Hametsu No Mars (Mars of Destruction)
MAL Rated 2.44, Ranked #7166 | Released Jul 8, 2005 | Produced by Idea Factory
Though its characters suffer from "same face syndrome", Mars of Destruction doesn't give them samey personalities; rather, it opts to give them none at all. Its script is full of boneless exposition that reads like something you scribbled in your world history notebook when you were 12, and the sound ranges from uninspired growls to tinny public-domain orchestral pieces. It's difficult to find something without a single saving grace, but unlike the Earth of Mars of Destruction, our world is full of surprises.
Tenkuu Danzai Skelter+Heaven
MAL Rated 2.09, Ranked #7168 | Released Dec 8, 2004 | Produced by Idea Factory
Like Mars of Destruction, Skelter+Heaven is an Idea Factory adaptation of a video game about mysterious aliens attacking Earth. What does this one have that the other doesn't? Jarringly awful CGI, mostly. The 2D animation fares little better; often, only the characters' mouths move, like in a Hanna-Barbera superhero cartoon. Nothing much happens for 19 minutes. Without spoiling anything, all that nothing is rendered wholly pointless at the end. It's also the lowest rated anime on this entire site, which is an invitation to spare yourself of the horrors below.
Hanoka
MAL Rated 4.49, Ranked #7106 | Aired Summer 2006 | Produced by RAMS
New doesn't necessarily mean good, and the first anime made entirely in Adobe Flash is living proof. Hanoka should get some points for trying something new with animation, but the fact of the matter is that all it really accomplishes is reminding us why we stopped watching Newgrounds videos after ninth grade. But what's it about? Stop me if you've heard this one: humanity is under attack by malevolent creatures that can only be stopped by cutting-edge super weapons. Hanoka's ugliness is familiar in too many ways.
Pupa
MAL Rated 3.92, Ranked #7148 | Aired Winter 2014 | Produced by Studio Deen
Originally a cult body horror manga. The release of the Pupa anime was delayed for several weeks. It wasn't worth it. The show is a storyless slog through animation that looks like someone cut himself making a watercolor painting. Plot lines and characters are briefly toyed with and almost immediately abandoned. And though there's nothing wrong with the subject matter—a girl transformed into a flesh-eating beast, forced to eat her immortal brother to survive—the show wallows in its depravity without going anywhere with it. It's like if someone watched Tokyo Ghoul while drunk and struggled to describe it to her friend the following morning... while eating her.
Vampire Holmes
MAL Rated 3.69, Ranked #7158 | Aired Spring 2015 | Produced by Studio! Cucuri
Despite what American television would have you believe, supernatural detective shows aren't necessarily a recipe for success. That goes double if the show in question is adapted from a mobile phone game. Studio! Cucuri didn't have much to work with here, but what little they had, they did even less with. Instead of solving cases, Holmes and Hudson spend their time lazing around an apartment they refuse to pay rent for. Hikikomori characters can be funny, but not when they're given inexcusably stilted animation and the blandest comedy you'll ever see. Even for a half-hour runtime, it's a truly wasted premise.
Byston Well Monogatari: Garzey no Tsubasa (Tales of Byston Well: Garzey's Wing)
MAL Rated 3.84, Ranked #7152 | Released Sep 21, 1996 | Produced by J.C.Staff
It's a 1996 release, but the grubby animation makes it look about 15 years older. Protagonist Chris Chiaki is thrown into a war-torn medieval world with minimal context. What follows is reminiscent of an anime version of an awful fantasy novel, a story more interested in throwing characters, magic and place names at the viewer than in fleshing them out or explaining them. None of it makes sense, least of all the bizarre "ride-off-into-the-sunset" ending. Not satisfied with the Japanese version? The English dub is legendary for all the wrong reasons.
Wonder Momo
MAL Rated 4.02, Ranked #7143 | Released Feb 6, 2014 | Produced by Graphinica, Namco Bandai Games
Wonder Momo is a relatively forgotten Namco arcade game from 1987, so the target audience for the 2014 anime adaptation is anyone's guess. In fact, it's somehow got even less depth than a game that included avoiding up-skirt shots as a central mechanic. None of the characters have any real background or personality, least of all Momo herself, a high school girl inexplicably given a sleepy older woman's voice. Wonder Momo probably has the best animation of anything on this list, but given the quality of the rest of the entries, that's not saying much. And even in this one, you'll see things disappear abruptly in the first episode. Despite everything, it has the audacity to end on a cliffhanger.
Dark Cat
MAL Rated 4.30, Ranked #7128 | Released Nov 28, 1991 | Produced by Nikkatsu
Goofy title aside, 1991's Dark Cat feels like it was created without any real effort. It looks and sounds like Garzey's Wing, except that most of the actors in Dark Cat are former hentai voice actors who haven't quite made the transition. In fact, the whole thing watches like a hentai that never quite gets to the goods - from the weirdly sexual shots to the tentacle demons the heroes battle. The tone of the dialogue and art wavers between comedy, horror and porn, an inconsistent fumble at an incomprehensible story. And believe it or not, the English dub might be even worse than Garzey's Wing.
Soujuu Senshi Psychic Wars
MAL Rated 3.45, Ranked #7162 | Released Feb 22, 1991 | Produced by Toei Animation
You know an anime is bad when its own characters aren't interested in explaining it. A surgeon is empowered by prophecy to battle demons from the distant past, but we're never quite certain of the source of the prophecy, or why it chose him. Psychic Wars goes through the motions of a story without truly telling one, introducing characters and subplots solely to deliver history lectures in place of character development or worldbuilding. The best thing in this jerkily animated sleepwalk is a single scream in the English dub, if only for the brief moment where you imagine that those responsible for this mess are suffering.
Generation of Chaos
MAL Rated 4.28, Ranked #7131 | Released Sep 5, 2001 | Produced by Idea Factory
Idea Factory is 0 for 3 on this list. 2001's Generation of Chaos OVA is supposed to be a prologue to the game of the same name, but it sure isn't an effective sales pitch. It throws two unconnected stories (one a Pokémon/Monster Rancher ripoff, one a poorly paced coming-of-age tale) at the viewer, both made up of horrendous CGI and recycled 2D animation. And I do mean recycled! One clip of two characters running is used twice within five minutes. The overall feel is like a straight conversion of a bad Super Nintendo RPG, right down to the tinny, poorly-compressed music. Avoid.
