Times where someone insists "The Show Must Go On!" regardless of setbacks in Anime and Manga.
- In the Ace Attorney manga, during Turnabout Showtime, after Flip Chambers, who plays Twinklestar in the Sparklestar show for Sparkle Land, is stabbed inside his costume, he comes out on stage as scheduled before collapsing and dying. Toward the end of the trial, Phoenix speculates that "Maybe he thought the show must go on. Or maybe he was asking for help."
- Beastars: Louis breaks his leg during a play rehearsal but is so determined to put on a good performance that he hides it, acting normally until he finally passes out from the pain the second the curtain finally falls on the first night. On the second night, Bill takes his place in the lead role and Legoshi take on Bill's former role but the play goes off the rails when Legoshi attacks Bill for real on stage and Louis has to intervene to get the play back on track without the audience noticing Bill and Legoshi are badly hurt from the fight and make it look like it was All Part of the Show.
- Fabricant 100: Asahi and No 100 fail to assassinate Roxy before the start of the play, so it moves to Asahi having to fight her on-stage with the audience none the wiser.
- The iDOLM@STER 2: The World Is All One!!: It's SprouT's first live concert, and halfway through the lights all go out. The girl's begin to panic but Azusa of fellow idol unit Ryuuguu Komachi immediately begins singing by herself to calm the audience down, followed by the rest of her unit putting on an improved show until everything can get fixed.
- Macross examples:
- In Super Dimension Fortress Macross Minmay wanted to interrupt a concert due a sudden Zentraedi attack (that, unbeknownst to her, had actually boarded the ship), but Kaifun convinced her to continue to prevent the fans from panicking... And, she continued even when a group of battlepods showed up and stopped to listen to her concert (she did stop for a moment in shock when they appeared, but as soon as she saw they were just standing there she resumed singing). It wasn't until more combative Zentraedi endangered the public that she stopped her concert.
- In Macross Frontier, the stunt extra aerobatic team messes up at Sheryl Nome's concert, causing Alto to knock Sheryl off her several story high stage. Alto manages to recover and catch her, saving her from a fatal fall. Her reaction? Annoyance, and she tells him to get flying and make it look good while she continues singing, because the show must go on.
- Later in the same concert, an air raid siren sounds ushering everyone to the nearest shelter. Sheryl's reaction: "But I'm not finished singing yet!" The trope is subverted, as Cathy drags her off stage.
- In one episode of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, there is a play called "The Mermaid Princess", which is based on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid", took place in the school. Despite Lucia's clumsiness, and a (real) attack from the water demons, the show continues thanks to Rina's quick adlibbing. Since part of the ad lib involves the main trio transforming and making a performance (driving away the water demons), the rest of the play has to be improvised.
- Otoboku - Maidens Are Falling For Me: When Takako's dress is being ripped off, Mizuho needs to improvise the way to cover her up, and ends up also kissing her.
- This trope is pretty much Rise's motivational speech when preparing for the concert in Persona 4: The Golden Animation when she says that a real pro will always arrive to perform, no matter what. And, even though she ends up arriving late to the show, Marie takes her words to heart and sings vocals until Rise makes it and they sing together.
- SD Gundam Force: This is the reason why the Zako Zako Hour is being held even though the Gundamusai is being pulled into a crack in the Minov Boundary Sea. The lead host even names this trope.
- In one episode of Spider Riders, Hunter Steele, Shadow and the Spider Riders end up staring in a play about a legendary hero. Due to a misunderstanding, the villain Grasshop assumed that Hunter and the others would only be observing the play. So he attempted to ambush the heroes, while they were right in the middle of preforming. Hunter decided to stay in character, so he improvised and the play continued.
- Thanks to this trope, in the Slayers universe it is assumed that anything that occurs on stage while a play is being performed is part of the play. That includes spontaneous script rewrites, duels with real swords, and massive explosions. Lina and Co. got an award for their ad-libbed play (which, while completely nonsensical, was much more entertaining than the original story they intended to perform).
- Yes! Pretty Cure 5: Urara is chosen to be the MC for a kid's play, but it turns out that the actress playing the rabbit fell ill. Nozomi, not wanting her friend's big day ruined, takes up the role of the rabbit... despite Rin pointing out that she was banned from the Drama Club after only 3 days in. Despite this, they go with it and things start out alright... only for Girinma to arrive and summon the Monster of the Week. The girls are able to blind most everyone to transform and the audience is treated to a Pretty Cure fight... which is a big hit with the crowds. When Urara's manager approaches Urara once more and wants the same thing to happen, the poor girl's left in a bind, while her friends tell the audience their answer.Nozomi, Rin, Komachi and Karen: Not going to happen.
