Forum - View topicAnswerman - Is Horror Anime Less Squeamish About Kids?
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Just Passing Through
Posts: 276 |
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Barefoot Gen
Grave of the Fireflies, In This Corner of the World Giovanni's Island If it's a WWII anime movie, then kids will die to emphasise the horrors and futility of human conflict. |
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Animechic420
 Posts: 1727 Location: A Cave Filled With Riches |
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I used to believe children were immune to dying in 80's and 90's horror movies. But when I watched Mimic and that completely changed my prospective of things.
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ultimatehaki
Posts: 1090 |
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As far as "kimo-kawaii" goes, Mitty instantly became my number 1.
That counts as child death right? |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13227 |
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In general Japan seems to be far less protective of their children in a media content sense than America is. Watch any given Kamen Rider show and you'll see plenty of dark stuff despite it being a kid's show, while in America we'd lock our kids away in padded rooms if it was legal.
I imagine it's because current Japanese adults were exposed to so much post WW2. As for kid dying in anime, Elfen Lied immediately comes to mind. I watched Kabaneri the other day too and it had several child deaths. |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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I didn't even have to read the column to know that Justin was going to mention the infamous scene from Genocyber.
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3448 Location: Finland |
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Made in Abyss, Chaos;Child and Children of the Whales beg to differ about that 'seldom' part... 
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belvadeer
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And there are some anime where even infant deaths are fair game (Hellsing Ultimate and JoJo to name two).
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TymersRealm
Posts: 93 |
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HIro's intrusion in Inuyashiki Last Hero's second ep.
I'll admit that was very, very disturbing. Granted, I wouldn't consider that show horror, it skirts it. |
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13227 |
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Bokurano is all about kids dying. Also Ideon. Dear GOD Ideon.
On the western front we got stuff like Lord of the Flies and Alien vs Predator Requiem. |
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prime_pm
 Posts: 2336 Location: Your Mother's Bedroom |
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Corpse Party?
Shiki? Arguably Fullmetal Alchemist? Madoka could be a stretch And that one manga about a girl's boarding school where the headmistress disembowels the young girls for witchcraft. (it's not stipulated how old these girls are, but many of them look pretty young) And Zekkyou Gakkyuu focuses much of its series on little kids of varying ages getting what they often damn-well deserve. Narutaru maybe? They were pretty young there. I didn't see Bokurano, but same author. |
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rizuchan
 Posts: 975 Location: Kansas |
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That brings up an interesting point though. I was thinking about how Higurashi and Umineko didn't really pull punches when killing/maiming children. But Umineko's child character was also supremely annoying (in the beginning at least), so you don't really feel bad. And IIRC, Higurashi and Umineko always have the children's deaths take place off screen the first time. So even when you do see them later, you already know it's long coming and it isn't really a shock. |
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Triltaison
 Posts: 724 |
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This dredged up a dusty corner of my memory. I recall an anime where there was a young child being led around by an adult during the opening credits as some kind of military force invaded. A rogue missile flew into frame, hit the kid in the face, and blew up the child on screen. It may have taken the arm of the adult, too. It was one of the very first scenes in the episode/movie, but now I'm blanking on what show that was. Pretty sure it was an '80s or '90s sci fi OVA... something like Now and Then, Here and There or War in the Pocket. Anyone else remember what I'm talking about?
Most of the children victims in horror anime I've seen tend to be long-dead ghosts or spirits transformed into ghouls or yokai. There'll usually be a tragic backstory episode on what happened to them, like in Corpse Party. Mermaid Forest and Mononoke come to mind for monstrous former children. I've always taken it to be because of the popularity of vengeful characters in classic Japanese horror lending itself well to children resentful of lost futures. But then there's the murderous tykes like Reisuke in Future Diary or the Lychee Light Club. I do wish I could read parent reactions of when Minky Momo got hit by that car originally. Come to think of it, Tenma's jerk son also got killed by a car in Astro Boy in order to spur him to create Astro. I wonder if that was controversial at the time, too. |
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prime_pm
Posts: 2336 Location: Your Mother's Bedroom |
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Oh! And the Hansel/Gretel arc in Black Lagoon!
Now hilarious knowing that Hansel was played by Rainbow Dash. |
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Beltane70
 Posts: 3886 |
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Thank you, Vaisaga, for mentioning Ideon! If you didn’t mention it, I was certainly going to!
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pluvia33
 Posts: 194 Location: Dayton, OH, USA |
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That was the first thing to come to my mind. 
And I don't remember if the murder was shown on screen, but I'm pretty sure they at least show some child dead bodies in Ninja Resurrection. |
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