Batman Gambit/Anime and Manga


 * Light uses this technique in Death Note by having Misa and himself give up control of the Death Note to another individual to throw L off his track and clear his and Misa's names. The plan is uncannily successful, and ultimately as a result.
 * "Just as planned!"
 * In the movie, however, things go differently:
 * What's particularly notable about the manga example is that technically the person whose actions Light is anticipating is himself. And it's not even really himself, but rather what he would have been had he never found the Death Note. In other words, he has to anticipate just what he would have done and how he would have acted had he never found the Death Note, do the same process with Misa, work in how L and the gang would react to that, and then work in how the as of yet to him unknown corporate executive is going to act, and then figure out how everyone's going to react to that.
 * At which point it really becomes Gambit Roulette.
 * He also knew that if the plan had failed, he would have been safe and lived, although not as Kira, because  would be caught and blamed for everything. Light would then be off the hook and live his life out normally... though, as the movie shows,.
 * L staves off many episodes using this technique, in fact his entire operation in the first half could probably be summed up as this. Serial killer eliminating prisoners all over the world through methods unseen, unheard, and untraceable? Set yourself up on television so that Kira will attempt to make a move against you. Before he does that, make sure the broadcast is isolated in the single region where similar killings were determined to have started. Thus, since your substitute was killed in that area and was killed in the same way as many others, that person must be in that area, watching TV at some point, and must only be able to kill with a name and a face. Needless to say, Light is thoroughly whipped by this.
 * The next part of L's operation also did this. There was no way to witness Kira physically, but L made extreme observation of his killing patterns and even formed a "personality profile" off of it. When he whittled this down to Light Yagami, he decided to meet Light in college. And how did he introduce himself? Telling Light that he was the detective hunting Kira, and knowing subconsciously that there was no way Light could do anything about it. He then matches Kira's characteristics - childishness, poor sportsmanship - with Light's regular behaviors. As the investigation winds down and lines have been drawn, L even delves into Genre Savvy by warning his investigation team that should he be killed within a certain timespan, they should follow his original assumption that Light IS Kira.
 * Izaya Orihara of Durarara oozes this trope like a fountain. He has stated that it is solely for his own amusement, but there is no denying that his manipulative capabilities over the residents of Ikebukuro are amazing. Few have been able to work their way around his plans.
 * The only person Izaya opts to work his way around is Shizu-chan.
 * The character Joseph Joestar in part 2 of the manga Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure states that him drawing the character Cars to be on top of the volcano when it erupts in the final battle was all part of an elaborate battle strategy. However, this is quickly thrown out the window seconds later when Joseph's inner thoughts reveal that Cars standing there when the volcano erupted was just a coincidence, and the Joseph simply didn't want it to look like he only won due to a fluke.
 * Jotaro is good at this. He showed us how by outwitting Daniel J D'arby in a high stakes with souls on the line. Jotaro not only caught D'arby off guard with various call outs, but raised the stakes higher than D'arby could believe, eventually coming to a head when D'arby subconsciously admitted defeat.
 * The Major pulled one against Alucard in Hellsing. Recognizing Alucard's and his master's style, he fabricated an emergency by having several traitor vampires slaughter the entire population of a VTOL warship, and sent one of Millennium's core lieutenants there to apparently trap and kill Alucard when he was sent to deal with the situation. Instead, everybody in the ship was to be the trap to lock him in the destroyed warship when he inevitably slaughtered the entire squad, as vampires cannot cross water. While Alucard used his powers to psychically drag the damaged ship to the Thames, the Major's army had already slaughtered London and forced a Catholic-Protestant-vampire war in the burning city, making him too late to stop it.
 * The entire plot of the Ghost in The Shell movie is one big Batman Gambit by an opponent aptly called the Puppetmaster.
