Omigod, I see dead people!
From Owen (yes, I really am quoting tweets…):
Akamatsu needs to up the ante and do a Rowling soon. such a huge cast begs to have some killed off by Fate eventually.
I think that all the fanboys who were upset about all the recent (awesome) battling would go nuts if this happened, but this got me to thinking: What anime series kills off the biggest portion of its cast?
Screw Rowling, it’s time to go Blassreiter if you want to reduce your cast count quickly.
The first thing that came to my mind was Blassreiter, and I am not exactly sure if Evangelion counts. Still, I’d like to hear what other people come up with. Readers, beware of the possibility for massive spoilers below. I also find the above image extremely ironic, considering how many people “died” and then came back in Code Geass.
This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1971 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 42 comments… read them below or add one }
Pretty much the one that comes to mind is Bokurano. I think more than half the cast was dead by the halfway point. Granted, that’s the whole point of the show, but…
That one crossed my mind, too. Bokurano is one depressing show
.
Oh man, Bokurano made me cry so hard towards the end.
The Rowling comparison only really came about due to Negima essentially being Harry Potter, Akamatsu ver. (with added shounen), and if Fate’s viciousness (his surprise
buttsexattack at the airport was chilling) is anything to go by, it would only seem proper that they not come out of this unscathed.Fate-as-Voldemort can only mean that we’ll be getting his backstory if Akamatsu’s to do any justice towards his character, though… hmm.
Were there fanboys upset with the latest V.S. Rakan arc? Were they terminally dumb or something? This is why I don’t bother mixing with the hoi polloi that is the fanbase. Crazy people.
Does Mai HiME count?
No! No one dies in a reset ending, right (except the villains)?
Depends on how dead “dead” is. Virtually everyone in DragonBall Z dies at least once. I think Mr. Satan is the only character who never dies.
Yeah, see that doesn’t count, just like how Code Geass has a surprisingly slow death count.
In Divergence Eve/Misaki Chronicles, two of the five major characters die and one sort of half-dies. That’s 50%.
Wasn’t there a show last year which introduced a bunch of characters in its first episode and then killed them all, and picked up with an entirely new cast beginning with ep 2?
Ga-Rei Zero
And then by the end of the series, like 3/4 of the new cast is dead too.
That’s funny, because in Ga-Rei (manga) even villains usually live.
Soukou No Strain, that was in 2007.
You gotta look at Yoshiyuki “Kill ‘em all” Tomino for a question like this. In Space Runaway Ideon EVERYBODY dies (literally, 100% of the cast). It’s similar to the ending of Evangelion in that aspect, except that you don’t even get two of the characters remaining, it’s just total annihilation.
Yoshiyuki ‘Kill ‘Em All’ Tomino doesn’t have his nickname for nothing. Apparently the story that the universe itself is destroyed at the end of Ideon is a myth put about by those who haven’t seen it (I haven’t yet either) but certainly there isn’t much of a cast left when it finishes, if friends’ reports are to be believed. Certainly Zeta, Char’s Counterattack and Victory Gundam, and Dunbine, have a lot of downsizing.
Soukou no Strain did a Ga-Rei Zero, right down to methodically killing off the new cast too. Wikipedia says that the Devilman manga ends with Satan killing everyone, and destroying Earth, and then creating a new, hellish world in which he’ll be tortured by the personification of his own self-hatred to atone for it, which is about the most depressing piece of downsizing I’ve heard of.
(Uh, KT’s comment wasn’t there when I began writing this.)
The thing about Ideon’s ending is that it can be interpreted in two ways: Ideon destroyed only the galaxy, or that the blast wave of both Ideon and the Buff Clan mothership exploding destroyed/remade the universe via Pseudo Big Bang chain-reaction. In either case, the people who all died were reborn anyway, though if that one-shot manga penned by Tomino was to be believed, the universe they were all reborn INTO was… the UC Gundam universe.
