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So Bad Its Good: Anime
This page is for anime and manga you wouldn't admit watching to like-minded friends, but you just can't look away.

Sometimes a show can do good or bad, but the dub job falls into that rare niche of, while still listenable, being impossible to hear with a straight face.
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     General 
  • Speed Racer. Featuring some of the crudest animation possible, the show is filled with so many plot holes, you just can't help it to smile the whole time watching it. The theme song is an Ear Worm to boost. The characters, while having odd names, are actually pretty enjoyable. EXCEPT FOR SPRITLE.
  • The three-episode OVA ICE is thoroughly amateurish, prone to every possible Girls/Boys' Love Genre and What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?/Awesome cliche out there, has the weirdest main heroine's voice in anime history, and is generally so incoherent story-wise that you can't just drop watching it. And when you are done, you'll write a five page review telling the world how bad the OVA is.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light could be considered one of the worst anime movies ever pumped out by 4Kids, for taking the bad plots, dialog, voice acting, and Product Placement leaps and bounds farther than even Yu-Gi-Oh! GX has managed to do. There are reasons, though, that some find the movie so hilariously bad that it was entertaining: the entire lack of explanation as to why anything was happening, or why Yami was suddenly able to summon a gigantic glowy dragon, plus the random kung fu fights with mummies led to much inappropriately-timed laughter. The Abridged Version sums it up: "I can't help but feel as if it was some sort of cheap cash-in made to promote a bunch of cards." Japan got a novelization and some extra scenes that explained more of the plot (which helped little to none at all.)
    • Plus, the movie gave us the immortal line, "But even eternity doesn't last forever."
    • And don't forget how in the dub Yugi, while screaming in horror, suddently has a virile but incredibly funny voice for about 5 seconds ("TALK LATER, RUN NOW!").
  • Musashi Gundoh must be the epitome of this trope for anime. It is so unintentionally hilarious in how badly it was executed that the DVD version with improved quality animation is actually less popular than the original broadcast version (with just plain QUALITY animation). It's never been translated, but it's been reported that it becomes even funnier if you actually understand what the characters are saying, because entire scenes that were crucial to the story never made it into the show itself due to budget constraints or animators claiming they were too difficult to draw, resulting in the show making almost no sense whatsoever.
  • Chargeman Ken really must be seen to be believed. It would have been long forgotten had it not been for one person uploading it on Nico Nico Douga, and the nonsensical narm has underwent memetic mutation since.
    • A lot of shows produced by Knack is this (check out Dame Oyaji if you have a chance). It's amazing that they managed to churn out a few series that were actually successful.
  • Diatron-5 (a.k.a. Space Transformers), a Korea-produced anime, has Off Model animation, a hero who sounds like both a 25-and-8-year-old (if you're going to leave his grunts undubbed, it might help if his original voice matches the dub voice...), the grandest case of Artistic License - Biology (Ivy, the "world's most talented girl", has a goddamn galaxy in her body, which is what the heroes have to be injected into...and no blood either, since they didn't drown after injection), a plot that starts off incoherent and gets worse from there...Gods. The clincher is the voice acting—not only does everyone sound bored out of their minds, half of the cast don't sound like native English speakers (the other half are British). And that's not counting the DVD cover, which has artwork (and character designs) ripped straight from Gundam and possibly AKIRA. Despite all this, it still manages to be entertaining—after all, what other anime claims that the immune system of a cybernetically-enhanced girl is comprised of tribal, bumbling "White Soldiers"?
  • The Gundam offshoot Doozy Bots would more than likely have been So Bad, It's Good had it aired. See the promo video here.
  • A.D. Police, a bastard offshoot of Bubblegum Crisis, which focused on a super-cliched team of police who specialize in combating berserk Boomers (or Voomers, depending on the dub/sub). It has some... interesting... animation lapses, and is accidentally hilarious from beginning to end. Given that it is both a cheesy action movie, cheesy police procedural, and a cheesy anime, it becomes a veritable trope goldmine.
  • The anime adaptation of The Violinist Of Hameln was an attempt to make the the plot of the manga, a comedy that parodied similar shounen series (albeit with a dark and serious overarching plot, resulting in strong Mood Whiplash every time something important happened), Darker and Edgier by removing almost all of the comedy. Unfortunately, they had almost no budget to work with (rumor has it that they spent most of it on the rights to Hamel and Raiel's classical music), meaning that the writing was incredibly shoddy and they didn't have enough money to actually animate most of it, making 90% of the anime a sort of slide show of Pastel Chalked Freeze Frames with endless whining voice acting on top. In the end, it was cut off at 26 episodes (as opposed to a planned 31) due to poor ratings and ended up with an incredibly unsatisfying Downer Gecko Ending. The anime still manages to be popular today because it's so Narmtastic that it's almost funnier than the manga.
