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Audience Alienating Ending / Anime & Manga

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Audience Alienating Endings in Anime & Manga.

Examples:

  • After School Nightmare alienated multiple fan factions with its ending, to the degree that they no longer recommend it, for completely different reasons:
    • The people who read for the mystery arc, who thought that the final explanation (the story is a metaphor for pregnancy and childbirth) is simply too silly and bizarre, and seem to contradict the entire world building.
    • The shippers, who were unhappy that Mashiro and Sou end up in the real world but with no knowledge of each other or memory of their love, and a smaller subset who found the reveal about Sou's issues to be too toxic to be palatable.
    • The people who read for the exploration of ambiguous gender, who thought that the revelation that Mashiro's gender ambiguity being because they are actually fraternal twin fetuses struggling for possession of one life, means that the situation is either reactionary in implication or too fantastic to have any possible real-world relevance.
  • The ending of Arisa is played as fully happy, with Tsubasa reconciling with Arisa and their mother and Arisa finding true love with Midori. This ignores that Midori was an ax-crazy killer who manipulated everyone, including Arisa, and she doesn't seem to have learned anything from the experience. Reviews of the series have pointed to the ending as the weakest point and not worth investing in the series.
  • Attack on Titan's final arc was divisive and the manga's ending even more so. Major points of contention are Eren's real motivation for the Rumbling being because he wanted to do it and he loved his friends enough to have them kill him and make them heroes for it; Eren's poorly foreshadowed feelings for Mikasa and how the story revealed them; Armin's gratitude for Eren's actions despite disapproving his methods, not helped by early translations making it seem he thanked him for the genocide itself; Ymir Fritz's love for the king that abused her, ending the titans after Mikasa "freed her from the agony of love" by killing Eren despite loving him; the survivors' change of heart, which felt too little too late as it only happened once they almost died; and the extra pages that detailed Paradis' fate, with an implication that titans may not be gone. The extra pages in particular divided the fandom even further, as many in both sides of the Rumbling split thought they made the story pointless, but it improved the ending for others (even some who thought it was otherwise terrible). note 
  • Beastars: While the final arc is at least not hundreds of chapters long, it is much longer than any other arc in the series, and gives extremely little in the way of any story resolution. The only major change that happens is the Black Market gets taken down, which was never the focus of the series and had several good characters such as Louis argue that it's Necessarily Evil. Every relationship thread (even the main one!) is left at "Maybe it'll work, maybe not," the issue of food and how carnivores will satisfy their instincts are never resolved (especially since Yafya rejects a possible solution), no side characters get any kind of conclusion to any developments they had, and most importantly, despite the title of the manga being Beastars, and it being a plot point that Legosi actually does want to become a Beastar together with Louis (justifying the plural in the title), absolutely nobody becomes a new Beastar, and Yafya even quits the post, leaving the position empty.
  • Bleach fell into this for a sizable segment of the fanbase. After a very long, drawn-out final arc, the Big Bad abruptly kills all his remaining minions, is himself quickly dispatched with a method that had limited foreshadowing, and for the last two chapters the story fast forwards ten years to an epilogue that leaves multiple questions unanswered and sinks the Fan-Preferred Couple Ichigo/Rukia. Three months after the conclusion of the manga Kubo revealed on his Twitter that he decided to shorten the manga due to health concerns, though the Grand Finale was in fact what he had always intended from the beginning.
  • BNA: Brand New Animal's final few episodes are disliked by many fans for its Broken Aesop and its final episode twist. In regards to the former, the second half of the series renders its race allegory moot by dropping The Reveal that beastmen are genetically predisposed to violence and will uncontrollably transform into terrifyingly powerful monsters that will blindly maim and destroy anything in their path if sufficiently stressed. Ergo, humans are perfectly justified in not trusting their anthropomorphic brethren, especially when many beastmen seem to operate on a different moral code than humans. Meanwhile, the final episode came with the sudden plot twist that Alan isn't a corrupt and manipulative human businessman, but an immortal beastman who is part of an Ancient Conspiracy of "pure-bloods" and has a full-on Super Mode. Oh, and the pacing was rushed.
