Examples of Evil Is Not a Toy in anime and manga.
- Bakugan:
- In the first season, this is played straight and later Subverted. Naga attempted to absorb the power of the two cores of Vestroia to become all-powerful. He began with the Silent Core, the negative energy source. It proved too much for him however, and he got sucked into it. When that happened, he destabilized the Silent Core and released its negative energy across Vestroia, threatening to erode the dimension into nothing and causing the Bakugan there to fall into Earth. Eventually though, Naga does manage to gain control over the power of the Silent Core, even assimilating it into his own body with no negative effects.
- In New Vestroia, there’s the Forbidden Cards, dark Ability Cards that are essentially the Bakugan equivalent of steroids, forcibly boosting a Bakugan’s power at the risk of killing them. Spectra used them on Drago when he takes control of him, using the Forbidden Cards to force Drago to access the Perfect Core’s powers. In this case, not only did Spectra threaten to destroy Drago, but all of New Vestroia as well, as the Perfect Core was symbiotically linked to Drago.
- Beyblade Metal Saga:
- Beyblade: Metal Fusion: In this series, there's Lightning L-Drago, the very first Beyblade, or, as it's more commonly known, the Forbidden Bey. The reason for that name? Throughout history, it’s been passed down through the hands of evil men, absorbing the energy of negative emotions and rage in order to strengthen and evolve itself. Every person who wielded the Bey eventually ended up being overwhelmed and killed by its dark power. As for the Bey itself, its only real goals are to absorb power and spread darkness everywhere, which would lead to The End of the World as We Know It. Before the series started, it was defeated by the Bey Storm Pegasus, and sealed in Koma Village. Then, the Dark Nebula Organization stole L-Drago, placing it in the hands of Ryuga, who it chose as its newest Blader. Immediately, it fed on Ryuga’s life force, forcing him into a coma. After Gingka inadvertently causes Ryuga to reawaken, the Dark Nebula immediately sets to work feeding the dark Bey, organizing the Battle Bladers tournament to instigate the development of powerful Bladers so that Ryuga may drain their powers into L-Drago. During the tournament, Ryuga sacrifices the souls of the Bladers he battles there to it, as well as those of the defeated Dark Nebula members (minus Yu). Finally, in his battle with Kyoya, the fight becomes so intense that the dark spirit within L-Drago finally starts taking action, possessing Ryuga. In this first instance, it was temporary. In the second, during Ryuga’s final battle with Gingka…not so much, and this time, L-Drago is all set to destroy the world. Ryuga’s only saved thanks to Gingka and his friends managing to overcome L-Drago.
- In the following installment, Metal Masters, this ends up being Subverted, however. After the end of his battle with Gingka, Ryuga took L-Drago and set off on his own again. When he returns in Metal Masters, he explains that, after being freed from L-Drago’s control, he came to a realization: the evil in the Bey that possessed him was engendered in the Bey by humans. If that darkness was introduced by humans, then Ryuga, a human, should be able to overcome it, right? And that’s exactly what he did. Undergoing Training from Hell, including involving lava, Ryuga purged the dark power from Lightning L-Drago, exposing its “true form”: Meteo L-Drago. In this case, the “Toy” itself wasn’t evil, it was grown that way, and then the evil got excised from the “Toy”.
- Beyblade: Metal Masters: Dr. Ziggurat, using the Arrangement process, “rebuilt” Masamune and Zeo’s old friend Toby into Faust, the so-called "strongest Blader" to act as the wielder for the Beyblade Twisted Tempo, created for the purpose of generating Spiral Force, a revolutionary new energy source created by Ziggurat, so Ziggurat may sell it to the highest bidder. When Gingka, Masamune, and Ryuga manage to defeat Faust in battle, the Spiral Force reactor ends up damaged, threatening to melt down and destroy the world. To make matters worse, Faust is ready to make Tempo spin once more and create more Spiral Force. Ziggurat orders him not to, since that would accelerate the meltdown. Faust doesn’t listen, as he only exists for one purpose: to make Tempo spin and generate Spiral Force, exactly as Ziggurat programmed him.
