Uncertain Doom / Anime & Manga

• After War Gundam X gives us one with the pirate villain Dorza Baroy in Episode 17. Witz manages to defeat the pirate by firing shots on his ship at the end of the episode. The room of the ship Dorza is in takes damage, looking like it is about to explode. One crew member panics and says that they won't make it, while Dorza say "Damn, is this the end?!" The shot cuts away to Garrod destroying three of their mobile suit soldiers that were hiding in the water, and then we see that Dorza's ship has been wrecked, but not completely destroyed and is floating in the ocean. We don't see any rescue boats sailing away, but there is no way to tell is Dorza died or not, and he is never seen again for the rest of the anime.
• Arachnid has an open ending involving the use of a Zombie Apocalypse on Japan as a Depopulation Bomb after a Carnival of Killers Gone Horribly Right. Several characters are abruptly written off towards the end, leaving the Blattodea sequel to elaborate on their fates 5 years later.
  • Imomushi, the protagonist of Caterpillar, participates in the Arachnid Hunt but is suddenly backstabbed and knocked unconscious by Suzumebachi. She isn't seen again until her spinoff confirmes that Hanakamakiri took her back home, and Blattodea shows that she's survived the zombie apocalypse through the following year.
  • Dinoponera is tossed to the rape zombies while paralyzed and isn't seen again for the rest of the story... until Blattodea actually brings her back to great effect by establishing its protagonist Chiyuri as Dinoponera's Only Friend and having Dino overcome the infection to help Chiyuri.
  • Like Dinoponera, both Kamadouma and Geji are lost offscreen in the zombie outbreak, and Gokiburi assumes in an offhanded scene that they were probably raped and infected as well. By the second volume of Blattodea, their status hasn't been confirmed.
  • Characters like Riokku and Amenbo are just forgotten about before the zombie outbreak even starts. Minor villain Jigabachi actually comes back in Blattodea to save Sasori after he's blown high off Shouran High by Kabutomushi, handily explaining how his pupil Anabachi also didn't die when Kabuto smashed his head against the floor.
  • Arachnid ends with Alice facing a horde of rape zombies on her own and, an unspecified amount of time later, Kabutomushi and Gokiburi looking for her. Blattodea confirms Alice's survival and reintroduces Gokiburi sometime later, but conspicuously doesn't show Kabuto together with her.
  • In Blattodea, Yamato gets overwhelmed by the zombies while trying to keep them from rushing towards Chiyuri and Dinoponera. She is forced to leave him behind, but his fate is left unclear.
• In Berserk a few of the characters who are only in one arc and who didn't join Gut's party or go the Griffith's Falconia are classified as this.
  • Theresia from the Black Swordsmen arc swore revenge on Guts for getting her monster father killed — but she has never been seen again. More tragically, Jill in the Lost Children arc has to return to her abusive home life as Guts refused to let her go with him as she would be in danger, but since the entire world of Berserk is now dangerous if she didn't travel to Falconia she'd likely be killed by the numerous creatures that roam wild.
  • Nina and Joachim from the Conviction arc they survived the destruction of Albion and went off alone together to make themselves better people, unfortunately we don't see them in Falconia and as said above there are monsters everywhere so their chances of survival are minimal (especially as Nina was already dying).
• Black Jack: In the anime, Nadare the deer survives being shot by his human friend and limps his way back to the forest. The episode ends with the other characters wondering whether Nadare was Killed Offscreen.
• Bleach:
  • Harribel gets captured when the Wandenreich invades Hueco Mundo, and is never seen again, even after they are defeated. It was only in the light novels released later that would reveal she was rescued and assumed leadership of Hueco Mundo.
  • Cang Du and BG9 receive punishment from Jugram for losing in their fights. Jugram is able to No-Sell Cang's abilities and kill or at least badly injure him, but the scene cuts away before we see what happens to BG9. Neither are mentioned again following this. ^note In the manga, at least. The anime shows, in no uncertain terms, that Jugram killed both of them.
