Best animated TV plot holes of all time

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Martian Successor Nadesico picture

'Unmei no sentaku' mitaina - S1-E6

Plot hole: Akito's attack is point blank, on a ship part of a fleet with Distortion Field activated (basically, they have shields, like the good guys' robots). The explosion he causes is according to Ruri's damage report big enough that it managed to vaporize 80% of the ships they were facing, but his Aestivalis and the other 3 right floating nearby make out of it literally without a scratch. (00:05:10)

Sammo

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Mobile Suit Gundam picture

Escape from Luna II - S1-E4

Plot hole: White Base and the interior of Luna II withstand without a scratch the explosion of the thermonuclear reactor from the Magellan from just a few meters, while the blast literally vaporizes the Zaku far away from the entrance and threatens to damage the Musai, hundreds of meters away.

Sammo

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Batman: The Brave and the Bold picture

Triumvirate of Terror! - S3-E8

Plot hole: After Superman thwarts Lex's plan and knocks the Kryptonite into the sewers, Lex yells in frustration, splits his power suit off and flies away on a jet pack. Superman just lets him go. Wouldn't Superman chase him and catch him, especially seeing as how weak Lex would be like that? (00:07:35)

Quantom X

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Batman: The Animated Series picture

Two-Face (2) - S1-E18

Plot hole: When Two-Face and his men have broken into the new D.A.'s office to find dirt on Rupert Thorne, one of his men finds a file detailing Thorne's record of Swiss bank accounts, money laundering, blackmail and payoffs that Two-Face tried for years to subpoena when he was D.A. When Thorne finds out that Two-Face has the file, he states that he will be ruined if Two-Face gives the file to the police. If Two-Face tried unsuccessfully for years to subpoena the file, then in all likelihood that means Thorne paid off the right people to prevent the subpoena from happening, so Two-Face giving the file to the police shouldn't be a problem for him. Additionally, if giving the file to the police would be all that it would take to bring Thorne down, then the new D.A. could have already done so. If the new D.A. was also paid off by Thorne, then it wouldn't make sense for Thorne to allow the D.A. to keep the file since they could easily lose the file or even double-cross Thorne. (00:10:45 - 00:14:20)

Phaneron

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Fantastic Four: The Animated Series picture

When Calls Galactus - S2-E8

Plot hole: When Frankie tries to get Johnny to chase her out into space, he tells her he can't follow and warns her to turn back due to the thin atmosphere not being able to keep their flame powers active, and indeed her flames die out, and she begins falling back to Earth. However, several minutes later in the episode, both of them are just outside of the Earth when Terrax arrives, and again at the end after she becomes the new herald of Galactus, Johnny follows her into space well beyond Earth before his flames die out. (00:03:15 - 00:06:03)

Phaneron

More Fantastic Four: The Animated Series plot holes
Kyaputen Tsubasa picture

A Perfect Duo - S1-E8

Plot hole: For no reason and without the fact being addressed at all, 2 defenders take the kick off for the second extra time (and naturally lose it instantly, while Tsubasa and Misaki would never have). (00:18:00)

Sammo

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Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids picture

Playing Hookey - S1-E7

Plot hole: Dumb Donald chooses not to play hookey with the rest of the gang. He instead goes to school. The gang is even worried Dumb Donald may, "Rat them out" to the school. Yet throughout the episode, Dumb Donald appears/disappears with the gang as they are skipping school.

Mark English

More Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids plot holes
X-Men: Evolution picture

Grim Reminder - S1-E11

Plot hole: In the end of the episode, Wolverine is seen recuperating after surgery removes the microchip in his brain, and his head is bandaged. Performing invasive surgery on Wolverine's brain isn't possible, since that would require going through his adamantium-infused skull and no conventional material is capable of that. Only a less invasive technique (such as going through the cranial sutres or cranial foramen) would have been effective and that most likely would not have required Wolverine's head to be bandaged (especially with his rapid healing mutant ability).

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The Legend of Korra picture

Reunion - S4-E7

Plot hole: Guards at a security checkpoint attack Varrick and Bolin, because a wanted poster identifies them as fugitive traitors. The problem is that poster cannot have been there. Varrick and Bolin escape in the previous episode (Battle of Zaofu) but are captured minutes afterwards. (So, no posters needed.) The next day, they escape again by blowing up their imprisoning train car. Their captor, Bataar, thinks they are dead. Indeed, Varrick intended to die. Later, Bataar is actually shown reporting them dead. One might argue that the poster wasn't a wanted poster, but one that warned people about the empire making an example of the traitors.This argument is too flawed: The empire had many examples already, some very high-profile. And a propaganda poster must be placed in plain sight, not in a security booth corner especially designated to let security guards compare the passing individuals. (00:14:00)

FleetCommand

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Dragon Tales picture

Show generally

Plot hole: In each episode, Emmy, and Max travel to dragon land (often for a long time) without their parents ever knowing. This makes no sense. Their parents would notice sooner, or later that Max, and Emmy always go in, and out of the house, or that it's always quiet in Emmy, and Max's playroom. You'd think Emmy, and Max's parents would get suspicious, and would question their children accordingly.

