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{{trope}}
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]]s in [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] include:
* [[Go Nagai]] seems to be fond of this. Half of his series have a [[Downer Ending]] (and the other half a [[Bittersweet Ending]]):
** One of the classic manga downer endings was ''[[
** ''[[Devilman Lady]]'' has a similar ending, and in fact Ends with a lead-in into ''[[Shin Violence Jack]]''.
** As for ''[[Violence Jack]]''. It turns out that the title character is Devilman Reborn, the main bad guy is created to TORTURE SATAN, created by Satan himself, and it ends with Satan and Devilman getting ready for round 2.
** The original ''[[
** In ''[[Shin Mazinger
** In ''[[Shin Mazinger Zero]]'', the characters are locked in a [[Groundhog Day]] time loop where {{spoiler|Mazinger-Z has became a demon/EldritchAbomination and destroyed the world.}} It has happened 2,977 times so far...
* Another infamous one is Osamu Tezuka's ''Jungle Taitei'', known to the rest of the world as ''[[Kimba the White Lion]]''. Remember in the original anime about the fun adventures of Leo and Lyra? In the end of the manga and the 1997 movie adaptation, Lyra dies of a plague and Leo sacrifices himself to save his human companion in the middle of a blizzard. HUGELY subverted in the anime sequel ''Leo the Lion'' to the original anime.
* Both exemplified and ultimately subverted by ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro
** The same applies to its companion, [[Umineko no Naku Koro
* The [[
* Given that it's about war orphans starving to death in 1945 Japan, ''[[Grave of the Fireflies]]'' has not just a downer ''ending'', but a [[Downer Beginning]] and a downer middle. There's ironically a ray of sunshine in the ending in that the two ghosts are reunited in the afterlife, but overall, the whole thing is the downer of downers.
** Fortunately, however, fireflies also symbolize ''reincarnation''.
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** Strangely enough the story was based on a semi-autobiographic about the author and his sister. Considering that he wrote a book about it, he must still be alive, or maybe he's like Ghostwriter.
** He wrote the story due to feelings of guilt he had that he survived while his sister died. He remarks that there were many times he found food and ate it without bringing any back for her and wishes that he had died.
* ''[[Monster Rancher (
** Many of the episodes ended this way too. One episode had a major character howling over the body of his [[Cain and Abel|brother who he had just personally stabbed through the chest]], not to mention the amount of times the episode ended with the good guys limping away from a decisive defeat.
* ''[[
** Nirvana-Flowers, to be exact. Yes, they are poisonous, but also beautiful. Also, they have a deeper meaning: Nirvana flowers are said to guide the living into the realm of death.
*** [[Captain Obvious|Well, if they're poisonous of course they'll do that!]]
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*** Moriyama said at an anime con in Seattle that he purposefully made the ending a bit ambiguous about Chrono surviving after seeing the anime's ending and deciding it was too sad, so both interpretations of Chrono being alive or dead appear to be valid.
** Aion most certainly didn't survive. That ending was merely a metaphorical representation (and since we see it through the eyes of Remington who by that point is in horrible shape, most likely a hallucination). It merely serves to illustrate how insignificant the protagonists' sacrifices were in the grand scheme of things. I.e. Aion is dead, but everything is still going the way he intended it to go, so he may as well be alive and well.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'', in season 3. Judai, after grieving over the loss of Johan, who sacrificed himself to bring Duel Academy to Earth, decides to save him, [[True Companions|and his friends tag along, much to Judai's dismay, who tells them NOT to help him for their own safety.]] [[It Got Worse|It hurts like a bitch when Judai duels]] [[Manipulative Bastard|Brron]], who has captured all of his friends, except Sho, who escaped. Brron played these cards that forced Judai's friends to emote to death. Manjyome was pissed at Judai, Tyranno Kenzan blamed him, and Asuka and her brother Fubuki were like, in somber sadness, "Why, Judai? :'("Despite the torment Judai goes through, he beats Brron. But Sho comes and doubts that he and Judai should be friends any longer, leaving the latter [[Heroic BSOD|alone and heavily riddled with guilt over the loss of his friends]], leading to his transformation into the Supreme King.
** The dub of GX was halted after Season 3. Consequentially, the American version concludes with several people dead or missing, and Cyrus losing his best friend and older brother forever.
