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As sad as it may be, character death is a fact of fiction, and it can actually be crucial to a story. A lot of times, death is used to move the story forward or to serve as motivation for another character. Even still, most fans lament watching their favorite characters die. Anime is certainly not exempt from featuring death, so which anime series have most, if not all, of their characters killed off?
Some creators are notorious for killing characters to the point where it’s become a running joke. Some like to use death as something symbolic and beautiful. Some write scenarios where everyone is already dead from the start. Others seem to just love to torture fictional people with death.
Warning: This article may contain spoilers
10 Angels of Death Has The Motif of Death Everywhere
In this anime, a young girl named Rachel tries to escape what turns out to be a morally grey (at best) social experiment. She almost becomes the victim of a serial killer, but instead, the two become an unlikely duo and try to escape together. Once Rachel helps the killer, Zack, escape, their deal states that he will kill her. But, she actually wants to die.
Death is on the mind of every major character in this show. The “angels” in the building are allowed to kill the “sacrifices,” but Rachel and Zack flip the script. They end up killing just about every other character who stands in their way. It’s left unknown by the end if the protagonists survive.
9 the average character in Black Butler is either already dead or dies at some point
Ciel of Black Butler has sold his soul to a demon and accepted his fate. From the start, the viewer knows that Ciel expects to die. What they may not know is that the average character in this story is either already dead or dies at some point.
However, in this series, dying doesn’t necessarily mean the character is gone. All of the characters who are reapers have already died by suicide. There are also minor characters who are ghosts. Still, even living characters who are introduced tend to be killed off. Such characters include an inspector, Ciel’s aunt, the members of a traveling circus, a few characters exclusive to Season 2, countless background characters, and depending on the version of the story, Ciel himself.
8 Attack on Titan Doesn’t Shy Away From Killing Off Main Characters
This entry should come as a surprise to no one. In Attack On Titan, an overwhelming majority of the main cast is dead by the end. In fact, a list of those who survived would take much less time to discuss.
Considering this story is about man-eating monsters, military, and a war, it is not all that surprising that so many characters drop. Beginning with Eren Yeager’s mom at the start of the series, death has been a staple of this story. Minor character or major, no one is safe. The sheer amount of death this show features will be evident in its entirety when the anime catches up with the manga next year.
7 Akame ga Kill Is Straight Up Brutal
When searching “Akame Ga Kill” on Google, one of the first related searches is “Akame Ga Kill Deaths.” Characters in this story are poisoned, tortured to death, and even frozen to death. In a word, this show is brutal.
A team of experienced assassins attempts to rise up and overthrow a corrupt empire, but this proves to be a dangerous and deadly task. Tatsumi discovers this firsthand after becoming their newest member. Miraculously, the titular heroine, Akame, survives, and the few other surviving members of the Night Raid can be counted on one hand.
6 Future Diary is a wild story, to say the least
Involving gods, time travel, alternate dimensions, stalking, and lots of murder, the stakes for these characters are ridiculously high.
Yukiteru is just a boy with imaginary friends and a diary. He soon finds himself sucked into a Hunger-Games-esque deathmatch by one of the aforementioned friends who isn’t so imaginary after all. The winner will become God of time and space. Alongside his stalker, Yuno, who is in love with him, he goes on to murder friends and enemies alike in order to win the game. Ultimately, Yuno winds up sacrificing herself, and others, for Yuki.
5 Death Note Makes Death All Too Easy
When all it takes to kill someone is writing their name in a specific book, as in Death Note, some shady characters may want to take advantage of this fact. The result? Many, many deaths. Just about everyone, hero and villain alike, perishes.
Light Yagami finds the Death Note and originally only wants to kill lowly criminals. However, that mindset soon becomes a slippery slope, and he goes on a killing spree. If not by the book, there are other ways characters die in this story. Some characters are murdered without the book or taken down by the police, while some commit suicide. Eventually, Light gets what he deserves.
4 Banana Fish Is Infamously Tragic
Banana Fish is extremely realistic for an anime. Many real-world dark themes are dealt with, including gangs, violence, abuse, and death. From best friends and protagonists to young children, countless characters die.
Ash Lynx is a teenage gang leader who has been through a lot in life, to say the least. At the start, viewers get a glimpse of the abuse Ash faced, and how his past is starting to come back to haunt him. Then the deaths start to pile up, starting with a child and continuing with others close to Ash, including his brother and his best friend. Ash himself is responsible for his fair share of deaths as well.
3 In Death Parade, everyone is already dead
In Death Parade, everyone is already dead, as it’s a story about the afterlife. In a bar in the afterlife, the recently deceased must compete in the Death Games, and their true nature, along with many secrets, will be revealed.
The Games pass judgment on these people’s souls, which can either be reincarnated or banished to the “void.” Decim of the Quindecim bar is the one who makes this call. The trials the contestants have to endure range from a brutal game of darts to Twister to the death. For the souls which end up banished, it’s kind of like they die twice.
2 In Another, the students of class 3-3 each year have been dying in horrific ways
Another starts off with a suicide, 26 years before the main story. Because of this suicide, Yomiyama North Middle School’s class 3-3 is cursed and marked for death. New kid Kouichi Sakakibara wants to find out more about this curse, and about the mysterious girl Mei Misaki, but his classmates refuse to tell him anything. The more he tries to find out, the more of his classmates die.
Since 1972, the students of class 3-3 each year have been dying in horrific ways. In the past, kids have gotten sick, gotten into accidents, committed suicide, or died of “unknown” causes. In Kouichi’s class, students have had heart attacks, strokes, been murdered, and drowned. The teacher of the class even committed suicide.
1 In Code Geass, Multiple thousands die as a result of the war
Tyranny, rebellions, and terrorism are perfect catalysts for casualties. Incidentally, all of these topics appear in Code Geass. When an exiled prince goes down the rabbit hole of revenge against his own nation and then goes mad with power, things get bloody.
Lelouch vi Britannia starts out with good intentions; however, when he’s given the power to control minds in a deus ex machina fashion, things change. The situation becomes an all-out rebellion against the nation of Britannia with Lelouch as the leader. He becomes progressively more merciless and careless with others’ lives, developing what can only be described as a god complex. Nameless characters and protagonists alike perish. Multiple thousands die as a result of the war.
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