Every year anime fans get treated to more and more new, exciting releases, yet few series manage to stay in the spotlight for a considerable amount of time. Many anime franchises skyrocketed to peaks of popularity, only to fade into obscurity in a few years' time.
Once highly regarded shows become irrelevant quickly, either aging poorly, no longer representing themes that resonate with modern audiences, or getting replaced by better, more faithful reboots. These anime used to top every popularity list and unite the community in heated discussions. However, they’re no longer worth watching in the current day and age.
Updated on March 17th, 2023, by Maria Remizova: As anime continues to rise to mainstream success, popularity becomes a more fleeting phenomenon. The bar of quality most expect from cult-classic shows isn’t as low as it once used to be, and more titles continue to fall out of favor with the public. This list was updated to include even more once-popular shows today’s fans are better off skipping.
15 Sword Art Online
Isekai anime skyrocketed in popularity in the early 2010s, and one show that put the genre on everyone’s radar was Sword Art Online. Even back when adventures in an MMORPG-inspired world felt like a novelty, SAO had its fair share of haters.
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However, time might’ve proven them right. Since the release of Sword Art Online, isekai anime has continued to dominate the medium for almost two decades. Now, those looking for an adventure in another world don’t have to suffer through SAO’s lackluster character writing and poor pacing.
14 Trigun
Trigun 1998 is regarded as one of the most dearly beloved sci-fi series to come out at the decade's twilight. This old-school classic introduced countless anime fans to Vash the Stampede, a mysterious pacifist with an enormous bounty on his head who seems to attract chaos.
While the old show has its merits, it wasn’t faithful to the manga and aged pretty poorly. Thankfully, the new generation of fans doesn’t have to revisit the old anime, as the 2023 Trigun Stampede improves on all of its predecessor flaws.
13 Bleach
The current standards of shonen anime favor uniqueness, swift pacing, and concise storytelling. Yet, the bar wasn’t set this high back in the early 2000s. Most fans who grew up watching Bleach and others of its ilk still remember them fondly.
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Yet, today’s shonen audiences wouldn’t have the patience to sit through Bleach’s endless monologues and repetitive arcs. Filler, a phenomenon most shonen fans of today don’t have to endure, doesn’t make Bleach’s case better, as almost half of the original series has no relation to the manga canon.
12 Darling In The Franxx
Despite being Studio Trigger’s relatively new project, Darling in the Franxx had short-lived popularity. Back when it premiered in 2018, this over-the-top mecha series was the talk of the entire community.
Yet, it couldn’t reach the cult-classic status of the studio’s earlier hits, even if its fame at the moment seemed all-consuming. Knowing how the ending of Darling in the Franxx ruins the entire show, new fans are hesitant to give it a go, and for a good reason. This one-season sensation should stay in the past.
11 The Future Diary
The defining death game anime of the early 2010s, The Future Diary, profited over edgy themes and gory imagery, something shonen fans were still not used to at the time. Beneath the mask of maturity, most saw a childish and exaggerated series that didn’t have value beyond shocking the viewers.
Nowadays, The Future Diary feels like a trope-filled farce, even if it’s responsible for making most of these clichés popular in the first place. Thankfully, fans of dark shonen have much more series to choose from today.
10 The Promised Neverland
The Promised Neverland was an up-and-coming hit horror anime released only a few years ago, surprising every fan with its gritty world-building, clever characters, and compelling mystery elements. Unfortunately, few people would recommend this show to newer anime fans nowadays.
The series notoriously went downhill after the success of its first season, cutting out key plot components and rushing the story’s finale in its second half. While still a brilliant narrative in its original manga format, The Promised Neverland anime adaptation isn’t worth checking out.
9 Lucky Star
Every early-2000s anime fan remembers Lucky Star fondly, reminiscing on how this iconic slice-of-life series represented the otaku community of its time. A love letter to all things anime, Lucky Star was a niche comedy show that referenced many things popular at the time of its creation.
