Scream Discretion Shots in Anime and Manga.
- The flashback to Czeslaw Meyer being tortured in the Baccano! anime uses this trope.
- Black Lagoon has this, most noticeably in the vampire twins story arc.
- Partial case in Code Geass, with the Emperor giving Lelouch his Fake Memories.
- Allen Walker from D.Gray-Man fits this trope when Road messes with his mind before stabbing him in the left eye with a really sharp-ended candle. Instead of showing the real action, we see Road laughing with a huge speech bubble of Allen screaming his head off. Luckily, it's toned down in the anime, where Road commands a candle to shoot straight at Allen's eye. Still, we see a bunch of floating toys while we listen to poor Allen screaming.
- This is how a monster in Devil & Devil is introduced : It sneaks behind a young woman who's about to go back home, then attacks her and regresses her into an infant as we hear her scream (Well, not really "hear", since it's a manga) and see a close-up of the monster's eye. It is properly seen some time later as it regresses a young girl into another baby, on-screen this time.
- Doraemon: Occurs in "Soap Bubbles". When Big G punches Sneech, we hear Sneech scream but we don't see him in pain.
- In Dragon Ball Z when Piccolo finishes off Raditz after mortally wounding him, all we see is Piccolo thrusting his hand towards his head and it cuts away as he screams.
- In Fushigi Yuugi, when Miaka is shown Yui being supposedly raped through a magic mirror, all we see is Miaka, Tamahome and Chichiri's horrified reactions as Yui screams for Miaka.
- The rape of Fighter in the first episode of Goblin Slayer is handled this way, with her horrible screams following Priestess as she flees with Wizard, the two of whom Fighter had sacrificed herself in order to allow to escape the goblins, all while poor Priestess can only repeat the words, "I'm so sorry..."
- Hetalia: Axis Powers has this when Japan stabs China In the Back.
- His "private lesson" with Greece, which doubles as Sexy Discretion Shot.
- America screams when Russia's scarf starts to strangle him.
- Higurashi: When They Cry:
- In the first episode, after joining an after-school club that formerly consisted of four girls, Keiichi loses a game where the stakes were that the winner could do whatever they wanted to the loser. As a result, three of the club members grab him and hold him still while the winner Mion approaches, slowly and mock-sinisterly, while holding a marker. The scene changes to outside of the school and we hear Keiichi scream. In the next scene, we see that Mion drew black circles around his eyes and nose, as well as whiskers on his cheeks. In the last episode of the first chapter, something similar happens, but it isn't played for laughs. Mion and her friend Rena are in Keiichi's bedroom, and Rena is holding Keiichi still again. Mion approaches sinisterly while holding what Keiichi suspects is a hypodermic syringe filled with a drug that causes suicidal insanity. One Scream Discretion Shot later, Keiichi realizes he's just beaten two people to death with a baseball bat and he has no idea why.
- It gets worse when in Tsumihoroboshi-hen, we discover that Keiichi has been hallucinating all along, and the syringe was a marker.
- Towards the end of the last episode of Yakusamashi-hen (the anime-only arc at the start of Kai), Ooishi visits Satoko in the hospital, and talks at length about the Hinamizawa disaster, and eventually hands over Rena's hat, covered in blood. Then we're treated to a flashback, where we see Rena running through the mountains. When she is inevitably cornered by several men with knives, we see a final look of fear on her face, and then we cut to her blood-stained hat falling down towards the river while she gives off a blood-curdling scream.
- In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS there is a scene where you only see the gloating of the Big Bad and then one of his minions cringing while the screams of the victim resound. To make it more terrifying, the victim is Vivio, a six year old girl, and she was calling for her mother to save her.
- Hardly the first time Nanoha had this. In the very first season, the really cruel scene where Evil Matriarch Precia Testarossa viciously whips her nine year-old daughter Fate for failing a mission takes place almost entirely offscreen. In the Compilation Movie, it takes place entirely offscreen, so we only hear the whip and Fate's screams. To make matters worse, we are given to watch Fate's familiar Arf sitting outside, jerking painfully with every scream — and it's not their magical bond that makes her feel Fate's pain.
- In Naruto's Three-Tails arc, after Hinata realizes that her attack against Nurari was ineffective, Nurari counterattacks, and the scene pans upward as only her screams are heard, and she is next shown seriously injured.
- In addition, this is used twice in Itachi and Sasuke's final battle, the first of which during a flashback of Madara taking his brother Izuna's eyes, and the second being when Sasuke gets his eye ripped out by Itachi. It was All Just a Genjutsu though.
- Heck this was done in the first chapter/episode when Naruto was tricked by a villain ninja named Mizuki to bring him him a scroll to a secret art. After Iruka, one of Naruto's teachers, saves by taking a ninja star in the back. Naruto retaliates by activating the multi-clone justu he learned from the scroll and surrounding Mizuki. As the clones close in to attack, the screen pans into the sky as we hear Mizuki scream and punches being landed.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi has a comedic one when Asuna goes after Negi during the aftermath of a Forceful Kiss incident.
- In Neon Genesis Evangelion, we have these starting from the very second episode. Typically Shinji Ikari, the protagonist, screams at some Nightmare Fuel he has just witnessed, as the camera pans away or the screen blacks out. When his screams are due to "physical" injury, however, this trope is averted.
- In Noir, Silvana aka Intoccabile has a treacherous underling's wife and baby daughter executed in a neighboring room, so we only hear their screams, shots, and the poor guy's face at that moment. While this was allegedly done to avoid offending the network censors, the end result was much more horrifying than any graphic death they could give them.
- Oddly used in the Little Garden Arc of One Piece, when comic-relief Team Pet Karoo defeats an implicitly defenseless Miss Goldenweek. For a time, this led to a grisly (though possibly trolling) fan theory that Karoo had ate her.
- In the Oto × Maho manga, after Jou refuses to give Kanata what he wants, he screams "Ahhh! Don't make my arm turn 360 degrees! Gyaaaaaaaaah!" off-panel.
- Pokémon: The Original Series:
- "It's Mr. Mime Time" has a rather infamous scene with Brock creeping up on Ash to "convince" him to dress as a Mr. Mime in order to impress a female ringleader of a Pokémon circus and to save her show from being a failure. He advances towards him and the next scene we see is of the outside of the tent with the cameras quickly panning up towards the sky and Ash delivering a blood-curdling scream.
- A far less humorous example from "Tracey Gets Bugged" has Jessie, who has had her hair chopped off by a random Scyther, getting revenge on a group of them to punish the one who did it and capture the others. As she and the rest of Team Rocket throw a net over them, the scene transitions to the top of the trees where their nest is and the group all crying out, "SCYTHER!!"
- Played for Laughs example in Soul Eater. When Black Star sneaks into Dr. Stein's lab to steal the answers for an upcoming exam, he is caught almost immediately by Stein. The next shot is of outside Stein's lab as Black Star's rather girlish scream is heard. The following day, Black Star is shown beaten, delirious, bloody, and hung on the chalkboard by his shirt.
- In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Kamina's fatal injuries are portrayed in this way. It's a Tear Jerker, especially when his adoptive brother sets off a VOLCANO with his anguish. That's hardcore.
- In the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, only shadows are shown when Dark Marik skins his father alive.
- In the YuYu Hakusho anime, the flashback describing how Shigure implants the Jagan Third Eye in the middle of Hiei's forehead is treated like this. The scene goes from Shigure talking to Hiei prior to the process to outside Shigure's compound, and then the viewers hear a bloodcurdling scream from Hiei...