* The first season of ''[[Magic Knight Rayearth]]'' ends with the protagonists discovering they were being manipulated for almost the entire series, essentially assisting the suicide of the very person they were meant to rescue and being sent home, traumatized.
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* While the TV ending of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' is most definitely a psychologically happy ending (in that Shinji finally obtains peace of mind), what happened physically in the real world is up to debate. ''End of Evangelion'', however, plays this trope very straight. The movie does have a [[Hope Spot]] as Rei tells Shinji that since he rejected Instrumentality everyone else will be able to bring themselves back. Of course just so things stay depressing the movie ends before we find out if anyone other than Shinji and Asuka were brought back meaning for all we know Shinji and Asuka ended dying alone in the empty wasteland that remains after all of humanity has been turned into orange goop.
* ''L/R Licensed by Royalty'' ended with at least one, if not both, of the main characters pointlessly dying within the literal last minute of the show. Much screaming and ranting from this editor ensued.
* There are no happy endings in ''[[Ghost in
* ''[[Texhnolyze]]'', while maintaining an extremely dark and depressing atmosphere throughout the show, still manages to pull off one of the saddest [[Downer Ending
* The ''[[Suzuka]]'' manga takes a sharp turn from what had previously been a ''[[Love Hina]]''-esque Romantic Comedy after an unplanned pregnancy results in the couple contemplating an abortion before deciding against it, backing out of college and a promising career in track and field for the both of them so that the male protagonist may become a salaryman while the female stays home and cares for the baby. To top it off, the male protagonist's rival and the character who had perpetually played second banana to him in track go on to represent Japan in the Olympics. There's probably a moral in here somewhere.
** This Troper would'nt call it a downer ending, rather a ''[[Bittersweet Ending]]''. True that they had give up their dreams and school, but look on the bright side: they are married and living happily together with their kid. Also in the last chapter, Suzuka, (after getting married) finally admits that she is in love with Yamato. Before that she hadn't said it out loud before.
* ''[[Futari wa Pretty Cure]]'' had a Downer Ending in theory, but by the time it aired, it was already well known to even the most oblivious viewer that the [[Oddly
** And it happened again in ''[[Pretty Cure All Stars]] DX 3'', what with {{spoiler|All the Cures losing their powers and their [[Weasel Mascot]] companions. When [[Suite Pretty Cure|there was a series that was just starting at the moment.]] Probably no surprise why they threw in the extra few minutes after the credits.}}
* ''[[Gilgamesh]]'', [[True Art Is Angsty|itself an extremely dark and depressing show with overtones of hopelessness]], has one of the most spiteful [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]] Downer Endings ever. Kiyoko, having already lost everyone and everything she cared about, having been forced into debt, despair, and work as a call-girl by the very Countess supposedly trying to "save the world" whilst ruining the lives around her, and who in lonely desperation turned to a member of the opposing Gilgamesh who then impregnated her, dies after mutating into a birthing cocoon for the hybrid lifeform. In the climactic final battles against the twisted Enkidu, his cohorts, and the Gilgamesh forces, it's revealed that they're essentially unstoppable and un-killable. This leads to the [[Kill
* ''[[
* The ''[[Berserk]]'' anime ends with Griffith, who is completely fucked up from a year of being put to the torture before being rescued by Guts and the Band of the Hawk, and who has pretty much lost everything worth living for, using his Crimson Behelit to call forth the Godhand on the day of the Eclipse, resulting in Guts and all of his friends being transported to Hell. There, the Godhand, the [[Big Bad
** [[It Got Worse|And that's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the manga.]] It makes one wonder what kind of real ending the series will have.
* ''[[Weiss Kreuz]] [[Oddly
** It really is more of a [[Bittersweet Ending]]. Ken had nothing to really live for and voluntarily went to prison so he could think, finding out that soccer was the only thing he still enjoyed, being in prison didn't matter to him. Considering the traumas and heartbreak yoji went through in his life, ending up with amnesia and getting married afterwards was a great thing for him. Aya really had nothing left to live for, he left behind his sister, his friends, his home. Omi sacrificed his innocence to protect the Takatori family and perhaps reshape it.
