While there are plenty of originalanime, the anime that tend to get the most attention are the adaptations of manga and other works. Any anime that’s an adaptation has the benefit of a built-in fanbase helping to prop it up, and more often than not, the popularity of the manga leads to their anime adaptations becoming some of the biggest anime a person can watch.
Anime adaptations tend to dominate the community, but unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. While many adaptations are fortunate enough to get the proper attention needed to make their stories shine, just as many end up falling short, and sure enough,there are plenty of anime adaptations with such terrible animation, direction, and overall handling of their source material that it’s often hard to justify watching them, at all. A few anime like that are especially worth noting, as while they might not be the worst anime around, they certainly don’t do their source materials justice.
Blue Lock
Cast
Blue Lock is a sports-centric animated series based on the manga series of the same name. The show follows the Japan Football Association trying to recover from their poor showing in the 2018 FIFA World Cup by hiring a football genius, Ego Jinpachi. With his new intense training regimen, Jinpachi invites the best football players in Japan to compete to become the team’s new star player - and high school student Yoichi Isagi may be exactly who he’s looking for.
In Eight Bit’sBlue Lock, following Japan’s failure at the World Cup, sports analyst Jinpachi Ego is hired to try and push Japan into stardom. The method he came up with is Blue Lock, a grueling training regimen to turn one of 300 strikers into the greatest striker and egoist in Japan, and anyone who fails the program will be barred from playing soccer for Japan for the rest of their lives.
While theBlue Lockmanga is known for its striking choreography, it rarely ever shows itself in the anime, astheBlue Lockanime continually fails to capture the aesthetic of the manga with its frequently lackluster animation, with season 2 becoming especially infamous for its abundance of still frames. The high quality of theBlue Lockseason 2 finalegives hope that the quality will improve, but as of right now, it’s nothing but disappointing.
Anime Series By CloverWorks; Based On The Video Game By Atlus
Persona 5
Forced to transfer to a high school in Tokyo, the protagonist has a strange dream. “You truly are a prisoner of fate. In the near future, ruin awaits you.” With the goal of “rehabilitation” looming overhead, he must save others from distorted desires by donning the mask of a Phantom Thief.
CloverWorks’Persona 5: The Animationis, as the name implies, an anime adaptation of the hit JRPGPersona 5. Just like with the game, the anime sees Ren Amamiya and his friends obtain the power of Personas and become the Phantom Thieves to forcibly change the cognition of the powerful adults ruining society for personal gain, all of which ends up playing into a massive conspiracy that only gets bigger with each reveal.
It’s one thing for the anime to have poor pacing, but worse than that,Persona 5: The Animationfails as an adaptation largely because of how it puts no effort into giving Ren a personality.Persona 3andPersona 4’s anime adaptations both did a great job of translating their games into animation and even improving them in some aspects, but unfortunately,Persona 5played things far too safe and was just boring because of it.
8Lucifer And The Biscuit Hammer
Anime Series By NAZ; Based On The Manga By Satoshi Mizukami
NAZ’sLucifer and the Biscuit Hammerstars Yuuhi Amamiya, a misanthropic college student who’s chosen to become a Beast Knight and protect princess Samidare Asahina until she can save the world from being destroyed by a giant mallet called the Biscuit Hammer. Samidare, however, is just as misanthropic as Yuuhi, and the two team up to destroy the world while keeping allies and enemies alike completely in the dark.
Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammeris often seen as the best work of legendary creator Satoshi Mizukami, but as is often the case,the poor pacing, lackluster animation, and all-around terrible direction ofLucifer and the Biscuit Hammerdo a terrible job of adapting the original manga and is an all-around poor representation of the story.Planet WithandSengoku Youkoare both anime that do Mizukami justice, but, unfortunately, the same can’t be said about what’s arguably hismagnum opus.
Fate/Stay Night
Studio Deen’s Fate/stay night is the first animated adaptation of the iconic visual novel by Type-Moon. The series covers the “Fate” route of the visual novel, which is primarily focused on Shirou and Saber’s relationship as Master and Servant fighting in the Holy Grail War.
The very first animated adaptation of theFate/stay nightvisual novel was in 2006 by Studio Deen. The anime was primarily an adaptation of the “Fate” route, the first route of the visual novel, although the second half of the anime would incorporate various plot points and references to “Unlimited Blade Works” and “Heaven’s Feel”, as well.
The “Fate” route is generally seen as the least complicated route in terms of storytelling, but even then,Studio Deen’sFate/stay nightadaptation largely fails as an adaptation thanks to its poor visuals and how much its pacing messes with the flow of the original narrative. The anime isn’t as bad as its reputation suggests, but it’s hardly the adaptation the story deserved, and that became especially true after seeing how great a job Ufotable did with the franchise.
6Lunar Legend Tsukihime
Anime Series By J.C.Staff; Based On The Visual Novel By Type-Moon
J.C.Staff’sLunar Legend Tsukihimestars Shiki Tohno, a young boy with the ability to destroy anything by striking at lines or points on the body only he can see, and one day, he impulsively uses this ability to kill someone. Shiki’s victim turns out to be the powerful vampire Arcueid Brunestud, and after she revives herself, she makes Shiki pay her back by helping her hunt down the evil vampire running amok in Shiki’s town.
Much like Studio Deen’sFate/stay nightadaptation,Lunar Legend Tsukihimefails largely because of its lackluster visuals and how poorly it handles the story of the original visual novel, and those negatives are taken to such a degree that there’s little good to be found. There’s a meme among Type-Moon fans to pretend that theTsukihimeanime just doesn’t exist, and overall, it’s easy to see why people would do that.
