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Anime has embraced virtually every genre in existence over the years, and splatterpunk is no exception. Anime is home to ghosts, zombies, serial killers, and other horrific villains who are only too willing to tear beloved characters apart. The violence, gruesomeness, and unsettling nature of splatterpunk means these series aren’t for everyone. But for splatterpunk fans, here’s the best that anime has to offer.
7 Tokyo Ghoul
This story of the bloodthirsty ghouls that live alongside humanity in Tokyo, moving amongst their prey until they choose to tear them apart, is one of the most popular anime of recent years. Tokyo Ghoul also happens to be exceptionally violent. While there are other splatterpunk anime, few of them look as good as this one.
Bookish college student Ken Kaneki is plunged into the ghouls’ violent world only to be saved by Touka Kirishima, a mysterious waitress. From there, Kaneki does his best to survive in a world where survival seems like a bit much to ask for. Well thought-out and extremely well excuted from a design perspective, Tokyo Ghoul includes a great deal of violence to go along with its dark and creepy lore.
6 Corpse Party: Tortured Souls
In Corpse Party: Tortured Souls, nine students gather together in their school to say goodbye to a friend, performing a ritual involving paper doll charms, as is the custom. Unfortunately for them, these charms are connected to Heavenly Host Academy, an elementary school that was demolished years ago following a string of gruesome murders and upon which the foundation of their own school is built.
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Trapped by ghosts in this alternate dimension, the students must now find a way to return home before they are killed. Fusing mystery, gore, and slow-burn horror, Corpse Party: Tortured Souls packs in a little bit of everything but does a great job blending them. The result is a series that’s as grotesque as it is violent.
5 Deadman Wonderland
Ganta Igarashi and his friends just wanted to go on a field trip. Granted, that field trip was to a prison amusement park called Deadman Wonderland, where the prisoners were forced to perform for the entertainment of spectators, but that doesn’t justify what happens: the massacre of Ganta’s entire class, for which Ganta is framed.
Burdened with a death sentence and the traumatic masscre of all of his friends, Ganta is imprisoned in Deadman Wonderland. Somehow, things get worse for him from there. A lethal collar around his neck, sadistic inmates, the manifestation of bizarre powers, and the prison’s merciless games all push Ganta to the breaking point. The violence of the series is established early on with the bloodbath of Ganta’s class, but it doesn’t lighten up from there. Aesthetically and conceptually polished, Deadman Wonderland is one to watch for fans of hardcore horror.
4 Another
Misaki, a popular student at Yomiyama North Middle School, dies partway through the school year in 1972. Unable to cope with her loss, those around her pretend she isn’t gone. 26 years later, Koichi Sakakibara transfers to Yomiyama’s former class. There he meets quiet Mei Misaki.
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Then the gruesome murders begin. As students and their relatives perish, Koichi and Mei set out to unravel the mystery before anyone else falls victim to whatever is happening. Another does a great job keeping viewers guessing, and thanks to its superb pacing, the audience is never given too much time to catch its breath before something else (usually a brutal murder) ratchets up the tension once again.
3 Parasyte
Parasyte is instantly recognizable for the comical but no less disturbing body horror that its characters are subjected to. Shinichi Izumi is a 17-year-old high school student living a quiet life with his parents in Tokyo, when an alien Parasite attempts to crawl into his nose while Shinichi sleeps.
When the boy wakes up, the Parasite burrows into his arm instead, causing both Shinichi and the Parasite to retain their own consciousness. Over time, the two overcome their strange and horrific situation and even begin to work together, battling other Parasites. Parasyte can be jarring at first thanks to its twisted visuals, but viewers who aren’t thrown off by its exagerrated and upsetting transformations and violence will be treated to a fantastic yet underrated body horror story.
2 High School Of The Dead
Zombies are a natural fit for splatterpunk, given their prediletion for munching on the guts of anyone they happen to stumble upon. High School of the Dead is exactly what it sounds like: a series that pits a group of high schoolers against an army of shambling corpses.
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The results are predictable, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. The violence goes in both direction here, as the protagonists are ripped to pieces by the dead, only for the dead to be sliced, blasted, and bludgeoned out of existence. High School of the Dead is more than willing to kill of key characters, which helps keep the tension high, and though it isn’t the deepest series, it delivers again and again where it counts.
1 Elfen Lied
The Diclonius are a breed of human distinguishable by their horns and invisible telekinetic hands. One such Diclonius is Lucy, who is being used by the government for twisted scientific experiments. Her confinement is not to last, however, and when Lucy breaks out, her freedom means the massacre of those that held her prisoner.
Elfen Lied would be hard enough for Lucy if that were the end of it, but she receives a head injury during her escape and develops a split personality as a result. Her new personality is that of a harmless child, and that’s how she’s presenting when she is taken into the care of a pair of college students. To say the least, Elfen Lied has a lot going on. It develops a deep connection between Lucy and viewers, and it features a blend of excellent world-building and world-class gore. Few anime featuring this level of violence have the creative chops to be worthwhile stories in their own right. Elfen Lied is one of the best horror anime of all time for good reason.
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