Eldritch Abomination/Anime and Manga

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On the left - the Moon. On the right - Hellstar Remina and its tongue.

Examples of Eldritch Abominations in Anime and Manga include:

Naruto

• The bijuu qualify to an extent. Enormous, self-sustaining masses of chakra that take on a form vaguely reminiscent of traditional demons due to the Rikudo Sennin's jutsus, in their natural states they are generally likened to natural disasters. The only real upside with them is that they're generally too dumb to use their power effectively. By that merit, the 10-Tailed beast they originate from is a creature which seems to endanger the world by merely existing. A skilled jinchuuriki can focus that power and use it intelligently, making it fortunate that the three mentioned below didn't have any human allies with them.
• The Shukaku, Gyuki, and Kurama all seem to be able to control their abilities to their full effect. Shukaku was able to fight with Gamabunta, a Godzilla-sized Toad, without even breaking a sweat after being fully released, and in the desert, unless you have the Fourth Kazekage's Gold Dust, it's damn near impossible to stop. Gyuki, even before showing it was highly intelligent, was a massively strong beast who'd rampage regularly in Kumogakure, killing many shinobi and devastating the village. And Kurama is self-explanatory.^[context?] Son Goku, the Yonbi or Four-Tailed Monkey, is also in complete control of his power. It's also mentioned that all Tailed Beasts have names given to them by the Rikudo Sennin himself - Shukaku, Son Goku, and Kurama (the Kyubi) are the only ones known. And according to the Hachibi, they have feelings.
• The first Naruto Shippuden movie features a being known as Moryo, who is implied to be created from the dark intentions in the hearts of humanity and is capable of causing the end of the world.
• The Zero Tail, a purple worm No Face Expy with the ability of regeneration and growing multiple arms. Also created from the darkness within people's hearts.
• In Naruto Shippuden episode 227, we are presented with an attempt to create the Ultimate Summoning Animal. The thing was a failure that only wished to eat any other giant animal around and consumed chakra, as well as replicating the abilities of the creatures it ate - including ninjas and their ninjutsu. It doesn't help that its face looks too much like our favorite eldritch abomination; it even uses Combat Tentacles.
• The fifth Naruto Shippuden movie has a giant, headless bird-like creature with a mouth on its chest that has bones protruding from it, and only a spine connecting its upper and lower body.

The works of Go Nagai

Often overlapping with Giant Space Flea From Nowhere.

• The Great Emperor of Darkness, also known as Hades, is the Big Bad of Great Mazinger).
• Gilgilgan from the Great Mazinger vs. Getter Robo movie.^[context?]
• Grangen of the Great Mazinger vs. Getter Robo G feature).^[context?]
• Dragonsaurus from Grendizer, Getter Robot G and Great Mazinger: Kessen! Daikaijuu.^[context?]
• The Big Bad of Super Robo Retsuden.^[context?]
• In the Shin Mazinger Zero manga, Mazinger Z itself.
• Shin Getter Robo, created by Go Nagai and Ken Ishikawa, gives us an example that is immensely powerful. Its sheer size dwarfs planets, its mere passing destroys worlds, and it is rumored to be capable of devouring a whole universe. One single beam can blow a planet to cosmic dust, and its fist can tear the fabric of time-space. Vast armies have stood against it and fallen without inflicting so much as a scratch. Its name? Getter Emperor, the final evolution of Getter Robo. As stated by the narration: "The voice that quakes the universe itself was indeed that of Ryoma Nagare."

Fullmetal Alchemist

In the manga, Pride, Gluttony, and Envy qualify for this, when they show their ugly sides, anyway.

