History FateWorseThanDeath / AnimeAndManga

** Shikamaru faces off against Hidan, an immortal ninja. [[spoiler:He easily defeats Hidan, and in vengeance, cuts off Hidan's (still living) head and buries it in a hole where nobody would ever find him. Deprived of his ability to kill]], he'll eventually die for real, but it'll take a ''long'' time.

** [[spoiler:[[TheRival Suzaku Kururugi]]]] is forced to [[spoiler:take on the mask of Zero and kill Lelouch as part of Lelouch's plan to achieve world peace]]. Because everyone thought [[spoiler:he died in his battle against [[ActionGirl Kallen]]]], he can never [[spoiler:show his face ever again]], [[spoiler:and because he took the role of TheDragon, he'll forever go down in history as a war criminal]]. Basically, [[spoiler:everyone hates him]], and no one knows of [[spoiler:his fate, except [[MysteriousWaif C.C.]], [[LargeHam Jeremiah]], and maybe Kallen and [[WheelchairWoobie Nunnally]]]]... [[TheAtoner and he wholeheartedly accepts this fate.]]

* ''Manga/SazanEyes'', having characters with CompleteImmortality (the Wu such as Yakumo, the hero) does offer several examples:

* In ''Anime/AngelBeats'' starvation/dehydration is seen as a Fate Worse Than Death, since they can't really die. [[spoiler: More so is becoming an NPC since they have no soul.]]
* [[spoiler: Shiro/Yanagisawa]] from ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'' was [[spoiler: blown into a barrier of Anti-Sensei lasers while his cells were infused with tentacle cells. He doesn't die, but the damage cripples his body permanently, leaving him a vegetable unable to even move without someone else's help. Not only that, but his lifelong research on antimatter was canned by the government under the reasoning that it's "impractical".]]
* In ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', being "Sent to Utopia" is a sweet-sounding euphemism for the worst possible punishment. It involves [[spoiler: being transformed into a mindless Titan]]. The only person known to have eventually escaped this fate describes it as being trapped in a nightmare that never ends. [[spoiler: Ymir estimates she was trapped in this state for roughly ''60 years''. Her gratitude towards Reiner and Bertolt for inadvertently saving her is so great that she willingly sacrifices herself to save them]].
* ''Literature/{{Baccano}}'' tells the tale of a group of immortals that cannot die and will quickly regenerate any lost body part. They can, however, [[ImmortalityHurts feel pain]]. This is taken full advantage of by the writers, who seem to have [[ImmortalLifeIsCheap no problem]] subjecting these poor souls to some rather... unfortunate experiments, including [[spoiler:[[EyeScream poking out eyes with a hot poker]], daily mutilation, tossing people through grinders, and giving someone CementShoes and leaving them at the bottom of a river to perpetually drown. For a year. And, quite possibly worst of all, drinking the Elixir of Life while mortally injured. One character actually drinks the Elixir as he was stabbed in the throat. And since he was stabbed before he drank it, he can't heal. Ever. So, unless he finds someone who can perform a Mercy Kill, he'll spend eternity with a gaping hole in his throat. Fun times.]] [[WhoWantsToLiveForever Makes you think twice about wanting immortality]].
* In the non-canon ''Manga/BlackButler II'' anime, [[spoiler:Hannah turns Ciel into a demon so Sebastian can no longer eat his soul]]. The catch is that because of an order he gave in an earlier episode, [[spoiler:Sebastian can't stop being his butler until he eats him, making him Ciel's servant for all eternity.]]
* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', during As Nodt's VillainousBreakdown, he threatens to throw Byakuya into "an ocean of pain and fear", unable to lose consciousness or even his sanity, begging for a death that will never come. However, Rukia kills As Nodt before he can even attempt to do this.

* This is part of the CosmicHorrorReveal of ''Manga/ChainsawMan'', as it's revealed that [[spoiler:there were ways life could end other than death, but the Chainsaw Devil used its RetGone power to erase them from existence, leaving nothing more than a CrypticBackgroundReference from Makima]].
* ''Manga/CityHunter'': Ryo once claimed that impotence is this, and that he would have never taken the antidote to the killer bees poison had he known of the side effect. He then declared that if he couldn't recover his GagPenis he'd go in Morocco to have his gender switched. Of course, at the end of the story arc Ryo's Gag Penis had been restored by a perfected antidote, and the villains had been made impotent in the same way without having access to the perfected antidote.

