2024 was a great year for anime, with something fun for fans to obsess over online every season. But some anime are destined to rank higher than others, as measured by the 18 million active My Anime List users. Let’s explore the worst anime of 2024 according to MAL rankings, and see which shows were less popular!
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What Were the Worst Anime Of 2024, According to MAL?
We got a lot of fun anime to watch in 2024. We had many uplifting and emotional moments, fell in love with a lot of cute anime waifus, and (of course) enjoyed some choice ecchi anime situations, too. But while most of us might agree that series like Dungeon Meshi, Dandadan, or The Dangers In My Heart were awesome, there were plenty of shows the MAL online community didn’t enjoy.
Let’s look at how MAL rankings work, in practice:
- Anime fans around the world rank shows from 0-10, with anywhere from 500,000 to 2+ million fans providing ratings for a given series. While the ratings seem to be mostly organic, sometimes groups of fans will try to”MAL score bomb” the ratings. Like when fans protested Funimation’s cancelation of Ishuzoku Reviewers by making that show the top-ranked anime in history on the site.
- Only a few legendary series, like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Steins;Gate, and Sousou no Frieren have ever scored above 9.0. These are anime series loved by nearly everyone.
- Then there are the truly standout series ranking between 8.0 and 8.99, like Kaguya-sama: Love is War, Code Geass, Violet Evergarden, and Oshi no Ko. Some of the best anime ever made, in other words.
- Shows that rank under 7.99 become more mixed. They’re generally solid offerings that were great, but which didn’t find a large enough audience, or which didn’t appeal the same to everyone.
- Anything below 7.0 is basically “unpopular” with most MAL users, either because they’re not into fan service or because they have a bee in their bonnet about some aspect of the show.
For this list, I’m only looking at major anime releases that English-speaking fans would have access to. I’m skipping over the many niche offerings, like children’s programs from China or South Korea.
The Worst Anime of 2024 According to MAL Rankings
Let’s check out the 11 worst anime of 2024, according to the MAL rankings!
MAL Users Did Not Like Mato Seihei no Slave (6.84)
One of MAL’s hallmarks is that they don’t like sexy fan service anime or at least shows that don’t offer much beyond visual eye candy. So it’s kind of a given that this series would land on this list.
Standout MAL review comment: Over the past 12 weeks, I have spent a combined 4 hours of my fleeting time on this planet watching Chained Soldier, and through 12 episodes. All I can say is that my experience was only slightly better than taking the SAT or getting a colonoscopy.
What were the sexiest anime of 2024? We’ve got a blog post for you to read, here!
Did Sasaki to Pii-chan Try to Do Too Many Things? (6.83)
Sasaki and Peeps [link to Peter’s article] is a “business isekai comedy” about a company employee who buys a pet sparrow, only to find that the bird is a reincarnated Star Sage. He acquires magical powers, which he uses to set up an import/export business between Tokyo and the isekai world. While the execution wasn’t perfect, I did like the show…especially the amazing character designs by Kantoku.
But MAL was not a fan of the show, giving it a 6.83 ranking overall. One reviewer wrote: Sasaki and Peeps is definitely something. This anime tries to be so many things all at once: a supernatural, a fantasy, a slice of life, a gourmet, etc. To be brutally honest, I don’t think this show knows what it wants to be.
Disappointin’ in Another World with Overhyped Cheat Powers? (6.81)
An isekai anime that tries to hijack the popularity of Zero no Tsukaima yet only offers the most generic of setups? What could go wrong? While I enjoyed the first few episodes of Lv2 Cheat Skill, which brought voice actors Rie Kugimiya and Satoshi Hino together again after a decade, the later episodes started putting me to sleep.
MAL was not into the show, giving it a low-ish rating. One reviewer said: Imagine an isekai. Congratulations, You have a 99% chance of knowing what will happen in this show.
Kaii to Otome to Kamikakushi Also Fell Flat (6.77)
I really love it when a fresh and new anime concept comes along. That’s what we got with Kaii to Otome to Kakikakushi, translatable as “Mysteries, the Maiden, and Being Spirited Away.” It was a really interesting concept, about a girl who had won a literary award as a girl but found life as an adult a lot more challenging. Imagine her surprise when she finds a mysterious poem that transforms her body into a child again!
But the show didn’t find success with MAL, perhaps because they are in self-denial about liking anime boobs. One reviewer wrote: When I started Mysterious Disappearances, I thought, wow, a story with characters who are neither good nor bad. Intriguing mysteries to solve and cute girls. Unfortunately, this didn’t last long.
What are the weirdest anime from 2024? Read this blog post!
