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"Tatsumi, no matter how you dress it up, what we're doing is murder. There's no way there's any justice in that."

A down-on-his-luck fighter named Tatsumi sets out for the capital to earn money for his starving village and winds up fighting an empire of unimaginable corruption, all spreading from the depraved rule of Prime Minister Honest, who controls the boy Emperor for his own purposes, and General Esdeath, the strongest woman in the empire who aids Honest to create a world where only the strong rule. After nearly becoming a victim of this corruption himself, Tatsumi is recruited by Night Raid, a group of assassins dedicated to eliminating the corruption plaguing the capital by mercilessly killing those responsible. And so Takumi sets out to dethrone Honest and Esdeath in order to restore peace to the realm.

There is also a prequel manga called Akame ga Kill! Zero focuses on Akame's time as an Imperial assassin.

An anime adaptation by White Fox aired during the Summer and Fall of 2014 seasons. Crunchyroll streamed the anime, which can be viewed here for people living in the following areas: note  Because of the substantial differences between it and the manga, it has its own page.

Akame ga Kill! became one of the most requested Sentai Filmworks shows for airing on [adult swim]'s Toonami. True to their word, the Toonami crew announced at Momocon that it would be the first Sentai show to air on the block. It premiered on August 9, 2015, and finished on February 21, 2016.

This manga by Tetsuya Tashiro ended in December 2016 after 78 main chapters and four side chapters (published in a volume called Akame ga Kill! 1.5). Another manga created by the same person, Hinowa ga Crush!, was released in June 2017, with Akame having a role.

All character tropes should go on the Akame ga Kill! character page. If there's an Akame ga Kill character, they are in that index somewhere.

Despite the manga's title, DO not confuse this with an unrelated show.


This manga series provides examples of:

  • Aborted Arc: During the Church arc, one of the villains implies that the leader of the Path of Peace religion has a dark secret in his past that perhaps even he doesn't realize, specifically that he has danger beast blood in his veins, which gives him special abilities. Nothing ever comes of this. The Night Raid successfully protects him from assassination and he commits the Path of Peace's resources to the rebellion and isn't seen again until the epilogue.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade:
  • Action Girl: All the females of Night Raids (except Chelsea) are capable of demonstrating their prowess in battle.
  • Adapted Out:
    • Many scenes of the manga regarding the Jägers were cut out from the anime before the start of the original ending. This affected their characterization, especially Dr. Stylish.
    • Wild Hunt didn't appear in the anime at all, being replaced by mere faceless goons.
  • All Deaths Final: The series explicitly states that there's no Imperial Arm capable of resurrecting the dead, not even Yatsufusa, who just can turn the corpses of people that were killed by it into zombies for the wielder to control.
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Dr. Stylish finds where Night Raid's secret hideout is at during the end of chapter 19, and attacks it in chapter 20. He nearly succeeds in taking them down, were it not for the timely arrival of Najenda with some new reinforcements. Chapter 22 then shows Night Raid settling in on a new area after their first base is compromised.
  • Amusing Injuries:
    • In chapter 15, Mine sees Lubbock and Tatsumi doing pushups with Leone and Akame sitting on top of them. They state that they want to become stronger, and Leone mentions Lubbock's only done half as many pushups as Tatsumi has. Akame immediately says that it's because Leone is heavier than she is, hence why he can't do as many. Leone immediately hits Akame, who then grows a large lump on her head, and wondering why she got hit for.
    • Tatsumi and Leone also suffer lumps after Susanoo mentions that Najenda resembles his old master, a male general. The two laugh at the comment that Najenda looks like a guy, causing her to hit them in the head.
  • Anachronism Stew: Though the setting appears to be in a medieval period, there are some modern day technologies used commonly throughout the show, such as guns, electric lighting, large leisure boats, and some of the clothing such as a suit and necktie. Chelsea also sports some headphones, regularly sucks on lollipops, and in general dresses like she walked out of a much more "modern" series.
  • An Arm and a Leg:
    • Tatsumi slices off the Earth Dragon's arm in the first chapter after it attacks two men traveling on the road.
    • Sayo is shown missing a leg after being tortured to death by Aria. Surprisingly, the anime removes this, as well as blurring many similarly mutilated corpses in the torture cellar.
    • In chapter 3, he does this to his current assassination target, who does some Evil Gloating about how he can do whatever he wants because he has power.
    • Leone gets her arm sliced off in chapter 30 after Kurome spots an opening and attacks her.
    • Chelsea loses her right arm to one of Kurome's dolls in chapter 33. This happens after getting her fingers on her left hand off just moments before.
  • An Ice Person: General Esdeath's teigu ability. To an extent that she managed to freeze a river and a majority of a forest.
  • An Offer You Can't Refuse: In chapter 2, Tatsumi is basically told "join or die" by some of the Night Raid members. While their leader Najenda says they won't kill him if he refuses, they also can't let him leave, so he'll have to work inside their workshop if he doesn't accept the position. They don't sugarcoat what they do either, which is to kill people, albeit people that tend to do evil things. Tatsumi ultimately decides to join them, so long as what he does with them will help his village out in the long run.
  • Anyone Can Die: A consequence of having assassins as your "good guy" faction is the inevitable bloodbath that will occur from it. Out of a total named cast of thirty-three, only eight, not counting the many side characters, make it out alive.
  • Anti-Villain: Some members of the Jaegars—especially Wave, who is a Villain in Name Only variant.
  • Art Evolution: The manga has seen steady improvement in all areas from shading, to hair styles and facial expressions.
  • Art Shift: In the anime, any character whose portrait/design changes from fairly normal to monstrous looking can be safely considered to be evil, such as the Prime Minister or the various minor villains Night Raid fights against.
  • Asshole Victim: All of the people killed by the Night Raid deserved it. Wild Hunt especially.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Chapter 69 shows that there's a giant mecha-like Imperial Arms underneath the capital. And chapters 70-71 shows the Emperor using said weapon.
  • Attack Its Weak Point:
    • In chapter 21, Dr. Stylish injects himself with something that turns him into a giant monstrosity, and is largely immune to attacks by both Susanoo and Akame. However, his original body is located on top of said monstrosity, and Tatsumi takes Akame up there where she can attack his body directly.
    • A similar monster appears again in chapter 26. Tatsumi is a bit worried about how it's going to be taken out, particularly as this monster is several times bigger than Dr. Stylish was and he only has Esdeath with him. Then she hurls some gigantic icicles at it, which also creates a convenient bridge for him to approach and strike at the small human-shaped figure to take it out.
    • In episode 23, Tatsumi remembers Susanoo telling him that everything they fight has a weak point somewhere. He utilizes this to attack the Emperor's weak spot to help put a stop to his incessant Beam Spam which was killing a lot of civilians.
  • Attempted Rape: Suzuka and Dorothea try to rape Tatsumi while he is being held prisoner by The Empire. However, Esdeath intervenes at the last minute and stops them.
  • Badass Army: There's very few enemies that General Esdeath's army hasn't utterly crushed into the ground. Fitting for one lead by the Empire's strongest. Great General Budo, easily the second strongest in the empire leads the Imperial Guard which is explicitly stated by Esdeath to be the only army capable of challenging her own.
  • Badass Cape: Tatsumi has one when using Incursio, though his last transformation drops it.
  • Barbie Doll Anatomy: Bulat and Tatsumi during their shirtless training.
  • Barehanded Blade Block: The Imperial guard that attacks Tatsumi and Mine does this in chapter 4 when he attempts to swing his sword at the former. Tatsumi then lets go of his blade and instead grabs hold of the guard to prevent him from moving so Mine can shoot him.
  • The Baroness: Esdeath's hobbies, when not grinding the enemies of the Empire beneath her jackbooted heels, include reading, hunting, and torturing prisoners.
  • Battle Couple: Tatsumi and Mine after their Relationship Upgrade.
  • Beam Spam: The Emperor uses this in episode 23 while fighting Tatsumi.
  • Beach Episode: Episode 15 features all of Night Raid in their swimsuits.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: Subverted in the first chapter. Tatsumi, penniless now thanks to Leone swindling him of his money, plans to sleep on the streets. However, Aria, a daughter of a local aristocrat, takes pity on him and brings him home where he's given a place to stay at least for a short while. He then tells her father about his two companions, and that they were separated at some point during their journey. The father promises to find them for him. When Night Raid attacks them later, he learns a horrible truth, that Aria's family secretly tortures and kills people, especially those from the countryside, and his two companions were found, and tortured. Tatsumi then kills Aria herself after learning the truth.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Tatsumi and Mine. They're always arguing and fighting over anything, but they gradually become attracted to each other. They finally become an Official Couple after Mine confesses her feelings for him.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Never kill anyone innocent in front of Tatsumi or any Night Raid member unless you wish to DIE.
    • Leone nearly loses it when she sees a broken and drugged out prostitute in the drug lord's mansion in chapter 8. She mentions that she knew said girl right after hearing the drug lord talking about disposing of said girl, and doesn't waste any time to kill him and his minions.
  • Bestiality Is Depraved: Happens to one of the girls in chapter 23.5. Unlike most instances of this trope, it's not Played for Laughs. At all.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Tatsumi quickly finds out that Aria and her family killed two of his friends through torture. He personally kills Aria himself after finding out that she was responsible for Sayo's death, especially after her Green-Eyed Monster rant about Sayo having better skin and hair than her.
  • Big Bad Duumvirate: Prime Minister Honest and General Esdeath are the true rulers of The Empire. Honest manipulates the boy emperor to create a brutal and corrupt regime whose sole purpose is to preserve his power and pleasure. However, despite being more dangerous than he appears, his rule would not be possible without the cooperation of Esdeath, the Empire's best general and a One-Woman Army. She helps maintain Honest's rule because its sheer brutality places the Empire in a state of almost constant internal rebellion and war with its neighbors, creating her ideal world where the weak are killed and the strong rule.
  • Big Brother Mentor: Bulat towards Tatsumi and he suffers the Mentor Occupational Hazard as well.
  • Big Damn Kiss: Between Tatsumi and Mine in Chapter 45, and Wave and Kurome twofold in chapters 65 & 66.
  • Bishie Sparkle: Happens to Bulat when he first greets Tatsumi in chapter 2, and after Leone tells him the former is gay.
  • BFG: Taizan's Cannon of Justice.
