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* ''[[Code Geass]]'' has C.C. who was apparently once [[The Cutie]] before the harsh realities of living in a [[Crapsack World]] turned her into a cynical person who gives people (including an orphaned child) [[Blessed with Suck]] {{spoiler|in an attempt to die.}} There are two other, cuties in the series {{spoiler|(Shirley and Euphemia)}} but neither are broken, and remain as [[The Cutie]] even {{spoiler|as they die}}.
** I'd say the first time around Shirley Fennette got kinda [[Mind Rape|broken]], before {{spoiler|Lelouch fixed everything by causing [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]] (and managing to screw himself over at the same time). [[Sarcasm Mode|Thank you, Mao]]. }}. But in ''R2'', {{spoiler|Gottwald brings her memories back after testing out his Geass canceller on her, which lead to her eventual death at Rolo's hands}}.
*** No, Lelouch didn't fix it -- heit—he tried, but couldn't. In last episodes of season 1, she was really insecure, suffering both {{spoiler|knowing Lelouch was Zero and having forgotten her love for him, not understanding why}}. So the one we must thank for having the sweet Shirley back in the beginning of R2 is ''[[Big Bad|the Emperor]]''. '''That's how broken Shirley was.'''
** What about Nunnally? She's blind and crippled as a result of her mother being murdered in front of her. She maintains a happy smile and only wants to be with her brother. Although many things happen over the course of the show to separate them, she never lets herself look down. And by the second season she ''does'' manage to pull herself together and come into her own. {{spoiler|However, at the end of the show, she's trying to stop Lelouch from getting the key to a WMD. Lelouch Geasses her and steals it, and she pitifully tries to stop him from getting away. [[It Got Worse|It gets worse]] when she's chained up as a prisoner in a parade. Then, she watches her brother get murdered at his own orders to unite the world in hating him. All this gets to her and she wails over his dead body.}}
*** {{spoiler|Knowing it's done for the good of the whole FLIPPIN' WORLD makes it a lot better. Nunnally is a unique example in that her image as [[The Cutie]] is broken, to the audience. Until she died, she kept an optimistic personality, because Lelouch unintentionally Geass'd her into it.}}
**** No... he {{spoiler|geassed her into handing over the Damocles controller. Besides, does ''this'' sound optimistic to you? : ''"It's not fair... All I wanted and needed to be happy was to be with you! How can I ever look forward to the future without you?!"''}} You were thinking of {{spoiler|the Euphinator}}, I'm afraid.
** How have we gone without mention of Euphemia, who {{spoiler|was accidentally forced to slaughter hundreds of people against her will, and, just to add insult to injury, was forever known as the "massacre princess" or even "[[Fan Nickname|The Euphinator]]"?}}
** Mao, {{spoiler|the orphan whom C.C. gave Geass to,}} went through this as well. He [[Used to Be a Sweet Kid]] but his mind-reading powers drove him completely insane, rendering him the most irreparably broken character in the entire series, who has to be {{spoiler|[[Mercy Kill|Mercy Killed]]ed by C.C.}}. He's even [[One-Scene Wonder|famous for it]].
** Suzaku fits to an extent as well, since he starts off at the beginning of the series as a [[Knight in Shining Armor|chivalrous and gentle person]] before the series [[Serial Escalation|embarks on the path]] of [[It Got Worse]]. As it runs its course, he suffers a [[Heroic BSOD]] when it's revealed that {{spoiler|he killed his father}}, and then later {{spoiler|he's given a "Live" Geass order from Lelouch which means that he has to stay alive at all costs,}} after which {{spoiler|his girlfriend gets killed off in a very ugly fashion}} and then later {{spoiler|he ends up deploying nuclear weapons while under the effect of his Geass}}, and ultimately gets pushed across the [[Despair Event Horizon]]. And then finally {{spoiler|he's left to a potential [[Fate Worse Than Death]] by killing Lelouch as Zero as soon as he manages to hook back up with him, and has to spend the rest of his life as Zero all [[Lonely At the Top]].}}
** Lelouch also fits to an extent, dating back to his failed attempt at [[Calling the Old Man Out]] for apparently [[Somebody Else's Problem|not doing anything in response to Marianne's murder and Nunnally's crippling]] that led the expulsion of him and Nunnally to Japan. Then [[It Got Worse]]. [[Byronic Hero|And thanks to himself, in a way]].
