The Top 6 Most Violent Cartoons Ever Made

There are few things I love more than kicking back with a tub of greasy popcorn and a violent 'thinking' movie like, say, "American Psycho" or "Silence of the Lambs". There are just some days when you feel like seeing a nice amount of plot soaked in the red stuff, and it was during one such day that I popped in American Psycho for the enth time. Somehow, watching a naked Christian Bale hacking up a prostitute with a chainsaw just didn't seem that violent anymore, and I started thinking that I'd actually seen cartoons more violent than this.

Actual slasher movies notwithstanding, there are plenty of cartoons far more violent than your typical live-action suspense movies, and I've decided to put them together for your viewing pleasure. After all, cartoons simply aren't for just children anymore! :D

6) Bambi - The first animated feature on my list may surprise you, but I assure you that this is as violent as the best of them. Can you imagine watching this when you were a tot, turning tear-filled eyes to your mum and going "Is a hunter going to kill you, mummy?"

Watching this so-called Disney classic filled me with fear and an incredible sense of my own (and my mum's) mortality. The singing animal friends that Bambi makes later on are like trying to bandage a gaping chest wound with a grape sucker! Who cares if you've got happy animal friends when your mum has just died?? You ruined my life, Disney!!!

You can't bring my mother back, Flower! No one can!!

5) Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker - There are few things I love more than Batman: The Animated Series, and I will be the first to say that the violence in RotJ was necessary to further the plot. Still, the Joker performing atrocities on Robin (Tim Drake, who is incredibly young in this series), made me wince despite the lack of animated blood. It's a bit too reminiscent of the comic-version of the Joker brutally beating Robin (Jason Todd) with a crowbar and then *blowing* him up (yes, he died).

I mean, when you strap a 12-year old to a surgeon's medical table and electrocute and torture him for *days* on end, you've got to expect the kids in the audience to run screaming for their mums. The resulting fight between Batman and the Joker is entirely viscious, but the real clincher is that the Joker dies not by Bruce Wayne's hand, but by 12-year old Tim Drake's. The kid manages to hold on to his last shred of sanity and shoots and KILLS the Joker during the climactic flashback scene, and is then stripped of his costume and confined to psychiatric care for the next several years.

Saturday morning cartoon this ain't.

4) Plague Dogs - This is a pretty obscure animated film based off of Richard Adams' novel of the same name. It's about two dogs (Rowf and Snitter) who escape from an animal testing laboratory and try to make their way to freedom and happiness. Sounds like an uplifting premise, right? Not really.

You see, Snitter had extensive brain surgery (for testing purposes) done at the lab and spends the course of the story whacked-out and hallucinating events at random times. Rowf has been drowned and revived and drowned and revived (for testing purposes) so many times that he has a crazy fear of water, and hates all humans. During their travels, the two dogs are constantly hunted by humans who fear that they've become rabid because of their time at the lab and that they must be caught and put down. There are scenes of excessive violence (and not to mention animal cruelty while they're still being tested on at the lab), that I found a bit unnecessary. There is a scene where the dogs meet a random hunter who tries to befriend them, and in Snitter's haste to reach up and be petted, he accidentally steps on the hunter's (conveniently placed) rifle trigger and blows the guys brains out. Wtf, right?

The film ends with both dogs being chased to the edge of the water, and with dog catchers closing in at all sides, Snitter begins to hallucinate freedom and urges his phobic friend to get into the water. Together, they jump into the water and swim far into the distance, where the mists close in and the camera pulls out as they take their last, gasping breaths.

I'm the first person to admit that I'm not much of a dog person, but man, that ending made me want to watch nothing but "My Little Pony" for a few thousand years.

Here's a series of Plague Dogs clips set to the song "Gravity". While it doesn't have any of the more shocking footage, it does have the film's sorely depressing ending. Check it out at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9qeNm5dR78

3) Ninja Scroll - Spot number 3 is taken by "Ninja Scroll" and every other Japanese animated movie about ninjas ever made. I'm sure that there are other bloodier Japanese films by now, but Ninja Scroll was among the first cartoons to go for the ultra-violent, blood-spurting, head-chopping, nudity-and-rape filled types of stories. I would've put "Ninja Resurrection" in lieu of Ninja Scroll, but the latter is far more popular and the former (which is filled with yummy anti-Christian themes and even more gore and sex than NS), is a tad more obscure.

I keel you and drink your blood. Yummeh!

In any case, there is gushing, spraying blood during every fight scene in Ninja Scroll, quite a lot of nudity, violent rape, and yes, more fighting. There's hardly a quiet moment in NS, as each scene is main character Jubei going from one fight to the next in order to reach his ultimate goal. And what is this ultimate goal? You guessed it. To get into an even bigger fight with his nemesis!

If you thought 'ronin' meant 'masterless samurai', you're wrong. It actually means "awesome katana-wielder, bad guy-exploderizer (in the messiest way possible), and total bad-ass" (literal translation, yo).

2) Akira - I was tempted to put this under number 3's category, but Akira isn't about ninjas. While most anime in the sci-fi genre aren't over-the-top gore fests (Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed, Final Fantasy, etc.), Akira was surprisingly violent. With such a thought-provoking and (at times) dragging plot, the incredible levels of violence (and ickyness) of the climactic final scene was a little difficult to watch.

Gag reflex... rising...

I mean, for a movie about future tech, a gang of bikers, and an underground series of psychic experiments (oh, that old hat), the incredible!exploderizing!Tetsuo (who ends up squishing his girlfriend to death in the massive ball of roiling flesh that he becomes), is truly an able tool to frighten small children at night with.

See images below:

Booyah.

1) Watership Down- This takes the number 1 position not only because of its level of violence, but also because its main characters are none other than adorable little rabbits. These are not the fluffy "Thumpers" of the Disney movies, nor are they anything like the fluffy class pets you may have had when you were little.

I've come to suck your blaaaad!!!

These are wild rabbits-- feral, power-hungry, and just a little crazy. Again based off of a Richard Adams' novel, this movie is about a small group of rabbits who are driven to leave their main warren at Sandleford. They do so because a rabbit named "Fiver" has a vision about their warren being destroyed by humans, and he and a handful of others make their way through the wild forest in attempt to find a new home.

On the way, they encounter many hardships and tribulations, encountering other warrens led by evil rabbits who try to kill them. They eventually manage to find a suitable warren called "Watership Down", and the film ends with their leader "Hazel" being taken away by the great rabbit god up to their version of heaven (a nice field).

I find the concept of rabbits having religion very interesting, but that's beside the point. This was an incredibly vicious, violent, and incredibly over-the-top depiction of rabbit life. I've seen live-action Japanese gore fests that are far less violent than this cartoon, and I find myself wondering who their target market was when they adapted this book.

To view some of the more horrifying scenes from the cartoon, check out this series of Watership Down clips set to music from the Omen. Not suitable for young children and people who like fluffy rabbits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OMi67BU-ZE