10/12/08 - 5 most inconsistent anime

[Fireaxe]

Mai HiME
Mai Otome
Kiddy Grade
Ergo Proxy
Full Metal Panic (Season 1)

[VivisQueen]

Samurai Champloo
Great Teacher Onizuka
Major Season 4
Full Metal Panic
Darker than Black


Very difficult choice, but also will make for an interesting final result.

[vivafruit]

Wow, no votes yet for Kare Kano? To me this is basically the quintessential mixed bag - the beginning episodes are some of my all-time favorites, while the ending stuff is probably the best example available of a Hideaki Anno/Gainax meltdown - impressive since Gainax is famous for meltdowns.

I also don't really consider Elfen Lied to be inconsistent - to me it's either consistently good or consistently bad, depending on what you think of the show's constant mix of shameless fanservice, over the top gore and angst. It's not like the show stops being angsty or gory or fanservicey every other episode or something; every episode is pretty much like the next in terms of what you get.

Anyway, my votes:

Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou
Mai Hime
ROD TV
Evangelion (the second most impressive example of a Gainax meltdown. Third would probably be Mahoromatic but that show was terrible from the beginning, so...)

The 5th slot could go to any number of long running manga based shonen action series that run out of manga and start making filler instead of waiting for more manga to be released (Naruto, Bleach, etc).

I'm going to go with
Rurouni Kenshin

Because it's arguably one of the best of its kind when it's good, and about as terrible as everything else of its kind when it's bad.

[VivisQueen]

No vote


Evangelion? Seriously, vivafruit? From episode to episode it was consistently exciting. It's just in the final two that it (supposedly) melts down. And even if you argue that it melts down halfway, that's still not really a mixed bag, is it? That's the only reason I haven't voted Code Geass R2, actually - it's inconsistent but in a half-half kinda way.

[Kenikki]

I have to say the same about Kare Kano, it's just awful at the end, it doesn't go in ups and downs throughout the whole thing. If I were to think that way, my list would be very different

[Cetonis]

Originally Posted by vivafruit

I also don't really consider Elfen Lied to be inconsistent - to me it's either consistently good or consistently bad, depending on what you think of the show's constant mix of shameless fanservice, over the top gore and angst. It's not like the show stops being angsty or gory or fanservicey every other episode or something; every episode is pretty much like the next in terms of what you get.

As an attempt to explain, I imagine not everybody feels the same way about all three things you mention here - for instance in my case I thought the angst/drama was the better part of the show, the gore/nudity was withstandable and the harem elements were spectacularly dumb. So as it rifles through one aspect into antother into the third and back again, (although this generally happens within the episodes and not between them) the percieved quality jumps and dives.

[valondar]

Originally Posted by vivafruit

I also don't really consider Elfen Lied to be inconsistent - to me it's either consistently good or consistently bad, depending on what you think of the show's constant mix of shameless fanservice, over the top gore and angst.

That presupposes you either like all three or dislike all three. I was there for the gore, I was indifferent to the fanservice and I found the angst very badly handled. Thus, I'd call it inconsistent during episodes. It varies wildly from good sadistic blood-letting fun to excessively saccharine melodrama. But that's just IMHO.

[vivafruit]

Where's Ingrey when I need him? He loves semantic disputes even more than I do.

I guess we're stuck in differing definitions of "inconsistent."

Regarding whether an anime that blows for the second half and rocks for the first half is inconsistent:

If a marathon runner runs awesomely for the first half of the race and then tires out and runs terribly for the second half, how is this performance overall consistent? I'd consider a consistent runner to be able to run the same speed at every stage of the race.

At any rate, both Evangelion and Kare Kano had problems besides just the horrible endings. Shinji's angst merited face punching in several different episodes (not just the last two), and Kare Kano not only had the terrible ending, but also had the aggravating and basically unnecessary Tsubaka arc spliced in halfway through.

Regarding whether an anime can be inconsistent with two good ingredients and one bad ingredient evenly mixed from episode to episode:

Throw ice cream, strawberries and cow brains into a blender, set to "puree" and drink the result. Assuming you have a thorough blender, the taste will either be bad or good (probably bad). I guess the counterargument to this is that the ingredients are not perfectly mixed, but are somewhat lumpy in a given episode. To stretch this analogy farther than it should really go, I guess I tend to take big bites when I eat anime. :P

When I look back at how good an anime was, it's mainly in pretty large chunks. IE, this 4 episode arc was good and this 3 episode arc wasn't. I don't think back to episode 3 and say that the first 7 minutes were good but the final 13 minutes were bad.

[VivisQueen]

No vote


Re: Ingrey - he hasn't been around in yonks, and I wouldn't bother depending on him coming back.

Re: Evangelion - you say you take anime in chunks rather than bites/mix of elements. However, you seem to consider Shinji's whining (one element) as making the show inconsistent. He's full of in-your-face angst throughout the series, in that Evangelion is consistent. If you're using that argument for Evangelion, then you should allow it for Elfen Lied (which, incidentally, was consistently shit in my eyes).

Re: Consistency - indeed, an anime which has 10 episodes of greatness followed by 10 episodes of eye-gouging awfulness is inconsistent. However, my guess is Cetonis tried to angle things more in favour of 'mixed quality of episodes' type anime in order to make this vote more interesting and less predictable. If we incorporated half-half anime, then he might as well have set the question and immediately proceeded to provide the winners without the long, unpleasant business of voting in between.

1) Evangelion
2) Code Geass R2
3) Evangelion
4) Code Geass R2
5) A Random Anime Of Choice Which Somehow Beat Evangelion and Code Geass to Fifth Place

[Gallarn]

Samurai Deeper Kyo
Full Metal Panic
Kaze No Stigma
Tenjo Tenge

Cant think of a 5th atm