Subject #003 (Devil's Advocate File 01) - Reign: The Conqueror

Or - Now I'm Not Saying It Was Extradimensional Assassins...But It WAS Extradimensional Assassins.(...and you thought I was gonna make a joke about the lack of pants, didn't you?)

Well, this is a different sort of entry for this project, actually for a couple of reasons.

For one, this marks the first time reviewing something that isn't a one-off movie or an OVA.  That's right, this week marks the first review of a full (on the shorter side) series.

It also marks the first entry on here where, going in, I already knew this wasn't going to be the bottom of the barrel.  It's mainly getting featured here because I know this one gets a LOT of hate, so I figure, as a side project on this site, it'd be a nice interesting challenge to play devil's advocate to a few pariahs I feel get namedropped in these discussions erroneously.  After all, once you've eliminated the shortcomers, finding the real horrors becomes much easier.

With that, we come to our first example of this with today's entry, the 1999 Rintaro helmed series Alexander Senki, better known to us as Reign: The Conqueror.

That's right...it's now officially pantsless o'clock

I've always found the hate for this show curious, really.  I mean, I wouldn't say it's anything award-winning or life-changing by any means, but just the mere mention of its name in discussion with anime fans often leads to groans and pained expressions.  Bringing this show up to some people is like going to a family reunion and asking if anyone's seen that cousin who made the news a few weeks ago for doing Biblically unsound things to a chicken.  Just to hear people talk about this show, you'd expect one of the most Godawful series ever conceived of - something that completely fails on every level.

...suffice it to say, even though I didn't agree with such an assessment, seeing these responses (as well as many people on the site Anime News Network giving this the score 'Worst Ever') I knew I had to give it a go.

What I found was, curiously enough, perhaps the only series I've encountered so far where all the seething hatred can be traced back to just ONE thing.

But before we get to that, I should probably recap the show for anyone who isn't familiar with it, though I imagine that won't be as many thanks to the fact this one is among the few candidates on the waiting list to actually air on US TV. 

Reign is based on a Japanese novel called Alexander Senki by Hiroshi Aramata, the novel itself very loosely based on the life of Alexander the Great.  At least, I'm going to deduce that if the series is any indication, as here, while they do cover many of the aspects of his life and the mythos around him, there's also a strong sci-fi element laced throughout the series as well, hinging in no small part on the idea of a prophecy that Alexander will first conquer, then destroy the world.

This latter part results in a large subplot involving secret orders, famous philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Diogenes, who are all now part of a secret society that seems to exist beyond reality as we know, and a Pythagorean cult who send shapeshifting assassins around as their apparent diplomatic baseline.

The fact this was adapted from a novel really does help put that latter part into perspective, as I imagine some of the metaphysical antics the show dabbles in whenever these elements appear probably would make more sense in a novel than they would a visual medium.  This isn't to say these parts are on the same level as, say, End of Evangelion, for sheer "...the Hell just happened?", but there are some things that come across muddled in the greater scheme of things, particularly the end of the series, when Alexander's prophesied destruction of the world begins.

Despite this, watching the show I only ever really had one other explicit grievance myself - this show has quite possibly the longest opening sequence of any anime I've seen to date.  The opening theme alone is a good 3 minutes long and left unedited.  For the record, they also changed the theme song for the English dub (though still three minutes thanks to them leaving in the original video.)  Of the two, honestly I'd say the US opening actually fits both the scenes shown in the OP sequence itself and the themes of the show a LOT better.  This being my first time actually watching the original Japanese (first having seen the show on Adult Swim ages ago), Yuki Koyanagi's 'Anata no Kiss wo Oshiemasho' sounds like the end result of a secret Japanese attempt to presumably clone Celine Dion that went south, resulting an opening sequence that becomes unintentionally comical as ancient warriors are hacked and stabbed in combat to this J-Pop ballad about trying to get over love of someone.  By comparison, the US version's 'Worthy of Your Soul', while feeling more mellow and less bombastic, seems to fit the visuals more and lyrically provides a better fit to the tone and plot of the show with lyrics that seem to more emphasize Alexander's ambition to conquer the known world as his destiny proclaims.

and to prove I'm not bluffing...and these are only a few select screens.
There's many more kills here.

