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My Unpopular Anime Opinions (The Unpopular Opinions Tag)

The Otaku Author My Unpopular Anime Opinions

This isn’t just me being contrary, although that can be fun from time to time. No, this is a tag post that is going around and challenging bloggers to share their unpopular opinions. Is this really a good idea?

My Unpopular Anime Opinions (The Unpopular Opinions Tag)

It would appear that we live in an age where people don’t know quite how to react when someone says they don’t like something that they hold dear. So, maybe this will be a good thing. It’s time to get used to the fact that not everyone likes or hates the same things. I know I’ve had moments of shock where someone has said something bad about one of my favourite shows, but rather than attacking them, I channelled this energy into celebrating the thing that I loved. So, if anything I say in this post makes you angry or sad, well, that wasn’t the intention. As I said, it’s all right to like different things. It’s actually encouraged!

This post is one of those delightful tag posts that I have shoehorned into my Sunday Sevens format. I love getting these nominations and plan on completing more (I do have a bit of a backlog to get through). So, I should thank Pinkie from Pinkie’s Paradise for the nomination for this one. There doesn’t appear to be any rules, but everything seems fairly self-explanatory. Anyhow, brace yourself for some of my unpopular opinions.

7. A Popular Series that I Don’t Like

Have you ever found yourself finishing a series and just being absolutely shocked at how terrible it was? Sure, probably. Well, what if you then tried to see what others thought and there was no one that felt the same way? It’s a little surprising, to say the least. This happened to me with SSSS. Gridman. I enjoyed the first couple of episodes, but then it started to fall into a cycle. Big kaiju would appear, Gridman struggled to defeat it, one of the allies joined in and made Gridman stronger, Gridman pulls an unseen attack out of nowhere and wins. At first, I was questioning whether they were really going to keep pulling a Deus ex-Machina in every episode and they did. The most infuriating one was in the final episode when Gridman remembered that he had a “Fixer beam” and magically fixed everything.

Now, I don’t know if this is because I never watched Power Rangers or any show like that, but this was utterly infuriating. It never felt like any victory was earnt. There were some things I liked about the show, but the removal of any tension or stakes just made it boring. I gave this series a two out of ten on MAL!

6. A Series Everybody Hates that I Love

My First Girlfriend Is A Gal Junichi and Yukana do Karaoke

I had a quick look through my MAL scores and there isn’t anything quite as drastic in rating variance as SSSS. Gridman. This is probably the one with the largest variance and that is My First Girlfriend is a Gal. It’s just ten episodes long and follows a student who is trying to date a “Gal” because he believes, or his friends told him, that it will improve his chances of losing his virginity. It’s got loads of fan service, which is fine by me. However, the real strength of this series was the story and how it managed to connect to my teenage years. There was so much that resonated with my experiences that I fell in love with the series and the characters.

5. A Love Triangle where the Person Ended up with the Person You Didn’t Like

Re Zero Rem and Subaru Broken

It’s not over yet, as the second season of Re:Zero is currently airing, but after watching the first season I have to object to Subaru’s judgement. I loved this series and found Subaru to be fairly interesting if not entirely likeable. Rem, however, is a treasure and the way she supported Subaru made it that much harder that they couldn’t be together. There was an episode in which Rem asked him to run away with her, but he couldn’t because he loved Emilia. Pretty much nothing else happened in the episode, but it was one of the more compelling episodes I’ve ever seen. This love triangle is far from over, but I still want to yell at Subaru every time I think about it.

4. A Popular Genre that You Hardly Watch

Fruits Basket Episode 1 Tohru Honda Arisa and Saki

I don’t watch a lot of Romance or Slice of Life shows. The one notable exception that I can think of is Fruits Basket and I’m completely hooked on it. That said, it’s very unlikely that I will go out of my way to watch anything else. I like fantasy, science fiction, and horror. There’s more than enough life going on all around me, I don’t need to sit down and watch more of it. I also feel like romance is fine, but it should be an element in a series and not the defining thing.