  • Bunny Drop: While the second half of the story introduced a Genre Shift and a Time Skip that was disliked by some, what really turned off a larger portion of the audience was the Wife Husbandry aspect, as the now-teenage Rin is in love with Daikichi, the man who raised her for the past decade. It is then revealed that Rin isn't actually the illegitimate child of Daikichi's grandfather, but was merely adopted by him, which allows Rin to feel comfortable in trying to pursuing a romance with her adoptive father. Daikichi comes to reciprocate said feelings, and the manga ends with the two as a couple, Rin happily awaiting the day they can consummate their relationship and start a family. This ending was so reviled, both in the West and in Japan, that when the series got a live action movie and an TV anime series, the second half was omitted entirely from both adaptations.
  • Citrus ends with Mei leaving Yuzu for another Arranged Marriage, long after her first one ended up falling through, thus forcing Yuzu to pull out all the stops to get through to Mei in time. Not only do many people dislike that Mei doesn't seem to have changed at all, but the situation is also largely resolved off-panel with a montage of dialogue-less panels, before cutting to a standard happy ending in which the two stepsisters/lovers get married. Many people are dissatisfied with the events in the last six chapters of the manga, the rushed conclusion, or both.
  • While Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School received mixed reception before the ending, the last two episodes have been accused of this to the point that many who defended the anime changed tune after they aired. The penultimate episode sees a Fan-Disliked Explanation for the Final Killing Game that is widely criticized for raising a lot of Fridge Logic and rendering a good portion of the anime pointless, along with making the mastermind heavily disliked by the fandom. The Grand Finale sees Class 77-B coming Back from the Dead (which triggered a massive Broken Base) and hijacking the plot from the rest of the cast. Plot threads the show had built up are left abruptly dropped for rampant Pandering to the Base, creating a good number of Broken Aesops and an Anticlimax, and capping it off with the widely divisive resurrection of Kyoko Kirigiri in the final two minutes. An outtake accidentally used at the end of the show of Kyoko jokingly commenting she's not sure how she survived was quickly embraced by fans.
  • The Devil is a Part-Timer!: Volume 21 quickly became despised by a good chunk of the fandom for splitting up Maou/Emi, the fan-favorite couple that had been built up throughout the series, in favor of Maou abandoning Emi and their adopted daughter in favor of Chiho instead and reducing Emi to a single mother, a development that displeased fans of Emilia's character and even some fans of the winning pairing Maou/Chiho because the way it happened was cruel and/or out of character. While the end pairing was the most criticized part, complaints were also directed at Maou becoming a human instead of a demon lord, the Final Battle being anticlimactic, and a general feeling that the novel was rushed. So infamous was the ending that a good chunk of fans on fan sites and forums, upon hearing of what the ending contained, made posts declaring they would either stop reading the light novels only, or even abandon the unfinished anime and manga adaptations of the series for fear that they would end the same way, and even fans still following the adaptations admit to only doing so hoping that they will have an Adaptational Alternate Ending. Said ending has also received unfavorable comparisons to Domestic Girlfriend's equally infamous ending. Notably, this ending even scared off fans from the author's next series, as the announcement received angry comments from fans who refuse to follow any of his subsequent works.
  • Digimon Adventure 02: The last episode's Distant Finale was not well-received by fans to say the least. For starters, the epilogue came out of nowhere and stated that nearly everyone on Earth now has a Digimon of their own. Another issue is with the pairings and careers that the main cast ended up with. The biggest example of this is Sora ending up with Matt instead of Tai, despite there being barely any hints to Sora being in a relationship with Matt (not helped by the previous series and Our War Game seeming to lean towards Tai x Sora more). Speaking of Matt, the epilogue also revealed that he became an astronaut, even though the series had him being an aspiring rock-star. Finally, the anime ends with several plotlines that were never followed up on or properly resolved. Yet despite the backlash that's built up over the years due to all of this, and especially the events of Kizuna contradicting this ending's epilogue, Word of God says that this is somehow still canon.
  • Domestic Girlfriend: Even the most staunch supporters of the winning ship hate the way the ending brought it about, between Tanabe coming back to meddle, Hina going into a coma for five years, Natsuo impregnating Rui and their decision to stay unmarried, and Natsuo deciding to marry Hina while still living with Rui and his daughter. Fans were downright confused and angry at how out-of-nowhere and out-of-character it all is, how it turns Natsuo into a Jerkass deadbeat dad, how disrespectful it is to Rui and her daughter, and how it throws away all the 200+ chapters of development Natsuo and Rui had in their relationship — essentially making the vast majority of the manga completely pointless. The ending became so infamously hated, to the point that the author received death threats on Twitter over it, that it eclipsed everything else about the series to the point of being the first thing anyone hears about the series. It frequently gets brought up in discussions of "worst manga endings", and the vast majority of discussion is about the ending and how terrible it is.
