This trope is specifically prevalent in anime; Japanese culture talks of "mono no aware" ("aware of the ephemeral"), which means understanding that much of life is transient and impermanent. A lot of stories deal with changing eras and consequently shifting standards of heroism/villainy, or beyond those simply advancing and adjusting to new developments in life.
- In Attack on Titan, the country Marley had previously exerted dominance over most of the world through its use of Titans in warfare for a long time. But now, the rest of the world is developing technology strong enough to combat Titans and even defeat them. So the current priority for Marley is to try to find a way to regain their dominance.
- The Big O's Paradigm City is a unique example in that the Golden Age was forcibly suppressed and all memories of that time were erased, thereby skipping the long decline. The result is a grungy, post-apocalyptic Noir New York City in which the Lost Technology is memories and the occasional Black Box pops up in the form of giant robots, artificial stars, and advanced androids.
- Season 1 was quite possibly the last TV anime to be drawn on cels and transferred to film.
- Season 2 ends with a Wham Episode revealing the truth about Paradigm City: it's a simulation based on the mindscape of a mid-20th-century actress. The end is about learning how to live with the 'return' of the 21st century and the death of the Neo-Noir era.
- Bleach features drastic shifts in the world's setting on two occasions.
- The first chronological one is the arcs featuring Aizen as the main Big Bad. Changes to the Soul Society are minimal even with the assassination of the Central 46 government, though the Gotei 13 has shifted to be a more lenient organization. The main changes came into the world of Hueco Mundo with the majority of the Espadas eliminated, and the surviving ones (Halibel, Grimmjow, and ex-Espada Neliel) running the place, who are on better terms with the Soul Society.
- The Thousand Year Blood Arc is the one that demolishes the old functions of the Soul Society completely. The war itself kills off the vast majority of the Gotei 13 and takes several Captains and Vice-Captains with it, including the Head Captain himself. The surviving members of the Gotei 13 undergo a rise in political power under new Head Captain Kyoraku, who is willing to defy the new Central 46 government rather than follow their laws unquestionably. The Soul King is killed, now replaced with the remains of the new Big Bad Yhwach. The existence of the once-thought-extinct Quincies has come to light once more. And it is speculated that the status quo the Royal Guard set up is not going to last for long either.
- Fairy Tail:
- The first is this with the Tartaros arc. Nearly the entire Magic Council was assassinated, Acnologia kills Igneel, the other dragons are revealed to have already been killed by Acnologia, Zeref destroys Mard Geer permanently and makes off with the Book of E.N.D., the Fairy Tail guild hall, along with a good portion of Magnolia Town, was wrecked in the struggle and Makarov disbands the guild at the end of the arc.
- The Grand Finale is also this. With the deaths of Zeref, Mavis, and Acnologia, Earthland is poised to enter a new age of adventure.
- Discussed and even an important plot point in Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest. The Moon Dragon God Selene sees the "age of dragons" as over, with only scattered holdouts like the Five Dragon Gods and even Acnologia remaining to remind the world of their glory, and by the time she's revealed this goal Acnologia is dead and two of her fellow Dragon Gods have either died or been indisposed. Her ultimate goal is to usher in the "age of humans", though even the most charitable interpretation of her desires would still put her on top of said age as the strongest with all competitors dead. This is not a sentiment the Fire Dragon God Ignia shares, who instead has declared open hostilities with her and that the age of dragons "is only just beginning."
- As a fantasy historical story near the end of the Edo period, Hakuouki depicts the end of the age of The Shinsengumi and of the Japanese warrior as Westernization and its advancing weaponry are becoming more prevalent and the characters learn to cope and adapt to it.
- There are a handful of Hetalia: Axis Powers fics that picture Nations at either the end of the world or their own "lifetimes." Whether it's peaceful, violent or tragic depends on the writer. But let's just say that they take it well...
- Sometimes, this can include the end of a particular era of their history. Such as the French Revolution or the final years of Austria-Hungary.
- In canon, England reflects on the loss of the British Empire, and France thinks about Joan of Arc and Napoleon as he's being defeated by Germany in WWII.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean ends this way. At the end, Pucci resets the universe before being killed... but because his method of resetting the universe involves forcing the Big Crunch and a new Big Bang over and over again, the original universe is gone forever. Emporio is the only survivor, though he quickly meets alternate versions of the heroic cast (minus F.F., who ends up Ret-Gone alone with Pucci). With Pucci's death, DIO's legacy is put to an end as well. The installments following Stone Ocean take place in a completely different continuity.
