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So Bad It's Horrible Cleanup

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So Bad, It's Horrible is one of the more flame-bait-y parts of the site, so a cleanup thread is needed to ensure that works aren't added simply because someone doesn't like them.

If you want to list a work under this, keep the following in mind:

  • The work must have very few fans or defenders (both genuine and ironic). It should fail to appeal to any type of audience.
  • Being offensive in its subject matter isn't enough.
  • It isn't horrible just because a certain critic disliked it, though their reviews can be used as sources and citations.
  • The work should have notably poor reviews (e.g., less than 3/10 on IMDb, or single digit scores on Rotten Tomatoes)
  • For a Moral Substitute to qualify, it cannot even appeal to its target demographic.
  • Please be polite while writing and as much as possible, avoid falling into Complaining About Shows You Don't Like. Instead, focus on explaining why the work is horrible.

In addition, per No Recent Examples, Please!, a work must be at least one month old before it can be added, to prevent knee-jerk reactions.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 6th 2024 at 3:34:45 AM

KingofNightmares Since: Aug, 2016 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#4051: Feb 28th 2022 at 4:17:59 AM

On Live-Action Films (0-F), Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is listed. Seems fine enough, but on the YMMV page, there's this:

  • Vindicated by History: The movie was trashed by fans and critics when it came out. As the years go by, and the original intent of the film has been revealed (as well as the heavy Executive Meddling it faced) - people are starting to see it as a very misunderstood work. There are numerous attempts at fan edits to bring the film to its original intent.

The nature of the YMMV item implies that it's not seen as horrible anymore

"It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?"
mightymewtron Word Up from New New York Since: Oct, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Word Up
#4052: Feb 28th 2022 at 7:18:42 AM

Actually, from what I understand, it seems more that people blame the studio for Executive Meddling rather than blame the director for making the movie, but the movie is still understood to be bad. The Last Airbender has a similar situation explained on its Horrible entry. Not sure if that counts as Vindicated by History anyway.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
prettycoolguy Since: Nov, 2010
#4053: Feb 28th 2022 at 8:49:35 AM

It seems almost like Fan-Preferred Cut Content, except that the content doesn't exist for viewing.

TheLivingDrawing Lucas the Dreamer from The Town of Clayton Since: Apr, 2019 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
Lucas the Dreamer
#4054: Feb 28th 2022 at 12:14:24 PM

It doesn’t really fit Vindicated by History, more that people are starting to shift blame towards the executives rather than the film crew for making the film bad and wish to see What Could Have Been

Once Upon A Time.
DDRMASTERM do you wanna have a bad time? from Someplace, Utah, USA Since: Apr, 2013 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
do you wanna have a bad time?
#4055: Feb 28th 2022 at 7:57:10 PM

Also sounds like Mis-blamed.

chucknormie Meh. from DEMACIA! Since: May, 2015 Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
Meh.
#4056: Mar 1st 2022 at 9:04:55 PM

So did I get a yes or no on adding a Repeat Offenders folder to the anime page?

"Blowing it up always works" -RIP Goblin Boommaster, 2014-2015
Zuxtron Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel from Node 03 (On A Trope Odyssey)
#4057: Mar 1st 2022 at 10:25:46 PM

I don't think I got a response when I mentioend that both Horrible.Music Soundtracks and AwesomeMusic.DC Extended Universe have "Ocean to Ocean" from Aquaman (2018). I feel like these two things should be mutually exclusive, even if they're both subjective.

The question is, do people actually like the song, or was it added by a fan who wanted to fill the page with exaggerated gushing? Or in other words, which of the two examples should be removed?

magnumtropus Since: Aug, 2020
#4058: Mar 1st 2022 at 10:37:48 PM

I think I responded by saying that the "Horrible" entry can stay because the official Youtube video had more dislikes that likes, with the comments being mostly negative

DDRMASTERM do you wanna have a bad time? from Someplace, Utah, USA Since: Apr, 2013 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
do you wanna have a bad time?
#4059: Mar 2nd 2022 at 5:51:36 AM

[up][up][up] I personally don’t see anything wrong with that, but I’d prefer a writeup to judge first.

chucknormie Meh. from DEMACIA! Since: May, 2015 Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
Meh.
#4060: Mar 2nd 2022 at 7:50:17 PM

[up]Here's my folder with my repeat offenders, grouped alphabetically by creator/studio/series.

