History ZergRush / AnimeAndManga

* [[FacelessMooks The Safeguard]] in ''Manga/{{Blame}}!'', since they have many a MookMaker on hand and act as little more than a kind of elaborate anti-virus system (if the virus was humans).

* In ''Anime/MazingerZ'', often Baron Ashura sent large numbers or [[{{Mook}} Iron Masks]] to attempt to murder Kouji Kabuto -and his friends- when he was out of Mazinger-Z or to try to overwhelm or get Mazinger-Z and Aphrodite-A confused (and it worked with Aphrodite once. They were so many, so fast and so annoying they got her distracted and slowed her down). Curiously, it was inverted in the original manga once: in one of the first chapters three Iron Masks crawled in Kouji and Shiro's home and they almost got Kouji killed.

** This was part of the defense of Enies Lobby. A 10,000 man force of {{Mook}} Marines and other forces was set to defend against any attempt to attack against it. While Luffy single handedly defeated a good tenth of that force and more fell to the allies the Straw Hats brought with them, the power of the Zerg Rush kicked in after the Straw Hats got to where their battles with [=CP9=] would take place and their allies were subdued and captured.

* “Anime/Overlord” The Re-Estize Kingdom attempts this with an army of well close to 100000 troops, with 70000 in the left flank alone, as they are attacking the Baharuth Empire. Problem is, Ainz is both a OneManArmy and a one man ZergRush. He straight up kill the ENTIRETY of the left flank and uses it to summon 5 Dark Young, children of Shub-Niggurath, who finish the job, much to the delight and horror of the Baharuth Imperial Troops.

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' frequently has this tactic used by the title character, who can summon [[DoppelgangerAttack a large number of copies of himself]]. However, the individual clones are so fragile [[InverseNinjaLaw it rarely manages to hurt anyone]]. Ultimately he find out that making a lot of them is better for ''scouting''.
** When he begins to seriously utilize them for scouting is after he realizes that [[spoiler:any knowledge the clones gain is assimilated back into himself when he dismisses them. Along with his unusually-high chakra, this allows him to summon entire fields of himself to all train at the same time - enabling him to do so hundreds if not thousands of times faster than a regular person and thus allowing him to perfect ninjutsu that normally takes 20 years to master in less than a week.]]
** And don't forget [[spoiler:Madara's one hundred thousand [[PlantMan Zetsu army]] made with First Hokage's chakra]]
** The samurai of the Land of Iron [[spoiler: charge Sasuke when he threatens the meeting of the Five Kage. Of course, Sasuke has finally become so enraged with everything that's happened, that he hacks his way through a good half dozen of these men. In hindsight, he gave them a chance to back off.]]

** Also how the Rogue Titan falls after its rampage in Trost (but not before murdering all the titans in said rush) and how [[spoiler:Erwin tries to deal with the Armored and Colossal Titan kidnapping Eren]].

* The main tactic of the Invid in ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' is to overwhelm the enemy with ''enormous'' numbers of technologically inferior mechas. Best seen in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLzlwR2z4yE their assault on Tirol]] in the ''Sentinels'' movie (in which the defences of Tirol's capital exact a heavy toll on the attacking Invid scouts and a squadron of bioroid apparently manages to stalemate them... And then three Invid carriers show up and unleash ''six hundreds shock troopers''. [[FromBadToWorse That's just the vanguard, the first wave is still arriving]]. Note that here the Invid are at their ''weakest and less numerous'') and [[https://youtu.be/WEzwGcPmxUs?t=13m6s the Battle of Reflex Point]] at the end of the series and ''WesternAnimation/RobotechTheShadowChronicles'' (in which the Robotech Expeditionary Force shows up with a large fleet, opens fire on the Invid carriers to inflict as much losses before they can launch... And the Invid ''still'' come in such numbers they grind down the REF fighter complement and manage to ram their motherships. This is with a ground assault on their main installation tying up much of their forces).

* Used in ''LightNovel/BakaAndTestSummonTheBeasts'', Class F sets up traps so that they can overwhelm Class A students one at a time. Pretty effective until the rest of Class A breaks down the desk barrier Akihisa set up. In another summoner battle, Akihisa tricks the FFF cult to sacrifice themselves by declaring their enemy has a girlfriend. It works well enough to let him slip by.

* A non-violent version appears at the climax of ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'''s first season, when [[UnfazedEveryman Mikado Ryuugamine]] publicly confronts [[MadScientist Namie Yagiri]] in a crowded hotspot of Tokyo nightlife: admitting he has neither "the power nor the wisdom" to [[LoveMakesYouCrazy reason through her delusion]], he will instead rely on numbers, and presses the "Send" button on his cell phone. ''Every phone for at least a city block'' goes off at once with an incoming text, [[spoiler:simultaneously revealing every single person present to be a member of the Dollars, and Mikado himself to be their mysterious, urban-legendary founder]], intimidating Namie and her mere handful of armed goons into retreating. Well, okay, [[spoiler:Celty driving down the side of a building and going berserk]] may have helped that along a bit, but still.
* In ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer'', this is known as "Goblin Tactics". Goblins alone are no bigger, stronger or more imposing than a human child. But goblins attack in huge groups of fifty at a time, and it's brutally effective against both novice and veteran combatants; novices tend to panic at the sheer number coming at them and make mistakes that get them killed, experienced fighters can run out of stamina, and experienced spellcasters can run out of spells. Given every goblin is by default a ChildByRape [[MarsNeedsWomen on a human or elven woman]], the fact that they can sustain such heavy losses is a doubly terrifying thought.

* Seen in ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'', when the Aincrad Liberation Front (also known as just the Army) rushes a floor boss with precisely zero preparation. They didn't even ''scout'' first. The ones who [[BigDamnHeroes rescued them]] are more than a little pissed at their stupidity, and explicitly call them a "zerg-rush guild." It later turns out that there is a political fissure in the guild, and the leader of one faction managed to trick members of the other into using this tactic.

** After the [[=GM=]] is put into mass-production, the Federals then pull off this tactic again. Since they have such a massive advantage in terms of raw materials, production capability and personnel, the Federation simply grinds the Zeon forces into submission. Even though many of the Zeon machines outperformed the [[=GM==]] (and even the titular Gundam itself), the sheer weight of numbers (along with the fact many of their best pilots have been killed over the course of the war) won out.

** When he begins to seriously utilize them for scouting is after he realizes that [[spoiler: any knowledge the clones gain is assimilated back into himself when he dismisses them. Along with his unusually-high chakra this allows him to summon entire fields of himself to all train at the same time - enabling him to do so hundreds if not thousands of times faster than a regular person and thus allowing him to perfect ninjutsu that normally takes 20 years to master in less than a week.]]
** And don't forget [[spoiler: Madara's one hundred thousand Zetsu plant-men army made with First Hokage's chakra]]

** This was part of the defense of Enies Lobby. A 10,000 man force of {{Mook}} Marines and other forces set to defend against any attempt to attack against it. While Luffy single handedly defeated a good tenth of that force and more fell to the allies the Straw Hats brought with them, the power of the Zerg Rush kicked in after the Straw Hats got to where their battles with [=CP9=] would take place and their allies were subdued and captured.

** Also how the Rogue Titan falls after its rampage in Trost (but not before murdering all the titans in said rush) and how [[spoiler:Erwin tries to deal with the Armoured and Colossal Titan kidnapping Eren]].

* In ''Manga/DGrayMan'' the Millennium Earl launched a siege on the Exorcist's base to retrieve a bit of AppliedPhlebotinum from them. It consisted of vast numbers of Akuma, which most Exorcists are capable of dispatching with relative ease. It nearly worked too.

* On both Lion Anime/{{Voltron}} and the original Anime/GoLion, the Red Berets were a small but terrifying force, whether in the very bloody original or the bowdlerized adaptation. In both instances, either through murder or just creating terror and chaos, they had the population shuddering inside the Castle, demanding angrily that their heroes protect them and on the edge of despair if not revolt. But when the Berets show up even there, they swarm Black Lion and explode, their dust covering the lead Lion with gunk that renders it immobile and therefore unable to join the others when the giant enemy monster shows up. This all may have been a sign of the growing desperation of the evil lead trio, in that they didn't think this through. The Berets were causing a lot more damage and terror than many of the enemy attacks, but were traded for disabling one of the Lions, which by that late point in the series, the heroes had gotten very good at undoing.
* Manga/CellsAtWorkCodeBlack: Trichopython, or Athlete's Foot fungi, are usually nearly harmless. In Chapter 6, it is discovered that the body's poor health and unhygienic conditions let them multiply out of control, and the immune system is overwhelmed by an army of them.

* On both Lion Anime/{{Voltron}} and the original GoLion, the Red Berets were a small but terrifying force, whether in the very bloody original or the bowdlerized adaptation. In both instances, either through murder or just creating terror and chaos, they had the population shuddering inside the Castle, demanding angrily that their heroes protect them and on the edge of despair if not revolt. But when the Berets show up even there, they swarm Black Lion and explode, their dust covering the lead Lion with gunk that renders it immobile and therefore unable to join the others when the giant enemy monster shows up. This all may have been a sign of the growing desperation of the evil lead trio, in that they didn't think this through. The Berets were causing a lot more damage and terror than many of the enemy attacks, but were traded for disabling one of the Lions, which by that late point in the series, the heroes had gotten very good at undoing.