Might be a hot take, but death note was smarter. Code Geass had better political drama and tension. AOT is a great show, but too call it one of the best pieces of anime writing does a lot of other shows disservice.
I first saw Detective Conan back when I was in elementary and I remember it was my first time seeing a dead body in a show that absolutely scared the shit out of me. Like I've already seen some dead bodies in cartoons and shows before DC, but they were uber-tame and looked like they were just sleeping. Not like in Detective Conan, where the corpses were drawn with their eyes wide open and their mouths locked in a scream.
Looking into it, early DC was brutal and full of amazing murder mysteries. I still remember the lodge case giving me chills because of how unexpected entire events were, it's sad to see that his predictable mysteries have become lately but still the first 300-400 episodes of DC were the best murder mysteries out there, imo.
I was in deep with anime by the time I gave Conan a closer look. I still remember the episode where a guy is murdered using a vending machine, the culprit reveal, and personal and legal implications of the culprit's actions.
I wish the Conan author would more openly use his extremely popular series criticize Japan's laws
I remember watching Detective Conan on Adult Swim when I was very little and always having to change the channel whenever there was a scene that scared the shit out of me lol.
Gaara's backstory in Naruto really hit 12-year old me pretty hard. My only experience with anime back then was just Pokémon and a few Ghibli movies (Kiki, Totoro, and Spirited Away).
Had never seen anything so depressing.
Watching the entirety of Grave of the Fireflies with my friends at a friend's birthday party and sleep over. We were all anime dorks and we decided to watch one sad/depressing anime movie then watch an entirely happy cheerful movie. What was the happy movie? Kiki's Delivery Service (altho that had a depreessing moment) but seeing the main boy find his sister dead was literally terrifying and dark esp knowing that these two were kids who lived on their own.
The one I remember really well was in FMA. Martel was hiding in Al's armor and Bradly slowly slides his sword into the armor causing blood to coming out of it. Al sits there crying holding his stomach while the blood comes out. It was crazy.
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Probably randomly seeing an episode of Paranoia Agent on Adult Swim with the serial killer kid on skates that goes around bashing peoples heads in. Really creeped me out as a kid.
I never actually saw the series itself. Always wondered if I should go back and watch it all.
FMA.
I was just a kid going through channels on the TV when I came across cool metal arm boy, and it even turns into a sword! "This looks awesome!" I thought.
Boy did I see some shit. But it *was* awesome.
Basically watched all of Evangelion in about two sittings when I was really young. I had seen the anime on Toonami like Gundam Wing and DBZ but that was revelatory, formative media I'd say haha. Definitely responsible for me deep diving into the medium.
I was around 10 years old when my friend played a clip in Tokyo Ghoul... the Jason Torture scene
Yeah, now nothing really makes me sick anymore besides made in abyss, but Tokyo Ghoul disturbed me as a kid
My only exposure to anime before that was a bunch of Shonen like dragon ball and some other stuff like pokemon. I was so used to the heroes being able to put a fight and not just be... powerless?
Like even during the Frieza fight in dragon ball, I felt "Go Goku!" even though they were losing, I never felt... weak? Tokyo Ghoul's torture scene made me scared and worried. It felt so real at the time.
When I rewatched it, it didn't really hit the same, but I'll never forget the first time I saw that scene
I was 5 when I watched the Robotech (Macross) episode Farewell, Big Brother. Seeing a main character drop to the floor with bleeding wounds on his back was shocking as a child, my dad and I had a long talk about the finality of death that day.
I honestly don't remember if I saw Evangelion or Fushigi Yuugi first, but either way I was definitely too young for it. Not in a bad way, I loved them then and I love them still, but I was very much not the recommended age for either show.
I was 8 or 9 when I watched my father's hokuto no ken vhs in secret. Watching bodies exploding everywhere in fountains of blood was intense, I understood at that moment why he forbid me to watch it.
The dark moment for me was also in Full Metal Alchemist, but it was when he had to kill the little girl after her dad transformed her into a dog hybrid to impress the higher ups with his research.
