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  • From Akame ga Kill!:
    • Sheele's first shown assassination has her cutting a housemistress responsible for the death of Tatsumi's friends in half at the waist with her scissor-type Imperial Arm, Extase.
    • Sadly, said assassin dies after Seryu's pet "dog"/Imperial Arm, Koro, tears her in half at the waist and then eats what's left of her.
    • Bulat kills Daidara, one of the Three Beasts, with a downward vertical slice.
    • Tatsumi does the same thing to Danger Beast Cosmina later on, when he has inherited Incursio.
    • Seryu has no issues with Koro eating petty thieves from the waist up.
    • As revenge for Sheele's death, Mine mortally wounds both Seryu and Koro this way with her gun-type Imperial Arm, Pumpkin. To elaborate, Mine shot Koro at the waistline, blowing him in half with Pumpkin's laser first. Then she swung the gun while it was still firing to carve Seryu in two, obliterating her entire midsection! This however, isn't what ultimately kills them. Instead, it's Seryu triggering her final bomb implanted in her brain that detonates in a massive explosion for a Taking You with Me, with Koro using the last of his strength to crawl towards Seryu to comfort her before it goes off. It only fails to kill Mine too because Tatsumi managed to get her out of the blast radius in time.
  • This is the ultimate fate of the German robot Gerhardt in the Astro Boy two-parter "The World's Strongest Robot", after grabbing onto Pluto's horns.
  • Given that Attack on Titan involves giants who indiscriminately eat people, it shouldn't be surprising that this happens fairly often.
    • During a lighthearted moment, Eren accuses Franz and Hannah of being married, which they vehemently deny. A little later on, Hannah is found desperately giving CPR to Franz. Then, the camera shifts position, showing that Franz is missing everything from the waist on down.
    • Marco Bott is missing the right half of his head and torso when found, and no one seems to have witnessed his final moments. It results in a low-key Freak Out for Jean and sets off his major Character Development.
    • Hannes is bitten in half by the Smiling Titan from the waist down.
  • In Basilisk, Yakushiji Tenzen cuts Jimushi Juubei vertically in half with a single strike of his katana, even splitting Juubei's extended tongue!
  • Berserk:
    • Guts hands these out to Mooks on occasion with the Dragon Slayer and killed Colette this way after she was killed and taken over by the evil spirits after Guts in the second story from the manga.
    • Zodd ends the fight with Wyald with a backbreaker so strong it breaks him in half.
  • Black Clover:
  • This happens to Isaku in Blade of the Immortal. Believe it or not, he gets better.
  • This happens a lot to characters in Bleach. Notable examples include:
    • Orihime's first successful use of Tsubaki cuts Numb Chandelier in half vertically.
    • Grand Fisher gets cut down across the chest by Isshin before he even realizes what has happened, then dies as Isshin calmly lectures him on exactly why he lost.
    • To regain the sixth rank he lost, Grimmjow kills Luppi by punching a hole in him and incinerating the top half of his body with a Cero.
    • Tesra suffers the vertical version courtesy of Kenpachi, getting one of his hands chopped off in the process. Nnoitra tried to warn him to get away from Kenpachi, but he was too late.
    • Yamamoto does this vertically to Ayon, although not even this completely deters him.
    • A Hollowfied Ichigo viciously slices Ulquiorra in half. Ulquiorra has unique regeneration abilities, allowing him to regenerate the damage, although he indicates he cannot heal the organ damage, so isn't healing as well as it looks.
    • Hiyori gets cut in half by Gin so fast that she doesn't notice until her legs fly past her''. In the anime, she is instead Impaled with Extreme Prejudice.
    • Giriko suffers the vertical version courtesy of Kenpachi, after clearly not grasping just who he is dealing with.
    • Right as he prepares himself to finish off Urahara, Orihime and Sado, Quilge Opie is bisected vertically from behind by none other than Grimmjow, which finally puts him down.
    • This is the fate of Yamamoto following his defeat at the hands of Yhwach. Not convinced even this was enough, Yhwach then chops off Yamamoto's sword arm and then proceeds to nuke his corpse.
    • Bambietta invites a man to her room with the promise of sex. When he arrives, she cuts him in half after toying with his intentions. She views it as a type of de-stressing.
