The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You in Anime & Manga.
- Bleach gives us Aizen's mass hypnosis ability, which is so strong it affects the reader, only letting us see the illusion. We can't even trust what's coming from an omniscient point of view, or the contents of Aizen's thought balloons. And he uses it to really Kick the Dog. The author once joked that he himself was even being affected by it and Aizen ordered him how to draw one scene. Aizen's infamously memetic line pretty much lampshades this trope: Since when were you under the impression that this example wasn't written by Aizen?
- In a scene exclusive to the manga adaptation of Bravely Default, Airy notices the reader after her betrayal and comes to the realization that they've been cheering on the party and giving them willpower, prompting her to cover the pages with darkness in order to cease their interference.
- The Grand Finale of Digimon Frontier included the Big Bad broadcasting the message "You must choose to follow me or be destroyed" on every TV screen on Earth as the heroes race to stop him/it. The cliffhanger ended with the message appearing on your, the viewer's, screen.
- Excel♡Saga: It is a series with No Fourth Wall; nevertheless, the fact that Excel can't exist without her creator doesn't impede her from killing him. (The Great Will of the Macrocosm then has to come in and press the Reset Button so the world doesn't collapse in an ontological paradox.)
- In the extra sections of Fullmetal Alchemist, Hiromu Arakawa's cow avatar is often threatened by villains (such as Gluttony asking if he can eat her or Wrath ominously asking if she "likes beef bowl" with his swords drawn) and heroes alike (such as being crushed in Armstrong's flex or being punched by Edward Elric for telling people not to spend all their time reading manga).
- In Gintama, Otae jumps out of the panel/screen and goes after the author of manga upon learning that her Author Avatar scored higher then her in a popularity poll. It ends up messing up the art style for a few pages, but things go back to normal once the author is revived as a cyborg in short order.
- In HeartCatch Pretty Cure! episode 28, Cobraja hatches a scheme to turn kids who don't want to do their summer homework into Desertorians. Pretty Cure, of course, save the day, but at the end he says there's still a chance for his scheme to succeed, points to the camera, and says "Kids out there who haven't done your homework, I'm coming for you!"
- Played with in Shin Mazinger ZERO. The true nature of the titular Mazinger ZERO reveals that his true power lies in its ability to use the powers of all mecha that derive from the original Mazinger Z. In-universe, this applies to a few mecha like Great Mazinger, but out of universe? Mazinger Z is the Trope Codifier of the Super Robot Genre and it knows this. And it is not happy at the existence of others, even other Mazins. In the final few chapters of the manga, ZERO merges The Multiverse into a single world where Mazinger and Mazinger alone is the only Super Robot anime and manga, as well as a media icon. However, this erases all mecha anime, manga, movies and video games that were influenced by the show in any way from existence. Getter Robo? Gundam? Evangelion? Gurren Lagann? Pacific Rim? All gone.
- In the anime adaptation of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, from Stardust Crusaders onward, the last few episodes of each arc have the Big Bad use their Story-Breaker Power to mess with the opening:
- Stardust Crusaders:
- In the last episodes, Dio Brando uses his Stand, The World, to briefly stop the opening credits for almost exactly eleven seconds.
- The first half of Stardust Crusaders has its opening sequence end like this as well with Jotaro Kujo using his Stand, Star Platinum, to break the literal fourth wall itself with his Stand's fists. This is also an inversion of said trope, as you briefly see that Dio was actually hiding within the 'fourth wall' barrier, hence why Jotaro uses his power to break Dio's barrier (and also the screen).
- Diamond is Unbreakable: Once Kira obtains the power of Bites The Dust, he uses it to play the third opening in reverse. Killer Queen even appears on the screen and dashes towards the viewer to affect them as well.
- Golden Wind:
- One shot in the second opening suddenly skips forward. In episodes after The Boss's identity is revealed, twenty seconds of new footage play between the mismatched frames, with the implication that Diavolo had been using his time skip powers on the show itself the entire time.
