The Corruption / Anime & Manga

• Bleach: Hollowfication is the insertion of Hollow reiryoku into a Shinigami soul and blending it with their original reiryoku to grant the Shinigami a massive power boost. However, the process also destroys their sense of self and eventually causes their soul to self-destruct unless given a vaccination derived from Human and Quincy reiryoku. Those who survive the process can learn how to master their hollowfication by defeating the Anthropomorphic Personification of their Superpowered Evil Side. However, Quincies have no natural defense against hollow taint and will die unless given a vaccination of Human and Shinigami reiryoku.
• In Claymore, being turned into a Claymore is much like this. In fact one of the requirements for being a Claymore is heroic will power, without it you lose control of the power and Awaken into an extremely powerful monster.
• Digimon:
  • Digimon Adventure: The Black Gears would cause any Digimon they possess to become berserk. Additionally, a memorable moment in Adventure was when Tai tried to force Greymon to reach Ultimate level so he could defeat Etemon resulting in Agumon digivolving into his corrupted Ultimate form, SkullGreymon.
  • Digimon Adventure 02: Greymon becomes SkullGreymon again when the Digimon Emperor captures him using a Dark Ring and tries to make him digivolve into MetalGreymon. After some tests with the newly improved Dark Spiral, the Emperor is able to make Agumon digivolve into a corrupted form of MetalGreymon called MetalGreymon (Virus). Ironically, it was later revealed that the Emperor himself was the victim of a corruption in the form of a Dark Spore.
  • Digimon: The Movie: Part 2 of the movie, a dub of Our War Game, has a Digimon get infested with a computer virus which causes it to start causing all manner of chaos across the internet. Part 3 reveals that the virus has now found a new host in Kokomon, one half of a an American Digidestined's pair of Digimon twins.
  • Digimon Tamers: Perhaps the most terrifying example of the corruption of a partner Digimon came in the form of Megidramon. When Leomon is killed by Beezlemon, Takato's rage causes Guilmon (who is already a virus type) to become a large, terrifying red dragon. What made Megidramon so terrifying is that he could destroy the digital world just by ''existing''. Fortunately, Jeri was able to snap Takato and Guilmon back to normal.
  • Digimon Data Squad: The first time ShineGreymon mode changes, it was into Ruin Mode, a corrupted version of the true Burst Mode. This occurred during ShineGreymon's battle with MirageGaogamon when Marcus' dark emotions, fueled by his belief that his friend Thomas turned on them and joined Kurata, caused ShineGreymon to go through Burst Digivolution. ShineGreymon Ruin Mode went out of control until it regressed back to Koromon's Digi-Egg.
• In Freezing, the Stigma that grants the Pandoras the amazing powers they use to fight against the Novas is essentially Nova tissue. The risk of the Corruption taking over a Pandora is actually pretty low since Pandoras only have a few Stigmas attached to them. The people in charge of Pandora development came up with this policy after one Pandora with about twenty Stigmas fell victim to the Corruption and became a Nova. This Pandora was the protagonist's older sister, Kazuha. Since Kazuya has a similar "Stigma body" (the reason he can use "Freezing" without first forming a bond to a Pandora), Yumi Kim is concerned that he might suffer the same fate. The Novas can also force the Corruption to take over the Pandoras by eating them.
  • And now the people in charge want to see if the Corruption can be controlled and weaponized after the main character forced herself into Nova Mode and managed to bring herself back. Two Pandora veterans are horrified at this idea as they saw what happened to the aforementioned Pandora with the twenty Stigmas.
• Happens to Yomi in Ga-Rei at least a couple of times, because a Sesshouseki possessed her.
• Holoearth Chronicles Side:E ~Yamato Phantasia~: Stigma is a black miasma that appears from the negative emotions, periodically turning people Brainwashed and Crazy and ruining the land. Continuous stress can make a person possessed by animal Ayakashi that matches their behavior.
• In King of Thorn, Medusa usually causes the victim to be Taken for Granite. However, in certain people it brings on other types of Body Horror: a Lovecraftian Superpower at best, a One-Winged Angel at worst.
• An episode of Kirby: Right Back at Ya! featured the titular pink blob possessed by a corruption-inducing frog. The result was not pretty.
• Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force has the Eclipse virus (which is not The Virus, despite its name), which grants the infected Anti-Magic and insane regenerative powers, at the price of slowly losing their sanity unless they regularly kill people. And that's only if you're lucky. Most people that are exposed to it just die.
• Magical Project S - Pixy Misa is a part of Misao that she's not aware of, and gradually is growing stronger. After the Big Reveal and a Journey to the Center of the Mind, they start to integrate.
• Dark chips in MegaMan NT Warrior (2002).
• Naruto:
  • The cursed seals provided by Orochimaru, Sasuke's being a prominent example.
