Anime Your Unpopular Anime, Manga and J-Pop Opinions

[CynthiaLover]

Well I really like Tea as well so I guess I do have unpopular opinions!

I liked Tea right from the start. I liked her spunk and personality, being an early example of a strong female character. She had quite a few epic moments (especially giving Kaiba a verbal smackdown after his Duel against Yugi in Duelist Kingdom). And I liked the fact that she wasn't a hardcore duelist yet was still very competent, along with liking her goal to become a dancer (which, from what I've been told, was expanded on more in the manga, where it was a useful skill in early arcs). And at least she wasn't a damsel in distress on a routine basis (really, the only time she was an outright damsel in distress was when Marik caught her and Joey in Battle City, and even then she still managed to help by allowing Mokuba to escape and find Yugi and Kaiba). And she did have a crucial role in helping Atem during the Waking the Dragons season, keeping him from going completely over the edge. So while I can see why some of her detractors got annoyed at her (mainly her more dub-oriented friendship speeches, though that was more of a dub thing, as, from what I've heard, they were significantly less frequent in the Japanese version) I still found her more enjoyable and better than some of the other female leads even if she wasn't a hardcore duelist. The only other female leads that actually left a good impression on me were Akiza, Zuzu, and Skye, and all three pretty much lost their significance after a certain point (though Skye did managed to hold on a bit longer), while Tea was pretty consistent.

 

[henrymidfields]

I've never liked J-Pop as a Japanese person to be honest. Living in the USA for elementary school, listening, singing, and dancing to American/European music, not liking the isolationist tendencies (including how Japan-exclusive J-Popback is unlike, say, K-Pop) back home, and having experience with various music through concert band made me aware of just how rich is the variety of music is.

Japanese classical music of the 19th-20th Century? Now that is something I don't know as much as I want to, and that I need to binge more on.

 

[hanecco]

Toradora isn't that good. It's a somewhat above average romcom, not the masterpiece people make it out to be.

 

[Juliko]

Toradora isn't that good. It's a somewhat above average romcom, not the masterpiece people make it out to be.

Agreed. I found a lot of the characters to be annoying.

 

[Ryoma Maser]

I watched Toradora up to the scene that has the OST Lost my Pieces, but I couldn't get into it. It just cause of the fact that most romance shows have the characters get together but then we never see them as a couple barely (even worse in Toradora's case since Taiga & Ryuji were pretty much a couple throughout the show regardless of their status). This is why I like Lovely Complex and Say I Love You since at least their anime adaptions show the relationship.

Here's something that will cause my demise; out of Shinichirō Watanabe's works, I liked Carole & Tuesday more than Cowboy Bebop.

I miss when shows were 24/26-Episodes (or even longer) instead of 12-Episode Cours, with their second seasons basically being what would've been a second half. We still see this now and again outside of certain long runners (Fire Force, The Ancient Magus Bride, The Aquatope of White Sand to name a few) but I still miss this especially when I really like a show but we only have twelve episodes to a season and a second season is who knows how long away (like Bofuri was confirmed to have a second but we haven't seen anything of it since). I get it's a ploy to get more people to read the manga or create more hype to get a second season, but I would like more than twelve 24 minute episodes when stuff in the some shows in the U.S. are double both numbers length wise.

 

[Juliko]

I miss when shows were 24/26-Episodes (or even longer) instead of 12-Episode Cours, with their second seasons basically being what would've been a second half. We still see this now and again outside of certain long runners (Fire Force, The Ancient Magus Bride, The Aquatope of White Sand to name a few) but I still miss this especially when I really like a show but we only have twelve episodes to a season and a second season is who knows how long away (like Bofuri was confirmed to have a second but we haven't seen anything of it since). I get it's a ploy to get more people to read the manga or create more hype to get a second season, but I would like more than twelve 24 minute episodes when stuff in the some shows in the U.S. are double both numbers length wise.

Yeah, I also miss the time when almost everything was 24-26 episodes or longer. At least with that amount of time, storytellers could actually have time to properly flesh out the characters, stories, and setting more organically depending on the execution.