 * Mazinger Z: Kouji Kabuto from Mazinger Z used several throughout the whole trilogy, manipulating his enemies to make right what he wanted, often mixing them with Crazy Enough to Work. For example, in one chapter a Mechanical Beast -Kirma K5- sliced a chunk of one Mazinger-Z's wing during an aerial battle. Kouji could not balance his Humongous Mecha and he fell towards the ground. Then he goaded Kirma into attacking him again, and positioned Mazinger so his foe's Sinister Scythe sliced a chunk of the another wing. Now the Mazinger wings were the same length again, and his enemy was nearby, he could balance Mazinger back and grab Kirma. As he was beating the crap out of the Robeast he gloated it should have let him drop.
 * Prof. Yumi -and later Prof. Kenzo Kabuto- also used the Batman Gambit fairly often.
 * Neon Genesis Evangelion: Gendo Ikari has an elaborate Xanatos Gambit in motion... probably. Mostly we get to see his various Batman Gambits using Rei and Shinji, most notably micromanaging Shinji's gradual emotional breakdown, and (perhaps) master minding Rei's Giant Mecha kamikaze run. Add his near supernatural power over women and you have an antagonist who is far beyond any of the main cast's league.
 * It's definitely a Batman Gambit rather than a Xanatos Gambit, as he himself is unable to actually accomplish his goal, and the person who is capable of accomplishing it is able to completely ruin his entire efforts if they just refuse to do so.
 * The heroes pull this off when Captain Misamaru of Martian Successor Nadesico successfully predicts the actions of the Jovians and herds their superweapon into a trap, by continually convincing them the trap is elsewhere.
 * In Yu Yu Hakusho, the reason Sensui set it up so that the tunnel to Makai would be opened, and the events that came afterwards, is.
 * Later in the manga-only final arc, it was revealed that everything the heroes faced was an elaborate setup by, who purposely pardoned dangerous criminals with the specific hope that his detectives would capture them and thus make himself look better.
 * In The Prince of Tennis, Badass Bookworm Sadaharu Inui is having his ass kicked in the courts by another Badass Bookworm, his former partner Renji Yanagi, who is as good as using info as Inui himself is. Then, Inui claims he won't use his data anymore....
 * In general, several of the tennis games in the series use these Gambits as part of the strategy. Examples are Fuji Shuusuke and Kawamura Takashi  from Seigaku, as well as Masaharu Niou of Rikkaidai.
 * Lelouch, the protagonist of Code Geass, does this a lot. Along with Lelouch, Cornelia and Schneizel also have been known to pull less convoluted Batman Gambits of their own. It must run in the family.
 * To defeat Mao, a mind-reader, Lelouch distracts him with a recording that accurately predicts his responses to Lelouch's statements, allowing the police to close in without him noticing.
 * In the second season, Lelouch pulls this stunt again, against, and with a much more improbable level of precision.
 * When Mao came back, he used his own power of absolute command to give himself orders to tell Suzaku to charge in guns blazing when he heard Lelouch scream, then wiped his own memory of this. Lelouch then plays right into Mao's hands, seemingly completely defeated. When he screams, Suzaku comes in and the gambit is revealed. It's hopelessly convoluted and yet masterful.
 * When Lelouch, as Zero the masked terrorist, claims that he wishes to join Nunally's Special Administrative Region of Japan along with his Black Knights, he later makes a secret pact with the Britannians to have him pardoned for his crimes and be exiled safely, which allows the Britannians to attempt to engineer the situation in their favor: they would broadcast that they were pardoning Zero for all crimes at the opening ceremony, and Zero only, therefore meaning that the other members of the Black Knights were still accountable for crimes, and were thus betrayed by Zero. The Britannians had hoped that this would trigger a riot amongst the betrayed Black Knights, which would provide them with ample excuse to put them down with lethal force. Problem is, Lelouch had earlier made the point that Zero is an ideal, not a man. So, when everyone at the assembly suddenly puts on Zero masks, no one can try to force the issue. The only person who knows his identity, Suzaku, can't call him on it. Thus, they are all granted immunity and a safe trip out. It heavily relied on Suzaku being sentimental enough to stop the other government officials from opening fire on the crowd, and it came within a hair's breadth of backfiring.
