Talk about failing at the finish line. Join Ashley as we look over our picks for anime's most hated endings
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we'll be counting down our picks for the Top 20 Worst
00:11Anime Conclusions.
00:2320.
00:24Akame ga Kill
00:25If you like downer endings, then this is the one for you.
00:32However, if you appreciate when characters are treated with respect, then you may want
00:39to keep walking.
00:40In a bold move, the final battle of Akame ga Kill claims most of the night rate, main
00:46characters included.
00:48Leone and Tatsumi, both gone.
00:57Akame and Nagenda are the only real notable survivors, which feels like a disservice to
01:02the found family part of the story, especially since this is an anime original ending that
01:08heavily diverged from the manga.
01:10At the very least, it's definitely memorable, just not for the right reasons.
01:1919.
01:23Fullmetal Alchemist
01:2450 episodes in, this influential anime trades mysticism and alchemy for Zeppelins and World
01:31War II.
01:32No, it doesn't make much more sense with context either.
01:36To summarise the very convoluted exposition dump, Ed is in Munich, Alphonse is in the
01:42Fullmetal Alchemist world, and… well, actually, that's it.
01:54The credits roll, and that's how the show ends.
01:56It's a baffling conclusion that raises more questions than answers, but then again, that
02:02was probably the point.
02:07In order to see the real ending, you had to buy a movie ticket to the sequel film, Conqueror
02:12of Shambhala.
02:13Nothing ruins story integrity faster than a mandatory blockbuster follow-up.
02:1718.
02:23Mobile Suit Gundam – Iron-Blooded Orphans
02:26This show's final episode can be summed up pretty quickly.
02:30Everyone dies, the villain wins, and nothing matters.
02:33That's no hyperbole.
02:39You'll need more than one hand to count all the major characters that sacrificed themselves
02:48in the last battle.
02:50And yet, none of that bloodshed or heartache seems to really accomplish anything.
02:56Cudelia suddenly becomes important again, and gets a quick monologue about wishing for
03:07a better future.
03:08And that's about it.
03:10Even worse than that, out of every character, it's the insufferable Giulietta and Rustle
03:16who get to walk off into the sunset.
03:18Whether it's realistic or not, Iron-Blooded Orphans deserved better.
03:2617.
03:30Fey'na – Pirate Princess
03:31It's almost impressive to craft a final episode so bad, it retroactively ruins the
03:37eleven that came before it.
03:39But that's exactly what happened with Fey'na.
03:46Despite being about her quest for self-independence, it's revealed that Fey'na's entire journey
03:52was predetermined by a so-called Observer, that changes this empowering character study
03:57into a moral think-piece at the eleventh hour, and lacks any of the thematic build-up to
04:03make it work.
04:08Most offensive of all, Fey'na's mind gets wiped in the end anyway.
04:12By robbing its central character of any agency, this insulting hat-trick fundamentally changed
04:18Fey'na – Pirate Princess for the worse.
04:2416.
04:26Metabots
04:27In a perfect culmination of the series' storylines, Metabots goes out with Metabee
04:32taking on Victor for one final road battle in the tournament finals.
04:37Just kidding.
04:42The hotly-anticipated match gets interrupted by a new threat – a giant baby robot.
04:48With only a handful of episodes left, Metabots abandons its ongoing tourney arc to have Icky
04:54and Metabee fend off the rubber-robo-gang's leader.
05:01It's maddening because they had the perfect ending set up and ready to go, but veered
05:09off track at the last second.
05:11To rub salt in the wound, the show has the gall to go out on an open-ended freeze-frame.
05:17Disappointing doesn't even begin to cover it.
05:2415.
05:27Yu-Gi-Oh!
05:28Arc 5
05:29A few trap cards was all it took to ruin what could have been an all-timer.
05:33For one, the climactic last duel of Arc 5, coming down to Yu-Gi-Oh! and Declan, is just
05:39plain disappointing.
05:48No amount of serendipitous friendship power-ups could keep this match from feeling lame.
05:53But Arc 5's issues go much deeper than a lacklustre closing number.
05:57There's also some downright head-scratching decisions, like Yuya now sharing a body with
06:02his cross-dimensional doppelgangers.
06:13Although a strange resolution is better than no resolution at all, which is what happened
06:18with most of the supporting cast.