* ''[[Saikano]]'' has one of the most depressing finales ever: despite Chise's efforts, the world ends and the only survivor is apparently Shuuji. Chise herself becomes a tiny ball of light and the viewer is left with the impression that hope is utterly lost for good.
** Whereas in the manga Chise turns into a spaceship and she and Shuuji leave the lifeless earth and head into space (assuming Shuuji isn't hallucinating or hasn't gone mad because everyone he knows is dead).
* Given that it involved [[Time Travel]] one would suspect the manga ''[[Golden Days]]'' by Takao Shigeru to have one of these. It does, and by the time Mitsuya returns to his time every single person (excluding his grandfather) he met in the past is dead - which is all the more [[Tear Jerker|sad]], since there was a possibility they would still be alive. (He only went about 70 years back in time.)
* The ending of ''[[
* By the end of ''[[Space Runaway Ideon]]'', over half of the cast has been killed with many of the surviving protagonists expressing a rather bleak pessimism about their fates. Eventually, the series ends when the anime's title robot is destroyed along with the surviving cast members. One of "[[Kill
** Of course, that's nothing compared to the fact that everyone in the entire universe died. Or did they? The ending was very surreal and sort of left up to the interpretation of the viewer whether anyone had truly "died" in the end.
* Yoshida Akimi's hard-boiled [[Shojo|shoujo manga]] ''Banana Fish'' is famous for being a [[Tear Jerker]]. When the manga came close to its end the author was flooded with fan mail that begged her not to kill off Ash, the main character. Unfortunately she did, but provided readers with several one-shot prequels and a [[Bittersweet Ending|bitter-sweet sequel]] only months after the series ended. (All of these can be found in ''Banana Fish - Another Story''.)
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** The second season makes it even more of a downer by showing what happened immediately afterward: Suzaku beats Lelouch senseless, Kallen runs away rather than doing anything to help, and Lelouch is dragged before the Emperor, who laughs in his face before giving him [[Fake Memories]] via [[Mind Rape]], all in order to lure C.C. out. He spends an entire year living under these altered memories until C.C. returns and undoes the damage. And then during the second half of the new season, let's just say [[It Got Worse|things get even worse]] to the point [[Esoteric Happy Ending|one wonders if things ended favorably enough if at all for the more sympathetic, deserving characters]].
* ''[[Diabolo]]'' ends with the main character, Ren, killing his evil best friend and cousin, then committing suicide-by-cop. There are only two characters left standing by the last page, and they're side characters: a prostitute and a guy with six months to live.
* ''[[Magical Princess Minky Momo]]'': Classic magical girl anime from the 1980s, Minky Momo, ends with Momo, the main character, and princess of the Land of Dreams... being run over by a truck. She dies rather anticlimactically. However, she is reborn later as a human, but by then, the show's over. Later parodied in the very first episode of ''[[Excel Saga (
* And then there's the legendary battle of ''Windaria'' which opens brightly in a city saving upbeat vignette with a young handsome farmer as Hero. An epically crafted collision of Romeo and Juliet with Hamlet, by the time it is done the technological mountain kingdom has brutally massacred their brave but less developed lowland neighbors; the once-saved city (and its helpless populace) is undone and under a thousand feet of water; in a desperate doomed attempt to end the carnage the beautiful Princess reminds us she is Chekov's Pickpocket and kills her beloved Prince with his own gun before turning it on herself in one of the most powerful, heart rending and tear-jerking moments ever put to film; our Hero - after betraying EVERYBODY - comes home to find out that his innocent loving wife is now a ghost who only stayed to see him one last time ... and to cap it off, in the story's closing heartbeats, when he - having become such a weak, selfish lowlife that he's one of the few folks who actually deserves to die - can sacrifice his life to join his wife in the afterlife, he doesn't even have the guts to do so.
* ''[[Witchblade (
** It can be considered [[Bittersweet Ending]], because Masane's commits ab [[Heroic Sacrifice]] and for her it's still victory: Rihoko is more or less safe and Takayama is turned from scapegoat to hero. Also, the shell scene itself looks [[Ascend to
* ''[[Franken Fran]]'' stars apprentice [[Mad Scientist]] Fran (who looks like a cross between [[The Nightmare Before Christmas|Sally Ragdoll]] and [[Teen Titans (
** Frankly speaking, just about all of Franken Fran's stories end with particularly mean-spirited and horrific fates for her <s> patients</s> victims, to the point it is sometimes ''really'' hard to sympathize with Fran at all.