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*** Well... Yes. ''Comparatively'' little. Have you read these OTHER examples?
*** Don't forget {{spoiler|she was bullied by Otome and her friends for ''at least'' several months ''just'' for being [[The Ojou|rich and pretty]], and the bullying got ''much'' worse after she went out to Makoto. And then we have Setsuna treating her like shit so Makoto hooks up with Sekai.}} And people in [[Real Life]] have reacted worse for ''much'' lighter stuff.
* ''[[Last Exile]]'': {{spoiler|The character Dio}}. To clarify: {{spoiler|his [[The Caligula|sister Delphine]] basically kidnaps him while his [[Battle Butler|friend]] [[Extreme Doormat|Luciola]] stands by and does nothing (although, to be fair, they were outnumbered by Delphine's elite guards). Then, while he screams for Luciola to save him, he is brutally [[Mind Rape|Mind Raped]]d on his sister's orders. Pre-[[Mind Rape]], Dio was a cheerful, if odd and extremely hyper, young man with a great fondness for [[The Glomp|glomping]] people and flying vanships. Post [[Mind Rape]], he is a mentally unhinged killer with a tendency to stare off into space giggling and engage in [[Brother-Sister Incest]] with the one who made him that way.}} The birthday party scene made this even worse.
*** Though it should be noted {{spoiler|that he got better.}}
*** {{spoiler|How exactly did he get better? He snaps out of his [[Mind Rape]] in a vanship, alone, just after having hallucinated being in a race and telling Luciora (who was already dead at that point) to jump out to reduce weight. Hard to imagine anything more [[Tear Jerker|heart-breaking]].}}
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** The universe hasn't been kind to Guts either. A poor innocent baby who is {{spoiler|rescued from under the tree where his mother was hanged while she was pregnant}}, [[Used to Be a Sweet Kid|Guts is a pretty nice kid early on his life]]. He willingly serves the mercenary group that raises him, and even gives all of the money he earns to his surrogate father, Gambino, and devotes his life to trying to please him. After Gambino {{spoiler|sells him to a mercenary named Donovan for three silver coins, who proceeds to rape him despite Guts's best efforts to fight him off}}, he starts to lose his innocence (as if living day to day by killing people wasn't enough of a stressor), this loss of innocence finally solidifies when {{spoiler|Gambino, having lost his leg in battle and no longer able to fight or lead his men on the battlefield, gets massively drunk and attempts to murder him because he believes that Guts is cursed and blames him for the death of his lover Shisu, Guts's surrogate mother, from the plague, and Guts is forced to kill him out of self-defense}}. Guts still has nightmares about the experiences as an adult, even before the Eclipse goes down.
** Many Apostles have had their lives go completely to shit as part of the process of causality leading them to their [[Despair Event Horizon]], their sacrifice and their transformation, but none more tragically than Rosine. An imaginative and clever little girl from an abusive household, strongly hinted {{spoiler|to have been a [[Child by Rape]] (her mom was raped during the war and her dad abuses both mom and kid due to this)}}, all she wanted was to find the elves that she always believed in and get away from her horrible home situation. {{spoiler|When she runs off looking for the elves, she doesn't find them, but her parents find her. Her mom is just glad that she's okay and alive, but her abusive father is ''furious'', and starts viciously beating on her. The blood from the beating and her despair activates the Behelit, which leads to the poor frightened little girl who just wanted elves to be real finding out that she could have been one herself and not just some filthy cruel human, and proceeds to sacrifice both her parents in order to become what she thinks is an elf}}.