06:20It's a shame that an otherwise great season got majorly lost in the shuffle.
06:3614.
06:38Kumamiko!
06:39Girl Meets Bear
06:45This is the kind of unforgivable closure that makes you wonder, what was the point?
06:51Girl Meets Bear was supposed to be about Machi outgrowing her reclusive ways by attending
06:56modern-day high school.
06:58And she does, for all of 11 episodes.
07:01But after a full season of slowly emerging from her shell, one bad contest has Machi
07:07retreating back into her hermit lifestyle.
07:15No redemption, no good moral, and nothing to show for 12 episodes of character work.
07:21Fans were outraged at this senseless change from the source material, and they weren't
07:26alone.
07:27You know you've really messed up when even the original author starts voicing criticism.
07:3813.
07:41Big Order
07:45Big Order users possess a special power that allows their wishes to be realised.
07:50Unsurprisingly, giving this type of ability to an obnoxious student leads to the Great
07:55Destruction and countless dead folks.
07:58But wait, it was his sister who'd done it all along.
08:01What a twist.
08:07Now Big Order is a pretty far-fetched show, hence ladies getting pregnant from having
08:12their ears being fondled.
08:15But the ending is infuriating nonetheless.
08:17After defeating God via an ass-pull, Eishi uses his power to fix everything, including
08:23the Great Destruction.
08:2712.
08:29Tokyo Ghoul Route A
08:33Tokyo Ghoul struggled to properly adapt the long manga into 24 episodes, leaving a lot
08:38of the content on the cutting room floor.
08:41Despite having such limited space, the finale wastes a substantial amount of time showing
08:46characters messing around instead of providing closure.
08:50It ends with Kaneki carrying Hide's body in his arms, before coming face-to-face with
08:55Arima.
08:56And… then they cut.
08:58No final battle.
08:59None of the awesome stuff that happened in the manga.
09:03Really makes you wonder why they deviated from the plot just to arrive at a watered-down
09:07version of the same conclusion.
09:1311.
09:16Alderaan Zero
09:21Alderaan Zero set itself up with several things that needed to be sorted out by its conclusion.
09:26First of all, how are we going to solve the conflict between the Verse Empire and the
09:31Earth Union?
09:32Second, how is Slane going to finally redeem himself?
09:35And third, and obviously most importantly, how will the love triangle work out?
09:46Well the show managed to bugger up all three things.
09:49The war seems to just fizzle out, Slane gets his ass handed to him and locked away in jail,
09:55and instead of one of the lads ending up with Asylum, some random character no one gives
09:59a damn about does.
10:01Why'd they gotta do our boy Slane like this?
10:0510.
10:07Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
10:15Until the sequel comes out, Panty & Stocking still deserves a place on this list.
10:20The series had its ups and downs, but you could always count on the Fallen Angel Sisters
10:25to kick some serious amounts of demon hiney.
10:33So after stopping the evil Corset from unlocking Hell's Gate, what happens?
10:39An after-credits scene reveals that Stocking was actually a demon all along, for some reason.
10:50As a follow-up is yet to happen, this out-of-nowhere plot twist made absolutely no sense, and ended
10:56an otherwise decent show on a sour note.
11:009.
11:01Wonder Egg Priority
11:03Good things do not always come to those who wait.
11:06Following some significant production delays, fans waited an extra three months to see the
11:11true finale of Wonder Egg Priority.
11:13There were so many questions.
11:16What really happened with Koito?
11:18What's Frill's connection to everything?
11:20How will I fix it?
11:21No, we're genuinely asking, because the final episode sure doesn't explain anything.
11:33Rather than providing closure, Wonder Egg Priority went in a tasteless direction that
11:39undermined its own message about believing trauma survivors.
11:46As you can imagine the backlash, viewers waited an extra three months just to see the
11:51story they loved get scrambled, burned and scraped into the garbage.
11:598.
12:03Future Diary
12:09From the same mind that gave birth to Big Order, Future Diary stands as an insane magnum
12:15opus.
12:16Yuki is a spineless loner who owns a diary that predicts the future and gets thrown into
12:21a battle royale against 11 other people, eventually winning and getting elevated to the status
12:27of a god.
12:31While this sounds cool in theory, the anime spirals out of control towards the end, introducing
12:36time travel and alternate dimensions.