- Beyblade: Metal Fusion: In this series, there's Lightning L-Drago, the very first Beyblade, or, as it's more commonly known, the Forbidden Bey. The reason for that name? Throughout history, it’s been passed down through the hands of evil men, absorbing the energy of negative emotions and rage in order to strengthen and evolve itself. Every person who wielded the Bey eventually ended up being overwhelmed and killed by its dark power. As for the Bey itself, its only real goals are to absorb power and spread darkness everywhere, which would lead to The End of the World as We Know It. Before the series started, it was defeated by the Bey Storm Pegasus, and sealed in Koma Village. Then, the Dark Nebula Organization stole L-Drago, placing it in the hands of Ryuga, who it chose as its newest Blader. Immediately, it fed on Ryuga’s life force, forcing him into a coma. After Gingka inadvertently causes Ryuga to reawaken, the Dark Nebula immediately sets to work feeding the dark Bey, organizing the Battle Bladers tournament to instigate the development of powerful Bladers so that Ryuga may drain their powers into L-Drago. During the tournament, Ryuga sacrifices the souls of the Bladers he battles there to it, as well as those of the defeated Dark Nebula members (minus Yu). Finally, in his battle with Kyoya, the fight becomes so intense that the dark spirit within L-Drago finally starts taking action, possessing Ryuga. In this first instance, it was temporary. In the second, during Ryuga’s final battle with Gingka…not so much, and this time, L-Drago is all set to destroy the world. Ryuga’s only saved thanks to Gingka and his friends managing to overcome L-Drago.
- In the Hentai series Bible Black, whenever the main protagonists get a hold of the black bible, it starts out with them using some minor curses and spells (including love spells) for fun and profit, but it eventually devolves into a series of rapes and Human Sacrifice in order to complete a contract with the Lord of Darkness.
- Alan Gabriel in The Big O learns the hard way what happens when somebody thinks the Megadeuces are just a type of Humongous Mecha. Ye Guilty.
- In Brave10, despite what Hanzo and Date think it's quite clear that Izanami is a dangerous force that cannot be controlled and should not be messed with.
- This trope is a common theme in Chrono Crusade, usually having to do with the demons. The most obvious examples are the New York mobsters that think they can use demons as hit men, and Rosette's brother Joshua, who accepted a Deal with the Devil to have a pair of demon horns on his head.
- Death Note has Ryuk toward Light. Ryuk dropped a Death Note close by for Light to pick up, basically giving him a chance to kill people by the stroke of a pen, and for most of the series, Ryuk more appears like a Harmless Villain, looks creepy, but ultimately spends his time watching Light's antics, eating apples or playing Mario Golf. It isn't until the end, when Light has been exposed as Kira and has "become boring" that Ryuk proves that he's still a Shinigami and writes Light's name into his own Death Note, just as Ryuk told him he eventually would.
- Digimon:
- In the English dub of Digimon Adventure 02, when creating Kimeramon, Ken/the Digimon Emperor comes across the remains of Devimon, who warns him that "the powers of darkness cannot be controlled." Ken dismisses the warning and harvests Devimon's data to use in Kimeramon's creation; sure enough, Devimon's influence soon leads Kimeramon to turn against his creator. In the original Japanese, however, the remains of Devimon are just non-sentinent data and Kimeramon stays loyal to the Digimon Emperor until his defeat.
- Digimon Data Squad: Professor Akihiro Kurata took the Digi-Egg of the ancient evil Digimon Belphemon, seeking to use him as a weapon. Kurata reinvigorated the ancient evil by massacring Digimon to collect their life force to feed him. When Belphemon is awakened, Kurata, recognizing the danger, forces Thomas to build him a special controller to command Belphemon. All seems to go well for Kurata…until the controller blows up, Thomas having sabotaged it. Without the controller, Kurata decides to fuse himself with Belphemon, releasing Belphemon’s true power and using his body as his own. However, before long, Belphemon’s consciousness resurfaces and he retakes control of his body, leaving Kurata trapped within him. It’s Subverted in the end as Kurata manages to break free and gain absolute control of Belphemon’s body.
