Shell-Shocked Veterans in anime and manga.
- Aldnoah.Zero has Koichiro Marito, a survivor of the first war between Earth and Mars. He personally bore witness to a Humongous Mecha that was able to manipulate gravity, was present during "Heaven's Fall" when the moon shattered and rained meteors on Earth, and was forced to kill his best friend and tank co-pilot to spare him a painful death from being trapped in a burning tank. The very latter event causes him to come down with severe PTSD.
- Area 88 has Mickey Simon, a U.S. Navy pilot who served in the Vietnam War. He found it very difficult to adjust to civilian life and convinced himself that he could not live without war. In the manga and OVA, Shin also becomes this after serving as a mercenary fighter pilot in the Asran civil war.
- Almost every single soldier in Attack on Titan is one, if they manage to be among the 50% that survive their first battle with the Titans. It is stated explicitly that it usually takes 20 deaths to down a single Titan, making the chances of any individual soldier surviving fairly poor. Those that do survive are left with the Survivor's Guilt of seeing their comrades die horribly. How well they function various from individual to individual, with all veteran soldiers in the Survey Corps being noticeably a little... strange in one way or another. The 104th Trainees Squad has the dubious honor of becoming this the day after their graduation from boot camp, with several either going mad from terror or taking their own lives rather than fight again.
- Eren Yeager pretends to be (at least a worse version than he already is) one of these in order to sneak into the enemy's military territory and "reunite" with Reiner Braun.
- Reiner himself is one of these as well; between the comrades he lost and the shame he feels for betraying the Survey Corps and being responsible for the deaths of thousands as the Armored Titan, including many whom he considered his friends and vice-versa he's practically a shell of who he used to be. At one point, he's even got a rifle in his mouth and is only seconds away from pulling the trigger before he snaps out of it.
- The ex-revolutionary pirate Captain Harlock of his own eponymous series is one of the earliest examples of this trope in anime.
- City Hunter offers us Ryo, Umibozu and Kaibara. All of them fought on a civil war in Central America, a war that left them devastated and with self-destructive tendencies:
- Umibozu started as a mercenary for the government and was being scarred by the war, but didn't really become this until his whole platoon was destroyed in an ambush. By the time of the series he has apparently recovered;
- Ryo was around three when the plane on which he was with his family was shot down in the crossfire, and joined the rebels to survive. He became this after one of his companions dosed him with Angel Dust, horrified at what he did under its effects, and by the time the series starts he's a Hitman with a Heart with a terrifying sadistic streak and a Stepford Smiler, and those who knew him before he returned to Japan mentions he used to be a Death Seeker before meeting Hideyuki Makimura and his sister Kaori;
- Kaibara was a high-ranking member of the rebels, and Ryo's adopted father. Years of battles took a heavy toll on his sanity, and at one point he created Angel Dust to help the rebels and cut the war short, dosed Ryo with it and sicked him on Umibozu's platoon. By the time he shows up he's a madman hoping someone will kill him and stop his crimes.
- Lucy from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners suffers from intense PTSD related to her traumatic childhood being exploited and enslaved by Arasaka. With her seeing fellow children being killed by the Old Net and her being the Sole Survivor from her team's breakout, it is little wonder why even mentioning a person's links to the corporation petrifies her. When Lucy discovers Tanaka Sr.'s links to Arasaka, she goes on an outburst about Arasaka being all-seeing that ends with her fingers shaking uncontrollably and her pleading her boyfriend David for reassurances when Maine's crew decides to have Lucy take control of the gig's netrunning component.
- Darker than Black:
- Havok. Understandable, since she had probably the highest body count of any contractor (which is saying something) whose remuneration was drinking children's blood— and then she got depowered and her normal emotions came back. By the time we see her, she's an Iron Woobie who begs Hei to kill her if her powers ever return.
