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Darker And Edgier / Anime & Manga

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Darker and Edgier in Anime and Manga.

Examples:

  • AD Police, the spin-off of Bubblegum Crisis, is darker, more violent and adds some psychological spins to the original series concept. The TV spin-off they produced to this spin-off a decade later surprisingly was closer in tone to the original Bubblegum Crisis.
  • BanG Dream!: It's MyGO!!!!! and Ave Mujica add a lot more drama compared to the original anime and even compared to from ARGONAVIS, as they deal with heavy subject matter such as depression, past trauma, divorce, and even betrayal.
  • Battle Spirits Shonen Gekiha Dan is significantly darker than the first series, Battle Spirits Shonen Toppa Bashin. Including elements such as major character death and Brother–Sister Incest, in a story which is much more serious.
    • Then it's sequel season Brave takes things even further, beginning with the revelation that everything the heroes did in the previous series actually screwed up the future, and now the world will be destroyed within months. On top of that, the heroes have essentially been disowned by their families and the world at large, after being put up on such a pedestal that they just failed to live up to expectations. The series has even more character death, ranging from some characters being used as human sacrifices to create a card, one person being impaled to death, and even the main character himself making a Heroic Sacrifice in the finale. There's also the main antagonist's backstory, which has been likened to child prostitution. Yes, this was a Sunday morning kids' show.
    • The sequel web series Saga Brave as well, which opens with an assassination attempt on one of the main heroes by a radical hate group. To be fair, this season wasn't aimed at kids, instead being aimed at the grown-up original audience.
  • Beyblade G-Revolution first started out light-hearted and tame, but as the show went on, the plots became darker and more complicated that it would feel more like a Shonen anime than a Kodomomuke.
  • The Birdy the Mighty remake manga is a Seinen series, compared to the original manga, which was a Shōnen one. Season 2 of Decode likewise reflects this, as both the OVA and the first season (in Funimation's initial, individual release of the seasons of Decode) were marked for 13-14 and older, Season 2 was marked "TV-MA" and dealt with issues like racism, war, terrorism, revenge, and was more violent than the OVA and Season 1.
  • Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack is a rather dark series to begin with, save for some comedic touches usually provided by Pinoko. Osamu Dezaki's video adaptation in the 90's however takes the darkness to new heights and becomes a high-tension, highly stylized tragedy.
  • Bleach already had a fair amount of blood and guts by the standards of Shounen Jump, such as a silhouetted photograph of Souken Ishida's mutilated, tortured corpse, and a young child being used by a serial killer to murder innocents. However, the Thousand Year Blood War has cranked the gore and violence up a notch. Key good guys are finally killed off, usually with gaping holes where part of their body used to be; at least one captain is shredded so completely that his chest is ripped open right to the very visible spine and rib cage. Adhering to the classical Shounen battle conventions gets protagonists killed, and the Big Bad commits multiple genocides — not only against his enemies, but against his own people, too.
  • Cardfight!! Vanguard:
    • Cardfight!! Vanguard is known for occasionally venturing into this territory, especially during the Link Joker Arc, where much of the cast is possessed by the Void through the "Reverse" phenomenon, resulting in all-out war between those who are still sane and those who have had their minds and bodies taken over.
    • Cardfight!! Vanguard G takes this further up a notch, especially during Stride Gate, where the show practically becomes a Soap Opera. The intro only adds fuel to the fire, where we see a depressing montage of our cast looking rather somber. Some of the scenes become far too intense for its kind of series, with more violence, a slight increase in profanity and constant themes of betrayal and feud between friends and enemies.
  • Casshern SINS is the moodier and far more depressing upgrade of Neo Human Casshern, itself not very kid friendly.
  • Cells at Work! is a fairly light hearted story that shows how the body works through anthropomorphized cells, as well as the issues it might face. Cells at Work! CODE BLACK is a Seinen spin off focused on cells working in the unhealthy body of a man in late middle age who abuses alcohol and cigarettes to deal with his stress and has unprotected sex, the setting is a Crapsack World and everyone is miserable and overworked. It incorporates a much higher body count, a bleak, war-themed setting, and the threats are more horror-themed (carbon monoxide inhalation causes a Zombie Apocalypse, the STDs are portrayed as Naughty Tentacles, and autoimmune alopecia is portrayed as a fascist uprising). The maturation of Red Blood Cells is portrayed as organs getting ripped out to make them more efficient oxygen carriers, and cells actually die instead of just switching their clothes, like in the main series.
  • The anime adaptation of A Certain Scientific Railgun was originally a very light-hearted and fluffy show about a group of young, superpowered girls serving their part of justice in the city. Then came A Certain Scientific Railgun S. The series had one of the most abrupt turns in anime. What happened to the cutesy, cheery Railgun? We're now introduced to Accelerator, a sadist who takes pride in killing the thousands of "sisters" or clones of Misaka Mikoto, whom Misaka intends on defending with all her wits. It even becomes Bloodier and Gorier and more emotional as it progresses. Averted with the original manga, which is consistently nihilistic and depressing.
  • Choujin Sensen: Compared to the author's previous series like Gamble Fish, this definitely takes the cake in terms of violent content.
  • Cutey Honey has had multiple reimaginings over the years, but among the darker versions was New Cutey Honey, taking the originally rather silly premise of Cutey Honey with its sometimes squicky humor and transported it into a Cyberpunk setting, as well as a more dramatic tone.
  • Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School plays this viciously straight. No more funny antics and Black Comedy, this Deadly Game is a dead serious Ten Little Murder Victims scenario where people suffer and Bloodier and Gorier is the norm (with the iconic Black Blood gone completely), with the ever quirky Monokuma Demoted to Extra. And, despite initially looking Lighter and Softer, Side:Despair quickly becomes even worse, with scenes of violence that are legitimately horrific.
  • The Animated Adaptation of Devil Survivor 2 certainly became this. Anyone Can Die becomes the law of the land, as opposed to opportunities to ensure Everybody Lives in the original, a lot of the cast's originally quirky behaviours become Played for Drama, and the plot's tone shifted to more dramatic.
  • Digimon:
    • Digimon Tamers, and how! The first episode has a Digimon killing and eating another one, several more deaths of them, including one being stabbed to death while his tamer can do nothing but watch, one character emotionally traumatized by such, some of the most brutal battles in the series, an attempted suicide, two Heroic Sacrifices, a good chunk of the Digital World and its residents being deleted, a heart-breaking ending, and a sweet little 10-year-old girl getting Mind Raped for at least a week! Some consider it to be the Neon Genesis Evangelion of mons series, which should really tell you something!
