So Bad It's Good/Anime and Manga

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This page is for anime and manga you wouldn't admit watching to like-minded friends, but you just can't look away.

Sometimes a show can do good or bad, but the dub job falls into that rare niche of, while still listenable, being impossible to hear with a straight face.

General

• Speed Racer. Featuring some of the crudest animation possible, the show is filled with so many plot holes, you just can't help it to smile the whole time watching it. The theme song is an Ear Worm to boost. The characters, while having odd names, are actually pretty enjoyable. EXCEPT FOR SPRITLE.
  • To be fair, it was pretty good animation for the time it was made. The rest... well, no argument there.
• The 3-episode OVA ICE is thoroughly amateurish, prone to every possible Girls/BoysLove and What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic/Awesome cliche out there, has the weirdest main heroine's voice in anime history, and is generally so incoherent story-wise that you can't just drop watching it. And when you are done, you'll write a five page review telling the world how bad the OVA is.
• Yu-Gi-Oh the Movie Pyramid of Light could be considered one of the worst anime movies ever pumped out by 4Kids, for taking the bad plots, dialog, voice acting, and Product Placement leaps and bounds farther than even Yu-Gi-Oh! GX has managed to do. There are reasons, though, that some find the movie so hilariously bad that it was entertaining: the entire lack of explanation as to why anything was happening, or why Yami was suddenly able to summon a gigantic glowy dragon, plus the random kung fu fights with mummies led to much inappropriately-timed laughter. The Abridged Version sums it up: "I can't help but feel as if it was some sort of cheap cash-in made to promote a bunch of cards." Japan got a novelization and some extra scenes that explained more of the plot (which helped little to none at all.)
  • Plus, the movie gave us the immortal line, "But even eternity doesn't last forever."
  • In the dub Yugi, while screaming in horror, suddently has a virile but incredibly funny voice for about 5 seconds ("TALK LATER, RUN NOW!").
• Musashi Gundoh must be the epitome of this trope for anime. It is so unintentionally hilarious in how badly it was executed that the DVD version with improved quality animation is actually less popular than the original broadcast version (with just plain QUALITY animation). It's never been translated, but it's been reported that it becomes even funnier if you actually understand what the characters are saying, because entire scenes that were crucial to the story never made it into the show itself due to budget constraints or animators claiming they were too difficult to draw, resulting in the show making almost no sense whatsoever.
  • That and it has the most ear-shattering theme in any anime.
• Chargeman Ken really must be seen to be believed. It would have been long forgotten had it not been for one person uploading it on Nico Nico Douga, and the nonsensical Narm has underwent Memetic Mutation since.
  • A lot of shows produced by Knack is this (check out Dame Oyaji if you have a chance). It's amazing that they managed to churn out a few series that were actually successful.
• Diatron-5 (a.k.a. Space Transformers), a Korea-produced anime, has Off-Model animation, a hero who sounds like both a 25-and-8-year-old (if you're going to leave his grunts undubbed, it might help if his original voice matches the dub voice...), the grandest case of You Fail Biology Forever (Ivy, the "world's most talented girl", has a goddamn galaxy in her body, which is what the heroes have to be injected into...and no blood either, since they didn't drown after injection), a plot that starts off incoherent and gets worse from there...Gods. The clincher is the voice acting—not only does everyone sound bored out of their minds, half of the cast don't sound like native English speakers (the other half are British). And that's not counting the DVD cover, which has artwork (and character designs) ripped straight from Gundam and possibly AKIRA. Despite all this, it still manages to be entertaining—after all, what other anime claims that the immune system of a cybernetically-enhanced girl is comprised of tribal, bumbling "White Soldiers"?
• The Gundam offshoot Doozy Bots would more than likely have been So Bad It's Good had it aired. See the promo video here.
• A.D. Police, a bastard offshoot of Bubblegum Crisis, which focused on a super-cliched team of police who specialize in combating berserk Boomers (or Voomers, depending on the dub/sub). It has some... interesting... animation lapses, and is accidentally hilarious from beginning to end. Given that it is both a cheesy action movie, cheesy police procedural, and a cheesy anime, it becomes a veritable trope goldmine.
• The anime adaptation of The Violinist Of Hameln was an attempt to make the the plot of the manga, a comedy that parodied similar Shounen series (albeit with a dark and serious overarching plot, resulting in strong Mood Whiplash every time something important happened), Darker and Edgier by removing almost all of the comedy. Unfortunately, they had almost no budget to work with (rumor has it that they spent most of it on the rights to Hamel and Raiel's classical music), meaning that the writing was incredibly shoddy and they didn't have enough money to actually animate most of it, making 90% of the anime a sort of slide show of Pastel Chalked Freeze Frames with endless whining voice acting on top. In the end, it was cut off at 26 episodes (as opposed to a planned 31) due to poor ratings and ended up with an incredibly unsatisfying Downer Gecko Ending. The anime still manages to be popular today because it's so Narmtastic that it's almost funnier than the manga.
• Fourteen is a horror manga about the mad mutated chicken professor Chicken George. It's probably the narmiest work of fiction ever. And you won't be able to stop reading.
• Hoshi no ko Polon (Starchild Polon), like Chargeman Ken above, has also gone through (albeit minor) Memetic Mutation on Nico Nico Douga. In addition to its horrid animation and nonsensical storyline (if there's any "story" at all) are the constant use of stock music composed by Jean Jacques Perrey.
• Star Blazers gets this in the first season for its use of cliched plots, lack of action in the space battles, for getting New Powers as the Plot Demands, for Desslock's on screen ham and for his mooks hilariously forced chant every time he appears
• Super Atragon gets the nod here for:
  • Bad translations such as referring to naval gun shells as "missiles" and substituting "Fire" commands for "ENGAGE".
  • Truck-loads of ham thoroughly baked and served up by:
    • The Captain, who has No Indoor Voice and managed to develop his own catch-phrase in the 1.5hrs of total runtime! "Undersea Battleship Ra, ENGAGE!"
    • Anette, who had a gratuitous British accent
    • Avatar, who gave us a shrill and grossly overused Evil Laugh
    • The Scientist, who had an inexplicable German-ish accent
  • An overload of New Powers as the Plot Demands that included a self-leveling bridge, a Star Trek-like force-shield, rocket-powered anchors, and the inexplicable—and plot-irrelevant—ability to fly. Each of these abilities were shown exactly once with the exception of flight, which was shown a second time during the closing credits of the second part.
  • However, it did have a very kickin' and epic soundtrack.
• The sexual content in the Zeorymer manga is so random and clumsy that one can't help but laugh. Notable examples include the title robot's IUD power source, the icicle rape scene, and an abrupt shot of female lead Miku's elderly adopted father giving her oral sex. To make things even funnier, despite Miku having a teenage body while clothed, she often suddenly has little girl's body while nude.
• The one shot manga Kuso Miso Technique, the plot is simple as is the artwork. The characters are vague and... special but there's something wonderful about it.
• Mars Of Destruction a short tie in to an obscure dating game universally has some of the lowest ratings on almost any major Anime Site (Anime News Network, My Anime List, etc) but many will deem it to be so bad it's good with its obvious Shout-Out's to Evangelion horribly stiff animation, virtually no conceivable plot, and bad dialogue. People have given it Perfect Scores and written reviews of how much they enjoyed it.
• Guilty Crown: A new work from Production I.G, directed by Tetsuro Araki, written by Hiroyuki Yoshino with help from Ichiro Okouchi, music composed by Supercell and character designs by redjuice?! What could possibly go wrong? Everything. The phenomenal animation and music failed to cover up the unlikeable, inconsistent characters that lacked interesting motivations and the constant Cliché Storm with an ending that answered absolutely nothing. Nonetheless, a lot of people were glued to the screen when it aired, despite the constant bashing.
• I-zenborg, a mix of anime and Tokusatsu from the late 70's. First, the villain is a talking T-Rex, which tries to take over the world. Add to that the no budget animation, laughably bad live SFX, backgrounds made from photographs that never match the perspective the characters are drawn and ridiculous storylines with cringe inducing dialogue. To top it off, each Monster of the Week will meet a gruesome end, usually getting some limbs hacked off by the eponymous Mecha's saw blades. In short, it's hilarious!

