Dies Differently In Adaptation / Anime

• Akame ga Kill! has Prime Minister Honest beaten to death by Leone after a long, drawn-out fight. As brutal as it was, it was far gentler than his manga death, in which Leone stops short of killing him and leaves him to the "mercy" of the rebels, who promptly dismember him alive, bit-by-bit.
• Kaori in AKIRA dies differently in the anime adaptation than in the manga. In the anime adaptation, she's crushed to death by the mutating body of Tetsuo, who lost control of his powers. In the manga, she's shot In the Back by Tetsuo's treacherous lieutenant and dies in Tetsuo's arms.
• Tsutomo in Attack No. 1 is run over by a train in the manga, in the anime he falls with his van to his death in the mountains and in the drama series he is run over by a car.
• Adon Coborlwitz from Berserk is killed by the same person — Casca — in all of the adaptations of the Golden Age Arc, but the methods on how Casca kills him are different. In the manga, she vaults over him and cuts him a Glasgow Grin with a single sweep of her rapier, cutting into his skull. In the 1997 anime, Casca does the same thing, only she cuts a little higher, bisecting Adon's entire head horizontally. In the second Golden Age movie, she takes one of his swords and stabs him right in his bragging mouth with it.
• In the manga adaptation of Big Hero 6, Tadashi Hamada doesn't die in a fire, he gets sucked into a portal while trying to help Robert Callaghan bring his daughter Abigail back after she disappeared in a Teleporter Accident. His brother Hiro believes that he could be alive in Another Dimension but Baymax confirmed that he wasn't in the Acid-Trip Dimension where they found Abigail.
• Bokurano:
  • In the manga, Kako dies when Chizu stabs him in the neck to stop him from beating up Kirie. In the anime, she pushes him down some stairs when he tries to rape her, and he's killed when the building collapses as a result of a stray missile from a Self-Defense Force fighter.
  • In the manga, Tanaka commits a Heroic Suicide with her sidearm when the enemy robot takes her hostage, so that Kana won't hesitate against it. In the anime, she dies of a gunshot wound inflicted by the men who killed Komo's father.
  • In the manga, Machi dies when an assassin shoots her and leaves her in a vegetative state, forcing Koyemshi to Mercy Kill her. In the anime, she actually gets to pilot, and dies from Zearth taking her life force after winning her battle.
  • In the manga, Koyemshi serves as the tutorial pilot for another universe in the final chapter, and is assumed to die after his figtht. In the anime, Machi kills him in order to save Kana from being forced into the contract.
• In the manga adaptation of Code Geass, Mao dies after being gunned down by the police in the amusement park, as opposed to living a bit longer, taking Nunnally hostage and being shot dead by C.C. after he's thwarted.
• Teru Mikami in Death Note dies mysteriously in prison in the manga shortly after Light's death. The anime has him commit suicide by ballpoint pen just after Light is busted by the SPK.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Ninja Murasaki is never seen again in the manga after Goku punches him out, which means he either perished in the collapse of Muscle Tower or was killed outright by Goku's punch. He shows up alive in an anime filler, where he's blown up by Android 8's bomb.
  • A lot of the Red Ribbon Army's deaths are different in the movie Dragon Ball: The Path to Power.
    • Sergeant Metallic/Major Metallitron NoSells Goku's attacks during his fight, not even when Goku blasts his head off with a Kamehameha, and only stops when his batteries run dry. In Path to Power, Goku takes him out by punching his head off. On a related note, Mystical Adventure has him destroyed when Goku punches a hole through his chest.
    • In the original manga and anime, General Blue is given the chance to redeem himself by fighting and defeating Mercenary Tao which is also meant for Tao to prove what he is capable of. Tao kills General Blue with his tongue. In Path To Power, since Tao doesn't even appear, General Blue is executed for his failure right away by low-level privates.
    • Although Commander Red is still shot by Staff Officer Black, it plays out differently. In the manga and anime, he is shot in the head. In Path To Power, Black shoots him in the side causing him to fall off a ledge.
    • When Staff Officer Black fights Goku in the manga and anime, Goku kills him by punching a hole in the machine he is piloting, causing it to explode. In Path To Power, Goku kills him using a Kamehameha in retaliation over Black killing Android 8.