- In Digimon Fusion, DarkKnightmon attempts to forcibly absorb his elder brother Big Bad Bagramon and use his powers to rule the world. It backfires spectacularly and Bagramon devours him instead, digivolving to Darkness Bagramon, the final boss.
- One of the tie-in games has the demon lord Barbamon spend the entire game trying to resurrect an ancient weapon Digimon named Armamon. He succeeds, and in a Karmic Transformation, is transformed into a sword and used as a weapon against the heroes.
- Happens again in the Digimon World Data Squad tie-in. The main human villain unseals Lucemon, the most powerful of the demon lords, saying We Can Rule Together. Lucemon promptly eats him and uses him as a power source for the entirety of the final boss fight.
- Dragon Ball:
- Emperor Pilaf, the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain from early Dragon Ball, comes across the jar containing the Demon King Piccolo and releases him, hoping to mooch off of Piccolo's conquest. Piccolo initially goes along with it, but the minute he's used the Dragon Balls to restore his youth and full power, he kicks Pilaf and his Co-Dragons off of their own airship, after which Mai remarks to Pilaf that they never should have trusted King Piccolo, let alone set him loose, to begin with.
- A character's suggestion that Master Shen, the villain of the immediately preceding arc, may have been responsible for releasing the aforementioned King Piccolo is immediately dismissed, as Shen bore firsthand witness to Piccolo's previous reign of terror and would never contemplate reintroducing him to the world.
- In Dragon Ball Z, Dr. Gero releases Androids 17 and 18, hoping to be able to control them with a remote control which 17 promptly takes away from him and breaks. A somewhat unusual case in that Gero was the one who created the Androids in the first place, and knew that he was taking a big gamble when he activated them. A gamble that doesn't pay off; both androids hated Gero personally and 17 took the first chance he could get to kill Gero.
- Babidi's goal is to unseal Majin Buu, an extraordinarily capricious, destructive, and powerful entity that his 'father'/creator Bibidi was only barely able to control with a sealing spell. Notably, the actual demon he's working with (Dabura) immediately points out that Buu can't be trusted and shouldn't be relied on... but Babidi is so drunk on his success that he allows Buu to kill Dabura. Babidi actually did manage to control Buu and even be a Bad Boss to him for a while because he knew a spell to seal Buu away... until Goku points out that Buu is both stronger and faster than Babidi and didn't have to take it. Buu promptly prevented Babidi from reciting the spell by strangling him and asploded his head with one punch. The immediate consequences of Buu betraying Babidi are largely positive (for everyone but Babidi, of course), since he didn't really have anything personally driving him to take over the world, and his capricious frolicking leads him to accidentally discover that Good Feels Good...until a mad gunman tries to shoot him and nearly kills his new puppy in the process. Cue Enemy Without.
- In the Universe Survival Saga of Dragon Ball Super, when Majin Buu falls into a two-month long hibernation, leaving them one member short for the Tournament of Power, Goku, having no other choice, arranges for Fortuneteller Baba to revive Frieza for one day to compete for them. Frieza makes it very clear to Goku and the Z-Fighters that they have only the barest vestiges of a leash on him, and immediately starts plotting against them. Subverted by the end. A combination of Pragmatic Villainy and the Final Boss of the tournament really being that strong leads to Frieza legitimately working alongside the heroes to win. As promised, Whis revives Frieza, who leaves without any further drama.
- In chapter 242 of Fairy Tail, Zancrow gloats about retrieving Zeref. Seconds later, he is slain by a burst of Zeref's uncontrollable "Death Magic".
