Humanoid roaches.
Skull-faced death gods.
Grotesque body horrors.
The monsters who appear in anime are limited only by the imaginations of the animators,
and they have some wild imaginations.
Watch if you dare.
The 2001 anime series "Blood-C," the second in the "Blood" franchise, follows Saya, a
schoolgirl who secretly slays monsters by night.
Her worldview changes when she hears monsters discuss some sort of "broken covenant" while
her visions get stranger.
Something in her small town is not what it seems.
The Elder Bairns, also known as the Old Ones, see humans as a food source, and their primary
drive is to kill and consume them.
The Elder Bairns take a number of different forms in the series, each with different powers.
The last form that appears is that of a Bunny, a particularly sadistic variant with an active
obsession with torturing its human prey.
What's worse is that it can transform its limbs into various horrific weapons and can
divide and regenerate, making them hard to kill.
While large bunny monsters shouldn't be that terrifying at face value, sadistic, multiplying
bunny monsters with morphing weapon limbs are quite frightening.
The fantasy animation film "Spirited Away" was written and directed by the masterful
Hayao Miyazaki.
It focuses on Chihiro, a 10-year-old girl who moves to a new neighborhood with her family.
They discover an entrance to the Kami world, a place full of the spirits from Shinto folklore.
A witch, Yubaba, turns Chihiro's parents into pigs, and Chihiro has to navigate the spirit
world while trying to free her family and herself from its grasp.
While the film is one of the greatest animated features of all time, and it's surely memorable,
it also contains one of the greatest and scariest anime creatures ever put to screen.
The world of "Spirited Away" is full of everything from dragons to witches and spirits of all
shapes and sizes.
The scariest monster, perhaps, is No-Face, an unsurprisingly faceless specter who initially
appears as a floating black spirit with a white mask where its face should be.
We discover that it can ingest individuals to gain mass, personality, and physical traits.
“Wipe that smile off your face.
You’re still smiling!”
At first, it seems like a simple and harmless entity, but No-Face gradually ingests the
greed and vices of the workers it absorbs.
This corruption transforms it over time into a massive, hulking beast obsessed with consumption
and with Chihiro.
Our connection with the young protagonist makes the horror hit home especially well,
given that the increasingly dangerous being cannot leave her alone.
"Princess Mononoke" takes place in Japan's Muromachi period.
It follows an Emishi prince named Ashitaka and his role in the conflict between forest
gods and the humans that want to exploit nature and its resources.
It's a classic story reflecting the relationship between humanity and nature, with otherworldly
and fantastical elements.
The most frightening entity among all the magical gods and beings is Nago the boar god
and leader of the boar clan.
In the beginning of the film, we see glimpses of a creature making its way through the forest
and toward the village.
Ashitaka pleads with the monster before being forced to fight it.
It is a spider-like being with a worm-covered body and glowing red eyes that transforms
back into a boar after Ashitaka defeats it.
This representation of Nago is one of the most horrific-looking anime monsters of all
time.
It's also one of the most philosophically complex and adult-oriented of Studio Ghibli's
masterful creations.
In "Terra Formars," 21st-century humanity attempts to begin the colonization of Mars
by sending two resilient species: algae and cockroaches.
These two, however, evolve over centuries to adapt to the Martian environment.
Fast-forward to the 26th century, and the human species faces a deadly disease known
as the Alien Engine Virus.
This pathogen has a death rate of 100%, and it appears genetically unrelated to any existing
virus on Earth.
To cure the Alien Engine Virus, they'll need to travel to Mars — to test the hypothesis
that the virus' strange independent evolution makes Martian origin likely.
The unfortunate obstacle?
Mars is now controlled by the Terraformars, a large humanoid species that evolved from
those original cockroaches, and which harbor a natural hatred of humanity.
Terraformars are strong, adaptable, and effectively
emotionless, with a single-minded pursuit
of their goals.
What's most shocking is they have gained nearly all the benefits of humanoid evolution, like
intelligence and opposable thumbs, without losing any of the cockroach's strengths like
extreme resilience.
Also, despite their humanoid heads, decapitation doesn't affect them or their ability to fly.
They're a terrible nemesis to the now-desperate human race, and the reason they oppose humans
— instinctive hatred — adds to their terrifying nature.
Imagine that the entire species faces extinction, and the only way forward is on a hostile alien
world.
Not to mention it’s full of beings that are stronger than you in every way and hate
you as much as you hate cockroaches?
Exactly.
It’s horrifying.
"Death Note" begins when Light Yagami finds a supernatural notebook called the Death Note.
The mysterious book allows him to write any name down while picturing the named individual’s
face, and the person in question dies.
Light gradually becomes consumed by this power, taking on the godlike persona Kira as he kills
individuals around the world in an attempt to cleanse the world of all he considers evil.
His opposition?
The brilliant detective L., who attempts to thwart his efforts.
We discover that the Death Note was dropped by a Shinigami — or a Japanese death god
— named Ryuk, a spiky-haired, long-lipped entity with oddly proportioned limbs.
He stole another Shinigami's Death Note and left it in the world for a human to find.
Unlike other Shinigami, Ryuk isn't content to simply serve his function and pass his
time, so he allows a human access to these supernatural abilities because, in his own
words,
"I was bored, that's why."
Beyond his own vast power over life and death, and his willingness to let that power be used
irresponsibly, Ryuk facilitated a human's acquisition of powers he should not possess.
Apparently out of mere boredom.
Frankly, that's terrifying.
