Disproportionate Retribution/Anime and Manga

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The supposed god Tezcatlipoca in the manga version of Spriggan.
  • Sousuke Sagara of Full Metal Panic! breathes this Trope. Strangers who so much as looks at Kaname tend to wind up face-down, on the ground with a gun on the back of their heads, and Sagara preparing to "interrogate" them.
    • Another example is from the first episode of Fumoffu, when Kaname is kidnapped by some punks. Sousuke tortures one of the gang members to find out who every single member of the gang loves the most.
  • The entire point of Death Note is Light's belief that capital punishment (generally via heart attack) is the only appropriate punishment for ANY crime. His idea of "crimes" range from murder to... laziness. That's right, he was planning on punishing people who don't work hard enough with death. Light IS this trope.
  • Dr. Hell from Mazinger Z killed a dog when he was a little child because he thought the mutt was glaring at him. You could tell his sanity was already very strained back then. Also, he was abused by everybody when he was young, and he thinks to Take Over the World and enslave the humanity is a proper punishment for wrongs were made several decades ago.
  • Lina Inverse, main character of Slayers, does this a lot—sometimes she seems to have only two levels of punishment: shouting, and blowing things up. It's primarily this willingness to fly off her head over little things and react by throwing around Sphere of Destruction type spells that gives her such a bad reputation.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh is notorious for this. Yugi was the target of several ill-conceived vengeance plots throughout the various seasons. One particular example was Rebecca, the daughter of one of Yugi's grandfather's friends, who challenged him because his grandpa "stole" her grandpa's rare card. Of course, two seasons later she showed up with a crush on him.
    • Jerkass Seto Kaiba does this to an extreme in the manga version, where he traps Yugi and his friends (and a toddler one of them happens to be babysitting) in "Death-T", a gauntlet of murderous trials and challenges where failing could lead to death. Seriously, hiring professional assassins for a REAL laser tag, electric chairs powered by screams, hiring a SERIAL SLASHER... and the reason for all this? Because Yugi beat him in a card game (which Kaiba himself tried to cheat in.) The fact that he is Easily Forgiven is just insulting to the readers' intelligence.
      • Kaiba's revenge wasn't just for his defeat, it was because of the Penalty Game that the Pharaoh put him through after he lost. For the crime of stealing his card and threatening him for it, the Pharaoh trapped Seto in an illusion where he experienced his own death. This was actually perhaps the most merciful that the Pharaoh's Penalty Games have been. In this case, he meant for the experience to help change Kaiba's ways. What actually happened is that Kaiba was traumatized enough to have recurring nightmares about the experience. In fact, in order to make his revenge more complete, he built a technological version of the penalty game, using holograms, to subject Yugi to. Eventually, the Pharaoh got sick of all the revenge schemes, and just blew up the evil part of Seto's mind. He came out of it a sort of changed man. Granted, it put him into a coma for nearly a year, but still.
    • Another had Duke Devlin, a would-be game developer, challenge Yugi to a duel because he thought Yugi cheated to beat Pegasus (which is debatable—Pegasus was already using his Millennium Eye to cheat, first with the Mind Scan, then with a Shadow Game that injured Yugi, so whether or not Yugi and Yami's Mind Shuffle counts as cheating is pretty YMMV) and killed him (which he didn't), thus ruining his chance at getting his designer game produced (the fax green-lighting it came in less than an hour after the duel), with the stakes being his friend's freedom, his champion title, and his right to play the show's Serious Business card game forever. To Duke's credit, he does get the hint and eventually forms part of the show's extended cast, helping out at times.
      • Duke's reasons in the manga were a bit more justifiable, since he had to do it for his Monster Clown of a father in an act of vengeance for whatever Yugi's grandpa did to his face.
      • Duke's father is a much stronger example of this. He and Solomon Moto played the Devil's Board Game, whose cursed power aged him immensely when he lost. Thing is, they both agreed to play the game (for whatever insane reason), and the rules of the game[1] are such that one's opponent has no bearing on who wins the game. Of course, one can't take revenge on the Random Number God, so imprisoning, discrediting, and murdering Solomon's grandson, after forcing him to play the Devil's Board Game, was apparently the next best thing.