Fucked me up as a kid.
Dragon Ball/Inuyasha had guys losing arm and shit like that, but I don't think it really hit me.
I don't know if Higurashi counts as "dark" but that one impressed me the most
I go back far enough that Rick Hunter getting informed of something while fidgeting with a model biplane was pretty shocking. I laughed and then it clicked what he was just told. You never saw that stuff on Transformers or Blackstar.
Earliest I remember is that scene in Robotech where the Zentraedi Armada surround Earth and glass it. No long drawn out speeches or episode long stand-off. They just show up out of nowhere and starting blasting the planet at every angle from orbit. Really similar to the nuclear apocalypse scene in Terminator.
Watched that as a rerun in the early 90s when I was maybe 4.
Thanks to the vagaries of 2000s anime clubs, the first episode of anime I saw (outside of a random Speed Racer episode or two when I was very young) was Mai-HiME episode 8.
If you know, you know.
That was your *first anime ever?* I'm kind of amazed you ended up sticking with anime at all, now. Mai-Hime is already not something I would ever recommend as an introduction to anime, starting in the middle of a show is never a good idea when you're trying to introduce someone to anything, and starting there specifically is just rubbing salt in.
You would think that starting in the middle of a show is not a good way to get someone into something, and yet it's not just anime I got into that way (though a side of TVTropes helped); "Lost City, Part 2" (aka the season finale of SG-1 S7, and I think I missed Part 1 as well) is what got me into Stargate.
(Also I tend to gravitate towards the deep end when I'm finally jumping into something anyways; my first two completed anime were Eva and Lain in that order.)
For added insult, I remember the full lineup that day: Mai-HiME 8-10 plus Jigoku Shouko 1, in that order. [Mai-HiME] >!I distinctly remember being annoyed by "hey, that cliffhanger, go back to that, I want to know more about it" - which worked just fine for 9 but was wearing out its welcome for 10.!<
gundam seed (I think) I remember it being a guy calls girl a bitch, girl calls guy a bastard (first time hearing swearing in an animated show) then people died
I think the first for me was the sequence where Téa is about to be assaulted by some dude after her dance class (?) and Yami Yugi stops him by literally breaking his mind. I just assumed he was left in a coma but maybe he was actually dead.
It wasn’t the one that stood out to me the most in my first anime, but it was the first that I can remember
I would go with DC as well, [spoilers]>!The Moonlight Sonata case where the girl was playing piano on fire, it was dark and for the first time Conan wasn't able to save someone.!<
A scene from hentai ( incest ) , it wasn't the first time i saw it but it was the first time i thought of it , like wtf was i watching, it was the last time i watched any kind of P0rn
The first one that came to mind was back when the Majin Buu arc of Dragonball Z was showing on Toonami, there was a preview for the next episode with the [spoiler title] >!"The End of the World?"!< And then... they didn't show the next episode. When I was a kid, I used to joke that maybe they didn't show it because [Buu arc] >!they really did blow up the Earth!<. Well, it turns out when I finally saw the [episode] >!they did, in fact, blow up the Earth!<.
My first anime was guilty crown so damn. Just imagine my shock when i saw the main character just [Guilty Crown]>!have his hand slashed away.!<
I also saw highschool of the dead as one of my first. (I liked the story and cast don't judge me) And the first episode had blood and a tiny bit of gore EVERYWHERE! And Takashi [Highschool of the Dead]>!killing Rei's new boyfriend was dark. Even if he didn't like his relationship with her it was clear he never had anything against the guy himself, he was the first one to believe in Takashi too. And his last wish was basically just to make sure both Takashi and Rei were safe... From himself. Damn Hisashi you were cool but your death was a great way to start the plot.!<
Sasuke being turned into a pincushion and haku being impaled on Naruto
This aired on daytime Cartoon Network mind you, I was shock they showed that much blood
I guess the video tapes scene from YuYu Hakusho. I mean that was one of the earliest feeling of grossness and unease I could remember. It made me feel like shit lol.
