In the anime industry, there are highly popular anime like Fullmetal Alchemist, Hunter x Hunter, or Attack on Titan with interesting and well-crafted stories that make them easy to recommend to others and that manage to engrave their names as some of the best in the medium. However, there are series that also manage to achieve similar recognition, although under the condition of being ed as one of the worst animes in history. This way, bad anime with hilariously low animation and disappointing stories are still popular to this day and prove that success doesn't always mean quality.

Despite being infamous productions, sometimes with horrendous visuals or character design, a narrative without any purpose or reasonable logic, or characters with a lack of charisma, viewers are attracted to watching bad anime for many different reasons. This could be due to them having a unique element or a story that turns so confusing that it becomes interesting. Because of this, many bad animes are popular enough to be renewed for new seasons and continue to be successful on streaming services despite not being highly regarded among viewers.

8 Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest

Animated by Asread, White Fox and Studio Mother; Based on the Light Novel Series by Ryo Shirakome & Takayaki

Arifureta is an isekai anime whose original light novel has achieved popularity for its interesting characters and world-building, which includes many references to Norse mythology. But this isn't the case for the anime, which is considered a bad adaptation as Arifureta has bad pacing, rushing through the story and cutting many scenes from the light novel. Even from the first episode, the anime is more focused on the action from the get-go instead of delving into Hajime's background and motivations, without properly building up the series' setting and making it confusing to viewers.

Arifureta faced production problems, so one of the adaptation's biggest problems was its bad animation and awful CGI. Moreover, the anime also had character writing, making them feel plain and without giving them a memorable development. However, Arifureta was still renewed for a second season and remains popular mostly because it's considered the perfect example of anime "so bad it's good." Moreover, many viewers have been attracted to the series despite its issues because of the protagonist, Hajime, and because of its unique revenge premise, similar to other isekai like The Rising of the Shield Hero.

7 Rent-A-Girlfriend

Animated By TMS Entertainment; Based on the Manga by Reiji Miyajima

Rent-A-Girlfriend is an anime with an original concept about a topic that actually exists in Japan, which easily grabbed viewers’ attention with its beautiful character design, starting as a really entertaining rom-com. Unfortunately, the pace of the narrative, the personality of its protagonist, Kazuya—who is considered one of the worst in the medium—and the little progress of his relationship with Chizuru, as well as the other girls who are slowly renegaded on the sidelines makes the anime become burdensome to continue to its audience, with many eventually dropping it.

Moreover, the criticism of Rent-A-Girlfriend was reinforced as viewers found out that the story in the manga doesn’t advance either, and Kazuya never experiences any real character development. However, the anime remains popular with those who enjoy the cute design of the girls or still watch it to see how low Kazuya can continue falling as a protagonist. This decline makes Rent-A-Girlfriend one of the greatest examples of how a successful anime can sabotage itself by lengthening its story without purpose just to take advantage of its popularity.

6 Tokyo Revengers

Animated by Liden Films; Based on the Manga by Ken Wakui

During its first season in 2021, Tokyo Revengers was so popular that it became a best-selling manga, suring titles like One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen. This was due to Tokyo Revengers interesting premise, where its protagonist regresses to the past and gets involved with high school gangs to save his first girlfriend, in addition to its charming side characters and doses of action and tragedy. However, Tokyo Revengers' anime didn't live up to the expectations of the viewers, with low-quality animation, censorship, and a lack of compelling action scenes fitting the violence of gang fights.

Moreover, Tokyo Revengers went downhill as the story progressed with plot holes, bad character writing, and introducing many side characters without properly developing them. However, despite having noticeably less hype than during its first installment, the series still has a big fanbase that tends to overlook the series' flaws, as proved by Tokyo Revengers fourth season.

5 Domestic Girlfriend

Animated By Diomedéa, Based on The Manga by Kei Sasuga

Domestic Girlfriend feels like watching a soap opera, but not in a good way. The anime has many dramatic themes that make it intriguing for viewers: forbidden love entanglements, misunderstandings, love triangles, and a great start in of tension escalation. While this may have given the series an opportunity to develop its controversial topics well and become a good romance anime, sadly, Domestic Girlfriend feels underwhelming.

