Fan Disliked Explanation / Anime & Manga

• After School Nightmare: Some readers disliked the ending that reveals everything that happened in the series is just a metaphor for pregnancy and childbirth, with the students being unborn children, as they felt it negates everything the characters experienced, especially since they won't remember anything that happened anyway. The explanation given for Mashiro's struggles with gender identity (they're actually a pair of boy-girl twins struggling for possession of one life) also didn't go over well with some fans, partly because it raised a lot of questions on what Kureha's traumatic rape as a child, Sou's incestuous relationship with his sister, or the other students' hang-ups could actually represent.
• Black Butler had a major uproar from the fanbase when Word of God revealed that Grell is in fact a trans woman instead of always being a guy, angering Yaoi fans who like to ship her with Sebastian.
• Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School:
  • For a lot of fans, The Reveal that Junko Enoshima's primary weapon was Mitarai's brainwashing animation techniques, instead of their own Manipulative Bastard and Dark Messiah qualities resulted in a huge Badass Decay for the franchise's villain, whose charisma and capacity to bind people to their will was always believed to be their most impressive quality. It was also unpopular among those who wanted to see why the lovable Danganronpa 2 cast would fall into despair, finding the above explanation to be a lazy cop-out that forgoes characterization in favor of a one-size-fits-all plot point that is far less interesting.
  • Kazuo Tengan being the attacker and the mastermind was also disliked, as it was not sufficiently foreshadowed and the character in question was well-liked beforehand for their role, so them turning out to be the Big Bad came out of left field. Even series creator Kodaka expressed disappointment with how the character turned out.
• According to Tsugumi Ohba, L was lying when he said that Light was the first friend he ever had. Death Note fans dislike this, because they think it's more interesting if L was telling the truth and really did like his supposed mortal enemy. Light and L show an odd sort of fondness for each other, each seeing the other as their only true equal, and there's even quite a bit of Homoerotic Subtext between them, so it's understandable that fans dislike the way Ohba seemingly dismisses this.
  • Also, "How To Read" lists the height and weight of each character, except it's clear that Ohba never has looked at a BMI chart, given that every character seems to be extremely underweight. Fans often change these stats to make more sense.
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, quite a few fans prefer to ignore the official statement that the Total Concentration Breathing techniques only use Elemental Motifs and their elemental effects are just for visual flair, rather than being actual Elemental Powers. The techniques already involve blatantly superhuman feats such as cutting through boulders and moving at mach speeds, so those who reject this statement think that it doesn't serve the purpose of making the fights more realistic, and just makes them not as cool, especially since demons do have explicitly magical abilities in their Demon Blood Arts.
• Digimon Adventure 02:
  • Fans were not happy with the explanation given for why the old Digimon could no longer reach Ultimate for multiple reasons, mainly because it felt like an excuse to brush the older children to the side.
  • In the first episode of the show, Tailmon (or Gatomon if you prefer) loses her Holy Ring. Despite being set up as a major story arc, it's almost completely forgotten about, until Gennai reveals in the finale that he had it all along, but choose not to return it for several reasons. Fans generally regard this as a lazy explanation.
  • To a lesser extent, the Dark Seeds part of Ken's backstory. A number of fans feel that his story would have been better had Ken simply snapped under a combination of being The Unfavorite in his family, the trauma over his older brother's death and the overall stressful life he was living, rather than having his innocence sucked out of him by an evil plant.
  • In the 48th episode, it's revealed that the main antagonist of the series is in fact Myotismon (or Vamdemon), one of the antagonists of the previous series, having possessed Oikawa and manipulated events from behind the scenes. Several fans didn't like this twist, as there was little foreshadowing beforehand, and Myotismon had already come back to life, making the idea of him coming back a second time seem uncreative.
• Dragon Ball:
  • A lot of older fans hate the "canon" take on the portrayal and actions of Goku's father, Bardock. The reason being that originally, the 1990 Dragon Ball Z: Bardock - The Father of Goku special depicted the twilight of the Saiyans through Bardock, Goku's father. Fans loved the special for its unconventional portrayal of Bardock^note he was revealed to be ruthless, lacked empathy, held no regard for his son or his fate, and was considered low-class and unimportant trash. Toriyama liked it so much (despite admitting he'd never write a story so dark) he gave it a Continuity Nod in his own manga, effectively making the special canon to it. 23 years later however, the bonus Dragon Ball Minus chapter in 2013's Jaco the Galactic Patrolman showed Toriyama's version, depicting Bardock as a kinder person who sent his son away personally out of concern with Frieza's actions. In addition to Bardock's personality change, this made Goku a borderline Superman Expy, dividing the fanbase. This got further reinforced when Dragon Ball Super: Broly adapted these events into the modern animated storyline.
