Baccano shows bits and pieces of important scenes each episode, but the puzzle pieces take quite some time to form a complete picture. So, while we’ve seen plenty of hints and built up suspense about the mysterious Rail Tracer serial killer on the train, it isn’t until episode 9 that the man’s true identity comes to light.

The young conductor (who has seemed mostly innocent up to this point) is backed up against the wall with a gun in his face, but suddenly he kicks the pistol out his assailant’s hand and blows the man’s brains out. Then, when another killer in disguise witnesses the crime, he dangles him above the moving tracks behind the train and slowly shreds him to death. Lesson learned: if you cross the Rail Tracer, there’s no hope left for you.

When retro anime fans wax on about how ‘70s and ‘80s anime weren’t afraid to show graphic violence, Fist of the North Star is always brought up as a shining example of showing gratuitous blood and guts just for the sake of it. And while the original series is jam-packed with bloody scenes, we could think of nothing that perfectly represents this cavalier attitude towards violence better than Ches’ death from the early 2000s OVA New Fist of the North Star.

Seiji presses a vital point on Ches’ body that would cause his head to explode (a Fist of the North Star staple) if he doesn’t choose to serve Seiji from then on. The brutish soldier agrees out of cowardice and is spared. Later, when Ches kills an innocent man to save his own life, Kenshiro finds the vital point himself and Ches begs him to press the point that reverses the effect. The hero stoically retorts that he forgot where that point is, and Ches’ head promptly explodes in a spray of blood. A fitting end for such a vile man, and a badass note to end on for the always manly Kenshiro.

Ousama Game isn’t exactly what we’d call a quality anime, but it’s perfect fodder for your bad anime nights. Along with the bafflingly tasteless fanservice and inconsistent storyline, this anime features its fair share of gory deaths out of nowhere. When everyone is trying to figure out what the death game actually is in the first episode, resident bully Yuuichi takes out his frustrations on our hero Nobuaki by pinning him down and kicking him. But, by insulting the King and his game, Yuuichi triggers a “punishment” that causes him to bleed from every orifice of his body until he falls to the ground in a puddle of his own bodily fluids. And to think—this is only a fraction of what the unseen King can do...

Up until now, Lelouch has been clawing his way towards his dream of a peaceful Japan through manipulation, guerilla warfare, and some good old-fashioned violence. But he’s willing to drop it all when Princess Euphemia manages to unite everyone with her proposal of a specially administrated zone within the country. Everything seems to be going swimmingly at the unveiling ceremony until Lelouch accidentally activates his Geass power to force the gentle princess to murder all of the Japanese people present at the event.

Euphemia snatches a pistol and kills an innocent attendee in the front row, which snaps the fragile trust that the audience had in her and opens the floodgates for a full-scale riot. By the end, she’s drenched in blood and surrounded by the corpses of those who she sought to save. She’s put down by a shot through her torso and bleeds out in the hospital, still believing that she was able to make the Japanese people happy.

Ever since he was introduced, the mysterious Beast Titan has been the Survey Corps’ most dangerous enemy. He’s highly intelligent, capable of speech, can control other Titans, and has the throwing arm of a seasoned MLB pitcher. Except, instead of throwing baseballs, he throws horses and giant boulders. During the battle to retake the Shiganshina district, the Beast Titan blocks the only escape route with a ring of Titans and defends it with his own pitching skills. He grinds up boulders and tosses them at the oncoming charge of soldiers, raining down upon them a fusillade of rocks that kills many of them instantly. Only one Scout remains by the end of the battle, surrounded by a field full of the mangled bodies of his former comrades.

The very first scene of Vinland Saga brilliantly sets the tone for the whole series by showing Thorfinn’s father Thors in his prime as one of the most dangerous Vikings to ever live. After briefly losing himself in a daydream of his family and peaceful home, Thorkell shouts his name and he’s brought back to the reality of his life as a warrior. Mutilated corpses litter the deck of a Norse ship, all slain by Thors’ blade. With grim determination, he effortlessly tears through countless soldiers while jumping between ships and dodging arrows raining down from above.

He tries to be a fierce warrior like Viking tradition says he should be, but his last shred of allegiance to that lifestyle breaks when he hears a man mutter an apology for his wife before dying by Thors’ hand. Thors can’t take it anymore and deserts the army on the spot, leaving behind a lifetime of violence that he’ll never be able to atone for.