** Theresia, a twelve-year-old girl and the daughter of The Count, one of the early Apostles that Guts kills in the series, is a classic case of an innocent daughter sheltered from the world and wanting more than anything to be free of her "cage," as she explains to Puck, who the Count has captured and brought to her as a "pet." She tells Puck that her mother was killed by pagans, and her father became different ever since, almost like he wasn't even human anymore. When Guts's battle with the Count makes a wreck of the castle, the door to Theresia's room becomes undone, and Theresia can finally escape. {{spoiler|But when she arrives at her father's chamber, she is horrified upon seeing the monstrous Apostle form of her father, is taken hostage by Guts in a [[What the Hell, Hero?]] moment, and then is forced to watch as Guts puts him through the same torture that he puts other Apostles through. And then the Count's Behelit activates and the Godhand arrive. After a brief battle with Guts, Femto, the newest member of the Godhand, establishes his [[Complete Monster]] credentials in a big way by demanding that Theresia be sacrificed so that the Count can continue to live. And then, as Theresia watches in terror and horror, the other Godhands reveal to her the truth about her mother's fate -- that she had joined the pagans and was conducting an orgy in the Count's own castle when he arrived, that he found himself unable to kill her despite her utter betrayal, which drove him over the [[Despair Event Horizon]] and allowed the Godhand to show up, and that the Count himself sacrificed her in order to become a demon. This ordeal, along with having to watch her father get [[Dragged Off to Hell]] after refusing to sacrifice her, is enough to drive Theresia to attempt suicide, but she finds the will to live again when the ground below her gives way and she grabs Guts's outstretched [[BFS|Dragon Slayer]]. Poor little Theresia is left with an utter hatred for Guts, manifested in one of the scariest [[Death Glare|Death Glares]]s ever as she vows to kill him one day}}.
* Louise Halevy from ''[[Gundam]] 00'' falls into this trope {{spoiler|1=after Nena Trinity [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um8JE7ZHHCo obliterates her family at a wedding], leaving the girl without her left hand and completely distraught.}} Starting with the second season, {{spoiler|1=she joins the A-Laws, the secret police of the Federation, as she tries to get revenge on Celestial Being for the murders of her family. She finally finds the said murderer and gets her revenge, but it only serves to BREAK her further ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh5suv5oZlo here] at 20:27). She didn't find any satisfaction, she didn't find any praises from her dead parents from avenging them, and [[And Then John Was a Zombie|she has become a murderer, just like the murdered]]. She got better, eventually.}}
** {{spoiler|Arguably Nena Trinity fulfills this category herself [[Dark and Troubled Past|once we learn her and her brothers's backstories.]] The Trinity siblings are [[Artificial Human|Artificial Humans]]s only born and raised to be Gundam Meisters, and the DNA used to "create" them is... Ribbons Almark's own. And their "daddy" ultimately sets them up to kill them. While it's not an excuse, it ''does'' explain a lot, specially considering that [[Even Evil Has Loved Ones|the only persons they cared for were each other, and their mutual love was very genuine]].}}
* And don't forget that the other Gundam pilots also get quite broken. Examples?
*** ''[[Gundam Wing]]'': {{spoiler|Quatre.}} Although, his is an odd example, since it's the system he was hooked into to that psychically broke him. And then he bounced back.
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* In ''[[Deadman Wonderland]]'', [[Only Sane Man|main character]] Ganta is imprisoned in a maximum security prison/theme park after emerging from a [[Heroic BSOD]] after {{spoiler|his entire class gets slaughtered by a mysterious "Red Man" right before a field trip to said prison/theme park.}} In short order he's sentenced to death, befriended by [[Ax Crazy]] Shiro, discovers that a piece of candy he lost was actually {{spoiler|antidote for the poison that's being constantly injected into his body}}, that {{spoiler|he actually ''does'' have the power that killed his classmates, courtesy of a red diamond implanted into his body by the Red Man}}, and {{spoiler|discovers other "Deadmen" and is forced to learn how to use his power to fight them in a tournament}}. And that's not even half of this manga's current chapters.
** This also happens to Nagi after Genkaku reminds him that he has no hope of seeing his child by escaping out of Deadman Wonderland. {{spoiler|He later kills himself and takes Genkaku with him}}. And then there's Genkaku himself, who was shown in the past to have been a timid, cute monk that got repeatedly beaten and raped by bullies, with the elder monk in charge being unsympathetic and uncaring, and seeing the little wounded kitten he was taking care of die - all of this causing him to go insane.