 * Lelouch often has plans that rely on the fact that while "other" people have a sense of Honor Before Reason, he does not, and uses it to trip them up. Good examples include the way he tricked Guilford into a duel of honor, and then pulled a sneaky trick on him. There's also him using the UFN leaders as hostages to trick the Black Knights into preventing Schneizel from nuking his ass, forcing him into conventional strategy.
 * Of course, this is more along the lines of other people believing that he doesn't have a sense of honour, when he really does. Of course, manipulating the battlefield he and Guilford was on was indeed a very sneaky trick, it's nothing that shouldn't have been expected. And it was a hostage situation, after all, so Guildford was the first to use a sneaky trick. And he certainly wouldn't have harmed the UFN leaders, even though he had weapons trained on them - at least, not the two young girls he's familiar with.
 * The UFN example is doubly appropriate when you realise that Schenizel does know that Lelouch won't hurt the UFN Leaders. That's why he has Nunnally at his side, and has her accuse Lelouch - by doing so, Lelouch becomes incapable of using any FLEIJA weapons that he may have, for fear of killing Nunnally, and Nunnally fails to realise that's what is happening, and is willing to go along as a result. Of course, Lelouch never had a FLEIJA in the first place, but he may have considered the idea as a more appropriate alternative to creating the FLEIJA Canceller. In fact, Schneizel himself planned to kill the UFN Leaders, as well as the Black Knights. No, Schneizel attempts to fight Lelouch conventionally, because he's certain of his own invulnerability and wants to try confronting Lelouch through wits, rather than brute force, and if can't win, he has FLEIJA as an alternative. And when his patience wears thin, and he does. resort to FLEIJA.. that's just what Lelouch wanted.
 * An example where it isn't set up by a villain: everything in Cardcaptor Sakura (except for the Yaoi Guys) is an elaborate plan by Clow Reed to ensure that his magical creations would have the best master (Sakura) after his death. The reason Sakura captures the cards and then masters them is because if she didn't, they'll cause a lot of trouble in her town. However, Eriol (Clow's Reincarnation, who kept all of his previous life's memories) made sure she wasn't in any real danger (or anyone else in town, for that matter). This is possible because Clow was prophetic to the point of omniscience, able to see the future so perfectly that he WAS able to see every consequence of his actions and what to cause to happen. Except for the Yaoi Guys, Eriol admits that one surprised him (he had intended Yue/Yukito to have a Bodyguard Crush on Sakura, but Yukito fell for Sakura's older brother instead). As an interesting side point, the whole point of this in the manga was to rid himself of that power, which would require Sakura to be a stronger mage than him.
 * Of course, there was also the goal of making sure the Clow Cards power supply didn't fail, leading to their deaths, too. They couldn't run on Clow's residual energy forever, but the real danger was when they were left in limbo and Sakura had to master them.
 * Griffith from Berserk does this against the Queen of Midland and a conspiracy of nobles who wanted him dead. The conspirators apparently poison Griffith, but unbeknownst to them, Foss, the key figure in the conspiracy to kill Griffith, is blackmailed by Griffith into putting a drug meant to give the appearance of death in his cup instead of poison. The Queen and her nobles, believing themselves to be victorious, all gather together in celebration at her castle, and that's when Griffith springs his trap, having them all locked inside the castle and then having the place set ablaze, killing them all.
 * In Kurenai, the protagonist Benika pulls off such a gambit with her "kidnapping" of Murasaki Kuhouin. Although she assigned Shinkurou as a bodyguard to protect Murasaki from being recaptured by her own (very messed up) family, she never expected to keep her safe from them forever. Instead, her plan was to "poison the prize": by letting Murasaki experience enough of the outside world while living with Shinkurou, she would hopefully return to the Kuhouin family with the knowledge and willpower to bring down the family's traditions from the inside.
