History Main / SoapOperaDisease

* In ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02TheBeginning'', Lui's father is comatose and hooked up to a life support system at their family home, and his mother is paranoid that Lui even being in the same room could lead to his death if it were tampered with in any way. Lui's father appears to undergo a miraculous recovery thanks to Lui's wish to Ukkomon [[spoiler:but his body is actually just being puppetted around to please Lui]].

* [[MagicalGirl Liadain]] of ''Literature/NowhereStars'' started out with a perfectly legible, if terminal, auto-immune disorder. Multiple failed marrow transplants. Once she got her [[BadPowersBadPeople powers]] of sickness, rot, and health drain, however, she was no longer afflicted by anything so mundane, No, at the point that she was draining abstract 'health' from people, she was dying because her magic was now a story about dying from illness instead of based on proasic reality.

May result in WringEveryLastDropOutOfHim.

* In ''Anime/MyNeighborTotoro'', the disease that Satsuki and Mei's mother has is never revealed, though it is [[WordOfDante believed by many fans]] to be tuberculosis. The movie is based on Creator/HayaoMiyazaki’s childhood and it’s what his mother had before she was cured with antibiotics in 1955.

* Alan Stuart in ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'' had a nondescript disorder in his early years, causing him to be completely bedridden for the first fives years of his life, and people once thought he was going to die of it as a child. However, the disease's lasting effect is more pronounced on his healthy ''twin brother'' Geordo, as Alan's condition indirectly caused a ''very'' bad case of ParentalNeglect on Geordo, which became his CynicismCatalyst.

A common mutation anywhere is the IncurableCoughOfDeath; a terminal illness with no symptoms of any kind besides coughing. More likely than not evolved from VictorianNovelDisease, which tends to have a surprisingly similar set of syndromes -- though, unlike this trope, most novels from the time period of [=VND=]'s heyday would at least give a definite name to the condition they were aiming for.[[note]]consumption (aka tuberculosis) is among the most common examples of diseases that were used as plot devices in Victorian novels, for example[[/note]] The character may insist the illness is DefinitelyJustACold. Not to be confused with SoapOperaRapidAgingSyndrome, which isn't actually a disease so much as a PlotHole that sucks up babies and children and spits out [[SheIsAllGrownUp teenagers or even adults]].

A common mutation anywhere is the IncurableCoughOfDeath; a terminal illness with no symptoms of any kind besides coughing. More likely than not evolved from VictorianNovelDisease, which tends to have a surprisingly similar set of syndromes - though, unlike this trope, most novels from the time period of [=VND=]'s heyday would at least give a definite name to the condition they were aiming for.[[note]]consumption (aka tuberculosis) is among the most common examples of diseases that were used as plot devices in Victorian novels, for example[[/note]] The character may insist the illness is DefinitelyJustACold. Not to be confused with SoapOperaRapidAgingSyndrome, which isn't actually a disease so much as a PlotHole that sucks up babies and children and spits out [[SheIsAllGrownUp teenagers or even adults]].

* In ''Anime/TheBorrowerArrietty'', the male protagonist Sho has had a heart condition ever since he was a child. Just a short period of physical activity can cause him pain.

* Trisha from ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist'' died of such a disease. It's never stated what it was but fans consider it either stress-related or cancer. Averted in the manga, where it's said she had a disease that was going around.

* One of these is the reason that ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' villain Mr. Freeze placed his wife in cryogenic suspension, a concept introduced in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries''.

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder:Web Video]]

* From Wiki/{{Killerbunnies}}, we have Anwen's condition and not too much information is known about it besides the fact that will eventually kill her, along with it being progressive.

A common mutation anywhere is the IncurableCoughOfDeath; a terminal illness with no symptoms of any kind besides coughing. More likely than not evolved from VictorianNovelDisease. The character may insist the illness is DefinitelyJustACold. Not to be confused with SoapOperaRapidAgingSyndrome, which isn't actually a disease so much as a PlotHole that sucks up babies and children and spits out [[SheIsAllGrownUp teenagers or even adults]].

** ''Series/StarTrekPicard'': In the first season Picard learns that he has a terminal brain abnormality that will kill him before too long. [[spoiler: His original body dies at the end of the season but his friends [[BrainUploading transfer his mind]] into a quantum simulation where Data lives before transferring his consciousness into a new android body, or golem, that was sculpted to resemble Picard's original body at the age when the organic body died.

-->-- ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1263379/gabriel_blessing Gabriel Blessing]] comment on the real illness behind [[Manga/{{Sekirei}} Chiho]]'s condition''

* The ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' AU fic ''[[ Two Hearts One Beat]]'' has Sora dying from an unspecified disease as a four-year-old. What little we learn is that his heart is weak, but this seems to be referring to his Heart in the metaphysical ''Kingdom Hearts'' sense: [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep when Sora gives his body up to Ventus's Heart]] in his final moments, the rest of his body immediately starts recovering, allowing Ventus to grow up as Sora without anyone knowing.

* In ''LightNovel/EndoAndKobayashiLiveTheLatestOnTsundereVillainessLieselotte'', Lieselotte's late uncle August had always been sickly since birth, and by the time he could have married his [[ArrangedMarriage officially betrothed fiancee]] [[spoiler:Elizabeth]], he's already too weak to get out of his bed. This is important to [[spoiler:Fiene]]'s backstory, as his fiancee's family issued a ParentalMarriageVeto out of this exact reason, despite [[PerfectlyArrangedMarriage they're completely in love with each other]]. This is why [[spoiler:Fiene]] is raised as a commoner despite her parents being some of the most {{Blue Blood}}ed people in the setting, since the two decided to sleep together anyway so that [[SomeoneToRememberHimBy she can have his child]], knowing well that they're technically [[RoyalBastard committing adultery]].

* One of these is the reason that ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' villain Mr. Freeze placed his wife in cryogenic suspension.

* Creator/LittleKuriboh parodied this in his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bvGhzLQbCY Patreon video]]. He was diagnosed with a specific and chronic, but not fatal, colon condition, and Martin and his wife [[{{Melodrama}} wept and wailed about it]].

* In ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', Goku suffers from a mysterious heart virus during the Android Saga. According to Future Trunks, it took his timeline's Goku's life and many others before a cure is discovered. Trunks gives Goku this cure and is given to him when he is finally affected by it, but it lays him up for a good while, which is particularly bad as Androids 16, 17, and 18 are active and hunting him down. ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'' changes it to a cholesterol-induced heart attack caused by eating too much bacon, and makes it so that Goku doesn't take the medicine pre-emptively because it was grape flavored.

* Any Creator/KeyVisualArts game will have at least one IllGirl that suffers from this, with the exception of ''VisualNovel/{{Planetarian}}'' where the disease is [[spoiler:low battery power with no way to recharge]]. Thus one of the alternate titles for this page, "Key AIDS".

The anime trope of the IllGirl suffers from the same plague of vague. See its page for the full story but the gist of it is the same; some kind of frailty to gain sympathy.

* In the ''Anime/SpeedRacer'' episode "The Desperate Racer," Hap Hazard desperately wants to win a race so that he can cure his sick sister [[IllGirl Eloisa]]. What sickness Eloisa has is not elaborated upon.