Horrifying the Horror in Anime and Manga series.
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
- Chapters 136 and 137 feature the girlfriends pairing off and entering the school at night to seek out Rentarou after he vanishes inside of it and, in the process, encountering various Youkai. The girls react in various ways, some scared as expected, some not, some not even realizing they're encountering monsters, and one pair even takes selfies with them. Of those that scare the monsters themselves are Iku, who presents her behind to a kappa daring it to take the shirikodama that it's demanding and is supposed to be in humans' bottoms, Chiyo, whose OCD-induced cleaning brings a trash-loving youkai to tears, Eira, who is unafraid of the ghost she and Uto encounter because she believes she can take it out with a kick, Meme, who scares a slit-mouth woman when she flees the scene with her Ninja Log trick, and finally Rentarou himself, who charges to the rescue in a full-on Unstoppable Rage when he hears Kishika crying. It is at this point it's revealed that the youkai were themselves students, practicing for a haunted house.
- In the volume 17 extras, the Vice-Principal catches sight of Rentarou maniacally searching the school grounds and mistakes him for a youkai.
- In chapter 164, Matsuri makes a wish that the festival she's at with Rentarou and some of the other girls would never end. The shrine's god grants the wish, but plays Jerkass Genie by forcing everyone to only want to enjoy the festival so they won't want to leave, even though it means ignoring their own preferences and passions. When the horror at what she's caused starts to make Matsuri cry, Rentarou appears and, with a big smile plastered on his face from the god's power, threatens to kill the god and burn down his shrine for making Matsuri cry. The terrified god begs forgiveness and undoes his spell on everyone.
- Played to shockingly strong effect in Ah! My Goddess. When Mara, the Big Bad Wannabe who's been the protagonists' main threat so far, hears that Urd's mother, Hild, is arriving, she's absolutely horrified. It so happens that Hild is in fact her boss and the Queen of Hell. For Hild's entire stay, the comedy is almost completely dropped despite her not outwardly doing that much in the way of evil, as merely her presence is so terrifying that just being around her causes people to collapse in fear. Mara spends the entire episode cowering in the corner, barely speaking, and the normally all-loving Belldandy is constantly on the verge of breaking her polite front.
- Berserk: Early in the series, the apostle Slug Count can only watch in horror when he sees the mysterious Black Swordsman coming at his now decapitated and helpless head with a knife. The Slug Count's terror is well founded as Guts does some enthusiastic Cold-Blooded Torture on him with that knife.
- Black Lagoon: Roberta, aka the Bloodhound of Florencia, is a superhuman assassin who can bring terror to the criminals of Roanapur, including a chainsaw-wielding madwoman, who was scared shitless when Roberta broke her chainsaw.
- Death Note:
- Happens to at least one Shinigami: Higuchi horrifies Rem so much through his corruption, perversion, and plan to force Misa to marry him that she sympathizes with Light.
- Played for Laughs when Misa's manager comes by to tell Misa to get back to work. Misa, Light, and L are all shown to be visibly unnerved by her. For reference: Two of these people are serial killers and the third is the extremely unorthodox detective hired to catch them.
- Played for Laughs in Dr. Slump where one episode has a vampire named Trampire go to the Norimaki household where she tries to suck Arale's blood, but can't due to her being a Ridiculously Human Robot, causing Arale to get up half-asleep and fire her N'Cha Cannon at the wall, scaring Trampire away.
- Dragon Ball:
- From the original series, the Demon King Piccolo who was so feared that Master Roshi absolutely refused to even consider fighting him and tried to use the Dragon Balls to beat him. Despite this, King Piccolo came to fear Master Roshi after he revealed he knew the Evil Containment Wave. Piccolo tries to run for his life and only escapes this fate because Roshi missed the rice cooker. Piccolo also comes to fear Goku after he survived a blast that destroyed an entire city. By the end, he is left shivering in terror before a mere child.
- His son, Piccolo Jr., comes to know the same fear with Goku after he tanks a blast that reduced an island into dust.
- Frieza, The Dreaded of the universe, whose power was such that even badasses like Vegeta and King Kai were terrified of him, is left shaking in terror and losing his composure when Goku becomes a Super Saiyan. After his battle on Namek, Frieza fears the Super Saiyan so much that he has a major Freak Out when he sees Trunks transform.
