Have you ever had the crushing experience of really looking forward to a show. Maybe someone recommend it, it’s from a studio you love or it just sounds exactly like something you’d like. Maybe all three of these things. Just to have it disappoint you. You try to pretend to yourself it’s still great, after all you’ve been waiting for so long… But you just can’t get into it!
Before I start, let me just say that just because I didn’t enjoy a series doesn’t mean it’s bad. If it’s on the list it already means I thought some elements were great. It just didn’t appeal to me and I feel like I’m missing out. These are shows that I thought would be in my all time favourites and didn’t make the cut.
Here are the top 5 anime I want to love….but don’t.
5. New Game
An adorable comedy about young ladies playing and making video games! Amazing! This sounds like the best show of all time. I like comedies. I like video games, I like adorable and smart young career ladies that are doing it for themselves…. I didn’t like new game.
The comedy didn’t hit the mark for me at all. It was mostly centered on the girls being cutely flustered and cute morons which got rather repetitive for me. And although I quite liked Aoba I got tired of her being portrayed as incompetent. Scenes like her getting locked out of her office and sitting down to cry on the floor before thinking of knocking, twice. Or describing her as a die hard fan of RPGs and a professional game designer but somehow still having another character have to explain even the most basic concepts of videogames such a NPCs, ended up annoying me. I felt like the show was kind of bullying her after a while. I did not watch the second season.
I know most people adore this show and honestly I can see why. I don’t know why I got so hung up on these things at the time but I just can’t let them go now.
4. SNAFU
Man this show is beautiful. And Hachiman rules. I relate so much. The girls are great, complex and individual. That teacher rules. It’s not a straightforward story and there are no easy answers because sometimes that’s just how life goes. I watched both seasons, I did not enjoy either.
I honestly have no clue why I didn’t like SNAFU. It’s true that the more romantic (aimless and slightly angsty romance at that) simply bored me. I couldn’t connect with the material and although I related to the characters I couldn’t empathize at all with the situations. I simply didn’t understand their feelings which made a show like SNAFU very frustrating.
This is clearly on me. Legions of fans love the series and I which I could be one of them.
3. Spirited Away
Before I go on, I would rewatch Spirited Away any day. It clearly is a good movie that deserves all the praise it gets. However, despite the Alice in Wonderland viibes (one of my favourite books), the spunky young lady heroine I can see myself in, the friendly dragon! This remains my least favourite Myazaki movie.
For me, it was just o.k. and I got a bit frustrated when the world at large seemed to think it was the only anime that existed. Obviously this is in no way the movie’s fault.
I must admit that I only saw it once when it was first released. I was not as… refined then. It seems very probable that my views would change on a second viewing. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
2. Sakomoto desu ka
I’m a comedy fan. A pretty huge one. I love to laugh and do so very easily. My incredibly broad sense of humour accommodates stupid toilet humors, questionably dirty jokes, pitch black satire, over extended irony, nonsequeture nonesense…. basically anything even loosely qualifying as a joke, I generally get behind. I consistently review straight comedies way higher than the average viewer.
Yet I simply couldn’t get into Sakamoto. Not the show’s fault. I could actually tell what was funny about it as I was watching it but it didn’t click in my brain. I suspect some type of hormonal disorder on my end may be to blame because there is no other explanation. I should probably rewatch this at some point if I can get past my burned bridges policy with anime….
1. Mayoiga
No no, I’m not kidding. Wait hear me out, I’m really not just being sarcastic. I wanted to like Mayoiga so bad. This is actually the main source of my unfair grudge with this show! I was sooo excited about it you guys!
First I love tense mystery/thrillers. It’s one of my favourite fiction genres and I’ve often bemoaned how little represented it is in anime. I’m the type of person that would watch a handful of these each season but we only get a couple a year. The synopsis for the show immediately grabbed me in the pre season announcements and I could not wait to watch it. Knowing myself I had put it in my “to binge” pile because it would have driven me nuts to wait an entire week to find out the outcome of some twist or the key to some minor intrigue and I carefully avoided all spoilers. I did however look up some first episode spoiler free impressions cause curiosity got the better of me and at the time they were largely positive which just fueled my enthusiasm.
And I can understand why. The first episode was kind of great. The uncertain mood had me going into insane conspiracy theory mode. For some reason it reminded me of that John Cusack “Identity” movie, which for me is a great thing. The little we learned about the characters seemed ripe with potential. And it looked great! It was a really pretty anime by my tastes. There was no reason for Mayoiga not to become a favourite.
But boy did it go down hill fast (in my opinion). I have rarely been this bored by an anime. Considering the genre and production values, this was an unthinkable outcome and I felt personally betrayed. (Cause that’s a healthy and normal reaction to have….) I have been taking it out on this poor series ever since. Does it deserve my ire, probably not. Am I going to stop? No…
There you have it. 5 shows I thought I would love band on paper I really should have but it never translated for me.
Do you have any series like that.? Shows that have tons of stuff you normally like to see in Anime but just didn’t work for you? Let us know, we can share your pain.