    • Yami Yugi does have quite a Disproportionate Retribution thing going on, though, especially in the early manga before Yugi puts his foot down. Most of the people he challenges to Shadow Games are unpleasant, and the games are always fair (that's part of the rules) but still... look at Duel 6, Into the Fire. These guys stole Yugi's group's space and injured Yugi, so Yami blew their leader up with explosives. An extortionist bully threatens Yugi and cheats at the shadow game, so he's made to wallow in a pit of trash while thinking that there's nothing but money raining everywhere. A director uses his authority to lie about Yugi and his friends, so the Pharaoh blinds him (in an ironic way). Hilariously, Kaiba's Disproportionate Retribution is the result of one of the Pharaoh's most merciful Penalty Games. Sure, Kaiba was driven mad by the traumatic experience of feeling his own death, but at least he's still alive and functioning.
  • Giant Robo: The someone enacting this trope is actually the main cause for most of the events in the OVA. It turns out that Dr. Van Vogler, the Mad Scientist who nearly destroyed the world in the tragedy of Bashtarl actually wanted to stop this disaster before it even happened; his colleagues just decided to blame him since they managed to get out of there. So his son decided to use the Anti-Shizuma Drive to exact revenge on the world that "ignored the truth" by pretty much destroying society.
  • Seto no Hanayome: Why's Lunar gunning for San, and willing to turn the school into a warzone for her revenge? Because San always beat her in the children's singing competition all those years ago. How dare she!
  • Sara in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch unlocks an ancient civilization sealed away for their ancestors' crimes, destroys whole kingdoms (including her own), kidnaps two innocent princesses (one of whom was her Forgotten Childhood Friend), starts gunning for four more, and tries to cause The End of the World as We Know It... all because she was stood up by a human man. Who was, at least in the manga, FORCED to leave her. And that's just taking it out on the world; wait until she gets her hands on the guy...
  • One of Gundam Seed's main villains, Muruta Azrael, the leader of anti-Coordinator terrorist organization Blue Cosmos, was picked on by Coordinator bullies when he was little. His answer to that as a grown-up who should have known better? To try and annihilate every single Coordinator from the face of the universe.
    • While we're at it, how about ZAFT's reaction to the Junius 7 attack? Deploy N-Jammers on the Earth and shut down every single power plant. That includes the ones belonging to ZAFT's allies on Earth.
      • Speaking of Gundam, there's also Camille from Zeta Gundam. His career as a pilot started because some space-fascists made fun of his name. In real life, there are a few extreme examples of kids who got pushed around and then took a gun and shot up the school. Camille takes a Gundam and shoots up an entire space colony!
      • Then there's Char Aznable from Mobile Suit Gundam who takes it upon himself to avenge his father's death by killing all of the Zabi family, despite no full proof evidence coming forth that Degwin really did murder Zeon Deikun. Of course, it can be argued that Gihren was a Complete Monster and Kycilia was The Baroness. However, the murder of Garma Zabi, Char's own best friend, definitely counts. Seeing that Garma was actually a really decent guy to both friend and foe and trusted Char completely. Char's own sister, Sayla, comments in disgust about Char's revenge. And later on Char himself even admits it was wrong to take Garma's life and that he isn't motivated by revenge anymore.
        • For what it's worth, one of the original unaired episodes of MSG (specifically the ones that were removed due to the series being shortened) depicted Degwin meeting Revil aboard the White Base to discuss armistice, only to encounter Sayla and, upon recognizing her as Artesia Som Daikun, go into a frenzy begging her for forgiveness for murdering her father.
        • Hell, you think Garma's death is bad, try Char's actions in Char's Counterattack: he dropped asteroids on Earth and tried to cause nuclear winter (which ran counter to his father's ideals of preserving the Earth) simply to have a final battle with Amuro Ray. Of course, that doesn't stop Zeon fans from claiming Char was in the "right" throughout, either through the Earth having it "coming" over the OYW and beyond (Note: Nine times out of ten, the Zeeks are usually the ones to start said wars) or Char was legitimately trying to bring peace to the Earthsphere. The latter conveniently omits both human nature and the fact there were other militarized spacenoid factions besides Char's Neo Zeon, namely the Jupiter Empire and Buch Kozern (the latter of which would later become the Crossbone Vanguard). And that's not discounting the fact Char would have killed the Zeon remnants on Earth alongside everything else.
  • This is woven into the premise of Special A. Hikari lost a wrestling match against Kei as a kid, which was apparently enough to turn her into a Determinator set on beating him at something. Unfortunately, most of the time for her, Failure Is the Only Option.
  • Ranma ½ does this a lot. It's almost as important as the Belligerent Sexual Tension and Love Dodecahedron. For example...
