History DroppedABridgeOnHim / AnimeAndManga

* The title character in ''Anime/MagicalPrincessMinkyMomo'' suddenly lost her powers after her magical pendant was destroyed by an ordinary bullet and was run over by a truck out of nowhere shortly after. The creators of the anime did this is retaliation to the toy company that sponsored it pulling out due to poor international sales. Though she got better later.

* Orochimaru from ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' gets the shaft so badly that a bridge is dropped on him ''twice.'' First he is killed in a relatively brief fight with Sasuke, and his own mind-control power meant to aid him in taking over Sasuke's body gets turned on him and he ends up being absorbed into Sasuke's mind. Later on, when Sasuke is fighting Itachi, he gets his chakra drained which "frees" Orochimaru...only for Itachi to seal him in a permanent, inescapable genjutsu before he can do anything. Subverted later because he comes back.
** Way before him, Dosu was suddenly killed when he tried to take out Gaara between stages of the exam and happened to have attacked him when the Shukaku was in control.
*** Directly afterward, a second bridge is dropped on Chunin proctor, Hayate Gekko, who saw it happened, heard Kabuto and Baki talking about the invasion, and was killed off by Baki right there with almost no build up. His girlfriend in the ANBU ops was among those who found the body. She swears revenge on his killer and is promptly [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome Brother Chucked]].
*** After Naruto and Killer Bee had Kurama and Gyuki extracted from them. While everybody is rushing to save Naruto, Bee hasn't been seen since.

* In the end of the first arc of ''[[Anime/RaveMaster Groove Adventure RAVE]]'', the protagonist's father dies shielding him with his own body from falling rocks. That would be heart-warming, if not for the fact that said father and son have always exhibited superhuman levels of strength and endurance, and also the traditional feats seen in Anime. A bridge was definitely dropped here.

** In the movie, Big Agumon (as he's called in the end credits) literally gets a bridge dropped on him, allowing him to digivolve into Greymon - a minute or two later he and Parrotmon are destroyed in his own attack.

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Manga/TheComicArtistAndHisAssistants''. In ''That's Important'', Editor Mihari recommends Aito adding a LoveRival into his series to make it more interesting, against his wishes. He decided to draw in a GaryStu-ish NewTransferStudent for that purpose--who's killed ''in the same chapter''. Mihari, of course, was not pleased.

** Also Tailed Beast hosts besides Naruto, Gaara, and Yagura (who was dead before the series started). One was introduced for the sole purpose of being beaten, one was just shown defeated, and 3 of them ''were killed off off-screen'' (it wasn't until the author drew a group picture that we even saw what the hosts for the missing ones looked like)...

** Konan's fight was made pointless. When it was revealed that her exploiting his weakness was made irrelevant after he could use [[RealityWarper Izanami]] by sacrificing a pointlessly covered eye.

* Speedwagon and Stroheim die in part 2's epilogue from black lung disease and Germany's invasion of Russia respectively, with only off-handed mentions. In Part 5, Narancia is killed off-screen by Diavolo. Later on, Part 6 takes this to the extreme with Pucci using Made in Heaven to drop a bridge on the ''entire universe'', rebooting the series.

* In ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'', after Due killed Regius, she is [[CurbStompBattle immediately]] killed by Zest... ''off-screen''. Not only, she was the only Number to be KilledOffForReal, she even had the least screentime among all twelve Numbers.

* In the movie version of ''Manga/{{Akira}}'', Kaori suddenly meets her end when a mutating Testuo accidentally pulls her in and she's crushed by his insides. Her death in the manga [[SacrificialLion was more plot-relevant]], as she's shot to death by Tetsuo's unnamed liutenant and perishes in Tetsuo's arms.

* PlayedForDrama in ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' with the death of Marco. He's killed off-screen without anyone knowing how he died, without the slightest semblance of dignity or glory. This shocks Jean to his core, and his greatest fear becomes dying a non-heroic death and having his bones be thrown and burned in an anonymous pile just like Marco's were. This drives his CharacterDevelopment, as he not only wants to make sure that [[HeroicSacrifice his death, should it come, is warranted]], but he also doesn't want to let down Marco's high opinion of him.