*** Not all of the stories have downer endings. And Fran do what she does because she is literally incapable of giving a mercy kill (she was ''made'' this way), so she'll always try to save someone's life, no matter what.
** To be fair to Fran, for the second episode mentioned as example, the result might be unintentional due to Fran being a [[Genius Ditz]] - in reality, in many insect species (including praying mantis) female insects eat their male counterparts during copulation/mating, and Fran seemed only dimly aware of this(at most she knew that it would lead to some sort of transformation).
* ''[[
** Arcueid, continually losing her power, in the end leaves her lover behind and goes back to eternal sleep in her castle, forever dreaming of her times spent with him.
** Akiha's route ends with the protagonist killing himself to restore her sanity, though it is hinted in the fandisc sequel that he might still be alive. Her normal ending simply has her spending the rest of her life as a mindless bloodsucker.
** Hisui's ends with her sister Kohaku, the mastermind behind most of the game's events, killing herself in guilt and to let Hisui live in peace. Akiha also dies. This is a really bittersweet ending since you still get the girl and it gives an incredible feeling of [[Life Goes On
** The Epilogue, taking place [[Alternate Continuity|after any (or all) of the routes]], has the protagonist once again meeting the woman who taught him to value life. He thanks her for all she had done; during their talk, it is revealed that the protagonist will only have a few years left to live, less if he continues to use his [[Evil Eye|Mystic Eyes]].
* ''[[
** This is really just a downer series. Example - one supporting character gets [[Rape
** ''[[Bokurano]]'', another manga by [[Mohiro Kitoh|the same author]] is not, by any mean, happier either. Starting as a game, the children soon realize that everything is more serious than it seems when the adult who introduced them to said game disappears and the first child who had piloted ''dies''. The anime, however, manage to pull off a [[Bittersweet Ending]].
* ''[[Zeta Gundam]]''. The Titans have been defeated, but with the exception of Kamille, Fa, and the crew of the Argama, everyone else is dead or missing. Axis Zeon emerges as the strongest power after the war, and while Kamille succeeds in killing Scirocco, he got his brain fried as a result. Then again, if you know that Kamille gets better in ''ZZ Gundam'', then the ending isn't as bad.
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* At the end of ''[[Angel Cop]]'', All the main and secondary characters are dead, Japan's government doesn't change at all despite our heroes' efforts, and it's headed toward a complete economic collapse. Angel was badly wounded and Raiden had to activate a bomb within his body that would kill Lucifer. Most likely, both of them were killed in the resulting explosion.
** It wasn't a complete downer, Angel was only knocked down by the resulting explosion that came after shooting Raiden in the head, Asura survived the fight with Lucifer and left with Angel away into parts unknown in the end, Taki escaped his custody at the end and killed Maisaka+ Nogawa with a bomb.
* Often referred to as one of Yoshiyuki "[[Kill
* Junji Ito's ''[[Uzumaki]]''. Everybody succumbs to the curse of the spiral, ''[[
** This also occurs in Ito's other work [[Gyo]]. The protagonists survives and likely joins [[La Résistance|the group working on a vaccine for the germs]] later on, but his girlfriend and uncle are were both infected by the germs and the girlfriend was killed by a mob of the infected, while the uncle carried off his [[Hot Scientist|attractive assistant]] to parts unknown. Not to mention Japan has been devastated and the infected are still on the march as well as having spread outside of Japan. Arguably not as bleak as Uzumaki, as there was at least a faint light of hope in the vaccine the students were working on.
* Despite the fact that the mood in the ''[[
** Likely the only positive thing about this ending is that Makoto, who in the anime is a dimwitted and lecherous scumbag who uses the girls around him for his own pleasure, gets what he deserves.
* ''[[
* ''[[Lost Universe]]'', despite being a mostly light hearted 'action/adventure' type anime, kind of slaps the viewer in the face by ending with Canal destroyed, Kain apparently dead, and Millie waiting at home for both of them to return. There may be a little hope as Millie hears a ship landing outside, but it's strongly implied that this is just a dream. Oh, and to make it even worse, it's revealed that despite the implied Kain/Millie potential romance, the two are actually related, as Millie's grandfather, who is also the Big Bad, was the brother of Kain's grandmother (making the granddad Kain's great-uncle). This may be even more of a shock to fans of the Slayers series, since Lost Universe was created by the same people and is, in fact, supposed to be the "Next Universe Up" from the ''[[Slayers]]'' world.