- Hei himself, a stoic, disillusioned Anti-Hero who only really lets his real feelings show through when someone hits his Berserk Button: his sister, who disappeared during the weirdness at the end of Heaven's War.
- Momo from The Demon Girl Next Door is already this at fifteen, as she has been a magical girl since the age of four. While what happened on her battles were never mentioned, Mikan reflected she was a Genki Girl when she was younger. At Present Day she emotes very little, admits she has no goals in her life, and seems to have given up taking care of herself, if her eating habits are any indication.
- It's heavily implied that Future Trunks of the Androids Saga of Dragon Ball Z is of this trope, referring to the horrific events of his future (where two Red Ribbon Androids are slaughtering several people), and at least once stopping what he was doing unwittingly to flash back to what was going on in his timeline before snapping back to reality.
- In The Familiar of Zero, Colbert is haunted by his past as a soldier, and does his best to discourage his students from seeing war as a noble, idealistic quest, in an effort to prevent them from repeating his mistakes.
- Fullmetal Alchemist:
- Dr. Knox is an Ishbal veteran who was so damaged by the war that his wife and son left him. He's incredibly scarred by what he had to do in the war, and hates any mention of the war or his comrades in it (though he does help out his old war buddy Roy Mustang when pressed). Knox may be redeemable, but he's still living in the war so far.
- The Brotherhood-only Isaac McDougal, AKA the Freezing Alchemist is very badly scarred by the war, and by what he knows about the Ancient Conspiracy. He goes AWOL for a couple of years, and then shows up again one day, attempting to put all of Central City under ice. Once you get further in the series, his plan doesn't seem so evil after all....
- In episode 16 of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) Ed comes across an Ishbal veteran (after getting off a train to find Al who was mistaken for cargo) who lost his leg in the war and refuses to have it replaced with automail because of the number of lives he took in the war.
- Roy Mustang himself is consumed with self-loathing, and is out to take over the country and then throw himself in prison as punishment for what he did in the war. He talks constantly about his familiarity with the smell of burnt flesh, is incapable of seeing himself in a positive light, and wants to fix Amestris or die trying.
- Riza Hawkeye, to the degree that it transforms her personality from a sweet, idealistic girl into a cold and emotionless soldier (at least on the surface), with self-destructive/suicidal tendencies that come out when she's under pressure. She ends up taking Solf J. Kimblee's advice, and memorising the faces of every person she's killed.
- Major Alex Louis Armstrong, who suffered his breakdown during the war when he saw the carnage he caused, and tried to help the only two survivors he could find escape. They were immediately blown up by Kimblee, who was ironically trying to help Armstrong avoid courtmartial. To make matters worse, he is actually considered a disgrace by his General Ripper of a sister, who constantly belittles him for cowardice despite not having served in Ishbal herself (though in this case, it's more that he didn't do anything about the injustice.)
- In the first anime, Roy Mustang also fits this trope for different reasons than his manga incarnation. He is shown attempting to commit suicide after killing Winry's parents but being unable to pull the trigger on himself. After a flashback-based conversation with his friend Maes Hughes — where Hughes calls him out for his self-pity — he becomes determined to use his abilities to fix the country of Amestris.
- Sōsuke Sagara, and his Evil Counterpart, Zaied from Full Metal Panic! fit this trope perfectly. They're both ex-Child Soldiers, they're both The Stoic and they both have serious mental issues. Sōsuke's are normally played for laughs. Zaied's aren't.
- Gintama:
- The protagonist Gintoki is a war veteran who fought on the losing side and lost countless comrades, including his teacher and father figure. In present day, Gintoki still frequently has nightmares about the war, as shown in episode 12 where he dreams about carrying an injured friend through the battlefield, only for said friend to transform into a rotting corpse mid-way and hands sprout from the graves to drag him down.
- Gintoki's two surviving comrades Katsura and Takasugi are shown to have this, as well as a burning hatred for the world that took everything away from them. However Katsura was inspired by Gintoki and chose to keep living on in hope of a better future, while Takasugi is consumed by anger and wants to drive the world into chaos.
