[Last Sinner]

I guess explanations are in order.

TTGL - Most of all, the characters. I hate them. I hate them so much. Kamina is everything I despise about males - every word that comes out of his mouth makes he want to rip his tongue and balls off simultaneously then plant them onto Simon, who clearly needs them. Side characters annoy me to no end, Yoko was cheapened to the nth degree with her physique, outfit and countless breast innuendo. Cartoonish animation style ticks me off, the colours are ugly, the music is drivel, the story is just cliche coming of age. Everything about this show is utterly phallic and it drives me berko. I probably would have liked this if I was 18, because that's what this insanely over-the-top, eternally gratuitous series is aimed at. I don't think about life that way anymore and I don't want to. Essentially, TTGL is FLCL crossed with Evangelion. Rehash - the only thing Gainax is good at. Rehashing the two series that worked for them, except they changed the names and personalities to make it less obvious. TTGL is the sum total of all the things in anime I despise. I was insanely furious for every moment I watched this, except for the end to Episode 8. Gainax are laughing all the way to the bank. If I want to see a manly man in action, I'll put Samurai Champloo on and watch Mugen own every noob in sight.

Bake - What an insulting, arrogant, half-hearted, gratuitous shlock-fest. Honestly, a freaking patny shot that was supposed to be only a split second gets blown out in the opening moments...How the hell am I supposed to take anything out of this? And those monologues...walls and walls of text...I'm supposed to read that much text in one second and feel like everything in the scene is still flowing properly? Oh wait, they don't to start with...everything is so utterly fragmented and random that getting a grasp of anything is about as likely as surviving jumping off the top of Mount Everest naked. It doesn't feel like a ghost story, it doesn't feel like horror. It just feels like gratuitous schlock that rotates a tsundere/loli to the female lead status every 2-3 episodes. Shinbo, perhaps you learnt how to make a proper story to some degree after messing up Mariaholic, but you still have no idea how to spend a budget or how to adhere to a schedule. I'm supposed to admire half-hearted TV attempts as revolutionary and the best thing of the decade because it'll be as it should be on Blu-Ray?! Thanks a lot, Shinbo...You have just given the green light for every struggling studio to go half-arsed on series, leave out the good bits and promise that on DVD/Blu-Ray you will see the true version, thus making budgets and schedules meaningless and never having to put 100% effort into a product, as long as you load it with the things that are guaranteed to hook in people regardless of its quality. And look at what happened in October...the number of series that resorted to going half-arsed but promising greatness on DVD/Blu-Ray has ballooned to ridiculous proportions. And as for those smarmy, cocky, sleazy characters - ugh. Not to mention the voice of Yui Horie - BURN IN HELL! I'm supposed to care about them? Being random and overly gratuitous is nothing special. I will always be bemused and saddened that this is being labelled as a masterpiece. SHAFT are laughing all the way to the bank and have paved the way for a marriage between mediocrity and moe to reign supreme, as long as it's done better on Blu-Ray.

SE - Everything that is cliche and fail about shounen. Meandering machismo, endless ecchi or flapping fail. The guys love to rant and posture - they really do. The amount of ecchi comments about Blair's lack of breast development, her sleazy fail of a father, Soul's perverted nature and his ability to make a random situation ever so more perverted - it grows old fast. Very fast. There is just too much dialog, it isn't funny and it is so reminiscent of styles from every other shounen series from the last decade - it's just so very frustrating and insulting. As for the action - when there actually is any *cough* - it is short, spoofish andpoorly executed. At least other shounen series had decent action in between the rants - but Soul Eater fails at providing a decent battle. Every character is cliche and boring. The story is boring, the animation is crapulent. Drove me insane.