* The end of ''[[
* ''[[X
** This is, notably, only true of [[The Movie]]. The ending of the TV series is more of a [[Bittersweet Ending]].
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in
* In ''[[Doubt]]'', when you finally think everything is over, Hajime is hung by another Wolf, and Yuu picks up Mitsuki's cellphone, which ends up in Mitsuki getting into her Wolf mentality again and killing Yuu. Obviously, Rei gets away with all of this.
* A very old example is [http://www.animenewsnetwork.
* ''[[Pom Poko]]'' ends with one of the three Transformation Masters dying, another one going insane and forming a Buddist Dance Cult, before proceeding to turn his 'male parts' into a treasure ship, and sailing away (with some of the tanuki who couldn't transform) to reach Nirvana, not realising that they're sailing to their deaths. Meanwhile, Gonta and another group of tanuki have one final attack against the humans which results in them all getting killed. In an act of desperation, the rest of the tanuki stage one final performance - of how their home used to be, before appealing to the humans. Although they are slightly successful it is too late, thus forcing the tanuki to do what the kitsunes did: blend into society, abandoning those who couldn't transform. The film tries to end on a happy note by having all the tanuki meet up, rejoicing, but it doesn't really work, and there isn't enough happy to make it a [[Bittersweet Ending]].
* An incredibly depressing ending to what was just another [[Super Robot]] series, [[Space Warrior Baldios]]: the hero Marin and his allies can only watch as the [[Big Bad]], Zeo Gattler, unleashes his "Final Weapon" which triggers a cataclysmic series of gigantic tsunamis that ravage the surface of the earth. The last shot of the series is a freeze-frame of a tsunami wave, with the word "End" appearing next to it. This ending was made partially because the series was supposed to run one more season and they had to cut it off somewhere. The ending is famous enough to be the downer end screen on the 44th scenarios of ''[[Super Robot Wars Z]]''.
* Takashi Yanase seemed to have been fond of this. The ending of the anime adaptation of his book ''[[Chirin no Suzu]]'' (or
* ''[[Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade]]'' ends with the protagonist being forced to shoot his love interest in order for her to remain a bargaining chip in the Wolf Brigade's schemes against the police. The last line after the event? "And then the Wolf ate up [[Little Red Riding Hood]]."
* ''[[
* Another [[Gundam]] example in the novel, ''Hathaway's Flash'', where Mafty Navilles Erin (aka Hathaway Noa) is captured in the end and was sentenced to death by Bright Noa, who had no idea it was his own son he was executing. Ouch.
** That, and moments before he's executed, the ghost of Quess Paraya appears to him, tells him she never loved him, and tells him that his struggle, started by her death that made Mafty go against the Federation, was all fruitless and his reason for starting it a lie. Double ouch.
* ''[[Tokyo Babylon]]''. So, [[The Hero|the hero's]] [[Love Interest]] turns out to be a sociopath, kills [[The Hero]]'s sister, cripples his grandmother and then [[Karma Houdini|walks away like nothing happened]]. [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|Nice.]]
* ''[[
* The ''[[
** Not to mention what happened an episode or two before that where Maylene, Bard, and Finny have to kill Pluto. We also don't know what happened to the three afterwards, although we're left with the knowledge of "when I left they were still breathing".
** Quite a few of the manga arcs have had downer endings too. The [[Jack the Ripper]] arc ends with Madam Red dying. The [[Circus of Fear|Circus]] arc has all the first tier members die except Snake. And let's not forget all the children Ciel had burned alive when he set [[Stalker
*** The circus arc in particular was a major downer ending, as nearly everyone involved except [[Complete Monster|Baron Kelvin and the doctor]] were sympathetic characters, and turned out to have done Kelvin's bidding and died for ''nothing''.
* The ending of the FRLG arc in ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' involves preventing a giant airship from crashing into Vermillion City, Silver coming in terms with his father, everybody happily talking about meeting up with their other friends and [[Taken for Granite|getting turned into stone statues]]. Thankfully, the next arc seeks to correct this.
