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Godzilla Threshold / Anime & Manga

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Examples of Godzilla Threshold from Anime & Manga:

Examples:

  • In The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance, in a mix of Godzilla Threshold and Too Dumb to Live, mankind decides to implement Operation Dark Storm, which would block out the sun with no apparent ways to reverse the effects. This cuts off the machines' power supply, but also kills all vegetation and phytoplankton, destroying the foundation for the Earth's biosphere (Hence the Too Dumb to Live, as things humans need require the sun). They were willing to perform a Class 4 Apocalypse, without any logical thinking or objections, just to beat the machines. Because of this bad planning, this doesn't work, and mankind eventually loses the war anyway.
  • The human race in Attack on Titan lives here and has for over a century. Every side and faction in the story embraces methods that are normally horrifying and even downright wrong, including the heroes, although some are more evil than others, and it's all in the service of their own causes. It's much less morally grey than that all sounds. The bottom line is the heroes resort to things 'heroes never should', for practical or moral reasons, because there's no other choice, ultimately culminating in Eren unleashing the Wall Titans upon the world outside Paradis Island because the rest of the world (Marley especially) hates his people so much that he's convinced this is the only way to save them from annihilation.
  • Bleach: Yhwach is a being that exists by destroying the souls of others. He places shards of his soul into people, which helps empower them to achieve their full potential. Yhwach then claims back his shard, gaining the victim's powers. It empowers him and kills the victim. A thousand years ago, he was so powerful, even Yamamoto could not kill him; he was placed inside a seal that could only contain him for a thousand years. When he becomes fully active again, his determination to destroy the Soul King, the lynchpin of all worlds, threatens existence itself. His invasion of Soul Society therefore sets off a series of extreme measures that the Shinigami would never willingly undertake under normal circumstances:
    • Yamamoto has a picture on his wall of a humanoid figure wreathed in flames. As a young child, Kyouraku once asked what it was a picture of. Yamamoto explained that, in the past, that monster appeared when Soul Society was desperate need, but made things worse instead of better. He adds that monster ever appears again, Yamamoto will not survive. It's strongly implied to be Yamamoto's last fight against Yhwach a thousand years ago. When Yhwach returns, Yamamoto doesn't hesitate to use the Bankai even Aizen couldn't make him unleash. The Bankai wreathes his body in flames and churns out a heat equal to that of the Sun's core. It immediately begins destroying all moisture - even in people's bodies and the atmosphere; when active, the Bankai has to be used quickly or it will destroy the world just by accident. As prophecised, Yamamoto does indeed not survive the Bankai fight.
    • When Zaraki joined the Gotei 13, the Central 46 forbade Yamamoto from formally training him. Without formal training, Zaraki is capable of wreaking havoc in Soul Society in his pursuit of challenging fights. He is so powerful in an untrained state that he's a match for even Captains in full Bankai. With combat training, the Central 46 fears he will be unstoppable if he ever rebels. Yhwach's return forces the Central 46 to rescind that order. Yhwach's killing of Yamamoto is what forces them to acknowledge that they need something — anything — of equal or greater power to Yamamoto if they're to survive Yhwach.
    • Aizen's attempt to reach the Royal Realm fails, and he's only imprisoned instead of executed because he is immortal and therefore impossible to kill. He has to be locked inside a special prison which incarcerates only those uniquely dangerous criminals who are too powerful to be killable. Yhwach's invasion of the Royal Realm is easy compared with Aizen's failed attempt. He then defeats the five members of the Royal Guard, whose combined strength is greater than that of the entire six-thousand strong Gotei 13 and succeeds in destroying the Soul King, beginning the destruction of all the worlds. Kyouraku, who replaces the deceased Yamamoto as leader of the Gotei 13 and who convinced the Central 46 to empower Zaraki, convinces the Central 46 to allow him to do one more impossible thing: unleash Aizen to help defeat Yhwach. Aizen's power turns out to be a key ingredient in how Yhwach is eventually defeated.
    • Additionally, the Shinigami has absolutely no issues in enlisting the help of forces that they would either be indifferent or hostile to: for example, they receive help from Arrancars such as Nel and Grimmjow, Fullbringers such as Riruka and Tsukishima, and even defected Sternritter members that Yhwach betrays. Absolutely nobody is off-limits to bolster the group's offenses, if it means that Yhwach is defeated.
