Interesting thing about anime...watch it long enough and you'll find that just because there's a higher selection of quality stories that broach every subject, that does not mean that you won't find more than its fair share of utter wastes of celluloid too. I've seen shit that made me want to tear my eyes out and go hunt down those responsible with a dull rusty knife. The horror was beyond even that which could be inflicted upon me by the Great Old Ones; I swear they must not invade for fear of subjecting themselves to such vile repulsiveness. If you've just found anime, and you keep watching., you'll run into this too, if you've not already done so. If you've been watching for awhile, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So here's a few of the anime I ran into that fit that bill...needless to say I didn't last more than maybe an ep or two before I started screaming, “WHAT THE FUCK WERE THESE CREATORS THINKING?!” And here I thought at one time it was only relegated to fanfiction writers, heh.

Apocalypse: Zero

Oh fucking Hell, where to start with this one? I'll say this, right up, I can't vouch for the quality of the manga, as the anime itself scared me away from it, but if it's anything like this piece of dogshit, then avoid that at all fucking costs.

Apocalypse: Zero is extraordinarily indicative of the overall Japanese obsession with High School. If I had a dime for every time I heard, “This is a typical high school student...” in anime, I'd be richer than God. In any event this is a high school anime set in a post apocalyptic environment. No, seriously, school uniforms, girls in sailor suits, nuked Japan...and the high school the kids go to. Now, the story writers over in Japan have a considerable amount of freedom, not to mention imagination and talent, and have made plot ideas even more implausible actually work. The devil is in the details, and many times the most insane of story concepts can be made enjoyable with the proper execution.

This is not one of those stories. No, we have the students actually coming to school and being sent to whatever passes for their homes through an irradiated wasteland (in their school uniforms no less) filled with gangs and mutants right out of Fist of the North Star. Sure they go 'home' armed, but what good does that do them in such a context? Then there's our hero, whose name I can't even remember, so we'll call him Kenshiro with Glasses, or KWG for short. Now, when I mentioned the Fist of the North Star, I wasn't making some random comparison. No, this thing blatantly rips off Fist of the North Star in a way I'm pretty sure Buronson and Testuo Hara could probably sue for and win. KWG trained in some super secret form of martial arts that made its adherents Z fighter level characters, in his case, for the express purpose of bringing some sense of sanity back to the world. Oh, he has a 'sister' he's going to have to fight later. I swear, when I saw him fighting in a flashback, you could almost hear him saying, “You're already dead.” He might as well have, he already fucking copied everything else. Interestingly enough, it wasn't enough we hacked in a high school drama that makes no sense in the story environment presented, and tossed in a pale imitation of Kenshiro. No KWG was given yet one more blatant hack...that extra edge to say this guy was really a new creation. Too bad not even the stupidest anime fan alive would have been fooled by the Guyver unit that was tossed on KWG to further bolster his suckitude.

I'm not even going to get into the blatant attempt at further covering the shitty writing and outright plagurization with the artificial ultraviolence. Hell, I won't even say how KWG actually tried to get some giant naked fat woman in S&M gear who had actually eaten a fellow student to surrender. In fact, I won't even talk about how that guy was puked up and was STILL ALIVE, as some female student that Sherry Lynn actually dubbed with Sasami's voice was cradling him as he FINALLY died. WHY, SHERRY, WHY?!

I can't believe someone actually spent money to make this anime. I can't believe it got over here and someone actually spent money to market and DUB this anime. I can't believe I spent $20 dollars on the DVD. I'd rather have broken this thing into pieces and shoved the shards straight up my dick sideways! This thing was worse than being forced to play the first Zone of Enders and listening to that fucking kid's pacifistic spiel over and over and FUCKING OVER AGAIN!

As a personal recommendation, avoid this thing at all costs. Much like Transformers Armada, there is no redeeming value to it, except maybe as an antiterrorist torture device; and even that would be considered cruel and unusual by the most hardened of KGB agents.

Saikano: The Last Love Song on this Little Planet

I was first attracted to this series by noticing its manga was actually shrink wrapped and labeled with an adult content sticker. I had read on a few sites that the story was both sad and touching. I was rather intrigued by the premise: what would YOU do if your girlfriend, the one you most want to protect, was a living weapon, and the last best hope for a country's survival? With all this in mind, when the opportunity to pick it up came, I took it. I wound up acquiring it for only $19.99 at Frys Electronics when they apparently mislabeled it. You see, anywhere else, it's about $69.99, and they've since corrected this oversight. Still, I got mine for a serious bargain. With this in mind, I warmed up some food, popped that DVD in, and settled in to see if it could tear my heart out worse than Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien.

