Board 8 > Robazoid Ranks 275 Anime and Top 100 Anime Characters (recommend me stuff too)

(+) Yeah! (+)

changmas posted...

Darlin in the FranXX wasn't good but idk if I think it's 1/10 level of bad. the plot was not very good but I didn't think the characters were too bad. I'd call it 'meh' more than anything else. doesn't really stick the landing very well but i didn't find any particular quality completely loathsome

I remember lots of people turned on FranXX in the second half, but I honestly kind of hated it even from the beginning. Winter 2018 was my first season watching airing stuff and everyone was hyped over this one so I stuck with it, but it did nothing for me at any point. For most people it went from good to bad, for me it went from bad to really bad. Just not my kind of story, I guess.

MacArrowny posted...

The awesome mecha combat animation was my favorite thing about it. Show looks so good. Zero Two also a fun character.

I dunno, the fights had a certain stylized look, but I still found them underwhelming. I haven't seen too many mecha anime though (Sidonia, Planet With, uhh... Price of Smiles... oh, and ID-0. FranXX was better than that at least!) so I'm hardly an authority on the genre.

NFUN posted...

lmao that's what Zero-Two is from?

Yep! She has a good design, I'll give her that. It's easy to see why she blew up, at least compared to everything else from FranXX. I just wasn't a fan of her as a character.

Darling in the Franxx is not good, I will not fight a 1/10 ranking for it even if I might rank it slightly higher because Zero Two is actually alright as a character. Hiro the main protagonist is fuckin awful though, good lord. And that one obsessed with having a baby.

oh and dunno if it's too late for a recommend but if I only could pick one.....I mean it's between my 2 favorite series, Mob Psycho 100 and Beastars. Both technically have a third season coming out but both have a great 2 seasons already and they don't end on cliffhangers for the third season really. So I'm gonna say......

Mob Psycho 100, probably the easier of the two to recommend even if I technically have a deeper love for the other.

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

oh and dunno if it's too late for a recommend

Assuming all goes to schedule, this ranking should last until near the end of November. I'll accept recommendations all the way to the end! I hope more people rec stuff too. I still have quite a few things I want to rewatch, but eventually I'll run out of those and recommendations and then I'll be stuck doing bonus write-ups for shows I chose myself.

Also, just in case it impacts your choice between Mob vs Beastars, I watched the first three episodes of Mob a few years ago. I was falling out of anime back then and I watched a few episodes in a bunch of stuff looking for anything to hook me back in. Stuff like Eden of the East and My Little Monster pushed me out harder instead. I barely remember anything about Mob, so if you stick with that choice I'll start over from the beginning. This is just the first recommendation I have under On Hold on MAL, so I wanted to mention it.

If I could recommend any anime without personally knowing all of someone's tastes, it'd be Mob. So I'll make Mob my recommendation. Probably a bit more actiony than what I think I've seen you typically enjoy, but it's still sweet overall and averts a ton of the stupid gross anime-shit that made you drop some other shows.

oh that works too, so I'll make mine Beastars

253. Hanebado
https://myanimelist.net/anime/37259/Hanebado
Summer 2018 (13 episodes)
My Score: 1/10, MAL Score: 6.86/10
Best Character: Izumi Riko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwWG_wPuT6c

Premise: Aragaki Nagisa, a member of the high school badminton team, is still recovering from a crushing loss. Meanwhile her rival, Ayano Hanesaki, is trying to leave the sport behind.

The Good: The animation was good at times.

The Bad: More like HaneBADo, am I right? This anime set out to be cruel, and it succeeded by draining the joy out of every character and every single scene. There were a few brief moments where these girls enjoyed playing badminton, but those were always followed by some twist that destroyed them psychologically and made everything awful again. A lot of the drama is centered around Hanesakis abusive mother who put her through hellish training and abandoned her the instant she started falling behind. Hanesaki understandably wants to leave the sport that ruined her life, but no one else will let her. They all have their own traumas guiding their actions and they need to drag Hanesaki into the depths of despair alongside them. There isnt a single character in Hanebado who plays badminton because its, you know, fun.

Overall: Hanebado delighted in breaking its characters down without ever building them back up. It felt like torture porn, physically and emotionally. Nothing good ever happened. No one ever learned a lesson that made their hardship worthwhile. It was just horrible, mind-bending pain, over and over, in an anime about badminton of all things.

