10 Anime Series That Have Bad Animation But Tell Good Stories

Beck

The issue with Beck is it tried to be alternative. It’s a show about rockers, so why not an alternative animation style, right? Well, it didn’t work out for them. Still to this day there are Beck fans out there that are holding out for a remake that they’ll probably never get.

Surprisingly, the CGI used for the guitars actually kind of works, but you can tell that poor artistic choices and probably low budget shine through at others. Luckily, most of these areas of bad animation actually aren’t at crucially important scenes. You know the deal, blow the budget on the big stuff like the performances which, in all honesty, is where you should blow the budget in a music anime.

As music anime series go, the plot isn’t original, but the realism of it all is what sets this apart from the pack. While many characters are very noticeable plot devices, it provides a great music anime with a great soundtrack that always maintains itself like a true rocker: always about the music.

Princess Tutu

You know how Yuri on Ice is sometimes about figure skating, but the figure skating animation is kind of awful most of the time? Princess Tutu is like that. It is a show about dancing, but the animation for the dancing (and the rest of it) is so bad that it is sometimes physically difficult to not look away. The dances that are supposed to be fluid and emotion-evoking are definitely not. However, it makes up for it with a wonderful soundtrack and interesting characters. The plot, though a little silly, can also be a big plus at times with its thought-provoking nature. However, the old art and the absolutely dreadful animation have scared most potential watchers away.

Trigun

Trigun is one of those series that you can often blame its age for the bad animation. However, compare it to its soul brother Cowboy Bebop. That series is comparably old and still has beautiful fluid animation. Trigun, however, is often blocky, the gun fighting is clunky, and you can visibly spot the already nonsensical smoke effects looping back around to save money.

Yet, for all its animated flaws, Trigun maintains itself as an anime classic for its story. It is fun at times then in almost the blink of an eye turns to dark and heart-breaking. Add to that having a rare Western setting on the new frontier (of a new planet) and you have something wholly lovable.

Do you have any more anime series that you like, but have terrible animation? Head on down to the comments section below to tell the world. However, before you do that, remember there is a distinction between bad art and bad animation. If I had my way, Kaiji would be on here, but I concede that it has fine animation and I just hate those razor-sharp pointed chins.