  • BFS: Akame's Teigu One Cut Killer Murasame and also her sister Kurome's sword Yatsuhusa. Seryu also obtain a giant sword after Stylish modified her body.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The epilogue of the manga reveals that Tatsumi, Mine, Wave, and Kurome all get their happy ending and the empire has been destroyed with a lot of the problems associated with it being fixed by the new government. But a lot of people are dead, the Night Raid organization gets erased from the history books, nearly all the main characters have suffered permanent crippling physical (and in Kurome's case, mental) damage, and Akame has to leave the country alone in the name of searching for a cure for the constant pain associated with powering herself up via Murasame's curse.
    • The anime is a bit more bitter than the manga. Though the empire has been destroyed just like with the manga, Tatsumi, Mine, and Kurome are dead. During the final scene, Najenda dedicates her life to the rebuilding of the country but notes that her body could give out at any time, so she has no idea how much time she has left. And Akame chooses to disappear from the land so that she can be used as a scapegoat for all of Night Raid's actions, with no implication that she can find a cure for the curse on her body. The one upside compared to the manga is that Run survives and plans to work with Wave to help rebuild the country to be a better place.
  • Black-and-Gray Morality: On the one hand, you have Night Raid and the Jeagers, two groups comprised of generally nice and friendly people (barring a few exceptions) who just happen to be self-admitted mass murderers who each easily have a body count in the double digits (Esdeath and Akame likely much higher, with Esdeath at 400,000). Then on the other hand you have the capital, a Wretched Hive of corrupt nobles and crooked cops who regularly torture the impoverished and homeless and frame innocents for the crimes they commit. And way, way, way in the black is the Prime Minister himself, a Fat Bastard who manipulates the naïve child emperor to ensure that all this continues.
    • It's outright stated in the second chapter that Night Raid aren't heroes, they are murderers. It's shown through their work that often times they have to kill people who have families or simply got in their way, like Tatsumi did. They also mention that any one of them can receive divine retribution for the people they murder. It ultimately comes down to the people who kill for the corrupt capital, or the people who kill to stop them.
  • Bloody Murder: The finger type teigu Black Marlin's secret skill is this.
  • Blue with Shock: Tatsumi does this quite often, particularly when first meeting several of the Night Raid members.
  • Boom, Headshot!: Mine does this to a guard in the first chapter after he tries to run away from them.
  • Break the Cutie: Tatsumi quickly learns about how corrupt and awful the Imperial capital is after finding out his two friends were tortured and killed, and it only gets worse from there. By the time Mine is in a coma and Incursio has started to overtake him, Akame notes that he's stopped smiling completely.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: The characters sometimes deliberately do this, referencing other series in the same magazine they're serialized in. In fact, in one chapter Mine was jokingly threatening Tatsumi to banish him into other series in the same magazine with what looks like a Wheel of Fortune roulette, with the odds heavily stacked in favor of horror titles like Corpse Party and the When They Cry series. In case you are uninformed, this series is serialized in the Monthly Gangan Joker magazine.
    • In the last episode of the Theater (a series of omakes that White Fox did along the main series), Run mentions to Leone his death in the manga, as in the anime he survives.
  • Breather Episode:
    • Chapter 22 takes a break from all the fighting and killing that normally goes on in the show, and instead focuses on Night Raid finding and establishing a new base, and some surprisingly tender moments between Esdeath and some of her crew.
    • Despite Seryu killing off some bandits and Chelsea executing a corrupt official, Chapter 28 largely acts as one, with Najenda explaining to the others about the plans to overthrow the Empire. They even sneak in some Beach Episode scenes, in which the girls are playing around a lake in their bikinis. The episode ends right after Kurome summons several dead targets she's killed in the past and now obey her, including a large Danger Beast.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Happens to Leone in episode 24, when the Prime Minster reveals his Imperial Arms which strips another user of their arms. He then proceeds to shoot her multiple times, though she manages to kill him first.
  • Boulder Bludgeon: Dorothea modified her own body to the point that she's able to survive having her neck broken. Leone responds to this by picking up a giant boulder and crushing Dorothea's entire body with it.
  • Bullying a Dragon: The man who foolishly attacks Mine in chapter 20 after he survives an encounter with Tatsumi and even manages to hurt the latter a little. He jumps at her ready to attack with his weapon, Extase/Ecstacy, Sheele's weapon, only to then be vaporized by her gunfire.
  • Camp Gay: Dr Stylish
  • Captain Ersatz: A tan, mysterious man in tattered robes with an X-shaped scar on his face? Hello, Scar.
  • Carnival of Killers: A subversion of the usual formula since the Carnival of Killers are the protagonists. Night Raid accepts assassination contracts on the corrupt and powerful.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower:
    • River casually removes a guy's head by swinging his arm to the side. Najenda does the same to a general with a kick.
    • Tatsumi's first appearance involves him slicing down a Godzilla-sized monster with ease.
  • A Child Shall Lead Them: The innocent and naive Emperor.
  • Cliffhanger:
    • At the end of episode 12, Esdeath coincidentally runs into Tatsumi again while both of them were hunting Danger Beasts which was actively killing people separately. The episode ends with Esdeath putting her heel down on the Danger Beast she promptly cut down, and Tatsumi unable to run away from her.
    • Kurome, Bols, and Wave run into an ambush set up by Night Raid in chapter 29. At first it seems they're outnumbered, especially after Wave is knocked far away by Susanoo, but then Kurome starts to summon lots of dead bodies, including a rather large Danger Beast. The chapter ends as several of the Night Raid members look at the Danger Beast summoned by Kurome.
    • At the end of episode 16, Bols attempts to blow himself up, along with Akame and Leone.
  • Close-Call Haircut: Tatsumi receives one from Mine in chapter 4 while holding onto an Imperial bodyguard so she can snipe him.
  • Collapsing Lair: Tatsumi, knowing he's outmatched by a weaker Suzuka in chapter 38, deliberately lures her into the abandoned building near where they were fighting. He purposely starts destroying the building to prevent her from being able to counter his attacks like she'd been doing prior. It works and Suzuka gets crushed under one of the falling pieces.
  • Color Failure: Wave attempts to cheer up Seryu in chapter 22 after Dr. Stylish, who gave her some new weaponry, was killed by Night Raid. Instead he sees Esdeath comforting her with a Cooldown Hug, and goes white while looking like a complete fool for trying to sound so manly.
  • Comically Missing the Point: In chapter 28, as Najenda describes the latest assassination target, a spy inside a religious organization that's been putting drugs into the food to make obedient followers, Lubbock gets angry that he may be taking advantage of the female followers. Meanwhile, Susanoo gets upset that he's poisoning the food, and both of them vow that the spy must die, though for completely different reasons. Najenda even points out that they're getting angry at that guy for the wrong reasons.
  • Cool Big Sis: Leone tends to act this way from time to time, especially towards Tatsumi.
  • Crapsaccharine World: Seems like a nice place so it can only get worse. Tatsumi is provided shelter by a family of nobles who turn out to do this so they can torture the poor country people who venture in to the big city. And that's just the surface. Once The Masquerade is lifted, you can really see how bad of a state the Empire is in. The Capital has become a Wretched Hive, being horribly corrupt and run by a total madman. The countryside isn't much better, with the various villages being taxed into oblivion, and getting obliterated by Imperial troops and assassins when they rebel.
  • Crippling Castration: In chapter 52, Lubbock suffers from some severe torture, including having one of his testicles crushed. Subverted, since he not only resists all attempts to extract information but even manages to kill his tormentor.
  • Crossover: Volume 7 has a 2-pages crossover with Arachnid, showing Lubbock and Tatsumi in that series' modern world. The whole first page is spent with Lubbo wondering what the female characters of both series should be doing on the next page... just for it to be Kamadouma and Bulat, two secondary Macho Camp characters, sharing a handshake.
  • Cruel Mercy: Lubbock tells Tatsumi in chapter 16 about how Najenda viewed Esdeath's treatment of a tribe that rebelled against the Empire. While she and her crew were pretty merciless, she decides to let some of them live. They vow vengeance, but she simply tells them to get stronger, or else be crushed underneath by those stronger than they are. Tatsumi can't help but wonder if said mercy was merely rubbing salt in the wound. Lubbock says Esdeath does it on purpose to foster more resentment towards the Empire, so that it'll lead to more rebellions, which she can then crush.
  • Cruel to Be Kind: Akame treats Tatsumi rather cold and harshly in chapter 3, especially while training him. He thinks that she doesn't respect his abilities, and goes on his first mission to prove that he's a capable fighter and assassin. Later Leone reveals to him that she acted that way because she didn't want him to get overconfident and die.
  • Culture Chop Suey: In what is generally a European style setting, you have very clearly eastern styled martial arts temples and a lead character who uses a katana, with no one calling attention to it. Combined with the Anachronism Stew elements, and you have a very strange setting.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • Tatsumi slays a large earth dragon on his own at the beginning of the first chapter.
    • Night Raid quickly dispatches the guards of the mansion Tatsumi was staying at. After witnessing said battle, Tatsumi is a bit scared to go against them, but forces himself to in order to defend Aria from Akame.
    • Many of Night Raid's other battles usually consist of this too.
    • One of the Jägers' first missions was to destroy a group of bandits. They destroy the bandits with little effort.
    • Virtually anything opposing Esdeath tends to meet this fate, whether it's a gigantic monster several stories tall, or a Danger Beast that attempted to sneak up on her when she finds Tatsumi again after he ran away from her the first time. Only important characters wearing some Plot Armor last longer than a few scenes with her in battle.
    • Tatsumi suffers one from General Budo in episode 20. Though he manages to hold his ground for a while, he's eventually overpowered and captured.
  • Cure Your Gays: In Zero, Arc Villain and Psycho Lesbian Merraid Oarburgh's life's goal is, essentially, to invert this, as she attempts to seduce as many women as possible and "convert" them to lesbianism. As both Chelsea and Akame can attest, she's apparently not overly concerned with consent in achieving this goal.
  • Cute and Psycho:
    • Seryu. Helps lost travelers around town and nearly orgasms at the thought of slaughtering bandits.
    • Esdeath after falling in love with Tatsumi.
    • Also Kurome.
  • Cuteness Proximity: Mine sees a cat in chapter 23, and attempts to ignore it. But it keeps meowing at her, and Mine reluctantly gives her cake to it. Said cat turns out to be Chelsea, who was using her power of deception to trick her.
  • Cute Clumsy Girl: Sheele, an assassin who mistakes salt for sugar and washes Mine with the clothes while doing the laundry.
