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There are many anime characters that both fans and creators adore and hate. Sometimes they're both on the same page, but other times they're on opposite ends of the spectrum regarding the same characters. It's not always clear why, but such are the pitfalls of having a fandom.
Sometimes a character will be resoundly disliked for stealing attention away from the main role, like Asahi from Food Wars, or otherwise causing someone to be written as the worst version of themselves, like Chiho from The Devil is a Part-Timer.
To accurately investigate these cases of creator pet syndrome, the following article will take a look at 10 anime characters who are beloved by creators but utterly detested by fans.
Disclaimer: This article will contain spoilers for the various anime and character's profiled therein. The opinions reflect only the author's.
Chiho and 9 other anime characters fans hate for being creators' favorites
1) Chiho Sasaki (The Devil is a Part-Timer!)
Chiho Sasaki is arguably the nicest and most innocent character in the comedy anime, The Devil is a Part Timer. The idea that someone like that could get any hate boggles the mind, until one listens to a few reasons why fans are irritated at her. The short answer is that she's too kind and gets far too much time compared to other characters.
The long answer is that the creator of the light novel, Satoshi Wagahara, and director of the anime, White Fox's Naoto Hosoda, have seemingly favored her multiple times at the expense of other characters like Emilia.
Fans have complained that the light novel's narration and other characters dedicated entire pages to praising Chiho's integrity and generosity, no matter the narrative context or topic of the conversation. This often slowed the light novel's pacing to a snail's crawl speed.
In the anime, Chiho was prioritized over main character Emilia. This happened so often that the latter was purposefully written to be more hateful towards the former. This was deliberately done to make Chiho seem more saintlike, despite having clingy feelings towards Sado Mao, which ironically resulted in Chiho getting more detractors.
This proves that even the "pure cinammon roll" characters can attract derision if not used properly.
2) Asahi Nakiri (Food Wars)
A late arrival in the Food Wars anime, Asahi Nakiri is the leader of the villainous Les Cuisiniers Noirs a.k.a The Midnight Chefs. He is the main antagonist of the Blue Arc, where Food Wars' quality dropped to land on many bad lists, and Asahi is one of the main reasons why.
There are many reasons why fans hate this character. For example, Asahi was suddenly shoved into a love-triangle plot between him, Soma, and Erina, which invalidated Erina's character development to stealing screen from the supporting cast.
He was also portrayed as invincible from the start. Asashi wiped the floor with everyone he went up against, from his goons to beloved fan-favorites like Joichiro, Eishi, and Megumi, and was made out to be the perfect chef.
Not helping matters is the fact that, since the chef consultant was on leave before the final arc, Asahi's cooking skills relied too much on over-the-top gimmicks. What's worse is the author favored Asahi so much that the manga's epilogue was decicated to him instead of the main protagonists. If invincible heroes are boring, then unstoppable villains are doubly so.
3) Minoru Mineta aka Grape Juice (My Hero Academia)
Arguably the current worst perverted character in anime, Minoru Mineta of the shonen anime My Hero Academia has retained a sizeable amount of hatred, which results in extremely low rankings in popularity polls.
This is mainly attributed to his grossly perverted antics such as being able to win the triathon part of the Sports Festival by hanging on to Momo Yayarozu's posterior, sniffing Tooru Hagakure's underwear drawer, and hitting on the then six-year-old Eri.
There's also the fact that his character is painfully underdeveloped compared to others. This goes to the point where he's yet to contribute anything substantial to the ongoing plot, unlike Kaminari and Kirishima, which is a reason why many fans aghast that he is still in the series.
To add an ocean's worth of salt to that particular wound, series creator Kohei Horikoshi confessed that Minesta is one of his favorite characters because he's easy and fun to draw.
Mineta tends to get a lot of screen and page-time compared to others in Class 1-A like Jiro or Kaminari. Audiences have been heard loudly booing Mineta in anime movie screenings, and completely leaving him out of fanworks. Having perversion as a character trait can be acceptable, but there needs to be more than that to win fans over.
4) Suou Pavlichenko (Darker than Black)
Darker than Black's second anime season added Suou Pavlichenko, an anti-tank material-rifle-using daughter of a scientist. Many fans wish she hadn't been added for a number of reasons.
The first is the fact that the attention she got eclipsed that of the original protagonist Hei, whilst having very little personality and often being used for fanservice. Her age of about 13 drew the fanservice point into utter irredeemable territory for most of the audience.
Other fans feel some of her massive screentime could have been better spent focusing on established characters like Yin, Hei, or Kirihara. To further add to her problems, Suou breaks the established contractor rules and goes back and forth between being a contractor and a regular girl.
To sum up the complaints, Suou is a magical girl in a series that doesn't allow for them to exist. The fact that she's a clone doesn't help matters, and most people blame her for the series' downfall in Season 2.
5) Johnny Gill (D.Gray-Man)
D.Gray-Man isn't an anime that is known for having favorites among the mangaka or the anime staff, but Johnny Gill appears to be the exception.
He was initially a minor character that appeared among the other members of the Science Department. But, as is often the case with anime creators loving a character, Johnny's role increased tenfold after the Noah's Ark story arc. As a result, he appears more than the secondary main protagonists, Lavi and Lenalee.
Essentially, while Johnny is supposed to be as normal and vulnerable as any normal human, but he seems to live through plenty of near-death experiences and fatal injuries, much to the fandom's chagrin.
When he isn't nearly at death's door half the time, he spends the other half crying or thinking about main protagonist Allen Walker. He does this in a way that is reminiscent of how Yuno Gasabe from Future Diary thinks about the object of her affections.
