History Main / PressGanged

* ''Literature/ChillinInAnotherWorldWithLevelTwoCheatPowers'': Against the advice of the First Princess, the Golden-Haired Hero suggests, and King Klyrode approves, using military force to make Flio work in the kingdom's army. Not only does it not work, it badly backfires. Flio just uses his potent magic to teleport out of there, with a squad of knights deserting the army in protest of his treatment and joining him. Gholl the Dark One is also enraged by how his human friends were treated and retaliates with military force in turn, forcing the kingdom to marshal every available mage to cast a powerful purification spell that knocks them out for months.

* The protagonist in ''Manga/GushingOverMagicalGirls'' gets forced to fight for the force of evil under pain of having her various transformation and fight videos released to social media.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'':
** In "Mutiny on the Bunny", WesternAnimation/BugsBunny is forced into service by sea captain Yosemite Sam (who in this cartoon goes by the appropriate moniker of Shanghai Sam).
** WesternAnimation/PorkyPig in the 1936 cartoon "Shanghaied Shipmates".

* WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse in the aptly-named "Shanghaied". The cartoon begins with Mickey and Minnie already on the ship, but it's not hard to tell how they got there.
* WesternAnimation/ChillyWilly in the also aptly-named short "Operation Shanghai." It's implied that Smedley the Dog may have been forced into servitude himself before being ordered by Captain ''Blahhh'' to go do the same to Chilly.

In Anime/VoltesV, Ippei Mine was kidnapped by Earth Defense Force soldiers under Professor Hamaguchi's orders in the middle of his public rodeo championship tour in the city, separating him from his horse Eiffel. He was brought to Camp Big Falcon to be made as one of the Voltes Team and a pilot of the Volt Bomber without a choice.

* In Anime/VoltesV, Ippei Mine was kidnapped by Earth Defense Force soldiers under Professor Hamaguchi's orders in the middle of his public rodeo championship tour in the city, separating him from his horse Eiffel. He was brought to Camp Big Falcon to be made as one of the Voltes Team and a pilot of the Volt Bomber without a choice.

* Pretty much everyone in the SOS Brigade in ''[[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' can attest that Haruhi bodily forced--er, "persuaded" them to join her club. Well, actually the truth is that all of them except for [[FirstPersonsmartass Kyon]] (who really is OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent, or so he says) basically ''danced'' in front of Haruhi so she would rope them into joining, because their respective superiors ordered them to spy on her.

* In ''LightNovel/TheIrregularAtMagicHighSchool'', magic sports are such SeriousBusiness that some club members physically grab promising candidates and carry them away. It's the Disciplinary Committee's job to stop such coercion, but they can't always catch up in time, and it's hard to keep watch on ''all'' the clubs doing it. Candidates can theoretically always say no (to the club, not the grabbing), [[QuestionableConsent but it's hard when you're a freshman and in someone else's clubroom]].

[[folder:Comics]]

* In ''The Live Ghost'', Creator/LaurelAndHardy try to earn a few bucks from a sea captain who needs a crew by clubbing bar patrons unconscious and tossing them in the ship's hold...naturally they end up clubbed and tossed in with the rest.
* An early Creator/CharlieChaplin film, ''Shanghaied'', has Charlie promising to do this for an unscrupulous captain. He winds up getting shanghaied himself.

* ''{{Literature/Wulfrik}}'': Derisively mentioned as a practice among southern (that is, Imperial and Breatonnian) captains, by the name of "bash and stash"). One Norscan have nothing but contempt for it, being loath to serve along anyone who wasn't willing to risk his life.

[[folder:Film]]

* ''WesternAnimation/GayPurree'': When Meowrice sees Jaune Tom and Robespierre in Paris, he starts calculating in his head what would be the most profitable thing he could get from them. After getting them drunk, he sells them to a ship bound for UsefulNotes/{{Alaska}}. While on the boat, Jaune Tom and Robespierre meet another sailor who may not be there of his own volition.
[[/folder]]

* Stop Loss is a case of GotVolunteered because someone forgot to ReadTheFinePrint of their enlistment contracts, which detail a period of time in which a currently serving member's enlistment contract can be extended, or they can be placed on active duty for the remainder of their contract (a typical service contract is eight years, with the first two-to-six years on active duty and the remainder on reserve).[[note]]Paragraph 10(c) of DD Form 4/1, The Armed Forces Enlistment Contract, states: "In the event of war, my enlistment in the Armed Forces continues until six (6) months after the war ends, unless the enlistment is ended sooner by the President of the United States."[[/note]] It's usually ''not'' needed, but when you have [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror two major wars going on...]] Note that it only affects people who ''already volunteered'' to be in the military and are currently serving.

