TOP 5 MOST DISAPPOINTING ANIME CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME

Introduction

When you think of Yamcha, do you think of heroism and stud-ness? No, that’s Saitama from One Punch Man. The word Yamcha is associated with crushing defeats and great disappointment. Today, we’re here to take a look at the guys who start off promising but wind up twitching in a pool of their own tears at the hands of fodder. The ones who give up before reaching their full potential.

I have a personal bone to pick with the most extreme cases of disappointing anime characters. Let me know how much you agree with the reasoning and logic behind my choices in the comments below. Not that what you say could change my stance or anything, because I’ve always strongly felt this way about these anime characters.

None of these guys deserve as much praise as they receive and quite honestly you should feel ashamed if you adore any of them. This is not to say that they can’t start off totally radical and cool like Guts from Berserk. The point here is that they had potential to begin with but ended up as sad as your love life. Let me shut up and get to the list now. If this article comes off as a bit of a vent, I’m sorry, because that’s what it is.

note: this list follows a chronological order of pretty disappointing to the most disappointing.

#5. L Lawliet

Many people would die on a hill for L, and I’m not sure I understand why. At the start, L is the perfect opponent for Light Yagami, he’s not falling for Light’s charade and constantly senses something is off about him. L is on the same level if not an EVEN GREATER level than Light.

He’s not just intelligent, he’s lovable, kind, cool, and simply an amazing human. Even the way he SITS is super dope. And everything was going extremely well with him for 20+ episodes until it happened. We could’ve had a grand battle to the death of the greatest anti-hero and hero of justice in the history of anime.

Some people might say that L fulfilled his role as a character and then lost fair and square to Light Yagami. There are a couple things wrong with that. Even if we look at it that way, it was the way that L went out. So many people I know thought that L was going to somehow come back later because that was just how anti-climactic his death was. The other thing is because of how much we were rooting for L and wanting Light to meet his demise, how could L die JUST LIKE THAT? Come on man!!

What might have created a better case for L’s character would have been to end the show right after his death. But we were given whatever garbage that was after his death and expected to be okay with it. That’s all I have to say about L.

#4. Deku

I was able to stomach a couple seasons of the My Hero Acadamia anime before Deku forced me to hang it up. The manga is much more tolerable, but even then I can’t bring myself to like Deku. At first, I thought he had a lot of potential, and I was hyped for his glow up. My expectations were never met and a glow up never happened. Three seasons into the anime, Deku is still an indecisive annoying little boy.

The anime is great if you’re into a main character who just isn’t cool, for lack of eloquence. I prefer my main character to be more of a Natsu.

#3. Thorfinn

I read Vinland Saga before it was cool and added it to my anime list maybe 11 years ago. Not to flex or anything. That is to say that I’ve always been such a huge fan of the series and have reread it multiple times over the years. Yes, I was rereading it because of how absolutely epic it is, but also because I had hope. I had hope that the author would change his ways and gift us with the old Thorfinn. I was so deeply sad with the way that Thorfinn had changed that I was in tears of anger and sadness after my first time reading and catching up with it. As of today, Thorfinn is still a disappointment in my eyes.

I usually don’t mind when a hardened warrior adopts a peaceful lifestyle after many years of harsh battle. Vagabond does this splendidly. It was just TOO SOON for Thorfinn, he hadn’t reached his peak martial arts prowess yet. He had many more years of physical growth left ahead of him. We’ll see what happens in the future, but that’s where it stands right now.

#2. Ippo

If anyone reads this article, you will probably hate me for this choice. Yeah, Makunochi Ippo. We all know that it’s in his character to be timid, oblivious, and uncool. I love the Hajime no Ippo manga so much, and I even love Ippo, but he disappointed us. Not just his fans in the manga, but all of the weebs that he doesn’t know about too.

He was warned that if he continued boxing he risks further injury. Okay, but my guy, you’re a shounen anime protagonist. You’re not supposed to give up just because of a warning like that! C’mon man, you’re young too, when you come back you’ll have already wasted some of your youth. I get it, he’ll come back and be even stronger than before (because of ankle bracelets or somethign), but we just want to see you fight man. I’ll be right back gotta go do some sobbing and crying over there.

#1. Son Gohan

The most disappointing anime character award of all time goes to Son Gohan. That is mainly because of how much of a Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z fan I am. You can probably agree with me to some extent if you’ve seen DBZ. Gohan’s story starts off awesome, he was a disappointing little kid but in a good way.

We get to watch the little half-saiyan grow up from a sheltered little tyke to a buff 8 year old smacking around Recoome on a distant Planet.

I ALMOST FORGOT HOW HE went psycho on Frieza, who at the time had a power level of over one million. Anyways, kid Gohan was epic. He peaked in the Cell saga. It was all downhill from there. Not sure if it was just me, but the first time Gohan shrouded himself in his Saiyaman armor, I utterly lost all respect for the guy. It was extremely lame as Trunks put it. Pair that with the fact that Gohan gave up training to study during the time skip and was trying his hardest to appear like a powerless wimp to his peers, we were given the greatest disappointment. The only person Gohan wasn’t disappointing was his crazy mother and maybe his dad Piccolo. He could’ve been so much more, and it wouldn’t have taken anything away from Goku. Just give Gohan less screentime if that’s a problem.

Conclusion

Rant over, basically. These five are the most disappointing anime characters. Let me hear your thoughts! Have a good night you little poop nuggets.

-Cross