    Gigguk recapping the ending: Rui was like 7-1 up with five minutes left in the game and she lost to a fucking vegetable! A vegetable!
  • Evergreen: According to quite a number of posts on Reddit, the ending felt disappointing, with the relationship between the two main characters being broken up when they turn out to be siblings, reverting everything back to where it started, and none of the issues present being solved in a satisfactory manner.
  • Many would-be readers are put off by Food Wars!, knowing it ends with a decline in quality by introducing Asahi, who destroys the dynamic of the series by being a Generic Doomsday Invincible Villain, bringing alongside him Serial Escalation breaking the Willing Suspension of Disbelief, and Ass Pull reveals, culminating with the manga having a lack of any real resolution to its plot.
  • The manga Gal Cleaning started as a fairly standard high school comedy with an emphasis on cleaning tips. Then it was announced that it would be cancelled due to low sales, and the remainder of the manga went Off the Rails. What followed was a fifteen-chapter long "Chapter 8," *which among other things ends with a sexual assault completely out of nowhere that drags on for multiple chapters. The final chapters act like none of it ever happened and tried to make some sort of return to normalcy for the ending. It is almost impossible to talk about the manga by itself without mentioning the sudden swerves it took in the ending seemingly just to spite its cancellation.
  • Great Pretender: It's not uncommon to find fans of the show who viewed the final two episodes as disappointing. Reasons range from viewing the idea of the crew re-creating an exact replica of a building for the scam as too unbelievable, the crew's previous targets all joining in on the con without any signs of holding a grudge, and Dorothy suddenly turning out to be alive the whole time.
  • Gundam:
  • Any online discussion of the relatively obscure manga Hoshino, Close your Eyes will inevitably focus on its abrupt ending, where the main couple Kobayakawa and Hoshino break up after realizing their relationship has become too codependent. What makes it particularly sudden and awkward is that it came right on the heels of a Grand Romantic Gesture where Kobayakawa followed the runaway Hoshino all the way to Tokyo in order to win her back—and there, their relationship was characterized positively in order to contrast it with Hoshino's unhealthy relationship with Yuge. The arc before the two leads' sudden breakup was already rather divisive due to how Yuge-sensei and Hoshino's friends Ryoko and Yuki were written, but having the main couple break up right after that was a bridge too far for nearly the entire audience.
  • The original Hot Gimmick manga ends with Hatsumi getting back together with Ryoki, and this being treated as a happy romantic ending. The problem is that Ryoki is such an extreme example of a Fetishized Abuser who at one point outright tried to have her violently gang-raped that many fans ended up despising him, and the equally screwed-up Azuza completely regresses on his Character Development, while Shinogu, Hatsumi's genuinely nice adoptive brother who is considered the best love interest of the three, is left behind to become a monk. The resulting backlash was such that the official S novel has Hatsumi change her mind and get together with Shinogu after all.
  • The anime adaptation of Kuma Miko: Girl Meets Bear has a Gecko Ending in which Machi, a socially awkward Miko, is traumatized after performing in front of a crowd and has a mental breakdown that undoes all of the growth she underwent throughout the show and then some, while causing her to give up on her dream of living in the city (a goal which made up the main plot of the show) — something her friends not only accept, but happily encourage, and the final scene shows that Machi has mentally regressed into a young child who is now completely reliant on them. This Esoteric Happy Ending quickly became the most infamous and reviled aspect of what would otherwise have been a fairly unremarkable anime. One Twitter comment that was used in a few articles covering the controversy said the show started off fun but will likely go down in history as "that mind break show with the bear."