  • Blue Exorcist practically starts with this being crossed by Rin as he chooses to go against his foster father's warnings against breaking the seal on his demonic nature to attempt to save him and get out of the Gehenna Gate they are both stuck in. He fails to save his father but frees himself from the Gate by destroying it with his unleashed power. He then later goes on to do it again 12 chapters later to save his friends from his powerful half-brother Amaimon. He succeeds, but nearly gets his head chopped off for existing by the True Cross Order, only saved by his other half-brother Mephisto arguing a case for him.
  • Chainsaw Man: When faced with the threat of Makima coming closer and closer to the completion of her plan, the President of the United States makes a contract with the Gun Devil, the one responsible for a world-wide massacre years prior, by giving him a year of every American's life so that he would kill Makima. This leads to the death of thousands, and still fails to defeat her.
  • Late in Code Geass R2, the Britannian military creates a Fantastic Nuke called "FLEIJA" to turn the tide of their war against the Black Knights. Suzaku is given control of the FLEIJA, and he is extremely reluctant to use it: its destructive potential is nigh-unfathomable, and he hopes that the fact that he has such a weapon on the battlefield, itself, will act as a deterrent. Unfortunately, when it looks like he is moments from death, the Geass command Lelouch gave him to "Live!" compels him to launch the FLEIJA, and the war continues to escalate from that point forward.
  • Death Note: Having run out of plans and been exposed as Kira, Light begs Ryuk to help him by writing the names of Near and the task force in his Death Note. Instead, Ryuk writes Light's own name in the Death Note, outright saying that since Light was desperate enough to turn to him for help instead of having a backup plan, then it was all over for him.
  • In the sequel, DieBuster, the only hope humanity had to defeat the last Space Monster was to use the Earth itself as a weapon.
  • Digimon Tamers has Juggernaut (Shaggai in the original Japanese version). Before his Heel–Face Turn, Corrupt Corporate Executive Yamaki used this devastating program in an attempt to destroy all Digimon by creating a black hole between their worlds. He had no intention of using it again after he saw the light…but then the D-Reaper came to the real world. Immune to destruction, they had to infuse Terriermon with the program and send him and the other Tamers into the D-Reaper's core in order to activate it, regressing the D-Reaper back to a program less complicated than a calculator. But in the process, the program also infected the Tamers' partners, forcing them to return to the Digital World to avoid the same regression, meaning that they may never see their partners again.
  • By the end of the South America arc of Dr. STONE, things are looking very bad for our heroes. Stanley Snyder and his team caught up to Senku's group before the latter could get a Medusa working, leaving them practically defenseless against the elite military squad. With most of his friends fatally injured in the ensuing attack, Senku receives word from his allies in the United States; they were able to successfully reverse-engineer a Medusa themselves. Seeing only one way to save his friends, Senku gives his orders: use the Medusa to cause a second petrification apocalypse.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • The council declares the events of the S-Class arc this, with Lahar saying they'll probably have to resort to using their Kill Sat, the only weapon they have that can effectively take out one of the top three dark guilds in Ishgal and Zeref. That the area they'd fire down at happens to belong to an be populated by a large portion of Fairy Tail's elites is something of an unfortunate bonus.
    • When they do fire the Kill Sat on Jellal's Tower of Heaven, in order to destroy it before he can use it to revive Black Wizard Zeref. It backfires horribly when they realize that the Tower of Heaven is actually a giant lacrima, and Jellal was counting on them firing it so he could absorb the energy.
    • After Jackal of Tartarus assassinates the entire Magic Council, including Laharl, Doranbalt frees the entire Oracion Seis Dark Guild from prison in exchange for Cobra's intel on Tartarus, but he also takes measures to nip any future problems in the bud by sending Jellal and Meredy after them.
    • It's later revealed that Etherion and Face were Ishgal's deterrents against an invasion from the western continent's Alvarez Empire which otherwise completely outclassed Ishgar in terms of military might. Too bad the actions of the antagonists of the previous arcs resulted in the destruction of those weapons.
    • In Edolas, activating and using the Dorma Armin is this to the point it's actually forbidden by the royal government to unseal it. It's the most powerful magic weapon in all of Edolas (said to be comparable to an actual dragon), but in order to function it needs to constantly drain magic power from the planet or it's just a hunk of metal. As magic power in Edolas is finite and doesn't replenish naturally like in Earthland, using the Dorma Armin for an extended period of time will inevitably cause magic's disappearance, and in fact it's implied past usage of the Dorma Armin is what's caused the magic shortage plaguing Edolas and fueling the current conflict. King Faust however demands for it to be unsealed so he can put an end to Fairy Tail's meddling once and for all, nor does he hesitate to revel in the power he's wielding as it sucks the world dry.