12:40Sure, the OVA redial tidied us over a little, but as for the TV series ending, the whole
12:48thing was just overly convoluted and didn't satisfy on most fronts.
12:547.
12:55Soul Eater
12:59A powerful demon who just happens to be the son of death is, apparently, no match for
13:05a good dose of courage.
13:08Soul Eater is a fantastic anime for around 99% of its run, with the ending serving as
13:14the exception.
13:16Known for its creative action sequences and colourful cast, Soul Eater consistently declares
13:21the importance of teamwork, so why is the final boss defeated by a single unarmed character?
13:33While the rest of the cast watches from a distance, Maka causes the powerful Azura to
13:38explode after punching him in the face with the power of courage.
13:466.
13:49Digimon Adventure 02
13:57Epilogues work better in theory than in practice, and Digimon serves as the perfect example.
14:03After defeating Malomyotismon, the story flash-forwards to the year 2027 and shows what became of
14:11the DigiDestined.
14:16Over those twenty-odd years, the digital and real world learn to coexist and everyone now
14:21has a Digimon, which kind of ruins the appeal of being a chosen child.
14:27As the heroes grow up to follow completely mismatched career paths, like Sora becoming
14:31a fashion designer.
14:35Also, aside from Matt, Sora, Ken and Yoli, all the DigiDestined get married to nobodies,
14:45meaning T.K. and Kairi didn't end up together, which we can all admit sucks.
14:565.
14:57The Promised Neverland What began as a promising thriller ended up
15:01breaking its vows in record time.
15:04The biggest offender being the ending, and we use that sim loosely.
15:10After a series of needless deviations from the manga, The Promised Neverland reached
15:15the end of Season 2 and simply stopped.
15:19We aren't just talking about the arc or season, we mean the entire adaptation just
15:23full-on ended.
15:33To put it into perspective, they crammed half the remaining manga into a montage, skipped
15:39the shoehorned happy ending, and had the girl to keep it as a day-off surprise.
15:44It's easily one of the most botched conclusions an anime adaptation has ever received, and
15:50that is really saying something.
15:554.
15:57Oreimo Okay, we've given this show so much grief
16:01over the years, so let's just break it down real quick.
16:05These two are siblings.
16:083.
16:09Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – Awakening of the Trailblazer
16:14Season 1 ending, perfect.
16:17Season 2 ending, satisfying.
16:19The movie finale, awful.
16:27Everyone was hesitant when hearing that aliens were being introduced into the franchise for
16:32this film, so in order to silence the critics, Sunrise really had to knock this out of the
16:38park.
16:39They didn't.
16:43The whole thing feels completely out of place, with weird storytelling decisions and series
16:48favorites being killed for absolutely no reason.
16:56Worst of all, the flowery ending is played completely straight, as the two warring species
17:03realize this was simply a misunderstanding and decide to work together to achieve peace.
17:09Piss off.
17:142.
17:17Mars of Destruction The anime that's so bad it's… well, it's
17:25still bad.
17:26The practically nonsensical plot follows Takeru, who is the only person capable of wearing
17:32a combat suit to defend Earth from a Martian invasion.
17:36While the stiff animation and lifeless characters make Mars of Destruction a long sit, the hilarious
17:42ending takes the cake.
17:48A huge plot twist reveals that the Earthlings were the real aliens all along.
17:54Centuries ago, the Martians conquered Earth, forcing the remaining survivors to seek refuge
17:59in space.
18:00Again, piss off.
18:301.
18:31Platinum End Despite its name, Platinum End doesn't finish
18:35as much as it completely falls off the side of the storytelling cliff.
18:40In just 22 minutes, Shuji becomes God, decides humanity will always crave death, and makes
18:46the unilateral decision to end himself.
18:55This causes all life to suddenly disappear, whether they like it or not.
19:00Look, tragic endings can work if they're earned.
19:03But Platinum End is so busy trying to seem sophisticated, he forgets how to convey ideas
19:08at all.
19:13See, the downer conclusion isn't just a tough pill to swallow, it actively trivialises
19:22everything that came before it.
19:24In the end, the real tragedy lies with everyone who thought Platinum End might stick the landing.
19:36What's an anime ending that's so bad, it ruined the rest of the show for you?
19:40Let us know in those comments below.