It's not on my to do list but this is a necessary evil
It's a regular mission for Sonic as he stops Dr Eggman from harnessing the Chaos Emeralds, except an incident releases Chaos Control transporting everyone to Earth. After a race with the police, Sonic ends up being recovered from a rich kids swimming pool, starting a friendship with the kid named Chris Thorndyke; throughout the series we go through the events of the Sonic Adventure titles as well as a couple of games released in the early 2000s until season 3 which presented an original storyline.
Without going into a rant I'll just say that Chris Thorndyke is the worst character ever created in any Sonic property, not that I have a problem with human characters, the live action works in good chemistry between Sonic and Tom but with Chris he's that annoying tag-a-long kid that were way too common in a large number of 80s and 90s cartoons, it was stupid then, it's stupid now, he takes way too much screen time and steals scenes away from better characters. The sad thing is Sonic X has good visuals and design, it's Japanese release worked in more adult jokes and the dubbing was fine for 4Kids.
Then season 3 happened which is a horrible fanfic come to life which some how works Chris back into the story despite his arc being finished along with new enemies and allies which don't work at all, less said about Cosmo and the Metarex the better.
But were still not at the worst thing about Sonic X.
It's not Chris despite being a useless piece of shit.
It's not Cosmo despite being a fanfic character shoehorned in to keep ship fiction weebs happy.
It's not the Metarex despite being so forgettable that I don't remember what they look like nor do I care to look them up.
It's none of those things, the worst thing about Sonic X is the f-ing soundtrack!
One rule, never make Sonic's music bad!
Yet in this, the music is a massive distraction and gets in the way of everything with Rouge being the worst as it's the equivalent of shoving your head in a saxophone and having it blown by someone snoring.
Final Verdict: Sonic X is a competent anime with a ton of bad choices, it's original characters and storylines are dreadful, they somehow balls up the Sonic Adventure storylines and topped off with one of the worst soundtracks I've heard in an anime. Comes to something when the live action movie is looking better than this.
Considering the voice acting business can often draw from a number of pools of talent, it's rare to see any role go to a one off actor who maybe turned up in the office at the right time.
This is a tribute to them.
Some ground rules, the entries on the list have to have been main characters and not had any other named anime character on their resume, background characters are exempt as are American cartoon roles.
No hentai roles.
Honorable Mention: Maile Flanagan as Naruto Uzumaki from Naruto
I so wanted to put her down but she plays a named character in Astroboy, pretty good to net Naruto after only one other role though
10. Purva Bedi as Rion Aida from Agent Aika
The persistent assistant of Agent Aika, the performance lacks some emotion but Purva did a good job with what was otherwise a unique script.
9. Lindsay Doleshal and Shana McClendon as Nina Kirov and Miyuki Ayanokouji from Debutante Detective Corp
ADVfilms had to dig deep to make up numbers for bigger casts in their earliest runs but it is surprising these two didn't get any more roles especially when there were worst actors who did get more roles.
8. Lori Young as Lorna Endou from Ex-Driver
Lorna is one of favourite characters and Lori did a solid job working off the actress behind Lisa.
7. Sarah Strange as Ranma Saotome from Ranma 1/2
Sarah played Ranma for the movies, OVA episodes and half the TV series, at times you wouldn't even guess Ranma to have a female voice actor.
6. Julia Reyna Kato as Mirai Ozora from Moldiver
My inspiration for this list having just reviewed this. While l often call this performance very Nickelodeon, I couldn't ask for a better choice.
5. David Thund as Signal from Twin Signal
I have no idea where this guy came from but in one OVA he owned his whole performance and yet he's nowhere to be found afterwards.
4. Jessica Nigri as Super Sonico from SoniAmi Super Sonico The Animation
Better known for Cosplay and playing Cinder in RWBY, Jessica was a surprise pick for Sonico considering the character is to Nitroplus what Miku is to Vocaloid, so to see Sonico be voiced well in English is welcome.
3. Brennan MacKenzie and J.Patrick Lawlor as Rally Vincent and Bean Bandit from Riding Bean
Riding Bean is my highest rated OVA so to see two unknowns pull off a pleasant Rally Vincent and an Elvis like Bean Bandit is quite a feat.
2. Ellen Gerstell as Mihoshi Kuramitsu from Tenchi Muyo
Tenchi Muyo's cast had some big 80s and 90s names of cartoons among it's books with Ellen having previously been cast in JEM and the Dragon's Lair cartoon. Out of all the one off roles, Mihoshi is the best.
