Times where there was More than Mind Control at play in anime and manga series:
- In Arisa, part of the King's power is that the class and his minions want to do what he tells them, no matter how extreme.
- Attack on Titan: Mikasa's extreme loyalty is involuntary...probably. Readers don't explicitly know, because the genetic imprinting that defines her ancestry happened so long ago, with technology so alien to the medieval inhabitants of Eldia...and because it activated soon after the tragic murder of her parents, in a situation where damn near anybody would be desperate for positive human contact. Mikasa herself has to be told the bond is artificial, and even then she doesn't quite believe it.
- Berserk:
- This is usually the way that Ubik convinces people to become Apostles and place the Brand of Sacrifice upon others.
- Griffith is also very good at this, using his charisma to make people totally loyal to him. Indeed, the one time he was truly defied (Guts leaving the Band of the Hawk) only occurred because Guts wanted Griffith to see him as an equal rather than a subordinate; even when rebelling against Griffith, Guts was still acting out of a desire to be liked and respected by him. Following his reincarnation as Femto and return to the human world, Griffith's extraordinary natural charisma has been supernaturally bolstered, making most people immediately see him as a Messianic Archetype just from the sight of him.
- Griffith was subjected to this in the first place; he originally had heroic willpower, but also extreme character flaws that the Apostles' master capitalized on. Specifically, Griffith is an obsessive narcissist; when Guts and Casca decided they wanted to retire instead of continuing to spill blood for his glory, he immediately broke down. Then he was captured and tortured to near-death, and the Idea of Evil promised he would never lose anything important again - as long as he sacrificed everything that was important to him now. He took the offer before the Hawks could rescue him. From there, he's been part-demon and in thrall to a god of suffering, so he's now incapable of reconsidering his poor actions.
- Bleach:
- Captain Aizen did this to his lieutenant Momo Hinamori, with very tragic results.
- Also present in Nemu Kurotsuchi's willingness to endure Mayuri's abuse because of her love and admiration for him. Though as an Artificial Human, she could have just been programmed to think that way.
- In one of the video games, Nemu says that the only people in Soul Society she thinks are normal are Mayuri and Zaraki Kenpachi.
- In the Zanpakuto Unknown Tales arc, Muramasa's power draws on either their pre-existing frustrations or base instincts to incite them to rebel against the shinigami. Though the source of the frustration can be extremely petty (Suzumebachi disapproves of Soifon's fashion sense, for example), it's still got to be there. Hanatarou's zanpakuto Hisogumaru doesn't participate in the rebellion because he doesn't have any resentment for Muramasa to work with.
- Tsukishima has one of the most horrible instances of this trope yet—he inserts himself into his targets memories, placing himself as their best friend, their family, their lover... however he wants. It gets particularly bad in that he's done this to everyone Ichigo knows, leaving him the only one aware of the truth. It takes a massive intervention from several Shinigami plus Isshin and Urahara to start fixing this.
- When he attempts this on Byakuya, however, Byakuya still manages to fight and defeat him. He later explains to a mortally injured Tsukishima that, although he cannot begin to think how to repay Tsukishima for all he has done for him in his false memories, his debt to Ichigo is stronger still.
- Code Geass:
- Lelouch does this quite a bit. Due to the limits on his Mind Control Geass, he also resorts to this when the situation calls for it - like turning Rolo over to his side.
- Let's not forget his half-brother Schneizel, who uses similar tricks on the already mentally-unstable Nina Einstein and later on Nunnally.
- And, shockingly, fake brother Rolo pulls this on Lelouch, using his insecurities to tie them together, after Lelouch had already done the same to him. It doesn't work perfectly - Lelouch becomes more attached to The Power of Friendship than anything else - but once he does this, it's not until Rolo kills one of those friends that Lelouch shows any particular dislike for Rolo.
- There's also Mao. His treatment of Shirley has all the trappings of More Than Mind Control (side order of Mind Rape attached, but same deal)... except that it doesn't work all the way. He's apparently done it a lot, though, and in a light novel, he even tells C.C. something to the effect of "I didn't make them do anything they weren't going to do already." Of course, considering he's a Psychopathic Man Child mind reader who Accentuate the Negative and has a very warped idea what is "good" and "evil" it's very unlikely without his push people would do anything he thinks they would do.
- Genkaku from Deadman Wonderland does this to Nagi with the help of drugs. He manages to make Nagi temporarily revert back to being berserk and Ax-Crazy by convincing and reminding him that he doesn't have any hope for a family and that most of his happy memories are made up.