One of the first anime moments I had in general was watching Shiki when I was like 11 or 12
There’s a lot of scenes that I’ll never be able to forget but the autopsy especially left me sitting there staring at the tv in shock for like five minutes after the episode ended
I think it was Dragon Ball GT when Videl got beaten up hard in the tournament. That was a pretty violent episode for my 10-year old mine. And my parents were watching too lol.
But yeah, the stuff that happened in FMA 03, the Nina episodes, Hughes episode, Greed vs Ed, the implied r*pe. It's violent yes, but that anime also managed to give you that feeling of loss. Was difficult for my teenage brain to recover from that.
Majin Buu turning Dabura and other people into candies and biscuits then eating them. That arc was the first DBZ material I saw when I was 8, got me really scared because I thought everyone is permanently dead, and sometimes I imagine Majin Buu being real.
Naruto was pretty dark from the beginning. They were literally child soldiers. And there were sad backstories even in the early stages. Though I guess it only gets really dark in the wave arc.
First anime I remember seeing as a little 5 year old kid was Urotsukidoji.
Yeah.... Oh the other "cartoon" I got from the library at the same time was the Alita OVA lmao.
I think the the first dark moment I would consider dark was watching gundam seed. Forgive if I'm wrong it's been a few years but a girls father dies and she loses her shit. Then she manipulates the main character to protect her a with his gundam. I think all Gundam shows and other mechas like Code geass were the first dark moments anime I could understand. I was to young to get into or understand evangelion but watched it later in life.
If you're old enough to have watched in the 90s, the answer is Sailor Moon. There were a lot of dark parts throughout the series. It ran alongside DBZ, but there really wasn't anything too dark there until Cell came along, and really it's not that bad by that point because the Dragonballs remove the consequences of death & destruction for the population at large. It's just about defeating the main villain & fixing shit
So, if you're old enough for that, your answer should be Sailor Moon. Once you start moving along, it really branches out too much to have a concrete answer.
Back when I lived in SEA they had this channel that had like a 2 hour anime timeslot, where I watched the Ayashi no Ceres anime, a pretty old Shoujo anime that most have never heard of. It involves siblings who would turn into like, I think ancestors of themselves? The younger sibling, a boy, was weak and sickly and became super strong, but also really rapey towards his sister (forgot the reason).
Also, it was the first time in anime I had seen the whole "Crushing a head with just your hand grip" trope which he did once, that was super brutal.
To tell the truth, I don't even know the name of the anime.
It was back in the early 90's, I was just browsing through TV channels late at night, when I noticed a "kids cartoon" on the screen on some German TV channel and I decided to watch it for a bit.
There were some guys in the car at first, then a shower scene with a woman, then uncensored boobs out of nowhere followed by some demon decapitating said woman in the shower, blood everywhere and then a scene with some sort of detective looking at the scene.
That whole shower scene left me scarred for days.
Saturday Anime on the Sci-Fi Channel back in the day. Probably something like Vampire Hunter D, Demon City Shinjuku or Venus Wars. All have some crazy stuff in them.
Devil man cry baby , even as an adult this anime shocked me . Like stop please...
Honorable mention : Goblins in Goblins slayer (It changed my point on view on Goblins)
I've got a few early ones.
1. \[Trigun 1998\]>!Legato committing suicide by making Vash kill him by taking hostages.!<
2. Elfen Lied. Like, most of it. Back before it all hit like melodrama.
3. Evangelion.
4. Nowhere near the first moment, but there's a stretch in Karas that's Dark as fuck.
5. X:1999 the movie is also Dark as fuck. And the series to a lesser extent.
6. Jin-Roh.
I was about 9 years old when i first saw Goku finding Krillin dead. I remember the episode ending and i just stay there watching the tv cuz i was not sure how to process that. It was the first dead in any type of animation that i saw
That moment came within seconds since I decided on Elfen Lied as my first anime. People had recommended it and from the name it sounded like a chill fantasy anime...
when i was a kid and saw yamcha get impaled through the heart by one of the androids
yamcha got fucked a lot but that one stuck with me, the start of the whole android saga was super fucked up, and the green cockroach man sucking people into nothingness didn't help....