* What happens to [[spoiler:Princess Ixquic]] in ''Manga/{{Cyborg 009}}''. [[spoiler:She can't die since she's a RobotGirl with a [[GoodThingYouCanHeal huge healing factor.]] She can't interact with the outer world unless some conditions are met. And after said conditions are broken in such a way that they won't ever be met again, she's stranded in time and space... forever.]]
* ''Anime/DeathParade'': “[[TheNothingAfterDeath The Void]]” (also called Hell) is described like this - it feels like falling through an endless darkness where all that remains of you are your worst fears, deepest insecurities, and most negative traits.
* In ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'' the reason that OnlyMostlyDead works is because when in a dungeon, one's soul doesn't leave the body right away. The trade-off is that if a resurrect spell isn't used, the person will become undead; their body into a zombie; their soul into a ghost.

* The now immortal Garlic Jr. from ''Anime/DragonBallZDeadZone'' gets trapped and escapes the eponymous Dead Zone only to be trapped there again FOREVER in the anime's Garlic Jr saga.
** Rather than being killed like the rest of the Ginyu Force, Captain Ginyu's GrandTheftMe backfires, switching him into the body of a frog. As he needs a vocal command to activate his abilities, and gets wished back to Earth with everyone but Goku/Frieza later, he's trapped in that body for the rest of his life ([[CruelMercy which is the main reason Vegeta lets him live]]) [[spoiler:When he finally gets out of it [[Anime/DragonBallSuper by switching with Tagoma]], he compares his ordeal to Frieza's torment in Hell. He dies soon after, condemning Tagoma to that fate]].
* In the anime version of ''Manga/PitaTen'', failure to pass the angel exam or devil exam (for people from Heaven or Hell respectively) results in the otherwise immortal person to be deleted from existence and all memories of their existence expunged.
* The short story ''Manga/TheEnigmaOfAmigaraFault'' is about people who [[spoiler:after walking through a hole in a wall, slide through the mountain for 3 months while their limbs are stretched into ribbons, eventually to become a formless mass. And they are alive during the entire punishment.]] [[MemeticMutation Drr...Drr...Drr...]]
** Junji Ito generally seems to love this trope. Another one-shot called "A Doll's Hellish Burial" has arguably the worst example, however. In six pages, a little girl freezes into a doll while apparently still alive, then [[BodyHorror continues changing]]. By the end, you just kind of have to hope that she's dead already.

* In ''Literature/FateZero'', Rin and Sakura's mother, Aoi, is strangled by her former friend, Kariya, after she is set up to believe he killed her husband. While he didn't manage to kill her, he did cut off her oxygen supply long enough for her to suffer considerable brain damage, leaving her in a mental state similar to that of a young child, and forcing Rin to care for her until her death.
** One fan-theory is that Aoi ''would'' have died naturally at the hands of Kariya, but she was "saved" by the sadistic Kirei, who also chose not to use his healing magic to try to repair her mind, as he felt leaving her in such a state was more painful for her family than just letting her die.
* This happens a lot in ''Manga/FrankenFran'', because (as WebVideo/YRulerOfTime put it) to her there '''is''' no fate worse than death. Needless to say, many of us would beg to differ after seeing what she does to people she "operates" on...

* In ''Anime/FutariWaPrettyCureSplashStar'', [[spoiler:[[DarkMagicalGirl Michiru and Kaoru Kiryuu]]]] are condemned to this by Lord Akudaikhan, who [[spoiler:paralyzes them and places their still-sentient bodies at the bottom of a lake. They get better after half a season.]]
* The reveal at the ending of ''Anime/{{Ghost in the Shell|1995}} 2: Innocence'' is a terrifying one. Imagine you are a little girl that gets kidnapped by the {{Yakuza}} and sold to an EvilInc. [[spoiler:Then you wake up with an old creepy Japanese man groping your new mechanical body dressed as a hooker, as [[BrainUploading your consciousness was replicated to the body of a gynoid]] in order to make it more human-like. Congrats! You are now a ''{{Sexbot}}''! And it happened with A LOT of other girls]].
** In the ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'' universe proper, this is known as Ghost Dubbing, and it is ''highly'' illegal, because copying people's ghosts has a horrible effect on the original, to the point where the original suffers brain damage and eventually dies.

