Controversial Anime Opinions

[Squigsquasher]

Queen's Blade would be an absolutely fantastic sword and sorcery fantasy anime if it did away with the utterly ludicrous "fanservice". Heck, I'm no prude in any way shape or form (I loved Kill la Kill and I occasionally write smutty fanfic for christ's sake) but the fanservice in Queen's Blade is just...unappealing, more than anything. I mean, did we really need a zoom-in on Leina's crotch as she wet herself? A shame, as it seems to have an interesting story and decent animation (and also great voice acting). Granted I have only seen the first episode (which I have heard is one of the worst eps) but...I dunno.

[Xard]

Queen's Blade would be an absolutely fantastic sword and sorcery fantasy anime if it did away with the utterly ludicrous "fanservice".

That's like saying battle shonen series X would be good without all the action. Perhaps sensible in some sense but if you eliminate the reason the series exists in the first place no one would've created it to begin with.

[Dima]

-Gundam SEED is the best Gundam anime (and I've seen all of them)

-FMA 2003 is better than Brotherhood

These two can't be considered controversial. FMA 2003 is superior in everyway compared to Brotherhood except only the fights. The way they handled the origins of homunculus was amazing. Story is brilliant too,

With Gundam Seed you are close but i would rank it 3rd. 00 would be 3rd but the second season and the movie were a mess.

[Bagheera]

Seed is not terrible (it is not Destiny tier), but 0080, Zeta, CCA, Turn-A, and many others blow it away. Hell, G-Gundam, X, and half the side stories blow it away. It ain't hard to outdo Seed; unless you're 0083 or Wing you have a pretty good argument without even trying.

[Monk Ed]

I think it goes without saying that I enjoyed Inuyasha quite a bit. But as with any anime or video game, I make a distinction between my enjoyment of the show itself and my enjoyment of what it inspires in me. The show itself dragged heavily after its strong opening with only the occasional good episode (some of which I really really liked, though). I liked the emotional side of the show far more than its action side and felt it would have done a lot better as something much shorter with a lot less of the latter -- not because I don't like action (I'm a huge DBZ fan) but because I don't think the series did it well.

On FMA 2003 vs Brotherhood, I can never decide for sure which one I like better but I usually give the edge to Brotherhood for providing a more sensible backstory. FMA 2003 knocked me senseless with its "revelations" only to ultimately never find a point behind them nor cover the inevitable questions about sense, what does it make?! that come up with its mechanics as presented; as a result it kind of left me deflated with a sense of "Oh, you just did it to shock me rather than having an idea of what you were doing with it all".

Major spoilers for both FMA series  SPOILER: Show

For example, as I watched FMA '03 and the explanation for the homunculi came and went, I was left with far too many questions. Am I really to believe that only so few people were ever attempted to be resurrected? And what if more than 7 ever existed at a time, would Dante just have to start making up new sin names? And am I really to believe that these beings would come along that just happen to be at least kinda-sorta shoveable into the 7 Deadly Sins paradigm? Up until Wrath showed up I was under the impression that Dante must have designed the homunculi to be as they were but when he appeared all sense I had made about how the homunculi could believably be as they were went out the window. Did Wrath really just happen to be born angry enough to earn that moniker?

(Of course, any number of the homunculi could easily have fit into each other's namesakes; if the name of Envy hadn't already been taken I could easily imagine Dante giving it to Wrath, but I feel the whole paradigm is too frail to make sense in the show. Actually I continually suspect I'm missing something about how the naming actually works in FMA '03 because my existing understanding of it makes so little sense.)

By contrast, Brotherhood's explanation for the homunculi as originating as a pre-designed set makes way, way more sense. Less cool, for sure, but the explanation holds up better under scrutiny and I appreciate that.