  • In GaoGaiGar FINAL, we get the Goldion Crusher, used on a sun that is also an infinite regeneration machine keeping alive an evil solar system.
    • Before that, in the original series, we have Projectile X, which supercharges all G-Crystal machines past their limits, giving them incredible strength at the risk of killing them. 3G is forced to use this to stop EI-01.
  • Getter Robo:
    • In Shin Getter Robo, Saotome sacrifices everyone in the facility to Shin Getter Dragon to destroy the alien mothership, which, in turn, attempts to ram Earth.
    • The decision to use Shin Getter Robo to save the world from both a nuke and a climate weapon in Getter Robo Go is this, considering one of the first things the robot does upon activation is kill half Japan. It's implied the victims' souls are absorbed into it in the process.
    • The emergence of Getter Emperor as described by Musashi in Getter Robo Arc. As humans are brought to the brink of extinction, they release a thing that can cause a Big Bang by merely transforming.
  • In Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Chief Chujo is a walking example of this trope; the mere suggestion of him breaking out his powers to use in the fight is enough to send fear and panic through his own allies, most of whom remember "the last time" he used them. When he does, we see that they are justified in their fears.
  • In The God of High School the Apocalypse Cult Nox seeks to use the power of God to cause The End of the World as We Know It. When it seems like they're about to succeed, the United States government immediately calls off its alliance with South Korea and fires nearly 600 nuclear missiles at Seoul.
  • Humanity in GunBuster, once they realized that the Space Monsters were coming to Sol, famously resorted to transforming Jupiter into a Moon-sized Black Hole Bomb as part of Operation Carneades: piloting said bomb into the center of the Milky Way, where they would hit the Button. The result was a monstrous implosion that consumed the entire Galactic Core, along with roughly 65% of the Galaxy.
  • The premise of Gunslinger Girl is that the danger posed to Italy by far-right separatist terrorism that the government started turning pre-teen and teenaged girls into brainwashed cyborg assassins to kill as many terrorists as possible.
    • The very act of turning the girls into cyborgs, as they all come from horrible situations, ranging from Angelica being ran over by her own father to try and cash on her life insurance to Triela being kidnapped by human traffickers, used in a snuff movie (thus tortured and mutilated and probably raped), getting saved by Europol agents just in time only for the Dutch police to be unwilling to send her to a hospital that could treat her PTSD because she was evidence, before the surviving Europol agent smuggled her to Italy to try and get her some treatment. To all of them, the obvious choice would be a Mercy Kill... And as that in Italy is controversial at best for terminall ill adults that gave prior permission and utterly unthinkable for minors, they instead turn them into cyborgs, brainwash them with drugs, and use them as assassins while trying to give them a semblance of normal life between missions until the aftereffects of the cyberization kill them.
    • And in a nice bit of irony, the cyborgs are so effective that the Padania separatists have started hiring mercenaries of dubious mental stability to try and counter them, even knowing they risk alienating their support base and end like the previous terrorist threat to Italy. It's implied in the finale that Giacomo Dante's attack on Turin's nuclear plant did just that.
  • Hellsing: Releasing the last of Alucard's restraints in the final arc is only done after London is overrun by baby-eating vampire Nazi super-soldiers and fanatical Catholic secret service armies. The results, while utterly horrifying (essentially feeding most of the souls in London, human or otherwise, to Alucard) cannot be argued with.
    • Integra's father Arthur considered using Alucard at all to be crossing the threshold and sealed him away after WW2, declaring Alucard to be "medicine too strong to be used for every ailment". Integra only releases him after Arthur dies and his evil brother Richard is after Integra to murder her too.
  • The Chimera Ant arc of Hunter × Hunter was a Bug War with the bugs being led by the Ultimate Life Form and seeking dominion over the human race. In response, humanity sent the World's Strongest Man with a chemical weapon with the strength of a nuclear bomb implanted in his chest as a dead man's switch. And for a while it seemed like not even that was enough.
  • InuYasha: Such a situation occurs in the very first episode. With Mistress Centipede on the warpath, and having obtained the Shikon Jewel for herself, Kagome has no choice but to free Inuyasha from Kikyo's seal to fight her off. Inuyasha slaughters Mistress Centipede in mere seconds before attacking Kagome in order to take the Jewel for himself.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: The Big Bad utterly despises his minion Cioccolata, but when Giorno's group are about to reach him, he sets that disgust aside for long enough to order Cioccolata after them, making it clear in his inner monologue that he's only doing so because all of his other underlings have failed.
