Is This The Worst Horror Anime Of All Time?
Horror is a tricky genre to get right. For every "Nightmare on Elm Street," there's a "Slender Man." Horror requires that perfect mix of suspense, tapping into something primal within the audience's brains that will make them scared to go to sleep that night. When done exceptionally well, a piece of art can burrow into the subconscious of the zeitgeist and create a new monster that will terrify people for generations. On the other end of that spectrum, any attempts at terror could result in viewers busting out laughing or, worse — feeling bored.
While we're about to get into arguably the worst anime ever made, it's essential to take a second to appreciate all of the good that has come out of the medium over the years. "Death Note" set the bar for every horror anime to come out of the 21st century, leading the way for the likes of "Devilman Crybaby," "The Flowers of Evil," and "Japan Sinks: 2020."
There's plenty of great stuff to binge-watch, but you've likely heard of just as many misfires to avoid at all costs. Or perhaps you're one of those people when you hear that something is so bad, you just have to watch it. If that's the case, allow us to introduce you to "Pupa."
Pupa underwhelms in every regard
Classifying anything as the "worst" is a matter of personal interpretation. However, looking at audience IMDb scores, one horror anime is lower than anything else out there — "Pupa" — which has an average rating of 2.4 out of 10. "Pupa" is a 2014 anime about a young boy who one day discovers something is very wrong with his sister. In true body horror fashion, she transforms into a monster with an insatiable thirst for human blood and goes on a rampage. It's up to her brother to find a way to bring her back to normal.
Some common threads can be found as you go through user reviews. Overall, it merely sounds as though nothing really worked to elicit horror out of this show. Everything from the characterizations to the animation to the music fell flat, leaving this feeling more like an incomplete idea than a genuine anime. It also doesn't help that episodes are only four minutes in length. There are some fantastic horror short films out there, but this anime really needed some extra time to flesh out all of its ideas by the sound of it. One user went so far as to say, "My conclusion is that this anime shouldn't even exist. That is all." Yikes.
The series is available to watch in its entirety on YouTube if that's the kind of thing that would interest you. Otherwise, you now know what to avoid watching next Halloween.