Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS/Nightmare Fuel

Season 1

 * The first episode has one of the Knights of Hanoi destroying people's avatars with his monster. While it's said that their accounts are deleted, it doesn't change the fact that people are running away in terror from the Knights of Hanoi and look to be killed. It also doesn't help that Ignis says getting hurt in Link VRAINS could affect your physical brain, causing mental damage.
 * Yusaku himself is already a walking example of this: he's very unpleasant, is a No-Nonsense Nemesis driven by rage and hatred, and treats Dueling as a means to get Revenge on the Knights of Hanoi. As some viewers noted, Yusaku is what Yuya would've become if he embraces brutality over entertainment. Even his "Reason You Suck" Speech as Playmaker, while simple, really shows how cold-hearted he is, topping the likes of Jack and Reiji in this department:
 * After Yusaku defeated the Knight of Hanoi in a duel, it tried to self-destruct in an attempt to take Yusaku with him, and would have succeeded if Ignis hadn't devoured him and destroyed his avatar then and there. The way Ignis ate the Knight is also pretty unsettling.
 * Somehow, Revolver could sense Yusaku tampering with Ignis, which leads to Yusaku running outside and somehow seeing the cyber world with Revolver coming straight for him on top of a dragon. Thankfully, turning off the power also turned off the signal, making Revolver lose sight of Ignis.
 * Some of Aoi's facial expressions in #6 are rather off-putting...
 * Everything about the last turn of the Aoi/Blue Angel Vs Yusaku/Playmaker duel in #7. After drawing "Dark Angel", the card Specter gave her last episode, Aoi goes berserk with a purple aura and starts dueling in monotone. Then she starts screaming as Yusaku sets up an OTK to save her from Hanoi's influence.


 * Episode 8
 * Yusaku finding Aoi knocked out on the rooftop after he logs out. Fridge Horror ensues when you realize that if Yusaku didn't know she was Blue Angel, she could have been up there for who knows how long.
 * Aoi being effectively brain dead due to the Knights of Hanoi placing a computer virus in her
 * Ema and Akira's trap for Playmaker causes a Barian-esque ring of spikes to apppear around the tower Ema and Playmaker are standing on. It then procedes to either log out or delete the accounts of everyone in Link VRAINS at the time.brain. And she'll never wake up again unless Playmaker beats Revolver in a Duel.
 * Akira torturing Playmaker due to thinking he caused Aoi's condition.
 * And then the Wham Shot of the episode. Revolver can control the Data Storm.
 * Revolver shows his power by reshaping link VRAINS into a volcanic battlefield.
 * 12 has Ignis attack Revolver like a wild animal in order to get his missing data back, going so as to devour Revolver's left arm. Granted, it was only his avatar, but previous episodes have mentioned that sufficient damage to one's avatar can transfer over to their physical body, and Revolver looked to be in pain as he clucthed his wounded arm.
 * We also got to see a better look at ignis in his Monster form, He has eyes resembling those from his old form on his chest. It's a bit creepy
 * 15, Ghost Girl is nearly swallowed up by the Data Storm after following Playmaker in to it, only surviving thanks to Playmaker. A grim reminder that the Data Storm's danger isn't an Informed Flaw, and that Yusaku/Playmaker risks his life every time he performs Storm Access.
 * Yusaku's past with the Hanoi project is chock full of this. Him and 5 other children were abducted and forced to duel AI constantly for survival, being painfully shocked and starved if they lost. Even years later and after therapy to attempt undoing the trauma, Yusaku's entire motivation is getting revenge on the people who committed the atrocity and make sure all the children like him were rescued. For a series that usually places its horror in supernatural elements, the more grounded and realistic child abduction and torture is a much more terrifying event than the series has ever dealt with.
 * It turns out the mastermind of the Hanoi Project died three years after the project was executed.
 * Episode #22 has Dr. Genome, who creates "Another" victims by drawing them into Link VRAINS against their will and them infecting them with a computer virus just like Blue Angel. Even worse, he does this to draw out Playmaker.
