Well THAT was a shift!

[Tanis]

Anything you've watched/read/played/listened to had a big shift in tone/situation that came out of nowhere and kind of confused you as to WHY?!?

SPOILERS. DUH.

So I've been reading though Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon, it's cute as hell, when...
OUT OF NOWHERE...nudity.
Not just 'dots in the center of boobs', but 'surprisingly detailed tits/areolas for a few pages and then it's back to regular (PG-ish) stuff.
Being an adult, it doesn't bother me, but it did come out of nowhere given how very tame the manga is.

Also, recently catching up on reading 'The Sacred Blacksmith' which has a 'RAPE THE STRONG FEMALE' scene that does nothing but, I don't know...break her down for some reason?
It's like the author figured 'hey, what's a lazy, sleezy, break-in-tone, way of giving my female character a quick character arc...OOOO, I know! Let's have her be raped by the main bad guy and NOT tell anyone!!!!'.


Any others ya'll can think of?

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

One of the Warhammer 40k novels had a huge fucking dumbass plot twist. It was a Deathwatch novel and the kill-team is sent to rescue an Inquisitor's female acolyte from a world that's just now starting to show signs of Genestealer taint.

Spoiler

Turns out the woman was sent there in the first place specifically to be captured and raped and impregnated by Genestealers so the Inquisitor could have a hybrid. And the Inquisitor was the one who released Genestealers onto the planet in the first place, so that a Cult would be created, so that a hundred years later he could send his acolyte to get captured yadda yadda.
And it was way way way too convoluted and dense, even for 40k and the Inquisition. He didn't need to release genestealers onto a planet if he already had them in a lab, didn't need to sacrifice his people to them if a vat-grown female servitor is capable of getting pregnant, he could have sent a kill-team to a world already infested without infesting one himself, and it was a huge risk that his plan would fail if the kill-team failed, the acolyte died or any number of other factors.

It was a very poor twist.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I'm a huge Persona 4 fan and the shift in tone from Persona 4 to Persona 5 was pretty crazy. Seriously, why is everyone a dick? It gets better as the game goes on obviously but god damn the amount of times something like "you fuck up once and you have no future, also I don't give a shit about your wellbeing lol" gets dropped on you during the first hours is ridiculous. Like at that point it's not even a gameplay feature with the timed events, it's just people bitching.

Even then the game goes into the darkest places a Persona game has really ever gone before. Attempted suicide, sexual harassment, physical abuse and so on. That's only the tutorial boss too. Persona was supposed to be the lighter side of the SMT series too, c'mon guys what gives.

I'm not complaining though, the game is fucking brilliant.

 

[Tanis]

Even then the game goes into the darkest places a Persona game has really ever gone before. Attempted suicide, sexual harassment, physical abuse and so on. That's only the tutorial boss too. Persona was supposed to be the lighter side of the SMT series too, c'mon guys what gives.

Did you ever play the first two Persona games?
Because...yeah...they were pretty damn dark at times.

Persona 3 and Persona 4 were a bit of a lightening for the series, even if they did deal with lots of murder.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Did you ever play the first two Persona games?
Because...yeah...they were pretty damn dark at times.

Persona 3 and Persona 4 were a bit of a lightening for the series, even if they did deal with lots of murder.

In fairness, Persona 2 is almost old enough to get a boat loan.

 

[circularlogic88]

I mean, Swoard Art Online had a bunch of tonal shifts. Talking about the anime. 2nd half of 1st season with sister/cousin lusting after MC, and creepy child molestery businessman with Asuna, and the weird tentacle employees implying "having some fun" with her when she tries to escape. Didn't watch GunGale arc but heard that too had...problematic scenes incongruous to the rest of the story. I jumped ship after 1st season.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Even then the game goes into the darkest places a Persona game has really ever gone before. Attempted suicide, sexual harassment, physical abuse and so on. That's only the tutorial boss too. Persona was supposed to be the lighter side of the SMT series too, c'mon guys what gives.

Did you ever play the first two Persona games?
Because...yeah...they were pretty damn dark at times.

Persona 3 and Persona 4 were a bit of a lightening for the series, even if they did deal with lots of murder.

I did play a bit of Nocturne (Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series) but I barely got 3 hours in because damn that game is hard and where the hell was I supposed to be going. I did manage to get through most of Devil Survivor Overclocked without a guide on 3DS though which is nice since both of those games are from the hard as hell side of the earlier SMT games.

