Audience reviews
11 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Milakochan
Not a bad anime. It just doesn't have a standarized storytelling that you can easily deglute. It's a bit more out there. You'd have to pause at some moments and maybe replay if you are not familiar with the religion backdrop. If you like things like that, you'd enjoy the production.
The design of characters is vintage and resembles those of classic masters of Japanese horror. The characters eyes are quite expressive and seems to be designed to display emotional angst and exhaustion.
This is an ambitious production as far as screenwriting. There's an extensive information about hindi and Buddhism religion that is a central part of the plot and that makes it move forward so you'd get lost if you are watching multiple screens at the time and your attention is scattered.
I am taking my tim…
Read at the sourcenoildoof
I've watched plenty of bad anime. I'll gladly watch stuff like Chargeman Ken, Crystal Triangle, and Twinkle Nora Rock Me precisely because they're so bad they're fascinating. I've sat through some of the vilest anime ever made like Shoujo Tsubaki or Datenshi-tachi no Kyouen and came away feeling less exhausted than after watching Dark Myth. This is because Dark Myth is the worst thing an anime can possibly be - painfully, mind-numbingly boring. The runtime is heavily, heavily padded with road trips and some of the longest, driest exposition I've ever seen.
The main problem with Dark Myth is the same problem I have with much of the contemporary fine art world - if your work requires a wall of text (or for Dark Myth, walls of exposition) for the viewer to have any hope of knowing what's goi…
Read at the sourcePierceAllAlone
It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, but it's a very forgettable story. So much so, that despite watching it yesterday, I've already forgotten the main character's name, and anything besides the main plot points. The animation and soundtrack are nothing to write home about, but I can't say they were objectively bad. The thing about this show is that it feels like it's trying to cram at least a couple movies worth of plot into a short amount of time. The premise honestly isn't bad but the story falls flat. Now I watch plenty of shows that are just horrible with no plot but they at least have something interesting to make up for it. This has nothing. The characters, the story, and even the art none, of it has any depth; it's just your basic run of the mill cranked out OVA. It's no…
Read at the sourceKamezuki
The “Ankoku Shinwa” OVA has less than a two hour runtime, but it feels much longer than that. This anime is chock full of Buddhist, Shinto and Hindu esotericism as well as Japanese mythology and folklore, and it tries to connect all of these together into one coherent story, but will likely leave the viewer more confused than anything else.
The story centers on a teenage boy named Takeshi and his destiny to become some sort of supernatural being. It’s not determined what kind of being he is to become — good or evil — and there are various factions pulling him to one side or the other. It ends on an inconclusive note, making the viewer wonder what all of this is supposed to mean.
Much of the plot is repetitive. We often see Takeshi getting into strangers’ cars without a second thought, ge…
Read at the sourceT-Wazoo
Imagine my surprise as I stumbled on The Dark Myth while browsing through Takashi Anno's resume, a director whose unique and eccentric directing skills fascinates me to no bound (he's responsible for Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou's first OVA, The Hakkenden pt.1, Spirit of Wonder: Shounen Kagaku Club, Youma, Miracle Girls, parts of Maison Ikokku, and some other obscure Magical Girls I just can't wait to watch, that is if I ever find the time...).
Imagine my surprise, again, coming here and discovering the existence of The Dark Myth, aka one of the lowest average I've seen on this website, directed by one of my all-time favorite directors. Thank to y'all damn memers, I then decided I'd stay away from what seemed like a laughing stock of an anime. Then eventually, more than one year later, I final…
Read at the sourcetherex55213
Bad, but nowhere near as bad as everyone gives it credit, I've definitely watched much much worse things.
It's very clumsy, has no character arcs, has way too much exposition, and 60% of the time the animation is sub par. That being said: the character concepts and motivations are uncommon and not particularly cliched, with mixtures of grey moralities at play that aren't exactly bland.
The setting is curious, attempting to use admittedly weak representations of various mythologies to build up what seems like a shinto fantasy story, only instead tell a surprise cosmic horror story.
Then there is the anomaly of the animation. As stated before, 60% of the time it's kinda shitty, but then about 40% of the time it'll surprise you with whole scenes of pretty damn fluid movement, shading an…
Read at the sourceYemi_Hikari
As someone who loves mythology, I found myself majorly disappointed at the butchering of Susanoo by whoever created The Dark Myth. It’s as if the creator thought, “I’m going to make the hero the villain and the villain the hero” which in turn resulted in this mess. Truthfully, gore, gore, gore – a ton of pointless gore was the only point of this, yet the creator couldn’t be bothered to develop his characters in any manner, not to mention the storyline was rushed.
Actually, I wonder if the reason the narrative spends so much time “telling” the myth is because it’s not the actual myth.
- According to The Dark Myth, Susanoo ended up renamed “The God of Darkness”, yet this never happened in the original myth; in fact, he reconciled with his sister Amaterasu.
- According to The Dark Myth, he t…
Read at the sourceDJMaddz
This is, by far the most boring anime I have ever seen. I am not exaggerating. This is just awful.
I’ve sat through countless slice of life anime, several terrible cgi anime, and have seen many terrible ovas. I’ve sat through my sister my writer, Master of Ragnarok, and Music girls. But this is the most boring anime I have ever seen.
Sitting through this anime is like sitting through a college lecture out of context.
This analogy doesn’t come from nowhere. Throughout the entire OVA there’s characters who explain myths that ultimately do nothing but pad the runtime. They do absolutely nothing for the plot whatsoever. And this isn’t just a few parts of anime either. This happens at least 6 times throughout the entire runtime. They don’t even animate the myths either, it’s just character…
Read at the sourceNapoleon1
You will probably find many pronouncing this anime to be one of the worst ever made, and chances are, after such negativity, you too will form a similar opinion. But looking from a completely neutral lens, this show isn't half as bad as it is made out to be. Sure it isn't one of the best, in fact not even by a large margin, but it DEFINITELY isn't the worst, at least if you have even the slightest interest in mythology.
Ankoku Shinwa narrates some pretty unknown mythology (as in very less promoted over the mainstream media), which I personally find more enjoyable than going over the more known mythologies of Greece and the like. And indeed, most of the anime is pure narration of a section of Hindu mythology, set in a dark atmosphere. Those who know nothing of it yet find discovering new t…
Read at the sourceWILDskf
I'm not entirely sure why this anime gets such a bad reputation. Everyone I've ever talked to who has seen it says that it is terrible, but I feel like it really wasn't that bad at all.
Okay, so the art design and sound is definitely not up to par with what anime was being broadcast at the time, but it's not the art or sound that makes this suspense anime what it is. Frankly, I found the slow tense pacing of this anime very enjoyable- it's hard to find good horror anime that doesn't immediately throw tricks at you right out of the gate. A good horror story is one that uses a tense atmosphere to make you afraid even when the monster isn't on screen. And The Dark Myth is really very good at building atmosphere, albeit it does so at a crawling pace so I understand why many people find it tir…
Read at the sourceArchaeon
There's a long standing debate about what the worst anime ever made actually is. Some people like to think that shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion, or Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu, or even some harem rom-com or blatantly ecchi shows is the worst.
To the people who think of shows like those I say this - be glad you've never watched Dark Myth.
Dark Myth is quite literally the worst anime ever made - period. It is to anime what Plan 9 From Outer Space is to movies - and then some.
The story actually had a half-decent premise, in that the God of Darknes, Susanoah-oh, is about to be reborn, and there's a bunch of people trying to stop this from happening. The problem lies with the execution though, as Dark Myth, for some reason, decides to stop the story numerous times in order to give you a c…
Read at the source