"Isn't that what you wanted? That's what you said, anyway. [...] All that I did was grant you your wish, doctor."
— Johan Liebert to Dr. Tenma, Monster
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: After suffering his 100th heartbreak in a row, Rentarou Aijou wishes for a girlfriend at a shrine; due to a distraction-induced mistake made by the God of Love, he's granted one-hundred of them. And if they ever reject him, at any point, for any reason, then they will die.
- Mostly subverted in Ah! My Goddess. Goddesses grant wishes to humans, and they don't try and cheat them out of anything. It does, however, apply when a demon is granting a wish, since A; they might cheat you on it, and B; they will ask for something in return proportionate to the wish, though according to Hild at least, that means a demon won't ever grant a wish to destroy the world, since no mortal could possibly have anything to offer of equal value to that wish.
- Well, you CAN wish for the end of the world if you really want, but the demons will then get their price from you by any means possible. Pay back all the suffering you caused by ending the world? That tends to turn most people off.
- Gets played straight with revelations in the manga Chapter 285. While a lighter example in things, it begins to explain some things.
- One other danger in wishes with demons is that even if they don't cheat you on the wish, you still can't back out of it if it being granted is something they want.
- Played for Laughs when Belldandy got Drunk on Soda and started fulfilling any wish she heard, with such gems as someone wishing for his computer to just tell him why it was so slow and the computer shouting back it was filled with useless programs.
- The entire story of the manga is this: Keiichi thought Belldandy was a prank pulled by his flatmates and jokingly wished that she would stay by his side. To Belldandy's utter shock, it went through.
- In Episode 17 of The Ancient Magus' Bride, this is how Ashen Eyes (one of The Fair Folk) teaches siblings Stella and Ethan a harsh lesson. After Stella angrily declares that she doesn't care if Ethan gets sick from staying in the snow, Ashen Eyes casts a spell that gradually makes him Ret-Gone. By the time Stella asks protagonists Chise and Elias for help, only Stella remembers Ethan's name. Once they catch up to Ashen Eyes, he basically tells her that hurtful and foolish words can't be taken back because anybody else could be around to hear them too (which he specifically was). He also mentions how fortunate Stella is that she did not wish for Ethan's death.
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Deserted Island Diary: Zigzagged. In "Need Some Action? Try Dream Islands", the gang are all bored with the island. They get word of Luna and Dream Islands, and decide to give it a shot. When Coroyuki goes in, this trope comes into play as he's sent to Boom Boom Island (where he's blown into the sky), Zap Zap Island (where he's electrocuted), and Burn Burn Island (where he's boiled alive). Luckily, the next Dream Island he visits is Palace Island.
- In Arata: The Legend, Arata wishes that he would go to a faraway world in the manga's opening chapter. Likewise, Hinohara wishes that he would disappear in his introductory chapter. The moment that latter makes his wish, both of them are fulfilled by their switch.
- Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest: Yukitoshi spent his entire life wishing that he would be whisked away to another world so that he could become the "hero" and get a harem devoted to him. He gets the first part...and hates it.
- Arisa takes this trope and tweaks it. Rather than the wishes themselves that are messed up, it's the desire to have one's wishes granted. Most of the people are overlooking the obvious with rationalizations of "it could never happen to me" until it actually does, making selfish and arbitrary wishes without considering the side-effects. That is, rather than being about wish corruption, it's about the corruption by wishes (having your desires constantly fulfilled). Understandably, the entire class as a result is just a few shades short of psychopathy.
- Inverted in Attack on Titan, Eren's Titan form seems to respond to what he wants when he transforms. However, he gets the best results when he isn't careful. For example, when he wished for the power to kill a lot of Titans and save his squadmates, he gets it. When he specifically wants the strength to lift a boulder, he loses control.
- Later on, we get a subversion: Eren possesses the Coordinate ability, a strange power that gives its wielder the power to control Titans by giving them direct orders, but he didn't know about it until he accidentally used it in a dire situation. It wasn't that he wanted something, got it, and regretted it because it wasn't what he thought; he wanted something, got it, and regrets not getting it sooner, as it could have saved any number of lives, particularly Levi's squadmates.
- The 'Suruga Monkey' arc of Bakemonogatari initially appears to be a minor twist on the traditional story of the Monkey's Paw (the twist being that the paw has grafted itself to its owner's arm) but turns out to be rather more of a twist than usual. The owner's first wish was to run faster than her classmates to stop them from laughing at her; everyone in the class faster than her was mysteriously beaten up the day before the athletics carnival. The real twist is that the paw isn't a Monkey's Paw, it belongs to a malevolent spirit called a Rainy Devil that grants your true subconscious wish- even though Kanbaru wished to run faster than her classmates she really wanted revenge on them, so the Rainy Devil possessed her and beat them up. Things get worse when the sempai she had a long-term crush on gets a boyfriend. The final twist is that after granting her third wish, the Rainy Devil will take her soul.
