Mari’s Unpopular Opinions – It Was Nice Knowing Y’all

I like to keep my blog positive, but everyone needs to vent once in a while, right? So I’m going to complain about a bunch of popular anime I don’t like, because the marvelous Pinkie tagged me. I’m sure it will all go just fine, right?

A Popular Anime I Don’t Like

I could go with the standard punching bags (Sword Art, Black Clover, etc.) but to be honest, I don’t have terribly strong opinions about them. Nope, my least favorite popular anime is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

My girlfriend is a huge JoJo fan. She’s watched the entire anime, read most of the manga, and spent like a month trying to get me to watch it. I wanted to make her happy, so I watched all of parts 1 and 2, and I hated every minute of it! The characters are obnoxious, and the story makes no sense. They constantly interrupt the fights to tell you exactly what’s happening on screen (one of my biggest pet peeves in anime). Part 2 makes the Nazis the good guys (?!?) and has a scene where JoJo ogles his mom taking a bath. They kill a dog in the first goddamn episode! There are so many things I dislike about this series, and I kinda feel bad because so many people love it. I tried, I really did, but after 24 episodes of this nonsense I just couldn’t take it anymore.

If you want an equally weird, over-the-top Shonen anime that actually tells a coherent story, just watch Mob Psycho 100 or Hunter x Hunter. Both are way better IMO

An Anime Everyone Hates But I Love

I couldn’t think of a full series that I hadn’t already talked about on here, so I’m twisting this a bit to say the much-maligned original ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion is probably my all-time favorite ending in anime! Sure, it’s confusing and navel-gazey, and maybe it was only made because Gainax ran out of money and couldn’t make a big, flashy action climax. But by removing the spectacle and focusing entirely on the characters’ psychological states, it gives Shinji, Rei, Asuka, and Misato a chance to finally confront their traumas and move on. Eva is not really about super fighting robot action: it’s about a group of damaged young people, desperate for genuine human connection. And I think the TV ending hammers this theme home more effectively than the more “traditional” action-oriented End of Evangelion ever could.

A Love Triangle Where They Didn’t End Up With Who I Wanted

Sigh… I’ll be honest. I hate love triangles! They’re so overdone, and I always think everyone would be better off if they all talked about their feelings and started a polyamorous relationship together. Can I skip this one?

A Popular Genre You Hardly Watch

I’ve mentioned this before, but I have a hard time getting into romantic comedies unless there is much more focus on the romance than the comedy. I also don’t like a lot of police procedurals – they tend to glorify the cops while stigmatizing black, LGBTQ and mentally ill people as violent criminals. Luckily, these kinds of shows are not nearly as common in anime as they are in western TV.

A Beloved Character I Dislike

I gave up on Attack on Titan for several reasons, but the main one was its protagonist, Eren Yeager. Dude is always angry, always yelling, and is so unpleasant to be around that even the other Survey Corps members dislike him! He makes idiotic decisions that get his friends killed, treats his presumed girlfriend Mikasa like shit, and constantly gets unearned power-ups so he can always be the center of attention. I hate even saying this, but I can’t help comparing him to Donald Trump in how aggressively macho and toxic his personality is. Why don’t they just make Eren the bad guy?

I think if you like Attack on Titan and want a character similar to Eren, but presented a bit more realistically, check out Vinland Saga. It’s got the same kind of violent action and dark story, but it does a better job at showing how much Thorfinn’s revenge quest is really killing him inside, and giving him a chance (a small one, but still) at redemption.

A Popular Anime I Can’t Get Into/Not Interested In Watching

These categories seem very similar to me, so I combined them. I tried to start and stop this one like 3 times, but I have never been able to get into Steins:Gate. The protagonist, Okabe, is an egotistical douche who probably yells at women for not learning to code. The pacing is glacially slow, making the early episodes a slog. There is a trans character who gets her own mini-arc, but it’s handled so poorly it feels like the creators don’t know anything about trans people at all. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who dislikes this anime, because it’s the #2 highest rated anime on MAL and so many weebs have gushed to me about how brilliant it is. What can I say? It’s not for me.

If you want a sci-fi anime with a charismatic protagonist, just watch Cowboy Bebop – it’s about space instead of time travel, but it’s still essential viewing for any otaku!

A Popular Anime I Prefer Over The Manga

Hunter x Hunter is in my top 10 (maybe even top 5) all time favorite anime, but I have a hard time getting into the manga. The story is almost exactly the same, but the art is… not as good. Characters are drawn inconsistently, there are often no backgrounds, and part of the reason later arcs are so dialogue-heavy is so mangaka Yoshiro Togashi doesn’t have to draw as much. I can’t blame the poor guy, as he has chronic health problems that prevent him from working regularly. But sometimes I feel like I would be more motivated to read HxH if it just had Togashi’s brilliant writing and someone else doing the artwork. (Or if we get more than like one chapter a year before it goes back on hiatus again!)

Nominations

I would love to see Irina, Yon Nyan, Dewbond, Scott, and Aria try this if you haven’t done so already. I think all their blogs are really cool and worth checking out. If you weren’t nominated and want to do it yourself, just send me a comment and I’ll add you. Or just do it anyway. You don’t need me to tell you how to live your life.