- Detective School Q:
- Apparently, what made Miyo Fuuma a killer in . Dealt by her grandfather, nonetheless.
- Also applied on several culprits, courtesy of Meiuosei itself. Basically, they give you the means to carry your revenge and keep an agent close as a your monitor, but if said revenge is foiled, they force you into either kill yourself or murder the person who blows your cover. And if a Meiousei agent is captured by the police, another will activate some sort of Mind Control that will make them kill themselves as well.
- Digimon:
- Taichi of Digimon V-Tamer 01 is able to recognize mind control, but not more than mind control, such as that which Lord Tricera is under. Zeromaru is actually the first to really figure this out after having experienced it personally.
- Digimon Adventure:
- Yamato [Matt], when Jureimon [Cherrymon] persuades him to turn on Taichi [Tai].
- Koushiro [Izzy] experiences this and normal Mind Control through Vademon. The Digimon convinces Izzy that he is greedy and useless in his pursuit for knowledge and should give up his curiosity. Izzy crumbles under the insults combined with being trapped in Vademon's pocket dimension and gives up his most defining trait. It takes a lot of talking from Tentomon (to the point where he devolves back to Pabumon, his baby form) to get him back out of it.
- Digimon Adventure 02 has the origin story of Ken. How much of his behavior as the Kaiser was a result of the spore's influence, how much was due to the trauma of his past and how much was just him going Control Freak on a world that he didn't think was real, is still up for debate.
- Kouichi in Digimon Frontier by Cherubimon, playing on his feelings of isolation after his family split.
- Masuken and Teru in Digimon D-Cyber, initially hooked with MetalPhantomon's promise of giving them super powers and then playing on their insecurities from there.
- Shu in Digimon Next by Barbamon, who also seemingly pulls it on Yggdrasil itself, though the latter seems to be a two way street as Barbamon ends up acting out of (misguided) benevolence rather than greed.
- Nene's relationship with DarkKnightmon [AxeKnightmon] in Digimon Fusion has shades of this. DarkKnightmon is pretty...well...dark. He certainly doesn't seem to have Nene's best interests at heart, which is apparent to anyone watching. It's revealed in episode 19 that she only works with him because she believes he's the only one who could get her and her brother out of the Digital World.
- This is a popular theme in corruption-mindbreak hentai, with the popular example being Dina Rangers
by Macxes: the receiving-end is being meticulously overridden by beseechment and strong stimuli to abandon one's morals, attachments, values and even oneself. This does not work, for the most part, unless the recipient of The Corruption is convinced that this is what they want. - Dragon Ball:
- In Dragon Ball Z, Babidi controls his minions by finding the evil in the person's heart and turn them into his willing slaves by making them want to serve him. The more evil the person is, the stronger the control. He did this to Vegeta, who actually refused his orders and wished to fight Goku, as he's the only one allowed to defeat him, in his mind. He later revealed he was using Babidi as he felt he needed to be reminded how good evil feels in order to gain more power.
- Dragon Ball Super has Watagash, a Puppeteer Parasite who feeds on the evil and darkness within his hosts and draws it out; the more evil the heart of the host is, the stronger he becomes. When possessed, Barry Khan is revealed to be a truly heartless and evil bastard, becoming strong enough to overpower base Gohan, which a violent bank robber was unable to do, and mutating into horrific Kaiju-sized forms.
- Durarara!!: While Saika wielders do get to completely mind-control people, Izaya is a very successful Manipulative Bastard who does this sort of stuff for fun, and has no sort of superhuman abilities whatsoever. What he uses these skills for is disgusting. He found many girls with abusive lovers and families and turned them all into his 'followers' by, according to himself, shifting their worship for their abusers onto him. He even says that if he told them to die, even if they had doubts the girls would comply. Saki Mikajima dated Masaomi under his orders and even went so far as to purposely get kidnapped when Izaya told her to. Another one of his followers, Nozomi Kotonami, had a nervous breakdown when he vanished.
- The Enigma of Amigara Fault is all about this. The titular fault is home to countless holes shaped like people, which just provides a natural curiosity in most who observe them. However, one person will feel an unnatural compulsion to enter any given hole... not in a mindless trance sense. They know there will be no escape from inside, they know they will suffer and even die inside... but they must. No amount of persuasion or barricading will convince sufferers otherwise.