- Hades wastes no time following his example. While trying to get the proper tools to undo the seal, Zeref informs him that he's wasting his time, that he has no interest in helping create Hades' magic horror world, and also that Hades trying to drag him into the whole thing has angered him enough to intentionally kill him.
- Fate/Zero Tokiomi Tohsaka believed he was manipulating Gilgamesh and Kirei Kotomine into winning the Holy Grail War for himself. He was dead wrong. Gilgamesh saw through Tokiomi's servile facade instantly, and the moment he lost interest he set Tokiomi up for death. Tokiomi thought he could control Gilgamesh with Command Seals but he never thought Gilgamesh would just ask Kirei to kill him.
- Hell Girl both subverts it and plays it straight.
- Subverted in that Ai can be summoned by humans through her website in a fairly simple manner and will kill the person she's ordered to as promised. However, as she warns you, the cost of having her do this is that you get dragged down to Hell upon your own death too. This contract is made clear, both in effects and consequences before it is entered into, and there are no hidden costs or tricks to bring about the human's "repayment" sooner or make the remainder of their life miserable, but it is obviously not to be entered into lightly due to the steep cost. Once Ai fulfills her end of the contract, neither she, nor her minions will further involve themselves in your life unless someone else uses the Hell Correspondence to have you sent to Hell.
- Played straight in that, over the course of the series, certain people make attempts to capture and/or control Ai for her abilities or to avoid the cost of her services, but that never works and generally backfires horribly.
- InuYasha:
- Onigumo made his fateful deal with demons to become Naraku hoping he'd be able to control his new body. Instead, the demons suppress his consciousness, leaving Naraku himself in full control, with the only real remnant of Onigumo himself being his desire for Kikyo.
- In the first movie, Ruri, one of Menomaru's Co-Dragons, copies Miroku's Wind Tunnel for her own use. During the climax of the film, she deliberately uses a knife to expand her own Wind Tunnel in an effort to overwhelm Miroku, only for it to promptly breach the confines of her palm and consume her. That's what happens when the power you copied is the product of a demon's curse, Ruri.
- At one point, Naraku deliberately breaks the seal on Ryukotsusei, the dragon daiyokai who slew Inuyasha's father and was sealed by him in turn, and tries to encourage him to avenge himself by killing Inuyasha. Instead, Ryukotsusei attacks Naraku himself, deeming him to be nothing but an eye-sore, before electing to fight Inuyasha simply out of boredom.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Surprisingly subverted with Stroheim in Battle Tendency. The story plays out in such a way to make the viewer believe it's going with the standard plot of "Nazis unearth some ancient evil power and try to find a way to harness it, only for it to blow up in their faces." However, it's revealed that, as soon as they discovered Santana and the power he possessed, they realized that he's far beyond their control, and Stroheim was trying to find a way to destroy him instead. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop Santana from awakening and wreaking havoc anyway.
- Stone Ocean: On the verge of being beaten by Jolyne and Ermes, Donatello Versus makes a desperate move by restoring Weather Report's memories. After realizing what Versus has done, Pucci advises him that he's severely underestimating on what's been unleashed, and isn't long before Versus is hit with effects of it.
- Jujutsu Kaisen: "I Am Not a Toy" should be the title of Sukuna's biography; every time he's forced to intervene in the plot against his will (usually by being forced to take over Yuji's body), things tend to end badly for the party responsible.
- When Yuji finds himself cornered against a Finger Bearer and forces Sukuna to take over, the latter has no interest in dealing with the Finger Bearer, and instead tries to think of a way to make Yuji suffer for his audacity. When the Finger Bearer goes and attacks him anyway, Sukuna reluctantly shows it the difference in their power, accidentally healing Yuji's injuries in the process of defending himself. When Yuji is unable to regain control due to forcing Sukuna to come out, the latter ecstatically improvises a plan to regain control whenever he wants by tearing out Yuji's heart, then forming a Binding Vow with him in exchange for healing him, throwing in an added clause that leaves Yuji unable to remember the deal at all.