  • At the end of their fight with Askin, Urahara and Yoruichi are apparently unable to escape when their opponent unleashes a final "Gift Ball" on them. While Nel is seen trying to rescue them, they are never mentioned in the ending. Like the Harribel example, it was up to the light novels to reveal Nel rescued them.
• Burst Angel: Jo's body wasn't found by Meg in the rubble at the end of the anime.
• Cells at Work! CODE BLACK has the Red Blood Cells discuss this in regards to the fate of the Sperm Cells they helped released, with one of AA2153's superiors telling him not to get his hopes up at the idea of them successfully fertilizing an ovum, considering they all function independently from the rest of the body, so they have no idea if they will be even successful in their mission, and that's assuming their host wasn't simply relieving pent up tension by themselves. However, considering almost immediately after U1196 announces that Gonococcus has managed to invade the body, it's safe to assume not a single sperm managed to come close to completing their mission.
• Cowboy Bebop ends with Spike collapsing from his injuries, but it's left unclear whether he died or simply passed out. The series' creator Shinichirō Watanabe has said that he himself doesn't know, and once joked in an interview that Spike at the end "might be just sleeping".
• Cyborg Kurochan often uses this for minor one-off villains. For major characters, Never Found the Body is used instead.
• Dragon Ball: Monster Carrot and the Rabbit mob, after defeating them Goku takes them to the moon via Power Pole and forces them to make Mochi for the kids of Earth for a whole year and then he promises he come up and bring them down. However, Master Roshi destroyed the moon in the World Martial Arts Tournament to revert Goku from his Great Ape form. So some fans assumed they were killed, but then Toriyama (when asked) stated that Monster Carrot and his henchmen are drifting through space.
• In E's Otherwise, Kai Kudo is not seen alive or dead after the explosion in the final episode.
• In GaoGaiGar FINAL, The entire crew, minus Mamoru and Kaido, is left in a collapsing universe, sacrificing their only (known) way out to save the kids.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 3 does this with some of the Stand users. While some are confirmed dead (including Gray Fly, Fake Capatin Tennille, Forever, Devo, J. Geil, N'Doul, Pet Shop, and Vanilla Ice), some are confirmed alive (Mannish Boy, Boingo and Oingo, Mariah, and Hol Horse), and there are some whose fates are uncomfirmed. Among those whose fates are unconfirmed, there are two of them who are highly implied to be dead as they don't get up. They are Steely Dan (whose been punched even more times than Forever and did not get up) and Rubber Soul.
• A lot of villains from Kaiketsu Zorro get this treatment because there's no doubt that Zorro won't hesitate to cut down the villains who attack him. But whether or not he outright kills them or just wounds them badly enough to incapacitate them is left in the air. In some episodes, Zorro does explicitly kill his enemies, such as the time he slew an Indian assassin who murdered his friend Teo and had found out about his secret identity earlier. At other times Zorro will cut down enemies but either ties them up or drags their prone bodies away from impending explosions, implying that he hasn't killed them and will more than likely leave them to the authorities to imprison. More than often, though, Zorro will usually cut down a villain and their deaths will be neither confirmed nor denied, making the situation much more ambiguous.
• KanColle: Shouhou is last seen in a great fire, with her final fate never laid out clearly.
• In the Grand Finale of Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, the crew destroys NME's fortress with the NME Salesman still inside and, upon being informed of this, he makes a run for it. In the original Japanese version, he can be heard screaming just before the fortress is entirely destroyed but what makes it qualify for this trope is the English version, which doesn't dub his scream at all and leaves him silent. In both versions, King Dedede attempts to contact him and only gets a static screen in return.
• While Shadow Link dies near the end of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords (2004), one of the last panels shows Link’s shadow giving a thumbs up. It’s left unclear whether he was revived somehow or if it is a new Shadow Link.
• One Piece: This happens a lot to villains in the East Blue arc and a few times afterwards, it's a better alternative than having the Straw Hats (the heroes) outright murder the bad guys, which goes against their lifestyle. Though Oda did show certain antagonists (like Baroque Works and CP9) surviving through cover stories, plus many former villains return in the Impel Down arc to help Luffy free Ace and fight the Marines.
