Worst manga or anime you've found

[Joyce Fetteroll]

There are lists of worst ever, of course, like Top 10 Anime and Top 10 Manga at Anime Network News.

But what did you begin eagerly based on the back cover blurb or someone's recommendation or artwork, and ended up wondering "What was the author thinking?!?" or "The idea was there but the author didn't do it justice."?

[Joyce Fetteroll]

There are 3 that come to mind for me. Is it ironic or does it say something that none are Japanese?

One is 11th Cat.



The artwork is adorable! The cute character design, the detail of the clothing. The story is just a confusion. Somewhere in the series is a huge story, but the first chapter sets up what feels like some other story but it turns out to be some side piece. And the characters' personalities and relationships with each other just don't come across. The manga-ka does perky and annoying well, but that's not the central personality aspect of the characters.

The good thing about bad manga, though, is it's a good illustration of what not to do. :-) Quite often good manga reads so effortlessly that you don't realize how difficult it really is!

Another is Aoi House



This had such potential. Two otaku guys get kicked out of their dorm in college and end up moving in with the girls at Aoi House. The twist is that it's actually Yaoi House (the Y fell off) and all the girls are hot for boys love manga and anime. The guys have to pretend they're a couple to move in. There was so much potential to make fun of the fan service genre (like Love Hina and Negima that Ken Akamatsu is so good at). But it was the exact same jokes with lots of panties and the tripping and falling into a face full of breasts ;-) There were lots of references to anime and manga and supposedly the chapters were often in a certain manga genre (like mystery) -- which is a cool idea. But it didn't live up to my original expectations of where it could have gone.

The last one, Peach Fuzz


This is more sadly disappointing than fun to complain about. I think it would bother unschoolers more than anyone! It's just that the mom is so unsupportive of the daughter and treats her as if the girl's needs were a pain :-/ Very conventional parenting.

But it made me realize how rarely mothers are like that in Japanese manga. Moms are usually supportive of what their kids want to do (goodness, the only restriction Ash's mom has before he takes off in Pokemon is to take a change of underwear ;-) or curiously absent. How many junior high and high school kids in manga are living alone in an apartment while their parents are off working far away? Of course parents are a bit of an inconvenience to adventure so the writers need to do something so they don't interfere! ;-) It would be interesting to see a "Things I learned about Japanese society from manga" kind of list. It's probably as bizarre as the lists about what you can learn about life from movies.

[Margaret]

I don't like Shinjo Mayu's work, in general. She is very popular and ShoujoMagic has scanlated a lot of her work but I just don't like it. I like the art and the stories can be interesting... but after a while the non-consensual sex and the general dynamic in the romantic relationships make me wish I hadn't read it.

[Becki]

What manga did she write? (unfamilar with the mangaka)

[Becki]

Hmm...I tend to like everything...

But I agree with Peach Fuzz being not that good. They had it as part of the comics for awhile in the newspaper, but it was just weird...I haven't read it from the beginning yet.

Of stuff I actually read I would say the
worst would be Wild Act! or Kagerou-Nostalgia.

Wild Act! is about a teen girl who is obsessed with the late actor Akira Nanae, and steals anything that once belonged to him. The story starts as she attempts to steal Nanae's former Academy Award statue, which will be given as a award to the "New Nanae" Ryu Eba. They keep running into each other throughout volume one and their relationship develops as well as the potential plot with the teen's mother. I haven't read past volume one yet, but the art is a little confusing. I'm not sure but something about it is putting me off.

I've only read the beginning of Kagerou-Nostalgia, but I cannot tell what the heck is going on (maybe you're not supposed to...but...). The panels seem cluttered and in the beginning the original Japanese text is left there with the translations written alongside them. The summary sounded really interesting but I can't see anything worth reading yet...

[Margaret]

Haou Airen is probably the best example but here is a list of her work: http://www.manganews.net/creatorinfo.php?id=28 A lot of people really like her and I do like her art, but I don't like the relationship dynamics.

[Margaret]

I should probably add that I don't generally like helpless female victims who fall in love with the person treating them badly.

I also don't tend to like angst: I read Wuthering Heights and while it was a page turner and well written, I didn't actually like it and I haven't read any more Bronte books. Haou Airen is sort of like that for me.

[Margaret]

Another bad one: the My Sassy Girl manhwa. The storyline is great. I loved the movie and I really want to read the original story (prose, not manhwa).

I didn't like the art, though. It's also all color which was kind or weird for me. I like black and white. It was primarily the faces, though. Good story but I couldn't take the art so I stopped. Much better versions of this story available and the manhwa is not the original so I just stopped.

[Katherine]

At one time women were not very free and the Bronte sisters wrote in the an era that was exploring the social problems with the disparity between men and women. Jane Eyre is a great example... an orphan who became a governess to make a living after a grueling and dull awful childhood. More grueling dullness. It's not about how free women can be.

Also Wuthering Heights is about the expression of emotions during a time period that was all about that: Romantic period. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. The dark macabre was a huge cultural influence in that time.

None of that is upbeat. I loved Jane Eyre when I was a teen but I don't know if I would want to read it now. It's depressing.

Thanks for the heads up on Haou Airen. :)

[Margaret]

Jane Austen wrote before then and I love her work. I don't know that women had more freedom when she wrote 30 years earlier. Before Austen were a lot of the gothic romance novels that she spoofs (lots of references to Radcliffe and "Northanger Abbey" itself is a glorious spoof). I don't think I would like those either, but I keep meaning to read one to understand the jokes better. A quote from the beginning of Northanger Abbey, just for fun:

"Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard—and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence, besides two good livings—and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as any body might expect, she still lived on—lived to have six children more—to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself."

Yes, the world was different then but the biggest difference was the author and how they viewed the world. There are people who write books now that I dislike (you don't want to get me started on Bridges of Madison County) and people who write things that I love.

I don't enjoy reading things like that. Personal preference. It isn't that I MUST have a fluffy happy ending, but there are some authors whose minds I don't like to be in. For me, reading is something I do for pleasure and I don't feel compelled to like something or even think it is worthwhile to read just because other people say so.

To clarify, I was really just adding that information because some people DO like things like that and I thought that it would be relevant in understanding my dislike of it. It could be that someone else would love it :)

[Katherine]

The reason I liked Bronte, et al so much as a teen is I could relate to so much that was the heroine's lives.

I've talked before about the anti-feminism inherent in the culture I grew up in. The Brontes could speak to that in ways that many could not. I still struggle with that stuff.

It *is* negative. And not a world or a mind I want to be in either. Actually I've been looking for good ways to get through it better.