There’s this odd trope, which I have now come across in several examples of weird-dark Japanese fantasy, and never even slightly in anything from any other cultural source:

The gestalt masses of humanity, as a collective, made a wish.  Because of their corrupt and sinful nature, they wished for something really fucking terrible.  This wish was granted, and gave rise to a super-creepy evil entity that serves as the Metaphysical Big Bad of the narrative, standing in for “everything that is wrong with society.” 

This is specifically something much stronger than the “so long as there is darkness in men’s hearts, I will survive” trope.  The demon isn’t just feeding off of human badness, or reflecting it, in some nebulous way; it rules precisely because, at least on some level, people want it to rule and called it into being so that it might do so.

I’m not going to go into details, because in almost every case it would involve a huge spoiler for the work in question, but this pattern perfectly describes:

* Persona 5

* Berserk

* Fate/zero

* Paranoia Agent

…and even, to a lesser extent, Revolutionary Girl Utena.

(I feel like I’m missing a couple of salient examples here, but these will do for now.)

I am not sure what to make of this.  It bespeaks a sort of reflexive super-ultra-cynicism about humanity, a contempt for the People, that I think of as being very much at odds with the standard fantasy feeling of “the nameless faceless People are the source of all legitimacy and virtue, which is why the good guys have to fight and die for them.”  Is it just, like, a random cached concept that cropped up in one particular place?  Is this a reflection of weirdo Japanese auteurs feeling really hemmed-in by a more-than-usually conformist culture?  

Is there a TVTropes page for this that I can’t find?

I have no answers right now, just questions.  But…it seemed worth making note of the pattern.