 * Gunnm: Caerula Sanguis applies a Batman Gambit in a rather unorthodox way: one-on-one battle. In Volume 6 of the Last Order storyline, after a token unarmed exchange with Alita and a cloud of throwing knives, she announces a special technique called the Eight-Block Death Gate Array. In the beginning, it looks merely like a fast combination of sword strikes. However, this is only the beginning of the ruse. The Array is actually not a technique or even a combination, but a tactic custom-tailored to every single enemy she meets. By using her 700 years of combat experience and her ability to sense neural pulse flow and thus infer the intentions and thoughts of her opponents, she takes the terrain as well as the opponent's capabilities, reflexes, and even their personalities all into account, shaping the match such that all her opponent's actions, both conscious and unconscious, lead them inexorably to a location where they will be completely helpless against her full attack. She is apparently good enough that she can suss this out completely within the first few seconds of any given fight. The only ways to defeat the Array in a duel are to be completely certain you are doing one thing while doing something completely different (such as freezing when every cell in your body is yelling for you to run), or by completely banishing one's ingrained reflexes, becoming completely aware of the self and the world, and thus able to make true choices.
 * Jinnai, the Smug Snake of El Hazard the Magnificent World, makes a bid for Magnificent Bastardy with this one: There's a Forgotten Superweapon that could help his Bugrom allies win their war, but only the good-aligned Priestesses of Mt. Muldoon know where it's hidden away. So he orders the Bugrom fleet to set sail. The heroes, thinking Jinnai knows where it is, panic and sail off with the priestesses leading the way... and Jinnai simply follows them to the right island.
 * Aeolia Schenberg's feats in Gundam 00 are oft barely noticed. In spite of living 200 years before the events of the anime, he managed to lay down a framework for Celestial Being and created an A.I. that would be able to create missions and postulate possible strategies for the group to carry out. Not only that, he theorized and developed technologies that were to come to be centuries beyond his time, including the Twin Drive for the Gundam 00 (and the solar furnaces themselves for that matter) and the orbital elevators. Although he planned to go into cryogenic sleep and wake up in the future, he also planned for his death. He made sure that if he was ever killed, the Trans-Am system would be activated in all Gundams, as well as making other information stored outside of Veda accessible (like the aforementioned Twin Drive). Aeolia's surprise 200-year old plans often manage to foil Ribbons's, the resident Magnificent Bastard, own machinations, to which he frequently expresses frustration at. After all, he thought he was just carrying out Aeolia's wishes too.
 * Federation soldier Hank Hercules initiates a coup de'tat and seizes control of the Africa Tower elevator's low orbital station, counting on a lethal response from the A-LAWS that will illuminate the citizens into their brutal ways. However, the A-LAWS use the incident to facilitate their own Gambit, using their information control to frame the mutineers for the A-LAWS' ruthless attack on the citizens and the destruction of the tower itself, all to completely discredit the mutineers and their anti-government allies, while giving the A-LAWS a pretext to consolidate the full might of the Federation army under their banner.
 * Though this turns out to have fatal consequences later on, as some of the more important members of A-LAWS make a Heel Face Turn in response.
 * Xellos does this all the time in Slayers, which is not particularly difficult, as everyone in that series is extremely predictable. Usually, whatever he does serves his plans in some way, but a lot of the time he just manipulates them because he thinks it's funny. It generally is.
 * Shikamaru Nara from Naruto won most of his early major battles by using Batman Gambits to manipulate his opponents into just the right spot such that he can either catch their shadows or force them to harm themselves through use of this otherwise harmless technique.
 * Deidara also pulls one to capture Gaara: he realizes the sand Gaara is attacking with is the one he has the most control over, so when Gaara rips Deidara's arm off he has the living clay inside said arm crawl inside this sand. He then sends a huge bomb towards the Sand Village so Gaara has to send most of his sand to withhold the blast, forcing Gaara to block his next attack with his best sand, has the clay he left inside that sand crawling into the center of Gaara's sand sheld, then detonates them.
 * Fullmetal Alchemist manga and Brotherhood --
 * Dr. Marcoh also pulls one in the manga and Brotherhood when
 * In Dragon Ball Z, Vegito pulls this off on Majin Buu. It seems that Vegito can beat Buu at any time, but is just toying with him, while the Kais are asking why he just doesn't Get It Over With. Turns out Vegito is purposely making Buu angry enough to get desperate, which is when Buu starts absorbing people. Vegito allows himself to get absorbed on purpose so he can rescue Gohan, Trunks, Goten, and Piccolo, who were absorbed earlier.
