Top 10 Reasons Why Anime Sucks

Do you hate anime? Well, so do I, and here are my reasons.

The Top Ten

  1. Fanboys

    I'd like to admit that even though I'm an anime fan, I don't tend to like the fandom. I try to avoid it. That is what I do for every fan base - I stay away from it.

    People who are harsh toward haters don't make anything better but instead make it worse. I think that fangirls and fanboys need to chill out and leave the haters be, but I can't completely blame them either.

    Some - not all, but some - haters think that all fanboys and fangirls are the same toward anime haters when they aren't, and it annoys the fans because people think like that. Plus, some cartoon fans behave just like anime fans, so in a way, aren't most of us just hypocrites?

    The majority of the anime community are not creepy Weeaboos with weird fetishes who attack those who disagree with them. Watch all the famous anime YouTubers. They have all denounced such behavior. A very small part of the anime community actually consists of these individuals, and it is merely because "they are the extremists and therefore they are newsworthy" that you have such a huge misconception about anime.

    As an anime fan who watches at least 10 episodes a week, sometimes binging entire series (at least during the summer), I can tell you that Weeaboos who try to hijack the culture of a country they don't understand disgust me. I feel like the majority of the anime community feels the same way.

    Stop pretending that the extremists are the majority.

  2. Unoriginal

    Even some of the best shows include tropes, plot elements, and characters ripped straight out of other anime and media.

    How many shows include mechs? Terrorist organizations that turn out to be paragons? Money-hungry bankers? Girls with unattainable dreams of becoming an idol? Even well-written anime suffers from unoriginal plots, and many include more than one, if not all, of what I listed.

    This is pathetic, considering people are paid good money to come up with this crap.

    Cartoons have way more originality. There's an anthropomorphic bunny who causes mischief, a sea sponge workaholic, a hybrid between a cat and a dog, a bird with a raccoon as his best friend, a menace to society with a gray-haired Abyssinian tripe hound as his best friend, and a group of four penguins who go on commando-type missions together.

    The thing is, anime tries too hard to be real. Each main character usually falls under the same archetype.

  3. Repetition

    I don't mind repetition. Nearly all novels use the Hero's Journey (Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Divergent, Percy Jackson, The Mortal Instruments, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia), and most people love them! It's because of this basic structure that Shounen anime is so successful.

    One Piece and Naruto both have main characters who start off near the very bottom and, because of their determination and grit, end up becoming stronger and stronger. This actually teaches many people to keep aspiring to become greater and inspires them to persevere even during hardships.

    Most popular anime use this structure, but they are still very different, with different characters who have unique personalities, different villains with different end goals, and different themes (dystopian, modern, etc.).

  4. Bad Writing

    Anime writing is horrible. The writers do not write plots - they write settings. It's so apparent that they don't actually write plots and just go with the flow.

    All you have to do is watch a couple hundred anime, and you've basically seen all the plots. The only differences between shows are their settings. It's all the same nonsense, and the writing is almost never unique. Despite focusing on settings, they create overly complex ones that make no sense. The settings are almost exclusively used to further the plot.

    They constantly change the setting and make ridiculous universe rules to create artificial plot points or tension. It's just not good writing. Sure, once in a blue moon, there will be a good anime, but even then, they usually just got lucky. This is why 99% of anime is complete garbage.

    Anyone who thinks this is good writing must either be a teenager or have never read a decent book in their lives.

  5. Busty Girls Breasts Seem to Bounce a Lot

    Speaking as a girl with large breasts, you obviously have never seen real boobs before because they bounce a lot (sometimes I have to hold mine just walking down the stairs because they bounce so much).

    But related to this, even as an anime fan, I have to point out that there is an immense oversexualization of women's bodies. Shows labeled "ecchi" just make me gag because they will literally consist solely of a harem of girls fawning over a guy who lacks any personality whatsoever. He will constantly walk in on them naked, followed by a nosebleed and a punch from the girl. At the end, he won't be able to decide on any one girl and chooses them all, and they will be okay with that. The end. That really frustrates me.