  • Axe-Hand Morgan, the former Marine captain, was thought to be killed by Zoro by one fan until Oda corrected him by saying he was arrested. Morgan appeared in Coby's cover story where he escaped and then he was never seen again.
  • Kuro and the Black Cat Pirates (with the exception of Jango) are also nowhere to be seen after Luffy defeats Kuro and they flee Usopp's village. The anime shows Kuro having returned to his pirate life and reacting dispassionately to Luffy's first bounty poster.
  • Don Krieg, Gin, and the other Krieg Pirates don't appear again after the Baratie arc. The arc involved Gin breathing in a lethal dose of poisonous gas and telling Sanji he might have not have long to live but he hoped to see him again on the Grand Line... which didn't happen. The only hint that he's alive is the databook giving him a post-Time Skip age (however, the story has contradicted the databooks before).
  • The Arlong Pirates' fate is left very ambiguous. The anime mistakenly has Arlong accuse Zoro and Sanji of "killing his brethren" after they defeat Hatchan and Kuroobi. A cover story shows Hatchan escaping from the Marine ship that had arrested the Fishmen, but the others on the other hand haven't been seen again outside flash backs nor did they show up in Impel Down with the rest of the incarcerated villains.
  • The fate of the Priests in Skypiea is very obscure: Gedatsu fell back to the Blue Sea and opened up a hot springs resort, but the other three weren't so lucky. Satori took Sanji's Concasse (axe kick) to the skull and is never seen getting up again, in the Funimation dub Sotori and Kotori (Satori's brothers) even say that he was killed and want revenge which further confuses the issue. Shura was blasted by Wiper's Reject Dial to the chest and Ohm was sliced down by Zoro's Pound Cannon and (like Satori) didn't get up again. Even if they survived that, the Shandians banished them and the rest of Eneru's forces to a drifting cloud, which means they will stay on this cloud until they all die or the cloud dissolves and they fall down into Blue Sea (which would kill them as well).
  • Yorki, Brook's friend and captain was not killed along with the rest of the Rumbar Pirates as he had fallen ill prior and was last reported traveling across the Calm Belt (which is filled with Sea Kings) but even if he crossed safely, that was at least 52 years ago. So, if Yorki didn't die of his sickness or wasn't eaten by a Sea King, he'd be a very old man.
  • In Zeff and Sanji's combined backstory flashback, the seagoing restaurant where Sanji worked and the pirate ship Zeff commanded are both swept away by a giant rogue wave in a violent storm. Zeff and Sanji survived by being swept onto a deserted island, but the fate of everyone else is left ambiguous; Zeff says that it's possible the restaurant ship survived, because he didn't find any wreckage from it, and he didn't see any bodies from either ship.
  • Shiki and the Golden Lion Pirates from Strong World have a status of "unknown", but since they fell unconscious from their collapsing island and Shiki at least had a Devil Fruit... they're likely dead. Another variant on this trope is the fact the movie is non-canon, but the character itself is canon. However, outside of his name being mentioned a few times, his fate in the manga is completely unknown.
  • Little Oars Jr. gets subjected to a brutal Curb-Stomp Battle against Doflamingo, Kuma, and Moria at Marineford, and collapses, seemingly dead. It later turns out that he's still alive and even helps the Whitebeard Pirates advance, but his final fate is never conclusively revealed. The only two named characters who are explicitly stated to have died at Marineford are Ace and Whitebeard.
  • When Bellamy reencounters Luffy in the Dressrosa Arc, he mentions that he "lost" his crew since they last met. The statement is ambiguous in its wording so that it's not clear if they died (since he states this after mentioning going to the sky island, noted to be an extremely perilous journey) or they simply parted ways.
  • Two of Caesar's underlings in the Punk Hazard Arc are the Yeti Cool Brothers, who are defeated by Luffy, Franky (in Chopper's body), and Law. However, while all of the other major underlings are either seen dying or being arrested at the end of the arc, their fate is never mentioned (although the island was gassed with poison, it's mentioned the poison is curable if rescued with 12 hours).
