As a Death Trope, all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.
Sacrificial Lambs in Anime and Manga.
- In the 3rd episode of the animated Adventures of Maya the Honeybee, a dragonfly eats a fly just after Maya gets to know the fly. It is maybe the only named character to die.
- Sayo and Ieyasu, Tatsumi's friends from Akame ga Kill!, are killed in horrific fashion by Aria and her noble family in the very first arc to show us just what kind of fucked up place the Empire is and how twisted and evil Imperial nobility generally are, as well as setting the tone for how dark and violent this series can get.
- Attack on Titan: Carla Yeager, Eren's mother. She gets devoured by a Titan in the first episode to motivate Eren to kill all the Titans and to show how violent the series is.
- Baccano! kicks off its three-way train hijacking when a cultist shoots the Flying Pussyfoot's cheerful redheaded young conductor at the Deadly Closing Credits. Or so it seems. The gunshot is for the cultist's death, after said young conductor kicks the gun out of his hand and turns it on him. Then the young conductor makes his "corpse" by nabbing a second hijacker and shaving his face off with railroad tracks. Then the young conductor decides he's going to deal with this whole train hijacking situation by going on a blood-soaked killing spree. And thus the Rail Tracer is born. For bonus points, he even hangs a lampshade."Die, sacrifice."
- Baki the Grappler: Quiet formulaic too. Highly prolific fighters or characters otherwise depicted with outstanding strength and skill are effortlessly squashed to give some measure of how overwhelming any new antagonist is. Not that it matters to Baki. Much.
- Black God quickly knocks off one of the main character's classmates and that cute kid from next door in rapid order, both during the first episode.
- Bleach: Asguiaro Ebern and Luders Friegen. The latter served as the Mouth of Sauron, declaring war to Yamamoto and acting as the spokesman for the Malevolent Masked Men. The former is the first member of the Vandenreich that we meet, who attacks The Hero within the first five chapters of the latest arc. Luders was thought of as The Dragon; Ebern was seen as The Rival to The Hero. Both were killed by their boss shortly after they're introduced to quickly establish that their boss has an in-universe reputation for possessing a callous disregard for his subordinates.
- The apparent Big Bad of Code Geass, Prince Clovis la Britannia, is killed within the first few episodes. By the protagonist. And he is in no way the last.
- In an interview, the show's head writer commented that Clovis didn't last as long as originally planned, while the Ensemble Dark Horse (the one with the page image) lasted a lot longer than intended.
- This is pretty much what Dorothea Ernst is there for, being immediately killed off by Suzaku. Monica Krushevsky, too, to a lesser extent, as she doesn't fare much better. Gotta give the audience the impression that the final battle is going to be a slaughter house.
- Bismarck Waldstein is more of a Sacrificial Lion.
- Corpse Party: Musume: Miyu Shinohara. Original to the manga, and has a unique backstory and relationship with the core cast. Unfortunately, Miyu's biggest impact is being killed off in the third chapter, to show the others that they've fallen into a truly horrific place.
- Cross Ange:
- Coco Reeve and Miranda Campbell, a pair of 12-year-old Normas who were brought to Arzenal just a little before Ange was, end up being horrifically killed in their first mission when Ange attempts to escape. Coco ended up being blown in half because she wanted to go with Ange, and Miranda winds up DRAGON food when she tries to tell Ange to come back.
- Tania and Irma of Embryo's Diamond Rose Knights end up being thrown to the wolves — er, DRAGONs — by their master. Salia and Chris fare way better due to being experienced pilots, but Tania is crushed to death inside her own cockpit when a DRAGON chomps down on her Ragnamail, while Irma is killed upon impact with another charging DRAGON.
- Darker than Black has a serious case of this, setting up a ludicrously obvious Meet Cute and then smashing the whole thing to tiny little bits at the end of the second episode. That lady who looked like a love interest? The one who everyone was looking for and who knew a lot about the Gate? She was actually a doll programmed with the original's personality as a trap for Hei, and the main reason for his repeated rescues (not to mention flirting) was so that he could get information out of her. The original Chiaki was Dead All Along. By the end of the second episode, Chiaki has had this happen to her twice. It says a lot about the series that someone so obviously set up as a major character had been used as a human shield within two episodes of their introduction.
- Nika plays this role in the second season. He's a friend and possible crush for Suo, not to mention the other person among their friends to suffer from becoming an Un-person. Not to mention the possible drama of him interacting with friend-turned-Contractor, Tanya. Nope, he's just horribly murdered by Tanya, which serves the purpose of unleashing Suo's Superpowered Evil Side.