* In the Endless Eight of ''[[Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya Suzumiya Haruhi]]'', Yuki Nagato remembers everything, so more or less she's been going through everything for about 596 years. So she gains emotions, and proceeds to {{Retcon}} reality so that Kyon can decide whether a world without Haruhi is better. [[spoiler:Her boss isn't happy, and starts deciding whether to kill her. They decide not to kill her. Instead, they elect her to be the ambassador to the Sky Canopy Domain; exposing her existence and sanity to something which is as alien to her as the Data Overmind is to humans]]. A lesser being would GoMadFromTheRevelation.

* Done humorously in ''Manga/KamenNoMaidGuy''. Anyone who uses a camera to spy on Naeka will get frozen in place for half an hour, unable to close their eyes, and their video feed is replaced by a video of [[{{Squick}} the fish salesman taking a bath.]]

* Many of the {{serial killer}}s in ''Manga/MPDPsycho'' specialize in this. Just a couple of examples include a lunatic who cuts off his victims' arms and legs, while raping her during the process, before [[StuffedInTheFridge stuffing her in an ice chest]] and mailing what's left of her to her boyfriend, the series' protagonist. Then there is the killer who cuts open their victims skulls to plant flowers that take root in their brains. Both of these killers go through their entire process while ''keeping their victims alive''.
* From ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', [[BigBad Shigaraki]] inflicts one of these onto [[spoiler:[[{{Yakuza}} Overhaul]]]] as part of his revenge for what he did to the League of Villains. [[spoiler:After Overhaul was captured by the heroes, Shigaraki intercepted the convoy transporting him to the hospital. As revenge for killing Magne earlier on in the story, he steals the Quirk neutralizing bullets that Overhaul had been working on, but not before he has Mr. Compress sever one of Overhaul's arms while he decayed and amputated his other arm, thus ensuring he would never be able to use his Quirk again. He leaves Overhaul with the final words that now he won't be able to lift a finger to stop the League as they use his own tools to be the heads of the criminal underworld, all while Overhaul is left screaming in defeat due to completely losing everything he worked so hard for and not being able to fix his boss who he left in a coma for the purposes of eventually getting him to see the value of his plan.]]

* Another ironic punishment: the greedy, thoroughly evil and immortal Gemma from ''Anime/NinjaScroll'' gets encased in gold and sunk to the bottom of the pacific ocean -- where he'll presumably remain, conscious and immobile forever.
** It's stated earlier in the movie that his ability to survive death is a method of concentrated willpower, so all he'd have to do to escape this fate is simply choose to die and be done with it.
* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', protagonist Luffy may be nice to friends, but he's a complete ''ass'' to enemies. With villains, he doesn't kill them, but leaves them alive to watch their hopes and dreams crumble around them (though how they manage to keep breathing after Luffy's thrashing is absurd). This is a terrible punishment, because this series is ''all about'' being able to live your dream. When he's not around, half the crew just does things the quick and easy old-fashioned way (though if the character has a name, odds are he or she will still NeverSayDie).

* ''Literature/Overlord2012'' should be a poster child for this. An entire floor to the Great Tomb of Nazarick is dedicated to this trope entirely, where the victims are tortured, maimed, disemboweled, become wombs for ghastly creatures, forced to feast upon each other and/or have other horrible acts committed to them only to be healed with the same acts repeated upon them again. The victims are simply not allowed to die until the resident TortureTechnician had enough fun, or is told to allow the victims to pass on.
* Even ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'' has done this. At the end of the Team Galactic arc, [[spoiler:Cyrus creates a new universe... and walks into it. The portal closes behind him and is then destroyed.]] Fans argue if he can survive, but the nature of the series and some past canon indicate that he can. However, this means [[spoiler:that he's going to drift in empty space for the rest of his life, unable to do anything but watch his creation, and unable to stop himself from aging. Bear in mind that he's not even thirty. He could live for another century in what amounts to a void, all alone and powerless]]. A world with no emotion is what he wanted, so it could be paradise for him.

