Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in Anime and Manga.
- Ai Kora has a chapter where Maeda has a dream where he and Sakurako end up Caught in the Rain together, and end up kissing. When similar circumstances strike in the real world, Sakurako ends up leaning towards Maeda for entirely non-romantic reasons, but he's so wound up he ends up kissing her.
- Attack on Titan: The nation of Marley and the rest of the world have been long terrified of the Subjects of Ymir, seeing them as devils who would destroy them all if given the chance. And after centuries of being killed, exploited, experimented on, forced into ghettos, used as cannon fodder, and abused in the most horrific ways possible, they've made it clear to Eren that they'll never accept peaceful coexistence with his people. As such, he decides to become the devil they fear so much and that destroying all of humanity outside the walls is the only way his loved ones can be at peace.
- Cross Ange: The world of Mana rejects the Normas under the belief that they are are violent and antisocial beings. They send the Normas to a hellhole prison (most of them from a young age) where their only purpose is to fight, and generally treat them like dirt. Surprise, surprise, most of them are violent and antisocial. There's a bit more to it than that, though - Mana-users are right about Normas inherently being unusually antisocial, but only because they themselves are abnormally hypersocial.
- In Death Note, Ryuk the Shinigami tells Light Yagami that misery follows those who use the Death Note. Throughout the series, it becomes apparent that this phenomenon isn't so much the fault of any karmic punishment — it's just that people who use the Death Note are always the kind of people who surround themselves with death and destruction.
- Digimon Adventure gives us Myotismon (Vamdemon in Japanese), who hears that the eighth Digidestined, who turns out to be Tai's sister Kari, will be the one to destroy him. So what does he do? He sends his Legion of Doom all over the place to hunt her down and destroy her. This causes him to fulfill his own prophetic demise in a few ways; first of all, Kari's partner is a member of the aforementioned legion of doom, so they never would've met if he hadn't called a hunting party. Secondly, by trying to destroy her, he caused the Heroic Sacrifice of Wizardmon, which triggers Kari's crest and digivolves Gatomon into Angewomon, who proceeds to One-Hit Kill him. Considering all the other Digimon couldn't do crap against him at that point, he could've conquered the world at his leisure if he hadn't tried to find her. The gravity of it only increases when you consider that without Angewomon, there wouldn't be no WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon, so if by some miracle he had been brought down, his resurrection as VenomMyostismon would have gone off without a hitch and he would've curb stomped the entire world. Way to go, you moron.
- Devimon did something similar by hearing the youngest of the kids will be the one to cause his death. He goes after TK, triggering Patamon's evolution into Angemon, who promptly performs a Heroic Sacrifice to kill Devimon.
- In Dog Days, Leonmichelle's attempts to stop the foretold deaths of Milhiore and Shinku ends up summoning the beast that will presumably kill them.
- Doraemon: Nobita's Treasure Island has the main villain, Captain Silver, and his plans to siphon the world of its resources through the core and start life anew from his Planet Spaceship, after seeing a Bad Future for humanity in his Time Machine. Unfortunately, it's implied the future he sees is the results of his plans - should he really drain the Earth's core of energy, he will unleash a cataclysm that destroys most of earth's surface, turning it into the wasteland he saw. Unfortunately, his grief and ambition had taken over common sense.
- Dragon Ball Z:
- Frieza kills all of the Saiyans he can find and destroys their home planet in order to prevent a Super Saiyan from rising up and defeating him. What happens later? Frieza's efforts actually anger Goku to the point that he becomes a Super Saiyan and completely beats the shit out of Frieza, even to the point of killing him. It doesn't stick but even at that point, it was pretty clear that Frieza was killed because of his efforts to prevent himself from being killed. In addition, Frieza's actual death is by the son of one of the three Saiyans he allowed to live in one timeline, and by Goku in the other.
- In the Episode of Bardock special, it turns out Bardock was sent back in time and got into a conflict with Frieza's ancestor Lord Chilled. It also turned out that Bardock was the Legendary Super Saiyan, meaning that Frieza was indirectly responsible for the very legend upon which he would destroy that Saiyan race for, an act that would eventually cause his death. Talk about Irony.