Anyway, after the music video in either version, there's still another minute of introductory narration before we're finally given the show's title.  This is easy enough to skip, and at least it's not grating to watch if you don't, but still...taking up four minutes of your episode on just opening credits seems something of a bad call, though that last minute at least has some voiceover to try and establish some narrative elements for the episode at hand.

On finally just sitting down and watching this series, I was surprised.  For as reviled as this show seems to be by a lot of people, it was actually surprisingly watchable.  I wouldn't say it's a great series that everyone needs to see, but it's really better than the groans it induces in some would lead you to believe.

In fact, in many cases I've found those groans all boil down to one reason why this show is so hated, and admittedly, it's kind of an odd one.

This man.

For those who don't recognize him on sight, this is Peter Chung.  Most famous for his 90s TV series, Aeon Flux, Chung was picked to do the character designs for this show.  It seems a LOT of people didn't fully grasp the ramifications of what to expect from art like this

Applied to a story like Alexander's.  Resulting in:

Almost EVERY complaint I have heard about this show is about the characters.  It's not even the art in general, though some of that CG has not aged particularly well, it's just the character designs and a large chunk of that centered around the fact they aren't really wearing pants. 
It's curious this last part gets called on since, for one thing, it's technically one of the few areas where the show did kind of adhere to some loose sense of history.  No, really.  In light of considering this, actually looked into it.  Apparently pants were more favored by the Persians and eastern nations at the time than the Greeks.  For another, strangely these same people rarely seemed to complain years later when the movie 300 came out...and also adhered to the "No Pants in Greece" rule.  In fact, that actually showed MORE male flesh than this series does (to the point the original comic has scenes of male frontal nudity) and got far less flak for it.

and...really, that's it.  Almost nothing else about this show ever seems to come up in complaints.  Hell, I've even had people admit the story is actually not bad, but they just can't seem to get over the visuals.Granted, the rest of the show isn't automatically great, mind you.  The story's interesting enough in its premise, even if the execution varies, but the music's forgettable, and some of the individual moments in terms of dialogue and direction feel more overly dramatic than need be.  The strongest example of this coming to mind would be most of the scenes involving Alexander's mother. I mean, I know the legends were that she was an insane cultist, but the show really lays that on THICK.

The cast, both in terms of acting and the characters they play, are overall not bad, if not necessarily anything spectacular.  For the most part, Alexander and his team seem to fall into the classic 'team' archetypes: Cleitas as the friendly bruiser, Philotas as the team's sometimes voice of reason, Ptolemy as the token screwup, to name a few.  They all have their roles in Alexander's plan and all are handled relatively well.  Though I must admit, I'm still trying to make sense of why Hephaestion seems to be  Macedonia's first and only ninja

...as well as what purpose having that metal headguard cover one of
his eyes serves when his specialty is throwing things.

Coming back to the acting, watching this in Japanese for the first time proved quite surprising as well.  While the English dub wasn't bad (and sported a couple of fairly recognizable voices, in particular John DiMaggio of Futurama fame as King Phillip II and Star Trek's Dwight Schultz as his scheming aid Attalos) it really feels lacking compared to some of the star power the Japanese version managed to garner.  With seasoned veterans like Toshihiko Seki, Hochu Otsuka, and Shuichi Ikeda making up members of the principle cast, it's a pretty strong spread for the vocal talent there.

The writing, while I again suspect it probably plays a lot better in a novel where they can afford to explain half the things going on rather than rely on some vintage CG geometry, isn't even that bad either.  I'm not gonna say it's one of the finest shows I've watched on this front, but its writing is pretty par for the course.  Everyone kind of falls into their roles nicely.  About the worst I can say for characterization on the script's part is the fact that at times Alexander just feels like something of an annoying cipher compared to his comrades.  Otherwise, it mostly just does its job fairly well.

I can't even rightly nail this show to the wall for its historical inaccuracies.  Yes, they're there, but it's not like the show was trying to be History Channel grade, though by their current standards, it could have a shot.  From the start one can see they were going less for 'the history of Alexander the Great' so much as 'The Legend of Alexander the Great, as re-envisioned by...'  It's stylized and so one can feel the need to grant it a little leeway.
Plus, it'd be pretty hypocritical of me to call out just this anime on colorfully reinventing history, when the industry there does it with almost the same frequency as the American film industry (ESPECIALLY when World War II is concerned.)