• In Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan, Paragus is crushed inside his Saiyan space pod by his own son Broly when he tries to abandon him to death by comet impact. In Dragon Ball Super: Broly, Frieza blasts Paragus with a Death Beam in order to give Broly the rage trigger he needs to transform into a Super Saiyan.
• The anime of Fairy Tail is a largely faithful adaptation of the manga, but makes a distinct deviation with how Gray kills Tempester with his Devil Slayer ice. In the manga, Gray freezes him solid with little fanfare; in the anime, Tempester goes down fighting Laxus and disintegrates into toxic mist to take Fairy Tail with him, which Gray turns into harmless snow.
• Fist of the North Star changes up quite a few deaths in the 1986 film:
  • The mook Kubaru meets his end when he hands a main character his hacksaw, only for the character to "test" it by driving it through his skull. While Kenshiro did it in the source material, Rei did so in the film.
  • In the manga and anime, Jackal is accidentally pinned down by the gigantic Devil Rebirth, with both of them perishing due to a stick of Jackal's dynamite. In the film, Devil Rebirth is Adapted Out and Jackal gets killed by Jagi after the former decides to take a peek at the latter's disfigured face.
  • Kiba Daioh is finished off by Kenshiro's Ganzan Ryozan Ha in the source material, while the two of them don't even meet in the movie, where Raoh destroys him with his Touki blast.
  • The Colonel meets his end in the source material when Kenshiro blows all the flesh off his bones with a single strike. The Colonel's one scene in the film has him killed by Shin for daring to resist Raoh's invasion instead of looking for the missing Yuria.
  • In the source material, Shin gets a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Kenshiro, and later jumps to his death so he wouldn't die by his hands. In the film, Shin gets his pressure points struck by Raoh in an off-screen battle and finally buckles when Kenshiro gives him a single punch.
  • Uighur meets his end in the manga and anime when Kenshiro punches him into an empty grave, which his pressure point-struck body contorts to and explodes. The film has him literally cut apart by Rei.
  • The manga/anime and film both have Rei die when Raoh strikes a vital pressure point. The difference is that in the latter, Rei dies within minutes, while in the former, he dies a few days later.
• Full Moon: Mitsuki's Childhood Friend Eichi turns out to be Dead All Along in both manga and anime, but for different reasons. In the manga, it's revealed relatively early that his plane to America crashed. In the anime, it's revealed in the last quarter that Eichi was killed in a car crash shortly after moving to America. Both cases also claimed the lives of his adopted parents.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Due to the 2003 anime's split off from the manga, a majority of deaths that occur are played out differently from the manga and Brotherhood.
  • Father Cornello is killed in both versions when he outlives his usefulness to the Homunculi. The difference is that he's Eaten Alive by Gluttony in the 2003 anime, while Lust stabs him in the head in the manga/Brotherhood (Gluttony still eats his corpse).
  • While the elder Slicer brother dies the same method (helmet split in half by Lust), he dies after his younger brother in the 2003 anime, who commits suicide by destroying his blood seal rather than Envy stabbing through it numerous times with the brother's own sword.
  • Greed's a complicated case in the manga and Brotherhood, as he technically has two deaths: his original body is destroyed and his soul returned to Father, only for him to be reborn much later in Ling Yao's body. His final death happens in the climax, where Father completely severs and destroys his soul. Since Father and Ling don't exist in the 2003 anime, he simply dies being stabbed through the chest in a battle with Edward.
  • Lust is burned to death by Roy Mustang in the manga/Brotherhood, but due to Adaptational Heroism in the 2003 anime, she is instead killed by the 2003 version of Wrath.
  • Barry the Chopper is killed off by Scar in the 2003 anime, while the manga/Brotherhood has his death happen at the hands of his old body erasing the blood seal from the armor his soul is bound to.
  • Winry's parents were killed by Scar in a blind fit of rage in the manga, but Roy Mustang was ordered to kill them in the 2003 anime.
  • King Bradley/Wrath dies of what is presumably extreme loss of blood in the manga/Brotherhood after a battle with Scar leaves him severely wounded and with his arms blown off. In the 2003 anime, Bradley (here Pride) is burned to death by Roy Mustang, akin to Lust's defeat in the manga.
  • Envy and Gluttony are sacrificed in Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa. In the manga and Brotherhood, Gluttony is devoured by Pride while Envy is Driven to Suicide.
