Question:
Do you believe an anime should fade into obscurity, or live on as a joke?
Answer:
To reference the oft quoted line, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” originated by musician Jeff Blackburn and famously repeated by Neil Young, Def Leppard, the Kurgen, and Kurt Cobain, I believe that a chaotic, dumpster-fire spectacle of an anime is still preferable to obscurity. In certain cases, epic failures have given rise to new varieties of entertainment. Knack Productions’ 1974 television series Chargeman Ken was a relative failure in its era and quickly receded into obscurity. The show’s modest 2007 Japanese DVD release brought the show out of mothballs and brought the low-budget disaster new viewers with a fresh perspective. The 2000’s opinion that the show was “so bad it’s good,” went viral, resulting in the forgotten 70’s show getting multiple Japanese television network re-broadcasts, two stage musical adaptations, a remastered Blu-ray release, a tribute CD, and countless fan-created memes and videos. Similarly, although not quite as successfully, Lupin III creator Monkey Punch and first-time series director Yuki Kinoshita’s 2006 television series Musashi Gun-doh was such an underfunded, poorly edited, and ineptly produced commercial broadcast that the show immediately earned acclaim for being “so bad it’s good.”
Commercially produced and distributed anime are always the result of team effort. Only because I so dearly love the anime medium, I believe that the effort and work of animators should be acknowledged, if not respected. Moreover, acknowledging and remembering failures keeps us, anime fans, humble by serving as a reminder that anime isn’t a wonder medium. Sturgeon’s law, the adage that “ninety percent of everything is crap,” is a vast exaggeration, especially when applied to anime. Yet both viewers and producers should remember that truly flawed, bad anime do exist. Productions including Engage Planet Kissdum, particularly it’s original 2007 broadcast, the original theatrical release of Gundress, and the final two broadcast episodes of Wizard Barristers: Benmashi Cecil function as landmark points in anime history and serve as cautionary reminders for anime producers.
Production studio Satelight’s sixth production was conceived as an original sci-fi work by Crest of the Stars director Yasuchika Nagaoka. Moreover, the series was deliberately promoted to the Japanese public as a robot anime featuring mecha design by Macross creator Shoji Kawamori. However, the advance publicity was deliberately misleading because series director Nagaoka wanted the show to surprise viewers. As a result of time-crunch, Nagaoka turned over the hands-on directing duties to Hidekazu Sato. However, Nagaoka hadn’t written full episode scripts, so Hidekazu Sato was forced to scrape together an alternate series story based on Nagaoka’s original ideas and input. The production chaos was so bad that the series didn’t even get an original opening credits animation sequence until its 17th episode. After the series’ catastrophic initial broadcast, the show was extensively re-worked and re-broadcast in a new edit titled “Kissdum R.”
A Kite creator and Galilei Donna director Yasuomi Umezu took on the personal responsibilities for script, character design, and direction for the 2014 television series Wizard Barristers: Benmashi Cecil. (Ultimately the series was co-scripted by Gen’ei o Kakeru Taiyou writer Michiko Itou.) Due to the heavy workload, Umezu’s production fell far behind schedule. As a result, the series’ final two episodes were broadcast in a heavily incomplete form missing animation and even background art. The series’ animation was completed in time for its re-broadcast and later home video release.
Similarly, distributor Nikkatsu insisted that Studio Junio’s feature film Gundress meet its March 20, 1999, theatrical release date even though the animation production was far behind schedule. To quote Anime News Network’s Justin Sevakis, “When it finally arrived in theaters, customers were greeted with an apology note from the producers (“This film isn’t finished at all”)… The screened version had many incomplete scenes, including some that were literally still pencil tests.”
Within an anime production industry that’s generally reliable, outlier disasters are an interesting novelty. From a society that aspires for perfection, works that fall so far short are a unique phenomenon. In my opinion, particularly terrible anime including Roots Search: Shokushin Buttai X (1986), Shin Karate Jigoku-hen (1990), Riki-Oh 2: Horobi no Ko (1990), Koi Koi 7 (2005), and Naikaku Kenryoku Hanzai Kyosei Torishimarikan Zaizen Jotaro (2006) deserve their own sort of ironic acclaim rather than being forgotten into obscurity.