Record of Ragnarok
Record of Ragnarok is an anime adaptation of the manga works by Shinya Umemura and Takumi Fukui. In the show, the gods have convened to decide the fate of humanity. Determining that they have failed to justify their existence, they are sentenced to extermination until a valkyrie pleads for one final chance. To redeem themselves, humanity will send its best warriors to face off with the gods in a tournament with the help of the valkyries
InGraphinica’sRecord of Ragnarok, all the gods in the universe have decided that humanity has become irredeemable and needs to be erased, but the Valkyrie Brunhilde offers an alternative. Rather than just erase humanity outright, the 12 strongest gods will fight history’s 12 strongest humans in a tournament called Ragnarok, giving humanity a chance to fight for their right to exist and the gods a chance to definitively prove their superiority.
In addition to poor pacing and the anime often doing a poor job of capturing the gorgeously detailed art of the manga,Record of Ragnarokhas some of the worst animation of any modern anime, with the anime rarely ever doing the manga’s fight scenes justice as it animates things as lazily as possible.Record of Ragnarokdeserved an anime that could fully capture the intensity of its action, and unfortunately, what people got was anything but.
The Promised Neverland
The Promised Neverland is a suspenseful anime series set in an orphanage where children, led by the intelligent Emma, uncover a dark secret about their idyllic home and plan a daring escape.
CloverWorks’The Promised Neverlandrevolves around the Grace Field House, an orphanage where the children have been trained to be hyper-intelligent since infancy for unknown reasons. One day, one of the children, Emma, discovers that it’s because they’re secretly being raised as food for demons, with smart humans tasting the best, and now Emma and her friends must find a way to break out before they’re all eaten alive.
While the first season ofThe Promised Neverlandwas a great adaptation of the manga,The Promised Neverlandseason 2 is infamous for its poor pacing,cutting out the iconic Goldy Pond arc, and for telling a far more contrived and less competent story than the manga. The second half of the manga was already contentious, but the anime barely made an effort to adapt it, and that effectively destroyed whatever goodwill the series still had.
Tokyo Ghoul
Tokyo Ghoul is a live-action adaptation of the acclaimed manga series. Released in 2014, it follows Ken Kaneki, a college student who becomes embroiled in the secret world of flesh-eating ghouls after an encounter with a girl named Rize. The film explores themes of identity and survival in a ghoul-infested Tokyo.
InStudio Pierrot’sTokyo Ghoul, college student Ken Kaneki is attacked by a man-eating humanoid monster called a ghoul, only avoiding death when a construction accident kills the ghoul and puts Kaneki in critical condition. Kaneki is saved with an organ transplant from the ghoul, but that turns him into a half-ghoul with all the same powers and cravings for human flesh, and he’s now forced to live in the world of ghouls and all the violence that comes with it.
Tokyo Ghoulseason 1 was followed byTokyo Ghoul √A, a wildly different and inferior version of the story, and while things went back on track withTokyo Ghoul:re, that was ruined by a bad combination of terrible pacing and lackluster animation.Tokyo Ghoul’s anime became progressively worse on a visual and narrative level with every season, and with how great the manga was, that’s nothing but disappointing.
Anime Series By GEMBA, Millepensee, & Liden Films; Based On The Manga By Kentaro Miura
Berserk
In his quest for revenge, Guts confronts sinister forces, including violent criminals, evil spirits, and a devout adversary. Despite the immense personal cost, he fights relentlessly, relying solely on his human strength and swordsmanship to face enemies with unnatural powers.
GEMBA, Millepensee, and Liden Films’Berserkis the second TV adaptation of the legendary dark fantasy manga by Kentaro Miura. First released in 2016, the anime was the first adaptation to move past the Golden Age arc of the manga, the anime instead focusing on Guts’ adventures in the present hunting down Griffith in his quest for vengeance.
It’s one thing for the 2016Berserkanime to have some of the worst CGI of any anime, but when combined with its short runtime and lackluster direction,the 2016Berserkanime does a terrible job of bringing Kentaro Miura’s work to life due to a combination of poor pacing and terrible visuals. There will never be aBerserkanime that fully captures the manga’s strengths, but anyone unfamiliar with the series is far better off watching the original anime from the 90s.
Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror
Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror is an adaptation of Junji Ito’s acclaimed manga, directed by Hiroshi Nagahama. The series unfolds in the town of Kurôzu-cho where inexplicable events related to spirals plague the inhabitants, leading to terror and madness. Highlighting the psychological and supernatural, the show follows high school student Kirie Goshima and her boyfriend, Shuichi Saito, as they confront the spiraling horrors that engulf their town.
Production I.G USA’sUzumakifollows Kirie Goshima, her boyfriend, Shuichi Saito, and their lives in the small town of Kurouzu. Once a quiet town, Kurouzu and its inhabitants find themselves continually plagued by supernatural occurrences revolving around spiral patterns, and their repeated failures to break away from them slowly lead to a gruesome and unavoidable fate for everyone involved.
While promotional material painted a promising picture ofUzumaki’s success, when the anime finally premiered,Uzumaki’s terrible art and animation, combined with its awkward pacing that ruined the tension of the manga, made it one of the worst horror anime in recent years, by far. Anime adaptations of Junji Ito’s works always fail to properly translate things into animation, and it’s hard to seeUzumakias not only the worst of his anime, but theworst anime adaptation of all time, in general.