  6. Bad Animation

    So many anime fanboys can't even comprehend the difference between drawing and animation. Drawing involves a still picture, while animation involves movement.

    As far as animation in anime goes, it's pretty horrible. Just think about all the times when a character is talking, and they shift to another character who's just standing there or show the back of their heads just so they don't need to animate the mouths. Think of all the times when they pan over a still image of the scenery, and it's just that - a still image, nothing moving.

    Those pictures can be as detailed or pretty as they want (and even then, that's debatable, as most characters are so indistinguishable from each other that they need outlandish hair to set them apart). But if the animation sucks, as is often the case in anime, you might as well be watching a slideshow with an audio track over it.

  7. Weeaboos and Otakus

    If you describe yourself as either of these, then you are the fundamental reason people think anime is a horrific subculture.

    You're ruining what could be a normal hobby for normal people by turning it into a whole subculture when one already exists in Japan. The people who use these labels tend to make up their own meanings for them, even though they have extremely negative connotations in the culture they're trying to mimic.

    Yeah, I'm an anime fan, but I hate these people. I really don't like fanbrats, and you will never find fanbrats worse than weeaboos. They're worse than bronies, seriously.

    Although I like anime, I won't shove my interests down your throat. You're allowed to like what you want, and so am I. We all have opinions. Weeaboos cannot accept opinions. They fly off the handle just because somebody dislikes anime, and I just want to facepalm.

    Not everybody is going to like what you like, so accept that. Anime fans need to stop bashing anime haters, and anime haters need to stop bashing anime fans. Learn how to respect opinions and get along - or get off the internet.

  8. Cliches

    Weird how the previous comment implies that Western animation is state-of-the-art, even though the market never extended past children and comedy in the West.

    Most anime suffers from the same problem as Western media in that it targets the lowest common denominator. (If you don't know what that is, then you fit into this category by default.) It just does so with a different cultural approach. This means clichés get a pass because inbreds find them funny or relatable.

    As a result, everyone else has to tolerate weak writing, which waters down the experience and makes these sections a chore to watch.

    For all of the idiots saying that this guy is saying that anything and everything western has no faults, did you hear him say that? No. He is stating the reasons why anime sucks. This in no way says that everything else is perfect.

    Sure, cartoons and movies have cliches, but this is a list about anime's faults, not anything else's.

  9. Boring

    A massive chunk of the school and slice-of-life (SOL) genres relies on the exact same tired tropes: accidental hand brushes, screaming over homework, and a beach episode that feels identical to five others you've already seen. When it's bad, it feels like watching paint dry in a school uniform.

    The action gives me a headache. The girls are treated like sex objects. I hate being forced to read subtitles rather than actually hearing the words spoken in English. The subtitles also give me a headache. Let me just say that anime is really headache-inducing. Also, I haven't seen ONE funny thing in ANY anime. It's boring and pathetic. I don't see why anyone likes this garbage of a cartoon.

    P.S. Let me just say that most of the comments here are from fangirls coming to bash the ONE LIST that we anime haters have. Can we just have ONE LIST, you annoying fangirls? You all think it's okay to bash cartoons like SpongeBob or South Park - those are good shows. For the record, anime is also a cartoon, so can you please listen to your hypocritical words when you say that cartoons are bad?

    Don't you dare say that I have never seen an anime before. I have actually TRIED to watch anime, but I just couldn't. Like I said, it is headache-inducing.

  10. Hentai

    I very much agree - hentai and anime are two very DIFFERENT things. Honestly, hentai is BETTER than porn - it's not the actual thing and feels less graphic.

    It's like saying movies are bad because porn is bad, as the other user said. But everybody still watches movies. There's inappropriate content in movies and cartoons, just as there can be in anime. So why does everyone only bash anime, while the only people who mostly bash cartoons are anime fans?