* In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' [[spoiler:becoming a magical girl is a DealWithTheDevil. Every time a magical girl uses magic or suffers negative emotions, her Soul Gem becomes more corrupted]]. The only way to keep [[spoiler:the corruption]] at bay is by killing witches, horrible {{Eldritch Abomination}}s that can and will kill you horribly if you make even the slightest mistake, and using their Grief Seeds to [[spoiler:cleanse the corruption from the gem]]. But this is a stopgap measure at best, because inevitably [[spoiler:the gem will darken completely and become a Grief Seed itself, and [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie she will become the very thing that she is fighting]].]]
* In ''Literature/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'', Naofumi stops the public execution of [[spoiler:Princess Malty and King Aultcray, the people who ruined his life]], claiming that "death is instant release" and they deserve worse. He instead [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment has their names legally changed to "Bitch" and "Trash"]] and forces them to live the rest of their existence in shame.

* ''Manga/TokyoGhoul'' provides a few examples, all thanks to one individual.

* In ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle'', this happens to [[spoiler:Yuui and Fai]]. Being imprisoned without food, water or any means of sheltering themselves, being separated from each other (and thereby from the only person who ever loved them) but still having to witness their twin suffering. And on top of this being utterly unable to die because their magic keeps them alive. And then it gets even worse for [[spoiler:Yuui. After a visit from the BigBad, Fai ''commits suicide'' in order to save Yuui. However then Yuui's memories are warped so he's led to believe he murdered his twin. So Yuui is left facing the same hell he'd done so before, but now he's ''entirely alone'' and he believes himself to have killed the one person he loved.]]
* ''{{Manga/Uzumaki}}'' has this happen to many of the Spiral's victims. It seems that not even death allows an escape from its effects [[spoiler:after the events of an early chapter display the souls of victims being trapped in the clay of Dragonfly Pond]]. By the end, it's obvious that the Spiral doesn't care about killing people. Instead, it wants their attention. [[AndIMustScream Forever]].

** ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' inflicts a similar but even worse fate on Battler, since the loop is much shorter and between "games" Beato spends her time having the Stakes reduce him to a pulp over and over. ...Which is ''nothing'' compared to [=EP6=], where [[spoiler:he gets trapped in a closed room/horrific logic error and spends years trying to escape. A lot worse than it sounds.]]
* ''Anime/YuGiOh'''s Shadow Realm. In the Shadow Realm, your worst fears (Examples: [[spoiler:Kaiba and defeat, Mai and isolation]]) play out ''over and over in front of your eyes for eternity.'' This became more prominent in the 4Kids dub, when being sent to the Shadow Realm was the [[NeverSayDie substitute for death.]] [[SarcasmMode Because it's much less frightening to be tormented eternally than to be killed!]]

* In ''Anime/YukiYunaIsAHero'', [[spoiler:the girls offer up either a body part or one of their senses]] in exchange for [[spoiler:the power of Mankai]]. [[spoiler:Sonoko]] is practically a living vegetable having lost the use of all of her limbs, one of her eyes and ears, and her senses of smell, taste, and touch. [[spoiler:Karin]] arguably gets it even worse, losing both her eyesight and her hearing [[spoiler:after using Mankai just four times.]] On top of all this, they [[spoiler:cannot even kill themselves]] if they decide they've had enough of being a living vegetable. Needless to say, some among the team do not take to this news with verve.
* In ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'', [[spoiler:Toguro the Elder]] suffers such a fate. It's dealt by Kurama, who [[spoiler:plants a parasitic tree on him that uses hallucinations to catch and trap prey until it has drained all of their life energy and killed them, at which point it discards the corpse.]] Since technically [[spoiler:Toguro the Elder]] can't die, he is doomed to eternal frustration in the form of trying to kill an illusory Kurama, who not only won't die no matter what [[spoiler:Toguro]] does to him, but doesn't fight back, or even show signs of feeling pain, and tops it off by ''smiling'' when injured. Kurama lampshades the trope by saying afterward that death was too good for him anyway.

** Being a koorime (ice demon) and living on their floating ice mountain. [[spoiler:Hiei was thrown off the mountain the day he was born for the crime of being male. Having found the mountain again, he doesn't carry out the plan to slaughter them all that has become one of his life goals... [[NotWorthKilling because he considers their pathetic lives a crueler punishment for their crimes]].]]
** Hiei's "birthday gift" to a depressed [[spoiler: Mukuro]] near the end of the manga. [[spoiler:He finds the evil slave dealer who owned and brutalized her as a child, and has Kurama put him into a parasitic plant similar to the one he gave Toguro above. It will keep him alive and heal all injuries unless his brain is destroyed.]]

