I came up with six good possibilities, not including hentai, of course. I don’t like hentai most of the time, and most single-episode or short-hentai series I’ve seen I’ve regretted watching. There were at least two that I enjoyed though, and was ashamed that I enjoyed. I’m not telling. But rest assured: neither of them were Boku no Pico. 😛 Anyay, the six non-hentai anime I’m embarrassed about enjoying are Top Secret: The Revelation, Angels of Death, Mayoiga / The Lost Village, Magical Girl Site, Diabolick Lovers, and Amnesia.

All of these are delightfully terrible in their own ways. Some of them I genuinely enjoyed, but most of them I enjoyed laughing at because they were so bad. But it’s still a bit painful to admit that I watched them all the way through, even if I was just laughing at them. Top Secret is a sci-fi mystery series gone wrong, with awful writing, boring characters, and hilariously bad mysteries to solve. Angels of Death is a recently aired anime based on a game, which wasn’t well received by the majority of critics due to its, well, edginess, I guess? That and the plot, which seems deep and interesting at first, but turns out to be pretty shallow.

Viewers hoped that Mayoiga would be a serious and interesting psychological thriller, mystery story, or horror anime, but it didn’t end up being a good example of any of those categories. It became hard to take it seriously. Magical Girl Site was similar to Angels of Death but worse in that it had tons of hopelessness, death, torture, emotional torment, and other dark content for no real reason. It felt like someone just decided to make another dark mahou shoujo purely to cater to fans of shows like Magical Girl Raising Project.

Both Mayoiga and Magical Girl Site were series I actually enjoyed and still like, despite them not being very good from a critic’s standpoint. Top Secret and Angels of Death I watched hoping for something good, but ended up just laughing at how bad they were. Diabolick Lovers was one that I watched just to mock it, thanks to someone else’s recommendation. But I don’t even want to talk about the abject stupidity of that anime.

Then there’s Amnesia. That’s the “main” one I’m choosing for this post. This is a mystery, shoujo, romance, supernatural, and reverse harem anime based on an otoge (otome game). If I had known all that going into it, maybe I wouldn’t have been so surprised by the content. It goes like this. Boy is terrible to girl or else never explains himself. Girl still likes boy and gets close to boy. Almost happy ending. Girl dies and gets reborn. A new boy is terrible to girl or else never explains himself. Girl likes boy and gets close to boy. Almost happy ending. Girl dies and is reborn. The same story is repeated several times. I didn’t know what an otoge was when I watched Amnesia for the first time, so I thought it was absurd how the girl ends up with a different boy each time.

Wait, back up a minute, you think. Did I just say “the first time I watched Amnesia?” That’s right. I liked it enough to rewatch it! So sue me! Half of why I like it is because it’s so stupidly bad. The other half is that hey, there are elements I genuinely appreciated. The characters may be one-dimensional, but they have great designs. The actual plot never gets anywhere until the last two episodes, and that spirit/fairy person is useless. However, for an otherwise shallow and silly story, the reveals of the last episode were pretty cool and interesting. The script is dumb; on the flipside, the seiyuu are still memorable considering what they have to work with. Maybe the story concept is absurd, but it’s at least creative. Plus, absurdity is often hilarious.

Yes, I am ashamed that I enjoyed Amnesia so much– but only a very little bit ashamed. Even if you don’t like the characters or you think the plot is stupid, you can have fun mocking it! 🙂