• In the manga version of Future Diary, Yuno decapitates John Bacchus with a katana. In the anime adaptation, she gives him a Boom, Headshot! with a pistol.
• The original Gunslinger Girl anime ended before the manga did. As a result, Angelica's death is different between versions: in the manga she was shot while in the anime she degenerated and died at the end of the series. Gunslinger Girl Teatrino retconned this into Angelica just falling asleep, but it's inconsistent if it's a sequel to the original anime or a Soft Reboot (most obviously, Angelica has a completely different design).
• Katerea Leviathan in High School D×D is Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Azazel, but the methods he used to kill her are different. In the original light novels, Azazel uses the light spear to run her through the stomach. In the anime, he give her a Boom, Headshot! with the spear.
• Higurashi: When They Cry: Shion's death at the end of Meakashi-hen differs between the anime and visual novel/manga. In the former, she ripped her shirt while climbing up a building and accidentally fell the entire way down. In the original, her death was intentional; she hit a platform beneath her and, realizing all the atrocities she'd committed, decided to let herself fall to the ground.
• The OVA of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders changes a few deaths from the manga and later TV anime. Sometimes, the killer is the same but their methods are not:
  • Forever gets cut in half by Polnareff instead of getting a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Jotaro and Star Platinum.
  • Enya the Hag is still killed by her flesh bud, but here, it activates on its own rather than being triggered by Steely Dan (who was Adapted Out).
  • Muhammad Avdol technically dies the same way in both mediums - saving Polnareff from getting vaporized by Vanilla Ice's Cream Stand - but the circumstances are different. While the manga/anime has him Taking the Bullet head-on, the OVA has him shove Polnareff aside when Vanilla Ice launches Cream from above. The OVA also has Avdol attacking DIO's coffin with Magician's Red, only to get stuffed in there like the Adapted Out Nukesaku.
  • Iggy is still killed by Vanilla Ice, but here, he's Portal Cut in half and kicked to a wall instead of getting beaten to death.
  • Vanilla Ice is still killed by Polnareff, but here, Polnareff stabs him and cuts off the top of his head rather than expose him to sunlight.
  • Senator Phillips is killed when he, in a fit of insanity, accidentally drives his car straight into a train. His manga counterpart is killed when DIO uses him as a human projectile.
• Larxene's death in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories was changed in the manga adaptation from fading away like most Nobodies, to self-destructing from contact with water.
• In Kinnikuman, Brockenman is killed in the ring by Ramenman's Camel Clutch, but the specifics are different in the manga and anime. In the manga, Brockenman is torn in half, while in the anime, his back is broken, and he's turned into Ramen Noodles. Which Ramenman eats.
• In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (2005), Agahnim is killed by Ganon when the Demon King decides that his servant has outlived his usefulness. In the original game, Agahnim is just an avatar of Ganon that gets killed by Link with the Master Sword.
• Live A Live changes up the fates of the Big Bad Duumvirate in its manga adaptation of the Near Future chapter, all of whom were consumed by their lake of liquefied humans upon Odeo's destruction in the game.:
  • General Yamazaki is vaporized by the Steel Titan's Halogen Laser when he leads his army against it.
  • Dr. Livingstill is implied to be destroyed along with Odeo by the Steel Titan's Finishing Move.
  • Only Priest Unryu shares his game counterpart's fate, but it happens in the manga before Odeo awakens.
• Macross Delta: In the TV series, Keith shoots Messer Ihlefeld through his cockpit, killing him instantly. In the movie, Messer dodges that shot and overexerts himself while listening to Kaname's song in order to defeat Keith. After shooting down Keith's Valkyrie, Messer gets out of his cockpit and dies in Kaname's arms.
• Macross: Do You Remember Love?:
  • The film gives us a two-fer in the same scene: Roy Focker and Kamujin both die in the climactic escape from Britai's flagship, locked in combat. Roy pulls a Taking You with Me by shooting Kamujin in the back while Kamujin is grappling with him, causing them both to die in the explosion of Roy's Valkyrie. In Super Dimension Fortress Macross, the two never even meet, let alone kill each other. Roy was killed by a lucky shot from Millia. Kamujin, on the other hand, didn't die until the last episode, where he perished during a final futile kamikaze run against the Macross.