[Evil laughter]
The "Claymore" series takes place in a world full of predatory shape-shifting beings, called
Yoma, who are secretly created from orphaned boys by the mysterious “Organization”.
The Organization creates parasites that can change their hosts' form after infecting their
brains, and these Yoma attack human beings to feed off them.
"Claymore" follows Clare, who is a Claymore — a half-human, half-Yoma hybrid who fights
to dispatch these monsters.
Claymores, too, are sent from the Organization, created from orphaned girls.
It's beyond creepy that the same organization makes a perpetual stream of mutated heroes
and manufactured monsters, all from exploited orphaned children.
The predatory Yoma are powerful, with speed and strength that exceeds that of humans,
along with an ability to regenerate from damage.
They often have oddly proportioned limbs, skin of various inhuman colors, and sharp
teeth and claws.
Flying Yoma also exist, adding an entirely different layer to this breed of dangerous
predators.
Being transformed into a Yoma takes such a toll on human host bodies that the parasite
has been known to move to a new host when necessary.
Altogether, their single-minded pursuit of human flesh, heightened power, and a horrific
origin story makes the Yoma thoroughly haunting anime monsters.
The series “Bleach” navigates the world of current and fallen Soul Reapers — a.k.a
Shinigami or Death Gods — and it contains a number of interesting entities.
Most commonly, you have the Hollows, terrifying ghosts that originate from human spirits and
who seek to feed on other souls.
While your typical Hollows originate from human souls, a subset of Hollows are known
as Menos Grande, and they're a different threat entirely.
When a Hollow reaches the point where human souls can no longer sustain its hunger, it
can turn to consuming other Hollows.
Of course, these cannibalistic Hollows will seek each other out and attempt to consume
each other, which increases the Menos Grande's power and size pretty quickly.
In this nonstop series of supernatural predators, the Gillians are the lowest level of the Menos
Grande and the least powerful.
However, it's the Gillians — predatory, slow, plodding, white-faced behemoths — that
are the most visually shocking as they tower above their prey and blunder about.
They're truly menacing foes that no one wants to meet in the afterlife.
"Attack on Titan" follows a human race on the brink.
One day, over 100 years ago, humanity became beset by Titans, a wave of massive, mindless
humanoid monsters that want nothing but to consume people.
At the time, humanity was overwhelmed by their power, but they regrouped and built a series
of towering walls to keep the beings out.
For a century, the relative peace lasted, until one day, a Colossal Titan, far larger
than any seen before, emerged and breached the outer wall.
This allowed Titans to once again prey on humans, who were forced to retreat into the
inner walls.
We follow Eren Yeager, a boy who joins the military in search of the eradication of Titans.
While there is variation among the Titans, they're broadly best understood as gigantic,
often skinless humanoids that want nothing but to eat humans.
Some of them vary, like the Armored Titan with its hardened skin, or the Colossal Titan
who is, of course, extremely large.
The bottom line is that there's a whole army of giants who want to eat us and are more
than capable of doing so.
In "Sword Art Online," players of a sprawling virtual reality game of the same name become
trapped in its world and are forced to beat the game.
The game includes 100 floors of battle, and a menacing final boss tries to prevent escape.
The game boasts a number of creatively frightening or odd bosses, but one of the most sinister
monsters in the series is the Skull Reaper, the boss of the 75th Floor's labyrinth.
The Skull Reaper is a huge entity that appears as a skeletal centipede with a front pair
of scythe arms, a fanged jaw, and an elongated skull head with glowing red eyes.
What's worse is that most of its bones — including its ribs and legs — also function like scythes,
so in essence, it's a massive, quick-moving pile of skeletal blades.
It even moves like its centipede inspiration, adding a level of unnatural speed that makes
it even creepier.
It is easily one of the scariest creations ever.
"Parasyte: The Maxim" follows Shinichi Izumi, who lives in a quiet Tokyo neighborhood with
his parents.
One night, the area is secretly invaded by extraterrestrial worm-like parasites who infest
and transform the heads of their prey into cannibalistic shape-shifting extraterrestrials.
Shinichi encounters one of these worms and prevents it from embedding itself in his head,
so it attaches to and takes over his hand instead.
It becomes a sentient alien parasite that has to co-exist with Shinichi amidst this
harrowing alien invasion.
Once they take over a host and reach maturity, these extraterrestrial parasites can appear
completely human.
Simultaneously, they can alter their physical form, size, and makeup to create other appendages
or organs.
Beyond their vast intelligence, ability to hide in their host's bodies, and capacity
to change into pretty much anything, the parasytes are driven only by self-preservation and,
towards that end, an insatiable drive to consume their host body's species.
Terrifying.
As disturbing as the Yoma are in "Claymore," the series boasts an even more dangerous set
of monstrous foes in its Awakened Beings.
Claymores are powerful warriors with skilful control over every aspect of their body, in
addition to advanced martial arts training.
On occasion, however, Claymores transform into something else entirely — massive monsters
known as either Voracious Eaters or, as the Organization calls them, Awakened Beings.
Claymores become Awakened Beings after losing control of the Yoki inside them.
They take massive Yoma forms that are much more powerful than either Yoma or the Claymores
themselves.
Awakened Beings look entirely unique and take the appearance of anything from animal-like
forms to inorganic forms.
Like the Yoma, they are driven by a desire to consume humans.
Between their vast power, myriad complex appearances,
and insatiable drive to consume people, Awakened
Beings are easily some of the scariest monsters of all time.
The scariest thing, though, is they're something the series' heroes can turn into through no
fault of their own.
It’s a terrible transformation if ever there was one.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite TV shows are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.