- Miho Nishizumi, from Girls und Panzer. Surprisingly, for a Moe show. She's got a deer-in-the-headlights look whenever anyone puts more responsibility on her, has had a tremor in her left hand, and has something resembling a Heroic BSoD every time one of her allied tanks is taken out. She's got PTSD from a traumatic event in the previous tournament.
- Goblin Slayer: The Sword Maiden is a Gold Ranked adventurer who once joined the party responsible for slaying the Demon Lord years ago. As a result, it is widely believed by the common people that she's a fearless woman who can face anything. They couldn't be further from the truth: if there is one thing the Sword Maiden absolutely cannot face, it's goblins. During the earliest years of her adventuring career she was captured by goblins and subjected to their usual brand of rape and torture. By some miracle she survived and was able to resume being an adventurer, but she was left blind and utterly traumatized by the incident, and to the present day she is haunted by horrific nightmares where goblins assault her, leaving her unable to sleep at night.
- When she discovers that evil cultists are killing people in Water Town and hiding in the city's sewers, she covers up their involvement and lies that goblins are the biggest threat, aware that she would be forced to confront them herself if the truth came out. She then summons Goblin Slayer's party to wipe them out, after which he figures out her lie but chooses to keep quiet about it (because frankly he doesn't really care as long as goblins die). Throughout all of this Sword Maiden recognizes that Goblin Slayer himself also has trauma related to goblins and tries to reach out to him as a kindred spirit, only to be rebuffed since Goblin Slayer was merely a witness instead of a direct victim like Sword Maiden. Instead, he offers to kill more goblins if they ever show up again; when Sword Maiden asks if he would kill them in her dreams as well, he replies that he will do that as well. Sword Maiden is able to sleep peacefully after this, much to the surprise of her attendants, but remains reluctant to directly involve herself with goblins.
- When the kingdom's princess ends up kidnapped by goblins while Sword Maiden is in the capital, she is initially requested to lead the rescue when their hideout is determined to be the Dungeon of the Dead (which her party had visited when they killed the Demon Lord). She is unable to answer as she becomes paralyzed at the suggestion, but luckily Goblin Slayer's party (which escorted her to the city) is volunteered to take the job in her place, much to her relief. Once Goblin Slayer and his party rescue the princess and find themselves surrounded by goblins on the way out, Sword Maiden shows up with an army of paladins and priests to rescue them, having uncovered evidence that the goblins who kidnapped the princess were being used by a cult of demon worshippers thanks to Goblin Slayer's investigation and used that to gather reinforcements. As her entourage wipes out the goblins, Sword Maiden visibly shakes in place and desperately tries to maintain her composure without anyone noticing as she supports herself on her alligator familiar for stability.
- Gundam:
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The horrible experiences he went through in the One Year War made Amuro "Shooting Star" Ray one of these. He only recovered 7 years later, in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Side materials reveal that it took him just a little longer to get back into space because he was afraid Lalah would be there.
- An even more extreme version is Kamille Bidan from Zeta Gundam, who...isn't doing well when he shows up in ZZ Gundam, due to a combination of war trauma and Mind Rape from archvillain Scirocco. Sidematerials indicate that this is also true of Titans second-in-command Bask Om. Captured and tortured in a Zeon POW camp during the One Year War, he emerged with a fanatical hatred of the colonials, and a desire to see them all dead. Bask may have physically left that camp, but mentally, he's still there.
