You know that feeling. You’ve spent forty-eight hours of your life—maybe more—glued to a screen. You’ve learned the protagonist’s favorite food. You’ve cried when their best friend died in episode twelve. Then, the finale happens. The credits roll, and you’re just sitting there in the dark, staring at your own reflection in the black screen, wondering if you actually understood a single thing that just happened. It sucks.
Anime is notorious for this. Unlike Western television, which often peters out until it’s cancelled, anime frequently has a definitive, planned end. But "planned" doesn’t always mean "good." Whether it’s a budget collapse, a creative burnout, or a director trying to be way too deep for their own good, some finales have gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. We are talking about the most infamous anime endings of all time, the ones that spawned death threats, sparked decade-long forum wars, and forced studios to literally remake the entire ending years later.
The Neon Genesis Evangelion Meltdown
We have to start here. It’s the law. In 1996, Neon Genesis Evangelion was a cultural phenomenon. Everyone was waiting to see how Hideaki Anno would wrap up the high-stakes battle against the Angels. Instead of an epic robot fight, viewers got two episodes of experimental psychological therapy.
Basically, Gainax ran out of money. Or time. Or both.
Shinji Ikari sat in a chair. He thought about his feelings. Characters appeared as line drawings. Then, everyone stood in a circle and clapped. "Congratulations!" they said. Fans were livid. People actually grappled with the fact that the "action" show they were watching had suddenly turned into an abstract existentialist stage play. It wasn't just a bad ending; it felt like a betrayal of the genre.
Years later, The End of Evangelion movie was released to "fix" it, which mostly just involved turning everyone in the world into orange juice (LCL) and leaving Shinji on a beach in a state of total mental collapse. Even with the movie, the original TV ending remains a gold standard for how to confuse a global audience. It’s brilliant, sure, but it’s also frustrating as hell.
The Soul Eater Letdown
Soul Eater was a vibe. The art style was scratchy, Halloween-themed, and incredibly cool. The fight choreography was top-tier. But the ending? It’s the definition of a "power of friendship" trope gone wrong.
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In the manga, the battle against the Kishin is a long, grueling process with complex character arcs. In the anime, Maka basically just... punches him with "courage." The Kishin, an embodiment of madness and god-like fear, literally explodes because a teenage girl hit him with a punch fueled by a positive emotion. It was a total anticlimax.
This happened because the anime caught up to the manga. When that happens, studios have two choices: go on hiatus or make stuff up. Studio Bones chose to make stuff up. The result was a finale that felt like it belonged to a much dumber show. It’s why fans have been begging for a Soul Eater: Brotherhood remake for nearly two decades.
How Darling in the Franxx Lost the Plot
Sometimes an ending is infamous because it’s weird. Other times, it’s because it’s completely nonsensical. Darling in the Franxx started as a pretty compelling, if slightly horny, story about teenagers piloting mechs in a post-apocalyptic world. Then episode 20 happened.
Aliens.
Out of nowhere, the villains weren't the people we'd been fighting the whole time. It was space invaders called VIRM. The main characters flew into space, Zero Two turned into a giant wedding-dress-wearing spaceship, and they spent the rest of eternity drifting through the cosmos. It was such a massive departure from the established tone that it felt like the writers had swapped scripts with a different show halfway through production.
Honestly, it’s a masterclass in how to alienate your fanbase in under twenty minutes. You’ve got people invested in a grounded (well, grounded for anime) rebellion story, and you turn it into a galactic light show.
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The Akame ga Kill Massacre
If you like your characters to survive, don't watch Akame ga Kill. Most people knew it would be a bloodbath, but the anime ending took it to a level that felt almost spiteful.
Because the anime finished before the manga, the creators decided to just kill off almost everyone. Including the protagonist. Tatsumi dies. Esdeath dies. Most of the Night Raid crew dies. It’s bleak. It’s so bleak that it becomes almost funny in a "why am I even watching this" kind of way.
The manga actually kept Tatsumi alive (sort of—he turns into a dragon, it’s a whole thing), which makes the anime ending feel like a weird, non-canonical fever dream. It’s infamous for being a "slash-and-burn" finale where the writers seemingly just wanted to be done with the project.
Why the Promised Neverland Season 2 is the Final Boss of Bad Endings
We cannot talk about the most infamous anime endings of all time without mentioning the absolute train wreck that was The Promised Neverland Season 2. The first season was a masterpiece of suspense and horror. It was perfect.
Season 2 decided to skip about 150 chapters of the manga.
They literally showed the ending of the story through a PowerPoint presentation. A slideshow. They skipped the most fan-favorite arc (Goldy Pond), deleted major characters, and then gave us a montage of "and then they lived happily ever after" shots. It wasn't just a bad ending; it was an insult to the source material. It currently sits as one of the lowest-rated sequels in anime history.
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The Nuance of Infamy
Not all "infamous" endings are technically bad. Some are just incredibly depressing or controversial.
Take School Days. It’s a generic harem anime that ends with a decapitated head in a bag and a girl sailing into the sunset on a yacht with it. It’s horrific. It’s infamous. But in a weird way, it’s actually a "better" ending than the source material because it subverted the entire genre so violently that nobody could ever forget it.
Then there’s Devilman Crybaby. Everyone dies. The world is destroyed. God resets the timeline. It’s devastating. But it fits the themes of the show perfectly. Infamy doesn't always equal poor quality; sometimes it just means the ending was so bold it left a permanent scar on the audience's psyche.
How to Navigate Post-Ending Trauma
If you’ve just finished one of these and feel like you’ve wasted your life, there are ways to fix the experience.
- Read the Manga: In 90% of these cases (looking at you, Soul Eater and Promised Neverland), the manga ending is significantly better and actually makes sense.
- Check for OVAs: Sometimes studios release "true" endings later on as Original Video Animations.
- Dive into Fan Theories: For shows like Evangelion, the community has spent thirty years piecing together the lore. Sometimes the community’s explanation is more satisfying than the actual show.
The reality is that landing the plane is the hardest part of storytelling. When you’re dealing with the most infamous anime endings of all time, you’re seeing what happens when the pressure of deadlines, budget constraints, and creative ego collide.
Actionable Next Steps for Disappointed Fans
Don't let a bad ending ruin the entire series for you. If you’ve been burned by a finale, your best bet is to look for the "source material" version of events. Most anime serve as advertisements for the manga anyway. Sites like Baka-Updates can tell you exactly which chapter the anime started to diverge from the original story, allowing you to pick up the "real" plot right where the show went off the rails. Also, check out community-curated "Watch Lists" that often suggest stopping a show a few episodes early to preserve the narrative integrity.