** Poor [[spoiler:Samui and Atsui]] have been sealed inside a tool which happened to be eaten by the Gedo Mazo, and then absorbed by Obito. [[spoiler:Fortunately they where eventually released looking fine.]]

* ''Manga/FairyTail'' has the Curse of Ankhseram, an ancient deity governing life and death. Whoever has his curse is immortal. However, they are also bestowed with an InstantDeathRadius that kills everything around them, with the probability of it activating increasing in proportion to how much they value life of those around them. Thus, anyone and anything they could possibly care for would die, leaving them perpetually alone. [[spoiler: The BigBad Zeref was cursed with this long ago for researching taboo magics to resurrect his dead brother, and the BigGood Mavis received her own curse when she used an incomplete Law. Though the later died to the former's curse when they fell in love with each other.]]

** A variant on this trope is Mayuri's victory over Szayelaporro Granz - while it does kill him, it does so in such a manner that the death at the end comes as a considerable relief. [[spoiler:After making the mistake of reviving himself through Nemu's body, Mayuri reveals that he had laced her whole body with a potent drug, which Szayelaporro starts to feel the affects of, making everything seem like they're moving slow around him including himself. So slow, that one second now feels like ''one hundred years'' to him. Mayuri slowly thrusts his sword forward, and Szayelaporro only has enough reaction time to put his hand up, which Mayuri ''plunges through his hand'' into his chest, and then breaks it off, leaving Szayelaporro to experience his slow and agonizing death over the course of a ''very'' long time. By the time the blade's tip touches Szayelaporro's heart (very shortly afterwards, from the perspective of everyone else), he is ''begging'' Mayuri to hurry up and kill him.]]

* This is part of the CosmicHorrorReveal of ''Manga/ChainsawMan'', as it's revealed that [[spoiler:there were ways [[AndIMustScream life could end other than death]] but the Chainsaw Devil used its RetGone power to erase them from existence, leaving nothing more than a CrypticBackgroundReference from Makima]].

* ''Anime/YuGiOh'''s Shadow Realm is the poster boy of this tripe. In the Shadow Realm, your worst fears (Examples: [[spoiler:Kaiba and defeat, Mai and isolation]]) play out ''over and over in front of your eyes for eternity.'' This became more prominent in the 4Kids dub, when being sent to the Shadow Realm was the [[NeverSayDie substitute for death.]] [[SarcasmMode Oh yes, it's much less frightening to be tormented eternally than to be killed!]]

** This fate befalls [[spoiler:Kars]] in ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency''. [[spoiler:After becoming the [[UltimateLifeForm Ultimate Being]], Kars is launched into space by a Hamon-boosted volcanic eruption. Unable to change his trajectory and his CompleteImmortality leaving him [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor unable to die naturally]], he freezes in the icy vacuum, turns to stone thanks to his own AdaptiveAbility reacting to it, and is left to aimlessly drift through space as a creature caught half-way between mineral and organic. Upon losing all hope, [[WhoWantsToLiveForever he wishes to die, but nothing is out there that can end him]]. The isolation and sheer despair eventually causes his mind to shut down completely]].
-->'''Narrator:''' [[spoiler:(''as a petrified Kars drifts through the empty void'') So ended Kars... last and greatest of the Pillar Men. [[TakenForGranite His body turned hard as rock]], and he floated through space for the rest of time, never to return. [[AndIMustScream He wished for death, but there was nothing out there to kill him]]. The spark of thought within him went dim. [[DeathOfPersonality And then...]] ''[[DeathOfPersonality silent]]'']].

** This fate befalls [[spoiler:Kars]] in ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency''. [[spoiler:After becoming the [[UltimateLifeForm Ultimate Being]], Kars is launched into space by a volcanic eruption. Unable to change his trajectory, and his CompleteImmortality [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor leaving him unable to die]], he freezes from the cold and is left to aimlessly wander through space as a creature caught half way between mineral and organic. He wishes to die at this point, but there's nothing out there to kill him. The solitude eventually causes him to stop thinking completely]].