- Dragon Ball Minus adds to it by revealing that the reason Goku was sent to Earth in the first place. Frieza had ordered all the Saiyans to return to Planet Vegeta; Bardock, thinking that this sounded incredibly suspicious, stole a space pod and sent his infant son to another planet to keep him safe...and as we all know, Bardock was spot-on and Frieza wanted all the Saiyans together so he could easily kill them all. Living on Earth gave Goku plenty of challenges, which lead to his becoming so powerful that he achieved Super Saiyan. If he'd stayed on Planet Vegeta, he more than likely would have just been another forgettable low-class warrior.
- Prior to Goku actually fulfilling the prophecy, Vegeta tries unsuccessfully to invoke this trope, declaring that Frieza was an idiot for destroying the Saiyan race because he feared their potential power...but keeping the strongest one of all alive. Vegeta incorrectly believed that he had become a Super Saiyan at this point, and Frieza gave him a rude awakening. Since Death Is Cheap in the Dragon Ball universe, though, Vegeta was brought back to life and got to see the fulfillment of the prophecy anyway.
- In Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F', Frieza's empire has been falling apart without him, and while not happy with the idea, his minions use the Dragon Balls to bring him Back from the Dead because they see Frieza's fear factor as the only way to restore it to its former glory. Instead of going back to rule his empire as they expected, Frieza throws it all away for the sake of petty revenge on Goku, only to get himself killed and his entire army destroyed; by bringing him back to life, Frieza's minions ensured the destruction of his empire, the very thing they wanted to prevent.
- At the end of the Cell Saga, when Goku is telling his friends about his decision to remain dead after his Heroic Sacrifice, he brings up that as a baby, he was sent to Earth to destroy but instead unwilling (due to a head injury giving him amnesia as a child) or willing (after learning that he was a Saiyan) went against that notion and fought to protect the Earth. However, his presence continued to draw in villains that threatened to destroy the Earth and its people, unwittingly fulfilling the mission he was sent for. This helps in his decision to remain in the other world and keep Earth safe.
- In Eureka Seven, Holland learned from Norbu 3 years ago prior to the series that whoever makes Eureka smile and happy is her destined partner, who turns out to be the protagonist Renton. Holland's efforts to deny their relationship and trying to win Eureka's favor only seeks to set up a chain of events that made Renton and Eureka officially into a couple. Holland even face palm on his efforts after his quarrel with Eureka in episode 26.
- In Full Moon, the main character, Mitsuki, is fated to die in a year, but there's a prophecy that a mysterious person is fated to come along and prevent her death, so two shinigami are sent to prevent Mitsuki and that person from meeting...and it turns out that her meeting the two shinigami is what caused her death to be prevented because her outlook on life changed because of them.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Stardust Crusaders: Self-fulfilling prophecies is exactly the working mechanism of Thoth, the Stand of Boingo, one of the antagonists. Thoth takes the form of an indie comic book, describing future happenings or actions taken by his user and his immediate peers. Thoth is so accurate, even if following a leap-and-bound narration that makes it slightly hard to understand at a quick glance, that every attempt to change or foil the events already written in its pages will ensure the very same event takes place, and exactly as described. One other way to interpret what Thoth is doing is that it generates a single image that describes all the possible futures in some oblique fashion. With Oingo: If he hadn't panicked at Joseph's early arrival and taken Jotaro's guise, the bomber orange would have been left in the car...and would have been the one Jotaro began peeling to slake his thirst. With Hol Horse: If he'd relied on the clocktower instead of his fast watch, the bullets would have hit Jotaro at the same time as the water burst. In other words, it's accurate for both the "default" stance and the self-fulfilled results.
