Almost always a case of Family-Unfriendly Violence, but is occasionally used educationally to show the effects of an accident on the human body.
Compare with X-Ray Sparks, where a character's skeleton is visible through the skin as a result of electrification. See also Funny X-Ray, where an X-Ray is used for comedic effect, such as by showing improbably-small organs, or unusual objects inside a character.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The Amusing Injuries suffered by Botan in Anne Happy are always shown as "X-ray" images of her bones shattering like glass.
- Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo: During his fight against Giga, Bobobo delivered a punch so powerful that the bones in his arm shatter.
- Booty Royale: Never Go Down Without a Fight!: Used several times during the Tournament Arc to show damage taken by the fighters, for instance during the infodump about Sumo Wrestling explaining how Nosaka Nagisa was able to knock out Haebaru Misora with a powerful slap, or when characters have suffered broken bones that aren't immediately obvious.
- In Fist of the North Star, whenever Kenshiro uses his Hokuto Shinken attacks to strike his enemy's pressure points and destroy them from within, internal damages such as bone cracking, head explosion, and body part splattering are often shown by an X-ray-like effect.
- FLCL Progressive & Alternative: At one point, Hidomi's headphones drill into her skull to prevent removal. This is shown with an X-ray effect that shows even her skull wincing in pain.
- Gamaran: Frequently used to show the bones of fighters being broken by attacks, usually the ribs. Variations that show more than just the bones are seen twice:
- When the Ninja Saizo explains his paralyzing Fudo Kanashibari no Jutsu (which involves blocking the joints with a tiny but sturdy needle)
- When Kiyomori's nerve-hitting attack is explained.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Stardust Crusaders: During the final battle with DIO, Jotaro lures his opponent into Star Platinum's short range by Playing Possum. Knowing that his opponent is a vampire with a potent Healing Factor, he makes sure to put all his strength into destroying his brain, and an X-ray shot of DIO's skull shattering is used to illustrate this when the blow connects.
- Diamond is Unbreakable: Whenever the Stand Highway Star latches on and absorbs the nutrients of its victims, both the manga and anime depict X-ray shots of the victims' muscular and skeletal structures slowly deteriorating as their nutrients are drained away.
- Stone Ocean: Anasui defeats Kenzo by using Diver Down to reconfigure Kenzo's bones into becoming Spring Coils, causing him to hop around aimlessly with body deteriorating via an x-ray shot.
- Jujutsu Kaisen: Maki Zen'in is fighting her abusive, misogynistic cousin Naoya Zen'in and manages to catch him off-guard as he was readying a Super-Speed powered punch after she manages to figure out a way to see through his 24 frame projection cursed technique, and she hits him with a Megaton Punch that gets four diferent replays alongside an X-ray of his skull's left side completely shattering into a thousand pieces.
- Naruto: Played for Laughs in an episode of the first anime series. Jiraya is caught spying on bathing women and this trope is initially subverted when he gets hit in the face by a geta and falls over the roof he was standing on headfirst. After a successful landing, Jiraya slips over his own getas and falls again head first, this time cracking his skull and knocking himself out.
- One Piece:
- During Usopp and Chopper's fight with Mr. 4 and Ms. Merry Christmas, Mr. 4 swings his bat at Usopp after the latter gets grabbed by Ms. Merry Christmas. An X-ray of Usopp's nose breaking is shown.
- During the fight against the giant zombie Oars, the Straw Hats' doctor Chopper devises a strategy for the team to break Oars' spine to incapacitate him. After most of their moves are complete, the final blow from Luffy (from above) shatters Oars' spine, as seen with an X-ray.
- An X-ray of Sanji's tibia is shown cracking after he blocks a kick from Vergo.
- Project A-Ko: Plot of the Daitokuji Financial Group B-ko's father dons a copy of his daughter's Akagiyama battle suit and attempts to catch the falling alien battleship. The audience is treated to an x-ray of his spine snapping like kindling.
- Sanda: Lantern Nihei as the spirit of Halloween fights with this trope; he brandishes a lantern who's light acts as an x-ray, which he can then also use to damage the bones and organs revealed by it.
Comic Books
- Watchmen: Jon (aka Dr. Manhattan) suffers a Freak Lab Accident and we see his skeleton during the sequence. This is because the experiment disintegrated him on the subatomic level.
- Wonder Woman (1987): When Neron kills Wonder Woman, his magic attack on her is shown as flames burning her down to the skeleton, and the next panel shows her intact but smoking corpse.
Films — Animation
- Used in Batman vs. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when Leonardo uses a Pressure Point attack to defeat Ra's al Ghul.