- Subverted with Suo's dad, who also gets killed off very shortly into the second season — the one Hei killed was actually a copy made by Shion's power, and the original escaped.
- In Shikkoku no Hana manga a girl who just became a really interesting character was blasted into dust simply by a freakish accident no one wanted or expected, leaving Hei and her bewildered friend only a shoe.
- Usually an appropriate Sacrificial Lion in the main series, a Leomon gets killed in the first 5 minutes of Digimon X-Evolution.
- Both Elfen Lied and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA boast first episodes with lots of Lambs.
- Elfen Lied had a particularly poignant example by making one of the lambs rather loveable in a short amount of time.
- Nina Tucker in Fullmetal Alchemist - or, rather, the chimera that was created out of her and her pet dog by her Mad Scientist father. It's Played With a bit in that her death does have a big effect on Ed and Al's Character Development and they bring it up often later (usually to reflect on how they were powerless to save her) - but it doesn't do much to move the plot other than to confirm what the audience already knows about how screwed up the Amestrian military's priorities are. Overall, her death contrasted with that of Hughes later on is a good way to illustrate the difference between this trope and Sacrificial Lion.
- In Ga-Rei -Zero- the entire cast is one of these, killed at the end of the first episode. Then we meet the real cast, at *their* death scene, then we go back in time.
- Getter Robo:
- One of the most infamous Lambs in all anime is Musashi Tomoe from (he's not nicknamed "Kenny" just for the lulz). This is due to Flanderization - he made it through the entire original Getter Robo story detailing the conflict against the Dinosaur Empire before making his Heroic Sacrifice, but later versions would kill him sooner- Getter Robo Armageddon kills him before the fourth episode, and Shin Getter Robo vs. Neo Getter Robo makes his Heroic Sacrifice the opening scene.
- The Sacrificial Lamb in the original Getter Robo is Dr. Saotome's son Tatsuhito, who is always killed before Hayato Jin sets foot in Get-2.
- Shirogane from GoLion is introduced as a full team member, but died six episodes in. He proved so popular that his Backup Twin was eventually introduced. In Voltron, Shirogane's equivalent Sven was merely wounded, and made the twin the same person after recovering. Future adaptations (including comics and Voltron: Legendary Defender) would give the character a significantly larger role.
- The first chapter/episode of Goblin Slayer focuses on a party of rookie adventurers as they go into a goblin cave to rescue some kidnapped women. Unfortunately, their inexperience and overconfidence proves to be their undoing, as the warrior of the party gets horribly slaughtered, the mage is overpowered and stabbed with a goblin dagger that turns out to be poisoned and she has to be put out of her misery when the poison spreads too far, the monk ends up beaten to a pulp and horribly gangraped, and the priestess is only spared these or many other grim fates by the arrival of Goblin Slayer, who proceeds to wipe out the entire nest using deadly tactics and strategic use of the priestess's miracles. The only survivor of the rookie party other than the priestess is the monk, but because of her traumatic ordeal at the goblins' hands, her brief life as an adventurer is over.
- Higurashi: When They Cry subverts and uses this by killing Mion, Rena, Keichii, Takano and Tomitake in the first arc, only to see them back again because of the "Groundhog Day" Loop. They die again in other arcs too. Frequently. However, we find out halfway through the second season that Takano actually never died, and never actually does.
- Similarly the next installment of the When They Cry series, Umineko: When They Cry.
- The Demon Slayer Village is introduced in a relatively early episode of Inuyasha, only for the entire population to be wiped out in that very episode save for the young female slayer Sango and her nekomata partner Kirara as well as her brainwashed younger brother Kohaku.
- Sophie Oswald (Leon's sister) and Aaron Killian (Yuri's father) from Kaleido Star.
- KanColle: Kisaragi is introduced as Mutsuki's sempai only to get killed in the third episode. Though the series averts Forgotten Fallen Friend by making it important in the next episode and having big Call Backs later on.
- The anime of Magic Knight Rayearth turns Presea into this. She's featured prominently in the opening and closing credits and starts the same way she did in the manga: a quirky blacksmith who becomes a Cool Big Sis to the girls, with an added scene where she fights off some monsters. In the sixth episode, Ascot and his creatures destroy her house and she's killed in the collapse, underlining how high the stakes are. (Her Death by Adaptation isn't forgotten and more ramifications happen in the second season.)
