OVA to come later, because it’s silly and fun, and the set pieces are mostly outlandish, if limited in scope by the visual style. One thing that might be a dealbreaker for some: This OVA takes place in America in the 1970s, and it the English dub (should you watch it on Crunchyroll) desperately attempts the evoke the style of the time. It mostly fails. However, I found the corny failure to be quite amusing. Others may disagree.
27. Digital Devil Story Megami Tensei
What is it?: Akemi Nakajima is a bullied genius who creates a computer program to summon demons and exact revenge upon his tormentors. This goes about as well as one would expect.
What?!: He and another girl at the school share a past life or something.
Tapping into what I love: If I ever do not enjoy silly ’80s synth and giant ’80s supercomputers, then I’ll just go ahead and kill myself.
This OVA is an adaptation of first novel in the series of the same name, which also inspired the Persona series of video games. I had a mixed experience with this, overall. All the parts with the crazy demon shit are awesome. I love that the OVA immediately jumps into the weird genius kid whipping up demon programs on the computer and demands the audience just go with it. And the final battle stuff is entertaining, too. But good fucking grief the middle is such a boring slog. I’ve cut all that nonsense out of my mind. If you watch it, you should probably make a quick lunch or dinner while that’s going on. You won’t miss anything.
28. Black Lion
What is it?: In the year of our lord 1580, Oda Nobunaga is on the verge of ruling Japan with his army of soldiers who wield advanced weaponry. His most dominant enforcer is a cyborg ninja killer, Ginnai Doma. (Note that he is a cyborg who kills ninja, not a killer whose main prey is cyborg ninjas.) Doma kills a bunch of ninja and pisses off a ninja whose comrades are killed by Doma. He goes on a quest for revenge against the seemingly indestructible cyborg.
What?!: At one point Doma basically looks like The Terminator (as seen above). That scene really should have been backed by the theme song from Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Sad ending: The bland ninja hero prevails against the amazing cyborg.
Black Lion is — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — based on a Go Nagai manga, this one apparently coming early in his career. Even if I didn’t know that beforehand, it would be easy to tell given both the ideas and the general insanity of this world. If I’d seen Sengoku Basara after this OVA, I would have thought the former rather sensible in comparison. In terms of general offensive, though, on a scale from 1 to Go Nagai it’s about a 3 or 4. No gang rape, no butchering of children, no cannibalism, etc. It’s not all that much different from your garden variety ultraviolent early ‘90s OVA, except that it has samurai wielding modern guns, cyborg assassins, and space ships. It’s patently ridiculous, but entertaining. The main problem is that I ended up rooting for Ginnai Doma, because the parts where he slaughters ninja tend to be the most entertaining portions of the anime, whereas the parts where the lame lead gripes about his fallen comrades tend to be the most boring. The bland lead wins because the bland lead always wins. If only our murderous, bloodthirsty cyborg could decapitate ninja forever.
29. Title: Dog Soldier
What is it?: A scientist is kidnapped by an arms merchant, which brings John Kyousuke Hiba — aka Japanese Rambo — out of retirement. He has to rescue the scientist, but problems crop up when he finds that he knows both the scientist and the offending merchant.
AIDS: By the way, scientist lady has a cure for the AIDS virus with her — or DOES she?? DUN DUN DUN
DEATH MERCHANT: HE’S A MERCHANT OF DEATH
Dog Soldier is incredibly silly. Most of it is unremarkable aside from the unrelentingly hilarious finale, where John confronts his buddy the DEATH MERCHANT and they have it out. Included is the slowest knife stab of all time, the villain tossing aside his gun to have a knife fight, and of course lots of hamminess from the English dub cast. Oh yeah, and there’s a bit where the villain spills his guts for minutes on end despite having been stabbed through the skull. This fucking OVA.
30. Sex Pistols
What is it?: There exists in the world a certain number of people who evolved from animals other than apes. These people sense each other and interbreed and so on and carry on with normal people none the wiser, because normals cannot sense them.
What?!: This is only explained in a short after the first episode; otherwise, there is barely any clue as to what is going on.
Making babies: Also they have a special parasite that you can stick up your butt and then guys can poop out babies.
To be honest, I was a bit disappointed by Sex Pistols. I was expecting something a bit more grandiosely terrible, when it’s mostly boring with the occasional weird thing to make people pay attention again. (Also lots of guys Frenching each other and occasional sex. Maybe anime has ruined me for life, but I didn’t find it all that shocking.) The whole “people are descended from other animals thing” is mostly used to conjure up traits that make the dudes more fuckable. I think they start turning into their spirit animal or whatever when they get super aroused? I dunno. There aren’t like any scenes of an alligator butt fucking a donkey or something, though. The butt baby parasite and the appearance of super American baby-making-rapist-turned-love-interest extraordinaire Joshua McBear made me laugh a lot, though. What a silly OVA.
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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