Anime is the worst thing ever.

But at some point last year, I decided to finally start doing what I had been joking about doing for the past several years: watching every single anime ever created, just to take a steaming dump on the entire industry.

"Wait, if you hate anime, then why are you trying to watch all of it?"

Like bronies and furries, anime fans have this troublesome tendency of being completely unable to comprehend the idea that someone could hate anime. It's very common for them to say things like, "You can't hate anime, because anime isn't a genre, it's a medium! It's like saying you hate movies!" without realizing that, yes, believe it or not, some people do hate movies. Some people do hate music. All of it. The entire medium. They hate it. And you know what? It's perfectly fine if you're that person. Some art forms aren't for everybody. I'm personally not terribly impressed with photography as an art form. You wouldn't call someone closed-minded for not being into sculpture. Some people don't even read literature. It's not that big of a deal.

But to anime fans, it kinda does seem to be a big deal. They refuse to accept it. They'll ask you unrepentantly to justify why you hate anime, and when you give them a few perfectly valid reasons, they'll try to recommend you some shit like Cowboy Bebop, only for the show to end up containing everything you hate about the medium. I've seen it happen time and time again. And then when you tell them that the show sucks, they STILL won't fucking give up. They'll do anything in their power to try to convert you into some disgusting weeaboo. They'll say something like, "Unless you've seen every single anime, you can't say that you hate anime." This is their desperation move. Their final trump card. They say it with this faux confidence, because they know you're not actually crazy enough to try every single Japanese cartoon ever created, so they think you'll have no choice but concede their point.

They didn't count on me, though.

I'm that crazy guy they didn't expect to actually watch every single show, and while I still have quite a ways to go, I'm still well on my way, and I'm not gonna stop because I find this shit incredibly amusing. Imagine the look on some stupid weeb's face, the next time they try to pull that shit on me, and I drop my complete anime list on them. It'll be fucking glorious.

But it's also a little self-servicing, I noticed. And at some point, it became apparent to me that I didn't really have much of an endgame beyond being smug on the Internet. As a result, I thought I'd go ahead and spread some goodness while I'm on this crusade.

While, in the long term, my endgame is to eventually make liking anime a felony punishable by death, my short term goals are much more modest and easily attainable. I'm watching every anime so that nobody else who hates anime ever has to. Someone who hates anime, yet still wants to give one a try for the fuck of it, can come to me with the good promise that I'll be able to recommend you something you might enjoy based on your specified tastes.

What I can't promise is that you'll be guaranteed to enjoy it. As a disclaimer, there may well be nothing at all for you here. You know how weebs like to say there's a show out there for everybody? Sometimes, that's not true. And that's perfectly fine. Great, even. Your taste in media is pure. You are above everyone else who likes anime. Be proud.

That's the important difference between me and a shitty anime fan. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you, a person who already hates anime, to start watching anime. If you've already decided that anime is gay and retarded, you've already passed. You've already gotten that A+. I'm not gonna recommend anything to you. You've already won, and in some ways, I envy you. No anime fan is going to tell you any of this.

But for those of us cursed with the nagging ailment of open-mindedness, however, I'm here to provide you with a list of every single anime that is worth watching from the year 1995. Why that year? Because it's the year I was born, so it felt like a pretty good starting point. From here, I also plan to make a list for 1996, 1997, and so forth, until I've seen absolutely everything that presently exists. At some point, I might start going backwards, too, but I'm not sure when.

Before we begin, it should be noted that I wasn't actually able to watch literally everything ever released in '95, because not every show is available on Internet video streams. Sometimes, the only options are to either buy or download the show, which is something that I'm probably never going to do. Morally speaking, I do not condone piracy, and I realize I'm a big fat hypocrite, but watching illegal streams is the only way for me to feasibly complete this task, and I'm providing free advertising for some of these shows anyway, so maybe it's not such a big deal. The only things I'm really missing out on are shows like Bit the Cupid, and I don't think it's terribly important for me to have seen stuff like that to make this list.

Nonetheless, I put myself through a LOT OF STUPID SHIT to make this list, so I hope you'll appreciate that.

Oh, and one more thing, just to be clear: I rarely watch entire shows. If I think a show is good enough to watch all the way through, then I will. But if I don't like a show by the third episode, I'm most likely going to drop it, which was the case for 95% of the things I watched for the year 1995. Sometimes, I'd even drop a show on the first episode. As such, several of the shows I wound up dropping may very well have gotten much better after those early episodes. I'm just not insane enough to put myself through a 30 or 50-episode series just to wind up disliking it.

My personal philosophy has always been that, if you cannot instantly grab me with that first episode, then your show is fucking garbage regardless of how much better it gets. Is that totally fair? Maybe not, but I don't think anyone can blame me for taking up this philosophy. Maybe some way, when I'm thrown completely off the deep end, I'll start watching entire shows exclusively the moment people start saying "You can't say you hate this show until you've seen the entire thing!" but for my sanity's sake I'm probably just going to ignore comments like that.

