Anime & Manga / Wham Episode

Over the years, Anime & Manga have produced a lot of Wham Episode.

The following have their own pages:

Other examples:

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ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept. episode 7 has the revelation that the main character Jean Otus, who believed himself to be normal, is actually the heir to the throne.
Ah! My Goddess maintains the status quo for 20 years. Keiichi and Belldandy are the exemplars of the Chastity Couple. And then in chapter 285, Hild explains that Keiichi's mind has been altered by the forces of heaven to prevent the relationship from developing further. Apparently, the goddesses knew all along. It may take readers a while to sort this all out.
In episode 5 of Air, Misuzu breaks down and the series becomes dark and depressing.
Angelic Layer contains a giant one in episode 24, though it's for a character rather than the viewers. At the end of the episode, the champion of Angelic Layer reveals that she is Shuuko, Miskai's mother, who Misaki hasn't seen in years. Episode 25 then shows the impact of it resulting in a brilliant tearjerker episode in an otherwise light hearted show.
In Another, episode 3 ends with the cute Class Representative Yukari Sakuragi dying horrifically.
- All hell breaks lose in episode eleven when the rest of the class hears the tape from years ago which says the only way to stop the calamity is to kill the ghost student. In their fear-stricken panic, they all decide that Misaki Mei is the extra student and go batshit insane, chasing her around the creepy hotel trying to murder her. They accidentally kill their own teacher, who tries to protect Mei, and two of the students end up dead during the chase. There are at least three other murders/deaths outside of that incident in this episode as well.
Arabian Nights: Adventures of Sinbad: Shera's secret is revealed in episode 47. She's a princess turned into a bird and she was in Sinbad's dream in the first episode.
Chapter 128 of Assassination Classroom starts up a series of revelations that change your understanding of certain characters and the payoff of tons of Foreshadowing so subtle, that most readers never even suspected anything. And the kickoff for all of this: the reveal of Kayano having tentacles.
- Chapter 129 expands on the twist from the previous chapter. Kayano is actually Akari Yukimura, a talented child actress who was the younger sister of Class E's previous teacher, Aguri. And said teacher, she's the woman who inspired Koro-sensei to become a teacher.
- Chapter 133: Koro-sensei decides to finally tell the story of his past, starting with the revelation that he used to be the "Reaper"
- Chapter 134: We finally see what Koro-sensei looked like, "Shiro" is revealed to be the lead scientist of the experiments that turned him into a monster, and the Reaper who was defeated by Karasuma was the apprentice of the original Reaper, who sold him out in order to take the name for himself.
- Chapter 138: The moon explosion was not Koro-sensei's fault. It was actually caused by an experiment, which reveals not antimatter lifeforms such as Koro-sensei not only have a drastically reduced lifespan, but also cause a giant antimatter explosion when they die naturally, which puts a new spin on Koro-sensei's previous threats of destroying the world.
- Chapter 164: The beginning of the end. The government reveals that they've been working on a Kill Sat that can kill Koro-sensei and they've trapped him on the mountain until they can fully charge it. They also expose his existence to the public in order to demonize him as the monster who held Class E hostage.
- Chapter 173: Kayano is fatally impaled by the second Reaper. In front of Koro-sensei.

Episode 9 of Baccano!: Want to know what happened in the time gap between the end of episode 2 and when Jacuzzi discovered the bodies? Well, now you do (Not for the faint of heart, we assure you).
Bakugan: The end of Episode 38, "Behind the Mask of Masquerade," in general.
- Dan and company come to the conclusion that Alice, one of their friends, couldn't have been Masquerade, the main Big Bad of the series.
- Turns out they did so way too early, because when Dan is victorious in a battle with him, right as Masquerade takes off his mask, he becomes a different person...entirely. Yup, that's right: ALICE WAS INDEED MASQUERADE, AND THIS WAS HIDDEN FROM US THE ENTIRE TIME UNTIL NOW. I mean, what the hell?!
- The mindfuckery truly begins in the next episode, where we learn how Masquerade came to be. And Alice had NO IDEA that she and Masquerade were one and the same.
Bakuman。 has a few.
- Chapter 53: Detective Trap, the main characters' first series, gets canceled.
- Chapter 64: Azuki confronts Mashiro about the secrets he kept from her, and then hangs up on him when he is unable to provide a satisfactory explanation, leading them to temporarily break up.
- Chapter 100: Seven words: "PCP isn't going to get an anime".
- Chapter 130: Someone re-enacts a prank that was discussed in Perfect Crime Party, and it gets on the news. Since the manga had a fair share of parents criticizing it for fear kids might imitate it, this does not bode well for it.
- A few chapters later, it's revealed that the manga Niizuma wants to end is Crow.
Battle Royale
- Chapter 3, which features Yoshitoki's death an shows that Anyone Can Die
- Chapter 10, which features the deaths of Izumi, Ryuhei, Hiroshi, and Mitsuru, the most of any chapter, and the revelation that Kazuo is playing.
The Eclipse (Volumes 12-13) arc of Berserk would have been the greatest wham ever, with the HSQ through the ~~roof~~ stratosphere, had not the end of the Guardians of Desire arc (Volumes 2-3) just before the big Golden Age arc essentially given away what would happen. It was, regardless, a very powerful Gut Punch, as while most readers realize that whatever happened had to have been horrible, exactly how horrible it was still manages to exceed everyone's expectations.
- More properly played straight in the anime, which cut out the Guardians of Desire arc altogether. Although the events of the Eclipse were strongly foreshadowed, the last few episodes still constitute a pretty powerful Wham.
- In Chapter 307, Femto uses the power of the Skull Knight's Sword of Resonance to tear open the bonds of reality, and merges fantasy and reality.
Black Butler:
- It has quite a few of these, but probably the biggest example is the episode where Ciel goes back to England to find that it's on fire.
- The two chapters where Soma and Agni get attacked in the manor and Agni locks Soma into a room, intent on keeping him safe, and blocks the entry, taking the full force of the attack. Agni dies.
- The revelation that there are two Ciels. Specifically, the Ciel that we know and his twinbrother.
Episode 6 of Blood-C. Episodes 1 through 5 followed the same formula, sing on the way to school, play with the puppy, eat with friends, fight and kill the Monster of the Week. 6 takes the formula and shatters it, with the deaths of Saya's friends Nono and Nene and several townspeople in a rather shocking bit of Scenery Dissonance.
- And if you thought 6 was bad, 8 and 9 go straight past it with a monster attacking the school and killing EVERYONE in Saya's class, even her friend Yuka. The only survivors are Saya, Tokizane, and Itsuki
- Add yet ANOTHER Wham Episode with episode 11. To wit, The Motoe Twins, Tokizane, Yuka, Itsuki, Fumito, and Kanako are all actors, and Saya's whole life in town was part of some twisted "Truman Show" Plot.
Black Lagoon isn't exactly what one calls a lighthearted series, but several of its arcs provide a relatively heavy dose of wham at some point or another, especially when it comes to Rock getting his optimism chipped away, little by little:
- Episode 3, "Ring-Ding Ship Chase", concludes with Revy letting her darker side loose and slaughtering a small fleet if pirate boats. It continues on into the Neo-Nazi arc with Revy discussing her Dark and Troubled Past with Rock and unveiling her own nihilism at the world around her. It takes Rock giving Revy some very choice words about the flaws of her outlook and Revy almost shooting him to snap her out of it.
- Episode 15, "Swan Song at Dawn" has Rock learn about Hansel and Gretel's past, revealing just what they went through to make them the messed-up kids they are today. One of the twins is killed in a confrontation with Balalaika, but Rock manages to take the other into custody, hoping to figure out a way to help them. However, it becomes clear that the other twin is so messed up from their past that there really isn't any way for them to be rehabilitated, and Rocks efforts are rendered All for Nothing when the remaining twin is killed by a Hotel Moscow assassin.
- The Yakuza arc has its ups and downs throughout,but the lowest point probably comes in Episode 23, "Snow White's Payback", where, after helping Yukio kill Chaka and consolidate her hold of the Washimine Group, the Washimines and Hotel Moscow go to war with each other. Rock tries to convince Balalaika to stand down, but Balalaika draws a gun on him and Rock is forced to admit to her (and a bit to himself) that he's only a "good guy" as "a hobby" and relents. The next episode, "The Gunslingers", concludes with Hotel Moscow destroying Washamine at Rock's bidding in order to force Yukio into adopting a normal life, but Yukio and Genji refuse to back down and Revy kills Genji off in a duel, and Yukio kills herself as penance for the lives she took. Hotel Moscow and Black Lagoon leave Japan, but the trail of destruction means that Rock can never return to his come country now, and Rock himself is finally realizing that being good in the criminal underworld doesn't work out the way he wants it to.
- Episode 29, "Codename Paradise, Status MIA", the final episode of both the "Baile De La Muerte" arc and the last animated episode of the series (so far) ends on a bit of a low note. Rock's gambit to force Roberta to surrender works, but in the process he revealed a very...disturbing attitude towards it all that puts off even the usually-Axe-Crazy Revy. To top it all off, he once more finds his efforts All for Nothing when the gambit fails to break the cycle of rampant crime in Roanapur like he'd hoped, once more driving home the futility of trying to do good in a city like Roanapur.
Bloom Into You:
- Chapter 21. Touko, who's spent the last seven years trying to become her seemingly perfect older sister, meets one of her sister's colleagues and learns that her sister may not have been perfect as she seemed. This revelation shakes Touko to the core and forces her to question herself.
- Chapter 34. Yuu, who's spent much of the series convinced she could never fall in love with anyone, and finally makes an Anguished Declaration of Love to Touko. Touko apologizes, which, convincing Yuu that she's been rejected, causes her to run away and drives a rift between them.
- Chapter 37. Sayaka, who'd previously put aside her feelings for Touko, finally makes a Love Confession to Touko on their Class Trip.
- Chapter 38. Touko turns down Sayaka's confession, then resolves to reconcile with Yuu once she returns home.
- Chapter 40. Touko and Yuu confess to each other and get a Relationship Upgrade.
Bokurano:
- At the end of Waku's arc, he suddenly dies, then falls off the robot (although the pilots mistake the order of events due to Ushiro giving him a light shove), killing off the Decoy Protagonist and giving the viewers some idea of what kind of show this is.
- At the end of Kodama's arc, the protagonists learn that they will die after piloting the robot.
- Maki's arc reveals that the pilots are fighting against other universes, and each time they win, the loser's universe is destroyed.
- Kanji's arc in the manga. Early on, it's revealed that Ushiro isn't in the contract, and that Machi is in cahoots with Koyemshi. At the end, it's revealed that Kana, the youngest pilot, will be the next to fight and die.
In the adaptation of Brave10, episode 9 packs all the punch. What would be a good night's sleep goes downhill when Ana is revealed as The Mole for Hanzo, goes on to cripple Rokuro (and forces him to sacrifice the important information in his Magical Eye) and Sasuke, and Yukimura reveals the reason why he wanted to gather the 10 Braves: to surpress the power of Japanese Death Goddess Izanami...incarnated into Isanami. And she overhears that too.
Bungo Stray Dogs's 68th chapter is very infamous already for revealing Tachihara as a villain who has been spying on the mafia all the time, and implied to have killed Gin and Hirotsu by an Ability.
Buso Renkin: Chapter 49 of the manga, and Episode 16 of the anime, sees things change drastically for the main characters as Kazuki is revealed to only have six weeks of humanity left as he is turning into a monstrous Walking Wasteland, and his allies in the Alchemist Army turns on him to prevent him from becoming just like the Big Bad.