COMING UP TOMORROW:
252: This anime is trapped in a sour relationship.
251: This anime was caught up in an explosion at a concert.

(Sceptilesolar, that was still a good guess for 253 yesterday! Some of these hints will end up working pretty well for more than one anime. Like I said in the opening post, I'm doing 360 of these, they won't all be perfect)

Oh, right, I forgot Hanebado also got an anime adaptation that significantly changed the tone of the story. I never watched the anime, but didn't at all get such a bleak impression from the manga

Robazoid posted...

More like HaneBADo, am I right?

No :(

Robazoid posted...

252: This anime is trapped in a sour relationship.

And Citrus!? :(

hanebado was enjoyable

citrus too but in a more "this is trash and so am i" way

ehh, I wouldn't necessarily say the Hanebado anime changed the tone that much, but it does certainly focus more on Nagisa. I'd say it's a fairly faithful adaptation after the first two episodes.

Also everyone being a huge piece of shit is what I like about it :p

As you can see, Mac and I often have different opinions about anime. I just finished his recommendation, though, and thankfully there are times where we both like the same thing!

BONUS. Sasami-san@Ganbaranai
https://myanimelist.net/anime/14515/Sasami-sanGanbaranai
Winter 2013 (12 episodes)
My Score: TBA, MAL Score: 6.67/10
Best Character: Tsukuyomi Sasami
Recommended by: @MacArrowny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPTvRx4OuZ4

Premise: Tsukuyomi Sasami is a shut-in living with her overly affectionate older brother. Sasami monitors him with her computer during the day, including his interactions with three odd sisters.

The Good: Sasami-san@Ganbaranai was a wonderfully weird anime. Early on, I was afraid itd be too weird with the brother never showing his face and the incest vibes, but by the end of the first episode I was willing to go along for the ride. It was made by the same people who made Monogatari and has much the same visual style. The unique way shots are framed (sometimes lovingly animated, sometimes still images of various objects around the room, and everything in-between) really helps guide the viewer through whatever craziness is going on. And Sasami-san had plenty of craziness. I dont know much about Japanese mythology so Im sure most of that stuff went over my head. I enjoyed it all in terms of pure spectacle. I loved how the brother/sister stuff, which I found off-putting at first, was eventually explained through the history of the Tsukuyomi family. The main characters also had some great dynamics. Sasami was my favorite, but I also really liked Kagami and how their friendship grew.

The Bad: Sometimes the tone became too dark too fast. Its probably just my preference for lighter stories, but it always felt out of place. Still, this only happened a few times in the whole anime, so it didnt drag it down much.

Overall: Sasami-san@Ganbaranai was difficult to talk about because I didnt want to spoil anything. Even the first episode has a great moment where everything changes, and I think it hits a lot harder if the viewer doesnt know whats coming. Its an anime that goes to some strange places, but it tackles everything competently and has a lot of heart doing it. Ill need a few days to think on it, but itll likely end up in the lower half of my top 100 in my final ranking. Thanks for the recommendation, Mac! Im not sure Id have ever watched this otherwise.

(Sasami also probably makes it into my top 100 characters. I'm debating if I want to do spoiler-filled write-ups for characters who reach that threshold too. She certainly deserves one, especially since I couldn't talk about the story much in the anime write-up. Depending on how much I like the rest of these recommendations, though, committing to characters could be a bunch of extra work. I don't have time for it right now in any case, so I'll think on it some more. We're still a few weeks away from seeing the first character from the normal ranking. It'd feel weird to have already done a bunch from recommendations before that.)

Yay, glad you liked it! I also find it delightfully strange, with an all around excellent cast. Fun surprises in almost every episode.

252. Citrus
https://myanimelist.net/anime/34382/Citrus
Winter 2018 (12 episodes)
My Score: 1/10, MAL Score: 6.47/10
Best Character: Aihara Yuzu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEmq9e_ZxJE

Premise: Aihara Yuzu has a new stepsister after her mothers surprise marriage. Getting along with the cold and aloof Mei becomes even more complicated after the two share a kiss.