  • Jujutsu Kaisen has Ryoumen Sukuna, the so-called "King of Curses." Sukuna is an immensely powerful Cursed Spirit that is sealed inside of Protagonist Yuji Itadori. Even at a fraction of his full power, Sukuna is easily one of the strongest beings in the series and is capable of dispatching any threat that the protagonists face with virtually zero effort. However, Sukuna is violent, cruel, selfish, sadistic, and fiendishly clever and intelligent. He's a total Wild Card that can't even be relied upon to cause destruction and chaos if doing so doesn't advance his goals. Also, Yuji has no means of controlling Sukuna's actions once he unleashes him, and if Sukuna doesn't consent to the initial switch, Yuji can't regain control of his body for a short period of time. Needless to say, unleashing Sukuna is considered an absolute last resort.
  • Lyrical Nanoha:
    • The presence of the Book of Darkness in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, which kills planets, prompts the Bureau to equip the Athra with the Arc-En-Ciel, a weapon capable of wiping a significant chunk of Japan off the map.
    • The rise of the Saint's Cradle during the JS Incident in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS is the only occasion when all five Aces' Power Limiters were removed simultaneously. While objectively speaking, the Aces aren't really much of a danger to anyone except the bad guys, a combination of regulations and office politics prevent Section Six from having unrestrained access to more magical power than Hayate's rank allows her to command, at least until the situation is completely out of hand already.
      • Speaking of the Saint's Cradle, it should be noted that the entire reason that TSAB was forced to let all of their strongest mages fight at full power as well as bringing their entire navy to destroy it is that it's a giant battleship that can raze the entire planet to the ground should it reach a certain distance up in the atmosphere. This is also the same battleship that was key to ending the Unification Wars during the Ancient Belkan era. To elaborate, the wars during the Ancient Belkan era have gotten to the point that the planet and its people was being slowly destroyed by the various factions' use of chemical and biological warfare. Seeking to end the war, the Saint King Alliance decided to use the Saint's Cradle, which indeed resulted in the end of that era.
    • Caro summoning Voltaire (basically Gunbuster, if it was a dragon instead of a mech) is another example. As the guardian deity of her home planet, he only allows himself to be summoned when absolutely necessary (like the aforementioned Saint's Cradle incident).
  • Macross:
    • In Macross Zero, the UN force involved in the conflict deploys a Destroid Monster equipped with reaction weapons when the Bird Human goes on rampage and proves unstoppable with normal means, fully knowing the fallout may well make the nearby Mayan Island uninhabitable — and that they would die all this way, either killed by the blast or in the landing after the thing keeping their seagoing ships at hundreds of meters in the air was destroyed. Considering the alternative was the thing killing millions in the attempt of bombing humanity back into stone age, they considered the sacrifice acceptable. Fortunately, Shin had calmed Sarah (who was in control of the Bird Human) just as the Monster was being deployed, so the blast is contained and the ships are deposited on the sea gently.
    • In Macross Delta: Absolute Live, King Heinz Windemere is forced to use the Wind Song in order to combat the influence of the Siren System. His efforts are unsuccessful and Heimdall is able to take over Windemere, forcing Delta Squadron off-world.
  • In Magical Girl Apocalypse, faced with a Zombie Apocalypse and homicidal magical girls, the survivors resort to releasing a corrupt, rapist cop who had already tried to rape and murder them when they first met him from custody, since he's the only one among them who can competently wield a gun. Now that he's free, they have to weather his horrible nature, since he's completely unrepentant and only helping them because he wants to live, and will gladly kill or abandon them as soon as he thinks it's the better option.
  • Medaka Box: When Medaka halts the Flask Plan project proper by taking down Miyakonoujo Oudo, the academy headmaster Shiranui Hakama bites the bullet and makes a desperate move to keep the project going; "Class -13". While Class 13 was filled with the superhumanly elite to be used as test subjects, this new class was to be filled with their antithesis; superhumanly flawed weaklings whose mentalities and abilities actually ran counter to the Flask Plan's goal of "perfecting" human beings. These individuals, called "Minus", would be set against the super-elite Kurokami Medaka in an attempt to glean and collect more data. He feels more apprehensive about it when Kumagawa Misogi, the Minus selected to lead this class, actually shows up uninvited, with disturbing timing, and declares his goal to help the world by removing the elite from it.