Fans are supposed to infer that Allen and Johnny are close friends. This is even though the supposed "friendship" hasn't been developed on screen, despite some 80-90% of the series focusing on Allen's life in the Order. Fans who love Johnny are few in number, and most wish he'd depart or at least that mangaka Katsura Hoshino to remember she has other better characters.
6) Mr. Satan (Dragon Ball Z)
It was tough to find an infamous character that Dragon Ball series creator Akira Toriyama loved but fans hated. The first that springs to mind is Jaco the Galactic Patrolman from Dragon Ball Super, which is due to him not getting an actual introduction that wasn't in a side manga. However, any hate for Jaco usually cools off since he was not in the episodes or the series overall for long.
Among the original Dragon Ball Z fans, however, Mr. Satan clinched that win. He may have had been incredibly popular in the Japanese fandom, but not so much on the Western side of the fandom, especially not during the Cell or Majin Buu Arcs. His haughty attitude, credit-taking, and spotlight-stealing antics grated on many nerves when he was in focus.
Toriyama himself once stated that if he ever made another manga, it would focus on him. Much like how the creator's opinions have shifted over the years to state Piccolo as his favorite, fans' opinions have likewise shifted in Mr. Satan's favor with the Western fandom. It took people a while to realize the humor of a Dragon Ball character in Dragon Ball Z, but they warmed up to him when they did.
7) Kaname Ohgi (Code Geass)
Betrayals are horrible, especially when they're done by a character that fans liked before the sullen deed was done. Case in point - Kaname Ohgi from Code Geass.
If Nina Einstein is hated for ludicrous reasons, the hate against Ohgi is completely justified. He went from the Black Knights' voice of reason to an utter lunatic. From his utter carelessness with the amnesiatic Villetta, to selling out Lelouch to his evil brother Schneizel El Britannia, Ohgi's betrayals really got many fans raging.
Ohgi remain committed to Villetta despite her true identity, and with her trying to kill him multiple times over. As if that wasn't enough, he also swallowed the at-best circumstantial evidence she gave him regarding Geass', and sided with her and Schneizel over Zero.
This is ludicrous considering Zero is the man who saved his life and turned the Black Knights into an effective fighting force against Britannia.
To make matters even more unreal, Ohgi attempted to get Schneizel to state that he'll give Japan back to the Japanese in exchange for the mutiny. This would probably have been rescinded the minute Lelouch was dealt with.
So, add treason, conspiring with the enemy, and lying to fellow fighters like Jeremiah, Xingke, and Kaguya by saying Zero perished in battle. Top it off with the series treating him like a hero? Ohgi comes off as a man more determined to save himself and his lover than anything else.
8) Agon Kongo (Eyeshield 21)
Eyeshield 21 is a manga about American football that focuses on a team that bullies their secretary into helping them, which defrosts as the series goes on. Some of the antagonists are quirky, lovable, and have their own stories to tell. Agon is not one of them, especially during the World Cup arc where the series appeared to go downhill.
To elaborate, Agon's original purpose was to be the the equivalent of a heel like WWE's Triple H - arrogant, musclebound, and completely unsympathetic. The problem is that mangaka Riichiro Inagaki and head artist Yusuke Murata seemed to find him to be a nicer shade of evil, and thus promoted him to the position of teammate in the main team.
Agon thusly had the lion's share of character focus during the arc. Whether fans loved, hated, or loved to hate this anime arc villain is irrelevant as most agree that he shouldn't have gotten more spotlight than even the main character. Not everyone loves the arrogant bad guy, less so when he doesn't really change after being humbled like Agon.
9) Lefiya Viridis (Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Sword Oratoria)
The anime adaptation of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Sword Oratoria had Lefiya Viridis, a side-character-turned-into-a-main by virtue of the anime adaptation. By far, the worst part was that the actual protagonist, Aiz Wallenstein, was shoved into the background in her own story as important parts of her backstory were cut to zero-in on Lefiya's daydreams about her.
The biggest sin that Lefiya has against her is that the anime completely overblew her obsession with Aiz and jealousy of Bell to the point where she was an obsessive stalker. However, hardly any character called her out on that. It didn't help that Lefiya had almost no development throughout.
Basically, Lefiya is held up as an example of skewed priorities in a main character of an anime. It didn't help that her emotions were all over the place, and that her abilities were completely broken for a character who wanted to be strong. To top it off, her emotions were all over the place, she had no drive, and felt ultimately passive and intolerable to some people.
10) Pokota (Slayers)
Mascot characters should be cute, adorable, and helpful in a series featuring them. Pokota from Slayers is not that. He is a sorcerer and prince of the kingdom of Taforashia, struck by a disease that causes his soul to be transferred into an animal creature to save his life.
The problem is that his past is too dark for his pint-sized appearance, his magical power is too much for someone his size, and his attitude reads more like a miniature berserker than anything truly helpful.
On the magical front, Pokota happens to have power on par with main character Lina Inverse, and whilst weilding a replica of the all-powerful Sword of Light to boot. The fact that Slayers Revolution's plot revolves around him, stealing time away from Lina, doesn't help matters. Pokota is tolerable to some fans in bursts of exposure, but not as the main character.
The worst thing is that while characters like Fillia could be annoying and Xellos had powers equal to that of a god, Pokota's biggest crime is not being funny in a comedy show. The least one can be is funny in a comedic anime, and if you're not funny, then why are you there?
These are the 10 creators' pet-type characters that fans hate beyond what words can describe. These are only 10 that the creator may cherish but fans detest with a vengeance, and readers are encouraged to add their own from any anime they can think of in the comments.