  • Cycle of Revenge: As characters on both sides fall, it becomes increasingly apparent that a hunger for vengeance only breeds more vengeance.
  • Dark Action Girl: Esdeath, Kurome and Seryu from the Jägers, Suzuka and Mez from the Rakshasha Demons and Dorothea and Cosmina from Wild Hunt.
  • Death by Adaptation: Since the anime began to go its own route by Episode 19, the anime has also killed off a few characters who haven't met their demise in the manga.
    • Suzuka survives being crushed by rocks in the manga, but anime presumes she died.
    • Mine has been killed in episode 21 of the anime. In the manga, she survives the equivalent scene, albeit in coma.
    • The next episode kills off Kurome who is still alive in the manga.
    • Even Tatsumi dies in the anime's final battle, while in the manga he survives both defeating the Emperor and Akame seemingly killing him to keep him from being consumed by Tyrant. The downside is that he remains stuck in a draconian form.
  • Death by Origin Story: Tatsumi's two companions don't make it past the first chapter. In fact one of them has already died when he discovers them, and the other dies shortly afterwards.
  • A Death in the Limelight: One is seen in chapter 9, as Sheele is slowly dying, she does one final move to distract the Imperial troops so Mine can escape. A few Flash Back scenes are shown of her time in Night Raid before she's killed.
  • Death Seeker: Zank the Beheader.
  • Death Flag: Literally almost every character has at least a couple. Nobody is safe.
  • Defiant to the End: Ieyasu tells Tatsumi that Sayo never gave in to the torture she was subjected to.
  • Delaying Action: Lubbock does this in chapter 35 when two of the Rakhasa demons attack a rebel spy. He had planned to play dead after getting hit by one of them, but in the end attempts to save her life. He ultimately succeeds when his flashy attacks distract them long enough for the girl to escape, and tries to make a break for it as well. The two demons chase after him, so he ends up killing both of them.
  • Deus ex machina At the end of the story, Tatsumi has been physically turned into a dragon by Incursio, and the dragon that Incursio was forged from is threatening to take over mentally. Tatsumi asks Akame to kill him before he loses himself completely, so she stabs him with her sword, a sword that WILL kill anything it cuts, no ifs, ands, or buts. Tatsumi still survives because it just so happens instead of killing Tatsumi/the dragon's physical body, the sword killed the dragon's consciousness, allowing Tatsumi's consciousness to fully take over the dragon's body despite there being no previous foreshadowing that the sword would work like that. However, this is downplayed by the extreme abnormality of the situation.
  • Deuteragonist: Despite being introduced as an antagonist Wave ends up taking on this role as of the Wild Hunt arc. He's given the same amount of Character Development as Tatsumi, his expression of dislike for The Empire and plans to change it from within make him come off more as a second protagonist. Especially made all the more apparent when Wave is arguably more "heroic" than Tatsumi.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: Ieyasu, who is suffering from a fatal disease, and stayed alive long enough through sheer willpower to see Tatsumi one last time.
  • Dies Differently in Adaptation: Esdeath, the Prime Minister, and the Emperor die in the manga and anime, though Esdeath dies alone in battle and the Prime Minister winds up dying by piece-by-piece mutilation. Leone dies as well, though she suffers a Rasputinian Death before ultimately dying exactly as she did in the anime Elaboration .
  • Disproportionate Retribution: In chapter 28, Seryu is standing before two men and a woman all tied up, who claim they aren't part of Night Raid. They say that they simply stole food to survive, and haven't even killed anyone. Seryu then tells them that they admitted to stealing, and has Coro eat the two men. The woman begs for a fair trial, claiming the men forced her to help. Seryu instead kills her with a sword. Wave also begins to confirm his hunch that the Capital may not be the shining beacon of light that he heard about after Seryu seems a bit too cheerful in having killed criminals.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: In chapter 18 of Zero, Tsukushi is dropped by a vicious kick to the stomach. The following panel where she's sprawled out on the floor looks like something from a hentai doujin, especially as the black and white art makes the vomit from her mouth look like something else.
  • Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male:
    • Tatsumi on the receiving end of the female characters attacks are usually seen as more comedic than dangerous. Even in his first encounter with Akame, she doesn't really even attack him, and instead just toys with him to get around him to go after her target behind him.
    • Esdeath's hyper-possessive Villainous Crush on Tatsumi isn't portrayed very sympathetically, but her slapping a collar onto Tatsumi, saying that he belongs to her, and literally kidnapping him is Played for Laughs.
    • Tatsumi receives a pretty brutal smacking from Najenda after he asks about her age in chapter 28.
  • Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Averted. While women abusing men is often played as a joke, there have been instances of women sexually assaulting men (most infamously Cosmina in the theater raid at chapter 45) which are portrayed seriously.
  • The Dog Bites Back: After Leone fatally injures Minister Honest and leaves him to the rebels, They along with countless citizens brutally tortured Minister Honest to death as revenge for this tyranny and cruelty.
  • Do with Him as You Will: At the end of the series, Leone leaves Honest to the mercy of the citizens he's been terrorizing.
  • Did You Think I Can't Feel?: Tatsumi assumes Akame is still Stoic after Sheele's death, but when comforted about it, Akame breaks down in tears, saying she does feel remorse over Sheele's death, Tatsumi has a huge realization over this, and makes a promise to never make Akame sad again.
  • Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Tatsumi displays some when Aria first offers to help him, growing suspicious after having lost all his money to Leone.
  • Dwindling Party: Especially later on in the anime/manga. Including newcomers Chelsea and Susanoo, the Night Raid consisted of ten members. How many are alive now? Five in the manga, two in the anime. The Jaegars started off with seven members. How many are alive now? Three in the manga, two in the anime.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: The Path of Peace religion is briefly referenced in the first chapter, when the leader of Tatsumi's village gives him an idol from the religion to protect him and his friends. It saves Tatsumi's life when it stops a blow from Akame's sword and isn't mentioned again afterwards. That is until nearly 30 chapters later when Night Raid plans to gain the leader of said religion as an ally in the war against the empire, especially since said leader is in danger of assassination.
  • Empathic Environment: When any hero dies, it tends to rain during or shortly after their final moments.
  • Empathic Weapon: The Imperial Arms, for one choose their wielders, and at least some, such as Roman Artillery: Pumpkin are said to be empowered by their owners mental state, in a Heroic Willpower fashion. Susanoo and Koro are more literal examples, as they are Teigus with live and feelings.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: Many teigu users are very formidable fighters even without them. Notably elite units like Night Raid, the Jägers and the Wild Hunt have numerous such individuals in their ranks.
  • Enemy Mine:
    • Night Raid and the Jägers deal with Danger Beasts attacking civilians in chapter 25. Though they were largely doing this separately it still helps to take care of the threat, and Esdeath manages to run into Tatsumi again while she goes out hunting.
    • Akame and Kurome's duel in episode 22 is interrupted by a Danger Beast that awakens during their fighting. They both stop fighting each other to deal with the creature, and as soon as it's dead, they go right back to fighting each other.
    • Wave and Run both end up helping Night Raid to stop the Emperor from destroying the capital in episode 23 after they realize that he's going too far randomly nuking innocent people.
  • Establishing Character Moment: Tatsumi in the first chapter kills a huge earth dragon on his own. He then tells the two men he saved that he's going to the capital to make a name for himself and earn some money to help out his village. They warn him that the capital isn't as bright and cheery as he thinks, and he quickly learns that they weren't kidding.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In Chapter 10, Tatsumi has just killed a corrupt bureaucrat. As he's leaving, the target's young son wanders in to discover the carnage.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Though Run starts out fighting against Night Raid in episode 23, he end up helping them to protect civilians. Wave also saves Tatsumi partly because of owing him for an earlier incident where he saved the former, and like Run, doesn't like watching the Emperor kill innocent people.
  • Evil Chancellor: The Prime Minister.
  • Evil Counterpart: Tatsumi and Wave (Though Wave is not really evil) as well as Akame and Kurome. They even share a similar relationship to Tatsumi and Wave respectively.
    • On a larger scale the Wild Hunt is this to both Night Raid and the Jägers. The latter two are not exactly the most upstanding of individuals as they are the Rebellion's assassination outfit and the Empire's wetworks crew respectively. The Wild Hunt tops them by being nothing more than psychotic murderers who indulge in wanton cruelty for little to no reason.
  • Exact Words: In chapter 13 there are three Teigu users are on a ship and the narration states only one Teigu user would leave alive. The survivor is none of the three fighting.
  • The Executioner: Zanku the Beheader started as an Imperial executioner, and became a Serial Killer after going crazy from the guilt of killing so many people.
  • Face Death with Dignity: In chapter 78 of the manga, the Emperor shows this, despite his naïvety and young age. This is in direct contrast to the death of the Prime Minister, a handful of pages earlier.
  • Fangs Are Evil: As an aesthetic, most villainous characters are shown with fangs. Subverted by a few characters who sometimes sport Cute Little Fangs, including Leone and Mine.
  • Fat Bastard:
    • The Prime Minister.
    • Champ of the Wild Hunt.
    • One of the Enthusiasts from Chapter 23.5
  • Fate Worse than Death:
    • A politician in chapter 11 is attacked by Esdeath's three bodyguards. The daughter of the politician, who is also one of his bodyguards, goes out to face them along with his other guards, but they are quickly killed by Daidara. Though she gets cut in the attack, she survives it. Nyau then walks up to her, brandishes a knife, and says that her surviving that attack is going to be bad due to what he was about to do to her next. She gets skinned alive by him, though he says she died from the shock before he was done cutting her.
    • The girls in Chapter 23.5 get this at the hands of some particularly twisted nobles in the form of Cold-Blooded Torture of various kinds.
  • Fingore: Chelsea's fingers on her left hand gets sliced off in chapter 33 while attempting to escape from Kurome after a failed assassination attempt.
  • First Kiss: Tatsumi's first kiss goes to Esdeath.
  • Flechette Storm: it seems that the teigu Mastema is capable of this.
  • Food as Bribe: Chelsea is introduced to Akame by playing with the latter's hair, which bothers her a little bit. She then offers a lollipop to the latter, and Akame instantly welcomes her to the group.
  • Four-Star Badass: In this world, being sufficiently powerful is the only real criteria for becoming a general of the Empire. This leads to some ridiculously young generals like Esdeath and Najenda who look like they're in their teens when they did the campaign against the Southern tribals.