- In Full Metal Panic! this is what happens to Kaname Chidori in the last few volumes of the light novels. After surviving and escaping several attempts of kidnapping/assassination directly aimed at her over a period of less than a year, she is finally taken away by the enemy after a series of very traumatic events that nearly kills everyone at her school, gravelly injures her best friend, and almost kills Sousuke. Following her kidnapping, she falls into a deep depression, struggles with both her emotional turmoil and the outside pressure put upon her by her captors; then she accidentally almost kills Leonard Testarossa, which puts an abrupt end to his attempts of behaving like a gentleman with her and brings a whole new world of psychological torture and physical illness on her, plus some Whispered mind screw; is taken away by the enemy again just as she was close to be rescued, tries to kill herself, and barely survives a helicopter crash that takes her to the one place where she really doesn't want to go. And all this happens in a little more than a year, and does not take onto account her childhood traumas like the death of her mother and her resentment toward her father. Or the whole Whispered influence exerted over her literally since birth. By this point, when she is taken over by Sophia, the poor kid is too depressed and tired to put up much of a fight, and even after she starts getting herself together, Sophia still manages to break her, by making a defetist Kaname tiredly agree with her. Ironically, it ends up backfiring.
- Fushigi Yuugi:
- Used expertly by Nakago to turn Yui against her best friend Miaka. This is greatly facilitated by Yui's crush on Tamahome and by Nakago letting her believe that she was raped.
- When Tasuki is possessed by Tenkou in the second OVA, he attempts to rape Miaka. Because Tasuki has been nursing a secret infatuation with Miaka, Tenkou is manipulating his actual feelings.
- The Dragon Proist in Gaiking: Legend of Daiku Maryu manipulates Ruru into attempting to kill her father by bringing up old, forgotten memories. Twice.
- In GaoGaiGar, to some extent, this is how the villains are able to infect the Monster of the Week. A regular human is infected and corrupted with Zonder Metal due to their pre-existing stresses and/or negative emotions and more often than not, they are targeting specific locations that they felt had wronged them. El-02 is a homeless man who desired revenge against City Hall and began destroying the city in an attempt to get there. El-12 is a scientist hoping to make a breakthrough in his particles technology but his research and facility is used to trap and take out Guy and the others GGG mecha. El-15 is a tech genius jealous of Entouji and takes over the G-Island base.
- Golden Kamuy: This is Lieutenant Tsurumi's primary method of manipulation. He realized that the thing that moves soldiers on the battlefield is not the hate for another country and not even patriotism, but the bonds they develop with their companions and superiors. Because of that, he aims to make the members of his division love him and worship him deeply, to such a point that nothing he does will get them to turn against him. While some can be turned by simply him showing his devoted, fatherly, and loving side, he is willing to go to much greater lengths for others. He faked a kidnap attempt so he could rescue Koito and invoke Rescue Romance, allowed and covered up for Ogata to murder his father, and got Tsukishima out of the death row and then set up a situation where he could save his life. Even after realizing they've been manipulated, they're so deeply steeped in their adoration and love for him, they act as nothing happened and keep following his orders.
- Gunslinger Girl. The cyborg girls start off as brainwashed blank slates who blindly obey every order they're given. As their relationship with The Handler continues, other factors like romantic or platonic love and Fire-Forged Friends come into play, increasing the bond between handler and cyborg. One handler who never bothered building a relationship with his cyborg fell victim to a Murder-Suicide when he did an assignment with another team and his cyborg realised how indifferent he was in comparison; in another case, a cyborg who fell in romantic love with her handler never told him her feelings because she was savvy enough to wonder whether said feelings came from her own will or were induced by the remains of her brainwashing.
- Goldie Musou from Gunsmith Cats uses this to gain control of whoever she wants. She knows her mind-controlling drugs can only go so far; they'll have to keep her 'pets' constantly drugged or they'll instantly start fighting to return to their old life. In one case she kidnaps a young girl called Mary-Anne and brainwashes her into believing that her father was possessed by demons and she had to kill him. Now that she's been forced out of her old life by that act, she will willingly accept her brainwashing rather than face the reality of what she did. Anyone who tries to deprogram her will realize that saving her means forcing her to 'wake up' to the fact she killed her father. So she serves Goldie without any regret, to the point that when Goldie abandoned her, she and some other girls tried to commit suicide rather than live without their beloved 'Mistress Goldie'. Yes, Goldie is an evil sadistic bitch, why do you ask?
