30 Day Anime Challenge- Day 24: The moment that shocked me the most in an anime

Anime is known for having some pretty shocking moments, some good and some… not so good. Love ’em or hate ’em, these scenes are sure to make you go, ‘WTF’!

So this scene had me jumping up and down when it happened… This one moment came so completely out of left field that I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing! My pick for the moment that shocked me the most in an anime is…

*This post will contain spoilers for Hamatora: The Animation…just a head’s up*

My pick comes from the 2014 anime series Hamatora! Let me preface this by saying that Hamatora was full of WTF moments. I don’t think I have ever been more animated while watching an anime series before watching Hamatora.  I don’t just mean the normal shouting at the characters for being stupid stuff, no, I mean the jumping up and down on the couch while shouting in disbelief kind of reaction… I even broke a sweat while watching this show! My poor neighbors must have been concerned…

So the scene in question is from episode 12, and out of context it’s not all that shocking. In the scene one of the protagonists, a police detective named Art breaks in on his friend Nice and the series’s big bad, Moral locked in a heated battle… Art then steps in and kills Moral ridding the series of his evil schemes, the credits roll… the end. Wrong! The problem with this scene is that Art is supposed to be dead, in episode 7 of the series Moral killed him in one of the most brutal ways possible. I’ll save you all the details, but rest assured that no one could walk away from a killing like that… not even a main character… there just isn’t enough main character magic in the world for someone to survive that.
So when Art walks up to the fray completely unharmed, let’s just say I was confused. I immediately called up my brother, the person that had introduced me to the series, to bombard him with a flood of questions (not that he answered them).

But, before the call could fully connect, the unthinkable happened… Art then turned his gun on his friend and ally, Nice. I lost it… I dropped my phone and began pacing on my couch while shouting ‘No, no no no, NOOOOOOO,’ my brother laughing at me on the other end of the line…Sure I’d seen anime that had revived characters from the dead before, but for some reason bringing Art back was just so unexpected… Maybe it was because when compared with the other characters, Art was utterly normal. Unlike his friends he didn’t have a Minimum power, he was just a regular guy, so when Moral killed him off in episode 7, I expected him to stay dead. You know how it is, a main character’s friend dies giving him the motivation to finally take down the big bad, it’s a trope we see all the time in anime. But, Hamatora turned that trope on it’s head and then threw it back in our faces… The episode ends with Art gun still pressed to Nice’s head, the screen goes black and the sound of a gun shot is heard… and that my friends is how you lead in to season 2!!!

So that was my pick for the most shocking moment in an anime… What do you think of my pick? What’s your pick? Let me know in the comments section! As always THANK YOU for reading!!!