  • Gecko Ending: An odd example where (aside from a major arc and team of villains being excised), the anime still largely hits all the same beats as the manga. However, it differs in that in the anime, Mine dies of her wounds from killing Budo, Kurome is killed by Akame, and Tatsumi dies from overexertion from stopping the Emperor. Run also survives. In the manga, Mine is put into a coma from her battle with Budo but awakens at the very end, Kurome is saved by Wave's intervention during her fight with Akame, Run dies during the aforementioned arc that was cut, and Tatsumi doesn't die but does permanently get turned into a dragon by Incursio. Akame also chooses to immediately disappear after the war to serve as a convenient scapegoat for everything Night Raid did in the anime, where in the manga she continues to serve as an assassin for Najenda to get rid of any remaining corrupt elements that would get in the way of a peaceful rebuilding before choosing to leave to find a cure for the curse her body is under.
  • Get A Hold Of Yourself Man:
    • Tatsumi is punched by Bulat in chapter 9 when he vows revenge for his friend's death, Sheele at the hands of Seryu. He is told that simply charging in for vengeance is only going to increase the body count. Bulat also reminds him that he was told they could die at any time. Regardless, Mine swears to kill Seryu someday. She eventually does, but not the way she wants to...
    • Though he doesn't get slapped, Tatsumi is again reminded of how the people he's worked with could die at any time, and that they must bear the burden of their fallen comrades. Leone also points out that he wasn't the only one who lost someone, and reminds him of how Najenda lost Susanoo when he performed a You Shall Not Pass! moment with Esdeath to buy them time to escape after rescuing him.
  • Girl with Psycho Weapon: Sheele's giant scissors, and Seryu after her Deadly Upgrade.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: Enforced on Tatsumi when he's abducted by Esdeath, and later when the two of them are sent to a tropical island courtesy of Syura. He's not nearly strong enough to overpower them, so simply goes along with them and does what he can to learn more about his enemies. While spending time on the island with Esdeath, Tatsumi also learns that he's not going to be able to convince Esdeath to switch sides, mostly due to her upbringing about how only the strong survive.
  • Good Old Fisticuffs: Leone's preferred method of attack. She also kills Honest this way, by simply punching his face in until she smashes his skull.
  • The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: During the Wild Hunt arc, The Night Raid (mostly good), Jaeggers (bad), and Wild Hunt (evil) respectively. The Night Raid are a group of assassins looking to overthrow a corrupt government to create a just society. The Jaeggers are Knight Templars who are upholding the justice of a corrupt empire. The Wild Hunt are a group of unrepentant murderers and rapists abusing their power.
  • Gorn: Everywhere in every fight, but particularly present in Sheele's death.
  • Gory Discretion Shot:
    • In episode 6 of the anime, Sheele's moment of death is cutaway, and instead a crunching sound is heard as her weapon falls to the ground. The camera then focuses on said weapon for a few moments.
    • Nyau, who cuts off people's faces so he can use them as masks. He says that the girl he was doing this to in episode 8 died from the shock, and as the camera pans up to her now lifeless body, it's mostly blacked out.
    • The manga tends to show more of the violence (including the face-skinning mentioned above), but even Takahiro was unwilling to show what the Wild Hunt did to Bors' family.
    • Averted in episode 24 with Prime Minister Honest's death. The camera lingers on his body for a moment after he's killed.
  • Got Volunteered: In chapter 3, Tatsumi gets a little too passionate when he says Ogre needs to be killed due to his abuse of power and sentencing innocent people to death. He then assigned to kill Ogre.
  • Go Out with a Smile: A great many characters tend to do this in series both on the side of the JEAGERS and especially of Night Raid, inspite of how horrible a great many of their deaths were they passed on with good graces.
    • Sheele in particular had a rather heart wrenching moment. Shot through the chest, bitten clean in half and chewed to bits but still had enough care to give a loving smile to Mine as she assisted in her escape. Her only regret in life was that she couldn't cradle Tatsumi anymore.
    • Bulat was dying of fatal blood poisoning from Liver's suicide attack but he still had enough life in him to bequeath the pupil his teigu, albeit after knocking some sense into him first due to his hesitation. Once Tatsumi managed to equip Incrusio and beat the ever living daylights out of the last mini-boss, the latter could finally pass on without regrets.
    • Susanoo the living teigu gave it his all when he proposed to act as the barricade to impede Esdeath's advance on the rest of Night Raid, his last moments truly were a blaze of glory. One for the record books in fact; but the topper to it all was his liking of having met such steadfast comrades before he died.
    • Subverted horrifically with Run; after finally ganking the douchebag who murdered and raped his school children. He felt he could pass on hoping Wave and Kurome could fix the rot within the empire in his place, only for Kurome to stab him with her necrosword in order to keep him around. His final expression speaks volumes.
    • Lubbock's end was the practicality of tragic, fought to escape and save his friend and fellow inmate of the empire only to be cut down grievously in the end. Surprisingly, however, he went out at peace with himself knowing and thinking he did good by the woman he loved.
    • Inverted regarding Tatsumi; for while in the anime, he gave an empathetic farewell to Akame after having saved a bunch of civilians from being crushed under the Emperor's teigu, but in the manga he has yet to bite it having had several close calls to prove it. One in particular would be when he was set for a mock execution by Esdeath, where he noted all the jerkass spectators who were all chortling at his demise. In a "screw you" moment, he gave a smile as he was about to be murdered; as a means of honoring his service to Night Raid and to spit on the expectations of a pathetic whimpering end.
    • Again Inverted with Mine, while in the anime she died in a blast against Great General Budo with the lightning from his attack rebounding on her as she eviscerated him. Smiling gently he bid Tatsumi an I love you kiss before she died in his arms. In the manga the Beam Struggle was more pronounced lasting a lot longer than it's previous incarnation, as a result even though Mine won out the battle she ended up in a coma; before that however she gave a loving grin as she had won to save her beloved as she collapsed.
  • Gratuitous Foreign Language: The series has quite a bit of this. Most of these are examples of Gratuitous German, the most prominent being "Jägers," which translates to "hunters," and these are all throughly mispronounced in the anime (e.g. "Jägers" is pronounced as though it were English: in German, the letter "j" is pronounced like an English consonantal "y," not an English "j"). The anime also has its first opening theme in Romani — the language of the Romani people (who were once referred to as "Gypsies").
  • Green-Eyed Monster:
    • Aria is quite jealous of Sayo's smooth skin and hair, which is why she personally tortured Tatsumi's friend to death, This what led to her getting killed by a vengeful Tatsumi.
    • Played with during Tastumi's public execution when Mine came to save her boyfriend. one could practically see and feel the jealousy ebbing from Esdese's eyes.
  • Grey Rain of Depression: This series LOVES to abuse the shit out this trope, it would be comical how many times this was used if the scenes were not so sad. This usually occurs whenever a Night Raid member dies. But to be fair, in recent chapters, Takahiro does seem to realize that it does not ALWAYS rain whenever someone dies.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be:
    • Aria's mother suffers this fate in the first chapter, and is sliced in half by a member of the Night Raid terrorist group.
    • Sheele gets ripped into half by Seryu's Teigu, Coro. Mine herself returns the favor to Seryu by using her Teigu as a Laser Blade However, Seyru is STILL alive despite that and attempts to give Mine a horrible death via Suicide bombing, A fate that Tatsumi rescued Mine from.
    • A random Revolutionary Army soldier suffers this from Esdeath when she freezes half of his body in episode 22. The other half then falls off from the frozen section.
  • Happily Married: Bols from Jägers has been this for six years. Until he is killed in action and his family gets raped and killed on top of his grave.
  • Hate at First Sight: Mine doesn't like Chelsea at all, mostly because the latter makes fun of her, such as her pointing out her small chest.
  • Gutted Like a Fish: Tatsumi kills Aria this way as revenge for torturing Sayo, Ieyasu and countless other civilians to death.
  • Hate Sink:
    • Prime Minster Honest contrasts the admirable traits of General Esdeath as a selfish hedonist who devotes himself only to causing suffering and his own pleasure. Regularly tormenting or killing the citizens of the Empire, Honest spends near the entirety of his page time smugly gloating about his crimes and when his own life is put in danger, cowardly flees to save himself, firmly establishing himself as one of the most disgusting characters in the work.
    • Syura is Honest's equally contemptible son and along with his squad, the Wild Hunt, uses the authority bestowed upon them to conduct rapes and murders at their leisure, under the guise of upholding the law. Lacking the nobility and standards of their rival group the Jägers, Wild Hunt are never portrayed as anything more than brutes from the moment of their introduction, even raping the wife and child of a fallen Jaeger on his grave.
    • Champ is a Monster Clown who manages to become a specific target of hatred even in the low bar of Wild Hunt. A Serial Rapist and Serial Killer of children, he desires to take as many as he can before they grow to adulthood and in a particularly disgusting moment, even has trouble remembering some of his victims due to sheer volume.
    • Aria and her parents are seemingly kind nobles who lure commoners into their home to butcher them. An early representation of the Empire's elite being given free rein to torment their lessers, their sickening handiwork being seen in the countless bodies of tortured travelers they keep in their estate.
    • Seryu is an abusive psychopath who slaughters innocent people in the "name of justice", Mocks Mine and even heckles her when planning to kill her via suicide bombing.
  • Healing Factor: Leone has this thanks to the power of her Teigu. The biological Teigus Susanoo and Koro have an even faster version.
  • Healing Spring: Mine is seen resting in a hot spring while recovering from a broken arm, implying this trope to some degree.
  • Hellish Pupils: Esdeath displays one after Wave loses her love interest/slash kidnapping interest.
  • Helping Would Be Kill Stealing: Wave intervenes to save Kurome from Akame in episode 22 during the girl's duel to the death. However, Tatsumi ends up intercepting him, and Wave learns that Kurome wants to finish this fight on her own, or else she would never be able to move on. He obliges and ends up watching the fight along with Tatsumi. In the anime, this ends with Kurome getting killed by Akame. She then gives her sister's body to Wave for a proper burial.
  • Heroic Canines, Villainous Felines: Totally inverted, to the point that one suspects Takahiro is a cat person. Leone is one of the main protagonists, and her Imperial Arms gives her cat-like abilities. Chelsea is also shown transforming into a kitten at one point. Meanwhile, Seryu Ubiquitous has an Imperial Arms resembling a small dog— and she's one of the nastiest villains in the series. Also, the only other dog we see in the manga belongs to one of the "Enthusiasts" of the capital, who forces young girls to have sex with it.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Tatsumi gains an 11th-Hour Superpower while battling the Emperor in episode 23, which allows him to stop the latter's madness. Unfortunately it takes a heavy toll on him, particularly when he uses his remaining strength to keep the Emperor's gigantic Imperial Arms from hitting innocent civilians.