- In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Super Frieza is also terrified of the mere presence of the God of Destruction Beerus. Beerus, in turn, is terrified of the Omni-King Zeno. Justified as Beerus can destroy planets with minimal effort, and Zeno can erase a universe or two with even less. In the Dragon Ball Super manga, even the army of Fused Zamases is terrified as soon as Future Zeno appears.
- Cell, a creature that killed thousands of humans by absorbing their bioextract, and absorbs Cyborgs #17 and #18 to achieve his complete form, is left utterly terrified by the power displayed by Gohan in his Super Saiyan 2 form.
- Vegeta manages to scare Kid Buu after he keeps getting up despite getting the crud beaten out of him. Keep in mind, Kid Buu showed no fear to the much more powerful Super Saiyan 3 Goku and should be akin at this point to a primal force of nature running crazy. Vegeta was able to instill the emotion of FEAR into what was a mindless beast just by refusing to give up.
- In Dragon Ball Super: Broly, Super Saiyan Blue Gogeta's constant assaults slowly manages to instill some fear in the berserk Super Saiyan (Full-Power) Broly, whom at this point is acting out of desperation than anger. By the time the Saiyan fully returns to his senses, he is truly horrified of at the thought of being killed.
- Fairy Tail: Kyouka terrifying Minerva. That is all.
- Kyouka herself is somewhat fearful of her boss, Mard Geer. But even Mard Geer is terrified when he sees that Zeref has arrived.
- Zeref, the greatest dark wizard of all time, still feared by even other dark wizards centuries after his heyday is scared of Acnologia, Dragon of the Apocalypse, a being so powerful he tore the souls out of other dragons.
- Food Wars!: Erina Nakiri is admired and respected for her beauty and culinary talent, but she also has a fearsome reputation, to the point all applicants (except Soma) for a transfer exam ran away screaming in terror when they found out she was going to be their examiner. Then come the Moon Banquet Festival, when her father Azami barges into her restaurant, she can only stand there gazing at him in terror, completely paralyzed.
- Franken Fran: A group of Fran's former patients arrives at her home one night. Over the course of the evening, several of them are hideously maimed, requiring Fran's skills to survive. Then she figures out that they're addicted to surgery, and are maiming themselves to force Fran to operate on them. Fran—who has very little in the way of ethics and extremely skewed morals—is absolutely horrified.
- There's, of course, also the reaction many characters of varying horrifying-ness have to Fran herself. Like her foil and sister, Veronica, a remorseless assassin and Living Weapon with an uncompromising Murder Is the Best Solution approach to almost all of life's problems. When Veronica sees exactly how far Fran is willing to go in order to make sure no-one dies, all she can do is stare in abject horror and plead with Fran to just let the pretzel made of screaming flesh that used to be her patients pass away. Fran ignores her for the most part, pointing out that Veronica's habit of killing people for calling her names takes away her moral high ground.
- Played for Laughs in an earlier chapter, when Fran's staff—a group that looks like the Universal Monsters line-up—recoil in terror at a horror movie Fran's watching.
- Hellsing: Alucard really enjoys knocking lesser monsters off their high horses.
- The Ax-Crazy murderous vampire Rip Van Winkle completely falls apart from fear upon just sensing that Alucard is approaching. Unlike most of the other Millennium vampires of the series in general, Rip has dealt with him before and knows exactly what this guy is capable of.
- Luke shits himself when he realizes just how outclassed he is by Alucard.
- When Seras finally becomes a full vampire, the spectacle is enough to freeze Nazi Vampires in their tracks with sheer pants-shitting terror.
- But the most prominent example of this trope comes from Abraham Van Helsing, the mortal man who defeated Alucard when he was at the peak of his power. Alucard's defeat was so complete and traumatizing that he still has nightmares about that man. In fact, it was Abraham's strength that instilled in Alucard a new sense of respect and admiration for humanity, which he did not previously have.