I tried to find things wrong with this show beyond just the character design.  I mean, I tried to tell myself that maybe my first impression was wrong and I went through this again hoping I would come across something else that would explain the knee-jerk hatred for this beyond 'it looks odd.'
Despite that, all I get the sense of here is an average show that people only really hate because of its different look.  It's almost disappointing, in a way.  I was really hoping maybe I'd missed something for all the contempt here.  Even the character art I can't say I necessarily hate.  I'll agree it looks physiologically odd and many of the men look more effeminate than they probably should, but even then, I have to at least give the showrunners some credit for trying something different from the usual 'anime' style.
That said, for the number of people on the web who derogatorily call this show gay, there's a surprising amount of female nudity in it.

In the end, Alexander Senki largely just amounts to a pretty standard late 90s anime series whose only real slip up was changing up the visuals to a rather polarizing style.  With more typical character designs, this would likely have had a small following for a short time before dropping off the radar as another pretty standard anime.

Well, no dice this time, but to be fair, that's what I was expecting.

Here's hoping next test subject will yield some slightly more rotten fruit.

Until next time, that will hopefully be sooner than later.

 

and in closing, OK, even I'll admit this one overdid the 'rule of cool' style. 
This one actually even bests the movie Caligula for most over the top execution machine.

Subject #002 - Roots Search: Life Devourer X

Or - Nothing Says God's Wrath Like Tentacle Monsters

I'm going to start this entry off by saying this one was meant to go up earlier this week.  Due to technical difficulty, however, it was delayed.  When I say technical difficulty, I mean my computer, rather inexplicably, began to lag to Hell and back several times playing this, including fully shutting down at one point.  Considering the myriad of bad films I've played on this thing to date, that says something right there.  My computer hates this one more than I do.

Now without further ado, let's take a look at the little monster, shall we?

This week we're going a ways back in time, to the wonderful age of the mid-80s and the OVA boom of the day.  For anyone not familiar with this, this was part of the phase when anime was on the rise as a big industry.  Not surprisingly, this meant a lot of people wanted to invest in it.  This lead to a lot of companies throwing sponsorships in, often times for straight to video one off projects.  Much like the initial 'straight to video' boom of the US, though animated and skirting more than just the sex restrictions that were so often an issue here.

Some of the OVAs of this era have gone on to be hailed as classics and are still praised in some circles to this day.  Sturgeon's law being what it is, however, quite a few are then cast aside as failed experiments where something or other just didn't work out.

One of these, and this week's consideration, is the 1986 OVA Roots Search.

Alongside getting greenlit during the boom where just about anything with a willing staff and some financial backing could get animated, Roots Search was also riding in part on something of a more timeless trend and one that was also in pretty full swing on this side of the Pacific as well at the time - the fine art of imitation.  In this case, Ridley Scott's 1979 movie Alien had pretty well pumped life back into the idea of the sci-fi monster movie, and sure enough, many other productions jumped on board trying to catch the fever.

It's with this in mind we begin this little story with our designated small cadre of victims - researchers on the far off space station Tolmeckius.  The four-man crew: senior scientist Marcus, ESPer test subject Moira, Moira's boyfriend Scott, and Norman, who seems to be just there as far as this movie's concerned, are carrying out research on psychic abilities, though strangely it seems only two of them are actually invested in the research, and one of them largely for the sake of having plot-related visions.  But, most of these people exist to die, so no sense getting too worried about that for now.

 Let the record show, this is how they choose to show
us that Moira and Scott are a couple.  Maybe it's just the
translation, or the fact this is rushed development, but this
just feels more inadvertently creepy than it should for what was
probably meant to be a passing joke. 

Their research gets cut off when they receive signal of a ship coming barreling out of warp space.  For the record, we TECHNICALLY get a look at these guys beforehand, but it's largely just through a montage of them getting wiped out.  So really all that amounts to here is affirming the rule that any sci-fi film taught that the station crew will break - a spaceship set adrift = automatic death sentence.

