So I started with the weirdest array of recommendations. I mostly wanted to fit in with this newish friend group so watched all the anime they told me to watch even if it hurt my brain.

First we have Madoka Magica. Peak media plain and simple and the main reason I tried others but it all goes downhill from here.

Attack on titan, started off interesting and very rapidly got weird I don’t think i lasted long the second the plot got strange i bailed. Probably stopped after the first season lol.

Ouran high school host club, love hate relationship with this one. The obsession with trying to make Haruhi more ladylike rubbed me the wrong way back then and still does now.

Highschool dxd…… i was really trying hard to fit in. I think this has to be the worst anime i have ever seen?

Re: zero. No no i think this is the worst anime i have ever seen and also gave me the ick for the screaming voice acting. Infact i hated this anime so much i took to the anime subreddit and argued with everyone there until i got banned wondering how a single person could like such utter garbage.

Shugo Chara, i think my friend recommended this to me to torture me for being born. Or to see how far id go to be accepted.

Angel beats, i rewatched this recently and still dont remember a single aspect of it.

Sword art online, anyone who likes isekai should be banned.

Nichijou, still definitively the best anime ever created.

Mirai Nikki, again i dont remember any of it

A bridge to the starry skies, there are chunks of my memories that feel like black holes and this is one of them

Hyakka ryouran…

kaichou wa maid-sama… this friend group was an elaborate plot to torment me I think.

Log Horizon, I actually liked this one it was just a bit boring

So i stopped listening to recommendations from others and picked my own which were

  • cowboy bebop
  • plastic memories
  • your lie in april
  • beyond the boundary
  • 5 centimetres per second
  • the pet girl of sakurasou (it has problematic tropes but for the time was like the most important being neurodivergent at school show i have ever seen)
  • steins gate (my taste is very good as you can see)
  • black lagoon
  • SOUL EATER AAAAH AAAAHHH PEAK PEAK PEAK AAAAAAAHHHHH AAAAAAHHHHHHHH
  • Full Metal Panic (the more i remember that I picked for myself the more i realise my taste is objectively better than everyone elses)
  • Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom
  • Maoyu: Archenemy & Hero
  • Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
  • Tokyo Ghoul (fell off so hard after the first season it isnt even funny)
  • Toradora! (i watched so much romance)
  • Clannad

Ok thats all of them, I kept the themes of every single one ehe

I think my own picks were better. But overall i think after watching these i stopped watching any anime at all for the next 12 years until picking it back up again for demon slayer, dungeon meshi and freeerreeennn. The last i watched before quitting from john attack on titan hoodie and merch as his only clothes that i swear never got washed was Seraph of the end which sucked so hard i disregarded the entire medium. His taste was exceptionally trash

Edit: god damn everyone watched dbz and pokemon except me. Dbz i avoided like the plague because its what boys watched and i didnt like anything boys did (still dont) and pokemon felt like it happened to me because of the era it couldn’t be avoided. My hot take is i never really liked pokemon, i even got fire red purely so i could fit in at school i didnt even like the game back then and only like it now because of nostalgia but if i could have chosen to not engage with Pokemon i would have just ignored it completely.

Now digimon however….

  • Snort_Owl [they/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
    7·
    29 days ago

    re:zero is a perfect distillation of everything I hate about anime in one neat package of shit, it actually made me declare war on anime fans I hated it that much and picked an argument online every time i saw it mentioned.

    The only other anime i hate just as much is JJK but not for the same reasons its just an afront to shonen and i resent its existence

    • 9to5 [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      29 days ago

      You hate Re:Zero I get that.

      But what is your beef with Jujutsu Kaisen ? I think I watched like 2 seasons and thought it was fun enough. Not trying to argue just legit curious to hear your perspective on it .

      Cause I dont remember many problematic things about it for example.

      (I only watched like 2 things of it though) didnt read the manga either.

      • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        4·
        29 days ago

        If there’s one criticism of JJK I have it’s the convoluted exposition dumps on how powers work. DBZ is the total opposite where characters just shout their attack and fire it off. I don’t need a 10 minute explanation for why Krillan’s Destructo Disc cuts through everything. It’s fucking baller that it does and he’s gonna cut bad guys in half.