Voice Acting

• Buying the Bible Black (and Origins) DVD set is actually a good deal: if you go by the Japanese audio, you get a nicely-voiced, exceptionally detailed hentai anime - if you switch the audio to English however, you get a dub that is so extremely bad that it unintentionally ends up turning Bible Black into a comedy anime. With sex. Very disturbing violent creepy sex.
  • Oh you wonderful bitch!
  • Hentai in general are well-known for their So Bad It's Good, Fetish Retardant dubs.
• Transformers Armada 's dub: "Stairs? This keeps getting weirder and weirder!", the fight scenes where nobody seems to move, the long pauses between responses from characters, the lack of movement in non-fight scenes... the failure to keep track of which character has which name...
• Most of the 1970s dubs of most any anime can easily fall under this. From the old dub of Speed Racer, to the Getter Robo G dub known as Starvengers. Even the utterly horrid dubbed form of the Tekkaman Blade precursor known as Space Knight Tekkaman makes it here because the dubbers decided to explain everything.
  • If one of the comments in genuine, it appears William Winckler, one of the writers for the Tekkaman dub, even thinks it's crazy and loves that people still find it entertaining.
• The AB Group's Dragon Ball Z movie dubs, also known as the Big Green Dub are so hilariously awful, they have to be heard to be believed. For example, most of the characters, particularly villains, are voiced by some old guy who sounds like an unholy combination of Adam West and Orson Welles. From Goku's epic manly voice to screaming out "Kamehameha" for everything other than the Kamehameha Wave, they're all downright hilarious. It also led to such memetic quotes such as "Come, magic cloud" and "Let that child alone".
  • The Malaysian dub also counts
  • Even though it's debatable on if it counts, The Boys and Girls Club dub. It has to be seen to be believed
• What about the American Dub? Vegeta? What does the scouter say about his powerlevel?
  • IT'S OVER 9000!!!!!!
• The bad dub of Fate Stay Night delivers a surprise unintentional hilarity. Lancer's voice actor pronouces "Gae Bolg" as "Gay Bulges". Worth watching for some good laughs.
• The Swedish dub of Cyborg 009 deserves some accolades here. All the voices are done by a single guy (yes, all the women too which goes over as well as you would expect), lots of inappropriate swearing that was never there in the first place and it falls so often into Blind Idiot Translation that there's a rumour circulating Swedish forums that the translation and dubbing was done by a Danish guy.
• The anime adaption of Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer is overall pretty bad, having an almost incomprehensible plot, downright weird character designs, and with the most bizarre Gainaxing ever. There are only two things that make it worth watching (if you don't count the loads of Fan Service); the well animated fight scenes, and the hilariously stupid English dub (slightly NSFW).
• The RTM 1 dub of Transformers Headmasters has become infamous for its...unique translation decisions and bizarre voice acting