    • Cang Du is executed by Haschwalth for having lost against Hitsugaya; uncommonly for the "vertical" version of this trope, his head is intact and he's bisected from the shoulder down. He is beheaded along with BG9 in the anime adaptation.
    • And in 561, this is the fate of Mask de Masculine's partner and Psycho Supporter James. This failed to kill him because of his incredible regenerative powers.
    • Mask himself suffers a zigzagged version of this after Renji kills him with Zaga Teppou: the attack burns Mask so hard that he crumbles to ashes moments later, starting from his midsection where Renji skewered him.
    • Giselle invites enemies to get close enough to her to perform this kind of attack. Instead of killing her, it splatters the enemy with her blood, allowing her to take control of them.
    • Gerard Valkyrie suffers the vertical version courtesy of Kenpachi's Bankai after having turned himself into a giant. His two halves literally stick back together as he goes One-Winged Angel.
    • Rather fittingly, this is how Yhwach meets his end at Ichigo's sword, killed the exact same way he slew his old Arch-Enemy. In fact, Ichigo slices him in half twice; Yhwach only survives the first time because The Almighty allows him to resurrect himself. The second time around, Ichigo attacks him after Uryu has de-powered Yhwach, leaving him completely helpless as he's finally Killed Off for Real.
  • One of the worst deaths from the final episode of Blood-C belongs to Nono Motoe, who after knocking her sister Nene into the path of an Elder Bairn to save her own hide gets pulled apart by her legs from the crotch up when another Elder Bairn gets its hands on her soon after.
  • This is the standard demon slaying procedure in Claymore. As well as being Dietrich's MO for dealing with Awakened Beings, it's how Flora dies. Clare also suffers this before being absorbed into the Destroyer. Deneve gets cut not quite in half.
  • Code Geass: This happens commonly to numerous Knightmare Frames, usually by way of being bisected by Maser Vibration Swords that can cleanly cut through tungsten. Most notable is Suzaku Kururugi and the Lancelot Albion cleanly slicing Bismarck Waldstein's Galahad in two, giving Bismarck just enough time to realize he's done for before the Galahad explodes, killing him.
  • Cross Ange:
    • When Ange is made a part of the First Company of Arzenal, she attempts to desert now that she has a Paramail to fly away with. Fellow greenhorn and Norma, Coco Reeve, says she wants to join Ange in her journey back to the Misurugi Empire. But at that point, a portal opens up above them both, and a DRAGON fires a beam of energy at Coco; it not only shears Coco's Paramail in half, but her as well as she is messily blown in two through the waist. Thankfully, her brutal death is very much instant (and if it wasn't, the explosion likely finished her off), but it is still incredibly gory.
    • During her time serving Embryo, Chris loses her patience when Marika, one of the new Norma recruits, breaks formation from her squad and tries to help Hilda and Rosalie in fighting her. But she rushes in without any plan, and Chris tosses the sword of her Ragnamail, Theodra, at the incoming Paramail. The blade strikes Marika's Paramail right in the cockpit, and we briefly see Marika being bloodily separated from her lower half before the explosion of her Paramail consumes her (and unlike Coco, Marika is still alive after being stabbed in half; thankfully, the explosion finishes her off before she can suffer too much). Marika's death throws Rosalie, who is Chris' ex, into an Unstoppable Rage as she targets Chris in a maddened fury for killing one of her charges.
    • Embryo himself finally meets his long-awaited demise when Tusk carves him down the middle with just a sword. At the same time, Ange blows his Ragnamail, Hysterica (which is an extension of himself), in half with Villkiss (with the help of Salamandinay, Hilda and Salia), causing it to explode.
  • Iron Shadow from episode 7 of Cutey Honey meets her end when Honey cuts her in half from the head down.
  • Akira Fudo, the titular character of Devilman, would do this on a regular basis once he's in Devilman form, either with his bare hands, or his Absurdly Sharp Claws and talons. An OVA titled The Birth have him killing several demons by ripping them into sizeable chunks, one demon who gets the You Are Already Dead treatment as he splits into two vertically while trying to flee.