On to the list.

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Yeah, that's right, #2. I'm doing the YourMovieSucks thing, where I put "Top 10" in the title, but the list doesn't actually contain ten items. It doesn't make any sense to make an arbitrary list of ten things to recommend to people if there weren't even ten things worth trying in the entire fucking year. That said, if there were thirty shows worth recommending to you from this year, then this list would've been thirty items long. Unfortunately, in this case, I only found two things that are 100% worth your time, so this list is only going to be two items long.

And they both have asterisks, too, meaning that these are not even universal recommendations. Keep that in mind.

Based on a 1990 manga by Katsuhiro Otomo, Magnetic Rose is actually a short film in a series of three other short films, all put together in an anthology of sorts called Memories. It was directed by Kōji Morimoto (known for his work on The Animatrix) and, perhaps more notably, was written by Satoshi Kon of Paprika, Perfect Blue, and Tokyo Godfathers fame. It's the only short film that I am recommending in the entire anthology, hence the asterisk, for reasons I will go over later.

For those of you who found yourselves enjoying Cowboy Bebop, look no further than Magnetic Rose to find something that may have directly inspired it, at least in terms of setting. Whereas Bebop has always sort of been the go-to recommendation from anime fans as the #1 thing to watch in order to get yourself into anime, Rose predates it by three years and is, in my opinion, a much better thing to watch if that is your stated goal.

Set in deep space about a century into the future, the story follows a small group of astronauts on a mission aboard the freighter Corona to forage around for scraps and other space garbage that they can use or sell. After receiving
a distress signal from an abandoned station, Heintz, our main protagonist, is joined by his partner Miguel to investigate, and without getting into spoilers too early, they end up finding some weird shit.

Tense, low-key, and beautifully animated, Magnetic Rose excels at what a lot of other anime do not—creating a vibe and atmosphere that feels grounded and realistic without sacrificing theme and engagement. Realism is not necessarily a good thing in and of itself, but it works in this film's favor because of how it attempts to earn its pathos, which I think it does. As events unfold, and backstories are revealed, the film's gritty and grounded nature really helps to bring out some of its more emotionally provocative moments, and there's certainly a couple to be had here.

Its themes aren't very subtle, but you can tell it's not exactly trying to be, and it doesn't wind up becoming a huge problem. It plays around with the notion that our memories are simultaneously real and imaginary. Or are they? The things that haunt us from our past may always be with us, but so will our past triumphs. We all wish we could go back to a time in our lives when everything was happier, but if you had the opportunity to recreate such a world, would it be worth it? Courteously, the film doesn't really answer these questions, allowing us to have our own personal views, and the questions are laid out in a satisfyingly artistic fashion, with a lot of cool (if a bit on-the-noes) symbolism.

At a run time of 40 minutes, it's probably not going to make you cry or anything, but there's just enough characterization, and the pacing and overall direction feels so tight and perfect, that you'll probably end up feeling some kind of way as soon as shit starts getting real.

One of my favorite things about the film is how the music, a chilling operatic score composed by Yoko Kanno (who went on to make music for Cowboy Bebop, fittingly enough) is beautifully woven into the plot itself. It's not like other shows, where the music is just there by sheer necessity. This time, it's very purposeful and deliberate, while perhaps paying tribute to 2001: A Space Odyssey at the same time (maybe, maybe not).

I'd like to stress how much I appreciate the realism of these characters, though. The way they interact with not only each other, but also their environment, is meticulously crafted to feel as palpable as could be, and I had a blast looking around for little details that I hadn't caught earlier. There's a scene where a piano is played, and I tried to study whether the specific keys being pressed actually matched up with the tones that a real piano would play, and I might be tone deaf, but I think they actually do match up. It's little details like that that I'm always trying to look out for, because it shows that the director actually cared.

That doesn't mean it's perfect, though. There are certain things that could've been done better. For one, the film's short length doesn't lend much time for some of the other crew members to get any characterization. They get a little bit, but not quite enough for me to feel as though their characters fleshed out as much as they could've or should've been.

There's also a couple of awkward scenes that had me going, "Huh?" Like, there's a part where Miguel gets stuck in his space suit for a second, and the film makes it a point that you see how much he's struggling, but then Heintz is just like "it's okay, just pop it off!" and, you know, I was kind of expecting to see how he would pop it off. But later, the scene just cuts to him safely out of the suit. And I'm like, what, you're not gonna show us how he did that? What was the point of having the scene, then?