Scorponok: Fortress Maximus has come himself! Okay! Then I shall get Fortress Maximus to fight me! Heh heh huh!

• Corrine Orr and Peter Fernandez...normally, very talented with a wide range. Speed Racer? Oh, it's the best Ham and Cheese.
• The infamous Cluster F-Bomb ridden English dubs of such 90s anime as Cyber City Oedo 808, Mad Bull 34 and Angel Cop combines with the over the top sex and violence to make them fit squarely in here.
• On its own Garzeys Wing is generally considered to be horrible. A stunningly inept English dub, however, elevates it straight into this category.
• The Colombian Spanish dub of Rurouni Kenshin also counts, due to the thicker accents of many of the characters and the inability (due of how Colombian Spanish works) of pronouncing correctly many of the Japanese names and techniques.
  • The Colombian dub of Super Doll Licca-chan it's also hilarious, if only because of the dubbers desperately trying to imitate the very high pitch of Japanese female voices, and then overdoing it so.
• To those who didn't grow up with it, the Philippines English dub of Voltes V almost sounds like a Gag Dub. The actors sound unmotivated and their accents render some sentences incomprehensible. They also changed Kenichi's name to the inherently funny Steve and Daijiro's to the Sesame Street-esque "Big Bert".
• Normally Pilot Candidate would be unwatchably dull, but the English dub makes it highly entertaining. The Hero sounds like Woody Allen, The Smart Guy has a stereotypical Canadian accent, The Rival sounds like he's voiced by someone who doesn't normally act, and if the credits are to be believed, most of the women were voiced by Michael McConnohie doing his best Lois Griffin impression.
• The Guin Saga English dub is so full of this. Taking advantage of it being a Cliché Storm, the characters either overreact or underreact in the non-action scenes, sadly, however, it caused plenty of Hate Dumb.
  • It could possibly go to Gag Dub territory, as there's even a man who suspiciously sounds like Droopy.
• In Finland, Digimon was originally translated and dubbed by a group called Agapio Racing Team. Their dubbing was so bad it was even lampooned on newspapers, and they got replaced by a more professional team. Even though Agapio's dubs have been off-air for years now, online videos of their weirdest moments as well as parodies are still popular.
• The dub of the Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy. There's a good reason rereleases of the trilogy do not include the dub: the only reason people watch it is to make fun of it.

Animation

• The low quality of the animation from Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica is so bad it has to be seen to be believed. MSTed here in the infamous "QUALITY Van" chase scene.
  • Said MSTing is in the form of text balloons that pop up to describe every individual flaw with the animation, there are so many of them, and they come at you so fast, it's impossible to keep track, meaning it's still just as funny on the replay, as you see things you missed before.
• In both Chargeman Ken and MD Geist, characters walking are often represented by sliding the cel up and down.
• The Skelter+Heaven OVA gives us a ludicrously failed attempt to mix cel animation with CGI. It's... impressive, really. Here's a sample.

Music

• Some of the original songs for Pocket Monsters (the original Japanese version of Pokemon) have an endearing sort of awfulness. For an epitomizing example, look no further than "Pokemon ieru kana?" ("Can you say the Pokemon['s names]?") -- the basis for the "Pokerap"—which starts with a sample of the Beatles' "I am the Walrus" and a hyper-enthusiastic American accented MC, and keeps getting weirder,
• The dub opening for Cardcaptors. "The secrets of the Clow - were all a mystery~! But when this mighty book was opened, the powers were set free! CARDCAPTORS - a mystic adventure! CARDCAPTORS - a quest for all time!" Um... yeah.
• The opening theme to the 4Kids English dub of One Piece. "Yo ho ho, he took a bite of Gum Gum!"
  • That sounds like something out of Night at the Museum.
• Intentionally "so bad it's awesome", Lucky Star‍'‍s Konata's karaoke of the Dragon Ball Z theme.
• The original English theme for Dragon Ball Z, "Rock the Dragon". Dragon Dragon, Rock the Dragon, Dragon Ball Z *roar*
• For the Latin American dub of Magic Knight Rayearth they decided to record a new version of its classic opening "Yuzurenai Negai". The original song is pretty, but for the dub they inexplicably choose male singers with deep voices, and that's before we talk of the changes in the lyrics. It's known among the fans as "the mariachi version", and you can see why.

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