Opening wasn't so bad, though it starts out after all the shit went down, and was really just a retelling of said shit, by the guy who lived through it all. Given how he starts the story, you just know something very very bad happened. Okay, not too subtle, but still, an effective story telling method; though it only leaves the details to be told...the ending is already shown to have been one fucked situation. With this in mind, we finally get into the meat of what we're dealing with: A love story between the tall motherfucking narrator and this short little girl, obviously designed to appeal to every moe sensibility that fanboys have, and here is where it starts to break down. This girl, who shall now be called AAFM, for Annoying As Fuck Moe, is indeed moe...but as stated she's of a type I don't think I've ever seen before or since. Something that actually crosses the line into making me want to slap the living shit out of her every single time she opens her mouth...no it's not the dub voice actress, trust me. This girl is clumsy, a little slow, and apologizes for EVERYTHING! To the point where even I was screaming, “WE GET THE FUCKING POINT YOU SHIT FUCKING SLUG! YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING, NOW PLEASE CAN WE GET BACK TO WHATEVER PASSES FOR A STORY HERE?!” You have no idea how hard it is for me to actually hate a character like this, but they did it...somehow. They deserve credit for that if nothing else.

You'll note I'm not giving any character names in these reviews. Personally, I can't think of one good reason I should remember even what the anime itself was named, much less what the characters names are...except to warn people away from such abominations.

Okay, I could go on about the plot line by line of what I watched of it, but let's face it...I'd get more enjoyment out of sticking red hot pokers in my eye and dumping batter acid into the festering sizzling sockets. So let's talk about the REAL premise of this show before I get to that. It's an antiwar anime. That's all, just antiwar. Problem is, this anime is so blatantly FORCED in every aspect of its story telling, with one notable exception, that even its theme is utterly artificial and contrived. War destroys lives, and it destroys love, especially the beautiful love of two characters who were outright forced to fall in love because the plot demanded it, and not the characters themselves...seriously those two start out with all the passion of paint drying on a wall and just as manually applied. Hell, they even SAY as much as they're forcing themselves to fall in love with the other; it's fucking surreal.

So in any event, Japan is getting invaded by something, I never did get to that point, and I don't plan to. In order to counter this attack, certain military members had taken AAFM, kidnapped her really, and performed some modifications on her that break the laws of physics in ways that even the Transformers of Generation One would go, “Damn, now that's just not possible!” In one instance she shoots off a couple of missiles from her back bigger than she is, for example. Anyway, she's now their primary means of defense...and Tall Guy Narrator finds this out after ep one or two or something...I don't recall, and don't care to. So anyway next day in school...

The fuck?! Dude, they LET THEIR PRIMARY FUCKING WEAPON GO TO SCHOOL?! They let her do whatever she wants between battles after they went to the trouble of kidnapping her and forcing her to undergo the procedure?! They LET HER FUCKING TRANSFORM AND DETRANSFORM IN PUBLIC WITHOUT ANY SAFEGUARDS?! They didn't get her parents in on it either through threats of violence or promise of reward?

As you can see, they start breaking the WTF?! barrier early and often. In fact, the final bit of the entire situation that forced me to just shut this thing off was when Tall Guy Narrator and AAFM decide to just leave. Now, the big bad govies don't like this, but I've already given enough recriminations concerning their incompetency, and thus the story's incompetency to get the point across. In any event, they start tracking these two down (where she fires off those missiles I was talking about). It amazes me they didn't include an off switch, but that's just another in the long list of, “What the fuck was this author THINKING?!” Anyway they get into the woods, hiding from the govies in black helicopters, that are extremely close, and the Tall Guy Narrator thinks it's a good time to strip his AAFM to have sex with her. I shit you not, that is the exact reason he was taking her clothes off, in the middle of a hot pursuit by govies WHO WILL KILL HIM for trying to take AAFM out of there.

Trying to fuck, in the middle of dodging black helicopters.

