No Right Answer: Best/Worst Anime Ever

[Darth_Payn]

DBZ is nothing to write home about. I can certainly understand the nostalgic value it holds for a lot of viewers, but there are simply too many others that out-perform it on good points and skip the bad points. Anyone looking get into anime would be better off checking out Cowboy Bebop, Baccano!, or GITS: Stand Alone Complex.

Agreed on GitS. That is the tits (sometimes literally).
This was a weird episode, with only one of the guys. But to the topic at hand, I'd say the worst thing DB:Z did is inspire other direct manga adaptations to go as slow as it does, needlessly stretching things out with no regard for pacing, so much so that I came up with DBZS: Dragon Ball Z Syndrome, to describe when a series does this (Bleach, One Piece, Naruto, I'm glaring in your direction).

 

[karloss01]

I believe it is both the best and worst anime ever.

best because it brought in millions of fans outside of japan at a young age, opening young minds to a different culture

and the worst because every late teen and adult assumes all anime is what Dragon Ball Z is despite anime encompassing all sorts of genres and different target audiences.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

For all its faults DBZ is not that bad even the fillers,tho this is the one anime that's vastly superior dubed. I thought Naruto even One Piece got worse at times but frankly nothing beats the endless amounts of pointless panty/boob/ass shots in some shows... theres more than enough of in it already your wasting action and story time on pointless crap....... *sigh* oh well still better than most of US prime time TV....

 

[rayen020]

It has to be something in between because the best anime is Cowboy Bebop and the worst anime is Devil May Cry.

Dragonball Z to me is the same as Derek Jeter. (Warning I'm about to make a sports comparison) I hate the Yankees, I really hate the New York Yankees. Derek Jeter spent his entire career as a New York Yankee. Therefore i hate hate Derek Jeter. However I am not so blinded as to say i don't respect what he did and accomplished in his career.

Dragonball Z is the same to me. It was the forth(maybe?) anime i ever watched. I watched it a lot. In the end i didn't really like it. However i don't think Bleach, One Piece, Naruto, Fairy Tail, a couple of Gundam series, and a lot of other animes would have existed without Dragonball Z. So i respect Dragonball Z for what it is and what it does, even if i don't particularly like it.

 

[RavingSturm]

When I was younger this anime was all sorts of awesome. Nowadays I cant watch it, as an adult you begin to realize just how dumb you were growing up.

 

[nodlimax]

To me DBZ is neither the best nor the worst. It wasn't even my first Anime. I've seen others like "Attack No. 1" (or as it was named in Germany "Mila Superstar") or "Ganbare! Kikkāzu" before DB or DBZ. I like DBZ, but it's not the greates show ever.

There have been much much better shows like Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood and there also have been much worse shows like "Girls & Panzer".

IMO if you like the show it's fine, feel free to watch. If you don't like it there are lots of others out there that you may like. It always depends on the taste.

 

[tzimize]

Wow. That was exhausting. Good job though.

Actually have no idea. Never seen an episode of DBZ, seemed like a kids show to me whenever I heard of it, and not even the good kind of kid show.

 

[mysecondlife]

I put Team Four Stars abridged as "Best Anime Ever"

The original as "Worst Anime Ever". That outta do it.

 

[immortalfrieza]

DBZ is on the track all popular things eventually go on. To wit:

Step 1. Nobody knows about it.
Step 2. Establishes itself.
Step 3. BEST THING EVER!
Step 4. Oversaturation plus time plus because it's popular.
Step 5. Everybody hates what they were once singing endless praises of.
Step 6. People that are out to capitalize on it's popularity butcher it as much as possible through remakes and redubs and so forth.

DBZ is currently on step 6.

Regardless, if you don't like DBZ, you don't like Anime period. If there's something you do like about Anime, DBZ has it and does it well. It damned well earned it's spot at the top.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

DBZ is on the track all popular things eventually go on. To wit:

Step 1. Nobody knows about it.
Step 2. Establishes itself.
Step 3. BEST THING EVER!
Step 4. Oversaturation plus time plus because it's popular.
Step 5. Everybody hates what they were once singing endless praises of.
Step 6. People that are out to capitalize on it's popularity butcher it as much as possible through remakes and redubs and so forth.