    Manga is the book, and I'm willing to bet over half the teenage section at the library has more inappropriate content than the manga there. With all the descriptions of this or that, or some stupid love triangle or exaggerated unrequited love, you'd think the whole teenage section is full of trashy romance novels. I'm not saying this stuff doesn't happen, but it occurs far more often in those novels, which give teenagers false hopes.

    Anime and manga are no worse than American cartoons, movies, or teenage novels. Yes, I know some anime and manga are not great, but the same holds for the above. So please, don't be a hypocrite when the things you like are most definitely NOT better than what other people watch or read. Everyone has their opinions.

    The truth hurts. But if it's not true, don't say it - if it's not kind either, don't say it at all. We don't need more trolls. It's misleading and immoral. Now who's being immoral?

    11. The Newcomers
  11. ?

    You See It Everywhere

    I wanted it to be everywhere back in the 2000s because I thought it tended to look nice. Now with how it looks like since the 2010s, I don't want it to be popular anymore. Too soft and intangible-looking. Big boobs are even bigger and they look so heavy and painful. I find 2000s moe more appealing, with more contrast and shading. The bottoms of the eyes also contrasted with the face as much as the tops. Hair often looked like hair in consistency and movement, and more soft, detailed, and shiny, especially with the 2000s moe look. There is now more shading around the nose again(try to find the nose on a 2010s anime girl), but anime girls have been blindingly pinkish-white for a while. After the 2010s, some things have changed like dot or vertical line hair highlights no longer being dominant, bottom eyelashes being back-ish, but facial proportions haven't changed much since. What is it that people like so much about wide mouth-nose distances, leaving an undetailed blank space? People complain about wide-set eyes but not that. Close-set large eyes look wrong and amateurish.

  12. ?

    Self-insert protagonists

    They almost always have the exact same look: messy black or brown hair, average height, an unmemorable facial structure, and plain everyday clothes. They look completely generic so they can act as a literal mirror for the audience. They don't train or suffer to earn their abilities. They log into a game, get hit by a truck, or reincarnate, and the narrative instantly hands them a "cheat skill," infinite mana, or a unique biological code that makes them stronger than literal gods who have worked for thousands of years. Because they are always right, never make mistakes, and never experience true psychological desperation, there are zero narrative stakes. Watching a story where the main character is in absolutely no danger of losing or growing becomes mind-numbingly boring after three episodes.

    13. The Contenders

  13. Bad Morals

    I can't reply to certain comments on this, so I'm just going to type this instead. Avatar: The Last Airbender and Teen Titans are not anime. They have to be from Japan to be considered anime. It's infuriating to see that the definition of anime has expanded from "animation from Japan" to being "about the characters."

    Do you really think he's just trying to be cool by making this list? Do you really think he's trying to attack you? He's just expressing his opinion, just like you anime fans do.

    Stop complaining about every reason on this list being nonsense. Almost every reason has things that support it and things that go against it, just like everything else. Some anime DO have too many busty female characters. Some anime DO have bad writing and morals. Some anime DO have bad animation. Does every single anime suffer from these issues? No. Does anime have problems? Yes. You know what else has problems? Everything. Everything has problems.

    Stop acting like anime is above everything else - it's not. When you act like it is, you're just showing arrogance. And that goes both ways. Acting like cartoons or live-action shows are better than everything else is just as arrogant. Seriously, whenever people discriminate against one another for having different opinions, it's kind of disgusting. We need a compromise. We need to stop acting so divided. We need to stop hating one another. I'll just stop before this gets any more preachy.

  14. Fan Service

    When fan service is aggressively shoved into a series, it doesn't add value. It acts as a cheap, lazy substitute for actual substance. It exposes that the writers don't trust their own plot, characters, or world-building to keep your attention, so they resort to flashing skin as a desperate attempt to keep people watching.

    On a purely practical level, unnecessary fan service makes it incredibly embarrassing to recommend otherwise fantastic shows to friends or family. You could be trying to show someone a series with incredible world-building, high-concept philosophy, or beautiful animation, but you have to constantly warn them: "Just ignore the weird, creepy camera angles and random clothing destruction in episode 4." It holds the entire medium back from being taken seriously as a legitimate form of storytelling.

