Top 20 Anime That Are TOO Edgy
Top 20 Anime That Are Too Edgy
Top 10 Anime That Are Too Edgy
Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for Top 20 Anime That Are Too Edgy. For this list, we’re trying not to cut ourselves over the anime that took themselves way too seriously, to the point where we weren’t so much thrilled as we were laughing and cringing at their expense. Do any of these resonate as a guilty pleasure for you? Let us know in the comments!
#20: “Corpse Party: Tortured Souls” (2013)
Packing an entire RPG into four OVA episodes always meant the content here was going to be squashed and compacted, and the anime took that chance to pack as much gore into tight a runtime as possible! After being transported to a school infested with ghosts, the majority of the cast find themselves butchered and bludgeoned to death in the most gruesome of ways. It’s essentially a carnival of guts, and if that’s what you’re looking for in a horror anime, have it, just know that’s all you’re going to get here!
#19: “King’s Game The Animation” (2017)
There’s certainly a method when it comes to these game of death/battle royale anime, especially when they want to highlight the ugliness of normal people when put into life or death situations. King’s Game falls flat on its face by making everyone too unlikeable, whilst pushing the most extreme “challenges” right from the get-go. It’s what you would expect – murder, sexual assault, decapitation, it goes all in on these purely for shock value, and the result is just an unpleasant watching experience all round!
#18: “Happy Sugar Life” (2018)
Deep down, there’s a solid thriller here – a high school girl who has kidnapped and fallen in love with a child, and seeks to create a paradise for themselves, and will kill anyone who gets in the way. The premise is kinds of messed up, but the foundation for all manner of psychological hijinks is all there. But then it gets stupid. Honestly, it seems like the entire cast are secretly psychopaths! The boss likes to defile attractive boys, the aunt is a sadomasochist who is also a hoarder, the child’s secret brother who was abused beyond comprehension is now a homeless person on a vengeance spree, it never ends!
#17: “Gleipnir” (2020)
We give this series full credit for its fight scenes being so slick and well-choreographed, but unfortunately that seems to be the best thing going for it. The rest of the time you’re watching some poor yet uninteresting high schooler get constantly blackmailed into helping a sociopathic yandere hunt for her sister…while forcing him to transform into a monster, which she can graphically slip inside to use him like a Gundam. Maybe if Clair wasn’t such an unlikeable and toxic partner in crime, this could have become something great. For now, it’s a collection of decent fights weaved together with a whole lot of gaslighting.
#16: “Juuni Taisen” (2017)
A battle royale featuring assassins who represent the twelve zodiac animals? Sounds like a winning combination for some Fate-style fun. Unfortunately, this series tried to lean too much into the darkness of its characters and forgot to have fun with its own premise. Most of the time the show does away with battles for character introspection, dealing with the trauma and darkness of each fighter…except none of these characters are really that interesting, and we don’t spend enough time with them to care or understand them before they get killed off. The whole thing unfortunately reeks of wasted potential.
#15: “Angels of Death” (2018)
The original game may be beloved, but its adaptation somewhat missed the mark when it comes to the creepiness factor. It becomes blatantly apparent very quickly that this was based on an RPG maker given the story beats, obstacles, and layout. But where the anime really misses the mark is that its characters are…way too over the top. Isaac doesn’t so much inspire fear as he does come across as a cosplayer with a murder fetish, and even as they kill their way through each floor, we’re not so consumed with dread as we are just going through the motions.
#14: “Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest” (2019-)
Look, we won’t deny we get a kick out of watching this series, for all its faults – you’ve got the biggest edgelord in the world going around with magical guns, taking vengeance on those who wronged him, while building up a harem of humanoid monster girls in the process. We just wish it wouldn’t take itself so damn seriously! Hajime needs to lighten the hell up! After all, he’s living his best life, got love interests up the wazoo, and if anyone crosses him he’s got magical gatling guns on standby!
#13: “Magical Girls Spec-Ops Asuka” (2019)
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Dark magical girl anime are dime a dozen these days, so for one to stand out, it either has to push the envelope, get creative with its premise…or implement tropes you’d normally wouldn’t expect. Guess what this one did. Combining busty anime girls with fleeting scenes of PTSD, along with some unexpectedly graphic scenes, Asuka doesn’t so much come across as hardcore as it does Madoka Magica’s immature and try-hard younger sister! We’re all down for magical girls who can 360 no-scope, but maybe next time slow down on the sexualised torture.
#12: “School Days” (2007)
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The majority of this anime is nothing more than an exercise in frustration as we watch one guy sleep his way through the rest of the cast with disastrous emotional consequences for all players involved. And then the finale came along, and unironically turned it into one of the most entertaining WTF conclusions in the medium! After cheating on one of his lovers one too many times, Makoto is stabbed to death…only for his ex to kill his killer, retrieve his head, and for the two of them to sail off together. It. Is. Bonkers. And we can’t help but enjoy it, if only for how it packs so much grimdark into one episode, and finally seeing Makoto pay for his ruinous nature, of course.