Charlotte takes a suden dramatic turn about midway with Ayumi's death and never goes back.
Cardfight!! Vanguard has; Ride 24, in which Misaki's parents die in a flaming car wreck. Ride 32, in which Team AL4 beats Team Q4 in the elimination round of nationals. Then there's Ride 41, in which Aichi becomes subverted by his PSY Qualia and starts to become another Ren.
A Certain Scientific Railgun is a lighthearted show, till all of a sudden Harumi of all people turns out to be a villain. That's surprising, but that's not the real wham. The real wham is when some sort of bizarre creepy fetus thing comes out of her and lets out a inhuman roar. WTF moment for sure.
In the manga Chisa X Pon, Chisa's rape in chapters 12 and 13 have a huge, devastating impact on the story. More than a volume follows simply dealing with basic recovery from the incident, and afterward, no matter how hard both characters try, the memories and scars never fully go away.
Episode 17 of Chobits, starts off like any other episodes. Then suddenly, right out of nowhere, ninjas! Scene cuts to the landlady sitting in an Elaborate Underground Base, tracking them through futuristic equipment. Cue end credits.
Chrono Crusade, ep 19. The Big Bad has been subverted so far, everyone's enjoying a carnival...and Mr. Big Bad himself comes out of nowhere, assembles all his MacGuffins in one slick move, and accomplishes the very thing the heroes have been trying to prevent him from doing!
- This actually is based on a plot twist that happens in the manga—only the manga version has even more wham, since it also includes Chrono finally breaking down and snapping after years of mental anguish, flying into an Unstoppable Rage that destroys part of San Francisco and ends with him having a Heroic BSoD that lasts for more than an entire volume!
City Hunter:
- Hideyuki's death changed the whole paradigm of the story.
- Whenever Ryo's acquaintances from the US show up.
CLANNAD ~After Story~ episode 16. Even though the drama of the recent few episodes had revolved around the possibility, nothing can prepare you for the sheer impact of Nagisa's death in childbirth.
- And the same goes for ~After Story~ episode 22, where Tomoya initiates a Time Skip thanks to the death of the girl from the illusionary world, who is actually Ushio after she loses her memories when she died, by obtaining a light orb, and using said light orb, travels back in time and is given a second chance to witness Nagisa's childbirth. This time around, she lives.
- The Recap Episode of all things, can be considered a Wham Episode because it's confirmed that the reality where Nagisa, Ushio, and Tomoya died really happened.
Claymore: Any chapter where Miria shows up is bound to be a whammer in some way or another. One of the most shocking so far is scene 79, when she reveals to the Seven Ghosts, Galatea, Clarice and Miata that the Organization has been the body responsible for creating the yoma, which they fight. According to her research, the mainland, which remains ambiguous to just about the entire population of the island, is in chaos due to an ongoing war. One side, the side in which the Organization originated from, decided to experiment with making elite super soldiers in order to combat the super soldiers of the opposing side (the Dragon Kin). In short (and put in Miria's words): the entire island is the Organization's laboratory. And those super soldiers in question? They're the Awakened Beings.
Code Geass:
- Episode 22. Just when it seems like peace is about to be brought between Britannians and Japanese with the formation of the Special Administrative Zone of Japan, Lelouch's Geass activates without his conscious input while he's talking to his sister and Britiannian princess Euphemia about what said Geass can do...and it so happens that the Geass activates while he's talking about how he could hypothetically order her to kill all the Japanese. "Hypothetical" turns into "reality" as she orders Britannian soldiers to slaughter a stadium full of Japanese people, undoing all her efforts to end Japan's status as a territory of Britannia.
- The last five episodes of Season 2 were basically the collective wham of the entire series, with everyone's roles turned upside-down: Lelouch, former leader of The Black Knights, becomes the Emperor of his enemy Britannia; his former friend-turned-enemy Suzaku becomes his bodyguard; Kallen, who spent most of the show with a Bodyguard Crush on Lelouch, chooses her beliefs over him and will stop at nothing to kill him; and Schneizel, Prince of Britannia, joins forces with the very organization Lelouch created. Also, after Lelouch's primary motivations for the first 90% of the show involved avenging his mother's death and creating a gentler world for his blind, wheelchair-bound sister, Lelouch discovers his Lady Macbeth mother's still alive and promptly becomes a Self-Made Orphan, then creates a brutally oppressive regime bent on world domination, and when his beloved little sister begs him to stop, he makes it clear that he won't hesitate to kill her if it's convenient to his plans. And the clincher? It's all an act to unite the world with his death. It worked out somehow.
- In Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally, a few happen toward the end.
  - Chapter 16: Nunnally breaks her contract with Nemo and gets captured.
  - Chapter 20: The Emperor has a coup to replace the established governments of the Areas with his own men, and moves to put his Assimilation Plot into action.

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School has Episode 9 of the Future Arc. Juzo Sakakura is betrayed and murdered by his friend Munakata and main character Kyouko Kirigiri trips her forbidden action and is poisoned to death.
- Episode 10 of the Despair arc also qualifies, as it features The brutal execution of Chiaki Nanami, the corruption of the rest of Class 77 into Ultimate Despairs and the previously unshakable Izuru Kamukura mourning Chiaki's loss
- The final episode of the whole anime, Side:Hope, certainly ends things with some major revelations, too. All the members of Class 77 (sans Chiaki) come back to fight the brainwashed members of Future Foundation, led by Hajime/Izuru, and the major twist that ends the episode is the return of Kyouko Kirigiri, her death in the Future arc not being as bad as it looked
Episode 6 of The Daughter of Twenty Faces comes out of nowhere and sends earthquakes through the viewer's previous suppositions about the show and its content.
Chapter 55 of Deadman Wonderland. Up until this point, it's established that Shiro has a Superpowered Evil Side known as the 'Wretched Egg.' And then clear out of nowhere, it turns out she never had a Split Personality at all; she faked the whole thing. Why? Because underneath it all, the sweet, bubbly, adorable Forgotten Childhood Friend of Ganta's he knew and loved was actually a violent, hateful yandere who had never forgiven Ganta for abandoning her when he she needed him the most, and used the Split Personality act as an excuse to both be with Ganta as she was in her childhood, and exact revenge on everyone who had ever hurt her while making Ganta suffer in the same way she had by taking everything he loved from his past life away from him. And it gets worse: She did this because she wanted Ganta to eventually get strong enough to put her out of her misery. Damn.
The twenty-fifth episode of Death Note tears away the narrative mask over the Batman Gambit that Light sowed ten episodes before, and behind it is what most people consider Light's Moral Event Horizon manipulating Rem into sacrificing herself by killing L and Watari.
Episode 21 of Den-noh Coil. Turns out Isako's brother was dead all along (she thought he was in a coma before) and she was strung along by Nekome.
For its 7 first episodes, Destiny of the Shrine Maiden is cute, touching, sometimes silly, and full of Fanservice of all kinds, and if you don't sympathize with Chikane by the end of episode 7, maybe the Yuri Genre isn't your cup of tea. You MIGHT sense episode 8 is going to be a turning point, but you sure as hell don't expect Chikane to respond to Himeko's apparently choosing Souma by raping her, stealing Souma's mecha and becoming the 8th and most dangerous of the enemies.
Episode 4 of Diebuster: Up till this point, Nono has been basically a tag along to the Topless, hoping that she could gain her own Buster machine to defend Earth from the Alien Monsters. When archaeologists on Titan discover what they believe to be an ancient, incredibly powerful Buster machine, Nono violates orders to get close to it. As punishment, the Serpentine Twins, Leaders of the Topless, send her on a Snipe Hunt to Pluto to retrieve what may possibly be an intact Buster Machine, that crashed there some years previously. When the Titan excavation completes, three things are revealed simultaneously: The Alien Monsters they've been fighting up till this point aren't Alien Monsters at all, but part of a forgotten defense system designed to destroy threats to Earth; The "Buster Machine" on Titan isn't a Buster Machine at all, but one of the real Alien Monsters from Gun Buster; and that Nono is actually Buster Machine No. 7, the control unit for the Defense System and one of the most powerful Buster Machines in existence.
Digimon Tamers goes from fantasy-violence kiddy hero show to mind-rape extravaganza when Beelzemon kills Leomon, later following up with possibly the most destructive and disturbing Big Bad in Digimon history, the D-Reaper, possessing Juri's voice, memory, and for a while, her very appearance.
- In Digimon Adventure, we have Wizardmon's heroic sacrifice and subsequent death at the hands of Myotismon. For many, this was the moment when the show started Growing the Beard and showed a greater amount of depth than ever before.
- Before that, we have the discovery of the Sixth Rangers. While Kari being the child was a Foregone Conclusion to many, The Reveal that Gatomon, Myotismon's most loyal servant, was her Digimon, came as a surprise to plenty.
- And before even that was Tai briefly finding himself back in the real world after the battle with Etemon. It's here that we find out about the time distortion between the two worlds, meaning that all of the time the heroes have spent in the digital world so far has only amounted to a few minutes in the real world. Conversely, Tai spending time checking up on his little sister ends up being equivalent to almost two months in the digital world, durring which the rest of the heroes ended up splitting up. In addition, Digimon have started to appear in the real world and cause havok, which hints that there's more at stake than just the kids finding a way home. In the end, Tai is forced to return to the Digital World in order to rescue his friends and figure out what's going on.
- Digimon Data Squad follows suit with the death of Merukimon and the reveal of Kurata's true intentions, as well as the past these characters share. It cements Kurata as irredeemable and from then on he just keeps getting worse.
Durarara!! has Episode 10. Even though the fact that Mikado and the founder of the Dollars isn't explicitly stated until Episode 11, the end of Episode 10 strongly implies it. The Wham comes from the realization that this supposedly nice, innocent kid is actually a badass with a better handle on the situation than anyone else and that the seemingly inane details that fill the rest of the episode are not only important, but do a masterful job of setting up the end reveal.
- The person behind the Slasher attacks in episode 'Mutual love'.

One episode of Excel♡Saga does this and follows through with Nothing Is the Same Anymore. It'd be a good example of the latter trope too, but that gets twisted round in the last episode, titled Going Too Far for a very good reason.
- For those interested, Excel is the epitome of a Genki Girl, and often is a Spanner in the Works for her idol, boss, and major crush Il Palazzo, who wants to conquer the city. After an alien invasion ends up destroying the town, Excel gets lost and Il Palazzo begins his conquest of the city, ordering his men to kill her. She defeats all of the men, reaches his tower, and bangs on the door until her hands are bloody, asking just to see him again. He shows up and shoots her, then leaves her to die in the sand.

Fancy Lala: Episode 25, where not only the title character loses the item to transform, but also loses Mogu and Pigu.
Fushigi Yuugi: Byakko Senki starts off with a wham chapter. It starts off the story of Suzuno as the priestess of Byakko on the day of the Great Kanto Earthquake. Her home has been destroyed, her mother has died from falling debris, and her father is severely injured. And he begs Suzuno to open the Universe of the Four Gods because he knows that, even if doing so will get her transported into the book's world and its dangers, it will keep her safe from the earthquake. Oh, and Suzuno is eight years old at this point.
In the very first one of Fullmetal Alchemist, the Generals of Central reveal to Mustang that they knew King Bradley was a Homunculus. They then disband Mustang's group forcing Fuery, Breda, and Falman to the borders of Amestris, and Riza Hawkeye becomes King Bradley's secretary, so that she can be used as a hostage.
- Gluttony almost kills Riza, the Mustang crew learns about Homunculi, Havoc's spinal cord is severed, Roy gets stabbed in the ribs, Al almost dies, Riza learns Mustang "died" and starts screaming, crying, and has a Heroic BSoD, Mustang comes back and we learn that Homunculi actually can be killed. All in one episode.
- Pales in comparison to the meeting between the Elrics and Father. In the course of a chapter its revealed that Father is not Hohenheim (but he knows him), he can prevent anyone from using Amestris alchemy, but Xingese alkahestry can function. Scar finds out that the Homunculi started the Ishval War, and Ling is possessed by Greed. The next chapter reveals that Greed has no memories of his past life, and Ling is still in there.
- And Ed finding Al's body behind the Gate? Gosh dang.
- We also find out later that Hohenheim IS basically the Philosopher's Stone, as well as possibly the founder of modern Alchemy. Small wonder his kids are prodigies.
- The revelation of Pride's identity, just after the reveal that the entire country EXISTS TO BECOME A PHILOSOPHER'S STONE! Although this was more of a Wham because someone predicted it in advance.
- And of course there's always the episode in Brotherhood where Ed is impaled through his abdomen by a metal rod when Kimblee blows up the room. Meanwhile, Al feels his soul being ripped from his body.
- Then in Chapter 104, Father reveals that his plan is to open the Gate of Truth for the planet. He also activates the country-wide transmutation circle, sucking out the souls of almost everyone in the country. Then he absorbs GOD into his body.
- In chapter 107, Al reverses the transmutation Ed did to attach his soul into the armor, returning Ed's right arm and getting trapped into the Doors of Truth in process.
Fullmetal Alchemist (2003):
- The Homonculi were behind the Ishvalan war.
- The second to last episode reveals that the other side of the gate of truth is the real world, and that alchemy is powered by the death of people in the real world.
- Envy is really Hohenheim and Dante's son.
The Familiar of Zero: Episode 10 of season 4. The Ancient Dragon shatters Saito's trusty Talking Weapon Derflinger, then eats The Pope. Everybody is forced to run, full of despair.
Free!: Episode 5 of season 1. It goes from the status quo of pretty boys swimming to one of the main characters nearly drowning in a matter of minutes.
Fuuka: Chapters 36/37. Fuuka, the title character, gets hit by a truck and dies.