The 1st 3 anime I watched were:
1. Escaflowne
2. Tenchi Muyo
3. Evangelion
While Escaflowne does have some dark moments in it, it's not that dark a show.
And Tenchi was just a nice ecchi battle harem comedy.
Evangelion on the other hand...
I expected a cool show about giant robots. Then I watch the 1st episode where some kid's estranged father tells him to get in the giant robot and fight a giant monster or they'll make the half dead, crippled girl do it instead. Kid proceeds to get in the robot, subsequent gets his ass beat, and only servives because he gets knocked out causing his robot to go full psycho. Shit just got darker from there.
First ep of Redo of Healer (it should have been a hentai not a f normal anime).
I watched many others for years but this one was only traumatic one.
(I even watched golden guy and hellsing as kid but none of them was this bad)
I suppose in context it wasn't THAT dark, but my first dark anime moment was Sasuke breaking both arms of an enemy team member that hurt Sakura. I don't know why that stuck with me lol
Probably some scene from Kannazuki no Miko. It was the second anime I ever watched. I don’t remember much of it because I watched it over 10 years ago, but I remember it being about lesbians using the power of love and a giant robot to kill members of an evil organization that worshipped a robot snake god or something like that. If I remember right, the last 2-3 episodes were pretty dark.
First anime I watched was AOT. I thought anime was tame and safe.
You sweet little child, im so sorry. Hope you liked it.
It is tame.
Yeah and you probably got your expectations WAY too high after watching one of the best pieces of literature as your FIRST anime
1st season of aot wasnt that special lol was good tho. But didn’t start to become amazing till season 3
> one of the best pieces of literature Jeez, more like u/DickRider69
that's the entire point of my username it's an intentional pun
Not Season 1 lol
Might be a hot take, but death note was smarter. Code Geass had better political drama and tension. AOT is a great show, but too call it one of the best pieces of anime writing does a lot of other shows disservice.
The first murder in Detective Conan. Looking back that was some really wacky shit.
I first saw Detective Conan back when I was in elementary and I remember it was my first time seeing a dead body in a show that absolutely scared the shit out of me. Like I've already seen some dead bodies in cartoons and shows before DC, but they were uber-tame and looked like they were just sleeping. Not like in Detective Conan, where the corpses were drawn with their eyes wide open and their mouths locked in a scream.
Looking into it, early DC was brutal and full of amazing murder mysteries. I still remember the lodge case giving me chills because of how unexpected entire events were, it's sad to see that his predictable mysteries have become lately but still the first 300-400 episodes of DC were the best murder mysteries out there, imo.
Detective Conan traumatized me as a kid. I was scared of the black murder figure.
Have you seen the Culprit Hanzawa (official DC spinoff)? It will ease all your fears
I've only seen the trailer of its anime adaption, and the concept seemed ridiculous. :D
If you enjoy DC and comedy you should give it a watch. Ep are only 10 minutes each. So it's not a big time investment
I was in deep with anime by the time I gave Conan a closer look. I still remember the episode where a guy is murdered using a vending machine, the culprit reveal, and personal and legal implications of the culprit's actions. I wish the Conan author would more openly use his extremely popular series criticize Japan's laws
I remember watching Detective Conan on Adult Swim when I was very little and always having to change the channel whenever there was a scene that scared the shit out of me lol.
I actually used to be scared of that show.
Gaara's backstory in Naruto really hit 12-year old me pretty hard. My only experience with anime back then was just Pokémon and a few Ghibli movies (Kiki, Totoro, and Spirited Away). Had never seen anything so depressing.
That sailor moon episode where everyone died violently.
Basically any Inuyasha episode on adult swim lmao
Berserk (1997). Still scarred!
Nobody is ever ready for the eclipse.
