Sandbox / Four Is Death

Short-Term Cleanup Thread on the matter (at least until it gets bumped off)

I made a thread about it earlier but it died before it could get unlocked. Anyway, while the page description for Four Is Death makes it clear that it is only meant to be used for examples where the "four" association is fairly significant, there's still a great deal of misuse of it for any instance of four being associated with various possibly coincidental negative things (either to themselves or their enemies), or former examples of what is now known as Elite Four. As there are currently 1922 wicks it's a lot of wicks to comb through manually to check for misuse. So I was hoping to get some help on that.

And possibly make some changes to the trope description to cut down on future misuse.

To see some examples of what I mean, here's a sampling of the Anime/Manga section alone:

Valid/ambiguous examples

• Chie Shinohara: The Best Collection has the one-shot Suicide Room Number 404, a room on the fourth floor, which is said to be cursed and cause women to commit suicide over scorned love.
• One episode of Chobits deals with an apparently haunted Room 104.
• (Naruto) The Forest of Death's official title is the 44th Training Ground and has 44 gates.
• Bleach: The Eleventh Division's fourth seat is empty for both the superstition and because Yumichika thinks the kanji for "Four" is ugly. Invoked.
• Moroboshi Ataru of Urusei Yatsura was marked out as a Cosmic Plaything by being born on the second most ill-omened day in the Japanese calendar, the thirteenth of April: 4-13. (This was also on Butsumetsu, the anniversary of the Buddha's death; the only unluckier day is April 4th, which is Four Is Death squared.) Additionally in the first episode, his jersey has the number 4 on it. Invoked.
• The numbers 4, 40 and 400 are all over Death Note... for obvious reasons. Mostly valid but some come off as coincidental.
  • Once a name is written in it, that person dies 40 seconds later of a heart attack unless a specific cause is written during that time.
  • You have six minutes and forty seconds to write the details of the death after the name and cause - in other words, 400 seconds.
  • One of the rules unmentioned in the series is that writing a name incorrectly four times in the Death Note by accident will grant the person who the user was trying to kill immunity to that Death Note. However, writing the name four times incorrectly on purpose will not only not render the target immune to that Death Note, but kill the user who wrote the name.
  • When first debuting as the second Kira in order to meet the real one, Misa delivers ultimatums with deadlines of four days.
  • Light has a scrap of Death Note paper hidden in his watch for emergencies, which is revealed by pulling on the watch's crown four times in less than a second.
  • On a far more obscure note, Light's given name is spelt as "moon" (月). This has four strokes, which is ... crashingly unlucky and symbolic. Poor Light, doomed from birth. On top of that, Mikami's office is number 4. Also, Rem is Shinigami ranked number 4.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: Guido Mista has a very Japanese-like obsession with the number 4, which is all the more bizarre since he's Italian. When Bruno's gang is first introduced Mista is freaking out because the waiter at their restaurant brought them four pieces of cake, and when the gang rents a boat he very fervently tells Bruno not to rent Boat #4. This even extends to his Stand Sex Pistols, a set of six gremlin-like creatures who help guide his bullets; they have numbers on their foreheads, but naturally, they skip the number 4. Near the end of the story, Mista accidentally drops four bullets and begs someone else to drop one more, just before Narancia's death. During the second half, the villain attacks and kills multiple members of the main group, and in a twist of cruel irony, there are only four protagonists left alive when it's all over, one of which is Mista. Mostly valid but the last part sounds like shoehorning.
• In Yakitate!! Japan, Kazuma's Ja-pan Number 44 is rather dangerous. It's so delicious, anyone who eats it for the first time has a Near-Death Experience.
• In Outlaw Star, the #4 Caster bullets are capable of killing the shooter if they fire them in succession. (As do the #9 and #13 bullets, both also being unlucky numbers.)
• Digimon:
  • In Digimon Fusion, Tactimon calls his attacks in increasing levels of severity (e.g. Ichi no Tachi, Ni no Tachi, San no Tachi). His most fearsome attack is called Shi no Tachi. Using the on'yomi for "four", the anime plays on both meanings of the term "shi".
• Saint Seiya:
  • In the Zodiac arc, the local Psycho for Hire resides in the Fourth Temple of the Sanctuary, the Temple of the Giant Crab. He's actually named Cancer Deathmask. Subverted in that Pisces Aphrodite is said to be actually worse-Deathmask is just more blatant. Possibly valid example. Not sure.
  • As the fourth sign, all Cancer Saints have powers strongly associated with death and the underworld. They also tend to be violently insane because of it (canonically, Deathmask was trained by the ghost of one of his predecessors). Possibly valid example. Not sure.
• Cyborg 009: Albert Heinrich, aka Cyborg 004, is the most heavily reconstructed and had most of his body replaced with various weapons. The original manga even saddled him with the nickname "God of Death", and his original personality was that of a rather frightening vengeance-seeker that enjoyed battling Black Ghost. However, his character evolved over the years, and in the 2001 version, he's more of a withdrawn, Big Brother Mentor who's very disturbed by his enhancements. Only the "God of Death" part seems valid; everything else seems like a shoehorn.