  • Hayao Kakizaki is shot down by the aforementioned Millia while he's laughing off the possibility that the Meltrandi are as dangerous as the Zentraedi. In the series, Kakizaki is caught in the explosion of the Macross's barrier system.
  • Boddole Zer meets his end in the series when the Macross blasts him to bits, while Hikaru in his Valkyrie does the deed in the film.
• Alcyone in Magic Knight Rayearth dies differently in the manga and anime versions. In the manga, she is mortally wounded after her second encounter with the Magic Knights, and Zagato lets her die. In the second season of the anime, Debonair erases her from existence after Alcyone spills the beans on her.
• While the underlying cause is the same (performing a Heroic Sacrifice to stop the Book of Darkness), the exact details for how Clyde Harlaown was killed in the backstory of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's are different between the series and the movie. In the series he has Gil Graham blow up his ship once the rest of the crew has been evacuated, while in the movie (where Gil Graham was Adapted Out) he flew the book away on an escape pod which then blew up when the book went haywire.
• Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Rebellion: Lt. Dick Allen survives the blast from the Dom that killed him in Stardust Memory and plays a bigger role in the story. He performs a Heroic Sacrifice during the attempt to stop the HLV's take off by ramming his plane into a superweapon that was about to destroy the Albion.
• Moriarty the Patriot uses a fan theory of famed blackmailer Charles Augustus Milverton's death where Sherlock kills him and Watson covers it up in his publication of the story but the series expands the reasoning behind which is to protect Watson and Mary. In the original canon, Milverton was killed by an unknown woman whose husband was one of his victims.
• One Piece:
  • The 4Kids dub tries to censor Bellemere's death by changing it to where Arlong has her thrown in a dungeon for life rather than shooting her in the head (at least she is still established to have died, which is a lot more than can be said for many other characters).
  • Gol D. Roger's execution method varies between almost all mediums: the original manga never says it outright and obscures the art, but it's virtually certain he was beheaded (the same setup is seen in-action on his son Portgas D. Ace). The Viz manga takes the hint and says "lopped off his head" outright. Meanwhile, the anime shows a double impalement through the heart, while the 4Kids dub claims he was hanged (which was, interestingly, what most real-life pirates faced).
• Ōoku: The Inner Chambers:
  • While Wikipedia doesn't list a cause of death for Shogun Iemitsu, by virtue of Iemitsu being Gender Flipped and dying from her health being wrecked by pregnancies and miscarriages, by default she falls under this trope, as does Shogun Ienobu, who also died from her health wrecked by an advanced age pregnancy.
    • It should be noted that's Iemitsu the Younger. But Iemitsu the Elder (the non gender flipped one) is also an example, as he died of the fictional Redface Pox that was the Point of Divergence that diverged this history from the real one.
  • Shogun Iesada died of cholera in real life but here she dies of jaundice induced by her pregnancy, though this wasn't found out until the very end of the manga, and poison had been suspected by her husband.
  • While in real life contemporaries of the time suspected that Emperor Komei had been assassinated by radicals wanting to put his teenage son on the throne, there was no proof of this and it's generally agreed he died of smallpox. Here, he really was assassinated by radicals wanting to put the future Emperor Meiji on the throne to force their anti-shogunate policies through.
  • The real life Hiiraga Gennai died in prison from tetanus after being convicted of murder. Ooku's female Gennai died of syphilis contracted when she had been raped by thugs.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Homura's Revenge! plays with this trope, as two canonical deaths still happen the same way, but the exact time and reason behind them have altered.
  • Mami Tomoe still dies from getting her head bitten off by a Witch, but it happens later in the fight than originally. Madoka managed to knock Mami out of the way of the initial attack, resulting in Mami having another chance and fighting the Witch better than before. It's only when the Witch is presumed defeated properly that she manages to get the jump on Mami.
  • Sayaka Miki still turns into her Witch form Oktavia, but this time it wasn't due to her mental health slipping from her love troubles, having the knowledge of what magical girls actually are, and becoming cynical and nihilistic from not living up to her own ideal standards. Instead, she overuses her magic by fighting excessively to improve her swordsmanship and continuously using her Healing Factor, until she ran out of magic entirely.
• Rebuild of Evangelion:
  • In the original series, Kaworu famously asked Shinji to kill him in order to prevent him from merging with Lilith and causing Third Impact. In the third movie, he instead blows himself up with Shinji's Explosive Leash in order to avert Fourth Impact.