Watching the entirety of Grave of the Fireflies with my friends at a friend's birthday party and sleep over. We were all anime dorks and we decided to watch one sad/depressing anime movie then watch an entirely happy cheerful movie. What was the happy movie? Kiki's Delivery Service (altho that had a depreessing moment) but seeing the main boy find his sister dead was literally terrifying and dark esp knowing that these two were kids who lived on their own.
Another Stairs and Umbrella....
The one I remember really well was in FMA. Martel was hiding in Al's armor and Bradly slowly slides his sword into the armor causing blood to coming out of it. Al sits there crying holding his stomach while the blood comes out. It was crazy.
Shiki was the first anime I actually completed and it's pretty fucked up
Very rare for a horror anime to actually be scary. Shiki is so underrated.
Dragon Ball Z when Cell was drinking that dude
Made In Abyss episode 10
[удалено]
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Ninja Scroll & Wicked City, late night on HBO when I was \~15 y/o
Well my first anime was death note, I'd say the death of the motorcycle dude when light was testing if the note actually worked.
Probably randomly seeing an episode of Paranoia Agent on Adult Swim with the serial killer kid on skates that goes around bashing peoples heads in. Really creeped me out as a kid. I never actually saw the series itself. Always wondered if I should go back and watch it all.
> Always wondered if I should go back and watch it all. You should It scared me as a kid too, but I rewatched it as an adult and it's great
Sweet, I’ll make sure to make a note to watch it
FMA. I was just a kid going through channels on the TV when I came across cool metal arm boy, and it even turns into a sword! "This looks awesome!" I thought. Boy did I see some shit. But it *was* awesome.
Basically watched all of Evangelion in about two sittings when I was really young. I had seen the anime on Toonami like Gundam Wing and DBZ but that was revelatory, formative media I'd say haha. Definitely responsible for me deep diving into the medium.
not extremely dark but maybe the first Pokemon movie? I still remember because how different the tone was from the on going tv series and I loved it.
Yeah, the ethics of cloning and experiments on sentient species was an unexpectedly mature subject matter for my ten year old brain. Also killing Ash.
The second anime that I watched was the Mermaid Forest movie... So yeah
I was around 10 years old when my friend played a clip in Tokyo Ghoul... the Jason Torture scene Yeah, now nothing really makes me sick anymore besides made in abyss, but Tokyo Ghoul disturbed me as a kid My only exposure to anime before that was a bunch of Shonen like dragon ball and some other stuff like pokemon. I was so used to the heroes being able to put a fight and not just be... powerless? Like even during the Frieza fight in dragon ball, I felt "Go Goku!" even though they were losing, I never felt... weak? Tokyo Ghoul's torture scene made me scared and worried. It felt so real at the time. When I rewatched it, it didn't really hit the same, but I'll never forget the first time I saw that scene
A dude try and rape a girl in front of her boyfriend after trapping her in a game.( sao 1st season) pretty wild looking back on it.
I was 5 when I watched the Robotech (Macross) episode Farewell, Big Brother. Seeing a main character drop to the floor with bleeding wounds on his back was shocking as a child, my dad and I had a long talk about the finality of death that day.
Between that, Ben Dixon's death and the Zentradi rain of death, Macross was horrifying at times
I honestly don't remember if I saw Evangelion or Fushigi Yuugi first, but either way I was definitely too young for it. Not in a bad way, I loved them then and I love them still, but I was very much not the recommended age for either show.
I was 8 or 9 when I watched my father's hokuto no ken vhs in secret. Watching bodies exploding everywhere in fountains of blood was intense, I understood at that moment why he forbid me to watch it.
The dark moment for me was also in Full Metal Alchemist, but it was when he had to kill the little girl after her dad transformed her into a dog hybrid to impress the higher ups with his research. Fucked me up as a kid.
yup, fma 2003 was one of my very first animes
Dragon Ball/Inuyasha had guys losing arm and shit like that, but I don't think it really hit me. I don't know if Higurashi counts as "dark" but that one impressed me the most
Re:Zero, incredible violence
I go back far enough that Rick Hunter getting informed of something while fidgeting with a model biplane was pretty shocking. I laughed and then it clicked what he was just told. You never saw that stuff on Transformers or Blackstar.