  • Dragon Ball Z:
    • Frieza gets sliced in half twice during the series proper. The first was near the end of the Namek saga when he was sliced in half with his own energy disc. He survived this (as well as the explosion of Namek) and came back as a cyborg, only to be finally finished off by Future Trunks when he came to Earth to seek revenge. And how does Trunks finish him off? He uses his sword to split Frieza in half lengthwise before proceeding to slice him up into itty bitty pieces and then blow him away with a powerful Ki blast.
    • To add insult to injury, the song "Yesterday" by The Beatles (which is very likely the Trope Namer) was used for Frieza in AMV Hell.
    • Piccolo slices Babidi in half while Babidi desperately tries to plead for his life by stating that he is the only one that can kill Buu by sealing him back up. Piccolo doesn't believe him and promptly cuts him in half. He gets better, however.
    • Future Trunks gets to cut another bad guy in half in Dragon Ball Super — this time it's Merged Zamasu, who is slowly and vertically bisected by a massive Laser Blade. Unfortunately for Trunks, for Zamasu it's just an inconvenience that he pays back with interest.
  • Elfen Lied:
    • Kouta's sister Kanae is cut in half by Lucy when she knows about Lucy's powers and attempts to save her older brother, but he hits her and calls her a liar. Her death causes said brother to be traumatized for life. It's actually a standard way for the Diclonius to kill their victims. Lucy and Mariko are especially fond of it.
    • In the Manga, Bandou suffers this fate at the hands of Lucy, but he manages to survive and replace his missing half with prosthetics.
  • Happens occasionally in Fist of the North Star. Several of the martial arts schools have techniques which involve cutting, so this is inevitable. Nanto schools especially feature this, but so does Gento Koken. The anime is notable for showing Kenshiro doing this, cleanly and effortlessly bisecting a man vertically with the edge of his hand. Making this all the stranger is that Hokuto Shinken focuses on hitting Pressure Points to cause people's heads (and sometimes the rest of them) to explode.
  • In Franken Fran, this happens to the assassin Agito in Chapter 18 (he got better thanks to his Healing Factor), and Fran herself gets cut in half bilaterally by accident in Chapter 60. She also gets better... eventually, after turning both halves into complete but half-brained persons.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist and the Brotherhood adaptation, Gluttony is tricked into swallowing a bomb, leaving him needing to regrow his whole upper body.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist (2003):
    • Frank Archer gets half of his body incinerated vertically during the creation of the Philosopher's Stone. Somehow he survives this and turns into a destructive war machine when he gets it replaced with machinery. Apparently he didn't have any vital organs on the right side of his body...
    • This is also how Dante disposed of her latest apprentice.
  • Gantz:
    • The end of the Buddha arc in sees Kishimoto split in two horizontally by an alien's acid.
    • Nurarihyon was sliced to half by Oka in the Osaka mission, though only the upper half of the body.
  • Happens in GUN×SWORD to The Claw.
  • In Heat Guy J, Boma takes a katana and slices through a man and his gun in one clean cut.
  • In Chapter 7 of Hellsing, Zorin Blitz bisects one of the mercenaries with her scythe after her illusion powers open him up to it. In the official material, it was a little girl pretending to be his daughter that was his undoing; in the Abridged series, he is undone by something less obvious... and less dignified.
  • In Inuyasha, Jaken gets cut in half, but is brought back to life by Sesshomaru with Tenseiga shortly thereafter.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • Phantom Blood's William Zeppeli is bisected at the waist by a chain when fighting against Tarkus.
    • An unlucky soldier in Battle Tendency, Mark, gets split in half vertically when the Pillar Man Wamuu brushes up against him and absorbs half of his body in the process. What makes it worse is it didn't kill him - he had to beg Caesar to finish him off.
    • In the same part, Stroheim is bisected at the waist by Kars using his bony blades. Being a product of German science, it doesn't bother him terribly.
    • Cioccolata of Golden Wind actively abuses this trope due to his ability to detach parts of his body. When Mista attempts to restrain him, he escapes by cutting off his own lower half and flopping away to safety, his spine wiggling behind him. He also makes use of his reduced size this way to hide in the helicopter compartment to ambush Mista and Giorno.
    • Also happens to Diego Brando after being run over by a train in one chapter of Steel Ball Run.