- Mahito tries to use Idle Transfiguration to force Sukuna to take over Yuji's body during their fight, only for Sukuna, who is offended at Mahito touching his soul, to drag Mahito into his Mental World and coldly warn him not to try that again (only letting it slide the first time because both laughed at Yuji's inability to save Junpei). Later, Yuji unwittingly exploits this trope by forcing his way into Mahito's Domain Expansion, which forces his technique to always hit anyone inside, including Sukuna; the King of Curses then slashes Mahito, uncaring that the latter wasn't even trying to reach him this time.Sukuna: You dare touch my soul? Since we both heartily ridiculed that brat together, I'll allow it once. There won't be a second time. Know your place, fool.
- During the Shibuya Incident, Jogo and two curse users force-feed Yuji several of Sukuna's fingers in order to force the latter to come out so they can make their own deals with him. Sukuna is less than amused at others telling him what to do or trying to use him: he kills the two girls, then challenges Jogo to a fight where he offers to make that deal if Jogo can land a single hit on him, which ends with a flaming meteor landing on Shibuya and the Disaster Curse dead after a Worthy Opponent compliment. Then, to make matters worse, Sukuna decides to fight Mahoraga in order to save Megumi's life (as Sukuna has plans for him); the fight leaves Shibuya decimated and thousands of people dead.
- Mazinger Z gives a textbook example.
- Dr. Hell searched and found the army of giant robots that legends rumored the lost civilization Mykene used, and thought he could control them through the rod of Rhode (a device he invented) and use them to Take Over the World. However, the Mykene civilization still existed, thriving underground... and Dr. Hell stealing their ancient weapons drew their attention back to the surface. One of them confronted Hell, accusing him of thieving their Lost Technology and demanding he returned it. Hell tried to bargain with him, and the Mykene messenger pretended to agree, but in reality he planned backstabbing Hell as soon as possible — which he did — to allow the Mykene Empire conquer the surface world instead of Hell.
- He also does it in an one-shot chapter drawn by Ken Ishikawa (called Mazinger-Z: Relic of Terror and later adapted to Mazinkaiser manga and Shin Mazinger) with the Kedora: Mykene bio-computers that can take over any machine. There's just one problem: The Mykenes designed them specifically to wipe out any non-Mykene civilization they found. Lucky for him, Dr. Hell had only activated one of them before he found that out, and promptly destroyed the rest.
- In Monster, various shady forces — a conspiracy or two consisting of Neo-Nazis, Mad Scientists, and ex-Secret Police, among others — all want to use Johan to bring about their One World Order. Johan is also implied to be The Antichrist. For real. As Tenma points out, he is not interested in ideas of racial or ethnic superiority, for he "laughs at all of humanity". Ultimately he plays along with their plans for his own ends — namely, The End of the World as We Know It — only to suffer an existential crisis and murder them all as a kind of metaphorical "suicide", vis a vis erasing everyone and everything who has any significant connection to him, while planning to be shot by Tenma. The last part fails, but the conspirators' plan never had a hope.
- My Hero Academia: During the Paranormal Liberation War, Tomura Shigaraki accepts All for One to become more powerful, only to find that the Quirk brought along a copy of its original owner's personality. There's a drawn out power struggle between them over Tomura's body, which ends with them merging into a single personality with All For One in control, but able to use Tomura's immense hatred as a weapon in order to steal One For All. And then, in the final battle, Tomura manages to retake full control. Whether you consider this to be Evil is Not a Toy or Hijacking Cthulhu depends a lot on which of them you consider to be the greater evil.
- In Naruto, the First Hokage used his Wood Release techniques to capture several of the tailed beasts and divided them among the other shinobi villages both as peace treaties and to stabilize the balance of power. However, being monstrous embodiments of chakra energy, the villages had trouble with just containing them and attempts to utilize their power were often met with mixed results (like Gaara and the Shukaku).
