The Cringiest Anime Ever

[Metahuman1]

En, Season 2 of Sword Art Online made me cringe pretty badly right out the gate.




They had an interesting and not brain melt down inducing reason to get the characters into another sketcky MMO situation. And this game was called Gun Gale online. It was based on a somewhat more modernized system of combat. Limited knives and unarmed, LOT'S of explosives and firearms.


And then for no good reason at all, they just transfer the Sword Art Online stats over so Kirito can go in and use a sword and STILL kick everyone's butts. At which point I just threw my hands up and said "I'm done.".




Seven Deadly Sins has problems, and that 1 relationship wasn't the only one. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, I've seen so very much worse. And it does have it's moments.

[Kitten Champion]

Hmm... upon reflection, I would add Jojo's Bizzare Adventures and Tomino's Gundam, Gundam Zeta, and Gundam ZZ.

Jojo is great, but if you're not with it - that is to say the plentiful cheese and homoeroticism doesn't delight you - then I could easily see it being pretty hard to watch.

Gundam is rather all over the place, there are great moments which have come to define it and then there are face-palming ones you just kind of go "well, I wish that wasn't a thing". I think the lowest is Gundam Zeta's treatment of Reccoa Londe - who betrays her allies and ideals because she's a woman, basically, and won't shut up about it - it's painfully awkward even by the standards of Gundam specifically and Showa anime in general.

Gundam ZZ has the rather troublesome issue of being a slapstick-y comedy for like, 20 episodes - in a setting defined by grim apocalyptic conflict, grey-and-grey morality, child soldiers, and just lots and lots of death - they suddenly decided to turn it into a pretty juvenile comedy for the third season. Then it gets serious, and is actually enjoyable.

[Reddish Mage]

Onegai Teacher (Please Teacher!) It was made with getting people to cringe in mind. With an exclamation added to the english version.

[8BitNinja]

Wow. This thread has been up for one day, and already there are three pages. I don't have time to respond to all, so I'll respond to a few that I saw at first glance.

The dub of Ghost Stories.

But that's the point.

I actually remember watching a compilation of funny moments of this show on YouTube.

I laughed

Obligatory Plug for AoT here. (The manga is admittedly worse so far, and so far as I'm concerned, but the whole well got poisoned for me out the starting gate so I'm biased. )


Ok, now that that's out of the way.





Well, The Animatrix, particularly the second Renaissance parts 1 and 2, was rather disturbing, and emotionally manipulative in what it was pulling ideas and imagery from.



I recall hearing of a series called Black Bible which I never attempted to watch. No idea what it's about, just that it's apparently Anime and near impossible to watch all the way through.


For all the good becoming a Shonen Action series did it, Maho Sensai Negima never did quite escape the creepy factor of being a harem anime about middle school girls and there 10 year old male teacher who hasn't hit puberty yet.


I also have heard of another Shonen called Frozen that has some REALLY cringe inducing rape factor at points. Have also not watched it on recommendation to avoid like the plague.


Well, that's just off the top of my head.

I'll be looking these up for sure. After all, why would it be a bad idea to watch a harem anime that is about a ten year old?

Watamote, otherwise known as Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!.

I watched thd pilot, and afterward I felt pretty nauseous.

The single most cringeworthy anime I ever saw was Upotte!!



That's weird enough; what's worse is that in the states it is rated "M" for "Mature audiences". There are some good anime that get that tag unjustly; not this one. I didn't finish the first episode. I don't think it's pornography, technically, but Japanese culture has different ideas about acceptability.

Make no mistake, anime is wondrous. It is also really, really weird at times. In the states, we're fortunate that most of the terrible anime doesn't make it out of Japan. But it exists.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I actually want to watch this, just because it is about anthropomorphic guns. If there is an AR-15 character, he/she will probably be my favorite, just for being an AR-15

I hope this doesn't spoil my love for guns.

[Zalabim]

Negima is so weird because it's not really a harem. It wants to be a shonen, right down to the tournament arcs. Basically, publishers wanted another Love Hina, and the author wanted to write Dragonball. I think it has several attempts at a start of an anime, but I don't know of anything that even caught up with the manga at its time. I imagine they're all extremely cringey as well. I didn't watch them all or read much of the manga.

Probably because adventurers are best at general fighting and other murder hobo-like activities, so doing then the adventurer way is more effective. While activities such as cooking are more "native" so to speak, so doing it the way people of the land do produces better results.