Gaiking: Legend of Daiku Maryu episode 28... wherein Smug Snake and Magnificent Bitch Proist singlehandedly delivers sucker punch after sucker punch to the protagonists, seemingly convinces a young girl to kill her own father, and just continues to make a living hell for everyone. With the exception of the whole "Limitation Syndrome" episodes, all those other light-hearted episodes seemed a lot more appropriate and necessary, with Proist rapidly become just as hated as Fucking Ribbons.
GaoGaiGar Episode 31. The Zondar threat has been eliminated and the world is safe, right? WRONG! Enter the 31 Machine Primevals, who utterly decimate the Gutsy Geoid Guard base, and severely damage GaoGaiGar. What's more surprising than that? Pizza of the Four Machine Kings is revealed to be alive and has made a Heel–Face Turn! And then he easily takes down three Primevals with his own giant robot King J-Der! (Which launches from a volcano!)
The first three episodes of Ga-Rei -Zero- are Wham Episode. First, the supposedly-main-characters are killed in episode 1. Then, the bloody murderer in the episode before is introduced as a lost member of another squad. And then, in the third episode flashback begun, which has nothing similar with the high body count of the first two episodes.
The final "attack" of the Individual Eleven in the second season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Twelve terrorists join together to commit their greatest and final "attack", all of them bringing katanas with them. A police team is racing against time to stop them, when a news-helicopter spots them first on a skyscraper roof, broadcasting everything on live-TV. And without any warning they pull out their swords and decapitate each other!
Giant Robo: The Day The Earth Stood Still: The end of Episode 3. Daisaku and Giant Robo finally arrive at the battlefield, Daisaku gives a speech about how he can never forgive the evil Professor Vogler and orders Robo to attack the Vogler Sphere. But when Robo punches it....his arm completely shatters. Episode 4 and 5 also has several characters Killed Off for Real in sometimes very brutal and sudden ways.
Great Teacher Onizuka had a veritable WHAM clusterfuck when Urumi posted a website showing video of Miyabi doing personal stuff around her house (she discovers hidden cameras in her bathroom and bedroom). Onizuka races to find Urumi before she kills herself while his students must find a way to shut the website down. Teshigawara convinces the vice-principal to kill Onizuka but all that was a smoke screen so Teshigawara can kidnap Azusa.
Gundam provides multiple examples. In fact, you can consider the first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam a meta-wham episode for the entire anime industry, as it was the first Real Robot anime.
- Episode 40 of The Original Series ends with Zeon firing the Solar Ray Kill Sat that destroys a third of the Federation fleet and kills both Federation Fleet commander General Revil and Zeon leader Degwin Zabi, who was in the middle of possible peace negotiations. The real Wham? Earlier in the episode, Amuro and Char fight again, but just as Amuro has Char on the ropes, Lalah Sune, the woman both men loved, intercepts the attack and dies. The result is that Char now hates Amuro for killing Lalah, while Amuro hates Char for letting Lalah fight. The rivalry ends in Char's Counterattack when both die during the battle.
- Zeta Gundam is more of a string of wham episodes than anything else. Most notable are episode 3 where Kamille's impulsiveness causes the death of his mother Hilda while trying to save her. Then of course, we have the death of his star crossed girlfriend Four in episode 36 (again, at least partially caused by his recklessness) and episode 50 with one of the bleakest endings in all of anime.
- Gundam ZZ has several, including the episodes dealing with the Colony Drop on Dublin are especially jarring when longtime Gundam survivor Hayato dies a classic, Tomino-esque pointless death. This means that Karaba's down the drain and the Argama and company are literally the last line of defense against Neo Zeon. The aftermath, including Puru's death, are no less shocking and this "unserious" installment in the franchise doesn't give us a Breather Episode until we get back in space.
- 0080: War in the Pocket has episode 4, with the Cyclops team's plan to destroy the prototype Gundam "Alex" finally ready to unfold when they've finished assembly of the high-speed assault mobile suit Kämpfer, with the actual plan involving Mikahil drawing away reinforcements in the Kämpfer while the rest of the team steals Federation uniforms to infiltrate the base and plant bombs. Long story short, everything goes wrong - Garcia dies and Steiner is fatally wounded in a shootout after their cover is blown, and Mikhail and the Kämpfer are quickly shredded by the Gundam, giving its test pilot Christina her first taste of non-simulated combat against a Zeon mobile suit.
- G Gundam has episode 14, which reveals that Domon's teacher, mentor and father figure Master Asia is working for the Devil Gundam and brainwashed 4 other pilots. It also introduces the rest of the Shuffle Alliance 4 pilots who are supposed to work together with Domon to protect the Earth. Episode 42 reveals that Doctor Mikamura, Rain's father, betrayed his best friend Domon's father by revealing to the Neo-Japanese government the Ultimate Gundam. It also reveals that the supposed Big Bad is good, and is a brainwashed victim of the actual Big Bad. Also, episode 40 is where we find out that Domon's mysterious Big Brother Mentor is a clone of said implied Big Bad. There's also the fact that Master Asia is, unlike the Devil Gundam's other minions, Not Brainwashed. He joined its mission to rid the Earth of humanity of his own free will.
- There are two in Gundam SEED: the first is when The Hero is apparently killed by his Forgotten Childhood Friend and Rival, triggering a chain of Heel Face Turns that lasts for the rest of the series. The second is when the Cool Ship's crew is betrayed by their own superiors and deserts, instead opting to Take a Third Option and turn the war into a Mêlée à Trois.
- Gundam 00 basically pulled Wham Episodes rapid-fire since the Throne Gundams came out of the sky and Nena blew up a certain wedding in Spain, totally wrecking the lives of Saji and Louise. Let's just say that fans spent at least two months screaming at their screens when yet another cliffhanger got thrown out there.
- And to not be less than the other series Mobile Suit Gundam AGE has episode 14. Yurin L'Ciel, massive Ensemble Dark Horse and the most likely candidate to become Flit's girlfriend, is horribly killed off (as a homage to the original example above), which ultimately makes the traumatized Flit switch from Messianic Archetype to Dark Messiah.
- And then there's Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE episode 12 where the heroes fail to stop Alus from firing a massive Kill Sat, obliterating the island where the Resistance is stationed at and killing numerous named characters. When surrounded by mourning villagers and nothing pops up telling them to retry the mission, they're hit with a horrifying revelation: that this is Not a Game. Then Internet servers all over the world fall, kicking everyone in GBN out. And this is part of the Lighter and Softer installment.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, episode 12: The terrorist organization Dawn of Fold launches an attack on Plant Quetta with the intent of assassinating Delling Rembran, president of the Benerit Group and Miorine's father. Guel, who had been in hiding onboard a ship docked at Plant Quetta, enters the fray to protect Suletta and ends up unwittingly killing his own father, who had been conspiring with Dawn of Fold to usurp leadership of the Benerit Group, in battle. Meanwhile, Suletta, who is encouraged by her mother Lady Prospera to fight back against the terrorists and think nothing of killing them to protect her friends, boards the upgraded Gundam Aerial, fends off the terrorists, then goes to rescue Miorine from a would-be assassin. Her method of saving Miorine? Crushing the assassin under Aerial's hand like she was swatting a fly, reducing him to tomato paste and a lone severed arm. When Suletta disembarks from Aerial and extends a helping blood-covered hand to her, Miorine is shocked and disturbed by Suletta's completely nonchallant, upbeat demeanor, calling her a murderer...
  - Episode 14: The Dawn of Fold Gundam pilots return and launch a terrorist attack on the Asticassia School of Technology, taking the Benerit Group's acting president hostage and killing or maiming several students in what was supposed to be a friendly battle royale. The episode also outline's Lady Propera's plan to use the GUND Format to essentially Take Over the Solar System and change it into one without war. The biggest whammy, however, is the answer to a question a lot of viewers were asking since the Prologue: what became of Elnora Samaya/Lady Prospera's daughter, Ericht? The answer: Ericht became the Gundam Aerial.
Episodes 12 and 13 of GUN×SWORD, wherein Van catches up to the Claw, learns an unpleasant fact about Dann, and is forced to kill a close friend. Also revealed: Michael, Wendy's brother, now serves the Claw. One more thing: who is the Claw? The old man Wendy is talking to in the park, the one who's a Friend to All Living Things and wants nothing but world peace.
The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy At All: The entire premise of the series is that Aya is in love with a supposedly male record store clerk, unaware that the clerk is her female classmate Mitsuki. Aya happens to notice that Mitsuki left her phone on her desk, and upon noticing that it has the same playlist she's heartbroken to realize that the guy she had a crush on wasn't a guy. What follows is a few chapters of Mitsuki and Aya unable to speak to each other as Aya tries to come to terms with what she's learned.
Guyver: There are a few, especially as it's a constantly-escalating plot, but the most infamous is when Sho's father becomes an unwitting Enzyme-type Zoanoid who rips the Guyver's brain out, forcing the Guyver to kill him on autopilot.
- The appearance of Archanfel, the Big Bad of the series, and the leader of the Zoalords. He gets sucked into a black hole, climbs out a couple of chapters later, and turns Guyver I and Guyver III's Mega Smashers back on them, nearly killing them in the process. As this takes the Guyver units out of the picture for a large chunk of time, the Zoanoids use the lack of any real threat to their powers to Take Over the World.

Haibane Renmei goes from peaceful Slice of Life to Tear Jerker drama after chapter 6, when Kuu takes the Haibane Flight.
Hanaukyō Maid Team La Verite episode 7 "Unidentified Living Creature". Up to this point in the series, the episodes had been light-hearted and comedic. An earthquake reveals a tunnel leading under the mansion. Deep underground the mansion, there's a smaller duplicate mansion. Inside the duplicate mansion, Chief Security maid Konoe Tsurugi finds on old portrait of a woman who looks exactly like Head Maid Mariel. This leads to a chain of events that results in Mariel falling deathly ill, being kidnapped by Taro's grandfather's minions and having to be rescued, all as part of the grandfather's plans.
Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl is about a rather naive young woman named Ookuma who ends up going out with Kanda, a Bifauxnen she mistakes for a man. As you can imagine, the ninth chapter is a significant Wham Episode, since Kanda confesses her true gender to Ookuma.
Episode 20 of HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! finally reveals Hime's Dark Secret: She's the one who opened up the Axia Box, unleashing the Phantom Empire.
- Before that was Episode 13, which introduced Phantom, the self-styled "Pretty Cure Hunter" who has been defeating and capturing Pretty Cures like they were prizes.
Happy Kanako’s Killer Life has the odd distinction of all its' supposed "omake" chapters being this, with each one greatly altering the manga's status quo; be it introducing new characters or having sudden plot developments that serve as the basis for the next several chapters.
Haruhi Suzumiya:
- Despite brief references to the supernatural, Haruhi appears to be an excessively Cloudcuckoolander who can't tell fantasy from reality... then comes episode five (chronologically third): Yuki, the girl who had just been sitting there reading when the club started, is an alien drawn to the planet by a cosmic disturbance three years before. Mikuru, whom Haruhi grabbed at random because she thought she was cute, is a time traveller there to understand the time travel threshold, three years before. Itsuki, who was inducted due to Haruhi's obsession with the idea of a mysterious New Transfer Student, turns out to be from a group of espers who gained their powers in a cataclysm three years before. What are the odds? High, once you learn that Haruhi herself is a godlike being, unwittingly responsible for all three phenomena. And there are nine episodes to go.
- Technically the wham episode chronologically would have been Episode 4 (Broadcast Order Episode 10), where the Class Representative traps Kyon in an artificial world and tries her best to kill him to see what Suzumiya will do, only to be stopped by the aforementioned Nagato Yuki, wielding reality-overwrite powers. And then he meets Mikuru's future self. This is around the point where Kyon realizes he has to believe all these weird outlandish stories.
HeartCatch Pretty Cure! begins with a Wham Episode two-parter. Cure Moonlight's defeat, Cure Blossom's introduction leading into a Cliffhanger... which is started off with her going into a complete panic. This was not going to be a regular Pretty Cure series.
- Then you got Episode 10, which really puts the breaks on the fun when the Dark Precure shows up, hands Blossom and Marine their asses, then disappears.
Episode 10 of Heaven's Memo Pad ends with Ayaka's suicidal leap of the school building.
Heroman episode 4 was one, being the first time Joey and the eponymous robot couldn't do anything but stall, and one of those things was hard to stop, but at the end of the episode, more pop out, episode 5 established that the Skrugg aren't so stupid, and they promptly try to remove the threat with new, human soldiers (who turn out to be the Jerk Jock and his little buddy).
- Episode 13, Joey comes home from a date, his friends tell him that the government is after him, and he may have to leave, he does.
In a very interesting variation, the Saikoroshi-hen arc in Higurashi: When They Cry Rei was a mega Wham Episode for Umineko: When They Cry, because before Rika returns to her original world that was post-Matsuribayashi-hen, she reveals that she is also Frederica Bernkastel, the Witch of Miracles. After declaring that she would no longer hold that role, the two entities separated. In a nutshell, every Rika Furude (except the last one that survived) is Bernkastel. And they're bitter, hence we got End of The Golden Witch.
- Higurashi itself has a few. For example, episode 25 where you learn that the entire first arc was from an Unreliable Narrator's stand-point and he was hallucinating. The second season has numerous once we learn the plot, also one episode ends with everyone dying, right after it looked promising that they would be safe.
Episode 10 of Hyperdimension Neptunia the Animation: while the rest of the show mixed things up a little, it essentially followed the plots of the second and third games. However in this episode when Peashy is freed from Anonydeath's control instead of it and the following moments being heartwarming like in the game... you get a tearjerker of incredible proportions since Peashy doesn't remember anything, unlike in Victory where she ends up glomping Neptune. The stark change to drama in what has almost always been a Comedy Anime, is a pretty big moment by itself; but the Tearjerker aspect when compared to the source material makes it have even more of an impact.