  • Fans of Liar Game have difficulty telling when the creator just wanted the series to end, but few question that at some point, he simply checked out. The result was a lackluster final game that appeared to be setting up a far better conclusion with the players fixing the game to never end, effectively turning it into the players vs. the Liar Game itself, but then the manga suddenly and abruptly ended. The final chapter consisted mainly of a plain-language explanation for everything in the series, including concepts never seen in the series at any point, and abruptly reveals the Big Bad and his organization to be Good All Along and the whole game a False Crucible, despite this completely contradicting their prior behavior and cheapening all the tension of the prior chapters since nothing was actually at stake. Then the organizers let everyone leave and go home. On top of that, the chapter ends with the Government Conspiracy the villains were trying to stop easily squashing their attempt to do so, eliminating what little meaning there was left in the story.
  • Martian Successor Nadesico:
    • The series has an audience-alienating ending due to Prince Of Darkness (which was supposed to be the first in a trilogy) bombing due to breaking drastically from the spirit of the series. Having a Japanese Saturn-only game that explains what happens between the end of the series and the movie only made things worse.
    • In-Universe, Akito is hesitant to watch the last episode of Gekiganger. In the final episode, he did...and he said it sucked due to the massive amount of Ass Pull included in one episode.
  • For Naruto many fans dismiss everything following the Pain Assault. The following two and final arcs (The Kage Summit and the Great Ninja War) all bleed into one another. Also, not helping matters is Sasuke's Base-Breaking Character status and the Power Creep of the main characters finally reaching its zenith. That the Big Bad is brushed away in favour of a brand new villain out of nowhere doesn't help. Said fans consider the battles unsatisfying - and the epilogue is its own can of worms, due to controversy surrounding the final pairings.
  • The abrupt ending of the Negima! Magister Negi Magi is considered quite unsatisfactory among fans, since the main plot with Negi's father is resolved off-panel, a bunch of unanswered questions are left behind, and lots of plot points are brought up right at the end and then quickly set aside. As a result of the lack of proper resolution, many fans felt that their investment in the plot and characters were wasted. The sequel has addressed a few of these complaints, though not all of them.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion is infamous for its Gainax Ending, and is the main reason (but far from the only one) why the studio that produced it, Studio Gainax, became the Trope Namer. The last two episodes make so little sense that some fans recommend you skip them and go straight to the movie End of Evangelion... except End is equally divisive!
    • The show's penultimate episode begins by telling us that Instrumentality is happening... off-screen, and instead we're going to focus on how the main characters experience this in their minds. This leads to two episodes that are mostly Shinji, Asuka and Misato talking about their issues. It ends with Shinji having a breakthrough, learning to love himself and being congratulated by this friends... but again, this is apparently all in his mind. Given the claim that Instrumentality will "fill the holes in your heart," one interpretation is that this actually shows him succumbing and losing his identity, although the intent behind the ending was meant to reflect the opposite.
    • End of Evangelion is set (mostly) in reality, though it's still really weird, and largely serves as a big "The Reason You Suck" Speech for Shinji (or, some would argue, one for the audience using him as a scapegoat). Shinji chooses to let Instrumentality happen, but it ends with him and Asuka on a beach, possibly the only humans left. Then Shinji snaps and strangles her until she fights him off. Also, there is a scene where he masturbates to completion over her comatose body. Given how much attention and discussion Evangelion has garnered through decades despite the infamous ending, it's a rare example where the controversial finale has managed to boost its popularity.
    • The final Rebuild of Evangelion movie, which was intended to provide a more definitively happy conclusion, ironically ended up becoming just as controversial as End. Some fans felt that the definitive happy ending was out-of-place for a series as dark as Evangelion and that it should have been more bittersweet, while even those who wouldn't have minded a happy ending felt that a Reset Button Ending was a lazy way to go about it and that having Shinji create a new world where everything is happy and perfect actively goes against one of the messages of the original series that it is better to face problems head-on than hide from them, instead seeing this as Shinji choosing to run away from his problems. Another controversial element is Shinji's Maybe Ever After with Mari; many fans were upset that the romantic tension and pairings that Shinji had with other characters like Asuka and Rei, which were built up for literal decades, was all seemingly sunk in favor of pairing Shinji with a character he had minimal interaction with — that last one actually got Studio Khara death threats online.
  • Platinum End concludes with Shuji Nakajima becoming the new God, and then killing himself afterwards, bringing the entire universe with him and making everything that happened beforehand pointless. While the manga tries to soften the blow via a "Ray of Hope" Ending where a new universe is created that has the potential to be better than the old one, this naturally failed to satisfy angry fans who declared they would not watch the anime adaptation (which was then just announced) since there would be no point to revisiting the story if it has the same ending. Indeed, the anime does not bother with an Adaptational Alternate Ending, ensuring the already-niche series would sink into obscurity. Since the ending is the only thing everyone talks about when mentioning Platinum End, anyone who reads or watches it will be aware of its conclusion.
