It happens every now and then that I sit down to watch an anime expecting it to be bad. It’s not often; Like most people, I like to watch good shows when I can. But now and then something can be “So bad it’s good” or mediocre Junk Food, and sometimes that’s what you need. As a reviewer, every so often I need to dive into the world of the terrible so I can analyze how and where it doesn’t work, and as a writer it’s sometimes inspiring to consume bad media because you can look at it and say “Wow. I could do better.” I can stumble on shows I find to be bad without going looking, but when you’re looking for trouble like this, you’re very likely to find it. The masses usually seem kind of easily pleased, so when the consensus isn’t happy you probably won’t be either.
But now and again, there’s a show that
seems to have slipped through the cracks, that has a general
consensus as to its lack of quality but then on watching it you (or
at least I) ultimately enjoy. Most of the time there is some glaring
flaw that you can look at and say “Okay, I wasn’t totally put
off by this, but I can see why people in general were.” It’s
scarce as hens’ teeth to look at something with a poor overall rating
and say “Why didn’t people like this?”.
Enter Beatless, an intelligent and accessible Cyberpunk anime with a lousy reputation that I don’t think it deserves in the least. I’m going to take a look at it today, and try to figure out why so many people seemed to hate this show so much.
Strap yourselves in, this is going to be a long one.
Read More…Read More…