Even BEFORE they find this thing.

 

On the ship our brave yet foolhardy team find three things - a wounded survivor, a load of corpses, and the suspiciously faced alien pictured above.  Of those, the wounded person is set aside at first while only Marcus seems to deduce that the distinctly creepy alien is probably why everyone else is dead.  On his orders, they jettison the Freudian-faced being.

...and then the trouble starts.

One by one the crew are now being picked off by a mysterious assailant who can read their minds and play on their worst traumas.  The previous ship's sole survivor, Buzz, confirms the suspicion the alien is responsible, but can only offer a healthy dose of paranoia as the small group are whittled down one by one in rather messy ways.

Given the OVA is only 45 minutes long, it's only a few victims in before the alien decides 'subtlety be damned' and turns the entire ship into a tentacle riddled den of horrors that'd do David Cronenberg one proud.  As you can guess from all of that, story isn't really a strong suit of this OVA.  This all being without getting into the big reveal of the last act where

...there's really nothing I can't say here that you probably aren't
already thinking, is there?

SPOILER
The alien proclaims itself a messenger of God that seeks to punish all of mankind for its sins.  As reveals go, this one doesn't really go very far.  We're not even left with an idea of if it's a bluff or just an excuse for the OVA's altogether vague finale.

THIS is the proclaimed messenger of God, for the record.

Sort of underwhelming, isn't it?

END SPOILER

Granted, the entire basic story in and of itself probably wouldn't have been winning any awards as it is, but the running time certainly doesn't help matters.  At 45 minutes, one can only generate just so much suspense, especially from a monster that preys on the psyches of people we barely know.  It also doesn't help that this baby is the sole effort of its director, Hisashi Sugai (well...this and a production credit on M.D. Geist.)  Though the script was in a bit more experienced hands thanks to Michiru Shimada having already cut her teeth on a couple of titles prior (including Dirty Pair and Urusei Yatsura.)

Of course, likewise, with time constraints even she can only manage so much here.  Even the voice cast, despite containing numerous established and, at this point respected actors, can really only generate just so much interest in a group we know are mostly doomed before this is all over.  The fictional characters don't even seem to feel terribly invested in their own plight at times.  When they find one of their comrades viciously impaled by large chunks of metal that seem to have been formed out of nowhere, one would think they would try to get his corpse down or at least question how the Hell those large chunks got into his quarters.  Instead, they move on to the next scene and talking about how pleasant looking out at the stars is.

No.  Really.

We go from the above.

To this.

Did everyone hate Marcus THAT much? 
Or are they hoping Norman will clean it up?

In terms of technical aspects, the animation's actually not bad.  Nothing jaw-droppingly spectacular, but certainly a better effort than last week's more recent Mars of Destruction.  Similarly, the art is a step up, if still somewhat generic for an 80s sci-fi one-off of the era.  The music, outside of the rather pleasant end theme by Kumiko Kaori, doesn't age particular well.  In several scenes it comes across feeling a bit too much like someone is just bringing their hands down on the synthesizer keys at random and running with whatever notes are played.  It could certainly be worse, but it doesn't really lend itself well to atmosphere or memorability.

Overall, I can't say with any confidence this one really qualifies as our worst ever yet, though at this point, it's certainly one of the lowest points I've seen so far.  Its overall technical merits are a cut above last week's offering,which gives it a slight edge, though those merits are still just average.  Any good will from that edge, however, is then squandered by the ultimately rushed storyline, vague characters, and rather clumsy twist that never really seems to amount to anything.  It's something of a shame given how many of the people involved in this one were established or would go on to do much better work than this.

...but then, everyone gets a mulligan.

Well, this one was bad.  Though unlike last week's 'everything just fails' this was more of a specialized 'we'll fail in one area so spectacularly it will bring everything else down with it.'  Again, I don't think this is near the bottom yet, though I have to commend them for trying, if only for the fact this leads me to further dread what sort of Lovecraftian monstrosities will await me on further descent.

 ...and speaking of that, let me close by saying,
Either Moira never bothered with theology
Or the Old Testament (aka Insane God) got retconned out
somewhere down the line in this future.

