The anime industry has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 1907, gaining popularity in Japan in the ’80s, and later, around the early ’00s, around the globe. Granted, a fair share of anime series created during those time periods — such as Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, Sailor Moon, and Pokémon — went on to become smash hit phenomenons, but it’s apparent to everyone how much the quality of anime has improved over the years.
The better animation we’ve witnessed over time, along with better storytelling and the bigger exposure anime has gotten thanks to the Internet, has drawn more and more people into this medium until it became what it is today. Unfortunately, though, like pretty much anything in life, there are always some disappointing examples to be found. But even then, there’s a very noticeable difference between not-good and bottom-of-the-barrel-bad.
Those who have been part of the anime community for enough time might have come across or heard about some truly terrible series at some point, but just in case they haven’t seen it all yet, here we present the very worst the anime industry has to offer.
10. Hanoka
Hanoka will always be famous, not for doing anything successfully, but for being among the first anime series created solely with Adobe Flash animation in 2006. It should go without saying that Hanoka’s animation leaves something to be desired, with the character’s stilted movements being way too obvious, which makes the whole series look amateur-made. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t make up for it as its abundance of clichés even trumps the bad animation. For obvious reasons, the anime only has 12 episodes and each one is around five minutes long.
9. Ex-Arm
Proper world-building? We don’t need that. Character depth? Scrap it. Ex-Arm removes almost everything meaningful about its source material in favor of events simply happening one right after the other with little explanation. Surprisingly for a 2021 anime, though, Ex-Arm’s biggest crimes are, by far, its stiff animation and art style choices. In this 12-episode CGI series, 3D and 2D characters are mashed together in the same frame several times — an idea someone out there probably thought was innovative but sounds as horrendous as it looks to everyone else.
8. Pupa
Another legendary anime — for the worst reasons, of course. Pupa is a gruesome story about two siblings who become infected with a strange virus, turning the teen girl into a flesh-eating monster, while her brother gains the power of regeneration. Naturally, this leads to several instances in which the girl feeds on her brother’s body (and no, you’re not imagining the incestuous vibes that the premise gives off). To top it all off, Pupa’s plot jumps from one thing to another with little explanation or time to breathe; exactly what one would expect from four-minute episodes.
7. Psychic Wars
Psychic Wars is a 50-minute anime movie based on Yasuaki Kadota’s novel of the same name. Saying that it was released in 1991 should be enough to convey its animation quality but not all its faults can be attributed to the time period. There are good anime that came out of the early ‘90s, Psychic Wars just isn’t one of them. The story focuses on a doctor who, by literally punching cancer, gains superpowers that allow him to go back in time to defeat an ancient demon race. Wild premise aside, if you’re looking for cliché dialogue, a romance with zero development, little plot, and predictable twists, this is the anime for you.
6. Skelter Heaven
Skelter Heaven is a 2004 OVA based on a video game of the same name. The premise itself isn’t bad, centering around a group of high school girls who join a military unit to protect Tokyo from an alien threat. Despite the solid base for an action or sci-fi anime, the result was disastrous, with extremely bland characters, poor animation, an abundance of pointless training scenes, and a romance thrown in to further overshadow the plot. And of course, we have to mention the scanty outfits that serve no real purpose other than fanservice.
5. Dark Cat
Boys that can transform into felines seem like an interesting enough premise, if nothing else; after all, jaguars and tigers can certainly inflict damage in a fight. Dark Cat, however, utterly fails at capitalizing on that by simply having them be house cats, which actually turns out to be pointless in the narrative, as all the cats do is run around. Besides that, the anime is famously known for its bad voice acting, confusing plot threads, poorly developed characters, and animation that swings wildly between decent and terrible.
4. Mars of Destruction
Because Skelter Heaven apparently wasn’t enough, in 2005, the same company felt it necessary to give us Mars of Destruction. This is another OVA based on a video game, which in turn was based on a manga series, about an alien invasion. Those brave enough to watch it complain about terrible sound and animation quality, a very rushed and subpar narrative that leaves numerous questions unanswered, bad dialogue, and underdeveloped characters. For all these reasons, Mars of Destruction became famously known as one of the worst anime ever.
3. KochinPa!
Sometimes, anime are created with no real intention of getting viewers invested. That’s the case with KochinPa!, which had the sole purpose of advertising pachinko machines with 15-second episodes featuring three colorful characters. Needless to say, there is no plot to be found here, only random clips with a gag at the end. KochinPa! was created with lackluster CGI and the only nice things we can say about it are that both the visuals and voice acting are cute. Overall, it’s hard to think about this as an anime, though, as it reads more like a series of commercials.
2. Vampire Holmes
![Vampire holmes [OP]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K27UWr58dOo/hqdefault.jpg)
Vampire Holmes is a 12-episode anime series with each episode being three-minute long. It takes the most notorious fictional detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes, and throws away his deduction skills — aka the most fundamental aspect of the character — to make him a vampire hunter. The catch? No actual vampire hunting happens in this series. Instead, Holmes and his companion just do nothing but argue in 3DCG before calling it a day. Even optimistic folks will have a hard time finding anything compelling about Vampire Holmes.
1. Abunai Sisters: Koko & Mika
Believe it or not, this is technically considered an anime (although barely). Created by Production I.G, Abunai Sisters: Koko & Mika was a 2009 series of short OVAs meant to promote the Japanese TV personalities Kyoko and Mika Kano, best known as the Kano sisters. In this 10-episode CGI mess, the sisters are secret agents with extremely exaggerated physical features who defeat evil-doers. While this is not something anyone would watch for a compelling story, art style, or animation, some viewers find it entertaining. Some things are just so remarkably bad, they end up being good.
If any of these anime sparked your curiosity in any way, by all means, watch to your heart’s content. Just be prepared for what you’re about to experience.
Related: The Best Anime of 2022 on The Escapist