- The Most Dangerous Death Row Convicts arc of Baki the Grappler has 5 insanely strong death row inmates escape from maximum security prisons all around the world and all simultaneously converge on Tokyo in order to seek out strong fighters and "know defeat". While they all eventually get their wish, the majority of them aren't mentally equipped to handle losing for the first time, with one physically wasting away and entering a coma upon his defeat, while another regresses into a child-like state, and another refuses to accept his clear defeat until he's killed by Yujiro for it. Only Doyle accepts his defeat with grace, only for another convict to blind him for it, seeing his accepting his defeat as cowardly.
- Being Able to Edit Skills in Another World, I Gained OP Waifus: Rita physically forces her "contract" crystal and Nagi's together, promising to become his slave if she can't pay the reward for Nagi coming to her rescue, and the rescue of her subordinates. Her superior later refuses to recompense her, so guess who's now a slave?
- Bleach:
- Aizen has been manipulating Ichigo for Ichigo's entire life to get stronger because he wants a Worthy Opponent. He gets what he asked for, and then some when Ichigo becomes too strong for him to handle.
- Ichigo tells Keigo after he loses his powers that he always wanted a normal life... then sees the folly of that when Ginjo and Xcution start messing up his life.
- Gremmy wished for himself to be stronger than Kenpachi. He manages to get stronger, but as his body was untrained to the sudden power flux (for which Kenpachi wears an Eyepatch of Power as a Power Limiter), he promptly explodes.
- In Blue Reflection Ray, Hiori wishes at the Tanabata Festival to see her missing sister. That night she finally sees Mio again and learns that she is stealing Fragments as a Red Reflector, making the sisters enemies. Hiori is devastated at this revelation.
- In the H-manga Bullied- Revenge Hypnosis, a trio of girls have been ruling the school through putdowns and Blackmail, with their leader, a Spoiled Brat, even manipulating their teachers. The latest victim, they force him to become their punching bag when they catch him in the girls' locker room, though he manages to hypnotize them into becoming his personal harem, and making them believe that they want to bear his children, as way to keep having sex with them. The epilogue shows they have bore one child each, and he's begging them to let him rest as he's close to collapsing from exhaustion, though they insist on continuing to have sex, since he planted the command that they want to have his children.
- In Chainsaw Man, Makima promises Denji one wish if he manages to kill the Gun Devil for her. After he's forced to Mercy Kill Aki when the Gun Devil possesses him, he crosses the Despair Event Horizon and goes to Makima wishing for Freedom from Choice. Unfortunately for him, he just entrusted his life to the Control Devil/Horseman of Conquest, who tries to grant his wish by using him to create a World of Silence after killing his loved ones.
- In Codename: Sailor V, Minako ends up wishing she wasn't alone fighting. By the time she debuts in the manga version of Sailor Moon she finds the other Sailor Soldiers... But as she holds duty over her own welfare and she's the leader and most experienced of the group, she decides to hide her enormous emotional pain and act as the invincible warrior they see her as so she can be a role model and take the validation she sorely needs from that, not only worsening the stress that made her start wish she wasn't fighting alone but appearing such a perfect warrior that the others can't take her as a role model.
- Making wishes under the old sakura tree in Da Capo can have major consequences. For some it's even worse though when those wishes get reverted.
- In the one shot h-manga Delicious Part-Time Job, a guy becomes a private tutor in order to sweet talk his way into the bed of his female pupils. His first job has him go into the home of a woman and her two daughters. When he goes into their bedroom, he intends to put his plan into action, but the girls initiate the act, and he happily goes along with them. However, after several romps, they drive him to exhaustion, and then mom come into the room, and he's forced to service her as well.
- DearS: At the end of the manga, Takeya chooses to go into space with the Dear S...then learns that, as the only man on board the ship, all the girls are going to try and make babies with him.
- In D.Gray-Man, the unlucky Miranda Lotto loses her one hundredth job. She says: "Day after day, things always go wrong for me. I wish tomorrow would never come." What's the problem? Her Innocence-superpowered clock hears it, and it grants her wish. The whole town where she lives gets stuck in October 9th for more than a month.
- Then there's the Earl of Millennium and how he makes his Akumas. He offers to bring a dead person back to life by placing their soul into a metal skeleton but only if that dead person's loved one calls out their name. And it works! However, before the loved one can even enjoy being reunited with the deceased, the skeleton immediately falls under the Earl's power, kills the loved one and wear their body like a suit. In this way, the Earl brings eternal despair to humanity, both living and dead.
- Up against Olegmon, one of the Death Generals in Digimon Fusion, when Sutyr, one of his shoulder devils, taunts the team by suggesting he'll grant a wish, Kiriha defiantly shouts that the only wish he has is to defeat Olegmon, who interprets that as a world without Olegmon. Sutyr grants this wish by ejecting Kiriha and his Digimon clear across the world.
- Earlier, in Digimon Adventure 02, Ken's backstory begins with this. He was jealous of the attention his older brother Osamu gained from his parents and neighbours for being a Child Prodigy. It all came down to a head when Osamu lashed on Ken for taking a Digivice (which actually belonged to Ken after all), and he finally snapped and said "I wish he would disappear! I wish Osamu would disappear!!" Shortly after, Osamu was hit by a car and died, and everything just went downhill from there for Ken.
