Living Is More than Surviving as expressed in Anime and Manga.
- This is the life philosophy of Akagi Shigeru, the main character of Akagi and side character in the earlier Ten - The Blessed Way of the Nice Guy. Akagi is a professional gambler who spends his entire career putting it all on the line and undergoing one gamble after the other, wanting to live each moment to the fullest and die with the throttle on full. One of the central themes of Akagi is how Akagi spends the entire manga looking for another person to match him, until finally finding one in an Absurdly High-Stakes Game with Retired Monster Washizu Iwao. In 10, this leads to him killing himself with a morphine overdose rather than die a slow death from Alzheimer's, which would reduce him to a state of only 'surviving' once his mind was gone.
- Attack on Titan has this trope in the form of Eren and Armin, who believe that living safe within the walls is merely surviving, and that truly living can only be possible when mankind is free.
- This is the Central Theme of Casshern Sins. During the whole series the titular character is the only immortal being left in a dying world, who struggles to recover his memories and find a purpose. Of course, after finding out he was responsible for the current state of the world via the death of Luna it gets worse, and then he resolves to find Luna again due to rumors of her return. Too bad she's now...different since now she is only giving life without any purpose other than to create a deathless world, since now she finds it disgusting. Casshern calls her out on this and eventually leaves her and her society to live their immortal lives with the express threat that if they ever devolve into Immortality Immorality he will come back and Leave No Survivors:Casshern: Even though there is life, no one here is living it. Life is overflowing and they are merely drinking their fill. But Dio and all the people I've met on my journey aren't like that... they're.. they're more... they were blazing with fire. They were torches burning with life[...]If you've forgotten death... then you've forgotten what it truly means to be alive.
- DARLING in the FRANXX has the Plantations, which Zero Two disdains as "lifeless" cities. As Squad 13 later discovers, she's not wrong. Most adults in the Plantations live bland and stagnant lives, getting their physical needs provided for but their emotional needs basically nonexistent - their lives are void of any names, emotions, passions, companionship, socializing, or even simple pleasures like eating or dreaming.
- Ultimately, the entire story turns out to revolve around this trope. VIRM, the Scary Dogmatic Aliens responsible for manipulating humanity into the above situation, are a Hive Mind of Energy Beings who seek to assimilate all sentient life into their collective, free of conflict, pain, emotions or personal identity. Squad Thirteen, who have come to realize just how beautiful it is to live, object. Violently.
- In Endride, both Emilio and Mischa experience this. When Emilio, a prince, claims he only lives to kill King Delzaine and will gladly die for it, Demetrio mocks him for his foolishness and tells him to take more responsibility. More kindly, when Demetrio frees Mischa from her Slave Collar, he encourages her to take the opportunity to learn how to live properly and find her own reasons for going on.
- Princess Mononoke: Studio Ghibli goes out of its way to show how Lady Eboshi and her people industrialize for the survival of themselves and their economy. As the Green Aesop progresses, it subverts the idea of living In Harmony with Nature as good, pointing out that greed and exploitation from a need for survival are a completely natural part of the food chain, but to transcend one's own nature by seeing with eyes not clouded by hatred is vastly superior to mere survival.
- In School-Live!, Miki realized that she was just focused on surviving when she and her friend Kei locked themselves in a zombie-infested mall. Once she started interacting with the School Living club, she saw that they made the best out of their situation and organized "school activities" to have a little fun.
- Shiraori of So I'm a Spider, So What? believes that a person's pride is more important than simply surviving. Early in her life she lived only to survive; after the destruction of her first home, she realized how empty her life was and resolved to find her own pride. Knowing her actions were destroying Blow's pride, she allowed him to fight a hopeless fight against the Hero to retain what pride remained.
- Near the end of YuYu Hakusho, Yusuke Urameshi gets conflicted when he finds out that he has demon blood within him, making him wonder if it's worth living and to just live being a demon. Through the support of his friends and mentors, especially with his childhood friend Keiko, Yusuke decided that it's worth living since he had been able to protect the world from demonic invasions and help prevent the netherworld from having a civil war due to the loss of Raizen. Yusuke, in the end, decided to use his heritage to help skeptical demons and humans understand one another.
- Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead runs on this — after the zombie apocalypse frees him from his Soul-Crushing Desk Job, Akira decides to live his life to the fullest to make up for his last three years of hell.
