History DownerBeginning / AnimeAndManga

* ''Days of Love at Seagull Villa'' begins with the protagonist arriving in a new town to work as a teacher. A flashback reveals that she went there after learning that her fiancé cheated on her with her best friend, getting the latter pregnant.

* ''Seagull Villa Days'' begins shortly after Mayumi's boyfriend announces that he's getting together with Mayumi's best friend Touko, whom he'd gotten pregnant. As a result, Mayumi's rather depressed about being betrayed by the person closest to her.

* ''Manga/IDontKnowWhichOneIsLove'' downplays this, since it's relatively lighthearted, but it begins with Mei, the protagonist, learning that the girl she had a crush on ended up getting a boyfriend, and so does not return her feelings. As a result, she's motivated to find a girlfriend in university.

* ''Manga/IDontKnowWhichOneIsLove'' downplays this, since it's relatively lighthearted, but it begins with Mei, the protagonist, learning that the girl she had a crush on ended up getting a boyfriend, and so does not return her feelings. As a result, she's motivated to find one in university.

* ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'' begins with Tanjiro getting home to find that most of his family has been slaughtered by a demon. The only survivor, his younger sister Nezuko, has been transformed into a demon herself, meaning that she might give in to her hunger for humans and attack Tanjiro, or be killed by the Demon Slayer Corps.

* At the end of the fifth ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'' chapter, one of the children, [[DecoyProtagonist Waku]], dies. The series only goes downhill from there.

* ''Manga/MariaNoDanzai'': Ignoring the first page, the first chapter introduces mother and son Mari and Kiritaka Nagare, who love each other very much. Then Kiritaka's horrible school life is showcased as he is [[BullyBrutality brutally bullied]] by Okaya and his cronies, though Kiritaka puts up with it in order to not worry his mother. Then, that same night, Okaya blackmails Kiritaka into jumping off a cliff in exchange for not spreading [[YourMom an edited video of his mother starring in a porn movie]], for no other reason than to enjoy his suffering. Mari arrives to the scene, having followed her son after he left the house in the middle of the night, [[YouAreTooLate only to find his broken, mangled body]] mere seconds before he is [[CruelAndUnusualDeath run over by an incoming truck]], leaving Mari to desperately cradle his ''intestines'' while begging him to come back. ''[[FromBadToWorse Then]]'', after a couple of weeks, the ensuing investigation only uncovers [[FrameUp fabricated evidence]] left behind by [[KarmaHoudini Okaya]] that hints towards Kiritaka being DrivenToSuicide due to AbusiveParents, [[ItsAllMyFault which leaves his parents blaming themselves for his death]]. The only silver lining (which in itself is rather questionable) is that Mari then finds [[DeadManWriting a diary left behind by Kiritaka]], where he wrote down all the forms of abuse he had been put through by his bullies, along with the location of a flash drive where he kept [[CaughtOnTape recorded evidence]] on most of them sans Okaya himself. After such a TraumaCongaLine, this final revelation drives Mari over the edge, leaving her to decide that simply taking revenge on Kiritaka's bullies is "too soft"; they deserve ''[[FateWorseThanDeath judgement]]''.

* ''Manga/ATimidWomanLongingForHerDeliveryGirl'' begins with a flashback to how Kei Takase, the main character, left her last job to become a freelancer. Takase had been sexually harassed by a male coworker named Kazama, and while Kazama had been fired, the other employees [[BlamingTheVictim blamed Takase]] and thought she should have been fired instead. Since this included Aida, a [[SenpaiKohai sempai]] that [[EtTuBrute Takase had once trusted]], Takase ends up quitting and becoming a freelancer who works from home to minimize her contact with other people.

* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' opens with a scene of a four-year-old Izuku getting the crap kicked out of him by Katsuki Bakugou before being left, beaten and bruised while noting that "All men are not created equal." The story then jumps to his last year of middle school, where he's mocked by his entire class, has one of prized notebooks scorched and thrown out a window, and is nearly murdered by a supervillain in the span of a few hours. After that, things seem like they'll get better when Izuku meets his idol, All Might, only to be told that it was impossible for him to become a hero without a Quirk, grinding all of Izuku's hopes and dreams into fine powder. Even after he rushes in to help Katsuki (to no avail, mind you), Izuku still gets chewed out by the local heroes and is ready to resign himself to a life of mediocrity. After all of this, this is finally [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] when All Might chases him down to apologize and tell him the five words he wanted to hear his entire life: "You ''can'' become a hero."

* The prologue of ''LightNovel/EvenThoughImAFormerNobleAndSingleMother'' shows Shirley being abused her entire childhood, rescued by the crown-prince, declared by him to be her fiance, struggling until ''she bled'' to be of use to him, and loved by the emperor and the commoners, only to have it all torn away, for no readily discernible reason, with the crown prince yelling all sorts of crimes she could not possibly have committed, throwing her into a dungeon to be tortured into signing a false-confession. If not for the fact that she gave birth to two sweet, adorable little girls, she would have carved a bloody swath through her home country, brutally murdering everyone responsible, her father, mother, scheming sister, the family servants, the lesser nobles, ''their servants'', the crown prince, and maybe even the emperor and empress in a fit of vengeance.

* ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer'' opens with a fresh-faced Priestess joining a party of adventurers on her first quest of slaying goblins. Said quest goes horrifically awry when the goblins turn out to be more deadly than they realized, with two party members killed and a third abducted and [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil raped]]. The Priestess is spared only by the timely appearance of the Goblin Slayer, an adventurer consumed by a desire to kill goblins that is so strong, [[WouldHurtAChild not even goblin children are spared]].

* ''Anime/SakuraWarsTV'', being DarkerAndEdgier than the [[VideoGame/SakuraWars video games]], has the first episode end with Sakura getting kicked out of the Imperial Flower Division for making everybody, especially Sumire, upset (through ruining a stage production, a press interview session, '''and''' wrecking the Kobu). Sakura, rejected and sad, is shown crying and preparing to leave the capital and never return.

* ''Manga/ATimidWomanLongingForHerDeliveryGirl'' begins with a flashback to how Kei Takase, the main character, left her last job to become a freelancer. Takase had been sexually harassed by a male coworker named Kazama, and while Kazama had been fired, the other employees [[BlamingTheVictim blamed Takase]] and thought she should have been fired instead. Since this included Aida, a [[SenpaiKohai sempai]] Takase had once trusted, Takase ends up quitting and becoming a freelancer who works from home to minimize her contact with other people.

* ''Manga/ChainsawMan'' starts with the protagonist selling his organs and working his butt off to pay his father's debts after the latter committed suicide. In the first chapter he was killed by the yakuza, cut into pieces and dumped in the trash.

* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', which is told InMediasRes, starts like this, with Guts in the biggest and darkest pit of despair in his life. Now ruthlessly DemonSlaying, Guts is on the brink of [[HeWhoFightsMonsters losing his humanity to his hatred for the demons, and Griffith in particular]]--and we aren't even sure [[NominalHero if we should be rooting for him or not]].

* ''Manga/ATimidWomanLongingForHerDeliveryGirl'' begins with a flashback to how Kei Takase, the main character, left her last job to become a freelancer. Takase had been sexually harassed by a male coworker named Kazama, and while Kazama had been fired, the other employees [[BlamingTheVictim blamed Takase]] and thought she should have been fired instead. Since this included Aida, a [[SempaiKohai sempai]] Takase had once trusted, Takase ends up quitting and becoming a freelancer who works from home to minimize her contact with other people.

* ''Anime/CrossAnge'' starts off fairly happily as we introduce [[CharacterTitle the titular Princess Angelise Ikaruga Misurugi]], show off the thriving Misurugi Empire, and reveal how humanity lives in a utopia thanks to a power called the Light of Mana which is shared by all... then we see how the [[AntiMagic Mana-resistant]] [[FantasticRacism Norma]] are treated. ''Then'' we find out that [[YouAreWhatYouHate Ange herself is a Norma]] and the rest of the first episode is [[BreakTheCutie her life being torn apart completely]]; her father is arrested and sentenced to death, her mother is killed trying to save her from the authorities, she is beaten and brutalized, and it all culminates in a "[[AssShove physical examination]]" that looks scarily like a ''[[RapeAsDrama rape scene]]'' and leaves poor [[FallenPrincess Ange]] naked and in tears. Ouch.
** It's actually ''lampshaded'' in the next-episode preview, where the characters discuss the episode and one decries how poor Ange was treated. The English Dub version has Ange alone commenting on how awfully she was treated, even BreakingTheFourthWall and saying things along the lines of "I thought this was a cute girls and robots kind of anime!"

* Following the novel a lot closer, the 2012 anime adaptation of ''LightNovel/AiNoKusabi'' starts with an anonymous slave being sexually tortured by his also anonymous master for having slept with another slave behind the master's back. It just gets more twisted and depressing from there after the characters are identified as the protagonists.

* ''Anime/CrossAnge'' starts off fairly happily...then we see how [[FantasticRacism Norma]] are treated. Then we find out that [[YouAreWhatYouHate the titular princess is a Norma]] and the rest of the first episode is [[BreakTheCutie her life being torn apart completely]], culminating in a "physical examination" that looks scarily like a ''rape scene'' and leaves poor Ange naked and in tears. Ouch. It's actually ''lampshaded'' in the next-episode preview, where the characters discuss the episode and one decries how poor Ange was treated.

* ''Anime/{{Shirobako}}'' has a downplayed example. The series begins with Aoi, Ema and Shizuka in their third and final year of high school, Misa in her second and Midori in her first, promising to get jobs in the anime industry together. Fast forward a few years later, and Aoi is working as a production assistant(a job that often amounts to being a gofer), Ema is barely making ends meet as an animator, [[WaitingForABreak Shizuka is working as a waitress while trying to get an acting role]], Misa has a good job but with a company that has no interest in anime, and Midori is still in college. This serves as an EstablishingSeriesMoment about how the anime industry isn't as glamorous as it sems and it takes a lot of work to realize one's dreams.