- Doctor Slump:
- In an early chapter, Arale and Gatchan encounter a bank robber fleeing from police pursuit, who takes them to his hideout with the intention of keeping them as hostages. Too bad for the bank robber that Arale is a Nigh-Invulnerable Robot Girl with more than enough Super-Strength to uproot a house and Gatchan is an Extreme Omnivore who treats guns as little more than pistol-shaped candy bars. The chapter ends with him running away from Arale and Gatchan, followed by him crying his eyes out, lamenting that the cops aren't around to arrest him now that he wants to turn himself in and fearing for the prospect of encountering Arale and Gatchan again.
- When the Norimaki family dines at a fancy restaurant, at the waiter's recommendation, they order the full course for everyone in the family of six, with the condition being that the whole order is free if — and only if — everyone consumes their own dish, which the waiter privately notes that no one has ever managed. To the shock and horror of the owner and the staff, everyone in the Norimaki family manages to finish every bit of the full course (having the Gatchans around certainly helps) — not once, not twice, but thrice. The chapter ends with the next night, in which the restaurant owner puts up a "Closed Tonight" sign at the door just as the Norimaki family arrives at the restaurant.
- Near the end of Tori-Bot's visit a decade in the future in Penguin Village, he wonders what's become of him and has a brief Imagine Spot in which he lives a rich life with some pretty girls catering to him, so he looks around for any signs of his future self, only to find out that his future self is a homeless bum begging for money at the street-side, much to his horror.
- At the end of the story arc involving the princess, Akane requests that the princess swap with her temporarily, as Akane wishes to know what being a princess feels like. The princess agrees, having taken a liking to the peaceful scenes of Penguin Village. What Akane doesn't realize until she's already in the princess' homeland is that she can't stomach the food being served there.note
- Dr. Mashirito came about due to this. According to Akira Toriyama in an interview with Forbes, when the resident Mad Scientist's first design was sent to his then-editor Kazuhiko Torishima, he rejected it as not being intimidating enough and told Toriyama to think of the person he hated the most. Akira Toriyama promptly used Torishima as the basis for the next design instead, and when Kazuhiko Torishima found out, he was not amused.
- Dragon Ball:
- Definitely the instance that most people think of in Dragon Ball Z is Gohan's battle with Perfect Cell. Gohan explains the reason why Goku stepped aside and asked Gohan to fight: Gohan possesses a massive amount of latent power, far surpassing Goku. However, this power has only ever shown itself when Gohan is either in mortal peril, or when his is furious with a villain who hurt his loved ones. Goku figured that after all the training he did with Gohan, a fight with Cell would give Gohan that one final push he needed to awaken all that power. Cell, being Cell, decides he wants to see this power for himself, pulling some heavy Kick the Dog moments by nearly killing the rest of the cast and killing Android 16, all of which pushes Gohan to go Super Saiyan 2 and beat Cell half to death, driving him to a Villainous Breakdown. Gohan even lampshades this trope, as he slowly apporaches the trembling Cell.Gohan: What are so afraid of, Cell? Isn't this what you wanted? I warned you. I told you what would happen if you pushed me too far. But you didn't listen. You forced me to awaken my hidden power, and now that you've seen it, you're afraid... because you know that I'm going to destroy you.
- Another key example is in Dragon Ball GT, when Pilaf, having summoned Black Star Shenron, gets distracted by Goku. Pilaf, frustrated at Goku's supposed thwarting of his plan, absentmindedly wishes that Goku was a child again. The Dragon grants his wish.
- In general though, the Dragon Ball series is actually a massive subversion. Since fairly specific wishes are made and the dragons aren't assholes, every wish they make ends up doing exactly what they want. Example: King Piccolo wishes for youth. He doesn't turn into a fetus or baby, but instead turns to his prime. And to take it even farther, the dragons will even double check with you if your wish is logically flawed. When his friends try to wish Goku back to life, the dragon mentions that he'd be brought back at the same location he died at and since the planet he was on exploded, he'd be revived in space and then die again, giving them a chance to wish for something else instead. Nor does wishing for something beyond the dragon's power result in a wasted wish. Although, this courtesy didn't seem to extend to Pilaf and his gang because in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, we find they got their hands on the dragon balls and somehow wished themselves younger, as they appear as children in this movie. Moreover, this wish was apparently made in Future Trunks' timeline as well, since in that timeline, Mai is about Trunks' age, and the dragon died when Piccolo was killed, an event which happened when Trunks was a baby. This means the Pilaf gang somehow wished themselves into babies shortly before the Androids attacked and killed everyone. Guess the Eternal Dragon knows of Pilaf's Butt-Monkey status.
