Editorials

Five Frighteningly Bad Anime to Endure on Halloween


Across the country, Halloween is seen as a time for tricks and treats. People young and old celebrate with candy, costumes, and scary movies. And, every year, blogs and websites erupt in “top ten scariest movie/candy/pizza” lists to commemorate the occasion.

This year, though, I’d like to deliver a different type of scare. Tonight, I’d like to highlight a selection of five anime titles that will horrify on a different level. Rather than just being frightening, the shows selected for this evening are frighteningly bad. The dubious honor is given to those that are horrible on both a technical and a substantial level. So, for those looking to give the holiday a different type of scare may find it in the following shows.

Angel Tales: Goro Mutsumi was cursed with a total lack of luck. When he gets a job, the business closes within weeks. If he leaves his umbrella at home, it rains without fail. Girls avoid him, and men don’t want to be anything like him. His luck begins to change when a mysterious fortune teller tells him that he will have a “fateful encounter.” After this point, random girls of all shapes, sizes, and colors arrive at Goro’s doorstep. Each of these girls claims to be a reincarnation of one of Goro’s former pets, and that she will be Goro’s guardian angel going forward.

Now, in addition to being Goro’s guardian angel, these girls all have a massive crush on Goro. That’s right – Goro’s dead pets want to sex up their former master. And Goro, as a character, has the personality of wet tissue paper. he’s an incredibly bland and fairly whiny character that just turns viewers away at first sight.

The plot is as predictable and dull as one can expect. Every twist, every turn, and every development can be seen from several episodes ahead, and the the general pacing is clumsy at best. Combine this with generally lazy animation and boring character designs, to create an overall terrible experience.

So, to recap:

  • Bland, mildly annoying main character
  • Dead Pets that want to sex up their owner
  • Lazy Animation

Geneshaft: In the future, genetic engineering has become the dominant technology. The totalitarian Earth government controls human reproduction, and alters the functions of children to suit their roles in society. Females outnumber males nine to one, and all people have a lifespan that is not to exceed 45 years. Five years prior to the story, a mysterious, 500-kilometer ring appeared near Earth. Several astronauts left to investigate the station, when the ring let out an energy blast that scorched the Earth, and vaporized the station. Five years later, the crew of the space station Bilkis sets out to solve the mysteries of the Ring. The Ring has developed its own ways of fighting back, though. To combat these assaults, the crew commands the massive mecha Shaft, which can lay waste to all in its path. However, will it be enough to handle the mysteries of the Ring or, worse, the crew itself?

When a show’s name is a euphemism for the male organ, one can’t expect actual quality. The show’s overall premise starts interestingly enough, but quickly devolves into a cliched, predictable experience rife with horribly written characters and annoying voice acting. The main plot of the Rings and the plight of earth is quickly lost in what could be best described as an interstellar PMS-fueled argument. Even the show’s supposed epic finish is little more than a catfight over the main antagonist’s would-be love interest, complete with screams of “You don’t understand him like I do!” There’s no real resolution, and no closure. In a nutshell, the show could be described as six and a half hours that the viewer will never get back.

Combine this with mostly nonexistent animation, and laughably bad CG, and Geneshaft can only be summed up as a steaming pile of refuse that will create a stench that refuses to go away.

Magikano: Haruo Yoshikawa is an average Joe that lives with his three sisters: Maika, Chiaki, and Fuyuno. Unbeknownst to Haruo, his sisters are witches. To keep their secret, the three sisters have continually clobbered their brother with enchanted amnesia-inducing hammers since he was young. For the sisters, life is good. They have a laid-back brother to shower their affections onto, and few real wants. However, things begin to go awry when Ayumi Mamiya, a blonde bombshell with a bad attitude and incredible magical power. Ayumi’s a cursed witch, and unless she can turn Haruo into a “real man”, she’ll lose her powers forever.

Honestly, I know how I’ll explain how bad this is in one blurb… but I’ll give it a shot.