  • Muhyo and Roji:
    • In the Arcanum arc as Rio has betrayed them and Muhyo is still weak from the previous battle with Face-Ripper Sophie, Muhyo has to take a potentially poisonous tempering elixir from Biko to recover the tempering he needs to fight.
    • In order to defeat Teeki, Muhyo decides to form a contract with Hades, one of the Six Kings of the Underworld, eliciting shocked reactions from his friends Yoichi and Biko, who don't even think it possible.
  • Musuko ga Kawaikute Shikataganai Mazoku no Hahaoya: After Chiharu is stricken with an incurable case of demonitis, Merii is forced to use her tentacles to link herself to Chiharu to siphon the virus out with her own antibodies. She doesn't know what the final outcome will be or if Chiharu will still be human afterward, but it's the only thing she could think of to save Chiharu's life.
  • My Hero Academia:
    • The Hero Izuku Midoriya normally has to limit how much of his power he can tap into, due to his Quirk being powerful enough to cripple him for life until he masters it. However, during his fight against Overhaul, Izuku is forced to go beyond his usual limits of using only 8% of his powers, as the situation was too severe. He only went to 20%, but he was already in intense pain.
    • The threshold is crossed even harder later on: when Overhaul fuses with his underlings to become even stronger, Izuku has to go all out and use 100% of his power, albeit in this case Eri was there to use her Quirk to rewind Izuku's injuries, and he came out no worse for the wear.
      • Relying on Eri's Quirk qualifies on its own as once the battle is over, her uncontrolled rewinding threatens to be just as lethal to Izuku as the injuries he would have sustained without her. Fortunately, Eraserhead intervenes and shuts down her Quirk with his own.
    • Later on, Izuku goes up against Tomura Shigaraki, who has acquired All For One's eponymous Quirk in addition to his own Touch of Death. Izuku then goes all out against Shigaraki, delivering multiple punches to Shigaraki at 100 percent in hopes of overpowering his Healing Factor. As Izuku puts it, since he's fighting against the villain that One For All was created to defeat now is the time to give everything he has, regardless of what happens to him.
    • For a villainous example, All for One told the League of Villains member Kurogiri to rely on his personal bodyguard Gigantomachia, in case something were to happen to All for One, leaving Kurogiri unable to take care of the villain's pupil Tomura Shigaraki on his own. Sure enough, when All for One is defeated and arrested (and ironically, Kurogiri himself later), Gigantomachia is released and introduced to the rest of the League, although they have to defeat him to get him to submit. This example is more literal than usual, since Gigantomachia is a throwback to Godzilla himself.
  • Naruto:
    • Naruto forms the 4th tail, the 6th tail, the 8th tail, and then proceeds to willfully tear off the seal keeping the Kyubi in in order to defeat Pain, who had killed Jiraiya and (albeit indirectly) Kakashi, destroyed the village, and severely wounded Hinata, in addition to having him at his mercy.
    • With Madara being immune to ninjutsu and genjutsu, and the only senjutsu users being incapacitated, only taijutsu can harm him at all. But Madara is also ludicrously durable, so Guy opens the Gate of Death.
  • Nasuverse: The Counter Force works In Mysterious Ways to counter possible threats to humanity (Alaya) or Earth's (Gaia) existence. If the subtle method fails and there are no mortal agents left to counter a threat to humanity, Alaya's Counter Guardians are dispatched to eliminate the threat and everyone even slightly related to it. Counter Guardians will destroy entire nations to complete their mission. On the other hand, if the threat is one to the Earth, instead, the Counter Force manifests through Gaia instead. Gaia's Counter Force started out with the True Ancestors (with the last one around being capable of destroying the world on a whim, if she were so inclined), and culminated in a dog-like monster known as Primate Murder, said to be capable of killing more humans in a faster timeframe than anything else in existence. And yes, it is possible that the two aspects of the Counter Force could end up in all-out conflict with each other; the result would likely be The End of the World as We Know It (such an occurrence might be the reason the planet is dead in Angel Notes). In most timelines, however, no threat has escalated to that point or said threats are smart enough to use loopholes to prevent either one from getting in their way.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • It's said on several occasions in Neon Genesis Evangelion that the Angel attacks had pushed humanity's situation past the Threshold, necessitating the use of the Eva units. The JSSDF only authorized the deployment of the Evas when Sachiel took an N2 mine to the face and survived. After the first three Angels, they even funded the construction of their own nuclear-powered Humongous Mecha. The reality of the situation is not so simple.