3. A Beloved Character You Don’t Like

Tokyo Ghoul Ken Kanaki

I would never have thought that Ken Kanaki from Tokyo Ghoul would be the nineteenth ranked character on MAL. My only guess is that a lot of that comes from the manga readers. I watched the first season and really enjoyed it. The second season not so much and then I had no idea what was going on in the third season for most of it. Ken really was a terribly dull character who only seemed to be moved forward by things happening around him. He had no drive or direction of his own.

2. A Popular Trope You’re Tired of Seeing

One Piece Season 8 Straw Hats Vs Franky Family

This will possibly make me sound like a monster, but characters can’t keep coming back to life for no reason and can the heroes stop making friends with the enemies? Most of this comes from my watching of One Piece. Firstly, I loved One Piece, but I remember watching the Skypeia arc and they made out that almost everyone was going to die which was insane, however, at the end of the fight, everyone just got up and carried on. There was no reason for them to not be dead. I can’t stand that they just magically survive. Then, on top of that, I remember Franky’s first appearance in One Piece and I still can’t get over how they treated Usopp and still all became friends. Maybe, I hold a grudge for too long, but I still find Franky annoying and it’s mostly because of that.

1. A Movie or Show Adaptation You Prefer More than the Manga

Highschool of the Dead Episode 5 Takashi and Rei's Big Entrance

Highschool of the Dead is my absolute favourite anime. It’s also my favourite manga… Basically, I just love this story and all the characters involved. The anime is a pretty faithful adaptation of the manga, although each of them has its own strengths. As you might expect, the manga has a little more detail and more backstory. The anime, however, took some of the slower scenes and turned them up to eleven. The most notable one is when Takashi and Rei find the others fighting zombies on a bridge. In the manga, they bumped into them walking along the street and there were no zombies. It’s great when an animation studio builds on the manga and makes it better, especially when it’s something that I already love.

Well, there you have it. I’m not sure how popular or unpopular those opinions are. My natural assumption is that everyone will instantly agree with me, but then we saw how that went with SSSS. Gridman… Anyhow, let’s keep this going as I shall now pass this on in the form of some nominations. These bloggers have some opinions and that’s for sure.

Nominations

I’d love to hear your thoughts on my unpopular opinions and hopefully, there’s someone out there who feels the same way I did about SSSS. Gridman. Possibly not, but I can dream. Thanks, again for reading.

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17 Comments

    • I feel like it’s an homage to Tokusatsu which is something I’ve never really got into, although I do remember there being moments in Pacific Rim that I found infuriating too. Like when they realized they had a giant sword halfway through the film which was obviously the better weapon choice.

      It’s just so formulaic and nothing is ever foreshadowed or developed. It’s just “hey, let’s use that attack we’ve never used of mentioned before to defeat this otherwise invincible foe”. Over and over and over…

    • Ah, I see.

      I’m the same though, outside of a full-on comedy, the more ‘last minute’ saves (sans foreshadowing) that happen, the more I’d be annoyed too.

    • It could have been a really interesting series as it had some fairly dark moments and there was some mystery to it, but they just kept solving all the problems too easily. I think that’s why it annoyed me even more. I find missed potential to be a real story killer.

  3. Haha well you know I’m right with you on the lack of death in so many anime.
    Agreed on Kaneki too, just a fairly boring character up there with Shinji from Evangelion imo.

    • Yeah, interesting premise, muddled storyline, boring protagonist. Tokyo Ghoul should have been a slam dunk for me, but it really didn’t hit the right beats.

  4. Kanaki is the 19th most popular character?! Wow .. I do agree with you more! Also heck yes that Subaru chose wrong! I just found him such a wet blanket when it came down to love! He clearly cares a lot for Rem..and those feelings seem earned.. maybe I never had a crush like his.. but Emilia seems much more of a crush romance than a genuine one! I dont even think she is that nice of a person.

