Forest Fairy Five

Forest Fairy Five is the worst thing I've ever seen!

That being said, this is a kids anime. A FUCKING KIDS ANIME. Would you expect an anime targeted at kids to be this bad? No. I know people always despise Bakugan Little Brawlers, but I haven't seen that. I know people love and people hate Pokémon. But Forest Fairy Five, this anime is complete shit. I always thought of the 2001 film, Freddy Got Fingered, to be the worst thing I've seen in my lifetime. Then Hand Shakers came along, and now: this came along. Just… avoid watching this. The plot itself is abysmal. Seriously, Japan ... turns into Anime Kingdom? What the fuck? I mean, I know anime comes from Japan and all but this anime could just be called an anime for weebish kids. Cause Japan turning into Anime Kingdom is certainly not weebish. Okay, that last sentence was obviously sarcasm. Anyways, the animation is the worst thing I've looked at in the history of animation. The characters aren't developed. The animation is as bad as the animation from abysmal movies such as Foodfight! and Where the Dead Go to Die. In my lifetime, I've seen some really bad shit in and outside anime, let's go over that: Freddy Got Fingered, Where the Dead Go to Die, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, Hand Shakers, Black Bullet, Big Order, Foodfight!, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Troll 2, Jaws: The Revenge, Tentacolino, Doogal, Ratatoing, The Little Panda Fighter, A Car's Life and lots of others.

Okay, that's the end of this review. I give Forest Fairy Five a 1/10 (I'd give it a 0/10 if MAL had that score)

In their insatiable hunger for new content, CrunchyRoll will occasionally license series that seem to have no business being seen outside of whatever dark corner of Japan they came from. Forest Fairy Five (FFF) is the latest of those shows, an attempt at a CGI children's show that, on first appearances, is a confused mess of ugly visuals, bad sound quality & no clear sense of what it's meant to be about or who it's for.

First, some back story. In 2011 Sōta Sugahara's & studio Bouncy's GDGD Fairies first aired, a CGI show about fairy idols that looked like a kids show, but ... was actually a surreal mixture of character breaking improv comedy & weird animation. It was apparently popular enough to get a second season & a film in 2014. Said film was produced with help from another studio, Rokujigen (6D), who have now gone on to make their own CGI show about fairy idols that looks like a surreal mixture of character breaking improv comedy & weird animation, but is actually a kids show.

To further confuse matters, the first three minutes of FFF are effectively two separate introductions that contradict each other. The first introduces a “beautiful & prosperous since ancient times” Japan where anime has become real & we're off to the place where you can meet “anime-chan's.” But straight after that is another introduction that presents the show as occurring in the mushroom fairy kingdom where the main characters are trying to protect the real world from the evil poison mushroom army. Neither really has much to do with the show itself, but it means that the first three minutes of every episode contribute nothing.

Not that you'll probably bother. The first episodes of FFF are a mess, a show that looks & sounds terrible & doesn't seem to know what it is. Ostensibly based on a children's illustration book, FFF stars a quintet of mushroom fairies who spend their days hanging about & sometimes checking in on the real world through a fairy circle. They're supposed to be eight years old, but given that the voice actresses don't put on voices, they certainly don't sound like it. It makes the exchanges with narrator JoJo feel odd & condescending, as an adult man talks to the fairies like they're children, only for them to talk back like teenagers.

Nor is it clear quite what FFF wants to be. Its mix of scripted interactions & improv don't seem connected & it almost feels like the VAs aren't quite sure what to do. The first couple episodes introduce the fairies to sites in Harajuku in such a way that it's almost like they're addressing foreign tourists. After a couple of episodes a new segment about some bird looking characters is introduced who seem to have nothing to do with the fairies. In all the opening episodes give the impression that the producers aren't sure exactly what they're trying to do with their show.

These problems are only exacerbated by the presentation problems. The CGI looks like captured footage from a Chinese fantasy MMO, with glitchy animation loops & a virtual camera that doesn't know where it's going. There is also an excessive amount of Bloom, to the point that the fairies often resemble the sheep from TES IV: Oblivion. It makes for an ugly introduction to the series, not helped by the problems with the voice actresses microphones. Despite the improv skits, it never feels like they were recorded in the same room & the sound quality varies from fine to not fit for Youtube. The only thing that doesn't seem to have problems is the music, which sounds like it might have been licensed from a jRPG music library rather than commissioned for the show. It's hard to imagine how the series could have made a worst first impression.

But having said all that, as the series progresses it starts to pull itself together. The technical issues don't go away, but the sound & visual problems start being cleaned up & the camera is brought back under control. Episodes start sticking to a single theme, for instance one character forgetting how to say “ka” & all the problems that causes. The fairy portal is also re-purposed so that it now contains a recurring woman who introduces the fairies to various professions. Oh & there's a guest lady in one episode who's high on schrooms. Drug references in children's TV shows are always welcome.

This change over it's runtime means that the overall impression of FFF is of a series where the production team were having to learn on the fly. There are lots of things, major & minor, that suggest it's a show that had very little pre-production time to set up & learn the production tools & develop a concrete concept for the series. By the end, it has ironed out a lot of the creases, to the point that it now is a decent enough short show for young children. But the issues at the start leave this first season of FFF feeling like one of those well-intended but misguided no-budget animations for kids you find on Amazon Prime. I recommend Bubble Bubble Meows. It'll change your life.

I have no well constructed opinions to write here because frankly I simply just don't care about this show enough to. This is the only piece of media EVER to make me actually, literally, physically vomit from the absolutely HORRENDOUS visuals and audio. And honey baby, I don't mean something like puking a little in my mouth, no. I mean feeling it coming, having to quickly get the hell up, hold it in with my cheeks, and rush to the toilet to blow fricking chunks.

Anyways the story is non existent, the characters are terrible, the art and sound literally make me sick. There ... is absolutely nothing to enjoy about this show. I watched gdgdFairies because hey atleast it's fun to laugh out from how poor quality it is, and there is actually some real enjoyable and hilarity in it. But this is awful.

Please anyone who reads this, know this. I don't need to be remembered, I don't need to accomplish anything big in my life, I don't even need to ever achieve my perception of true happiness before I die. All I need, is to be able to convince you not to watch this show. Please, DON'T. It's not worth it, I'm a changed man and my life hasn't been the same.

~fin~

seriously though this is the worst thing I've ever seen haha