Episode 13 of I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying ends with Kaoru's pregnancy test turning positive.
Ie Naki Ko Remi: Episodes 12 and 13. Dolce and Zerbino get eaten by wolves, and Vitalis dies in the snow, probably from a combination of starvation and hypothermia.

Jujutsu Kaisen:
- Chapter 90. Gojo is stalled for one minute inside his brain, and successfully sealed into Prison Realm. The catch is that what stalls him long enough to be captured is the sight of his old friend Suguru Geto, because he had killed him one year prior to the start of the series. While someone who has read the prequel would be able to deduce this, Gojo then demands to know who Geto really is. What follows is Geto pulling a string to remove the top part of his head, revealing an exposed brain with teeth sticking out.
  False Geto: Yeesh! How'd you know?
- Chapter 135. Choso the Death Painting reveals that the false Geto's real name is Noritoshi Kamo, known as the most evil sorcerer in history. According to the false Geto, it's only one of his many names. It's implied he's been doing this for a while, as Noritoshi shares the same scars as Geto.
- Chapter 136. Geto reveals the outline of his plan: to create chaos that allows humanity's control over cursed energy to be optimized. To this end, he has groomed over 1000 dormant potential sorcerers (among them, Tsumiki Fushiguro) to become vessels like Yuji, or curse users like Junpei. He then uses Mahito's Idle Transfiguration to awaken these sorcerers, and announces his intention to have them fight each other to the death, finishing off with the release of a great number of Curses into the world.
- Chapter 137. The Jujutsu world's elders respond to the Shibuya incident. They decide that: Satoru Gojo was an accomplice in the incident, and is not to be released from the Prison Realm; Principal Yaga is to receive the death penalty due to his connections to Gojo and Geto; and Yuji Itadori's execution is no longer suspended, with a newly returned Yuta Okkotsu appointed as his executioner.

Every episode in the second half of K counts as this, with revelations and twists coming one after another. However, special mention goes to Episode 6 and 11
- Episode 6: The majority of the episode is a flashback episode, explaining how Tatara Totsuka, the man that was murdered by the Colorless King, is related to HOMRA. The rest of the episode contains the major wham: Shiro's memories are fake, meaning he really could be the Colorless King and just not remember it.
- Episode 11: The Colorless King is revealed to be a Body Surfer, and is currently in the body of Kukuri, and Shiro is a King, the Silver King, Adolf K. Weismann.
- Episode 8 of the second season, Return of Kings: Iwafune, revealed in the previous episode to be the presumed dead Grey King, handily curb-stomps Reisi, and the ensuing damage to his resolve degrades his already cracking Sword of Damocles massively. The Green Clan then make off with the Dresden Slate and Fushimi, frustrated with his boss, resigns from Scepter 4...and joins JUNGLE.
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War:
- Chapter 111 reveals that Shirogane plans to study abroad following graduation, giving the pair a very limited deadline to confess their feelings for each other. The story describes this as the real war of love and brains beginning.
- The second half of Chapter 191 is all about Tsubame's relationship woes with Ishigami. It ends with Tsubame contacting Otomo, the girl that Ishigami was willing to sacrifice his reputation to keep her happiness.
- Chapter 192 is A Day in the Limelight for Osaragi and reveals that she's been in love with Ishigami since middle school, something which paints all of her previous appearances in a very different light.
Kanon episode 21: Akiko gets hit by a car.
Chapter 12 of Karakuridouji Ultimo. After introducing a whole bunch of new doji, in the previous chapter, new Evil Doji are introduced, who proceed to murder the Good Doji in brutal and disturbing ways, kill all the good doji members in almost as brutal ways. Then the world blows up killing anyone who had any ounce of life left. Yamato and Ultimo manage to use Time Manipulation to save everyone at the last second, but, the fandom still probably suffers from that chapter.
- Chapter 21 in a different sense. Anybody who was uneasy about Yandere, Stalker, and Depraved Homosexual Rune, proabably had a nervous breakdown when that chapter rolled around. Turns out Rune has no problem resorting to Rape to get Yamato. It was only Attempted in the end, but still, it's not something that most people wanted in their head.
Chapter 466 of Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: Kenichi and Miu, in escaping from Silcardo Junazard's base, are confronted by several master-class martial artists. It looks hopeless, as they're both worn down and out of energy...then suddenly John the mercenary, previously established as a buffoon, shows up to rescue them, fending off the would-be killers! But that's not the Wham moment... it's when, after a section of the burning room falls on John, his skin and clothes burn off—to reveal the tall, lean, muscular, serious form of Saiga Furinji, a.k.a. the "One Shadow" of Yami, a.k.a. the series Big Bad.
Episode 15 of Kiddy Grade ends with the destruction of GOTT headquarters, with the following episode introducing Eclair as acting chief of the "new and improved" GOTT... or so one would think.
Kill la Kill:
- In Episode 11, after Ryuko defeats Nonon, she is set up to get her rematch against Uzu Sanageyama, only for a girl called Nui Harime to interrupt the duel, where it is revealed that she works for Ragyo Kiryuin, Satsuki's mother, and REVOCS. She easily beats Uzu, who was considered the strongest of the Elite Four by a mile, and reveals that she was the person who killed Ryuko's father instead of Satsuki. From then on, the story for the anime completely changes.
- Episode 18 is filled with lots of shocking revelations. After spending over half of the series as an antagonist, Satsuki rebels against her mother, Ragyo Kiryuin, revealing that she played the Evil Overlord as part of her revenge for the death of her father and unnamed little sister, both of whom Ragyo disposed of. Ragyo survives said assassination attempt, revealing to be fused with the Life Fibers, and hands Satsuki her ass. After removing her Kamui and disposing of her, she turns her attention to the protagonist, Ryuko Matoi, by ripping her heart out and revealing that she too has been fused with Life Fibers, making her the aforementioned unnamed little sister who Satsuki thought was dead.
In Kokoro Connect, in episode 5, when Heartseed takes over Iori's body and jumps off the bridge.
Episode 20 of Kurau Phantom Memory offers a major change in the premise of the series by introducing Rynax with evil plans to take over the world, who want to use Kurau for their purposes.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is very liberally sprinkled with this indeed, throughout its long run. This is to the point that every few episodes a Wham would happen. Here are some examples (the following list is NOT exhaustive):
- There are two well-remembered Whams. The first is Episode 26: Farewell, the Old Days. The cliffhanger on Reinhard's assassination attempt is resolved most unexpectedly: His best friend and right-hand man, Siegfried Kircheis, dies protecting him. It's a significant Wham since, up to this point, Kircheis was one of the main characters.
- The second one is, of course Episode 82: The Magician Doesn't Return, a title which clearly spoils Yang Wen-Li's demise. Everything in the episode seems to be pointing towards a daring, last-minute rescue. That is, until the last minute, when the narrator makes it very clear that Yang has just bled to death. This is, again, unexpected and changes the entire dynamic of the show, since Yang was the driving force of one of the two main Cast Herds.
- There are many other Whams that are hugely significant to the show's various arcs. The Kaiser's death to illness in season 1 robs Reinhard of one of his motivations and sparks a civil war in the Empire, which causes Reinhard to engineer a civil war in the Alliance, contributing to weakening the Alliance and enshrining his own position. In season 2, he then uses this to wage a campaign against the Alliance, occupying previously-neutral Phezzan, and closing the season with the unification of the galaxy under his rule, which cements his authority over the Empire. The Legend finishes, but the list goes on...
Episode 22 of Little Witch Academia (2017) basically turns the entire series on its head. Shiny Chariot's magical show, the thing that made Akko want to be a witch in the first place, was also the reason why she is unable to perform magic properly. Chariot absorbed the magic potential from her muggle audience in order to use it as magical fuel to save the magic world, but this backfired and, for reasons yet unexplained, blew up the moon's surface. Chariot then wiped the audience's minds and assumed the identity of meek teacher Ursula to atone for what she'd done. If all that wasn't enough, Croix is about to get a war started for the sole purpose of harvesting anger from the people and using it as magical fuel, basically repeating what Chariot did 10 years before, but with much harsher consequences.
Subverted in Lucky Star, with the heartwarming scene with the ghost of Kanata (which is a major swerve from the usual upbeat comedic tone of the series). After this scene? Back to the comedic status quo.