- Ironically she ends up mellowing down somewhat in the final issues, and masters her manipulations to the point where the line between it and normal persuasion becomes practically transparent. The manga ends with her in more or less steady and consensual relationship with Misty Brown.
- In Inuyasha, Sango's brother Kohaku becomes the victim of this. He's put under regular mind-control/memory-wipe first, and only later, when he begins to show signs of resistance, does Naraku employ manipulation to keep him under control. Made especially ironic by Naraku insisting that Kohaku doesn't want to remember almost killing his sister, Sango, when one of the main things Naraku is using him for is the death of Sango, and is the whole reason he'd attacked her in the first place.
- Dio Brando of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has an uncanny ability to gain followers due to being incredibly charismatic. While brainwashing is one of his powers, it seems that most of his followers are either genuinely loyal or at the very least hired assassins.
- In The King of Fighters G, an Alternate Universe retelling of KOF 96, there are several instances of Brainwashed and Crazy fighters. However, Benimaru Nikaido's specific case is more of this, he had a rather violent verbal spat with Kyo after Kyo is almost killed by Goenitz, which leaves him so badly shaken, first leads him to team up with Iori and Mature instead of Goro and Kyo. So when Goenitz breaks havoc in the middle of Kyo and Benimaru's fight in the finals, Benimaru's inner turmoil does not mix well with the Orochi power infused around everyone and he snaps, injures Kyo's eyes and severely beats him up. Kyo still wins and manages to snap Benimaru out of it, and the released Benimaru apologizes to Kyo.
- Mai Shiranui is also subjected to this: she was in an Heroic BSoD after the Fatal Fury Team loses badly (including Andy being totally curbstomped by Benimaru) and left the battlefield to try calming herself down, but then Goenitz showed up and confronted her; the combination of a Breaking Lecture, a Curb-Stomp Battle and some bits of Goenitz's powers were horrible on poor Mai, who totally lost control of herself and savagely attacked Kyo and Athena when they walked on her. It took Athena pulling a Diving Save to stop Kyo from burning Mai with an Orochinagi to bring her back.
- Also, Leona falls into this as well when Goenitz awakens her Orochi blood like he did in her past to make her kill her parents and townspeople with words alone. Clark, one of her two Big Brother Mentors, gives her a Cooldown Hug and snaps her out - but not before she puts her arm through his chest.
- Not only is Seimei from Loveless extremely manipulative on his own, but even though he's a Sacrifice, not a Fighter, he has the (unexplained) power to cause harm with his words. It's probably easier to list the people he HASN'T done this to, but notable examples of Seimei's victims are Soubi, his Fighter Unit (see main entry) and Ritsuka, Seimei's twelve-year-old younger brother, who Seimei REALLY loves.
- Magical Project S: This the case for Misao Amano; initially her other personality was believed to be caused solely by brainwashing. It was later revealed that while she had no memories of what she had done, her evil side was just her repressed personality.
- A light version of this is present in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Reccoa Londo defects from the AEUG to join Paptimus Scirocco, whose combination of charm and Newtype powers seems to make women obsessively loyal to him. However, while this is certainly a big part of her reason for betrayal, it is also strongly hinted that she was driven to do this by her frustration with Quattro's indecisiveness in their budding relationship... or, at least, she saw that as one of the only ways she could escape Scirocco's influence.
- Monster: Johan Liebert is fond of this, using it on many people that he meets, to the point that one of them has a very Ho Yay-ish obsession with him.
- Big Bad Moo in Monster Rancher could turn monsters villainous through The Power of Hatred, but some followed him willingly. Out of his Elite Four, half were shown to be subjected to this.
- He manipulated Pixie and Big Blue by offering them Revenge upon the humans who originally enslaved them, letting them turn the tables on their former captors... and anyone else they got their hands on.
- After capturing Gray Wolf, he falsely claimed that Tiger of the Wind intentionally let his younger brother be taken in order to save his own hide. Magnifying Gray Wolf's inferiority complex and buried resentment of his strict, but well-meaning sibling until he became a full-fledged Green-Eyed Monster who angrily refuted Tiger's insistence that he was being controlled and was eager to kill his own brother.
- Dark magic in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! can be used to control emotions, but the emphasis is on control. While it can heighten feelings like hatred or envy, those feelings have to be there to begin with. Since Katarina feels no jealousy towards Maria, the dark magician who wants to drive Katarina away can't destroy her reputation and get her expelled by making her bully Maria.
