Note: This is a Spoilered Rotten trope, that means that EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE on this list is a spoiler by default and most of them will be unmarked. This is your last warning; only proceed if you really believe you can handle this list.
Times where The Ending Changes Everything in Anime and Manga.
- In one chapter of the Ace Attorney Case Files manga, Phoenix gets interviewed by a female reporter, who asks for his help in clearing the name of a woman who had been convicted of killing her boyfriend, and committed suicide after a year in prison. After Phoenix does so, he gets a picture of the girlfriend...who looks exactly like the reporter he spoke with.
- At the end of After School Nightmare, it's revealed that all of the students are actually unborn children, with the special class representing pregnancy and "graduating" it representing childbirth. Moreover, Mashiro's struggles with his gender identity actually symbolize the birth of a pair of boy-girl twins, with the boy dying so the girl can live.
- The oneshot Akuryou is about a girl named Mayu, whose best friend, Nami, claims to be able to see ghosts. In the end, it's revealed that Nami is actually a ghost, or at least an Imaginary Friend only Mayu can see, which causes everything to come off differently. Not only does Mayu's refusal to believe in ghosts come off as a refusal to accept that her best friend is one, but when the bullies write hateful messages in "Nami's" notebook, said messages are presumably intended for Mayu.
- Bokutachi ga Yarimashita is mostly a Crime and Punishment styled story about four boys who killed ten bullies from a neighboring school and how each of them handles it. The guilty conscience of the main character, however, is recontextualized in the end; rather than guilt over being the cause of ten people's deaths, plus the suicide of one of the kids who got injured, a flashback to the incident showed that the main character watched the explosion that killed them with awe and glee. His guilt was never for others—only for himself, for knowing the risk of the prank he and his friends pulled and still enjoying it.
- Death Note: Another Note. Naomi Misora is conscripted by L to solve a series of murders in Los Angeles. She's joined in her investigation by a mysterious young man with messy hair, white skin and bags under his eyes using the pseudonym "Ryuzaki" - must be L, right? The ending reveals the man is actually the murderer, Beyond Birthday, who is obsessed with L and modeled his appearance on him. This leads to a lot of Fridge Horror considering Naomi's interactions with him throughout the book.
- Fairy Tail:
- In Fairy Tail ZERØ, toward the end, it's revealed that Zera, Mavis' friend and the only other survivor of Red Lizard, is, in fact, a special illusion that she created, which is only visible to her, since the real Zera died of her wounds on the day Blue Skull attacked. Its also revealed that the other Fairy Tail founders knew that Zera wasn't real, but kept it secret for Mavis' sake.
- A similar twist to the above occurs in the Welcome to Fairy Hills side story. With an unpaid request that many dismissed as a prank, the eponymous dormitory's crotchety and abrasive old landlady, Hilda, hires Lucy to do a treasure hunt, insisting that she keep it secret from the tenants. Once Lucy finds the treasure, she calls out to Hilda, but Erza comes over. After Lucy finally tells Erza about the treasure hunt and the person who sent her on it, Erza tells Lucy that Hilda has been dead for six years, which means that Lucy was interacting with a ghost all along.
- In the Natsu and Asuka side story, Natsu has to do everything Asuka tells him to after losing a sharpshooting challenge against her. In the climax, when Natsu defeats the thieves trying to steal Asuka's snow globe by shooting down their gliders (pushing Asuka's hat down to make her think she made the shot with her popgun), it's made clear that he lost on purpose, and thus went through everything willingly.
- Girls' Last Tour: The very last chapter of the manga turns out to be a case of a "Shaggy Dog" Story. Despite Chito and Yuuri's arduous efforts to complete their caretaker's goal of reaching the highest layer for signs of life, the highest layer caps it off when all that was seen is an empty, featureless wasteland with just a black box and literally no human or any life is to be seen, rendering their efforts meaningless in the end.
- Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl: The last episode of the anime caps off with Yashiro (the little girl who runs around in an astronaut suit and insists she is an ESPer) saving Makoto's life by having him move back the EXACT number of steps required to not die from a meteorite and disappearing right after. Immediately prior to this, she had said she would prove her abilities. Incredibly convenient coincidence or she was telling the truth about her abilities? Since the whole show up 'til that point had broken down the existence of the supernatural as nothing but figments of people's imaginations it threw the whole message in a different direction, becoming more along the lines of "keep an open mind, because you never know" and not actually answering the question of whether or not the supernatural exists.
- Hello World: Immediately before the credits, we are shown another synchronisation meter filling up and the thought-deleted older Naomi waking up from a coma to be greeted by an older Ruri. The film then shows this is happening on the moon. Immediately, all the allegedly historical events depicted as captured and replicated by ALLTALE, even before the alterations caused by both Naomis, become suspect in their veracity.
- The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious: The eponymous Hero is very funny, Level Grinding like mad and taking everything over the top seriously. Then you find out that he had been summoned before, fell in love with a princess, was going to have a child with her, and they were all killed because he wasn't cautious or leveled enough. Despite his memory being erased, his behavior is clearly PTSD and ALL of this stops being funny.
- HuGtto! Pretty Cure: Everything revolving around Hugtan and her motivations are completely recontextualized when the Distant Finale reveals that she's not just from a Bad Future, she's also Hana's daughter.
- Jaco the Galactic Patrolman reveals in the final chapter that the entire story was a Stealth Prequel to Dragon Ball, and that the alien pod Jaco came down to Earth to stop contained Goku, meaning the whole mission was Doomed by Canon.
- In Kino's Journey, this happens with some stories.
- In "Country of Liars", Kino meets a man at the gates who is desperately waiting for his lover to return from her journey. His friend reveals that he was a revolutionary who helped overthrow the country by throwing a grenade at the car carrying the royal family, but it turns out that his lover had been a princess in disguise. But then the man's housekeeper reveals that she's the princess the man loved, who survived due to the body doubles sacificing themselves, and posed as the man's housekeeper to stay with him despite him not knowing her identity. And then the man reveals that he actually knows that his housekeeper is the princess and the woman he loves, and keeps that a secret for everyone's sake.
- In "A Kind Country", Kino stays in a country that is exceptionally welcoming of travelers like her despite its bad reputation, but insists that she leave at the end of her three-day stay. Hours after Kino departs, a volcanic eruption destroys the town, and it's revealed that the people of country had accepted their fate and wanted to welcome travelers in their final days to make a better legacy. This explains why they forced Kino to leave, why Sakura's parents tried to convince Kino to take her along and why an unusually young couple got married the day before the eruption.
- The plot of the Laid-Back Camp spinoff, "Room Camp," a series of three-minute shorts, involves Nadeshiko going on the Yamanashi Kids' Stamp Rally with Aoi and Aki, filling out a stamp book with stamps from various local landmarks to win a year's worth of Minobu steamed buns. At the end of the series, it turns out that the stamp rally was something the other two girls had made up. Nadeshiko, despite being new to town, actually suspected this for some time.
- The short manga Mama Mama by Amano Shunita seems to be a fluffy Yuri Genre manga about two women and their children. The very last page reveals that they're actually married neighbors who are cheating on their husbands. It really changes the line "Is this what 'happiness' really feels like?" from being cute to depressing, especially since the woman was crying while saying it.
- Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: "I'm sorry, but surprise. I'm actually a demon." That's Stocking, Panty's sister. After she returned from Heaven. Who then promptly slices Panty up into 666 pieces. Also, the Big Bad wasn't slain by the duo's Wave-Motion Gun.
- Paranoia Agent begins with Tsukiko Sagi being attacked by a mysterious, baseball-bat-wielding assailant. The attacker, Shonen Bat, then begins to strike various other victims. Turns out that the first attack was faked by Tsukiko herself in order to relieve some of the pressure she was put under on her job. Unfortunately, Shonen Bat spread like a particularly violent meme, and it has a life of its own now...
