Hello all and welcome to a new journal! I really am starting to pick up again!

You know, when I was just thinking; there is a fair few anime that promotes stuff; toys, games, cards and so on. They were such a big thing in the late 90s and early 2000's and are making somewhat of a comeback now. Most of these tend be pretty shoddy and shallow, but there are a few good ones that have effort, or at least some bits of effort.
And so that's what we're counting down in this journal.

Just to clarify though; this is a list of ANIME based on games and products, not the actual games and products. Just making that clear. Lets go!

Number 5; Dragon Drive

Its....ok.

....yes, that's it. Its ok. There's nothing bad about it, but nothing too great either. I know that means it should be higher, but honestly there's not really much you can say about Dragon Drive. I was really struggling to get 5 of these types of anime, so decided to have Dragon Drive at no.5. Again its ok. The main character can be an irritating whiner/slacker, but it does have dragons in it....so yay?

Number 4; Pokémon

Ah Pokémon. This is arguably the one that started it all and its where this list really launches off. A huge hit when it was released 1997, this anime has gone on....and on...and on.....and on. And this really is its biggest flaw; it has gone on for so long that it becomes repetitive. Ash Katchum (or Satoshi if you want) keeps going back to square one with every single season. Its like he has a reset button or something. They should probably have used a different protagonist for every season. Also the anime itself is just too loud. There's lots of blaring music and shouting (in fact its were I got inspiration for all the shouting in a parody story I've written ). And the Pokémon became weirder and stupid; such as the Ice cream Pokémon! Its Ice Cream, it can't fight, it just melts and tastes good.

And it did give us the endless "Original characters" that plague art sites....uuuugh.

I admit I personally never liked Pokémon; games and anime. The idea of catching living beings and then forcing them to fight always sickened me (even when I was 5 or so). I also always found Ash and co. to be kind of annoying.

On the positive side though, it had Team Rocket, who are utterly hilarious, easily the best aspect of the anime. I always looked forward to them showing up
and it did give us some hilarious controversy; from seizures and inflatable boobies to blackface and guns.

Overall....its ok. Just ran on for too long

Number 3; Monster Rancher

In these sort of commercial anime, I find there are two kinds; the adventure into fantasy world and the tutorial kind. Pokémon and Monster Rancher fall into the adventure category, which yields the better shows.
Monster Rancher presents a fun and diverse world of strange creatures and fantasy elements. There's a clearly set goal; to stop evil spreading across the land, so it doesn't meander like Pokémon.

Its not perfect and it has flaws, but then again nothing can be 100% perfect. The designs can be interesting, but the character animation and movement is very stiff and there's some unsubtle marketing tricks; from PlayStations to roller-skates. to . And the English rap songs.....ARGH! My ears are still recovering from being shredded from it BE PREPARED TO SKIP THESE IF YOU EVER TRY TO WATCH IT....don't let your ears be raped D:
And CD's are like rings of power in this universe....its kind of like Lord of the Rings only with CD's

But if you can over come these and the occasional annoying character, you get a pretty entertaining show.

About the top 2

Ok, the top two. This is going to be tough. I've been thinking of this list for a while and this pair have juggled position around a lot

So for the sakes of it; lets just say they're all at the same level.

No.2 Digimon

Ah Digimon. While I didn't care for Pokémon back in the day, I utterly adored Digimon. The designs were fun and the adventure seemed big. There was a lot of character development and also some quieter moments, especially in an episode where one of the characters finds himself in a ghostly version of his home and meets his sister.

Unfortunately this anime suffers one GIANT problem; the English version. The English dub really changed things around and messed up with the story, leaving it hobbling along; with less menacing villains. That's really the only problem and sadly it is a big one.
The seasons also vary in quality; the first three are good and there's a fourth which is kind of average. But average is better than awful!

Number 1; Legendz

Now I haven't watched this yet, but judging from word of mouth and reviews, this looks like a real impressive anime. It does delve into dark and mature moments and themes, good on you Legendz!
Additionally there are wonderfully designed creatures and some truly heartfelt moments and character development; not just of the human characters, but the creatures too!

This is probably the apex of the monster/toyline/commercial anime; it doesn't deal with a generic "I got to catch them all and fight." but instead explores beyond that and I applaud it.


In conclusion; You will find good material in seas of junk. Most of these anime, bad or good are harmless enough. All of the anime in this list are the Adventure type of the game/monster anime genre and as said before, these usually yield the best results (usually, we'll get to the brain-dead example later on...wait and see! )
Some like Digimon and Legendz are truly great works.

Join us next time for the Worst list! Have fun and a pleasant day!