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Films — Live-Action
- Alien: Romulus: Poor Navarro winds up using the x-ray light she found in the derelict lab to find the chestburster straining and pounding against the inside of her ribcage. Horrifyingly enough, unlike the trailer seemed to imply, Navarro gets to sit with the realization and terror for several actual minutes before the alien finally kills her.
- A low-budget example of this trope appears in the 1980 film Challenge Of The Tiger: the Bruce Lee Clone protagonist Huang Lung fights a bull at one point. Lung finishes the fight by karate-chopping its head, and it cuts to a brief animated silhouette of the bull's skull fracturing in half before it keels over dead.
- Some of Terry Tsurugi's more brutal bone-breaking moves from The Street Fighter are accompanied by an X-Ray. The first time we see this happen, Tsurugi brings his fist down on a goon's skull, and when we cut back to normal he is oozing blood from over his face from a massive skull fracture and keels over dead.
- Undercover Brother: As part of his Establishing Character Moment as a Just Like Robin Hood raider that fights "The Man," the Undercover Brother fights off two security guards of an evil bank and literally puts his foot up the ass of one of them. The movie cuts from the Brother delivering the kick to an X-Ray animation of his foot going up the man's pelvic bone complete with Matrix-style swivel so we can see it from multiple angles.
- Viktor Zokas from The World Is Not Enough kidnaps heiress Elektra King. Agent 009 succeeds in freeing Elektra, shooting Zokas in the head in the process. Rather than killing him, however, the bullet has a numbing effect on Renard's pain threshold, making him combat-effective despite taking damage. This "magic bullet" effect is shown by M to Agent 007 via a hologram.
- The Suicide Squad: During the fight with Rick Flagg and Peacemaker. Peacemaker, pinned to the floor takes a porcelain shard and stabs it into Rick's chest, pushing it further into his heart, we then see a brief shot of the shard slicing his heart, killing him.
Live-Action TV
- 1000 Ways to Die: In each segment that showcases someone's death, an x-ray of the victim shows what happens to the organs as the person dies. Often paired with medical experts that explain what happens.
- CSI-verse: The franchise is full of examples. To name a few:
- CSI:
- "Loco Motives" includes a shot of a piece of glass from a broken bowl stabbing a woman in the gut and curving upward into her heart.
- An ironic example occurs as part of the victim's Rasputinian Death in "Ending Happy". After being poisoned which causes his throat to swell, Lorenzo "Happy" Morales is shot with an arrow through the neck, giving him an Impromptu Tracheotomy, and his windpipe is shown being severed.
- A victim in "Hog Heaven" gets slammed in the leg with a very heavy chain and we see his kneecap get shattered.
- CSI: Miami: "Wheels Up" includes a flashback of a woman's ribs cracking from her being hit by an abusive boyfriend.
- CSI: NY:
- One of the victims in "The Closer" is killed when a free-agent pitcher hurls a baseball at him. The audience is treated to a shot of his ribs cracking.
- "Corporate Warriors": During a flashback to a fight involving a Combat Cue Stick, a splinter is shown stabbing the victim's heart.
- In "Do or Die", a high school student is killed in a restroom by having her head slammed on the edge of a sink. A shot of her skull cracking is included during the reveal at the end of the episode.
- CSI:
- Euphoria: In "The Trials and Tribulations of Trying to Pee While Depressed", Rue has a Heroic BSoD and is too gloomy to get out of bed even though she hasn't used the bathroom all day. She notes in her narration that if you've been holding it too long, the toxins from your urine go back into your kidneys, and we get to see just that happen inside of her.
- House: Being a Medical Drama, shots showcasing the interior of patients' bodies are pretty much a Once per Episode occurrence to show their conditions worsening or the moments they began taking effect.
- Mahou Sentai Magiranger: When Tsubasa gets into a Punch Parry with Monster of the Week Ghoul, we're treated to an x-ray close-up of the bones in his hand shattering.
Video Games
- Blitz: The League II: Injuries incurred during the game, such as from "Beat Down" events, are accompanied by a zoom into the relevant character's body, showing the injury as it happens.
- Dragon's Crown: The Killer Rabbit's One-Hit KO attack, should it connect, shows the beast's victim with the top of their skull shattered.
- Fairytale Fights: Whenever you eliminate enemies with blunt weapons (clubs, oversized candy canes, your fists) you'll be treated to a cutscene depicting an X-ray cross-section of your victim's bones - all of them - dislocating into pieces.
- Friday Night Funkin': The Game Over screen depicts the emotional pain of Boyfriend losing a rap battle as an x-ray of his skeleton cracking and literally getting blue balls over not being able to finish.