- Initially, Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion seems to be the story of how Homura freed her friends from a Lotus-Eater Machine. But in the ending- right when the main conflict of that story is about to be resolved- Homura seizes her Love Interest and traps her in a false universe, transforming into a demon in the process. It's at that point the movie's true plot is revealed: to explore the reasons and process by which Homura became a villain. That plot is foreshadowed often in symbolism (and certain seemingly innocuous conversations), but first-time watchers won't anticipate it unless they know exactly what to look for and/or interpret Homura's character a specific way.
- Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: Up until the end you might view the series as a random collection of slapstick humor, social critique and a few horror elements, without any overall connection. But the last chapter of the manga (not included in the anime) reveals that the girl named Kafuka Fuura (Pen name) died before the start of the series. Everyone in class has an organ transplant of her, through which she is able to possess anyone at will, take over their body and convince everyone else through some kind of mass hypnosis that she is the girl she once was. That is also the reason why we never see all the girls of the class at once because either the missing girl is Kafuka, because she is not real anymore, or it is the girl Kafuka is possessing at the moment. This seems like an asspull but interestingly there are hints about this throughout the whole series, which you can pick up while watching but you would never be able to deduce this twist. For example watch/read the bit about Meru-Meru's character again, from the very beginning of the series. Watch Kafuka closely. She is possessing Abiru in that scene, indicated by the bandage on her arm that would otherwise be there for no reason, and the zoom in on her left eye spelling DEATH, which is the eye Abiru has always covered.
- Student Council's Discretion: The introduction of the bullying victim Nakameguro lead to some interesting revelations on Sugisaki's side, shedding a completely new light on the relationship between him and the girls as well as his desire to create a harem.
- In the yuri oneshot Unfaithful, the protagonist, Tashiron, is in an abusive relationship with her girlfriend, who belittles her for forgetting to buy beer, which the girlfriend won't even let Tashiron drink because she's not the breadwinner. While going out to buy the beer, Tashiron meets up with Ootsuki, her coworker from her part-time job (which she got for some semblance of independence), and they end up drinking together. Tashiron drunkenly admits that she has feelings for Ootsuki even though she has a girlfriend, and she and Ootsuki offer to go out again. On the final page, Ootsuki replays a clip from the evening, and reveals that she had taken advantage of Tashiron's situation, having learned of Tashiron's unhappy relationship by eavesdropping on her and "playing the cool senior card" to win her over.
- In the final episode of Your Lie in April, Kaori's goodbye letter reveals that she was inspired to become a musician by Kousei during his Child Prodigy days, that she had wanted to play music with him ever since she was a little girl, and that she lied about liking Watari in order to get close to Kousei.
- The ending of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX fundamentally changes the series' very first scene. The first episode starts with new hero Jaden literally bumping into an older Yugi, who gives him a card with a cryptic explanation in both the original and the English dub. Initially, it just looks like Yugi noticing this kid is an eager young duelist and doing something simple but nice for him. Then the series finale sends Jaden back in time to duel Yugi's younger self and tell him all about the card Yugi gave him, meaning the adult Yugi recognized him and knew about the card in advance.
- The credit sequence and post-credit scene of Episode 10 of Yuri!!! on Ice was this. In one fell swoop, it drastically changed every preconception the viewers had about the show's main trio.
- Victor isn't malicious, out to ruin Yuri's career, or dying. He became Yuri's coach because Yuri asked him to.
- Yuri can be seductive in the persona of Eros, yes. But he's...a fun drunk, it turns out. And capable of great feats like executing pole dancing moves perfectly and winning a dance off while having a lot of champagne in his system. He ended the scene cozying up to Victor, basically grinding on him, while an entire ballroom - complete with a half-naked Chris and a fuming Yurio - was staring. A far cry from the skittishly frightened and awed Nikiforov fanboy we met earlier.
- Yurio claimed to have been dragged into the danceoff. He was very clearly enjoying himself, from what the photos show. And his fuming while Yuri was, uh, getting closely acquainted with Victor, can be taken as a sign of the Episode 12 reveal that he actually admired Yuri all along.