How Did MAL Like Whisper Me a Love Song? (6.76)
I can never say no to a new anime exploring girls who love girls, and Whisper Me a Love Song [Peter’s review link] was a lot of fun. When band member Yori receives a confession of love from her pure-of-heart kouhai Himari, Yori contemplates dating the younger girl. That’s until she realizes Himari said she’d fall in love with Yori’s music, not her. In addition to the main plot, there’s a lot of who’s-dating-whom drama with the other side girls.
MAL ranked the show just 6.76 points, lower than “serious” girl’s love shows like Aoi Hana (7.09) and Bloom Into You (7.89) but higher than Citrus (6.43).
Was I The Only Fan to Love Astro Note? (6.57)
I thoroughly enjoyed Astro Note, about a girl named Mira who comes to live as the manager of a run-down apartment building. But she’s secretly a space alien on a mission. The show was basically a vehicle to make jokes and references to Maison Ikkoku and Onegai Teacher, which I am 100% down with. But I could tell from the lack of buzz that not everyone would love Astro Note.
True to form, MAL gave the show a 6.57 rating. Here’s one standout review comment: “Astro Note – you won’t be going to space with this one.“
Loner Life in Another World and Let This Grieving Soul Retire (6.92 and 6.57)
There are always plenty of fantasy isekai series that have trouble standing out. Hitoribocchi no Isekai Kouryaku is about a boy who ends up in another world alongside his class, but he chooses to explore the world alone, without his classmates bothering him. Nageki no Bourei was a sexy-ish fantasy anime about an MC who just wants to retire, and his assistant’s sexy thighs. Both of these shows were so generic, I combined them into one “fantasy battle” post to avoid wasting my readers’ time.
And MAL did not like these shows either, giving them scores of 6.92 and 6.57.
Narenare -Cheer for You!- Did Not Cheer Up Its Creators (6.39)
J-List’s home prefecture of Gunma is often chosen as the setting for anime. This is partially because we’re close enough to Tokyo for anime studio staffers to make day trips for ロケハン roke-han or “location hunting,” which is an actual word that exists. One anime set in nearby Takasaki was Narenare -Cheer for You!- [Peter’s review post here], a cheerleading anime by P.A. Works.
Unfortunately, the show fell flat, both with fans in general as well as with MAL rankings. The only high point was the character of Anna, who made Brazilian fans go wild at seeing one of their own in an anime. She was voiced by Larissa Tago Takeda, a third-generation Brazilian Japanese. Wow!
Highspeed Etoile Was a CGI Mess (6.16)
I’m against 100% CGI-based animation with very few exceptions (one of them being the outstanding Beastars). So Highspeed Etoile, a racing anime that also uses CGI to animate the characters, was never going to fly with me. And it scored very low on the MAL rankings, too.
Standout review quote: The first thing that annoyed me was the music. I don’t know what the creators of this anime were thinking, It’s clearly an anime with a racing theme but instead we are greeted with ballet music, WTF! My ears couldn’t bear to listen any longer.
Hamidashi Creative Was Forgotten for a Reason(5.76)
I catch a lot of anime because of sexy GIFs I find uploaded to various image boards. When I came across the above clip, I got curious about Hamidashi Creative. In an industry that seems to have rediscovered proper 24-episode seasons of full-length episodes, Hamidashi Creative was a rarity, a short-format show with 4-minute episodes. In each episode, a bunch of girls embark on a journey to learn about different subjects. Episode 5 is the only one worth watching because bloomers are always interesting.
Standout MAL review comment: none. No one even bothering to write a negative review is another bad sign of a failed anime.
And the Most Hated Anime of 2024 Was…Plus-Sized Elf (5.60)
The worst anime of 2024 according to MAL’s ranking was…Plus-Sized Elf. While most J-List customers probably loved the show’s blend of cute-elves-doing-sexy things, most MAL users did not.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that a lot of fans disliked the anime because it didn’t follow the manga. As one person wrote: I really wanted to like this anime. I love the source material, as well as the characters. But this anime is what a lot of us in this scene expected: low-budget drivel that doesn’t really do the source justice.
Thanks for reading this blog post about the 11 worst anime of 2024, according to MAL rankings. Were there any shows on this list you positively loved, and thought didn’t deserve to be included here? Tell us in the comments!
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We hope you’re enjoying the holiday season and getting ready for a warm and fuzzy Christmas if you celebrate it. J-List has added tons of new stock to our website, and as an extra gift to you, we’ll pick up $25 of your shipping during our Shipping Support Sale! Just buy $200 or more of in-stock products shipping from Japan, and we will apply the discount automatically. Start shopping now!