'03's most shocking revelation (the other world) ultimately went to waste because after it was revealed that another world existed... that was it. No "the world you always knew and loved is actually an artificial creation by a man named Nicolas Flamel as a way to have a world where alchemy actually exists so that he might create a Philosopher's Stone and achieve eternal life" (Flamel being allowed to either turn out to be Hohenheim or else have died at some prior point, perhaps killed and usurped by Dante or even Hohenheim or perhaps both) or even a simpler "The world you always knew and loved is actually the land of the dead and you yourself were always just someone who died in this world but they exist at a slight time skew so you and your original self who is destined to die so that you may exist in the other world technically exist at the same time", just ... "Oh hey there's this other world and it's our world pretty shocking huh no there's nothing further than that". Even after Conqueror of Shambala all I could figure was that we were just supposed to take the dual worlds as given and the revelation of its existence was supposed to be enough of a shock in itself.

Those pieces aside though I love FMA '03 for most of what other people love about it. Having the homunculi all actually be failed resurrections is pretty damn cool, and Lust was given the depth she deserved by being who she was in that series compared to Brotherhood's criminally simpler version of her. Greed made more sense in Brotherhood than in FMA '03 though; his selflessness in '03 made no sense to me, also his Ultimate Shield seemed rather redundant with his existing homonculus near-invincibility and I think he would have been much cooler if in fact he had survived his first fight with Edward after being weakened by the presence of his remains just so that his Ultimate Shield could have an actual point.

But I also love Brotherhood for its lighter take, which I found welcome after '03. I don't remember '03's ending nearly as fondly as I do Brotherhood's. I liked Ed and Winry ending up together, and the occasional fanservice focusing on Izumi. (Okay it was like one shot in the whole series but it was something.)

I feel like the two complement each other and what one lacks the other provides and I think the existence of each is bolstered by the other because there really wouldn't be a clean way to have all the things I liked in each to be done together in one series. (I've actually tried, by trying to create my own custom timeline with a blending of the ideas from the two series, and it never works.)

[LegionWrex]

On FMA 2003 vs Brotherhood, I can never decide for sure which one I like better but I usually give the edge to Brotherhood for providing a more sensible backstory. FMA 2003 knocked me senseless with its "revelations" only to ultimately never find a point behind them nor cover the inevitable questions about sense, what does it make?! that come up with its mechanics as presented; as a result it kind of left me deflated with a sense of "Oh, you just did it to shock me rather than having an idea of what you were doing with it all".

Major spoilers for both FMA series  SPOILER: Show

For example, as I watched FMA '03 and the explanation for the homunculi came and went, I was left with far too many questions. Am I really to believe that only so few people were ever attempted to be resurrected? And what if more than 7 ever existed at a time, would Dante just have to start making up new sin names? And am I really to believe that these beings would come along that just happen to be at least kinda-sorta shoveable into the 7 Deadly Sins paradigm? Up until Wrath showed up I was under the impression that Dante must have designed the homunculi to be as they were but when he appeared all sense I had made about how the homunculi could believably be as they were went out the window. Did Wrath really just happen to be born angry enough to earn that moniker?

(Of course, any number of the homunculi could easily have fit into each other's namesakes; if the name of Envy hadn't already been taken I could easily imagine Dante giving it to Wrath, but I feel the whole paradigm is too frail to make sense in the show. Actually I continually suspect I'm missing something about how the naming actually works in FMA '03 because my existing understanding of it makes so little sense.)

By contrast, Brotherhood's explanation for the homunculi as originating as a pre-designed set makes way, way more sense. Less cool, for sure, but the explanation holds up better under scrutiny and I appreciate that.

'03's most shocking revelation (the other world) ultimately went to waste because after it was revealed that another world existed... that was it. No "the world you always knew and loved is actually an artificial creation by a man named Nicolas Flamel as a way to have a world where alchemy actually exists so that he might create a Philosopher's Stone and achieve eternal life" (Flamel being allowed to either turn out to be Hohenheim or else have died at some prior point, perhaps killed and usurped by Dante or even Hohenheim or perhaps both) or even a simpler "The world you always knew and loved is actually the land of the dead and you yourself were always just someone who died in this world but they exist at a slight time skew so you and your original self who is destined to die so that you may exist in the other world technically exist at the same time", just ... "Oh hey there's this other world and it's our world pretty shocking huh no there's nothing further than that". Even after Conqueror of Shambala all I could figure was that we were just supposed to take the dual worlds as given and the revelation of its existence was supposed to be enough of a shock in itself.

