Be it movies, TV shows, books, or anime — there is no scarcity of examples where the story started off well, mostly due to its interesting premise or uncharacteristic protagonists, but quickly became yet another run-of-the-mill story.
The reasons behind this can be varied, with the most common ones being the studios or publishers opting for a more generic/tropey story in order to attract more viewers or readers. Sometimes, the creators themselves come up short on original ideas, so they’re forced to rely on tried and tested formulas that worked well for their predecessors.
10 Claymore: A Rare Shonen Anime With A Female Lead That Quickly Became Predictable After 2 Arcs
Claymore did everything right, including having a strong female lead and a useless male lead who needed protection from the female lead all the time.
However, not only did the show become a sad victim to repetitiveness, but was also a let down because fans waited up until the last arc of the anime for Clare’s penultimate fight with the Awakened Beast, which ultimately turned out to be average, not only visually, but also plot-wise.
9 Charlotte: An Anime About Superpowered Children That Couldn’t Decide Which Genre It Wanted To Be
The characters of this anime flip-flopped until the end, having little to no motivations or reasons behind their actions, they always behaved out of character and conveniently became boxed in within character tropes whenever needed.
Even until the very end, the anime failed to explain why the children received superpowers, why they were unable to use them at certain times, or why they never got any adults involved in their business.
8 Another: A Horror-Mystery Anime That Ended Up Without Answering Its Glaring Plot Holes
The first 10 episodes of the anime focused on Mei’s connection with the past Mei (which didn’t exist) and the gory death of all of Kouichi’s classmates.
Then came episode 10, where Mei reveals she knows who the Another is, which begged the most obvious question – why did she keep quiet for 10 episodes? The anime never answered that question, among many others, leaving viewers disappointed.
7 Erased: A Mystery Anime That Exposed Its Murderer’s Identity From Episode 1
When the antagonistic Gaku Yashiro was introduced at the very beginning of the anime, most fans of the series assumed he was a red herring because, really, which anime would be dumb enough to reveal the biggest mystery of its show in the very first episode?
Towards the end, however, when Gaku did turn out to be the serial killer everybody was looking for, most fans were too disappointed to even participate in fan forums regarding this big “reveal.”
6 Yuri!!! On Ice: A Sports-Romance Anime That Rushed Through Its Plot Progression
For an anime that was touted as the LGBT+ anime of the season, the best that Yuri On Ice did was portray a disappointingly ambiguous relationship between two male leads whose kiss was censored on screen, as well as the fact that they shared rings with each other, without the word engagement being mentioned, ever.
While many fans were happy with just this aspect, others went on to criticize the poor sports aspect of the anime, how Viktor just casually stopped training Yuri Plisitsky, and how, throughout the show, it was Yuri who was shown to be the antagonist, when in reality, it was actually Viktor.
5 Kabaneri Of The Iron Fortress: An Attack On Titan Replica That Remained The Same Until The End
Apart from being in a steampunk world where zombie called kabaneri ran havoc, this Attack on Titan copy did not offer fans anything different.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the anime was its primary antagonist, Biba, who appeared very late in episode 10, explained his goals, did evil things and lost a fight against the good guys and died, all within 2 episodes.
4 Toradora: Teenagers In An Unhealthy Relationship Decide To Get Married
Right from the onset, the biggest issue this anime had was the normalization of an abusive relationship as a romantic one. If that weren’t enough, it ended with the victim of the abuse (Ryuuji) agreeing to marry his abuser (Taiga).
Taiga sadly did not show much progress when it came to stopping her physical and verbal abusing Ryuuji, seeing how that would be the most logically way to treat your better half. Expectedly, many fans were outraged at this sad development in the anime.
3 Tower Of God: Does Not Answer The Many Plot Holes & Questions The First Season Raised
Right from the beginning, the anime failed to answer the most basic questions about its world, something fans ignored in anticipation of cool action sequences and a final boss fight. While the fights were good and the antagonists were alright, absolutely nothing had prepared fans for the manner in which Rachel acted.
Not only her actions were highly selfish, but they also made no logical sense. A little communication from her end would have solved a boat load of problems and the last arc was something both the manhwa and anime fans were unable to forgive.
2 SK8 The Infinity: A Sadistic Villain Was Forgiven By The Hero In The Very Last Episode
The problem with this show was how much it wanted to achieve within 12 episodes. However, by the end of the final arcs, fans realized characters like Miya served no purpose, Joe and Cherry’s beef was never explained, nor were the antagonist Adam’s intentions.
To make things worse, Adam received a tragic backstory and an unnecessary redemption arc (or rather, 10 minutes of the final episode), something that fans collectively decided to ignore.
1 Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation: A Degenerate Who Reincarnates In The Body Of A Boy & Remains A Degenerate
This man indulged in immoral criminal activities (that should have rightfully put him behind bars) before he was reborn into an isekai world. Even as a child, he views any and every female (irrespective of their age or relation to him), as a target of his sexual advances.
By the end of season 1, he hadn’t learned any lessons from his past life, he did not become a better human being and he kept on being rewarded for his criminal behavior in his new world, consistently. If its top rated MyAnimeList reviews are anything to go by, viewers had nothing but a negative reaction to this anime.