What does it take to kill an anime character?

Rangiku from Bleach chapter 336

Look more carefully, Rangiku’s entire right-side of her abdomen has just been ripped apart.

Now I am no stranger to Bleach’s ridiculously over-the-top wounds sustained by various characters, e.g. Ichigo sustaining Ulquiorra’s full hand plunged completely into his chest and Rukia impaled by the ninth Espada Aaroniero’s sword through hers, but having half of your internal organs torn out like that looks instant fatality to me. But guess what: no one in Bleach with more than a dozen of dialog lines ever dies.

So far, I have mostly let them pass as a cheap way to make me go Ouch, that must hurt a bit, but come on, there has to be a certain level of credibility, a certain level of expectation and agreement between the writers and the readers, so that when a certain character has reached a certain point of no return, we can feel the weight of the plot pushed forward. Right now, Rangiku might as well just be suffering from a chip of her fingernail.

Initially, I was planning to do this post as Top n Most Ridiculous Hits Sustained by Anime Characters who Survived Them!, but I couldn’t get n to go above the number of fingers on my hand. So, realizing that I couldn’t come up with a decent list, I must step aside and hope that others (omisyth?) will do a better job.

Yup. It takes only a second to fix that up.