** A variant on this trope is Mayuri's victory over Szayel Aporro Grantz - while it does kill him, it does so in such a manner that the death at the end comes as a considerable relief. [[spoiler:After making the mistake of reviving himself through Nemu's body, Mayuri reveals that he had laced her whole body with a potent drug, which Szayel starts to feel the affects of, making everything seem like they're moving slow around him including himself. So slow, that one second now feels like ''one hundred years'' to him. Mayuri slowly thrusts his sword forward, and Szayel only has enough reaction time to put his hand up, which Mayuri ''plunges through his hand'' into his chest, and then breaks it off, leaving Szayel to experience his slow and agonizing death over the course of a ''very'' long time. By the time the blade's tip touches Szayel's heart (very shortly afterwards, from the perspective of everyone else), he is ''begging'' Mayuri to hurry up and kill him.]]

** Shou Tucker, a State Alchemist desperate to retain his license and cling to the science he lived by, used alchemy to transmute [[spoiler:his ''preschool daughter'' with ''her dog'', resulting in a monstrosity that leads Scar to [[MercyKill kill her in sympathy]]... [[KickTheSonOfABitch right after he kills her father for doing it to her]]]].

* ''LightNovel/TheMisfitOfDemonKingAcademy'': As a proud pureblooded royal, Anos reincarnating Emilia Ludowell as a hybrid horrifies her into trying to [[DrivenToSuicide commit suicide]], only stopping after Anos states that killing herself to escape her fate is pointless as he cursed her source to forever reincarnate as a hybrid.

* ''Literature/{{Baccano}}'' tells the tale of a group of immortals that cannot die and will quickly regenerate any lost body part. They can, however, [[ImmortalityHurts feel pain]]. This is taken full advantage of by the writers, who seem to have [[ImmortalLifeIsCheap no problem]] subjecting these poor souls to some rather... unfortunate experiments, including [[spoiler:[[EyeScream poking out eyes with a hot poker]], daily mutilation, tossing people through grinders, and giving someone CementShoes and leaving them at the bottom of a river to perpetually drown. For a year. And, quite possibly worst of all, drinking the Elixir of Life while mortally injured. One character actually drinks the Elixir as he was stabbed in the throat. And since he was stabbed before he drank it, he can't heal. Ever. So, unless he finds someone who can preform a Mercy Kill, he'll spend eternity with a gaping hole in his throat. Fun times.]] [[WhoWantsToLiveForever Makes you think twice about wanting immortality]].

* ''Anime/DeathParade'': “[[CessationOfExistence The Void]]” (also called Hell) is described like this - it feels like falling through an endless darkness where all that remains of you are your worst fears, deepest insecurities, and most negative traits.

* ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'' tells the tale of a group of immortals that cannot die and will quickly regenerate any lost body part. They can, however, [[ImmortalityHurts feel pain]]. This is taken full advantage of by the writers, who seem to have [[ImmortalLifeIsCheap no problem]] subjecting these poor souls to some rather... unfortunate experiments, including [[spoiler:[[EyeScream poking out eyes with a hot poker]], daily mutilation, tossing people through grinders, and giving someone CementShoes and leaving them at the bottom of a river to perpetually drown. For a year. And, quite possibly worst of all, drinking the Elixir of Life while mortally injured. One character actually drinks the Elixir as he was stabbed in the throat. And since he was stabbed before he drank it, he can't heal. Ever. So, unless he finds someone who can preform a Mercy Kill, he'll spend eternity with a gaping hole in his throat. Fun times.]] [[WhoWantsToLiveForever Makes you think twice about wanting immortality]].

* In ''LightNovel/FateZero'', Rin and Sakura's mother, Aoi, is strangled by her former friend, Kariya, after she is set up to believe he killed her husband. While he didn't manage to kill her, he did cut off her oxygen supply long enough for her to suffer considerable brain damage, leaving her in a mental state similar to that of a young child, and forcing Rin to care for her until her death.

* In the Endless Eight of ''[[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya Suzumiya Haruhi]]'', Yuki Nagato remembers everything, so more or less she's been going through everything for about 596 years. So she gains emotions, and proceeds to {{Retcon}} reality so that Kyon can decide whether a world without Haruhi is better. [[spoiler:Her boss isn't happy, and starts deciding whether to kill her. They decide not to kill her. Instead, they elect her to be the ambassador to the Sky Canopy Domain; exposing her existence and sanity to something which is as alien to her as the Data Overmind is to humans]]. A lesser being would GoMadFromTheRevelation.

