Our hearts quite like anime specifically when a series pulls the metaphorical rough out from underneath. All of our expectations and knowledge of the world and characters. Which anime series has the most striking most unexpected shifts that no one saw coming. Well, we’ve got our picks for the top anime plot twist and warning there shall be spoilers ahead.
10. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
Philosopher’s stones and fathers. If you watch Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood before you know that critically acclaimed series follows brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric. As they search to restore their bodies with the help of a philosopher’s stone after attempting to bring their mother back to life. Ed lost his leg and Al lost his entire body.
Leading Ed to sacrifice his arm to bring Al’s soul back bonding it to a suit of armor. In these incomplete bodies, Ed and Al hope that the ultimate alchemic power of the Philosopher’s Stone, which can transmute without the limitations of equivalent exchange will restore their bodies.
But unfortunately once the Elric brothers learn what goes into making a philosopher’s stone they know they can’t use one. Upon digging into Dr. Marco’s research they find out that the secret ingredient to a philosopher’s stone is human life, soul sacrifice they give an alchemist limitless power.
It is a twist that says devastating for the Elric’s as itis for us we learn more about the scale of human lives that go into the high-level philosopher’s stones. When the Elric brother’s father Van Hohenheim is revealed to be a living philosopher’s stone a parting gift from the creature known as the father.
Both the truth about the Philosopher’s Stone and the fact that Hohenheim was a living breathing Philosopher’s Stone were striking revelations that threw fans for a wild loop.
Watch the Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood trailer
9. Dragon Ball Z
Goku’s alien origins. American fans of Dragon Ball Z saw the series before the original Dragon Ball was brought over. So they might not have felt the effects of Z’s paradigm shift that much of the Japanese audience did.
For Americans, we’ve known Goku was an alien for quite some time but in Japan, the first episode of Z aired just one week after the final episode of dragon ball. Meaning Japan went from knowing Goku to be a strange strong little kid to learning who is an alien the whole time sent to earth destroy and conquer it.
It was a heck of a plot twist, to say the least, and it completely reimagined the series at the end of the piccolo jr. saga. Imagine what that must have been like. For the majority of Dragonball Goku was his goofy little kid with a tail and super-strength, who learned martial arts from an old turtle hermit.
And then all of a sudden, he gets married has a kid, and the best anime twist here as long-lost brother shows up from space to tell him. He’s an alien who should have destroyed the planet by now. He must have been a major deal to everyone watching the last episode of Dragon Ball but it definitely ended up working in the franchise’s favor since Dragon Ball Z ended up being more popular than its predecessor.
Watch the best anime twist Dragon Ball Z trailer
8. Attack on Titan ( Shingeki no Kyojin )
The human Titan connection. Attack on Titan has its fair share of criticisms most that are justified but there’s no denying the power the first season had. The action, drama, and shock came out like a hurricane.
Most of the most powerful moments of this season were Eren’s first Titan transformation which shook the entire series world to its core, what made this moment so impactful were the events that led up to it.
For the first few episodes of attack on titan, Eren was clearly meant to be our main protagonist. Which is why it was so shocking to see him die so quickly and horribly at the hands or should we say jaws of a Titan. The moment shattered everything we knew about the plot up until that point.
Breaking our perception of the world then amongst the scattered pieces of our expectations. The rug was pulled out from under us once more as we learn that Eren had survived and discovered an ability to turn into a Titan. This opened up a whole new world for an Attack on Titan.
As we learned that other humans amongst the survey corps were actually, Titans. Blowing our minds even more as conspiracies in the history of the Titans were unveiled though it slowed down in its recent season’s Attack on Titan perfectly subverted our expectations with this plot twist.
Watch Attack on Titan ( Shingeki no Kyojin ) trailer
7. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Leading up to episode eight Gurren Lagaan built itself up to be a relatively standard rebellion narrative with a post-apocalyptic mecha anime setting. The iron-willed Kamina serving as the main protagonist. The beacon of hope that lights the human revolution fighting for freedom against the spiral king in his beast-men.
