Over the years,animehas pushed the boundaries of violence, often showing characters getting beaten to a pulp, sliced into pieces, or even worse things. This is especially the case in supernatural stories, where the limits of what the human body can endure don’t matter,
Horror anime is especially associated with gore, but this shows up in other genres, too. Action anime is willing to get pretty bloody, too, just with the heroes offering the final blow more often than the villains. Some of these anime are surprisingly short-lived, but still managed to leave an impression with how much blood, death, and violence were packed in.
10Murder Princess
Murder Princessstarts with a coup d’état against the Forland Kingdom, led by former government scientist Dr. Akamashi. Princess Alita is sent by her father to find her brother, the diplomatic Prince Kaito. However, she falls off a cliff and finds herself switching places with a bounty hunter known as Falis. Falis must now serve as the acting princess with the help of her bodyguard friends, at least until Kaito returns and assumes the throne.
As the title suggests, Falis, even in the princess' body, is a powerful and deadly threat. It gets to the point where the first episode seems to suggest she may be doing more harm than good for the kingdom. However, when Kaito returns, he turns out to be much worse, wanting the kingdom, if not the world, burnt to ashes.
9Highschool of the Dead
InHighschool of the Dead, Takashi Komuro is outside his school when he first sees an incoming zombie apocalypse. Soon, the school is barricaded, with students and staff turning into more zombies,also known as “them.“However, the school is just one place targeted by the zombies, especially as the characters escape to find their missing families. Thanks to the virus, a friend can become an undead threat in just a moment. In the first episode, Takashi is forced to kill his best friend Hisashi Igo after he is bitten by a teacher.
Even the humans aren’t too loyal to each other. In one famous scene, two girls are running from the zombies hand in hand, thinking that sticking together will increase their chances of surviving. When one girl is grabbed by the undead on a staircase, her friend immediately kicks her off, sending her to her fate, only to get cornered herself.
8Hell Girl
In the world ofHell Girl, a mysterious website allows users to chance to submit a person’s name. In return, they will encounter the titular Hell Girl,also known as Ai Enma, who will give them a straw doll with a string. If they pull the string, the person the user has chosen will be spirited off to hell. However, this comes at a steep price, as the user will likewise be damned after using it.
While much of the action takes place among the living, the few brief glimpses of Hell the viewers are treated to are twisted and horrifying. Of course, as no one can die in Hell, victims will feel every last iota of torture. Similarly, some of the crimes people committed to get their names sent to Hell Girl are also similarly horrifying, like killing and abusing animals and children. However, the truly horrifying aspect of the series is that an innocent soul can be damned as long as someone hates them enough to wish it. The only happy ending may be when someone dies before someone pulls the string.
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7Deadman Wonderland
Deadman Wonderlandalready starts with most ofTokyo being sunkby an earthquake. Despite this, Ganta Igarashi lives a mundane life until a mysterious figure kills his classmate, implants him with a mysterious crystal, and leaves him to be falsely blamed for the murders. Ginta gets a life sentence in the titular Deadman Wonderland, a private amusement park prison meant to attract tourists.
The park houses “Deadmen,” who possess the power to transform their blood into weapons. The inmates are forced to fight each other, with deadly consequences, to entertain both the proprietors and the tourists. Ginta now has a two fold-purpose: he must survive the park and uncover the real killer to clear his name.
6Tokyo Ghoul
InTokyo Ghoul, college student Ken Kaneki falls in love with Rize Kamishiro. On their first date, she turns out to be a “ghoul,” a creature that can only eat human flesh, or other ghouls, and plans on making him her next meal. Kaneki barely survives the encounter, thanks to a falling grinder seemingly crushing Rize. However, a transplant using Rize’s organs saves Kaneki’s life at the cost of transforming him into a half-ghoul hybrid. Soon, Kaneki finds a haven in Anteiku, a coffee shop run by friendly, scavenging ghouls who teach him how to survive.
Soon, Kaneki finds himself caught up in the battle between Commission of Counter Ghoul, who fight ghouls, and Aogiri Tree, a ghoul supremacist group. As a ghoul hybrid, Kaneki now has the power to take down an enemy by eating them.
Blood-Cis a 2011 anime series spinning off fromBlood: The Last Vampire, afterBlood+. High school student Kisaragi Saya lives a double life: a seemingly ordinary girl during the day but a sword-wielding monster slayer at night. Saya must face off against the “Elder Bairns,” who feed on humans. However, a driving question is just who Saya really is, sparked when asked just exactly who she promised to fight monsters for. Saya may have a stronger connection to the monsters she fights.
Notably, this is an anime where anyone, even the main characters, can die. In fact, even when it turns out that a character survives, it might not be for long.
4When They Cry
When They Cryis an anime adaptation based on the murder mystery visual novel game of the same name, also known asHigurashi When They Cry. Keiichi Maebara moves to the seemingly innocent village of Hinamizawa and a few of his female classmates have invited them to join their club. However, Keiichi begins to learn dark secrets about his new setting. The area is said to be under a curse, which causes people to vanish under mysterious circumstances on the night of the Watanagashi Festival. The missing people then resurface as murder victims.
The characters not only have to uncover if the curse is real or not, but even if they can trust each other. One thing complicating the murder mystery is that time loops exist. This means the rule that a character can only die once does not apply. This also means that characters will also have to see their friends die multiple times. Adding to the horror, these time loops work more like alternate realities, meaning, when a character dies, they stay dead in some form.
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3Elfen Lied
Elfen Liedrevolves around the “Diclonius,” a mutant species who resemble humans, but with powerful, invisible arms. Lucy is one of these Diclonius and has escaped from a research facility, taking down anyone that dares to cross her path. When Lucy is rendered unconscious, she is found on a beach by a pair of cousins, Kouta and Yuka, who help her develop a new personality known as Nyu. Kouta will now get caught up in the battles between the government and Nyu’s alter-ego.
Infamously, the series had so much gore and violence for Japanese audiences that the series was relegated to satellite television. One of the most infamous scenes in the series involves a repressed memory of Kouta’s. He actually met Lucy years before the start of the series. He ended up blocking the memory after she ended up killing his father and sister.
2Attack on Titan
InAttack on Titan, the human race lives under the threat of the Titans, horrible flesh-eating giants. Hiding humanity away behind walls proves fallible when a massive Titan breaks through. Three survivors of the Titan’s attack, Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman, and Armin Arlert, go on tojoin the Survey Corpsand fight the Titans. However, a near-death experience unlocksa surprising power in Eren: the ability to transform into a Titan, making him a Titan Shifter. As the story goes on, though, the true nature of the Titans comes to light.
Gore abounds in a world where the human race effectively functions as cattle for a race of giants. However, one of the more horrifying aspects of the whole ordeal is that there really is no difference between the Titans and the Titan Shifters: they’re all humans transformed into horrific, cannibalistic beings against their will.
1Fist of the North Star
Considered aclassic shonen series,Fist of the North Startakes place in a post-apocalyptic, alternate version of the 1990s, where bands of thieves roam the land, targeting the innocent. The main character, Kenshiro, roams the Earth in search of his kidnapped fiancée Yuria, helping those in need along the way. Unfortunately for any threat that passes Kenshiro’s path, he is skilled in a special school of martial arts: using pressure points, he can make an opponent explode from within.
In fact, Kenshiro has “You’re already dead,” said after delivering the final attack, as his own catchphrase. However, Kenshiro proves a little too willing to resort to this attack, often finding himself mourning those who were much more morally grey than they first appeared.