- Definitely the instance that most people think of in Dragon Ball Z is Gohan's battle with Perfect Cell. Gohan explains the reason why Goku stepped aside and asked Gohan to fight: Gohan possesses a massive amount of latent power, far surpassing Goku. However, this power has only ever shown itself when Gohan is either in mortal peril, or when his is furious with a villain who hurt his loved ones. Goku figured that after all the training he did with Gohan, a fight with Cell would give Gohan that one final push he needed to awaken all that power. Cell, being Cell, decides he wants to see this power for himself, pulling some heavy Kick the Dog moments by nearly killing the rest of the cast and killing Android 16, all of which pushes Gohan to go Super Saiyan 2 and beat Cell half to death, driving him to a Villainous Breakdown. Gohan even lampshades this trope, as he slowly apporaches the trembling Cell.
- In Earwig and the Witch, Bella Yaga repeatedly mentions that she only has Erica around for the "extra hands", eventually leading to Erica putting a spell on her to grow extra hands on her waist and head.
- In Fairy Tail, after the turncoat God Serena trashes his former comrades in the Four Emperors of Ishgal plus Jura Neekis with his incredible power, the badly-wounded Warrod desperately pleads for anyone to stop him from reaching Fairy Tail and harming the guild. Cue the arrival of Acnologia, who's on the prowl for Dragon Slayers and was attracted by all the magic God Serena was pumping out. He then proceeds to murder Serena right then and there and walks off mentioning he still has seven more Dragon Slayers to kill, all of which are members, or are at least allies, of Fairy Tail anyway.
- In Fate/Zero Kiritsugu wants the Holy Grail to grant world peace, but when he finally has the chance to make his wish the corrupted Grail explains how it intends to grant it: by killing off all of mankind but Kiritsugu and his daughter, because Humans would always fight. Then it's subverted when Kiritsugu destroys the Grail.
- The Grail has been corrupted already during just about any appearance of it and it interprets ANY wish as a wish for destruction. The comparison is "If you wished to be the richest person in the world, it would interpret it as a wish to kill everyone with more money than you." Really, the only way to get the wish you actually want is if destruction is what you actually want.
- In the sequel series Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works], Rin coments on how she should have been Saber's master instead of Shirou because she doesn't believe he's fit to be her master. Later in the series she eventually does become Saber's master, but only thanks to Archer's betrayal.
- Quite a few Franken Fran stories end this way. One, for example, has a modern Elizabeth Bathory asking for eternal youth and eternal life. To that end, she stole one of Fran's experimental medicines, despite Fran giving her as much safe treatment as she wanted. The woman has all of her cells turn into the one type of cell that isn't programmed to die: Cancer Cells.
- Fullmetal Alchemist:
- Van Hohenheim spends his entire long life (over 400 years) wishing his life would end. When the end finally comes, however, he wishes he would not die yet.
- Father heartily lauds how Truth gives humans despair when they get conceited, to keep them in line. Then, following a long, action-packed sequence of events, he winds up in front of Truth himself, who reminds Father of his exact words, and points out how conceited Father was to think he could absorb a god. He gets plenty of despair.
- Ed and Al wanted to see Shou Tucker's talking Chimera. They find out just what goes into making a talking chimera. They want to kill the bastard after seeing what goes into a talking chimera.
- The King of Xerxes wanted to live forever. He got his wish as one of the tortured souls in Father's body.
- Surprisingly subverted with Ling, who wanted to gain a Philosopher's stone in order to become the next emperor of Xing. He's injected with Greed's stone by Father; however, instead of fighting it, Ling freely gives himself to the homunculus. He spends the rest of series slowly forming a bond with Greed until they become genuine friends. Even after Greed is removed and killed, Ling gets another stone and returns with it to Xing.
- In the 2003 series, Envy wishes to kill Hohenheim for abandoning him after his creation. After finding out Hohenheim was sent beyond the Gate, he manages to follow him, and several years later succeeds in killing his creator at the cost of his own life.
- Human transmutation is wrought with this. By the laws of alchemy, it is forbidden, since the value of human life is immeasurable, so attempting it will cause those involved to lose that which was most precious to them. When Izumi attempted it to revive her stillborn child, she lost her reproductive organs. When Ed and Al tried it to revive their mother, Ed lost An Arm and a Leg, and Al was lucky for Ed's quick thinking that he only lost his entire body.Truth: Isn't this what you wanted?
- Fushigi Yuugi: Especially in the manga, Miaka wishes to be rid of her problems with school and her mother, and that there was a god she could pray to. Well, in a way, she gets her wish: she is in an alternate dimension where there is no school, and she gets to be the priestess to a god in this dimension. But, it's not all roses. She's in a Cast Full of Pretty Boys, but she has Virgin Power. She is constantly getting the Distress Ball, too. Oh, and then there's that whole thing about the Beast God consuming his priestess' body and soul as she makes her wishes.
- In Gundam Build Fighters Try, Episode 11, Adou declares he wants to fight someone even stronger than everyone he's curbstomped. He gets his wish, in the form of Meijin Kawaguchi III, three time consecutive World Champion. Adou's expression immediately changes.
- Heaven's Lost Property:
- After a day of having his deepest wishes fulfilled, Tomoki jokingly wishes that he was ruler of the world. Ikaros grants it by making every other person in the world vanish, as no-one would take Tomoki seriously as ruler of the world due to how doofy he is. Tomoki fixes it by wishing that it was All Just a Dream, and is more careful with how he voices his wishes in future.
