
So, this was just a fleeting but fun meme doing the rounds on Twitter the other day but I didn’t end up posting there because I was too slow but also because the platform is rather ‘cramped’ when it comes to sharing reasons behind your choices 😀
And so, here’s that meme – the bare list first and then a few thoughts to go with it:
Anime I hate: I have no pithy answer here – so I’ll start with a nice ‘N/A‘
Anime I think is overrated: Anything that has 200+ episodes
Anime I think is underrated: Mushi-Shi
Anime I love: Nadia Secret of Blue Water
Anime I secretly love: Steins;Gate
Favourite anime of all time: Cowboy Bebop
Firstly, I don’t have much to report on the ‘anime I hate’ section because anything I haven’t enjoyed enough to continue watching… I didn’t continue watching, and so don’t have that much to say. I did do a short ‘Abandoned’ post a while back but I didn’t care enough to hate any of those shows, that’s for sure.
For the second item on the list I imagine you can guess the kinds of shows that I don’t have time for (literally and figuratively). If I’m feeling a bit grumpy I might even adjust that number to 100+ and yeah, I’m sure if I looked I’d find some exceptions quite easily… but for me, the risk to reward ratio is way off. More, the way a story ends is so, so important and obviously I hope, a show that eventually becomes more of a cash-cow* than an endeavour to tell a story, tends to dip sharply in quality all too soon and worse, fails to actually have an ending at all.

Now, in some ways calling Mushi-Shi ‘underrated’ might be a bit inaccurate as it’s highly regarded really, but certainly it tops few All-Time lists out there. I love Ginko, Yuto Nakano’s performance too and all the folktales woven throughout the episodic narrative. There’s a sombreness to the show too, which can even bring me down a little at times. Still, it’s my clear pick for the third item on the list.

For the ‘anime I love’ slot there are dozens of shows I could have included but today I went with Gainax’s lesser-known precursor to Neon Genesis – namely: Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water. No doubt I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m a sucker for both the Adventure genre and Coming of Age stories too. I’m also sure at least a few anime fans are aware that Nadia has more than a few very obvious and painful filler episodes – but I’m able to both overlook and skip them. Eventually, I’ll do an episode/arc-based review on the series but for now, I’ll say that the slow reveal of the true darkness of some characters and the drip-feed of truth when it comes to their world really balances nicely against the optimism and determination of the young heroes.

‘Secretly’ isn’t quite right here but I chose Steins;Gate simply because I haven’t reviewed it yet (though I will sooner or later) so that’s as close as I could manage to a ‘secret’ show I love, I guess – though if I can come up with something that fits the implied criteria of embarrassing I’ll update this list 😀 In any event, Steins;Gate can really put you through the wringer – it’s got time-travel, drama, comedy and romance, all pluses!

And finally! I have to go with what some may well consider a boring choice here and go with Cowboy Bebop… mostly due to all the reasons in this post (and more reasons I haven’t got around to sharing yet!).
Update: Forgot to do this yesterday:
*Cash-cows serve that secondary purpose (financial security being the main) even if they become dull shows, because the money they earn a studio can then be used to produce works that are still great but might not appeal as widely, and also might not have ever been made without that income.
I wasn’t aware of that meme, but I haven’t had Twitter in ages. That’s a good concept though. If I did that list, it might look like this…
Anime I hate: Debutante Detective Corps
Anime I think is overrated: Saikano
Anime I think is underrated: Yugo the Negotiator
Anime I love: The Place Promised In Our Early Days
Anime I secretly love: Kurau: Phantom Memory or Outlaw Star (only because I haven’t reviewed them much like how you mentioned Steins;Gate)
Favorite Anime: Haibane Renmei
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Awesome – I’ve not heard of a few of those, will have to add ‘Yugo the Negotiator’ to my list 🙂
Did you get a chance to review ‘Debutante Detective Corps’ ever?
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Thanks! Yugo the Negotiator gets slept on so much and the English dub is better than the original Japanese version (not to mention it corrects a major mistake the Japanese version made for a plot point).
I actually did review Debutante Detective Corps. https://iridiumeye.wordpress.com/2017/12/02/debutante-detective-corps-review/.
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Great, will check them out 🙂
And wow, that sounds rare re: the error in the plot, fascinating. Looks like it’s out of print too, but I’ll keep an eye out for a second hand copy in the future, sounds great.
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Nice! I saw you checked out both reviews.
I know, right? Since you read my Yugo review, you already know what it is now. I first saw it during my high school years and I was able to pick up on it right away since I have always liked geography. Yeah, it is a bummer how no one rescued the license yet. Hopefully someone like Discotek can rescue it since they’ve licensed more obscure anime than that. I got the DVDs from eBay after selling them years ago when I rediscovered anime.
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I wonder if there’s room for someone to come in a set themselves up as a kind of ‘forgotten/overlooked’ anime distributor (digital or otherwise) – or whether the few out there like Discotek already have it covered?
I’m sure the work from certain decades/studios will become increasingly niche, but now, when I go looking for things that aren’t in print anymore it feels like hunting LPs when I was a kid, it’s fun but difficult 😀
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