- Golden Wind: Diavolo has lived most of his life going to absurd lengths to erase his identity and make sure no one knows he even exists, mainly operating as the anonymous Boss of Passione. The actions he takes to maintain his anonymity and punish any transgressors are so extreme, however, that all he accomplishes is making sure people will want to learn who he is in order to kill him. When Diavolo tries to kill his own daughter Trish after having Bucciarati's gang escort her to him, lying that it was for her own protection, Bucciarati becomes so infuriated that he immediately turns traitor and vows to kill the Boss no matter what it takes, with the rest of his gang sans Fugo agreeing with him.
- In the first episode of Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, Dedede appears when the people of Cappy Town ask Kabu what to do about their plight. He asks Kabu to predict what will happen when he pushes a button on his cannon. Kabu predicts he won’t push it. Soon enough, Kirby crash lands nearby, distracting Dedede long enough for him to forget about pushing the button.
- Zera of Lychee Light Club is told by a fortune-teller that he will either rule the world at the age of 30 or die at the age of 14. In his desperate rush to achieve the former, he ends up bringing about the latter. Commencing the final step of his plan on the night of his 14th birthday was a tremendously bad idea, but by that point, he'd gone mad with paranoia.
- My Hero Academia:
- Mirai Sasaki, aka Sir Nighteye, has a Quirk that allows him to see the future of a person, and his predictions have always come to pass no matter how much he tried to change them, so he always approaches every situation expecting worst-case scenarios. It's only when Izuku Midoriya manages to defy one of his predictions that he realizes how his own pessimism hampered his Quirk, and that he could have seen more positive outcomes if he had more faith that he could change the future.
- Upon infiltrating the Paranormal Liberation Front, Hawks realized that with Twice having gotten over the trauma with using his Double Quirk, its Zerg Rush applications along with the ability to copy several powerful villains made him a top priority as it would lead to a great magnitude of destruction. When Twice performed a Redemption Rejection, Hawks was reluctantly forced to kill him. Unfortunately, in doing so, Toga went off the deep end and became filled with a desire for revenge. Shortly afterwards, she gained a sample of Twice's blood, allowing her to use Twice's Quirk thanks to her Transform Qurik's Power Copying feature, with her doing so during the final war, but in a more twisted and deadly manner than Twice ever did. In other words, the very scenario Hawks was trying to avoid, but much worse.
- In My Cheat Skill Resurrection Revived Me, the king of Resaga has a paranoid fear of the demons humanity is at war with, and rightly so, seeing as they outnumber humans 7 to 3. Unfortunately, this paranoia also bleeds onto his own citizens, and those with a "dangerous" skill like the main character Licht are marked for execution the moment he hears of it. Licht's party lures him into an ambush, where they sell him to his executioners for money, with the old man leading the executioners spelling out that he's marked for death because his [Resurrection] skill is "dangerous" as it could be used to bolster the demon's forces, despite admiting that Licht is indeed a loyal tax-paying citizen who has doubtlessly used said skill to save many human lives. With Licht reviving from a botched execution, he now has every possible motive to bring the king's fears to pass, and acts on it.
- Naruto:
- The eldest LITERAL frog sage gave a prophecy that Jiraiya would travel the world to write a book, meet a boy with power in his eyes, and train the one who would change the world for the better. Thing is, this prophecy only ever got anywhere because the sage TOLD Jiraiya about it in the first place.
- The Second Hokage thought that the Uchiha would betray Konoha and wanted to protect the village. So he ostracized the Uchiha clan from the start of his reign and treated them worse than he should have. His treatment of them led to the attempted coup, since his treatment was passed down (though to be fair he is a lot less to blame in this event compared with the next example.)
- Madara Uchiha. After the village was founded, Madara feared that the Senju clan would eventually eliminate the Uchiha Clan, and tried to get them to break ties with the village. While this did happen eventually, it was largely because Madara's own disciple (Obito) attacked the village with the Nine-Tails and framed the Uchiha Clan for it, leading to more discrimination against the clan and the eventually leading them to plan a coup. That in turn leads to a massacre in which said pupil directly participated.