* ''LightNovel/Overlord2012'' should be a poster child for this. An entire floor to the Great Tomb of Nazarick is dedicated to this trope entirely, where the victims are tortured, maimed, disemboweled, become wombs for ghastly creatures, forced to feast upon each other and/or have other horrible acts committed to them only to be healed with the same acts repeated upon them again. The victims are simply not allowed to die until the resident TortureTechnician had enough fun, or is told to allow the victims to pass on.

* In ''LightNovel/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'', Naofumi stops the public execution of [[spoiler:Princess Malty and King Aultcray, the people who ruined his life]], claiming that "death is instant release" and they deserve worse. He instead [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment has their names legally changed to "Bitch" and "Trash"]] and forces them to live the rest of their existence in shame.

* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'': The Raugnut Rushavna curse is a VERY horrible curse, as it makes the victim immortal until the one who cast the curse is killed.

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'': In the climax of the Alicization arc, [[spoiler:[=PoH=] fully expects Kirito to just kill him in-game, remarking that he'll just keep coming after Kirito and Asuna again and again until he finally [[SlashedThroat slits their throats]] and [[AndShowItToYou rips their hearts out in real life]]. This is the final nail in his coffin; rather than kill him, Kirito declares that [=PoH=] will ''never'' log out of the Soul Translator, instead trapping him in a tree and leaving him to rot in Underworld [[AndIMustScream forever]]. It's made even worse by the fact that time in Underworld runs on YearInsideHourOutside; years can pass in-game while mere days pass in the real world.]]

* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}''

* Happens to [[spoiler:Piedmon]] in ''Anime/DigimonAdventure''. Most Digimon villains are KilledOffForReal (though Digimon are normally reborn, so it's possible, but some lose their memories in the process), he's not so lucky. [[spoiler:Piedmon is thrown into [=MagnaAngemon's=] Gate of Destiny. While the series doesn't explain what this does to him, its said elsewhere that the Gate of Destiny leads to subspace, a dimension from which there is no escape. Digimon are effectively immortal barring being killed outright, so this means he'll spend eternity there.]] Naturally, he's one of the few Digimon villains deserving of such a fate.

* ''LightNovel/JigokuNoGoukaDeYakaReTsuzuketaShounen'': The flames of Hell will burn away everything about a person, even their very soul. Because of this, a soul confined in Hell is trapped in neverending agony as the flames continue to burn it even after their body is nothing but dust. The pain is so immense that Flare wonders why he hasn't died yet as what's left of him curls up into a ball and wishes for the pain to end. Despite this, Flare's soul somehow remains intact and the pain becomes more of an annoyance after a thousand years of the same sensation.

** In ;;Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003'', Tucker ends up in a situation that isn't that much better; [[spoiler:he is not only [[HoistByHisOwnPetard transformed into a monstrous chimera himself]], one even ''more'' [[BodyHorror disgusting]] than the one he turned his daughter into, but he also ''completely lost his mind''. He's [[GoMadFromTheRevelation so far gone]] that he has no idea that his daughter is basically a lifeless doll that can't move or speak]].

** In [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist the 2003 anime]], Tucker ends up in a situation that isn't that much better; [[spoiler:he is not only [[HoistByHisOwnPetard transformed into a monstrous chimera himself]], one even ''more'' [[BodyHorror disgusting]] than the one he turned his daughter into, but he also ''completely lost his mind''. He's [[GoMadFromTheRevelation so far gone]] that he has no idea that his daughter is basically a lifeless doll that can't move or speak]].

** Schneizel el Brittania, whose final fate is becoming Geassed by Lelouch rather than dying an honorable death. As Lelouch steals THE "honorable" death for himself later, it is clear that Schneizel is destined to remain mind-controlled by Zero forever. But, honestly, [[AssholeVictim he was a dick anyway]].
** [[spoiler:Suzaku]] is forced to [[spoiler:take on the mask of Zero and kill Lelouch as part of Lelouch's plan to achieve world peace]]. Because everyone thought [[spoiler:he died in his battle against Kallen]], he can never [[spoiler:show his face ever again]], [[spoiler:and because he took the role of TheDragon, he'll forever go down in history as a war criminal]]. Basically, [[spoiler:everyone hates him]], and no one knows of [[spoiler:his fate, except C.C., Jeremiah, and maybe Kallen and Nunnally]]... [[TheAtoner And he wholeheartedly accept this fate.]]