    When non-sports anime try to throw in random male fan service, it usually suffers from the exact same corporate, pandering writing flaws as female fan service. It completely halts the narrative momentum just to flash some abs, treating the audience like their attention can be bought with cheap eye candy.

  15. Too Addictive

    I'm a huge anime fan. I've watched lots of anime series, and I will admit that not all of them were the best. However, this addictive aspect is pretty accurate.

    Mostly, the anime series that aren't as good don't make you addicted, which basically tells you that it's not a good anime. Addiction really opens your eyes to whether the anime is good or not - because the more addicted you are, the better the anime is. But then again, sometimes people can get a little too addicted, which causes a problem.

    I have to say that anime is quite addictive - I'm seriously addicted. But many things in life are addictive: cigarettes, alcohol, drugs such as cocaine and crack, Flappy Bird, Piano Tiles, and most games. Junk food, including fried foods, ice cream, soda, and all sweets in general, is also addictive.

    TOO many things in life are addictive. Everyday objects can be addictive, like magazines, video games, TV, or anything, really.

  16. Borderline Kiddy Porn

    Yeah, why are so many sexualized female anime characters minors? I don't like the niche of adult women characters grooming boy characters either.

    Not all anime is marketed to kids.

  17. Anime Girls Either Have Enormous Huge Boobs or They Are Completely Flat Chested

    Most anime relies heavily on exaggerated, standardized archetypes, either the hyper-voluptuous "waifu" or the petite, completely flat character. This creates a massive, unrealistic gap where average, medium-sized, and realistically proportioned bodies are weirdly rare.

    Characters who are supposed to be active, powerful fighters are drawn with physics-defying bodies that make absolutely no sense for someone doing martial arts or battlefield combat.

    The number of women with tiny breasts or flat chests must be more common than it looks, as implants and bra padding may distort statistics and medium breasts and up are overrepresented in dolls and fictional characters. I've noticed since the mid-2010s either size extremes being favored (flat is always on petite child-like characters for some reason), that it's weird seeing female anime characters with medium ones (more back then).

    Actual medium. Not what is called medium or even small these days both in real life and anime (is actually large, medium is called small now). I see women with small breasts that project and are defined bumps or lumps call themselves flat (bumps are not flat. That's the antonym of the word. It goes against the very definition).

  18. No Personality

    Especially these days, they have a dead look to their eyes, like AI imagery (often based on it too) tends to have. A boring, unfocused, and plain facial expression with a plain, unexciting, uninteresting design.

    I completely agree. As I watch more sexualized anime, I notice that the characters have set personalities that are very unoriginal. Some, like Heaven's Lost Property or Girls Bravo, feature characters with lovable but overly attractive designs. The directors need to stop relying on the attractiveness of women, as these characters are only built that way to keep people watching due to how sexualized they are.

    When it comes to characters with no personality, I keep seeing the same traits repeated over and over in today's anime. It's as if everyone, including the directors, has forgotten how complex a human being actually is. Instead, they create a simple structure of an ideal personality and call it a good character. As a result, we get the same personalities all the time.

  19. Awful Designs

    Welcome to the 2020s. Isekai MCs and female elves tend to look samey, and the blonde ones will have cleavage (they look cold, it does not look comfortable). I don't like plain, boring hairstyles. Boring outfits. Female characters in anime games tend to have no pants and have their legs shown with a holster/scabbard. It looks like it would chafe. Bonus points if they have grey or whitish-grey hair.

    It's kind of sad how people judge anime solely based on its design. Take Code Geass R2, for example. For me, honestly, the characters looked pretty weird, but the plot was outstanding.

    I guess it all depends on a person's taste. Some anime have really bad-looking characters but great plots, while others have really good-looking characters but terrible plots. Sometimes everything is bad, and sometimes everything is good. It all depends on what anime you decide to watch.

