If you don't enjoy SUFFERING Tekkaman Blade just isn't for you. The QUALITY gets far better in the latter half of the show, however.

>>13481655
The basic premise of the show is a man forced to murder his entire family because of alien brain bugs, Blade's one of those few edgy 90s shows that really takes the edgy premise and plays it as straight as possible for the sake of gut-wrenching tragedy, not because it looks cool. The bit where he's listening to the time capsule his brother left behind and he starts sobbing is just heart-breaking.

Not OP, but I gave up on Tekkaman Blade after about 8 episodes because I found it to be terrible Saturday morning cartoon level shit with basically no redeeming qualities and have actually complained about it a few times over the years since in threads. When does all this stuff about his family and suffering and so on start out of interest? I don't know that it's enough to get me to watch it on it's own, but I see so much positive interest in the show that I know there must be something good there and do want to give it another shot at some point. I just want to know roughly how many episodes I have to endure before it becomes good.

>>13484498
D-Boy's brother first shows up in episode 12.

>>13481655
The QUALITY can be tough to get through, but IMO it's worth it for when the animation kicks into high gear. The fights with Axe and Evil are damn good.

>>13484498
Tekkaman Evil shows up at around episode 14 or so and the plot picks up from there. The show is kinda boring before then, I'll agree. Dagger should have been an actual character.

>>13484498
Once you get past Dagger things get a lot better. Episode 12 or 13 IIRC.

When it comes to the QUALITY, the show's animation significantly improves as it goes on.

As for the angst, keep in mind this show was made in 1992. Ultra angsty MCs was not the norm, hell it was practically uncharted territory for a lots of genres. It was half a decade before we reached the apex of angst and edge that was the very early 2000s. You can't blame something of being cliche when it did it before it was cliche.

>>13486066

As >>13484498 I wouldn't even say it was cliche, just plain bad - at least in my very limited experience of it. I mean the main character's name is literally Dangerous Boy, and the main love interest is basically told to stay away from him because he's too dangerous in a display of really bad melodrama. It comes off like something from a 1950's film: "that boy's dangerous honey, I want you to stay away from him".

The characters and interactions come off very badly too. There's one character that hates D-Boy for the first couple of episodes and then in the space of a few minutes he suddenly becomes a big cheerleader for D-Boy. I can't even remember why, just that I found the entire thing really, really forced. There was definitely some cliche, like the army general who just wants soldiers and is basically an irredeemable prick because he can't see the humanity in soldiers.

To me though, it was mostly just that it was both quite dull and really, really eye-rollingly bad.

>>13486131
>I mean the main character's name is literally Dangerous Boy

No it isn't, it's Takaya Aiba. D-Boy is just what Noal and Aki call him.

Either way, the show picks up a lot when Evil shows up, which is a few episodes after you stopped.

>>13481655
yes, it is good. don't question it baka