    • Digimon Data Squad has less Mind Rape, but more violence and Fanservice. However, this ended up being partially lost in the Bowdlerized English dub which took a series aimed at teenagers and made it TV-Y7.
    • Digimon Fusion: While the first season of Digimon Fusion was — most of the time — Lighter and Softer than Savers used to be, The Evil Death Generals and the Seven Kingdoms changes this completely. Seven powerful mega Digimon suck negative energy from the resident Digimon by tormenting them: like NeoVamdemon who would hurt the just digivolved Lopmons or Gravimon who turns Kiriha against his friends by using his dark past. Furthermore, Yuu who thinks that the Digimon are nothing than characters in a video game and It's no big deal if they just die. The manga adaptation is even darker than its anime counterpart.
    • Digimon X-Evolution. When Digimon die, they actually leave their corpses behind, the hero has an attack called "All Delete", and previous heroes are ruthless killers.
    • Overall, it seems to be a trend amongst the Franchise since Tri. to undergo an audience shift and make full use of the franchise's potential to be as gritty as it could. The difference between the darkest parts of Digimon Adventure and the darkest parts of Digimon Ghost Game is stark.
      • Digimon Adventure tri. does this to the original Digimon Adventure universe as, in the first five minutes, the kids from Digimon Adventure 02 are brutally beaten down and disappear. And then, there's the fact that Digimon cause damage in the real world and people notice, and even some existentialism. This is just the work that kickstarted the franchise's Serial Escalation in terms of darker works and it gets worse from there.
      • The other Digimon Adventure sequel, Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna features one of the most dangerous human villains in the series which would put even Oikawa (which is an already frightening villain on his own) to shame. At least 300 DigiDestined had their soul stolen by an insane woman and trapped living happily forever with their partners... so in her deluded beliefs, they won't end up like her, who lost her Morphomon partner because she was considered to be grown up when she bragged to said Morphomon that she got an academic breakthrough. Said villain is also very creepy when she shows her true colors.
      • In Digimon Ghost Game, the darker elements are more at the forefront here as the series makes frequent use of Horror Tropes to fit with the occult theme. The very first episode has two teens being rapidly aged to near death, and throughout the series, the threat of civilians being endangered by the Monster of the Week's antics is much more apparent - multiple episodes show people being hospitalized or outright killed as a result of what a Digimon has done to them. After episode 13 the show undergoes Cerebus Syndrome after the introduction of Knight of Cerebus Sealsdramon, a Digimon Serial Killer, and things only get worse from there as the body count for both Digimon and humans ramps up with the series quickly proving itself to be the darkest Digimon anime since Tamers. Ironically, despite this being the most violent series the heroes themselves attempt Talking the Monster to Death by any means necessary which usually works — GulusGammamon usually pops up to ensure things aren't pretty when it doesn't... until he becomes the final boss and comes just that close to giving our Gammamon a horrible death.
      • The Digimon franchise has never been scared to show the death of someone's family, relatives or loved ones as a part of their character arc or backstory. E.g. Ken and Cody from 02, Jeri from Tamers. And then there's Lui from Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning, who takes the darkness a step further. He lives in a run down building, with an abusive mother and bedridden father. His Digimon partner, while genuinely trying to help, does so by brainwashing those around him into being better people, and unlike other backstories in the past, blood is actually shown amongst the tragedies when the young Lui's eye is damaged while he's breaking his Digivice.
  • The Movie installments of Doraemon can easily feel like this, even if Nobita and friends remain good people. One movie deals with the horrid effects of Black Magic (in a magical world), which comes from devils (who are aliens). Another deals with the revenge of the Reptilian people evolved from dinosaurs, who want to alter time so humans never exist. Yet another deals with the horrors of war as terrifying aliens (who are humans in hazmat suits) invade a utopian planet inhabited by cute humanoid animals. Another titled Doraemon: Nobita and the Galaxy Super-express has the kids in a very dangerous adventure involving the Assimilation Plot of a race of Puppeteer Parasites.
  • Dragon Ball franchise:
  • Some arcs in Fairy Tail stand out for being darker than the usual.
    • The Tenrou Island arc's Big Bad is The Man Behind the Man to Ultear, who has been The Chessmaster to several previous big bads. Not only that, but he's the first one in the entire series to ever beat Makarov in a fair fight. Makarov's only other loss was due to a sneak attack.
      • Most, if not all, of Hades' Quirky Mini Boss Squad are more powerful than previous Big Bads. They use lost magic, which is absurdly powerful. One of them is basically a more powerful version of Natsu. He can eat Natsu's flames, and uses fire that Natsu chokes on.
      • And to top it off, the goal of the whole thing is to revive the Black Wizard Zeref. This is nothing, however, and not because Zeref was never dead to begin with (and was not as evil as stated early in the series), but at the end of the arc, Acnologia the Black Dragon of the Apocalypse arrives and nukes Fairy Tail and Sirius Island into oblivion.
    • At the end of the Grand Magic Games, after said timeskip, a Manipulative Bastard time traveler brings an army of dragons from the past and the Kingdom of Fiore begins to be torn apart while the strongest mages can do nothing against them. Good thing the city was evacuated beforehand.
    • And all of the above is nothing compared to the Tartaros arc. While most of the previous arcs' conflicts' scope was limited between Fairy Tail and dark guilds, the Tartaros arc has now involved innocent civilians with well over a hundred deaths and counting.
    • And the arcs tarting with Chapter 439, Alvarez Empire can easily dwarf all of the above combined, due to the startling revelations surrounding one of the Big Bad Ensemble and other major characters, as well as the sudden effectiveness of the Quirky Miniboss Squad and the other member of said ensemble.
  • Fate/Zero is a Darker and Edgier prequel to Fate/stay night — intentionally so, since the novel's intent is to show just how dark, depressing, and violent the Holy Grail War can be. This was to be expected, because the parts of the backstory already revealed in Fate Stay Night make all but a tiny handful of the Fate Zero characters Doomed by Canon.
  • The FLCL manga is much darker and more bizarre than the anime its rather loosely based on. An example of this would be Naota killing his dad with a baseball bat.
  • Front Mission is known for being a war drama, but Dog Life and Dog Style takes it up a notch as it incorporates the grittiness of Red Eyes in a completely uncensored and brutal manner (Which relates the journalist who brings out the uncensored truth). In the first two issues of the manga it starts off showing gruesome death, rape/sex and ultra violence.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) was, in addition to being 50% Gecko Ending, notably more pessimistic, morally grey and low-key than the manga. Most of the characters' stories ended notably darker, the Quirky Miniboss Squad is far more sadistic, evil, and deadly than in previous iterations, and had a much darker origin as failed and abandoned human transmutations performed by several different alchemists, and instead of impressive alchemical fight scenes like in Brotherhood most battles were brutal, short, and often weighed towards the villains.
