2025 has been a fruitful year for the anime medium, with a variety of series making waves. There have been clear standouts this year, such as the record-breaking success of Solo Leveling and Demon Slayer. However, not every anime has been received positively. Among the dozens released, some have fallen short.
Videos by ComicBook.com
While some anime are considered bad due to poor adaptation or other issues, a few have crossed the line and become borderline controversial. Specifically, three anime this year have stood out in this regard: one returning with its fourth season, and two whose plots are so controversial that they make the entire anime industry look bad.
3) Rent-a-Girlfriend Season 4
Rent-a-Girlfriend is an anime that fans have long wondered why it hasn’t been cancelled and why it continues to run. The series caused an uproar when it was first released, and while it initially had a solid premise, its fourth season has been the weakest yet. With Kazuya and Chizuru’s dynamic failing to progress in any meaningful way, fans are eager for the story to finally conclude.
This season drags out the dull plotline that the series established early on. The controversial aspect lies in how it reinforces Kazuya’s helplessness whenever he’s around Chizuru, an issue the story should have addressed much earlier. With the manga ending on a grim note for Kazuya, the anime has only become more of a talking point among viewers. It seems this controversial plot is what keeps the series alive, especially with another season already confirmed.
2) Please Put Them On, Takemine-San
Before anime became mainstream in recent years, many people held the perception that it featured nothing but perverted plots. Please Put Them On, Takemine-san unfortunately reinforces that stereotype, as the series offers little beyond a perverted premise that tarnishes the image of the wider anime industry.
The plot revolves around a high school boy who witnesses his student council president taking off her underwear. As the title suggests, there isn’t much depth beyond this setup. Takemine, the student council president, has a strange power to undo her mistakes, and Koushi becomes her partner in these antics. The anime ultimately follows uncomfortable and perverted plotlines that do nothing to challenge or uplift the negative perception some people already have about anime.
1) The Shiunji Family Children
The Shiunji Family Children comes from the same author who created Rent-a-Girlfriend, and somehow the writer managed to deliver an even more controversial plot the second time around. The series features seven siblings, two of them male, who belong to the wealthy Shiunji family. However, the twist revealing that they aren’t actually blood-related becomes controversial when the “female siblings” begin developing feelings for the oldest male sibling.
Unfortunately, this is essentially the entire plot, leaving fans wondering why the author even came up with such a concept. What makes the anime worse is that it leans heavily on every trope you’d expect from a borderline ecchi series, adding no real intrigue to the story. The Shiunji Family Children, with arguably the most controversial plotline of the year, is another anime that fans wish wasn’t associated with the medium at all.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
Most Viewed
-
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
