Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: Difference between revisions

* In ''[[Bleach]]'', specially-bred, ghostly (i.e. only seen by spirits and supernaturally-sensitive people) black butterflies (Called ''Jigoku-chou'', or "Hell Butterflies", for extra cheeriness) are necessary as guides for those wanting to cross from Soul Society to the Living World, and vice versa. Otherwise, they'll be forced to pass through the [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|Dangai, or "Forbidding World"]], where death is (un)surprisingly easy.

** They're also used to carry messages within Soul Society, as well, which makes this trope a bit more mundane in ''[[Bleach]]''.

** Spoiler ahoy: Take a good look at {{spoiler|Aizen's latest form}} in 415.

* Heavily seen in the first opening and ending of ''[[Higurashi]]''. That one of the butterflies is dead is a sign of how dark the series is.

* Hotarubi from ''[[Basilisk]]'' summons butterflies among the insects and reptiles she uses to attack her enemies. When she dies and her lifeless ''and'' mutilated corpse falls off a cliff, a bunch of butterflies appear in the sky.

* ''[[Princess Mononoke]]'': Ashitaka spots a footprint that attracts butterflies. It belongs to the Great Forest Spirit, who has power over life and death.

* Episode 8 of ''Mr. Stain on Junk Alley'' has this all over the place. Basically, it starts with our titular hero finding an abandoned baby in a junk heap, and it just gets cheerier from there... Stain dashes out of the alley and steals milk to feed the baby with, grabbing the attention of the law. Unfortunately, his attempts to care for the baby are too late- the poor tot dies, a blue butterfly floating out of his mouth. Frantically, Stain tries to catch it in hopes of reviving the baby, but the butterfly is crushed by a Jerkass cop, who proceeds to beat the crap out of Stain and then shoot him. Dying, Stain manages to go back to the roof he left the baby on, reach down his OWN throat, extract his OWN butterfly, revive the baby, and fall to his death... ironically, on top of the same Jerkass cop, killing the cop. Stain's conveniently-nearby friend nabs the cop's escaping butterfly, uses it to revive Stain, and everyone lives happily ever after.

* In ''[[Hell Girl|Hell Girl: The Cauldron of Three]]'', the deceased Enma Ai's spirit takes the form of a blue butterfly.

* A group of children dressed like butterflies show up at the beginning of the ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' episode "[[Pushing Daisies/Recap/S2/E02 Circus Circus|Circus Circus]]", an episode heavily focused on new beginnings.

* From ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]'': One character, Dr. K, has been raised in a secret government think tank named Alphabet Soup under the pretense that she suffered from a sunlight allergy. A butterfly one day appears on her keyboard while she works on the Ranger suits. She follows it as it flies away towards an opening in the wall in which the sunlight shines through. She looks at her hands and realizes that her handlers have lied to her the whole time about the sunlight allergy. She attempts escape along with her only friends Gem and Gemma by wirelessly uploading a sentient computer virus named Venjix in hopes that it would blind the security servers long enough for them to escape. However, before she can install the firewall which would contain the virus to the compound, guards take her and her friends away. In a span of three years, Venjix has destroyed every human city (except Corinth), killed almost every living thing, and destroyed almost every biome on Earth. [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]], indeed.