  • If one thought that Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden was merely Fushigi Yuugi from two hundred years ago... uh, nope. Not only the heroine Takiko comes from a very different time in the real world (more exactly, Imperial Japan during The Roaring '20s, in contrast to Miaka and Yui who come from the Japan of The '90s), but the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho that she roams through is far bloodier and more complicated than the one we viewed during Miaka and Yui's journeys.
  • Fuuto P.I. zig-zags this. While it's still as humorous as the original live-action series, it's clearly a Seinen manga due to murders and dead bodies being shown in full detail as well as straight-up nudity. Most of the Riders' Dopant opponents here are flat-out bastards too. Compared to W, whose target audience are kids and teenagers, the Sequel is aimed at older audiences.
  • GaoGaiGar FINAL is much darker than the television show for two main reasons: first, it's an OVA so they could get away with things that wouldn't fly on broadcast television, like explicitly sexual Fanservice. And secondly, it was aimed at a seinen audience rather than at children.
    • FINAL is an example of why Darker and Edgier does not necessarily equate with Dark and Edgy. The original show was far down the Idealism side of the sliding scale; the OAVs were just somewhat less so in comparison, and are still pretty darn light and fluffy, especially in comparison to certain other super robot shows.
  • Gate Keepers, while dark in places, ended upbeatly, with the notion that people can stand against The Heartless with The Power of Love and Burning Spirit. Cue Gatekeepers 21, where 20 years later most of the cast is dead and The Heartless are winning.
  • GeGeGe No Kitaro (2018): The series is more focused towards the grim side of the scale, in comparison to the series from previous decades. There's a stronger focus on utilizing horror and darker aspects that previous iterations did not use before, such as Kitaro being an Anti-Hero who shows no mercy towards evil humans and yokai, and he's also willing to send the spirit of a sinful man to Hell. Yokai that appeared in previous adaptations are presented as more threatening and dangerous, with one of them electrocuting a woman to death, and several unleashing an Eldritch Abomination that destroys a majority of Tokyo.
  • Gigantor: The Tetsujin remakes also have a touch of this. While the 1980s version wasn't particularly dark, the look of the series was redesigned to make it less cartoony and whimsical and more like the modern, high-tech Super Robot shows of the day. This ultimately resulted in a little memorable show and when a sequel series, Tetsujin 28-FX came out in the 90s, despite the new robots being even more complex, overbuilt and gimmicky, with transformation and combination gimmicks and such, the original Tetsujin was drawn in the classic style, googly eyes and all. The second remake in the 00s, from the people who brought you Giant Robo, took it in a whole new direction, keeping the cartoonish 1950s visual style and wrapping it around a grim story about war and political intrigue... and a boy detective with a giant cartoony robot.
  • Among Mayu Shinjo's already very melodramatic mangas, we have Haou Airen. While her stories are full of sex scenes (very often with Questionable Consent at best) and Fanservice, this is the first one that includes graphic violence. And not always with Gory Discretion Shots included. Even some of the sex scenes have blood splashed across them.
  • Happy Happy Clover: While the manga is very lighthearted, the fifth volume contains more serious stories with tons of drama from the main protagonist, such as getting her dreams brutally crushed by Rambler to a forest fire where Clover decides to sacrifice her life to save the forest. She gets better though. However most of the stories in the final volume start becoming more serious and ditches the cute and cheerful tone most of the time.
  • When They Cry:
    • Higurashi: When They Cry utilizes this about every 5 or 6 episodes. Each arc begins with a few gruesome shots of one of the character's deaths, and then proceeds to be lighter and happier for a while, while steadily approaching the doom shown at the beginning of the arc, getting darker as it goes on.
    • Umineko: When They Cry not only follows a similar formula, but also has this trope by actually BEING darker and edgier than Higurashi. At least Higurashi was limited to depicting things that are relatively down to earth. Umineko gives us witches who do whatever they want, often to downright brutal extents. One even delights in killing her victims in brutally creative ways, only to revive them and do it all over again. And when they're done with the killing they'll start with Mind Rape that makes Higurashi look like Casey And Friends.
  • There are several reasons why Hunter × Hunter falls under this: It's among the darkest of Yoshihiro Togashi's works, and the manga series, compared to most Shonen manga, has each of its arcs with its fair share of gore. The story is dark from the beginning, but the York New arc is the first time it goes into truly grim territory. And then comes along the darkest arc in the entire story, the Chimera Ant arc, featuring themes of genocide, existentialism, and human morality.
    • In regards to anime adaptations, the 1999 TV anime has a much more somber and moody tone than either the original manga or the 2011 remake. It also amplifies the focus on Killua's moodiness and Kurapika's PTSD. The 2011 remake, though, eventually manages to become even darker than the original adaptation with its adaptation of the Chimera Ant arc.
  • THE iDOLM@STER: While the first half of the series was very lighthearted, the second half progressively began to take on darker tones, culminating in 765 Pro's rivalry with 961, Chihaya's dead little brother plot, and the Producer getting into a life threatening accident.
  • For a show about fluffy animals who are Inept Mages, Jewelpet likes to pile on the darkness in some seasons:
    • The Jewelpet Twinkle☆ second season has one of the most cripplingly shy leads in anime; she does not immediately become healed of her shyness by meeting Ruby, which was done with Rinko in the previous season, and her insecurities nearly cost her her powers one time. Additionally, the villain is a girl passing for a boy, who is the Separated at Birth twin sister of the boy Akari likes and wants to take down God as revenge for leaving her mother in a coma as she sacrificed herself to stop Dark Magic from flooding the world. Few Jewelpet villains have been as tragic and conflicted as this one. Oh yeah, and she kills one of her own Jewelpets. Onscreen. (But she gets better. Like 26 episodes later.)
    • The third season does a good job of faking you out at first with its Gag Series nature. Then the Love Triangle kicks in. And then there's the final arc, featuring God becoming corrupted by Dark Magic and mass-killing everyone she fails to convert to darkness (but they get better), except for seven people who turn out to be The Chosen Ones.
    • After the wacky Jewelpet Kira☆Deco! & very lighthearted Jewelpet Happiness, come the sixth season, Lady Jewelpet, which can be considered as darkest season of all, with mature themes such as betrayal and lies become integral part of the plot. Starting relatively lighthearted where chosen girls study and doing tasks together in an academy, the series goes progressively darker once one of the main character dark secrets were hinted on, eventually culminating in a plot where resident Eldritch Abomination kicks in and hell bent on turning Jewelland In Their Own Image (into a place with nothing but suffering and despair). On top of that, this season has more violent scenes (by Jewelpet standard) than any other seasons, and so far the only one where a plot important character was Killed Off for Real, onscreen. (the character in question was given chance to Back from the Dead though, but she refused the offer).