    Repeat Offenders 
  • Crunchyroll, under its Crunchyroll Originals brand, has funded the production of anime since 2020, and while they may be responsible for several beloved series, these two anime are widely considered to be the worst they ever had a hand in:
    • The ostensibly all-CGI anime adaptation of EX-ARM proves once and for all why having a staff and production team with zero experience in the anime industry note  is a detriment instead of a selling point. The story, which is a compressed and Bowdlerized adaptation of a comparatively much better manga about a boy named Akira whose brain is transferred to a superweapon by a policewoman, is mediocre at best, but what pushes the series into Horrible territory is its borderline unwatchable animation. Characters emote in unsettling and strange ways, and the backgrounds are bereft of any detail while the otherwise competent action sequences are marred by cheap smoke filters and a sense of slippery weightlessness. Infamously, a kiss scene between two female characters has their lips covered by an inexplicable flash of light—not for censorship reasons (though one can see why it might be that way at first), but to poorly disguise the fact that the models' lips can't pucker (and that their noses are clipping through their faces). A good number of characters don't even have CGI models, instead being traditionally animated by hand. The end result has received unfavorable comparisons to cheap mobile game ads, and it plummeted to the bottom of My Anime List with a 2.26/10 rating as soon as it premiered. It has since beaten out all-time "greats" like Pupa and Gibiate as the lowest-rated TV anime on the entire site. Watch Lost Pause tear it apart here, and read Anime News Network's autopsy of the show's disastrous reveal trailer here. Mother's Basement also tore into it as his #1 choice for the worst anime of 2021 here.
    • Gibiate, despite possessing an all-star production team including the likes of Yoshitaka Amano, Yuzo Koshiro and The Yoshida Brothers, utterly fails to live up to the reputation of its creators. Intended to be a throwback to the days of ultraviolent 90s anime, it instead winds up embodying everything that was wrong with the anime of that decade. While the premise is utterly ridiculous (a samurai, a ninja and a monk being sent forward in time into a post-apocalyptic world), it at least had the potential to be entertaining — unfortunately, the anime's piss-poor animation and consistently Off-Model character designs make the action scenes dull and the characterization scenes unappealing. The characters have all the depth of an inflatable kiddie pool, and the story is a blatant collection of post-apocalyptic cliches crossed with an Idiot Plot that mostly revolves around characters' easily-avoidable deaths due to their own stupid actions. The climax of the show features an intelligence-insulting Ass Pull that renders the main characters' journey All for Nothing—and bafflingly, the anime tries to sell it as an optimistic ending despite the fact that all but two of the characters are dead. The end result is an utter failure that does nothing but tarnish its creators' reputations.note  Trash Tier Waifu tears it apart here, and in the list of the worst anime of 2020, Mother's Basement places it squarely in the bottom of the barrel.
  • Studio Kyotoma (not to be confused with Kyoto Animation) was an obscure 3D animation studio that was active in the middle part of The New '10s. These two execrable anime should give you a good idea of exactly why they're no longer around today:
    • JK-Meshi! is a Three-Girl Ensemble four-minute anime about cooking airing in the Fall 2015 Anime Season. Sounds promising, right? However, it's gained a fair bit of infamy from just how low the production values are: the entire series is animated in horrible CG (seriously, better looking character designs can be made in Miku Miku Dance), and for a series about cooking, the budget is too cheap to show the characters actually doing what the show is supposed to be about. While the animation is bad enough, the "plot" condemns the show entirely - most of the episode is taken up by unfunny, forced, and stilted "comedy" consisting of the girls basically complaining about school, and all of their voice actors sound bored out of their minds. It got so bad the actors announced they would not be returning to the series after the fourth episode, and an episode late in the series features the characters admitting that the anime is the worst-produced and worst-received of the year, following by begging for the audience's sympathy. Just as an example of how poorly-received this series was, on MyAnimeList, anything with a community rating of below 5 is widely considered to be awful. What did JK-Meshi score? A 4.67, placing it on the same tier as some other luminaries mentioned here.
    • And if that wasn't enough, the next season brought with it Bishoujo Unit Senshi Crane Game Girls, straight from the creative team behind JK-Meshi! and just as bad. While the animation could be said to be of slightly better quality, the show is still beset with the dullness and phoned-in voice acting of its predecessor, and the comedy is even less funny, if it could be imagined. Despite all this, it managed to get a second season, which was worse still since a large part of the episodes consisted of tedious dragged-out ads for the Internet crane game company they managed to lure into sponsoring the show.
