12 Gruesome Gorefest in Anime

‘Tis the season for blood and guts done way over the top. Although, a true gorehound could suggest that the season is any season. However, while Game of Thrones is off shocking the normies, anime fans have a high tolerance for shock. We’ve seen blood. We’ve seen entrails. We’ve seen centipedes put in ears so that they could gnaw at the tender brain tissue. It has gotten to a point where junkies are searching for something that is more and more shocking while not quite yet diving into the depths of GuroChan where normal sexual function goes to die.

If you are not quite to that point yet, but like your anime filled with blood, the following shocking moments in these anime series should keep your sated. For now, anyway.

*Note: As I’ll be pointing out specific moments in the anime series below, some major spoilers may be present. Fair warning has been given. If that bothers you, then just check the series out without reading. I mean, what else do you have to do?

Best Anime Gorefests

Tokyo Ghoul – Ken Kaneki’s Torture

Tokyo Ghoul is an anime about ghouls (that look like people) eating people, often in a spray of blood. One of the most memorably shocking scenes was where Ken Kaneki gets captured and tortured by Jason. As Kaneki has regenerative capabilities, Jason can essentially just take pieces off over and over again, like his toesies or let a centipede go to town in his head. While the solid 20 minutes of screaming is pretty hard to watch, a lot of the good gore happens off screen, which is why it ranks so low.

Higurashi: When They Cry – Rika’s Suicide

Higurashi is famous for its creepy girls and shocking violence against them; however, there is nothing that really constitutes as a multi-death gorefest that you get to watch. Yet, that doesn’t mean it isn’t brutal. One of the most brutal moments of violence in the entire series is when Rika viciously stabs herself in the throat all to the cackling of the on looking Shion.

Future Diary – Murder Fest in Tsubaki’s Temple

Future Diary has a lot of bloody moments, but none more splendiferous in its violence than the clash of multiple diary holders at the Omekata cult’s temple. Things start off pretty calm as Yukiteru tries to talk his way out of a terrible fate for him and Yuno, but all hell breaks loose when the Twelfth diary holder uses hypnosis to cause all of Tsubaki’s followers to start attacking each other amidst a flurry of bombs and fire as the Twelfth tries to kill Tsubaki.

Another – On The Class Trip

Another is an odd duck. Just when it starts to get boring, it throws in a brutal death just to keep you interested. However, near the end everything comes to a head when Class 3-3 goes up to an inn in the mountains for their class trip. The students find out that in order to prevent horrible deaths in their class, they need to kill the already dead student, something that actually ends up resulting in the majority of their deaths anyway. Not only are they scrambling to kill one student in particular (with some set one just killing everyone), but the build also catches fire to add some urgency to their situation. Essentially it just goes full-on Battle Royale until things are resolved.

Gantz – The Buddhist Temple Mission

Gantz is notorious for its bloody and occasionally unexpected deaths. If you think no one is safe in Akame ga Kill, well then have I got some news about Gantz for you…

One of the most shocking moments comes on a mission where one of the team’s most deadly alien foes is disguised as Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy. Not only does she have many swords and arms to wield them, but she fires deadly lasers and spits acid. Just when two members of this particular team end up realizing their love, viewers are left with the shocking image of them kissing after losing the bottom bits of their bodies to acid. Of course, that is not the only shocking death to come from this alien either, with it taking two main characters out before being defeated.

As shocking as it is, it is still a shame that the Shinjuku Station massacre from the manga never got animated. Now that would be a true gorefest.

Blood C – The Elder Bairn

There are a lot of tough and (gory) enemies in Blood C, but none more delightfully murderous and the starving Elder Bairn. It looks like a cute bunny, but it can multiply as much as it pleases and can morph its limbs at will. Let’s just say it skewers some people on its fingers then licks them off like cheeto dust.

Terraformars – The First Season

Terraformars is built on a base of blood and guts, so much so that they forgot to include plot throughout most of the first season, opting for a bit of story sprinkled in amidst a devastating kill fest that left many of the characters you thought you would see a lot longer, dead.

The blood starts within the first seconds of the first episode, but it doesn’t really kick off until later when the enemy attacks their Mars-bound space ship before it even lands on the planet. Their attack is quick, decisive, and deadly, scattering the teams across the planet where still more ambushes await them. And on it goes until things settle down in the second season, for a time, anyway.

Genocyber – Literally All of It

Genocyber is famous among serious otaku as one of the most violent pieces of anime of all time. Unfortunately a good show that does not make (as is often the case with the best gorefests). Regardless, it is filled with violent and visceral moments that, honestly, would be pretty shocking today as they must have been back in the early 90’s. One of the most memorable scenes is when Elaine’s young friend are ambushed by an attack helicopter and the bullets absolutely shred the tender young child flesh to bits.

Why is that moment so much more brutal and shocking than the other brutal and shocking moments throughout the short OVA series? Because killing kids is kind of a no-no in anime. That seems to be the boundary that many shows won’t cross, at least not onscreen like this show did.

Elfen Lied – The First Episode

During its time, Elfen Lied was considered pretty brutal, and that became apparent in the very first episode that featured the main female lead busting out of the compound that had kept her prisoner. Not only did she decimate any guard in her path with her invisible force powers, but when they were out of range she started throwing objects at them to great effect. Perhaps one of the most brutal moments was when she decapitated the clumsy comic relief secretary before she even realized what happened, picking up her headless corpse and using it as a bullet shield.

While the mass murder of the many guards in the facility was glorious, it was not the only meaty moment in the show. The later fight between Nana and Lucy is just as wonderfully brutal.

Hellsing Ultimate – Every Episode

Hellsing Ultimate is a show about vampires (and other monsters), but not those sissy sparkling kind that charm women and peek under their skirts without a thought for blood. Hellsing features real vampires that rip out throats in a vicious spray of blood before shooting someone else right in their face. Essentially, almost every episode of Hellsing Ultimate is a blood bath, so there is no one scene that is more brutal than the others, except for maybe when one of the characters you really enjoy dies horribly, but that, too, happens so often.

Shigurui – Too Many to Choose

Like Hellsing Ultimate, Shigurui just has too many brutal moments to choose from. From the bean-splitting technique used on nipples to watching a cripple swordsmen fight a blind swordsmen, it is easily the most violent samurai anime you will ever watch. What makes its brutality particularly devastating is that it is actually firmly rooted in actual human physiology, which makes it pretty realistic in terms of your usual anime violence.

Berserk – The Eclipse

It is infamous to those who first got into Berserk by watching the 1997 anime. Berserk is fairly violent, but it is practically mild compared to the persistent violence of other entries on this list. That is, right up until the last two episodes. The world literally goes to hell as Griffith, in his useless post-brutal torture form, summons the power of the Behelit and commences to use demons to sacrifice his beloved comrades so that he may be reborn as a demon.

You know all those characters you grew to love throughout the series? Dead. All but two, one of which is raped into insanity into front of the other, her lover, who chops his own arm off with a broken knife in order to get to her. He then fails to reach her, being pinned down by a demon to watch with one eye as the other eye gets pierced by a claw. You know what happens then? IT ENDS.

That is what makes the ending of the 1997 Berserk anime the most brutal gorefest on this list. Not only is the kill-a-paloosa brutal to the characters, it is brutal to the AUDIENCE who is left with just that final sight of the hero of the series failing.

Of course, it shows what happens next in the manga and recently in the 2016 Berserk series, but still. What a devastating way to end a series. (Even though, yes, it ended that way for other reasons, mainly a lack of money to make more.)

Did we miss your favorite anime gorefest on this list? We probably did. There are so many other wonderfully violent anime that we should cover some other time, but if we missed a moment that saw many characters die en masse, let us know in the comments section below!