1. Pretty Much the Entire Cast of Miami Guns
All but two actors in this anime have never done any voice works, not before or after. Considering that the ambitious Anime Nation were hoping to ride the success of Excel Saga with this title, what we got was actually surprisingly well acted for a cast of nobodies, Yao's actress is having a ball in this. Miami Guns is a pretty terrible anime but it's fun trash anime at it's finest.
This will be a unique experience for everyone.
Hiroshi, an employee from tech firm ZIC has just developed a device that allows his body to ignore the laws of physics, dubbed the MOL-Unit, this allows him to play Superman for a short time, 666 seconds to be exact with the added condition of not being able to wear clothes for the transformation. When his sister finds out what he's been doing she adds her own feminine touch to the program making a female version of the hero form. Unable to use a female body to fight, Hiroshi lends superhero duties to Mirai so she can fight the androids of mad scientist Dr Machinegal who keeps stealing 20th Century artifacts. Adding to Mirai's dilemma, her crush is off to space to discover the universe beyond.
In six episodes, Moldiver packs more into it's anime than shows that last longer than 50, it's an intriguing plot that celebrates 20th century culture with a unique and scientific version of making Superman. It's a quirky OVA with a retro style sci-fi feel backed up by a likeable cast of characters. It can be corny on occasion and little brother character Nozomu's motives are questionable when such high stakes are present but is nonetheless a solid OVA.
Dub is very basic with Dr Machinegal stealing the show and Mirai sounding more like a Nickelodeon protagonist.
My biggest takeaway from the anime is how much care it takes in presenting 20th Century artifacts like the Six Wheeled Formula 1 car, the Battleship Yamato and the Apollo 11. Keep in mind it's set only 25 years from now so the events are mostly plausible. These types of Sci-fi stories just work better.
Final Verdict: A solid Sci-fi story with a slice of cheese to go with it's already well packed six episode run.
This isn't on my review list but it has an interesting place in anime history.
Kazuto is an average kid until a close encounter with an alien leads him to Narue, a cute girl with her own alien heritage. This encounter ends with them becoming a couple but Kazuto will find that said alien heritage of Narue will come at him in many forms testing his love for Narue.
Now the interesting bit, over a decade ago this was the worst rated anime on Anime News Network, today much worst anime has come and gone with World of Narue no longer on the list. So is that title deserved?
The worst I can really say about this anime is that it's bare bones basic but I'll break it down.
Characters: really generic but at the very least there is character development and it at least made certain characters better later but far from groundbreaking.
World: It has the same problem as Onegai Teacher, it forgets how to Sci-Fi but while that show can back up it's romance with mature subjects, Narue is bland in comparison.
Animation: Forgettable, doesn't do anything that makes it stand out, it has the early 00s problem of the colour palette feeling bleached with only Bathyscaphe standing out among the cast who should be in Tenchi Muyo.
Plot: The fact that Narue is an alien gets forgotten very quickly and they tend to over complicate the plot with weird sub plots like Narue's older sister being younger than her or whatever the hell the android girl was trying to accomplish by mind controlling everyone.
Dub: I cannot un-hear the Pokemon cast but they do a good job despite some really bland dialogue.
So to sum up, characters are fine and they at least have development, the world doesn't know how to Sci-fi but it's romance is too bland to compensate, the animation is forgettable bar a couple of characters inspired by Tenchi Muyo, the plot makes you forget Narue is an alien with subplots that create more questions than answers and finally the dubbing feels very 4Kids Pokemon era, not surprising given that the voice talent consists of Ash, Misty, Jessie and Gary Oak.
So is it the worst? No, not even close, it's biggest offense is being too generic.
Final Verdict: it's just a bland forgettable series that doesn't do much with it's alien theme but it's far from being the worst anime.
Let's get back to the grind then.
Translated as "Stupid Italy" Hetalia is the personification of World Nations, most notably Europe which mark out events in World History including America's Independence, the Holy Roman Empire and of course World War II with North Italy (yes Italy was split once) being the main character these events revolve around. It's done as a gag comedy that takes light hearted punts at Historical Events mostly for laughs but sometimes can be heart warming or even tearjerking depending on the event.
The dub went the extra mile and added accents which is as cringy as it sounds but the narrator wins purely on her sense of humour as well as the script itself being fun.
Each episode is barely five minutes long so it doesn't out stay it's welcome however some segments particularly cat-talia really scrapes the barrel for comedy, it also works against the series to have some notable nations missing as well as failing to really dig deeper beyond the Allies and Axis Powers. Also the movie was dreadful, proving that they lack the creative process to come up with original storylines relying on historical facts and country to country relations only.
Final Verdict: When done right Hetalia can really be insightful and fun but it's clear the writers are working from a very limited well of ideas when the best original storyline they can come up with is the same characters as cats.
