Summary

• Anime openings are known for setting the tone and mood of a series, but sometimes they can give away too much. Here are some anime openings that spoil major plot points and twists:
• Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - The first opening, "Again," shows Ed's arm being restored, which doesn't happen until much later in the series.
• Naruto Shippuden - Many of the later openings give away major reveals, such as Obito's unmasking and the Hokage's resurrection.

Major and minor spoilers ahead!As all anime fans know, one never skips the opening…unless one wants to go into the show without knowing every major plot reveal. All but the most simplistic anime openings like to pack in as many characters and story beats as possible, many of which were supposed to be surprises. Even the simpler ones can be pretty heavy with foreshadowing: one viewing of “Grain” will have viewers worried for Monster’s Kenzou Tenma way before his life goes that far down the drain.

Many times, the opening will hide blatant spoilers in plain sight, through stylization and symbolism that’s harder to interpret: see Kaguya-sama: Love is War or Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Other times, it will flat-out lie to viewers to make story events hit harder (case in point: Yuuji and Junpei will never be as happy as they are at that picnic in the first Jujutsu Kaisen opening). But these are the openings that do not care one bit about hiding anything.

10 Future Diary Telegraphs Its Final Reveals

Based on the manga by Sakae Esuno

Future Diary centers around humans armed by God with future-predicting cell phones in a battle royale to decide his successor, so some supernatural nonsense is expected. However, major plot reveals late in the show center around the manipulation of reality itself by decidedly human characters. So, it’s interesting to note who disappears rather than dies, and who seems to be fighting a different opponent than the other Diary holders.

The second opening might be even worse in this regard: while the use of blue in the visuals is important, it’s the English lyrics of the song “Dead END” viewers should be paying attention to. By the time this opening premieres, a certain character’s big secret is still very much a secret. But those who listen carefully enough to catch it will get a heads-up as to where the plot is headed.

9 Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Spoils the Manga’s Ending

Based on the manga by Hiromu Arakawa

The number one thing that shounen anime openings spoil is fights: with one watch, viewers can know every matchup that’s coming over the course of an arc, even if the outcomes aren’t clear. Brotherhood’s openings telegraph almost every single major fight, from Mustang killing Lust, to Greedling turning on the Homunculi (after the previous opening showed Ling among the villains), to Scar versus Wrath.

It’s “Period,” the fourth opening, that takes the cake. The manga’s final chapters were still months from being published, but that doesn’t stop a major loss of Edward’s from being shown front and center in a retroactive spoiler. And as inspiring as it is to see everyone on Ed's side, the fourth ending “Shunkan Sentimental” does spoil every single change of allegiance in the back half of the anime to show it, with a bonus visual of a certain transmutation circle activating.

8 Naruto Shippuden’s Later Openings Give Away Major Reveals

Based on the manga by Masashi Kishimoto

"Guren" is performed by Japanese rock band DOES, who also contributed songs to the openings of Gintama and Space Brothers.

The final arcs of Naruto Shippuden especially are full of twists and turns, with unexpected deaths, revivals, and some of the Naruto. It’s unfortunate that it has such good openings, because all of them are so very determined to spoil as many plot points as possible. Dishonorable mention goes to “Guren,” the fifteenth opening of Shippuden.

Shown well before they aired are everything from Obito, fully unmasked and fighting Kakashi, to the Hokage resurrected together by Kabuto, to Hashirama and Madara’s childhood friendship. The jinchuuriki of the Ten-Tails is even shown fully unveiled in the final shot. But most egregiously, though the dead body that a shocked Naruto is holding is shown in shadow, the next shot of Hinata crying is a pretty huge hint about who it is.

7 Juuni Taisen’s Opening Spells Out Who Dies When

Based on the light novel by Nisio Isin and Hikaru Nakamura

The most brutal death games in anime are battle royales: a large group of people thrown together to slaughter one another until there’s one winner left. Much of the appeal of this subgenre is feeling the suspense build with each death, as the pool of combatants gets smaller and fiercer. With a show like Juuni Taisen, in which all twelve warriors are powerful, well-trained, and clawing to win, how can anyone predict who will and won’t make it?

Just watch the opening. The combatants not only appear in the reverse order of the Eastern zodiac, starting with the Rat, but also in the reverse order in which they die. Though it may seem subtle at first, the frequency with which this opening shows the warriors standing in a straight line together or appearing one after the other in rapid succession, in the same order each time, starts to clue attentive viewers in.

6 Shiki Spoils Its Vampire Transformations

Based on the novel by Fuyumi Ono

Shiki are among the scariest and best vampires in anime, slipping into unsuspecting towns and steadily transforming their human inhabitants into monsters. It takes a few deaths before the people of Sotoba realize that their town is under attack by the undead, and by then, it’s almost too late. It’s all the survivors can do to stay alive and stay human.