Four coincidentally has bad things happen to them

• In Neon Genesis Evangelion, the fourth Evangelion unit (really the fifth unit if you count the prototype 00, but being called the 04 was all it took) disappeared into a Dirac sea during a startup experiment, taking a large chunk of the Mojave Desert with it. Also, Unit 03 — the real fourth Evangelion — got taken over by an Angel and had to be destroyed, nearly (and in the manga, actually) killing Toji too, who was, of course, the Fourth Child. And if that wasn't enough, Toji shortly prior became the fourth person that Hikari makes lunches for. Ouch. Unit-04 was always referred to as yon-gouki in dialogue. Even Rebuild does this. And when Shinji achieves a synchronization ratio of 400%, his body dissolves into LCL. Don't worry, he came back. Mixed. Some of these might be valid.
• From Naruto:
  • The Fourth Hokage spent the shortest time in office, a tenure that ended with him saving the village with a "Seal Evil" technique that required him to sacrifice his own life and seal his soul in the Death God's stomach, in eternal combat with the sealed Evil.
  • Meanwhile, the Fourth Kazekage seemed to be the worst thing to ever happen to Suna. He sealed a Tailed Beast in his son (in this case Shukaku, the One-Tailed Tanuki) which was already contained in a tea kettle. Gaara wasn't born yet and as a result the Kazekage's wife died delivering him. He then proceeded to alienate the boy from birth and when Gaara showed signs of being Ax-Crazy (like all of Shukaku's previous hosts) he ordered the poor kid's uncle (the only person up to this point who had shown any kindness to him) to assassinate him. And to top off his career, he got his face torn off by Orochimaru as a prelude to his village being used as cannon fodder in an invasion.
  • According to the Fifth Mizukage, the Fourth Mizukage was like this for the Mist Village, and is largely responsible for the "Bloody Mist" image held by most other countries. The fact that he was being mind-controlled by Madara ^note  More accurately, Obito probably didn't help.
  • The fourth stage of the Uchiha's Sharingan is the Mangekyo, which requires the user kill their best friend.
  • Of the Eight Celestial Gates, first through third are Initial, Heal, and Life; the fourth, however, is the Harm Gate. When opened, this gate puts enough strain on the body that the muscles tear themselves apart. And twice that, the eighth gate, is the Death Gate (Opening that gate gives the user great power for a while and then a one-way ticket to Dead Meat County). Would be an example if the fourth gate was the Death Gate, but this just seems arbitrary.
  • Sasuke was going to be the fourth body Orochimaru claimed before Sasuke thwarted Orochimaru and killed him, and before that, was going to be the fourth body Orochimaru had, including his original, before the Sound Four took too long and Orochimaru had to transfer prematurely.
  • Akatsuki member Kakuzu harvests the hearts of the victims he kills, and his special ability is Four Hearts Jutsu, with which he prolongs his life by adding four hearts to his own.
  • The series' final war is the Fourth Shinobi World War, and the Fourth Division, who suffers the most casualties, is first to be victimized by Madara Uchiha.
• Being the protagonist's Temporary Love Interest, Four Murasame in Zeta Gundam was so predestined to die. And she did. Twice. And again in the Compilation Movies with a bullet to the head. Might be better off under Meaningful Name.
• Also worth mention is that both Gundam 00 and Gundam SEED skip the obvious fours in their Gundam lineups (there is no GN-004 or GAT-X104). We then later find out what became of 004: it's hidden underneath GN-005, Tieria's Gundam Virtue. It's a girly looking Fragile Speedster down to the flowing red "hair" coming out of its head and is called Gundam Nadleeh, which is incidentally the word for people of the third, fourth, and fifth genders in Navajo culture, which only deepens the mystery of whether Tieria's a Gender Bender. Seems to double as a case of "Four is Generically Important" but not necessarily Death specifically.
• The Gundam 00 side stories play it straight: In 00P (the precursor to the TV series), the GNY-004 Gundam Plutone suffered a major malfunction which killed two of the Gundam Meisters and horribly scarred a third (including her hair turning white). The survivor, who ends up running a Celestial Being sub-group years later in Gundam 00F, is understandably reluctant to allow the Plutone to be used again.
• In Code Geass R2, the first person with any screen time to die against Suzaku's new Lancelot Albion is the debuting Knight of Four. In the same series, the Valkyrie Girls, a group of pilots under the command of Luciano Bradley, are four in number- and they are the first to be killed by Kallen in the Guren SEITEN. Weirdly enough, one of them (Marika Soresi) is revealed to have survived in Code Geass: Oz the Reflection.
• One Piece:
  • The 4th division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, Thatch, was the only commander who met an unfortunate end before the present story. He was murdered by Marshall D. Teach because Thatch had found the one Devil Fruit Teach desired most- the Dark-Dark Fruit.
  • PX-4 was the first of the Pacifista to be destroyed.

