Ask John: What is the Most Violent Anime Ever?

Question:
What is the most violent/gory anime ever created? How does it deserve this merit, and also, is it a good title regardless?

Answer:
Warning: This article contains descriptions that sensitive readers may find shocking or offensive.

On one hand, I guess that it’s easy to imagine that the most spectacularly grotesque anime ever put to film would be an underground Japanese exclusive discussed in hushed whispers and surreptitiously traded among hardcore anime fans. On the other hand, it’s also logical to predict that the most offensive, exploitive and sensationalistic graphic splatter anime ever made would be a highly desirable title for major American release. I haven’t personally seen every anime title, and exactly what qualifies a title as being more gruesome or violent than another title in a comparison between near equals is very subjective. There are numerous anime titles that are considered excessively violent and horrific, including Violence Jack, Makai Tensho (released in America as “Ninja Resurrection”), Karakuri no Kimi (released in America as “Puppet Princess”), Hokuto no Ken, Gantz, Elfen Lied, Amon Devilman, Riki-Oh, Jiku Sengokushi Kuro no Shishi Jinnai Hen (released in America as “Black Lion”), and Jubei Ninpucho, but in my experience, two titles reign supreme as the most grotesque and revolting I’ve ever seen. I choose two because one is available domestically and one isn’t; and one is “mainstream” while one is adult.

The two episode long Kakugo no Susume OAV series from 1996, based on the manga by Takayuki Yamaguchi, is the most viscerally violent and gruesome anime I’ve ever seen, and it’s arguably the most grotesque anime ever made. Since first seeing it years ago, it’s always reminded me of an apocalyptic and brutal parallel to Peter Jackson’s comedy of profanity Meet the Feebles, right down to the depiction of a character being eaten, partially melted by digestive acids, then regurgitated while still alive, albeit alive for a short time. Kakugo no Susume revels in brutality and degradation, from energizing its powered armor suits with the blood of martyrs to the mutated sexuality of its monsters that takes the crude, animalistic aspect of sex to the extreme of sex as violence. The depiction of dismemberments and exposed intestines is a mere starting point for the atrocities illustrated in this anime. Kakugo no Susume takes its extremes to such degrees that it defies qualitative assessment. The anime has irrefutably ugly character designs; its grimy, dirty atmosphere is uncomfortable even for viewers; and the two episode series has very little character or story development. But the intense gore and shocking violence in the show is so extreme that it alone is justification enough for the show, at least to viewers interested in seeing over-the-top splatter. Basically, Kakugo no Susume isn’t a story filled with gore; it’s gore contained by a thin story that only exists to provide some context for the violence. The Kakugo no Susume OAV series is available in America under the name “Apocalypse Zero.”

Equally offensive and extreme but with different goals is the three episode Ail Maniax: Inma Seifukugari & Majogari no Yoru ni adult anime series from 2001. Once before I’ve heard the adjective “gore-nography,” a sort of English equivalent of the Japanese phrase “ero guro” (itself a modification of the English words “erotic grotesque”). That term perfectly describes this depraved and shocking exploration of erotic horror. Besides featuring the theme of sexual molestation and torture, the Ail Maniax series contains several memorable scenes of unbelievable extremes. In several extended sequences in this series, the sexual activity of penetration is exponentially increased by literal vampires and succubi that penetrate the flesh of helpless young women. A policewoman is invaded by a vampire that literally strokes her from the inside by submerging his arms beneath her skin. And a Shinto priestess is literally impaled repeatedly by having multiple large spikes driven into and through her body while she’s being raped. Even for someone used to seeing graphic violence and gore in films, the expressions of pain, shock and horror from the victims, and the sheer outrageousness of these graphic depictions of violence make the Ail Maniax series particularly difficult to take.

However, the most intense and horrific violence I’ve ever encountered in anime is actually not in anime, but in manga. The work of manga artists including Hideshi Hino, Shintaro Kago, and Waita Uziga, among others, frequently borders on indescribable. Hideshi Hino’s horror manga, as far as I’m aware, have never been adapted into anime, but one of his manga stories was filmed as the now legendary live action gore movie Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood, a film that depicts a stalker methodically dismembering his kidnap victim in unflinching, graphic detail. But while most of Hino’s influential horror manga deals with the horror of disfigurement and metamorphosis, artists such as Shintaro Kago and Waita Uziga focus on far more blunt depictions of metamorphosis, as in young girls and women mutilating themselves and each other, and young women being brutally violated. Waita Uziga’s adult manga and illustrations depict women having their bodies broken and savagely torn apart, girls mutilated and murdered with grisly and gruesome cruelty that often defies description and even imagination. Perhaps for the good of society, Waita Uziga’s manga has never been adapted into anime. Such manga works no doubt inspire theories about their harmful effects on readers and society, but that debate is for a different discussion. For the purposes of this discussion, Japan’s “guro,” as in “grotesque” manga serves readers in search of ultimate stimulation- readers in search of manga that causes a genuine physical reaction. For many readers and anime watchers, something like Fushigi Yuugi or SaiKano may bring tears to our eyes, and the Read or Die OAV series or Kite may have us filled with excitement. Likewise we may sometimes desire something that sends shivers of shock through us; something that causes such intense reactions that we have to look away or stop momentarily. The value of such revolting and horrifying violence is that it can stimulate us to a degree that typical manga and anime cannot.