  • Hero Killer:
    • Taking into account that this is a series in when nobody is safe, the manga is full of antagonists that have killed some of the heroes. Examples includes Seryu (who killed Sheele), Liver (who killed Bulat), Kurome (who killed Chelsea), Esdeath (who killed Susanoo) and Izou (who killed Lubbock).
    • In the anime storyline, Budo, The Emperor and Honest are also this, as they were responsible for the deaths of Mine, Tatsumi and Leone, respectively.
  • High-Pressure Blood:
    • The Earth Dragon suffers from this by Tatsumi.
    • Several of Night Raid's victims also do this.
    • Seryu suffers this as Sheele cuts her arms off in chapter 9, She attempts to do the same to Mine via Suicide Bombing, but fails thanks to Tatsumi.
    • The Danger Beast that attacks Kurome and Akame in episode 22.
  • Horrible Judge of Character: The Emperor, being a child, is understandably naive to the true nature of his Prime Minister.
  • Hot-Blooded: Tatsumi was this until Bulat told him to control his emotions better.
  • Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: The epilogue for Tatsumi and Mine states that they had multiple children. This is despite Tatsumi ending the series permanently stuck as a giant dragon. Mine was pregnant before he transformed permanently, but unless she had twins or something, that doesn't account for the epilogue saying they had children, plural. However, the inside cover for volume 1.5 hints that Akame might figure out how to fix Tatsumi's condition while handling her own, which would avert it entirely.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each manga chapter/anime episode is titled with a "Kill X," with "X" being various things such as "the Darkness" or "the Authority." The anime's last episode's however is a Title Drop instead (the manga instead uses "Kill the Empire").
  • I Am Not Left-Handed: Several of the main characters use their trump cards at various points, such as Esdeath freezing time and space in her fight against Susanoo. Akame then slices herself with her sword and gains some demonic powers to help her get around Esdeath's trump card and to kill her.
  • Idiot Ball:
    • Seriously Bolic, did you really think that trying to rape a woman who: A) isn't dead and B) has a healing ability, in the middle of a death battle is a good idea?
    • Great General Budo despises Prime Minister Honest and openly plans on "dealing with him" for the sake of the Empire. A group of revolutionaries just so happen to have the exact same plan as him and are plotting a rebellion again Honest with a group of very skilled assassins (i.e Night Raid). One would expect that Budo would at least flirt with the idea of allying himself with this revolutionary group who has the exact same end goal as him. Instead, Budo opposes the revolution, stating that he alone would kill Honest.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
    • One of the guards in the first chapter suffers this fate by Bulat's giant spear.
    • Lubbock is able to manipulate his Razor Floss Imperial Arms into a spear that he then usually hurls at his opponents. If the impaling doesn't outright kill them, the strings encircling their heart before destroying it will. Lubbock himself suffers from this after he kills Syura in episode 20 using this method.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy:
    • One of the guards fires a gun at Akame in chapter 1. None of them hit her as she closes in for the kill.
    • A similar scene also occurs in the opening, with imperial troops firing on the Night Raid members but missing every shot.
  • Killed Off for Real: It's quite common in the series, especially with regards to those in Night Raid, the Jaegars and the Empire. Early on in the series, Daidara and Liver are killed by Bulat, Bulat dies of Liver's poison, Shelle is eaten alive by Koro, Chelsea is offed by Kurome and Seryu blows herself up in an attempt to murder Mine. There's also the annihilation of Wild Hunt and Lubbock's death at the end of the Wild Hunt arc. The last few chapters are spectacularly fatal with Esdeath being killed off by Akame, Honest suffering a Cruel and Unusual Death at the hands of the resistance forces, the emperor being beheaded and Leone dying from her wounds.
  • Kill It with Fire: Rubicante, a flamethrower type teigu.
  • Laughably Evil:
    • Despite how dark is Akame ga Kill! and how evil, cruel and ruthless are the antagonists of the series, surprisingly, a lot of them are actually really funny and have many moments of fun. The Jägers, being the most developed and least evil villains of the series takes the cake in this regard with scenes like Wave freaking out for his new partners, Bols having a shy personality in a huge body, Dr. Stylish's campy nature in general and even Esdeath's moments with Tatsumi (keep in mind she is a sadistic, psycho woman) are really hilarious.
    • Even some of the minor antagonists have their moments, like Liver telling his partners about cooking a meal for having success in a mission (he is an awful cook, by the way) or Suzuka fawning over Esdeath guided by her masochistic nature and the huge crush she has for the general.
    • However, the most surprising case is the one of Honest, the Big Bad of the series. In his case, his hilarity comes from being so irredeemable that his evil deeds ends up being funny. One of his most memorable moments in this aspect is when he hears about Syura's death and starts to cry, mourning his son, only to stop some seconds after with a really hilarious face and start to diminish his son and wanting to have another one soon.
  • Lecherous Licking: During Chapter 23.5, one of the Enthusiasts stares creepily at the three girls, and says that he "loves licking girls like them." His tongue hangs out of his mouth as he leers at Luna, making it obvious that he wants to enact this trope.
  • Lighter and Softer: Zig-zagged. Because the anime decided to skip the Wild Hunt arch and went with the anime original ending, some of the more controversial content from the manga such as the rape of Bols's wife and daughter was never shown. On the other hand, the anime kills off more characters than in the manga (since some of the characters in the manga are still alive as of this date), but some of the good-hearted characters such as Run, Bols's wife and daughter, and the three girls from chapter 23.5, Luna, Fal and Air are alive in the anime.
  • Love at First Sight: Esdeath falls for Tatsumi after watching him win the tournament in chapter 16. So when he wins the tournament, she goes to greet him personally. While he's expecting a cash payment, she instead puts a leash on him, then knocks him out and takes him into the palace.
  • Love Hurts: Tatsumi's repeated escape attempts from Esdeath leaves her longing for him. And even when he's captured and imprisoned later, she personally wants to execute him, though he again barely manages to escape. When he's finally killed at the end of episode 23, she goes with her usual "he was too weak to survive" bit in episode 24. But then she wonders what this feeling in her heart is after seeing his corpse.
  • Lust Makes You Dumb: Some antagonists tend to let their sexual urges drive them even in the worst possible moments. Examples include:
    • Bolic, a spy under Prime Minister Honest, drugs the female followers of the Path of Peace into becoming obedient slaves and sex toys and is also a Smug Snake and Dirty Coward. When Night Raid clashes with Esdeath's forces, he tries to rape an injured Leone in the middle of a battlefield instead of running for cover. Leone grabs him by the legs and gives Akame the opportunity to kill him.
    • Cosmina of Wild Hunt tends to indulge in sexual activities and flirt with men. When she tries to rape Run in the middle of a battlefied, she gets shot by Mine in the chest for her trouble. She does survive this but would end up being experimented on by Dorothea and become a mindless monster.
    • Among Syura's acts of Stupid Evil include rape, and he actually tries to rape Kurome, a skilled assassin under General Esdeath's command. This not only would have earned him her ire, but also threaten Honest's alliance with her. When Wave comes to Kurome's rescue, rather than let Budo's interference settle the issue, he goads Wave into a public duel so he won't be able to hide the consequences. It's only Budo's obsession with "not spilling blood in the imperial castle" that spared his life.
    • The corrupt noble Bach orders his men and dogs to rape Air, Fal, and Luna. When he lets Air go, she would explain to Leone what he's done to Fal and Luna, allowing Night Raid to target and kill him.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Seryu fires tons of rockets at Tatsumi and Mine in chapter 37.
  • Made of Iron: Sten is impaled by Lubbock and laughs it off. Justified as he and the other Rakshasa Demons underwent special training which made them practically superhuman.
  • Male Gaze: Sprinkled in generously all throughout the anime.
  • Master Swordsman: Akame, obviously. Izou fits the bill as well.
  • Making a Splash: The teigu Black Marlin.
  • Market-Based Title: For some obscure reason, the manga is published in France under the title "Red Eyes Sword."
  • Marshmallow Hell: Tatsumi winds up on the receiving end with both Leone and Esdeath.
  • Mauve Shirt: There are a few recurring members of the Night Raid who remain nameless yet manage to survive for extended periods of time. This includes the couple who saved Lubbock after he collapsed during the Church Assassination arc and the second Night Raid owner of Extase, Sheele's teigu. They all managed to survive to the end of the story.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Esdese is a wordplay on "S" desu.
    • "Schere" is the German word for "scissors" (guess what her teigu looks like).
    • Kalbi is named after the German word for "calf," "Kalb," because his head looks like that of a bull.
    • "Neuntöter" ("Nine-Killer") is a lance with a medium-length blade at the end and is an auxiliary weapon of Incursio (wielded by Tatsumi only after he received Incursio as Bulat's last gift before his death).
    • Weißschnabel ("whitebeak") is an attack-move by Esdeath's Imperial Relic (spears of ice materialize from thin air and strike an opponent).
      • Grauhorn ("grayhorn") is another attack of hers and materializes a giant spear of ice.
      • Hagelsprung ("hailjump") is another attack of hers and materializes a giant sphere of ice.
      • Kaiser ("emperor") Frog, a giant frog with a very long prehensile tongue to seize opponents and dissolve them in his hyper-acidic stomach.
  • Metaphorically True: The opening page to chapter 13 states that only one Teigu user will leave the current battle alive. One would think that Bulat would be that one as he is the only hero in the fight with a Teigu. It is actually Tatsumi, who Bulat bequeaths his Teigu to before dying of poison.
  • Mistaken for Gay: In chapter 29, Lubbock accuses Tatsumi of being gay when the latter doesn't seem as interested in looking at the girls in their bikinis. Tatsumi states he's merely trying to focus on the mission, not the Fanservice.
  • Monster of the Week: The first few arcs center around Night Raid offing disgraceful elements of the Empire one by one.
  • Mood Whiplash: Can go from slapstick comedy to horrifying gorn and back again in a matter of seconds. The last few minutes of the first anime episode are a particularly extreme example, featuring gruesome murder, a tear-jerking deathbed speech, Bishie Sparkle, and silly face-faults in rapid succession.
