Waking up to a nightmarish scene, Nobuaki finds that the only people still alive from his class are himself, Natsuko, and Riona. Next to them are Aya and Ryuo, their deaths so recent that their corpses are still warm. After nearly being strangled by Natsuko, Nobuaki is saved by Riona, who, brandishing a gas powered chainsaw, drives the turning chain into Natsuko’s back. In the emotional moment, Riona confesses that she is in love with Nobuaki.

In the middle of Riona’s confession, a not-quite-dead-yet Natsuko quickly picks up the chainsaw and cuts Nobuaki deep across the throat. They both fall backward onto the hard ground and as Natsuko fades away, Nobuaki realizes that he is soon to follow as he is losing too much blood. He tries to make Riona promise to survive the King’s Game, but she refuses him. Despite this, Nobu dies with a smile on his face.

Presumably exhausted from the intense mental and physical demands of the King’s Game, Aya passes out cold in the middle of the race to Mount Nuegakubi. Luckily for her, Nobuaki and Riona have caught up to Aya’s running group and Nobu carries her unconscious body on his back, rather than just leaving her to die.

When Aya awakens, Ryou has just taken his own life and Natsuko is threatening Riona with the chainsaw. Aya, assuming that Natsuko was responsible for killing Ryou, furiously grabs Natsuko by the neck and proceeds to throttle her. Calmly, Natsuko waits for an opportune moment, then raises her chainsaw and drags it across Aya’s stomach, probably slicing into her organs. Aya dies almost immediately with a large spurt of blood spraying from her belly. Upon falling to the ground, blood can be seen leaking from her mouth.

Riona momentarily blacks out after a hard hit from Natsuko, and after Riona comes to, she finds Natsuko murderously choking Nobuaki. Desperate to save the guy that she is in love with, Riona manages to shove a chainsaw against Natsuko’s back while Natsuko is trying to kill Nobuaki.

As the teeth on the chainsaw bite into her back, Natsuko unleashes a dreadful scream that grows by the second. Riona keeps the chainsaw there for several moments and blood erupts from Natsuko’s back. Riona removes the chainsaw from Natsuko’s body and she falls off of Nobuaki, lying still on the ground. It’s possible that it went all the way through her body because blood can be observed pouring out of what seems to be her abdominal region. Riona confesses her love to Nobuaki. Just as you think that she is dead, Natsuko leaps up, grabs the chainsaw, and slices Nobuaki across the throat, causing him to slowly bleed out. When they both collapse to the ground, Natsuko finally dies (this time for real).

It is worth noting that many fans of this anime eagerly awaited Natsuko’s demise, but to some, her death scene felt decidedly mild.

“Seat No. 20 Nagata Teruaki will be punished for breaking the rules.”

When the newest King’s orders require all of the students to take part in a game of self-mutilation, Teruaki secretly schemes with his fellow classmates to rig the game against Natsuko, who openly works to betray them. The plan goes off without a hitch until they are at the final stage, which hinges on the cooperation of Aimi, Natsuko’s best friend. Unfortunately, Natsuko, being a master manipulator, plays Aimi like a well-tuned (and very disillusioned) fiddle, and ultimately, Aimi ends up sparing Natsuko’s life. Teruaki’s plan has failed, but he has managed to take back his cell phone from Natsuko’s possession, meaning that she no longer holds leverage over him.

Unbeknownst to Teruaki, Natsuko likes to hedge her bets: while in possession of his cellphone, she changed his settings to block communication from the King. As the rules clearly state, no participant can back out once a game has started. From Teruaki’s neck, a steady stream of blood starts to pour out of a cut and down onto the cast on his broken hand. It’s evident that he is losing an excessive amount of blood, which has also started to run out of his mouth, indicating that the cut is growing deeper. A short time later, his head becomes completely cut off from his body and Nobu is left holding a headless corpse. Totally unremorseful about what she did, Natsuko walks over to Teruaki’s severed head and gives it a casual kick, as if it were a soccer ball.

“Seat No. 21 Hashimoto Naoya. You have ten minutes to designate the same number of classmates as what you rolled. Designate them by saying their names.”

In order to ensure Nobuaki’s survival, Naoya complies with the King’s most lethal decree yet: choosing six people to be killed (the number that he rolled on the die) in addition to his own suicide. Five classmates in their immediate vicinity drop dead and a sixth passes away in a hospital room; which means that the only one left to go is Naoya. Even in his final minutes, Naoya regrets nothing because his sacrifice allows his friends to live, giving them a chance to overcome the game. Needless to say, Naoya’s departure is bittersweet.

Naoya suddenly clutches his own left arm, screaming in pain. It violently becomes detached from his body, as if it were ripped off, and shortly thereafter, his right arm meets the same fate. Naoya proceeds to stand only to have his kneecaps literally blown out from under him, severing both of his legs. Nobuaki embraces Naoya as he fades away, leaving the remaining trio of students standing near a bloody massacre.

“Sixteen hours have passed. The person farthest from Nuegakubi’s summit will be punished by decapitation.”

Depressed from Natsuko’s appalling behavior and finally(!!!) beginning to realize what her best friend is truly like under that cute façade, Aimi cannot summon up the strength to carry on despite the King’s orders. She stays put until Nobuaki intervenes, hoisting her into a piggyback position and starts running to the Mountain. After seeing Nobuaki’s determination even in the face of impending doom, Aimi reconsiders and runs with Nobuaki until she splits up to join with a group of classmates. Nobuaki slows down to bring up the rear, acting as a safety net in case of punishment, while Aimi pushes on ahead.