* In ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'', [[Complete Monster|Johan]] is -- [[Manipulative Bastard|as noted]] -- especially—especially prone to doing this to his victims, even simply to screw with them. For example, in volume 12, sending an abandoned small boy to look for his mother, basically telling him that if he sees her, and she sees him, if she truly loves him and wants him she'll take him back {{spoiler|(naturally, Johan is crossdressing as the much more wholesome Anna at the time, making it that much creepier)}}. He sends him to look for his mother in ''the red light district of Prague'' -- where—where the boy witnesses rape, depravity, a drug addicted prostitute dying from withdrawal begging him for money and even the prostitutes themselves taunting him. {{spoiler|Tenma and Grimmer have to talk him out of jumping off a bridge after this. This still doesn't quite break the cutie. But it comes damn close. Mind you, this boy is perhaps 7 or 8}}.
** And Anna! Poor, poor Anna... Johan crushes her so many times in so many ways that she {{spoiler|comes ''this'' close to suicide}}.
* [[Genki Girl|Momo]] [[Yamato Nadeshiko|Hinamori]] from ''[[Bleach]]''. She's pretty much manipulated for decades by someone she dearly loved, who knew all of her strengths ''and'' weaknesses and played them ''frighteningly'' well to get his plans done. {{spoiler|And when it's all said and done, [[Complete Monster|he]] almost kills the already messed-up girl, leaving her deeply traumatized, brokenhearted and in denial too}}. [[The Scrappy|And people think she's stupid and has no chance for recovery after that]].
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** [[Failure Knight|Rukia Kuchiki]] seems to have stretched her breaking out over several decades, after her childhood as a [[Street Urchin]] and {{spoiler|having to kill her [[Big Brother Mentor]] and first love}}. She largely managed to hold herself together, right up until the aforementioned [[Affably Evil|Gin]] managed to [[Kick the Dog|shatter her composure]] prior to her execution with just a few words, leaving her a screaming wreck. Thankfully, she manages to slowly put herself back together with the help of Ichigo and her other friends.
** The Hueco Mundo and Arrancar arcs are pretty much designed to break a certain [[Barrier Warrior|Orihime]] [[Stepford Smiler|Inoue]]. ''Repeatedly''.
*** Orihime sorta came pre-broken, though. Her parents were abusive drunkards, so her older brother Sora ran away with a toddler Orihime when he turned 18 and then went the [[Promotion to Parent]] way. He then was seriosuly injured right after their first and only fight, and Orihime took him to the Kurosaki clinic but Isshin couldn't do anything to save him -- andhim—and ''that'' is when she met Ichigo. Later she was had [[Traumatic Haircut|her hair forcibly cut]] by other girls, and Tatsuki stepped to help her. And after being more or less stable but still questioning her own worth and her growing feelings for Ichigo through the first arcs... well, the Hueco Mundo and Arrancar arcs came. She's more or less getting better, if the X-Cution arc is a lead.
**** Shall we elaborate on the Hueco Mundo arc? She's emotionally blackmailed into going to Aizen's palace, psychologically tortured by Ulquiorra, physically tortured by Aizen's two jealous aides/fangirls, [[Forced to Watch]] Ichigo get the crap kicked out of him no less by four times and come back as a monster after the last one, and with the exception of her kidnapping, '''all of this happens on the same day.'''
** And later? '''ICHIGO''' is the cutie being actively broken. He did get a huge taste of it when {{spoiler|his beloved mother Masaki died to save him when he was only nine years old, and he spent years blaming himself for it.}} Then the Soul Society and Arrancar/Hueco Mundo/Fake Karakura/Deicide arcs came (not to mention the fillers), and while he was broken more than once he always bounced back somehow. And ''then'', {{spoiler|in the X-Cution arc, his beloved family and friends (including the aforementioned Orihime) are not only attacked, but ''brainwashed'' by current [[Big Bad]] Tsukishima}}, and the kid starts splintering. '''Badly'''. It takes a LOT for him to become more or less stable.