  • One Piece:
    • The Buster Call is a villainous version of this. When a situation is so threatening to the World Government that even the slightest leak would cause irreparable damage, the Buster Call is summoned. Ten massive warships essentially glass the target island, wiping out any trace of whatever threat they were called to deal with. They can't be called off, either, not even by the person who summoned them in the first place, and no target is sacred enough to avoid bombarding, even one of the military's most important bases of operation was demolished by a Buster Call (though they gave the Marines involved time to evacuate).
    • The blueprints for Pluton were passed down through a line of shipwrights. Pluton is a legendary battleship that could wipe out whole islands in a single shot, one of three relics from a long-lost civilization. So why do the blueprints exist? Because the weapons are still out there, and if some idiot were to find and unleash them, an opposing power would be needed. During the Enies Lobby arc, Franky burns the blueprints, claiming that it would be too dangerous to let them exist if Spandam was going to keep seeking them out. Plus, he just found out that Nico Robin, the only scholar who can decipher the ancient records to find the weapon was less a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds and more a Broken Bird. It was a gamble, to be sure, as Spandam could just use Robin to get Pluton, but Franky was betting on the Straw Hats saving her from the World Government.
    • This also occurs in the Impel Down arc. By the time the arc is in full swing, two groups of people are on the attack while trying to break out of the prison and another group is trying to break in. With two of those groups containing people only Magellan himself is capable of stopping and one being a Zerg Rush, Magellan gambles and releases Shiryu, a former Warden that was put on death row due to being severely Ax-Crazy, thinking that Shiryu might stop some of the prisoners. This severely bites Magellan in the ass later, as Shiryu later saves Blackbeard from being poisoned and joins Blackbeard's crew, which leads to Magellan receiving a massive beating at their hands offscreen. It didn't even do anything to help stop the jailbreaks.
    • In the Fishman Island Arc, when Hody Jones reveals more and more of who he is and what he plans to do, the citizens eventually turn to calling on Luffy to stop him. What makes this a Godzilla Threshold is that their resident soothsayer, who is never, ever wrong, predicted that Luffy would destroy all of Fishman Island, not to mention Luffy being an extremely notorious pirate. They still decided that they would be better off with him than Hody.
    • In the Dressrosa Arc, Doflamingo is forced into this when Luffy and crew shatter The Masquerade that he had been using to keep control of the country while maintaining his underground deals as The Don of perhaps the entire world. He can't let the truth get out, so he uses his Devil Fruit's ultimate technique: the Birdcage, imprisoning the entire island and letting nothing in or out. But that's not the extent of it: in order to ensure that nobody ever learns the truth, he plans to kill everyone on the island.
    • Chopper's Monster Point was this before the Time Skip. While it's a tremendous increase in his power, it's a berserker form and it takes a dangerous amount of energy to maintain; if he doesn't end up dying, he'll be paralyzed from the neck down for several minutes, possibly a few hours. He first knowingly used it when he was on the brink of defeat against Kumadori, having already used up two Rumble Balls; it was the only option he had left to keep from getting killed. Lampshaded post-skip in the Fishman Island Arc where, after seeing Chopper in the form, Usopp cried that the situation hadn't reached a point for Chopper to lose control of himself... before Chopper revealed he was in control. However, the form is only slightly less of a last resort; in exchange for keeping his senses, the change only lasts for three minutes, and he's still paralyzed with exhaustion when time runs out.
    • In the Wano Arc, Kid and Law both discuss using their awakened Devil Fruit abilities in the middle of battle. While they've unlocked the ability, they both know it's an absolute last resort attack since it consumes a huge amount of stamina, which means certain defeat if it doesn't finish their opponent very quickly. They decide to use their awakened powers anyway since their opponent is Big Mom, whose Nigh-Invulnerability has tanked everything they've thrown at her thus far. Their attacks do injure her, but all it really does is piss her off and start taking the fight more seriously.
    • As the battle between Luffy and Kaido reaches its peak, the Five Elders become so scared of Luffy's growth and potential that they have one of their CP0 Agents do the unthinkable and kill Luffy. Essentially, the leaders of the World Government would rather deal with Kaido's world-encompassing war than the sheer havoc Luffy would bring. It backfires epically. It turns out the near-death experience from being bashed by Kaido's club allowed Luffy to Awaken his Devil Fruit, allowing him to instill the land around him with Toon Physics, which is what the World Government was trying to prevent.