  • Charlotte Opera in Whole Cake Island arc had years of his life ripped out by his mother Big Mom for lying about Luffy and Nami's deaths. It's unclear whether he’s still alive or not, as Charlotte Moscato was thought to be dead when Big Mom did the same thing to him when on a hunger rampage but was revealed to be alive later. No such luck for Opera though, whose fate is unknown.
  • From the same arc, the Vinsmoke Family (Judge, Reiju, Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji) Sanji's father, sister, and brothers) were last seen fighting off Big Mom's forces giving the Straw Hats time to escape and were shot down with special bullets from a Gatling Gun. It wasn't until the twenty-fifth Cover Story arc ("Germa 66's Ahh... An Emotionless Excursion") that all five were confirmed alive, though Niji and Yonji had been captured by the Big Mom Pirates (and were subsequently rescued by Reiju and Ichiji during the arc).
  • Also in this arc, Big Mom's subordinate Pekoms throws his cards in with the Straw Hats due to owing them an unsurmountable debt. He decides to go out fighting to give Luffy a chance to escape the massive army ready to kill him, by transforming into his Sulong form (activated by looking at the full moon). He's last seen being dogpiled by Big Mom's army mid-transformation, who intend to gouge his eyes out so that he never sees the moon again. This is the last we see of him.
  • During the final stages of the Wano Country arc, after Big Mom is defeated and knocked off Onigashima, she falls into a huge underground magma chamber that has been exposed as a result of the raid on the island. Later, when Kaido also falls into the chamber, it erupts. A week later, neither Emperor has been seen since and the World Government has declared them to no longer be Emperors, leaving their fate uncertain.
• Hunter J from Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl is last seen having her airship shot down by the Lake Guardians and plummeting into a lake below and exploding on impact, presumably killing her and her henchmen still inside in the process.
• Tokyo Ghoul concludes with considerable ambiguity concerning the fates of several characters. Hide is considering a missing person, and last seen with a hallucinating Kaneki who may or may not have eaten him. Aogiri has kidnapped numerous wounded Investigators and will be experimenting on them. Finally, Koma and Irimi were last seen headed to V14, where Arima later slaughters a large number of Ghouls. It is unknown whether or not they were among the dead.
• Tomorrow's Joe has Joe giving his gloves away to Yoko before collapsing in his corner with a smile on his face and noting it's all burned away into white ash. It's implied this final match has killed him, but the manga ends before his fate is made explicit^note Asao Takamori stated in his biography that he considered Joe to have died at that point, but co-creator Tetsuya Chiba wanted the scene to be ambiguous and leave Joe's fate up to the audience. The second anime adaptation was much less ambiguous about this, as the reactions of Danpei, Yoko, the crew, the judges and the audience (including Gondo) are shown before the final shot and makes it clear Joe isn't waking up again.
• Several victims of Penalty Games in Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • Goro Inogashira is last seen engulfed in flames when the ice puck containing within a test tube of nitroglycerin cracks in two. While he could have died here, it isn’t confirmed either way, and it’s possible that he was merely badly injured, though he is never mentioned again in the original series. Spin-offs imply he lived as his name is included on a list of early-manga cameos in a Freeze-Frame Bonus, but those are of dubious canonicity anyway, and the school festival continues as normal, which is quite unlikely if a student had died on campus.
  • Two thugs who harass Hanasaki and extort his father are tricked by Dark Yugi into trapping themselves in a fiery maze, on a high platform on top of the harbor. As soon as they realize it, they jump at least ten meters into the water below. Depending on just how far they dropped and whether they can swim, and how badly the fire injured them, they may or may not succumb to their wounds or drown.
  • Hirutani falls off the roof of an Abandoned Warehouse and is never seen again. Note, though, that he had earlier survived electrocution in a previous chapter.
  • The Player Killer of Darkness receives a Penalty Game in which he is made to hang himself. Other characters who suffer similar fates like Bandit Keith are confirmed to be killed, but the difference is they are taken out by the villains, whereas the Player Killer’s Penalty Game comes from Dark Yugi, who has already been established to not kill his victims, as Kaiba and Nagumo survived the Experience of Death and getting his soul shattered, respectively. However, the Player Killer is never again seen or spoken of.