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* ''Everything'' that happens to Princess Oboro in ''[[Basilisk]]''. {{spoiler|Her fiancé is the leader of an enemy faction despite both being really in love, the peace treaty that would allow them to marry was messily broken behind her back, [[Evil Chancellor|her lieutenant]] steals the command from her and attempts to rape her '''twice''' in the course of the story, ''very'' powerful people meddle in the clans' feud to make it worse, and all of her servants/warriors/friends/enemies die, all of them VERY messily. No wonder she [[Driven to Suicide|ultimately decides to kill herself and die with honor]] rather than fighting her injured, blinded, almost dead True Love in the end. Who, having become broken as well, promptly commits suicide as well.}}
* Juri Katou of ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' started out as a [[Genki Girl]] with a hand puppet to emphasize her childlike nature. She is the penultimate innocent of the cast, as well as the shy, sweet girl that main character Takato has a crush on. Then, once on the adventure, after a promising start as a potentially excellent Tamer, {{spoiler|she loses her Digimon partner and gets kidnapped and possessed by the [[Big Bad]]. The [[Big Bad]] then proceeds to conjure up monsters ''based on her worst memories'' (revealing in the process that she was a [[Stepford Smiler]] all along, completely broken after her beloved mother dies of illness and her father tries to raise her alone [[Parents as People|but can't do a lot for her]]) in order to feed on her sadness.}} This is one instance of [[Mind Rape]] that would give even [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|NGE]] a run for its money...
** It's not quite the same as Jeri,but Keenan in ''[[Digimon Savers]]'' pretty much fits the bill. As a baby he falls into a gate to the Digiworld crying helplessly for hours. So he gets adopted by a Frigimon,that gets killed right in front of him via [[Complete Monster|Kurata]] and he's ''only'' 5. So he comes to think [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|Humans Are Bastards]] already. But even his own compatriots don't trust him and turn on him at proper excuse. Finally his father figure Merukimon also gets killed in front of him.
** Seems tame in comparison to poor Juri but Ken Ichijoji also fits the bill, too. He goes from the [[Big Bad]] and Evil Genius in the first season of ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'' to being [[The Woobie]] and [[The Atoner]] with a [[Dark and Troubled Past]] all in one go. He deals with everything from [[My God, What Have I Done?|crushing guilt]] to being completely isolated from everyone, to his [[I Wished You Were Dead|brother's death]], to being infected with the Dark Spore, to kidnapping, to being occasionally dragged into a [[H.P. Lovecraft|Lovecraftian]]-inspired other world... Somebody on the writing team really wanted to make sure this guy [[Earn Your Happy Ending|earned his redemption.]]
*** And then there's Takeru/TK in the [[Digimon Adventure|original series]]... poor damn TK, it just wasn't fair. To elaborate, at age 8 he is dealing with his parents being divorced, his [[Aloof Older Brother]] being moody and unpleasant because of this, and then he witnesses his close friend and Digimon Patamon die ''right in front of him'' without the knowledge that he'd [[Disney Death|come back okay]]. He does manage to deal with this and becomes a level-headed [[Lancer]] in the second season... [[Berserk Button|unless he encounters anyone making use of the Powers of Darkness.]]
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** Chiriko, Chiriko, Chiriko. This is a ten-year-old boy who initially [[Refused the Call]] when he realized he was a designated Suzaku warrior, because he was terrified of going to war (like any normal child would be). His final fate, in which {{spoiler|HE STABS HIMSELF IN THE CHEST as a [[Taking You with Me]] attack on an enemy warrior}}, is so heartbreaking that even his adult comrades Tasuki and Mitsukake are brought to tears by witnessing it.
** Suboshi and Amiboshi, impoverished twin orphans who have the misfortune of being recruited by [[Manipulative Bastard]] Nakago. Suboshi deals by becoming a [[Hot-Blooded]] [[Jerkass]], later crossing the [[Moral Event Horizon]] and thereby losing his "cutie" status ([[Draco in Leather Pants|for most fans, anyway]]); Amiboshi fares much better, but even he still has {{spoiler|a [[Driven to Suicide|suicide attempt to his name]], and only reaches happiness when [[Tear Jerker|his memory of the preceding 15 years is completely erased]]... thanks by Suboshi, [[Pet the Dog|as his last act of kindness ever]].}}
* Misuzu from ''[[AIR]]'' arguably qualifies, since a lot of time and effort is put into presenting her as a sweet, lovable, although somewhat peculiar girl -- onlygirl—only to {{spoiler|have her suffer enormous pain in the last few episodes and die in the arms of her adoptive mother, her aunt Haruko. Her final moments are still [[Tear Jerker|gruesomely beautiful]], though}}.
* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'''s plot [[Deus Angst Machina|tortures]] its already troubled protagonist Shinji to the point of snapping into a psychological breakdown for two whole episodes and/[[Gainax Ending|or]] {{spoiler|destroying humanity}}. Not to mention doing something similar to [[Dysfunction Junction|almost every single other character]]. Let's just face it, at some point the writers sat down and said 'okay, we need to break every single character by the end of this series. Any ideas?' It's particularly heartbreaking when we're shown a flashback of a toddler Shinji right before witnessing the death of his mother: a young child who's smiling and constantly laughing, without a hint of bitterness and actually seeming outgoing. His 'break the cutie' process started at 4 years old and just kept going downhill... [[It Gets Worse|really downhill...]]
** Asuka Langlay Sohryu is a [[Jerkass]] [[Tsundere]]. Then we learn, in episode 22, that a full-blown [[Break the Cutie]] process made her [[Broken Bird|the bitch we know]]: {{spoiler|her mother Kyouko went crazy after having half her soul sucked in by the EVA 02, completely ignored Asuka and started seeing a [[Creepy Doll]] as a replacement for her (and may have tried to strangle little Asuka at least once), then hanged herself in her room with said doll ''in the same day Asuka was chosen as the EVA 02 pilot''. And the poor little girl was the one who found the body.}} And how do we find that out? When she's under a horrendous [[Mind Rape]] that forces her to relive those memories. [[Jerkass Woobie|OUCH]]!
*** At least we get the hints that Shinji and Asuka (and most EVA characters) are messed up right away. But poor Maya Ibuki is probably the only character that manages to remain cheerful and well adjusted throughout the series. Which all falls apart in End of Evangelion when all their hard work was seemingly for naught and the JSDF (their supposed allies and fellow humans) start breaking into their base and slaughtering people. Upon being given a gun and told to fight off fellow humans Maya proceeds to hide under her desk and hug her stuffed rabbit pillow for dear life while everyone else fights. She later graduates from this to completely snapping and turning into a bubbering shrieking mess as {{spoiler|she watches Asuka get torn apart, and Lillith Rei appears literally moving right through her, and she watches her fellow staff melt into orange liquid all around her. She finally only clams down when Ritsuko appears, except it's just Lillith Rei messing with her head, who promptly melts her as well.}}
* Both Rue and Fakir have this as part of their backstories in ''[[Princess Tutu]]''. In a flashback, we see Fakir as a cheerful, imaginative child -- inchild—in stark contrast to his [[Ineffectual Loner]] personality in the main part of the story. It's revealed that a mixture of his parent's deaths {{spoiler|because of his powers}} and stress over feeling responsible for Mytho's safety slowly wore on him until he became the [[Jerkass]] we see at the beginning of the story. Rue, herself, is shown as being sweet and caring as a child, but [[The Ojou|snobby and harsh]] when she's older (to the point where she insists on being called Rue-sama/Lady Rue). ''Her'' personality change is revealed to be the result of {{spoiler|constant emotional abuse from her father, the Raven.}} It only gets worse in the second season, when {{spoiler|Mytho}} begins to physically abuse her and manipulate her.
** {{spoiler|Mytho himself! He was first just an adorable [[Cloudcuckoolander]], later after having a piece of his heart soaked in raven's blood he becomes quite... well, bat shit insane. Not so cute anymore. It takes Rue's [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to fix him.}}
* ''[[Baccano!]]'' does this to Czeslaw Meyer, a [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|seemingly]] [[Adorably Precocious Child]] who ends up getting his limbs torn off, shot in the face, and having all sorts of other unpleasant things happen to him. [[Good Thing You Can Heal|Good thing he can heal]]... [[A Fate Worse Than Death|or not]].
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* Cream gets one of these in ''[[Sonic X]]'' after the {{spoiler|robot Emerl whom she rescued and made friends with goes crazy}} under the power of [[Green Rocks]], tries to attack her mother and then beats the living heck out of Sonic, who [[Taking the Bullet|got in the way]] while Cream was trying to reason with him and he went for her instead. A distraught Cream then {{spoiler|has to destroy Emerl herself}}. Being who she is, however, she gets over it, to an extent.
