The basic premise of Bokutachi no Remake (Remake Our Life!) is that an unhappy 20-something wishes he could have done his life differently and ends up time-leaping backward in time! We’ve seen this kind of thing before—the 2013 title Re-Life didn’t feature time-leaping, but was centered on an unhappy adult leading a life they regret and getting the chance to do the most crucial part of their young adult lives again.

Bokutachi no Remake sends the protagonist, 28-year-old Hashiba Kyoya, back in time ten years to a time when he’d just passed the Onaka University Arts Exam. You’d expect this to have the regular unexpected developments, events deviating from what the protagonist once knew, which it does. However, Bokutachi no Remake allows Kyoya to do his life over and he follows the path he regrets not taking, but that comes with unexpected sacrifices. After a few months in the past, Kyoya inexplicably warps not to his original time, but to a time about four years into the future, where he not only has a family, but is a well-respected management-level employee at a successful game design company! This curveball comes at a time where Kyoya has just realized that his changing the past has effectively killed the futures of his friends, futures that he knew were bright because, in his original timeline, they were a special generation of artists whose work meant everything to him. It’s worse because Kyoya realises the potential danger of changing the past too much, but can't avoid causing irreparable damage.

In the second season of Mairimashita! Iruma-kun (Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun), we’re presented with quite a few surprises, but none were quite as significant as Iruma admitting to a teacher at Demon School Babylys that he is actually a human being! The house of cards began to fall when his class had to get their measurements done in PE class. Since Iruma is anatomically different from the rest of his classmates, his lack of demon wings becomes a glaring problem for his continued performance as a demon. When he is called to a one-on-one meeting with the scary-looking Balam-sensei, he realises that the teacher is a really nice person. Iruma lets it slip to Balam that he is human, explaining how he arrived in the Demon Realm. Balam was so shocked, he fell out of his seat! Can you blame him?

This vampire anime brought together great visuals and an interesting supernatural storyline to make something really captivating. Vanitas no Carte (The Case Study of Vanitas) also has some truly compelling characters, particularly the main character, Noé, and the titular character, Vanitas. In this world where the True Name of a vampire is the formula responsible for their existence, corruption of that name makes a vampire become ill, before becoming violent and bloodthirsty vampires known as “Curse Bearers”.

Lord Ruthven is an enigmatic noble who worked in the senate to serve the Queen, and we first see him when he arrives at the vampire banquet that Noé’s childhood friend, Dominique de Sade, invited him to. Ruthven’s reputation is that of a peacemaker, as he is known as the vampire who helped end the war between humans and vampires, and he even thanked Noé and Vanitas for helping minimize the casualties at the ball, seeing the incident as an attempt on his nephew Lucius’s life, because the young boy is the Grand Duke second only to the Queen.

This is why it’s quite the plot twist when Ruthven asks Noé to accompany him to a restaurant to talk, drugs him, and drinks his blood, activating his ability. Ruthven’s ability enables him to force anyone he’s bitten to follow just one of his commands at the time of his choosing (basically a vampiric Geass). Even worse, it turns out that Ruthven has something to do with the emergence of the Curse Bearers, and maybe even ties to Charlatan itself! He’d also been hiding the truth about the Queen’s condition, so when Vanitas made the wild claim that the Queen might not even be alive anymore, Ruthven perceived both Vanitas and Noé as threats. Just what could Ruthven be planning to do with the spell cast on Noé? Guess we’ll have to find out next season!

Tokyo Revengers was this season’s resident delinquent, giving us fights, time travel, and lots and lots of crying! The show was the season’s resident delinquent, and it was definitely a title prone to twists and turns; however, a moment we deemed the most significant was the betrayal of Baji Keisuke, which turned out to be an Oscar-worthy performance on the part of Tokyo Manji Gang’s 1st Division General. The most significant event in the series is the aptly named “Bloody Halloween”, in which a young Tokyo Manji Gang faces the larger gang known as Valhalla. The brawl is the precursor to the culture shift in the Tokyo Manji Gang (TMG from here on out) that sets into motion the events that eventually establish the faction as one of the largest, most notorious criminal organizations; and as the Tokyo Manji Gang that eventually gets Hina killed.

When Baji announces his defection to the opposing Valhalla, he makes a point of showing his resolve, going as far as to pummel his former Lieutenant, Matsuno Chifuyu, to the point of unrecognizability. His demeanour makes his actions seem believable to everybody except for Chifuyu, who unequivocally believed in his loyalty to TMG. When the day finally arrives, Baji fights on Valhalla’s side and even antagonizes Mikey and other members, before being stabbed by Kazutora. After his stabbing, Baji begins aiming his aggression at none other than Kisaki Tetta. As time goes on, Baji begins to succumb to his wounds, asking to speak to Takemichi and Chifuyu, entrusting them with the most crucial confirmation ever: Kisaki is bad news.

At the top of our list of plot twists from the summer season is none other than Boku no Hero Academia (My Hero Academia) Season 5’s exploration of the origins of one of its main antagonists, Shigaraki Tomura. It turns out that not only did he once idolize heroes and aspire to become one, he was the grandchild of Shimura Nene, otherwise known as All Might’s mentor and one of the previous wielders of the Quirk, One For All! We also come to understand where things went wrong and how he ended up on this path of villainy; however, the establishment of his direct ties not only to heroism; which is antithetical to his characterization and role in the story, and to One For All, creates an amazing development of the character and an insane plot twist.

The idea that Shimura Nene’s abdication of her duty to her son and family is what led to the unhappy home that in turn, led to Shigaraki Tomura’s descent at a young age and the development of his loyalty and relationship with All For One, is incredible subtext. Long story short, All For One got ahold of his strongest disciple and successor due to a familial trauma that was caused by One For All. Amazing stuff, and it’s because of this subtext that this plot twist tops this list!