Is that Mobile Suit vs. Giant God? The one with Judau and Amuro meeting in the opening pages (the only pages I’ve read)? It sounds quite fun, in a ‘let’s take a break from canon’ way.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes killed more characters than most shows have period.
I wonder what the killed vs. total ratio would be for LoGH. Technically many of those guys had names, too!
Unfortunately Strain didn’t live up to its promise at the end
In a non anime case how about Muv-Luv Alternative
I completely forgot about Saikano
Depending on the paths taken, Phantom will rack up quite a kill count ^_^
Choosing only the true endings combined, every single character from the primary lineup (but the one civilian I won’t name in order not to spoil) will die at least once (yes, that includes you) ^_^
Whoever dropped this show due to the Beetrained first episode should reconsider and watch at least eps 2+3 (which were excellent and entirely NOT Beetrained), by the way.
This comment speaks to me, since eps. 1 felt like Bee Train does Eden of the East to me (in a bad way).
Gurren Lagann’s gotta be up there, right? I can’t remember specifically, but I gotta guess that 3/4 of the cast must have died in that final battle.
Does Ga-Rei Zero count for offing half its cast in the first episode?
you should use THIS (safe for work… but the links aren’t) as ur gravatar instead =D
(thanks again Kab for showing me the awesomeness)
lol, that is… both awesome and awful at the same time. ;P
errr, what about dat anime where all the main charas do da Soulja Boy?…. does dat count? D:
Aha! A memory just appeared:
Every main character, both good and bad, dies by the end of Venus versus Virus. 100% (That’s a spoiler, but it’s such a crappy show that I don’t mind spoiling it.)
By the way, there’s a Tropes category for this, with lots of examples.
Bokurano and Blassreiter both crossed my mind too, but Blassreiter’s ending was hardly like they all died, since they were all brought back suddenly in one form or other.
How about the least number of characters that actually died? Bleach would be the ultimate candidate.
Speaking of which, I think the number of characters that died in Bleach can be counted on two hands. And all of them have been Hollow/Arrancar.
I’m surprised that Berserk hadn’t been mentioned here yet, and some others that come to mind are Gantz (all the main characters die… twice); Red Garden (even though it could be disqualified on the basis that the girls are already dead when the series starts, the body count in the last episode is very high); and Texhnolyze.
I thought X-TV deserves a mention. Not the highest kill-rate but surely some of the most affecting in animedom.
Methinks Akamatsu should go make the next Bleach
Lucky Star killed more brains than most people have.
oh em gee! Chris
tine’slong lost brother Kurisu! Welcome back! :love:I am surprised no one mentions Fushigi Yuugi or X.. well the movie at least.. >_<
In Gunbuster (1988) all but two characters die and billions of anonymous people die between the final scenes. The point isn’t so much that they die a gruesome death – they don’t for the most part – but that everyone who ever knew you has been dead and gone for thousands of years, a time-span that exceeds the known history of mankind by far.
Yeah, it’d be Bokurano for me.
if you think about, the end of evangelion actually had the most downsizing in any anime ever – it killed the whole world!
same thing happen in Angel sanctury.
Total bodycount – Confirmed total deaths, period:
1) Macross (entire population of Earth except for a few million)
2) Evangelion (not confirmed, as presumably those who were like Shinji or Asuka could ‘return’ to Earth at the end, although it’s all crazy anyway
3) LoGH – Millions died in the wars, including Westermark.
4) Gundam SEED Destiny – during colony drop, poor Shanghai and Rome!
Total named characters bodycount:
1) LoGH – Well so many characters with actual names and backstories died nothing compares
2) Evangelion
Umm – Wolf’s Rain? Pretty much total Lupocide there, protagonists & antagonists all die and the last one says “Dang! I’ll bet there’s no afterlife”.
I think Claymore killed lot of people too
Hm… How about Chrono Crusade anime? I mean, they kill the two leads, one of the two major supporting characters, all the bad guys except the main one… On the other hand, lots of side characters live (the three nuns, Remington, Joshua, Azmaria).
I heard NaruTaru kills off everyone except two girls, also.
{ 1 trackback }