- Gai Daigouji from Martian Successor Nadesico. He's the Hot-Blooded pilot, a big fan of Gekiganger 3 (the Super Robot Show Within a Show), brash and eager to fight the Jovians in the most bombastic way possible. And then he's killed off in a completely pointless way in the third episode to show that this anime is not going to follow Super Robot rules, and is more of a Real Robot show.
- Monster has quite a few of these, such as Mauler and Nina's foster parents, but their deaths are legitimately tragic, and they're remembered by the other characters rather than simply forgotten.
- Everyone not named Yui in the first two episodes of Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse. And considering those characters were filling out standard character role tropes nicely... the notable Bait-and-Switch nature of the anime kicks in. Horrifically.
- Kazuya is the first character to die off in My-HiME when his girlfriend Akane has her CHILD destroyed by Miyu, after the latter exposes herself as The Mole. Akane herself survives, but it takes her the entire rest of the series to recover from the ensuing Heroic BSoD.
- In Naruto, this role belongs to Jonin Hayate Gekko, the original proctor for the Third Stage of the Chunin Exams - he gets a little screen time (in which, to be fair, he does a fair bit) before being the first named good guy from the main storyline to snuff it. It's true he dies later than most, but still qualifies as his death heralds both the steadily darkening storyline and the first major character death, 3rd Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi.
- In One Piece, the 77th Marine Branch appears to evacuate Arlong's victims and attack the pirates themselves. Despite their Commodore claiming it is a semi-elite fighting unit, three fishmen quickly disable and scuttle the ship with all hands aboard. This effectively makes it clear that Arlong's crew is a threat not just to the local villagers but even to veteran pirate hunters.
- "Hot Ice" Hilda from Outlaw Star dies before the eponymous Cool Starship is formally put into use by the protagonists, hence her conspicuous absence from the anime's opening. That said, she still gets enough screentime and development to border on Sacrificial Lion. Clearly a case of being Too Awesome to Live.
- Mami Tomoe of Puella Magi Madoka Magica is the first Magical Girl encountered by the protagonists in the series (if you don't count Madoka's dream in the very first episode). She spends the first two episodes being the resident Cool Big Sis to the rest of the girls and a possible Big Brother Mentor for Madoka before being killed off in gruesome fashion at the hands of Charlotte, Episode 3's Witch of the Week, which does an excellent job at establishing just how dark and messed up a series it is. Mami is not forgotten, and later episodes show previous timelines of Homura's "Groundhog Day" Loop where Mami survives her encounter with Charlotte, only to meet some other bad fate — one timeline has her hitting the Despair Event Horizon due to Sayaka becoming a witch and having to be put down, and Mami realizing that this is the fate of all Magical Girls, which drives her to try to kill everyone and herself to spare them from this horrible fate, killing Kyouko and almost killing Homura before being stopped by Madoka. Mami, along with every other Magical Girl, ultimately comes back after Madoka's wish destroys all witches before they are born, though this comes at the cost of Madoka's own existence.
- Psycho-Pass: Yuki, a minor character who was introduced as Akane's friend outside the Public Safety Bureau early on, is used to lure Shinya in one of Senguji and Makishima's "hunting games". While she and Shinya manage to kill Senguji, Makishima captures her and shortly after kills her in front of Akane as punishment for the latter's inability to shoot him. This is the first time Makishima kills somebody with his own hands, rather than indirectly causing their death.
- Ringing Bell actually takes this literally with the tragic death of Chirin's mother, which quickly changes the entire tone of the movie and original story by Takashi Yanase. The death of Chirin's mother causes the story to quickly become a cautionary tale about revenge.
- Tomonori Komori, the Starter Villain of Shadow Star. When he's first introduced it seems like he'll be an important part of the plot and is fairly intimidating, only to get messily killed off a few chapters later. His death sets the tone for the rest of the series.
- Sheena in the Strider manga dies during the second chapter. Her death is the catalyst for both Hiryu and Kain's turning on their superiors to take on the MegaCorp wanting to Take Over the World through mind control during the rest of the six-chapter manga. Especially for Kain, who was the one who killed her during a brainwashed state.
- Kanade from Symphogear. Symphogear actually wasn't very kill-happy at all, but they used Kanade's death in the first episode to plant that little seed of doubt in the audience's mind that character X might be dead for real.
- Professor Goh in Transformers: Super-God Masterforce - Shuta's father and a good friend of Metalhawk, he was set up to function as The Professor and Mission Control for the series. Died in the third episode.
- Kotori from X/1999 dies early on. It is foreordained that she will die.
