Updated June 23, 2023 183.6K votes 25.9K voters 371.7K views
Over 25.9K Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of The 20 Worst Character Designs in Anime History
Anime is an amazing medium because artists have free reign to make the characters look like anything they want. There are some limits on that, however, including skill sets, budgets, and a tendency towards bad choices. For this reason, there are some characters who look absolutely horrendous.
Which anime characters suffer from the worst anime character designs? While some of it is down to personal preference, some are almost universally unsettling. Karin Hanazono's wide-set eyes are so cringe-worthy that she could probably show up as an example in a Twitter thread about why anime should be abolished. Meanwhile, some people enjoy CLAMP's noodley character designs, but other people find them wildly unappealing.
Vote up the anime designs that made you gag, and vote down the ones that you think are being unfairly judged.
If you've spent more than five minutes on the Internet, you have definitely seen this freaky image. The bug-eyed girl in the picture is actually a magical girl named Karin Hanazono - and she's just as freaky looking as everyone else in the series.
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The Entire Cast - 'Abunai Sisters'
Photo: Production I.G
Abunai Sisters is a computer animated ecchi OVA. Being ecchi means that they characters are supposed to be sexy, but instead, they look like what would happen if Jessica Rabbit got hit by a truck and was reconstructed from the mangled remains.
Most of the characters in Joker Game look like normal anime-style human beings, but Howard Marks, the British intelligence agency's spymaster, looks like an alien. His design is based off a character from Ghost in the Shell, but that doesn't make him less creepy to look at.
Watch one episode of xxxHOLiC and the Long Long Man commercial might pop into your mind. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but these character designs sure are.
Everybody in Yu-Gi-Oh! has weird hair, but Crowler, a teacher at Duel Academy, also has a hideous face and outfit, making him one of the most unpleasantly designed characters in the whole franchise.
One Piece has a massive cast with a wide variety of character designs. Some are good, some are bad, and some are a matter of opinion. That being said, characters like Vasco Shot, who have what looks like a hunk of bologna hanging off their face, are pretty hard to look at.