  • The story that explains where Frieza's fear of the Super Saiyan Legend comes from is more universally derided, despite being a What If? story. 2012's Dragon Ball – Episode of Bardock depicts him being sent back in time by Frieza's attack, where he gains the Super Saiyan form in front of Chilled, an ancestor of Frieza's. The issues come from the fact that the Super Saiyan form usually comes from intense anger over something personal: here, Bardock reaches it over Chilled hurting a member of a cartoonish alien race he barely knows. This, coupled with the special being a scant 20 minutes long, leaving no room for this event to be set up properly. Episode of Bardock is easier to ignore, however, as it is later contradicted by Dragon Ball Super, and had been explicitly stated to be a What If? story by its own author anyway.
  • Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods: Beerus' Retcon of being the one who told Frieza to eliminate the Saiyans has been largely disregarded by the fandom, due to it being an unnecessary connection, undermining Frieza's paranoia and racism, and ultimately not having any connection to the plot in any way, nor is it expanded on beyond that brief scene. Of course, Dragon Ball Minus reveals that Frieza was going to destroy the saiyans along with their planet anyway, meaning it might have been a very convenient coincidence.
  • The addition of "S-Cells" by Word of God, similarly to Star Wars' midichlorians (also listed in this very page), is considered an explanation that didn't need to exist, even if it technically does explain how Goten and Trunks are able to achieve Super Saiyan form without an anger trigger (Fan Wank had already settled on Lamarck Was Right for that particular Plot Hole long ago, however), and why it's so much easier for the Universe 6 Saiyans to become Super Saiyan: The kinder a Saiyan is, the more S-Cells they have. That last bit is also derided as being particularly mawkish.
  • A number of fans have an issue with the Super Saiyan transformation achieved by Caulifla, as she managed to obtain it by focusing her energy on a specific point in her back, and making the energy "tingly-like".
• The Halo Legends shorts quickly created a Broken Base due to their Broad Strokes regard to the Halo canon, with later explanations only providing partial comfort. One such lose-lose situation was at the end of the The Package, where John fights an Elite Major in a sword fight referred to in the subtitles as "Thel". However, Halo: The Cole Protocol indicated that Thel 'Vadamee, the Arbiter from the original trilogy, had not fought a Spartan until he had already been promoted to Zealot. Some fans, however, still liked the irony of 'Vadamee nearly killing John only to be his ally later in the series. But that was nullified with the updated release of Halo: The Fall of Reach, which clarified that it was a different Elite fighting John named Thel 'Lodamee. Now the canon was fixed again, but the irony was lost because John lost to a random mook.
• In Hunter × Hunter Killua was originally depicted as having a deep-seated fear of fighting stronger opponents, something that his father and abusive brother impressed upon him during his assassin's training. Other characters noted that this was a severe liability that hampered his reliability as a hunter and Killua himself worried that his cowardice would lead him to abandon his friends in the heat of the moment. Most fans were underwhelmed when it was revealed that this phobia wasn't a character trait, but instead due to a needle that his brother placed in his skull and that it was resolved simply by removing the needle.
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: While it was good to see Kaguya ruminate on her relationship with Fujiwara, some fans didn't like her justification for avoiding telling her about she and Shirogane dating—that she feared that Fujiwara would feel betrayed that her attention was divided elsewhere. The series even acknowledges that Kaguya dodging the explanation until just after she finally had sex felt weird for someone supposed to be Kaguya's oldest friend, and Kaguya had not expressed anxieties like that until that chapter.
• King's Game builds up the mystery about who exactly the "King" is and why they're forcing the students to act out the game. The eventual reveal that the King is actually a virus originating from a species of insect (that somehow acts as both a biological and computer virus) that kills through hypnotic suggestion is usually considered unsatisfying, if not completely nonsensical.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time game, Sheik is Princess Zelda in disguise. This is kept in the manga except that the manga adds in the detail that Zelda asked Impa to imprison her mind for seven years and create a male identity. This is disliked for being completely unneeded, especially since the manga passes everything off as Zelda doing it herself anyway. It also adds an element of Adaptational Wimp to Zelda as her being the Hero of Another Story is a large reason for what makes this incarnation of Zelda so popular.
• MÄR has this in regards to how certain plotlines were concluded in the manga, particularly the reason for Snow's existence. The anime took a different approach and offered an entirely new explanation to fit within their revised ending. This change, as well as the anime's ending in general is typically preferred by the fans, who considered the manga's ending rushed, anti-climactic and unsatisfying.
• Naruto:
  • The Reveal that Naruto and Sasuke were reincarnations of the sons of the Sage of Six Paths, and that they were fated to fight each other, with Madara and Obito also being fated to fight their own counterparts. Many rejected this twist, seeing it as devaluing their long-term rivalry by simplifying it into a case of Because Destiny Says So.
  • The explanation that Black Zetsu was the third son of Kaguya, and had manipulated every conflict throughout Shinobi History for the sake of resurrecting his mother was also roundly rejected, seen as a cheap way of replacing the then-current Big Bads with the much less popular Kaguya.