      • To compare, the internationally beloved Kemono Friends was made under the exact same circumstances as low-budget shows like these.
  • Yoshiteru Satou is a director who gained the nickname of "the Ed Wood of anime" among the English-speaking anime community. These two anime he directed show exactly how he got that reputation:
    • The OVA Mars of Destruction is clearly a pathetic attempt at being dark and edgy by way of Neon Genesis Evangelion, only the plot is totally non-existent, and the characters don't ever get any development and end up completely forgettable. The animation and fight scenes aren't any better, either. It's as if the animators weren't even trying to make an anime. And the title has nothing to do with planetary explosions, which would've been far more interesting. MasakoX of TeamFourStar reviews it here. You can also watch it in its entirety here if you really want to.
    • There's an another Idea Factory anime with the same director, Tenkuu Danzai Skelter+Heaven, which is a very similar failure to Mars of Destruction, except with much better visuals. Not that is saying much when the bad CGI used for the squid and mechs don't even try to blend in with the hand-drawn animation, which is so cheap that the Limited Animation opening (which admittedly has a pretty good song) looks more like something out of a visual novel than an anime. The plot can hardly be called one for the same reasons as Mars of Destruction, and there is blatant Padding with an overly-long establishing shot of the Earth followed by the same exposition being repeated several times before the opening has even played. It's no wonder why Idea Factory stopped producing anime and instead focused on video games, and Yoshiteru Satou didn't get the rights for directing the Hyperdimension Neptunia anime. Watch the Black Critic Guy review it here, and the anime itself can be watched here.
  • Transformers is an extensive Long Runner with a fanbase who perpetually argue over the quality of every new piece of media in the franchise. These two series, however, are what the fans unilaterally agree on being the franchise's lowest points:
    • While Transformers: Armada got off to a bad start, the show did improve as it went on and eventually became fairly decent by the end. The same can not be said for Transformers: Energon, which was (and to some extent, still is) widely considered the worst show the franchise has had, though The Transformers: Combiner Wars (see the Western Animation section for that) is a viable contender for that dishonor. The story itself is fraught with Padding, plot points are introduced and immediately dropped, and an unlikable jerk leads the main storyline. Animation for the robots is done almost entirely with CGI, albeit very badly and with all the emotional range of a potato (though they do become hand-drawn in particularly intense scenes where emotional range is required). All this is topped off by an incredibly rushed production schedule, resulting in English scripts full of mistranslations and lines that don't fit the onscreen action, making the already confusing story nigh-incomprehensible. The voice actors almost unanimously turn in incredibly uninspired performances, despite the fact that many of them had long proven their vocal abilities in past series like Beast Wars. Even though the series does have one or two So Bad, It's Good moments, trying to watch the whole thing to find them is considered an act of torture. This is all summed up by what Alpha Q said in the finale:
      "Something cool finally happened!" note 
      • To give a better idea on how bad this thing is, TF Wiki Dot Net provides an extremely-critical look at the series, complete with sections in the episode articles dedicated to how badly the dub fails.
    • When Transformers Kiss Players was announced, most American fans generally chuckled at the concept of girls kissing Transformers to bond with them and power them up... but then the manga scans showed up, depicting characters being swallowed whole and alive, blatantly suggestive scenes (such as the Legions' infamous "penis-tongues" and the endless stream of implied-rape imagery), the sexist overtone-plagued antics of Atari Hitotonari (along with the Ethnic Scrappy Shaoshao, and Marissa Fairborne, a character dating back to Season 3 of the original series), and late teenagers/young adults appearing to be eight years old (no, this isn't an art style quirk, they're literally and intentionally drawn that way). On top of this, the radio drama (the other major piece of Kiss Players media) suffers from many of the same problems. Series creator Yuki Ohshima openly admitted to making the series this way for no reason other than shock value. The second half of the series attempted what can only be damage control by shifting gears and becoming a Continuity Porn series which happened to star cute girls, but by then it was too late - American fans were left disgusted, and Japanese fans feared this would set a very poor example for the perception of anime in the West. As a result, most fans tuned out. Even with the heavily-fractured nature of the franchise's fanbase, it's pretty much the only thing in Transformers that's universally hated (with the possible exceptions of Energon and Combiner Wars), which is a real accomplishment. ComicTropes delves further into how awful it is here, while Chris McFeely gives a basic overview here.

