Just to mention that the problem I described below is apparently a separate issue and is being assigned a different issue number.

It now works for me if I set the desired animation as the Default Layer State (as in 5.2.1p1), but the issue is still present if playing a non-default animation via Animator.Play().

Thanks Daniel, but at the end I read somewhere that it was going to be fixed with 5.2.p3, which was about to be published. So I decided to wait for the patch and meanwhile, I downgraded to Unity 5.1 where I didn't have this problem.

They have published the patch today. I've tried it and it seems to work well for me now.

CARLOSPH: If you're playing the animation as soon as the object appears, as I am, one workaround would be to disable the object's renderer for one frame. (If not, I can't think of anything that would help.)

I'm pretty certain it's not actually playing the last frame of the animation. In my own tests, it seems as if for the first frame it just appears as if there was no animation whatsoever. (Unless these are two separate problems. In my case I'm attempting to play an animation directly after instantiating the object to be animated).

In 5.2.1f3 my problem occurred:
1. If I triggered the animation from code using Animator.Play("") after instantiating the object
2. If I set the default state to the desired animation in the animation controller

In 5.2.1p1, the problem only occurred in case (1).

In 5.2.1p2, it again occurs in both cases.

I'm having the same problem. Any work around? The status says it is fixed but I'm having the same problem on 5.2.1f1.

I take it back! It's still present in 5.2.1p1 :( Please to be fixing.

This appears to have been fixed in 5.2.1p1

I'm having this issue as well. All of my gameobjects that are instantiated at runtime by script, appear to be delayed one frame before actually playing their animation clips, causing a terrible flicker. Been unable to find a work around for this.

This is due to some animation changes, I've alerted the animation team.