• • Much more Pride: the other homunculi call him a monster. When he isn't masquerading as a little boy, specifically Selim Bradley, his form is that of a mass of shadows filled with eyes and mouths, which often rears up in the form of Combat Tentacles. In other words, imagine a less powerful version of Alucard.
  • Their creator, Father, even more so. He originally looked like Pride (well, except for the "human young boy" part). He was just a black blob with eyes in a flask labeled "Homunculus". Then he got a copy of Hohenheim's body. Then he turned into a living blob of shadow covered with eyes and mouths that assumes a mostly human form, and in Chapter 104, it goes Up to Eleven: after activating the nationwide transmutation circle and absorbing the souls of everyone in Amestris, Father transforms into an immensely magnified version of his previous, already disturbing form, with added physical characteristics reminiscent of the zombie soldiers that debuted in earlier chapters. He then uses this additional size to rip God from the sky and cross the Bishounen Line to become a Humanoid Abomination Physical God.
• The Gate of Truth, which appears a giant floating Necronomicon with a large eye inside that spews black tentacles. and gives eldritch lore in return for sacrificing your limbs or others' souls. It's guarded by a being that calls itself the Truth, which appears to be nothing more than an empty white void in the shape of you... Unless you go through the gate and are forced to pay a toll, in which case he begins to fill himself in with your stolen body parts. Every time Ed sees The Truth, it has his arm and leg. Add the constant too-wide grin and he's unnerving in his own way.

Digimon

• In Digimon Tamers, the D-Reaper is a data-disposal program that was plugged into cosmic power. To fulfill its objective - a null-state for everything - it mutated into more and more alien forms, all inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos and mixed correspondingly with designs of the Angels from Evangelion. It got worse when it became aware of humans as entities: it tapped into the agony and pain of one little girl, amplifying and becoming The Heartless while turning quite, quite insane by anyone's standard. Also noteworthy in that it is both man-made and technological in origin, which is extremely rare.
• Guilmon started off as a friendly Kaiju-like behemoth - but his 'natural' 'Mega' form, Megidramon, is a Super-Powered Evil Side and such an abomination that its very existence tears apart the digital world - as such, Megidramon is the most powerful Digimon in any of the digital universes.
• Apocalymon from Digimon Adventure probably also counts, being a twisted mutant whose body is attached to an enormous geometric planetoid, and is composed of the data of Digimon who died failing to digivolve. He also seems to reside outside the Digital World proper (coming from beyond the "Wall of Fire") and his very presence in the Digital World warped it, causing its time to flow at a different rate to the Real World and creating powerful evil Digimon.
• The Digimon Adventure 02 episode where Kari gets taken by weird fishlike Digimon to the Dark Ocean is also a rather obvious reference to the Mythos. They want to give Kari over to their master, Dagomon (who, despite being seen only as a shadowy form, is eerily similar to Cthulhu), and when she refuses, those fish Digimon change into shadowy...things that may not be Digimon at all. Well, the episode just happens to named The Call of Dagomon. Despite the ominous ending of the episode, as well as repeat appearances by the Dark Ocean later in the season, Dagomon himself never showed up again.
• Chaosmon, Chronomon Destroyer Mode, and Lucemon among countless others...^[context?]

Yu-Gi-Oh!

• Leviathan of the Waking the Dragons arc in the fourth season is an Eldritch Abomination born from spatial phenomena that was responsible for the destruction of Atlantis.
• Zorc Necrophades is an ancient demonic monster created by the darkness in human hearts who plans to bury the world in darkness.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX has the Light of Ruin that the Society of Light is built around, which was born from spatial phenomena with no purpose but to doom the universe under their whims. Judai's Neospacians reminded him that the Light of Ruin was a literal danger to all the cosmos.
• The Earthbound Gods (AKA Earthbound Immortals/Jibakushin) from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's are evil entities sealed into the Nazca Lines, and a serious threat to the protagonists. Even the sillier-looking ones such as the googly-eyed lizard Ccarayhua would probably give small children nightmares, and can eat you if you push its owner too far. And apparently, they're all just Mooks compared to the King of the Underworld, but they decided that plot point wasn't important.

Bleach

• Aaroniero Arruruerie, in his normal ^{[dead link]} and released forms. Another example comes from Seigen Suzunami ^{[dead link]}. After eating a Menos Grande, he turned into this. After eating three more Menos Grande, he went into that.
• Aizen's Hogyoku-fueled transformations are seriously deformed. This is the final result.
• The thing from the third movie that is an obvious homage to Cthulhu.
• Muramasa from the filler saga, who also ate a Hollow similar to Seigen, and turns into this.

