The Best Manga with Disappointing Anime Adaptations

Despite how much great anime releases each and every year, things aren’t always rosy in the anime fandom. In fact, when most of the anime released every season are one-to-one adaptations of beloved manga series, expectations are often through the roof, as established manga fans clamour to watch how an anime studio brings their beloved source material to life in glorious motion and colour. Lots of manga series end up being elevated by their anime adaptations – series like Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen have received a real boost in fanfare from their respective anime adaptations. However, things don’t always play out so positively.

Today, we’re looking back on some of the most disappointing anime adaptations of beloved manga series, which left the fanbase scratching their heads, and wondering how things could have gone so wrong. We won’t be including any spoilers in this article, so be sure to check some of these manga series out for yourself if you haven’t – but maybe avoid the anime adaptations! With that being said, let’s get into the list.

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Uzumaki

Image by Adult Swim

I think it’s time for the Junji Ito fanbase to give up on ever expecting an anime adaptation to truly capture the magic of Ito’s manga. Kicking off our list, we have one of the fresher wounds that the anime industry has inflicted on Ito’s work, Adult Swim’s adaptation of Uzumaki. Uzumaki is easily one of Junji Ito’s most iconic stories, if not the most iconic manga he’s ever written. Despite endless delays, compelling teaser trailers, and numerous promises of the highest-quality content from Adult Swim, the 2024 anime of Uzumaki simply failed to capture what makes Ito’s work so special, and somehow delivered animation quality that was even less impressive than your standard seasonal shonen show.

It’s not simply the animation of 2024’s Uzumaki that earns it a spot on this list though. The pacing, the cut content, and the deliberate exclusion of Colin Stetson’s iconic soundtrack all mesh together to deliver one of the most disappointing anime in recent memory. What makes Uzumaki’s failure sting even more though, is the fact that the first episode of the mini-series was actually pretty good, and had fans fooled into thinking a great Junji Ito anime was finally upon us. This anime delivered an unforgiveable blow on the hopes of Ito’s fanbase as far as anime adaptations go, and proves that sometimes, the best manga are the ones that can simply never work on the screen.

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The Promised Neverland

Image by CloverWorks

To this day, I cannot understand what happened with The Promised Neverland anime. The first season was a solid adaptation of the source material, capturing the tension that the manga is known for, while introducing the world of the series in a healthy, well-paced way. Fans were happy with what they were seeing, and things were looking up for the series. While the COVID-19 pandemic may have caused a little mayhem behind-the-scenes, what happened next was a turn of events that no one could ever have predicted, as CloverWorks made one of the most mind-boggling creative decisions in the history of anime.

The Promised Neverland Season 2 completely skipped over the most beloved arcs in the entire manga, while introducing anime-original plot points, and trying to sloppily blend these new, original points, with storylines from the manga. These new storylines, unfortunately, made little sense with the absence of the story content from the manga’s skipped arcs, and what was pushed out as a result was one of the worst, most incohesive seasons of anime to ever release. The most painful thing about The Promised Neverland is what could have been. Fans are still hoping for a remake, one that can cleanse their memory of this disappointing anime from CloverWorks. However, I’m not sure if non-manga fans will ever trust this story again, leaving the legacy of this beloved manga in shambles, at least when it comes to the anime world.

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Record of Ragnarök

Image by Graphinica

If you take one thing away from this list, I hope it’s the fact that when it comes to anime, animation is important. Sometimes, a great story can overshadow shaky animation. However, if a series’ animation is just flat-out abysmal, there’s really no way to look past it, and see the magic of the story underneath. This sin is especially egregious if your show is an action series, and relies on fight scenes to generate hype and intrigue. That’s the real issue with Record of Ragnarök, an anime thats legacy will forever be linked with almost comically bad visuals.

The Record of Ragnarök manga is not really worth revering, but it’s certainly a very solid and creative story, with all of its gravitas completely nullified by Graphinica’s disappointing anime adaptation. The fight scenes could have been animated in a way that would have boosted Record of Ragnarök‘s reputation, solidifying it as one of the better action-oriented anime out there. What we got was a far cry from the anime fans would have wanted, or the anime anyone would have wanted really.

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Tokyo Ghoul

Image by Pierrot

Oh Pierrot, you really messed up with this one. Tokyo Ghoul is one of the most respected seinen manga of all time, with its reach spreading far beyond the original manga, into multiple collaborations, light novels, video games, and live-action films. All of this success comes in spite of its disappointing anime adaptation however. Much like with The Promised Neverland, Tokyo Ghoul had a solid first season, and pleased the series’ manga fanbase for the most part. After this point though, questionable decision-making would bring ruin to this iconic franchise.