  • Fourteen is a horror manga about the mad mutated chicken professor Chicken George. It's probably the narmiest work of fiction ever. And you won't be able to stop reading.
  • Hoshi no ko Polon (Starchild Polon), like Chargeman Ken above, has also gone through (albeit minor) Memetic Mutation on Nico Nico Douga. In addition to its horrid animation and nonsensical storyline (if there's any "story" at all) are the constant use of stock music composed by Jean Jacques Perrey.
  • Star Blazers gets this in the first season for its use of cliched plots, lack of action in the space battles* rotate just a hair to the right before firing]], for getting New Powers as the Plot Demands, for Desslock's on screen ham and for his mooks hilariously forced chant every time he appears*, Deeeeesslock Desslock Desslock..." now repeat every time Desslock is on or near his throne.]]
  • Super Atragon gets the nod here for:
    • Bad translations such as referring to naval gun shells as "missiles" and substituting "Fire" commands for "ENGAGE".
    • Truck-loads of ham thoroughly baked and served up by:
      • The Captain, who has No Indoor Voice and managed to develop his own catch-phrase in the 1.5hrs of total runtime! "Undersea Battleship Ra, ENGAGE!"
      • Anette, who had a totally gratuitous British accent
      • Avatar, who gave us a shrill and grossly overused Evil Laugh
      • The Scientist, who had an inexplicable German-ish accent
    • An overload of New Powers as the Plot Demands that included a self-leveling bridge, a Star Trek-like force-shield, rocket-powered anchors, and the inexplicable—not to mention plot-irrelevant—ability to fly. It should be noted that each of these abilities were shown exactly once with the exception of flight, which was shown a second time during the closing credits of the second part.
    • However, it did have a very kickin' and epic soundtrack.
  • The sexual content in the Zeorymer manga is so random and clumsy that one can't help but laugh. Notable examples include the title robot's IUD power source, the icicle rape scene, and an abrupt shot of female lead Miku's elderly adopted father giving her oral sex. To make things even funnier, despite Miku having a teenage body while clothed, she often suddenly has little girl's body while nude.
  • The one shot manga Kuso Miso Technique, the plot is simple as is the artwork. The characters are vague and... special but there's something wonderful about it.
  • Mars Of Destruction a short tie in to an obscure dating game universally has some of the lowest ratings on almost any major Anime Site (Anime News Network, My Anime List, etc) but many will deem it to be so bad it's good with its obvious Shout Out's to Evangelion horribly stiff animation, virtually no conceivable plot, and bad dialogue. People have given it Perfect Scores and written reviews of how much they enjoyed it.
  • Guilty Crown: A new work from Production I.G, directed by Tetsuro Araki , written by Hiroyuki Yoshino with help from Ichiro Okouchi, music composed by Supercell and character designs by redjuice?! What could possibly go wrong? Pretty much everything. The phenomenal animation and music failed to cover up the unlikeable, inconsistent characters that lacked interesting motivations and the constant Cliché Storm with an ending that answered absolutely nothing. Nonetheless, a lot of people were glued to the screen when it aired, despite the constant bashing.
  • I-zenborg, a mix of anime and Tokusatsu from the late 70's. First, the villain is a talking T-Rex, which tries to take over the world. Add to that the no budget animation, laughably bad live SFX, backgrounds made from photographs that never match the perspective the characters are drawn and ridiculous storylines with cringe inducing dialogue. To top it off, each Monster of the Week will meet a gruesome end, usually getting some limbs hacked off by the eponymous mecha's saw blades. In short, it's hilarious!

     Voice Acting 

     Animation 

     Music 
  • Some of the original songs for Pocket Monsters (the original Japanese version of Pokemon) have an endearing sort of awfulness. For an epitomizing example, look no further than "Pokemon ieru kana?" ("Can you say the Pokemon['s names]?") — the basis for the "Pokerap" — which starts with a sample of the Beatles' "I am the Walrus" and a hyper-enthusiastic American accented MC, and keeps getting weirder,
  • The dub opening for Cardcaptors. "The secrets of the Clow - were all a mystery~! But when this mighty book was opened, the powers were set free! CARDCAPTORS - a mystic adventure! CARDCAPTORS - a quest for all time!" Um... yeah.
  • The opening theme to the 4Kids English dub of One Piece. "Yo ho ho, he took a bite of Gum Gum!"
  • Intentionally "so bad it's awesome", Lucky Star's Konata's karaoke of the Dragon Ball Z theme.
  • The original English theme for Dragon Ball Z, "Rock the Dragon". Dragon Dragon, Rock the Dragon, Dragon Ball Z *roar*
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