- The end of Legend of the Galactic Heroes is the end of one era of human history: an era of long and bloody conflict. The Galactic Empire undergoes major reform as a result of Reinhardt von Lohengramm's ascension to power, with the old nobility extinguished and the Goldenbaum Dynasty destroyed. The Free Planets Alliance, meanwhile, suffers a series of devastating defeats and insurrection that contribute to its decline and, ultimately, its dissolution.
- Throughout Lone Wolf and Cub, it's both expressed and strongly implied that Feudal Japan is about to come crashing down and that Itto is "the Last True Bushi."
- Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force shows the start of the end of the magic age for Lyrical Nanoha, with the Eclipse having Anti-Magic strong enough to actually make magic obsolete and force the (re)introduction of physical weapons, unlike StrikerS where the heroines could simply power through it. However, the sheer amount of Fanon Discontinuity raises the question of whether this series will stay canonical, especially given its sudden and eternal "hiatus".
- Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms: The timespan of the movie results in it showing a few cases of this:
- Maquia ends up outliving all the ordinary humans she knew.
- The renato dragons in Mezarte kingdom's control are gradually dying out, resulting in its royal family looking for another asset. They settle for kidnapping the women from a Society of Immortals and destroying their homeland, forcing those who have managed to evade both capture and death into parting ways and hiding.
- For the ordinary humans appearing in the story, the changes in society as a whole result in children who grew up in farms becoming factory workers and soldiers by the time they are old enough to work.
- Many of the works by Miyazaki evoke this trope (Castle in the Sky, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke to name just three).
- My Hero Academia:
- This is what happens after the climactic battle between All Might and All for One. Although All for One was left defeated and subsequently imprisoned, the battle used up the last remaining "embers" of One for All that allowed All Might to remain a hero. Recognized throughout the world as the Number One Hero and The Symbol of Peace, it was his presence that inspired hope in the populace and served as a warning to villains. With his retirement, villains that had been driven into the shadows start coming out of the woodwork to strike out at a world that has lost its greatest protector. Other heroes have recognized this with the noted rise in crime rates being a sign of everything that All Might built is slowly crumbling down.
- Another occurs in the aftermath of the Paranormal Liberation War arc. Towards the end of the arc, after the war itself is over, it's revealed to Izuku Midoriya as he's recovering from his injuries that his Quirk can no longer be transferred. All Might's research revealed that One For All shortens the lifespan via Rapid Aging of any user that already has a pre-existing Quirk, meaning only the Quirkless can inherit it safely. Unfortunately, Quirklessness is virtually nonexistent in Izuku's generation, and predictions state that it will be eradicated entirely by the time of the next one, meaning finding a Quirkless successor that would also fit the correct personality profile Izuku would want would be slim to flat-out impossible. Even if that weren't the case, One For All has simply grown too powerful to control anymore considering the rapid rate it's already amassing power with Midoriya. That means Izuku may very well be the last wielder of One For All and the world's last chance to end All For One's reign of terror for good, and that no matter what happens, the shadow war between One For All and All For One, which has been conducted since the Dawn of Quirks, will finally end.
- In Natsume's Book of Friends, many spirits are departing and/or becoming weaker as less and less humans believe in them. An example is when one shrine god vanishes entirely when his last worshiper dies.
- Humanity is going through this in Neon Genesis Evangelion. SEELE is trying to bring it to an end on purpose.
- One Piece:
- Several characters have different views of what exactly this "New Age" brought on with the death of Whitebeard at the end of the War of the Best, confirming the existence of the One Piece and therefore ushering a new wave of pirates to sea is about, mostly thinking of a world in the verge of chaos or an age where pirates no longer chase their dreams. For example, the Marines seem to think of it as an age where pirates are more ruthless than ever, whereas Trafalgar Law thinks of it as an age where the Marines' days are numbered, and X Drake thinking this is a new age for the Marines as well upon Akainu becoming Fleet Admiral and they receiving unprecedented power by the World Government. Eustass Kid seems to hold the belief that pirates are in an Evil Power Vacuum, dog-piling over each other to get at One Piece — not so much about being the Pirate King anymore. Bellamy believes this "New Age" is an age without dreams. Or at least he used to, before coming back post-Time Skip with a change of heart and looking to pursue his own dreams. And Blackbeard? He thinks of it as the age of his own world domination.