Other works

• Raphaello from B't X is a homebrew version of this: amorphous, constantly growing, Nigh Invulnerable, and assimilating everything in its path.
• The various Vampire Princess Miyu continuities use Eldritch Abominations as Monsters of the Week... and the leading Dark Magical Girl.
• Soul Eater has the Great Old Ones/Warlords, who are for either this or Humanoid Abominations in appearance. They're anthropomorphic personifications of madness of various kinds (i.e order/rule of law, terror, power, rage, knowledge). Asura is likely 'terror' and Eibon 'knowledge'. Shinigami and Kid are both 'order'. The same section of the manga basically confirms that Excalibur is one of these as well, representing Rage.
  • Another possible example is Kishin Asura before he puts his skin back on as well as his superpowered, gargantuan form that emerges after consuming the soul of Lady Arachne. Fitting, as he is the aforementioned Warlord of terror's madness.
• In Berserk, the Godhand, many, many Apostles, and some Qliphoth creatures count as Eldritch Abominations, being thoroughly unnatural creatures who are all extremely powerful. However, most of the more powerful Apostles seen (Zodd, Grunbeld, Locus, and later Irvine) are not Eldritch Abominations, interestingly. There is also Shiva, the form that Emperor Ganishka took during his final battle with Midland.
  • That being said, they subvert the aspect of a traditional cosmic horror in that, unlike the normally unfeeling monstrosity you expect, they are intimately connected to and interested with humanity. Considering the kind of world they inhabit, who some of them are and the means that created them, none of this is a good thing at all.
  • The "sea-god" monstrosity from the latest^[when?] arc is definitely one as well; it even seems to be a deliberate Shout-Out to H.P. Lovecraft.
  • The entity who created and rules over the Godhand, The Idea of Evil. The chapter where it's seen may have been removed due to The Reveal being too early in the manga, but absolutely nothing so far disproves its canon status.
• The Angels from Neon Genesis Evangelion are Eldritch Abominations, each one more abstract and bizarre than the last. With one or possibly two exceptions. By extension, this also applies to the Evas and Rei. But the Angels seen in the original series are mere shadows in comparison to the true abominations: Adam and Lilith. The awakening of Lilith, as seen in End of Evangelion, was such pure Mind Screw that it surpassed everything else seen in the series combined.
  • Their bizarre nature is brought Up to Eleven in the Rebuild films, where they are animated using CG, which makes them appear even more unnatural than usual. Ramiel and Sahaquiel are the most notable of the Angels for this, while Zeruel and Bardiel are more conventionally animated while being no less horrific in nature. Special note goes to Ramiel for the impossible transformations it goes through to utterly destroy the surrounding landscape, which are honestly mind-boggling to watch.
  • An Awakened Unit-01 could also qualify, especially considering it curb stomped Zuruel - who only moments before had been wrecking everything Nerv could send at it.
• Urotsukidouji, in the "naughty tentacles" sense.^[context?]
• The eponymous demon beast from Demon Beast Invasion became this late in the series after constant Retcons. It starts out just being a single member of a native Earth species that was driven off millions of years ago by changes in the planet's living conditions who sought to recolonise their old home through rather unpleasant means, but ends up a colossal transdimensional monstrosity capable of sending a space station into a space-time void zone. Bonus points for having a cult dedicated to it by that point.
• A common theory is that Guu of Haré+Guu is one of these. She's rather cute and seemingly benign (if mischievous), but the shadowy, formless thing which may or may not be her true form bears a rather Lovecraftian air.
• The Big Bads of the first, second, third, and fifth story arcs of Sailor Moon: Queen Metalia, Death Phantom, Pharaoh 90, and Chaos. Pharaoh 90 and Chaos are even closer to this trope in the anime; the manga allowed them to speak at least, but the anime took away any human features, making them completely alien and unknowable.
• Majin Buu of Dragonball Z. This bizarre pink genie creature has terrorized the universe and cowed the gods themselves, and can transform you into conscious food while eating you alive, or absorb you by using its own malleable flesh to break off and consume you as it reintegrates with him and transforms into a new form, taking some of the traits of the victims (which includes several of the Kais). When sufficiently enraged, he can tear down dimensions.
• The Nightwalker in Princess Mononoke may be enormous and scary to humans, but it isn't an Eldritch Abomination proper until its head is removed.