After its first season, Tokyo Ghoul began to deviate from the manga, a decision that would prove fatal for the series’ reputation. With subsequent seasons, the anime would attempt to return to the manga’s ongoing storyline, without adapting necessary chapters from the sections that the second season had skipped. What was left after this turn of events was a mind-bogglingly smorgasbord of an anime, a series that was far from the quality that Sui Ishida’s source material deserved. Fans still shed a tear over this disappointing anime adaptation, but I have faith we may see a remake some day.

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Bleach

Image by Pierrot

Pierrot isn’t off the hook quite yet though, because now, it’s time we talk about Bleach. I debated putting Bleach on this list, mainly because the series is still incredibly popular, and is beloved by a huge amount of anime fans. However, it’s undeniable that when you compare Pierrot’s Bleach anime with Tite Kubo’s Bleach manga, the differences are like night and day. Copious amounts of filler aside, the Bleach anime heavily censored content from the original manga, smudging the series’ identity in the process. Bleach stood out because it was grittier, darker, and more edgy than series like One Piece and Naruto. Pierrot sanitised this aspect of the series completely, making it a disappointing anime adaptation in my eyes.

These issues have been rectified somewhat with the 2022 reboot of the series, The Thousand-Year Blood War. With this in mind, I would recommend new Bleach fans catch up to this arc with the manga, and then switch to the anime for the new content. With its reboot, Bleach’s gritty identity has been restored, but its newfound success can’t erase the failures of the anime’s original outing. Bleach may still be an enjoyable watch, but when you compare it to the quality of the manga, it’s hard not to think about what could have been.

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Gantz

Image by Gonzo

Gantz is a great example of giving up on a project before it could really prove its worth. The Gantz manga is widely enjoyed by its fanbase, and has a pretty solid reputation as one of the better action series out there. The anime, however, is a different story. Not only does the anime rush to an anime-original ending after catching up with the source material, it also takes creative liberties with the manga’s content, over-sexualising female characters, and altering the personality of the series’ protagonist to better align with the studio’s altered vision.

To top all of this off, the anime is also just…ugly? Visually, it’s not appealing to watch, and offers little reasoning to ever opt for watching the series, rather than just reading the manga. A ton of movies continuing the story have released over the years, but thanks to the poor reputation of Gonzo’s original outing, very few people have been keeping up with them. Ultimately, only a reboot can save Gantz at this point, and considering there’s very few people crying out for that to happen, I doubt we’ll ever see it. It seems Gantz is destined for obscurity, which is a real shame, considering the manga is a very fun time.

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Berserk

Image by OLM Team Iguchi

Berserk is another series that I struggled with including on this list, but when I remember my fond memories of reading the manga, I had to talk about it. Here’s the thing – the 1997 adaptation of Berserk by OLM Team Iguchi is actually really good, and well worth a watch. The only issue with it is that it cuts off very early into the manga’s continuation, and there’s simply no way to enjoy the 1997 anime without switching to the manga afterwards. Every subsequent anime adaptation that has tried to adapt Berserk’s story beyond its first arc has been a complete and utter failure, and an undeniable disservice to Kentaro Miura’s legendary manga.

Ultimately, I don’t have much anger towards the anime adaptations of Berserk. One look at Kentaro Miura’s artstyle will reveal that its magic simply cannot be replicated in the form of an anime series. In the years since Miura’s untimely passing, I’ve come to believe that Berserk is best experienced in its original form, and though I wish it could have received an adaptation worthy of its title, the absence of a solid anime adaptation means that all eyes are on Miura’s original work. If you haven’t read Berserk, use this as a sign to start. It’s an incredible experience.

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One-Punch Man

Image by J.C. Staff

Yeah, I don’t want to pile on to the vitriol directed at J.C. Staff ever since the release of One-Punch Man‘s latest season, but it was a trainwreck. The anime adaptation of this iconic manga has been so poorly received, that the third season’s director deactivated his social media accounts due to the backlash, and one of the season’s episodes holds record for the lowest-rated anime episode of all time on IMDb, at 1.5/10. There’s no denying that the One-Punch Man anime is a disaster, even if the first season has been fairly well-received by its fanbase.

I would like to say that in better hands, a One-Punch Man anime could do justice to the source material, but again, some stories are better told on paper, with hand-drawn illustrations by its author. Though One-Punch Man is set to return for a new season in the near future, there’s no salvaging the reputation of this once iconic anime hero. It’s best we just leave the One-Punch Man anime in the past, and focus on the original manga.

See also: One Piece Watch Guide

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Conclusion

Well, that’s it for our list! Which of these disappointing anime adaptations have you watched? Did we miss out on any anime that didn’t meet your expectations for their manga? Did you enjoy any of the shows that we listed? Be sure to let us know, and thanks for reading!

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