** Cosmo can be considered this as well, except that she was damn well broken to begin with, what with having her entire home and family destroyed right in front of her, crash landing on another planet being {{spoiler|used as an unwitting spy by the enemy she was trying to fight against and ending up stuck in a situation which meant she either lost her sight and hearing or the bad guys kept watching... Not to mention the fact that the bad guys turned out to actually ''be'' her species with their leader quite possibly [[I Am Your Father|being her father]],}} and having the worst case of survivor's guilt ''ever'' encountered in a series aimed at an under-teen demographic. {{spoiler|And has to force her boyfriend to kill her, which counts as a ''double'' [[Break the Cutie]] between them.}}
* Pretty much every likable character from ''[[Now and Then Here and There|Now and Then, Here and There]]'' -- but—but especially Sara, who, after being mistaken for Lala Ru, gets {{spoiler|abducted, beaten, and repeatedly raped, eventually committing murder in order to escape into the desert with no supplies, where she ends up buried in a sandstorm. She survives that only to later learn one of the rapes got her pregnant. She eventually chose to keep the child.}}.
* When we first meet ''[[Bitter Virgin]]'''s sixteen-year-old Hinako Aikawa, she had already endured serious [[Abusive Parents|sexual abuse]] from her stepfather. Abuse which [[Adults Are Useless|her mother refused to acknowledge was happening]] until it got Hinako pregnant for the ''second time''. Readers saw these events transpire in a flashback that occurred while Hinako was in the process of being raped ''again'' by a random molester. Fortunately, ''that'' time she was rescued, and the series as a whole focuses on Hinako's recovery from these traumas.
* In ''[[Vampire Princess Miyu]]'', not only [[Dark Magical Girl|Miyu]] is an already broken cutie who {{spoiler|had her powers awaken when someone came to kill her and she had to bite him to survive, then saw her parents be captured and put in suspended animation when her mom tried to [[Screw Destiny]] and not have Miyu become the Shinma Guardian}}, but she actively seeks out pretty people who have been through extreme suffering and pain in their pasts, so she can offer them [[Kiss of the Vampire|a blood contract]]: they give her their blood, she eases their pain through placing them in a [[Lotus Eater Machine|dream-like trance]]. {{spoiler|Unless they ''still'' have things to do and people are suffering because of them, like the third OAV shows}}.
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*** To be more specific, the first mind rape and the actual massacre occur when he's about ''seven'', and the second time, aged twelve-thirteen, had him forced to watch everyone being slaughtered ''hundreds of times, over and over'', leaving him in a coma that only Tsunade is able to bring him out of. No wonder he [[Freak-Out|freaks out]], and then he [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope|gets worse and worse]].
** Another possible candidate is Gaara (hear me out). He was initially a kind-hearted child who just wanted some friends. Then he killed the one person he cared for because they were trying to kill him (on Gaara's dad's orders, no less,) due to the beast within him was something the village would rather forget. we've seen how this turns out...
*** Possible? Gaara was six years old when he realized that no one loved him. His father hated him for his inability to control Shukaku, his uncle hated him because Gaara's mother, his sister, died in childbirth, everyone else hates him because he's a "monster" ... he himself tries to hurt himself (in the flashback, he's trying to stab himself, and is disappointed when it doesn't work; later, he cries after being called a freak). His uncle tries to murder him {{spoiler|-- on his father's orders, which he actually questioned --}} and Gaara kills him in self-defense. He is effectively abandoned by everyone who should have cared. And the result? Sociopath at six, after he realigns his life's philosophy to fit with what he's learned; and serial killer by twelve, after he puts that philosophy into effect. No wonder he latched on to the idea of Shukaku as a "Mother" -- the—the demon was the only thing making any effort to protect him (and even it was only doing so out of self-interest). When you've been starved for love all your life, anything will do. Even after he reforms (which Naruto brings about by giving him a good heart-to-heart talk about caring for others) and builds a family with his brother and sister, he is still haunted by his past -- listenpast—listen to what he says to Lee after saving him from Kimimaro, or what he says to Matsuri in what was one of the few good scenes in that filler arc. Six years of solid hate and horror? I'd call that broken. {{spoiler|Made all the more meaningful by him ''actually getting much better'' in the current arc. Specially now that he can call out his old man on all the shit he did to him, leading the Kazekage to aknowledge said shit and telling hi that Shukaku's sand ''was'' sorta directed by his mom's spirit.}}
** One other example is Nagato/{{spoiler|Pain}}. He was a cute kid that {{spoiler|Jiraiya trained}} and was so cute that he cried {{spoiler|when he had to kill someone to save his friend's life}}. Then we found out about his childhood. He watched his parents get killed {{spoiler|because they were trying to protect him from ninjas from Konoha}} (though it was mainly a case of mistaken identity), bonds with a dog and makes friends. He subsequently loses the dog when an explosive kunai blows it up as collateral damage from Konoha ninjas fighting some guy. Years later he loses his best friend because a Konoha ninja {{spoiler|Danzo}} set him up to die. Not surpisingly, Nagato isn't too fond of Konoha.
