Crapsack World/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions

** ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED|Gundam SEED]]'' starts off similar to UC calender series, where most of the conflict stems from political and ideological reasons, but soon goes off the deep end and degenerates into hell on earth, literally. The earth is going through an energy crisis due to nuclear power jammers that have been integrated by ZAFT, almost the entire world is controlled by one side or the other through draconian military regimes, much of Earth is in ruins due to the war, and both sides are equally willing to use [[WM Ds]] on their enemies and ALLIES equally. In addition, the main source of scientific progress has come from a series of genetic experiments that spawned a worldwide terrorist ideology and the war itself and recently reached the utter abandonment of the value of life in order to pursue a goal that would give birth to {{spoiler|[[The Messiah|Kira Yamato]] and [[Dark Messiah|Rau Le]][[Omnicidal Maniac|Creuset]]}}.

** The setting of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00|Gundam 00]]'' is a crapsack world as well, with the people living in poverty suffering endless warfare while the rich people relying on the giant solar panel system not giving a fuck about them. In the first season, political games among the three greedy, corrupt global superpowers still exist, and the second season is basically all the corrupt politicians banded together to continue torturing people who suffer in extreme hardship under their tyrannical grips. In both cases, we have the [[Byronic Hero]] Celestial Being who are among the very few people truly willing to change the world for the better even though their methods are questionable at best.

** ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam Age|Gundam AGE]]'' is a blend between this and [[Crap Saccharine World]] (in part because of [[Art Style Dissonance]]). On the one side, [[The Federation]] employs a powerful [[State Sec]] that operates by falsifying history and {{spoiler|laid the groundwork for a decades-long war when they turned every victim of a failed colonization project into [[Unperson|UnPeople]] rather than bring them home}}. On the other, the UE/{{spoiler|Vagan}} have a sympathetic cause that they ruin by wiping out civilian colonies, which sets several otherwise-decent people on lifelong quests for retribution. Also, [[Anyone Can Die]], and if they don't they'll probably [[Break the Cutie|be]] [[Heroic BSOD|traumatized]] by fighting in battles that definitely do not involve [[Bloodless Carnage]].

* In pre-timeskip [[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]] humans have been driven from the surface into underground villages. If anyone dares to climb to the world above, they're mercilessly hunted down and killed by the Spiral King Lordgenome's Beastmen. Of course, all it takes is a band of insanely badass fighters led by an exceedingly charismatic and determined idiot, and then his young friend/stepbrother of sorts to turn everything around. [[It Got Worse|Then the aliens show up...]]

* ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' is set in a world with corruption and decadence at every corner, where being a mutant means [[Break the Cutie|a lifetime of being broken]], and some of the worst [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters]] you'll find including child rapists, [[Serial Killer|Serial Killers]] (One of whom is ''[[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|the]] [[Villain Protagonist|protagonist]]'') and [[Psycho for Hire|sadists who join PMC's just to get the chance to kill legally]]. [[Kids Are Cruel|Even little children are rotten]] and willing to [[Kick the Dog]] and kill it!

* When describing the world in ''[[Black Lagoon]]'', Revy says it best:

* ''[[Blue Drop]]''. If you're a [[Magical Girl]], you're a [[Child Soldier]] bomb disposal unit. If you're a schoolgirl, you're little more than a sex slave. If you're a guy, you're used as a lab-rat for transgender experiments if you're lucky. If you're not so lucky as to be part of an experiment, you're an animal, a third-class citizen treated like freed Africans in Antebellum America -- not a slave, but only just. If you're one of the Arume, [[Discount Lesbians|alien lesbians]] who made Earth like this, then you're living with the knowledge that your species is extinct and living on borrowed time, the only option for survival being a cultural change none of them have the courage to make. Both sides are ravaged by and living in the ruins of a war that was literally entirely pointless because of that lack of courage.

* Amberground in ''[[Letter Bee]]'' is a corrupt world of perpetual night, where a man-made sun shines over the capital city of Akatsuki. Life is rough almost everywhere, and even the people assigned to deliver some happiness throughout the world through letters--the titular Bees--could be killed by or lose their [[Life Force]] (Heart) to mechanical monsters along the way.

* The world of ''[[Saikano]]'', while never directly shown, is undoubtedly this. We know that there's a large-scale war going on from the beginning, but halfway through we find out that the protagonist's hometown is peaceful {{spoiler|because Chie's specifically protecting it, and everywhere else has gone to hell.}} By the end of the series, {{spoiler|all the different countries have either been destroyed, or are committed to plans of mutually assured destruction, and Chie's lost most of her humanity and turned into a [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]] out of a desire to [[Mercy Kill|give everyone a nice, painless death]]}}. There's a very good chance this was the best thing left to do at that point.

* The [[Alternate Universe]] medieval Japan of ''[[Kagerou Nostalgia]]''. The nation has been engulfed in a civil war for decades, with eighty percent of the country under the control of the [[General Ripper|psychotic]] Kiyotaka Kuroda, who organises random massacres of the population by [[Sociopathic Soldier|Sociopathic Soldiers]] just for kicks. The remaining twenty percent of the country go out of their way to avoid opposing Kuroda, even aiding the "People Hunts" in some cases so that he'll leave them alone; generally speaking their governments seem to be either crooked or cowardly. People who do go to war with Kuroda have a tendency to go insane, coming home and spreading even more misery around. And that's without mentioning Gessho Kuki, [[The Man Behind the Man]] to Kuroda, and the armies of demons and monsters he summons to bolster the General's ranks. The world's only hope at this point are six kids, who don't like one another, have yet to defeat a single major enemy, and whose major accomplishment as of the most recent volumes have been getting their leader killed and her kingdom decimated, and suffering a betrayal by one of their own. They've yet to really help anyone, and the entire setting is pretty much overwhelmed with a sense of cynicism and despair.

* [[Mind Screw|Whatever's going on]] in ''Angel's Egg'', it's world isn't an inviting place to live.

* The world in ''[[Urotsukidouji]]'' is apparently such a wretched place {{spoiler|the Overfiend decides it's worthless and destroys the whole frikking thing!}}