Goblin Slayer starts out just like any normal RPG-inspired fantasy anime, but the hastily assembled adventuring party runs into a big problem when it turns out that they’re woefully underprepared for taking on the goblins that they’ve been tasked to exterminate. The overconfident hero leaves himself wide open for getting stabbed and beaten to death, the mage succumbs to a poisoned dagger, and the fighter is so traumatized by her near-rape experience that she’s reduced to a barely verbal husk of a human. Only the priestess manages to survive by holding out until a masked man known only as the Goblin Slayer rescues her and slaughters the goblins with no mercy. This is the start of their bloodstained journey toward complete goblin eradication...

Stand battles tend to be pretty intense in the first place, but this fight cranks the gore level up a notch by introducing a Stand that can transmute the iron in someone’s blood into actual iron objects that appear underneath their skin. The inexperienced Doppio hardly stands a chance against Risotto’s gruesome ability—he’s forced to claw out a pair of scissors from his neck and vomit up razor blades until his battered body is covered in sickening yellow blood (a side effect of losing too much iron). Fans were shocked that the anime adaptation kept these moments intact without much censorship, allowing viewers to experience Metallica in all of its terrifying glory.

Devilman: Crybaby is an extremely R-rated anime, and it’s not shy about letting you know that right off the bat. Doctor Fikira’s transformation into a demon in Ryo’s flashback gives a small sample of violence early on, but it’s the Sabbath massacre at the end of the first episode that really pulls out all the stops. Akira and Ryo show up at an underground party filled with sex, drugs, and blaring EDM music in order to slay the demons that have been rumored to appear at these events. After Ryo stabs some unsuspecting partygoers with a broken bottle, everyone begins to shapeshift into grotesque demons that tear each other apart in the bloodiest ways possible. Heads and limbs go flying as the dance floor turns into a horror show, and it’s up to Akira to stop the madness before it’s too late.

He’s taken over by the demon Amon and turns into Devilman, who rends the demons apart with inhuman force and showers in their entrails. We see him grinning into the camera among a sea of carnage and cut to credits. Wow, this anime means business!

Excel Saga isn’t anywhere near as serious or violent as Devilman: Crybaby, but it tops this list due to the sheer amount of blood Hyatt expels from her body in the final episode. Like Kenny from South Park, Hyatt has a tendency to die over and over in increasingly ludicrous ways. Drowning, freezing into a human popsicle, coughing up so much blood that she stains an entire field of flowers red, Excel accidentally knocking her head off...

But by far her most over-the-top death comes in episode 26 when she vomits up a river of blood that turns into a raging ocean and covers the entire Earth. Excel can do is to keep her head above the surface and cry for help from their boss. Fun fact: this episode was intentionally made to be so obscene and long-winded that the network wouldn’t dare to air it. It was only once the series was released on DVD that we finally got to see this masterpiece of a scene!

What is the life of an assassin? Is it a righteous one, or a boiling pot of sin? That is a question that Tatsumi; a new and inexperienced recruit of the assassination group called Night Raid, must answer for himself. Seeking a means to better life in his hometown, Tatsumi finds the seeds of hope within the resolve of this band of assassins. As they set out to topple Prime Minister Honest and put his reign of greed and relentlessness to an end, Tatsumi has his morals put to the ultimate test. Can he take on the shadow life of an assassin and still hang on to his values and humanity? Will he live long enough to find out?

Nonetheless, he’ll have to face the loss of a few friends. Karma can make its way around quite quickly nowadays. Chelsea from Akame ga Kill may have marked an “X” onto her chest, but you would hope there to be some sympathy within this assassination game. As episode 17 draws to a close, moments after parading an outward facing ego disguised by a calm calculative demeanor, Chelsea’s thoughts are dominated by one word; run. Faster than she could say those three letters, she is unexpectedly cut short; in a literal sense. Watching her own fingers tumble through the air is how the blood show begins. You give it an inch; it’ll take a mile. From fingers to a whole arm, the portions will only get bigger. And with it, a bigger pool of the good ol’ red stuff. Ouch!

Keiichi Maebara is the new kid in the little village of Hinamizawa. Set in 1983, Keiichi and his band of friends Rena, Rika, Satoko, and Mion seem to be living the delightful life that most young kids their age should. That is, until the annual festival comes punching around with a handful of horrifying mysteries and untold truths. Will Keiichi get to the bottom of the falsehoods lurking throughout Hinamizawa, or will insanity cost him his life? Where there’s murder, there’s blood; and where there’s blood, there’s everything.