  • Jujutsu Kaisen:
    • The lower half of Nagi Yoshino's body was not found after a Cursed Spirit killed her.
    • Mahito blew up the upper half of Nanami's body with his Idle Transfiguration.
    • Kenjaku ripped Yuki in half with a miniature Uzumaki.
    • Sukuna cuts Satoru Gojo in half after finding a way to bypass his cursed technique.
  • Karas: The monstrous Ushi-oni (in actuality Commisioner Gyuuki revealing his One-Winged Angel form) dies from getting sliced into half, face-first, by Otoha, with a close-up of his sneering mug followed by his entire body splitting in two.
  • The Legend of Zelda (Akira Himekawa): In the adaptation of Oracle of Seasons, Link slashes Medelock in half.
  • In Lupin III: Dead or Alive, General Headhunter's lead henchman, Crisis, is cut in half by the island's defense mechanisms. It's not a survivable encounter.
  • The demon panther in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The Movie First that served as the second Monster of the Week found itself bisected horizontally after Nanoha lanced her way through its body. It wasn't enough to kill it though and its upper half quickly escaped into the sky... until Fate chased it down and applied the vertical version of this trope, destroying its body.
  • Occurs in MPD Psycho when a character named Kido goes up against a subway train. The results are, needless to say, quite gruesome.
  • Appropriately enough, this is how Baron Ashura (as Hell King Gordon) is finished off in Mazin Kaiser.
  • In the manga version of Mega Man X4, during Zero's second and final fight against Colonel, Zero defeats and kills him by slicing him in half with his saber.
  • This happens a lot across Gundam, given the series' penchant for beam swords. Given that the cockpits of most Mobile Suits are in the abdominal area, it's rarely survivable for the pilot.
    • In the first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam, Amuro Ray managed to destroy his first Zaku with the RX-78-2 Gundam's Beam Saber this way, slicing it across the waist. Unfortunately, Amuro hit the Zaku's engine, resulting in a low-yield nuclear explosion, one that blew a huge hole in the colony where the fight took place.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing loves this trope...
      • Owing to the Beam weapons they carry, Duo Maxwell and Chang Wufei can do this with their Gundams; Deathscythe's Beam Scythe and Shenlong's Beam Glaive both can easily bisect multiple Mobile Suits in one fell swing. On occasion, Heero Yuy and his Wing Gundam pull out a Beam Saber to dole out this trope.
      • Quatre Raberba Winner and his Sandrock Gundam also seem to be a big fan of this, as he usually dispatches his enemies by way of chopping down on them with the Sandrock's Dual Heat Shotels. In one instance, he clamps the shotels around the waist of an Aries whose pilot was hoping its armor would be durable enough to protect him; unfortunately for the Aries pilot, it takes a while for both the pressure Quatre and Sandrock are applying, and the heat of his blades, to finally melt through and bisect the machine.
      • In one particularly memorable scene in Episode 13, Zechs Merquise and his Tallgeese come under attack by the Red Cancer Mobile Armor piloted by Alex, an OZ lieutenant who had grown to become more merciless since joining the organization. After destroying a UESA base against Zechs' orders (as he had told them to surrender), Alex and his comrade Mueller attempted to pin the blame on Zechs and tried to corner him. Zechs retaliated against them for their dishonorable act, slicing Mueller's Aries vertically in half before going after Alex himself. Distracting him with his Dober Gun after taking a missile hit, Zechs grapples him from behind and has a brief yet heated argument with the increasingly irate Alex, who attempts to justify his bloodthirsty actions. Realizing Alex is irredeemable, Zechs yells out "FOOOOOOOOOOOOOLS!" and promptly rips the Red Cancer in two with the Tallgeese's metal hands, destroying it and killing the mass murderer.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED has this happen a few times...
      • In a possible callback to Amuro Ray's first kill, Kira Yamato kills his first opponent — GINN pilot Miguel Aiman — this way, after using the Beam Boomerang of his Strike Gundam to shear off the leg of Miguel's GINN. Using the Anti-Ship Sword, Kira lands a blow on the GINN's shoulder and makes a clean Diagonal Cut through the arm and abdominal area. He misses Miguel himself as the Anti-Ship Sword carves underneath the cockpit, but the GINN exploding is what kills him.