• The Hiruken Emperor from Xam'd: Lost Memories certainly qualifies. Not only does it have an unsettling and unnatural appearance, it blots out the sun when it awakens, and brings a rain that turns every living thing it touches to stone. We later find out that it's the product of a failed attempt at resurrecting a dead infant by using Hiruko technology.
• Alucard in Hellsing is gradually revealed to be one of these as the series progresses. Sure, he's mostly some variation of humanoid, but then there's the times when parts of him transform into an amorphous void full of demonic eyes and teeth that tend to turn even fellow monsters into gibbering, pants-wetting wrecks. This finally culminates in him becoming a tide of blood large enough to drown a city. Turns out, all those eyes are the eyes of every person he's ever eaten, including several entire armies.
  • Do note that "amorphous blob of darkness and eyes" is one description of Samael, the Angel of Death. Alucard is directly compared to Samael on at least one occasion.
  • Schrodinger is certainly less intimidating, but arguably even more eldritch. He exists, as he says, "everywhere and nowhere", although only in one place at a time. Shooting him in the head leads to him simply showing up elsewhere an instant later. In one instance, he sends a message by simply appearing inside another person's mind. Then Alucard eats Schrodinger.
• The works of Junji Ito verge into this territory constantly.
  • The short manga called Hellstar Remina contains the titular Remina... a gigantic, planet-eating star that has several eyes and a tongue and freely toys with the earth's rotation! The surface of the star itself can be described as nothing more than an Eldritch Location with a(n un)healthy side of Death World.
  • In Uzumaki, the intelligent ruins hidden under the lake Beneath the Earth are impossibly ancient and the sole force responsible for the curse of the spirals and all the insanity, mutations, and deaths (and worse) throughout the manga - and they have done so before and will do it again, probably for as long as there is sentient life on the planet.
• The Space Monsters of Gunbuster. They're huge, mysterious, hatch from stars, and possibly see mankind as a bacterial infection in the universe. The only thing that has kept us safe is not being noticed, but we just had to keep poking into outer space. Not to mention the center of our galaxy is full of them, whatever that implies. To top it off, this is just the first batch encountered.
  • We find out in the sequel that they're harder to kill than initially thought. Black holes merely trap them, and they will eventually adapt to and take over that environment. Even after the ridiculously awesome victories in the original, humanity had to give up the fight, ban all technology that could get the Monsters' attention, and safely hole up in the solar system. It bought time...against mere remnants of the original. Sacrificing the Earth would trap them again, while the means to actually kill them endangers the entire universe. Which even gives us a healthy side order of He Who Fights Monsters, especially as mankind is evolving to resemble them.
  • Taken as canon, the axed manga that would happen in between supplies plenty of reasons for the sequel's scenario. If the creatures so far are mere space antibodies, then the Great Attractor turns out to be the conscious will of the universe. Being able to crush star systems with a thought is bad enough, but its body exists on a higher dimension that humans and their technology cannot perceive through. And it has long ago shed that to become god knows what. When the whole universe is a cosmic horror, it's not just time to stop exploring. It means all of mankind's victories are merely delaying the inevitable, using up its resources and sacrificing even its best weapons and champions to desperately extend its existence.
• Heroman has Vine Monsters in one episode that seem to evoke this trope; as it turns out, the Vines are of Alien origin and a part of the Big Bad, Kogorr, who is himself an Eldritch Abomination when he's gotten the spheres he sent back to himself; he's also eaten several worlds, and we're shown the worlds he had consumed.
• In Baccano!!, the "demon" summoned on the Advena Avis, Ronnie Suchiart, is heavily implied to be closer to this than an actual demon. It's also implied that he Was Once a Man.
• The Shinigami King from Death Note was never seen in the anime. But a brief flashback in the manga reveals he looks like this.
• The Novas of Freezing. Their Combat Tentacles and Wave Motion Guns aside, how they can crush and subvert Pandoras is down right terrifying. They are Nigh Invulnerable even against Pandoras (which are humanity's only defense against them), leaving corpses and dismemberment in their wake, but what really makes them frightening is how they can brainwash the Pandoras. The Pandoras have bandage-tentacles suddenly wrapped around their limbs (or heads!), corrupting them inside out, and are absorbed into the main bodies, turning them into mini-Novas. In contrast to a lot of 'abomination' stories where humanity wakes them up, the Novas subvert this by declaring war on us for no other reason than sadism. What they do to the Pandoras just shows they are an entire race of Complete Monsters.