Being gutted by a madman is one thing, but repeatedly turning the blade onto yourself is just… geez. Splattering in at episode 20, Rika discovers the secret to creating true art as she holds her pride above heaven itself. Unwilling to let Shion bare the satisfaction of taking her life, Rika grabs her brush and paints herself a self-portrait of a lifetime. Cramming that blade into her neck reverberates all the worse kinds of feelings in the best possible way. The amount of blood that escapes such a little person is mesmerizing per se, but watching it waltz across the screen as she repeats it over and over again is an eye popper. Leaving a bloody masterpiece for us all to admire. Red and green is a match made in heaven.

When a girl named Megumi Shimizu turns up dead, alarms begin going off all over the village of Sotoba; but not the alarms you would expect. Initially fearing that an epidemic is spreading across town, Doctor Toshio Ozaki takes up the mantle of getting to the bottom of the outbreak; only to find something much darker beneath the surface. That is, vampires; aka Shiki. Alongside Megumi’s grieving friend Yuuki, these two set in motion the gears that will either save Sotoba, or tear it to pieces. The lines dividing good and evil have never been so blurred as it is in the world of Shiki; and it is that essence of judgement shrouding fear that takes this tragic tale beyond any other vampire story.

Fear is a beautiful emotion, as it can cause people to do some of the darndest things. Thus, when fear blankets over the people of Sotoba, the tune of a bloody symphony begins echoing throughout town. It’s safe to say that even vampires can bleed like we do. The red fireworks that blow out of these unfortunate creatures here in episode 20 isn’t something easy to forget. As the villagers strip shiki from nooks and crannies all over town, the tides roll in red with blood thicker than a protein smoothie. Vampires; one moment their sucking on blood, the next moment their spewing it.

After a student named Misaki from Yomiyama North Middle School’s class 3-3 passes away, nothing in the town of Yomiyama has ever been the same. 26 years later, Kouichi Sakakibara transfers into the same class and immediately gets a taste of the “off” atmosphere passing through the corridors of the school. All of which seems to be connected to a strange girl named Mei Misaki. Throwing caution to the wind; as well as everyone’s warnings, Kouichi pushes to unravel the mysteries at Yomiyama North; but he may have dug in a bit too deep for his own good.

There’s an underlying message somewhere within the story of Another, but you’re going to have to wipe the blood from your eyes first if you plan on finding it. Outside of its enigmatic story elements, and eerie atmosphere, one thing that Another certainly has an abundance of, is blood. You could only imagine what was going through Mr. Kubodera’s head in episode 7, as he fought that daring knife from fixating itself right into his jugular. Sorry buddy, but you knew damn well it was all over. The amount of blood that shoots out from his neck is like observing a fire hydrant in action. Everyone seated in that classroom got a taste of what Mr. Kubodera had to offer as a parting gift, and it’s probably not a flavor that you’d want for dessert. Or would you?

Speaking of knowing when it’s all over, Elfen Lied gives us a body count that’s out to set records.

Lucy is a work of art, a mutant species called “Diclonii” who possess telekinetic abilities. Surely enough, she was subject to government torturing and experimentation, leaving her with a long hit list once she’d managed to break herself free. Unfortunately for her, after suffering head trauma, Lucy battles a childlike split personality named Nyu. Taken in by locals Kouta and Yuka, these two cousins get pulled into a dangerous tangle with the government, and the grim world that comes complimentary. However, Lucy’s killing spree isn’t quite over yet.

Her victims; nevertheless, should be grateful for one thing; it tends to happen rather quickly. Still, sometimes you just have to read the atmosphere and make a run for it. Witnessing guard after guard’s blood spurt from their erupting headless necks, while others get their brains pierced through and entire bodies set off like C4 right at the kickoff of episode 1, packs a strange sense of excitement. The splatter house pandemonium is quite sickening, but worth every second. Lucy is a visionary whose tool is coagulated blood; and she’s giving birth to a world of creativity.

You don’t get do overs in life, said someone who clearly never watched Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-. One day, Subaru Natsuko suddenly finds himself randomly summoned to another world. This could throw anyone for a loop; but the worst has yet to come. After befriending a silver-haired girl, they are both mysteriously murdered; that is, until Subaru reawakens in a reset timeline. He has acquired the ability “Return by Death”, making him capable of reversing time by dying; but will it be enough to save those he hopes to protect? Re:ZERO tells a unique story of pain, of growth, and of murderous action.