I do hate to admit it but maybe P5 is somehow actually better than P4. Even if Ryuji is a bootleg Brosuke, Makoto makes up for it and then some. Takemi is still Based Girl tho.

 

[09philj]

Girly kids cartoon Winx Club is precisely what you'd expect out of a magical high school show about fairies.
Until the bully characters turn out to have been the descendants of some ancient evil witches, steal the main character's power, and use it to summon a giant army of horrible Lovecraft monsters and violently besiege the school.

 

[TilMorrow]

Beyond Good and Evil's Jade turning out to be some kind of DomZ Goddess or Power Source in the last boss fight of the game with absolutely zero foreshadowing or build up to it. Okay it's explained in an extremely vague fashion by the final boss but they specifically reference why she has no memories of her parents and why they were so focused on her (apparently?) but it just came so far out of left field it felt like it doesn't make any sense.

I'm a huge Persona 4 fan and the shift in tone from Persona 4 to Persona 5 was pretty crazy. Seriously, why is everyone a dick? It gets better as the game goes on obviously but god damn the amount of times something like "you fuck up once and you have no future, also I don't give a shit about your wellbeing lol" gets dropped on you during the first hours is ridiculous. Like at that point it's not even a gameplay feature with the timed events, it's just people bitching.

Even then the game goes into the darkest places a Persona game has really ever gone before. Attempted suicide, sexual harassment, physical abuse and so on. That's only the tutorial boss too. Persona was supposed to be the lighter side of the SMT series too, c'mon guys what gives.

I'm not complaining though, the game is fucking brilliant.

Yeah the tone shift also got me in P5 and I ended up just calling a majority of the confidants/SLs trash with the way the MC was being treated. Then I started to think that maybe it's to do with the whole theme of distorted realities the game has going and maybe the reason that everyone was being terrible at the start was due to the distorted idea of a criminal record makes you a murderer or something but I might be reaching.

Did you ever play the first two Persona games?
Because...yeah...they were pretty damn dark at times.

Persona 3 and Persona 4 were a bit of a lightening for the series, even if they did deal with lots of murder.

I have a hard time taking Persona 2 seriously when the whole game ends up becoming a battle against Hitler and that nothing is real and then the world resets. Though yeah Joker and his lackeys in P2 are suggested to have done some pretty messed up stuff/had messed up stuff happen to them before he joins your party but then part of that is due to the rumor system in the game so yeah it's hard to tell what actually happened and what was "influenced".

 

[Queen Michael]

The manga Ouran High School Host Club spends the first eightish volumes as a normal comedy manga. But after that, it decides to get dramatic and serious, and it's not a good shift. All the characters were designed specifically to be funny, and the humor was the main appeal of the series.

That's my main problem with manga--so often, it has to get solemn even when it was working fine as a comedy.

 

[JamesStone]

Recently Attack on Titan has surprised me with its Marley/Eldia act

From everything I expected to happen, I didn't expect

Spoiler

For the island where the main story has been going on (Paradis) to be an allegory to concentration camps, with Titans serving as a mix between execution victims and attack dogs. The series as a whole draws a lot of parallels with reality and in a lot of eras besides WWII, and its funny for how long they've been there and only now I've been hit by the full brunt of it.

Then again I'm not sure if it counts for the OP. While unexpected, this recent revelation and its chapters have solved a lot of plot points on the story so far, like

Spoiler

Why did Grisha pass to Eren his Shifter form? Because Shifters have expiration dates, and his time was almost up. It was also the reason Grisha was about to reveal to Eren the truth in his basement, why the Armored and Colossal Titans rushed to attack (they wouldn't know who the new Vanguard Titan was) and even why Eren Kreuger gave Grisha the power to begin with.

Why doesn't seem to be an end to the Titans? Because Eldia can produce the serum which creates them at will and uses Paradis Island as a means to execute Eldian criminals and political prisoners.

 

[Legomaniac91_v1legacy]

One of the Warhammer 40k novels had a huge fucking dumbass plot twist. It was a Deathwatch novel and the kill-team is sent to rescue an Inquisitor's female acolyte from a world that's just now starting to show signs of Genestealer taint.

Spoiler

Turns out the woman was sent there in the first place specifically to be captured and raped and impregnated by Genestealers so the Inquisitor could have a hybrid. And the Inquisitor was the one who released Genestealers onto the planet in the first place, so that a Cult would be created, so that a hundred years later he could send his acolyte to get captured yadda yadda.
And it was way way way too convoluted and dense, even for 40k and the Inquisition. He didn't need to release genestealers onto a planet if he already had them in a lab, didn't need to sacrifice his people to them if a vat-grown female servitor is capable of getting pregnant, he could have sent a kill-team to a world already infested without infesting one himself, and it was a huge risk that his plan would fail if the kill-team failed, the acolyte died or any number of other factors.