#11: “Redo of Healer” (2021)
No explanation should be needed for this. It’s one of those anime that pushes the boundary of decent taste to such an extent you’re left wondering - how the hell is this not a hentai? After being abused and drugged, one isekaier decides to seek his revenge…by using magic to brainwash his former tormentors and turn them into his collective harem. Yeah, sexual violence runs amok here. It’s so obvious in its controversial set up that you can’t help but look at it as an overly edgy shlock fest best suited for Pornhub…
#10: “Dies Irae” (2017)
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We can’t believe we have to say this, but in anime there’s a fine art when it comes to implementing the remnants of the Third Reich. If used appropriately, it can add an extra dimension of terror to the antagonists. If not, then it just come across as a desperate attempt to appear gritty. If that wasn’t bleak enough, our protagonist is a loner who inherits a deadly set of abilities made for slicing apart ancient, evil Germans. The only thing its missing is a frenemy that our lead has complex feelings towards. Oh wait, he has one of those too.
#9: “Magical Girl Site” (2018)
Wow. Just wow. This anime wants to be so edgy that it somehow ended up passing into the realm of unintentional hilarity. You have a perfectly ordinary, if quiet, girl who isn’t only abused at home by her brother (because reasons) but she’s bullied relentlessly at school. Not just your regular standard of bullying either, more like the almost-get maimed-with-a-switchblade-kind-of-bullying. Keep in mind this is all before her cat gets murdered and she finds herself thrown into a magical girl death match. Subtlety truly has no place here.
#8: “Akame ga Kill!” (2014)
It’s known as the anime equivalent to Game of Thrones, but that’s not always a good thing. Oh sure, some of the death scenes hit close to home and it doesn’t shy away from showing some truly gruesome fight scenes, unfortunately it also tends to get a bit carried away with itself. Every death is portrayed as the most dramatic thing every put to animation, the fanservice seems over-the-top at times, and the supposed emotional payoff can seem a tad unwarranted. We’re all for seeing more of best girl Leone, but there’s only so much Seryu we can stand.
#7: “Another” (2012)
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Once again, we see what happens when a horror anime tries to outdo itself with its death scenes. Oh sure, everyone remembers the harrowing moment when the teacher commits suicide, but from there the rest just feel like gags. Before long, what’s supposed to be a serious anime about a town’s accursed past becomes nothing short of slapstick. Impaled by an umbrella, struck by lightning, buried underneath a chandelier, the edge has gone so far off the rails its somehow ended up becoming comedy gold.
#6: “Violence Jack” OVAs (1986)
Go Nagai loves nothing more than to explore the depravity that lurks inside the hearts of man, something he achieved to great success with works like Devilman. Then you have this little number, which asks the question of just how much cannibalism, decapitation and sexual violence can one anime get away with? The answer? A ludicrous amount. The shock horror factor might work at first, but the OVA manages with wear itself thin by trying to one-up itself with its hardcore material, a gimmick that will have you desensitised before you know it.
#5: “Hell Girl” (2005-09; 2017)
Adolescence is already a labyrinth of awkwardness and anxiety, one that can lend itself to some painfully real storytelling. Teens sending each other to hell via a website? Not so much. While this series does tackle heavy issues such as kidnapping and bullying, there are moments when it pushes the envelope just a bit too far. The entire population save for the victims appear to be jerks to absurd degrees, and the reasons for the antagonists having their souls damned can be a little on the lacklustre side. A rival baker who stole a recipe? Come on guys!
#4: “Deadman Wonderland” (2011)
We’ll admit that starting your anime by having a class of kids get turned into red paste certainly set a tone, it’s just a shame that the rest of the series couldn’t live up to it. While Carnival Corpse is supposed to be this bloody display of crazy kids fighting to the death, most of them didn’t really manage to inspire any fear, and before you know it the whole thing had become a generic action show, one that liked to tell its audience how dark it was as opposed to showing it.
#3: “Pupa” (2014)
Buckets of blood, experimenting on children, and just the faintest hint of incestuous cannibalism painted in an erotic manner. What happens when you put all of it together? An anime that likes to think of itself as artistic when in truth the only thing it has going for it is that each episode is mercifully short. With the outbreak of a virus that turns humans into monsters, Utsutsu tries to protect his sister from the outside world…while also allowing her to devour his flesh to appease the monster inside of her. That’s not edgy, that’s just vile!
#2: “Blood-C” (2011)
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Blood+ may have been mired in its own pretentious brand of darkness, but its got nothing on this little number. With the apparent aim of trying to get the biggest kill-count in the goriest way possible, the only thing this anime is remembered for is the amount of civilians that get torn apart. With bland protagonist Saya doing very little to help the situation, what promised to be a gritty take on the “Blood” lore ended up becoming that one anime that featured giant bunnies eating human kebabs.
#1: “Elfen Lied” (2004)
Don’t hate us Lucy, we think you’re a great character and the amount of bodies you’ve piled up in your time is very impressive. It’s just that everything else around you is trying way too hard to outdo your tragic backstory. While our favourite Diclonius has suffered all manner of trauma throughout her life, including watching her puppy get beaten to death, this anime seemed determine to give everyone a chance at misery. Kouta’s whole family got slaughtered, Mayu was abused at home and Yuka is pretty determined to play kissing cousins. Careful not to cut yourself on all that edge.