        JJK will explain every minutiae of how stuff works, despite the fact it’s literal fucking magic. Who cares how Gojo’s Domain Expansion works? He trapped some demon in an infinite bubble. We don’t need him to explain it. Just show him slowing down time and punching fuckers in the face.

        Also, Itadori is a terribly boring protagonist. Like every character except Itadori is interesting. It’s because he’s supposed to be an everyman the audience can project themselves onto as he undergoes the hero’s journey. This means he’s bland and not very interesting. How do you have a talking panda or an angry salary man exorcist as characters and think “Oh I know! I’ll make some cookie cutter high school kid the main character.”

        • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          5·
          29 days ago

          If there’s one criticism of JJK I have it’s the convoluted exposition dumps on how powers work. DBZ is the total opposite where characters just shout their attack and fire it off. I don’t need a 10 minute explanation for why Krillan’s Destructo Disc cuts through everything. It’s fucking baller that it does and he’s gonna cut bad guys in half.

          JJK will explain every minutiae of how stuff works, despite the fact it’s literal fucking magic. Who cares how Gojo’s Domain Expansion works? He trapped some demon in an infinite bubble. We don’t need him to explain it. Just show him slowing down time and punching fuckers in the face.

          Theoretically, there are two reasons:

          1. To allow the fights to have strategy and 2. because the fantasy is more specific than action figure mashing (e.g. that’s not even similar to what Gojo’s Domain does, in theory or practice).

          In reality, JJK is very spotty on point 1 because some characters just casually break the system in a way that isn’t interesting, especially Sukuna, and several elements do not make sense anyway, like Black Flashes being “exponentially” more powerful or that framerate technique. The Sukuna thing also undermines point 2, but not as badly.

          While JJK has its own merits, in some ways it is a bad clone of Hunter x Hunter (which the author admitted, and also the exponent thing), where the detail given is much more intentional and much more justified because it usually genuinely matters later on. For example, in the most recent chapter of HXH, 85% of the chapter was dedicated to explaining one guy’s ability and it’s great because, like has already happened several times this arc, these specifics will be important to the strategies employed.

        • 9to5 [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          2·
          29 days ago

          Those are all fair points I just thought the word “hate” felt a bit strong for an imho perfectly servicable show. Not even saying its high art or anything but it has nice animation and cool fights.

          I will also have to say subpar protags are pretty common in anime. Especially kinda boring or cookie cutter ones ? Like you have amazing worlds and casts but then you have a blue haired nobody as protag.

      • Snort_Owl [they/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
        2·
        29 days ago

        Oh JJK isnt problematic in any way I just found it so offensively crap I was legit angry it wasted so much of my time. So it pissed me off the same amount but for completely different reasons but equally felt like a complete waste of my life watching where id rather have stared at a wall for the same amount of time.

        • every character is unlikeable voids
        • story bounces all over the place
        • literally don’t care about anyone except maybe hammer girl who gets erased from 90% of the story
        • antagonists are just boring
        • over explains every power for like half an episode killing the pacing every time to the point every fight scene just goes on for 7 days but not in the fun dbz way
        • the show assumes im stupid and cannot see what is happening in front of me
        • for the love of christ i do not care about your power system i literally couldnt give a fuck im not keeping track of the rules in the background
        • incest characters (mei mei) i guess it does infact have some problematic bits they just weirded me out
        • it just feels so amateurish and edgy with no real substance the only bit i like is the art and character designs and thats about it

        A lot of people dunk on demon slayer for being basic but like it has the core idea of MAKE LIKEABLE CHARACTERS I WANT TO SEE SUCCEED and an antagonist I really really want to see obliterated.

    • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      3·
      29 days ago

      I don’t see why you’d hate JJK that much. It’s got its problems, but like I don’t think that’s remotely comparable to re:zero. Like, it’s kind of dumb and pandering in terms of some basic elements of its writing, but it’s got lots of good aspects too.