Angel Cop Forum

I so called this many years ago. :LOLL

@Villainess:  
Slayers did pretty good with it new anime and Ghost In The Shell will do good to, if they make a new season of it.  
 I do agree with you about the five years period but, my point is that no one can say there was a bad period in any media, someone will like it and others will not. 

One other thing that bears repeating -
 
Sturgeon's Law: 90% of Everything Is Crap.
Count_Zero's Corollary*: Because tastes vary, your 10% and my 10% may differ, though we will agree on at least part of the 90%.
 
*I'm taking credit for this because I haven't heard anyone else take credit first. *Thbbth!* 
 
EDIT to expand on the point: There are people who will think that Angel Cop is awesome because it's the complete antithesis of modern moe-bait series, plot be-damned. There are people who think Mad Bull 34 is awesome because they think it's a brilliant satire of Loose Cannon Cop films (whether that's Koike's intent or not). Everything new isn't valueless crap. Everything old isn't great... but, conversely, not everything to come out of the 80s OVA boom was wonderful as well.
 
This was kind of the point of my series, and why I think Surat picked these three series for the Trinity of Crap - 3 series that came out of the OVA boom. Each one had something about them that in theory should have been a sign of great things, whether a connection to a great creator like Koike or Nagai, or brilliant animators. Instead they stunk up the joint terribly. To use a pro wrestling analogy, we expected Malenko vs. Guerrero, but got Lesnar vs. Goldberg.

@Count_Zero:  
I totally agree with you 

If this is the quality level of the reviews from anime world order I am glad I never checked it out...I mean I have learned more about why these anime are bad from the comments than from the original reviews where it does all seem that they are bad becuase of the over the top violence and the hatred toward women....I mean come on, Akira has this much violence and certainly has the hatred of women especially in the manga so by the standards used in these reviews it should be bad to (which of course it isn't).  I also agree that I would rather see these than the moe stuff that seems to come out now. 
 
Or ghost in the shell which is gritty but actually has plot and character development which (according to the comments) these shows do not.

@Mezmero said:

"After reading your thoughtful 3 day write up I suspect you may be underestimating my love of ultra violence and misogyny.  But in all seriousness I'm far from an apologist for crappy anime since I'm of the mind set that a majority of them are simply not entertaining to me.  Truth be told I've been known to denounce a lot of the popular stuff.  I am however curious as to whether or not you put yourself in the mind frame of the era in which this kind of swill was produced.  Standards weren't exactly high in the 80s and 90s so although this stuff may not hold up particularly well I wonder if I would have enjoyed it in a perverse way as a kid.  At my age I've seen a fair amount of crap so I'll be safe and take your word on these shows.  Have you ever watched a feature that you found terrible but picked out a scene that you thought was amazing?  I remember watching the low rent hentai Kite at my buddy's house and being blown away by the floor-falling scene (if you've seen it you know what I'm talking about).  Personally I think you should wring as much good out of bad when subjecting yourself to stuff this terrible. "

 
 
Wait KITE IS LOW RENT????  WHAT THE HELL!!  That was a great show 
no it wasn't gunslinger girls (when did that come out does it qualify as strong but screwed up female characters or are they to moe...though I suppose if you called them moe they would shoot you) but it was very well done and the violence had a point and it certainly had plot and character development.

@zaldar said:

" If this is the quality level of the reviews from anime world order I am glad I never checked it out...I mean I have learned more about why these anime are bad from the comments than from the original reviews where it does all seem that they are bad becuase of the over the top violence and the hatred toward women....I mean come on, Akira has this much violence and certainly has the hatred of women especially in the manga so by the standards used in these reviews it should be bad to (which of course it isn't).  I also agree that I would rather see these than the moe stuff that seems to come out now.  Or ghost in the shell which is gritty but actually has plot and character development which (according to the comments) these shows do not. "

These aren't reviews, though.  These articles are just columns describing the author's personal take on the worst products to come out of a particular era; specifically, the '80s OVA boom.

@Hailinel said:

" @zaldar said:

" If this is the quality level of the reviews from anime world order I am glad I never checked it out...I mean I have learned more about why these anime are bad from the comments than from the original reviews where it does all seem that they are bad becuase of the over the top violence and the hatred toward women....I mean come on, Akira has this much violence and certainly has the hatred of women especially in the manga so by the standards used in these reviews it should be bad to (which of course it isn't).  I also agree that I would rather see these than the moe stuff that seems to come out now.  Or ghost in the shell which is gritty but actually has plot and character development which (according to the comments) these shows do not. "

These aren't reviews, though.  These articles are just columns describing the author's personal take on the worst products to come out of a particular era; specifically, the '80s OVA boom. "

Pretty much. Ultimately, the purpose of these is to give a brief synopsis of the series, a run-down of recurring characters, a why the series in question is regarded as bad - misogyny, terrible dubs, nonsensical writing, excessive jingoism and racism, etc. A proper review would go considerably more in-depth, and indeed, the reviews on the Anime World Order podcast definitely do. I highly recommend giving them a listen.
 