* In Episode 41 of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamIronBloodedOrphans'', [[spoiler: Lafter is assassinated with little build up in what had up to that point been a BreatherEpisode.]]

* In ''Literature/JokerGame'', two characters gain prominence in the first two episodes: Lt. Sakuma and a particularly clever and adept-seeming spy, Miyoshi, who appears to be on the way to becoming the former's {{Foil}}. However, [[DecoyProtagonist Sakuma vanishes from the story]] after that, the series reveals itself to be episodic, and the next time Miyoshi is shown, he's been killed while on a mission and doesn't even have any lines ''in his own POV episode.'' He's the only D Agency spy to be killed during the course of the story.

* In ''Literature/JokerGame'', two characters gain prominence in the first two episodes: Lt. Sakuma and a particularly clever and adept-seeming spy, Miyoshi, who appears to be on the way to becoming the former's {{Foil}}. However, [[DecoyProtagonist Sakuma vanishes from the story]] after that, the series reveals itself to be episodic, and the next time Miyoshi is shown, he's been killed while on a mission and doesn't even have any lines ''in his own POV episode.''

* In ''Literature/JokerGame'', two characters gain prominence in the first two episodes: Lt. Sakuma and a particularly clever and adept-seeming spy, Miyoshi, who appears to be on the way to becoming the former's {{Foil}}. However, [[DecoyProtagonist Sakuma]] vanishes from the story after that, the show becomes episodic, and the next time Miyoshi's shown, he has been killed while on a mission and doesn't even have any lines ''in his own POV episode.''

* The manga version of ''KimbaTheWhiteLion'' has [[ChildhoodFriendRomance Kitty]] who got killed off by a plague that came out of no where.

* Reiji, from the ''[[PhantomOfInferno Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~]]'' is, out of the blue, killed in the very last episode by a passing cart driver.

* Although ''GingaNagareboshiGin'' manages to make most of its deaths impressive in one way or another, the manga-only wolf arc manages to make some exceptions:

* Chapter 36 in ''Manga/{{Fuuka}}'' ends with [[spoier: the ''title character'' very suddenly being run over by a truck and killed. The title was actually referring to a different Fuuka.]]

* ''MahouSenseiNegima'': In the GeckoEnding of the first anime series, Negi's father Nagi, the legendary "Thousand Master", for whom Negi has been searching the entire series (and most of his life), is casually disposed of by shoving him through a dimensional portal so that Negi can get to the real business of the show's GrandFinale, which is retconning the bridge dropping of ''another'' character.

* Happens in ''XamdLostMemories'' with RivalTurnedEvil Furuichi. He's had his big fight with Akiyuki and Haru, his childhood friends and two of the show's heroes, and now it looks like he's finally made his peace with their being together and going to mend fences with them--only for the soldiers to catch up to him and arrest him for being a Xam'd, at which point he succumbs so deeply to despair that he ''tears off his own head!'' What makes this all the worse is that Furuichi is one of only a small handful of characters in ''Xam'd'' to die at all, and none of his former friends seem to care that he's gone--in fact, we never even see his mother's reaction to his death!

* In ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikerS'', after Due killed Regius, she is [[CurbStompBattle immediately]] killed by Zest... ''off-screen''. Not only, she was the only Number to be KilledOffForReal, she even had the least screentime among all twelve Numbers.

* In "Anime/SailorMoonCrystal", the shitennou aren't killed one after the other and stay alive together long enough for the senshis to free them of their brainwashing...only to be killed in the next scene by an energy wave sent by the arc's big bad.

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* ''WolfsRain'' did something similar in the four {{OVA}} episodes that conclude the series. Remember, the wolves were trying to get to Paradise, and the series up to that point had suggested they had a chance of making it -- so the first time one of the wolves died it was especially shocking.