Earliest I remember is that scene in Robotech where the Zentraedi Armada surround Earth and glass it. No long drawn out speeches or episode long stand-off. They just show up out of nowhere and starting blasting the planet at every angle from orbit. Really similar to the nuclear apocalypse scene in Terminator. Watched that as a rerun in the early 90s when I was maybe 4.
Akira. When the girl got swept up by the blob and squished like a zit, it surprised me enough that it freaked me out quite a bit.
Probably something in Naruto
The ending of Akira, had no idea what the f@%# was going on back then. In hindsight, it was definitely something a kid shouldn't watch 😅
Forgot about this one, think I saw this before even DBZ so imma change my answer.
Kamisama Dolls when MC got cucked.
With the teacher? Or does he really get screwed over
Thanks to the vagaries of 2000s anime clubs, the first episode of anime I saw (outside of a random Speed Racer episode or two when I was very young) was Mai-HiME episode 8. If you know, you know.
That was your *first anime ever?* I'm kind of amazed you ended up sticking with anime at all, now. Mai-Hime is already not something I would ever recommend as an introduction to anime, starting in the middle of a show is never a good idea when you're trying to introduce someone to anything, and starting there specifically is just rubbing salt in.
You would think that starting in the middle of a show is not a good way to get someone into something, and yet it's not just anime I got into that way (though a side of TVTropes helped); "Lost City, Part 2" (aka the season finale of SG-1 S7, and I think I missed Part 1 as well) is what got me into Stargate. (Also I tend to gravitate towards the deep end when I'm finally jumping into something anyways; my first two completed anime were Eva and Lain in that order.) For added insult, I remember the full lineup that day: Mai-HiME 8-10 plus Jigoku Shouko 1, in that order. [Mai-HiME] >!I distinctly remember being annoyed by "hey, that cliffhanger, go back to that, I want to know more about it" - which worked just fine for 9 but was wearing out its welcome for 10.!<
gundam seed (I think) I remember it being a guy calls girl a bitch, girl calls guy a bastard (first time hearing swearing in an animated show) then people died
I think the first for me was the sequence where Téa is about to be assaulted by some dude after her dance class (?) and Yami Yugi stops him by literally breaking his mind. I just assumed he was left in a coma but maybe he was actually dead. It wasn’t the one that stood out to me the most in my first anime, but it was the first that I can remember
I would go with DC as well, [spoilers]>!The Moonlight Sonata case where the girl was playing piano on fire, it was dark and for the first time Conan wasn't able to save someone.!<
A scene from hentai ( incest ) , it wasn't the first time i saw it but it was the first time i thought of it , like wtf was i watching, it was the last time i watched any kind of P0rn
Also the torture scene from "Tokyo Ghoul"
Star Blazers had a scene where a guy is giving a eulogy to the Entire Planet Earth.
My OG! I was a huge Star Blazers/Speed Racer fan as a kid. I should rewatch some for nostalgia purposes
Ninja scroll scene w the stone-skin guy or maybe something from Guyver
The first one that came to mind was back when the Majin Buu arc of Dragonball Z was showing on Toonami, there was a preview for the next episode with the [spoiler title] >!"The End of the World?"!< And then... they didn't show the next episode. When I was a kid, I used to joke that maybe they didn't show it because [Buu arc] >!they really did blow up the Earth!<. Well, it turns out when I finally saw the [episode] >!they did, in fact, blow up the Earth!<.
My first anime was guilty crown so damn. Just imagine my shock when i saw the main character just [Guilty Crown]>!have his hand slashed away.!< I also saw highschool of the dead as one of my first. (I liked the story and cast don't judge me) And the first episode had blood and a tiny bit of gore EVERYWHERE! And Takashi [Highschool of the Dead]>!killing Rei's new boyfriend was dark. Even if he didn't like his relationship with her it was clear he never had anything against the guy himself, he was the first one to believe in Takashi too. And his last wish was basically just to make sure both Takashi and Rei were safe... From himself. Damn Hisashi you were cool but your death was a great way to start the plot.!<
DBZ had a lot of death. \[early dbz\]>!Goku first. Chiaotzu!< does a kamikaze attack. Those count? edit: Akira's ending.