DBZ is currently on step 6.

Regardless, if you don't like DBZ, you don't like Anime period. If there's something you do like about Anime, DBZ has it and does it well. It damned well earned it's spot at the top.

I'd say there's a 7 and that DB is already on it. 6 started happening with GT and the videogames made based on it and it culminated with that horrible live action movie...but then....but then we got the War of the gods anime movie!

It was good. Legit good ole dbz. It also continues the plot and is made by Toriyama and establishes a bigger world. There's another anime movie being made currently too.


Step 7 entails the thing going back to what made it good once more and being authentic so that those who really loved it for what it actually was come running back to it, as though greeting an old friend.

 

[Fiairflair]

snip

Agreed on GitS. That is the tits (sometimes literally).
This was a weird episode, with only one of the guys. But to the topic at hand, I'd say the worst thing DB:Z did is inspire other direct manga adaptations to go as slow as it does, needlessly stretching things out with no regard for pacing, so much so that I came up with DBZS: Dragon Ball Z Syndrome, to describe when a series does this (Bleach, One Piece, Naruto, I'm glaring in your direction).

That's a really good point. I've come to better appreciate well-paced anime from seeing how poorly paced DBZ or the big three are. That's not to say they are all bad anime, but it's something that detracts from the experience.

I think it says something interesting about the anime fan-base that very long anime are the most popular. There are exceptions to that popularity rule (FMA: Brotherhood is a good example), but I can't really understand what motivates viewers to pursue such long, padded and poorly-paced material. Complete narratives are much more important to me.

And yes, Ghost in the Shell (both the films and Stand Alone Complex) explores appearance and attraction exceptionally well. It's unnerving how sexless a naked body can seem. While I still appreciate a little fan service, GITS delved so deep into the significance of human biology it gave me goose bumps.

 

[Therumancer]

My answer to this would be a question: has any other Anime managed to achieve the same highs present in DBZ's fight scenes without becoming quite as banal and reveling in it's own stupidity. Has any other Anime managed to do it's filler without it wearing out it's welcome like DBZ did?

The answer to this is "yes" though you'll find different people will have different preferences on what Animes most epitomized these traits. Almost every Anime fan will likely have at least a couple of series they will say managed to hit the highs of DBZ while avoiding the same lows.

I think part of it is that most Anime tends to run either 12-13 episodes or as much as 26. Sometimes you'll see a series that scores episodes in the 50s. The anime series that go on forever and last for hundreds of episodes are the ones that tend to fall into the DBZ trap, things like Naruto, Bleach, etc... such series tend to become really popular when they strike a chord with people and they like the characters to the point where they enjoy experiencing their lives (to an extent) as well as the more exciting bits, but after a while that tends to grate. After like five years for example some kid who is enchanted with the idea of Leaf Village and Naruto and kind of wishes he could live there and be with those characters or whatever is going to be twenty and when the show hasn't grown up at all and starts recycling itself it tends to lead to people turning on it.

I also think a lot of the problem with "mega series" is that for a lot of Japanese viewers it's a matter of routine, seeing one of these every few days, or once a week, isn't any big deal, and the structure means missing an episode or three doesn't matter. Compared to say an American fan who might very well burn themselves out quickly by say watching 100 consecutive episodes of One Piece, it's actually pretty amazing that a lot of people don't burn out even quicker.