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure began as a shounen manga, but eventually switched to a seinen magazine early on during the 7th part. Steel Ball Run is the darkest part of the entire franchise (next to Golden Wind) with the most self-centered, cynical protagonist in the entire series' history (Jonathan "Johnny" Joestar), and a more psychological and character-driven storyline with more adult themes such as sexual assault, domestic abuse, and homosexuality. The 8th part, JoJolion, though not quite as dark, still has many of the same adult themes as SBR.
  • In an interesting case, we have Aka Akasaka's main manga franchises, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, and Oshi no Ko. Both series focus on the personal lives of the featured characters and have them endure hardships, corruption is present in both, and they even share a few characters in between. However, that is where the similarities stop, as we have a very different turn of events throughout the story. Kaguya-sama takes place in a high-school setting and aside from a few dramatic moments is light-hearted, with positive character development, humor all around, and a happy ending for everyone involved. Oshi no Ko, however, takes place in a more "adult" working environment, and is decidedly NOT the same as its predecessor. This series features tales of betrayal, seriously-taken suicides, active dangers, and conflicting morals. In fact, compared to Kaguya-sama, Oshi no Ko's humor output is restrictively minimal, and after a few small bursts the series outright stops the humor altogether towards the end of its double-digit chapter run. The main characters of Oshi no Ko are also very much on a downward spiral, with both of the primary protagonists ending up engrossed in murderous revenge. If that doesn't convince you, the minimal amount of deaths in Kaguya-sama are all due to natural causes and disease, whereas Oshi no Ko has flat-out murders on a regular basis. Because of this, the similarities between the two series are very much superficial at best.
  • Karakuridouji Ultimo seems to follow a zig-zag pattern with this trope and Lighter and Softer. The series started fairly light hearted, and comical, up until the chapter where Ultimo, the embodiment of good, beats up an evil doji into a rather nighmarish pulp while smiling. Then they threw in the main character's best friend turning into a Yandere, the world blowing up, and the entire good cast being killed quite brutally. Once everyone got better in Part 2 of the series, it went back to its original state, but then implied to have killed off most of the original Good Doji Masters. Then Part 3 got even worse, by having the earlier mentioned Yandere nearly rape the main character in a rather dark manner.
  • The 1980's remake of Kimba the White Lion by Osamu Tezuka. The final episode has about a good chunk of the cast die.
  • Lupin III experiences a lot of Tone Shift, especially when the directors change.
    • Lupin III, which we include because a fan is more likely to be familiar with the anime equivalents, rather than any of the comics that came first. It establishes itself as a series with sex, violent death, and occasional Gorn.
    • Lupin III: Part 1, while cutting out the Gorn, keeps the sex and violence, until a Retool halfway through the series.
    • The violence in Island of Assassins is mostly PG-13, though still pretty grim given the overall tone of the narrative and film's bodycount — complete with a Downer Ending.
    • The Woman Called Fujiko Mine brings back many of the darker elements from the manga back to the screen. The sexual nature of Fujiko, Mind Rape, and violent deaths are played up in this series.
  • The OVA of Magical Play is a much darker affair than the slapstick comedy of most of the original series — up to and including characters dying horrible deaths in big puddles of blood.
  • Magi: Labyrinth of Magic: Oh boy. The manga started with a lighthearted, optimistic plot, and despite a bit of drama, it was quite happy. But then arrived The Magnostadt Arc. And everything after it, to be honest. Alma Torran takes the cake, by showing just how much crueler this manga came to be. David's slaughter, Tess' death and Aladdin's parents, the soldiers Hakuryuu is manipulating...the list goes on. To this, you can add Hakuryuu's Face–Heel Turn, and the manga's themes became darker, or at least more serious than they used to be. At that point, there are more manipulation, murder, and mayhem than one would have expected when reading the summary.
  • What Tetsujin 28 did for Super Robots, Majokko Meg-chan did it for Magical Girl shows:
  • Martian Successor Nadesico has Prince of Darkness as its Darker and Edgier Title, the plot becomes a moodier and much darker plot of the original series as many a dream is destroyed and it was not well received by fans at all.
  • Mazinger Z, Trope Codifier of the Super Robot Genre was considerably darker than former Humongous Mecha shows. The Professor was actually a mix of this and Mad Scientist. The Hero was a Jerkass Idiot Hero teenager — as opposed to the good-natured child that starred Gigantor — that destroyed half city accidentally the first time that activated his robot, nearly got killed in his second fight because his mecha's cockpit offered very little protection (he started to wear a protective suit and helmet to prevent that). His enemies often attacked him when he was away of his robot, and in a storyline they invaded a village and started to kill all people that they deemed useless in a way Nazi-like manner.
    • Great Mazinger: Its sequel was darker. The show dealt with themes such like racism and parental abandonment, the main character was a Deconstruction of the archetype that Kouji introduced, the Tsundere had mood shifts due to emotional issues that had little to do with Tetsuya, The Professor was a very questionable father figure and mentor...
  • Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam was much darker than the original Mobile Suit Gundam and earned the director the name 'Kill Em All Tomino'.
    • Gundam SEED, to put it frankly, is extremely dark for an Alternate Universe Gundam series. There are brutal atrocities committed by both sides which becomes a Guilt-Free Extermination War with very little in the way of clear comic relief. There is no mercy, no honor, no salvation for anyone. Civilians and soldiers are equally expendable, and not even one's own allies can be trusted. Victory for either side means virtual destruction of an entire subtype of the human race and by the end, all of it.
      • Oh, and the explicit horror isn't where it ends. You know all that genetic manipulation that forms the backbone of the series? Yea, turns out that the entire thing was taken to the logical extreme by essentially using live humans and clones as disposable test subjects. Not only did this fail to produce an implementable solution to the coordinator issue, it spawned a living representation of all of mankind's sins against itself, the last clone Rau Le Creuset, who is determined to enact a sick, yet horrifyingly justified restitution upon the human race.
    • Gundam 00 took this closer to home by placing the series in the Anno Domini timeline where most of the world's current problems aren't just still around, they're exacerbated, and it's going to take a lot of blood to get any work done on them at all. This also makes it one of the darkest alternate universe Gundam, up next to SEED.