- Athrun Zala becomes this by the time Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny rolls around. He's bitter, cynical, incapable of seeing anything but shades of grey, has some self-destructive tendencies, and cannot form meaningful connections to anyone who didn't serve alongside him in the first war. His ex-best friend/rival from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Kira Yamato, slowly becomes one of these over the course of the original show, hitting rock bottom and mental breakdown around the halfway point in the series. He seems to get better, but if the Thousand-Yard Stare, flashbacks, and newly stoic personality he displays at the start of Destiny are any indicator, he really hasn't. As for Shinn Asuka, he goes into the second war without having gotten over the death of his family (and particularly his sister) in the first conflict. In a lot of ways, Shinn seems to have emotionally frozen at the age he was when he found his sister's body, and has never actually moved on.
- Setsuna F. Seiei was once a Child Soldier tricked into murdering his own parents in the name of God and fighting a fruitless war. Years later, he's still in Krugis, especially when he sees a town getting razed to the ground. He gets better thanks to the best friend in his life, Marina Ismail.
- Flit Asuno is slowly becoming one, too, joining the other Gundam protagonists as bitter war veterans. Woolf Enneacle even puts it clearly, that as he fights on, he would want to kill more and more Unknown Enemies, no longer satisfied with a peaceful life. In the end, his son and his grandson manage to shock him out of his shell-shock.
- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing gives us Heero Yuy, who befriended a little girl and her puppy, and accidentally killed them both."How many times must I kill that girl and her dog?!"
- Treize Khushrenada is another example. He knows exactly how many men have died for him and remembers all their names. He thinks war is beautiful and later on commits Suicide by Cop. This should tell you what kind of an affect war had on him.
- After War Gundam X has Captain Jamil Neate. Flashbacks show him as a fresh-faced teenage Ace Pilot. Present-day Jamil is scarred on his face and soul both and has become one of the endlessly roving, scavenging Vultures in a quest to find other Newtypes and protect them from becoming soldiers like he was. Having fired the shot that provoked the rebels into the mass Colony Drop that nearly wiped out humankind on Earth, Jamil has a hell of a guilt complex, lost his Newtype powers, and a severe cockpit phobia that he doesn't start overcoming until a third of the way through the series.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans gives a myriad of examples, due to most of the cast being Child Soldiers, and many being former Human Debris, slaves sold to fight and die as cannon fodder. The protagonist, Mikazuki, is shown to disassociate to an extreme degree, allowing all of his decisions to be made by his friend Orga. And he is far from alone in this, as we see Tekkadan's younger members demand to watch as Mika disassembles an enemy commander who killed one of their own. Finally, on the opposing side we have Ein, a rookie pilot who is eventually consumed by his anger and guilt due to the death of his superior officer at Tekkadan's hands. It ends with what's left of his body being installed inside a mobile suit, snarling at the Gundam as he rants about Crank and wildly flails his axes in hopes of crushing Mika.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- There's a common fan theory that Jotaro Kujo developed PTSD after his adventures in Stardust Crusaders, particularly following the Final Battle with DIO. Evidence of this can be seen in all of the parts that have Jotaro as a supporting character post-Stardust Crusaders.
- Part 4: He is seen to be frightened when Angelo mentions DIO, and he beats the living shit out of Kira after Kira (a blonde-haired man like DIO) said that his Stand is now weak, says the word "Muda" (DIO's catchphrase and Battle Cry), mentions how many seconds he has left before leaving (similar to DIO using The World's time-stopping ability and counting down its duration), and Jotaro seeing Koichi having a hole in the chest after being punched by Killer Queen (this is what kills Kakyoin in Part 3, and both of them are high school students wearing green uniforms).
- Part 5: He sent Koichi instead of himself to meet Giorno, DIO's illegitimate son.
- Part 6: He completely flips out when Pucci throws a flurry of knifes towards his daughter Jolyne, much like what he experienced in Stardust Crusaders. Not only does he fail to save Jolyne, but he also dies himself at Pucci's hands.
- In the dubiously canon spin-off JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Crazy Diamond's Demonic Heartbreak, it's revealed that former servants of DIO, such as Hol Horse and Mariah, have been dealing with mental scars even 10 years after his death. Mariah regularly has dreams about DIO where she grovels and apologizes to him, while Hol Horse has a Freak Out when he thinks he heard DIO's voice. Boingo's no picnic, either — Thoth shows that he still has massive insecurities about being under DIO's control, and one page says being apart from the book is a step closer to being free from DIO's influence.