- But completely averted with Tobi, who was able to use his sharingan alone to bind the Kyuubi (the most powerful of the tailed beasts) to his will and attack both the Hokage and the Hidden Leaf Village separately (along with controlling the Sanbi and its human host in a flashback). His Evil Plan involves using the seven beasts he already captured to make 100,000 Zetsu from their chakra, with the overall goal of combining all the captured tailed beasts into one colossal ten-tailed beast, become its host, and use its power to place the entire world under his control with his Tsukuyomi technique.
- Also averted by Killer B, for whom the more appropriate trope would be Evil Is A Toy And Also Your Best Friend. He managed to become allies with the Hachibi, while Yugito appears to have had a decent relationship with the Nibi, which means that it makes a bit more sense for others to try it, too.
- To his credit, post-time-skip Gaara was shown to be more or less in complete control of Shukaku by the time he became the Kazekage. Whether he had made peace with it (like Killer B) or had simply worked up the willpower to completely suppress its murderous tendencies wasn't revealed before the Akatsuki ripped it out of him.
- During the Fourth Shinobi World War, Naruto actually has a talk with eight of the nine beasts and discovers that not only are they all individual sentient beings with varying personalities, they were once all pretty nice. Once the Sage of the Six Paths died, however, people began treating them like monsters and they became monsters in retaliation. With Naruto treating them like people, they all offer him their support and he's able to break Kurama/the Kyuubi's seal and let him share his body as an ally. So it turns out to be Evil Responds Well To Being Treated Like A Person.
- During the beginning of the Fourth Shinobi World War, Kabuto Yakushi uses Orochimaru's Edo Tensei jutsu to resurrect several past characters as zombies under his control, including the real Madara Uchiha. When Kabuto is defeated and the jutsu is broken, Madara frees himself from the seal binding him to it, telling the five Kages to make sure to punish Kabuto for delving in forbidden jutsu before making his escape.
- Even Madara Uchiha admits that the Ten-tails might be difficult to control as it mutates. That said, when he finally merges with it he has no problem handling it because they want the same thing.
- And then, Madara gets hit by this when his ultimate plan turns out to have just been the resurrection scheme of someone even worse, who immediately possesses him.
- Night Warriors: Darkstalker's Revenge has a city ruler place a bounty on the ghostly samurai Bishamon, and even hires Donovan to defeat the monster, but the ruler's true intention was to own Hannya, the cursed armor. When Donovan manages to beat Bishamon via making the ghost suffer a Villainous Breakdown, the ruler arrives, and upon seeing Hannya lying dormant, claims the armor by donning it. He only gets a moment to celebrate before the armor kills him, reducing him to a mere skull that crumbles away in his assistant's hands.
- In Pokémon: The Series, both of The Don Giovanni's attempts to Take Over the World failed as a result of this. He created the Ultimate Life Form Mewtwo and kept him in line by promising they were partners, only to later insult him and get his base blown up in exchange. After Team Rocket follows Ash to Unova he tries again with Meloetta and the Forces of Nature, only to end up possessed by the Reveal Glass and needing the Terrible Trio to save him. After this he's seemingly content with simply maintaining his criminal empire.
- Rosario + Vampire: Gyokuro steals Moka's rosary and uses it to control Alucard. It works at first, but Moka ultimately takes back her rosary, and Gyokuro is promptly devoured by Alucard as a result.
- Kaolinite was instantly killed by Mistress 9 in Sailor Moon upon her revival. Likewise Metaria possessed Queen Beryl in the end of the first season.
- In episode 3 of Soul Eater, a witch revives an ancient pharaoh and says he is now her servant. The pharaoh angrily eats her alive and goes back to sleep. Several groups try to manipulate the Great Old Ones, Asura in particular, and run into trouble trying to get personifications of human madness to do what they want. Medusa's more indirect attempt by leading Crona down the path of becoming a replacement for Asura is more successful because she has no intention of controlling the final outcome.