  • Pokémon Adventures: The last volume of the Black & White chapter has Black sealed away in the Light Stone alongside Reshiram thanks to a Last Breath Bullet from Ghetsis. Ghestis then proceeds to escape as the Light Stone vanishes with Black still inside. This caused many people to turn on the arc for its Cruel Twist Ending, accentuated by how popular of a character Black was. While the intention was for the cliffhanger to be resolved in the Black 2 & White 2 adaptation, that arc fell under an infamous case of Schedule Slip as a result of newer Pokémon games being given priority for publishing. What was supposed to be a short arc that started in 2013, didn't reach its conclusion until early 2020. So for about seven years fans were left with one of the most popular heroes in the series suffering a Fate Worse than Death. Thankfully, this only applies for the original readership, as with the Black 2 & White 2 arc completed new readers won't have to suffer this problem.
  • Pretty Cure:
    • Doki Doki! PreCure: The Non-Serial Movie is still divisive as the main show itself, but it's seen as a solid film that can be enjoyed as a decent side-story... but even those who enjoyed it agreed that the third act is the biggest issue holding the movie back, since the writers opted to have one Ass Pull after another back to back, with Marsh revealing himself to be Mana's dead dog revived as a time lord, the clarinet revealing itself to be the true Big Bad, the Insane Troll Logic required to have Mana travel to the future and justify the film's original Japanese title (Mana is Getting Married!!? The Dress of Hope that Connects to the Future), Mana getting an exclusive Engage Form power-up while further cementing the base show's growing issues of We Are "Team Cannon Fodder", and the last-second twist of Bebel being Mana's deceased grandmother all along. None of these plot elements were properly foreshadowed during the rest of the film's runtime and seems like a last-ditch attempt to end the movie while on a tight deadline.
    • Nowadays, it's almost difficult to talk about Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure without bringing up its controversial ending, where Ophiuchus, who came dangerously close to committing total genocide to recreate the universe In Their Own Image, and her Mad Scientist minion Aiwarn, who turned the population of an entire planet into stone, are let off with a slap on the wrist by everyone, including the rest of the Star Princesses that the former betrayed prior to the start of the series and the planet the latter nearly wiped out. (Notably, the very similar male villains who did such things in prior series were considered Beyond Redemption.) This is before Ophiuchus tells them that she cannot die As Long as There Is Evil... which is something the Cures cannot counter in any way, since they gave up their powers to revive their fallen fairy friend Fuwa. These factors, combined with the Time Skip where the main team goes their separate ways, teeters Star Twinkle into Esoteric Happy Ending territory, since the threat of galactic genocide still exists.
  • Prison School: Every arc after the first one was met with some level of debate, but the final arc, Kiyoshi's Love Confession, became despised for a massive Sudden Downer Ending in what was otherwise a comedic Ecchi series up to that point. Basically, all the focus goes to the Kiyoshi/Chiyo/Hana Love Triangle, which is 'resolved' when Hana succeeds in destroying Kiyoshi's chances at getting with Chiyo, who is hinted to become a misandrist and take over the school, turning it back into a misandrist hellhole while Maki 'atones' for her role by running away from everything. And to top it off, the wet T-shirt contest that had been built up never occurred, with the epilogue only briefly alluding to it and doing nothing to expand on the other elements. This was widely viewed as a needlessly mean-spirited conclusion that resets the story to where it was in the beginning, and thus renders everything Kiyoshi and his allies accomplished meaningless, and turned Hana from a beloved Ensemble Dark Horse into being outright hated by some fans for bringing about the unpopular ending.
  • Both of the Puella Magi Madoka Magica post-original series anime projects have endings that received a lot of backlash from fans.
    • Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion is infamous for its extremely Cruel Twist Ending, in which Homura abruptly betrays Madoka, steals her goddess powers, and becomes a Satanic Archetype who traps everyone in a Lotus-Eater Machine. Common complaints include it being out-of-character for Homura, being an Ass Pull that breaks previously-established rules about the magic of the setting, and it being an unnecessary cliffhanger for a sequel that would go unresolved in favor of unrelated spinoffs. Especially troublesome because the original series already had a conclusive ending that is much more positive and hopeful; a sequel movie was never considered until the series became a runaway success, and with their starkly opposed conclusions, fans are forced to choose whether or not to consider Rebellion canon. Further compounding the ire is that it was not Gen Urobuchi's originally planned ending — instead, Madoka would have simply taken Homura to Heaven, allowing them to earn their happy ending — but the higher-ups wouldn't let him do it because there was no potential to continue the series, drawing accusations of Executive Meddling ruining the ending for the sake of profitability.
    • Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Many fans of the game (and some people who only watched the anime) are unhappy with how the anime ended, as it ends on a much bleaker note than Arc 1 of the game did. Arc 1 in the game ends on a happy note, with no deaths, Iroha and Ui reunited, Walpurgisnacht defeated, the Doppel system intact, and the magical girls of Kamihama banding together to form the Kamihama Magia Union in order to find a peaceful way to expand the Doppel system so they can save every magical girl from their fate. Meanwhile, the anime ends with many characters dead (including Ui, who never even regains her physical form), the Doppel system (which in the anime was never a good solution to begin with) permanently destroyed, Walpurgisnacht seemingly killing most of the Holy Quintet - including Madoka, forcing Homura to reset her time loop - and to top it off, Kyubey gloats that the suffering of magical girls will continue to go unnoticed as he harvests them. It's so bad that Japanese fans on Twitter posted download links to the game and told people to play the game instead.
  • The Quintessential Quintuplets disappointed nearly every fan faction with its ending, as the quintuplet that Fuutaro ultimately chose and married was Yotsuba, the girl with the least amount of development, instead of any of the more popular girls, drawing accusations of the pairing being Strangled by the Red String.
  • Re:CREATORS as a whole was increasingly criticized for many reasons, and the final episodes were already undergoing Arc Fatigue, but the ending really tanked the show's reputation even among its fans. After a long buildup, the epic final battle against Altair is cut short by a Deus ex Machina. Souta makes a fictional version of her deceased creator, pacifying her and convincing her to let humanity live. She then leaves with her creator while Magane takes off in an airport, meaning both of them get away with all their horrible atrocities. Souta, and Meteora are the only heroes who get their happy ending, while everyone else is either dead, forced back into being a fictional character with no free will, or traumatized. The heat was intense, with Invincible Villain Altair getting accused of being a straight-up Villain Sue who only won because the story bent over backwards for her while screwing over many of the more likable characters and turning the anticipated epic finale into an Anti-Climax. In major part because of this ending, the series fell into relative obscurity and is mostly considered a prime example of wasted potential.
  • The final episode of Season 2 of the anime adaptation of Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it goes for a Drama Bomb Finale that invokes Mood Whiplash to and from the lighthearted comedic tone of the rest of the anime, which has disappointed a lot of viewers.
  • Shitsurakuen for most of its run plays like a more extreme version of the early arcs of Revolutionary Girl Utena: an Action Girl saving various other girls from being trapped in abusive relationships with highly misogynistic boys who use the girls as Living Weapons, with many of the girls developing crushes on the lead in the process. This gave it a following among Yuri Fans, despite others attacking it for its depictions of most of its men as one-dimensional villains. Then in the last part of the manga, it makes the declaration that actually, the male characters were suffering just as much because they were stuck in an unfortunate position and pressured to abuse their girlfriends, and in its conclusion, all the girlfriends go back to their old boyfriends and the protagonist seemingly hooks up with a man. This went over like a lead balloon, since it had the boys being Easily Forgiven for actions that included completely unprovoked physical abuse and sexual assault under the logic that doing so made them feel bad, and it completely bombed among the manga's yuri following for self-evident reasons. A hasty epilogue chapter tried to undo some of the damage by having the protagonist get married to another girl and distancing some of the prior couples, but it did little to save the series's reputation.