Anyway if that bores you then fair enough, but I don't think boring and cringey are the same thing.

I'd think the cringey things about Log Horizon would be any of the interaction between the ninja and the fighter, and then adding in the idol-styled healer for season 2. Or anything to do with the love triangle the main character is in.

[Starwulf]

...
If you make me watch the rest because of this, and I still hate it, I'm going to be disappointed. As I said, it was a plot hole. Something my brain couldn't wrap itself around.

The parts that made me cringe (as per the thread topic), is the protagonist's design, his personality, and how other characters fawn all over him like he's the bestest. Which he is. That's not bad, it's just quintessentially...Ergh. I'm okay with characters being awesome - Goku and Vegeta are rad, Vash the Stampede is great - but, everything about Kirito is...Well he is how he is. I didn't say it was bad. It did, however, make me groan, and inwardly sigh.



Like I said, I don't watch a whole lot of anime, but it was certainly one of the cringiest that I've ever seen.
...Okay, I take it back, I watched two episodes of Kill la Kill and I was uncomfortable the entire time.



I watched all of .hack and Log Horizon. So...I tried.

Hehe, I can't disagree with how they designed Kirito and made him into every woman's wet dream, it was rather annoying, and it kinda just gets worse as the series continues, on into Sword Art Online 2. I've heard SWO3 doesn't revolve around him quite as much though, so maybe that will be fixed a bit?

Kill la Kill.....I think that was 10x more fanservicey then High School of the Dead. Every other scene had a panty shot, or nearly exposed breasts, or a girl in an awkward/compromising situation, and then there is the scene where the evil mother has her daughter chained up, and is...basically molesting her. That was probably the most disturbing scene I've ever seen in an anime, and I've watched tentacle monsters (had to reword this so as to not get me a warning) do tentacle monster stuff to monster women.

Honestly though, if you didn't enjoy SWO, you didn't enjoy it, you gave it a try and that's more then most people who hate on various things ever do(cough cough, all twilight haters, cough cough). Don't let my words force you into watching something you didn't enjoy the first few episodes of, I'd hate to make you waste your time ^^(and that was totally non-snarky btw). I just wanted to clear up that they do actually address the no food and hygiene bit, it just took a few episodes to do so. I personally loved the series as I love pretty much anything that involves video games, lol, especially anime(.hack sign was one of the first anime I ever watched, and I actually own the entire series of it). I loved watching Kirito progress from a loner, to getting into a group, then regressing back into a loner because of bad things, and then slowly being dragged back into the social aspect of it.

[Cheesegear]

Honestly though, if you didn't enjoy SWO, you didn't enjoy it, you gave it a try and that's more then most people who hate on various things ever do

If you can honestly tell me that it gets better, than I'll watch it. I will watch pretty much anything, even stuff that I, personally don't like, if someone else likes it. I like liking things. I want to see what others see when they like something I don't. The only real way to give things a chance, is to see them 'til the end. If I go to a movie, and I hate it, I'm still not walking out. First, the ending might be good, or something amazing might happen like, five seconds after I leave, and, if the theater already has my money, I don't actually gain anything by walking out, except my time. Except my time isn't actually that valuable because I work from home and very, very rarely go into the office. I've got time to kill.

SAO is on Netflix. I literally don't lose anything by watching SWO 'til the end...If that is, of course, what I want to do.

(cough cough, all twilight haters, cough cough).

I've read Twilight. I, personally didn't like it. But, I know why people who do like it, do. Since, y'know, I've actually read it.
(Also, I was repeatedly told by the friend who got me to read it that 'it gets better' after every book...Which is pretty much my activation phrase. To be fair, it does get better with each book, but only in the way that 3/10 is objectively better than 2/10.)

Don't let my words force you into watching something you didn't enjoy the first few episodes of

If the first episodes are not reflective of the last episodes; That matters.
Movie trailers are all lies.
Judging books by covers, etc.

[Anteros]

I'll recommend, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? I watched an abridged episode that was funny, and thought the art looked not terrible so I tried it. I don't know if cringe is the right word, but I definitely rolled my eyes and fast-forwarded quite a bit.

[Sliver]

I'll also add another recent anime: Hundred. It has a lot of "plot", but the actual plot is rather weak. A basic harem anime, I guess.

[Saph]

It's funny (given the thread title), but the earlier mentions actually interested me enough to give Log Horizon a try. I'm enjoying it so far, much more than Sword Art.

