It's just so heartbreaking when an anime gets canceled before it's able to tell its whole story, leaving fans on a cliffhanger that won't ever have a resolution. Sometimes, only one season of an anime is made, ending in a cliffhanger and never getting a second season. Other times, an anime gets canceled partway through a season and ends without the season reaching its conclusion.
For better or worse, anime is a business. As frustrating as it is, at the end of the day, it needs to be making money or there's no point dragging it out. But that has left plenty of anime out in the cold and desperately wanting for a proper conclusion.
Updated by Sage Ashford, January 19th, 2023: As long as production companies are more focused on making money than making art, there will be more anime cancellations. We've updated this list to remove series that fortunately received conclusions or revivals. However, more series have been added that unfortunately were canceled before they could come to a satisfying conclusion.
12 Gangsta's Animation Studio Shut Down Before It Could Finish
Gangsta was an anime that had a lot of potential, but it fell short in the execution. Gangsta followed two "handymen," Worick and Nicolas, taking jobs for both the mafia and the police that no one else can handle.
Gangsta was popular enough on its release, and even still has a dedicated fan base holding out hope for a second season. It's highly unlikely that fans will ever get a second season as the first season was abruptly canceled when Manglobe Inc, the studio responsible for animating Gangsta, filed for bankruptcy, leaving the story unfinished.
11 High School of the Dead Dealt With The Passing Of Its Writer
High School of the Dead follows a group of high school students and their school nurse trying to survive in a zombie apocalypse. But zombies aren't the only things the cast has to worry about, as they also have to deal with the ramifications of a total societal collapse, like crazed survivors without morals.
Both the manga and anime of High School of the Dead were well-received and very popular. Sadly, the series has been left unfinished after the death of its writer, Daisuke Satō, in 2017, so there won't be any new material for the manga or the anime.
10 Prison School Featured Teenaged Boys Trying To Survive In An All-Girl School
In Prison School, Kiyoshi Fujino and his four friends find themselves as the only male students in Hachimitsu Academy, the strictest girls' academy in Tokyo, after the school decides to start admitting boys. When the boys are caught peeping in the school's bathing area, they're given a choice: spend a month in the school's prison or be expelled.
While the Prison School manga was able to conclude properly, the same can't be said for the anime, which ran for only one season. The anime hasn't been officially canceled, it just hasn't been renewed for another season, hanging in a limbo it's likely to never get out of.
9 Zatch Bell Never Showed Who Became The Mamodo King
Zatch Bell was one of the many forgotten shonen anime series of the early 2000s. It followed the adventures of a prickly teenager named Kiyomaru and his young friend, Zatch Bell. Zatch was from an alternate world known as the Mamodo World, and one of a hundred children sent to Earth to battle for the right to become King of the Mamodos. The series was popular enough in Japan to make its way to America in the mid-2000s via Toonami.
While Zatch Bell was popular in Japan, with the series running for 150 episodes, it wasn't quite popular enough to get an ending. Once it caught up to the manga, the series was canceled and never got a proper ending. Zatch and Kiyo defeated the powerful Faudo but were a while away from winning the tournament. Unfortunately, a new series is probably not coming any time soon, even though the manga is getting a sequel.
8 Deadman Wonderland Made Massive Changes To Fit Into A Single Season
Deadman Wonderland is the perfect example of an anime adaptation gone horribly wrong. After middle schooler Ganta Igarashi witnesses his entire class get murdered, he's framed for the horrific act and sent to Deadman Wonderland, a prison that also doubles as a theme park.
While the Deadman Wonderland anime had great animation, it rushed a lot of plot points and removed major characters from the story entirely. That didn't sit well with fans of the manga, and even fans that hadn't read the manga didn't enjoy the anime. To make matters worse, the series was canceled after ending the first season on a frustrating cliffhanger that would have made a second season difficult anyway.
7 Code:Breaker Condenses A Good Story For No Reason
Code:Breaker was a popular shonen manga that ran in Weekly Shonen Magazine for several years before getting an anime. Despite the anime releasing as the series was winding down though, Kinema Citrus did only a single season and never returned to the show.