Beyond their flawed behaviors, the characters in Domestic Girlfriend just don't feel realistic enough, making many questionable decisions that only make viewers feel frustrated and uncomfortable. Because of this, even though Domestic Girlfriend is still well-known and continues to be watched as a guilty pleasure by those looking for a toxic and forbidden relationship, the most redeemable aspect of the anime is its incredible opening theme, which remains popular to this day.

4 The Future Diary

Animated By Asread; Based on the Manga by Sakae Esuno

The Future Diary, also known as Mirai Nikki, is a death game anime that reached success thanks to introducing a psychopathic protagonist, Yuno Gasai, one of the most popular yandere characters, and the audience's preference for battle royale stories. However, its protagonist, Yukiteru Amano, is still ed as one of the worst parts of the series due to his annoying and unconfident personality, incapable of making decisions and always being protected.

Furthermore, Yukiteru's relationship with Yuno was not only toxic, but also wasn't well-developed, and even though The Future Diary has thrilling moments full of tension and twists, the plot lost itself progressively with many plot holes, characters without compelling development, and a resolution that closed the story in a disappointing way. However, despite its inconsistencies, The Future Diary is entertaining and enjoyable for those who look for a dark and gory anime.

3 In Another World with My Smartphone

Animated By Production Reed & J.C. Staff; Based on the Light Novel Series by Patora Fuyuhara & Eiji Usatsuka

In Another World with My Smartphone is a typical harem isekai with an intriguing enough concept that it's badly executed. In the anime, Touya is reincarnated in another world after being killed by god, and instead of asking for exciting powers or a weapon, he asks for his cellphone. While this plot wasn't perfect to begin with, In Another World with My Smartphone didn't offer much more for Touya to be an interesting protagonist, as the story became repetitive by basically giving him everything to be indestructible.

Touya resolves everything easily with his phone, learning to summon powerful spirits, leaving no room for difficult battles, and instead, the story focuses on an average harem protagonist having many fiancées. Even though the anime was popular enough to have a second season due to the rise of isekai, as the story's main theme became the harem, it lost a lot of potential for what it could have been.

2 School Days

Animated by TNK; Based on the Visual Novel by 0verflow

School Days starts as the typical rom-com, as during the first part of the series, nothing interesting happens beyond Makoto's continuous deceptions and affairs with most of the female characters. However, School Days feels like a melodrama as Makoto's causal relationships are poorly elaborated and lack substance.

However, the defining point of School Days which would make it stand out and be ed even many years after its premiere is its ending. This way, School Days is one of those strange cases where a bad anime causes exaggerated hype thanks to a specific element, with a macabre ending that no viewer expected. While its popularity might have been unearned based on its quality, this is more due to its infamous shock factor, which is still a meme among the anime community.

1 The Seven Deadly Sins

Animated By A-1 Pictures; Based on the Manga by Nakaba Suzuki

Although it is a typical fantasy adventure anime, the premise of The Seven Deadly Sins is interesting, introducing, one by one, the deadly sins and unraveling the mystery of who they really are and why they were banished from the kingdom. Furthermore, one of the reasons why The Seven Deadly Sins achieved popularity was because it was a good adaptation of the manga, having an outstanding soundtrack and fluid animation, gaining followers all over the world.

However, the story became monotonous, and the animation quality decreased significantly with the change to Studio Deen, with bad action scenes, exaggerated use of still frames, mediocre character design, and censorship of the most violent moments, which caused controversy in the anime. This, added to its original problems of having excessive fanservice, questionable characters, and bad writing towards its ending, caused the series to not be considered a good anime. Yet, despite losing its initial hype during its last seasons, it is still a fairly popular franchise, having a recent sequel based on the next generation of The Seven Deadly Sins.