Baccano - I've never felt more ghoulish watching a series than I have with Baccano. Rarely more angry, either. It has to be said. That said, I really wanted to like this series. I really did. I gave it all the time and energy I could give. But when it reaches a point that is utterly toxic and can turn a good day into a bad one within 25 minutes, that's a blaring signal that this isn't worth it. I'm sure Baccano has the right ingredients for some people. But as crime pieces go, it never clicked for me. And there are two glaring reasons. Firstly, the characters. To be able to like a series like Baccano, where there are no 'good guys' to root for, you have to find a 'villain' or 'rebel' to identify with, find cool or even like. Problem is - I couldn't. Secondly, the story almost made up for the cast at times, but there was a major problem that could never be overcome. The story never flowed - the jumping between the different plots, backtracks in time and recapping events already seen - it all led to a very stunted, broken feel. It ended up being more frustrating than banging one's head against a brick wall. The animation was gritty, low quality, jagged and lacking in detail. In particular the faces were just ghastly - they might as well have been cardboard cutouts for all the good it did. The opening theme was a good, slick jazz number but after that, there wasn't much to speak of. And the idea of an ending theme asking for sympathy towards a cast that were all cold-hearted killers was absurd and insulting. Plus I was denied any chance of watching gansters/maniacs/fruitcakes that deserved to die to die because they're freaking immortal...WTF?! It just got to the point I felt like I was going to Hell if I kept going (and I'm not religious).

M-H - I don't think I've ever seen a more excessively gratuitous opening theme ever...Every moment of in-episode material feels like randomly thrown together pieces of cardboard with scribble on them, as if expecting everything to automatically make sense and flow with purpose. It doesn't. It's just...argh, so frustrating. Shinbo clearly didn't have a clue how to properly construct a story when he directed this and I'm still convinced that he is still searching for a clue as how to construct one. And its silly portrayl of yuri/shoujo-ai is just insulting. Frankly I'm convinced Shinbo was paid to make sure it's still a major stigma in Japanese society. It never amounted to anything and its humour went too far. There's only so much pain you can put a protagonist through before it gets too cruel. It was stupid and everyone involved with it was stupid for getting involved with something so stupid.

OHSHC - If there is one series that makes me want to gouge out my eyes or vomit my entire insides the moment I see it, this is it. 5 minutes into the first episode, I did throw up. I have no problem with affeminite men (Last Exile, Code Geass, Gravitation, Trinity Blood) but these guys go beyond the pain that The Wallflower inflicts. It's just vile, boring, creepy. I can't put my horror into words beyond that.

Kannagi - Lucky Star staffer gets booted. He decided to parody Lucky Star via this. Honestly, I couldn't careless one effing bit about Lucky Star. And unfortunately, this itself is the most bland, boring, uninspiring, stereotypical thing I've ever seen. I fell asleep while watching it during broad daylight because it was just that pathetic. Stereotypes, cliches and a 'supposedly' cute pancake girl do not a good series make.

Speed Grapher - Ah Gonzo, what have you become? In 2003 you showed such promise and you gave me hope. But you came crashing down soon after and this was the first blow. A good idea turned into filthy, ridiculously graituitous material that just throws any sense of morality or taste to the wind and looks like a 5 year old drew it to boot. How the hell did Duran Duran - Girls on Film become the opening theme for soemthing as stupid as this? I only finished it because I wanted to see how low it could sink because it was so hilariously bad. After this, I never watch crap beyond a few episodes.

Black Lagoon - An action series requires one person to like. But when the male lead is a spineless parasite and everyone else are sociopathic lunatics, what's to like?! And action - c'mon, you call that action?! For the love of...Blowing things up is not the way to properly thrill? Lacked climax, lacked a cool feeling, lacked anyone to like, lacked a story to care about.

Darker than Black - More sociopaths....and NO ACTION...grrrr. Not to mention a C.C. ripoff, a complete absence of a tangible story that ever amounts to anything (and it STILL HASN'T after a 2nd season), characters so devoid of anything that giving a damn about them is pointless. Boring, bland, brainless. I feel so sad Rie Fu had her music put to this crap and that this is the only thing making Studio Bones money these days...


And that is why I utterly despise those 10 series.