History WarIsHell / AnimeAndManga

* ''Manga/SPYxFAMILY'':

* ''Anime/WhosLeftBehindKayokosDiary'', a young girl growing up in 1940s Tokyo, with little, if any, idea of badly World War 2 is going for Japan apart from her uncle being KilledOffscreen in action. She is eventually evacuated for her own safety, only to witness the firebombing of Tokyo from a distance and then having to listen to her brother tell her the harrowing tale of how he was the only member of their family to survive.

* ''Manga/SpyXFamily'':

* The trainee pilots in ''Literature/ThePilotsLoveSong'' are at first eager to engage in the Sky Clan, even if it's only doing recon. However, SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs very quickly for them, and a few of them [[AnyoneCanDie are killed off]], and others injured after their first skirmish with their battle-hardened enemy. By the time they're ordered to go into battle again, none of the ones that go do so willingly, and are only going to prevent their loved ones from having to.

** At one point, [[spoiler:Zeke Yeager, the Beast Titan]] utters this trope almost word for word: "War... is never a good thing."

* ''Anime/IsabelleOfParis'' is from the perspective of a fifteen-year-old Bourgeoisie girl who's swept up in the bloody Franco-Prussian conflict and forcibly separated from her family after the Prussians try to gun down refugees escaping the country. In the first episode, there's a massive contrast of the wealthy elites partying at the ball against shots of the French soldiers corpses around the pillaged country, after the Prussians defeated them and advance further into the country, and the atrociousness of the Prussians is exemplified as the series goes on. [[spoiler: And despite being a {{Shoujo}}, the GrandFinale does not shy away from what would actually happen if a group of inexperienced-yet-patriotic civilians tried to take on the French army. The DownerEnding has everyone not named "Isabelle" die a CruelAndUnusualDeath, and the poor girl has to escape the country and live a new life elsewhere[[note]]Implied to be London, given the group that was in cahoots with LaResistance are there[[/note]].]]

* ''LightNovel/FateZero'': This is central to Kiritsugu's philosophy. There are a number of terrible things in the world that he will [[WellIntentionedExtremist go to great lengths to stop]], but above all else is war. As far as he is concerned, war is by definition the absolute worst thing imaginable, and therefore anything that reduces the amount of war in the world is justified. He and his Servant, Saber, clash several times on this because while she agrees that war is a terrible thing, [[NecessaryEvil sometimes it is necessary]]. Kiritsugu sees glorious knights such as her to be part of the problem, as they make war seem like something just and honorable, and victory a hopeful triumph.

** ''Manga/MobileSuitGundamThunderbolt'', being a seinen ''Gundam'' series, is unabashed in its depiction of war as a dehumanizing experience. [[spoiler:From the Federation sending a platoon of ChildSoldiers to their deaths, to Zeon forcing soldiers to sacrifice their bodies and scientists to sacrifice their souls, plus a third facion that uses psychic brainwashing to build its ranks: no one in the One Year War walks away unscathed.]]

* ''Manga/ShoukokuNoAltair'' is all about an entire continent being engulfed by war thanks to the aggressions of TheEmpire, resulting in increasingly bloody battles, war crimes abound, and character deaths in all their meaningless tragedy. The fact that the protagonist is a '''''pacifist''''' and still can't help but get involved and kill his fair share just goes to show how hellish the situation is.

* The trainee pilots in ''LightNovel/ThePilotsLoveSong'' are at first eager to engage in the Sky Clan, even if it's only doing recon. However, SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs very quickly for them, and a few of them [[AnyoneCanDie are killed off]], and others injured after their first skirmish with their battle-hardened enemy. By the time they're ordered to go into battle again, none of the ones that go do so willingly, and are only going to prevent their loved ones from having to.

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline''.

* ''Anime/{{Zambot 3}}'' explored this trope. Child Soldiers forced to handle weapons and fight a faceless enemy? Check. People dying suffering and dying the whole time? Check. People turned into human bombs? Check. Cities being destroyed? Check. Both sides battling among the ruins of cities already destroyed in previous battles? Check. Every side thinking the other side are the evil ones? Check. It is no wonder this anime was done by [[Creator/YoshiyukiTomino the creator of Gundam]] during one of his KillEmAll phases.

* ''Manga/InThisCornerOfTheWorld'' mainly takes place during the last two years of World War II. While the war itself isn't shown in full since the story focuses more on the home front, the effects of the war still take their toll on the cast as they deal with things like rationing and food shortages, relatives being being killed in action, air raids, and [[spoiler:the eventually aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima]].

** An even more recent example is ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeed Gundam SEED]]'' which slides to the far end of the [[SlidingScaleofIdealismVersusCynicism Cynical side of the scale]]. War becomes humanity's excuse to perpetrate [[ForScience human experimentation]], [[NukeEm nuclear holocaust]], and [[FaceHeelTurn mass betrayal]]. Given that the war was started in the first place to commit genocide against a subspecies of humanity, [[spoiler:and it eventually evolves to the point where both sides refuse to accept each other's existence and commit ruthless atrocities in an attempt to end all of mankind]], yes, war is indeed HELL.

* ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'' emphasised this trope in various ways, from the protagonist's anguishing over the deaths of countless soldiers under his command right down to particularly graphic scenes of destruction that both warring factions experience.

* ''Anime/CodeGeass'' doesn't shy away from how much war sucks, especially ''after'' the war has ended for the losing side: Japan has been colonized by Britannia, and the Japanese people have become second-class citizens in their own homeland. The series follows the reignition of conflicts in Japan, with several ChildSoldiers (including the protagonist, deutertagonist, and their peers) thrown into the fray. As the series progresses, the war escalates to the point of ''using weapons of mass destruction''. It is ''not'' a fun time for anyone involved.

* ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'' of all things has this with the interdimensional war. The series does not pull its punches when showing the realities of war. With the Akabas using realistic propaganda to draft soldiers, child soldiers being sociopaths because they were mislead by adults and realistically showing that anyone can die in a war, even the civilians. And this is before the story actually enters the battlefield -- thus far the protagonists are just preparing for an invasion, except for [[ShellShockedVeteran Kurosaki and Yuto]], and what we've seen of their homeland through flashbacks only enforces this trope.

* The Aincrad Arc of ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline''. It all started the day the game launched, when the players were stunned to find themselves trapped in the game, and dying in the game means dying for real. In the ensuing arc, most episodes have characters die in the episode, and most of the ones that don't involve murder investigations. Some of the players snapped and committed suicide; others grew so nihilistic that they committed murder for sport. Back home, nobody other than the veterans wants to remember that the war even happened.

** Loid Forger[[note]]the false name of one of the main characters, otherwise only known by his code name, <Twilight>[[/note]] was a child who was orphaned by the last big war. His motivation for becoming a spy is to keep war from breaking out so that no one else has to suffer like he did.
** Loid's handler shares his motivation. After capturing a cell of college students who have been radicalized into terrorists, she stomps on the face of one when he gleefully exclaims that their intent is to start a war by murdering a visiting ambassador. She then gives the rest a brutal TheReasonYouSuckSpeech about friends and loved ones dying brutally, of having to eat tree bark or even human flesh just to survive when there's no food, of the psychological damage soldiers inflict on themselves to justify killing others, and how some of the survivors take their own lives out of guilt over what they've done afterward. She [[TranquilFury never raises her voice]], but instead puts a gun to one of the terrorist's heads and tells them that despite being educated young men, they know ''nothing'' about war.