The Good: Yuzu was great. She only barely missed my top 100 characters even though I hated the rest of Citrus. She was always fun and openhearted, and she reacted to the nonsense of the rest of the plot with realistic bafflement and heartbreak.

The Bad: Mei, the other half of their relationship, was terrible. I have no idea why Yuzu wanted to be with such an icy person. Mei kept hurting her seemingly just because she could. Another major problem with Citrus was that it only knew how to create drama in one way. New girls kept showing up and trying to get into either Mei or Yuzus pants. By forcing the story to trip over so many redundant hurdles, the whole season passed without any meaningful development of the primary relationship at all.

Overall: No matter how good Yuzu is, Mei was so awful that I didnt want them to succeed. I wanted Yuzu to realize she could do better and to get away from the toxicity, which isnt a good feeling to have towards a romance story.

I liked Citrus with caveats for a while, but once the pink-haired girl showed up I just completely noped out. I've heard the manga is better but I'll never know.

Citrus manga does get "better" later on in terms of storytelling and such, but it's still not good. If anything, it was more entertaining in the early part of the series where it was just unapologetic trash.

I thought the pink-haired girl was the best part of the series. Then the next arc happened, and Yuzu back-tracked for no real reason.

I remember hearing that the Citrus manga at least did different things after the point the anime ended at. That would've slightly improved my opinion of it, at least!

I check on the manga occasionally, but it's never really gotten me to care despite my normal fondness for yuri, so probably a fair ranking.

251. Symphogear
https://myanimelist.net/anime/11751/Senki_Zesshou_Symphogear
Winter 2012 (13 episodes) Summer 2013 (13 episodes) Summer 2015 (13 episodes) Summer 2017 (3/13 episodes, unfinished) Summer 2019 (0/13 episodes, unfinished)
My Score: 1/10, MAL Score: 7.02/10 S1, 7.46/10 S2, 7.43/10 S3, 7.59/10 S4, 8.19/10 S5
Best Character: Tachibana Hibiki

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOXaWCRv_68

Premise: Aliens are attacking Earth, and the only defense is symphogears, ancient weapons powered by songs. Tachibana Hibiki is embedded with a symphogear after an attack at a concert, and she teams up with Kazanari Tsubasa, a woman still grieving the loss of her former partner.

The Good: Symphogear has good music, especially the battle songs. I also like Hibiki. Shes energetic and happy, at least when the plot allows her to be. Symphogear is at its best when Hibiki is being a dork about friendship or getting pointed towards the Noise and allowed to run wild.

The Bad: Symphogear isnt at its best very often. The first season took some baffling turns that I still dont fully understand. It had something to do with DNA and the moon, I dunno. The later seasons were where Symphogear turned awful, though. S2 introduced some of the worst characters ever. Like, one villain slaughtered children while cackling maniacally and he still has some absolute morons convinced that he was the good guy. Then another character wanted to save their friends life so they tried their hardest to kill that friend in a battle. The writing in Symphogear was atrocious whenever it turned even slightly serious, which it often did.

Overall: It appears Symphogear is going to keep coming back to haunt me every few seasons. While I do intend to continue it someday, for now I gave up early in the fourth season when it started delving into war crimes. Then again, that season also had an amazing song about beef stroganoff that they sang in their cooking class. If only all of Symphogear could be fun like that.

COMING UP TOMORROW:
250: Mad scientists have twisted this anime into a monster.
249: This anime was turned to ash by my UV defenses.

We're done with the 1/10 tier! Next up is 2/10, featuring twenty anime that I dislike slightly less than the bottom ten.

Ah, I knew this was coming, but I didn't read the clues or I would have guessed. I love Symphogear, though. Partially through the final season.

Hibiki is the best though so you got that one right.

S1 alone would've ranked quite a bit higher. As confusing as the story became, I loved rage-mode Hibiki. Dr. Ver and the trio of new characters working with him in S2 was where Symphogear lost me. I honestly don't remember S3 very well, I was powering through just to get it over with at that point.

2/10: BAD TIER

250. Frankenstein Family
https://myanimelist.net/anime/36397/Shiyan_Pin_Jiating
Spring 2018 (12 episodes)
My Score: 2/10, MAL Score: 6.33/10
Best Character: Aisley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMuVcRZhyQo

Premise: Five children raised in seclusion and experimented on by their mad scientist parents are saved by the government. Now they must adapt to society without revealing their abnormalities.