- I Got My Wish and Reincarnated as the Villainess (Last Boss)!: Even at six, Elizabeth can drive the reapers away after killing several of them.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: The ruthless Boss of Passione lead the mob organziation for many years, using his Stand King Crimson to hid his existence and ruthlessly kill anyone that defied him or tried to find out his identity, as befell three of the heroes, including the leader Buccarati, by the end of the story. However, in the final battle, Giorno's Gold Experience Requiem sends Diavolo into an infinite death loop without King Crimson or even his sub-ability Epitaph. After a few loops, the already-paranoid mob boss is left terrified of everything, even a little girl, fearing that she's another bringer of death through G.E.R..
- Jujutsu Kaisen: Yuji's Killing Intent towards Mahito, a special grade curse and the embodiment of human hatred for each other, after defeating him and expressing his intent to keep on killing him every time he reincarnates has the once proud cursed spirit running away in absolute terror.
- Tanaka Punie of Magical Witch Punie-chan is scary in ways that defy categorization. She activates this trope when she takes on a huge Dark God/Demon-thing... with wrestling-techniques. As soon as it realizes who she is, the huge beast is terrified and flees screaming back to the other realm.
- The Mermaid Princess's Guilty Meal: Shark the Ripper boasts of eating ten fish, a crime that landed him in a Hannibal Lecter-style straitjacket and mask. Ela, who by this point has eaten more than twice that amount, is naturally mortified by what that means for her: when her mutterings catch Shark's attention and he demands her look him in the eye, he's struck by a terrifying vision of her surrounded by the skeletons of the fish she's eaten. He ends up equally scared and impressed.
- Mononoke displays the Medicine Seller, a man who slays demonic spirits for a living. Oh, and those aforementioned demonic spirits? They're absolutely terrified of him. When Nue, one of the demons, finally realizes who he is, it experiences a massive Oh, Crap!
- Night Wizard features a Journey to the Center of the Mind, where the Band of Brothers faces off against a Devil-Queen of Nightmares who preys on dreams and devours the minds of the sleepers. Inside the mind of Elis Shiho, the mild-tempered Friend to All Living Things, she is defeated...but manages to survive and hide out in a weakened state, determined to bide her time as her powers return so she can seek vengeance. While looking for a good place to hide out, she finds a strange, black door in the dreamscape, and goes inside...followed by a Stock Scream, and her running wild-eyed out of there on the verge of a complete breakdown. What could possibly exist in the mind of such a nice girl, that is capable of terrifying a creature that lives off nightmares?
- One Piece:
- The first act of true Badassery in the series is when Shanks scares off a giant sea serpent just by looking at it. It's revealed that he actually used his Haki of the Supreme King.
- Played for comedic effects in the Thriller Bark Arc. When Usopp, Nami, and Chopper land on Thriller Bark, they're scared shitless by ALL the zombies. The favor is returned to the zombies when the other crew members arrive as well.
- Then played straight when, after a group of zombies have abducted most of our protagonists and are about to do the same to the subdued Franky and Robin, an unseen Brook begins to sing and the undead collectively piss themselves in fear. Brook is one of the few men in the world who know the zombie's Kryptonite Factor, and they associate his song with death, making him "the Humming Swordsman" and their personal boogeyman.
- During the Paramount War, the Marines have assembled much of their combined forces, including the Fleet Admiral, the three Admirals, legenday marine Vice Admiral Garp, and most of the Warlords of the Sea. Facing them is an alliance of Whitebeard's grand fleet, with thousands of deadly and feared pirates alongside Luffy's Impel Down escapees. The crew of Blackbeard also join the fray, which includes some of the deadliest and most wanted criminals in the world. All three sides are determined to fight to the death. Shanks and his small crew of less than a dozen men arrive and convince them all to stand down without firing a single shot.
- This is after Shanks also faced down Kaido of the Beasts, the so called "strongest creature" in the world, with at least equal to Whitebeard's on his way to attack Whitebeard from the rear. Kaido also elects not to pick a pick with Shanks.
- The Seducing Woods on Whole Cake Island are filled with living plant life meant to befuddle, confuse, entrap, exhaust and terrify those who get lost in them until Big Mom's daughter Charlotte Brulee can find them and capture them or finish them off. When the Straw Hats barge in, an already upset Luffy decides the easiest way to get through these woods would be tear them up until they get somewhere, terrifying the Homies who inhabit the trees into backing off and getting their leader to lead the Straw Hats out so Luffy doesn't kill all of them.