If you'd like, I can write up AFTERLOST, and Madhouse can go in the folder too.

"Blowing it up always works" -RIP Goblin Boommaster, 2014-2015
DDRMASTERM do you wanna have a bad time? from Someplace, Utah, USA Since: Apr, 2013 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
do you wanna have a bad time?
#4061: Mar 3rd 2022 at 7:06:10 AM

[up] Seems fine as is. From what I saw about Afterlost, audience ratings were more mixed than anything (like a 5.2 on IMDb), so that likely disqualifies it from a horrible classification.

Other opinions are appreciated here though, I’m hardly an Anime expert.

Edited by DDRMASTERM on Mar 3rd 2022 at 8:06:26 AM

MathsAngelicVersion Ambassador of Eurogames and Touhou Music from Gensokyo Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
Ambassador of Eurogames and Touhou Music
#4062: Mar 6th 2022 at 11:48:05 AM

Recently added on Horrible.Music Albums:

  • Katy Perry had never been known as an artist who was good at making albums, and while Prism and Smile aren't good albums by themselves, her fourth album Witness is legendarily awful. A mixture of Perry becoming more political and the album's sound having to change, due to Dr. Luke being involved in a messy legal war between him and Music/Kesha, people noticed something was off when "Chained to the Rhythm" was released. The next single, "Bon Appetit," was even worse, and tanked on the Hot 100. The album released to critical indifference and popular derision, with her attempt at becoming a deep artist being seen as shallow at best. When Todd in the Shadows began his "Trainwreckords" series, he got requests to do that album mere months after its release, but he would go on to make said video on it. It's no surprise that Perry's career, reliant on its singles being good, fell to the wayside, as though she is still active, she has also fallen a bit into obscurity.

While it was a notorious commercial flop, its critical reception was mixed and it has some defenders, so I doubt that it's considered bad enough for SBIH. Thoughts?

KUnlimited Since: Sep, 2020
#4063: Mar 6th 2022 at 11:53:30 AM

[up] I agree with you. The reception seems more mixed than negative, plus "Chained to the Rhythm" was a #4 hit in the US.

Edited by KUnlimited on Mar 6th 2022 at 10:04:25 PM

Avatar by Butterscotch Arts. Used under license.
Zuxtron Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel from Node 03 (On A Trope Odyssey)
#4064: Mar 6th 2022 at 12:12:55 PM

I'd agree with cutting Witness, according to Wikipedia, reception seems to have been far from universally negative and it also apparently sold pretty well.

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#4065: Mar 6th 2022 at 12:15:05 PM

Love how all it says about Todd's review is that he got requests for it and did it- usually the reviewer links mentioned how the reviewer felt about the product. That alone is a bit of a red flag to me.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
MathsAngelicVersion Ambassador of Eurogames and Touhou Music from Gensokyo Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
Ambassador of Eurogames and Touhou Music
#4066: Mar 6th 2022 at 2:01:49 PM

[up][up][up] Good point. I think that song can disqualify the album, as it was both a hit and well received by critics. We rejected the otherwise bad Cut the Crap over one good song after all.

[up][up] 311,000 US sales is solid in a vacuum, but I'm still hesitant to say it sold well when it was such a large step down from her previous album Prism, which went double platinum.note , so I don't believe sales data alone disqualifies it. Though this is a purely academic argument, as there are other factors disqualifying the album.

[up] It's mostly because the example decided to emphasize the perception that Witness is a legendary flop, rather than what Todd himself thought of it — while he was sympathetic to Katy Perry and liked "Chained to the Rhythm", he still panned most of the singles and music videos.

bowserbros No longer active. from Elsewhere Since: May, 2014
No longer active.
#4067: Mar 6th 2022 at 3:22:41 PM

IIRC Horrible.Music even says that Todd reviewing an album on Trainwreckords isn't enough to land it here; there has to be independent evidence beyond the video that its reception was (and still is) radioactive. Witness was indeed a relevance-ender, but its reception was nowhere near as bad as an album like Summer in Paradise.

Be kind.
DDRMASTERM do you wanna have a bad time? from Someplace, Utah, USA Since: Apr, 2013 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
do you wanna have a bad time?
#4068: Mar 6th 2022 at 4:20:05 PM

Witness has no business being listed, for the reasons discussed and being a blatant "Caustic Critic reviewed it" type non-example.

