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Biggest plot holes in anime?




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Animeking1108



Joined: 26 Apr 2011
Posts: 1244
PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 12:56 am Reply with quote
Whether you enjoy the series or not, a series always has to have its LOTR Eagles or Time Turner. Heck, the plot holes I listed are from anime I still enjoy to this day.

Super Saiyan- DBZ: When Goku fought Recoome, Vegeta said that only once every 1,000 years, a Super Saiyan is born. He didn't say three full Saiyans and three half-breeds. I feel like the Super Saiyan God form was introduced to fill that plot hole once and for all.

Where were Mamiya's Marks?- Fist of the North Star: In the Juda arc, Mamiya was revealed to have markings on her back that were basically Juda branding her as his sex slave. Funny how Kenshiro and Rei didn't notice them when she had her clothes ripped off during the Kiba Clan arc.

Why Didn't Al Transfer His Soul to the Armor Like Before?- Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa: If you think about it, spoiler[the Elrics being separated from their loved ones] could have easily been avoided. spoiler[If Ed and Al needed to close the gate without being separated], why didn't Al just transfer his soul into the a suit of armor, go to the other side, and use the not-so-very limited time to close the gate in Munich?

Homunculus Weakness- Fullmetal Alchemist 2003: Speaking of moments in the 2003 series that could have easily been avoided, we now get to spoiler[Pride]. The 2003 series established that Homunculi can be killed if spoiler[they get near a piece of their remains]. So, why did spoiler[Bradley] think it was a good idea to spoiler[keep his skull lying around the house] and spoiler[give it to his naïve son without telling him why it's important]? He didn't just dig his own grave. He dug his own grave, ordered his casket months in advance, and arranged the funeral before he spoiler[fought Mustang]. And don't tell me spoiler[he was the Sin of Pride]. There's villainous hubris, there's Hoist by His Own Petard, and then there's full-on Bond Villain Stupidity. Going back to "Conqueror of Shamballa," how were Al and Wrath spoiler[able to kill Gluttony without human remains]? The 2003 anime doesn't explain how spoiler[Gluttony] was created, so we don't know if he was human or not. What, did spoiler[eating Dante] suddenly cancel it out?
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Errinundra
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Joined: 14 Jun 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 4:08 am Reply with quote
The biggest plot hole in anime is, well, a hole:



It's from Paprika and appears without any explanation. The chairman of the research institute, where the story begins, enters the hole as a cripple and comes out as a god, again without any explanation. He's then swallowed whole by Paprika, also without any explanation, and Tokyo carries on normal life as if the hole isn't even there.

When Detective Konokawa asks two bartenders (voiced by director Satoshi Kon and the original noveliest Yasutaka Tsutsui) where the hole leads, they look away. Well, they don't have any answer - they just wrote and directed the jolly thing.

Of course, it's all metafictional pomo fun but, really, you can't beat it for a literal and figurative plot hole. Happily the bartenders decide to clean up the mess, though they never explain how.
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MacAttack270





PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 11:53 am Reply with quote
errinundra wrote:
It's from Paprika and appears without any explanation. The chairman of the research institute, where the story begins, enters the hole as a cripple and comes out as a god, again without any explanation. He's then swallowed whole by Paprika, also without any explanation, and Tokyo carries on normal life as if the hole isn't even there.


My rationale for it? --> Because Satoshi Kon [/explanation]
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:55 pm Reply with quote
Ooh, I've got some burning questions!

Garzey's Wing-so... what, is he like spoiler[perma stuck in two worlds now]? And more importantly, he was acting like he's completely insane from an outsider's perspective, why did everyone around him treat this like it was the most normal thing ever?

Scrapped Princess-so....what did spoiler[the rest of the world do about this random perfectly square shaped chunk just floating above it? Did they not notice it for eons?]

Pokemon-Ash and co see team Rocket on a weekly, if not daily, basis. How can he tell his Pikachu from other identical Pikachus all acting and looking identical yet can't recognize Team Rocket in anything other than their Team Rocket uniforms? How is any human being that stupid? Can't one shot characters recognize Team Rocket on occasion? So it's obviously possible, right?

Freedom-How on earth do Eden and spoiler[Earth] both have their own unique varieties of Nissin Cup Noodles? spoiler[The haven't had contact with each other in like, a hundred years] and yet the packaging is near identical.