- For the entire series, Eishiro's goal is finding a "new world" and he researches Synapse for this purpose. However, it's later revealed that his true wish was living in a new world where his family wouldn't hate him for being at fault for his older brother's accidental death. When Chaos decides she's going to remake the world, she forces Eishiro to make his wish to Synapse's Rule, activating the system that has reset the world thousands of times.
- In Himitsu no Akko-chan, (the original version from 1969), the titular heroine, Akko-chan, upon meeting a deaf-mute kid, asks her magic mirror to turn her into a deaf-mute version of herself, reasoning that, after her brush with disability, she'll be able to restore herself with a second wish. However, since the mirror works only by clearly enunciated utterances, and since it was literal enough to strip Akko-chan of the ability to speak at all, the unfortunate wishee finds herself deaf, voiceless and cut off of her power source. She gets better later, though, as the Reset Button simply presses itself after imparting a much needed Aesop.
- In I Got My Wish and Reincarnated as the Villainess (Last Boss)!: Chloe wished her charge would become more energetic. In her perspective, Elizabeth did have a personality change in that direction (which is caused by the latter regaining her Past-Life Memories), which makes Chloe even more beleaguered.
- This is a very important theme in I'm Gonna Be an Angel! where the strength of one of the main characters' wish almost erases him and two other individuals from existence.
- In the Stardust Crusaders arc of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Polnareff comes across Cameo, the Judgment Stand, who offers him three wishes. His first wish (for wealth) is granted straight. He uses his second and third wish to resurrect Sherry and Avdol, and Cameo brings them back as flesh-eating ghouls who start devouring him alive. He's only saved in time thanks to Avdol being Only Mostly Dead, with that being the reason the group was on that island to begin with.
- In the Battle Tendency arc, Kars wanted to become the ultimate life form, a perfect immortal being. He gets what he wants, but after being flung into outer space by a volcano, he ends up regretting it as his body freezes over and he turns into a creature that is both mineral and organic, dooming him to float in the void for all eternity, unable to die even though he desperately wants to. Eventually, he stops thinking.
- Throughout Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Hayasaka was bothered by Kaguya's insistence on engaging in a Duel of Seduction with Shirogane rather than just confessing to him, and commented at multiple points that the two of them would be much better off if they would just start dating already. Once the two of them actually do have a Relationship Upgrade, Hayasaka quickly discovers that "lovey dovey Kaguya" is far more infuriating than "Cannot Spit It Out Kaguya".
- In one chapter, Kaguya, Shirogane and Fujiwara all play the Banned Word Game (each player is given a secret word and loses when they say it) in order to decide which two among them will go out on a long shopping trip. Shirogane wants to lose with Kaguya so that the two of them have a justified excuse to hang out together, but he also wants to beat Kaguya, so he resolves to make Kaguya lose and then intentionally lose himself. In the end, the two of them do lose, with the rankings that Shirogane wants, but not because of any plan on his part, but because Fujiwara actually managed to legitimately beat them. This being Fujiwara, Shirogane is not as pleased with the results as he thought he would be.
- When one adventurer in Konosuba jealously accuses Kazuma of not deserving the Battle Harem that he has, Kazuma offers to let them switch places. The adventurer eagerly accepts...and comes running back begging Kazuma to take his dysfunctional team members back.
- When Chloe from Lapis Re:LiGHTs was still a student at Flora Girls' Academy, she was a Large Ham Chuunibyou who wanted people to call her by her Self-Applied Nickname, "The Azure Reaper from Hell". 3 years later, now that she's become Director of said school and wants to put those cringe-inducing days behind her, everyone now refers to her as that.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), when the Hero's Shade interrogates him regarding his past screwups, Link admits that he pulled the Gaurof Sword because being a legendary, god-chosen hero sounded pretty awesome. He had no idea that doing this would send his hometown to the Twilight Realm, or that his actions who lead him to the emotionally and spiritually taxing role as Hyrule's hero.
- In Let's Start An Inn On The Dungeon Island, the story is kicked off because the protagonist wished for, in order, to be made handsome (rejected), to change the world view so women find him handsome (rejected), and then wished for creation magic. The magic flounder granted the last one, by yanking him to another world with a Victorian era mindset, but gender reversed, and dumps him right in the middle of a war-zone to boot.
- The series Living for the Day After Tomorrow begins with a single (well, double) instance of this, with a dash of Swapped Roles. The rest of the series consists of the characters dealing with the results.
- Luminous Witches
- In the episode "Gentle Light", Lyudmila Andreyevna "Milasha" Ruslanova finally achieves her dream of working with her idol Aira Paivikki Linnamaa. Unfortunately, Milasha gets more than what she bargains for and eventually goes into a brief Heroic BSoD.
- Ever since her hand injury during the Second Neuroi War, Aira has yearned for the Glory Days as an Ace Witch. It works a little too well for Aira once her training with Milasha and fellow witch Maria Magdalene Dietrich causes the latter to suffer a Heroic RRoD.