Four is Dangerous/Powerful

• Naruto's Superpowered Evil Side becomes dominant and goes into "kill everyone" mode when he grows four fox tails. At this point, he can't tell friend from foe anymore and has to be forced to simmer down. Sounds more like "four is dangerous" than anything else.
• (Bleach) Ulquiorra Cifer is the most powerful espada Ichigo fights, leading Ichigo to initially assume he's number one. Not quite. He's ranked fourth. He's also the only Espada with a second release state, and the first release is so powerful it shouldn't be used under the dome of Las Noches. He also has deathly pale skin, black hair, permanently cold-looking eyes with lines underneath running down his cheeks like tear marks... you get the picture. The deathly look is possibly valid but everything else sounds like shoehorning.
• Gundam Wing has an interesting take on this, Quatre Winner is the fourth Gundam Pilot (it's even in his name), and has an aversion to killing whenever possible. Yet with his destruction of a whole colony with Wing Zero he has the highest body count of any of the Gundam Boys. Also he apparently killed his Mother giving birth to him.
• Claymores work in fours when participating in group demon-exterminating missions. In addition, when Number 6 (Claymores are ranked by power) lists the top five for her companions to watch out for, the only one to warrant emphasis and additional description is not Number 1 (by definition the strongest) but rather Number 4, who "cares nothing for the lives of her comrades or the lives of humans in general... A woman who lusts for battle and the blood spilled." The Number 4 to take over for her, Miata, is also little more than a Psychopathic Manchild, leading at least a few to conclude that all Number 4 Claymores are crazy. Sounds like a case of "four is dangerous".
• (Rosario to Vampire) Kuyou, the leader of the Student Police, is a youko with four tails.
• In D.Gray-Man a Level 4 Akuma could take on Generals easily and was close to annihilating the Black Order.
• In a Fictional Document in Monster, called "The Nameless Monster", the Nameless Monster goes through four hosts. The first three are consumed from the inside out. The fourth consumes everyone who knows his name.

Four is Generically Important

• The second season of Gundam 00 seems to go to complete overkill with regards to the number four: it takes place 4 years at the end of the first season, the main Gundam Meisters are still composed of 4 members, the titular mobile suit's model number is GN-0000 and it is also the only 4th generation model when it debuts. And if you want to take things further, said unit is powered by two GN-Drives, one's from the very first (0) Gundam, while the other is from the protagonist's previous unit which is part of the third generation. Thus 1 + 3 = 4. And the Innovades are four pairs, and it includes the Big Bad and Tieria. Four is a meaningful motif but not this specific trope.
• Rosario + Vampire in the anime, Tsukune arrives at the bus stop at 4:44 pm and is attacked by rivals for Moka's love. Later on, 4:44 pm is the scheduled time for his execution for being human.
• Soul Eater: Technically counts but this is more of a Goroawase Number or pun than anything else.
  • Weapon meisters use a form of spiritual telephone to keep in contact — the number for direct contact with Shinigami-sama is 42-42-564 ('shini, shini, goroshi' out loud — in other words, 'die, die, kill').
  • The 'shini' part gets used for Kid in the increase in the size of his soul - one scanlation translated Liz's comment as "42 soul-widths") and the Sanzu Line-enabled form for the Thompsons - Death Eagle .42.
  • This is also the other reason that Death Robbins ice cream has 42 flavors instead of 31. Ohkubo seems to really love this trope.
  • Also, the zeppelin they use to get on the moon to fight the kishin has a big '42' painted on the side ((only in the manga)).