 * He clearly gets this from Vegeta, who also pulls a couple Batman Gambits throughout the series. In the Namek saga he steals all of Frieza's dragon balls while both Frieza and Zarbon are in the same ship as he is, by fooling them into thinking he'd already left the ship.
 * Akiyama Shinichi of Liar Game uses this trope pretty much continuously. I mean, just look at the way he plays on Fujisawa's anxiety in the first round through constant surveillance, panicking Fujisawa enough for him to believe that
 * A bigger example of this can be found during the musical chairs arc, in which
 * Both Marik and Dark Bakura in Yu-Gi-Oh tend to operate this way. One notable example is Dark Bakura's duel with Yami during the Battle City finals. When Yami secures certain victory by playing his god card, Marik's gambit to to release Bakura from Dark Bakura's control, and thus force Yami to lose the duel in order to protect his critically ill friend's life, has two flaws in it. The first is that Marik didn't expect Dark Bakura to protect Bakura by re-possessing him. The second -- and one which everyone seems to overlook -- is that Yami could simply ask Bakura to forfeit the duel.
 * For that matter, most of the card game duels played in this series operate on Batman Gambits. Duelists continually bluff and trick their opponents into helping them set up an elaborate ploy that will secure them certain victory, unless their opponent then spots the tiny but fatal flaw, or just draws the right card out of dumb luck.
 * One of the reasons that Yami Yugi is never really beaten is because he always seems to remain two steps ahead of his opponents...even when they are two steps ahead of him. For the matter, one can probably rename it "Yami Yugi Syndrome".
 * Eda in Black Lagoon has a very crude (but effective and hilarious) one set up that she uses to bushwhack "Greenback" Jane. Even the other characters think the plan is stupid.
 * Hansel and Gretel managed to divert the majority of the hired guns out for their bounty with one of these. Step #1: get a car with tinted windows so no one can see who's inside. Step #2: Bribe two local orphans to pose as you by putting on your clothes and wigs similar to your hair, then get them in the car and have them drive off. Step #3: Laugh as the stupid bounty hunters blow the car to smithereens and realize how they've been had by two little kids.
 * Rock attempts one that would bring Ronapour to the world's attention in the "Roberta's Blood Trail" Arc by manipulating or predicting the actions of just about everyone in the city.
 * Though he frequently makes use of the Indy Ploy to succeed, the titular character of Ranma One Half is not adverse to a good Batman Gambit, particularly in the manga. Though they do usually fail and force him to revert to Indy Ploy, that's because Ranma Saotome's "friends" and enemies are extremely unpredictable, and so prone to reacting in ways other then what he expected. The best example would be the first Pantyhose Taro story, where he sets up an elaborate plan intended to convince Dirty Old Man and Jerkass Happosai to rename Taro by giving him a faked dream sequence in which Happosai sees a future in which Taro has, due to his name, become a terrible Panty Thief, and is then sent back to the day he named Taro. Ranma expects Happosai to choose to give Taro a new name. Instead, Happosai proves his evil credentials by promptly trying to murder what he thinks is baby Taro with his bomb attacks.
 * In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S, the heroes pull one of these to prevent the villains from getting a MacGuffin.
 * In Trigun, Vash wins most of his battles by quickly and carefully studying his opponent's personality and mannerisms to predict how the opponent will act and move.
 * In Katekyo Hitman Reborn,
 * In the anime only Zanpakuto Rebellion arc of Bleach,
 * In the manga Aizen pulls a pretty simple one in the Hueco Mundo arc. He kidnaps Orihime, under the pretense that he wants her power, which causes Soul Society to temporarily abandon her because they think she defected. However, when Ichigo's team go to rescue her alone and inevitably get their asses kicked, Soul Society sends four captains and lieutenants to bail them out, at which point Aizen shuts the door behind them, leaving them locked in Hueco Mundo and unable to help while he goes to fight the remaining shinigami, who have lost a significant amount of their strength.