    • Luffy existing at all officially becomes a threshold-passing event from that point forward. When the Government gets news that the Straw Hats are in Egghead Island and have overturned their assassination attempt on Vegapunk (meaning one of the most dangerous pirates in the world now has access to some of the most forbidden information in existence), one of the Five Elders personally heads down there to sort everyone out. Usually the Five are so secretive even looking at them is illegal, and Jaygarcia Saturn still found it necessary to barge in and put his unholy, top-secret Wrong Context Magic to work just to get things under control. When that doesn't prove sufficient, and Vegapunk's Dead Man Switch activates a worldwide transmission in order to share "the truth of the world" with every civilian across the globe, the threshold is crossed again as Saturn summons the rest of the Five Elders to Egghead.
  • Interestingly, in One-Punch Man, it's the antagonists who frequently have to cross the point of no return when they realize how freakishly powerful Saitama is. It never works, to Saitama's dismay.
    • Dr. Genus, leader of the House of Evolution, unleashes as his last card — his most dangerous creation, Carnage Kabuto, a powerful but extremely unstable mutant that he had kept locked away after deeming it a failure. The only reason Carnage Kabuto lasted more than 2 seconds was because Saitama wasn't really all that focused on the fight.
    • Boros, the leader of the alien invaders, and easily one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, was forced to use a technique that drastically augmented his strength at the cost of the shortening of his lifespan during his battle against Saitama and threw him at the moon. Saitama "simply" jumped back to Earth without a scratch, so Boros followed with his ultimate, planet-busting attack... which Saitama dispelled with a single blow, the shockwave of which actually killed Boros.
  • In Episode 5 of Plastic Memories, the retrieval team's failure to locate and find Marcia prompts their bosses to call up R-Security to assist. Unlike the retrieval teams who attempt to talk the Wanderer down, R-Security's only concern is to shoot them to death. This doesn't go well with either Michiru or Kazuki when they find this out.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • In the episode "Pallet Party Panic", Pikachu is taken by Team Rocket and Ash is forced to release Charizard to chase after their balloon since the only other flier on Ash's team is incapacitated by Poison Sting. Charizard doesn't listen to Ash at this point and usually ignores orders, making him a last-resort option; he refuses to rescue Pikachu until Team Rocket destroys a fruit stand.
    • Evolution is also considered at several points to be crossing the threshold. Usually, when a Pokémon evolves, it's often under more dire circumstances than in the games, such as when facing a tough trainer or a region's villainous team. Even more, if a Pokémon refuses to do so, it instead manages to cross it a different way by surpassing its limit and learning a powerful new move.
    • Pikachu disliking going into his Poké Ball may be usually be a Running Gag, but it's often considered to be this whenever he's told to go in there; notably in Pokémon: I Choose You! when Ash is able to get Pikachu into the Poké Ball right before he's disintegrated by the attacks of a bunch of mind-controlled Pokémon to protect him from the same fate.
  • In the ORAS arc of Pokémon Adventures, due to the threat of a meteor destroying the planet, Devon Corporation is willing to use the Absorber, a machine that drains Pokémon of their life force and is used to power the ultimate weapon.
  • In Pretty Cure All Stars DX 3, using the Prism Flower for one last attack against Black Hole is this, knowing that never becoming Pretty Cure again and losing their fairy companions is better than letting him win. Things get better after the credits, though.
  • In the last couple of episodes of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Walpurgisnacht is busily rampaging around and destroying the city — much like Godzilla. Mami, Sayaka, and Kyoko are dead, and Homura is on the verge of becoming a witch, so Madoka decides to make a dubiously legitimate contract specifically to eliminate all witches despite the risk that the entire planet could be wiped out if things didn't go how she planned. It works out pretty well, but the risk was certainly there, since in a previous timeline, Madoka's own uncontrollable "potential" turned her into a planet-destroying superwitch almost immediately after making a contract.
  • In Remina, the situation is so dire that the Godzilla Threshold is crossed almost immediately. An unspecified nuclear armed country lets fly with the nuclear weapons as soon as Remina shows up near the Earth. Unfortunately, it fails spectacularly.
  • This has come up once or twice in Rosario + Vampire when unleashing Tsukune's uncontrollable — and potentially irreversible — ghoul aspect was the only way to give the final beat-down to the current Big Bad.
  • Sailor Moon:
    • Sailor Moon pulling out the Silver Crystal to pulverize the Big Bad is usually a death sentence. The first time, it was. The second time, a second Crystal spared her.