- A funny example in Majikoi! Love Me Seriously! when Kokoro tries seducing Yamato by wearing skimpy bikini to turn him on. At first Yamato brushes off her charm and so she demands that he "show her that he's a man" for not being enticed by her seduction. How does Yamato respond? By unzipping his fly and showing Kokoro what TRULY makes him a man.
- In Mantis Woman, a group of children find "Hell's Gumball Machine", each making a wish that was seemingly innocuous. One boy wished for his teacher to stop giving ultra-hard tests. The imp from inside the machine kills the teacher. Cue horror from the girl who realizes what that means for her parents, as her wish was that they stop fighting all the time.
- In Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, at the climax of the Battle of Brussels, Heero arrives piloting Wing Zero and calls Mariemaia to ask her if her bunker shields are activated. Mariemaia smugly tells him that he lacks the firepower to penetrate the shields, and dares him to prove her wrong. She quickly comes to regret it when Heero does just that.Heero: Let me confirm: your shelter shield is activated?
Dekim Barton: What are you planning?
Heero: Your shelter is secure, is it?
Mariemaia: Of course it is! See for yourself just how powerless you are!
Heero: Roger that.
(fires the Twin Buster Rifle directly on Mariemaia's bunker) - In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, due to a combination of prejudice, stress and trauma, Flay openly expressed her belief a few times that all Coordinators should die. After she spends a period of time with Coordinators in ZAFT and when Azreal proposes a Final Solution for the Coordinators, Flay is completely horrified and tries to stop him by warning the Archangel.
- General Wolf of Monster comes to regret asking Johan how he's feeling. Johan can't put it into words, so he demonstrates it by killing everyone close to the general. This lets the General feel Johan's own isolation.
- This trope happens to be the one that catalyzes the real story for Tenma, and thus the entire series. Tenma, after being demoted by the corrupt hospital director for saving a patient and dumped by the director's daughter, states that his superiors "would be better off dead" to that same supposedly comatose patient. Should've thought that one out better; turns out his patient, Johan, is a sociopathic mass murderer who would gladly oblige such a request.
- There were experiments done on children to create an emotionless and perfect killing machine. Then, Johan became one of the experiment subjects.
- Monster Musume:
- Early in the story, Miia wishes that Kimihito would give her a Bridal Carry. She gets her wish when he has to rescue her before she drowns in a pool.
- From the moment she arrives at the house, Mero expresses a desire to have a "tragic love". In Chapter 19, she witnesses Kimihito and Miia's lovely date, and learns for herself that feelings of jealousy and loss are not nice feelings to experience.
- In My Bride is a Mermaid, the Seto Clan (sans Ren, Sun and Masa) spend almost the entire story wishing that Sun would break up with Nagasumi. When it does finally happen, Sun is kidnapped by a noble who doesn't have any of Nagasumi's good traits. Thankfully, Nagasumi stops this in time.
- My Hero Academia:
- During the U.A. Sports Festival Arc, Bakugou declared he would be number one. While he did become just that, he found the process of getting there and said victory unsatisfying. He was shown up by Midoriya in the very first event. He sees Todoroki as his main rival but Todoroki continues to ignore him and views Midoriya as the one to be defeated. And when Bakugou actually beats Todoroki in the final round, he was furious to realize Todoroki didn't use his fire powers, unlike in his earlier fight with Midoriya, meaning Todoroki was holding back on him. He gets so angry that they have to chain him down and force him to wear a muzzle like a dog.
- This is mirrored later after the Villain Raid Arc, when All Might's forced retirement means that Endeavor becomes the Number One Hero by default, something he's strived for all his life at the cost of completely ostracizing his family through his outright abusive behavior. However, he's furious at the circumstances of becoming Number One, because he feels he didn't really earn the position like he envisioned.
- The erotic doujin series My Little Sister is a Genius begins with the protagonist feeling disgruntled that his smug, younger prodigy sister beats him to the punch at everything he tries, to the point where he lost all motivation for his current interests and moved onto the next one only for the cycle to repeat. He hopes for there to be something, anything that he could best her at, and that she be a cuter and more dependent sister—and he gets his wish when she gets irreversible brain damage that he later learns was from a guilt based suicide attempt, regressing her mental age in the process.
- Naruto took it on a meta level. After the manga series ended in November 2014, many fans were distraught on its ending, and appealed to the author and anime network not to end this soon. The year 2015 consisted of 2 long filler arcs, 4 extra episodes, and only 8 canon episodes, mostly due to leadup to the anime adaptation of Boruto. Definitely one of the biggest meta examples of this trope.
- Neko-de Gomen!:
- Meiko at one point privately wishes for more attention to be given to her as she bathes in a unisex hot spring. Unfortunately for her, the ones who pay attention to her are a group of middle-aged and elderly men, resulting in her spending the rest of the time at the hot spring fending them off.note
- Masaru makes many attempts to have Yayoi swayed to him despite knowing his older brother and Yayoi are together. They always fail, and some of those attempts end up with him being the center of attention — from Eiko, the one girl he'd rather not draw attention to if he can help it.