Code:Breaker follows a young girl named Sakura Sakurakouji, who meets a group of beings known as Code:Breakers, assassins with special privileges from the government. The series balances Sakura's optimism against the pessimism of Code:Breakers, who see their existence as a mere necessity. Though the series was beautiful to look at, the plot is changed a bit too drastically to be worth a watch.
6 Bubblegum Crisis Set The Tone For Cyberpunk Anime
Inspired by such films as Blade Runner and Terminator, Bubblegum Crisis is as 80s as an anime can get. The series focused on the adventures of the Knight Sabers, an all-female group of mercenaries wearing powered exoskeletons to fight robots that have gone rogue. It had a healthy dose of cyberpunk and rock & roll thrown in for good measure.
Bubblegum Crisis was widely well-received, with fans and critics praising its story and characters, but it was canceled due to a contract dispute between the two companies that produced the series. Of the 13 episodes it had planned, only 8 were released before cancelation, leaving fans without any sort of conclusion to the story. This anime needed one more season if only to finish its storyline, but it seems unlikely that'll ever happen.
5 Flame Of Recca Ended Halfway Through The Main Storyline
Flame of Recca was basically just more Yu Yu Hakusho. The series follows Recca Hanabishi, a teenager who wants to be a ninja. After years of training though, Recca finds himself in trouble when Yanagi, the "princess" he's sworn to protect, comes under attack from enemies with supernatural powers.
Flame of Recca was a solid battle shonen series from the late '90s, but it also overtook the manga fairly quickly. The series covered only the introductory arc and the second tournament arc before abruptly ending. The manga finished in the early 2000s, but by then the anime had been long forgotten. The only hope of getting a complete adaptation now is an anniversary series.
4 Heroic Legend of Arslan's Source Material Didn't Even Have An Ending At First
Heroic Legend of Arslan is a classic novel series from Yoshiki Tanaka, creator of The Legend of the Galactic Heroes. The series follows a young prince named Arslan who lost his kingdom of Pars after his father was betrayed. Arslan is forced to go on the run to save himself, building up an army all the way to take his country back from the forces of Lusitania.
Arslan saw an anime adaptation in 2015 based on a newer manga adaptation. At the time, even the novel series hadn't ended yet. The final novel was released in 2017, two years after the anime began, but the show ended in 2016.
3 Slam Dunk Was Cancelled Despite Being Considered A Classic
Slam Dunk was a very popular anime in the '90s, especially in Asia and Europe, and ran for 101 episodes before it was canceled. The series followed the basketball team from Shōhoku High School and had a lot of focus on the characters, showcasing the camaraderie between the team members.
101 episodes is a great run for any anime, but Slam Dunk was abruptly canceled right before the Nationals Arc. Arguably the most important arc in the series, it saw Shōhoku go against their biggest rivals, Sannoh. No one knows exactly why the anime was canceled and it left fans without the satisfying conclusion the series was building toward.
2 Magi: Labyrinth of Magic Has Mysteriously Never Got A Final Season
Magi seemed like the next big shonen battle series when it launched in 2012. With a unique setting referencing Arabian mythology, the story felt different enough from most shonen anime to stand out amidst a sea of similar-looking shows with their classic shonen tropes.
Magi was one of the earliest shonen anime to embrace the seasonal model, getting a season one in 2012 and a season two in 2013. The seasonal focus should've allowed the manga to stay far enough ahead that the series could keep running. Magi's popularity was even great enough to get a spin-off anime focusing on Sinbad, one of the show's supporting cast members. Neither series was able to get a proper conclusion though, with both of them stopping long before their manga ended.
1 Baccano! Left Many Of Its Plot Threads Unresolved
If any anime could be considered a "cult hit", it's Baccano!. The series was told from multiple points of view and was set mostly in the United States during the Prohibition era. It follows many seemingly unrelated events that end up merging together to create a much larger story about alchemy, survival, and immortality.
Even though Baccano! had great reviews, the series went underappreciated by many fans who perhaps didn't enjoy the out-of-sequence storytelling. Whatever the case was, Baccano! was canceled after only 16 episodes, leaving a lot of the plot threads unresolved.