Yes, I have a list.
1. Cowboy BeBop. Sure, it looked great and had a marvelous score, but let's face facts. There weren't enough explosions or gunfights. We'd be lucky if 50% of a given episode were devoted to action instead of the plot. I think I knew it would go bad after I saw
Honky Tonk Woman for the first time. How much time do they waste gambling in that casino before the good stuff starts?
2. Big O. Fifteen minutes of exposition and investigative work has to happen before Roger finally kicks into action with the title giant robot. Who on Earth thought this was a good idea?
3. Bleach. Ah-ha, real blood at last! This had badass action--when they aren't spending all that time talking or indulging in comic relief, that is. Sigh.
4. Lupin III. An old show about a playboy thief. Not very exciting! Wit and humor and heists alone don't make a good show.
5. Samurai Champloo. This could have been like Afro Samurai or Ninja Scroll. Instead it wasted too much time on characterization, and then we got stupid comedy like
Baseball Blues. Why did they have to let writing get in the way?
_________
Okay. That farce went on for long enough.
Now before anyone hastens to hit the reply button to claim that I'm comparing BeBop to Wolf's Rain or some such nonsense, no, that's not the point. It is simply a bit odd to see shows like Moribito getting dissed because they don't compare against some idealized version of Adult Swim that never actually existed. There are very, very few pure action series in the history of the block. Many that are obvious action shows, like Inu-Yasha and Bleach and Yu Yu Hakusho, have over the years been subject to debate as to whether they're mature enough. Heh.
But I won't just offer skepticism and just walk out. I'll offer a list. Not a bottom 10 list since I don't think there are that many, but a list. This is purely about worthiness, incidentally, not ratings, which I agree are a crappy metric to judge on for reasons already said.
1. Milk Chan. Lame humor, weak animation, and all in all something that has more in common with William Streets' lower tier comedy efforts. Not a fan.
2. Pilot Candidate. Okay sure, it was an early show, but that's no excuse. It would have been a lame Toonami show too. All in all, it's rather lackluster. There were all sorts of hints to a much greater and broader storyline that never really materialized because the series was only 13 episodes long. As-is, what exists is a pretty rushed mess with vaguely defined conflicts and plot points that were never addressed (exactly why could that one woman be an Ingrid pilot when it's not supposed to be possible?). The focus of the series, such as it is, is on the relationships involving the rather generic boy protagonist with big dreams and the strong silent jackass that never really gets over himself. Let's not forget the uninteresting animation either, especially the artificial looking robots. By the time of Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry and Macross Frontier CG robots would finally start looking respectable, but in 2000 this was but a badly executed novelty.
3. Wolf's Rain. You know, I'm halfway tempted to give this a second chance someday, but my first experience of this was not all that good. It is definitely slow, the story seemed very strange with all of its fantasy elements, and to me it isn't as interesting as
Watership Down, which one can get something out of.
4. Witch Hunter Robin. Better than Wolf's Rain, but this never really grabbed me either. I get the whole goth atmosphere and such, but I guess that doesn't do much to grab me in and of itself. A bit ironic given my plans to watch Ergo Proxy, but still.
5. Reign: The Conqueror. You know, I don't think it's as bad as some say, and I can actually get around the ridiculous lack of pants. But you know what? While interesting in some regards, it's still weird as hell. It's weirder than Paranoia Agent, and that's pretty damn weird right there. I still remember that "the universe is now revolving around Alexander!" line. To me, it could have stood to be less epic while still being a riveting tale of a man who was larger than life.
......and that's it.
Finally, some dissent:
I'll differ on Astro Boy and Gigantor. To me, I just appreciate that they aired at any hour on Cartoon Network. Yeah, as a part of Adult Swim they didn't make sense, but it was a late hour and it was time that Williams Street could control. In an ideal world they would have aired during the day or even on Toonami, but no. In cases like Bleach and Case Closed, I see AS as basically compensating for Cartoon Network's shortcomings. Not a perfect situation, but so be it. In retrospect, I prefer it to the alternative.
Code Geass offered a lot of giant robot action, albeit probably not as much as Gundam 00 season one. It also offered a fair share of mental intrigue a la Death Note (not to the same degree, but it's there), so I don't think it was too boring to succeed. I think AS in general does not much care to market giant robots, and they certainly didn't help it with the way they kept moving it around the schedule. I get the sense that Geass would have done far better on Ani-Monday. Gurren Lagann might have performed acceptably, but Gundam 00 definitely would have run into at least some of Geass' troubles on the block. At least Bandai got DVD sales out of it despite the mismanagement.
I fell out of Moribito for awhile for a variety of reasons, but then got back in for the second half. I don't know, the story works for me. It's not bad. It's no Champloo or anything like that, but it's not bad. I have the last four episodes on DVR and am going to marathon them when I get home for the holidays. I've seen much worse, and I don't think it really deserves to get panned simply because WS couldn't be bothered to match it with other fresh programming that offered some contrasting excitement.
s-cry-ed was a "dumb" show, no doubt about that, but it had its selling points. On top of all the fighting the background theme of order vs. chaos was handled relatively well--for an action series, that is. Not the best thing on AS by any means, but still better than it should have been.
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