* Stop Loss is a case of GotVolunteered because someone forgot to ReadTheFinePrint of their enlistment contracts, which detail a period of time after being discharged (typically several years) where someone can be [[MandatoryUnretirement recalled to active duty]] if needed. It's usually ''not'' needed, but when you have [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror two major wars going on...]] Note that it not only affects people who ''already volunteered'' to be in the military, but who had already served out their time on active duty.

Though this is usually played for comedy, it was used seriously by RealLife navies; however the British practice of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressment impressment]] existed only in wartime, it was in theory actually limited to seamen[[note]]"Men of seafaring habits" - i.e. merchant seamen, fishermen and even longshoremen and riverboat crewmen.[[/note]] either in British ports, by the Impressment Service "press-gangs" or from homebound British merchant vessels, by individual Royal Navy ships (as in, crewmen from merchant ships were [[{{Conscription}} conscripted]] into the Navy) and some categories of them were completely exempted, such as officers of the merchantmen. However in practice on occasion even [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsman_(rank)#United_Kingdom landsmen]] were pressed. Sometimes in time of crisis the Admiralty resorted to "hot presses", disregarding any exemptions.

* The protagonist in ''Manga/LookingUpToMagicalGirls'' gets forced to fight for the force of evil under pain of having her various transformation and fight videos released to social media.

* ''Series/BlackSails'': Billy Bones was press-ganged into the Royal Navy while distributing pamphlets written by his parents who were [[{{Irony}} anti-impressment activists]]. He spent three years forced to serve until the ''Walrus'' crew freed him and gave him the chance to kill the man responsible for his impressment. After doing this Billy resigned himself to never seeing his parents again as he believes they'd reject him for being a killer. TruthInTelevsio, as in RealLife several pirates had been through this or other forms of slavery or indentured servitude at some point in their lives.

* ''Series/BlackSails'': Billy Bones was press-ganged into the Royal Navy while distributing pamphlets written by his parents who were [[{{Irony}} anti-impressment activists]]. He spent three years forced to serve until the ''Walrus'' crew freed him and gave him the chance to kill the man responsible for his impressment. After doing this Billy resigned himself to never seeing his parents again as he believes they'd reject him for being a killer.

-->-- '''[[SpacePirate Kaptin]] [[BloodKnight Bludflagg]]''', ''[[VideoGame/DawnOfWar Dawn of War: Retribution]]''

See also GotVolunteered.

* One of the ''[[PretextForWar casus belli]]'' of the UsefulNotes/WarOf1812 was the British impressment of sailors from American ships. Muddying up the waters was the fact that many of the sailors who where impressed were actually British sailors who jumped ship. The concept of citizenship was still quite fuzzy at that point, and every sailor serving long enough on a British ship in the past was considered elligible for the press.

** During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, UsefulNotes/NaziGermany practiced forced conscription on young men it deemed "of German blood" in some of the areas it conquered (which were also forcibly germanized) due to the increasing need of CannonFodder and lack of volunteers in said areas, without any regard for international laws that considered this a war crime. It included [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malgré-nous Alsace and Moselle]] (France), Arelerland (Belgium) and Luxembourg. On top of that, many young men from said areas who were born in 1926 and 1927 were conscripted in the Waffen SS,[[note]]it was for volunteers only initially, the aforementioned lack of CannonFodder also led to the lowering of recruiting standards[[/note]] which decreased their chances of survival as prisoners of war.

* ''WesternAnimation/GayPurree'': When Meowrice sees Jeane-Tom and Robespierre in Paris, he starts calculating in his head what would be the most profitable thing he could get from them. After getting them drunk, he sells them to a ship bound for UsefulNotes/{{Alaska}}. While on the boat, Jeane-Tom and Robespierre meet another sailor who may not be there of his own volition.