    • This is the express purpose of Sailor Saturn, who has the power to destroy the world should it be overrun by evil forces.
    • In the manga and Sailor Moon Crystal, after Queen Metallia has swallowed Sailor Moon and the Silver Crystal Sailor Venus leads the others into using their Transformation Power for a last attack, knowing that the best case scenario was them sacrificing their powers and waking Sailor Moon up for a last chance at defeating the enemy. They wake Sailor Moon up, but get almost killed when Metallia retaliates.
  • Saint Seiya:
    • The Athena Exclamation is taboo. It is a technique performed by three Gold Saints of Athena, who focus their Cosmo into a burst of power as powerful as the Big Bang and deliver it on a single opponent. But by the "Hades" arc, Saga, Shura, and Camus perform it because they figure they are already damned by their alliance with Hades. Then Athena's loyal Saints use another Athena Exclamation against them because it is the only thing that can stop it. It was claimed that two colliding Athena Exclamations can wipe out the whole universe.
    • In the Sanctuary arc, the bronze knights learned to use their seventh sense. Shun decided it was necessary to use it.
  • In Saiyuki, any situation that justifies taking off Goku's diadem and unleashing the Seiten Taisei. In that form, he is Nigh-Invulnerable, capable of healing himself with Earth's energies, and has an easy time beating the crap out of any enemy, but is also Ax-Crazy and unable to recognize his friends. As a result, the diadem only gets deliberately removed (as opposed to breaking) twice: once by Goku himself when he is forced to fight Kougaiji to get the antidote for Sanzo, and another time by Hakkai and Gojyo in a desperate attempt to revive Goku after the latter is mortally wounded.
    • Hakkai removing his own Power Limiters to stop the Seiten Taisei after the latter incident also qualifies. While he has fought a couple of battles without them before, during this one he seriously risked succumbing to the Minus Wave and going Ax-Crazy himself (to the point Gojyo has to interfere when Hakkai starts to enjoy violence a little too much). Hakkai's youkai powers ultimately prove not to be enough against the Seiten Taisei; he only wins the battle by teaming up with Gat to turn the Seiten Taisei's abilities against their user, which also nearly kills Hakkai in the process.
  • In the finale of Samurai Champloo, it gradually becomes clear that Mugen and Jin literally can't defeat the Big Bad conventionally. He lives up to all the hype and is so ridiculously skilled that their attacks simply cannot connect. So Jin breaks out the last technique his master taught him, the most suicidally dangerous move imaginable; letting himself get stabbed in the back just so he can get close enough to stab his opponent. Miraculously, it works and he manages to both win the final duel and (just barely) survive.
  • The earliest example is probably the Wave-Motion Gun used by the eponymous Space Battleship Yamato in both the original and 2199 series. The massive weapon, capable of wiping out entire battlefleets or even whole planets at a single shot always saved until the last possible moment.
  • In Tenchi Muyo! In Love, this happens when the characters are discussing using a particular superweapon that is designed to destroy galaxies and galactic clusters on a being that is maybe 30 ft tall (but extremely powerful). At the beginning of the movie, it's a non option, but by the end things are so bad that they use it anyway, albeit with a huge setup to mitigate side-effects.
  • Time Stop Hero: King Tutoom MountCape gave his Court Mage, Lovisa, permission to study necromancy even though it is a forbidden art. He says when the Forces of Darkness come, they'll need all the help they can get.
  • In Toriko, The Dreaded Zebra had been sent to prison because he ate over twenty species into extinction. That should have been the end of it, but the increasing strength and activity of the Gourmetcorp meant the IGO had to have him released to combat them.
  • Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh! feels this way about the Egyptian God Cards. Unlike Kaiba, who's obsessed with power, or Marik, who loves destruction, Yugi is fully aware of how dangerous the cards are and only uses them against his most serious opponents.
    • The Wicked God Cards note  from the Spin-off Manga Yu-Gi-Oh! R were developed as a countermeasure against the Egyptian God Cards, should the latter end up in the wrong hands, with each Wicked monster being able to counter its Egyptian counterpart's effects. Though conceived for this purpose, they were never created, not only out of fear they would be misused, but unlike the Egyptian Gods, which chose their wielders, any duelist could use a Wicked God, at cost of the wielder being corrupted by the God's evil influence. Eventually, the main villains of this story would end up having the Wicked Gods created to use against Yami Yugi.

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