10 worst decisions made by anime characters, ranked
Confessing your love to the series Best Girl/Best Boy when you’re the protagonist? Good decision, it’ll go well. Attempting to challenge the series protagonist to a fight when you’re a low rent henchman working for the season one big villain? Bad decision, it’s not gonna go your way. While not every anime character is blessed with common sense, some have made choices that are so asinine, so heinous, so outright inane that they rattle very foundations of the genre itself. These are the creme of the ill-fated crop, the 10 worst decisions made by anime characters, ranked.
10. Leaving the Gum Gum Fruit Unattended
Red Haired Shanks may be one of One Piece‘s savviest pirates, but one would never know based on his ludicrously poor decision to leave arguably the most valuable devil fruit in the entire world just sitting in an unlocked box in the ship’s hold. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t handling treasure the number one thing that a pirate is supposed be good at based on the job description? Booty is like their whole schtick. While allowing the Gum Gum Fruit to fall into the hands of a teenager with dreams of grandeur and undiagnosed ADHD was a bad move, it could have gone WAY worse. Imagine if some jerkoff had snuck onto the ship and eaten it instead? Does some low rent bad guy like Arlong deserve the powers of One Piece Jesus aka Joy Boy? I think not. Faux pas, Shanks. Faux pas.
9. Walking Out Of The House Dressed Like This
Listen, I’ll all for expressing yourself. I’m all for fashion. Fashion is meant to be bold. Transgressive. Boundary breaking. But I am asserting some boundaries here when I tell My Hero Academia‘s Best Jeanist to go home and change. Bro is wearing pants on his face. I’m sorry, but it’s not a statement. It’s not a slay. It’s not haute couture. It’s NOPE couture. Here’s the thing, if the rest of Blue Jeanist’s fit went hard, then I would be willing to forgive the denim disaster obscuring his face. But the rest of Blue Jeanist’s fit doesn’t go hard, it goes rather soft. Pillow soft. Blue Jeanist complements (I use the word loosely) his Levi’s high turtleneck with a basic Canadian tuxedo. The rest of his outfit simply isn’t interesting enough to back up his bold facewear, and as a result the fit falls flat – no matter how he might starch it to stay up.
8. Letting Regular Cell Become Perfect Cell
Many an anime martial arts enthusiast spends their violent life looking for a satisfying challenge, and the cast of Dragon Ball Z are no exception. These fist brained fellas are constantly looking to hone their skills against powerful foes, but series strong guy stalwart Vegeta made a mistake when he allowed his foe to become more powerful. Vegeta could have smoked regular Cell, but instead allowed the alien invader to absorb Android 18 in order become a stronger, worthier opponent. Perfect Cell was worthy alright, he wiped the floor with Vegeta along with Krillin and Future Trunks. While I understand the desire for self improvement, Vegeta could you maybe have considered alternative training methods? One where you don’t risk the annihilation of the human race and your reputation in the process?
7. Trying to Transmute A Human Soul
The Elric Brothers broke the one rule of Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood – don’t try to transmute human beings. Granted, they were grief stricken children when they broke the number one alchemist taboo, but honestly boys didn’t your mother ever teach you not to mess with eldritch magic beyond your understanding? After summoning a semi-human horror into the world, Edward loses his arm and leg, while his little bro Alphonse loses his entire body. It was a decidedly poor decision, but thankfully the boys were able to recover from it (physically at least, they’ll likely need therapy for life).
6. Using The Death Note
For all his genius, Light Yagami proved himself to be a fool for using the Death Note in the first place. One would think that a brilliant mind would like his would have the common sense to leave well enough alone after a literal god of death appeared to him offering a Faustian bargain with forces beyond his understand, but one would be wrong. Light Yagami’s youthful arrogance proved to be the beginning of his downfall, a character trait that his opps were able to exploit in order to bring about the end of Kira. Light’s hubris causes him to bumble down the path that Ancient Greek tragedians warned humanity about thousands of years ago. All that schoolin’, all that smarts, and Light still managed to forget the classics.
5. Trusting Griffith
While Griffith’s decision to sleep with Princess Charlotte (which led to his horrible torture, demonic awakening, and ultimate betrayal) is often pointed to by fans as the beginning of the end of the Golden Age by the Berserk fandom, Griffith’s underlings should have seen the Band of The Hawk’s banner for the red flag it was. While Griffith’s previous leadership decisions were immaculate in terms of sheer strategy, there was an underlying sense of, well, wrongness to all of them. He trained child soldiers, he allied himself with scumbags, he assassinated royals far and wide, and sometimes he’d get that look in his eyes. The writing on the wall was there from the jump: Big G was a few knights short of a round table, and his soldiers paid the ultimate price.
4. Saving Johan Liebert’s Life
The great tragedy of Monster is that when doctor Kenzo Tenma decided to save the life of a young boy instead of a high ranking German politician, he thought he was doing the right thing. Team’s decision ended up costing him his job and his marriage, but hey, at least he could live the rest of his days knowing that he did good, right? Wrong. Tenma ended up saving the life of the most evil character in all of anime, a sadistic and manipulative serial killer bent on eliminating every life but his own. Johan Liebert is the pinnacle of depraved, and Tenma was this close to freeing the world from the icy grip of a human monster. Tenma threw his young life away for Johan, and spent the rest of it attempting to destroy his mistake.
3. Literally Every Decision Sasuke Ever Made
Name one good decision that Sasuke made throughout the course of Naruto. I’ll wait. Bro dipped on his comrades, became a disciple of ninja Voldemort, tried to assassinate multiple ninja presidents, killed his own brother, and then fought to become leader of the new world order against his best fried (who was MUCH more qualified for the job). Sasuke even managed to screw up his own atonement arc, dipping on the very village his once vowed to destroy in its hour of need in order to cleanse himself of his sins. Bro, pick up a broom and start cleansing the debris of the streets of the city that your nearly demolished because of your insecurity. Damn.
2. Trying to Kill… Everyone?
Eren Jaeger’s decision to end genocide by committing more genocide was ill-conceived from the jump. I’m not going to pretend that I understand Attack On Titan‘s time travel plot at the end there, but I know enough to say that Jaegar fumbled at the final hour. The Rumbling caused the death and destruction of millions of innocent lives, and only contributed to the endless cycle of violence and oppression that Eren was trying to break. His time would have been better spent focusing on the world he had as opposed to the world he was trying to create – he and his friend should have tried to turn Paradis island into a Titan free paradise, rather than rid the wider world of their enemies and innocents along with it.
1. Continuing To Exist
My Hero Academia‘s Minoru Mineta is a series of bad decisions. His decision to wear a “bushel of grapes in a diaper” outfit makes Blue Jeanist look red carpet ready. His decision to open his mouth and release his screechy voice makes me want to Detroit Smash my head into the wall. His decision to relentlessly sexually harass his female classmates makes me think that the gross orbs on his costume aren’t the only balls that should be snipped off of him. But when it comes down to it, I think that Minoru Mineta’s decision to cling to life in a world that would be better off without him is truly the worst choice he’s ever made, and it’s one that he continues to make every moment that he draws a shuddering, snot-nosed breath. Minoru is worst anime character of the 21st century, and a crime against ani-manity.
(Featured Image: Bones)
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