Those pieces aside though I love FMA '03 for most of what other people love about it. Having the homunculi all actually be failed resurrections is pretty damn cool, and Lust was given the depth she deserved by being who she was in that series compared to Brotherhood's criminally simpler version of her. Greed made more sense in Brotherhood than in FMA '03 though; his selflessness in '03 made no sense to me, also his Ultimate Shield seemed rather redundant with his existing homonculus near-invincibility and I think he would have been much cooler if in fact he had survived his first fight with Edward after being weakened by the presence of his remains just so that his Ultimate Shield could have an actual point.

But I also love Brotherhood for its lighter take, which I found welcome after '03. I don't remember '03's ending nearly as fondly as I do Brotherhood's. I liked Ed and Winry ending up together, and the occasional fanservice focusing on Izumi. (Okay it was like one shot in the whole series but it was something.)

I feel like the two complement each other and what one lacks the other provides and I think the existence of each is bolstered by the other because there really wouldn't be a clean way to have all the things I liked in each to be done together in one series. (I've actually tried, by trying to create my own custom timeline with a blending of the ideas from the two series, and it never works.)

When FMA 03 is good, it is unbelievably good. Unfournately, it's plagued down by a lot of the same problems that plagued stuff like Blue Exorcist and Soul Eater: lack of material.

As the series was made during the run of the manga, they only had so much to work with. And while I think they made the best of it, a lot of it feels very, VERY forced, especially Greed. I actually think could have done without Greed OR have made a different similar to the different Wrath or Sloth and incorporated it into the story better.

Or they could have made Frank Archer be Greed. That would have been a good twist (and actually fit his character).

SPOILER: Show

The ending of FMA 03 is a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I applaud the creators for actually attempting to end the series the way they did.

On the other, it's a massive trainwreck at times. And everything about the Gate being our world just doesn't work in terms of the conversations had about the Gate in earlier in the series.

And I'm not gonna get into the failure of a movie known as Conqueror of Shamballa, which fails even on a basic narrative level.

All and all, I still heavily enjoy FMA 03 and still think it should be watched before Brotherhood, regardless on whether you end up liking Brotherhood better.

[Princess Asuka]

Death Note's ending was terrible, but well executed on an emotional level.

Besides if at least 6 or maybe more death notes can be on the earth at one time (Shingami can make fake rules), whose to say that other people in the world don't have death notes as well and light just has to gather them all up? And he made the mistake of killing within his own country as Kira.

[Rosenakahara]

Well to be fair to the part of the series where L was in it (aka when it was good) light was just starting out when L found him, and his reason for sticking mostly to Japan from there on out was because he found his and L's game amusing and wanted to continue it and win.

[Trajan]

These two can't be considered controversial. FMA 2003 is superior in everyway compared to Brotherhood except only the fights. The way they handled the origins of homunculus was amazing. Story is brilliant too,

You obviously haven't seen any '03 vs. Brotherhood flame wars if you think that's an uncontroversial opinion. There are plenty of people like me who consider the exact opposite to be true, i.e. that Brotherhood is superior in every conceivable way.

[Oz]

There are plenty of people like me who consider the exact opposite to be true, i.e. that Brotherhood is superior in every conceivable way.

And so do I. Although it is good to watch the original before Brotherhood, Brotherhood is far superior to the original one. When the original ventures in the land of Bones' original material, it begins to fall apart in hilarious ways - especially the ending and Shambala pretty much screw over everything that the story had managed to establish. The problems become even more obvious after comparing it with how Brotherhood handles the story after the first 15 episodes. All the key concepts of the show make no sense in the original where as Brotherhood makes them actually work (the homunculi, the gate, Al's body, the villain etc) and the characters have so much more depth and development. It is also worth mentioning that Brotherhood's gigantic final fight is one of the most ambitious but fascinating setpieces ever pulled off.