* Subverted in ''[[Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature]]''. The protagonist blames the [[The Mind Is a Plaything of
* The ''[[Transformers Armada]]'' episode "Credulous". Sideways turns out to have been a [[Double Agent]] who chooses this point to declare for the Decepticons, Hotshot gets beaten and severely damaged, and Starscream gets the Star Saber.
* The ending of ''[[Romeo X Juliet]]''. [[It Was His Sled|They both die at the end.]] [[Foregone Conclusion|You know it's coming]], but you'll still [[Tear Jerker|cry]], especially since it's not even ''suicide'', for the most part!
* In ''[[Akumetsu]]'', all of the Shou clones die, having failed in their mission to rid Japan of corruption and evil. The Prime Minister's reforms also fail, which resulted in him becoming homeless.
* The {{spoiler|Whitebeard War/Marineford}} arc of ''[[
* The ending of the Six Tailed Beast arc in ''[[Naruto]]''. The arc's [[Big Bad]] has been defeated, Hotaru saved and Ukataka {{spoiler|The six tailed Jinchuriki}} has finally realized the truths of a master and student and is ready to take on Hotaru as his student. Seems like a happy ending right? Well despite all the developement he got through the whole arc, those who read the manga knew from the start that Ukataka was {{spoiler|[[Doomed
* ''[[Deep Love]]: Ayu no Monogatari'' ends with a broke and anorexic Ayu dying from AIDS in the city streets.
** In the sidestory ''Pao no Monogatari'', which is told from Ayu's dog Pao's perspective, he dies alongside Ayu at the end. Just before passing on, he remembers all of the people who had loved and cared for him throughout his abusive life.
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** Lampshaded by Benny, "Stories like this don't have happy endings."
** The Yakuza arc isn't much better. Rock earns Balalaika's respect, but he fails in his attempt to save Yukio and nearly gets Revy killed.
* The final chapter of the [[Horror Anime and Manga|horror manga]] ''[[
* ''[[Phantom of Inferno]]'': (Anime) In literally the last minute of the show, Reiji is shot & killed by a disguised assassin in a passing hay wagon, and Ein commits suicide by consuming a poisonous Oxytropis leaf.
* At the end of the anime's first season, ''[[Kaiji]]'' bets four of his fingers and all of the money he got in the E-card game in one final gamble. He loses.
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** Despite the large number of deaths among named characters only one unnamed Government [[Mooks]] is killed, though the rest are injured. As the remaining mooks are put in a raft and dropped into the sea it's unknown it they survive.
* Surprisingly, or not, as the case may be, the manga version of the final battle against Chaos in Sailor Moon, in which the main character has the choice of either {{spoiler|destroying Chaos utterly and the Cauldron with it, thus dooming the universe to a slow extinction, if a new Cauldron doesn't pop up somewhere else, meaning a new powerful enemy appearing causing hundreds of billions of being to be killed in the ensuing fight, or just 'momentarily' delaying the ultimate evils return resulting in a massive battle...in which hundreds of billions of people will die anyway, but might end up being reborn because the Cauldron is still there.}} Guess which option she chooses?
* The story of the manga ''[[
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory]]: Stardust Memory'' - Gato and Delaz are killed, but ultimately [[The Bad Guy Wins]]. Kou lost his beloved [[Hot Scientist]], and is courtmartialed for stealing the GP-03 after the GP-01's destruction, though released later. Captain Synapse commits suicide in order to take responsibility for the above. The Titans, who most of the Albion crew join, are formed, and we all know how well that turned out. This is Gundam, after all.
* [[Eureka Seven]] - While the anime has [[Tastes Like Diabetes|an almost-disgustingly happy ending]], the manga ends with Dominic and Eureka both dead. While Renton believes that Eureka may still be alive, the rest of the characters assure that the Coralians are completely wiped out.
* [[Cowboy Bebop]] has a downer ending that sticks in minds with fans. Faye Valetine, a woman who has [[Laser
** And then the real finale, where Vicious violently takes over the leadership of the Red Dragon, Spike reunites with his long lost love Julia only to lose her to the Red Dragon's men, and then decides to leave the Bebop to pursue a final one-man assault on his old syndicate, an assault that ends with Spike and Vicious both falling in the final showdown.