- In Nightmare Inspector, Hiruko often lets the dreamer's wishes be fulfilled. Whether they were actually beneficial to the dreamer is a different question ...
- Nyaruko: Crawling with Love! has Mahiro saying he just wants a quiet normal life in the first season finale. What he gets is that everyone around him disappeared and he was left alone just like he wanted. He then realizes just how important his alien friends are to him, despite their quirks and how much they annoy him.
- Onegai My Melody: Once per Episode Kuromi will make someone's dream come true with the Melody Key, but always in her own twisted way. Most come to regret it, and My Melody always undoes the wishes, but a few people actually enjoy the experiences Kuromi gives them, which furthers her own dark agenda.
- In One-Punch Man:
- Saitama's goal in training to be a hero was to become so strong that he could beat any villain with one punch. After three years of training, that's exactly what he got... and he can't really enjoy it because no one can challenge him anymore. He started working as a hero for fun, and now he's completely bored with it. Enter Boros and Garou to rectify that, though even they ultimately fail to challenge him, considering he doesn't need to go full-power against either of them to best them.
- Boros had a similar predicament: he was so powerful than nobody could last even a second in battle against him, and entire planets were vanquished with no effort. His dearest wish was to find someone powerful enough to match him in battle and let him unleash his full strength. Then, he met Saitama... and lost. Hard. Without doing any damage to Saitama at all.
- In Pretty Cure All Stars DX3, Hibiki wishes Hummy would disappear after she crashes a fashion show featuring Tsubomi, Erika, Itsuki and Yuri. At the end of the movie, she does - along with the rest of the Precure's mascots. They come back, though.
- The Rayearth OVA starts this way — the heroines fear their graduation, as they will be separated. So they wish something prevents this... then all the mayhem starts.
- Rebuild World:
- Elena asks the Friendly Shop Keeper Shizuka to handle buying her a set of Powered Armor after seeing her do so for Akira. Since Elena doesn’t actually need the help, and Shizuka is The Gadfly, she buys a revealing Future Spandex suit designed to go under clothes for Elena before pushing her out in front of Akira wearing just that to embarrass her.
- After some hunters turn to crime and get captured by Akira while attempting to raid Sheryl’s relic shop, the two string the survivors up and negotiate how they’ll pay back the damages. Since the discussions veer towards Indentured Servitude, one of the criminals says he’d rather die than live like that, prompting Akira to shoot him through the heart, shutting up the remaining three.
- At one point Akira has a childish Imagine Spot about running around with two assault rifles Guns Akimbo. Alpha, Imagine Spotting due to Akira’s Brain/Computer Interface with her, scolds him that it’d be very harmful to do that without the strength of Powered Armor as Required Secondary Powers. A good while later, due to his new armor being down for reprogramming mid-mission, Akira indeed uses two rifles without that added strength, and it’s excruciatingly painful.
- The Lovable Coward Hikaru, who gets assigned to be Akira’s talent agent after he reaches hunter rank 50, had been wishing to work with a high level hunter and finally got her wish with Akira. What follows is constant Oh, Crap! panic that Akira has no compunctions about killing and that she’d gotten him a job working within a legal system which is something he’s never been exposed to, as well nearly being kidnapped and blown up in battle zones.
- Goku from Saiyuki thinks it would be okay if he died. WAIT HE DIDN'T MEAN THIS SECOND!
- In Shitei Bouryoku Shoujo Shiomi-chan, Gen Shiomi wants to be unrecognizable to any mob hitman who targets him. The plastic surgeon obliges...by making him look like a teenage girl.
- Zelgadis of Slayers wishes to be strong and he gets his wish when he turns into a golem/mazoku chimera . It's a funny case because he mentions that he could've lived with the effects if he wasn't being used as a guinea pig by his grandfather Rezo.
- In Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, T. Hawk insists that Ken fight him, even though the latter says he's no intention to do so. Eventually, Ken gets pushed one time too many, and he says this virtually verbatim:Ken: [pissed] Watch out... when you ask for something... you MIGHT GET IT! SHORYUKEN!"
- In Sunday Without God, when God left the world, He granted people the ability to make wishes come true, but said wishes often backfire. Hampnie wished for Resurrective Immortality, which he later realized meant he could be left as the last living human in the world. Alice wished for Improbable Aiming Skills so he could be better at basketball, but then he realized such an ability would be cheating and thus quit his favorite sport. All of Class 3-4 wished to reset time to prevent Alice's death, trapping themselves in a "Groundhog Day" Loop. Other characters raise the possibility that the reason death doesn't exist anymore is because people wished for immortality, and that gravekeepers came into being for the few that did still wish for death.
- In chapter 5 of Tamamo-chan’s a Fox! a group of students leave offerings at the "1-3 shrine" (aka Tamamo's desk) and start praying for favors when she accepts them. One student prays for money, and gets beaned with a giant coin; another wants to raise his grades, and finds himself unable to think of anything but quadratic equations; a boy wishes for a girlfriend and a girl wishes for a boyfriend, they notice each other next panel.