[TechnOkami]

Hm...

Puni Puni Poemy?

[Grinner]

If you can honestly tell me that it gets better, than I'll watch it. I will watch pretty much anything, even stuff that I, personally don't like, if someone else likes it. I like liking things. I want to see what others see when they like something I don't. The only real way to give things a chance, is to see them 'til the end. If I go to a movie, and I hate it, I'm still not walking out. First, the ending might be good, or something amazing might happen like, five seconds after I leave, and, if the theater already has my money, I don't actually gain anything by walking out, except my time. Except my time isn't actually that valuable because I work from home and very, very rarely go into the office. I've got time to kill.

SAO is on Netflix. I literally don't lose anything by watching SWO 'til the end...If that is, of course, what I want to do.

I will honestly say it does get better, then worse, then better...And then it gets weird. At risk of ruining the "twist", the plot pivots in an entirely different direction.

It's probably worth watching, if only for the experience.

[Metahuman1]

I'll be looking these up for sure. After all, why would it be a bad idea to watch a harem anime that is about a ten year old?







I actually want to watch this, just because it is about anthropomorphic guns. If there is an AR-15 character, he/she will probably be my favorite, just for being an AR-15

I hope this doesn't spoil my love for guns.

Well, as mentioned above, it's basically played as another Love Hina with a bit of supernatural stuff at first. That started to change some in volume 3 of the manga, which was just out when the Anime series hit. Volumes 4-7 Really tore into trying to go another direction with it completely, turning it much more into the Shonen Action series the creator had originally had in mind. The anime versions I've seen however, didn't come out in time to really get behind that change in direction. Like, at all. And it shows.



And honestly, i'd argue it would be at a level were it could easily take the 2nd best slot for that branch of anime after One Piece. If the start of the series had just had older characters. Seriously, Age the male lead up to 18, and age the girls up to be grad students, make a few tweaks to account for this, boom, problem goes away. But they didn't, so there's LOT'S of very involved romance plots involving a 10 year old pre-pubescent boy, and 12-14 year old girls, with lot's and lots and lot's of gratuitous fan service of said girls. And this doesn't manage to just go away even when we get to the more Shonen and Slice of Life chunks of the series in the manga. Which is sad.




As for spoiling love of guns, en, just assume the position that it's just a weird bit of impressionist art and write it off if you don't care for it.

[Anteros]

It's funny (given the thread title), but the earlier mentions actually interested me enough to give Log Horizon a try. I'm enjoying it so far, much more than Sword Art.

I thought it was awful. I've tried it a few times because I like the concept, but I can never get more than an episode in.

[BWR]

Hm...

Puni Puni Poemy?

I love that one. How is it cringeworthy? Unless you count the relentless assault on your senses that requires a break to catch your breath.

Log Horizon is pretty dull, really. Decent idea and somewhat interesting plot but the characters and actual progression of the plot is boring as hell.

[gomipile]

I actually want to watch this, just because it is about anthropomorphic guns. If there is an AR-15 character, he/she will probably be my favorite, just for being an AR-15

Ichiroku is an M16A4. M4 is an M4A1. Ichihachi is an AR-18, which is really a very different thing, but still an Armalite design.

[Flickerdart]

Oh, speaking of weird romance things in people-inside-games anime - No Game No Life definitely has the cringe in spades. The protagonist's main motivation seems to be cheesecake, and he conquers an entire nation just because he heard it had beastmen (and therefore, obviously, catgirls). Plus the bits with his sister. And naturally, he's unbeatable at games.

But unlike Irregular at Magic High School, it's actually played for laughs, and the enemies he faces are more than a match for him (plus they all cheat liberally) so it's actually suspenseful.

[Prime32]

Negima is so weird because it's not really a harem. It wants to be a shonen, right down to the tournament arcs. Basically, publishers wanted another Love Hina, and the author wanted to write Dragonball. I think it has several attempts at a start of an anime, but I don't know of anything that even caught up with the manga at its time. I imagine they're all extremely cringey as well. I didn't watch them all or read much of the manga.

Negima changes massively over the course of the manga (see pic). By the end it's an epic action-comedy where the majority of the supporting cast just happen to be female.

The anime adaptations are extremely loose, and mostly just straight harem. Akamatsu is infamous for being unable to assert control over how his works are handled. Heck, one of the anime even had a manga spinoff by a different artist, which seemed like an attempt by the publishers to replace the original.