  • Naruto/Sakura fans dislike how Kishimoto has repeatedly stated that their Ship Tease was in fact just a Red Herring, that he never thought about making Naruto/Sakura canon, and that he had always planned for Naruto/Hinata being the main Official Couple since the early stages of the manga. The more militant shippers have even gone so far as to declare Death of the Author and join the Naruto/Sasuke fans in shipping their favorite pairing. The Last: Naruto the Movie did little to help by revealing that Naruto's feeling for Sakura only came about because of his rivalry with Sasuke.
• Paranoia Agent: The explanation of the true nature of Shonen Bat and Maromi, as tidily explained as manifestations of guilt may be considered anti-climatic. However, the show avoids this trope mostly by leaving many aspects vague or outright unexplained or inconclusive.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • In Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl: Ash's main rival was Paul, is Social Darwinist who cares only for Pokemon's strength and would release any that didn't meet his standards (or in the case of Chimchar would abuse them until they brought out their full potential). Many were curious as to what caused him to adopt said mindset especially given his older brother Reggie was the complete opposite of Paul yet still loved him. We learn about two-thirds into the series Paul became more harsh and cruel in his treatment after Reggie failed to defeat Pyramid King Brandon and chose to give up on completing the Battle Frontier (notably, Brandon himself even called this out when Paul would subsequently lose to him anyway). Many people disliked this reasoning as being underwhelming considering it was supposed to establish him as sympathetic, as the anime had since treated Paul's training methods as equally valid as Ash's, when every series prior and since treated Paul's level of Pokémon abuse as a serious crime.
  • Early on in Pokémon Journeys: The Series its established that Delia's housekeeper Mr. Mime, "Mimey", was one of Ash's Pokémon, with Ash using it in a few battles early on, before it chooses to stay at Professor Cerise's lab for the vast majority of the show. While there was some supplementary materials listing it as one of his Pokémon dating back to Diamond & Pearl, it was never hinted within the series itself as being under Ash's ownership up to this point and was generally assumed by people that Mimey either stayed a wild Mr. Mime or was caught by Delia offscreen. With the retroactive knowledge that this would be Ash's final series as the main character, many people feel Mimey was only established to be one of Ash's Pokémon so the writers could claim Ash has owned at least one Pokémon of every type, without actually committing to letting him catch a Psychic-type Pokémon or Fairy-type Pokémon.
• Shi ni Aruki: The reason behind all the deaths in the series. Outside of them possibly being pure coincidence, the only other explanation given for all the deaths besides Rina's, whose murderer is explicitly identified, is that there was a supernatural curse surrounding a Dead All Along Tokiko. Some readers dislike this conclusion, finding both of these theories unsatisfying; particularly the latter, as the reasoning behind why some of the victims died can come across as arbitrary at best, with even characters in-universe pointing that out.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • The Doma filler arc of the original series has the reveal that, in fact, the hardships that a trio of recurring villains went through that caused them to hate the world were all caused by Big Bad Dartz. Not only did this strain credibility for many people (he orchestrated an entire war to corrupt one orphan?), but it was seen as breaking the theme of "the world can be painful sometimes, but it's still worth fighting for," since now all the bad things could be traced back to one evil dude.
  • The explanation in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX for the origins of the Neo-Spacians—they were the result of a card creation contest which Judai won, where the winner's cards were shot into space so that aliens would find them, and were brought to life by alien energy—is nearly universally derided as completely absurd and raising hundreds of questions. At most, people consider it to be Narm Charm, since it's at least entirely in-keeping with the general tone of early GX.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Z-One, the main villain of the final season, is from the future, looks a hell of a lot like main protagonist Yusei Fudo, and even owns a version of his ace card. In the final battle, it's explained that this is because... he's a scientist who lived centuries after Yusei, and used surgery to take on his appearance and mimic him in every way because he wanted to inspire the people in the face of the oncoming machine apocalypse. People found this far more convoluted and unnecessarily confusing than the obvious alternative, as well as just really deflating the threat of the main antagonist (to the point that "cosplayer" is a common derogatory nickname for him). Notably, the manga, in a nod to this, showed that "becomes Z-One" is a possible future for Yusei in its continuity.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL features a similar reveal to the Doma arc story with the Barian Emperors, which was also fairly disliked for similar reasons—turning their stories from tragic to "a bunch of people being victimized by some asshole."
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V:
    • The explanation for why Zarc became the monster he was got many responses along these lines, due to the fact that it seems to jump from "guy who likes hurting people while playing competitively" to "Omnicidal Maniac" as if this is a natural jump for a person to make, as well as the narrative treating him as a Tragic Monster for it.
    • The "En" cards were used to explain how Ray was able to defeat and seal Zarc. They became largely disliked in the fanbase due to coming across as a Deus ex Machina, as well as turning Ray's status as the one true savior into a big-time Informed Ability, since the cards may as well read "if you are playing against Zarc, you win the duel"—meaning it required no skill or strategy to play them beyond simply activating them. (Though this isn’t true, as the anime shows that you need to have three Fusion, three Synchro and three Xyz monsters in the graveyard to activate any of them other than En Flowers, which is otherwise near-useless, since it only affects Normal monsters)

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