  • Moral Myopia:
    • Two cases of this exist in episode 6. One in which it's essentially played straight, the other in which it's played into but ultimately averted. In fact, the similarities and differences inherent in both cases can even be said to set up one case as a foil to the other.
      • The straight case involves an Elite Mook of the Imperial Guard with an organic Teigu, Seryu Ubiquitous. When Tatsumi encounters her in episode 5 after getting lost in town, her strong sense of justice, warm demeanor, and faith in the punishment of evil initially makes her come across as a genuinely heroic upstart who just happens to be on the other side from Night Raid and might simply not be aware of what's happening with any of her corrupt leaders. However, come this episode she becomes a deconstruction of that idea entirely; when she encounters two known members of Night Raid she immediately starts becoming psychotic with her zeal to avenge the death of her captain, Ogre the Demon—who Night Raid had killed earlier for being a corrupt bastard, which in turn suggests that Seryu's loyalty to imperial justice might be more blind myopia than genuine innocent faith. This only worsens during the ensuing battle this only gets worse, especially with the reveal that she has guns implanted into her body and her perfect willingness to have her pet Teigu go berserk and overheat himself to take them out. By the time she and Koro manage to kill Sheele and force Mine to flee, her mask of sanity is entirely gone, as she goes on about the call of justice all the while Laughing Mad like a stereotypical villainous psycho. Even her fellow officers are afraid of her at this point, She does the Laughing mad apart when heckling Mine over dying from hersuicide attack.
      • The played with and averted case is Night Raid's reaction to that fight's aftermath. While Night Raid's main targets are abusers of privilege/authority similar to Ogre, they have no qualms about killing punch clock mooks who get in their way. Yet after Sheele's death, the emotionally driven rookie Tatsumi flies off the handle demanding to know who did this so he can go for revenge, while Mine, who was there as Sheele's partner in that fateful battle, is seething with vengeful hatred towards Seryu underneath an astonishingly uncharacteristic restraint. However, everyone aside from Tatsumi (initially, anyway) recognizes their own expendable position in this war. When he has his outburst the others promptly remind him that they all signed up for death battles when they joined the revolution the same as he did, as well as point out that Sheele's death wasn't in vain because the news will likely bolster the Empire into coming harder after them, increasing their chances of encountering and acquiring Teigu. Even Mine, despite her own lust for vengeance, acknowledges that Seryu was carrying out her own mission as well as avenging the death of someone she was loyal to to begin with.
      • This is the difference between Night Raid and Seryu. The gang understands that they are neither morally special nor exempt from the killer punishment they dish out, whereas Seryu's entire motivation and persona relies on being mercilessly blind to this about herself and the ones she serves.
  • Mugging the Monster: A couple of thugs in the first chapter try to mug Tatsumi. You can guess what happens next.
  • Musical Assassin: Nyau has the flute type teigu, Scream.
  • Mythology Gag: Several incidents in the anime are referenced in later chapters of the manga, including how the final battle turns out and Leone's death.
  • Naïve Newcomer: Tatsumi starts out as this, which makes him an easy target for Leone's teasing.
  • Neck Snap:
    • Akame delivers one to the Rakshasa Demon Ibara when he paralysed from wielding Murasame.
    • Lubbock often kills this way with his Teigu, Cross Thread, most memorably with Syura.
  • Nemesis Weapon:
    • Akame and her sister Kurome both wield swords whose special abilities deal specifically with death. Akame's Teigu Murasame is guaranteed to kill whoever gets cut by it, however small the cut, while Kurome's Teigu Yatsufusa raises its victims from the dead and enslaves them.
    • Tatsumi's Teigu Incursio is contrasted by Wave's Teigu Grand Chariot. Both weapons are Powered Armor of opposite colors, white/red and black/blue respectively, though Grand Chariot is considered a superior model. However Wave, being one of the nicest characters, isn't Tatsumi's Evil Counterpart, despite fighting for the opposite side.
    • Less prominent but still worth noting: Lubbock's Cross Tail and Dr. Stylish's Perfector are gloves that require genius levels of creativity from their users; Leone's Lionelle and Run's Mastema give them animalistic traits, feline and avian respectively; Najenda's Susanoo and Seryu's Koko are organic Teigu, meaning they have the traits of living beings.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • Tatsumi attempts to join the army in the first chapter, but doesn't like that he'd have to work his way up from the bottom. He tries to tell the enlistment officer to give him a chance to show off his skills, but also pulls his sword out on the man. He is then kicked out of the office, and told that they have a lot of applicants due to a recession.
    • Apparently, Esdeath never needed to create a secret technique, since no one's yet to come close to even injuring her. So why does she suddenly decide to create a technique? Her one true love,Tatsumi, successfully escaped her. What's even better is that Esdeath can now freeze time and space once a day, whenever she wants, and no one can counter it yet.
  • Nightmare Face: All over the place, but Seryu is a serious offender.
  • Nipple and Dimed: The manga will show the outline of nipples, but otherwise doesn't distinguish them from the rest of the breast. Zero has an odd approach, other women's nipples are shown, but not those from Akame's assassin squad(though Tsukushi's are depicted late in the series).
  • "No Peeking!" Request: In episode 12, Tatsumi tries peeking on Chelsea while she's bathing outdoors but he's the one surprised when he finds her waiting for him while wearing a Modesty Towel, and she explains she foresaw he would try doing it. She lets him go with a warning that if he ever tries peeking on her again she'll be "cutting it off".
  • No-Sell: Mine and Sheele's fight with Seryu and her arms Coro in chapter 9. No matter what attacks they use on Coro, it simply regenerates since its core is still intact despite the extensive damage it receives.
  • No Sense of Direction: Ieyasu, one of Tatsumi's friends, who got lost along with Sayo, the other person he left the village with. Tatsumi wonders if he'll even be able to find their meeting point in the capital.
  • Not Quite Dead: Chelsea finds this out the hard way after she tries to assassinate Kurome by stabbing her in the neck, only to find out that she merely wounded her.
  • Off with His Head!:
    • Zank the Beheader's specialty as well as hobby.
    • Chelsea suffers this fate at the end of chapter 33.
    • The two spies talking to Akame suffer this fate while talking to her in chapter 35. Ibara unfortunately beheaded both of them and attempts to kill Akame as well.
    • The Emperor suffers this fate via guillotine in episode 24.
  • Official Couple: Tatsumi and Mine. Also, Kurome and Wave, but only in the manga.
  • Oh, Crap!: Many characters have this look on their face right before they're killed, both heroes and villains.
  • One Cast Member per Cover: Most of the volume covers feature one of the female members of Night Raid or the Jaegers, although the male protagonist Tatsumi is on two covers of later volumes.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: Subverted. Leone is Brought Down to Normal in the final episode of the anime and is shot several times in the torso by the Prime Minister. She walks it off, but then bleeds to death later that night.
  • Only One Name: With the exception of Seryu, every single character of the series is only know by it's first name. Not even in the official guidebook their surnames are revealed.
  • Only Sane Man: Tatsumi and Wave in the Night Raid and Jaegars respectively.
  • Our Hero Is Dead: In the anime, Tatsumi dies stopping the defeated Emperor's Imperial Arms from smashing into a lot of people in episode 23.
  • Outdoor Bath Peeping: In episode 12, Tatsumi tries peeking on Chelsea while she's bathing outdoors but he's the one surprised when he finds her wearing a Modesty Towel, and she explains she foresaw he would try peeking. She lets him go with a warning that if she ever finds him peeking at her again she'll be "cutting it off."
  • Pajama-Clad Hero: Akame and Mine in chapter 21, when Night Raid's base is attacked while they were sleeping. Lubbock is quite pleased.
  • Pinocchio Nose: Tatsumi sports one in chapter 3 after he gloats to Akame over his first mission, and says he doesn't have a scratch on him. She immediately strips him to verify he didn't get hurt, though she explains that she wanted to make sure he didn't have a Secret Stab Wound.
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The members of Night Raid are supposedly assassins, but aside from Chelsea, they're rarely seen doing anything that could be considered assassination. More often, they engage in battles with other armed combatants.
  • The Plan: In chapter 28, Najenda finally explains to Tatsumi and the others what the Revolutionary Army is planning to do in order to overthrow the Empire. They plan to use armed uprisings within the capital itself, along with simultaneous attacks from allied forces using disgruntled Imperial officers to quickly surrender forts to force the Empire to face off against internal and external threats. Meanwhile Night Raid's main mission is to first take out the Jägers, then assassinate the Prime Minister.
  • Plot Armor: Does not exist. Unless your name is Tatsumi or Akame, and even then, some people think that one (if not both) of them will end up dying by the end of the manga too. Tatsumi's is penetrated in episode 23 of the anime, though Akame's holds up, and she survives.
  • Pocket Protector: The artifact Tatsumi's elder gives him prior to leaving the village protects him from one of Akame's attacks.
  • P.O.V. Boy, Poster Girl: Tatsumi is the viewpoint character, while Akame is the titular character and the series' poster girl.
  • Power of Love: Tatsumi manages to evolve Incursio again out of his wish to protect Mine, eventually gaining enough power to fight in even terms against Esdeath.
  • Produce Pelting: A flashback in Episode 3 shows Mine receiving this as a form of racial abuse for her half-foreign blood. She joins the Revolutionary Army and Night Raid to free those with foreign blood from racism.
  • Psycho for Hire: Wild Hunt. With the exception of Syura and Dorothea none of them are loyal to The Empire nor do they care about upholding the revolution or the state of the Capital for that matter. Rather most of Wild Hunt's members only fought for the Empire just so they could commit as much atrocities as they please. To put things into perspective they were meant to replace the deceased members of the Jägers but rather than helping them they acted on their own accord just for personal amusement.
  • Punch-Clock Villain:
    • Esdeath may be a sadist who doesn't care for the empire's corruption, but she's a very sweet person when around someone she likes.
    • Bols is a massive man who walks around in a menacing gas mask, and it's his job to use his flamethrower teigu in order to burn traitors at the stake and wipe plague-ridden villages off the map, but he has a wife and daughter he loves very much.
    • Wave and Run fight alongside the Jägers to preserve peace in the Capital and protect those who are victims of Night Raid. However they completely lack any of the sadistic qualities of other villains, are aware of the Empire's corruption and hope that their effort will change it from within, and ultimately see their position in the Jägers as only a job since they do not like the state the Empire is in only choosing to side with them as they do not agree with the Revolutionary Army.
  • Putting on the Reich: The Empire only becomes more and more Nazi-like as the story goes on.