[BlueHerring]

It's funny (given the thread title), but the earlier mentions actually interested me enough to give Log Horizon a try. I'm enjoying it so far, much more than Sword Art.

Weirdly enough, that's precisely what I'm doing. It's not as cringeworthy as SAO eventually becomes, but it isn't particularly great either. Pretty middle-of-the-road, at any rate.

Then again, I didn't have expectations going in, but I'll say that SAO starts off on a stronger footing than Log Horizon. The first episode of Log Horizon isn't good by any means, but I powered through it and it's an okay show.

[Velaryon]

There is another scene later on that really drives home the silliness of boob physics in this world. One of the girls is swinging a sword around killing zombies, and one of the guys is holding a high powered rifle. We get to see a bullet time shot of the rifle where one shot passes directly down the crease of her panties while she is in mid flip, which has to give her a friction burn in a very unpleasant spot, and then the next shot, one of her boobs swings up far enough for the bullet to pass under it, and her other boobs bounces so far down the same bullet goes over the top of it. We get to see this in loving slow motion so as to enjoy every millimeter her magic boobs travel.

I was going to mention this exact scene. This was the moment when I mentally re-cataloged HSotD from "zombie apocalypse anime with a little too much fanservice" to "ridiculous fanservice anime with some zombies in it."

The sad part is, other than the constant gratuitous panty shots and boob bouncing close-ups, it's actually pretty good. But with all of the focus on trying to titillate the adolescent male audience, it's just impossible to take the show seriously. It reminds me of the Dead or Alive video games - a solid fighting engine hidden underneath an elaborate system of boob jiggle physics.



Also, this thread is giving me major deja vu, but I wanted to mention Witchblade as an anime that makes me cringe. It takes a solid premise (single mom who doesn't really have her act together to begin with now gets superpowers and tries to juggle heroics along with a real job and raising her daughter), and then cranks the fanservice up to eleven. Her costume is something that would make the average stripper blush - it covers the "naughty bits" and just about nothing more. Other characters start calling the heroine Melanie (or should I say Melon-y) because she has big boobs. And then they use that name exclusively, to the point where I don't even know the character's actual name because that's all they ever called her.

Worst of all for me was the battle sounds. You know how in fight scenes they always have characters shouting and grunting and all that? In Witchblade they replace that with... moaning. Like, in orgasmic pleasure kind of moaning. This is the first anime I ever watched that made me embarrassed to be watching it and afraid that someone would walk in on it and catch me, and I would have to explain it.

I stuck with it for... I really don't know why, actually. I guess I was hoping it would get better. It didn't.

[Rodin]

If you can honestly tell me that it gets better, than I'll watch it. I will watch pretty much anything, even stuff that I, personally don't like, if someone else likes it. I like liking things. I want to see what others see when they like something I don't. The only real way to give things a chance, is to see them 'til the end. If I go to a movie, and I hate it, I'm still not walking out. First, the ending might be good, or something amazing might happen like, five seconds after I leave, and, if the theater already has my money, I don't actually gain anything by walking out, except my time. Except my time isn't actually that valuable because I work from home and very, very rarely go into the office. I've got time to kill.

SAO is on Netflix. I literally don't lose anything by watching SWO 'til the end...If that is, of course, what I want to do.

The thing about SAO is that liking it depends on your tolerance for an overpowered main character. As a major fan of shonen shows, it didn't bother me all that much, at least early on. He's no more overpowered than a Goku, Naruto, or Ichigo, and it had the refreshing thing where they sort the harem thing out immediately, rather than having a bevy of girls fighting over him throughout the whole show. But as it went on (and the storytelling got worse), it did start to irritate me eventually. I generally recommend watching at least the first arc because the plot for it is quite good, but if you utterly hate that type of character, you aren't going to like SAO. Full stop.

[Traab]

I just wanted to point something out that I think some may be unaware of. All the complaints about underage girl fanservice. Japan has very different laws about what counts as underage. There is a reason so many anime take place in high school, its because you can have these panty shots and other fanservice things for girls as young as 14 and noone will bat an eye in japan. Sailor moon started out a freshman in high school I believe. Remember those transformation sequences and costumes? Yeah. Its certainly understandable to be uncomfortable with seeing girls that young (especially the ones drawn specifically to look as young as possible) just keep in mind that in japan these things are not only legal, they are generally acceptable.

