Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique / Anime & Manga

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• Baccano!:
  • Claire Stanfield, pissed off and in need of information, subjects a Smug Snake mook to this. Being dragged across railroad tracks from a moving train is not a pleasant way to die.
  • Maiza proves to be just as scary an interrogator in the Light Novels — one technique he employs is gouging out the victim's eyes with their own severed fingers.
• In the Darker than Black universe, the Jack Bauer interrogation technique is established as an effective means of getting information out of Contractors because, as Havoc mentions, their naturally self-serving attitudes will lead them to talk almost immediately. Hei himself performs this on ex-Contractor Havoc in an attempt to get information about his sister before a)it's clear she doesn't know anything and b)he realizes that she's no longer the cold-blooded monster he once knew her as.
  • In the first episode, Hei does this on a Contractor — the guy had to break his own fingers as a price for his powers, and Hei stabs him in the hand with his knife. After getting the information, Hei kills him anyway, disgusted by his cowardice.
  • You could probably also count November 11 freezing to the ground the gangster who betrayed him and then demanding information on the location of the "package". Once he gets the info, November walks away, and the freezing spreads across the guy's whole body and he does a Popsicle Splat. Really, there's no such thing as a Technical Pacifist in the Darker than Black universe.
  • This is given a Lampshade Hanging in the Durarara!! manga. Walker and Erika are going to torture someone based upon whatever anime or manga they choose, and when the victim glances at Darker than Black, it's commented that this is a "good choice".
• In Death Note, L orders Watari to do this to Misa. We don't see what he does, but whatever it is lasts three days and leaves her begging Rem for death. When physical torture fails to get her to talk (because of a Memory Gambit that ensures she really doesn't know anything), he instead leaves her in full-body restraints, sensory deprivation earphones, and a blindfold for weeks on end. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!
• Devilman's main character tortures a Monster of the Week demon to find out the cure for Miki's poisoning in one episode of the 1970s show.
• Leona from Dominion Tank Police managed to successfully interrogate a suspect by strongly implying that she was willing to resort to desperate measures. She came into the room carrying throwing knives and a hand grenade, and — just to give the suspect the impression that she was really Axe-Crazy — wearing a Playboy Bunny outfit.
  • Also by Masamune Shirow: Deunan Knute in Appleseed was once left to interrogate a suspect. The last panel showed her drawing a very large blade from a back sheath. A few pages later, we get the guy complaining about the "neck to groin gash" on the subject...
• Walker and Erica from Durarara!!. Probably the quickest way to get information out of someone in Ikebukuro is to lock them in a van with those two and a heap of manga.
• Sousuke from Full Metal Panic! uses this as his normal MO. He uses it to find out how a classmate got embarrassing pictures of Kaname by threatening to cut off a finger every time he refused to cooperate. Oddly enough, it usually works when it comes to extracting reliable information.
  • Sousuke usually doesn't have to go beyond threats, but Mithril also employs torture in interrogating the traitorous Vincent Bruno, breaking several fingers in order to get the details of just who they'd been sold out to.
    Andrei Kalinin: If I was there, I would've just chopped off the fingers.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind has a famous example of this early on. After Mario Zucchero is captured by Team Bucciarati, they try to get information out of him by torturing him. They take Zucchero's head (separated from his body by Bucciarati's Stand, Sticky Fingers), suspend it in mid-air via a fishhook through his eyelid, and finally put a pair of glasses on him so the lens acts as a Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass aimed right at his eyeball. And then Narancia, Mista, and Fugo up the ante by performing a mocking dance in front of him. The scene was a meme for JoJo fans for years, but the Animated Adaptation upped the ante by turning it into a Disney Acid Sequence/music video.
• Jujutsu Kaisen: Upon running into Haruta, who is about to kill Nobara and Akari, Nanami approaches him and calmly asks him for the location and number of his allies. Every time Haruta says he doesn't know, Nanami interrupts him by punching hin hard enough to shatter concrete before repeating his question. After he becomes convinced that Haruta really doesn't know, he asks Haruta if he was the one who killed the rest of the assistant managers; when Haruta responds by smiling, crying and apologizing, Nanami stops toying with him and punches him across the street.
• In Maiden Rose, during interrogation for treason, Grand Chamberlain Hasebe cites the fact that Klaus' disavowal of his citizenship means his actions can't be tried for war crimes... and canes Klaus brutally, before deciding to just kill him when he won't talk. Taki stops him Just in Time.
• Mazinger Z: Discussed in episode 56. The main characters capture two Mooks, and Nuke and Mucha decide interrogating one of them using the fearsome procedure of... tickling it to death. Boss ran out of patience, though, and stated that it was time to use real torture techniques. However, that got Sayaka utterly scandalized and she berated him for even thinking about it, stating that war prisoners have human rights, too. Boss relented.
• Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs: When Marie's friend is kidnapped as a hostage, due to her fear of Leon’s Tranquil Fury over something she did prior (letting Pierre steal Leon's Cool Airship), Marie does this to the crooked merchant who kidnapped her friend. Having researched local Alzer interrogation techniques in the library, Marie uses a chipped dull knife to cut the man without asking anything specific, under the theory he'd come up with something good that way. It works.
• YuYu Hakusho: As Hiei puts it, "your assistant was in the mood to talk." Then flashes back to the scene when he threatens M5 and his tail for information.

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