      • Until the movie suddenly snapped everything into hope and rainbows, giving us one of the few unequivocally happy endings in Gundam. It even has world peace.
    • Gundam AGE unveiled its true colors from episode 14 onwards. Similar to Madoka, don't let the series' kiddy art designs fool you. While initially masquerading as a children's Gundam series for the first 13 episodes, the Love Interest gets brutally killed in episode 14 and The Hero consequentially takes the dark descent into becoming a genocidal Knight Templar Who Fights Monsters. Oh, and the UE are Human All Along. And those hoping for a bloodless final episode was hopelessly crushed at it ends up in a Tomino Kill'em all for BOTH sides. Add the almost-complete absence of comic relief and the series being set in a Crapsack World that would feel right at home in the Universal Century or Cosmic Era, and you got a series that somehow manages to get up there with SEED and first part of 00 as the darkest AU series yet.
    • Gundam IBO takes an even darker turn than AGE did, in a world with no beamspam for mobile suits which results in brutal melee attacks being the main method of killing the enemy (And with bloody results). It takes place in a world where much of the technology of the past is lost and buried as it follows the rise and fall of Tekkadan surviving in a harsh cruel world where they are economically and socially disadvantaged compared to others and resorts to brutal underhanded methods to survive. The emphasis of the fall is felt in the second season as Tekkadan makes more rash decisions which results in the protagonist Mika losing his humanity and ability to live a normal life and Orga becoming more and more reckless. It ends as almost tragically as one would expect, with most of the protagonists killed off and for the first time in a mainsteam Gundam series (If we do not take Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory into account), the first definitive victory by the antagonists and the deaths of the protagonists in a tv series
    • Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE proves that not even the otherwise Lighter and Softer Build spinoffs are safe from this, especially by the end of its first cour. In sharp contrast to other Build protagonists, Hiroto is a stoic Broken Ace who struggles to forgive himself for traumatic events in the past. His Ragtag Band of Misfits also gets hit with realistic outcomes, as his team's lack of coordination and unity in skill level leads to dire consequences. Moreover, unlike other Build series which had limited stakes due to characters staying within either a tournament or a multiplayer game, Re:RISE reveals in Episode 12 that the Eldora is Real After All. This means their locals are actually living beings whose pain and suffering are real, as depressingly shown in Episode 12 when the Resistances' base gets erased off the face of Eldora by a Kill Sat leading to the death of countless inhabitants there.
    • Where the Gundam series is concerned, it's sometimes darker and edgier in their side stories, regardless of the calendar. Comic relief aside, the overall progression of arcs, foreknowledge, the ending and themes show that the likes of Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED CE.73: Stargazer to be less sunshiny than their respective calendars' main series.
    • To a point Gundam franchise in general was darker and edgier in comparison to the other mecha anime around, with the themes, the (generally) Grey-and-Gray Morality, the various War tropes present and the franchise was started by a man known as "Kill Em All".
  • While My Hero Academia had it's fair share of dark moments even at the beginning of its series, it still had plenty of sweet and heartwarming moments to balance it out. Then the Paranormal Liberation War Arc took place and things only went down hill from there.
    • The arc featured plenty of dark and scary moments from Shigaraki's rise to power, Gigantomachia's rampage leading to the destruction of multiple cities which led to the death of multiple heroes and civilians, and Dabi revealing himself as the once thought dead son of Endeavor and with the help of Skeptic had all of his father's dirty laundry posted online for everyone to see. All of which lead to the almost utter destruction of hero society with almost everyone no longer trusting heroes and taking matters into their own hands.
  • Naruto, over the course of Part II/Shippuden, became increasingly darker and much more serious than Part I/the original anime series, even though the Land of Waves arc already started it, continuing forth in the Chunin Exam, Konoha Invasion, Search for Tsunade, and Sasuke's Retrieval arcs regarding the gore, child soldier, Freudian and Jungian psychology, existentialism, nudity, and death count. The main character, Naruto, loses the closest thing he has to a father, Jiraiya, his village is nuked, his mother figure Tsunade is knocked into a coma, he is put into a Breaking Speech by Pain which he couldn't retort to... even though he managed to get Pain to bring everyone back to life that he killed that day, the Village is still a crater, Tsunade is still in a coma, and Danzo nearly becomes Hokage. THEN we get to Sasuke, his former rival and best friend who had joined Akatsuki and attacked Killer B and then attacked the Kage Summit. Learning how far his best friend had fallen caused him to have a Heroic BSoD and fall into an Angst Coma. Part II has more death, destruction, horrors, and Orochimaru -and later Obito-induced creepiness to show it's much darker and edgier than Part I.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi did this intentionally as part of a Genre Shift from a Harem Series to a Fighting Series. The two most obvious indicators of it are the characters' pasts being revealed, and Bloodless Carnage getting thrown out the window. The series still maintains its fanservice and humor, but breaks them up with increasingly-longer stretches of action and drama. And death.
  • The Noozles took a grimdark turn about halfway though, with the introduction of Koalawallaland, its human-hating Nazi Koala inhabitants, and the threat of a Reality-Breaking Paradox due to the separation of the two universes being accelerated by seismic testing.
  • One Piece:
    • In the 6th movie, Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, the Straw Hats start to separate from each other, due to conflicts the antagonist is creating. The plot also contains some of the biggest horrors, as Luffy's comrades are eaten by a Man-Eating Plant called "Lily", the Big Bad's backstory is also different, showing that his crew died, and he found Lily, allowing him to create Replacement Goldfish, so long as he feeds Lily, the movie's plot is also slightly more complex.
    • In the series proper, we had the Water 7 arc, easily the darkest arc in the series. The Going Merry is deemed unfixable and can't sail any further, Usopp leaves the crew when the news is broken to him leading to a fight with Luffy, Robin disappears and later aids in framing the Straw Hats (though not without good reason) and the crew is nearly killed upon meeting the CP9. Oh, and of course Robin's flashback the following arc.
    • Likewise, the last bits of the first half have been leaning toward this, such as Ace finally finding Blackbeard and losing, the introduction of the World Nobles, the crew getting beaten by an Admiral and getting separated from each other. Luffy finding out about Ace's execution and breaking into Impel Down to rescue him, not only failing but nearly dying in the process. Then, of course, the whole war that followed to rescue Ace that ultimately ended with Ace dying, Whitebeard, one of the most powerful Big Good pirates on the planet being killed by Blackbeard and having his earthquake power stolen, and Luffy actually doubting his dreams and a flashback that showed the (supposed) death of a close friend of theirs. Granted, Luffy recovers and the crew reunite, but even then dark times are on the horizon as Akainu, the Admiral who killed Ace, is now head of the Marines. So... yeah.