That said I'd point to some rather popular animes that have endured in people's memories in the US. Look at say "Cowboy Beebop" it's a show that had it's kinetic fight scenes and action, but also a lot of filler where the team would take on bounties separate from the whole Spike Vs. Vicious storyline, and even had a filler episode or two based around unrelated things where they say jump through hoops to watch a video tape left behind for Faye when she went into Cryonics. The same could also arguably be said for some of the Gundam series that became big in the west when looked at as self contained storylines, things like "W" and the first "Seed" series, they had their asides and filler episodes between the big mecha battles but generally did not grate on anyone in doing it. Of course part of it is that these series pretty much wrapped themselves up in a couple of years. If you look back at pretty much any popular anime series that went from say 12-60 episodes almost all of them had a "Hot Springs episode" or the equivalent once in a while, and people who liked the characters probably enjoyed them, and it worked because they didn't string 30 of them together in a row.

As a result I can almost objectively say that most of the big anime series with hundreds of episodes fit into the "worst" category simply based on the principle that pretty much any genera fan (or anyone who has been a fan) can probably name a series or ten that achieved the same highs without hitting the lows. It could be argued that in terms of watching a bunch of this stuff back to back as opposed to spaced out like during the TV runs it puts Americans into a position to judge it more fairly since we are actually seeing all of this run together and compare it side to side more accurately than say some Japanese TV viewer who might get days of recovery between each episode to sort of close it out. Of course at the same time from a financial perspective those same series have probably made more money than a lot of those that are better in of themselves simply by being able to become institutions.

Unless literally the only Anime you watch is Drazonball Z, One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, or some combination chances are your going to have other favorites. The people who tend to only watch that stuff non-stop can be quite fanatical when they are high off of it, but these are the same guys who will suddenly turn around and try and sell hundreds or thousands of dollars of DVDs and such they no longer want when they finally burn out and realize they literally have no desire to watch a thousand episodes of filler.

 

[RedDeadFred]

There's definitely worse, but it's pretty bad. I stopped watching a long time ago. Them spending like 5 episodes waiting for Freeza (however you spell that) to show up.

People just intensely stared at the sky while the camera alternates closeups on them. All the while the narrator keeps saying "we'll our heroes be able to stop Freeza? Fine out on the next episode of Dragonball Z."

 

[ZexionSephiroth]

Best or Worst? Why not both?

You see, with shows that are awesome but stupid, that's really your only call.

... And at the same time, enjoying its awesome moments and making fun of the stupid moments actually makes it BETTER. Because its perfectly possible to derive enjoyment from said making fun of the stupid aspects, and doing so never takes away from the good moments.

Conversely... If you take your entertainment too seriously, you stop making fun of the stupid moments and start criticizing it too much, at which point all the fun is drained by not taking a chance to realize just how much being able to laugh at the stupid bits allows you to enjoy the good bits.

So best or worst? Depends on your perspective and personality.

... Or should I say, your preference for meta humor.

 

[medv4380]

The original DBZ is unwatchable. There is just so much filler put in to keep the anime going without passing the manga that it's ridiculous. Kai is better, and Team Four Star's Abridged is worth a laugh. The original is just a time sink with filler.

I'd disagree about DBZ being a jumping on point. It's more of a generational thing.

Protoculture Addicts(Robotech) - 1985 - The age of translators not knowing Japanese

Moonies(Sailor Moon), and DBZ Generation spawned in 95 in the US - The age of Massive Plot Changes, and Cancellation to appease the US Conservative audience, and later to be brought back from the dead by Toonami generation.

Current Gen is Naruto spawned about 2005 - The Age of Filler From Hell

Next Gen 2015 - The Age of Naruto Detox

 

[Toblo1]

Best Anime I've watched? Either Psycho Pass, Kill la Kill, or Gurren Lagann....

I've never watched an Anime I thought was "Bad", just heard was bad. The closest I can think of was Bobobo, and I stopped watching that mainly because it just got too weird for me.........

I kinda have very polarizing opinions when it comes to Anime, as I've enjoyed alot of stuff that has quite the broken fanbase (*Cough* Evangelion *Cough*). For example, I hold the original series Naruto in somewhat high regard, mainly because it was the airings on Toonami that awoke me to the terminology of "Anime" (I HAD watched anime stuff like DBZ, Pokemon, Digimon, and Gundam, but I still thought them as "cartoons" until the phrase Anime was brought up constantly on Toonami), but I can't exactly speak my opinion on Shippuden since I kinda dropped off watching it after the timeskip.