  • Pyromaniac: Inverted. Despite screaming "PYRO" as loud as he possibly can, Bols is a loving and surprisingly sane family man who just happens to carry the job description "mass cremator."
  • Psycho Rangers: The Jägers to the Night Raid. Tatsumi even points out their similarities, noting that they're not much different in power levels or personality.
  • Rape as Drama: Hoy Boy. In manga, a lot of the extremely minor females tend to end up as victims of rape including Bol's wife and young daughter... on top of his grave. Also, group of bandits encountered in series are very obsessed with capturing and raping any women they could find. In addition, Esdeath often encourage her army to rape anyone they find desirable. While none of the major characters ever been raped, a few of them have suffered attempts at rape. Most noticeable examples include, Bolic attempted to rape a wounded Leone, Syura trying to rape Kurome, and Dorothea and Suzuka trying to rape Tatsumi.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil:
    • The anti-Night Raid group Wild Hunt is portrayed as infinitely more evil than the Jägers could ever be. While both groups won't bat an eye at killing countless people in order to see their mission through, Wild Hunt members particularly like to rape their victims before killing them. Even the most evil of the Jägers are put off by their methods (Esdeath for other reasons, but the point remains).
    • Extra-Chapter 23.5 shows what befalls the girls Luna, Fal and Air. Luna has her eyes removed and kills herself out of despair. Fal has both her legs broken, is raped and finally dies having lost all her fingers and teeth. Air is raped by a dog repeatedly and forced to become one herself until she escapes and hires Night Raid to avenge her and her friends, once this is done she commits suicide to be with her friends. Gruesome stuff... Thankfully, all three of them are spared this fate in the anime as the final episode shows.
  • Razor Floss: Lubbock's teigu Infinite Uses: Cross Tail.
  • Real Men Eat Meat: Inverted. Akame, Leone, and Najenda are fine with an all meat diet, while Tatsumi and Lubbock prefer something a bit more balanced.
  • Red Baron: Plenty. Zank the Beheader and 100 Man-Slayer Bulat are notable examples. Even some of the teigu have these: One Cut Killer Murasame, Hundred-Beast-King Lionelle, Roman Artillery Pumpkin, Demon Armor Inclusio, Infinite Uses Cross Tail, Cutter of Creation Ecstasy just to name a few.
  • Retirony: All over the damn place. Nine times out of ten, if a character says they have loved ones back home, odds are they aren't long for the series. Isn't that right, Bols?
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: After taking out their latest target in episode 19, the Revolutionary Army begins their march on the capital in episode 20. This has several of the high ranking Imperial officers worried, particularly as many strongholds surrender without a fight. They finally succeed in episode 24 after Akame finishes off Esdeath.
  • Saintly Church: The Path of Peace is a religion that has been quickly spreading throughout the realm. The villagers from Tatsumi's village were even followers (and a religious totem they gave him saves him during his first battle with Akame). The empire attempts to subvert the religion to their will with a corrupt high ranking member, but after he is assassinated by the Night Raid, the Path of Light dedicate themselves to joining the revolution against the Empire.
  • The Scapegoat: In chapter 11, Esdeath sends three of her minions to attack some officials while simultaneously spreading false reports that said officials were targeted by Night Raid. Najenda is smart enough to realize that said attacks were obvious set ups to lure them out, while also having the benefit of wiping out politicians who opposed the Minister.
  • Schizo Tech: On the one hand, the society looks a few centuries back in development of the general level of technology, but on the other hand, some characters have e.g. futuristic guns.
  • Schmuck Bait:
    • When Tatsumi first meets Leone, she tells him he needs connections and money to get into the military, especially as an officer. He hands her a large bag of coins, which she happily takes, and tells him to wait there and says this will be a very valuable lesson. He later finds out from the restaurant owner that he's been conned out of his money by her.
    • Leone in chapter 12 is told to observe General Esdeath. She thinks to herself that if the opportunity arose, she would love to kill the general, as she is a high ranking official within the Empire. However, when she's watching Esdeath just sitting around town by herself, her instincts tell her that it's an obvious trap, and she decides to retreat instead of falling for said trap. Esdeath, for her part notices the aura she sensed is no longer there, and laments not being able to capture said target for a new torture technique.
  • Schrödinger's Cast: Characters die in different circumstances in the anime compared to the manga.
  • Secondary Character Title: Despite Tatsumi clearly being the protagonist of the story, with several of his decisions and choices driving the plot, the series is named after the Deuteragonist Akame instead. It's ultimately Played With, as the literal meaning of the title is 'the Red-Eyed Killer' and as part of his assimilation with Incursio, Tatsumi eventually gains a blood-red pupil in his right eye, meaning that the title actually referred to both of them together.]]
  • Secret Stab Wound: In episode 24, Leone's bullet wounds from Prime Minister Honest's pistol finally kills her after he stripped her power away with his Imperial Arms. She hid it from Akame and others by wearing her robe and bandaging it up as best as she could, but by nightfall she lies dead in an alley. In her last conversation with Akame, Leone hugs Akame and, after Akame starts to ask something she realized, reassures her that she can now "go see everyone." Considering Akame's occupation, she has likely realized that Leone was wounded and dying.
  • Sexy Discretion Shot: Chapter 50 has Mine start cozying up towards Tatsumi and promising to make him forget all about Esdeath. They start kissing... and the scene shifts to Dorothea's lab. The final chapter confirms that the deed was done.
  • Ship Sinking: Don't get too dedicated to one pairing, cause you'll be crying. A lot. No couple is safe.
    • The second half of chapter 52 has definitively put an end to Tatsumi/Esdeath ever happening, as she reluctantly ordered Tatsumi's execution because of his refusal to accept her. However, the ship resurfaces a little later since it turns out Esdeath wasn't going to kill him and she still hasn't given up on him. But then was outright blown clear out of the water when Tatsumi's evolved teigu form prevented her from capturing him again, and finally made her realize that he would never conform to her deranged way of thinking nor would he ever reciprocate her feelings. Thusly consigning to fight and kill him or die by his hand in heated battle in the end.
    • Tatsumi/Akame also was sunk since Tatsumi becomes an Official Couple with Mine.
    • The Wave/Kurome pairing took a massive hit once Kurome kept Run as a corpse puppet rather than allowing him to die peacefully. Wave was furious at her inability to understand why it's such a bad thing. However there's still hope for them; he was furious, but at the same time he pitied her both for her physical and mental condition. And he vowed to not any burdens of battle fall on her. Seemingly fully revived as of chapter 66, as Wave convinces Kurome to run away with him, even going so far as to break Yatsufusa to give her closure. She tearfully asks him to take her away, so she'll never have to think of anything but him.
    • The Lubbock/Najenda ship also ended, because Lubbock was killed by Izou while trying to escape imprisonment in the second half of chapter 52.
  • Ship Tease: Akame/Tatsumi, Leone/Tatsumi, Chelsea/Tatsumi, Akame/Leone, Akame/Green, Tatsumi/Esdeath and Wave/Kurome.
    • Leone! She flat-out stated that she'd "laid claims" to Tatsumi numerous times.
    • Tatsumi/Mine as well after Seryu's death, they became an Official Couple in chapter 45.
    • Tatsumi/Chelsea is hinted at a few times, and Bulat/Tatsumi was a running gag for awhile.
    • Also Lubbock/Najenda. Basicly confirmed, since the two had known each other even before joining the revolution and their feelings are shown to be mutual, although they never actually acted on it. The epilogue states that Najenda remained single for the rest of her life.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Shrinking Violet: Bols, despite how he looks, is quite shy.
  • Single-Stroke Battle:
    • Bulat does this to Daidara in chapter 12.
    • Akame delivers one to Borick's personal Teigu user Horimaka by scratching him with Murasame.
    • Akame and Kurome do this in episode 22. Kurome dies, but Akame seems to at least have gotten hit.
  • Slashed Throat:
    • The woman Tatsumi and Lubbock met in the capital in episode 20 suffers this after she interferes with Syura and Lubbock's fight by grabbing him to prevent him from moving or attacking.
    • Akame seems to be fond of doing this when she doesn't outright cut her opponents into pieces.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism:
    • This series falls highly on the cynical end. The protagonists are ruthless anti-hero (and even the protagonist, Tatsumi, becomes more jaded as the series progresses). Not only the Empire is corrupt, but government officials and the nobility are involved in sex trade and every act of evil in the book and get away with it (with the exception of the Jaegars, who happens to be the best folks of the Empire). Not only that, it is implied that the Empire is beyond redemption or reform. Any character gets killed off, but there are some characters who met Fate Worse than Death such as getting raped or tortured.
    • The later stages of the manga, however, shift it more to the center. While the empire is destroyed, the Prime Minister and his goons are all brought to justice. Even though many good people died, they also make up the majority of the surviving cast. Some characters who suffered hardship, such as Akame and Kurome, are working towards recovery and even if don't walk away unscathed, the more idealistic members on both sides gain a happy ending. Tatsumi also says to Wave that he should never give up on his idealism.
  • Sliding Scale of Villain Effectiveness: The villains in this series tend to vary in how much a of a threat that they pose to Night Raid. Some villain encounters have been very dangerous for Night Raid while others are resolved very quickly. In particular Esdeath, Seryu, Kurome, Liver, and Champ are among the more effective villains as they killed members of Night Raid (though in the case of Champ he killed Run who's an Anti-Villain). Trailing behind them are Nyau, Dr. Stylish, Bols, and Dorothea who came close to winning their fights and were in positions where if things went right for them killing their enemy would have happened. In contrast there are villains of lesser effectiveness. Some villains such as Syura, Izou, and Aria build themselves up as major threats by killing off established characters but don't prove too much of a problem as when they finally get action they're killed off easily. There are also tons of minor villains such as Daidra, Enshin, and Zank who don't give Night Raid much of a problem at all. However Wave and Run prove to be an interesting case as despite being two of the more well fleshed out antagonists hardly ever antagonize Night Raid with the exception of Wave severely injuring Akame and Run putting a wrench in the Bolick assassination. Wave in particular is an interesting case as his character is portrayed more as a Deuteragonist instead of a villain.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: In the anime due to Wild Hunt's Adapted Out status, Run and Bols' wife and daughter are spared and made it until the end. The three girls in Chapter 23.5 also did not suffered horrors and seen alive and well in final episode.
  • Stab the Scorpion: When Tatsumi saved Wave from a Danger Beast.