      • Nicol Amalfi, the outstanding Nice Guy of the Le Creuset Team, is killed this way when he rushes in to defend Athrun Zala and his depowered Aegis Gundam from Kira and the Strike. Kira swings in self-defensive reflex at the charging Blitz Gundam, and what happens is that the Strike catches the Blitz's cockpit with the Anti-Ship Sword. As a result, the Laser Blade melts into the cockpit and shears across Nicol's midriff. Kira, however, didn't intend to hit such a mortal blow since he usually tries to refrain from killing his opponents (that, and he was well aware that despite not knowing him personally, Nicol was Athrun's friend). He backs away in stunned horror, leaving the Anti-Ship Sword stuck in the Blitz as sparks fly from said expiring Gundam. Right before dying, Nicol begs Athrun to run before the blood rushing up in his suit fills his helmet, followed by the Blitz exploding.
      • In the Second Battle of Jachin Due, Athrun uses his Justice Gundam's METEOR pack to kill Orga Sabnak this way, using one of the METEOR's massive Beam Swords to catch Orga and his Calamity Gundam from behind. It isn't an instant, clean bisection either; likely due to its Phase-Shift Armor trying to protect against the giant Laser Blade, the Calamity strains a few seconds as the Beam Sword cuts into its back — with Orga helplessly screaming in terror — until the Calamity is finally slashed in two, resulting in its explosion.
    • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, Heine Westenfluss gets bisected along with his GOUF Ignited after turning his back to Stella Loussier and her Gaia Gundam.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam 00:
      • Nena Trinity dies in painful fashion when Louise Halevy, using the claws of her Regnant Mobile Armor, guts her inside of her Gundam Throne Drei like a fish. The novelizations add more gruesome detail to this, stating that the only thing holding her torso together was a few strands of muscle, right before her Throne Drei blew up.
      • In the Final Battle, Doubleujah (Allelujah syncing with his "Hallelujah" persona) finishes his amazing Curb-Stomp Battle on Hiling Care this way, using his Arios Gundam's GN Beam Shield pincers to catch her Garazzo by the waist after having destroyed her built-in escape pod. As Hiling makes a desperate final attempt to damage the Arios as it clings to her Mobile Suit, Allelujah gives her "The Reason You Suck" Speech before finishing the job and squeezing the pincers down on his adversary's abdomen. The Garazzo literally ends up snapped in half as Allelujah flies through the bisected Mobile Suit, leaving Hiling to scream for help as the resulting explosion of her Garazzo vaporizes her.
      • This is just the most prominent occurence of this. Actually, Allelujah and Arios do this to numerous GN-XIII and Ahead Mobile Suits throughout the show, making use of the Arios' great speed to ensnare any unlucky bastard in its path.
  • Naruto:
    • Orochimaru once got ripped in half by Naruto's 4-tailed form, but he has the halves of his body rejoin before they even touch the ground.
    • In Chapter 585 Kabuto bisects Itachi. Since Itachi is an Edo Tensei at the time, he regenerates.
    • And in Chapter 601, Madara rips Tsunade's torso in two with a giant tree. Her advanced medical jutsus and Karin being around to heal her just in time are probably the only reasons she is still alive.
    • Madara is on the receiving end of this three times. Lee kicks him in half while he's still an Edo Tensei. Later, Naruto cuts Madara AND the Shinju in half with an attack Madara only recovers from due to his Healing Factor. Then Sasuke cuts him in half with a sword.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
    • Dynamis became a victim of this trope during his fight with Negi's Superpowered Evil Side. He lived to tell, possibly due to his Large Ham tendencies, and later one of the many Fates restored him.
    • Later, this happened to Chachamaru... Being a Ridiculously Human Robot, she lived to tell: Takane kept her alive with her magic, and once the human and magical world collided and her creator Hakase got a hold of her, she got fixed.
    • Almost immediately afterward, Quartum gets chopped in half by Negi after he sees that Quartum did this to Chachamaru.
  • This comes up several times in End of Evangelion:
    • During Asuka's frantic battle against the Mass Production EVA Series, she severs the fifth one she attacks at the waist, sending the top half flying. All nine recover from their injuries and counterattack, but how this particular EVA managed to piece itself together after being so torn asunder is handwaved.