Macross Frontier is laced with episodes that count as whams to some degree, almost to the point where you start to expect them later in the series.
- Episode 13: The Reveal of the Big Bad.
- Episode 18: A personal character wham. All glamour Idol Singer Sheryl Nome with a confidence the size of the sun is unceremoniously crushed.
- Episode 20: Anyone Can Die.
- Episode 21: Ends on a character wham, Ranka runs away from Frontier with Brera.
- Episode 24: Ranka singing for the enemy and Alto getting shot down in a ball of fire. Practically the only good guy left is the terminally ill girl.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha does this surprisingly well if you think it's just a Magical Girl series about nine-year-old girls.
- From the original series:
  - Episode 4: Where Fate Testarossa appears and curb stomps Nanoha, taking the Jewel Seed and presenting Nanoha with her first major obstacle.
  - Episode 7: Nanoha and Fate's last fight has attracted the attention of the Time-Space Administration Bureau, introducing the wider setting. However, that's not the real wham. The real wham is Fate reporting in to her mother only to be whipped for bringing only six Jewel Seeds.
  - Episode 11: Nanoha has finally defeated Fate, but Precia decides to go through with her plan without the complete set of Jewel Seeds. The TSAB manages to track down Precia's lair and sends a squadron in and discovers a girl that looks exactly like Fate. This girl turns out to be Alicia, Precia's actual daughter. Fate is a failed clone that Precia only saw as a tool to help bring back the real Alicia. The revelation absolutely breaks Fate.
- In A's Episode 9, the protagonists accidentally encounter the Wolkenritter while visiting Hayate, and prepare to fight them. But then it turns out that the mysterious man who's been helping them is actually two people, and they absorb the Wolkenritter into the book and trick Hayate into thinking that Nanoha and Fate did it, causing the Book to awaken, possess Hayate and set out to kill the heroes.
- In episodes 16 and 17 of StrikerS, Jail Scaglietti's forces attack Riot Force 6's base and the site of the press conference, abducting Ginga and Vivio (after almost killing the first) and showing the power of the Combat Cyborgs. During this attack, it is revealed that the Nakajima sisters are also combat cyborgs.
- Chapter 7 of Force: The manga starts off as a slighly Darker and Edgier version of StrikerS and then Cypha of Hückebein goes and almost kills the Ensemble Dark Horse Lady of War Signum and her Unison Device Agito, marking the first time a main cast member was put through a Near-Death Experience in the main story (as opposed to flashbacks).
Magical Project S is a hilarious parody of the magical girl genre and never takes it self too seriously. Until episode 19 where it's revealed to Sammy that her best friend, Misao, was Pixy Misa, the evil magical girl that tortured the main cast (Sammy included) with her magical powers, and she was about to harm her parents. Also, that Misao was in fact an Stepford Smiler and Beneath the Mask feels lonely, worthless and jealous of Sammy's happiness. Rather than the brainwashing the audience had been led to expect her evil alter ego was in fact really her all along (albeit her repressed feelings). The only thing Rumiya did was "unleashing" her hidden self. Nice job, Ramia.
The 7th episode of Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi. From a wonderful comedy to a heart-wrenching love drama...
- Even more so episode 9, which reveals the causes of the jumps.
In the last episode of the first season of Magic Knight Rayearth, it turns out the Princess is the Big Bad and not the Damsel in Distress. The Dragon, Zagato, got killed trying to save her from death. The Princess' Superpowered Evil Side emerges and battles the girls. The Power Trio has to kill her against their will and under her pleas, otherwise Cephiro dies. The Princess dies smiling and sends the three broken kids back home. HOLY S...!
- Season 2 had plenty as well, such as Episode 30, where the Magic Knights' first battle with Nova ended with Nova breaking Hikaru's sword in half like a twig, severely disempowering Hikaru and rendering her unable to fight alongside Umi and Fuu in the following two episodes. Then, two episodes later, Umi and Fuu battled with the forces of Chizeta and Fahren, only to be captured by them respectively, then in the next episode, Presea's, er, Sierra's attempt at reviving Hikaru's sword only for Nova to interrupt it by starting her epic Mind Rape of Hikaru. Then we have episode 45 ending with Nova abducting Lantis, and the penultimate episode ended with Debonair killing Eagle.
Episode 3 of Martian Successor Nadesico announced to the viewers that this would not be a Super Robot show where nobody really died by having Gai, the Hot-Blooded otaku, get shot and killed without ever seeing it coming.
- Also, episode 13: the heroes capture an enemy mech and it has a cockpit full of Gekiganger 3 merchandise, thus proving that the "alien invaders" are actually humans.
- This extends into episode 16, where the history of the "alien invaders" is revealed.
Mazinger Z: The final episode was an endless succession of shocking moments altered the status quo irremissibly: it was revealed that Gorgon was actually working for someone was infinitely more powerful and most dangerous than Dr. Hell, Mazinger-Z was utterly and easily defeated by a new enemy, a new and more powerful Mazinger showed up, named Great Mazinger and it was revealed Kouji's father was alive. The Wham factor was even bigger in the movie version of that episode, when the Mykene army razed to ruins New York, London, Paris and Moscow in one single stroke before leading towards Tokyo and destroying it as well, and at the end of the movie, the prophet removed his mask and revealed his real identity: Kenzo Kabuto, Kouji's father.
- Long before there was an episode where the villains took over a Japanese village in a very Nazi-like manner, including a systematic slaughter of the civilians that they considered "useless" and usage of the women of the village as human shields for their latest Mechanical Beast. That was quite shocking and brutal, too.
Mekakucity Actors: After Episode 5, the show takes a dark turn, and a Wham moment comes at least Once per Episode:
- Episode 6: Ene's past as the very human Takane Enomoto is revealed, and her ties to Konoha, Ayano and Shintaro are explored.
- Episode 7: More on Ene's past, as well as The Reveal that Kenjirou is the one that killed her and Haruka. We also get Azami's first appearance.
- Episode 8: The nature of the Dan's eye abilities is discussed, and Shintaro activates his power, remembering past timelines, and the meeting with Queen!Mary that gave him his power.
- Episode 9: Ayano's backstory is revealed, and Kenjirou is actually possessed, we learn Kano knows about Kenjirou, and Ene's former body cameos at the end.
- Episode 10: We learn how Azami created the Daze, and that Shion and Mary's deaths on August 15th a century ago are why people are sucked in on that date.
- Episode 11: Kido, Momo and Hibiya are captured, Kano breaks down over memories of Ayano's suicide - which is revealed to have been pointless - and Shintaro kills himself to enter the Daze and retrieve Ayano.
- Episode 12: The Wide-Open Eyes Snake possesses Konoha and manages to convince Mary to reset time, but Ayano and Shintaro arrive and prevent it, leading to the happy ending depicted in Summertime Record.
In Muhyo and Roji, the competition between Muhyo and Goryo concludes with Goryo winning on a technicality, resulting in him winning control of Muhyo's office. Muhyo effectively puts Roji on leave, and tells him that he's fired if he doesn't learn what he has to do by the time they meet up again.
Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation titles every one of its Wham Episodes as "Turning Point". Whatever happens in that chapter will have a massive impact on the story and also results in major reveals regarding preceding events.
- Turning Point 1: The main plot kicks off with the Mana Calamity and the first meeting between Rudeus and Hitogami. At the same time many major players begin moving in response to the event.
- Turning Point 2: Rudeus first encounters Orsted and after a lengthy battle suffers a mortal wound only to be saved due to Nanahoshi.
- Turning Point 3: Rudeus learns that Sylphy is pregnant just as he receives a letter from Gisu asking for help to save Zenith. Faced with contradicting advice from Hitogami, Rudeus chooses to ignore Hitogami's advice for the first time.
- Turning Point 4: Rudeus encounters his future self who has come back to warn him about Hitogami's true plan and nature.
My Hero Academia:
- Chapter 13, which started like a regular lesson-of-the-day chapter, only to turn into a life and death situation at the end, when the Villain Alliance revealed themselves to the students.
- Chapter 88: All For One finally makes his move.
- Chapter 92: All Might's true form is revealed to the world and Shigaraki is revealed to be the grandson of All Might's deceased mentor Shimura Nana.
- Chapter 161: Even though the mission was completed with success, left in two bittersweet notes. Eri is quarantined due to her out-of-control quirk and fever so she won't be better or have full control of her quirk soon. Sir Nighteye, who Deku and Mirio went to for internship, died from his fatal injuries but not before seeing them changed their future and seeing All Might again one last time.
The My-HiME Series Franchise has had several moments:
- The first "wham" comes at the end of episode 8 of the My-HiME anime, when Akane goes into an Heroic BSoD and has to be put into hiding after watching her boyfriend Kazuya die when Miyu destroys her CHILD, showing her (and the viewers) the true cost of protecting the ones you love. This one was immediately followed by a breather Beach Episode, which still managed to sneak in a little plot and Character Development unexpectedly.
  - However, an even bigger "wham" hits at the end of Episode 16. The heroines have defeated the invading Searrs army, and decide to celebrate with a night of merriment and karaoke. Once done, they're all ready to go out and kick some more Orphan butt...except Nagi, who has isolated them from Mashiro and Fumi (who helped them fend off Searrs), tells them that the Orphans aren't coming anymore, and forces them to fight against each other to ensure the world's survival.
- Episode 16 of My-Otome: The reconstruction of the portion of Mashiro's castle that was destroyed in an earlier episode is finally completed to coincide with Garderobe's graduation/advancement ceremony, and the large curtain is removed to reveal...a Schwarz superweapon capable of summoning Slaves en masse to every corner of the planet.
  - Then, in Episode 17, Schwarz invades Garderobe and holds the entire school prisoner, with Shizuru offering herself as a hostage to allow Natsuki time to escape and seek help. Meanwhile, on the other side of campus, Nina has contracted herself to Nagi (the mastermind behind the whole takeover), who flips out and attacks Arika out of jealousy when she learns that her adoptive father Sergey was Arika's Mysterious Benefactor, thus enabling her to attend Garderobe in the first place. And then, their friend Erstin is revealed to be a Schwarz sleeper agent, and is Killed Off for Real trying to stop the two of them from fighting.
- My-HiME manga: The chapter after Nagi's defeat and the subsequent victory parade. In comes the Searrs Institute for Girls (led by Natsuki's mother, whom she believed to have been killed) to enact a hostile takeover of Fuuka Academy.
- Then the impostor turns out to be Mashiro's twin brother, making him a rightful heir to the throne.
- My-Otome manga: Sergey killing Nagi.
In episode 8 of My Love Story!! it's revealed that Suna's father needs surgery on the same day as Yamato's birthday.
Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, Episode 21. Heimdall's death scene. Long story short: He trapped the main character and friends in an alternate dimension, eventually dragging the MC into a creepy platform strikingly reminiscent of the Great Bridge of Hylia. He then goes completely unhinged, exhausting very literally every ounce of his considerable power (which he had just gotten back from a certain thief) on the character he believed to be that thief — the main character. Said character then deflects one of Heimdall's attacks and uses it to kill his only friend in the entire series, a falcon, leaving an unholy mess of feathers to rain down upon Heimdall. He goes totally off the deep end and winds up shattering at least 90% of the platform they had been previously standing on without even moving a muscle — it just cracks under their feet. He then falls to his death with a truly cringe-inducing scream... and the normally stoic main character, after being returned to the real world, sheds a single tear. Keep in mind that this is coming from the same series which, a few episodes previous, was doing an Iron Chef parody.

The first few episodes of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water were pretty lighthearted. The two main characters were mostly running around, some Team Rocket-like jewel thieves were chasing them, and the titular Nadia was trying to find a way to get to Africa. Then they end up on Gargoyle's island and boy, things get REALLY dark out of nowhere. Most of the people on the island have been killed by Gargoyle's men. The main characters find a little girl whose parents and even dog were just killed, and it's a life or death situation when they all have to hide from them. It's truly scary.
NEEDLESS begins as a ridiculous and humorous series...up until Episode 16, in which Cruz is fatally injured and killed, as opposed to previous episodes in which his injuries were always played for laughs.
Neon Genesis Evangelion has several towards the end:
- Episode 18: Evangelion Unit-03 is taken over by the angel Bardiel, but Shinji refuses to fight it because he doesn't want to risk harming the pilot. Gendo responds by activating the Dummy System for the first time, leading Unit-01 to tear Unit-03 to shreds. As a result, the pilot of Unit-03, who is revealed to be Toji, is mortally injured and gets hospitalized for the remainder of the series (he dies in the manga).
- Episode 19: During the fight against Zeruel, Unit-01 goes berserk, steals one of Zeruel's arms for itself, and eats the angel, including its S2 engine. Unit-01 then breaks free of its armor, which Ritsuko reveals is actually a type of restraint meant to control Unit-01's power, and reveals organic tissue underneath. In other words, we get definite proof that Unit-01 is alive.
- Episode 20: We learn that because Unit-01 ate Zeruel's S2 engine, it has achieved the status of a living god, and get a final confirmation that Shinji's mother is the soul of Unit-01.
- Episode 21 is the point where the show gets Darker and Edgier by killing off Kaji just after the The Reveal that NERV is holding Lilith, not Adam, inside Terminal Dogma.
- Episode 22: In one of the most traumatic and terrifying moments of the franchise, Asuka is Mind Raped into a coma, while revealing a backstory that is even darker and more traumatic than Shinji's or Rei's.
- Episode 23: During the battle with Armisael, Rei sacrifices herself to save Shinji. But no worry, clones of her are being prepared in the deepest levels of the NERV facility... Sorry, were being prepared. Ritsuko destroys the tank after Gendo sent her to SEELE answer for Rei's recovery.
- Episode 24: After running away, again, NERV agents finally find Asuka, alive, in a bathtub full of blood after a suicide attempt by slitting her wrists. Kaworu Nagisa, The replacement for Unit-02 arrives, and befriends Shinji instantly. Too bad he's the final angel. Kaworu eventually convinces Shinji to kill him, sending the poor kid into a crippling depression.
- Episode 25'^notePart one of The End of Evangelion: Shinji visits Asuka in the Hospital, after trying to drown himself, looking for comfort. Asuka unresponsive, Shinji takes out his frustrations by masturbating over her comatose body. Even he points out that he is "The lowest of the low". The dubbed version has Shinji say, "I am so fucked up". And that's only the first five minutes.

The end of Volume 10 of Ōoku: The Inner Chambers ends with the realization that with Harusada abdicating her claim to the shogunate, the only candidate left to inherit the throne after Ieharu's death is a man.
- The end of Volume 12 qualifies too: the vaccine for the Redface Pox is a rousing success and the male population is slowly rising...just in time for Commodore Perry to show up to force Japan to end its isolationism.

Pop up often enough in PandoraHearts to warrant its own page, with Retrace 65 being the most infamous for crushing the status quo of the series thus far.
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Episode 12, in particular the segment ''Panty+Brief", where it is revealed that Brief is instrumental to the Big Bad's plan, on top of one of the character losing her powers and another returning to Heaven.
- More like Episode 13. After the big bad is defeated, Stocking casually wonders if angel weapons work on angels. She then proceeds to kill Panty by slicing her into 666 pieces, in order to resurrect the Big Bad, say "I'm actually a demon", and then walks off into the distance with the aforementioned big bad.
Episode 42 of Phantom Thief Jeanne has three revelations: The titular character has been an Unwitting Pawn all along, her helper Finn is actually evil and serves the Devil, and Miyako finally discovers that the master chief she's been hunting throughout the show is none other than her best friend, Maron Kusakabe. Ouch.
Plastic Memories: After the first four episodes help establish the characters, Episode 5 takes a dark turn in revealing what happens when an expired Giftia becomes a Wanderer, or a machine driven only by basic programming. Moreover, the episode sees the introduction of R-Security, an anti-Wanderer PMC group that was responsible for killing Michiru's Giftia father.
Despite being based on an earlier work, Pluto has a few:
- Atom dies in a fight against Pluto.
- In a flashback Gesicht hounds a human being into a corner and murders him, overcoming his in-built robotic rules through sheer hatred.
- Gesicht, the main character, is murdered three-quarters of the way through.
- Brau 1589, the resident psychopath and Hannibal Lecter expy, spares the Thracian president and sacrifices himself to kill the real mastermind on the very last page.
Pokémon: The Series has a few:
- EP-015 "Battle Aboard the St. Anne". Giovanni appears for the first time and orders Team Rocket to attack the St. Anne and at the end the ship sinks with the group on board.
- EP-021 "Bye-Bye Butterfree". Ash release Butterfree, the first time he's ever released a Pokemon. Given the themes of friendship and Gotta Catch Them All the series had, none saw this coming.
- EP-134 "Charizard's Burning Ambitions". Ash leaves Charizard, one of the anime's most loved Pokemon on the Charricific Valley.
- AG-044 "The Princess and the Togepi" and AG-045 "A Togepi Mirage". Misty comes back, is revealed to own a Gyarados (depends if you are watching Chronicles on their Japanese air date), her Togepi evolves, and it's then released to take care of the Togepi paradise.
- DP-050 "Tag, We're It", 051 "Glory Blaze", and 052 "Smells Like Team Spirit" form a three-part Wham Episode. Paul, who's already established to be excessively harsh on his Pokémon, abandons Chimchar mid-battle for being too weak, prompting Ash to pick up the slack and adopt Chimmy. Not only does this drive home the radical differences between their philosophies, it also lays the groundwork for their Sinnoh League battle in which Ash defeats Paul with the aforementioned Chimchar, having evolved it into a powerful Infernape.
- DP-061 "Team Shocker!". Jessie finally wins a Contest. Not only does this set up a Heroic BSoD for Dawn that sets up her Character Development, but it paves the way for Team Rocket being legitimate rivals in later performance competitions.
- XY-060 "A Showcase Debut". Serena participates on her first Pokemon Showcase, but loses in the Theme Performance round. Early the next morning, Serena goes to a dock and cries for her failure, but after being reconfortated by her Pokemon, she proceeds to cut her hair and change her style permanently. Additionaly, a mysterious woman and a former performer named Palermo is introduced.
- SM-139 "Enter the Champion!": For the second time in the series' 22-year run, Ash wins a Pokémon League tournament and becomes the champion of Alola.
Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl Adventure! has a few such as when it's revealed that Mitsumi is an ex-member of Team Galactic or where we meet Hareta's father.
Pokémon Adventures:
- Fans were floored in the BW arc, when White's star Pokémon actress, Gigi the Tepig, willingly ditches her to go off with N. The shock was enough for White to accidentally slip out of the Nimbasa Ferris Wheel, leaving her to fall hard on the ground, barely conscious and her blank eyes full of tears. Considering how the rest of the franchise seem to have Pokemon unconditionally love their trainers no matter what, it was an especially big shocker.
- And now the ending of the same Arc drove the fans to massive crying as Black is sealed away with the Reshiram in the lightstone, White tries to take it but it flies away, she breaks down and let out a desperate cry for him to return this is specially tragic because, one chapter before, Gigi returned to her.
- The biggest wham chapter was arguably the final one of the FRLG Arc, where just as you think the heroes have won against Team Rocket, even Mewtwo relaxes and then five of the manga's most popular and capable protagonists (Red, Blue, Green, Yellow and Silver) are all turned to stone indefinitely by a mysterious light by the Team Rocket member Sird, who escapes.
The anime version of Prétear has a WHAM episode in Episode 10 when Sasame—the sweet, sensitive member of the group—suddenly reveals he's in love with the Dark Magical Girl and pulls a Face–Heel Turn.

