With Naoki Urasawa's Monster finally coming to Netflix, plenty of anime fans are experiencing its chilling beginning for the first time. As it demonstrates, a show's first episodes must hook the viewer into the world and keep them there. Sometimes this is done through stunning animation, interesting characters, or exciting action. Other times, though, it's done by hitting viewers with a world-changing plot twist right off the bat.
Whether it's by performing a sudden genre shift or by a reveal that the setting or a character is not what the viewer was led to believe they were, these twists are downright shocking.
Cross Game
Cross Game’s first episode, “Four-Leaf Clover,” really wants viewers to believe that they are going into a lighthearted romance between two characters who have always been friends. Fifth-graders Ko and Wakaba, born on the same day and deeply close because of it, plan to spend the rest of their lives together.
Then Wakaba drowns saving a younger child, rocking the worlds of Ko and all of Wakaba’s sisters, particularly Ao. The rest of the show is about Ko and Aoba coping with their grief over her death by living out her baseball dreams. Their story of growing closer as they learn to live with the death of someone they both loved is much heavier than the beginning of the show leads audiences to expect.
Monster
Fans not knowing the premise going in would be forgiven for thinking that the title was metaphorical, given what Dr. Tenma goes through in the first episodes. Because he chooses to save the life of a little boy who was shot instead of a wealthy donor to his hospital, his career is ruined, and he vents by the apparently unconscious boy’s bed that he wishes all the doctors responsible would drop dead…and then, mysteriously, they all do, apparently clearing the way for Tenma’s altruism to triumph over greed.
But the boy, Johan, proves to be one of the creepiest kids in anime, and grows up to be even worse. Just when Tenma has rebuilt his life, Johan kills one of his patients and reveals that he murdered the doctors to repay Tenma for saving him. What Tenma and the viewers believed was the right and good choice wound up dooming the entire world.
Death Parade
The title may hint at the show’s true nature, but at least some viewers were tricked by the deceptive fun of the opening, "Flyers." A woman wakes up to find herself in Quindecim, a bar where amnesiac couples appear and are instructed to play some of the strangest fantasy games in anime.
It slowly becomes clearer what Quindecim and its strange owner Decim are: the couples are dead, and Decim decides which of them is reincarnated and whose soul is destroyed. His new companion is here to advise him, because sometimes Decim chooses wrong. It's a chilling realization and makes viewers wonder how far the show is going to take this premise.
Princess Tutu
In one of the great anime that just turned 20 years old, both Japanese- and English-speaking viewers get a hint at Ahiru/Duck’s true nature just from the sound of her name in “The Duck and the Prince.” Duck goes about her life at her dance school earnestly, fascinated by her handsome classmate Mytho.
This show is an exploration of fairy tales and the constraints of a narrative that’s been decided long ago, without the players' say, which is revealed when Duck suddenly shapeshifts into a duck to save Mytho’s life, revealing herself to be a bird wearing a human disguise as a part of her role in the story. Fans expecting a more average shoujo will be shocked at the true nature of the plot.
Tokyo Ghoul
Plenty of supernatural anime feature one skittish human ensnared into the world of monsters and other creatures stronger and scarier than him. Tokyo Ghoul’s first episode, “Tragedy,” at first seems like it’s headed that way as well, when Kaneki goes on a date with Rize, a woman who reveals herself to be a flesh-eating ghoul.
Kaneki survives her attempt to eat him, but only by having her organs transplanted into him. The rest of the episode chronicles his slow and agonizing transformation into a ghoul himself: the actual premise of the show being Kaneki trying to reconcile his human and ghoul sides: a fate much more horrifying than a protagonist like Kaneki usually winds up in.
Jujutsu Kaisen
Jujutsu Kaisen might be darker than the average shounen, but its first episode, “Ryomen Sukuna,” seems to follow a typical structure. Yuuji Itadori, already strong, bright, and heroic, gets caught up in jujutsu sorcerers’ battle and ends up consuming a finger of the demon Sukuna, gaining intense power and allowing him to enter the world of jujutsu.
The last few minutes of the episode reveal that this show is actually going in a very different direction. Yuuji agrees to collect and consume all of Sukuna’s remaining fingers, but not so he can become the strongest jujutsu sorcerer, rather so he can then be killed to destroy all parts of Sukuna once and for all, subverting many viewers' expectations.
School-Live!
One of the hardest left turns viewers will ever find in a show is in “Beginning,” this seemingly upbeat show’s first episode. Yuki Takeya and Taromaru, one of the best canines in anime, are proud to be members of the School Living Club, a group of girls that live at school. Viewers spend a good chunk of the episode following Yuki’s excited patrol of the school, greeting all her classmates and favorite teacher.
Even if viewers felt something off with Yuki’s cheerfulness, it’s difficult to predict the reveal of the episode: the club lives at school because the rest of the world has been lost to a zombie apocalypse, their teacher and classmates are dead or zombified. While they struggle to survive, the other girls are also enabling Yuki’s fantasy of it all being just a game because her sanity is the most fragile of them, and she can’t handle their reality.
Fruits Basket
At first glance, there’s no indication that Fruits Basket has fantasy elements at all. The first episode “I’m Going” sees newly orphaned high schooler Tohru living in a tent while temporarily homeless. She befriends popular but mysterious classmate Yuki Sohma when it turns out she’s on the property of his wealthy family: as good a romantic meet cute as any.
When Yuki is implied to have control over rats, viewers get a hint of what’s really going on. But nobody sees it coming when Tohru accidentally hugs Yuki and his cousins, causing them to change into animals! The reveal of this generational curse is not only a huge left turn into fantasy, but the curse itself will soon change the tone of the show from light shoujo to heavy drama.
Zombie Land Saga
While the title, Zombie Land Saga, gives quite a lot away, fans could easily assume that Sakura, being human, would simply be interacting or competing with zombies, not becoming one of them. Her bright opening narration as she runs out of the house, about her dreams of a singing career, certainly indicates that…until she’s flattened by a truck out of nowhere.
When Sakura wakes up, she and the audience don’t realize she’s dead at first, only that she’s suddenly being accosted by zombies in a basement. Then Kotaro slides in and loudly announces that not only is she one of them, but she’s part of his grand plan: turning the zombie girls into an idol group! It's one turn after another that shocks both the audience and poor Sakura.
The Promised Neverland
After its choppy and disappointing second season, some might forget that The Promised Neverland boasts one of the most shocking recent first episodes. Young Emma has lived her entire life in Grace Field Orphanage, happy with her friends. While sad when someone is adopted, the children take comfort that they're going to happy adoptive families.
Even fans who guessed that something was off with Grace Field, or even that the “adopted” children were killed, couldn’t have anticipated what Emma and Norman accidentally uncover: their friend Connie, drained of blood, with an expression of pure horror on her face. Grace Field is a farm for demons who eat only human meat, and the suspense is suddenly skyrocketing as the children realize they have limited time to escape or die.