It was a very poor twist.

Wow. I know the 40k universe is know for its grimdark and depressing atmosphere, but there is a difference between "gimdark" and "pointless, stupid cruelty for the sake of pointless, stupid cruetly." Shit like this is why I can't really get into the Warhammer franchise outside of lore overviews and the "If The Emperor Had a Text to Speech Device" series.

 

[lionsprey]

One of the Warhammer 40k novels had a huge fucking dumbass plot twist. It was a Deathwatch novel and the kill-team is sent to rescue an Inquisitor's female acolyte from a world that's just now starting to show signs of Genestealer taint.

Spoiler

Turns out the woman was sent there in the first place specifically to be captured and raped and impregnated by Genestealers so the Inquisitor could have a hybrid. And the Inquisitor was the one who released Genestealers onto the planet in the first place, so that a Cult would be created, so that a hundred years later he could send his acolyte to get captured yadda yadda.
And it was way way way too convoluted and dense, even for 40k and the Inquisition. He didn't need to release genestealers onto a planet if he already had them in a lab, didn't need to sacrifice his people to them if a vat-grown female servitor is capable of getting pregnant, he could have sent a kill-team to a world already infested without infesting one himself, and it was a huge risk that his plan would fail if the kill-team failed, the acolyte died or any number of other factors.

It was a very poor twist.

Slight spoiler for Ciaphas Cain the greater good.

Spoiler

why all the secrecy? in one of the cain books there's a magos that breeds some genestealer hybrids in a research facility. ofc she isn't exactly sending a weekly report to her boss but the base is full of mechanicus personal. it goes just about as well as when the Adeptus Mechanicus pokes around in necron tombs ofc but there's no need for super elaborate plans to cover it up

response

Spoiler

why bother with all that? if there's anyone in 40k that could just ask someone to fetch them a genestealer hybrid it would be an inquisitor. it just doesn't make sense.

 

[Zen Bard]

It's a little dated now, and everyone knows the schtick by now, but The Ring had a wonderful shift from standard ghost story to...something else entirely. All with one line:

Spoiler: You weren't supposed to help her!

The movie proceeds like a run-of-the-mill ghost story, giving the impression that Samara is a vengeful spirit seeking justice. Naomi Watt's character thinks if she right by the spirit and puts her to rest, the killings will stop. She finds the remains, gives the girl a proper burial and we think all is well. Until her son tells her "You weren't supposed to help her!" and we realize the movie is only half over. That's when we realize that Samara's not a victim at all, but rather an evil spirit.

There's a chilling scene where they show her at the beginning of the movie being interviewed by a psychiatrist and she seems to be so innocent and scared. Then they play that exact same scene again AFTER we learn she's a ghost *****, and the same words with the same delivery have so much malice. It's really incredible what context can do.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Does "White Phosphorous" mean anything to anybody?

 

[NeutralDrow]

It wasn't really a plot twist so much as a tonal shift, but man did the last few chapters of Aoi House (starting with the extended Silent Hill parody, ending with the epilogue) completely ruin the series for me.

I've also had to avoid R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt novels for a while. The sudden shift towards depressing in the Paths of Darkness trilogy made me kind of leery. The Pirate King left me queasy. The Ghost King effectively sealed it. Then the first chapter in Gauntlgrym (or whenever the hell that elven monk's backstory, with the rape, murder, and forced impregnation happened) left me angry and nauseated.

Granted, that book actually ended on a very slightly hopeful note, and I've been spoiled to something major in recent novels that actually makes me interested again, so...

So I've been reading though Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon, it's cute as hell, when...
OUT OF NOWHERE...nudity.
Not just 'dots in the center of boobs', but 'surprisingly detailed tits/areolas for a few pages and then it's back to regular (PG-ish) stuff.
Being an adult, it doesn't bother me, but it did come out of nowhere given how very tame the manga is.

I still remember a very brief shift in Negima like that. Akamatsu doesn't shy away from nudity ([/understatement]), but generally deals with it using convenient object censoring and barbie doll anatomy...except for the one full frontal shot of Jack Rakan, where he resorts to mosaicing out Rakan's crotch.

Granted, that was hilarious, so it probably doesn't count as a shocking twist, but still.