    Franky I am not sure what I feel about, I don’t really think being beaten up by Franky badly bans friendship, I actually befriended one of my former “enemies” as well a few times, and heck Goku did stuff like that on several occassions but I do think they are a bit to light on consequence. However Oda is very much inspired on classic D&D it’s pretty hard do die there as well.. but there are a lot of allegories between D&D and the One Piece party, where they almost function like D&D classes and their dynamic and the story telling is very tabletop like as well.. so I do feel it comes from there. I honestly feel like we will see less and less deaths as we go along as well. If a series is succesful it will have it’s own Gaccha game and you can make more cards if a character has multiple forms. Also more figurines and such. Marketing saves lives!

    High School of the Dead was personally a bit to fanservicy for me.. I did not like the cinematography lingering on scenes to much.. but that is my personal taste. I can see why such a format would be appreciated more in anime than in manga though.

    As for .. is this tag really smart? I think it at least shoud be.. I did this tag and really tried to be unpopular because we should be able to tell our opinion without a shit storm coming up.. . I think this post helps with that in a fun way! It learns us to be more tollerable again. I had not one shout I should die for hating Forrest Gump as a character or because I dislike Kirito from Sword Art Online.. so hey so far so good! Hope you are mean people free as wel!

    Great post!

    • I feel Emilia is that unobtainable girl that Subaru fixated on to the point that he is unable to appreciate the relationships that develop around that. I’ve not seen any of season two yet, but I wonder if his fixation will end up being a bad thing.

      That makes sense about Oda. I can see the classes for sure. I just wish that they didn’t have a death tournament format for Skypeia if no one is going to die.

      I love Highschool of the Dead, but I know that others won’t and I’m fine with that. It doesn’t make my enjoyment any less.

      I agree about getting people used to having differing opinions and not getting too worried if someone doesn’t like the same thing as you. That’s just me trying to be profound and maybe entice some readers in.

      Thanks for tagging me in this one. It was a lot harder to put together than I thought it would be.

  5. Second such post I’ve seen lately, and both were entertaining! My own little blog has been up since 2017 and I’ve only really gotten seriously negative commentary from two posts:

    1) I commended the graphic brutality of the first ep of Goblin Slayer, saying how much I appreciated a more accurate representation of the overall horror of combat than anime usually provides. . .

    2) I was very direct in calling out Fire Force for trivializing sexual assault in ep 3 (first season).

    • I’ve been planning on revisiting Goblin Slayer and that’s pretty much exactly how I feel. I shall have to see if posting something so late after the fact will still get the same results.

      I have no idea what you’re talking about with regards Fire Force… Tamaki…

      Thanks. I think the goal is to entertain and show that it’s all right for everyone to not hold the same opinions.

  6. “My First Girlfriend is a Gal” had a surprising good story… I checked it out because I was in a mood for a fanservice show that I hadn’t watched, and was pleasantly surprised.

    re: “Like when they realized they had a giant sword halfway through the film which was obviously the better weapon choice.” (Above.)

    Yeah, that’s a staple of tokusatsu (and anime)… And happens often in western media too. All I know, is if I had an ultra-powerful guaranteed-win power, I’d damn well open with it. None of this farting around with lesser powers.

    • Yeah, hit them with everything you’ve got and then take the rest of the day off.

      If they’re going the other way, however, I feel like there should be some try fail cycles so we can see the hero learn from their defeat and adapt their strategy or learn a new skill.

    • Thanks. Yeah. Could you imagine Akame ga Kill if everyone was magically all right at the end? It takes away all the meaning in their sacrifice and makes every encounter less threatening. Nothing to worry about, everyone is going to be just fine!

    • No problem. I haven’t seen Akame ga Kill, but I do know there was a huge body count with the heroes and villains. That would be incredibly stupid if anyone did anything like that. It was really fun reading the unpopular posts and making one when I got tagged.

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