The Beginning After the End Just Lost Its Crown As Worst Webtoon Anime

While anime adaptations of webtoons are booming, none have been as controversial as The Beginning After the End… until recently. The Beginning After the End was so poorly received that fans started a petition to remake the anime while it was still airing. However, another webtoon adaptation is now receiving even worse backlash.

With high expectations due to the popularity of TurtleMe's novel and webcomic, The Beginning After the End's first season premiered in April 2025, achieving a meager 5.9/10 rating on IMDb. The anime was heavily criticized by fans due to its poor animation quality and changes from the source material. Although some fans disliked the excessive focus on Arthur Leywin's past life as King Grey, what cemented the anime's infamous reputation was its lackluster action and clunky transitions, earning it derogatory nicknames such as "The Slideshow After the End."

Even so, many fans looked beyond the visuals and enjoyed The Beginning After the End's story, resulting in a good audience that led to a second season of the anime for Spring 2026. Although the production values ​​in The Beginning After the End Season 2 didn't particularly improve, with awkward-looking CGI and unnecessary original scenes, it may no longer be considered the most disappointing webtoon adaptation thanks to the release of the Monster Eater anime.

Monster Eater Is an Even Worse Webtoon Anime Adaptation Than the Beginning After the End

Monster Eater, a Japanese webtoon serialized on Line Manga that reached an impressive 30 million cumulative views, has a chilling start on par with series like Solo Leveling and Arifureta. Monster Eater could have been the next hit power fantasy anime that fans had been longing for, but instead, it truly looks like a slideshow presentation, making The Beginning After the End's animation look better by comparison.

The story follows Rudd, an E-rank adventurer with a poor ability for combat, who, after being betrayed and left for dead in a dungeon and managing to survive in the style of Delicious in Dungeon (but without the recipes), begins to grow stronger and gain new skills. Sadly, instead of elevating its source material, which has a great art style and character design, Monster Eater literally copies the webtoon panels, adding sound effects and voice acting with barely any animation.

Although this format was created by Imagica Infos and Dai Nippon Printing in 2022 and is titled "light anime," it has surprised Monster Eater fans, who were expecting traditional animation given the action-oriented nature of the story. This has resulted in negative reviews for the anime. The Monster Eater adaptation already has the worst rating on MyAnimeList for the Spring 2026 season, with a 3.90, significantly lower than The Beginning After The End Season 1, which received a 6.18.

Monster Eater Anime Uses a Unique Animation Technique

According to the Imagica Infos website, light anime was created as a "new form of entertainment" by using the manga manuscript and webtoon panels directly without creating new drawings. This not only reduces costs to approximately 10% of what is typical for anime but also significantly shortens production time, allowing the series to be ready for broadcast in around six months.

Although Monster Eater isn't the first anime to use a similar production style, with series like The Way of the Househusband finding success despite using "flash animation," this type of technique works best in comedy. Webtoons has conquered fans by its unique vertical format that allows the reader to freely scroll down and control the progression of the story, with the coloring helping convey the dynamism of the action sequences.

Thus, although the goal of light anime is to preserve the atmosphere of the original material and enrich the story with dubbing, it can also become monotonous. While webtoons invite readers to expand action scenes with their imagination, Monster Eater's adaptation feels restrictive, limited to what the original panels show.

Monster Eater's Webtoon Might Be a Better Choice

Beyond its lack of movement, Monster Eater's episodes are also quite short, around 13 minutes, including the opening and ending. As a result, in its two episodes released so far, the anime has only covered two chapters of the webtoon. It makes watching the anime seem like a waste and that viewers would be better off reading the webtoon.

It also doesn't help that Monster Eater isn't officially licensed on any streaming platform for Western audiences. Nevertheless, even disappointing adaptations can help viewers find new stories, as The Beginning After the End's anime gave more visibility to its novel and manhwa adaptations. Monster Eater is currently available on WEBTOON's platform for those interested in following Rudd's story.