  • Osomatsu-san is an adult-aimed sequel to the family friendly Osomatsu-kun. The Matsuno brothers have grown into jaded NEETs since the original series, Breakout Character Iyami is a homeless washout (the former part due to things those same brothers have done), and their crush Totoko has become as much of a bratty Womanchild as they are Manchildren, just to name a few changes. Osomatsu-san contains a lot of adult themes and situations, though it's mostly played for laughs with the occasional drama arc.
    • The skit Sanematsu-san takes it further, with its parody of the premise featruring a salaryman that's even more pathetic than the brothers are — not even comically pathetic, just sad. Sad enough to hallucinate having a happy life with imaginary siblings to fill the void in his life.
  • Played with in episode 6 of Otona no Bouguya-san, where unlike in the matching manga chapter, Frealica's first appearance has her covered in blood from monsters she defeated during a quest.
  • In-universe example in Ouran High School Host Club: Renge's first appearance has her making a video where the normally-cheery members of the club become darker personae, e.g. the Keet becoming a callous bully.
  • PandoraHearts is one of many Alice's Adventures in Wonderland-based manga. However, the former takes all of the vaguely off-putting aspects of the latter to the extreme. Not only is it incredibly bloody and gory, but it's also incredibly psychologically complex. This manga is a Mind Screw with a Dysfunction Junction / Cast Full of Crazy. If you want something to base this off of, you can start with how Alice is now an incredibly depressed fifteen-year-old boy who has extreme self-loathing problems due to emotional abuse...
    • Actually, PandoraHearts even does this to itself. It starts out as a compelling dark fantasy story with a lot of comedy, but slowly begins developing into a full-fledged Psychological Thriller with nothing to laugh about. Once the manga's infamously brutal plot twists come into play which starts to happen a little past halfway through, readers end up crying every volume.
  • Penguindrum starts off like a comedy where three siblings have to deal with invisible penguins and get a girl's diary, but Ringo eventually tries to rape Tabuki and is harshly called out on it, Kanba becomes a terrorist to save Himari, Yuri tries to rape Ringo, Shouma can't cope with how his and Kanba's parents seemingly caused the death of Ringo's sister, etc..
  • Urasawa's Pluto does this to Tezuka's Astro Boy, showing the grittier side of life in the twenty-first century. This being Urasawa, it works tremendously well as the writing and themes are thoughtful and touching as well as dark and edgy.
  • Zigzagged in the Pretty Cure franchise. Some installments are rather serious, but most are light. The "dark" ones usually have one or more of the eponymous magical girl having to deal with personal failure that would cost them dearly. One of the most notably serious and mature of those is Heart Catch Pretty Cure, with Cure Moonlight having to deal with her Fairy Companion dying in front of her, her father being The Dragon, her father killed by the actual Big Bad in front of her, her Evil Counterpart is actually kinda-sorta her little sister, said little sister dies in front of her by her own hands, and then figuring out that even saving the world won't bring them back.
    • Doki Doki! PreCure seems intent on One Upping the above, by not only having an expy of Yuri, but by also showing, onscreen, an entire kingdom being devastated by the Big Bad (previous seasons merely gave a small glimpse of how the big bad operated and the devastation in his wake), as well as being the only series in the franchise to date to subvert one of the then standard formula practices in the series, in that a Dark Magical Girl, when redeemed, automatically stays on the side of good as a Precure in Regina, only for her to almost immediately be forced back onto the side of evil by the Big Bad, who's one of the most evil Big Bads since Gooyan... and he's not even the Big Bad that appears for most of the series and is in fact controlling him. Damn.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica is very much a Darker and Edgier spin on the Magical Girl genre, but is a Reconstruction if anything, after Kunihiko Ikuhara, Chiho Saito and their companions from Studio BePapas did weird things with the genre back in the 90s. They even managed to deconstruct the tropes without being all too much Darker and Edgier, but with loads of heavy Mind Screw instead.
  • Rayearth OVA is a lot more grim than Magic Knight Rayearth, with several characters dying, Adaptational Villainy, Family-Unfriendly Violence, and a Bittersweet Ending.
    • Even with the OVA out of the equation, Magic Knight Rayearth still manages to find ways of fitting into this trope. First, the second manga series has has Cephiro on the brink of destruction, and all the invading forces invading Cephiro are sypathetic Anti-Villains whose homeworlds are also facing strife, especially Autozam, which is also on the verge of death due to rampant air pollution.
    • The anime adaptation of the second manga manages to be darker than that due to the inclusions of Lady Debonair, a power-hungry nihilist who literally draws power from the fear and terror of the people of Cephiro, and Nova, an Ax-Crazy Yandere Psycho Lesbian who obsesses over Hikaru and seeks to kill her and her loved ones. It also features scenes with innocent civilians in danger, including small children!
  • Every adaptation of Read or Die seems to do this. The manga is fairly light-hearted (and the Read or Dream manga entirely so). The OVA has a bit of camp to it, but gets fairly dark, with a Bittersweet Ending. The TV series, R.O.D the TV, manages to get more depressing nearly every episode, but eventually rewards its long-suffering cast with a happy ending. Strangely, they keep improving. A new Alternate Universe manga / Continuity Reboot called Read Or Die Rehabilitation has been announced, complete with a rather drastic redesign of our Badass Adorable heroine, Yomiko. Reactions have been mixed, to say the least.
  • The Rose of Versailles: The original manga has many moments of slapstick humor, often with typical comedic manga expressions and symbols, and tends to use chibi drawings and starry eyes in some dramatic moments for added effect. Even late in the story, as the French Revolution is brewing into more and more violence, the characters will still break into comical expressions. The anime removes many of the manga's light-hearted, cartoony moments for a bleaker, yet more consistently serious tone, which is reflected with the anime's more realistic art direction.
  • Lyrical Nanoha has a habit of getting darker as the seasons progress:
    • Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force is said to be Darker and Edgier by the writer. And he wasn't kidding. In the 3rd Chapter, we were introduced to Card-Carrying Villain Veyron who introduces himself by killing everyone in a chapel that Touma had visited earlier. We won't see Nanoha fall to the dark side but definitely we will see more people being offed by Belkan weaponry then usual and maybe a few kills with Mid-childan weapons. Then, a few chapters later, there's a brutal fight between Lady of War Signum and the Dark Action Girl Cypha, which involves the latter being partly dismembered and the former, landing in a pool of her own blood with a sword in her gut.
      • And how Touma's device is relies on The Corruption to work, and Lily is a source of death and ruin as she accidentally causes people to degrade to Body Horror like meat blobs
    • Meanwhile, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid defies the trend, going Lighter and Softer than even the original series was.