Queen Millennia: A dozen or so episodes in it is revealed that the leader of the terrorist group attacking the main characters is in fact Yayoi's sister, the original choice for the Millennial Queen, and that she did a Face–Heel Turn to the humans' side. Which Yayoi is NOT on. Yayoi then does a Face–Heel Turn of her own against her mother and sides with the thieves. This changes how ALL the factions in the series were seen until then.

RideBack: Though the show is clear that it's a dark take on things, Rin's friend, Suzuri, is the one keeping the show as light as it is. She's showing off having fun when the government decides that Rin is to be considered a terrorist and needs to be stopped. They decide that the one showing off is the terrorist. It doesn't help that the preview for the next episode focuses on Suzuri acting like herself.
Episode 34 of Revolutionary Girl Utena, in which two meta characters interact with the main cast for the first time in the entire series, and in doing so casually reveal the entire plot and (almost) all of its secrets. Suddenly, everything that's happened up til then makes sense, and it's horrifying.
- Not to mention episode 33, which features Utena having sex with Akio. In a clip show.
- You're all forgetting the original WHAM episode - episode 23, wherein we learn huge chunks of Mikage's memories are fake. Nemuro burned down the hall, the real Mamiya died years ago, and Anthy was posing as Mamiya the whole time.
Rosario + Vampire has Chapter 9, "Secret". The main cast other than Moka (who knew all along) learn that Tsukune is human, as does the Arc Villain Kuyou. The next chapter continues the wham by having Tsukune almost die and have to be given vampire blood to live, Inner Moka—up until then an archetypal Invincible Hero—getting her ass kicked and Tsukune stopping the bad guy.

The Sailor Moon anime has various Wham Episodes;
- The first Wham Episode in the series is probably the one where Nephrite dies. Before that, it was mostly about the wacky adventures of three clumsy superheroes and their talking cat; this episode marks the first time someone other than a Monster of the Week actually dies (as opposed to being frozen in a crystal), leaving another character heartbroken, and things generally take a darker turn from here.
- After that, the reveal of the Moon Princess and the Legendary Silver Crystal (at the same time, no less), not to mention the revelation of Usagi's identity to Mamoru followed by his to Usagi and later the others. While her identity was quite obvious from the beginning, especially in the original North American dub where it was shown in the first episode, the scene where it finally happens is genuinely shocking and touching.
- Also, in the next season, when Chibi-Usa is revealed to be Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen's daughter, and by association, later, that Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen are going to be King and Queen of Crystal Tokyo.
- Another Wham in the following episode: the revelation that the dragon Sailor Moon was forced to destroy was actually Esmeraude, and that doing so condemned her to the void. It was here that everyone began to think there was more to the Black Moon Clan than just evil intent. A couple episodes later, Saphir confirms the hunch by revealing that (1) they have feelings, too, and (2) Wiseman is manipulating them and is the real enemy.
- Chibi-Usa's new friend Hotaru, the Delicate and Sickly girl with the healing powers? At the end of the same episode, her dad is revealed to be the season's Big Bad.^note
Samurai Flamenco is an exercise in Serial Escalation, starting in episode 7 when a drug addict transforms into a giant gorilla with a guillotine in its stomach and kills several police officers. Then again in episode 11, episode 18, and episode 19. Oh yeah. Its that kind of anime.
School-Live! is chock full of these, given its Unreliable Narrator approach to telling a story, and then showing the viewer that it was shown horribly, horribly wrong.
- Episode/Chapter one: So this is a Iyashikei Slice of Life comedy about a few girls who live at their school, right? It looks like it is... until we see a shot that isn't from Yuki's perspective, revealing nearly all of what was shown took place in her head, and that in reality, something very very bad is going on.
- Episode six reveals without a doubt that Megu-nee was Dead All Along and that every time we've seen her outside of flashback was actually just a part of Yuki's delusions.
- Episode eight has the girls find an emergency manual, and they learn the government knew of the possibility of a zombie outbreak, and that it may have been the result of an experimental biological weapon. Exactly why such a weapon was being developed is as of yet unknown.
- Episode ten shows that the zombified Megu-nee infected Taroumaru, and then she bites Kurumi as well. Miki tries to find an antidote promised by the emergency manual, but as she prepares to do so, the zombies break down the barricades keeping them outside, making their way into the school.
  - The manga has many of its own as well.
- Chapter 5: Megu-nee has been Dead All Along and the current Megu-nee we see is actually Yuki's imagination.
- Chapter 15: According to Miki, Yuki might be faking her delusions.
- Chapter 18: The school was given a Government Emergency Manual on how to deal with the zombie outbreak, revealing the government knew about the zombies beforehand. Also Kurumi gets infected after she was attacked by a zombified Megu-nee!
- Chapter 20: Rii-san holds a knife, ready to strike Kurumi, who seems to be on the verge of turning into a zombie. Until Miki returns with the medicine to delay the zombification process.
- Chapter 22: The government did know and the school had some sort of contract involving it. The reason for Megu-nee being in the shelter was not due to trying to get medicine for herself; She briefly regained her humanity while tearing at a door with other zombies and thought to try to retrieve the supplies for the girls before going feral again. Someone else had also opened up the shelter before she got there.
- Chapter 25: A search party on a military chopper arrives over the area the school is in. However, we are shown the reaction of the soldier within, and the implication is that Kurumi isn't out of the woods yet, and will likely have to take the serum to stave off the effects of the infection for the rest of her life, ala Dead Rising... except the cache at the school has less than five doses of serum left.
- Chapter 26: The search helicopter crashes in the school grounds. Kurumi and Miki go to see if there are survivors, but once they get there, Miki is convinced that there are none. Before the two are able to turn back though, the fuel leaking from the helicopter catches fire, which then causes a massive explosion that catches both girls in the blast. And as they lay stunned, burning figures can now be seen shambling out of the wreckage...
- Chapter 32: The group arrives too late at the home of the person transmitting the radio broadcast, and it is implied that Kurumi had to put the person out of her misery.
- Chapter 33: Kurumi discovers that normal zombies now ignore her, and will only attack her if she makes a racket. This, and her ice-cold temperature, leads Miki to believe that the serum they used failed, and that Kurumi is in a really awkward situation right now.
- Chapter 35: Rii loses it, and sneaks out one night to try and find her sister in a zombie-infested kindergarten. While she returns safely at the end of the chapter with a little girl with her, the odd looks Miki and Kurumi give each other point to something very amiss. It's worth noting that the tie the little girl wears looks very much like the moustache of a certain teddy bear, and in the last panel she even seems to have bear ears on her head...
- Chapter 36: The girls run into other survivors for the first time in a long while. However, it begs to be seen if they're really as nice as they introduce themselves to be...
- Chapter 38: The girls encounter a much friendlier group of survivors. Like at their high school, the new survivor hideout has power, reserves of food, and much to Kurumi's delight, video games.
School Rumble had Eri then Yakumo introduced as potential love interests for Harima. The manga showed Karasuma admitting he really is in love with Tenma and he has a terminal disease.
Sekai de Ichiban Tsuyoku Naritai: Blue Panther, thought to be, for 2 episodes, Misaki's rival Juri, was in fact revealed to be a rival, yes...but Sakura's rival, Elena.
In Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi, episode 16 is what shocks the viewer given that this series is a light hearted shonen ai comedy with some drama. The ending of the episode leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
- To sum up the episode, Chiaki thinks that Hatori is cheating on him with his ex-girlfriend in high school and that he deliberately skipped out on their date to see a movie (which was staying in theaters for one last day) in order to see her. Pissed off and jealous, he goes to Yanase's house to vent. The typical drama of this series. Then things take a turn for the worse when Hatori calls Yanase and Yanase says he's not handing Chiaki over. Yanase tries to confess to Chiaki a second time hoping he would take him seriously this time (and at this point, Yanase is desperate for Chiaki to return his feelings). By forcing himself on Chiaki, Chiaki retaliates by actually punching in the face (and mind you that Chiaki is the type of person that wouldn't hurt a fly) and the rejection finally causes him to break down crying in front of his best friend. Naturally, what makes the situation worse is Hatori forcing his way inside the house and proceeding to beat up Yanase after he literally shut down and wasn't going to fight back. Chiaki stops Hatori in time and Chiaki literally treats Yuu the same as always as leaving, which leaves a bad aftertaste considering the fact that the episode ends with Hatori explaining why he was with his ex girlfriend in the first place and Chiaki forgetting what happened. A what the hell moment with Chiaki acting like nothing happened? Sure. A Karma Houdini for Hatori in this episode? Definitely. Yanase is just that unlucky.
Shimeji Simulation has three instances:
- Chapter 30. Later soon revealed that Sis was responsible for the events in West Yomogi, when confronted by The Gardener, who is later revealed to be a deity and the town's overseer, ensuing a major confrontation between the two. This alone caused the town to be radically changed, due to the interference of Sis via the Fish With Names.
- Chapter 40. The implications of Big Sis' actions in the past are now also catching up to the present, when her rogue, self-aware clone she created from her cloning ability drove the free world she crafted into chaos as it attempts to grant humanity the power to change themselves, which occurs in the form of a feedback loop. This resulted in yet another chaotic imbalance to the already warped world.
- Chapter 43. After Shijima kicks her friend Majime away out of fear of being merged by her, she is now thrusted into a world of emptiness without anyone but herself, playing the same bitter irony of her reclusive life in the past. Unlike the first two examples, Big Sis is later revealed to be dead in Chapter 45 and Shijima's "solution" of fixing the mess the Sis clone did during the school festival requires her to sacrifice her connections to Majime and to the rest of the people she knew by distancing herself to them.
Shin Mazinger had a Wham Ending. In the final episode, Kouji finally defeats and kills Doctor Hell. The same moment sky goes red, the victorious music suddenly stops and weird things start coming from the sky. It's then revealed that Doctor Hell had installed a program in Baron Ashura that prevented him from comitting suicide as long as Hell is alive. Now, after tricking Kouji into killing Hell for him, Ashura takes his own life, breaking the ancient seal and unleashing Mycean Empire, lead by Great General Of Darkness, on the world.
Easily half the episodes of Simoun count, but for some highlights:
- Episode 8: Anglas, the Plumbish priestess Chor Tempest is hosting, is a suicide bomber that destroys over half the Simoun fleet and the anchor ship Arcus Prima.
- Episode 14: Dominura convinces Wapourif to dismantle the Simoun's helical motors. It's unclear what she sees, but it leaves her shaken to her core.
- Episode 16: Rimone and Dominura perform the Emerald Ri Maajon and disappear.
- Episode 17: Anglas's body is discovered inside an ancient Simoun, and Plumbum has gotten their hands on a couple Simoun.
- Episode 19: Mamina sacrifices herself to keep the Plumbish priestesses from being executed as traitors for letting Neviril escape.
- Episode 21: The real purpose of the Emerald Ri Maajon is revealed. It allows someone to travel back in time, and Neviril and Aer are ordered to perform the Emerald Ri Maajon to stop the war from happening in the first place. Rimone and Dominura are also revealed to be alive in the distant past, before the Simouns became a way of life. Dominura reveals that what she saw in the helical motors was her coming back to this time to found the Simoun tradition in the first place, and therefore be indirectly responsible for the war. She and Rimone decide to let it happen anyway, as the Simoun tradition was how they met in the first place.
- Episode 23: Simulacrum realizes they can't win the war and surrenders.
- Episode 25: The occupation forces learn that Aer and Neviril haven't chosen a gender yet, and arrest the pair, planning to take them to the Spring by force. The now former members of Chor Tempest, their former commanding officers, and Plumbish priestesses break them out, giving them a Simoun so Aer and Neviril can perform the Emerald Ri Maajon.
Sket Dance, 'Switch Off'. Kazuyoshi Usui became 'Switch' in memory of his late younger brother, who was murdered in confused circumstances Switch blamed himself for. Done in the form of a Tomato Surprise with the proceeding episode - Takemitsu reconciling with his younger brother, and Switch's reaction to it - going some way to mislead viewers about what happens.
- 'Ogress'. Himeko's backstory.
- 'Happy Birthday' and 'Happy Rebirthday'. Bossun's backstory.
- 'Switch On'. How Switch meets Bossun and Himeko.
Slayers is usually free of these, being more comedy-oriented. One notable exception occurs towards the end of Slayers Next, when Gaav survives Lina's Ragna Blade, then Fibrizo reveals himself and effortlessly kills Gaav. It's striking because up to this point Gaav had been clearly presented as the antagonist and Fibrizo does not appear in the opening credits (OK, he does, but you only realize this after The Reveal is pulled off). The series' tone shifts entirely after this episode as the humor is toned down and characterization kicks into full speed.
Episode 10 of Sola is this, when Matsuri reveals to Yorito that he's not a human, but rather a golem made of paper that Aono had made with her yaka powers and implanted with the memories of her dead brother, Yorito.
The episode of Someday's Dreamers II: Sora with the reveal of Sora's terminal heart condition totally detonated the lightheartedness of the show.
People were wondering if war would ever be shown in Sound of the Sky, being a military show. It is, in Episode 7, and changes the view on one of the characters completely.
Soul Eater: The episode where the Kishin is revived. You know that this is a wham episode too, because after this arc ends and the new arc begins, you start to see less and less comedic fillers and more exhausting and BRUTAL battles in the series.
- Chapter 87 Chrona kills Medusa. And in chapter 88 it ends with Shinigami's Wham Line ordering Spartoi to kill Chrona
- Chapter 110 Kid gains his father's power, Shinigami-sama dies and on the very last page, the Kishin stabs Maka straight through her chest
- Chapter 112 Crona attempts to become a Barrier Maiden to seal Asura...and the resulting wave of black blood either kills or traps Spirit, Marie and Sid.
Stellvia of the Universe where in episode 11, Ayaka attacks Shima out of jealousy for her achievements, and episode 16, where people actually die, for the first time.
Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry is another series where the first wham comes at the end of the first episode: Characters are introduced, and even hints of a romance is set up... Then the brother of our main character shows up and kills everyone.
The Summer You Were There:
- Chapter 5. Shizuku had always been uneasy around her "girlfriend" Kaori, finally reaches her breaking point during their date to the aquarium, and reveals that she was a bully in elementary school. Shizuku's guilt over what she did causes her to believe that she doesn't deserve to have friends or be happy, but Kaori takes the admission in stride, and reveals that she already knew (albeit through rumors, as she later clarifies). After the initial fallout of this, Shizuku starts to trust Kaori more and enlists her help in apologizing to Ruri.
- Chapters 14 and 15. In the former, Shizuku, accompanied by Kaori, goes to visit Ruri, the girl Shizuku bullied in elementary school, to apologize, but Ruri politely rejects the apology, saying that she still bears the emotional scars of the bullying and wants nothing more to do with Shizuku. Shizuku takes this relatively well, but as Ruri and her best friend Seri are leaving, Kaori collapses. An ambulance takes Kaori away, and as Seri accompanies Shizuku to the hospital, she tells Shizuku that Kaori has a chronic respiratory disease. At the hospital, Kaori confirms what Seri said, and tries to break up with Shizuku to spare her the pain, since she knows she is dying. The tone of the story is significantly darker from this point forward, as Kaori is almost constantly in the hospital and fully aware that she most likely has less than a month to live.
- In Chapter 25, Shizuku goes to visit Kaori in the hospital, only for Kaori's younger sister Shiori to tearfully inform Shizuku that Kaori slipped into unconsciousness the previous day and hasn't woken up. This event underscores that Kaori doesn't have much time left and leads in to the final volume of the season.
- At the end of Chapter 30, Kaori goes into critical condition, forcing Shizuku to race to fulfill all her promises to Kaori and setting the stage for Kaori's death one chapter later.
Sunday Without God: In episode three, the immortal character is Killed Off for Real after his wish for a "happy death" comes true, setting up one of the series' main themes of Be Careful What You Wish For.
The attack of the Bodolzaa fleet — and its outcome — in Super Dimension Fortress Macross. Given how every other television show went during its time, NOBODY expected 90% of the Earth's surface to be reduced to ash.
The first half of Tamako Market is a plain—if not downright boring—Slice of Life. Then in episode 7 Choi arrives and chews out Dela for neglecting his duties. After a few misunderstandings (mostly the result of Dela trying to shift the blame for his idleness), she comes to befriend Tamako. At the end, she recognizes Tamako as her prince's destined bride.She is wrong, however.

Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee
- The end of Lag's Letter Bee Exam has him pass with flying colors, but learn that Gauche Suede, whom he'd looked up to and who and inspired him to become a Letter Bee, is no longer a Bee. This sets up one of the key plot threads of the series- finding out what happened to Gauche.
- In Chapter 16, Lag encounters his old friend Gauche, and learns that he lost all his memories, joined an anti-government organization as a "marauder," and has a mysterious girl with him who has the same name as the dog that used to be his dingo.
- The start of the post-Time Skip portion of the series reveals that Sylvette lost her heart and is now in a sanitarium, while Lag's training has caused the normally emotional young man to become completely detached.
Tenchi Muyo! gets one in OAV 3, Episode 6. After spending the past five episodes setting off conflicts and sitting back to watch, Zetto decides to take direct action against Tenchi, by BLOWING UP HALF OF EARTH. And I don't just mean half the surface, I mean all the way down to the core and back out the other side. And just to cap it off, after giving Tenchi a cheery "Yo", he waves his hand and vaporizes most of the moon. This later reveals a slightly subverted Wham when Tenchi manifests himself as a god.
- Before this, there was two in OAV 2. In episode 1, we learn about Washu's past and that the form we see her in ISN'T her true form. And episode 2, we find out Sasami's past.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
- Episode. Eight. So you thought this series was just a fun, episodic romp, mmm? Well, here, the Plot Armor comes off, manly tears are shed, and Heroic BSoD ensues. From here on out, the show takes itself much more seriously, and so does the audience.
- Near the end of episode 15, just when it seems like the Spiral King is defeated and the main conflict is over with, he gives a rather ominous warning about a million people reaching the surface of the planet before he dies. This is the show's first clear sign of its true Big Bad, the Anti-Spirals.
- Episode 26. The fuel for the world and everything our heroes have been fighting for may eventually, should it continue to grow, kill absolutely everything in existence. And you thought the Anti-Spirals were just sociopaths.
Tenrou Sirius the Jaeger has Episode 7 that contains revelation that Willard helped the Vampires discover the location of the Sirius Ark and, as a result, Yuliy's clan was massacred by them. It is also revealed in this episode that Yuliy has a long-lost father who is still alive and guarding the Sirius Ark from the vampires. This episode also marks the last days of Yuliy and the other Jaegers in Japan before setting foot into another country.
The 10th of Tiger & Bunny ends with the long-awaited arrival of the Ouroboros organization, which introduces itself by taking the entire city hostage for the release of their leader. Episode 10 is then entirely dwarfed by the events of episode 12, where Kotetsu accidentally betrays the trust Barnaby was slowly developing in him... Right before Jake utterly destroys Kotetsu in a one-on-one match, sending him to the ICU in critical condition while Barnaby awaits his own fight with Jake. The fandom collectively suffered a massive nervous breakdown as soon as the credits rolled.
- Episode 15 ends with a massive bombshell: In the previous episode, Kotetsu's powers had a sudden spike, but his Hundred Power then expired, shortly before the usual five-minute time limit. Here, his powers expire early again. In The Stinger, his old friend, Ben, reveals that sudden power spikes like the one he had before were a symptom of a rare condition that leads to a gradual, and eventually total and permanent De-power: Kotetsu's days as a superhero are numbered!
- And now there's episode 16, which reveals that Kotetsu's longtime hero, Mr. Legend, was Yuri Petrov's father — Yuri Petrov's abusive father.
- Every episode from 19 onward is a combination of this and From Bad to Worse. Observe:
  - Episode 19: It turns out that Maverick is the one who actually murdered Barnaby's parents. He tells this to Barnaby - right before wiping his memory with heretofore unknown NEXT power.
  - Episode 20: Maverick wipes the memories of most of the other heroes. Kotetsu is officially Unpersoned, blamed for the murder of Samantha, and the other heroes begin to hunt him down.
  - Episode 21: As Kotetsu is running for his life from his friends and co-workers, Lunatic of all people swoops in to save his life.
  - Episode 22: Kaede shows up as Little Miss Badass and cures the heroes of their amnesia...except for Barnaby, who ends up facing Kotetsu one-on-one.
  - Episode 23: Just as Barnaby remembers who Kotetsu is, it's revealed that the other heroes have been captured and hooked up to bomb collars a la Battle Royale
  - Episode 24: Kotetsu dies...
  - Episode 25: ... temporarily. He comes back to punch Maverick in the face. Unlike the sad or terrifying whams above, this one is awesome. There's also the fact that he finally decides to quit being a hero... for all of six months.
Trigun has five.
- Episode 12 contains the series' now iconic bout of Cerebus Syndrome.
- Episode 16: We get to see first hand how Vash blew up July city.
- Episode 17: Whole Episode Flashback revealing Vash's history and nature.
- Episode 23: The death of Nicholas D. Wolfwood.
- Episode 24: Legato forces Vash to kill him.
- Every episode from 20 to 24 has an increasing magnitude of Wham.
- The manga also has one at the end of the original's run, where Vash meets up with Knives. The results are similar to that of episode 17 of the anime.
  - Vol. 6 of Maximum has a giant wham moment at the end. So, you know how Vash's hair is slightly blacker than it was in the original series? Turns out that it represents a Plant's lifespan and their hair darkens each time they use their powers. Every time Vash uses his skills he's been slowly killing himself.
Tokyo Ravens has the death of Natsume at the end of episode 20.
Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- exemplifies this in Acid Tokyo when we find out that Syaoran was really a clone of the original the whole time, and he proceeds to eat Fai's eye and have a big epic battle with his original counterpart. Then Kurogane gets Yuuko to turn Fai into a vampire so he can survive, and in return he is the only person Fai can feed on (Ho Yay anyone?) After that we find out that Sakura was also a clone, and then there's the whole "WTF" moment when we find out... Syaoran's his own father? And Sakura's... His mother? And Yuuko... Was actually dead the whole time, and Buttchin is trying to keep her alive?
- Pretty much everything during and after the country of Recort. Kurogane's past, Acid Tokyo, Infinity and Fai's past are all very VERY much WHAM. Especially Fai. Go on and read his past, then reread the manga. That smile just doesn't seem the same anymore.
20th Century Boys uses this in full force when the Big Bad is murdered. Halfway through the series. As an extra jab they reveal his identity right after.
- Urasawa had already done it once before, at the end of volume 5 when we learn that Kenji completely failed and the Big Bad controls Japan. He does it again at the end of volume 15 when we learn they now controls the whole world and the calendar now dates from his resurrection. Yeah, that's right: the Big Bad replaces Jesus!
- That part has another piece of wham immediately afterwards: namely that the Big Good is, after 15 years (in story) and 10 volumes, most definitely not dead.