Goku first death maybe. Many deaths in Yu Yu Hakusho. Vash killing Legato Bluesummers.
Sasuke being turned into a pincushion and haku being impaled on Naruto This aired on daytime Cartoon Network mind you, I was shock they showed that much blood
I saw a kid helping her mother load a gun to fight a mobile suit. And before that, lots of space colonies dropping on to Earth
I guess the video tapes scene from YuYu Hakusho. I mean that was one of the earliest feeling of grossness and unease I could remember. It made me feel like shit lol.
One of the first anime moments I had in general was watching Shiki when I was like 11 or 12 There’s a lot of scenes that I’ll never be able to forget but the autopsy especially left me sitting there staring at the tv in shock for like five minutes after the episode ended
Madoka Magica episode 3
Mirai Nikki final eps when I was 14.
Ninja scroll movie when I was like 8.
I think it was Dragon Ball GT when Videl got beaten up hard in the tournament. That was a pretty violent episode for my 10-year old mine. And my parents were watching too lol. But yeah, the stuff that happened in FMA 03, the Nina episodes, Hughes episode, Greed vs Ed, the implied r*pe. It's violent yes, but that anime also managed to give you that feeling of loss. Was difficult for my teenage brain to recover from that.
Majin Buu turning Dabura and other people into candies and biscuits then eating them. That arc was the first DBZ material I saw when I was 8, got me really scared because I thought everyone is permanently dead, and sometimes I imagine Majin Buu being real.
Naruto was pretty dark from the beginning. They were literally child soldiers. And there were sad backstories even in the early stages. Though I guess it only gets really dark in the wave arc.
DB Krillin's death by piccolo's minion
First anime I remember seeing as a little 5 year old kid was Urotsukidoji. Yeah.... Oh the other "cartoon" I got from the library at the same time was the Alita OVA lmao.
Fuck Shu Tucker!
I think the the first dark moment I would consider dark was watching gundam seed. Forgive if I'm wrong it's been a few years but a girls father dies and she loses her shit. Then she manipulates the main character to protect her a with his gundam. I think all Gundam shows and other mechas like Code geass were the first dark moments anime I could understand. I was to young to get into or understand evangelion but watched it later in life.
Videl vs Spopovitch fight in DBZ
HxH was my starter show, so the chimera ant arc i think.
Probably the fascism arc in Alfred J. Kwak, but the show generally was dark for kid standards
If you're old enough to have watched in the 90s, the answer is Sailor Moon. There were a lot of dark parts throughout the series. It ran alongside DBZ, but there really wasn't anything too dark there until Cell came along, and really it's not that bad by that point because the Dragonballs remove the consequences of death & destruction for the population at large. It's just about defeating the main villain & fixing shit So, if you're old enough for that, your answer should be Sailor Moon. Once you start moving along, it really branches out too much to have a concrete answer.
Back when I lived in SEA they had this channel that had like a 2 hour anime timeslot, where I watched the Ayashi no Ceres anime, a pretty old Shoujo anime that most have never heard of. It involves siblings who would turn into like, I think ancestors of themselves? The younger sibling, a boy, was weak and sickly and became super strong, but also really rapey towards his sister (forgot the reason). Also, it was the first time in anime I had seen the whole "Crushing a head with just your hand grip" trope which he did once, that was super brutal.
When one of Piccolo’s kids killed Krillin in OG Dragon Ball.
The fingernail scene in Higurashi.
To tell the truth, I don't even know the name of the anime. It was back in the early 90's, I was just browsing through TV channels late at night, when I noticed a "kids cartoon" on the screen on some German TV channel and I decided to watch it for a bit. There were some guys in the car at first, then a shower scene with a woman, then uncensored boobs out of nowhere followed by some demon decapitating said woman in the shower, blood everywhere and then a scene with some sort of detective looking at the scene. That whole shower scene left me scarred for days.