 * In School Mermaid, the one pulling the strings is
 * In Pokémon Special, Fantina has a pretty good one set up as her Gym gimmick. First, the challenger has to solve some difficult but straight forward math questions to reach her, forcing the challenger to adapt a logical way of thinking. When the challenger actually reaches her, her Pokemon's illusions kick in, totally destroying all that built up logic and with it the trainer's brain. If a less logical person were to reach her (presumably just by defeating all the Gym Trainers instead of answering the questions), he would just be caught up in the illusion and not realize he's getting the crap beaten out of him.
 * In One Piece, . Knowing  a chain of events would led up to.
 * But the gambit doesn't stop there; after that part's success, . The bottom line? A Complete Monster pulled off a successful Batman Gambit, and has officially become the series' Big Bad.
 * In Revolutionary Girl Utena, most of Touga  and Mikage's plans to obtain the Rose Bride rely on these. In particular, there's Episode 11 (counting on the fact that Utena would prioritize her feelings for Dios over her desire to emulate him, costing her the duel), all of the Black Rose Duelist arc (Mikage sets up emotional catastrophes in the lives of students so they'll enter his seminar), and Episode 38 (which relied on
 * Episode 9 of Puella Magi Madoka Magica has a spectacular one pulled by Kyuubey on Kyoko and Homura. Anticipating that Kyoko's re-emerging heroic tendencies will lead her to try and, he vaguely implies that Madoka could use The Power of Friendship to do so (and of course, Kyoko would need to accompany her for protection).
 * It
 * Keima Katsuragi of The World God Only Knows enacts these regularly, thanks in no small part to his (Dangerous) Genre Savvy, using his knowledge to capture runaway spirits, goddesses and subversive demons.
 * Kotetsu pulls off a good one in episode 13 of Tiger and Bunny to get around Since he's a bit of an Idiot Hero, it even fools the audience at first.
 * Hajime in The Kindaichi Case Files does this a lot in order to corner a suspect or find out details that would normally be overlooked including but not limited to: rigging watches, lying about lost items and faking deaths.
 * In Eyeshield 21, Hiruma, for most of the time, always had some plans that enables him to pull a comeback move from dire straits for his team. Some of his plans often seem ridiculous or just plain batshit insane, but it works most of the time.
 * A meta-example in Mahou Sensei Negima would be author Ken Akamatsu's plot to essentially write an over the top Shounen action series when his publishers wanted a Harem Series by hiding the action-y elements.
 * Ouran High School Host Club has its Darkest Hour as a result of this: Tamaki's Evil Matriarch grandmother is currently using such gambits to separate him and Haruhi, thus revealing herself to be the series' true villain.
 * Windaria: Lagado turns Alan into his Unwitting Pawn by exploiting his desire to protect The Valley. If Alan said 'We're moving' instead, the plan would have collapsed then and there.
 * Inukami: One episode featured the inukami plotting to take advantage of Keita's perverted tendencies, sure their plan would work immediately. Except he showed restraint, foiling their plan.
 * Yawara: Jigorou has proven to be quite good at these especially when it comes to manipulating his granddaughter Yawara.
 * Katsuhito Masaki is the main reason that Tenchi netted so many beautiful alien women. Just that it worked a little 'too well - he got Tenchi to be curious enough about the mysterious cave that he would be able to go in and investigate, freeing Ryoko, which would catch Ayeka's attention (which he figured would happen) and bring her to Earth so that he could send Tenchi back in his place. Nothing in his plans, however, would prepare him for the other four girls who would show up.
 * Katsuhito Masaki is the main reason that Tenchi netted so many beautiful alien women. Just that it worked a little 'too well - he got Tenchi to be curious enough about the mysterious cave that he would be able to go in and investigate, freeing Ryoko, which would catch Ayeka's attention (which he figured would happen) and bring her to Earth so that he could send Tenchi back in his place. Nothing in his plans, however, would prepare him for the other four girls who would show up.