The Worst Anime Ever, Ranked
If your favorite anime is on this list, then you and I have a problem.
I don’t care if you’re cute. I don’t care if you’re nice. I don’t care if you foster kittens. I would leave you on the side of the road if I had the chance. I would deny you water in a desert. I would lock you outside in a zombie apocalypse.
It’s nothing personal—I simply don’t respect you. Let’s get into it, shall we?
15. Berserk (2016)
The 1990s adaptation Berserk aside, the late Kentaro Muira’s magnum opus has struggled to find an anime adaptation worthy of its seminal greatness. The most recent Berserk anime adaptation was an INSULT. Why? Because the animation quality wasn’t just bad, or terrible, it was downright deplorable.
14. The Promised Neverland (season 2)
Season 1 of The Promised Neverland, where a bunch of super smart kids attempt to escape from a farm where they are raised and slaughtered to feed demons, was a PHENOMENAL piece of work. Season 2? Started really strong and then just decided to skip all of the best parts of the manga. INCLUDING THE ENDING.
13. The Dark Myth
The Dark Myth is just TRASHOLA. It’s basically a wannabe Berserk, a story about a young hero fighting ancient evils using over-the-top gory methods. Sounds cool right? It would be if it wasn’t basically all exposition. Pair that with bad animation and sound design and they even failed to make gore look cool.
12. Garzey’s Wing
Garzey’s Wing is one of the rare (perhaps only) so-bad-it’s-good anime on this list. The three-episode OVA features a level of camp that is so ludicrously over the top that it would put Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure to shame. It’s an isekai about a kid named Chris Chiaki who is transported to a fantasy world for no reason at all and has a contrived connection with the mythical hero Garzey’s Wing. You MUST watch the English dub. Worst voice acting in history.
11. Super Kid
Super Kid is an ersatz clone of Dragon Ball Z and attempted to piggyback on the success of the latter. The writers room for this anime didn’t even TRY. I’m sure it went something like this, “WRITE ME 19 EPISODES IN FIVE MINUTES.” No. No, one should do that. That’s a crime against humanity.
10. Gibate
Gibate is about a viral pandemic in the year 2030 that turns characters into monsters based on their ethnicity. Need I say more? Yes, it is tone-deaf. Yes, it is gross. Yes, it is something that belongs in a landfill. And you know what makes this show even worse? Edo period samurai travel into the future to stop the pandemic, which actually sounds like a cool premise for a show if it wasn’t so blatantly racist.
9. Mahou Shoujo? Naria☆Girls
Yes, this anime does have a star in the official title, which makes me hate it even more because it’s a pain in the ass to even type. Mahou Shoujo? Naria☆Girls is about a group of boring magical girls who get some boring power to fight the boring forces of evil. It doesn’t even hide the fact that it follows a tired old formula. This anime feels less than empty. It’s more like a Nietzschean abyss that gazes into your soul as you gaze into it.
8. Wonder Momo
Wonder Momo was based on a beat ’em up game from 1987, so already we’re off to a bad start. It is about a girl who dreams of becoming a Japanese idol, but instead, she ends up fighting aliens. I wish that they would have just abducted her instead. If this is your favorite anime, I sincerely hope they abduct you too.
7. Hanoka
Someone had the smart idea to cut costs and use Adobe flash to animate an entire series. Hanoka is a sci-fi action series. Action. Which requires good animation to pull off. The creators could have just done a slice-of-life anime and maybe been okay … but they didn’t.
6. Pupa
Pupa is vile from the title down. In case you didn’t know, a “pupa” is the stage of insect development between “larvae” and “adult.” The series is about a girl who needs to eat flesh in order to stay alive. Lucky for her, her brother has the power to regenerate his body after she takes bites out of it. Interesting? Perhaps. But then there’s incest. That’s a no for me.
5. Vampire Holmes
I would rather make eyes at the sun than look at this animation. Vampire Holmes is based on a mobile game, which is already a red flag. This anime is also marketed as a comedy, which is a crimson flag. It’s a vampiric retelling of the Sherlock Holmes tale, which sounds like a green flag but in this context is a deep burgundy flag. If this is your favorite anime, I’m sure that you find it funny. I’m also sure that you find watching paint dry to be the height of comedy.
4. Forest Fairy Five
What about the other four? I’m confused. Is Forest Fairy Five the fifth installment of this god-awful series or are there four other forest faeries to assault each of my five senses? The saddest part of all is that it’s a show for kids. Showing this to a child could legally be considered child abuse.
3. Ladyspo
I could throw a laptop with Photoshop into a cage of bonobos and they would still create better animation than Ladyspo. I don’t know what it’s about. Intergalactic sports? Hey, that sounds cool. We should pitch it to the monkeys. They’ll make it even better. If this is your favorite anime, I’m pitching you to the monkeys next.
2. EX-ARM
The worst thing about Ex-Arm itself isn’t the straight-up animation glitches, but the marketing campaign that Crunchyroll used to sell us these animation glitches. They must have blown all their money on advertising and had nothing left to make a coherent series. Just a jumble of parts.
1. Abunai Sisters: Koko and Mika
I can’t even look at this. Like I literally can’t. This show was created for the worst of reasons, to promote two tabloid celebrities. Calling Abunai Sisters: Koko and Mika bad would be a misuse of the word. Calling it deplorable gives it too much credit. I’m going to make up a word to describe how awful it is. This anime is conplunktificant. Completely conplunktificant. And so are you for liking it.
(featured image: Visual Flight)
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