Subject #001 - Mars of Destruction

Or - Yes, There IS a Wrong Way to Use Classical Music

and so, a day after declaring this project open, we begin our hunt for the worst anime ever.

Will I find it? Perhaps, perhaps not...but the chase will be rewarding. Like a grail quest, only instead of the cup of Christ, my treasure is a cracked and faded Big Gulp filled with the leftover contents of an Aristocrats act.
...feel free to imagine your own form of disgust here. Point is, we're going as far from 'sacred relic' as possible here.

Anyway, with that we kick this project off with our first test subject, the 2005 OVA 'Mars of Destruction.'

Now, knowing the backstory behind this title going in, I'll admit my expectations were NOT high. For those not familiar with it, this OVA was made as a promotional tie-in for a visual novel/game released on the PlayStation 2 in Japan.

That's right. It's a 20 minute teaser trailer. Now that expectations have been sufficiently lowered, let's fire this puppy up.

The story begins in 2010 (obligatory joke about how the year passed with no such incident goes here) as a shuttle on the way back from an expedition to Mars explodes on re-entry to Earth. In the years that follow, Earth finds itself attacked by a mysterious group of beings called Ancients. A group that, for the record, takes the prize for probably one of the more underwhelming monster designs I've ever seen in an anime.

...and no, seeing it in action doesn't make it any more threatening.

Especially when you realize that dot in its mouth shoots lasers.
Remember how long ago THAT meme was big on the web?

To counter these monsters, we're introduced to the group AAST, the Anti-Unidentified Ancients Special Team. A specialized team formed to protect people with specialists from various different police organizations...
...
...who are all, if this show is any indication, teenage girls that apparently got bussed out of high school prematurely.

It's either that or future Japan's child labor laws have become INCREDIBLY lax.
Either option seems to hold water as far as anime logic goes.

Of course, they aren't just throwing these well-armed young ladies into the jaws of danger alone, good Heavens no. That would be irresponsible afterall.
Enter the protagonist, young man Takeru Hinata, specialist in...you know, as far as this OVA's concerned, he doesn't really seem to have any specialty...or much personality either. In fact, the one thing he can do is that he's the one human who can wear the super suit known as MARS, and that seems to largely be because of his genetics. It's a pretty passive accomplishment like that. Anyway, said MARS suit allows him to successfully thrash the Ancients where the experts are only able to mostly wound them.

It's amazing what a difference having a suit
that looks like actual armor will make here, isn't it?

That's...really prettymuch all there is to the story. After the opening fight, which plays host to one of the most unintentionally comedic deaths I've seen in an anime in a long time (see below), the story largely concerns a plan to ship some of the earlier mentioned Martian wreckage to America for research. Inevitably, Ancients attack the transport, including one special one who it's pretty clear only Takeru can fight.

No, not the death yet.
Though at least this monster design IS a step up.
Just not a particularly big one...
for a 20 minute feature, this is probably as good as it's gonna get.

Anyway, it's best not to put too much thought into the storyline. It's mostly just a pretense for the fights that ensue, set to various pieces of classical music. The results of which are, at times memorable, though not for the reasons they were meant to be.

and NOW we come to the death

...you know, given how she went, unless they've gained the ability to regrow heads in 2010, one has to wonder why this was particularly necessary.
Then again, it's not like she'd be remembered otherwise.

The rest of the deaths are, despite their rather graphic nature, somehow completely bland affairs. We aren't even left with a sense of horror as the nameless police are ripped apart by Ancients because they barely register as characters. They aren't even animated with eyes for further distancing. It's like being told you just ran over a person only to find out you just hit a traffic cone.

No. Really. I have proof on that 'no eyes' claim.

Unfortunately, as you can guess by the general caliber of these screencaps, this isn't even one you could look back at and think 'at least it looked nice.' The animation makes it pretty clear this was done on a low budget to increase interest in the game.

