Heads blowing up in Anime and Manga.
- In a DVD-exclusive episodenote of 009-1, Mylene/Agent 009-1 is told by a guy she just slept with that he knows she's a spy and that he has placed a bomb inside her body. But it turns out that he actually put the bomb in his own head, which explodes and splatters when he triggers the detonator. Mylene mourns him anyway since she did like him.
- Happens at times in AKIRA thanks to psychic powers. The most iconic example is Yamagata, who gets offed like this by Tetsuo. More like Ludicrous Gibs considering what happened to his body.
- In Akumetsu, this happens to the title character whenever he dies.
- In Baldr Force EXE Resolution, this tends to happen to those who meet a certain Virtual Ghost.
- Basilisk: Never has there been a head gone ka-goosh with more satisfaction than that of Tenzen Yakushiji, which happens when Oboro regains the use of her Magical Eyes and turns their power upon him as he's reviving himself after he is killed by Gennosuke, rendering the evil ninja dead for good.
- Battle Angel Alita has this quite often, with guns, fists, melee weapons blunt objects or whatever strikes your fancy as the cause. The sequel series even does it to its own Big Bad.
- Berserk: Extremely common in manga.note In fact, clean decapitations are almost nonexistent; most of the time, when Guts hits above the shoulders, the victim's head shatters.
- During the Eclipse, this is the fate of Gaston, the last member of the Band of the Hawk to die during the Eclipse, by way of a parasitic demon.
- Bleach:
- Yhwach does this to Luders, an Arrancar who didn't give his exact message to Soul Society. Reminiscent of how Yamamoto and Aizen could incapacitate people by focusing on them, he looks at Luders until his head pops like a water balloon. Fellow Arrancar Ebern follows suit shortly after, for no other reason that his job was done and Yhwach had no further need of him.
- The final act of Shunsui's Bankai does this to Lille Barro during their fight. It doesn't stick.
- This happens to Sakura several times in Bludgeoning Angel Dokurochan after getting hit by Dokuro's Excalibolg.
- In Coyote Ragtime Show, the only way to kill the SISTERs is to blow up their heads.
- The main characters of Cyber City Oedo 808 are fitted with explosive collars, with gory results if they try to remove it or fail to accomplish their mission in time.
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba shows a rare example of someone surviving this: after she blows his and Tamayo's cover, Yushiro gets his head blown up when Susamaru sends a Temari ball flying in his direction. However, being a demon, he survives the deadly attack and heals. (Averted in the video game adaptation.)
- In Dirty Pair Flight 005 Conspiracy, when Kei is drowning her sorrows at a bar believing Yuri was killed on an explosion, she asks the bartender, who unbeknownst to her is an assassin, to make her another drink, he spikes it with an unknown poison and hands it to her, her new partner Danny tells her that she's had enough and drinks it instead, he then convulses in pain and his head explodes, splattering his brain and skull fragments in her face.
- In the Dragon Ball Z Majin Buu saga, Babidi made the head of any Muggle that annoyed him explode without warning. It wasn't too gory, though. Ironically, he dies when Buu punches his head off. Of course, this was edited for the televised dub.
- In episode 95 of Dragon Ball Super Frieza has become so powerful in his golden form that he can make his opponents' heads explode with a single poke to the forehead, which he demonstrates on four Assassins from Universe 9
- Death Note: Performed with an interesting visual metaphor. In the episode when Mello kills off most of the SPK, one guy kills himself by blowing his own brains out. Instead of showing his head asplode, they show an explosion of dice instead.
- In D.Gray-Man, new character Wisely seems to have the power to do this to people.
- This is the fate of LeBlanc from Divergence Eve after he downloads all of the information of the entire universe into his brain (so he can learn how to become immortal), which is too much for him to handle, with explosive results.
- Elfen Lied uses this one, but most of the time it's a simple decapitation that sends the head flying on a jet of high-pressure blood.
- Fist of the North Star: Pretty much the fate of any bad guy who messes with Kenshiro. They are already dead. Also, Mr. Heart's finisher. "HIDEBU!!!"
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, this is Scar's modus operandi for killing people, though he destroys their brain instead of their entire head.
- Done literally in an out-take of episode 28. The actual scene depicts Scar grabbing Father's face, growling as he unsuccessfully tries to blow it up. However, in the outtake, Scar's growling is removed and replaced by a battle cry of "YOUR FACE ASPLODE!"
- Later in the series, Ed destroys Pride's body by crushing his head. Yes, this is the same Pride that's an incorporeal mass of toothed shadows attached to a Creepy Child.
- Kimblee in Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), even though he tends to make a person's whole body explode.
- Atlas is killed in this fashion in The Sacred Star of Milos by Colonel Herschel aka Ashleigh Crichton.
- Gantz: Done fairly frequently, thanks to special guns which cause whatever they target to explode and special bombs implanted in each Gantz player's head, which go off if they break one of the game's rules.
- The opening scene of Ghost in the Shell (1995) involves Major Kusanagi taking out a diplomat who is trying to get a programmer out of the country by shooting him in the head with some delayed-fuse high-explosive rounds which make his head go boom several moments after hitting. The phrase "explosively anatomically accurate" seems apt. The animation crew seems to have a somewhat disturbing liking for these — there's a head-a-splode scene in some form or fashion at the beginning of each movie and the first/last episodes of both anime seasons.
