Hi, considering the various styles and stories that anime can provide, from comedy to drama, from simple episodes structure to complex appearence; its bound to have some anime that are overrated and some underrated.
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UNDERrated:
Haibane Renmei - I dont know about the feedback on japanese television and dvds, but considereing this forum and orthers this anime doesnt get the praisde it deserves. The characters are unique, well rounded. The story does bring soemthing new, in my view, full of symbolism, and even if the person doesnt interpret anything, its a great plot.
OVERrated:
Inuyasha - The premise is good, but it does drag a LOT, the enemys show up from nowhere with no purpose unless being 'bad'. the characters doesnt develop that much. it should have been a 26 episodes saga max.
Your turn.... make a list ^-^'
Later!
I totally agree on Haibane Renmei- It is one of the most beautiful animes Ive ever seen- wish it ran for more episodes, would love to see some ova's on it or a movie to follow !
Over rated- This will piss off alot of you- thou I like EVA but I think its over rated- the last 4-or5 episodes really suck--almost anything is better than thats shows last 4- or 5 episodes- I know of the remastered edited version- but i felt really cheated on this series--like the animators and story dropped down a hole because they did not care-
I have to agree about Eva being overated. If it wasnt for the final movie where everyone died (i love happy endings) I would have outright said that show sucked...
I agree.
I also have to mention...Ghost in the Shell. ALL OF IT is way overrated.
The Manga, the Movie, the Show. All of it is boring and, especially the manga, not well written. The artwork and animation is great but the story and dialogue is just bland and preachy.
OVERRATED
Cowboy bebop - it was alright but nothing id watch a second time and the movie was pretty boring as well.
UNDERRATED
Devilman - nuff said!!!
Overrated :
Drangonball z - One of the crappiest anime shows i ever seen...no story, awful animation, slow , boring...lots of people seem to like though ...
Underated :
Mileniun Actress - As good as anything Mihazaki ever did. Stunning, deserves an Oscar
Underrated:
Kindaichi
Overrated:
Anything Takahashi.
Over rated:
I have to agree with both Ghost in the Shell and EVA. I enjoyed both of them well enough but felt that much of the philisophical stuff in both titles was thin and that it either should have been shortened to make room for more fluffy entertainment (I love the action scenes in both titles) or should have gone into more depth (which would have made for an even less viewable show).
I also feel that Wings of Honnamayese (or however it's spelled) is over rated. It does feature some of the most impressive animation from the time and has some very rich characters. The problem is that there isn't anything compelling to the story to keep the viewers attention.
Under rated:
Irresponsible Captain Tylor and Photon: The Idiot Adventure both spring to mind right away. These are two of the funniest anime I've ever seen. ICT doesn't have the best animation but the cast and situations more than make up for any shortfalls in that department. I haven't heard too much conversation for either of these titles but I feel they should both be seen by everyone: especially Photon.
I'm going to add a third category here: Most controversial.
I've had lots of chats with people about Ninja Scroll and how some people feel that it is just mindless violence while others look at it as a pinacle of mature action movies with rich characters and subtleties that raise the movie above the harsh presentation.
I will also add DBZ to this part of my list. It has one of the strongest fan bases of any anime I can think of and also has the most people saying that it's utter crap. I'm not at liberty to add my position on this debate because I've only seen one or two episodes and I don't feel that's enough to base an opinion on.
I fail to see where Cowboy Bebop is boring and over rated...I agree that Captain Tyler should have more merit than it has...and I also agree with what you, Zagatto, had to say about Eva and Ghost...and lastly, Devilman is just stupid.
Gettet Robo (which is by the same guy as Devilman) however is just a great sit down and have fun animation. I think it's underrated too.
Another underrated show is Geo Armor. It has a good story, a nice concept, and I just love "Old Futuristic Robot" shows. Like the upcoming movie called "Sky Captain" is about. It stars Angelina Jolie (sadly) but even she can't keep me from seeing it.