• The true form of Witches in Puella Magi Madoka Magica. The fact that they're what Magical Girls inevitably become when they fall makes it worse. Kyubey (aka Incubator) might also count.
• One Piece:
  • The sixth movie, Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, has the Lily Carnation, especially in its true, grotesque form.
  • In the manga, it is heavily implied at the end of the Thriller Bark arc that one of these still resides in the Florian Triangle. Beforehand, we learned that ships kept disappearing when they entered it. Later, we learned Gekko Moriah set up shop there, and it seems like that was it, but at the end of the Arc, a massive figure emerges from the mist. What's worse is it hasn't been addressed since and is (so far, knowing Oda) Left Hanging. (Considering his love of Chekhov's Tropes, however...)
• Star Driver: Samekh. Sure, it's a Humongous Mecha, incredibly big even when compared to other Cybodies and scary looking, but that's far from being worthy the name of Eldritch Abomination, right? Well... it's of alien origin, sentient, and capable of resisting its Driver's will. It can destroy most Cybodies effortlessly, and those who are already broken can be resurrected as its slaves. It was sealed in Another Dimension by using four powerful Maiden Cybodies, and once it breaks free, it will consume Earth's entire life force, killing every single life form on the planet. It can also control time and space at full power.
• The Anti-Spirals from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are this, having godlike powers that break the laws of physics. They live in a pocket dimension of their own creation (within which they're even more powerful), and can create living battle ships as they wish that're all pretty scary in different ways, power-draining oceans in the middle of space, trap people into a Lotus Eater Machine at will, instantaneous create galaxy-sized Humongous Mecha without using Spiral Power, and have very creepy forms similiar to a Living Shadow. Worth noting that they were actually a normal race that evolved themselves into an ultra-powerful Hive Mind. Though, in a form of general subversion, they are actually beings of order, or at least see themselves as such - not to mention that they are animated entirely in CGI to show how truly alien they are.
  • The Anti-Spirals actually consider beings with Spiral Power to be this - Spiral Energy has the ability to potentially end the universe.
  • The titular mech as well. It can only exist in a special space between dimensions, is impossibly large, and both it and the Grand Zamboa are able to weaponize galaxies. It's pretty much a giant robot that doubles as an Energy Being.
• God in Devilman. We don't see how it really looks, but its chosen form is apparently a huge sphere of light that kills any demon in its reach and turns any human who gets too close to it into salt - not to mention Satan suffering a breakdown just from looking at it on TV. Which is understandable, since the reason why the Devilman-verse in all its incarnations is such a Happy Fun Place is because God has total control over the cycle of death and rebirth of the universe and uses it for the sole purpose of torturing Satan by crushing and ruining all he cares about over and over and over.
• The Destroyer from Claymore. Born from the Fusion Dance of two powerful beings, it has no sense of self or even attachment to life and expelled all of its emotion when it awoke, which was described as "life itself spilling out" by one of the spectators. Its true form is a black, shapeshifting tar-like mass of bodies that sucks out the life from anything it touches, and its energy is described as otherwordly and overwhelming. It also shoots things that either infect those they hit or turn into monsters.
  • Priscilla also qualifies, being the strongest damn thing in the Claymore-verse: Clare had to fuse with the Destroyer to have any chance of beating her!
• The Ghoul from Divergence Eve, bizarre extradimensional maybe-biomechanical space monsters whose presence screws with space-time something fierce.
• The dark Magitek of the Wischtech Empire in Ubel Blatt so far seems to be focused on either creating abominations or bestowing Lovecraftian Superpowers. Bonus points for its truly nightmarish use of Human Resources.
• The denizens of the Dark World in Wicked City. While most can at least appear human if they want, they all have a slew of Lovecraftian Superpowers and most have horrific true forms.
• Emperor Muge Zorbados, the Big Bad of Super Robot series Dancougar.^[context?]
• Rosario + Vampire:
  • Alucard. He was originally a vampire who achieved so much power that he became a nigh-invincible monstrous being (with a Xenomorph head) and went on a rampage that nearly destroyed the human world, if it wasn't for the intervention of another superpowered vampire (Moka's mom).
  • Tsukune is on the verge of becoming a second Alucard and is already veering dangerously close to Humanoid Abomination territory.
• The title being of Gankutsuou, probably one of the creepiest anime abominations out there.^[context?]
• From the Nasuverse, there are the Ultimate Ones, embodiments of the planets, which hit nearly every point of this trope. Although the specifics vary, they are typically enormous, unkillable, alter the fundamental nature of reality in their vicinity just by existing, and have thought processes that are completely incomprehensible to us Puny Earthlings. Oh, and the reason they came to Earth at all was to wipe out humanity as revenge for killing Gaia.
  • Some of the Dead Apostle Ancestors, such as the Forest of Einnashe, Primate Murder, and Tatari, also fit here, which makes sense, given that vampires in the Nasuverse originate from Brunestud of the Crimson Moon, which is one of the aforementioned Ultimate Ones, although it is rather more human in appearance than the others. The most powerful Dead Apostle Ancestor, ORT, actually isn't descended from Brunestud; it's itself an Ultimate One, who was lumped in with the other ancestors when the previous placeholder (itself extremely powerful) discovered its resting place, and was annihilated like a bug for disturbing it.
  • Fate/stay night has Angra Mainyu once he possesses the Grail. Sure, in Fate/hollow ataraxia he takes a vaguely human form, but in the main game, all we see of him is the black mud he spews forth and a tangle of limbs and eyes emerging from the Grail. The thing is, he's a human-made Eldritch Abomination, created by villagers in the distant past who decided that they wanted someone to embody all the sins of mankind so they wouldn't have any sins. They got exactly what they asked for: a being literally made of every sin mankind ever has, ever will, and ever could commit. And not too unlike the folkloric Angra Mainyu, it hates all mankind with a passion for forcing it to take this role.
• The Gods and Demons from Ah! My Goddess are shown to be this. Though they mostly look like humans (some of them, notably Urd and Peorth, are vain and prefer looking like humans), they assume those forms when they come to grant a wish to humans because their true forms are incomprehensible.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's has the Darkness: an immortal, dimension-hopping, dimension-breaking, constantly morphing, bio-mechanical monstrosity that appears when you fill up all 666 pages of the Book of Darkness. If you manage to temporarily kill it, it will only rejuvenate in another dimension, where it will tempt another mage to fill up the pages of the Book of Darkness again, allowing it to be unsealed and go on another rampage. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid showed through flashbacks that, during the time of the Ancient Belka War when it was most active, doomsday cults worshipped it as a god. The scariest part? Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears Of Destiny revealed that the Book of Darkness was originally created by the Precursors as a seal for an even worse Eldritch Abomination called the Unbreakable Darkness.
• Yaiba has Princess Kaguya's true form, which looks like a colossal, black blob with many hydra-bunnyish heads and huge grins. Then there's Yamata no Orochi, an eight-headed, Japan-sized dragon that can erase whole countries in a matter of seconds.
• The Noise from Senki Zesshou Symphogear - they have multiple forms, seems to be made of soild light, annihilate their victims by just touching them, are capable of combining, and the only thing that can kill them is Symphogear users, because they resonate with Noise and force them to obey the laws of physics.
• Hakaiju is a condensed collection of different alien atrocities wrapped together in one Cosmic Horror Story in the form of a mysterious earthquake that leaves high school basketball player Takashiro fighting for his survival. The first chapter has the unlucky protagonist encountering what is basically a writhing mass of alien, three-fingered hands with biting mouths at their tips - which, as the last panel shows, may be connected to an even larger creature. This video reviewing the manga shows that it will only get worse.
• Nyaruko: Crawling with Love, AKA what happens when you try to make a Moe Anthropomorphism of Nyarlathotep.
• Pokémon anime:
  • In Pokémon: Jirachi Wishmaker, the villain Butler attempts to create a Groudon using Jirachi's wish granting powers. The result is a bizarre demon that looks like Groudon, but it's pretty easy to tell it's not.

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