Vagabond: there's a lot of wham chapters in Vagabond.
- Ch.1 produced a wham effect in the Japanese readers when it was first published: many that flocked to see Takehiko Inoue's new series were shocked to see that it was a significant depart from his previous light-hearted series (Slam Dunk). Right from the very start of the series, Vagabond shows brutal images where Takezō savagely kills some soldiers.
- Ch.7 is a big wham moment that changes the course of the series and the way people see the character of Matahachi. Up until that moment, readers see Takezō and Matahachi as kinda samurai buddies going on adventures together. However, in that chapter, when Takezō enters a house to fight against a group bandits, Matahachi doesn't join him—he stays outside having sex with Okō, and abandons his friend. Things will never be the same again for Matahachi.
- In-story, Musashi has his personal wham moments whenever he receives words that hit a nerve on him: "you killed them and ended everything for them" (Takuan), "only when you are strong you understand true strength" (In'ei), "invincible is just a word" (Sekishūsai), "I'm done with the spiral of death" (Baiken).
- Ch.50 has somewhat of a delayed wham effect, as over the course of the chapter it is revealed through flashbacks that Musashi, which is the main character, ran away from the fight of the previous chapters—an extremely rare plot twist in any media.
- Ch.72 delves in some flashbacks that expand in Inshun's backstory, everything goes as usual until suddenly it puts an explicit rape scene that comes out of nowhere and that catches you off-guard.
- Ch.78 ends with Matahachi (now calling himself "Kojirō Sasaki") affirming that "one day, Kojirō will defeat Musashi"—such an arrogant attitude surprises and enrages the readers, to the point that in some websites that chapter has even more comments than Ch.1.
- Ch.110 shows Uncle Gon's death, a very wham moment for readers—while it's true that so far the series had shown many deaths, they were all from low-level mooks, nameless bandits, villains and the like. Uncle Gon's death, however, is the first death from a character that is a "good guy" and that readers have grown to like.
- Ch.116 reveals that Baiken Shishido (the imposing chain-and-sickle warrior) is actually Kōhei Tsujikaze.
- Ch.117 ends in a wham fashion, revealing that Baiken's master is actually the little girl Rindō.
- Ch.126, which deals with Kōhei's backstory, wins the award for the wham-est chapter in all the series. Readers don't understand what the fuck they’ve just seen. Wanna know how fucked up the chapter is?... it has a scene that shows that Tenma Tsujikaze was a deranged, pedophile, incestuous rapist.
- Ch.131 reveals that kid Kojirō is deaf, something that completely catches readers off guard. The way Jisai reacts to this wham moment says it all.
- Ch.134 has a scene where Jisai violently slaps kid Kojirō, sending him flying across the room—for those that are sensible to seeing child mistreatment, the scene can be a total shock.
- Ch.163 has a scene that comes out of nowhere, where in the middle of a fight with swords and spears, a tanegashima archebus fires at Takezō. Up until that moment, there wasn't even a single panel in the whole series that showed firearms: it was strictly a swords, spears and white arms affair.
- The next chapters in the Kojirō arc deal with Sadakore's squad and are full of wham moments, as up until that moment the series kinda had an implicit Plot Armor for characters that had significant screen time and that weren't outright villains.
  - The very first scene with Sadakore's squad is quite graphic and can catch readers off-guard: Sadakore's men were collecting the decapitated heads of their fallen enemies, and in that scene they take the heads out of the sacks and throw them away.
- Ch.190 shows not only that Musashi killed Seijūrō, but also that he brutally split his body in half. In-story, this acts as a wham moment for the Yoshioka and for all the people in Kyoto.
- Ch.197 has a scene where Mīke brutally beats Matahachi for using Kojirō's name. Even though Vagabond is a violent series (and that Matahachi is one of the most hated characters), the scene is quite shocking because Mīke is essentially using torture. Most killings in the series are quick and done in a single panel, but this is a whole different case: Mīke here is executing a slow, painful killing.
- In-story, in the aftermath of the Battle of Ichijōji, the whole country has a wham moment after receiving news that a man has singlehandedly killed 70 sword fighters of nationwide reputation.
- A flashback explains that Kōhei Tsujikaze had an in-story wham moment (coupled with Heroic BSoD) after being defeated by Kojirō.
- Ch.251 is delving with philosophical talks, when suddenly it ends with a scene that shows how the police arrests Musashi.
- Ch.281 is also one of the whamest chapters in the series. On the one hand, it shows that Ittōsai defeats Musashi, ending his win-streak. On the other hand, it shows that Sekishūsai dies.
- Ch.316 shows how Musashi bows down to the ground and asks a government official for help, in the middle of a winter famine that is killing the villagers. An unthinkable attitude for the proud and violent Takezō from 316 chapters ago. This is the biggest sign of the extent in which Musashi has gone through Character Development.

Episode 9 of Wandering Son has Takatsuki going to school in a boys uniform. Later in the episode Doi meets Yuki and we learn she's a transitioned Transgender person. At the end of the episode, Nitori goes to school in a Sailor Fuku and wig.
The anime of Welcome to the NHK has this for episode 13. Sato shows one of the first major signs of overcoming his hikikomori disorder when his senpai Hitomi (who he's very attracted to) seems to invite him on a vacation with her, but finds out that she has inadvertently taken him with her to a group suicide party AND has a boyfriend who proposes to her to convince her not to kill herself. This leads to him actually attempting suicide himself, since he was using her as motivation to change. In the chaos that follows, Misaki desperately attempts to save him, which leads to her showing the first real sign of her own issues. By the end of the episode the Misaki and Sato are so emotionally battered that they burst out in combined wails that carry on to the end title card.
Witch Hunter Robin: Episode 12. Starting here, and especially over the next few episodes climaxing in episode 15, we start to see that the conflict is a lot more complicated and convoluted than the audience was originally led to believe.
The World God Only Knows had this going from the start of the Goddesses Saga up until the concluding portions of the Heart of Jupiter Saga:
- FLAG 116 has two Whams in quick succession, following an earlier Reveal: that Kanon is the holder of the goddess Apollo, and thus remembers Keima. Wham One: Kanon publicly confesses her love to him. Wham Two: Kanon suffers a critical stab wound, marking a significant turning point in the series.
- If that was not wham enough, then FLAG 165 to 168 should hit hard like an oncoming rig. In summary: Chihiro confesses her love to Keima; the latter gets confused as to how she came to like him even before her conquest; Ayumi is then revealed to actually have the last goddess; Keima is then forced to dump Chihiro, with Ayumi watching on, then later enters into a semi-Heroic BSoD state realizing the mess he entered himself into... Somebody say "Four-Wham-Pileup?"
- Then there's FLAG 174 / Goddesses Arc Episode 10. Lune has assembled a team to capture one of the Goddesses hosts during the Mai High Festival. However, she doesn't know who that girl is. The solution? Order her minions to capture all of the girls Keima's conquered before at the festival! This forces Keima's hand regarding his conquering of Ayumi.
- FLAG 214 has Keima and Elsie finding Urara's grandfather Half the Man He Used to Be, but still alive, getting discovered by Vintage, and Dokurou ripping and squashing said Vintage members apart with her bare hands. Very messily. Dokurou then reveals she knows about Keima's mission, telling him the current timeline will lead to a bad future, and triggers the Reset Button to give him another chance.
- FLAG 260. After the intense and brutal fight last chapter between Lune and Nikaido/Dokuro, the plot doesn't waste time into making everything even worse. The orb breaks. Time Crashes.
- FLAG 266, FULL STOP. Freakin' Elsie is Satyr's ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction.
World Trigger: Downplayed with the Tamakoma-2 vs. Ninomiya vs. Azuma vs. Kageura match. After a string of victories, and Osamu getting stronger through recent training, it ends with Azuma abruptly sniping Osamu. Overall, Tamakoma-2 loses miserably, demonstrating that the B-Rank top tier slots are not to be taken lightheartedly, and reminding the reader what kind of series this is again.

Episode 12 of the X1999 anime: Kamui chooses to be a Dragon of Heaven, making Fuuma become a Dragon of Earth, and switch personality. After that, Fuuma throws Kamui into a wall, steals his sword, pins him to a wall with shards of glass, piercing his hand with the sword, licks his neck, and proceeds to crucify his own sister and kill her.

You're Under Arrest! has a two-parter where a trio of rogue police officers are going around the streets causing accidents, severely damaging the Bokutou Station's rep and destroying the public's trust in the officers. Several of the main characters end up injured when they try to confront them, and the officers, normally nice and peaceful people, grow increasingly angry and frustrated to the point they're willing to bend the rules and go after the culprits on their own. The climax ends up with Natsumi and Nakajima leading the rogues into a trap to take them down for good: first, they literally kick the two on the bikes and send them to the hospital, and lastly they lead the one driving the car towards the barricade in the Rainbow Bridge, which culminates in a very nasty crash (heavily implied to be fatal for the driver).
Yu-Gi-Oh! has a tradition for having their protagonists almost never lose a duel, so almost any episode where they do lose counts as this. One of the more notable examples is Yugi losing in Season 4 to Rafael. Unlike most of the villains and most of Yugi's past defeats, Rafael didn't have to cheat to beat him, he won fair and square. Sure, he forced Yami Yugi to play an evil card, but he did it by backing him into a corner so he had no choice but to use it, then took a pummeling and ultimately used Yami Yugi's more brutal and reckless personality against him to win. Cue Yugi losing his soul, Yami Yugi crossing the Despair Event Horizon, and the season suddenly taking on a darker tone.
- There's also episode 52... in the Japanese version. The dub gave away the big twist in the second episode (and for some reason the characters are all still surprised come episode 52).
- The beginning of the Duelist Kingdom arc served as one in the manga. Although it served as the first episodes of the anime, reading the manga for the first time made it pretty damn shocking when Yugi came across the Duel Monsters creator who also turned out to be another wielder of the Millennium Items.
After two rather light-hearted seasons that got no more serious than the previous show, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX suddenly pulled season three on us, which got as dramatic as the end of the second season about ten episodes in. The really dramatic turning point, though, is the duel again Professor Satou where Judai starts to crack, we see a crazy guy with petty motives that aren't, quite. The first duel where Judai really isn't enjoying himself, and at the end Satou dies by falling off the bridge. And it only goes downhill from there.
- Season 2 wasn't all light-hearted. Episode 65 comes to mind. Ryo, mentally and emotionally falling apart because of his inability to cope with failure, becoming trapped in an Underground arena, and horribly tortured into a truly disturbing Freak Out and Face–Heel Turn. His Kick the Dog in Episode 95 might count too.
- The Reveal of Daitokuji-sensei, of all people, was Amnael, the last of the Seven Star Assassins.
Episode 107 of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds. First, Bruno jumps off a cliff then becomes Dark Glass. He proceeds to duel Placido while Yusei gets magical cards from a giant obelisk that he teleported to. He proceeds to meet what may be God, and then goes back and takes over in Dark Glass's place. Then, Placido fuses with his motorcycle.
Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL: The last two Barian Emperors are Shark and Rio.
YuYu Hakusho Yusuke solves what seems like just another case...only to have Toguro, the supposedly dead hired muscle from that case, reveal himself to be alive and far more powerful than Yusuke could have imagined. Yusuke is thus forced to fight for his life in the Dark Tournament.
Yuri!!! on Ice:
- Episode 7. With that infamous The Big Damn Kiss — yes, it did happen.
- The writers have stated that Episode 10 was a filler. Yet, after watching it, you have to watch the whole show from the start, because the episode changes everything that's happened up until that point, particularly regarding Victor's interactions with Yuri, and Christophe and Yurio's relationship with Yuri. And most of all, the development of the plot as a whole gets an entirely deeper meaning.
- Without explaining why, Episode 11 is by far the most emotionally-devastating one of them all.
In ''Yuri is My Job!':
- Chapter 6. Up to this point, Mitsuki has been the one person who openly dislikes Hime, the protagonist, but the two seem to be reaching an understanding. Hime then mentions a former friend of hers, Mitsuki Yano, who told the rest of the class that Hime's cute nature was a facade, resulting in Hime being ostracized. Mitsuki then reveals her real last name- Yano- a revelation that significantly changes Hime and Mitsuki's relationship.
- In Chapter 29, after an emotional conversation between Hime and Mitsuki, Mitsuki makes a Love Confession to Hime and kisses her, confirming that her feelings for Hime are more than platonic.
- In Chapter 31, Hime suddenly announces that she's quitting the salon, which turns out to be because she doesn't return Mitsuki's feelings for her. It takes several chapters for the other characters to talk Hime out of quitting, and when they do, Mitsuki has to accept that Hime doesn't return her feelings, while Hime starts feeling strange around Mitsuki.

Zombie Land Saga features a wham-heavy episode near the end of its first season, "A One-of-a-Kind SAGA", which focuses on the main character Sakura Minamoto (who suffered from amnesia since she was killed by a head-on collision with a truck), who is suffering from another case of amnesia after being hit by another truck, which brought back her old memories. Unfortunately, before she died, she was actually a depressed, lonely person who suffered from an extreme case of bad luck; which ruined every dream she ever wanted to achieve. On top of that, she ends up ditching her friends and almost gives up on her dream of becoming an pop idol by the end of the episode. It is only then, that Kotaro Tatsumi (her idol manager), fully admits that he is willing to never abandon her dream, which eventually ends up saving Sakura in the long-run.

Wham Episode / Anime & Manga

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