This was about the time my “I believe,” button had maxed its quota of pushes for anything, and pretty much told me that it was not going to work anymore for this anime. Agreeing, I boxed up that putrid mass of vomitous plague ridden filth, and set it on my dresser to trade in some day for possibly a PS3...though I'm not sure in all conscious I can subject anyone else to this horror.

Whoever said this was good, they LIED! Whoever said this was sad and depressing, did not lie, but only in that the anime's story quality was sad and depressing. One can only hope the manga is better, because goddamn, the anime reeked.

Before I sign off this one with both middle fingers extended in the general direction of its producers, I think it only fair to point out that, while I was watching, it did do one thing extremely well. That being the way Tall Guy and AAFM handle their initial relationship. She asked him out to practice asking a boy out, and he just went ahead and said yes...probably on a lark. He wasn't SUPPOSED to say yes, and she screamed about that later during a discussion about his lack of caring of anything concerning it to that point. Still after that, things start their downward spiral of contrived plots, and artificial emotions. So even though they got one thing right here, it does not change the fact that this is an anime that is better used to poison roaches. God help us if those disease carrying bastards evolve beyond it, because nothing will kill them again. Ever.

Girl’s Bravo

This series is the absolute fucking QED of everything that is wrong with harem anime. I don’t think I lasted more than maybe an episode before I had to shut this shit off and delete it off my hard drive, all the while under my desk crying and shuddering like Cobra Commander, “I was once a fan…yessssss…” My biggest problem is the main wuse, upon whom entire legions of girls (no shit guys, an entire fucking LEGIONS) eventually focus their attentions on, has no redeeming value whatsoever. He’s a straight carbon sink. He’s not even a blank slate, he’s rock hard evidence of why the Spartans might have had the right idea when they tossed some losers to their deaths at birth.

Let me explain. No, that would cut into my planned harem anime rant. Let me sum up.

This poster child for euthanasia is so much a waste of space, he actually gets smacked for walking in on a girl changing…in his own house. No, she was not supposed to be there doing that. He actually breaks out in hives whenever he so much as touches a girl. Worst of all, he winds up going to some other dimension, where he finds the one girl that doesn’t cause him to break out…and he has absolutely no interest in her whatsoever…or any of the other of the horde of girls from that place.

Seriously though, getting smacked for walking into your own home and in on a girl when she’s not supposed to be there changing? How the flying fuck to can anyone possibly justify that? That’s taking the anime cliché of that happening just a little beyond the point of believability much less hilarity.

Near as I can tell, that’s the extent of that meatbag’s role in the series. Break out in hives, get chased by girls who for some reason think he’s hotter than the blazes of Hell, and get punished for shit he didn’t do. That’s it, not even really a glimmer of a personality to him otherwise. It’s not even funny! It’s so fucking eye rolling, it’s not even funny…even in a Rocky Horror B movie BAD way!

What’s really sad is that not only is this a 24 episode TV series…it has a sequel. Now in whose diseased hentai loli filled grey matter did even the barest thought of another TV series of this caustic sludge take shape, much less actually GET another season!

It has hot girls. That’s all. If I wanted that, I’d play through the Shuffle game; the girls are hotter and the main character is actually someone worth being, despite the overall premise being hokey. At least there I can actually FUCK the girls over and over and over and over again!

This series is as worthless as Transformers 2000. I’d recommend a blow torch, some pliers, and a nail gun for every single DVD of it that was produced. As for those responsible? I’m thinking a padded room, a constricting jacket, and a whole lot of therapy. I hear electroshocks to do wonders.

I'd like to put this in a bit of perspective for you, my dear audience. I suffered through the entirety of “Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy.” I managed to keep from breaking my TV concerning “Haunted Junction.” I survived trying to wrap my head around the nonsensical philosophical babble of “Shamanic Princess.” I lasted through all of “Transformers: Armada.” These are some of the worst anime of all time, so it astounds me that there are actually anime that can make me shut it off after only a couple of eps. Worse, these are only a few of the anime series' that have forced me to kick them to the curb in such a fashion. I'll likely do another one of these sooner or later, but take my advice, or not: when you see these series, do what I do. Run...run your ass off! Heh, and let's hope the next series you decide to sample isn't like the above listed...though that's honestly the worst part of the whole situation. You never really know 'til you see it for yourself. Good luck!