Infinite Ryvius-why did it take so long for anyone to realize an entire space station training thing of students was missing? I recall there being interference when the incident occurs, but it didn't take literally months for it to clear, it took a few days. This space station thing happens in the first episode. I think some parents would notice if they hadn't heard from their kids in a while and act faster.

Key the Metal Idol-why didn't Sakura tell the cops she was being preyed on by people wanting to make sex videos with minors? Is that a cultural thing or something, to not tell anyone? I know victims of domestic and sexual abuse might be hesitant to tell people, but she doesn't seem the type (also, it never got that far).

Master Keaton-he's a professor, but does he ever teach a class? Ever? How has he not been fired from that job? I think we see him give all of one lecture then disappear from doing college things for pretty much always.

Space Adventure Cobra-do traditional women's clothing not exist anymore, just bikini and lingerie stores?

Digimon movie and Summer Wars-The bad guy-mon sends a spoiler[missile/satellite headed towards Hawaii or the family's home] (depending on the movie), yes? Is it even possible to change the trajectory of those once they've been launched? Particularly unmanned? They don't seem to have anything on them that could be used for that purpose (like jets or something), especially not that close to their targets. I mean, Iron Giant, they couldn't change the trajectory.

Hamtaro-what if school gets out early one day for whatever reason? I think the kids would notice their hamsters are all missing god knows where.
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MacAttack270





PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 5:52 pm Reply with quote
classicalzawa wrote:
Digimon movie and Summer Wars-The bad guy-mon sends a spoiler[missile/satellite headed towards Hawaii or the family's home] (depending on the movie), yes? Is it even possible to change the trajectory of those once they've been launched? Particularly unmanned? They don't seem to have anything on them that could be used for that purpose (like jets or something), especially not that close to their targets. I mean, Iron Giant, they couldn't change the trajectory.

Well satellites do have thrusters so they can adjust there own orbits. It's not outside the realm of possibility to use them to create a decaying orbit forcing the satellite down. However, they're nowhere near powerful enough in my mind to create a controlled enough descent to be able to hit a small target like the Jinnouchi house. Excellent point that I hadn't yet thought about.

I have a question as well:

Eden of the East - How was it possible that Akira was able to spoiler[ship 20,000 NEETs to Dubai in shipping containers via sea] and they didn't all die? And then they all mysteriously show up again in the same ship, all still naked? Even though some had evidently been able to escape from spoiler[Dubai] earlier (as evidenced by the singular one he meets at the beginning of Ep 5)? I never really got that. Still a good show though.
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dlm



Joined: 23 Nov 2013
Posts: 151
PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 7:21 pm Reply with quote
Any show where it turns out late in the series that two major characters used to know each other, when every indication up to that point was that they were strangers/

I AM LOOKING AT YOU HAGANAI. (No spoiler tag because I am not saying which people it was. I think that this meats the requirements)

But I will spoiler something about why that show is egregious. spoiler[Oh, we were childhood friends. By the way, our parents are friendly, and I have to thank your father for getting me in to the school. (I MIGHT buy this one because of "His" willful obliviousness regarding girls around him and "Her" general obliviousness regarding everyone who isn't herself) Oh, and also by the way, remember when we were engaged? I'll wait until the end of the second season to remind you of that.]
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RichardZIII



Joined: 20 Oct 2012
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 11:42 pm Reply with quote
classicalzawa wrote:

Infinite Ryvius-why did it take so long for anyone to realize an entire space station training thing of students was missing? I recall there being interference when the incident occurs, but it didn't take literally months for it to clear, it took a few days. This space station thing happens in the first episode. I think some parents would notice if they hadn't heard from their kids in a while and act faster.


I'm quite happy to see I'm not the only one who watched the show, though nostalgia has likely prevented me from remembering the plot hole you speak of. Since I've burned through all the shows I've lined up to watch (and it'll be another week before there's any new episodes for the ones in progress), I think I'm going to have to watch through it again.

After looking at the timeline, the Dive starts April 28, the purge happens on the 29th, the students escape on the Ryvius on the 30th. If I remember when the announcement was made spoiler[(same time as the Ryvius being labeled a terrorist ship, yeah?)], then it would be somewhere around early June. It doesn't really plug up the plot hole you mentioned, just gives it a more definite time-frame.

