People love anime for a lot of reasons, with one of them being how inspiring an underdog hero’s saga can be. That said, not all underdogs are meant to win after one season or at all. Take Pokémon’s Ash Ketchum, for example.
Ash made his debut all the way back in 1997, and he spent the better part of 20 years losing every official Pokémon tournament and fight he participated in. Ash isn’t alone in having a popular legacy defined in loss, though he at least proved that losing isn’t always a bad thing.
10 Pokémon — Ash Ketchum Took 23 Years To Become The Very Best
A long-running joke in the Pokémon fandom is that a forever-young Ash is also a forever-loser. No matter how many times he and Pikachu defeat Team Rocket and no matter how many Legendary Pokémon he befriends or bests, Ash will always lose in the official Pokémon tournaments.
This joke held true for decades until 2020, when Ash defied the odds and won. In Sun & Moon’s Alola League, Ash became Pokémon Master after he defeated Gladion. Ash finally breaking free from his years-long underdog status made so many waves that his victory took the internet by storm, even making its way to official headlines.
9 Cowboy Bebop — The Bebop Crew Can Never Catch A Break
Bounty hunting may be one of the most prominent careers in the world of Cowboy Bebop, but it’s anything but lucrative. At the anime’s start, Spike Spiegel and Jet Black are already grasping at financial straws just to keep the Bebop afloat. Things only get more economically strapped when Faye Valentine, Ed, and Ein enter the crew.
No matter how much effort they put into a job, fate always goes against the Bebop crew. What little money they do earn immediately goes to their ship’s maintenance and supplies, leaving little in the way of disposable income or luxury. That said, the crew only learns too late that money wasn’t what made life on the Bebop worthwhile.
8 Gintama — The Yorozuya Trio Almost Never Get A Payday
In Gintama, the Yorozuya trio – Gintoki, Shinpachi, and Kagura – embark on countless odd jobs in the hopes of getting paid. But because Gintama is the number one gag anime and thanks to their bad luck, whatever job or get-rich-quick-scheme they take always backfires comically. Either that, or they get dragged into a conspiracy larger than anyone anticipated.
Because of this, the Yorozuya barely make ends meet. The only reason why they haven’t been evicted is that their landlady Otose likes their company. Another reason why they haven’t gotten out of their predicament is due to poor money management since Gintoki (their boss and the only adult) usually blows their savings on pachinko or the latest Shonen Jump issue.
7 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure — Jonathan Joestar Always Lost To Dio
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure may be best known for its titular overpowered JoJos winning the day in over-the-top fights, but the bloodline’s progenitor was actually kind of a loser. Jonathan Joestar from Phantom Blood is the rare JoJo underdog since he almost always lost to Dio whenever they clashed. This wasn’t a bad thing, though.
Dio’s endgame was to break Jonathan so that he could usurp his social standing and humiliate him. But even after Dio turned his friends against him, killed his father, and more, Jonathan never sank to his sadistic rival’s level. Jonathan does eventually defeat Dio, but their rivalry ends with Jonathan's death and Dio’s rebirth as a time-stopping vampire overlord.
6 Full Dive — Hiroshi Yuuki Fails In Real Life & Another World
Full Dive: The Ultimate Next-Gen Full Dive RPG Is Even S******* Than Real Life! is basically Sword Art Online’s antithesis. Here, the VRMMORPG Kiwame Quest isn’t a global phenomenon, but an industry punchline nobody wants to touch. The broke loser Hiroshi plays it after getting scammed into buying it, only to wish he hadn’t.
Not even a full day in this new world, Hiro accidentally murders someone and is branded a criminal. Worse, the game has only one save file, meaning he can’t restart it. Since his actual life is better left unmentioned, Hiro delves deeper into the VR escapism. Full Dive just started last month, but don’t expect Hiro's losing streak to let up any time soon.
5 The Rising Of The Shield Hero — Naofumi Iwatani Got One Of The Worst Isekai Routes Possible
The Rising Of The Shield Hero subverts isekai conventions by not only having Naofumi get the least threatening power possible but also having his social standing demolished before the power fantasy even begins. Because she thought it would be fun, Princess Malty accuses Naofumi of sexual assault and makes his life in another world hell.
In the pilot episode, Naofumi is stripped of his status, cast out as a pariah, and hated by literally everybody. Naofumi spends the entire anime fighting an uphill battle to clear his name and to prove everyone wrong. He eventually gets his justice, but not after entire cours’ worth of humiliation, unwarranted hatred, and self-loathing.
4 Attack On Titan — Eren Yaeger Resents His Fate
He may be the protagonist of Attack On Titan who also possesses some of the most powerful Titan abilities, but Eren could barely last in a fight. When Eren’s not getting abducted by other factions, he’s either being an unreliable loose cannon or getting beaten up by someone. Additionally, the few times Eren did win were the results of teamwork, not his own efforts.
Eren being fate’s plaything doesn’t mean he’s incompetent but emphasizes his humanity despite being the linchpin of a long war. And as per Attack On Titan’s bleak tradition, Eren’s losing streak didn’t motivate him to become a stronger hero. Instead, it gave him the determination and motivation to declare war on the world and threaten to activate the Rumbling.
3 Re:Zero — Subaru Natsuki Dies Horribly In Multiple Timelines
There’s no anime quite like Re:Zero – Starting Life In Another World, since it’s literally built on failure and suffering. When he wakes up in the kingdom of Lugunica, aimless slacker Subaru realizes he has the power to respawn, allowing him to redo anything upon death. This isn’t as fun as it sounds, since every death he goes through is as hellish as it can be.
Subaru loses (read: dies) in countless times, with each death worse than the last. Whenever the timelines reset, Subaru has no choice but to relive brutal injuries and painful emotions, like watching everyone he cares for die horribly. It’s no wonder that when things turned out well in the latest season’s finale, the Re:Zero fandom and Subaru cried tears of joy.
2 One-Punch Man — Saitama Loses Every Time He Wins
As far as One-Punch Man’s Saitama is concerned, defeating an impossibly powerful foe in a single hit counts as a loss. Thanks to his impressive training regimen and intense dedication, Saitama mastered the ability to defeat literally anyone and anything in just one strike. This also made his life as a part-time superhero tediously predictable.
One-Punch Man is a parody of the typical action story, and it flipped the usual shonen conventions and tropes by equating a one-hit kill to a loss. Saitama’s life has become so boring that he desperately wants an opponent who could land one hit on him or even give him his first defeat. Unfortunately, his losing win streak is just too unbreakable.
1 Osomatsu-San — The Matsuno Brothers Want To Fail At Life
Osomatsu-San stars the Matsuno sextuplets, six twin brothers who are all deadbeat NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training). This isn’t because of the hardships of modern economic realities, but because they’re a terrible and self-centered bunch. Because of this, they’ve allowed themselves to fail at just about everything in life.
The Matsunos resent exerting even the least amount of effort and don’t want to change their leeching lifestyle, doing everything to protect their statuses as hopeless NEETs. Unlike every other example here, the Matsunos are an exception to the rule because their losses are self-made, not the result of unfair and uncontrollable circumstances.