 

[Beth Pavell]

2-cour anime are a double-edged sword, I think. There's less motivation to end on vague or open-ended final episodes, and secondary characters get more space to breathe. On the other hand, particularly with long-running source material, there's a temptation for the writers to bumble around killing time rather than moving the story on. In fact, the aquatope on white sand did this recently - I think I stopped watching by episode 18 or so, simply because I was bored of repeated misery-porn episodes where nothing happened but another round of Horrible Stressful Workplace plot.

This may actually be unpopular opinion, because I can't stand them. I don't know how much they're exaggerated in anime, but they always seem to want to teach the same lesson - that it's never the fault of idiot employers and growing up means learning to meekly take shit every day. aquatope is a prime example. No training, no mentorship, no guidance, for a kid who's not qualified to do a job in a workplace completely different to what she's used to. And I have to sit through twenty minutes of co-workers glaring at her for not being a star employee the moment she walks into the fucking office

 

[CynthiaLover]

I miss when shows were 24/26-Episodes (or even longer) instead of 12-Episode Cours, with their second seasons basically being what would've been a second half. We still see this now and again outside of certain long runners (Fire Force, The Ancient Magus Bride, The Aquatope of White Sand to name a few) but I still miss this especially when I really like a show but we only have twelve episodes to a season and a second season is who knows how long away (like Bofuri was confirmed to have a second but we haven't seen anything of it since). I get it's a ploy to get more people to read the manga or create more hype to get a second season, but I would like more than twelve 24 minute episodes when stuff in the some shows in the U.S. are double both numbers length wise.

The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 suffered this same fate. If it had gotten a full 24-25 episode timeframe like Season 1 did the quality would spiked dramatically. Not to mention all the cut content would've been allowed since they'd have more time to expand on stuff (such as Naofumi's most epic moment against Itsuki when the latter banished Rishia from his party in the cruelest way possible and other elements like Eclair VS Ren duel and whatnot). It would've also shown more of the stuff that happens during the Spirit Tortoise arc, as much as that arc is disliked, as simply rushing it created it's own brand of problems. While the New World arc (aka Glass' world) was a step up in quality for the anime (and it actually improved on the Naofumi/Raphtalia separation by baiting us with her being with Naofumi at first before Kyo ripped her away with a trap, which I feel really made Naofumi's reactions and emotions far more justified), it still was rather rushed, as Kyo went down pretty quickly once the gang and L'arc's group reunited and joined forces, as evident by the most recent episode. Plus the battle was kinda anticlimactic, as it was mostly yammering with a rather cliché beam-o-war finisher, especially since in the LN and Manga Kyo's soul survives only to be eaten by Raph-chan, thereby killing him permanently.

I wish anime would stop these 12-episode "seasons" and give us the full value of something like 24 episodes. That way any cut content or content needing to be rearranged could be included and flesh out the characters and story more, along with giving the anime plenty of time to polish up the episodes and whatnot. Hopefully Season 3 will be an improvement compared to how Season 2 was handled, with a full 24-ish episode run, especially since we've been teased with Atla and Fohl at the end of the recent episode.

 

[Juliko]

This may actually be unpopular opinion, because I can't stand them. I don't know how much they're exaggerated in anime, but they always seem to want to teach the same lesson - that it's never the fault of idiot employers and growing up means learning to meekly take shit every day. aquatope is a prime example. No training, no mentorship, no guidance, for a kid who's not qualified to do a job in a workplace completely different to what she's used to. And I have to sit through twenty minutes of co-workers glaring at her for not being a star employee the moment she walks into the fucking office

Yeah, that's the reason I kinda dropped out of Aquatope in favor of Future Boy Conan and Ai no Gakkou Cuore Monogatari, and I haven't even finished the latter yet.

 

[prog rocker]

This may actually be unpopular opinion, because I can't stand them. I don't know how much they're exaggerated in anime, but they always seem to want to teach the same lesson - that it's never the fault of idiot employers and growing up means learning to meekly take shit every day. aquatope is a prime example. No training, no mentorship, no guidance, for a kid who's not qualified to do a job in a workplace completely different to what she's used to. And I have to sit through twenty minutes of co-workers glaring at her for not being a star employee the moment she walks into the fucking office

I guess this might be a values dissonance thing, since I have seen this in other places...