- Naruto:
- Orochimaru gets a large portion of his followers through this method and Tobi also operates with this principle.
- Sasuke is more or less the poster-boy for the victim of this brainwashing. Itachi did it to him as a child; Orochimaru as a pre-teen; and Tobi as a teen. He has essentially spent his entire life being manipulated by others and yet seems certain he is in control of his own destiny. Which was lampshaded by Itachi, of all people, who said that Sasuke was still pure, and that any influence could sway him.
- This is used to some extent in Noein by the titular villain. The last few episodes show Noein trying to torment Haruka into following his plans by showing her various scenes of her friends in desperate situations and of her own death and her boyfriend's subsequent agonizing. Fortunately, Haruka finds a future in each case where her friends overcame their tragedies, showing Noein that not ALL futures are full of pain and sorrow.
- One Piece: This trope is how CP9 convinced Nico Robin to surrender to them and distance herself from the Straw Hats: because she's been hunted down and outcast for over 20 years: ever since she was a child. For some time, Robin felt she really had no place in the world: that either everyone betrays her or she would betray everyone, so she had a Death Seeker mindset. But Luffy and company stare her straight in the face, knowing her past, and basically yell back, "We don't care! If they're your enemy, they're our enemy!" The confirming stroke came when they burned the World Government's flag. It's only then that Robin realizes she has True Companions at last, and she finally declares that she wants to live.
- Sae from Peach Girl is a master of this technique.
- Happens frequently in Pet Shop of Horrors. Since the pets of the shop appear human to D's customers, there's often some initial resistance to the idea of 'slavery' inherent in buying or selling humans, especially children. D will usually give them a little speech — combined with some maybe-magical, maybe-hallucinogenic incense — appealing to their inner conflict. By the end of the pitch, they're usually quite happy to walk out of the store with a human on a leash.
- In Pokémon Adventures, Bruno was straight brainwashed, but Lorelei was manipulated by Agatha into turning her dislike of what humans had done to Pokemon into a full-out desire to kill them all.
- Mikage in Revolutionary Girl Utena does this to friends and relatives of the main characters in order to get them to fight for him, and since even the supporting cast in Utena has complex psychological issues, it works. Notably, we see Mikage reject Wakaba's Unlucky Childhood Friend, the "Onion Prince", because he didn't have the kind of emotional problems he was looking for. Then it turns out that Akio and Anthy have been More Than Mind Controlling Mikage himself for decades, and the entire Dueling System hinges on Akio brainwashing all its participants, especially Anthy.
- Kirakishou from Rozen Maiden, most notable in the 2013 anime. She starts sending texts to Unwin!Jun, making them look like if they were from his younger self, so he could make a new doll she could use to enter his world, using his desire to change the world. Since he knows that Shinku will have to leave his world in a week to return to his younger self, and he'll be left behind in a world he sees with Jade-Colored Glasses, when Kirakishou's sweet offer comes, he doesn't consideres it could be a trap (because Shinku told him the world can't be changed), he just does because he wants to change the world.
- Sailor Moon: Wiseman to Chibi-Usa/Rini on one occasion (combined with Mind Rape), Zirconia to the Senshi via talking reflections in another. And Queen Nehellenia's mirror to her.
- Hao of Shaman King does this much like Orochimaru. In fact, extra manga chapter Relax. reveals this is how he amassed followers: most of them resented the world deeply for they were wronged by "normal humans". Just look at Opacho, who was a malnourished baby Hao decided to take, becoming his most loyal ally; Kanna, who when her parents died, opportunistic relatives wanted to scum her state, so Hao burned them all castle included; Big Guy Bill, whose football career hit rock bottom AND on top of that being the sole survivor of an arranged traffic accident; or Brocken, who because not being born with any limbs, he considered his own house a prison and never received any help even as an adult, and perhaps for that, he was the first minion Hao recruited.
- Tatsumi from Shiki does this a lot. The most obvious and drawn-out example happens when he manipulates Masao, who's just risen up as a vampire. First he appeals to Masao's insecurities by telling him that he's special for rising up as a vampire (being sure to mention that Masao's nephew, who Masao hated, will not be rising up). When Masao expresses any resistance to what Tatsumi is telling him (such as expressing a fear of killing a victim Tatsumi offers him to feed on), Tatsumi shifts to threatening him, at one point basically telling Masao that he'll drag him out into the sun to die if he refuses to comply with his demands. He's almost certainly done the same thing to just about every new vampire he's dug up, since he's responsible for them.