 * Episode #27 brings Naoki being kidnapped in real life by a member of the Knights of Hanoi to lure out Playmaker. It's a wonder Yusaku doesn't react worse to it, considering his reason for hunting down the Knights of Hanoi in the first place.
 * As Blue Angel is defeated by Spectre, she lands on the ground head-first. Ouch.
 * Spectre's origins as one of the children kidnapped in the Lost Incident opens up a fair bit of Fridge Horror. How else would the other individuals have been affected by it?
 * At this point, Spectre may as well be the Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant for VRAINS. Not only is he the Second in Command for the Knights of Hanoi and the cause of Aoi's berserker state, he pulls numerous Slasher Smile's that rival the likes of Vector, Sora, and Yuri, and his origins make him an Evil Counterpart to Yusaku. Whereas Yusaku has been consumed with revenge and hates what the project did to him, Spectre became twisted and joined the very cause of the Project, and is grateful for what the project did to him.
 * Speaking of Yuri, Spectre's origins are disturbingly similar to Yuri's, yet it makes Spectre even more terrifying. Both Yuri and Spectre were once gentler as children, before being exposed to a much more negative influencenote, causing them to develop a much more sadistic and twisted personality. Spectre's is more terrifying as whereas Yuri had Z-ARC's influence partially to blame, Spectre has no such influence. The Hanoi Project was that torturous.
 * Playmaker's vehemently pissed off expressions after Akira sacrifices himself are proof that you do not want to fuck with him, lest he decimate you to nothingness in rage. Spectre learns this the hard way.
 * Episode 42, we actually see the dangers of a really intense Data Storm as both Playmaker and Revolver attempt to activate Storm Access and their arms literally get ripped off of their avatar. It was so intense that Playmaker actually falls off. Had Ai not helped him up, he would have been killed from the height he was dueling from.
 * Revolver did the right thing by reporting the Hanoi Project and in turn saving the six kidnapped children who had been tortured and starved for six relentless months. He quickly regretted it not because he was evil, but because his father was imprisoned by SOL Technologies for three years in an attempt to cover up the incident. Revolver didn't get to see him during this time and when Dr. Kogami finally returned home, he was comatose with a computer virus keeping him that way. Even after removing the virus, Revolver couldn't restore his father's consciousness in the real world. Revolver must blame himself for this.
 * Revolver did the right thing by reporting the Hanoi Project and in turn saving the six kidnapped children who had been tortured and starved for six relentless months. He quickly regretted it not because he was evil, but because his father was imprisoned by SOL Technologies for three years in an attempt to cover up the incident. Revolver didn't get to see him during this time and when Dr. Kogami finally returned home, he was comatose with a computer virus keeping him that way. Even after removing the virus, Revolver couldn't restore his father's consciousness in the real world. Revolver must blame himself for this.
 * Who knows how long the Hanoi Project would have lasted if it had never been reported.

Season 2
gets attacked and traumatized again.
 * Ai returns to the Cyberse World in episode #47 after five long years, but instead of the paradise he described in episode #45, there is only a wasteland remaining, the other Ignises are nowhere to be found, and the only survivor shown is Linkuriboh. By the time Ai found him all it could do was hide in the remains of Cyberse.
 * The most horrifying part of this is that Ai himself hid Cyberse away. Neither the Knights of Hanoi or SOL Technologies, two very powerful organizations, could find it even with the five years they had before Yusaku captured Ai, but somehow someone or something managed to find and attack Cyberse and reduce it into a wasteland.
 * Jin gets attacked by an avatar in the real world. The avatar first gets out of a television screen like Sadako. Shoichi tries to stop it, but couldn't even touch it. The avatar then grabs Jin's head and takes his soul by sucking it through its mouth. All Shoichi could do was helplessly watch how his brother It's also quite off putting that Jin doesn't talk and only grunts to his brother Shoichi after making a small recovery. This in turn shows how much the Hanoi Project/Lost Incident affected him.
 * Bohman's Identity Amnesia is a just a tad off-putting, what with how easily he seems to panic and how Haru has to keep watch over him as he duels.