Also, recently catching up on reading 'The Sacred Blacksmith' snip

All right, that tips the scales against my starting that series. I hate it when manga authors (well, and other media, but manga are what I consume the most of) resort to "breaking" female characters like that.

Always makes me appreciate that episode of Kaicho wa Maid-sama which was clearly building up to something like that, with the title character in line to be humiliated into being more "feminine"...but then completely flipping it on its head when she reveals she's strong enough to break handcuff chains. That was incredibly satisfying.

Does "White Phosphorous" mean anything to anybody?

It sure meant something to the game's writers. All it meant for me was that the story was about to get a lot more fourth wall-breakingly insufferable.

 

[Trunkage]

Does "White Phosphorous" mean anything to anybody?

I don't think it was a tonal shift - there are many times right from the first battle at the bus where you are doing questionable things. That was the culmination.

 

[Quellist]

One of the Warhammer 40k novels had a huge fucking dumbass plot twist. It was a Deathwatch novel and the kill-team is sent to rescue an Inquisitor's female acolyte from a world that's just now starting to show signs of Genestealer taint.

Spoiler

Turns out the woman was sent there in the first place specifically to be captured and raped and impregnated by Genestealers so the Inquisitor could have a hybrid. And the Inquisitor was the one who released Genestealers onto the planet in the first place, so that a Cult would be created, so that a hundred years later he could send his acolyte to get captured yadda yadda.
And it was way way way too convoluted and dense, even for 40k and the Inquisition. He didn't need to release genestealers onto a planet if he already had them in a lab, didn't need to sacrifice his people to them if a vat-grown female servitor is capable of getting pregnant, he could have sent a kill-team to a world already infested without infesting one himself, and it was a huge risk that his plan would fail if the kill-team failed, the acolyte died or any number of other factors.

It was a very poor twist.

Even by the sometimes fucked up standards of 40k that's insanely stupid!

Beyond Good and Evil's Jade turning out to be some kind of DomZ Goddess or Power Source in the last boss fight of the game with absolutely zero foreshadowing or build up to it. Okay it's explained in an extremely vague fashion by the final boss but they specifically reference why she has no memories of her parents and why they were so focused on her (apparently?) but it just came so far out of left field it felt like it doesn't make any sense.

I thought they led upto that reasonably well, not perfectly but enough that you knew something wasn't quite right. Right from the first boss seeming to recognize her and calling her Shauni (a name that she then instinctively adopts when asked for a codename) and the general obsession the Domz had with her, the "Your friend in exchange for your soul" line etc.

 

[Zontar]

Does "White Phosphorous" mean anything to anybody?

It does, to the point I have to ask for specifics because I can think of two things it applies to.

I'm going to assume it's the Heart of Darkness of video games since that was the actual good one though, though I also don't think it counts since it wasn't really a tone shift so much as escalation of what had already been happening.

As for the OP, one of my favourate anime of all time had one.

Spoiler: Macross spoiler

The show may have had serious subject matter and depicted the horrors of war, but when Roy died out of nowhere things really went serious compared to before. Kakizaki died in a battle which saw Toronto destroyed (of note: today this happening would be a good thing), the ship was exiled from Earth, people kept dying from the constant battle (source material claims two thirds of the civilian population died by the end of the series, Jesus Christ not even Belarus took that type of hit in WW2), and then Earth got glassed entirely. While the final arc definitely implies that there where plenty of survivors underground, only one is shown to have explicitly existed (which also begs the question what the hell happened to all the other operators in that comm. room).

Really a far cry from the parody of Gundam it was originally envisioned as.

 

[Mr Companion]

MR ROBOT is great until just the last episode or so.

The first twist is really good, it turns out that two people the main character knows are actually his relatives, a father and sister. The main character Elliot forgot because he has severe mental disorders. THEN they ruin it by later revealing that the father specifically is actually a hallucination because the father has been dead for about 10 years or so. We've been seeing his hallucination dad commanding the hackers this whole time so I guess that was all not real or it was all Elliot imagining his dad doing it?

THEN the main villain, turncoats or something? Or maybe the main villain was in on it the whole time? I dunno by this point the main character is such an unreliable narrator you just give up. Then there's a timeskip and the whole climax is resolved literally offscreen and the main character suddenly decides he doesn't like what they did so he blunders about having a mental breakdown for literally the whole last episode. Then all his old hacker buddies just unquestioningly team up with their arch nemesis without Elliot. It's such a trippy terrible mess and it only goes crazy in the last episode or two.