  • The Stinger: The end of episode 24 shows Akame being surrounded by a group of bandits. It's pretty safe to say they're Too Dumb to Live.
  • Superpower Lottery: Some teigu are better than others.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: In chapter 28, Lubbock says that he's not jealous of Tatsumi or anything after hearing about how he was trapped all alone on a tropical island with a beautiful woman. Tatsumi pointing out that said woman was Esdeath and that he was forced there doesn't help, and Lubbock still seems quite jealous.
  • Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Teigus work like this. Some teigu are more effective against one teigu than another. Examples include:
    • Ecstasy against Incursio and Grand Chariot; Ecstasy's ability to cut through anything trumps the protection of both Incursio and Grand Chariot.
    • Yatsuhusa against Murasame; Murasame's One-Hit Kill ability does not work against zombies animated by Yatsuhusa rendering the former weapon no better than a mundane katana.
    • Spectator against Gaea Foundation; Gaea Foundation's shapeshifting disguises are easily foiled by Spectator's mind reading abilities.
  • Take a Third Option: Played for Laughs in chapter 29. Tatsumi is asked by Chelsea and Leone which one of them looks better in a bikini. He notices Susanoo standing nearby, and diverts his attention to him instead. Lubbock meanwhile gets mad they asked Tatsumi but not him.
  • Take Up My Sword: Before Bulat dies he gives his Teigu, Incursio to Tatsumi
  • Taking You with Me:
    • Bols attempts this in chapter 32, after Akame and Leone disable his partner and destroys his weapon. None of the main characters die from this, and Bols manages to escape, though Chelsea takes this opportunity to kill him.
    • Seryu attempts this in chapter 38 on a weakened Mine, by setting off a bomb implanted in her head. Mine survives because Tatsumi saves her at the last minute.
    • Lubbock literally does this with Syura in episode 20, pulling the latter into the dimension that he was banished into thanks to his Razor Floss getting a hold of the latter and pulling him in as well. He manages to kill Syura, but finally succumbs to his wounds after running out of thread on his Imperial Arms.
  • Talking Is a Free Action: Some of the characters get into monologues and speeches during battles. Sometimes it makes you wonder why their opponent is letting them spend this much time talking instead of just killing them, whether it's one of the good guys, or one of the bad guys doing the talking.
  • Tastes Like Friendship: Chelsea wins Akame over immediately by offering her one of her ever-present lollipops.
  • Team Shot: Two are used in chapter 28, one depicting the Night Raid members, and the other depicting the Jägers. Interestingly they're both shown simultaneously as a narrator states that due to their intertwined fate, a battle between them is inevitable. It also shows various members facing off against their likely opponent, such as Mine against Seryu.
  • Tempting Fate:
    • Esdeath's description of the perfect man as read by the Emperor and Prime Minister in chapter 16 of a young man born outside the capital who is also capable of hunting dangerous monsters and has a cute smile sounds an awful lot like Tatsumi. And then she holds a tournament with a cash prize, which Lubbock introduces to him as a way to help earn money to send back to his home village...
    • After Esdeath coincidentally runs into Tatsumi while hunting some Danger Beasts in chapter 25, he panics at what to do next. A Danger Beast then pops out, and Tatsumi figures it's a pretty strong one, so would run away while Esdeath dealt with it. Unfortunately for him she kills it in an instant, which he immediately points out that he missed his tiny window of opportunity.
    • At the beginning of episode 20, Lubbock tells Tatsumi that after this mission he will open a bookstore, be successful enough to make it into a national franchise and find the perfect opportunity to propose to Najenda. He dies heroically by the end of the episode.
  • Their First Time: Tatsumi and Mine are implied to have slept together in chapter 50. The epilogue confirms it with Mine's pregnancy.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
    • The large explosion created by Bols in chapter 32 when he self-destructs his weapon. Though he escapes initially, none of the characters are hurt too badly by said explosion.
    • Seryu attempts this in chapter 37, by firing a barrage of missiles at Tatsumi and Mine. She then uses a large tactical missile to blow Mine up.
    • Mine returns the favor, by slicing Seryu and Coro in half with her weapon. Said attack also slices through the ruins behind them.
    • The Emperor's Imperial Arms is capable of shooting energy that explodes in a fashion similar to a nuclear weapon in episode 23. Unfortunately it also kills a lot of innocent civilians in the process. He does wonder if he's going too far, especially when Tatsumi attempts to reason with him, but Minister Onest keeps egging him on.
  • This Is a Drill: Enma's Spear of Justice, a weapon created by Dr. Stylish, and used by Seryu.
  • Title Drop: Manga only. Tatsumi makes Akame promise to kill him if he ever loses control of Incursio and transforms into the Tyrant.note 
  • Token Good Teammate: Wave in the Jägars. It is later shown that Run is this, even after his death. The Jägers also have a two examples of My Master, Right or Wrong, with Bols explicitly being a good person, while Kurome has a combination of conditioning from her training with a heavy dose of Sanity Slippage, but is shown in the manga to have good qualities which are buried beneath that. In the manga's epilogue, she gets better.
  • Torso with a View: Mine shoots a hole through the Imperial guard that attacked her and Tatsumi in chapter 4.
  • Torture Technician: Esdeath, who upon seeing a vat full of people boiling alive, demanded the water temperature be lowered simply to make them suffer longer. Played for Laughs as time goes on. Mostly.
  • Training from Hell: Tatsumi receives a lot of this from the other members of Night Raid. In one case, Bulat gives him some "tough love" training in chapter 11, hitting him from out of nowhere while he was sparring with Akame, and telling him to be more mindful of his surroundings. Later on, Tatsumi witnesses firsthand what Bulat was talking about when the latter attacks three people simultaneously, killing one and knocking the other two away.
  • Underwear Swimsuit: When Akame and Tatsumi go hunt for fish, the former strips down to her underwear so she can swim and catch the fish personally.
  • Un-person: At the end of the series, the Night Raid's activities are stricken from the history records despite their efforts in helping the resistance fighters free the capital.
  • Vague Age: Early on, Esdeath is the only character in the Jaegars we don't know the age of. Other characters either state the range or the exact age. She's later confirmed to be "younger than mid-twenties."
  • Vice City: Tatsumi quickly learns that the capital, underneath its initial shimmering buildings, is pretty corrupt.
  • Villainesses Want Heroes: Played with. It just happens that Tatsumi falls into all the criteria of Esdeath's perfect guy, and she encounters him when watching a public fighting tournament, not when in the battlefield. Because of this, the members of Night Raid are incredibly dumbfounded and confused when she snatches him up and takes him to the capital.
  • Villainous Glutton: The Prime Minister, almost never seen without something vanishing down his gullet.
  • Villainous Rescue: Leone, whom Tatsumi viewed as an enemy at the time near the end of the first chapter, saves him from Akame after witnessing him surviving one of her attacks. She then stops Akame, and reveals the truth about Aria's family to him.
  • Voice of the Legion: Villains tend to briefly lapse into this, accompanied by a drawn frame of them with a serious Nightmare Face.
  • Walking the Earth: What Akame does at the end after Night Raid disbands. Not quite true in the manga, where she's instead on a journey with a specific purpose and goal, with every intention to return once said goal is achieved.
  • Wax On, Wax Off: When Tatsumi first joins Night Raid, his first duties with Akame as his trainer is to cook and go fishing. Mine also mocks him, while Akame is harsh and cold towards him. He later finds out from Nejanda that said cooking and fishing were actually part of his training to help him hone his tracking skills to hunt down his prey.
  • Weak Boss, Strong Underlings:
    • Fat Bastard Prime Minister Honest is not a great fighter but has generals who can fight much better than him, among them the strongest woman in the Empire — The Baroness General Esdeath.
    • Above the Prime Minister is the Emperor himself, a naïve boy who gets manipulated by his evil, adult, and definitely more political-savvy underlings.
  • Wham Episode:
    • Episode 6 shows the first onscreen death of a Night Raid member, specifically Sheele.
    • Episode 8 has the next one, Bulat.
    • Both the Jägers and Night Raid lose one member in episode 17, Bols and Chelsea respectively.
    • Tatsumi gets captured in episode 20 after being hopelessly outmatched by Budou. Additionally, another Night Raid member gets killed, this time Lubbock, though not before he kills Syura.
    • The Night Raid succeeds in rescuing Tatsumi in episode 21, but in the process, Mine is fatally wounded by Budou, and she dies in Tatsumi's arms later on. Susanoo is also Killed Offscreen by Esdeath, using the amount of energy he has left to give the Night Raid time to escape as he fights her.
  • What Measure Is a Mook?: Zigzagged. While some assassination targets killed by Night Raid aren't given much thought, others are given some minor character development, and their deaths do impact some characters who were close to them, such as Seryu with Captain Ogre and later, Dr. Stylish, who designed some weapons for her.
  • "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The final chapter provides texts that tell the reader how the surviving characters lived their lives after the fall of the empire.
  • Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Averted in episode 24. The Prime Minister shoots Leone when she's about to attack him, several times in fact. Unfortunately for him that's not enough to stop her, and she still manages to kill him by punching his face in repeatedly. And after he used his Imperial Arms to strip her powers, she finally succumbs to her injuries later that night.
  • The Worf Effect: The series loves to use this trope against many of the villains of the series (except the majority of the Jägers). Usually, a villain is extremely hyped and is presented as dangerous, only to the main characters eliminates them with relative ease. Examples of this includes Ogre, Daidara, Nyau, Dr. Stylish's monster form, The Rakshasha Demons and all of the Wild Hunt except Dorothea.
  • World of Action Girls: The female characters are rather strong and can hold their own in a fight. The titular heroine is regarded as the best assassin in the Empire's history, and Esdeath is called the Empire's strongest.
  • You Are Already Dead: Mine informs Horimaka that he was already dead after getting scratched by Murasame.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Najenda says she's going to the rebel army's headquarters for a few days to deliver some Imperial arms along with recruiting new members, Tatsumi regrets not being strong enough to save his friends. However, she tells him that he helped take on three of the strongest Imperial soldiers, and saved the lives of the remaining people on the ship they fought on. Leone also tells Tatsumi that Bulat mentioned him having the potential to become strong, and even surpass himself someday.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Akame Ga Kiru

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Genius Sniper

Mine claims to be a genius sniper. Given that she just took out her mark from over a mile away without using a scope nor hitting any of the women around him, this is no idle boast.

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Main / ImprobableAimingSkills

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