13 Underrated Anime That Never Got An English Dub

Join a totally cute cast of humanized mermaid princesses in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, a glorious concoction of magical girl comedy and romantic drama about mer-girls who can't reveal their true identities without bursting into a billion bubbles. At one point, ADV films did actually license this wonderful mermaid tale, but due to lack of backers and TV support, they eventually passed it off to TV Aichi, who are sitting on it until it fizzles out.

This theatrical debut for the .hack// franchise is a beautifully animated CGI/animation hybrid where monsters from a popular MMORPG arise during the 2024 Summer Olympics, providing a chaotic setting and a sci-fi joyride for anyone who has a passion for gaming. The movie was eventually released as a Blu-ray /PS3 hybrid, but because the accompanying fighting game (.hack//Versus) was never localized due to decreasing popularity and the discontinuation of the .hack// games for PS2, the movie itself never received a dub or a sub.

If you're a fan of Type-MOON, then this comedic parody will be a delight for your inner Fate Stay/Night or Tsukihime otaku. Anime connoisseurs of all stripes have praised this series for mashing up classic characters in hilarious situations, but the characters might have been a bit too bonkers and overly directed a niche that wasn't profitable enough. Therefore, this series wasn't distributed overseas during its launch in 2011.

Phantom Thief Jeanne is the unique and peppy tale of a magical girl who has been given the holy task of hunting demons within treasures, causing them to disappear in the real world. Oh, and she's in high school, so her newly God-given criminal activities are surrounded with romance, drama, and hilarious scenarios that will entertain you for hours. On the Western end, at the time of its 2009 release, magical girl genres were generally heavily edited for younger US audiences, and nobody took on the burden of adapting it.

Basquash! involves both sports and mecha action, as dwellers of a technologically advanced city play basketball with their big, beefy robots. It's exactly as awesome as it sounds. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, no American licensing company thought these giant, b-ball bouncing bots were marketable enough to bring overseas. As it originally launched in 2009, this anime is well past its debut period.

This completely hectic anime is a nonsensically hilarious narrative featuring a demon, a jellyfish, a cross-dressing member of the mafia, a lion, and a cyborg. It will both endlessly entertain you and cater to all of your fan-service needs (as long as you speak Japanese, that is). Although totally loveable, Kyouran Kazoku Nikki might be a bit too eccentric for American companies to want to include it in their licensing.

This insanely popular shounen anime was a hit amongst Japanese audiences due to its horror/psychological themes, intense action sequences, and superb pop culture references to anime and popular Japanese figures. Unfortunately, out of all of the Weekly Shounen Jump sagas to get pumped out of their anime distribution gold mine, Hell Teacher Nube got the cold shoulder, most likely due to the heavy censorship both the animation and script would have to endure in order to reach the young North American demographic.

Monochrome Factor focuses on slaying shadow beasts in an epic anime filled with beautiful fight sequences and daring displays of romance. However, the manga (which had a glorious redistribution by Tokyopop) didn't include the same amount of heavy shounen-ai as the anime itself. American audiences already weren't buying the manga enough at the time of the anime's 2008 debut, preventing it from realizing localization opportunities.

Despite innocent-looking animation, surreal, psychedelic cyberpunk adventures and love stories await viewers in this dystopian world. In Kaiba, memories are transplanted between bodies via memory chips to prevent death. Kaiba won an Excellence Prize for Animation at the prestigious Japan Media Arts festival in 2008, and even made its way to some regions of Oceania. So far, however, those have been the only areas able to properly experience this amazing series.

Mahoraba is a silly, spontaneous tale about a struggling children's book author and his crush with disassociate identity disorder. It dives deep into themes about mental illness and coping with unstable relationships, without leaving its lighthearted roots. Although Western audiences received pirated and fansubbed versions of this anime very well, it's been over 10 years since its Japanese debut. At this point, it's unlikely anyone other than hardcore fans are going to dub this gem.

In the desolate future of 2035, where the birthrate has left high school classrooms with empty seats and low morale, this dystopian anime comes to life through the actions of a young girl whose outlandish motivation has a butterfly effect throughout the entire school. Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! is part of an entire franchise of manga, games, and anime, and no part of the multimedia project ever made its way overseas.

Sexy Commando Gaiden might have dated animation, but the 10-minute segments of ferociously quippy gags, puns, and stunt-action skits pack a powerful comedic punch. This anime does a genuine service to the short manga it was based on, so it's hard to gauge whether it was the content delivery, the pacing, or just overall lack of interest in distributing a 1998 anime series that kept it away from dubbing.

Not only does Code-E have a great premise (the quirky and nervous main character emits electromagnetic waves that completely disable electronic equipment when she's emotionally distraught), there's also lots of action in the form of evil organizations making moves to use her gifts for their own dastardly plans. Due to its negative reception and lack of interest from its target demographic (young boys), neither the manga nor the anime have been localized for English-speaking audiences.