In the beginning, Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina looked like an innocent show about a young witch gaining knowledge and training in her profession as she travels to different parts of the world. A number of dark episodes had prepared audiences to deal with tragedy in this world, but the unusually graphic Episode 9 still took viewers by surprise, going for full-on R-rated horror. Wandering Witch is not the only anime to take an unexpected turn like that. Here are some noteworthy anime episodes that either gave viewers unexpected goosebumps or made them just ask what on Earth the writers were thinking.
Made in Abyss, Episode 10 "Poison and the Curse"
Made in Abyss has been highly praised among critics and anime fans, earning the “Anime of the Year” and “Best Score” awards in the 2017 Crunchyroll Anime Awards. The entire aesthetic and artwork of Made in Abyss invited audiences into believing that this is an innocent story about two children exploring the bottom of the Abyss out of curiosity. However, Episode 10, “Poison and the Curse,” departs from its innocent and whimsical nature into a story of survival in the unknown.
After encountering an orbed piecer at the Goblet of Giants, Riko and Reg attempted to avoid the spikes of the monster using an umbrella; unfortunately, Riko gets stabbed, injecting her left hand with lethal poison. Riko’s hand begins to swell up, and she begins to hallucinate and bleed from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. To stop the poison from spreading to her body, Reg decides to amputate Riko’s left arm. Episode 10 takes away the innocence within these children and the viewers. Not only is the storyline for this episode traumatizing, the bloody visuals of Riko’s face and her agonizing screaming give chills to the audience. Made in Abyss may look harmless, but this graphic episode can push viewers over the edge.
Stars Align, Episode 12
Stars Align is a “coming of age” sports anime about a group of students in a soft tennis club. These boys use their soft tennis club as an escape from family issues. Maki Katsuragi, a transfer student who lives with his mother after his parents divorced, joins the soft tennis club after being recruited by Toma Shinjo. The soft tennis club is the one joy in his life, but his happiness is short-lived once he sees his abusive father laundering around his apartment demanding money.
The series takes a dark turn in the last episode. When returning home after the tournament, Maki sees that his father came to the apartment asking for money again. Maki takes it upon himself and decides to kill his father, as evident from purchasing a knife and grasping it as he stands in front of his father’s apartment door. Unfortunately, the series ended in a cliffhanger, leaving viewers to wonder what happens next. The series was supposed to be 24 episodes, but the production committee decided to cut the episodes in half. Luckily, a "special fan movie" was released in May 2020, taking place two years after the series ended.
School Days, Episode 12 "School Days"
Amnesia, Episode 9 "IX"
Another shocking yandere moment is in the anime series Amnesia. The series' amnesiac female protagonist lost all recollection of her life. She must retrieve her memories by interacting with the male protagonists, who represent suit symbols in a card deck. One of these characters is Toma, a bright and energetic university student but who also happens to have a yandere side to him.
In Episode 9, “IX,” the Heroine stays at Toma’s apartment after being bullied by Ikki’s fans. She eventually discovers Toma’s dark side as he places sleeping pills into her coffee, and he then locks her up in a cage. He reasons that he wanted to protect her from Ikki’s fans, but his method is downright reprehensible. There are many twists and turns in this series, but Toma’s arc is by far the most disturbing.
Fullmetal Alchemist, Episode 7 “Night of the Chimera’s Cry” & Brotherhood, Episode 4 “An Alchemist’s Anguish”
Both Fullmetal Alchemist series have a number of unusually dark and disturbing scenes for a mainstream shonen anime, but these episodes deserve mention on this list anyway because they're just so horrifying. In these episodes, Shou Tucker transforms his daughter Nina and their dog Alexander into a talking chimera. Shou Tucker was a renowned alchemist known as the “Sewing-Life Alchemist” because he was able to create a chimera that understood human speech one time.
Tucker felt the pressure to perform satisfactorily in his yearly assessments or else he'd lose funding. Thus, he resorted to using Nina and Alexander as lab experiments, which he has done previously with his wife. Nina loved her father and would do anything to help him, but at the same time, her father used her as an object for an experiment.