Normally, the danger of corruption and which hero will fall to it is a scary and suspenseful question. Or, it would be, if the first opening didn’t spoil the characters who wind up turned into a shiki. Flashing an ominous-looking skeleton in front of them rather than showing the actual transformation is a slightly more subtle way of showing it, but the fact remains that it’s impossible to unsee once the viewer realizes what’s going on.

5 Bokurano’s Opening is a Collage of Spoilers

Based on the manga by Mohiro Kitoh

Bokurano's final episodes differ considerably from the manga: dark as the anime can get, the manga's ending is much bleaker!

When a middle school class discovers an alien on an innocent trip to the beach, they have no idea they’re entering one of the scariest non-horror anime. Roped into an inescapable fight against mysterious monsters, they risk their lives to pilot the mecha Zearth. There’s representing a story through creative visuals, and then there’s straight-up cobbling the opening together from actual clips of the show.

At first, they won’t mean much out-of-context. But the more they watch, viewers realize that many take place right before something awful happens, from Chizu meeting Kako at the pool just before he attacks her to Maki looking horrified at a wide expanse of stars, priming them to tense up when they actually appear in-show. Details that appear simply stylistic, such as Kokopelli’s continued appearance, to lights rising from the Earth, to even the word “uninstall” itself, turn out to be incredibly significant.

4 One Piece Openings Toss Out Manga Spoilers Left and Right

Based on the manga by Eiichiro Oda

One Piece is famously one of the longest-running anime of all time, based on the even longer-running manga. The vast majority of the anime’s openings spoil plot points and reveals, with some of the most infamous being the third opening, “Hikari E,” showing Nico Robin among the heroes when she still has a full twenty episodes to go as a villain, and the twelfth opening “Kaze wo Sagashite” keeps characters hidden but shows several major moments of the Impel Down Arc.

One might excuse this all on the grounds that the anime expects viewers to be keeping up with manga already. However, that doesn’t hold water for the twenty-second opening, “OVER THE TOP,” which is spoilers from beginning to end, including Luffy’s newest Gear form and the identity of one of the Nine Red Scabbards. This was notably shocking to fans because this particular reveal hadn’t even happened in the manga yet!

3 Vampire Knight Reveals Yuuki’s True Nature Early On

Based on the manga by Matsuri Hino

At Cross Academy, classes are split between the Day Class of humans and the Night Class of vampires, whose beef with each other is nothing compared to the bitterness between the vampires Zero and Kaname, who fight for the affections of their classmate Yuuki. As a human in a fantasy romance, Yuuki seems to be the audience surrogate, overwhelmed by a world she doesn’t belong to.

The first season’s opening gives viewers a good idea of how the story is actually going to go. Turns out Yuuki is actually a Pureblood vampire, powerful enough to match both her love interests. This reveal happens 21 episodes into a 26 episode anime, and would probably have been a huge twist if viewers hadn’t already seen Yuuki downing a tubeful of blood like a shot and sporting bright red eyes in every opening of the first season.

2 JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Openings Tell The Whole Story

Based on the manga by Hirohiko Araki

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure favors openings that stylistically portray the entire story of its arc from beginning to end, which, naturally, spoils quite a bit. Phantom Blood may be the most blatant, but the most infamous instance is “Bloody Stream,” Battle Tendency’s opening. Watching someone’s bubble turn red with blood immediately before a grieving Joseph puts on a familiar headband makes it clear who will only be a memory by the end.

The other parts’ openings are no less showy. Haven’t been spoiled on what Dio’s Stand does? Better not pay too much attention to all the imagery used in “Sono Chi no Kioku." Thought Okuyasu was just a one-shot villain? Nope, there he is with the heroes in “Crazy Noisy Bizarre Town.” And if viewers missed “Fighting Gold"'s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hints of who’s going to die in Golden Wind, they definitely won’t miss “Traitor’s Requiem” skipping straight to the ending.

1 Erased Reveals Its Killer In Its Opening

Based on the manga by Kei Sanbe

When Satoru is sent back in time to solve the murders of his classmates, all viewers have to do to solve the mystery alongside him is not watch the opening. If they do, they might catch several quick but very clear glimpses of the killer. The most visible shot of the killer shows them much older than they first appear, spoiling that Satoru will fail to stop them as a child.

However, the other takes place on a rooftop that viewers will recognize later, where an unknown figure shoots Satoru, implicitly in the face. Blink and they’ll miss it, but look closely and the smirking face of the killer, gun in hand, can be seen reflected in the shards of Satoru’s broken glasses. With each successive episode, their image becomes clearer until it’s plain as day.