 

[Juliko]

I guess this might be a values dissonance thing, since I have seen this in other places...

Yeah, that's definitely the case. Japan has a pretty big problem with corporations overworking its employees even to the point of death. They even have their own word for it, karoushi, which means "death by overwork."

 

[Ryoma Maser]

Thankfully there's an anime that speaks out against it. A 27 year old lady set aside everything for her job, suffers the fate and reincarnates as an immortal witch in a fantasy land and tries to prevent her friends and pupils from holding these thoughts for their own good. Its called "I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level".

I've watched that anime and outside of some setups and a character trait, it really doesn't call it out well as you think it does in my opinion.

One of my favorite tokusatsu series, Kamen Rider Ex-Aid also calls it out in a way by having a character die twelve times by overworking (The character thanks to videogame theme of the show, has 99 Lives, but is still affected by other stuff and doesn't come out good as new every time) but this is more played for laughs but even they show that overworking as most often has nothing to show for it.

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The second season of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid really didn't come out well in my opinion. I understand it was probably just something to get KyoAni back on their feet after the horrendous fire, but they skipped some arcs in favor of many slice of life chapters from different spinoff manga and literally introduced a villain only for him to never appear in the season again with no explanation for why he was there or who he was. If they ever return it I hope the characters they ignored get proper treatment, especially Illuru since she didn't really get to do much despite a whole deal made around her in promotions.

I wish more video games and or their accompanying manga will be adapted to anime, I want to see the Metroid Manga adapted to be honest.

 

[lisianthus]

I enjoy extremely short anime. I'm the queen of the 12 episode series, and the 5 minute short series formats.

..the 5 minute ones are silly though! 2 minutes for an OP, 1 for an ED, 2 of actual content?? it's amazing~

i like manga and visual novels for that reason though? i feel like i can't pick anime up at anytime.

 

[Neo Blaze]

I enjoy extremely short anime. I'm the queen of the 12 episode series, and the 5 minute short series formats.

..the 5 minute ones are silly though! 2 minutes for an OP, 1 for an ED, 2 of actual content?? it's amazing~

I agree! I've watched a ton of shorter anime over the last 6 months or so (if you want recommendations let me know). I like them a lot since even though not all of them are necessarily great, they're easily digestible and not a big time investment like most longer anime. Plus, most shorter anime are slice-of-life, which I really enjoy.

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

HXH isn't the GOAT nor is it top 5 or top 10.I never got the hype behind it,the main cast consists of 3 little boys and an older male.I honestly think Naruto's Chunin Exam arc is better than the Hunter Exam arc and YYH's main cast blows HXH's out the water.

Gohan vs Cell is one of the worst fights in all of Dragon Ball,it's essentially a one sided beatdown with Cell jrs and a SSJ2 transformation sprinkled in,the best part of the whole damn fight was the beam struggle at the end which is a shame.

Goku vs Vegeta (Saiyan Saga) is also overrated but not quite as much as Gohan vs Cell,the fight just hasn't aged well and like the one I just named it relies too much on moments and beam struggles.their second fight is much better.

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

I could see why most people on here would take original Dragon Ball over Z,it's technically better written with superior story,comedy,adventure and world building.

Z has equal or better training scenes,better music,better movies,better fights and Frieza solos in the villain category no offense to King Piccolo and Mercenary Tao.

For me it comes down to the fights,in the original I cared more about the tournaments than I did the adventures,since Z put an extra emphasis on that I have to give Z the edge here.But you can't go wrong with either one,they're way better than Super/GT.

 

[Bahamut]

My least favorite JoJo part is Diamond is Unbreakable. It's not bad, but I didn't enjoy it as much as other JoJo parts.

 

[toastghost]

not really an unpopular opinion, but whenever an anime or manga becomes super mainstream i get turned off by it purely from overexposure.

 

[ekatheparas]

BNHA is awful.
I've read a the manga, watched the movie, seen a bit of the anime, it is just plain awful.
The plotlines are messed up, people technically only like it for certain characters, the creators didn't feel the need to cover up the females properly and any perverted act was completely unnecessary. There's also this lingering depression in such a bright world, and that really took me off the entire thing.

 

[Volphied]

I never cared for One Piece.