Come to think of it, 'bare minimum' seems to sum up most of this effort. Nothing really stands out as particularly good or memorable (...by intent, anyway) in the finished product. What story there is, including the big twist at the end, is mostly a pileup of various cliches that have been done before, and better, in other animes. The acting is not bad, but nothing remarkable by any standard. The designs, as you can see by the screencaps, are pretty uninspired, and the animation that goes with them doesn't imbue any extra life onto them. Even the music in this only serves to further undermine any hope of this being remembered for a good reason.
I also just want to say for the record, I'm not just docking this anime points for the decision to use classical music. Because other titles HAVE managed to take classical pieces written for other works and used them to make some downright memorable sequences of their own (Giant Robo, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and, of course, Neon Genesis Evangelion all come to mind here) but in this case, the choices of music and how they're employed just feel wrong for the scenes in question and often cause the moments to fall flat. Most damning is the fact they manage to take one of the oldest established 'big action' pieces of classical music, Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries' and put it in such a lull of action that you almost don't even realize it's playing unless you're listening for it.

Have I found a winner the first time out? Not really.
This is certainly bad, don't get me wrong, but I can't rightly say I'd call this the worst ever, nice as it would be for this to be the low point. Rather it's an anime that seeks to achieve the minimum and even just barely accomplishes that.
Of course, it still ultimately fails at its main goal in the long run - as a promotional effort for the PS2 disc, I can honestly say this did NOTHING to gain my interest. I would even go so far as to say, if I had any interest in playing this before, this would have probably killed that.

With that, I'm going to close this first file. we're not there yet, but with this half-hearted advertisement for what appears to be a genuinely uninteresting story to begin with for a starting effort, we seem to be on the right track. Keep an eye out in the future as we bring in more test subjects in hopes we'll find the crown jewel of crap.

Till then, keep sending in suggestions. Can never have too much ammo.

...ah, what the Hell, one more time.

I'm just gonna take this as a sign that, when getting all the best in police recruits,
AAST didn't have much of a budget left for medical staff.

From the Files of Things I Will Look Back on With Regret

What you are about to read is an experiment.

Mostly though, it's a combination of mental masochism and one man's stupid quest to find the worst of the worst.

Why?

A combination of things, the primary ones being the horrific pull of a flaming car crash and the fact that, as a general rule, I've found many cases of a 'worst ever' list people post are usually far from accurate and in many cases, simply mediocre works.

Plus, there's the certain experience factor that comes from being able to say you've stomached some of the worst of the worst.
...hey, everyone's got their self-destructive sides, mine just happen to be passive forms of low-yield brain damage.

At this point, we're focusing on just trying to find the worst anime ever made, but in the future this may expand this to cover the worst of the worst in film as well, depending how well this first project goes.

With this in mind, and in order to make the widest dredge possible for this, I'm going to need your help.

Come to think of it, maybe 'help' isn't the right word here.

That's right, dear readers, I'm looking to you for suggestions. Throw me your worst and they shall be judged.

...within a few provisions anyway

1) When I say 'bad' I mean BAD. Don't just suggest some popular show you dislike, find me the weapons grade crap that goes below and beneath the bare minimum standard of quality. THEN we can talk.

2) A series is fine to a degree, but there's no way in Hell I'm gonna go through a 100+ episode trudge of Hell unless this thing is really THAT abominable...and if it managed to do well enough to last that many episodes, I doubt it's probably that bad.

3) Some sort of English translation is preferable. Failing that, at least being able to provide any sort of synopsis would be helpful.

4) For the sake of avoiding the easy road (though this may be a future lightning round) let's leave the Korean knock-off animes out of the running for now. Stick to the purely Japanese crimes against humanity (...not those crimes.)

5) No hentai. Not so much out of decency concerns so much as it just makes it way too easy to throw something out there not because it's completely abominable but simply because it's a porn piece and thus made under a different (read: lower) quality standard.
...on second thought, let's amend this. If you're gonna send in a hentai, make sure it's terrible even by hentai standards. A porn is always gonna look like roadkill next to the films of Kurosawa, but when it manages to make Deep Throat look like an Oscar winner, you KNOW you're onto something special.

Now then, let the games begin. Take your best shot and find me something so completely indefensible I can't even find a trace of good to be found in it.
Maybe there will be a prize in it for the one who finds the worst (...beyond the possibility of my having to restrain myself from trying to murder the one who introduced it to me. Yes, I'm expecting the bottom to be THAT bad.)

Feel free to email or post suggestions here.