  • In the original series, Keel Lorenz and the rest of the SEELE council were reduced to LCL fluid during Third Impact. In the films, they're instead betrayed and killed by Gendo so that he can take control of their plan for Human Instrumentality.
  • Likewise, in the series, Kaji was shot and killed by an unidentified assassin after his Double Reverse Quadruple Agent status was revealed. The final Rebuild movie instead reveals that he performed a Heroic Sacrifice to avert Third Impact after Shinji's battle with Zeruel.
  • In End of Evangelion, Misato died after being shot by enemy soldiers while trying to protect Shinji. In Thrice Upon a Time, she instead rams the Wunder into Imaginary Lilith in order to get the Spear of Gaius to Shinji.
  • Also, in End of Evangelion, Gendo is bitten in half by EVA 01 (controlled by the soul of his wife Yui) for his crimes. In Thrice Upon a Time, Gendo instead has a Heel Realization and sacrifices himself alongside Yui in order to destroy all Evangelions and undo Instrumentality once and for all.
• Reincarnated as a Sword:
  • In the manga, a slave merchant is killed while trying to run from a bear when he slips and gets impaled through the eye by a tree root. In the anime, he gets pinned under a slave's corpse and is mauled to death by the bear.
  • In the light novel and manga, Teacher kills the slave owner who was abusing Fran by stabbing him through the head. In the anime, Teacher uses telekinesis to break the slave owner's neck.
• In the original Akira Kurasawa movie The Seven Samurai had Kyuuzo, Gorobei, Heihachi, and Kikuchou die from gunshots. In the later anime Samurai 7, however, while Kyuuzo still died of gunfire, Gorobei, Heihachi, and Kikuchou's deaths were portrayed more as Heroic Sacrifices.
• In the anime of School-Live! Taromaru the dog is bitten by the zombified Megumi and later dies after he is given the cure but his body gives out from the stress. In the manga Taromaru only shows up in a single flashback and becomes a zombie a page later with his ultimate fate left unsaid (though there are implications that Kurumi killed him), existing largely just as part of an explanation about the behaviour of the zombies and that the virus can infect any mammal.
• Science Ninja Team Gatchaman: The last episode of the series has Berg Katse jump into a volcano. The OVA has Katse killed by Ken in a duel.
• Shadow Star: Tomonori Komori meets his end in the manga when Hoshimaru flicks a replicated plane strut at him. In the anime, Hoshimaru's weapon is instead a duplicate of Komori's Shadow Dragon, Push Dagger, due to their earlier confrontation aboard an airplane getting Adapted Out.
• Space Runaway Ideon: In the TV series, Kitty was shot by Daram Zuba while trying to protect one of the orphans. In the movie, she died in an explosion and Cosmo sees her head flying off.
• Tentomushi no Uta: In the original manga, the parents of the Isshuu siblings died in a plane accident. In the anime, they died from the stress of overwork in doing their best to take care of their seven children.
• In Trigun, Wolfwood is fatally wounded and dies alone in a church in the anime and dies from an overdose of regenerative drugs with Vash by his side during his final moments in the manga. Note that Wolfwood hadn't died yet in the manga when the anime was made.
• In X1999, the deaths of some character differs in every adaptation such as:
  • Kotori's death. In the manga, she was crucified and Fuuma stabs and beheads her. In the TV series, it's the same but there's no beheading. In the movie, she tries to reach Kamui but Fuuma grabs her and pulls the Shinken out of her body, killing her.
  • Though Yuto is still alive in the manga, his death differs in the movie and the TV series. In the former, Fuuma brutally kills him out of a whim while in the TV series, Karen uses all her power to defeat him, culminating in a Taking You with Me.
  • Nataku's death also differs in every adaptation. In the manga, he was killed by Fuuma while protecting Karen. In the movie, Aoki takes down him which also costs him his own life. In the TV series, he gives up his life to Fuuma, who was severely injured from Sorata's attack.
  • With the exception of the TV series where she is alive, the manner of Kanoe's death differs in every adaptation. In the manga, she was killed by Hinoto's evil side after she meets and suspects that something's different with her sister's personality. In the movie, Fuuma stabs her out of a whim.
  • Daisuke was killed by Fuuma but the manner of his death differs: Fuuma chops his head off in the manga but his head remains intact in the TV series.