- Saitama from One-Punch Man is a very unassuming figure and most of the monsters and villains he faces think nothing of him. Those monsters and villains die very quickly. In contrast, Carnage Kabuto and Geryuganshoop were able to recognize how dangerous he is and lasted marginally longer than most of the others, Carnage Kabuto because his animal instincts warned him and Geryuganshoop because he was watching Saitama effortlessly tear his way through the alien ship he was on and wanted nothing to do with him.
- In Paranoia Agent, three suicidal people are very excited to see the dangerous and potentially-eldritch serial assaulter, Lil Slugger, but he panics and runs away as fast as he can. This seems to be because his purpose is to attack those who are cornered, and these three were extremely happy despite being suicidal, and he doesn't know how to handle that. However, it also seems to be foreshadowing that they are already dead, meaning Lil Slugger saw them as ghosts or some other horrifying undead thing.
- Ragna Crimson: Ragna shreds Artemisia, the leader of a group of high-end dragons, to pieces several times, forcing her to reverse time and then stop it altogether to keep him place. The part that horrifies Artemisia is when he starts moving in stopped time and comes after her. Even after Ragna collapses from a Heroic RRoD, she's too traumatized to even try stopping time again.
- Pop Team Epic: In one skit, Popuko gets a phone call from Mary-san, which leads Popuko to charge out of her house with her nail-covered bat to look for Mary. When Popuko calls Mary back, the doll meekly tells her she ran for the nearest station.
- In Sailor Moon, the Dark Kingdom is utterly terrified at Sailor V's sudden reappearance, due to her body count including an entire branch of the Dark Kingdom, her successfully posing as the Moon Princess (that is, the one person that can use the Silver Crystal and thus annihilate Queen Metallia), and her reappearance being heralded by killing Zoisite messily. Later Queen Beryl, once she's been outed as Sailor Venus, stops being scared of her... Only to resume the instant before she's Gutted Like a Fish.
- In the SuperS Special from the anime, Sailor Neptune goes up against a Demonic Dummy and a ventriloquist who claims the dummy's bottle will cause every shadow in the world to run rampant if it breaks. They advise her to let them feed on Sailor Uranus's energy. She quickly unleashes Deep Submerge which shatters the bottle. Neptune smugly makes it clear she didn't know the story was true (possibly), but did it because a world without Sailor Uranus in it is a world she doesn't give two shits about. The ventriloquist is left utterly horrified.
- In Slayers, dragons and many demons are absolutely terrified of Lina Inverse. When she gets a letter from her older sister Luna, Lina freaks out, trying to hide in a pyramid.
- In Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, the residents of the Demon King's Castle have nightmares about the Princess. She really couldn't give a shit.
- Some characters in Toriko can do this, such as the titular character and Jirou. Toriko's intimidation is such that it can quell a herd of angry, monstrous apes.
- The Unpopular Mangaka and the Helpful Onryo-san: Onryo-san herself is scared by a horror movie called The Haunted Washing Machine. Another time, a possible Sleep Paralysis Creature affected both her and Senai.
- The World God Only Knows:
- Nora (an immortal demon) attempts to Mind Rape Keima (a human). After a bit of confusion as to the nature of his brain (it displays a loading screen and a copyright notice), she tears apart his image of his beloved Yokkyun. He gets pissed, and chases Nora around like a maniac, demanding she bring Yokkyun back. Nora runs away screaming at the scary monster.
- Variant: Shortly after meeting Haqua (another demon), Keima casually deduces a few embarrassing facts, and blackmails her without so much as looking up from his game. Haqua agrees but is annoyed.Haqua: To blackmail a demon... what a human.
Keima: To be blackmailed by a human... what a demon.
Haqua: Sh—shut up!
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: Yami Marik is the sadistic and cruel Superpowered Evil Side of Marik. He shows the depths of his depravity by subjecting Mai to a horrifying Shadow Game designed to break her mind, motivating Joey to duel him in order to set Mai free. Despite being at a disadvantage for much of the duel, Joey manages to make Marik sweat a few times and even comes within a hair's breadth of winning the duel but faints before he can declare an attack. This is the first time Yami Marik shows actual fear, the second being when he is eventually defeated by Yami Yugi. That's right, Joey Wheeler, the guy with no shadow magic or god cards, scared Yami friggin Marik.