However, after the series builds its premise and the protagonist for seven episodes. It immediately tears it down with Kamina’s death during their fight to take control of the mobile enemy fortress to die ganzen, Kamina loses his life after giving the battle his all.
Causing the title of protagonist and leader to fall Simon’s shoulders as we mentioned the audience is led to believe that Kamina was going to be the courageous hero for the entirety of the series. But his death shattered that expectation playing with the rebellion narrative by taking away the leader of the revolution early in this story. The show what the rest of the rebels did in his absence Kamina’s death was just plain devastating.
We didn’t see it coming at all and it hit us as hard as it did with the characters in the show, who mourn the loss of their fearless leader and one of the most emotional points in the series. Which is part of why we chose it as one of our top anime plot twists.
Studios: Gainax
Watch Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann trailer
See Also: Animes that will make you cry
6. Kill la Kill
After the success of Gurren Lagaan, the creative team behind it would go on to form studio Trigger creating kill la kill as its inaugural series. Trigger approach kill la kill with as much subversion as Gurren Lagaan was made with and as such there’s a major twist that happens 2/3 through the series. It is an anime with plot twists and comedy.
The series follows Ryuuko Matoi a tough-willed girl who travels to her Honnouji Academy to find out who killed her father. Up until the major shift we were meant to see Satsuki Kiryuuin as the main antagonist of the series but that all changed in episode 17 when she stabbed her mother Ragyou Kiryuuinin the back.
Following this, we learned that Satsuki built Honnouji Academy to destroy her mother’s agent of alien parasites known as life fibers that want to consume humanity. With his revelation, the series changed entirely shifting from an exaggerated satire of battle school the magical girl anime into the fight for the world.
Where her former enemies teamed up to take on Ryuuko and her army of life fibers. It was a creepy plot twist, to say the least one that was hard to see coming since so much of the series episode count was dedicated to Rio whose battle with Satsuki and the elite four but in the end, this twist was the perfect direction to go.
Watch Kill la Kill anime with plot twist and comedy trailer
5. Suisei no Gargantia ( Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet )
Gargantia is like a combination of mecha anime and Waterworld but with a huge devastating twist away. the story follows Ledo a mech pilot in the war between the Galactic Alliance and the Hideauze terrifying squid-like monsters.
During a fierce battle, Leto falls into a wormhole and finds himself on flooded earth which was believed to have been destroyed and abandoned but it turns out just to be one of the many things he discovers. With nowhere else to go Leto settles into life on Earth.
Learning more about himself and the propaganda that the Galactic Alliance fed him. One of the biggest revelations that Ledo learns during his time on earth has to do with the origins of the Hideauze. All his life Ledo has been told that the Hideauze which are known as whale squid on earth were heartless monsters that had to be destroyed at all costs.
When in actuality they were a form of humans that mutated and evolved themselves to survive in outer space as Earth became less and less in half. These humans became known as revolvers and soon became hated by humans looking to colonize space leading to the factions that Ledo knew at the beginning of the series of on learning that he’d been killing the descendants of evolved humans, Ledo was in complete shock as were the viewers. Since it took us to our core.
Watch the Suisei no Gargantia ( Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet ) trailer
4. Psycho-Pass
Psycho-Pass is like an anime version of Minority Report. Following a group of police officers that seek to stop criminals before they commit crimes. They do this with the help of the civil system.
A nationwide law enforcement enterprise that scans civilian brain patterns to determine their crime coefficient, which states whether or not they have criminal or psychopathic tendencies.
The main protagonist of the series is Akane Tsunemori a new inspector with the Public Safety Bureau who’s teamed up with Shinya Kougami a former inspector whose crime coefficient went up after witnessing horrific sight during a case, because of this he was assigned to be an enforcer.
People with high crime coefficient levels are used to track other criminals with their criminal minds. As the series unfolds akanelards a dark secret behind the civil system the system that revolutionized japan’s law enforcement and is incorporated into nearly every aspect of its society rather than being a simple computer algorithm that scans brainwaves.
