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Emedo Ashibeze
Published 17 minutes ago
Emedo Ashibeze is a tenured journalist specializing in the entertainment industry. Before joining ScreenRant in 2025. he wrote for several major publications, including GameRant.
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Anime’s current landscape is certainly filled with acclaimed titles that attract impressive attention. There’s almost no shortage of them, yet it is also true that, for these titles, popularity does not always reflect consistent quality. In contrast, some series earn their strong reputations through timing, marketing, or familiar genre patterns, while others, through careful storytelling or sustained craftsmanship.
As a result, there is usually a significant gap between audience expectations and the on-screen experience. On this basis, this piece reviews several widely praised titles and considers how each falls short of its reputation. For these works, despite their massive fanbases and high visibility, they fundamentally fail to deliver a narrative experience that justifies their overwhelming acclaim.
Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon
Rumiko Takahashi’s Yashahime toes the familiar world introduced in Inuyasha by following the next generation of half-demon heroines. Blending adventure, light drama, and episodic quests, the series follows Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha as they search for answers about their origins while navigating the divided landscapes of the feudal era.
In an attempt to recapture the magic of the Sengoku period, the series places itself as a grand continuation, promising to answer the lingering questions left by the original saga while establishing a new generation of heroines who can stand on their own. Unfortunately, too much of its reputation rests on the legacy of Inuyasha rather than on its own narrative strength.
Much of the praise it gets comes from nostalgia for returning characters and settings, even though the writing rarely matches the earlier series’ emotional clarity or long-form tension. The final nail in the coffin is that the animation quality is noticeably inconsistent, lacking the gritty charm of the original from the early 2000s or the polish of modern standards.
Akame ga Kill!
Akame (Akame ga Kill!)
Akame ga Kill! is a more curious case that begins as a dark action fantasy centred on the protagonist, Tatsumi, a hopeful fighter drawn into Night Raid’s violent rebellion against a corrupt empire. Unfolding as a bloody crusade against corruption, its early episodes deliver sharp elements that create the impression of bold storytelling, set against an atmosphere of constant danger.
An impression that brought with it inflated viewing narratives. Nonetheless, the hype surrounding the series often overstates its narrative coherence, mistaking excessive gore and shock value for narrative depth.
The story eventually abandons its early political structure, relying on abrupt deaths, tonal shifts, and rapid pacing rather than meaningful plot development. Moreover, the anime diverged from the manga before the source material concluded, resulting in a rushed, nonsensical finale that patient dedication could have avoided.
Komi Can’t Communicate
This slice-of-life series follows the daily experiences of Shoko Komi, a high schooler whose extreme social anxiety prevents her from expressing simple thoughts despite her popularity. With her classmate Hitohito Tadano's help, Komi embarks on a mission to improve her communication skills and make 100 friends.
Hence, it frames itself as a heartwarming school comedy about overcoming social anxiety. Regrettably, the series’ strong reputation relies more on its aesthetic style rather than its storytelling depth. Despite its pleasant atmosphere, the narrative moves almost too slowly, repeating familiar situations and failing to deepen Komi’s internal journey.
Simultaneously, many supporting characters are flattened into exaggerated traits, creating a pattern of predictable interactions. Thus, the show’s charm is genuine, but the acclaim surrounding it assumes a level of character development that the writing does not deliver. Detached from its visual novelty, the series becomes a modest school comedy with limited emotional range.
Love Hina
Keitaro Runs With Naru In Love Hina
Love Hina follows Keitaro Urashima, a wandering ronin student who becomes the manager of Hinata House, an all-girls dormitory, while relentlessly pursuing his goal of admission to Tokyo University. Driven by a childhood promise to a girl whose name he has forgotten, Keitaro navigates a chaotic life filled with misunderstandings and studying.
Notably, however, much of its praise stems from its historical timing rather than its lasting quality. Viewed through a modern lens, the story's relationship dynamics are fundamentally toxic and deeply unpleasant to watch. The humour relies almost exclusively on the female cast physically abusing the protagonist for misunderstandings that are rarely his fault, a trope that has aged terribly.
Worse still, Keitaro’s cowardice and the repetitive cycle of failing entrance exams strip the narrative of momentum, turning the story into a frustrating loop of abuse and failure. In all, while it is historically significant for popularising the harem genre, as a piece of entertainment, it offers little beyond shrill shouting and outdated fan service.
Sword Art Online
In the world of Sword Art Online, Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya is one of ten thousand players trapped in a revolutionary virtual reality MMORPG where an in-game death results in real-world death. To escape, the players must clear all one hundred floors of Aincrad, a massive floating castle teeming with monsters and bosses.
Initially, the series presents a high-stakes survival narrative, focusing on Kirito’s journey as a solo player who masters the game’s mechanics to protect others. However, the show squanders its brilliant premise almost immediately by skipping meaningful character progression in favour of making Kirito an invincible powerhouse without any reasonable explanation.