An addition to the hole you mentioned though:
Infinite Ryvius - How did no one notice the large ship sized blocked off area in the center of the Lieba Delta's plans? Especially the maintenance crews/Engineers.
There's also the question of how just two men managed to overtake a station that is at least 8x the size of the Ryvius itself (if not more, it's hard to find good screencaps of the show), a ship that happily housed about 500 students with so much room to spare entire sections of the ship were vacant. I understand a lot of the staff and students had left for the Dive holiday, but a station can't run on students and administration alone, you'd need plenty of professional, certified Engineers around if you're going to spoiler[submerge the entire station into a sea of plasma, then bring it back up again], and even with a bare-bones crew, the students appear to have free roam of the station, so why are nearly all the staff in one room?


I'm kinda just nitpicking, but really, they didn't have any Engineers floating around?
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Lain'sHairline



Joined: 15 Aug 2014
Posts: 158
Location: Dallas, TX
PostPosted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 2:57 pm Reply with quote
Naruto stole the shadow clone jutsu which is really a shameless way to cheat the rest in a fraction of the time. How convenient for a protagonist to only have to train for 2 manga pages.

#1 out of 999 Barfuto pitfalls.
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Spotlesseden



Joined: 09 Sep 2004
Posts: 3514
Location: earth
PostPosted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 5:02 pm Reply with quote
Animeking1108 wrote:

Super Saiyan- DBZ: When Goku fought Recoome, Vegeta said that only once every 1,000 years, a Super Saiyan is born. He didn't say three full Saiyans and three half-breeds. I feel like the Super Saiyan God form was introduced to fill that plot hole once and for all.



I think what Vegeta meant is it's very rare to see a Super Saiyan. Not literally one can only born ever 1000 years. Isn't Broly already fill that plot hole?
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Ggultra2764
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 6:36 pm Reply with quote
Have a big one with DBZ, though would also count as one of the title's many inconsistencies:

Goku and Namek- spoiler[After defeating Frieza, Goku immediately flew towards Freiza's spaceship to use as his means of getting off Namek as it was about to blow up. Unfortunately, said spaceship was edging towards falling into a ravine full of lava and Goku found himself unable to get the ship to run. He immediately flew out of the ship to avoid falling with it into the ravine and is clearly shown still being on the planet's surface as it explodes. It is later revealed by the Namekian dragon Porunga that Goku survived the planet's destruction somehow. When we see Goku arrive back on Earth following the deaths of Frieza and King Cold, he reveals that he got off the planet using one of the space pods in Frieza's ship, despite the fact he's clearly shown having flew out of the spaceship on his own without the mentioned space pod earlier in the series.]
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 6:53 pm Reply with quote
Ggultra2764, I always took Goku flying out of the ship and raging while the planet blew up to be stylised and exaggerated for dramatic effect rather than a truthful account of what really happened.

If you look at this clip...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMb0cjchW8U

...you'll see that while Goku was initially shown to fly out of the ship and rage as the planet blew up, what he actually did was stay inside it and spot (through a crack in the hull) a Ginyu Force pod falling past him.

In other words, the first scene never happened and Goku cleared the air up by revealing the truth of his escape.
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Touma



Joined: 29 Aug 2007
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Location: Colorado, USA
PostPosted: Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:05 pm Reply with quote
classicalzawa wrote:
Scrapped Princess-so....what did spoiler[the rest of the world do about this random perfectly square shaped chunk just floating above it? Did they not notice it for eons?]

That is not really a plot hole because the rest of the world spoiler[was uninhabited. Everybody was living on that piece floating in the sky, and they thought that it was the whole world.]
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SpacemanHardy



Joined: 03 Jan 2012
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 26, 2014 11:09 pm Reply with quote
classicalzawa wrote:
Master Keaton-he's a professor, but does he ever teach a class? Ever? How has he not been fired from that job? I think we see him give all of one lecture then disappear from doing college things for pretty much always.


Actually, yes. I believe he does get fired. It's not in the show itself, but I believe one of the episode descriptions on the back of the box claims that he gets fired from his teaching job in Tokyo.

It doesn't matter, really, seeing as his main source of income is his job as an insurance investigator. Most of his teaching jobs usually tend to be on the temporary side anyways, as his wanderlust is simply too strong for him to stay in one place for too long a period of time.
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