The 13 Most Disappointing Anime of All Time

Berserk began as a beloved 1989 manga series that enjoyed a successful 90's adaptation. Because there was so much to the original manga, it's only natural that a reboot or sequel would have appeared at some point. Unfortunately, Studio GEMBA's 2016 effort left a lot of fans totally unsatisfied. The anime made liberal use of 3D animation, also known as CGI. In the right hands, CGI can enhance a series and make it look beautiful. Done incorrectly, it can completely ruin a show. The latter happened to Berserk. 

Much of the terrible CGI was fixed for the Blu-Ray release, but that does nothing to improve the experiences of those who watched the TV version. What's more, there are still issues with storyboarding, editing, and other technical problems. 

At first glance, The Promised Neverland's second season seemed like it was going to be just as good as the first. But then it turned out that they'd skipped out on animating not just the entire Goldy Pond arc, but also a plethora of important moments that helped the whole series hang together logically.

Manga fans were disappointed not to see their favorite moments animated. Meanwhile, anime-only fans were left confused. Important storylines such as the whole deal with Peter Ratri were explained in minutes at the very end, with no foreshadowing whatsoever. The series' worst offense was its ending, which was essentially a slide-show in which Emma and friends travel across the entire Demon Realm and save it before going on to live safe and happy lives as humans. This alone could have taken an entire season to detail, but all we got was a few minutes of surface-level story.

If you love The Promised Neverland, you're better off skipping S2 and reading the manga instead. 

Tokyo Ghoul √A is the second season of the widely acclaimed Tokyo Ghoul. It's also notorious for being a terrible follow-up. Why? Because it doesn't actually follow the manga storyline. Ken Kaneki, the protagonist of the series, joins Aogiri Tree, a terrorist organization who captured him, tortured him, and assaulted his friends. While it's understandable that someone might react in this way, that's not even remotely close to what Ken Kaneki does in the manga. It's not the kind of person he is. 

Manga isn't inherently better than anime, but when an anime studio decides to completely change the main character's most basic personality and behavior, it isn't a good look. Changing something so fundamental means that the rest of the series has to change too, or continuity falls apart completely. While it's kind of cool to see how the story would go if things went in a wildly different direction, that's a thought exercise more appropriate to Tokyo Ghoul fanfiction, not a professional adaptation. 

The Dragon Ball franchise is so well-loved that it's hard to imagine that any part of it could be disappointing - but Dragon Ball GT was definitely that. Rather than waiting for the original manga artist to create additional material, Toei Animation prioritized milking the franchise for all it was worth by creating a non-canon continuation of Goku's adventures.

This didn't have to be a bad thing - just because a series is anime-only doesn't mean it's inherently terrible - but few elements of GT were appealing enough to allow the series to stand on its own. The protagonist, Pan, was a controversial character who some fans found deeply annoying. Even if you liked Pan, you may have found it difficult to accept Goku being transformed into a child and remaining that way for the bulk of the show. GT had some cool elements, but it was far from what most DBZ fans were hoping to see from a continuation of the franchise.

P.A. Works has a reputation for high-quality anime, which is part of why so many people watched the first episode of Glasslip with high hopes. The advertised storyline sounded adorable - it looked like a slice of life series about a group of friends participating in a glassblowing club, with an added supernatural element - a premonition like experience called "future fragments."

The problem with Glasslip was that it didn't do either of the things that a slice-of-life show is supposed to do. Glasslip doesn't really have a plot. It's okay for this kind of show not to have a particularly involved plot, but if it doesn't have that, it needs to have compelling characters with more than one attribute. Touko can be summed up by her catchphrase, "EHHHH?!!" while Yuki does basically nothing except run the whole time, and Sachi manipulates people. Without compelling characters or a solid plot, a slice-of-life show can succeed on its humor - but Glasslip isn't funny, its needlessly dramatic. 

Also, "future fragments" aren't anything. The supernatural element leads nowhere and seems like window dressing intended to disguise a nonexistent plot.

If you're a Psycho Pass fan who wants to pretend the series ended after the first season, you are well within your rights. The first season was an incredible dystopian tale of a society where people are labeled 'latent criminals' based on a supposedly scientific algorithm that was created by the Sybil System. It raises important questions about human nature, while providing a thrilling story with characters you can't help but root for.

Compared to the first season, Psycho-Pass 2 was a disaster. Rather than seeking to dismantle a corrupt society like the first series' villain, Kamui just wanted to wreck everything around him. Worse, his backstory is rife with logical inconsistencies - how could he possibly have had as many jobs as he claims to have had if scanners couldn't determine his hue or his crime coefficient? The new side characters were equally frustrating. For example, Shimotsuki's insistence on following the rules at all costs was already covered with Ginoza's arc in Season 1 - but unlike Ginoza, Shimotsuki lacks a compelling reason, and doesn't develop beyond that.