- There's a common fan theory that Jotaro Kujo developed PTSD after his adventures in Stardust Crusaders, particularly following the Final Battle with DIO. Evidence of this can be seen in all of the parts that have Jotaro as a supporting character post-Stardust Crusaders.
- Valmet of Jormungand saw her entire unit wiped out during her first command in the field. The scars(Both mental, and physical) are still carried with her, though she manages to not let it interfere with her work.
- Teenage mercenary Kazuma Shudo of Kagerou-Nostalgia is very, very shellshocked. He can't stand being touched, is prone to violent moodswings, suffers flashbacks and throws himself into every battle without any concern for his own well-being. It's a combination of war trauma, and what he went through when his Doomed Hometown was destroyed. While he does get better, he's never far from a breakdown.
- In The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, the crew encounters the corpse of a shell-shocked soldier from the imperial army. The soldier had been part of the Rape of Nanking
and broke. Upon his return home after the war he re-enacted what he'd lived through on his home village, only to have the massacre covered up because of the prestige loss if it had gone public. - Otori Asuka (callsign: Rapture) of Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka starts out very, very broken. The fact that she is a New Transfer Student at a high school does not hide her flashbacks at the sight of mascots or tendency toward overkill in any physcial confrontation. She even admits to two girls trying to befriend her that she reads constantly to keep bad memories at bay. This is not helped of course by circumstances dragging her back in.
- In Make the Exorcist Fall in Love, Father is explicitly diagnosed with PTSD from being nearly raped by Asmodeus when he was twelve years old. He has a perpetual Thousand-Yard Stare even when he's in a good mental state and becomes physically ill when exposed to things that remind him of his traumatic experiences. He's also shown to have nightmares of being Eaten Alive by Beelzebub's insects while crying Tears of Fear and begging for someone to help him. His bed is filled with plush animals for comfort and he's clearly socially stunted from being used as a Child Soldier Church Militant with nothing resembling a normal childhood.
- Nemo, deposed king of destroyed Atlantis from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.
- Naruto:
- Surprisingly few shinobi suffer from this trope in Naruto; however, Kakashi Hatake is a textbook example. Having lost his father to suicide, his best friends Obito and Rin who he himself killed, and his mentor Minato. As such, when Sasuke demanded to know how Kakashi would react if he killed everyone that Kakashi cared about, his reply was to simply smile and say that he had already lost everyone precious to him. Kakashi is always late for his training sessions with his genin team because every morning he spends hours talking to graves. The anime goes in and does a masterful expansion of the immediate aftermath of Rin's Heroic Sacrifice. Young Kakashi keeps having nightmares about Rin dying by his hands, keeps waking up at night trying to rinse her blood of his hands, sees hallucinations, becomes withdrawn from everyone, and couldn't even use his Chidori anymore since he keeps thinking of Rin. He also becomes suicidal, as shown when he reads the book about how to die honorably as a shinobi, develops a tendency to charge headfirst in battle as if he was trying to die. All at the tender age of 13. You have to wonder why Konoha doesn't have a grief counselor.
- This is apparently why Itachi became a Well-Intentioned Extremist, and it's definitely what turned Pain and Konan to the dark side, with the latter in particular willing to follow the last friend she has all the way to the bottom of the slippery slope. In general, a major theme in the series is that senseless war and the system it produces are the primary culprits in creating most of the world's villains.
- In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, one of the villains, specifically Dynamis, is like this due to being one of the only members of his organization who survived the 20+ years of being hunted down by the good guys.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion:
- Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion has his mind broken at the tender age of 14 due to being forced to fight Skyscraper-sized Aliens while receiving no parental love from his father. Oh, and Asuka Langley Soryu, who went through a similar process to Shinji, but also managed to have the Trope Namer of Mind Rape inflicted on her.