The civil system is revealed to be made up of hundreds of human brains the minds of logical unscannable humans, who can determine the criminal tendencies of others. Upon learning the truth Akane is shocked and horrified as it tears apart everything she and the rest of the country knew about their law enforcement and safety.
Watch the Psycho-Pass trailer
See Also: Best Mature Romance Anime
3. Samurai Flamenco
Samurai Flamenco is a subversion of Tokusatsu Superhero shows like Kamen Rider. Following Masayoshi Hazama a male model who wants to be like a superhero, he grew up watching on TV.
The series takes a page out of kick-ass and starts by depicting Hazama superhero persona samurai flamenco as something of a joke, but then the series takes a major turn shifting from Hazama heroics being down-to-earth.
To being much more fitting of the tokusatsu with the introduction of ridiculous monsters and evil organization alien invasions and much much more things become very real and very fast. And they escalated far beyond what we were expecting from the anime’s first chunk of episodes but the story doesn’t just simply fall into genre cliches.
It still subverts this descent into the tokusatsu tropes by depicting the ridiculous villains as actual threats but nothing compared to the final major twist of the anime. When it’s revealed that Hazama police officer friend and Ally Hidenori Gotou has been obsessed with his dead girlfriend at sending himself messages from her oldest phone completely in denial about her passing.
This reveal came at the hands of one of his omnis final enemies Haiji a villain who wishes to turn samurai flamenco into a dark hero. The entire final story arc added the death of the anime by exploring the darkness of humanity.
Watch the Samurai Flamenco trailer
2. Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is perhaps one of the weirdest anime of all time. It follows two angels that were kicked out of heaven and its art style is akin to the 90s Cartoon Network shows.
In order to return to heaven, the two angels Panty and Stocking must destroy evil spirits doing so with panty’s ability to turn her underwear into a gun and stockings power to turn her stockings into swords.
It’s a bizarre show, to say the least one that focuses on both action and comedy throughout the sister’s adventures in ghost hunting. The series reaches its major climax in the final episodes.
Which centers around Stocking returning to heaven and panty being left behind leading to a more dramatic storyline that concludes in an explosive final battle. However, the final episode of the series apparently is just the beginning though a second season has never been made.
The last episode of the first season dropped the major plot twist in the post-credits scene. After the events of the final battle stalking suddenly cuts her sister into 666 pieces and reveals she’s a demon looking to open the gates of Hell. The sudden quad twist came out of nowhere leaving us with nothing more than a sense of shock and dread and an unfulfilled to be continued.
Watch the Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt trailer
1. Kimi no Na wa ( Your Name )
The final entry in the list is the anime where the plot revolves around the anime. The feature film ” your name” is a beautiful story that both warmed and broke our hearts.
The film tells the tale of Mitsuha Miyamizu and Taki Tachibana two teenagers who find themselves switching bodies. Whenever they wake up throughout, this experience they learn more and more about each other falling in love in the process.
However one day the body-switching ceases and Taki Tachibana finds that there was a three-year time displacement between their lives. Mitsuha perishing in a meteor crash the destroyed her down. This point in the film was a devastating blood twist, that broke our hearts shattering the interest and fun set up for the first half of the film.
Taki was able to prevent the death of Mitsuha and her city with one final body switch towards the end of the film. Evacuating the town’s folk before the meteor could crash with the help of Mitsuha as friends.
The town is eventually saved, but an even worse heartbreak occurs Taki and Mitsuha forgot about each other, upon returning to their body. This film didn’t let up in the second half, did it?
The film ends with Taki and Mitsuha eventually meet in a person feeling as though, they’ve met before asking each other’s names before the credits roll. Just thinking about this film twists and turns is getting us all teary-eyed.
Watch now anime where the plot revolves around anime Kimi no Na a ( Your Name )trailer
Those are just some of the biggest anime plot twists. Did they hit you as hard . which one was the most devastating did we miss any of our favorites let us know in the comments section.
Top 10 best mind-blowing anime that will shock you and hit you as hard with huge Plot twists and turn at the end of the anime.