The Good: I liked the girl who had spider legs coming out of her back. As an arachnophobe, she triggered me good. For some reason a normal girl with spider legs was way freakier than the girl in Monster Musume who had a full spider body with a human upper half attached.

The Bad: You wouldnt think itd be hard to fill ten-minute episodes with monster shenanigans, but they found a way to make it boring. The themes kept changing between episodes too. In one, its important to be yourself! In the next, absolute conformity is all that matters! One episode had the family wreak havoc in a restaurant with their monstrousness on full display. Then later episodes had a bunch of drama about how they absolutely could not let anyone realize they were part monster. It also ended on a cliffhanger, which is baffling for a show that tried to be slice-of-life and definitely doesnt deserve another season.

Overall: The worst part about Frankenstein Family is the lame title. During the title cards, they say Creature Family Days in plain English. Thats a fine title, why change it? Otherwise, this whole anime was incompetent and boring, but nothing about it was overly offensive.

Anime ja nai

I know Frankenstein Family is some Chinese knock-off anime, but if it has a listing on MyAnimeList I'm going to count it!

249. Vampire in the Garden
https://myanimelist.net/anime/39518/Vampire_in_the_Garden
Spring 2022 (5 episodes)
My Score: 2/10, MAL Score: 7.14/10
Best Character: Momo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ngw-g6aMmA
(This anime doesnt have an OP or ED, so I linked the Netflix trailer)

Premise: A city defends itself against vampires, but is bleak and oppressive as a result. During a raid, the vampire queen Fine decides to rescue Momo, a human who wants to learn music.

The Good: I didnt mind Momo. She just wanted to learn music and find a place to live in peace. The animation was usually good.

The Bad: Vampire in the Garden only had five episodes, which didnt leave much room to craft a setting or do anything with its characters. The vampires dont have lore, they just appeared in the world one day. Were told that humans and vampires absolutely cannot coexist, but its not clear why. There are multiple character examples and even entire settlements where they coexist. The relationship between Momo and Fine never develops much, either. There are a few traveling montages where it wouldve been nice to see little moments between them, but theres no time for that in five episodes. The runtime was probably why the ending felt rushed, too, and why it undermined everything that came before it. This whole anime wound up being a waste of time.

Overall: Vampire in the Garden was full of bad pacing and baffling writing decisions. I dont know if more episodes couldve saved it, but as it stands Momo and Fine decide to trust each other almost instantly. Anything that fleshed out their relationship or did something with one of the many antagonist factions chasing after them wouldve been welcome.

COMING UP TOMORROW:
248: Im selling this anime to pay off my debts.
247: This anime keeps stalking me even though I dont like it.
246: This anime skipped too many classes to play ping pong.

Mobilezoid posted...

246: This anime skipped too many classes to play ping pong.

Another yuri anime for the bottom 30?

SockoressKnight posted...

Another yuri anime for the bottom 30?

If it is, then I just gotta \_()_/ because even though it had flaws, it certainly wasn't anywhere near bad IMO.

Are you guessing it's the Scorching Ping Pong thing? The only ping pong series I know is Ping Pong the Animation, which seemed like a poor guess for the slot in lots of ways.

Without giving away whether you're right or not, I do like yuri romance despite what my rankings for yuri anime may imply! The visual novel Highway Blossoms is one of my favorite video games ever and is my gold standard for how a romance should be told, yuri or otherwise. Let's just say I haven't found a yuri anime that can match it yet.

I tend to say that I am a yuri fan but don't end up liking a lot of yuri anime. Citrus and Adachi were both not great. The only ones I can think of that I've really enjoyed a lot were Bloom Into You and Strawberry Panic. (Roba I think you would hate Strawberry Panic so don't take that as a recommendation.) I guess there's also Maria Watches Over Us which I loved, but I view it as more drama than romance so I don't lump it in the same boat.

Scorching Ping Pong Girls was great so I hope it's not that. Also (potential ranking spoilers) iirc Roba said they liked that show in the anime topic so unless I'm just misremembering it probably isn't that

As a general rule, I try not to use any words from the title in the hint (well except basic words like "the")

It wasnt easy to come up with hints for some of them with that restriction!

