Random Poorly Written Anime Characters (13 items)

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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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  (#13) Ayumi Otosaka - 'Charlotte'

  Ayumi Otosaka is Yu's adorable little sister... and that's basically all she is. While not every character has to be an incredible warrior to be likeable, a character who the protagonist deeply cares for should have more than one or two traits.

  Here's what happens with Ayumi: she cooks everything using pizza sauce because she thinks her beloved older brother likes it, and he can't bring himself to tell her otherwise. This joke gets used over and over again, and never becomes more complex. Later in the series, a boy she's not interested in asks her out, and then a female classmate attacks her out of jealousy. This causes her power, Collapse, to activate, and she's buried under a building. Her brother gets depressed for a while, then uses time travel to bring her back. 

  Basically, Ayumi is an adorable, affectionate victim who exists for Yu to react to. This is pretty common in anime - Ayumi is far from the only example - but it definitely qualifies her as a poorly written character. 
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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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  (#2) Minoru Mineta - 'My Hero Academia'

  Minoru Mineta is a member of Class 1-A, and he's best known for lewd acts like trying to touch his female classmates, peeping on them while they're changing, and constantly making inappropriate comments. 

  Mineta's perverted personality isn't unrealistic: most people have met teenage boys who are like this. But it is alienating to a huge demographic of viewers. While some people find pervy characters to be light-hearted fun, others find them deeply upsetting. That's not necessarily bad writing - a character can be flawed or controversial and still be well-written. That's why other pervy characters like Sanji and Jiraiya aren't on this list: they are well developed, multi-faceted, interesting characters. 

  But Mineta is poorly written. Why? Because his existence creates a major plot hole. His behavior is distinctly unheroic, and his teacher is notoriously strict. The fact that he repeatedly gets away with behavior that not only upsets his classmates and disrupts lessons but would definitely make the people he's trying to save uneasy is ridiculous. It's especially weird because problematic personality traits in other characters are treated like impediments toward their chosen career: Bakugo is repeatedly warned that if he doesn't get his behavior under control, he won't make it as a hero. 
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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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  (#3) Yuki Cross

  • Vampire Knight, Vampire Knight

  Vampire Knight isn't exactly known for being a great series, and one of the reasons is the protagonist, Yuki Cross. Yuki doesn't remember anything about her past before she was attacked by a vampire. After being adopted by Cross Academy's headmaster, she becomes a Guardian - that is, a person in charge of keeping the school's human and vampire populations separated. 

  The thing that's so frustrating about Yuki is how clueless she is about basically everything. It makes sense that she doesn't know about her own vampiric heritage - that's amnesia for you - but the amnesia is a clumsy plot device that keeps her ignorant and reliant on the male characters who surround her. She spends way, way too much time pining over her love interests and not nearly enough time engaging with the actual story. She didn't have to be a terrible character but the way she was executed made her into one.

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