As far as controvercy goes. I don't see how Ninja Scroll is controvercial. There are tons of movies like it but it executes it's style in a more professional way. It really is good as far as quality goes. Good story, great action of course, good character development, and is animated just beautifully. There really isn't that much violence in it for it's genre either.
Overrated:
I have to say Cowboy Bebop is one. It's one of my favorite animes, but it is also one that I see people over rate alot. It has many filler episodes (some episodes I can't stand to watch again) and is not as complicated as many try to make it seem. It lacks closure at the end as well. I'm fine with Spike being dead, but we really don't get anything out of Faye or Jet (well, we get Faye's to a degree, but I still didn't feel satisfied with what we learned). I also think they should have introduced Ed sooner. It would have had a bigger emotional impact when she left if we knew her earlier in the series. I really didn't care that she was leaving and saw it coming. It's still highly ranked out of my favorite shows.
Ghost In The Shell is another one that people like to talk about when trying to impress other's with. I like the series and think highly of it, but at the same time, too many people play it's philosophical and intelligence to make themselves sound better. They try and use it to get the advantage over another anime fan when discussing various series.
Utena is a series I didn't really like despite many people reccomending it to me. I couldn't get into the story or like the characters. I rented the first two volumes and only watched the first disc before returning the dvd's. I couldn't force myself to continue. I was pretty depressed at the time, so that may have been one of the causes.
Underrated:
Zoids is a series that I enjoy. I usually hate shows where young people battle robots/animals/animal like things, but for some reason, I always seem to sit down and watch a whole episode and find it entertaining. I'm weird though.
Big O is one that is pretty underrated. I probably wouldn't have given it a second glance if it wasn't on tv. I don't really talk too much about the show, but it is very entertaining. It has a pretty small fanbase though and many of my friends haven't even heard of it. Roger reminds me of Bruce Wayne.
I think Blue Gender is underrated. The only problem is the first 2 episodes. I got hooked at episode 5. It was kinda like the Soprano's in the sense that I wanted to see who died next. During my bloodlust, I actually began to care for Yugi and Marlene. The ending is pretty stupid though.
Other Stuff:
Just to note on Zagatto's mention of Photon, I didn't really enjoy Photon as much as I thought I would. I didn't really get the passion to continue watching it, as I do with most series. Although, at episode 5 & 6 I started to get into it, but by then it was already over. I wouldn't say it was bad, but it's not on my favorites list.
How does Cowboy Bebop have filler episodes???? The manga is based off the show. And the whole concept for Bebop was Lupin. It was a screenplay for "Lupin in Space" but they declined it so he just took it to another company to animate and changed some stuff around, and voila...Cowboy Bebop was born. So how does it have ANY filler episodes let alone MANY???
from what i remember most of cowboy bebop were filler episodes seriously that series could have ended within 5 episodes. the thing is completely filled with pointless side track episodes. i never understood why so many people like that piece of crap and i probably never will.
I actually didn't like the manga too much (I didn't find any of the stories in them that interesting). As good as the series is, it does have filler episodes. The episodes that I would consider filler would be Sympathy For The Devil, Heavy Metal Queen, Mushroom Samba and Wild Horses. While these episodes are good, I don't really think they bring much to develop the characters. Heavy Metal Queen is an episode I usually skip when watching the series over. Mushroom Samba is one of my favorite episodes, but it really doesn't bring anything to the series. By filler episodes, I mean episodes that don't bring anything to the main story line. While some series have many filler episodes that I love (Buffy the Vampire Slayer has many filler episodes that are some of my favorite), they are still filler episodes that could be cut out of the series and not affect the progression too much.
Again, I have to state that Cowboy Bebop is one of my favorite series, but even I have to say that many people overrate it.
Again I ask...how is something that was Animated before it was anything else be filler??? To be filler it had to have been something else before! But it WASN'T!!! And this is my last post about Bebop in here, I'm not going to hijack this thread anyfurther.
EDIT-This particular post was in regards to justin.