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What If...? picture

What If... Ultron Won? - S1-E8

Plot hole: At the end of the previous episode, the Watcher gets surprised (literally saying "wait, what?") by the arrival of Infinity Ultron inside Party Thor's universe.In this episode we find out the story of Ultron.Ultron realises for the first time that there are other universes to conquer right then because he can'hear' the Watcher talk (to whom?) and goes after him.So the two episodes don't match;Ultron couldn't have reached the other universe "before" his realization, and Uatu is again surprised by it.

Sammo

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Brickleberry picture

Write 'Em Cowboy - S3-E5

Plot hole: When Connie uses the wish machine to make Malloy small again, she instead wished for Ethel's breasts to get significantly bigger. However, in the next scene Ethel's breasts are back to her regular size. The plot shows that the wish doesn't wear off, and someone else would have needed to wish for Ethel's breast to get smaller but no one did.

Bishop73

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The New Batman Adventures picture

Beware the Creeper - S2-E10

Plot hole: During Ryder's report, as Bruce and company watch it on TV, the camera suddenly zooms in on Joker standing on a catwalk above Ryder, and none of the crew, especially not the camera man who caught the villain, makes a comment about this. They may have thought the Joker (or rather an impersonator) was perhaps a surprise gag in the show, but since this is supposed to be a serious documentary report, it is still strange that they wouldn't point it out.

More The New Batman Adventures plot holes
Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac picture

Der Kampf gegen den Drachen - S1-E3

Plot hole: Shiryu states that the Dragon Cloth, which has been 'for eons' under the waterfall (let's just say it's an exaggeration) is harder than diamond and invulnerable to any attack. In the original manga and anime series, Pegasus uses a sudden dodge during a daring grapple to get Shiryu to strike his own shield with the glove of the armor, shattering both ("invincible sword meets invincible shield") and causing him to fight barechested. In this remake, this whole part does not happen, so when Seiya wins the fight with a heart punch like in the other versions, he does it when Shiryu has his heart still covered by the thick breastplate of the armor, making the whole "Shiryu's armor is impervious to any hit and much stronger than any other Cloth" plot point completely moot.

Sammo

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: It is only said that the "Dragon Shield" is unbreakable.

No, says much more than that. "That might be true for other armors, but the Dragon Armor is special. Nothing can get past my shield. It's unbeatable. The day my Cosmo forced the waters of the Lushan to flow upwards, it revealed the Dragon Armor. Battered for eons by the falling water, the Armor had grown harder and more radiant than a diamond. My Armor is the hardest substance known to man. No matter how fast or hard you strike, you've lost, Seiya." He parried the blow with the shield and so that deserves a special mention, but they keep mentioning the armor as having intrinsic properties, and he is wearing the armor when he is struck by Seiya, which guards his heart. In the original anime and the manga he was armorless after Seiya wrecked it, in here it's intact. It makes no sense, which is why I categorize it as a plot hole and not just as Character error: it's not that maybe he's wrong about the armor, it's the whole situation that now is flawed reprising the original with key differences.

Sammo

More Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac plot holes
Star Wars Rebels picture

Spark of Rebellion - S1-E1

Plot hole: Ezra escapes from the Ghost crew through the ship's ducts. When the ship comes under attack from TIE fighters, he eventually falls out and into the nose gun turret. However, that turret is directly connected to the cockpit. There is no duct where he fell for him to fall out of.

More Star Wars Rebels plot holes
The Loony Toons Show picture

The Muh-Muh-Muh-Murder - S1-E25

Plot hole: Daffy isn't able to escape Porky's house until he gets the keys, but later it is revealed that the reason he couldn't get out was because he was too weak to open the door. If that was the case, the keys shouldn't have been able to help him get out.

More The Loony Toons Show plot holes
Saint Seiya picture

Shito! Kyofu no kokushiken - S1-E11

Plot hole: Changes made in the anime only make nonsensical the mechanics of the fight against Black Pegasus. The villain focuses on dealing one big hit to the side of the hero at the cost of his life, but that big hit happens just in the anime and has no consequence or purpose at all. Seiya collapses later with various black spots from the hits of the first barrage, the one that he thought gave him no damage and went instead under the armor, just like in the manga. Black Pegasus had already dealt his death blow by that time, and what he does in the anime in addition to that has no consequence or meaning.

Sammo

More Saint Seiya plot holes
What's New, Scooby-Doo? picture

A Scooby-Doo Valentine - S3-E3

Plot hole: It's never explained how JC Chasez and the Hollywood extras impersonating the gang gained the super strength they possessed to do things like ripping car roofs open or holding up the Mystery Machine.

Rob245

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Kindaichi shônen no jiken bo picture

Opera House Murder Case: File 3 - S1-E23

Plot hole: For Kiryu's murder, the killer's trick consisted in the fact that he wore her shoes after hanging her with a cable while she looked down from the window. First of all, it would have never worked as shown and the cable would have clutched her shoulders and arms rather than wrapping around the perfect spot on her neck to trick people to think she was hanged. Second, she was in her room and most likely not wearing shoes, thirdly; he'd still would have left a mark putting her shoes on unless he did it in midair, but still unless she had unusually big feet they would have never fitted him, and he couldn't leave the perfect prints that resulted.

Sammo

More Kindaichi shônen no jiken bo plot holes

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