Sceptilesolar posted...

Are you guessing it's the Scorching Ping Pong thing? The only ping pong series I know is Ping Pong the Animation, which seemed like a poor guess for the slot in lots of ways.

I haven't seen it, but I've only heard good things about Ping Pong. I'm not sure how much class is skipped in Scorching Hot Ping Pong Girls (I think the name is), but skipping class to play ping pong is the setup for Adachi to Shimamura, which is my guess.

Mobilezoid posted...

Without giving away whether you're right or not, I do like yuri romance despite what my rankings for yuri anime may imply! The visual novel Highway Blossoms is one of my favorite video games ever and is my gold standard for how a romance should be told, yuri or otherwise. Let's just say I haven't found a yuri anime that can match it yet.

Just an observation (maybe, who knows). I also like yuri anime but have dropped a fair share of them (including AdaShima)

Oh, right, it is Adachi and Shimamura, I got confused and focused too much on the ping pong. That's a better choice. I like the LN but the anime sure is slow, I couldn't finish it myself. For super slow burn series especially I can only tolerate them in written form.

And in my defense it's a really long series and the delinquency stuff is abandoned almost instantly.

248. Taisho Otome Fairy Tale
https://myanimelist.net/anime/45055/Taishou_Otome_Otogibanashi
Fall 2021 (12 episodes)
My Score: 2/10, MAL Score: 7.78/10
Best Character: Shiratori Kotori

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eBW38kVUkE

Premise: After losing the use of his arm in an accident, Tamahiko Shima is considered worthless by his wealthy family and sent to live a life of seclusion in the countryside. His only companion will be a bride they purchased for him, the cheerful Tachibana Yuzuki.

The Good: Ill admit Yuzuki was cute. I also liked Kotori, the musician who was like an old-timey idol.

The Bad: Taisho Otome Fairy Tale tried to be both cute and dark, and it fell into the worst of both worlds. Yuzuki is cute, yes, but she isnt allowed to be anything but cute. She has no hard feelings about being sold to pay her familys debts. She comes into the arrangement with nothing but optimism. It really undermines a romance when one half of it is determined to fall in love no matter how much of a brooding jerk the guy is. It wouldnt be so bad if this was just a cutesy slice-of-life where she cheered up a depressed guy in zany ways, but TOFT often became way too serious. Theres depression, suicide ideation, prostitution, alcoholism, abusiveness, destruction, death and, in my opinion, none of these aspects are given the weight they deserve. Rio, for example, is violently beaten by her drunken father, and no one seems to care. Why even include that if you wont do anything with it?

Overall: Taisho Otome Fairy Tale simply wasnt competent enough to weave together two divergent tones. The cute parts were always harshly out-of-place next to the dark parts, which served only to make things miserable.

I thought this might be the show from the clue, but I never watched it and wasn't aware the girl was sold to cover a debt. Other than the premise, the only thing I remember hearing about the show is that the girl binds her chest and is surprisingly stacked.

Was the anime complete? I liked the manga okay up until the very melodramatic final act, but that kind of soured it for me.

The anime ends right after the (TOFT spoilers) earthquake, not sure if the manga continues past that.

That's the melodramatic final act I was thinking of, I assume it's complete.

247. Golden Time
https://myanimelist.net/anime/17895/Golden_Time
Fall 2013 (24 episodes)
My Score: 2/10, MAL Score: 7.75/10
Best Character: Kaga Kouko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0qQuMMKGyQ

Premise: Tada Banri, despite recently losing his memories in an accident, nevertheless goes to college in Tokyo. There he meets Kaga Kouko, a woman who has problems with obsession.

The Good: I liked Golden Time in the beginning. Im usually a fan of amnesia plotlines because they allow an examination of a characters core personality. Traumatic memories might turn a brave person into a coward, for example, and losing them allows who they really are to emerge. I also have a soft spot for yandere characters, and Kouko was a lot of fun. The idea of a guy falling in love with a stalker lady is great.