 * It's even scarier that in Episode 50 it was shown that his boss has his memories. After getting Jin's consciousness to him his boss was supposed to give Haru's and his memories back, but instead his boss just claims he never made that promise, that it's all in his head, and resets Bohman's memories. And judging from Haru's emotionless expression suggests that this happens quite often and that he needs to give Bohman new memories AGAIN.
 * Episode 54 revealed that Kengo Dojun/Blood Shephard and his mother are a victim of a car crash caused by the glitch of an AI. The horrifying part is what happened with them afterwards. Kengo's mother spine was damaged beyond repair and crippled her. Kengo's arm was crippled till the point he needed a cybernetic replacement and the accident turned the once cheerful young man into a jaded ruthless man with a deep hatred for AI's.
 * The fact that the AI glitched at all shows that despite how advanced technology has come, it will never fully be perfect and problems would happened or least be found and there is a chance that someone will suffer the price for it be by death or serious injury.
 * In episode 57, Bohman claimed he is the real Yusaku and the current Yusaku was a backup made during the Lost Incident. If this is true, then being trapped in a computer for ten years must have messed him up a lot. If this is false, which is incredibly likely as Bohman's latest memories could be fake and he has yet to regain his confirmed real memories, being made to believe he had gone through such a grueling experience would still be absolutely horrifying.
 * Episode 58 also shows that Bohman saw what the fake did in his body when he finally got rescued. He is forced to watch the fake getting away with his body and smiling at him knowing that he doomed the original to stay in a computer possibly forever.
 * Playmaker doesn't even deny the possibility. He actually says it might be possible that he is a fake, because of the memories he lost and that there is no way to know which one of them is right. While Playmaker won the duel, there still isn't any confirmation about Bohman's claim.
 * Even Ai stated it is possible and Ignises are supposed to know who their partner is which is how Flame found Takeru.
 * While Yusaku's and Ryoken's first meeting may look cute and innocent at first, it's actually pretty horrifying if you think about it. Yusaku just met a boy with similar interests as him and went to play with him, but instead of playing, he got kidnapped instead. Just think about it your child is going to play with someone you don't know or met and hasn't told you anything about it and that it resulted in him suddenly disappearing. His parents must be worried sick that their 6-year-old kid suddenly didn't come home one night. Adult Fear is in full effect here.
 * Ryoken, being eight at that time, most likely did not intentionally lead Yusaku to being kidnapped hence him becoming Yusaku's voice of hope; he probably felt guilty for unknowingly dooming Yusaku to such a horrible fate. Ryoken was most likely just an innocent kid who loved playing Duel Monsters and was happy to make a friend in Yusaku. Ryoken most likely actually just wanted to show Yusaku his deck at his house, become friends with Yusaku, and did not intend anything bad. The fact that something bad did happen must have made Ryoken feel horrible.
 * This also implies that Dr. Kogami is willing to use his son to get the people he needs for him to experiment onnote It involved getting tortured with electrocution and starvation for losing a duel.
 * Soulburner saves Playmaker, but gets caught by Blood Shepherd's trap instead of him. While this is already bad considering how ruthless Blood Shepherd, but what makes this worse is that getting captured in a closed space triggers Soulburner's flashbacks of the Lost Incident/Hanoi Project from it. He sees the A.I. he is dueling against as a big black monster that wants to hurt and attack him.
 * Said big black monster is Despair from the Dark. During the Lost Incident, Takeru was defeated by that monster and was subsequently electrocuted and starved so many times because of it, he developed an intense fear of that card. It highly likely Takeru developed his fear of ghosts because of this card and the relentless torment it inflicted on him. Even after ten years, his sheer terror did not abate one bit seeing as how he reacted so horribly when Ryujiro Mizunuma—his opponent when they dueled in the real world in the past—summoned it.
 * And in episode 62, Blood Shepherd uses this newly-found knowledge against Soulburner in the most drastic extreme possible: Blood Shepherd assembles three copies of the monster via a specific combo, effectively exploiting Soulburner's trauma for all that its worth. Oh, and he has a fourth one that is treated as a Continuous Spell.