- The last two episodes even have Giorno's new ability reversing the background footage as its way of undoing Diavolo's time skip powers. This is the first instance of a main character actually taking back an opening from the villain.
- Stone Ocean: In the final episode, Pucci's Made In Heaven causes the opening to reset back to the original opening of Phantom Blood, with Jolyne and Pucci having the exact same poses as Jonathan and DIO did, alongside facing each other off just as Jotaro and DIO does in Stardust Crusaders opening. This is due to to the fact that before Diamond is Unbreakable and after Golden Wind, the JoJo openings were animated by Kamikaze Douga, a 3D animation studio, which allowed for a seamless transition between the openings.
- Stardust Crusaders:
- In Teasing Master Takagi-san, protagonist Nishikita is constantly being teased by Takagi, the girl he likes. A Series Fauxnale (can be seen here
) has Takagi as an adult reminiscing about their relationship, and implying Nishikata dead (with a red text saying "Nishikata gone missing"). When Nishikata comes home at the end of the chapter, she smirks at the reader (followed with a red text saying "Good News, Nishikata and Takagi is married"). - Nui Harime of Kill la Kill fame is known for getting pretty touchy-feely with the fourth wall, such as leaning on her own Boss Subtitles or reaching across a Split Screen to touch another character. In episode 23, she takes it above and beyond by hijacking the anime's credits to introduce Ragyo's Shinra-Koketsu, and her face deformed by the static is absolutely terrifying.Nui: Welcome to the runway of death!
- Crossed with Biting-the-Hand Humor in Kuromukuro when the facility of P.A. Works got destroyed in an Efy Dolgh attack in one episode. Unlike most BTHH examples of this sort, this one ended up crossing into real life, with a maintenance sign outside of their facility and a real-life replica of an invoice for repair costs. Needless to say, this trope was Played for Laughs.
- The first episode of Monster Rancher does this in-universe; Genki's Monster Rancher 200X game starts out with Holly and Suezo being chased by Black Dinos. Suezo tries to ward them off with a spit attack, and one glob of saliva goes through the screen and hits Genki!Genki: I could be wrong, but I think I just got spat on!
- Hideshi Hino's Panorama of Hell ends with the Mad Artist main character having killed his family and, in his delirious state, expressing his desire to murder everyone on Earth... including the reader. The last image in the book is a splash page of a hatchet coming right for us.
- This is an in-universe plot point in Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation. Halfway through the series, it becomes clear that the Darkers, the Eldritch Abomination hellspawn of the universe, can jump through interdimensional links that appear to be a popular video game to attack Earthlings; this takes the form of popping out of their PCs, handheld consoles, etc. Their enemies, the ARKS, can do the same, and one of them is employed to travel to Earth and counteract the threat.
- The anime adaptation of Pop Team Epic uses this in the adaptation of the "Please Subscribe" short where Popuko asks people to subscribe to her YouTube channel (on a TV screen). After that, the screen turns pitch-black and you can hear Popuko ringing / knocking at your door."Thank you for subscribing! And...
You there, who didn't...
[The screen starts glitching as she says the following sentence]
I'm coming for you now." - Sadako at the End of the World sees Sadako notice she's still around after Ai and Hii die, wondering why she's still around after humanity has died out. Then she looks at the reader and starts to crawl out of the panel.
- Towards the end of Episode 4 of Space☆Dandy, as the narrator chronicles how un-life for the now completely zombified universe has actually resulted in a lack of disaster and peace for all life, he starts turning into a zombie too.
- Summer Time Rendering: Happens in-universe when Shadow Ushio shows Shinpei and Sou the memory of the day Ushio died. After the end of the recording, the memory of Shadow Shiori suddenly threatens Shinpei and grabs his arm, branding him with a handprint shaped mark that persists for the rest of the series.
- In the Trigun "Remix" re-release, the audio was altered for surround sound. Whenever Legato speaks, his voice randomly switches from speaker to speaker...and if you're using headphones, it literally feels like he's inside your head. That's right - Legato can Mind Rape the viewer.