- Mortal Kombat:
- Mortal Kombat 9 introduced the X-Ray Attack, a super move that shows just how devastating it is to the opponent's bones and organs. Mortal Kombat X continued using the X-Ray.
- Mortal Kombat 11 changed it from a super move into a Desperation Attack called "Fatal Blow." Each character also has semi-hidden "Krushing Blows" that occur when moves are landed once certain conditions are met.
- Mortal Kombat 1 dropped Krushing Blows but retained Fatal Blows, which now have your Kameo deal the first hit.
- Samurai Shodown: Since SSIII and beyond, the character of Hanzo has a special grab when he takes the opponent, breaks some bones, and ends with an Izuna Drop. All these moves are seen with X-Rays in the parts the bones are broken (first the arms and later the head in the case of Izuna Drop).
- Sniper Elite: From Sniper Elite V2 onward, the 'Killcam' feature has certain types of instant-kill shots trigger an animation showing the relevant body part being destroyed by the bullet. This ranges from the obligatory Boom, Headshot! to heart, lung and even the series' infamous testicle shots.
- Tenchu: Wrath Of Heaven: Tesshu's stealth kills are occasionally accompanied by a brief x-ray showing the damage the stealth kill does to the victim's body.
Web Animation
- Final Fantasy VII Machinabridged: Happens in the first fight against Reno. After exchanging snarks, Tifa punches Reno in the groin so hard that it destroys one of his testicles. An X-ray also shows that it causes some cracks in his pelvic bones.
Western Animation
- American Dad!: In "The Kidney Stays in the Picture", Hayley drinks a Gargle Blaster that ruptures her kidney, and a view inside shows said kidney dying and being mourned by the other.
- In the Barney Bear cartoon "Wee-Willie Wildcat", after Barney tries to kick a football with a rock inside it, a cross-section of his body shows his entire skeleton shattering to pieces.
- Big City Greens: When Tilly gets Brain Freeze in "Desserted", a cross-section of her head shows her brain freezing up and snapping in half.
- The Boondocks: At the end of "The Red Ball", Huey and his opponent, Ming, both strike each other with a ball thrown at high velocity, leading to an x-ray shot of Ming's leg getting shattered and Huey's arms getting broken.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: In "Laugh, Ed, Laugh", Eddy starts to go insane when there are no kids around to scam (due to a chickenpox epidemic), leading to a shot of his brain expanding and busting like a bag of microwave popcorn.
- Family Guy:
- At the end of "Wasted Talent", a view of Peter's last living brain cell acting out the ending to "Time Enough at Last".
- In "Petarded", as Lois reveals she suppresses her emotions regarding Peter's stupidity, there's a view of a Peter-like tumour in her brain.
- In the Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart episode "Strange Bedfellows", Mao Mao and Orangusnake are in traction in the hospital but are still trying to destroy each other. At one point Mao Mao makes Orangusnake bounce up and down, and every time he lands, a cross-section of his legs shows his bones breaking until they turn to powder.
- Maya and the Three: At a few points in the series, there are some X-ray shots of Maya injuring or dislocating her limbs while fighting enemies.
- Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: In "Moon Girl's Day Off", as Moon Girl's skates get caught on a grate, an X-ray view shows her ankle getting dislocated.
- The Patrick Star Show: In "Rube Tube", Patrick disguises himself as a beach volleyball to sabotage Rube. Instead, Patrick gets spiked by some extremely muscular volleyball players: whenever they hit him, a red, white, and black impact frame flashes extremely briefly to show Patrick's bones and eventually spine breaking.
- The Simpsons:
- In "Lisa the Greek", we get a view of Homer's arteries getting clogged from eating unhealthy snacks.
Homer: A little beer will put out that fire.
- A variation occurs with Homer's heart attack "Homer's Triple Bypass", in which the image of his heart is placed in a box on the corner of the screen.
- In "Lisa the Greek", we get a view of Homer's arteries getting clogged from eating unhealthy snacks.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In "Squilliam Returns", SpongeBob has a mental breakdown and we get a view of his brain splitting in two.
- In "Pressure", Sandy tries to hold her breath underwater, and her lungs are shown collapsing and breaking off.
- Wakfu: In Season 1, episode "Rubilax", suffering from a heat stroke while walking in the desert, Sadlygrove believes the ruin before him is only a mirage, and he gives it a good kick. Barefoot. On a stone wall. We immediately see an X-ray shot of his foot bones crushed on impact, shortly followed by a Hurt Foot Hop.