Forum - View topicAnswerman - Is Horror Anime Less Squeamish About Kids?
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ThatMoonGuy
Posts: 364 |
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Like many said, Bokurano but also Narutaru. That one didn't shy away from either child death, abuse nor sexuality. A lot of other works go in a similar vein and deal with subjects that would otherwise be frowned upon. Hell, even a franchise as mainstream as Fate has its fair share of child murder and abuse and that's not even getting into other realms like Visual Novels and fandom productions which end up going very, very, very far down that path.
It's not everywhere but it's also more common than the answer seems to entail. |
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Beltane70
 Posts: 3919 |
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Sounds like the character, Ashura, from Ideon’s death, only that her death happens late into the film and was by a random laser incinerating her head just after she watched a severed torso lan next to her. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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-Justin Sevakis. Professor of Evolutionary Otaku Biology To go further on Justin's suggestion about live-action actors often being older than the characters they play (& thus it's more palletable in the viewers mind): anime character design & acting doesn't really allow for subtle variations in age (& often emphaises "youthful" elements), so often a 10-12 year old will be visually & audiably indistinct from a 17-18 year old except for height - Higurashi being a good example. After all, while it may not be an older actor on screen, it is almost always an older actor in the recording booth doing an impersonation of a child/teenager. I'd say that in general when kids are involved, it's usually either to further emphasise the horror of the situation or because the author/director/audience is an edgelord & knows killing kids has the greatest shock value. Often both. |
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Nagsura
Posts: 66 |
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I came here to mention Ideon, which was surprisingly absent from the article. Godo to see someone beat me to it, would've otherwise been sad that no one mentioned it. |
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Joshua Zarate
Posts: 2062 |
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Thanks for mentioning this as if it weren’t for you, I was surely going to bring it up. While not the most gory scene I have watched in anime, it still managed to tug at my heart strings surprisingly. |
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Angel Investor
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I find it weird that the question mentions IT as a counter-example, considering that spoiler[the very first scene is of a little child getting his arm ripped off and getting dragged into the sewer to his death]. That being said, I kind of agree that the clown didn't feel like that much of a threat to the kids once you figured out that he cared more about spooking them than actually causing them harm.
As for Japanese media, I think the most nightmarish scene involving children has to be in Corpse Party (I'm talking about the game, not the crappy OVA adaptation).spoiler[ It has a scene where elementary school kids get tortured and killed. Although you can't see anything, you can hear their screams and gurgles as well as the gross fleshy sounds.] When I first read that part it almost made me faint. I've never been so close to quitting a game because it made me so uncomfortable. |
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the-antihero
 Posts: 726 |
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Violence Jack was brutal.
Because it's an OVA it didn't resort to editing tricks. They showed both adults and children get brutally murdered. A kid was slit in the eyes with a knife and it was fully animated with no cuts to reaction shots, no jumping from cocking the arm holding the knife to that split second after the killer slashed with a glowing speed line. They animated it in full detail. I don't like violence just for the sake of it and I don't like Violence Jack, but it had the attitude towards presenting the violence that other shows like Attack on Titan are too chicken sh-- to have and in my opinion, should. |
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Nyren
Posts: 706 |
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Admittedly this one is a bit of a stretch, but Fate/Zero. All deaths are off-screen, but you HEAR everything. The screaming, the crying, the tearing flesh and meat, or the popping sound as a kids head is squeezed. Bluebeard was sadistic.
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3475 Location: Finland |
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Also if To You the Immortal/To Your Eternity ever gets anime, then that definitely...
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Triltaison
 Posts: 750 |
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Thanks for the suggestion, but it wasn't Ideon. This was a nameless kid before we met any characters, and it happened before the credits even ended. Maybe 2 minutes into the story. It did get a DVD release here in the US, also. |
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2093 |
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Generally the best horror focus on suspense and ambience and so to me it's really not relevant what age the characters are getting killed, heck you can have an excellent horror movie with zero on-screen fatalities. But in terms of seeing a kid (or rather, an infant) dying horribly, the 2016 film The Witch held nothing back (granted, you don't see the death, but you see what happens after and GOOD GOD). But that wasn't even made the film scary, it was the oppressive atmosphere, the growing tension among the family, and the knowledge that something horrifying was so close to them. So I personally don't think American horror not usually showing kids dying is that big a deal as it's not what it should be focused on.
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Not that it is something in which one should revel, but The Super Dimension Century Orguss 02 delivered assorted demises to its secondary cast, most notably the case of spoiler[a young child being fatally poisoned on-screen].
And then, of course, there is the infamy of Elfen Lied... |
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0nsen
 Posts: 256 |
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The first thing I would dispute is the existence of horror anime. Does Higurashi even count? It's more of a Thriller. Kids dying in anime is rather common, I feel. In the comments alone we got a couple of names dropped:
War related: 1983, Hadashi no Gen 1988, Hotaru no Haka 2016, Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni 2014, Giovanni no Shima Other stuff: 1980, Densetsu Kyojin Ideon 2003, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi (2009, too) 2003, Narutaru 2004, Elfen Lied 2006, Black Lagoon 2007, Bokurano 2012, Fate/Zero 2013, Corpse Party 2016, Koutetsujou no Kabaneri 2017, Made in Abyss 2017, Chaos;Child 2017, Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau ..and the list goes on: 1999, Digimon Adventure (Pumpkinmon & Gotsumon) 2003, Momoko, Kaeru no Uta ga Kikoeru yo. 2010, Angel Beats 2011, Blood-C (mostly teenagers, but there's some indiscriminate slaughter going on) 2012, Shinsekai yori There's also the thing where it's hard to tell whether someone is a teenager or a kid. Anime characters all tend to be rather cute looking. Or the stuff where death of children is promised, but never delivered, like Gunslinger Girl. Or Saishuuheiki Kanojo, if I remember correctly. Last edited by 0nsen on Sat Jan 27, 2018 6:00 am; edited 2 times in total |
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encrypted12345
Posts: 718 |
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I think that even if it is rare in general, it's more common in anime and manga than any other mediums. Partly because it's animated and not live action, and partly because anime/manga is open to a large variety of stories (unlike Western animation and comics for the most part).
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NobodysDawn
Posts: 57 |
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No one’s said it yet but there was also that one scene during Black Butler: Book of Circus when spoiler[ the villain (don’t remember his name) had Joker put on a “show” for Ciel by killing the kids they’d kidnapped,]
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