 

[DanHibiki]

Back then the best anime was Ranma 1/2

 

[red255]

Best Anime I've watched? Either Psycho Pass, Kill la Kill, or Gurren Lagann....

Whenever I hear someone mention BEST EVER anime, I Generally Cringe. I could pick apart the ones you listed.... Psycho Pass I never finished. Kill la Kill's first half is... not something I enjoyed. and Gurren Lagan is a Homage to Getter Robot, and without that reference material, the ending made me rage until the movie which made the ending seem like a joke, instead of the serious business it was intended to be.

It was apparently referencing Getter Robot's ending. the Spiral Nemesis which wasn't really Explained in the show is this:

TTGL. the robot, would eventually EVOLVE past its pilots. and then just use them as batteries as it does distruction on the universe. Thats how Getter ended apparently.

Madoka. I'd like to list that as Best anime ever. But you probably need to know some of magical girl shows to get what its doing. cuz its... a deconstruction.

Couple other good animes... like Code Geass is basically ragging on Gundam Seed which is not good but people watched it.

If I wanted to talk about DBZ.... It was pretty good. At least DBZ Kai up till somewhere in Frieza Arc (episode where Krillin puts a hole in Vegeta to power him up.)

I was watching Kai, and it was like PAUSE. There, there it is series is bad now.

Which is not to say there are NO redeeming moments after that point, series goes on for another 220 episodes. But there isn't ENOUGH good to warrant 220 episodes. and then there is GT.

SO do I evaluate DBZ (kai) on the first 2 arcs (saiyans and Namek)? Ignoring Androids and Buu? Theres enough material there more than is in most series. but thats less than half the series.

But That part of DBZ is pretty good, the PROBLEM is DBZ ...Spawned DBZ GT which was like Buu saga but worse. and it spawned... One Piece. It spawned mediocrity.

Shounen Jump and anime and Toei, took DBZ and what was a nugget of good, and Figured out how to take that and make it last 300 more episodes, and PEOPLE STILL BUY IT.

Why do I find Madoka the Best anime ever...Well see its a decostruction and its META, see it was ending and around episode 10 with the big fight and city being destroyed, they had that Massive Earthquake. YEAH GOD Thinks its the best anime ever. and Next Walpurgisnaught we killed Bin Laden.

So you could listen to various people on the internet or you could listen to God. or whatever being sends earthquakes and kills bin laden. actually could just be some guy in US intelligence, but I prefer to think its god.

 

[Hutzpah Chicken]

I remember those days as a young kid, coming in the house to watch Dragon Ball Z (and Gundam Wing I think?) after playing outside all day. Until I re-watched it, all I could remember from the show was Goku, Master Korrin, and Majin Buu.

Personally, I prefer Dragon Ball over Dragon Ball Z because it is more about absurd humor and silly things. I still liked Dragon Ball Z (to the point that I watched from the very beginning of Dragon Ball to the very end of GT), but the Cell Saga took some effort to watch. With that said, I was glad that the Majin Buu saga was more quirky.

Since watching the anime in it's entirety, I've started reading the manga and I've been watching Kai on Toonami. Maybe that'll make the middle of Dragon Ball Z more enjoyable and less of a chore.

 

[uchytjes]

Is Dragonball Z the best or worst anime ever? I say it's among the most overrated, personally.

Search your feelings, all you nostalgia-blinded fanboys, you know it to be true.

It's pretty much the same plot over and over and over again with multiple episodes dedicated to one... damn... fight... while Goku is the only character who seems to beat the bad guys, and everyone else is unable to catch up.

That's why I refer Dragonball Z Abridged, at least it pokes fun at the show's stupider aspects.

Most overrated? I believe that you may want to take a look at the Evangelion fanbase. At least the DBZ fanbase admits the show is terrible.