- In Star Driver, Glittering Crux gets a taste of this in episode 14 when their Maiden seeking Cybody Ayingott turns out to be an evil robotic horror that overpowers its own Driver and goes berserk. It immediately attacks the Crux leaders. Only Takuto's and Sugata's intervention prevents things from getting worse.
- Tears to Tiara kicks off the plot with the evil High Priest Drwc releasing the Demon King Arawn from his 1000 years of slumber in the first episode. Arawn kills Drwc shortly afterward, but instead of being the Big Bad, Arawn turns out to be the Noble Demon protagonist.
- Umineko: When They Cry: If setting up a family meeting just so you can sacrifice the whole lot of them to a witch to bring her back to life seems like a good idea, you probably need your head examined. Appropriately enough, Kinzo tends to be found dead on a regular basis. However, it turns out to be a subversion; he's been dead for more than a year.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! has several examples through out its seasons and spinoffs:
- Pegasus takes ancient magic duels that nearly destroyed the world and resurrects them as a card game, thereby threatening to incur the wrath of the Egyptian God Monsters. No wonder the game soon became Serious Business.
- The Seal of Orichalcos. As many villains of the DOMA Arc discovered, this cursed card does not play favorites.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
- Both Atticus Rhodes (Fubuki Tenjoin in the original Japanese) and Yusuke Fujiwara seem to have trouble grasping this concept. Both end up using a Mask of Power and developing a Superpowered Evil Side. Season 4 then Played With this example. As it turns out, Yusuke was the one who brought out the mask's owner, Nightshroud (Darkness in the original Japanese) for the sake of gaining power. When the ritual went wrong, Yusuke left behind the Mask of Power to Atticus as a parting gift. Atticus only donned the mask when he was forced to do so in order to save himself in the Gravekeepers' world.
- Brron, Mad King of Dark World, tries to defeat Jaden by forcing him into despair by killing his friends. This activates Jaden's Superpowered Evil Side, and does not end well for Brron.
- Zane Truesdale developed heart problems after forcing his opponents into duels in which both players wear collars that release electricity whenever the player takes damage. Season 4 Played With this, also. As it turns out, Zane's heart wasn't damaged by the shock collars, but rather by his new Cyberdark deck. Sheppard actually warned Zane before he procured the cards that the deck was actually cursed. Zane didn't care, and became so crippled by the Cyberdark curse that he ended up needing a wheelchair by the end of the series.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds has the Dark Signers, people after dying make a deal with the Earthbound Immortals. Once someone becomes a Dark Signer, they have to follow the orders of the Earthbound Immortals and if they have moral qualms about it, the Earthbound Immortals mind control the Dark Signers into continuing the fight against the Signers. You do not make a deal with dark gods and get to just walk out of it.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL: After being defeated for the second time by Yuma and Astral, Vector releases the Barian deity Don Thousand, offering to become his host in exchange for power. Alito points out to Vector how stupid he is in doing this, saying that Don Thousand will destroy everything, including Vector. Don Thousand, seeking to restore his powers in full, has Vector begin killing off and absorbing the other Barian Emperors one by one. After absorbing 4 Emperors, Vector becomes so Drunk with Power that he declares himself even stronger than Don Thousand, and even seemingly manages to destroy him. After Nash defeats him, however, Don Thousand is revealed to be alive, and he berates Vector for his arrogance before absorbing him, too.
- The Ghingnham faction in ∀ Gundam. Both Agrippa Maintainer and Guin Sard Rhineford believe that Gym Ghingnham and his faction of the lunar military are Dumb Muscle who they can use to accomplish their goals. They fail to grasp that Gym is a highly intelligent Blood Knight who is using them in his bid to reawaken humanity's "warlike instinct" and will happily bulldoze them once they're no longer useful to him. This is obviously not in line with Agrippa's wish to suppress the history of war, and Guin loses his flagship to a stray shot by Gym's Gundam and ends the series as a fugitive in hiding.