Accordingly, the narrative tension evaporates as he resolves every conflict through sheer force of will, inadvertently removing any sense of danger. Consequently, the show’s cultural footprint is undeniable, but its hype masks structural weaknesses that persist throughout its run, and without its early novelty, its flaws become significantly more apparent.
The Promised Neverland
The main trio of The Promised Neverland (Norman, Emma, and Ray)
Adapted from the titular manga by Kaiu Shirai, The Promised Neverland’s first season follows Emma, Ray, and Norman as they uncover the truth behind Grace Field House and the origins of their birth. What follows are the events of a daring escape plan hatched by the trio, alongside the horrifying reality of their world.
Without missing a beat, the story morphs into a high-stakes psychological thriller with laser-precise suspense. The careful pacing allows each revelation to land with conviction, creating a gripping atmosphere that supports the characters' emotional intelligence. Tragically, despite debuting with a first-season masterpiece, the anime’s legacy is tarnished because its second season abandons the methodical style that defined its early success.
It carries on into a second season that ranks among the worst anime adaptations in history. The initial acclaim lingers primarily because of the strength of season one. Regardless, the fatal drop in quality renders the anime an incomplete and frustrating experience that fails to honour the complexity of its source material.
Goblin Slayer
Goblin Slayer begins with a startling depiction of violence that shapes the fantasy world's tone. The protagonist is a stoic warrior committed solely to eradicating goblins, and he approaches his mission with a rigid discipline that is self-consuming. The series’ structure alternates between dungeon encounters and character interactions, providing the needed contrast to the protagonist’s intensity.
Surprisingly, beyond the controversial shock value of its debut episode, the series settles into a repetitive rhythm that lacks substantial narrative drive, leaving the world feeling narrow despite its promising foundation. As if that is not enough, the story’s character development relies on familiar flat-nosed archetypes, particularly the protagonist.
Portrayed as intentionally one-dimensional, his sluggish development limits the story’s emotional scope. Finally, while the series does well to present itself as a subversion of standard fantasy tropes, its execution often falls back on conventional patterns. As a result, it is no wonder that its reputation exceeds the actual scope of its storytelling.
Record of Ragnarok
Record-Of-Ragnarok-Season-3-Qin-Shi-Huang-Hades
Record of Ragnarok presents a tournament of survival between gods and humans in a symbolic struggle over humanity’s future. At a meeting held once every millennium, the Council of Valhalla decides that humanity is irredeemable and must be driven to extinction. Desperate to help, the Valkyrie Brunhilde invokes an ancient clause to give humanity a fighting chance, hence the tournament of Ragnarok.
Tragically, however, what the series delivers, given its striking premise, is downright horrendous. Visually, the anime is a notorious failure of visual storytelling, which reduces the manga's dynamic, hyper-detailed art to a mere slideshow. The fight choreography, which should be its selling point, is hampered by static frames and excessive exposition that drags the pacing to a crawl.
In place of actual combat, viewers are subjected to endless reaction shots of the crowd and flashbacks that serve only to interrupt the flow of the action. In all, the anime’s poor production values completely undermine the hype surrounding the source material, making the viewing experience rather pointless.
Overlord
Ains Ooal Gown in Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom
The top contender for the most controversial title entry, Overlord, follows Momonga, a guild master trapped in his in-game avatar after the virtual world of the role-playing online game, Yggdrasil, is permanently shut down. As guildmaster, Momonga commands an army of loyal guardians while exploring the boundaries of the seemingly new world that blends game logic with real-life consequences.
It builds its premise by inverting the typical protagonist-hero trope, instead focusing on the monstrously powerful Momnga, the villainous overlord. However, as the series progresses, the show’s reputation has assumed a level of narrative tightness that it does not consistently meet. It deliberately diminishes its central perspective because story arcs randomly shift away from Ainz for extended periods.
Simultaneously, its distinct lack of tension, given Ainz’s insurmountable power, is rather glaring. In the end, though the worldbuilding is ambitious, the execution can feel scattered, making the series less cohesive than its acclaim suggests. Much of its hype comes from concept rather than refined storytelling.
Tokyo Ghoul
Tokyo Ghoul begins with a strong emotional foundation, focusing on its protagonist, Kaneki, a shy college student whose life turns into a nightmare after a date with a woman who reveals herself to be a flesh-eating ghoul. What follows is a horrible accident that sees Kaneki get a lifesaving surgery that transplants her organs into him, becoming the first half-ghoul.
Neither human nor ghoul, he is forced to navigate the violent underworld of Tokyo's supernatural society. Against this premise, combined with a sharp atmosphere and memorable characters, the first season established a compelling tone that set high expectations. Somehow, it all goes downhill from that point due to inconsistent adaptation choices that heavily fractured the central narrative.
Key arcs were either condensed or rearranged, creating a confusing plotline that contradicts the characters’ already established motivations. Later seasons lose the emotional precision that defined the beginning, and it simply never recovered. As a consequence, the reputation it maintains is tied primarily to its early potential and no more.
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