Watching anime is sometimes like playing the lottery because you never know if you are going to be able to see the story in its entirety or it will stay in a single season that does not adapt the entire manga and we are left wanting to know how it ended (if the manga has an ending). Get out the box of tissues because we’re going to remember all those animes that were unfinished and that they will probably continue to do so.
‘berserk’
The quintessential example of unfinished anime forever and ever. The magnum opus of the late Kentaro Miura maybe it will have an ending on paper (from the hand of another author) but the anime seems to be just as jinxed as the erratic publication of the manga in Spain.
The first attempt to adapt it was in 1997, with 25 episodes that adapted the saga of the “Black Warrior” and “The Golden Age”. More successful was movie trilogy in 2012-2013 that Studio 4ºC faithfully adapted the saga of “The Golden Age” with better animation. The third was not the winner in 2016 with the two seasons of 12 chapters each and a somewhat regular CGI, which covered the saga “Condena” and “Millennium Falcon”.
If at the time it was a work difficult to adapt due to the pace of publication that the author wore, after his death it is quite unlikely that we will see an adaptation that reaches the end, if one day it does and is up to the rest of the manga.
‘Kare Kano’
Speaking of difficult things to adapt to anime, the intimate genre is one of them. Visually convey what’s going on in a character’s head and the small changes that occur in his feelings and personality is more complex than it seems, but ‘Kare Kano’ can boast of having achieved it and with a vengeance.
Hideaki Anno and GAINAX (those responsible for ‘Evangelion’) launched to adapt the fantastic work of Masami Tsuda, which began as a nice and light-hearted high school comedy to reveal a complex exploration of the psychology of its two protagonists. Due to disagreements between the creative team and the author, the anime ended with only 26 episodes, leaving out half of the manga, in which everything became much darker.
Much has happened since his broadcast in 1998 (in Spain we could see it through the Catalan regional and Buzz) and long ago we lost hope of seeing the conclusion of the story of Yukino and Arima animated.
‘Ranma 1/2’
It has a crime after 161 chapters (many of which are filler), not only did he omit various plotlines from the manga but he didn’t even adapt it to the end. The martial arts comedy created by Rumiko Takahashi ended without concluding the plot of the last episodes (in which Ranma is reunited with his mother) nor the two main ones (the relationship between Akane and Ranma and that he managed to “go back to to be a man”).
Unlike other adaptations of the author such as ‘InuYasha’ (whose classic anime doesn’t end either but received a final season to cover it until the end), with ‘Ranma 1/2’ we are left halfway. Although, everything must be said, the end of the manga not that it gave a great conclusion to those two plots and, if it had been adapted, surely it would have caused the same disappointment among the fans.
‘Nana’
If this is going to add salt to the wound, we must unearth the trauma of ‘Nana’. Madhouse’s 2006 adaptation of Ai Yazawa’s stupendous play is almost perfect except for the fact that it ends at a rather critical moment and left us eternally waiting to find out what would become of the two Nanas.
The worst thing about this case is that, understandably, the studio wanted to wait for more volumes to adapt and they stayed two candles before the indefinite break in which the manga has been going since 2009, because the author went through a serious illness. More than 10 years later, we are still waiting for the miracle to happen and one day we can see this story finished. Whether it happens or not, what is almost certain is that the anime will remain incomplete forever and ever.
‘Deadman Wonderland’
We still can’t explain how a story like ‘Deadman Wonderland’, a psychological action shonen along the lines of ‘Mirai Nikki’ (which did have an ending), stayed in one sad season that I barely told the first bars of the story.
Maybe it was because the Manglobe studio closed shortly after (leaving ‘Gangsta’ with another bloody open ending) but, considering how popular Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou’s manga was, it’s still strange that no one was interested in doing another season or even a remake.
‘Akatsuki no Yona’
Speaking of popular manga, the one with ‘Yona, Princess of the Dawn’ (title with which it is published in Spain) is another one of those unparalleled hits. This fantasy story already accumulates 38 volumes and its adaptation by Pierrot in 2014 only covered the first 8 volumes.
Being an open series, it is normal to “wait for more volumes to come out” but Almost 10 years have passed since its broadcast and there is plenty of material to make a season 2 and even 3. Surely, we are facing one of those famous cases in which the anime is made with the aim of making the manga gain popularity but without a real desire to give it continuity. A pity, because ‘Yona’ had left rope for a while.
‘gantz’
Another one of those immensely popular manga whose adaptation fell short. The original by Hiroya Oku added a total of 37 volumesand the 2004 adaptation of 26 episodes (two seasons of 13 episodes each) only covered up to 8.
While it is true that this famous and violent science fiction story has received various film adaptationsboth animated (‘Gantz: O’) and live (‘Gantz’, ‘Gantz: Perfect Answer’ and ‘Another Gantz’), it does not seem likely that we will see the entire story animated in the future.
‘The Twelve Kingdoms’
Based on the light novels by Fuyumi Ono, this fantasy story was one of the first isekai (before the term was coined) that we could see on TV when it was broadcast by regional networks and Buzz. The 45 episodes adapt 4 of the 9 novels that add up to date, the most recent published in 2019.
Although the series goes by sagas and all of them were fully adapted, the intention was to continue adapting more novels and the end of the season was not thought of as a great closure of the story (and it shows, because the last adapted saga was precisely the most boring). Unfortunately, the thing was there and almost certainly, we will never know anything about the rest of the sagas of ‘The Twelve Kingdoms’.
‘Elfen Lied’
We close with another one of those cult animes thathowever, he stayed without a worthy end in perpetuity. The 13-episode anime aired in 2004, and Lynn Okamoto’s manga ended in 2005 with 12 volumes. Despite that, no one launched to make another season that adapted the outcome and that his popularity was through the roof.
The last episode of the anime did not reach any kind of conclusion, managing an open ending (which left with the eternal doubt if the main character survived or not) And they were so wide. Honestly, if in its moment of greatest fame there was no interest in animating the entire work, there is not much chance that it will happen.