Aimi doubles back in order to spare Nobuaki and Riona the punishment that comes with being in last place. She is successful in doing so and receives a text message confirming it just before being decapitated in a manner very similar to Teruaki. However, in Aimi’s case, her head was suddenly blown off of her neck by a blood geyser (or hemoglobin volcano) that presumably erupted from her carotid artery.

"Seat No. 14 Satou Yuuichi will be punished by bleeding to death for disobeying the King's orders."

Ever the antagonist, classmate Satou confronts Nobuaki not just once, but twice, with threats of physical violence in regards to Nobuaki’s behavior. He is protective of his classmates and a little weary of the new guy who might be spamming the class with weird texts. But when he takes things too far in getting physical with Nobuaki, he breaks the rules of the King and has to pay the price. His punishment is death by blood loss.

First, blood begins to run out of his right nostril, which he wipes away. Then, bloody pustules begin to form all over his body at an incredible rate, almost giving him the appearance of a plague victim. As the reaction grows stronger, he pukes blood and bleeds from the eyes. And for the crescendo, Satou’s pustules burst, flinging blood everywhere. With a haunting scream, he falls on his knees and begs for help before his pustules burst yet again! What little blood he had left in his body is now lies in a puddle underneath him, and being quite dead, he flops into it. All of this, in less than one whole minute.

“Seat No. 9 Ueda Kana Seat, No.21 Hashimoto Naoya.
The class will conduct a popularity poll between these two. The one who’s less popular will be punished.”

Kana may not have the whole “nice guy” thing going on like Naoya does, but she still has another form of influence: seduction. Needless to say, her tactic works and she wins most of the votes from the male presence in the classroom. But unfortunately for Kana, her win is a single vote short, leaving Naoya victorious. What’s the old saying about horseshoes and hand grenades?

In an attempt to play by her own rules, Kana runs full speed toward the nearest window and jumps through it. Her body’s impact shatters the windowpane, and shards of glass accompany her on her three story fall. Shocked, her classmates lean out of the classroom windows to discover her mangled body lying in a crumpled heap. While it was a good attempt at suicide, Kana did not succeed in killing herself immediately, thus dying from her injuries later that night in the hospital.

“As a class, cut up your own bodies, and connect the parts to create a human shape. You may use any number of people. If you don’t create the doll, you will all be punished.”

After seeing Teruaki’s lifeless body (complete with severed head) lying in a sizeable pool of blood, Ryuo, who is of frail mental constitution, kind of loses his mind for a while. While resting from the race on Mount Nuegakubi with the other survivors, Ryuo unexpectedly slips back into crazy mode and bashes Nobuaki over the head with a heavy rock. Ryuo, in his own insane way, is actually trying to help the remaining group pass the next test issued by the King. Their new objective is to make a crude human doll using limbs that they obtain from self-mutilation. Ryuo attempts to imitate Nobuaki’s selflessness and he offers to cut off his own limbs. Even as Riona tries to reason with him, Natsuko, like a hungry shark sensing blood in the water, escalates the situation from bad to worse in record time by providing Ryuo with a chainsaw found nearby. We’re pretty sure that if Natsuko had access to popcorn, she’d be breaking it out right about now.

Ryuo keeps to his word and after starting up the chainsaw, plunges it down into his thigh. The noise from the gas engine is loud but Ryuo’s screams of pain easily pierce through it as the chainsaw cuts into his flesh. When the chain gets stuck on Ryuo’s femur bone, guess who decides to help? You don’t really need to guess; we all know that it’s Natsuko. She applies pressure on the chainsaw until it finishes the job. He dies after finishing his first limb, bathed in his own blood.

“Seat No. 32 Yamashita Keita will be punished to death by decapitation.”

Kieta didn’t do anyone wrong, nor did he fail a challenge- he wasn’t even technically targeted for death! After rolling the die, Naoya was in the middle of deciding who to sacrifice to appease the King’s orders when Kieta, just trying to be helpful, suggested sacrificing a classmate who had already tried to kill herself recently and was currently in the hospital. Naoya responded back to Kieta, accidently using Kieta’s name in the process of speaking to him. Suddenly, the group all received a text message from the King, sentencing Kieta Yamashita to death.

His head begins to jerk in an odd fashion, the movements rigid and unnatural, as if he were being manipulated by unseen forces. His head swiftly twists left, then right, then far left, until it appears to encounter some friction. He can be heard groaning before the twisted, taut skin on his neck rips apart causing him to ooze blood as his head completes a half turn around his body. The immense pain is clearly seen on his face as his head slowly continues to rotate past the camera. It stops after making a full 360 degree turn. Impossibly, the poor boy’s vocal cords are still functional and he asks his horrified classmates, “Hey, it’s fixed, right?” A momentary silence occurs as his friends are probably shocked beyond words. Without warning, his head rapidly begins to spin again, this time unhindered by those pesky, formerly intact vertebrae. Meanwhile, Kieta can be heard emitting what sounds like crazed laughter before he falls to his knees; his head falls off and rolls onto the ground, completely severed from his body. Blood freely spews from his gaping neck wound like water from a hose. With a grotesque noise, his body slumps forward into an awkward position as the people around him scream in horror. There are many deaths in King’s Game but this one is most likely to stick in the memories of viewers, as it is one of the most brutal and unexpected occurrences.