Saddest anime and manga

61 ELO points separate Naruto from Demon Slayer at the top of the Community Pick ranking, after 6299 duels.

The podium reveals a tight race beyond the leader. Naruto sits at 1320 ELO after 459 duels, claiming the top spot with a 55% win rate. Demon Slayer follows at 1259 ELO through 464 duels, while Assassination Classroom secures third place at 1255 ELO across 398 duels. The gap between first and second marks the sharpest divide in the ranking, yet the contenders below remain closely bunched. One Piece trails at 1253 ELO through 443 duels, and Attack on Titan holds 1221 ELO after 452 duels. The surprise lies not in Naruto's dominance but in how competitive the middle positions remain. At the bottom, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure lands at rank 9 with 1059 ELO and a 39% win rate across 423 duels, suggesting the community reserves its tears for stories built on sustained emotional weight rather than spectacle alone. I Want to Eat Your Pancreas sits just above at rank 8 with 1080 ELO, while Grave of the Fireflies holds rank 7 at 1153 ELO.

This ranking draws from 6299 duels across 337 players, who compared 9 contenders head-to-head to determine which anime and manga provoked the strongest emotional responses. The results were last updated on 10 October 2026. The vote remains open: add your own duels to shift the standings or confirm the current order.

Updated on October 10, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →