Line #48 ShootTheShaggyDog/AnimeAndManga


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7	ShootTheShaggyDog in {{Anime}} & {{Manga}}.
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10	* ''Manga/SevenSeeds'': The story of the Ryugu Shelter arc is told as an ApocalypticLog of Mark's and told the [[HopeSpot hopeful]] story of the survival of humanity in the shelter. Things worked out well for the most part, TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt has occurred, but the people in the shelter are safe and lead a rather decent, normal daily life. An accident leads to most of the food storages becoming inaccessible and useless, forcing the higher-ups to begin to secretly cull some of the inhabitants, to ensure the survival of the rest. Despite this horrible action, things look up a bit... until an illness spreads throughout the shelter at an alarming rate, ultimately killing the majority of the people in it. Mark is the last one to die, leaving his diary behind as the only evidence of what began as a hope for humanity, only to cruelly turn into a complete failure.
11	* Creator/OsamuTezuka's ''Manga/ApollosSong'' manga fulfills the "Don't just have the protagonist die an agonizing death, trap him in a grim cycle of reincarnation and make him [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption a failure in every incarnation]]" point of this trope to a T.
12	* The best the Survey Corps can hope for is a PyrrhicVictory in ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', otherwise their missions turn out like this. One mission of theirs (the 57th) collapsed in ''one day'' and failed to accomplish their goal, resulting in what remained of them limping back to the Walls to get ridiculed and verbally spat on. No wonder the episode covering their return is a TearJerker over 20 minutes long.
13	** The entire series ends [[DownerEnding with their efforts resulting in less than nothing]]. After [[VillainProtagonist Eren]] enacts a FinalSolution to [[WellIntentionedExtremist save his people]], his ThanatosGambit to prevent retaliation fails miserably and Eldia is bombed to dust by the survivors. A lone child is shown entering the WorldTree, implying the entire CycleOfRevenge he tried to end is about to begin anew.
14	* In ''Manga/{{Bakuman}}'', "Classroom of Truth," a work submitted for the main characters to judge, ends this way. The characters are put into a survival tournament to escape their classroom, and all of them die. [[TheHeroDies Even the main character]] gets chased down and eaten by a doppelganger. Mashiro and Takagi note that it is the opposite of the typical Jump manga that value hard work and friendship, but having the main character die in spite of his efforts doesn't work.
15	* The end of the Golden Age Arc from ''Manga/{{Berserk}}''. After Griffith's capture, the Band of the Hawk is driven out of Midland and hunted as fugitives. Guts returns a year later and it seems that with his help they may be able to rescue Griffith and restore the Hawks' glory. They succeed, but Griffith is a broken man both physically and mentally from a year's worth of torture, and after a series of tragic mistakes, Griffith hits his DespairEventHorizon and uses his Crimson Behelit to initiate The Eclipse, accepting the call to Sacrifice and promptly killing the remaining members of the Band of the Hawk in order to rise as a horrific demon god in a truly malignant FaceHeelTurn. With the exception of Guts, Casca, and Rickert (the only Hawk who wasn't there when the Eclipse went down), just about every character we've seen built up over the entire manga so far are offed without much ceremony.
16	* The Circus Arc from ''Manga/BlackButler'', adapted as the ''Book of Circus'' anime. Ciel manages to track down the culprit responsible for kidnapping children, and even finds some of the children still alive. However, he resolves that after the horrors they've endure killing them is more merciful and leaves them to die as the mansion burns down. Every First-Tier member of the Circus involved in the conspiracy is killed, though revealed to have been {{Anti Villain}}s forced to serve their "father" in order to protect the other children at the Work House he owned. Afterwards, Ciel visits the Work House and finds nothing but long-abandoned ruins and realizes the other children the Circus members fought and killed to protect were already long dead.
17	* ''Manga/BlackGod'' ends with most of the cast dead and when everybody expects a happy life for the main protagonists, it's revealed that the curse is not lifted, and requires a sacrifice to save humanity which will nullify all the reasons why they were fighting. And even after that sacrifice, one genius concludes that it does not matter much since many other curses still exist so getting rid of one was not a big deal.
18	* ''Manga/BlackJack'': In the prequel "Young Black Jack", Hazama travels to Vietnam during the war to help out a colleague. While there one of the soldiers he was traveling with, Steve, is seriously injured by shrapnel and Hazama spends the entirety of the three-part arc trying to save him. After enduring a brutal Viet Cong torture camp where Steve's neck wound festers and attracts maggots; they're saved and a younger Dr. Kiriko patches Steve up. The final episode of the arc opens with a dazed Steve (unable to think clearly from all of the trauma and medication) stepping on a landmine and dying for good. Steve's CO snaps and tries to have them all killed before disappearing into the forest and Hazama returns to Japan, disturbed at what he's seen.
19	* ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'' (anime only), also a definitive example of a DownerEnding, ends with the main cast either dead or broken. None of the heroes' goals were met, and [[TheBadGuyWins the villain succeeded in all his plans]], with his "death" only being a temporary setback. If anything, [[TooBleakStoppedCaring the world would have been better off if the heroes had NOT been around]].
20	* '' VisualNovel/{{Clannad}}'' After Story, before the ResetButton is hit, shamelessly goes for a shaggy dog shoot, taking the story from sad to abjectly miserable and pointless. Nagisa dies, leaving Tomoya to raise their newborn daughter, Ushio, as a single father. An act he ''doesn't'' do, because he is too consumed in grief to bother with anything else, and leaves Ushio in the care of Akio and Sanae, [[InTheBlood basically repeating the same mistake as his father]]. After five years, he comes to his senses, only to learn that Ushio suffers from the same illness as her mother. She dies several months after they are reunited, and Tomoya promptly [[DeathByDespair dies in despair]]. Despite this, there are some who think this ending is superior to the True End.
21	* Partially applies during the last few episodes of ''Anime/CodeGeass'', when Nunnally's apparent demise became one of the key reasons Lelouch started the [[ZeroApprovalGambit Zero Requiem]], as the man [[DespairEventHorizon felt he had nothing left to live for]] at that point. Guess who shows up to oppose him not long after he's in too deep to turn back? It was quite a shock to both Lelouch and a number of the viewers. The trope was quickly subverted though, when Suzaku reminded Lelouch that the plan must continue for other reasons in spite of Nunnally's survival, and in the end the world did receive a combination of both positive and negative effects, by achieving a state of peace even at the expense of a certain amount of avoidable destruction.
22	** It occurs in a much more straightforward manner when it comes to Euphemia's character arc specifically - after a nasty HopeSpot, her story ends in one of the darkest and most depressing ways ever, with all her efforts amounting to absolutely nothing, (even actively making it ''worse'' for the people she wanted to help), her name permanently tainted, and her death mainly having the effect of causing all the people involved with her to spiral downward even more, on top of having no redeeming factors. TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth, indeed...
23	* ''Anime/CyberpunkEdgerunners'':
24	** Gloria Martinez wanted her son David to become a high-ranking official at Arasaka, and to see to that goal, she worked constant overtime at her EMT job, to the point that she ''passed out from exhaustion'' whenever she got home, and even sold the deceased's cyberware at the black market, all to help pay for David's tuition at Arasaka Academy. When she dies after being caught in a gunfight between two rival gangs, David gets himself expelled from the academy, joins a criminal gang, slowly goes mad from cyberpsychosis, and gets brutally killed by [[TheDreaded Adam Smasher]] during a raid on Arasaka, rendering all the blood, sweat and tears she shed for over a decade-and-a-half completely pointless.
25	** Lucy's lifelong dream was to be able to go to the moon, and she takes odd jobs from fixers to save up the eddies for that one-way trip. However, she finds out about the cyberskeleton project and Arasaka wanting to use her boyfriend, David Martinez, as a test subject for it due to his natural tolerance for cyberware. So she goes on a [[PoorCommunicationKills secret mission]] to silence every Arasaka netrunner who knows about him, in order to protect him. She's unexpectedly betrayed and captured by Faraday, who puts David in an unwinnable situation: equip the Cyberskeleton so he can be able to fight off Arasaka's armed forces and save his friends, while succumbing to [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul cyberpsychosis]] and losing all traces of himself in the process. He chooses to don it and go on a RoaringRampageOfRescue to save Lucy, which leads to the gang's hopeless fight against Adam Smasher, who unceremoniously slaughters Rebecca and David. The only remotely good thing that came out of the whole ordeal is that Lucy and Falco manage to escape, with the former being able to live out the rest of her days on the moon...and even that isn't a true victory for her, as she wanted David to be there with her.
26	* The whole Fallen One arc in ''Manga/DGrayMan'' is one of these. Allen encounters another Exorcist, Suman Dark, who has betrayed his [[EmpathicWeapon Innocence]] by betraying the Black Order to a villain, and has been turned into a [[OneWingedAngel giant angelic torso-looking thing]]. Allen struggles to save Suman while he attacks mindlessly, killing a lot of innocent people. Allen finally manages to hold Suman back by over-activating his own Innocence, and he manages to pull Suman out of the monster... only for him to find that Suman has lost his soul anyway. Turns out Allen hadn't succeeded; Suman's Innocence basically timed out. Then, just to make things worse, Suman explodes in a fountain of blood, thanks to the sudden appearance of the villain from whom he begged for mercy in the first place.
27	** Who then destroys Allen's left arm, punches a hole in his heart and leaves him for dead, because the arc just wasn't cruel enough as it was. Really, the only good things to come out of the arc is that Tincampy manages to escape with Suman's Innocence, and the destruction of Allen's arm eventually leads to him receiving a NextTierPowerUp.
28	* ''Manga/DeathNote'' in every adaptation sees the deaths of all major characters and many supporting ones, and leaves no implication that the world is a better place for any losses or sacrifices. While L and his successors accomplish their ultimate goal of taking down Kira, it's definitely a ShootTheShaggyDog story from the perspective of Kira and his followers, since all their efforts to transform the world end up amounting to nothing. Though the manga does end with a cult commemorating their deeds.
29	* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':
30	** Future Trunks' timeline [[BadFuture isn't very pleasant]]; Goku dies of a heart virus, Androids 17 and 18 appear six months later and start wreaking havok, and Vegeta, Piccolo ''et al'' are all [[KilledOffForReal killed trying to stop them]] (Piccolo's death also rendering the Dragon Balls permanently unusable). Years later, [[CrapsackWorld humanity's on the brink of extinction, the Androids are unstoppable, and only Trunks and Gohan are able to fight back]]. Gohan dies, and Trunks resorts to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong changing history]]. Fortunately, his experiences in the main timeline make him strong enough to destroy the Androids (and Cell) once he returns. [[HopeSpot All seems right]], but then ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' happens: Goku Black appears and devastates the recovering Earth to a worse extent than the Androids did, once more forcing Trunks to flee to the main timeline for aid. As a final kick in the teeth, Zamasu's efforts to merge with reality following his defeat prompts the Omni-King to destroy not just Earth, but Trunks's ''entire timeline'', meaning the struggles of all its inhabitants during the Androids' and Goku Black's reign of terror meant nothing.
31	** The offshoot of Future Trunks' timeline that Cell travels to the main one from. In that timeline, Trunks successfully deactivated Androids 17 and 18 after his initial trip to the past to find a way to stop them. This victory is quickly negated when Future Trunks is ambushed and quickly killed by Cell and has his time machine stolen. Oh, and because of Future Trunks' death, in this timeline, the Saiyan race is now '''extinct''', except for Vegeta's younger brother who may or may not be alive in that timeline.
32	** The ''The Father of Goku'' special. Bardock is given the ability to see the future where his world and most of his race is killed by their boss. His friends are also murdered by the henchmen of said boss in a different incident. Bardock is unable to do anything to avenge his friends and can't do a damn thing to stop Frieza from blowing up the planet. Even trying to warn his other fellow Saiyans does nothing since no one believes him. In the end, he's killed unceremoniously by Frieza without accomplishing anything. The only bright spot in the entire special is seeing Goku safely getting to Earth and being found by his grandfather.
33	** During the Frieza Saga, as Frieza is going into his final form, Vegeta pulls off a DeliberateInjuryGambit, having Krillin mortally wound him and then having Dende [[HealingHands heal]] him in order to obtain a [[CameBackStrong Zenkai boost]], believing this will allow him to ascend and become a Super Saiyan. Sadly, while it ''does'' make him much stronger, Frieza is still way out of his league, and he doesn't become a Super Saiyan; once this happens, Vegeta completely loses the will to fight before Frieza [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beats him to]] [[ColdBloodedTorture a bloody pulp]]. When Frieza subsequently finishes him off, Vegeta spends his final moments tearfully begging Goku to defeat Frieza and avenge the Saiyans.
34	** Vegeta gets hit with this a second time during the Buu Saga, where he becomes so obsessed with finally surpassing Goku that he [[DealWithTheDevil sells his soul]] to [[EvilSorcerer Babidi]] so he can reclaim his place as the strongest of all Saiyans. As it turns out, Goku had unlocked Super Saiyan 3 during the seven-year TimeSkip and had been holding back against Majin Vegeta the whole time, so Vegeta sold out his family and friends, forsook his own convictions, and helped unleash [[EldritchAbomination Majin Buu]] upon the world for ''nothing''. When he tries to atone for his selfishness by taking on Buu himself, he's completely outmatched; even ''blowing himself up'' does nothing more than slow Buu down for a few minutes, [[SenselessSacrifice making his sacrifice utterly pointless]].
35	* Jyuken the Gatekeeper's character arc in ''Anime/EtoRangers''. When she first really shows up in Episode 23, she's strongly hinted to be [[HeelFaceTurn good deep down]]. This is made more explicit in Episodes 31 and 32, where it's revealed exactly how the other Jyarei treat her. Then, in Episode 37, she defies Nyanma's orders and joins forces with the Eto Rangers. Too bad Nyanma [[XanatosGambit even took advantage of that]], directly leading to the deaths of Nyorori, Pakaracchi, and Soufflé. Jyuken then tries to rebel, but is not only [[CurbStompBattle killed effortlessly]], but [[TheAssimilator absorbed]], allowing Nyanma to ascend to her OneWingedAngel form.
36	* ''Literature/FateZero'' ends like this, which shouldn't surprise anyone who is familiar with ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', given that ''Zero'' is the prequel and [[DoomedByCanon sets up the scenario]] for ''Stay Night'', but the details are [[TearJerker heart wrenching]]. At the end, Kiritsugu is forced to destroy the Grail which he had banked all his hopes on because it had become corrupted. His wife is dead, he will never see his daughter again, and [[DoomedProtagonist he has only a few years to live]]. Sakura is still with the Matou. Saber still blames herself for the destruction of her kingdom. Worst of all, the two major villains survive. The one ray of hope that keeps this from being the worst DownerEnding of all time is that Shirou has taken up Kiritsugu's ideal and will eventually make things better.
37	* ''Literature/{{Shiki}}'' ends with about 90% of the cast getting killed off in horrific, pointless ways, and then the village of Sotoba, which most of the remaining living humans sacrificed their sanity to protect from the vampires, ends up burning to the ground. Oh, and the only vampire who survives is the one who engineered the entire thing. And things aren't exactly sunshine and rainbows for her either, with her having lost everyone she considered family and having her dream of a community where she can be accepted crushed forever with her mind tethering on the edge of despair.
38	* ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'': in the prologue movie ''ZERO: The Legend of Kenshiro'', Kenshiro helps the people of a town who were victims of a ruthless slaver defend themselves from an invasion force led by a ''Nanto Seiken'' user, in doing so taking the detonator for a bomb concealed within the town. Unfortunately, the slaver had a back-up detonator and uses it after being fatally wounded. The town is flattened by the bombs, and everyone Kenshiro met and befriended since his defeat at Shin's hands is killed.
39	* ''Manga/{{Gilgamesh}}'' ends with the deaths of the entire main cast against the villains, followed rapidly by all life on Earth getting wiped clean by a being who intended to reform the Earth afterwards, but is killed before it can recreate it.
40	* ''Anime/HellGirl'': Negoro Tetsurou's story is a mild version of this, played mostly for laughs.
41	* The first season arcs of ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' are all like this; the audience are treated to several versions of the local TrueCompanions going AxCrazy and murdering each other in various gruesome fashions, only for the GroundhogDayLoop to kick in and the whole tragedy repeated in a slightly different manner. The last arc seemingly subverts this, as Keiichi remembers one of the other realities and talks Rena down from her attempted mass murder/suicide... Only for Rika to get murdered anyway later, and the whole town wiped out by the volcanic eruption. Again.
42	** Also from ''Higurashi'', "Plan 34". A plan to kill thousands of innocent people in order to prevent a disease from causing a ZombieApocalypse scenario is initially presented in the anime as evil, but better than the alternative. Then, the manga arc ''Onisarashi-hen'' shows that after the plan was carried out, infections started breaking out all over Japan anyways, due to people who had once lived in Hinamizawa but had moved away or were out of town at the time of the massacre. And ''then'', because ''Higurashi'' '''really''' loves kicking you when you're down, it shows that the infection isn't as contagious as first thought and dies out on its own, demonstrating that the Plan 34 massacre was entirely unnecessary, and that the perpetrators were horribly misguided at best, or willing to intentionally kill thousands of innocents for political gain at worst. Isn't ''Higurashi'' wonderful?
43	*** It's even worse. The trigger for Hinamizawa Syndrome isn't distance from Rika, which the villains originally suspected; it's actually just extreme stress. In that case, their whole plan to wipe out the village through Plan 34 actually CAUSED the outbreaks in Onisarashi-hen.
44	** ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' does it in a similar manner. One example is a pair of climatic fights in the 4th arc, where the protagonists were about to win.
45	** And all the Rikas get to become Umineko's FallenHero BigBad as well, starting the cycle of death all over again for another group of people! Because [[YouBastard she knows you want more]].
46	** ''Gou'' and ''Sotsu'' do one last kick for Rika: In the true timeline, she ''finally'' goes to St. Lucia and is able to take Satoko along with her, both of them far and away from their terrible living circumstances. However, while Rika lives the high life over there and is able in integrate fine, she ends up neglecting Satoko, who struggled with the work and felt isolated from everyone else. Satoko then accidentally injures someone while activating one of her Hinamizawa traps, which gets her sent to an ''underground prison''. When Satoko goes home, she stumbles onto Eua, who offers her the ability to loop like Rika does. Spending 100 years in those loops and learning about everything Rika had to go through only makes her ''more'' determined to make Rika stay in Hinamizawa with her, and sends the latter girl ''right back into the loops she hated so much''.
47	* In ''Manga/IeGaMoeteJinseiDouDemoYokuNattaKara'', one of the very first adventurer missions undertaken by the leads Harold Smith and Atie involves rescuing a child from a criminal syndicate. The young boy was there trying to steal an elixir to save his sick father. While the heroes do manage to destroy the syndicate and the monster leading them, they find out, too late, that the boy is mortally poisoned, so much so that the very elixir he stole no longer works, and he dies on them, then they have to secretly bury the bodybecause it's far too toxic to take home, leaving the kid's mother, whose husband already passed away while the heroes were trying to rescue the boy, with nothing...
48	* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'':
49	** More so a case of RootingForTheEmpire gone wrong, but this ends up being the fate of La Squadra di Esecuzione in Part 5. They have the same goal as Team Bucciarati of killing the Boss of Passione, but unlike Team Bucciarati, who strive to dismantle Passione's [[DrugsAreBad drug distribution]], La Squadra strive to not only avenge their fallen members [[HoYay Sorbet and Gelato]], who were killed when they tried to reveal the Boss' identity, but also [[MoneyDearBoy to inherit his fortune through the drug distribution]] because they feel like they've been getting shortchanged. In trying to search for the Boss' daughter, Trish Una, the members of Team Bucciarati kill them all one-by-one, until only their leader, Risotto Nero, is left. He's ''this'' close to unmasking the Boss' identity by battling [[SplitPersonality Vinegar Doppio]], but then he's unintentionally [[UndignifiedDeath gunned down by Narancia Ghirga's Aerosmith Stand]], which leaves La Squadra completely abandoned with no way to achieve their goal anymore, as Doppio gets away.
50	** In ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean Stone Ocean]]'', antagonist Enrico Pucci succeeds in gaining a Stand which [[ApocalypseHow accelerates time to cataclysmic proportions]] and creates a new universe where everybody [[AndIMustScream knows their fate and are unable to change it]]. All of the protagonists[[note]]sans Foo Fighters, who had given up their body earlier on, and Weather Report, who had died shortly after regaining his memories[[/note]] confront Pucci in the middle of the ocean... only for Pucci's Stand, Made in Heaven, to [[TotalPartyKill kill every single one of them one-by-one, leaving only Emporio alive as the universe resets itself.]] Granted, this trope gets [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] in that Emporio managed to kill Pucci using Weather Report's Stand to deprive him of oxygen followed by shooting him, [[ResetButtonEnding thus allowing the universe to restabilize itself]], but that doesn't stop the protagonists from being reincarnated into new people with no memories of Part 6's events, leaving Emporio absolutely ''heartbroken'' when nobody recognizes him anymore.
51	** Part 7 features Gyro Zeppeli, an executioner who took pity on a young boy who, in a bad case of "wrong place wrong time", was sentenced to die. He pleads with the king of Italy to spare his life. The king says that he will give the boy amnesty if he completes the Steel Ball Run, a horse race in the United States. Gyro dies before completing it, but the boy was granted amnesty shortly after the events of the story arc following the collapse of the monarchy... only to die of illness shortly thereafter.
52	* ''Manga/{{Kaiji}}'', a series full of [[ShaggyDogStory Shaggy Dog Stories]], has one particularly nasty and fatal one. At the end of the Restricted Rock Paper Scissors arc, Kaiji gives in to his ChronicHeroSyndrome and sacrifices the prize money he would've used to pay off his debt to save Ishida from a very short lifetime of indentured servitude. Not only does he end up even deeper in debt than he was when he started, but Ishida, who's also trying to pay off his debts, ends up becoming a part of the Steel Beam Crossing, where he's one of the many contestants who fall to their death, rendering Kaiji's sacrifice AllForNothing.
53	* ''Literature/{{Katanagatari}}'' combines a horrendous character mortality rate with an epilogue that states the ThanatosGambit that caused everything seems to have had no effect whatsoever.
54	** However, it's not particularly depressing, since no living people actually cared about the plan one way or the other. From the little we saw of him, it's questionable whether even Shikizaki Kiki cared about it.
55	* ''Literature/KingsGame'', all of Nobuaki's often desperate and extreme efforts to stop the Ousama Game and keep everyone alive are futile. He doesn't manage to save anybody, and the one person he ''does'' manage to keep alive, his girlfriend, dies minutes afterward anyway from something practically unrelated.
56	** Its sequel, ''Shuukyoku'', is even worse: Nobuaki and the remaining two students learn that the only way to end the game is if everyone dies, or else ''the entirety of Japan will be eradicated through more King's Games''. They do so... but the epilogue shows yet another King's Game about to start. So not only is everyone in the main cast dead, their deaths are completely in vain, as they failed to stop the game like it said it would!
57	* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' (particularly its supplemental film ''The End Of Evangelion'') is a borderline case: after Instrumentality/Third Impact, the Earth is left in ruins and everyone besides Shinji and Asuka is reduced to "primordial soup" with the choice to recreate themselves if desired (meaning that the whole plot caused more harm than good for everyone who would rather not live as part of a puddle of Tang).
58	** In ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'', the third movie is this compared to ''1.0'' and ''2.0''. To sum it up: everything that happened in the prior two movies has been rendered moot because Shinji triggered Third Impact. It becomes clear throughout the movie that everything Shinji does to try to make things better ends up backfiring and making things worse for everyone, usually through no fault of his own. Little wonder he's in an AngstComa by the end. [[spoiler:''3.0 + 1.0'', on the other hand, subverts this by giving everyone a happier ending.]]
59	* The Impel Down and Marineford arcs of ''Manga/OnePiece''. Luffy breaks into the most secure prison in the world, makes grudging allegiances with SEVERAL old enemies in the process, undergoes incredible punishment and nearly dies from poisoning...all to save his brother Ace from being executed. It's said that he's sacrificing his lifespan again and again with near-constant uses of Gear Second, plus the treatment Ivankov gives him for Magellan's poison. He then breaks OUT, makes it to the execution, reaches the platform against ALL odds with help from newfound friends, and ACTUALLY SUCCEEDS IN FREEING HIS BROTHER. After all that... it's some petty insults from Admiral Akainu that goad Ace into a fight when he and Luffy are about to escape, leading to Ace getting killed by taking a magma fist intended for Luffy. It's the first real time in ''One Piece'' where the protagonist DOESN'T accomplish his goal.
60	** ...But he does [[NiceJobBreakingItHero cause enough chaos in Impel Down which makes it easier for Blackbeard to fulfill his objective of recruiting level six criminals]]. As seen when he initially met Magellan, Blackbeard [[CurbStompBattle was no match for him]] and he only survived because Shiryu saved him. Why was Shiryu was out of his cell in the first place? Magellan was busy dealing with Luffy and hoped Shiryuu would help against Blackbeard.
61	** A villainous example happens in the Fishman Island Arc: Hody Jones is an extremely racist Fishman who uses energy steroids to gain the power to take over the island and seeks to eventually rule mankind. He had also murdered the reigning queen of the time and framed it on a human in order to make sure he'd have a loyal following of like-minded thinkers. After going through massive beatings from Luffy, he is defeated and the truth of the steroids is revealed. It turns out they're a special candy of the royal kingdom that accelerates the aging process, to which he and his men had overdosed on; leading them to become extremely elderly men. Even if he did manage to defeat Luffy, which is very slim, seeing how he was effortlessly beaten, he'd be too fragile and weak to achieve his ambitions. Also having admitted to his direct hand in the murder, as well as his abuse of literally every single major life in the kingdom, has made sure he's not going to be paroled or released from his imprisonment anytime soon.
62	* ''Manga/OnePunchMan'': Of all the villains he's faced, only two haven't been subjected to this, and one of them was because a supremely powerful, unbeatable opponent was sort of what he wanted. Doesn't matter if you want to conquer Earth for yourself, avenge Mother Nature, create the UltimateLifeForm or just get revenge on someone who wronged you, Saitama will come and end you and everything you stand for with [[OneHitKill one punch]], before you've even finished speaking, and without giving a crap about whatever you want.
63	* ''Manga/PlatinumEnd'': The entire series becomes this due to the actions of a singular character. The series is all about a (oftentimes brutal) competition to find a replacement for the soon-to-retire God, in order for the world to continue existing. The protagonists make a plan of action, choose who they think the best candidate is, and secure victory for that candidate. Too bad then that the candidate they chose was a depressed and suicidal teen, who just a few years later decides to end not just his own life, but ''all of existence as well''. ...And even '''that''' apparently wasn't enough to destroy something even higher up, which was what [[WhoWantsToLiveForever they wanted]], leaving them to start all over in hopes of finally achieving it.
64	* The anime adaptation of ''Requiem'' (marketed as ''Anal Sanctuary'' in the United States) has Yukina being presented with Cecilia, an angelic violin capable of opposing Cannone, the demonic violin that has driven Akio to enslaving the female student body of St. Cecilia academy. Immediately after we see Cecilia, cut to a scene of Yukina and the priestess who presented the violin in captivity, about to be raped by Akio's possessed students, and Akio in possession of Cecilia. Everyone gets ruined, mission failed.
65	* The ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'' anime adaptation. After spending ten episodes [[TookALevelInJerkass taking increasing levels in jerkassery]], TheProtagonist Makoto is stabbed to death by his pregnant ex-girlfriend Sekai, and then his corpse is decapitated by his girlfriend Kotonoha, who proceeds to murder (and cut up) Sekai and runs away, taking Makoto's head with her. Life at the school goes on, unaffected by the lunacy that just transpired.
66	* While the overall series is not so grim, the 18th episode of ''Literature/ScrappedPrincess'' ends with Furet getting killed in order to prevent Pacifica and the others from getting captured, only to have them get captured five minutes later anyway.
67	* ''Manga/ShadowStar'''s anime adaptation. Most of the cast goes insane and dies in a generally unsatisfying fashion, except for the [[BreakTheCutie main character]] and the vaguely established villains, who vanish off the face of the earth around episode 10. Most of the plot points are LeftHanging, and noone seems to care much. The description that 'nothing much has happened except that a few ineffectual people has died' fits the story like a glove, although this is because the anime only covers the first half of the manga, cutting off right before things start to get ''really'' bad. The manga, incidentally, may also count as this.
68	* Faust's backstory from ''Manga/ShamanKing''. He fell in love with a girl with an incurable disease, and spent 20 years developing a cure. When he did, they finally got married and moved into their new home...where she was promptly killed by a burglar. This drove Faust to despair and sent him on a {{Necromantic}} tear until Anna brought her spirit back as his Guardian.
69	* ''Manga/{{Shigurui}}'' is this all the way through. In fact, hopelessness and resignation are all around in the story, as nothing the protagonists do - or anyone appearing in the series really -- amount to anything positive for anyone involved. Everyone is either maimed, taken advantage of, killed, raped, psychologically destroyed, or otherwise promised a horrible and joyless life from day 1. Only the powerful may enjoy their life, mostly because they spend it being pointlessly cruel and sadistic to anyone not from their ranks... and sometimes even then.
70	* Creator/OhGreat wrote a self-contained arc in his H-Series ''Silky Whip Extreme'' called ''Junk Story'', that is a pretty damn grim version of this trope. To Wit: The plot is that, 100 years before the story began, a super-powerful military robot called Gatt fell in love with a woman named Mariko. By being denied Mariko, Gatt took revenge on all of humanity, destroying most of civilization and forcing humans to live in fear. The first 3 issues are Mariko, revived as an immortal cyborg, teaming up with a gun-runner to try and destroy Gatt. Only, it's revealed in the last two issues that all of this was pointless; The world government has ''deliberately'' allowed Gatt to keep rampaging for a century, as even though they have cyborgs vastly more powerful than him, leaving humanity in fear of an external monster foe makes them easier to control. The end of the series involves Mariko being captured by Caligula, a powerful AxCrazy cyborg employed by the government, the Gunrunner-Turned-Love-Interest getting killed off, and Mariko being forced to become Caligula's personal sex slave. Not only does the ending completely invalidate every plot development brought up until that point, but it brings up even MORE questions that will never be answered.
71	* In an episode of ''[[OddlyNamedSequel Slayers NEXT]]'', the second season of the ''[[Literature/{{Slayers}} Slayers anime]]'', Lina and party team up with an eccentric [[TheDragonslayer lake dragon-hunter and chef]] in hopes of preparing the legendary Dragon Cuisine. After much trial and effort, they catch and slay a huge [[StockNessMonster Lake Dragon]] and Lina eagerly starts getting ready for the meal, only to be told that lake dragon flesh is intensely poisonous and so even the least complicated meal will take weeks of treating to leach out the toxins before it can be consumed. Much to her dismay, the rest of the party drag her away, leaving the chef happily getting started on the year-long process to make the complete Dragon Cuisine course.
72	* The ending of ''Anime/{{Texhnolyze}}'' results in [[EverybodyDiesEnding the death of everyone on the surface, just about everyone in Lux, and every main and supporting character who ever appeared]]. The survivors get turned into what essentially amount to sentient, cybernetic trees. Naturally, the protagonists are completely ineffectual in stopping any of this; if anything, they make things worse.
73	* ''Manga/TokyoBabylon'', particularly when the continuation provided by ''Manga/{{X 1999}}'' is added in. After spending the series waiting to see if Subaru can inspire any actual feelings of love in him, and just when Subaru has realized his feelings for Seishiro, Seishiro decides that... no, he doesn't care about Subaru. [[BreakTheCutie So he tortures him, tries to kill him, and does kill his sister]], leaving Subaru [[HeartbrokenBadass permanently broken]] with his heart's desire that one day Seishiro will kill him too. Except that when he tries to let that happen, he ends up killing Seishiro instead.
74	** Then Subaru learns that he never had chance of succeeding, as it was a part of Seishiro's [[ThanatosGambit plan]] of forcing Subaru into [[TorsoWithAView doing it]]. Subaru's sister made sure Seishiro knew of a [[LastSecondChance spell she placed on him while dying, if he tried to kill Subaru the same way he killed her, then it'd be deflected back on him]]. What's probably even worse, as Seishiro [[DiedInYourArmsTonight lays dying in Subaru's arms]], his last words are...not quite all heard but it's [[DyingDeclarationOfLove easy enough to assume, especially since]] Subaru [[KlingonPromotion becomes the next Sakurazukamori]] in Seishiro's place and the predecessor is destined to be murdered by the one they love most. Subaru's unaware of that part however, so he unable to ask Seishiro if it's true.
75	* The Anteiku Raid arc that serves as the finale for ''Manga/TokyoGhoul''. In order to rescue his friends, Kaneki heads into the midst of a major combat operation and ignores warnings that doing so is suicide. Along the way, he fights a climatic battle with his WorthyOpponent.....and loses control, leaving Amon mortally wounded. He manages to rescue Koma and Irimi, and agrees to meet with them later at V14. This later becomes the site of a massacre, and he arrives too late to save anyone. Kaneki also reunites with his childhood friend, Hide, and learns that his friend knew all along. A fade to black leaves it ambiguous whether or not he ended up '''eating''' Hide, who remains missing. And finally, Kaneki is forced to battle the legendary Ghoul Investigator, Kishou Arima. He loses to the legendary "Reaper", and is seemingly killed while elsewhere, Yoshimura is defeated in battle and ends up captured by [[TheSyndicate Aogiri]]. In the end, TheBadGuyWins, Kaneki's apparent death leaves his friends devastated and alone, and Kaneki becomes an amnesiac being trained by the CCG to become their new SuperSoldier. Thankfully, ''Manga/TokyoGhoulRe'' picks up from there and eventually has our heroes, after even more great struggle, win after all.
76	* Asano, the UnluckyEverydude from ''Literature/TheTwelveKingdoms'' has several of these moments in his plot arc. Despite being an OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent trapped in another world, he is ultimately ineffectual in doing any good for himself or for his friends, and he eventually becomes a patsy of the BigBad. Just when it looks as though he's about to redeem himself by performing a vital, heroic mission for the good guys, he gets intercepted by the villains, who kill him in spite of his being armed with a gun, while they only have primitive weapons. To further rub salt into the wound, Asano, before he dies, learns that his mission was completely unnecessary, since reinforcements were ''already'' coming to help the good guys.
77	** Considering Asano wasn't part of the original book (and neither was his female counterpart) and the only reason for him to be there is to externalize Yoko's inner TomatoInTheMirror conflicts in the medial transition, this is hardly surprising.
78	* In ''Manga/{{Uzumaki}}'', it's never quite spelled out whether the main characters die in the proper sense (which would make the narration posthumous) or instead suffer a FateWorseThanDeath, but either way, they fight through a hell of monsters, unwanted transformations, and SinisterGeometry only for all of their actions to be completely meaningless in the end.
79	* ''Anime/WolfsRain'' finishes with pretty much the entire cast dying within the last couple of episodes, and they never reach the Paradise they're looking for. In fact, the only thing they manage to do is stop ''somebody else'' from getting to it; it's pretty disheartening when the entire 30 episode show was about getting there. It's kept from being a DownerEnding by implying that they've been reincarnated, or have been put back in the human world, or... well, something, but seeing as they were there anyway, it definitely counts.
80	* Adrian's character arc in ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' is a villain example. Adrian desires the power of the strongest Duel Monster, Exodia the Forbidden One, in order to [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans turn the world into a utopia where nobody else would have to suffer what he did]]. To that end, he makes a DealWithTheDevil, [[MoralEventHorizon kills his girlfriend, kills Aster Phoenix]], and generally abandons anything resembling human decency, all for [[WellIntentionedExtremist what he perceives as the greater good]]. As the final part of his plan, he attempts to [[EvilerThanThou usurp]] the sitting BigBad, Yubel... only for them to dismantle his Exodia strategy fairly easily, destroy his girlfriend's soul, [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech calmly tell him how much he sucks and how he threw away everything good in his life for nothing]], and then kill him.
81	* Shun's character arc in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV''. His main goal is to find and rescue his sister from the clutches of Academia. Although he eventually finds her, he fails to save her; Ruri (being a piece of a woman named Ray) is sacrificed and fused to revive the woman she reincarnated from. In a rather dark turn for the series, Ruri isn't revived at the end of the show, instead living inside of Yuzu, another reincarnation of Ray. Shun, however, seems to have accepted that Ruri lives on in some form, and that he can rest easy knowing that he is at least surrounded by loved ones.
82	* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' starts with one: delinquent Yusuke Urameshi decides, in a moment of selflessness, to rescue a kid from being hit by a car and is killed in the process. Once he gets to the afterlife, he finds that he kinda screwed up a few things by this action, because he wasn't supposed to die that day and neither was the kid - the kid would have been a bit scuffed up, but his ball would have saved him.
83	** The Chapter Black saga could be considered an example of this. The characters pull out all the stops, [[PyrrhicVictory sacrificing a great deal in the process]], in order to try and stop Sensui from opening a tunnel to Demon World, only to eventually learn that A) Sensui's true motive for opening the tunnel was just so he could go to the demon world and find an opponent who could kill him, B) he would have been dead within a month anyway, from a fatal disease, and C) the spirit world's elite soldiers could seal the demon tunnel with [[HardWorkHardlyWorks relatively little effort.]] Yusuke does end up discovering something important about himself that helps drive the next arc, but this arc itself was pretty pointless.
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Context ShootTheShaggyDog / AnimeAndManga