- Misato Katsuragi also had this and became mute for an extended period after surviving the Second Impact.
- The Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 version of Shinji fits this better, back in Alpha 1, along with the events of Evangelion (Including the End Of Evangelion but they stopped the MP'ed EVA's before the Third Impact could occur) happening, he was fighting a war with aliens, MORE monsters, and OTHER PEOPLE. Zoom forward about 2 years to Alpha 3(Eva missed @ Gaiden and @2) Shinji's freaked out by what he saw during the chaos, but tries to offset it by being Older and Wiser and has mostly shed his old hedgehog problem. Then the events of Eva start happening AGAIN, he's mostly prepared for it until everyone except the Alpha Numbers are tanged. The shell-shocked part is finally dropped after Third Impact is reversed.
- In the third movie of Rebuild of Evangelion, nearly everyone from the cast becomes this due to Third Impact and having to fight for the past 14 years in a war against SEELE.
- One Piece has most of its characters coming from horrible backgrounds thus bearing understandably horrible mental scars.
- Robin deserves a special mention. Being the sole survivor of Ohara, she has witnessed first-hand the how horrifying Buster Call is, which leads her to freak out when she hears the mere mention of the subject in Marineford.
- Boa is initially presented an arrogant and condescending person with a cruel streak, who absolutely refuses to let anyone see her back. However after Luffy earning her trust, it's shown that she's actually a broken girl with severe PTSD due to being enslaved and possibly raped by Celestial Dragons. On her back is an imprinted slave mark.
- Luffy has this after Marineford. It's heartbreaking to see the normally strong, cheerful boy breaking down into a sobbing, self-destructive mess.
- Koala was kidnapped into slavery as a child and saw other children being killed for crying. Even after being freed, she still thinks people are out to kill her and absolutely refuses to show any other emotion aside from a stiff smiling face. It's only after people make it clear that they won't kill her that she finally breaks the smile and cries, like she has always wanted to.
- In an SBS Oda revealed Doflamingo hates barbecues due to a bad childhood memory, which is being tied up, tortured, and burned alive as a child.
- Rosinante, his younger brother, also went through the same thing and became mute from the incident. It turned out that he could still speak, but acted like he couldn't because he's a spy.
- Law, as the sole survivor of the White Lead poisoning and Flevance genocide, gets trauma shoved into his face by every hospital he went to visit with Corazon as they call him the white monster and attempt to alert the soldiers that there is still a survivor. In the present day, he is visibly shaken by Doflamingo's taunts about Corazon's death and white lead bullets.
- Shown in a more comedic manner with Sugar, who gets PTSD from seeing Usopp's shocked face, to the point she passes out after seeing it again.
- Fujitora is implied to have this, as he has literally blinded himself from seeing the injustice of the world. Makes you wonder what kind of trauma(s) had he faced to go that far...
- Linlin's case is quite disturbing, as she eats all her friends and her adoptive mother alive in a hunger pang, and her mind subconsciously repressed the memories to protect her sanity.
- Hiyori became mute after seeing her mother died in a fire and everyone she knew disappearing, however thanks to Kawamatsu she was able to recover.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica:
- In episode 4, Madoka suffers from this after witnessing her mentor Mami being decapitated. She breaks down crying when eating breakfast, realizing how lucky she has been to be alive with a warm, happy family. In the same episode, Madoka is caught by a witch but does not try to escape, thinking death must be her punishment for not being brave enough to make a contract earlier and save Mami.
- Kyoko also suffers from this after losing her family to a mass suicide, which was inadvertently caused by her wish. It is shown more in depth in The Different Story spin off.