    • Then ViVid Strike! goes right back and makes it darker again. While nowhere near as dark as Force, it's definitely darker than ViVid (the first two scenes feature bullying and gang violence). Episode 4 revolves around a realistic depiction of bullying and ends with Rinne Berlinetta going on a rampage against her bullies, leaving them unconscious and seriously bleeding out with blood splatters on the lockers and wall.
  • In the same vein as Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Rosario + Vampire starts off as a typical Harem Series, with a Monster of the Week spin. Then Cerebus Syndrome sets in, the characters' troubling backstories are explored, and by Season 2, it's much more action-oriented, with some deconstruction thrown in for good measure.
  • Common in the first Sailor Moonanime:
    • The S Season, which is overall darker than its predecessor. While overall pretty light-hearted, featuring some progressively sillier monsters (as well as Eugeal's car appearing in progressively sillier locations.), once Mimete's removed from the picture, the season takes a dark turn. You know a season's about to get real when the final group of villains don't even bother to summon the silly monsters of the week their predecessors summoned.
    • The villain Queen Nehelenia appeared in two seasons, and the contrast between which is huge. Season 4 was mostly rather light-hearted: there was a pegasus, the villains were campy circus people who were commanded around by a weird old lady, and it focused mostly on Chibiusa; only at the very end there was a real difference. The first part of Season 5, however, was entirely different, even breaking with the usual format. There were no monsters of the week, only Nehelenia's nearly indestructible mirror minions. In the course of the arc, Mamoru was brain-washed once again, resulting in Chibiusa almost fading, and all the Inner senshi were taken out one by one, sometimes in very painful manners (like Makoto being electrified almost to death by Nehelenia herself). This arc also brought back the outer senshi, who have a much more cynical approach to these matters... and they also get taken out. Usagi barely manages to win, but before that she has to go through a full-blown Break the Cutie process that almost throws her to the Despair Event Horizon. (And how does she win? Via offering herself to be tortured and killed by Nehelenia, who also shows heartbreaking Hidden Depths as we learn about the process that made her... well, the way she was. Only then things start going back to Lighter and Softer.)
    • Even more so, the last part of Stars. Here, after a long search, the Sailor Starlights are reunited with their Princess... only for her to be killed. Then the Inner Senshi get killed. And we find out Mamoru has been Dead All Along for a while already. AND Haruka and Michiru kill Setsuna and Hotaru as a part of a Fake Defector plan, but fail and die at Galaxia's hands. And we're not done...
    • The Sailor Moon manga is a lot darker than its first anime adaptation.
  • Senran Kagura, despite its reputation for fanservice, is also a pretty dark franchise that explores the effects of essentially becoming a Child Soldier in a world where death is a real possibility at all times. Guren no Hebi, the third manga adaptation, is a prime example. Despite managing to have some of the franchise's lightest moments, it's also a grim and very bleak look into the lives the girls lead and averts the series' usual Bloodless Carnage, making the fights downright disturbing to read at times.
  • If you only know Yoshitomi Akihito for his kawaii Yuri short stories, then School Mermaid, a horror manga, will take you by surprise.
  • Sgt. Frog: Subverted. In the seventh season, when half of the series moved to a late night timeslot, called Keroro Gunsou Otsu, there was an entire story about Keroro becoming "Keroro of the Night", and so, "Adult, Dark and Dangerous". However, as it turns out, he was no different from before and he's defeated as usual.
  • Some scenes in Sonic X are darker than their original versions from the games. For example, Gerald Robotnik's execution in Sonic Adventure 2 is cut away from before anything happens. In X, you hear GUN soldiers cock and shoot their guns (right in front of Chris, Amy, and Tails). The English dub, of course, censored it. Then we have season 3, which is by far darker than the previous two seasons in both dubs, but as expected, the English version censors a lot of the original Japanese version.
  • The Darker and Edgier spin for Magical Girl series (with one of the most notables being Puella Magi Madoka Magica above) is actually Older Than They Think. In The '90s, Shamanic Princess took the Cute Witches Tiara and Lena, send them off in Magical Girl Warrior-type missions... and then headed directly into Psychological Horror, Fanservice and Mind Screw territories, never looking back.
  • The manga adaptation of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time is a stark contrast to the game itself, having greater violence and strong sexual content:
  • The Summer You Were There is this in comparison to Yuama's previous work, The Girl I Want is So Handsome!, as Yuama points out in the afterword of the former. The latter series begins with the protagonist, Hina, having a Crash-Into Hello with Shiki, her crush on the basketball team, getting teased by her friends and, after accidentally getting hit by a ball during practice(which is portrayed as slapstick comedy), joining the team as a manager. The former, however, begins with Shizuku, the protagonist, rejecting an offer from her classmate Kaori to eat lunch with her, then going home, finishing a story she was working on, deleting said story from where it was posted online, then resolving to kill herself once she is done throwing the manuscript away. While The Girl I Want Is So Handsome has an unambiguously happy ending, The Summer You Were There has Kaori die of her illness at the end of the penultimate chapter, resulting in a Bittersweet Ending.
  • Tekkaman Blade is a Darker and Edgier version of an earlier series called Tekkaman the Space Knight, being far more cynical.
  • Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- anyone? Read the first 13 volumes. Then read the next two, and all afterwards. 'Nuff said.
  • Compared with the more idealistic show from the Robot Romance Trilogy that preceeded it, Voltes V fleshed out its characters more and slipped in serious themes like racism, classism, totalitarian government and Parental Abandonment into the story. Considering that Yoshiyuki "Kill'em All" Tomino was in the staff, it's absolutely no wonder.
  • Once in The '70s, there was a short shonen manga by Kazumasa Hirai and Hisashi Sakaguchi. Its name was Wolf Guy, and it was about the adventures of young werewolf Akira Inugami and his Hot Teacher Akiko Aoshika. Decades later, Yoshiaki Tabata and Yugo Yuuki (the authors of Akumetsu) took the basic concept of this manga and re-made it into a seinen story named Wolf Guy - Wolfen Crest — which is full of Gorn, Fan Disservice, etc. Inugami gets almost killed several times, Aoshika-sensei is almost completely broken in all senses, and Big Bad Haguro Dou goes from a mere Yakuza heir to one of the most despicable villains in manga.
  • The World God Only Knows, A light-hearted manga-series about a Otaku playing video-games and using that video-game knowledge to help women in real-life get over their problems which in the process leads to the creation of an Unwanted Harem. Read the early chapters that highlights the before description, and then skip directly to chapter 214. You'll be amazed at how dark the manga becomes. To elaborate, what starts off as a comedy/romance manga series, slowly begins to showcase Shounen-style action during the later portion of the Goddess arc, and then delves further to even showcasing blood-and-gore once it reaches the Past arc.