- Soul Eater's Medusa does this with Crona. We see Medusa has been breaking and driving Crona to madness since a very young age so they will kill and collect souls to become a Kishin. Then Crona does a Heel–Face Turn through The Power of Friendship with Maka, really not wanting to hurt people. Medusa then decides to use this to her advantage and turns Crona into The Mole, because Crona is too timid and lacks the self esteem to go against their mother's wishes, even when Medusa has no physical means of making them and if it means hurting their new friends. In the manga, even being dead doesn't make Medusa any less psychologically dominant: she gets Crona to kill her, but then —despite every horrible thing she did— feel so guilty about it as to consider themself unforgivable and owing it to Medusa to complete her dying wish of Crona surpassing Asura as a Kishin.
- You know Sideways from Transformers: Armada is good at this stuff when he's manipulating other people into employing it for him.
- Fay from Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- is revealed about two-thirds of the way through the story to have been willingly manipulated for most of his life by both Fei Wong Reed and Ashura-ou. This involved cunningly preying on his insecurities and regrets in moments of extreme emotional distress, aided by some magical suppression of memories that might cause him to question his situation.
- By the end of Umi Monogatari, the heroines realize that Sedna's darkness was really just magnifying the weakness that was already present in people's hearts.
- Sometimes used by the Spiral in Uzumaki. Although some of its manifestations look like vanilla mind control, it also frequently twists its victims in a more metaphorical sense. The two lovers in the chapter "Twisted Souls" are convinced to succumb to the Spiral as a way to get away from their abusive families and in the end Kirie and Shuichi are "won over" by a combination of the Spiral's all consuming influence and being worn down so much that life seems to have lost all meaning.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: In Season 4, Dartz's promises of power and ability to prey on people's weaknesses got them to join his Cult, and the power of the Orichalcos kept them there. In a nod to the Gambit Roulette, Dartz is revealed to be the instigator of the tragedies of all his main henchmen that forced them to join the cult. During the guy's duel with Yami, he almost makes him surrender the duel with this, but at the last moment, he manages to fight it off.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light, Kaiba isn't outright possessed by Anubis, but he is nudged into following his orders by thinking they're his own thoughts.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Saiou brainwashed his own followers, like Manjyome and Misawa, in a similar fashion. The only notable difference was a white color motif instead of green, and instead of manufacturing their future tragedies, he simply foresees them.
- Godwin tries this on Jack during the Season 1 Grand Finale of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, but Jack beats him by playing the Love Redeems card, referring to how Carly helped him conquer the arrogant Jerkass side Godwin was trying to appeal to.
- Don Thousand from Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL usually combines Laser-Guided Amnesia with this trope in order to control the seven Barian Emperors. He makes sure they undergo traumatic experiences that will fill them with hate as to reincarnate as Barian wold denizens, erasing and replacing any of their memories which might impediment his plan. Even when directly possessing them, his telepathic communication with Alito shows that even then he couldn't directly control their actions so much as have a stronger influence on what they could and couldn't remember, and which experiences they were most likely to focus on. Granted, most of the memories that drove them to follow him were fake, but they still believed they were real when under his control.
- Yui Kamio Lets Loose: Despite Mushi being parasites who enhance the hatred, Mushi hosts are shown to generally understand what they are and use them for their serial killings. Sealing the Mushi also doesn't fully solve the problem if the host desires it back. Even Kara who was forcibly possessed is more of an exaggeration of her inner desires.
- Koko from Zatch Bell! is a major subversion. She was thought by Sherry to be Brainwashed and Crazy by Zofis (thanks to Zofis saying this upfront during their first meeting, which he didn't expect Sherry to survive). And she was, despite pretending that her condition was different from Zofis' other mind slaves upon meeting Sherry again; Zofis forced Koko to explain, that he had created a dark personality for her, by manipulating the darkness and negative feelings the poor girl already had thanks to having lived in deep poverty and (allegedly) envying Sherry's wealth, and he did so specifically to force Sherry into an Heroic BSoD so that her partner Brago, whom Zofis rightfully feared, will be depowered. In truth, Koko was under straight Mind Control the entire time - which meant that Zofis could threaten to break the control without erasing her memories of the time she spent brainwashed, forcing her to relive all the devastation she helped Zofis unleash without a dark personality to stay sane. Except Brago 'convinces' him to erase her memories along with the mind control.note