- Takizawa Seidou of Tokyo Ghoul gets hit with this twice. He constantly wishes to get out in the field, only for his first assignment to be as part of a massive assault against the One-Eyed Owl, a ghoul that has defeated dozens of higher-ranked CCG members. He breaks down while writing his will because he doesn't want to die...and then the sequel reveals that he was captured by the Aogiri Tree rather than being killed so that they could turn him into one of their hybrids, a process which certainly involved years of horrific torture.
- Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 begins with the narrator saying she hates Tokyo and wishes it would just break, the whole city. Cue the titular earthquake.
- Only One Wish by Mia Ikumi of Tokyo Mew Mew fame is centered around a mysterious being (called the "Angel of the Wishes" but implied to be a good-looking version of The Grim Reaper) that goes around granting wishes and enjoying the horrible aftermath:
- The first chapter has three friends, Ai, Mai and Rikako, getting the cell phone to contact the Angel and a wish each. Rikako wishes that Ai would get together with her beloved Yamaguchi... And not only does Ai start neglecting her friends, but Yamaguchi flat-out tells Rikako he actually liked her and has no idea why he's with Ai. Knowing this, and pissed at Rikako demanding she use her wish to reset Yamaguchi's feelings, and Mai trying to prevent a fight, Ai cries out she wants them to disappear. Cue Eldritch Abomination, that is only stopped because Yamaguchi manages to wish it. Mai gets what she wanted, her friends back... Except she was deeply wounded by their betrayal and she likes Yamaguchi too, whom she had originally renounced because she knew Ai liked him. It's implied her wish to the Angel is to kill them.
- The third chapter has Kumi, a high-school student with a crush on the school's idol, Kisarazu, wish that Kisarazu would become finger-sized so she could take care of him and they would fall in love. The Angel grants her wish... And Kisarazu is terrified by the situation, already has a girlfriend, and doesn't take the discovery that Kumi was responsible for this well. At least Kumi learned her lesson...
- The fourth and final chapter opens with a girl crying she only wanted her high school teacher to disappear and the Angel replying she grants any wish, and it's the wisher's own fault if they aren't happy with the result. The teacher is present in the background, lying in a pool of his own blood.
- The second chapter, in the meantime, inverts this. Misa, the protagonist, had died trying to save a cat, and when she wishes to return back to life, the Angel does it but tells her she'll die again if she can't kiss the boy she has a crush on before midnight, while her friend Akio, who died with her (she doesn't remember due the shock of dying), wishes to spend the next year with her, and has to kiss her to not die. Akio decides to sacrifice himself for Misa's good, but Misa finds out and throws away her chance to save her friend...At which point the Angel keeps them both alive, as he couldn't spend the next year with her if one of them was dead.
- At the end of the series the Angel explains she does it on purpose, as she can't stand humans crying for help at the first problem when they could have what they want by working for it. Explaining why she went out of her way to help Misa and Akio, as for once it was a selfless wish that they couldn't possibly achieve by themselves.
- Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs:
- Marie wants to usurp Olivia as protagonist of the otome game. While she gets all the capture targets to fall madly in love with her, they give up their inheritance to be with her after Leon defeats them, which forces her to basically take care of them by herself.
- In the Marie Route, Nicks complains about having a tough time finding a wife. When he gets one, it's Dorothea, who insists on having a Property of Love-type relationship.
- The scientists in Utawarerumono wanted to live forever. Unfortunately Iceman was a god and they just REALLY pissed him off, so he gave them all bodies that would be immortal by turning them all into red jelly.
- ×××HOLiC features a chapter and episode involving a monkey's paw, which, as in the original W. W. Jacobs short story, grants wishes for its holder — five wishes in this case, one for each finger of the mummified paw, which break one at a time as wishes are granted. Also as in the original story, the young woman who gets hold of the paw finds her wishes backfiring on her, particularly when she thoughtlessly wishes that there would be a railway accident so that her lateness would be excused, causing a bystander to be suddenly pushed in front of the train. The paw and her own careless wishes end up killing her.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Professor Cobra wanted to be reunited with his dead son. Yubel promised to do so. He thought that meant they would bring him back to life. However, they had other ideas, which consist of erasing the memory that his son died in the first place and dropping Cobra to his death. But, hey, if you believe in the afterlife... Yubel was like that about a lot of things.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Roget uses a holographic Cloning Gambit to defeat his enemies even if his hologram loses, since he can keep rejoining the duel with another hologram. During his duel with Reiji, Roget boasts that he can do this for all eternity. Due to the Entry Penalty that inflicts 2000 damage to every new hologram that joins the duel, Reiji uses a loop combo that would inflict 2000 damage at Roget while keeping the same set-up that allows him to reuse the combo, meaning that no matter how many times Roget rejoins the duel, he will always lose the moment he starts his turn. For all eternity.
- Yui Kamio Lets Loose: In Chapter 1, Kiito wishes for a girl who could make an impression on him, and then moments later he meets Yui in Black who does so by punching and kicking him.