  20. Naked Girls

    The over-sexualization of female characters really bothers me. Not because I'm a prude who thinks all women should be covered up, no, no, no! It's the fact that anime females are drawn and designed to have the characteristics of a YOUNG girl - way too young to be sexualized - and it really freaks me out.

    Even if the storyline involves a character who is 30 years old, she still seems to talk like a young girl and make babyish noises. What's up with that? It makes me more than uncomfortable, and I'm seeing more and more anime lovers who accept it, which honestly gets under my skin.

    Don't get me wrong, if you like something, then I'm not the one to tell you to stop. But the over-sexualization of young or young-behaving characters seems disgusting to me.

  21. Female Representation

    Not every woman is comfortable in skimpy clothing. Looking at it makes me feel cold and uncomfortable. They're reduced to eye candy. Ever notice that anime nuns (and "sexy nuns") MUST always show their hair (the habits are beautiful just the way they are) and/or their legs?

    To all anime haters - I can see your point. I realize that anime can have bad details or bad plots, but as an anime fan myself, I have to defend my interests and the rest of the anime fans.

    What anime have you watched? Some anime are horrible in general - everything about them is bad. But most of the popular anime, like Fairy Tail and Black Butler - THOSE, in my opinion, were fantastic.

    To those who dislike anime but have actually watched one or two, maybe even a popular one, thanks. You gave it a try, experienced different things, and found that anime just isn't your cup of tea. But some anime haters have only watched half of a twelve-episode anime and decided they hate anime based on those six episodes.

    Please, if you're going to hate on anime, at least have enough knowledge about it. Watch enough to actually say, "I've watched a few, and I didn't like it." Everyone has different tastes. Who knows? Maybe one day you'll watch another anime, realize you've only seen a few, and change your opinion, becoming a fan.

  22. Overprotective Fan Behaviour

    The moment a fandom becomes overprotective, it suffocates any actual discussion. It creates a toxic echo chamber where you aren't allowed to have a critical thought or a casual opinion without a swarm of people taking it as a personal attack.

    If you point out valid flaws, like bad writing, cheap fan service, or pacing issues, overprotective fans will immediately shut you down with "Well, just don't watch it then!" rather than engaging with what you actually said.

    If a writer does something the overprotective fandom doesn't like (e.g., pairing characters up differently, changing a design, or killing off a favorite), these fans often cross the line into harassing the actual animators and creators online.

    On Reddit, if you criticize a show's fan service or a character's behavior, some user will reply with a literal essay explaining why you are objectively wrong, quoting random lore, and essentially calling you stupid for having a different opinion.

  23. Overly Bloody

    When an anime character falls in love, they have a massive nosebleed. And when an anime character gets cut, blood squirts everywhere. Do these anime makers have some kind of blood fetish?

    Alas, the main reason is that instead of showing blood, they could just show a shadow of the person with blood squirting. In my case, at least, it would be a bit less bloody.

  24. Sexual content

  25. Confusing edgy with dark, deep or even scary

    What he's saying is that anime confuses an edgy character with a dark one.

  26. Cat Girls

    I AGREE. Satan and Buddha, I cannot stand nekos.

    They're so annoying - purring, licking their hands, rubbing against people, holding their hands in a paw position. They just look and sound stupid. And the "Nya" thing? I wish someone would make a horror anime where the neko gets her head chopped off.

    That's how irritating they are. If they acted like normal people with cat traits, like Catwoman, Black Cat, or even that side character from Escaflowne, fine - not too shabby. But "Cat Plant Girls" or whatever that was, along with EVERY other ecchi neko fanservice character? Just get rid of them.

    This is one of those trends I cannot comprehend. People are sick to find an animal sexually appealing just because it's turned into an objectified female with no brain or personality. Genius.

  27. It is Japanese

    To everyone saying this is racist, I think the list maker is pointing it out because they think it's hard to find English-dubbed anime, not because they hold anything against Japanese culture. I might be wrong, though.

8Load More
PSearch List