The Bad: The positives transformed into negatives as Golden Time went on. In the amnesia plotline, the two versions of Banri are completely different people with no indication it has anything to do with nature vs nurture. This plotline also came and went without any logic to justify it, simply striking whenever it would cause the most heartache. Everyone acted wildly out-of-character at some point, too. Koukos defining trait is that she falls in love hard and doesnt know how to let go. She went against that several times just to keep everything is miserable. I hate it when romances are less about exploring a relationship between two characters and more about throwing up hurdles between them.

Overall: Golden Time had a strong start, but it quickly lost sight of the strengths of its premise and descended into melodrama. By the end I hated everyone except 2D-kun, and he was only spared because his whole schtick was pointing out the bad writing surrounding him.

246. Adachi and Shimamura
https://myanimelist.net/anime/39790/Adachi_to_Shimamura
Fall 2020 (12 episodes)
My Score: 2/10, MAL Score: 7.10/10
Best Character: Hino Akira

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rLvMGlOClk

Premise: Adachi Sakura and Shimamura Hougetsu meet on the gyms second floor while theyre both skipping class. They struggle to understand their feelings as they begin growing closer.

The Good: Early on, it was cute watching Adachis crush blossom, mostly from Shimamuras perspective. There were also some good lovey-dovey lines, like when Adachi was thankful for everything her past self had ever done because those choices led to meeting Shimamura. I liked that Adachi saved junk like soda cans just because Shimamura gave them to her. Basically, a lot from the awkward crush stage of a relationship-to-be resonated with me.

The Bad: Adachi and Shimamura never progressed past the awkward crush stage. Things that are cute in the first week or two become pitiful after knowing someone for over a year. They also kept taking big steps back and undoing all of their development. Shimamura was easily the worst. Shes apathetic about everything, including Adachi. Adachi isnt much better. She obsesses over her crush so fully that she mentally crumbles if Shimamura so much as talks to anyone else.

Overall: The relationship in Adachi and Shimamura moves at such a glacial pace that I hesitate to call it a relationship at all. For Adachi its an obsession, and for Shimamura its just something meaningless to pass the time. I have no problem with those as starting points for individual arcs, but Adachi and Shimamura never progress past it. The whole season amounts to a waste of time. And I didnt even have room to complain about a literal alien thats in this too for some reason!

COMING UP TOMORROW:
245: This anime died at a royal wedding.
244: This anime isn't good enough to make it in the big city.
243: This anime wandered off while its caretaker was napping.

(I may or may not actually post anything tomorrow. Sorry to get real in my big dumb anime ranking project, but I'm putting my sick cat to sleep early tomorrow. I have write-ups written in advance but I like to give them a once-over before posting. I'm not sure yet if I'll appreciate the distraction or if I just won't feel like it. At worst I'll resume on Saturday)

game of thrones
???
rugrats

sorry to hear about your cat, my condolences

Can I recommend something with multiple seasons
Or additional seasons if you somehow haven't watched all

handsomeboy2012 posted...

Can I recommend something with multiple seasons
Or additional seasons if you somehow haven't watched all

As long as the seasons combined are a reasonable amount. It can't hurt to suggest it, at worst I'll say it's too long

detective conan

KommunistKoala posted...

detective conan

I'll get to this right after One Piece (I am not watching One Piece)

because you are reading it instead! :)

changmas posted...

because you are reading it instead! :)

Do it do it do it

really sorry to hear about your cat!

i actually like a love story in my shows if there is enough going on outside of conflicts to drive the show. need on your description, i kind of suspect that your lower-ranked romantic shows kind of don't have anything going on other than the characters' feelings for each other and thus erect boundaries that exist because without them the show wouldn't be able to continue?

I just don't like it when drama in a romance could be solved with a conversation and the characters don't do it. Like, the guy gets seen at a moment that looks kind of bad but was just an innocent coincidence, then he chases after the girl saying he can explain but she refuses to listen, and he doesn't just say it anyway even though it'd take five words. Then that misunderstanding lasts a few episodes, ugh. I much prefer obstacles where everyone is smart and trying their best but there's just no easy fix.

There were multiple times in Adachi and Shimamura, for example, where Adachi was sad, Shimamura could see Adachi was sad, and they just... don't talk. For a whole episode. At one point in Taisho Otome, there was a big expanding chain of misunderstandings that couldve been resolved at any point if the guy took a few seconds to explain what was going on. I hate artificial drama like that, and the romances I've ranked higher usually avoid it