    • Misato's brutal death. If you pause just as the JSSDF charges explode, you can see this.
    • During Instrumentality, Gendo's meeting with the now-transcended Lilith/Rei hybrid ends with Unit 01 biting Gendo in half.
  • One Piece,
    • Happens to Buggy the Clown a lot as well as most Logia users at some point, often repeatedly as these characters have no problem putting themselves together again.
    • Trafalgar Law can do it non-lethally to other people as well, as he did to Tashigi in Chapter 661.
    • In Chapter 687, Zoro cut Monet in half vertically. She survives due to being a Logia user, but because she knows Zoro could have easily killed her, she is too scared to put her body back together right away, allowing Tashigi to finish her off easily.
  • Princess Tutu:
    • This is Fakir's fated death inwitnessed repeatedly in visions—the Raven will slash his torso in half vertically as he tries to protect Mytho. It appears to happen at the end of the first season, but it turns out he was tougher than that.
    • This is also how the ghost knight killed his wife, albeit horizontally rather than vertically. This is shown onscreen. What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?
  • Rebuild World:
    • When Nelia tries to attack Tsubaki, she’s stopped with a Bare-Handed Blade Block and Tsubaki’s automaton body snaps both Nelia and her Mini-Mecha in half and tosses them away. Nelia is a Full-Conversion Cyborg so she’s fine.
    • After Akira trades a favor for one of Shiori’s Lost Technology katanas, he starts doing this. When fighting an Amazon Brigade (The Rival Katsuya’s Battle Harem), at one point Akira is trapped in a room with sensor jamming gas. He realizes the enemy is going to ambush him through the wall behind him, so Akira cuts a hole in the wall, kicks the hole at the women, and then cuts them all in half. Soon after he does this to Katsuya at the conclusion of their duel. He also activates the overload mode of the sword to turn it into a Laser Blade to cut an attack aircraft in half with Zelmo inside of it, although that doesn’t finish Zelmo, who he delivers a Finishing Stomp to.
  • In the horror manga Region, when Kanon's ankle is grabbed by a man who is pleading for help, she is horrified that everything below the man's waist is covered with rats, happily gorging themselves on what little remains of his flesh.
  • Aqua Shuzen in Rosario + Vampire does this to Akasha Bloodriver and Ling-Ling Huang. Less effective than most, considering they're the only two (sentient) characters in the entire series who are not affected by getting cut in half.
  • Rurouni Kenshin : This is the fate of villain Uonuma Usui, torn in half at the waist by the force of Saito Hajime's point-blank Gatotsu in the manga. He is merely impaled in the anime; the Toonami version edited the scene further so that he isn't even impaled, just sliced bloodlessly.
  • Yukimura from Samurai Deeper Kyo loves to do this to his enemies.
  • This is the final fate of Aki Honda in Shadow Star, to the point of Fan Disservice. Her death was so utterly violent ( before being cut, she gets raped with the same dragon claw that ultimately ripped her in half!), that the last part was cut out in the international versions of the manga and was censored in the anime (the viewer only get to see the shadow, not the action itself).
  • Used by Maka and Soul several times in Soul Eater. Stein does it Medusa, who is able to survive by possessing a snake and then "borrowing" the body of a little girl.
  • Also occurs to Meier Link towards the end of the movie Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. He manages to pull himself back together and get better though.
  • The Robeasts and in general all bad guys in Voltron usually meet this fate, courtesy of the titular robot's Blazing Sword.
  • Happens to Fuuma Monou in the TV series version of X/1999, when Sorata uses all of his Shock and Awe powers to pretty much blow up half of his body despite being impaled through the torso with Fuuma's Shinken. He barely survives, and must absorb Nataku into his body (which kills Nataku and fulfills his Wish) to regenerate himself.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Placido gets blown in half upon his defeat at Yusei's hands. Fortunately for him, he's an android, and is eventually repaired.
  • In YuYu Hakusho, Kuwabara tries a vertical cut on Elder Toguro at the start of his fight with him, only to find that he cut a fake body and that Toguro had used his flexibility powers to burrow into the ground.

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