- While he was partly manipulated by Danzo Shimura, Hanzo of the Salamander's undoing was the result of this. He was paranoiac that Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan were gaining power and influence with the Akatsuki, and he feared they would try to topple him and take over Amegakure. So he lures them into a trap that results in Yahiko's death and Nagato crippled, but not before he unleashes a Roaring Rampage of Revenge that kills almost everyone in sight. Hanzo escapes, but his actions gave Nagato the push he needed for his Start of Darkness and become Pain, and a pretty big reason to kill Hanzo and take over Amegakure years later.
- Gendo Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion abandons his son, Shinji, because he believes that he will be a bad parent and only end up hurting Shinji. The irony is that with his abandonment, he ends up giving Shinji one of his deepest emotional scars. Funnily enough, Shinji does something similar; he desperately wants human affection, but alienates all the people who try to help him because he refuses to believe they care about him.
- In One Piece, during the Land of Wano arc, the Five Elders, fearing that Luffy was becoming too powerful, instructed one of their top CP0 members to ensure that he doesn't survive his fight with Kaido, even though this means enraging the Emperor as he despises any kind of interference in his battles, especially when it's against one he considers a Worthy Opponent. The near death experience the agent caused Luffy to go through ended up being the catalyst for him Awakening his Devil Fruit, the very scenario the Five Elders were trying to avoid. For extra irony, the agent's interference wasn't really needed as Luffy was running on fumes and Kaido had a likely chance of winning on his own anyway, until his Awakening gave him a Heroic Second Wind.
- Slayers Try has a town that fears dragons because one of them destroyed the town. They manage (along with Xelloss) to make Filia angry enough that she does just that.
- SPY×FAMILY: Generally averted with Bond's prophecies, but played straight when he has a vision of a young boy dropping his ice cream. In an attempt to prevent this, he runs up and lunges at the boy... who promptly drops his ice cream in shock. Played with in that Loid buys him a replacement, which wouldn't have happened if Bond hadn't interfered.
- A tragic example happens in Steins;Gate episode 23 whereby Okabe accidentally stabbed his lover Kurisu to death in an attempt to prevent her death in the Beta worldline. This tragedy haunted Okabe towards the story of Steins;Gate 0.
- Talentless Nana has Tsunekichi Hatadaira and his "Talent" of prophetic dreams, documented using a Polaroid camera. All the scenes depicted on them come true and attempts to avoid your fate oftentimes cause it to happen in the first place.
- From Trigun, there's Vash's reputation as the Humanoid Typhoon, who causes death and destruction wherever he goes. The bounty was put on his head to prevent any more destruction but caused overzealous bounty hunters with no care for collateral damage to converge on him and cause even more destruction.
- In Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-, Fei Wong Reed goes through a ridiculously complex Gambit Roulette to prevent Yuko's death from catching up with her, in the process creating two clones, then discarding them (essentially killing them). The woman he was trying to save then embraces her long-delayed death as payment to bring the two clones into the cycle of reincarnation. In other words, had he not tried to save Yuko, she never would have died. The real kicker is that, apparently, she and Clow planned all this. Even the characters are starting to get confused. And apparently they just set him off again because now he's just going to try again. A Stable Time Loop or something, it's really not very clear. Even the metaphorical screw is getting confused, really.
- In X/1999, Sorata is told as a boy by his temple superior that he will die for the sake of a woman. Sora decides that if this has to happen, he'd like it to be a beautiful woman, and when he meets Arashi he tells her that he's "decided on" her. Once the two develop genuine feelings for each other, Arashi becomes so troubled at the thought that she'd be responsible for Sora's death that she defects to the Dragons of Earth, so Sora would have no reason to protect her anymore. When she displeases Fuma, Sora gives his life to spare her from Fuma's wrath, which would not have happened had she not defected.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, Astral uses the Trope name word-for-word to describe how Numbers holder Shuta Hayami is able to predict the future; he manipulates events so that his predictions - which are bad for his victims - come true via their own actions.
- Very nearly occurred with Hiei of YuYu Hakusho. A prophecy held that he would destroy the village of his birth, so he was cast out to die. He survived and, driven by deep-seated anger over being cast aside, returned to destroy the village. Only seeing the misery of the village stayed his hand.