DDRMASTERM do you wanna have a bad time? from Someplace, Utah, USA Since: Apr, 2013 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
do you wanna have a bad time?
#4069: Mar 6th 2022 at 6:36:23 PM

I'm in the mood to restore the Pioneer LaserActive example, as edit history shows that the first listing was questionably cut by somebody who dismissed the example as just mocking the fact it focused on the price, while the second was also a blatant "Caustic Critic Reviewed it" listing:

  • One of the worst-selling video game systems to date is the Pioneer LaserActive. The first problem was that the base unit itself sold for $969. Notice we said "base unit", because to play most of its 40 or so games and not just watch movies with the device, you had to buy its additional modules that charged $600note  or $350 for a Karaoke module. As if that wasn't bad enough, due to using absurdly large 12-inch Laserdiscs, each game was $120 a piece, on a console was released in 1993. It unsurprisingly tanked spectacularly, selling an estimatednote  10,000 units before the Playstation buried it for good 2 years later. Yet somehow, it gets even worse. Due to design limitations, Pioneer cheaped out on the construction of the system and modules by using electrolytic capacitors, which have a tendency to leak over time and require a skilled technician to fix. It took RMC Retro and Mark Fixes Stuff replacing over 160 capacitors to get the main unit and its 2 console modules working again, showing the process for each one. joshscorcher declared it the worst game system of all time and uploaded a separate video displaying his increasing disbelief researching it.

Edited by DDRMASTERM on Mar 6th 2022 at 8:41:24 AM

TheLivingDrawing Lucas the Dreamer from The Town of Clayton Since: Apr, 2019 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
Lucas the Dreamer
#4070: Mar 6th 2022 at 7:08:46 PM

Cut the album

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Mar 6th 2022 at 10:22:23 AM

Once Upon A Time.
TheLivingDrawing Lucas the Dreamer from The Town of Clayton Since: Apr, 2019 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
Lucas the Dreamer
#4071: Mar 6th 2022 at 7:11:58 PM

[up][up] Does the console work (aside from that one technical issue)? Are the games terrible or non-existant? Does it give a terrible experience even in a vacuum where you have all of the modules without cost being an issue? I don’t think being ludicrously overpriced alone is a reason to list it as this trope.

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Mar 6th 2022 at 10:22:41 AM

Once Upon A Time.
DDRMASTERM do you wanna have a bad time? from Someplace, Utah, USA Since: Apr, 2013 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
do you wanna have a bad time?
#4072: Mar 6th 2022 at 7:26:30 PM

[up] According to the Wikipedia page, it has less than 40 games (14 if you bought the Turbografix module, 24 for the Sega module, factoring out games requiring goggles they drop down to 9 for the Turbografix module and 17 for the Sega module), and they all seem to require at least one of the modules to be played at all. And given the obscene $970 asking price at launch, it's quite outrageous that it appears it won't even play games without buying at least one module, and any major issues at that price should be inexcusable when you're paying such a premium.

[down] Is there any changes you'd recommend to my write-up?

Edited by DDRMASTERM on Mar 6th 2022 at 9:30:28 AM

Idisagree Since: Jun, 2011
#4073: Mar 6th 2022 at 7:42:24 PM

Burn that entry for Katy Perry's Witness. If it has mixed-to-negative reviews and sold okay, it likely doesn't qualify. The beginning of that entry contains too much creator bashing (I'm in no way a fan of hers but I thought we try to avoid that for the most part) and barely goes into the album's faults (I feel that's very important here). I don't think Katy Perry's any worse than many of her contemporaries of the time (I could easily list pop stars I prefer her to) and had a significant amount of hits.

I'm not sure about the LaserActive but I'm not feeling that entry. It's definitely overpriced as hell and a commercial failure. However the page linked says at least one reviewer preferred it to the 3DO so ...

Edited by Idisagree on Mar 6th 2022 at 7:51:36 AM

Tonwen HoMM Fan from Axeoth Since: Dec, 2021 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
HoMM Fan
#4074: Mar 7th 2022 at 4:48:10 PM

Riley Gronlund Super Mario just added this to the main page of So Bad, It's Horrible seemingly unilaterally, at the bottom of the intro text.

I only ask because this troper got brough up in the complanining thread for consistent misuse of Flanderization, and wanted to make sure the curation thread for SBIH was in agreement with his change to the page.

"Grandmaster Combat, son!"
mightymewtron Word Up from New New York Since: Oct, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Word Up
#4075: Mar 7th 2022 at 5:50:22 PM

Eh, I could give or take it.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

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