  • Hatred is also portrayed as this throughout the series, with the Cycle of Revenge being portrayed as a mix between a Hate Plague and The Virus.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi's Black Magic seems to be like this, giving superpowers while slowly turning poor Negi into a demon, with side effects of acute magical poisoning from the negative emotions it enhances; the further the poisoning and transformation progress, the more the Power Incontinence springs up. Played with in that he doesn't really mind, citing that he's "too upbeat" for it to kill him with negative emotion poisoning, and he already knows at least one literal Noble Demon.
• Pokémon:
  • In Pokémon Adventures, just touching the Red and Blue Orbs will potentially turn you mindlessly insane, and holding them for too long will cause you to become crazy psycho-killers under the control of Groudon and Kyogre, with the Orbs themselves fusing into your body. Ruby and Sapphire had to train their minds so that they would not succumb to this fate.
  • A very similar thing happens in Pokémon: The Series, too. The Blue and Red Orbs also absorb into whoever holds them for long enough. Pikachu becomes possessed by the Blue Orb, which causes him to go insane and electrocute everyone around him and obsess over helping Groudon defeat Kyogre. Archie also gets possessed by the Red Orb.
• The plot of Princess Mononoke begins when Ashitaka is attacked and infected by a corrupted boar-god. While Walking the Earth, he discovers that his infected arm has supernatural strength and a will of its own. It will eventually kill him.
• The Raven's blood in Princess Tutu grants those who are affected with it dark powers, but also twists their personality to be crueler and more selfish. Prolonged exposure ends with them turning into anthropomorphic crows and being completely under the control of the Raven himself.
• When a Magical Girl uses her magic in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, her Soul Gem darkens. She must take a Grief Seed and use it to cleanse the gem, because if she doesn't, the Soul Gem will keep getting darker...until it eventually darkens completely and becomes a Grief Seed itself, resulting in the magical girl becoming a Witch herself. The worst part? No matter how long they do it, all magical girls will eventually fall to the corruption, becoming witches. Also, since the darkness in the Soul Gem appears to be grief, a Magical Girl who fails to cleanse hers will become gradually more and more desperate and broken until her eventual transformation. The only way to stop it? Either die before this can happen, or use your wish to destroy the Corruption and ensure that no one has to become a Witch (this latter one requires phenomenal magical potential since it alters the very laws of the universe).
• The Ride-On King: The majority of the Holy Kingdom is taken over by the corrupted flesh, which is an ever-growing colony of meat parasytes that feed on Mana and make their hosts aggressive.
• An odd case in Rosario + Vampire: vampire blood injected into a wounded person will at first heal them and temporarily grant them vampiric powers, but repeated doses will begin to eat away at their body and mind. The result isn't pretty.
• In Shy the Big Bad puts rings on people who force their wearer to bring out their deepest and darkest emotions like anger or self-loathing. They also materialize these emotions on the outside, making their hosts undergo a Painful Transformation which turns them into a monster. Fortunately, the effects can be reversed if the ring is removed.
• The Black Blood is used in Soul Eater to create an Eldritch Abomination. It infects the Dark Magical (insert gender here) and the two lead characters, radically increasing their power and risk of explosive insanity.
  • Strong manifestations of madness such as powerful potential Kishin and Asura, the real deal, can even warp the minds of others. However, you're more likely to just hallucinate and be prone (or in Stein's case, more prone) to acts of violence. Running into one of them, namely the Clown, is one of the possible explanations for the Face–Heel Turn of Justin Law. It is the first proper example of Stein's claim that "madness is contagious" and that Asura's wavelength can corrupt previously normal people.
• Using magic in Strait Jacket gradually turns the caster into a demon. The titular jacket is designed to prevent this from happening to demon hunters but isn't foolproof.
• In Umi Monogatari, Sedna's influence is signified by too-bright or red eyes.
• Uzumaki… good lord. The spirals are coming to turn you into a snail...
  • Gyo. GYAAAAH. you mean GASHUNK
• In the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Zorc Necrophades (the Final Boss of the Shadow RPG) is this to Thief King Bakura, Akhenaden, and anything that has a piece of his soul in it, as he will eventually consume and replace them. The spirit of the Millennium Ring "Dark Bakura" began as that of Thief King Bakura, but ended as Zorc.
  • In the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, half the people get corrupted in one form or another. The Seal Of Orichalcos is the best example, with it corrupting monsters even, giving them red eyes, an evil grin, and 500 extra attack points, and making the holograms real, among other things. Yugi plays the Seal during one match to force Yami out of the mental rut he'd gotten into in Yugi's absence.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh!: Capsule Monsters, the Millennium Ring aided Alexander's thirst for power and drove him mad.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions, the Millennium Ring brings out the darkness in Mani and Aigami's hearts, leading them to try and kill Ryo Bakura even after he explains that he didn't kill Shadi.
• The Light of Destruction in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. It's responsible for corrupting the big bads of season 2 and 3.
• Numbers do this to their owners in Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL. Number Hunters need magical or technological aid to resist their influence (like the Emperor's Key in Yuma's case, or the Photon Transformation in Kaito's).

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