*** Okay, now analyze Nagato, Sasuke and Naruto's situations: {{spoiler|All of them had their lives destroyed for/by the Leaf Village one way or the other. So why the hell is Konoha the heroes, since they're TRAINED to Break Cuties!}}
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* Tomoya Okazaki from ''[[Clannad]]'' becomes [[The Woobie]] because of this. I mean, first {{spoiler|his wife dies, then his daughter dies, and they were the only reasons he wanted to continue living. Then he dies alongside his own daughter. Of course, they all got better}}.
** HELL ''EVERY NAMED PERSON''.
* In ''[[MPD Psycho]]'', a [[Serial Killer]] kidnaps the girlfriend of the lead detective investigating his case, mutilates her, rapes her repeatedly (in that order), then delivers her -- limblessher—limbless but still alive -- directlyalive—directly to the detective's office.
* ''[[Alien Nine]]'' takes glee in doing horrible things to the cute girls who make up the cast, from [[Mind Rape]] to complete memory erasure to being ''eaten alive''.
* Mikuru Asahina from the ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' series can be viewed as a work in progress for this trope. Haruhi has no hesitation in abusing her both consciously (like having another student grope her and photo it for blackmail) and unconsciously (like giving her eyebeam powers which requires Nagato to bite her in order to inject counter-nanobots). Arguably future Asahina seems well adjusted, but since Haruhi can alter the timestream that's not a guarantee. You have to worry for someone when they ask "will you still marry me, if I'm unable to" after a session with Haruhi.
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** Integra didn’t have it easy, either. She used to be a shy girl; then, her father died when she was twelve, leaving her the leader of Hellsing and a member of the Royal Order of Protestant Knights. Almost immediately after his death, her remaining blood relative, [[Evil Uncle|Richard]], tried to murder her. Escaping through the air vent and fleeing for her life, she stumbled upon Alucard out of pure luck. If Richard hadn't shot her in the shoulder first, Alucard would not have awakened in time to slaughter the two henchmen and block the bullet for Integra. She then shot and killed Richard, effectively losing the last of her family on the same day.
*** Further attempts of breakdowns consist of the attack to her mansion by the Valentine brothers that forced her to shoot down all her troops that had been turned into ghouls, what happened later on in London (she witnessed how it was destroyed to the ground and was the only real survivor of the attack), the deaths of Penwood and Walter (coupled with his betrayal), and Alucard’s disappearance.
*** Of course, neither had it as bad as Alucard himself… {{spoiler|with his captivity and rape as a child}}. Quite honestly, he was a goddamn saint for Christendom throughout his entire life and was ''very'' repeteadly screwed over. [[Impaled with Extreme Prejudice|He might have very questionable hobbies]], [[Knight Templar|but was very much]] [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|a warrior of Christ]]. And the manga makes his position very, very clear in the scene of his human form's death, with him kneeling to lap at the blood of his homeland. The man, the most devout of the knights of God, stripped of literally ''everything'' that ever meant anything to him and left to see as the enemies of his faith are left to ravage his beloved homeland. And today, readers would bet ''every single one of you, reading this article, has only known Vlad III of Wallachia as '''Dracula'''.'' A ''monster''. [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters]].
* The entire ''[[Texhnolyze]]'' anime seems to be designed to do just this to main character Ichise up until he {{spoiler|dies in the last episode}}.
* Edmond and Albert in ''[[Gankutsuou]]''. Big time.
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