Anime Mentors Who Are Actually Terrible Teachers

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Anime frequently features strong characters who mentor young heroes, guiding them in both fighting and life. These mentors, or ‘sensei,’ are often popular because of their incredible power or unique personalities, which sometimes hide a sad history. But a closer look reveals that their training methods are often irresponsible and even dangerous. Some mentors leave their students unsupervised for extended periods, while others put them in deadly situations without giving them proper preparation.

Goku

While Goku is known as a hero in ‘Dragon Ball Z,’ his skills as a father and teacher are debatable. He often prioritizes training in distant realms—even the afterlife—over spending time with and guiding his son, Gohan. One particularly controversial moment was when he gave the villain Cell a healing bean before Cell’s fight with Gohan, essentially betting the planet’s safety on Gohan’s untapped anger, despite Gohan being a peaceful child who didn’t want to fight.

Piccolo

Okay, let’s talk about Piccolo’s introduction in ‘Dragon Ball Z’. It’s…intense. He literally kidnaps little Gohan, just four years old, after a pretty horrific event – the death of his father. Then, get this, he just leaves him to survive on his own in a dinosaur-filled wilderness for six months! The idea was to prepare him for the upcoming Saiyan threat, but honestly, it’s a pretty brutal method. We’re talking about a sweet, innocent kid being thrown into a survival situation with absolutely no help or comfort. While their relationship does eventually become heartwarming, the way it starts is seriously disturbing – abandoning and, frankly, traumatizing a preschooler with violence and neglect. It’s a shocking way to build a mentor relationship, even within the context of this action-packed series.

Kakashi Hatake

In ‘Naruto,’ Kakashi leads Team 7, but he clearly favors Sasuke, especially when the team is first learning. He spends most of his time training Sasuke, while Naruto and Sakura are often left to train themselves. Kakashi’s unusual teaching methods include reading novels during training and frequently being late. He also often lets his students fight dangerous opponents without giving them enough preparation or guidance.

Jiraiya

Jiraiya, a powerful ninja known as the Toad Sage, agrees to train Naruto, but he’s often distracted by his hobbies – like spying on women and taking Naruto’s money. His training is unconventional, even dangerous; he often pushes Naruto to his limits by throwing him off cliffs, forcing him to learn how to summon a toad to survive. Jiraiya often puts his personal research ahead of properly teaching and protecting Naruto, and his frequent absences leave Naruto exposed to danger from the Akatsuki for many years.

Satoru Gojo

In ‘Jujutsu Kaisen,’ Gojo is incredibly powerful, but his teaching methods are risky. He frequently sends his students, even first-years, on challenging and dangerous missions designed to push their abilities or stir up trouble with those in charge. He’s often overconfident and doesn’t fully prepare his students for the political risks they encounter. Gojo seems more focused on his own plans to reform the jujutsu world than on protecting Itadori and his classmates from harm or emotional distress.

Reigen Arataka

In ‘Mob Psycho 100,’ Reigen pretends to be a powerful psychic, but he doesn’t have any psychic abilities at all. He uses Mob, a middle schooler with incredible powers, to run a business that supposedly gets rid of evil spirits, all to make money. Reigen barely pays Mob, yet takes all the credit for work he can’t do himself. Their entire relationship is based on a deception, preying on Mob’s need for someone to look up to.

Saitama

In ‘One Punch Man,’ Genos tries to become Saitama’s student, hoping to learn how he got so strong. Saitama agrees to teach him mostly because he needs the money, but he doesn’t actually have anything useful to offer. He gives Genos generic exercise tips that don’t work for his robotic body. Often, Saitama ignores Genos or invents lessons as he goes along, pretending to be a knowledgeable teacher.

Ging Freecss

Ging is central to the story of ‘Hunter x Hunter’ because he chose his career over raising his son, Gon. Instead of being a father, he created a perilous game with life-threatening challenges as a way for Gon to potentially meet him. Even when they finally connect, Ging is cold and doesn’t seem to care about the difficulties Gon faced to find him. He believes a child must constantly risk their life to prove they deserve a relationship with their father.

Izumi Curtis

As a huge fan of ‘Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood,’ I’m always struck by the sheer intensity of Izumi’s training. When Edward and Alphonse seek her out, she doesn’t mess around! She throws them onto a deserted island with just a knife and expects them to survive for a whole month without food. It’s incredibly harsh, but her logic is that facing death is a fundamental part of life, and she wants them to understand that before she even starts teaching them alchemy. It’s a seriously traumatic experience, but she believes they need to prove they can overcome it before she’ll share her knowledge. It really sets the stage for everything that follows in the series.

All Might

In ‘My Hero Academia,’ All Might passes on his powerful ability to a young boy, Izuku Midoriya, without fully warning him about the severe physical strain it will cause. He pushes Midoriya to attend a top hero school even before the boy learns to control his new power, which initially causes him to break bones with each use. All Might’s guidance is often more about motivation than practical instruction on handling this dangerous energy, and he keeps the complicated history of his power a secret from Midoriya for as long as possible.

Lisa Lisa

In ‘JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure,’ Lisa Lisa is a powerful Ripple user known for her incredibly harsh training. She pushes Joseph Joestar and Caesar Zeppeli to their limits, forcing them to scale an oily pillar above a dangerous pit for days. She keeps her relationship to Joseph a secret, maintaining a strict teacher-student boundary even as she subjects them to grueling tests. Throughout this intense training, she remains completely composed, even as her students risk death from exhaustion and starvation.

Kisuke Urahara

In ‘Bleach,’ Urahara puts Ichigo Kurosaki through a harsh training regime, cutting off his spiritual connection and leaving him in a desperate situation. Ichigo has just three days to recover his powers or risk becoming a monster. Urahara also sends Ichigo and his friends to fight incredibly powerful opponents in the Soul Society, all while keeping secrets about his own past. He frequently takes big risks with the lives of these teenagers, using them to achieve his own complex goals.

Tell us which anime mentor you think has the worst teaching methods in the comments.

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2025-11-24 08:15