Episode 85b has the Violence Jack review, and episode 57 has the Angel Cop review. Daryl hasn't gotten around to his Mad Bull 34 review yet.

@Count_Zero: hmmm ok.  The reasons you give though for considering a peice of art bad are not ones I would use to consider it bad at all.  For reasons outlined below
1. All dubs are bad...moving on
2. Many great peices of art had racisim and sexism in them as they were portraying a peice of time that had it (Mark Twain comes to mind)
3. None of the articles here talked about nonsensical writing
4. yea I can't see an aggressive foreign policy as a reason for reviewing something as bad, smacks to much of not likeing the philosophical point the author is trying to make, which isn't a reason to say a peice of art is bad...some of the best peices of art I disagree with philosophicaly

Reasons to review a story as bad
1. Bad pacing, either to fast or two slow
2. Bad characterization telling rather than showing, inconsistent characterization
3. Boring story/incomprehensible story

Since this is anime you can also add things about the art style though that gets more dicey as you once again get into personal prefference which I try to stay away from. 

Maybe it is just a difference in review philosophy but when I review things for my podcast (banzaibeat) I try to treat it like a book review on the level of the new york times or a movie review on that level as well.  More of an intellectual scholarly did this work as a piece of art approach.    

@zaldar: With all due respect, the racist content in Angel Cop has nothing to do with racist language as used in Mark Twain. In Huck Finn, the racist language in the book was meant to subvert the stereotypes. Jim and Huck are written as being considerably more intelligent then then those who dismiss or insult Jim based on his race. In Angel Cop on the other hand, the stereotypes are embraced - the villains are an Evil Jewish Conspiracy straight out of the notorious hoax "The Protocols of The Elders of Zion"

Additionally, if you'd read my other posts on the site, you'd see I'm not anti-dub. What I am against, however, is bad dubs. With Mad Bull 34, we have a pathetic attempt at emulating a New York accent which only succeeds at knocking the audience out of the film. Violence Jack contains some horrible (and unnecessary, considering the rest of the content) fifteening.

As far as the nonsensical elements of the plots go, with Mad Bull 34 and Angel Cop, the nonsensical elements come out in your standard synopsis and character profiles. With Violence Jack, because of how episodic the series is, and how rather generic the series psychotic protagonist is (well, generic for Go Nagai), to get into some of the more nonsensical elements (the colony of anorexic fashion models - who will be murdered and/or raped later in the episode, the previously mentioned in the comments necrophiliac cannibal transsexual, the rape camps, etc.) I'd have to go a little more in depth on an episode-by-episode basis then I'd prefer with a guide.

With animation, sometimes it is indeed a matter of style, particularly with stuff like adaptations of Go Nagai's series. But not always.

I do appreciate your willingness to play Devil's Advocate here, but this is a case where the series being covered are really as bad as all that.

@Count_Zero: I haven't seen them so I can't say if they are bad or not and I'm am certainly not trying to say they are good.  The plot points from reading the comments made that pretty clear.  But that is the problem..it was the comments that made it clear.  What I got from the guides were.
a. they are full of sex and violence          (ok so is mpd psycho but it is one of the best manga I have read in a long time)
b. dubs are bad                                          (who cares?  watch the sub)
c. one has some questionable racism  (ok, but again it is fantasy so honestly I don't care, people are way to sensitive about such stuff)

If you had talked about the plot points and the lack of character growth I would have been likely to agree with you that they were desuck (though worse than excel saga, or bo bo bo bo, or puni puni poemi ...I don't know god I still can't believe I sat through all of puni puni poemi.)

Anyway horse has been beat dead, feel free to reply to this post but I have said my peice so won't anymore.  I may see if I can rent some of these shows at some point though and come and post my experiences with them.

Hmm that might make an interesting follow up segment....someone who has never seen these before watching them....and we tape their reactions (calling the whiskey media crazy film department)

@zaldar: If you manage to hunt down legal copies (or get them through other means - as mentioned previously only Angel Cop received a DVD release and all 3 series are out of print), I look forward to your thoughts on the shows.