Im pretty sure the nurse is the only woman over 18 in the entire first season of HSotD that plays more than a bit role in the series. But noone complains about that because despite being 16ish at best (I am pretty sure the pink haired girl was a sophmore or junior who skipped a grade, and rei is a sophmore) most likely, they LOOK adult as heck. They are all built like busty supermodel adults. Yeah we complain about the fanservice being out of tone with the series and all that, but the ages of the girls never enters into it. Its mainly when the girls in question are so flat they dont even need training bras yet that it suddenly becomes squicky because how young they are is being directly shoved into our faces.

[DoctorFaust]

So, this is one I don't personally agree with, but that I have heard thrown around in a couple of discussions like this before: KonoSuba.

[Manga Shoggoth]

RULES:
...
2. No pornographic content

Depending on where you draw the line for "pornographic", there was a series called Colorful. It consisted of short sketches rather than a full story.

It wasn't pornographic (what I saw of it, anyway), and would probably have been better if it was. In the 3 or so episodes I watched before I binned the DVD there was about one good sketch.

[Frozen_Feet]

Kamen no Maid Guy

Yondemasyou, Azazel-san.

[Merellis]

In regards to Negima, I'm so torn on that series. If he'd been able to go action from the start I'd have no problems. The world building is solid, the magic is awesome, the damn rituals for magic items and the like work so well. Even the character development is solid in a number of the characters.

BUT THE CHEESEY HAREM.

IT JUST TAKES AWAY FROM IT ALL

LIKE DAMNIT.

Rip most of that out, keep some of the silly ecchi moments with him sneezing, and dive head first into the world they were making with the comedy, action, and drama and I'd have been so satisfied with everything!

Also Jack Rakan is just the best chracter in there. Seriously, most OP and broken bastard ever.

So, this is one I don't personally agree with, but that I have heard thrown around in a couple of discussions like this before: KonoSuba.

Not really sure why this would be super cringey. It's a hilarious comedy with so many anticlimaxes and running jokes. It doesn't take itself seriously, it follows the whole "transported into a new world to become the hero" story trope and takes the piss out of it with extreme prejudice. I busted a gut at most of the jokes that came up.

Hell, just the first episode with them literally going into construction and doing that for weeks was hilarious.

[DoctorFaust]

Not really sure why this would be super cringey. It's a hilarious comedy with so many anticlimaxes and running jokes. It doesn't take itself seriously, it follows the whole "transported into a new world to become the hero" story trope and takes the piss out of it with extreme prejudice. I busted a gut at most of the jokes that came up.

Hell, just the first episode with them literally going into construction and doing that for weeks was hilarious.

Like I said, I don't personally agree with people calling it cringey, but I think it was in large part because of the characters, especially Kazuma and Aqua. If you don't get the comedy, or aren't familiar with the tropes that it mocks, I can sort of understand someone seeing it as just a show about awful people being awful.

[Sliver]

Like I said, I don't personally agree with people calling it cringey, but I think it was in large part because of the characters, especially Kazuma and Aqua. If you don't get the comedy, or aren't familiar with the tropes that it mocks, I can sort of understand someone seeing it as just a show about awful people being awful.

But any comedy show can be classified as cringy if you don't get the jokes...

[Traab]

For the people just listing animes, can you give at least a little description as to why its so cringey?

[Lethologica]

Negima changes massively over the course of the manga (see pic). By the end it's an epic action-comedy where the majority of the supporting cast just happen to be female.

The anime adaptations are extremely loose, and mostly just straight harem. Akamatsu is infamous for being unable to assert control over how his works are handled. Heck, one of the anime even had a manga spinoff by a different artist, which seemed like an attempt by the publishers to replace the original.

Well, there's the Ala Alba OVA, but that's not so much an adaptation as a bonus animation of some of the later chapters, and it'd be incomprehensible to anyone who didn't read the manga first. (Disclaimer: I have, and sorta glossed over the ecchi in my head, and enjoyed the heck out of it.)

At any rate, seeing Negima, Konosuba, and Log Horizon in a 'most cringey anime' thread is just bizarre to me. This is a world where Freezing and School Days exist, right? (Or just the last episode of School Days, if prior episodes break rule 2 of the thread.)

EDIT: Per Traab's request:

Spoiler: Freezing

Show

Enthusiastically ecchi with incestuous rape as a theme

Spoiler: School Days

Show

All the schoolkids have sex with and then kill each other? IDK, man.