I can also see people watching this movie and considering it a little slow, boring, and kinda predictable. I would agree that the film tends to telegraph its punches a little bit, but it honestly didn't affect the overall quality for me. It's really more about the concepts being explored than how the events transpire, and if that's not what you're looking for, then this one probably isn't for you I guess.

Overall, Magnetic Rose is a pretty cool film that I was able to enjoy. It's no masterpiece; I'd give it a 7/10, which is my absolute cutoff point for things being put on any of my lists. I've always had a thing for exploring troubling philosophical messages and themes over some dark and gorgeous visuals that make you think for a little while, and this short falls rather neatly under that description. If it sounds like something you'd enjoy, then I'd check it out.


Oh, and before I forget: in case you were wondering about the other two short films from Memories, Stink Bomb and Cannon Fodder, I am not recommending either of them. They're just not as good. I suppose if you want to have the full Memories experience, you can go ahead and try them out, because there's supposedly a common thread that links all the stories together. One that I personally haven't been able to find for myself, so I don't view it as important to see the other two shorts. But if you do, and you wind up disliking them, don't come crying to me, 'cause I warned ya.

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BEHOLD. The ultimate guilty pleasure show.

Now, if you know anything about my taste in anime, you're probably wondering why the fuck an ecchi anime (AKA softcore porn) is on this list.

The reason is simple: It's the very first anime to ever make me laugh. Out loud. Hysterically. In spite of everything I hate about this fucking show, it's still the funniest anime I've ever seen.

See that double asterisk, though? Yeah, that means it's going to be fucking impossible to recommend this show to almost anyone, but I will try my hardest to explain to you why I'm personally able to look past all the retarded shit that this show has, and just have a good time with it. Okay? Okay.

In a nutshell, I'm not one for perverted sexual humor. I'm just not. If you're going to have a show that is based primarily around that type of humor, it has to be done a certain kind of way. Golden Boy, in my opinion, does it in a way that I'm able to tolerate, but be extremely entertained by.

Based on a manga from 1992, Golden Boy is a short series of six OVAs released throughout the years 1995 and 1996. It follows the story of Kintaro, an unemployed "freeter" (unemployed Japanese guy) and horndog who drops out of college to travel the country in search of odd jobs so he can live life as a free spirit. He's an insufferable pervert, though, and gets horribly distracted by all the beautiful women he meets (and pisses off) along the way. Though he's never able to "score" with any of these women, he does end up winning them over emotionally with his good work ethic and capacity to fix all of the problems that he inevitably causes with his bumbling idiot tendencies.

For the love of GOD, if you're going to watch this show, you need to follow these rules:

1. Watch the dub.
2. No, seriously, watch the fucking dub.
3. Try to come at it with an open mind.
4. Don't take it seriously.
5. Watch the fucking dub.

Kintaro's English voice actor absolutely makes the entire show for me, and I couldn't tell you if the show would be worth watching without it. It's that fucking important. Doug Smith had so much fun shouting all these ridiculous lines in that stupid voice, it's extremely difficult for me not to crack a smile every single time I hear Kintaro speak.

It's not just the voice, though. The over-the-top nature of the show's comedy and pacing is sure to turn a lot of people away from it, but the reason I'm able to tolerate it is because it's clearly self-aware about it. It knows its stupid, it knows its retarded, and it's made all the funnier because of it.

Part of what helps me enjoy the show, too, is when I view it as an exaggerated parody of the male psyche. Kintaro is a hardworking guy with a good heart, but at the same time, all he can think about is sex, because he's a young twenty-something guy straight out of college. He just wants to get laid, but he's aware that there's more to life than just sex. He's not just your average bullshit self-insert fuckhead with NO personality, and who anyone can project themselves onto for the sake of facilitating wish fulfillment—he honestly just comes across as a good guy, only he's cursed with an overactive libido. Dare I say, he's the most complex ecchi protagonist of all time (not that I go out of my way to watch this shit).

In short, the difference between Golden Boy and every other ecchi series is that Golden Boy has characters. It has writing. The situations Kintaro finds himself in are not only hilarious, but are rather well-written for something of this genre. It's self-aware. It's not a cheap glorification of sex. It's lampooning male sexuality. There are times when the fanservice does go a little overboard, which is why I can't give it anything higher than a 7/10, but it's the more intelligent aspects of the show (and Doug Smith's amazing voice work) that kept me watching until the end.

That all being said, if you already hate anime, I can guarantee that you will probably hate this series too. So I'm not gonna recommend it to you. In particular, if your name is Flee, you should avoid this one like the plague. You will get absolutely nothing out of this show. But if sexual humor doesn't bother you at all, and you wanna try something a little bit different that challenges the notion of whether such perverted shows can still be funny, or at least cleverly written, I'd definitely check this one out.

If you end up thinking it's total abject garbage, don't worry. I completely understand and I don't blame you at all.