* The first ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' anime has a [[Villain Episode]] that features [[Evil Is Sexy|Lust]], who is contemplating her existance. A man from her past shows up and it's revealed that she does have a heart of gold - she taught the man to save an entire village from an awful sickness. The man and her reconnect, and she gradually draws too close to him. Eventually, the man asks Lust to run away with him, explaining he fell in love with her years before and his fiance doesn't matter to him. {{spoiler|Lust's response is to kill the man, who is revealed to have the disease. This is immediately followed up by everyone else in the village screaming in agony as the disease kills them. To top things off, his fiance shows up and sees his corpse, and dies from the disease as well.}} Lust's response makes it even more chilling, showing that even the villian has given up on her objectives and will to live.
* ''[[Hyakka Ryouran]]'' while a lighthearted series throughout the first eleven episodes, the final episode has {{spoiler|''BOTH'' Moe!Jubei and Badass!Jubei perform a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] by sending the resident [[Yandere]] Gisen up to the atmosphere to disintegrate. Unfortunately, Gisen goes on to state that within a thousand years later, she will be resurrected to do this all over again.}}
* ''[[Katanagatari]]'' ends up with almost the entire named cast (save about five characters) dead, the ornate [[Thanatos Gambit]] driving the plot having proved [[What a Senseless Waste of Human Life|completely futile,]] and the hero [[Walking the Earth]] having lost the only person he ever loved.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110413015835/http://www.mangatoshokan.com/read/Little-Red-Riding-Hood-and-the-Kind-Wolf/locate+Bittertrap/1 This adaption] of [[Little Red Riding Hood]] manages to make you uncomfortable while not containing a single word. The cute drawing-style only helps its cause to leave you with a bitter aftertaste.
* ''[[Basilisk]]''. {{spoiler|Gennosuke and Oboro are reunited at the end, but they commit suicide and ALL of their friends are dead.}}
* The end of episode 12 "The Pizza Cats Are Only Human" in ''[[Samurai Pizza Cats]]'' ends with the Pizza Cats being defeated and Speedy collapsing, and episode 36 "Bad Bird Uncaged" ends with Speedy being defeated by Bad Bird. It is even worse in the original version, where Bad Bird appears to kill Speedy as he is lying on the ground defenceless.
* [[Master of Martial Hearts]]: The Platonic heart doesn't exist, the losers of the tournament go insane and sold off as [[Sex Slave|SexSlaves]]. Turns out, Aya's entire life has been an utter lie. Her childhood friend Natsume, love interest Haruki, and newest friend Miko all want her dead. The entire tournament was set up by them for revenge on what her parents did to their families. Aya's mother saves her, kills Natsume, Haruki, and Miko. She stays behind in the burning building to to atone for Aya's sins, which kills Aya's Mother and the insane losers of the tournament. Aya then kills Natsume's mother, who was responsible for Natume and Miko's decision to hold the tournament.
** On the upside, this did finally end the [[Cycle of
* [[Shiki]]: The villagers hunt down all the Shiki in the village, despite a few who weren't truly bad in the first place and were only being strong-armed into attacking their loved ones and friends. And while the villagers were acting out of self defense, its obvious nothing will be the same when everything's over. Yuuki dies fighting Tatsumi, blowing them both up. And just when it seems the villagers have won, their village mysteriously catches on fire and burns to the ground. Oh yeah, and the one who started all this, Sunako, manages to get away.
** The OAV clarifies the mysterious fire as an intentional act of arson by a badly disturbed local woman.
** Then there's the Shiki who are still in the cities. Whose jobs were to gather people to feed the ones in the village. It's never mentioned if they were ever in the village when both sides were fighting.
* The ''[[Tokko]]'' manga ends with Ranmaru monologuing that {{spoiler|the world ended}} two years after the end of the story.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* one of the notable examples is ''Zettai Kareshi'' (Absolute Boyfriend)In the Ending {{spoiler|Night begins to grow sleepier and sleepier. The problems developed by him exceeding his abilities eventually causes his machinery to stop working, resulting in his "death".}}
* ''[[Science Ninja Team Gatchaman]]'' ends with Joe's Death
** Gatchaman Fighter ends it being implied that the team died in their final battle with Z
*** Fighter has a high body count in its last few episodes.
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