[Alaska Slim]

-Gundam SEED is the best Gundam anime (and I've seen all of them)

Gundam Seed I thought was a good ride, until the midpoint, where they finally reached the place they had been talking about all that time: Alaska, and the Earth Federation HQ.

I've made a big deal about them blowing it up after spending the entire story arc up to that point getting there, but TBH that isn't what really bothered me.

What was upsetting, was the mean spirited manner of it all, the about "The natives exited stage right, while leaving civilians and their foreign allies to (unknowingly) die defending the place." That crass, unflattering characterization of Americans failing to properly defend their own soil and actively killing those they should have been defending, is too cynical a portrayal for me to stand. You can make the point that war is hell, without resorting to cheap stunts like that.

At that point the other flaws to the show became steadily more apparent to me. The over dramatization, the "pauses" that would drag on scenes far longer than they deserved to be, fights ending via beam spam instead of a well-choreographed brawls, the constant re-use of stock footage, Lacus Clyne becoming the series Mary Sue, the Earth Federation getting taken over by a teenager, Kira Yamato being just plain dull, with predictable reactions, etc. etc.

[Rei IV]

Controversial opinions, eh? Fine then, I'll bite.

I believe the new Evangelion theatrical movies are better than NGE. No, I'm not taking quality wise just that I prefer them to the original anime series. I've watched NGE, Death, and EoE twice while I've watched the movies multiple times.

I know. I'm going to Hell!

[Rosenakahara]

There are a few people here who do as well, though we are a small number.
Personally that doesn't bother me, im used to being the minority.

[robersora]

Well, entertainment-wise NTE brings a lot more to the table, but NGE has so much more to offer in terms of themes. Yes, you could argue, Q certainly ignited discussion about Evangelion again, but honestly, most things we speculate about since the advent of Q are basically potholes we try to fill by analysing mystical remarks of characters, or dissecting visuals for hidden clues.
NGE on the other hand has some pretty complex, multi-layered writing, spiced with more-dimensional characters and ideas to ponder over.

Whereas in NGE, there is matter to discuss, in NTE there is only stuff to speculate.

Don't get me wrong, I love NTE, but there is a reason, why it is considered to be the light-version of the original. But at the end of the day, it's entertainment. And everybody should seek out what the person likes, what enriches their life the most.

[Giji Shinka]

Themes are pretty much the same in both versions imo, the only difference is that NGE dives a bit deeper into those themes.

Though, it's totally possible that 4.0 gives us the depth of the original series.

[robersora]

^
IMHO, I don't think that there is a chance that 4.0 could enrich the narrative to such an extend it comes to to the levels of the original. Especially if there is, once again, such a heavy empathies on action. But we'll see.

Also I don't think that the themes of both series are the same. In my opinion NGE is more about inner conflict, while NTE is more about outer conflict.

[Giji Shinka]

^4.0 is probably able to go as deep as NGE in terms of the "Eva lore" (What Adams, spears etc. are)

But I agree that it won't be able to flesh out all characters (Ritsuko for example) as much as the original series did.

[Dataprime]

Death Note's ending was terrible

I think everyone will agree with you on that one.
Read the manga's ED, it's so much better IMO

Why the crap they decided to change it - I do not know

[robersora]

^
Because Light was a psychopath, and it was fucking cathartic seeing him go down the way he did and deserved. Squished like the assbug he is, while crying for his mommy.

[ElMariachi]

^
Because Light was a psychopath, and it was fucking cathartic seeing him go down the way he did and deserved. Squished like the assbug he is, while crying for his mommy.

And in the manga

SPOILER: Show

he died crying for his pathetic life once Ryuk trolled him by writing his name in the Death Note, it was much better IMO, Light killed by the same weapon that he abused to establish his little personal God Complex by the monster that he thought he made his bitch, showing him that Ryuk never belonged to him,

that was just perfect.