  • Soul Eater: The Soul Eater manga ends with an uncomfortably sexual "Madness of Boobs" arc and Crona sealing themselves and Asura in the moon, denying the fans both a long-anticipated fight against Asura and denying Crona a happy ending. Furthermore, before that, the series' main villain, Medusa, died in a way that only benefitted her plans and denied anyone proper closure. Backlash was so strong that the anime's ending, which was previously disliked, is now the preferred stopping point for the series since it at least ends with the heroes getting decisive victories over both Medusa and Asura and Crona having earned their happy ending.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann remains a beloved anime classic, but the conclusion is actually disliked by a fair amount of the fandom. In it, the Anti-Spiral is defeated and humanity is saved, but Nia dies at her and Simon's wedding, leaving him to become a hobo Walking the Earth all alone. Yoko also loses her other Love Interest Kittan, and while Viral is allowed to live on as a successful military leader, he knows that he'll outlive everyone he cares about (especially with the revelation that what he wants most is to marry and have children, the latter of which is outright impossible). On top of everything, the world-destroying Spiral Nemesis that the Anti-Spirals were trying to stop is still a threat to humanity. The general consensus among detractors is that the ending goes against the spirit of such an optimistic series where Hot-Blooded determination can literally defy the laws of the universe; Simon accepting Nia's death, while intended to showcase his newfound maturity, contradicts his Determinator attitude; and overall that the finale comes off as an Esoteric Happy Ending where the main characters save the world only to lose everything in the process. Likely in response to this, Super Robot Wars X alters the ending so that Nia can live a happy life with Simon.
  • To Love-Ru Darkness: The male protagonist chooses none of the girls in his Unwanted Harem, resulting in the awkward situation of everyone continuing to vie for his affections while he still remains oblivious about some of their feelings. To top it off, while he does state that the Girl Next Door/Childhood Friend is his "number one", and said characters are usually the preferred choice in such stories by most Western audiences, said girl is actually a Base-Breaking Character and viewed as the worst choice he could make by fans outside Japan.
  • Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- ends with the Japanese equivalent of The Clone Saga, which just makes the plot utterly confusing and is a large departure from the originally advertised multi-dimensional adventures through numerous other CLAMP settings. Word of God admits even they don't understand what's going on. The show is no longer remembered as fondly as it was.
  • The Vision of Escaflowne is largely seen as disappointing. Its entire 26 episode run builds up the relationship between Van and Hitomi, the latter of whom almost never thinks of Earth. When she does return in Episode 24 (through her own magical pendant, due to being tired of war and death on Gaea), she's so bored with normal life and realizes she loves Van so much that she returns to Gaea to be with him, and in two episodes the strength and purity of their young love defeats the Big Bad and restores peace of Gaea... and then not five minutes later she casually decides to return to Earth forever anyway, despite still loving Van and still having a magic "instantly teleport between worlds" pendant. The fans who've seen Vision of Escaflowne Abridged actually find its ending to be better because it doesn't involve this trope.
  • The animated adaptation of Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito drew in a lot of yuri fans with its premise of one girl seeking to reunite with another that she unambiguously loves. Then when the protagonist finally meets her beloved again in the second-to-last episode, the girl that she has been questing for tells her they cannot be together without explaining why, and then uses her god-like powers to send her back with no memory of them ever knowing each other. In a bizarre turn that may have been meant as romantic but only disgusted viewers, she is now pregnant (as a single teenager) with a child who will grow up to be her lover. This was the first show to be centred around a serious lesbian romance, but the ending burned away a lot of the goodwill it earned from fans.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: While featuring a different continuity, the manga version has a particularly infamous ending, considered even worse than the anime's. In the anime (and for much of the manga), Yuya and Yuzu are love interests and one of the more popular pairings in the franchise. The manga's final chapter instead makes it so that Yuya is actually Yuzu's Kid from the Future, and that she married his father (Yusho, who is also Yuya's father in the anime.) The relationship is seen as very creepy, especially since there is also Ship Tease between Yuya and Yuzu in the manga (albeit entirely one-sided on Yuzu's part, who doesn't know the full story), and their familial relationship is only slightly alluded to beforehand. The twist utterly destroyed the manga's otherwise positive reputation, completely overshadowed every other story element, and spilled over to taint the anime, now equally uncomfortable to watch with this in mind.
  • Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs: A fair amount of fans were upset that the Marry Them All that the final arc seemed to be building up towards instead ends with Kogarashi solely picking Yuuna while the other girls merely get to live with their false memories of the future where he picks them instead, and several do not take this well, with him losing contact with all of them and only Kogarashi and Yuuna getting any sort of happy ending.

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