Unfortunately, its relevance was short-lived, as no modern fan would get why this slow-paced, obscure moe flick took the anime community by storm. Nowadays, most viewers find Lucky Star mind-numbingly boring and fail to relate to its nostalgic feel.
8 Martian Successor Nadesico
In the late 90s, even before the Gurren Lagann craze, Martian Successor Nadesico already parodied all the over-the-top mecha clichés while lovingly keeping in their spirit. An eccentric mix of action and comedy, this now obscure show used to be the talk of the entire community.
Unfortunately, its satire on space opera tropes wouldn’t keep modern anime fans entertained. With the decline of the mecha genre, the anime community lost interest in shows that parody it, such as the dated classic Martian Successor Nadesico.
7 Fullmetal Alchemist
Several critically acclaimed anime of the past have been forgotten in favor of more faithful and better-produced reboots. Fullmetal Alchemist is the most famous example of this phenomenon. The first adaptation of this iconic manga aired in 2003, and while it was a huge success, most fans were dissatisfied with the original anime's ending.
In 2009, the franchise got a reboot with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, a much more polished series that adapted the canonical manga ending and forced the 2003 show out of the picture.
6 Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
The magical girl genre always had its fair share of hard-hitting successes, including Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Popularized in the early 2000s alongside another mahou shoujo giant, Pretty Cure, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha didn’t age as well as its more relevant counterpart.
The franchise continues to release subpar sequels to this day. However, even the most dedicated magical girl fans lost interest in the series by this point, more invested in newer mahou shoujo hits or old-school classics that fared much better than Lyrical Nanoha.
5 Blue Exorcist
The early 2010s weren’t as exciting for shonen fans as the current anime decade. Yet, some still reminisce on the genre’s hit of the time, Blue Exorcist, with fondness. This quirky supernatural story about a teenage boy Rin getting dragged into a war between humans and demons as the secret son of Satan would appear too toothless and predictable compared to current shonen.
Most fans cite nostalgia as the only reason to revisit this once-popular story. Yet, recommending it over modern, more inventive shonen series would feel disingenuous.
4 Love Hina
The modern harem anime scene would never exist without Love Hina, the icon that popularized all of the genre’s tropes in the early 2000s. The blueprints of Love Hina’s raunchy clichés can be seen all over every harem flick inspired by this old-school classic.
However, the series itself doesn’t hold up as well as its influences imply. Dated technical aspects aside, Love Hina is simply too predictable and tasteless for modern audiences, faring better as a respected relic than a show worth returning to today.
3 Tokyo Ghoul
At the height of its popularity, Tokyo Ghoul introduced a new era to seinen anime fans, enticing viewers with a darker, gorier side of the medium. Quickly breaking into the mainstream, Tokyo Ghoul lost its prestige with the catastrophe of its unfaithful second season, which strayed away from the manga’s storyline and left anime-only fans endlessly disappointed.
Nowadays, people know Tokyo Ghoul should be enjoyed in its original form. Unlike the anime, the manga still holds up as one of the best seinen series of all time.
2 Hetalia: Axis Powers
Escaping Hetalia: Axis Powers in the early 2010s was impossible. This gag comedy show about anthropomorphized countries getting into all kinds of absurd historical shenanigans wouldn’t fly today. The show is ridden with offensive stereotypes and misinterpretations of history. Yet it amassed a dedicated cult following at the peak of its popularity.
Most fans didn’t mind Hetalia’s more controversial elements, focusing on the cutesy, humorous aspects of the franchise instead. Yet, revisiting this relic of anime culture would be a mistake in the current day and age.
1 No Game No Life
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At the very start of the isekai boom, No Game No Life was one of the first series to popularize this genre among the masses. Most fans even ignored the controversial romantic relationship between the show’s leads, siblings Sora and Shiro, in favor of enjoying the series’ gorgeous art, mesmerizing story, and compelling world-building.
Unfortunately, the show’s first season ended on a massive cliffhanger only to never resume its run again, forcing both old and new fans to forget about No Game No Life over time.