Magikano is one of those shows that manages to stumble and fall at every single opportunity. The characters are one-dimensional parodies of popular archetypes, and any attempts at development… hell, who am I kidding? The characters don’t develop! The show is basically an excuse to push forced T&A and bad jokes from these characters. The animation is mediocre at best, and the voice acting itself is atrocious. On the whole, the show is simply a waste of time, a waste of energy, and a waste of celluloid that is best left to rot in the bargain bin.

Cyberteam in Akihabara: In the far-off year of 2010, junior high schooler Hibari Hanakoganei wants nothing more than a Pata-Pi: the hot new virtual pet. They’re cute, they’re trendy, and every girl wants one! Unfortunately, since she has no money, Hibari can only covet Francesca, her best friend’s Pata-Pi. On the way home from school one day, Hibari spies a mysterious lad on a distant hill, that looks like a prince that appeared in her dreams. She runs toward the prince, who disappears as a glowing orb descends from the heavens. As the light clears, a Pata-Pi appears in the young girl’s arms. This is no ordinary toy, though. When Hibari’s in danger, her Pata-Pi turns into an armored woman with the power to destroy all who stand in their way. Now, it’s up to Hibari and her Pata-Pi to figure out what’s going on, where her Pata-Pi came from, and why masked marauders are assailing the city of Akihabara!

This is a show that ANN’s Zac Bertschy refers to as “fucking dire.” And, to be fair, he’s absolutely right. This is the type of show that simply shouldn’t have been made. The main cast is a collection of spoiled, snotty brats that grate on the nerves at every opportunity. Be it Suzume’s messed-up rhyming chatter or Hibari’s flat-out childish bitchiness, there is no shortage of personalities to annoy the viewer.

And then there’s the villains.

The show’s Rogues Gallery contains a number of, er… “interesting” characters, that include a giant-breasted, leather-clad woman that commands homunculi as she rubs her breasts and moans erotically… in front of small children. The antagonists seriously don’t get much better than this.

Add in anti-climactic battles, grating voice acting, and incredibly limited animation, and Cyberteam in Akihabara truly earns its place among the ranks of the frighteningly bad.

Rescue Me, Mave-chan! If you haven’t read my live review of this one, I’d recommend doing so. This is the type of show that really benefits from that blow-by-blow disgust. For the uninitiated, Mave-chan revolves around a Stratos-4 fanboy (they exist…. somehow), who fears the outside world. This is the type of person who, in the first ten minutes of the feature, hyperventilates and freaks out because he gets a free ticket to an anime con, where he’d have to gasp be around people! Anyway, he walks into the bathroom, and winds up in some strange parallel world where the ships from Stratos-4 and Yukikaze exist as over-sexed girls. These girls are fighting a war against the Forgetter, who makes thoe horrible anime shows fade into the abyss.

There is literally nothing good about this OVA. The animation is stilted and jerky, the character designs make no anatomical sense, and the characters themselves just suck. The writing resembles something out of a horny teenager’s bad fanfiction, right down to the forced dialogue and horrible lines like “It’s OK to be an outcast!” By the end, viewers will be left not only hoping, but begging the Forgetter to kill every freaking character in this abortion of film.

This OVA is bad, and people should feel bad for liking it.

About the author

Samantha Ferreira

Samantha Ferreira is Anime Herald’s founder and editor-in-chief. A Rhode Island native, Samantha has been an anime fan since 1992, and an active member of the anime press since 2002, when she began working as a reviewer for Anime Dream. She launched Anime Herald in 2010, and continues to oversee its operations to this day. Outside of journalism, Samantha actively studies the history of the North American anime fandom and industry, with a particular focus on the 2000s anime boom and bust. She’s a huge fan of all things Sakura Wars, and maintains series fansite Combat Revue Review when she has free time available. When not in the Anime Herald Discord, Samantha can typically be found on Bluesky.

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