- Homura has been repeating time over and over again to save Madoka, and has been witnessing Madoka dies in horrible ways over and over again. As a way to cope, she detached herself from everyone and everything, single-mindedly devoted her entire existence to that goal. Her PTSD is even more apparent in Rebellion, where her witch labyrinth is basically an infinite funeral, where she is executed over and over again for failing to save Madoka, while her mind is forever filled with guilt and despair.''
- Even more depressing: Kyubey stated that deep inside she knew there was no hope, but had to deceive herself and keep moving on in because if not, she would lose her purpose to live and turn into a witch instantly.
- Rebuild World:
- The minor character Yazawa is a hunter who gave up on his ambitions out of fear, only accepting missions too easy for him, and bullying younger hunters. Seeing Akira greatly surpass him in marksmanship gives him some of his lost motivation back.
- Colbert is a hunter who had both his arms eaten by monsters, and has had a Trauma Button relating to them ever since, resulting in him working for underworld organizations like managing others' Indentured Servitude or working for Viola to get by. After taking a leadership role in Sheryl's gang while it's transitioning to a Hunter Gang, he eventually faces his fears, killing a monster much tougher than the one that took his arms, and setting him back towards being a regular hunter.
- Rurouni Kenshin: The title character, who was a teenager with huge guilt issues and an extremely naive view of the world when he was recruited to be an assassin, and the ensuing strain on his conscience (combined with accidentally killing the woman he loved, who fell in love with him while trying to get revenge for him murdering her original fiancee) broke him so hard he became a Technical Pacifist and didn't resolve his issues until years later.
- By the time she debuts in the main manga, Minako Aino of Sailor Moon is this, courtesy of what happened in her solo series: a year of battles alone, that started when she had to kill her crush and ended when she had to kill her true love. She refuses to let anyone know.
- Kambei, the main protagonist of Samurai 7, who has grown so tired of always leading the losing side that it is implied that he has become a Death Seeker. The same goes for his counterpart in the original live-action classic movie.
- Sound of the Sky:
- A bit inverted in Sound Of The Sky, where the character who experienced a heavy level of trauma during the war (Filicia) goes on to, rather than feel nothing, becomes The Existentialist and her squad's Team Mom.
- Played straighter with Noël.
- In Sword Art Online, Kirito is a survivor of the titular death game. Not counting the game-master, Kirito has killed three murderers in close combat, and he made a mistake that directly led to the deaths of three of his comrades (including his girlfriend) and led to the suicide of a fourth in front of him. Both these experiences left him severely traumatized, to the point of becoming suicidal on one occasion and being filled with terror just being reminded about the people he killed a year later. Well, There Are No Therapists in Aincrad, and after getting out, he put so much focus on his physical recovery that he didn't actually confront his mental state for a year.
- Violet is an unconventional case in Violet Evergarden. Life as a soldier and weapon of war did not bother Violet as she never knew anything else but war. It wasn't until she finally lived as a civilian and understood her own emotions, the bloody memories of what she had done during the war are seen in a different light and she is appropriately horrified.
- Van from The Vision of Escaflowne after he mercilessly slaughtered the Zaibach pilots who destroyed his hometown when he merged with his Escaflowne fueled by rage and hatred, after it's over he became traumatized by the experience and was reminded of the event every time he picked up a sword.
- Kurosaki and Yuto from Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V both count, as survivors of a genocide and inter-dimensional war that was enabled through Duel Monster disks empowered by Magitek to the point where a single duelist can and has used the game to fire-bomb an entire city. Both show violent tendencies and Kurosaki is clearly paranoid, plus both have PTSD-like flashbacks with Yuto's being strong enough to affect Yuya, after absorbing Yuto's soul.
- Togo from Yuki Yuna is a Hero was a Hero in elementary however she has no memories of the fact. Even with her amnesia, she is still subconsciously scared of having to be a Hero. At first it seems like she is afraid that she will be The Load due to her wheelchair however it's later revealed to be more sinister. She is still traumatized by her past experiences as a Hero.