Human or not, being sliced open and drained of your juices like a coconut never gets old. Episode 20 certainly knows what makes a bloodbath worth taking a dip into. Watching as it cloaks the field like spray paint, will work its way down your spine like none other. Wilhelm van Astrea sure knows how to put on a show as he dances through a White Whale, slicing it up like vegetables. A rectifying performance indeed, but not one without its presentation of bloody lawlessness. After all, it’s what we came to the show for.

Rituals aren’t something to take lightly, and these nine students find that out in the worse possible way. When their farewell charms take them to the sight of a series of gruesome murders; a destroyed elementary school named Heavenly Host Academy, these nine friends must conquer their fears in order to find their way home again.

It takes a lot to rip a whole person open; however, Episode 3 of Corpse Party may prove otherwise. Kishinuma Yoshiki was just in the middle of being a righteous hero, until he screwed around and got killed. Now all he is, is a bunch of hanging innards and a fountain of red juice we like to call blood. Looks like these unrested spirits have a knack for shutting people up. For the blood enthusiasts, this series is filled to the brim with scenes just as grisly as this one; as for the rest of you, you’ve already read this far so you’re tainted. Might as well join the fun.

When all the world’s nations look to become one, its anticipated peace is endangered by the likes of corporate-owned armies. As in every battle for control, the game changer always resides in the discovery of a new trump card. It’s called the Genocyber; a cybernetic psychic weapon, and the Kuryu Group is hellbent on using it in their favor.

Genocyber is strange, and with strange things you’re never really sure what to expect. Welcome to episode 1, where government agent 1 of 3 peels himself like a banana before bursting at the seams like an overblown balloon. The waterfall of cherry red body liquid pouring over onto the floor is reminiscent of a waterpark ride in which we’ve got the front seats. If this was a race of how fast blood can squirt from the human body, he would be one hell of a contender. But in a show like Genocyber, you’re bound to come across some other candidates as the bleeding rollercoaster is far from finished. Your life has now been forever changed.

Ken Kaneki’s got more talent than he knows, and its blood-draining skills like his that worked this scene all the way up to #2 of Honey’s Anime’s Top 10 Bloodiest Scenes in Anime.

In an alternate reality from our own, Tokyo is a grim and unforgiving city harboring the likes of “ghouls”. Vicious beasts residing amongst humans, awaiting their chance to strike. Ken; a college student who happens upon Rize Kamishiro, finds himself caught within the deep pits of the world of ghouls after unfortunately taking a liking to the mysterious girl. Now a half-ghoul/half-human caught within a secretive life, Ken must struggle to find his sense of direction.

Taking the life of someone’s closest friend can have quite the adverse effects. For some, they grow golden hair, for others, they become blood gouging killing machines. On the verge of death at the height of episode 2, Ken makes his bloody mark onto the crooked world that he’s forced to play part in. He spreads Nishiki’s fluids across the sky like a light show, giving everything nearby a nice red paint job. The best part of all, is his relentlessness. Rapid speed jabbing into Nishiki’s ragdoll like body; squishing his organs like stepping on cherries. Oh the madness.

Living a double life means that monotony, for Saya Kisaragi, is a long lost term. Uniform donning schoolgirl during the daytime, and unremitting beast-killing machine by nightfall. This katana wielding warrior sweeps the streets clean of any inhuman beings that look to threaten her village. But, when an odd dog randomly appears one day; curious of what it might mean if Kisaragi’s promise to protect the village were to be broken, Kisaragi finds herself peddling backwards. Piece by piece, her world begins to twist out of control, and it is only a matter of time before unbelievable truths come to light.

With a list like this, what the hell does it take to surpass the odds and spread your bloody way up to number one? Well, it takes blood my friends; a whole lot of it. Let’s save the talk about what the hell these bizarre bunny creatures are for another time, and let’s keep focus on what they’re guilty of; bloody vandalism. Caught red handed right here on episode 12, there’s just no mercy amongst these diabolical beings; and we like it. Blood just oozes out of these unfortunate people like squeezed lemons. They pack juice like a can of Welch’s and these bunny buddies are popping their tops. One moment their being chomped on like corn on the cob, the next their being blended up like a fruit juice. Toss a little vodka in the mix and it’s a party, people. I guess this is what you get when you watch a show titled BLOOD-C.