- The Worst Generation defeating Big Mom and Kaido at the climax of the raid in Onigashima is seen as the definitive end of the old guard's dominance of the sea, with Law explicitly spelling it out to Big Mom as such moments before Kid finishes her off.Law: The era that you guys reigned over... HAS ENDED!
- Meta-example in regards to Pokémon: The Series, with Ash and Pikachu being retired as the main leads after twenty-five years of holding the roles, with an eleven-episode miniseries entitled To Be A Pokemon Master serving as a send-off for the characters.
- Deconstructed in Rurouni Kenshin, which is set in the eleventh year of the Meiji Restoration. While many characters romanticize the bygone era of the samurai and even fight to bring it back, the frequent flashbacks to the Boshin War and surrounding conflicts show just how senselessly brutal and violent that time was compared to the relatively peaceful present day. The manga's overall attitude is that, while the Meiji government certainly had its problems and it's good for Japan to remember its history, overall the vast majority of its people are significantly better off the way things became afterward.
- Sailor Moon states that an unidentified length of time ago, the entire Solar System was ruled in peace by The Moon and its queen, and every planet was a utopia, in an era known as the Silver Millennium. Now, though, every planet but Earth is dead. (Sailor Moon does promise via Time Travel, though, that the future will be bright — and based in Tokyo.)
- A meta-example: the Sazae-san anime was the last animation production to use cel animation (within the animation is done by drawing everything on a series of celluloid sheets that are hand inked-and-painted). The series would fully abandon this approach in favour of digital ink-and-paint in 2013, almost a decade after Western productions and a few years after its peers.
- Scrapped Princess. Its entire premise revolves around an Ancient Conspiracy to restore the world from its (both physical and metaphorical) cage.
- In Sgt. Frog, a flashback chapter revealed that shortly before Dororo reunited with his platoon mates, the denizens of the ninja village he had been living with (including his friend Koyuki) were forced to re-integrate with normal Japanese society after Japan's "department of ninjutsu" was disbanded.
- Shin Sakura Taisen the Novel: Hizakura no Koro takes place when the peace and prosperity of the past nine years since the Great Demon War is coming to an end and the Happy Ending the original Combat Revues have achieved is about to be undone.
- The aliens of Tokyo Mew Mew see Earth as exactly this due to pollution.
- Partially pollution, and partially because these "aliens" are actually the original inhabitants of the planet, and want to know what the hell we humans are doing bumming around in their property.
- Toriko has a chapter aptly named "End of an Age", because Midora causes so much destruction to the Human World that 100 nations are unable to function properly, as the ecosystems are destroyed and, in turn a shortage of ingredients breaks in. Truly the end of the Gourmet Age. In turn, due to this shortage, IGO creates Food Pills to try to apease the hunger, because the only way to get ingredients is to go to the Gourmet World.
- ∀ Gundam has this as its distant backstory. They even have a name for it: The Black History. That backstory happens to be the entire Gundam franchise up to that point; Word of God adds in most later Gundam series to backstory.
- Urusei Yatsura had this in the third movie "Remember My Love". When Lum is kidnapped, all of the Oni leave Earth to find her. Eventually the character's lives return to those of normal teenagers; time even becomes unstuck and our characters advanced to 12th Grade. This is all wiped out, and the original timeline restored by the end of the movie.
- Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou shows the "age of the calm evening" before "the night of humanity". This is paralleled in Alpha's own development.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds marked the end of the original Yu-Gi-Oh timeline, which began with the original series, followed by Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. Taking place in the far future after GX, it’s the final series to include Domino City, now called Neo Domino City, and the final series to have any mention of the ones preceding. From Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL onward, each series is considered as taking place in its own alternate universe, minus Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush!!, which is in the same continuity as Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS, in a Meta sense, can be considered the end of the previous Yu-Gi-Oh! era spanning all of the series’ incarnations preceding it, starting from Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Monsters. It was the final series to be made by Studio Gallop, using the traditional art style, with Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens being made by Bridge and having an entirely new art style. Sevens also includes a retooling of the titular card game; whereas the previous series’ incarnations became increasingly focused on the Extra Deck for summoning methods, Sevens returned to a focus on Normal Monsters, introducing new support for them with the “Rush Summon” mechanic.