  • Yatterman Night serves as one for the original series. For starters: Dokurobei manages to destroy all of Dekkaido in the first few minutes of the show alone. The Doronbo have been exiled, and their descendants have to deal with the repercussions. The Yattermen turn what's left of Dekkaido into a walled kingdom with thousands of robotic copies on guard, and their descendants live in the poverty-stricken outskirts of said kingdom after having their parents worked to death. What used to be a silly show about a couple of preteen toymakers fighting crime has turned into a rather serious drama. Lord Yatterman, the Big Bad, is a much more serious villain than Dokurobei was in the original series, being a mysterious and despotic tyrant, and considering it’s Dokurobei himself, that is saying something.
  • The Yo-kai Watch anime got in these grounds starting with Yo-kai Watch: Shadowside - The Return of the Oni King, while still keeping its signature humour. In the film, Yo-kai now have two less cartoony-looking forms, one being the new regular form (Lightside) and the other, more monstrous and suited for combat (Shadowside). It is also more serious in tone compared to the previous films and the anime, as the plot is set after a 30-year timeskip (featuring Nate's Daughter as one of the main characters, who is a teenager unlike Nate), and the threat this time is a virus that infects humans with malice and turns them into Oni-esque beings.. The sequel anime series (Yo-kai Watch: Shadowside), though Lighter and Softer than the film (and still having some zaniness true to the franchise), retains some seriousness (and has scarier Yokai and real antagonists since the first episode) and is more plot driven and features full-length episodes, unlike the first anime (which was more episodical and with two-to-four segments per episode). The difference between the Shadowside world and the rest of the franchise is best observed through Yo-kai Watch 4, where the characters of each world (original, Shadowside, and Forever Friends) travel between their respective worlds.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • The original manga when compared to its two anime adaptations, which tone certain things down, including the atmosphere and the kill count. Most of Dark Yugi's Penalty Games in Toei's anime are turned into illusions, while they are turned into Mind Crushes in the Duel Monsters anime. More characters are also Killed Off for Real in the manga. Particularly, Pegasus and Bandit Keith (if you don't count R as canon).
      • In turn, the Japanese anime is darker when compared to its English dub, which censored some of the violence and the darker themes.
      • Ryuji Otogi's background story is completely different than in the anime, which no longer involves butthurt and Pegasus, but involves domestic abuse and a father who aged rapidly due to losing a rather satanic Shadow Game with Yugi's grandpa.
      • In the Toei anime, as previously stated, much of the death-related Penalty Games being turned into illusions, but then there were also chapters being either skipped or altered because the content in them was too violent/disturbing (the knife game with Ushio was changed to a game of drawing playing cards). The most notable altered storyline being Death-T, which replaces the chainsaw-wielding Chopman with the more kid-friendly "Game Masters." Kaiba's butler dying from electrocution is also removed. The Duelist Kingdom arc was treated similarly in the second series anime.
      • And the original run overall is darker than the following sequels/spinoffs.
    • On the flip side, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds went the way of AKIRA in order to achieve Darker And Edgier. In fact, popular consensus among the show's fans is that the sheer spike in Darker And Edgier material in it was a deliberate act to keep 4Kids Entertainment from Macekreing it... not like it hasn't stopped them from trying.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX achieved this via Cerebus Syndrome. It started pretty silly, with dueling monkeys and whatnot, with elements of a darker plot going in the background. After that, it went from the brainwashing cult of Season 2 to the way darker tone of Season 3. It started out with new main characters as usual and a seemingly tame (at least compared to Season 2) villain until he gets defeated relatively quickly and then the series gets much darker including the characters dying when they lose a duel, at least that's what they are told, the main character getting tricked into releasing his Superpowered Evil Side and killing some of his remaining friends, and the The Man Behindthe Man / Stalker with a Crush / Hidden Agenda Villain possessing people and making everyone suffer even more because they're a Yandere of epic proportions. The fourth season features an Assimilation Plot orchestrated by the embodiment of darkness and despair.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V gained a lot of infamy for being Darker and Edgier than the first four entries when the main plot was revealed to be an interdimensional war where a genocide occurred by being turning victims into cards carried out by child soldiers. Each season has gotten darker and darker with the main character Yuya going through a legendary Trauma Conga Line that started from before the series began and ended right before the show ended. In addition, the show manages to make darker and edgier versions of the previous series, by twisting and deconstructing their main plot lines.
      • In DM, while KaibaCorp pretty much has control over most of dueling culture — like starting tournaments or changing the rules — it's mostly for the sake of dueling, and Kaiba doesn't try to take out competition that isn't a personal threat to his company. In Arc-V LDS is aggressively assimilating every duel school they can get their hands on and strictly control every aspect of the game — most prominently the Extra deck summoning methods — to prepare for an interdimensional war.
      • GX takes place in a secluded boarding school, and Season 3 was Yubel manipulating a whole lot of people to fuse the twelve dimensions together, and dragging said school in the process. In Arc-V, the same school is training Child Soldiers to do the exact same thing by initiating a genocide.
      • 5D's first season featured the schism between Satellite — a poor and wrecked island which is kept separate to keep an ancient evil in check — and New Domino City, which is a pretty normal place. In Arc-V, neither of those reasons apply; the schism is caused by an extreme Bread and Circuses capitalist system where Might Makes Right and has even legalized slavery.
      • The finale of ZEXAL featured a war between the Barian and Astral worlds, two different dimensions, and some duelists from Heartland just so happened to be connected to those worlds. In Arc-V, Heartland gets turned into a wasteland and its people the victims of a genocide because they were the targets of the war.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS is just as dark, or even darker than ARC-V, as it takes on a bleaker and more cynical approach, with cyber terrorism being the series' overall premise. It also doesn't pull any punches as early as the first episode, since the villains are more competent and dangerous to the point of Player Killing, several characters have reasons for Escapism or committing horrible crimes, Duelists would up being at risk of dying after losing in a Duel at Link VRAINS, and the negative effects of online gaming is further explored. Yusaku is also different than the previous main characters, since he's not a Hot-Blooded Idiot Hero or an All-Loving Hero, but a Jerkass Cyberpunk Anti-Hero who wants to get Revenge on those who ruined his childhood.
  • Yuki Yuna is a Hero is a darker take on Magical Girls than most anime. Much like Madoka, while there is no blood in the original anime, the series is full of emotional despair and has very dark lore.

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