Elite Four Misuse

• In Fist of the North Star, there are four heirs of the Hokuto school of combat. And there is a reason if Kenshiro, the fourth of them, is the Trope Namer for You Are Already Dead. Second is a shoehorn.
• The Phantom Lord guild from Fairy Tail has the Element 4, a Classical Elements Ensemble of wizards and the equivalent of Fairy Tail's S-Class wizards: Aria, Juvia, Sol, and Totomaru.
• Appears repeatedly in Weiß Kreuz: not only is Weiss, a team of assassins, made up of four members, so are three different groups of antagonists they go up against, and one team of allies. Sequel series Weiß Kreuz Gluhen, which re-forms the team into its fourth iteration, does not end well.
• In Digimon Adventure, there are four Dark Masters who are the fourth major enemy faced. And they are very deadly, as they kill several allies of the Digidestined.
• The Godhand in Berserk originally had four members before Griffith did his epic Face–Heel Turn.
• In Black Lagoon, Roanapur is controlled by four criminal organisations - the Triads headed by Mr. Chang, the Russian Mafiya headed by Balalaika, the Italian Mafia headed by Verrochio (and succeeded by Ronny the Jaws following the Vampire Twins arc), and a Colombian drug cartel headed by Abrego.
• One Piece has four superpowerful pirates known as the Four Emperors (one of whom happens to be someone extremely important to Luffy) who act as a counterbalance to the Marines and the Seven Warlords of the Sea. Whitebeard ended up dying among the four, and Blackbeard usurped the empty spot he left.

Straight-up Shoehorning

• (Bleach) Unohana Retsu, the captain of the Fourth Division is The Dreaded. She is also the First Kenpachi of the Eleventh Division, and the worst criminal to ever exist in Soul Society. Meaning that she was (and still is) worse than Aizen. Her actual name is Unohana Yachiru, the person Zaraki Kenpachi respected the most, and Yachiru's namesake. The name "Yachiru" means 8000 styles, referring to the fact that she has mastered every sword style in Soul Society. To top it all off, she is the inventor of the Art of Killing, which she plans on teaching to her tenth successor. She is probably the most blatant example in all of Bleach.
  • Askin Nakk le Vaar holds the letter designation "D", the alphabet's fourth letter, and his ability is "The Deathdealing." His power is the ability to change the "lethal dosage" of any substance he takes into his body in sufficient quantity, which lets him do anything from become completely immune to an attack to making something as simple as oxygen fatal to anyone around him. He demonstrates this by making the blood in a foe's body toxic, and the only way to escape his power is to bleed to death since he made the "lethal dosage" lower than what the body needs to survive. Oh, and it's almost impossible for him to die - even finally being taken down by Oetsu didn't stick, courtesy of Yhwach's Auswählen. Shoehorning (D is a letter and not a number), all of them are supposed to be deadly anyway.
  • A subtle example occurs in Yamamoto's past, which reveals that he previously went by the nickname Eijisai, written 丿字斎 - with the first character being the fourth kanji radical. This is revealed as part of the lead-in to the fight ending in his death.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Inverted with the Four-Star Dragon Ball, which saves Son Goku's life during his first battle against Tao Pai Pai. This Dragon Ball is a memento to his grandfather Son Gohan. In the anime, after Goku's first son was born, he gave him the name of his grandfather when Goku looked up to the Dragon Ball. Aversion, not inversion. Aversions are not notable.
  • Dragon Ball GT takes this inverted trope even further with the Devil Dragon/Shadow Dragon of the Four Star Dragon Ball, Si Xing Long/Nuova Shenron. Si Xing Long is the Token Good Teammate, the Noble Demon and the Anti-Villain among the seven Devil Dragons. He even saves his enemy/friend Goku on several occasions. See above.
  • Played straight with Frieza having four forms, not counting his Full Power and Golden forms, which are simply extensions of his fourth.
• In episode 4 of FLCL, Naota gets beaned by Haruko during the 4th inning of the baseball game at the beginning of the episode. The umpire even shouts "dead ball!"
• The soundtracks for both Zeta Gundam and Gundam ZZ have a sting specifically for significant character deaths, which is exactly four chords of descending notes. Subverted at least once for a Fake Kill Scare, when the person who was thought killed turned up alive later.
• Lord Fungus in Final Fantasy: Unlimited survived the first three shots from Kaze's Magun, but the fourth did him in.
• In .hack GU, Tri-Edge's mark looks like a stylized rendering of the Arabic numeral "4", rotated to its side (or mirrored, depending on how you look at it). The mark signifies those that have been killed by the enigmatic Tri-Edge, making the people that got killed fall into comas left and right.
• (One Piece) As an inversion, the fourth child of the Vinsmoke Royal Family, Sanji, is the Token Good Teammate and the White Sheep of the family because of the resistant drugs his mother took when his father wanted his kids to have Lack of Empathy and cold super soldiers. '''Aversion rather than inversion, and Aversions are not notable.