Ask John: What Anime Are So Bad They’re Good?

Question:
One popular concept with American movie fans is the idea of, “So bad its good,” where an incredibly cheesy plot, wooden acting, terrible special effects, etc. add up to an incredibly entertaining package. Most of the time this is unintentional, where it just so happened that a low budget, poor actors, and incompetent directing produced it. It seems that this is popular enough that movies are intentionally made to be this way, movies like Snakes on a Plane, Planet Terror, Mars Attacks, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.

So my question is, could some really, really, poorly made anime possibly be intentionally made to be so bad its good? I mean, some stuff is so mind bogglingly bad it makes you wonder if they didn’t do this on purpose, like Musashi Gundoh?

Answer:
This is a tricky question because its answer should be anime that are not only enjoyable because they’re bad, but furthermore possibly intentionally bad. Identifying especially terrible anime like Bavi-Stock, MD Geist, Riki-oh 2, Fandora 2, Gundress, and Dog Soldier is easy, but these awful entries aren’t especially enjoyable. Hodge-podge anime that are enjoyable and seem like obvious candidates, such as Battle Royal High School or Bakuen Campus Guardress, aren’t actually unusually poor quality productions. So, since this is such a complex inquiry, I’ll approach it in gradiations, in order to provide a more comprehensive answer.

Very few anime productions come to mind that are enjoyable because they’re seemingly intentionally awful. In fact, I can only think of one title which may actually meet all of these criteria. I’ve long suspected that the 2004 Chou Henshin Cos-Prayers: The Cosmopolitan Prayers anime television series felt confusing and incomplete by design in order to allow is two follow-up series, Hit wo Nerae! Smash Hit, and Love Love? to make fun of it.

While Cosprayers may have been moderately entertaining, the 2006 Kujibiki Unbalance television series was not enjoyable. However, I know I’m not the show’s only critic to wonder if the series was actually intentionally illogical and ridiculous in order to satirize the tastes of the Genshiken characters, and by extension, contemporary otaku.

The Ikkitousen anime franchise lies in a realm of uncertainty between self-conscious absurdity and genuine failure. Unquestionably the series is frequently ridiculous and idiotic. The narrative frequently moves back and forth between witless comedy and melodramatic tension. Clearly, for Ikkitousen to have had three television series, so far, the title has earned a cult following that enjoys the show, but I doubt that any objective critic could call Ikkitousen “good.” And the show maintains such a precise balance between idiocy and serious intent that, I think, only the series’ animators know for certain if the show is intentionally bad, or if it just turned out that way.

The 2006 Naikaku Kenryoku Hanzai Kyosei Torishimarikan Zaizen Jotaro television series, complete with its trademark quote, “Da bomb!” exists as another morbid curiosity. The series’ animation quality and art design at times approach the inepitude of legendary awful anime Musashi Gundoh. Yet, the series also seems so self-consciously exagerated and ridiculous that it’s difficult to imagine the series not being intentionally terrible.

From this point onward I can nominate a handful of additional anime productions that are fascinating failures, although (probably) not by intention.

The 2007 Kissdum -Engage Planet- television series was reportedly a vicitm of catastrophic production and development obstacles, resulting in a show that begins with great promise but quickly devolves into a cinematic train wreck. The original Kissdum series was so awful that it’s currently being re-broadcast in a slightly revised edition titled “Kissdum -Engage Planet- R” that attempts to salvage the wreckage into a program slightly less awful.

The 2003 Gunslinger Girl series, animated by Madhouse, is beloved of many anime fans. However, the 2008 sequel series from Artland, “Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino-” is characterized by a captivating awfulness. Not only have the character designs drastically changed, they’ve changed for the worse. The series’ animation quality is noticably low budget. And the series is rife with contradictions of logic and common sense.

The 2005 Koi Koi 7 television series looks terrible and excels in absurd, ridiculous situations, gags, and references to other anime. I do think that the series is intentionally bad, but I question whether its poor production values are due to intention or regrettable circumstance.

The 2004 Ring ni Kakero 1 television series and its 2006 sequel Ring ni Kakero 1: Nichibei Kessen Hen are typified by ridiculous exagerration and shocking, by American standards, racial and ethnic stereotypes. However, the technical execution of the anime is satisfactory, so much of the awfulness of this series comes from creator Masami Kuramada’s original manga.