Top 10 Worst Scenes In Great Anime (Ft. Todd Haberkorn)
For this list, we'll be looking at the isolated moments in an anime where the ball was well and truly dropped. Not to say it ruins the series as a whole, but it's clear these were definitely the low points!
#10: A Battle of Words
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“Yu Yu Hakusho” (1992-94) We can understand wanting to have a cool off period following the absolutely fantastic Dark Tournament arc, but did it have to be something like this? We all know Kurama is a genius and seeing him engage in a mental battle does sound appealing, but when it boils down to a word game against a creepy rival from his high school days, things fall pretty flat, pretty quick. You could have at least have given us something a little more exciting than a clash of syntax. Guess everything can’t be Sensui quality…
#9: Stocking in Love
“Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt” (2010) Look, we know what we signed up for. Two scantily-clad angels killing off ghosts and demons, equipped with graphic humour, plenty of vulgarity and an animation style that resembles the Powerpuff Girls if they were dunked in crack. All in all, a good, fun time! Want to know what’s not a good, fun time? Watching Stocking fall in love for the first time, only for her man of choice to be a gross, disgusting ghost that gets his kicks from cussing her out and farting everywhere. Even for this show, this is pitifully stupid.
#8: Too Many Factions
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“A Certain Magical Index” (2008-2019) While we may have enjoyed watching Touma battle it out with the fanatical members of God’s Right Seat, what really killed the third season was how it was mired in the confusing and convoluting antics of several other factions. Which is not surprising when they’re briskly adapting 9 novels in just 26 episodes! By all means, give us a battle royale arc, but at least make it comprehensible, as opposed to dropping in organisations like SCHOOL, BLOCK, MEMBER, ITEM and GROUP right of the bat and expect us to remember who’s who!
#7: Pizza Crust
“Digimon Adventure” (1999-2000) Another casualty of early English dubbing. What was supposed to be the introduction of a terrifying, psychotic entity that nearly ended the Digidestined turned out to be something of a clown. Apocalymon was meant to be this evil creature, the stuff of nightmares, only for his character to be neutered in translation and become something of a Digi-Dork who was jealous of everyone else getting the good stuff. So much so he uttered the now immortal analogy about everyone getting pizza…and he just gets the crust. Ugggh.
#6: Why Is Zero Two a Spaceship?
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“Darling in the Franxx” (2018) Oooh boy, this ending is something else. This show was doing so well with its portrayal of sexual and emotional exploration in teenagers combined with a rather unique take on the mecha genre thrown into the mix. And then aliens happened, during the last couple of episodes, and totally changed things up. Just as we were recovering from the whiplash that was VIRM, Zero Two ended up merging with her mecha, essentially becoming a giant ship with a face. Sooo…what metaphysical meaning do you think this relates to?
#5: Canary Eye
“Goblin Slayer” (2018) Okay, either someone royally messed up here or one of the editors was trying to turn this dungeon crawler into an arthouse flick. We get it, Goblin Slayer looks like he’s bitten the dust, a canary is watching over his body, the camera zooms in on its eye, symbolism, symbolism, symbolism. However, we have to draw the line at watching this damn bird’s ocular region for two minutes straight. Obviously, the credits were supposed to roll by this point, only they didn’t, leaving many viewers utterly confused and somewhat aggravated.
#4: Guy vs. Guy
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“Naruto: Shippuden” (2007-17) That’s right people, we didn’t go with the Ninja Ostrich, we didn’t go with Tiger Mizuki, we didn’t even go with the Mothers vs Sumos, we went with what has to be the worst fight in the entire franchise. That’s quite an achievement onto itself. Instead of battling a Tailed Beast or a member of the Akatsuki, we got to watch Guy fight an evil clone of himself in the most lacklustre of display of hand-to-hand combat we’ve ever seen. Come on Guy! You’re so much better than this! What happened to all that talk about youth?!
#3: CGI Dragon
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“Fate/stay night” (2006) As far as introductions to the Fate-verse go, we’d say Saber and Shirou’s initial adventure was pretty decent, even if it’s dire need of a remaster. However, the one scene that all Type-Moon fans agree was absolute nonsense, was the crazy-ass decision to take the canon love scene between Master and Servant…and swap it out for a crappy fight with the most atrocious looking CGI dragon to date! While we can imagine animating a steamy scene between the sheets isn’t easy, surely it was a better option than swapping it out for Bootleg Smaug!
#2: Asshole Angel
“The Seven Deadly Sins: Revival of the Commandments” (2018) Aside from crowbarring in some exposition about the Four Archangels, this scene is painfully pointless. With the Ten Commandments knocking on their door, it falls to the king’s brother to protect everyone by offering his body as a vessel in order to summon a member of the Goddess race. Who…promptly pisses off as soon as she sees she’s outgunned, only to get massacred by a bloodthirsty Derieri a moment later. If you wanted to demonstrate just how useless angels are in this series, then well done!
#1: Joey’s Dream Duel
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“Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters” (2000-04) And you thought Capsule Monsters was bad. Instead of a non-stop, vicious duel between Yugi and Kaiba in the Battle City Semi-Finals, the show would keep cutting to this nonsensical duel between Joey and a random child which, might we add, all takes place in his head following his harrowing loss to Marik. Why? Why are we watching Joey battle it out in a dreamscape? This totally undercuts the tragedy of his last bout, not to mention takes us away from the card game we actually want to watch! Just stay in a coma Joey, you’re ruining the fun!