Sometimes I think back to this show, and all the stuff that happens in it, and I ask myself, "Wait, do I really like this? Do I seriously enjoy this show?" and as embarrassing as it is to say, I can't lie to myself. Here's the bottom line: It's a comedy, and comedies are supposed to make you laugh. And this show made me laugh. So, I guess that means it fulfilled its ultimate purpose, right?

...Boy, this is SO educational.

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And now for a bunch of shows and movies that didn't quite make my list, but are still worth mentioning.

You might call these "honorable mentions."

Neon Genesis Evangelion - Often regarded as the greatest anime of all time. I just think it's okay. When I saw it for the first time, it was only after being essentially goaded by Ian to shit all over it, so I took that as a free pass to basically look for reasons to hate the show, coloring my perception. When I rewatched it with a more objective mindset, however, my opinion of it did indeed increase, but I'm still not totally in love with it. The best thing I can say is that it's an extremely groundbreaking and important show that inspired many of the anime that currently exist today. Does that in itself make it worth watching? I can't really decide that for you. It's a strange case.

Bonobono - Just a good wholesome kid's show with adorable characters and a cozy atmosphere. Maybe check it out if you're still in touch with your inner child, or something, or if you've ever been curious to see what kid's shows are like in Japan.

Romeo and the Black Brothers - Also known as Romeo's Blue Skies, this is a relatively popular World Masterpiece Theater production which is adapted from a famous German children's story called Die schwarzen Brüder. It's decent enough, I suppose, but nothing I would recommend to a non-anime fan.

Whisper of the Heart - It's a Studio Ghibli movie written in part by Hayao Miyazaki, and is one of the studio's lesser known films. I personally wasn't into it, but I think I've given you all the reasons you need to check it out for yourself.

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No, Ghost in the Shell did not make either of the two lists. It's fucking garbage. Sorry.

Here's hoping 1996 isn't as shitty.

Review Poku no picu fag

The 90s had some classics. ruroni kenshin, yu yu hakusho, cowboy bebop, trigun, etc.

ruroni kenshin was 96, so i'll be watching that very soon

what even is it

Quote from: The Hån on February 25, 2018, 11:15:11 PM

The 90s had some classics. ruroni kenshin, yu yu hakusho, cowboy bebop, trigun, etc.

ruroni kenshin was 96, so i'll be watching that very soon

what even is it

its about an ex samurai assassin/war hero who became a wanderer but settled down in Tokyo. almost all the issues he faces comes from people he dealt with in the past.   it takes place during the meji period in japan and honestly it doesnt get good till near  the end of the first season. the first 10 episodes or so introduce the characters and such but the series is known and famous is for the second story arc.

That was 3676 words that could have been used on job applications or a college thesis but instead they were spent hating Japanese cartoons on some backwater internet forum

He`s writing a diploma on topic how anime is bad, I'm telling you

Quote from: Mardy Bum on February 26, 2018, 12:55:26 AM

That was 3676 words that could have been used on job applications or a college thesis but instead they were spent hating Japanese cartoons on some backwater internet forum

it's actually the most positive thing i've ever posted about japanese cartoons, and i've reposted it in several places

if this website was my only audience then i wouldn't put any effort into any of my longer threads

Why do you care so much

You have so much time and effort spent on something that you supposedly hate

Not only are you subjecting yourself to an unenjoyable experience, you’re also making sure everybody else knows about it too

Like I hate alcohol
But I’m not going to start hanging out with drunks and become an expert on it just to express my hatred in great detail to everyone

This level of commitment is just bizarre and it might be time to stop

Quote from: Verbatim on February 26, 2018, 01:01:08 AM

Quote from: Mardy Bum on February 26, 2018, 12:55:26 AM

That was 3676 words that could have been used on job applications or a college thesis but instead they were spent hating Japanese cartoons on some backwater internet forum

it's actually the most positive thing i've ever posted about japanese cartoons, and i've reposted it in several places

if this website was my only audience then i wouldn't put any effort into any of my longer threads

Why do you care so much

You have so much time and effort spent on something that you supposedly hate

Not only are you subjecting yourself to an unenjoyable experience, you’re also making sure everybody else knows about it too

Like I hate alcohol
But I’m not going to start hanging out with drunks and become an expert on it just to express my hatred in great detail to everyone

This level of commitment is just bizarre and it might be time to stop

Verb might hate an anime as a medium, yes, but he enjoys arguing about it and spents more time rather on building arguments, therefore it`s more enjoyable rather than not

Verb also states that he hates most anime, but he also enjoys some of it, so it`s not all the unenjoyable experience

Lastly he states that he did that for people to fuck off with argument "You haven`t watch all anime, so you can`t judge"

Is there any good experience coming for this? It totally depends on how Verb wants to develop himself

Also this