Random Poorly Written Anime Characters (13 items)

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  (#4) Kirito

  • Sword Art Online, Sword Art Online

  Just as no list about horrible anime crimes is complete without Shou Tucker, no list about badly written characters is complete without Kirito. Kirito is a stand-in for a common pitfall when it comes to anime characters - he's a stupidly OP character who is the object of every female characters' affection for no discernable reason. Basically, he's a blank slate for a specific subset of the audience to project themselves onto. While there's nothing inherently wrong with power fantasies, they don't exactly make for great writing. Kirito doesn't ever seem to work for his powers, he just gets them through Deus Ex Machina. What's more, we barely know how he feels about anything that happens to him, except during the most extreme of circumstances. 

  Kirito improves a little bit after the first Sword Art Online series - for example, during the Gun Gale Online arc he's a support character for the far better developed Sinon, and he begins to display some PTSD symptoms related to his time trapped in the game. By the time this happens, though, most viewers have already formed their impressions. 
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  (#6) Sieg - 'Fate/Apocrypha'

  Sieg is a homunculus who acts as theMaster of Rider of Black during the Great Holy Grail War. He begins his life with no emotions or personality traits, before eventually progressing towards a slightly more specific personality. 

  Does it make sense that Sieg spends most of the series without much of a personality? Sure, but that doesn't make it a good choice for a main character. He does change over time, but he fails to hook many viewers in the beginning. It takes master-level character work to pull off a protagonist like that, and Fate/Apocrypha just isn't up to the task. The process of becoming a real person could be fascinating, but not if there's not enough of a hook to get viewers to care about him in the first place. 
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  (#10) Puck - 'Berserk'

  Puck is a little elf who follows Guts around on his adventures, offering advice and sarcastic quips, and transforming into a chibi-fied version of himself at random. He's typically used for comic relief, but he also sometimes provides the other characters with useful information or strategy.

  Comic relief and mascot characters aren't inherently bad, but Berserk is not a show that lends itself to that at all. It's a dark, dramatic series that is memorable because of its mood. Nobody is watching this show for a laugh - unless it's that kind of laughing fit you get when you're horrified. When Puck shows up, he doesn't so much ease the tension as he does intrude upon it. 
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  (#9) Haru Yoshida

  • Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun

  My Little Monster is one of those short anime that takes a long and complex manga and makes all the wrong choices about which parts it should include and which parts to skip. Rather than fully developing its protagonist, the series went off on multiple tangents about side characters and after school activities - which is how Haru Yoshida ended up being so terribly written in the anime version of the series. Haru is a far more complete character in the manga, but that's the manga. The anime also has to do the work in developing its protagonist, and it failed. 

  So, what's wrong with Haru? His behavior is, to put it mildly, awful. He is constantly violating other people's boundaries - especially his love interest, Shizuku. This includes everything from mild annoyances get in the way of her studying to huge red flags like pulling her into an alleyway and threatening to assault her.

  Most of his terrible actions have to do with his complicated family backstory - a backstory that isn't described in anything resembling sufficient detail. Why didn't they expand on this crucial information? Probably because they're too busy giving a side character appendicitis and then not following up on that, either. This whole anime is a mess, not just Haru.
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  (#1) Sakura Haruno

  • Naruto, Naruto Shippūden, Naruto the Movie: Guardians of the Crescent Moon Kingdom, Naruto Shippuden the Movie: Bonds, Naruto the Movie: Legend of the Stone of Gelel, Naruto Shippuden the Movie: The Will of Fire, Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow, Naruto Shippuden the Movie, Ninja World

  As a member of Team 7, Sakura could and should have been written to be every bit as awesome as her male counterparts. Though she starts off with some serious potential, the series never capitalizes on it. Most of her arcs can be split into two categories: trying to measure up to her talented teammates, and pining over Sasuke.

  While her medical ninjutsu and physical strength are impressive, those things don't compare to Naruto and Sasuke's legendary abilities. While not every character has to be on that level, the fact that she's the only girl on the team and the only one whose skills aren't transcendent is kind of glaring. There's also nothing wrong with her having a crush, but there is something wrong with her having little development outside of that. 

  The writing around Sakura could be so much better. She - and all the other female characters in shonen anime who fall into this trap - deserve better. 
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  (#7) Aizawa - 'Sukisyo'

  Hailing from a fully terrible series, Aizawa is one of the most poorly written villains in the anime world. Why? Because his motivation is completely missing from the anime itself, and is absolutely ridiculous in the game he originates from.

  Aizawa is a scientist who performed unethical experiments on Sora and Sunao, causing them to develop alternate personalities. In the anime, he wants to program Sora to take lives on command, but the purpose of this is never explained. Whose lives? Why? As far as the anime goes, we have no idea. 

  In the games, his experiments are supposed to eventually lead towards a cure for Dissociative Identity Disorder, a condition that impacts his friend Shinichiro. This could be seen as kind, if not for the fact that his research involves torturing children and assaulting people - including Shinichiro's boyfriend Nanami.

  Aizawa could do all the evil things he does and be a well-written, but as it is, none of them add up to a coherent whole. 

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