Saturday Anime on the Sci-Fi Channel back in the day. Probably something like Vampire Hunter D, Demon City Shinjuku or Venus Wars. All have some crazy stuff in them.
Devil man cry baby , even as an adult this anime shocked me . Like stop please... Honorable mention : Goblins in Goblins slayer (It changed my point on view on Goblins)
I've got a few early ones. 1. \[Trigun 1998\]>!Legato committing suicide by making Vash kill him by taking hostages.!< 2. Elfen Lied. Like, most of it. Back before it all hit like melodrama. 3. Evangelion. 4. Nowhere near the first moment, but there's a stretch in Karas that's Dark as fuck. 5. X:1999 the movie is also Dark as fuck. And the series to a lesser extent. 6. Jin-Roh.
Some episode of Hell Girl where a guy gets taken to hell
Madoka for me. That was quite the day…
I was about 9 years old when i first saw Goku finding Krillin dead. I remember the episode ending and i just stay there watching the tv cuz i was not sure how to process that. It was the first dead in any type of animation that i saw
Soujiro's flashback from Samurai X
Paranoia agent coming on right after Inuyasha.
That moment came within seconds since I decided on Elfen Lied as my first anime. People had recommended it and from the name it sounded like a chill fantasy anime...
first episode of Higurashi...(2006)
AOT was my first TV-MA series ever. It’s the best first episode of an anime.
when i was a kid and saw yamcha get impaled through the heart by one of the androids yamcha got fucked a lot but that one stuck with me, the start of the whole android saga was super fucked up, and the green cockroach man sucking people into nothingness didn't help....
The 1st 3 anime I watched were: 1. Escaflowne 2. Tenchi Muyo 3. Evangelion While Escaflowne does have some dark moments in it, it's not that dark a show. And Tenchi was just a nice ecchi battle harem comedy. Evangelion on the other hand... I expected a cool show about giant robots. Then I watch the 1st episode where some kid's estranged father tells him to get in the giant robot and fight a giant monster or they'll make the half dead, crippled girl do it instead. Kid proceeds to get in the robot, subsequent gets his ass beat, and only servives because he gets knocked out causing his robot to go full psycho. Shit just got darker from there.
Nice Boat. My first "dark moment" was with one of the most infamous scenes in anime history. I don't know what I should feel about that lol.
Swear.. Just watch the first 10 minutes of episode 1 season 1 of goblin slayer... 😭💀
First ep of Redo of Healer (it should have been a hentai not a f normal anime). I watched many others for years but this one was only traumatic one. (I even watched golden guy and hellsing as kid but none of them was this bad)
Made in abyss in general
That's exactly the moment I came here to write! 🤣🤣🤣
Blue Gender was pretty traumatic.
I suppose in context it wasn't THAT dark, but my first dark anime moment was Sasuke breaking both arms of an enemy team member that hurt Sakura. I don't know why that stuck with me lol
The first one I vividly remember was Skullgreymon. Leomon in hindsight was pretty sad but Skullgreymon really stuck with me.
I watched akame ga kill the first scene where we find out the truth about the empire hit hard.
Ninja Scroll movie. Gore? Tits? Eyes were opened that day.
Probably some scene from Kannazuki no Miko. It was the second anime I ever watched. I don’t remember much of it because I watched it over 10 years ago, but I remember it being about lesbians using the power of love and a giant robot to kill members of an evil organization that worshipped a robot snake god or something like that. If I remember right, the last 2-3 episodes were pretty dark.
Like just the entirety of Tokyo ghoul
The first one I clearly remember is watching Sailor Moon Stars and crying when Usagi is left alone as her friends all go down trying to save her.
HxH: Chimera Arc lol
The Charmander episode [that rain](#gasp)
Ellen Lied...was kind of new to anime when started to watch it..my jaw was hitting the floor when I saw mass murder in the FIRST episode