- The scene in question comes from the first scene in the manga, which plays out much the same way, with the biggest difference being that the Major doesn't get naked in order to use her thermoptics.
- Golgo 13: The Professional features tycoon Leonard Dawson deciding to commit suicide by throwing himself from the window of a very tall skyscraper. Lands on the concrete below so hard that when his head hits, it gets pulverized. Golgo 13, always one to get the "last word" in, manages to put a bullet through his forehead before impact.
- Gundam:
- Char delivers quite the coup de grace to Princess Kycilia. With a rocket launcher. He also took off the Gundam's head with the Zeong.
- Combined with the Face Palm in G Gundam as Domon Kasshu's primary means to achieving victory in pretty much every episode of Season 1.
- Justified Trope. By the rules of the Gundam Fight, destroying the head of the opponent's Gundam eliminates that fighter from the tournament. Whereas wrecking the entire Gundam but leaving the head intact would make it perfectly legal for the fight to have his Gundam repaired and continue competing.
- When he upgrades halfway through the series from the Shining Gundam to the God Gundam, Domon also upgrades his Finishing Move. This version becomes more like Your Whole Body Asplode. At least sometimes.
- Heavy Object: Nexa's head is said to be "blown to pieces".
- Hellsing, with its over-the-top violence and gore, is slowly reaching the point of self-parody.
- Ikki Tousen: Dragon Destiny has Koshaji getting picked up by her head and then slammed into a wall where it gets crushed like a grape before exploding into a bloody mess.
- Ochazuke Nori's story "Infection on Flight 999" involves a disease that makes adult's heads explode — children just experience a high fever, pain, and blueness in the face.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Battle Tendency: Inverted with Wammu. His death comes from his body exploding, leaving only his head before disintegrating.
- Stardust Crusaders: Dio Brando is killed in this manner when Jotaro Kujo obliterated his Stand. Questionable since it was really more his whole body that exploded, but it appears to start from the head and work its way back down. The fact that originates from a punch to his leg of all places makes this incident particularly noteworthy.
- Stone Ocean: Enrico Pucci's ultimate fate at the hands of Emporio, who uses Weather Report to punch his head until it's completely crushed by oxygen poisoning, complete with his eyeball flying out.
- Steel Ball Run:
- Mike O. decides it would be a good idea to keep using his Tubular Bells Stand even after Hot Pants made it so if he even tried to inflate anything, he would die. Predictably, he tries to make another metal balloon, and his neck and the top of his head explode violently, revealing his spinal cord where his esophagus used to be.
- This, combined with Never the Selves Shall Meet, is how the alternative Diego Brando dies: he gets the head of his deceased counterpart thrown right at his face. We then cut to his Stand's head exploding.
- JoJolion: Josuke punches Tamaki Damo's bloodied, crumbling head so hard that it shatters and reduces it to bits and blood splatter on the sidewalk and walls. Thankfully for Josuke, the gore instantly turns to stone as Damo is killed, allowing the incident to go unnoticed by bystanders.
- In the anime Kite (1998), the protagonist, taking a page from Ghost In The Shell, uses bullets that explode five seconds after impact, typically causing the head to explode in bloody gore.
- In Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force, this is implied to have happened to some of the test subjects who were infected with the Eclipse and failed to become a suitor for Lily. How else would you explain the brain things lying on the floor with the rest of the corpses?
- On the same season, this also seems to be the way Veyron finished off another Eclipse infected he was fighting on chapter 19. He grabbed his head with his "Claw Grab" and then BOOM!
- In Naruto (post-time-skip), Deidara sends spiders made of explosive clay to attach themselves to the faces of three Sand Village guards. Boom.
- In Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!, the invading Mi-Go are defeated when Nyarko's iPhone starts ringing and playing the pop song she had set as her ringtone. This is an explicit Shout-Out to Mars Attacks!, as earlier in the episode Nyarko discussed aliens having unusual weaknesses, including music (said as a silhouette of the Martians appears).
- At the end of Episode 5 of Pacific Rim: The Black, Joel picks up Mei's radio and in retaliation for Mei escaping from Bogan, Shane detonates a bomb inside the radio which causes his head to explode.
- The beginning of Psycho Diver has a diver whose head explodes graphically. As it turned out the girl he was trying to help, Yuki, had a demon inside her soul and his head exploding was a result of the demon attacking him when he connected to her psychically.
- In Psycho-Pass, Joushuu Kasei shoots Choe Gu-Sung in the face with a dominator, causing his head to explode.
- In the third Rebuild of Evangelion movie, this happens to Kaworu when his Explosive Leash detonates.
- Rebuild World: There's Akira using an anti-tank rifle on the heads of cyborgs Yajima and Zelmo in flashy manuvers. And then Akira dodging Toralt's BFS strike before drop-kicking his head using the full strength of his Powered Armor.
- In Toriko, Setsuno can make her enemies' heads explode by increasing the air pressure around them to basically act as a pressure cooker.
- In Until Death Do Us Part, terrorists had explosives implanted in their molars that were activated by biting down on it. Unfortunately for everyone else, they could also be remotely activated...
- Vampire Hunter D: Count Magnus Lee makes his henchman Rei's head explode after he betrays him and attempts to kill him for not making him an immortal.