    • The case: Ranma has shown up at the Tendo Dojo and plunged it into chaos by revealing he's a boy who's been cursed to turn into a girl when splashed with cold water. The crime: in response to Akane's various derogatory comments, primarily accusing him of being a pervert for seeing her in the nude when she walked in on him taking a bath, Ranma declares it's no big deal for him to see a naked girl, as he can just turn into one anyway, and then adds in an off-hand matter that his female form is better built than Akane is. The response: Akane grabs the table and belts Ranma over the head with it from behind, knocking him out cold.
    • The case: Ranma, in female form, has been kissed by Mikado Sanzenine. The crime: Ranma is actually a straight boy, with Mikado not knowing either that it was Ranma's first kiss or Ranma's true identity. The response: Ranma (who, keep in mind, has enough Super Strength that he can split boulders without trying too hard) turns into a male and hits Mikado over 500 times leaving Mikado unconscious on his feet.
      • To be fair, it's not as if Mikado can't defend himself and wasn't actively fighting back.
        • Also, grabbing an uncooperative woman and then forcing intimate contact with her against her will—which is exactly what Mikado did—is called "sexual assault", and when someone tries that and their intended victim ends up beating the shit out of them most people will agree that they had it coming.
    • The case: any outsider woman has defeated a female member of the Joketsuzoku. The crime: defeating the female equivalent of one of the closest things Ranma 1/2 has to a Proud Warrior Race Guy. The response: a symbolic Kiss of Death, followed by the defeated Joketsuzoku pursuing the outsider all over the world until one or the other of them is dead.
    • The case: Ranma has distracted Happosai, causing him to get hurt. The crime: Ranma's interference in one of Happosai's pantyraids allowed the angry women to catch and beat up the Dirty Old Man. The response: Happosai burns a moxibustion on Ranma's back that leaves him weak as a baby, then distributes fliers about how Ranma is weak all over town, gloating to Ranma that this means his various enemies will seriously hurt and perhaps even kill him, without Happosai needing to lift a finger.
    • The case: Ryoga has hit Ranma with a Koi Rod of Love, causing Ranma to become increasingly infatuated with Ryoga, and then roughly stripped Ranma to check for the telltale mark of the rod. The crime: Ranma has, as per the koi rod's effects, become infatuated with Ryoga and mentions Ryoga's previous stripping of herself when Ryoga roughly rebuffs her advances, causing him to become upset and tell her off. The response: Ranma turns back into a male and pulls the "typical outraged female" act in the series, beating Ryoga up.
      • Subcrime: Ranma grows steadily more enamored with Ryoga. The response: Ryoga bundles the sleeping Ranma up in a bag and wanders off into the woods, digging a grave and getting ready to kill Ranma and bury the body here so Ryoga can both be free of Ranma's flirtations and have Akane to himself.
    • The case: when Ranma reveals the magic of the Koi Rod is so strong that she can only think I Want My Beloved to Be Happy and will let Ryoga kill her if that's what he wants, Ryoga hesitates. The crime: Ranma takes Ryoga's hesitation to deliver the death blow as a sign of affection and gently kisses him. The response: Ryoga resumes trying to kill Ranma.
  • In Urusei Yatsura, Ran is always thinking of new ways to torment her initially oblivious friend, Lum, because Lum constantly got her in trouble as a child (sometimes on purpose, sometimes not, but never maliciously) and accidentally stole the guy she likes. She even takes this so far as to help her rescue Ataru from a rival alien princess in The Movie just because if anyone's going to steal Ataru from Lum, it's going to be her, because at least she has a reason for doing so (unlike the rival alien princess in question), even if said reason is a bit unreasonable.
  • In Fist of the North Star, the villain Amiba decides to imprison Toki, get plastic surgery to look just like him, impersonate him, and perform horrible experiments to ruin his good name... because Toki slapped him in the face once.
    • Hokuto Shinken, due to its horrific effects when it is used to kill, can often be seen as disproportionate for many of the bad guys that Kenshiro uses it on. Though to be fair, quite a few of these bad guys are not above doing horrible things to innocent people, which is Kenshiro's general Berserk Button.
  • A flashback in Elfen Lied reveals that Lucy killed Kouta's sister and father just because Kouta lied about his cousin's gender. To be fair, Lucy is rather screwed up in the head due to just about everyone she's dealt with, from the kids at her orphanage to the researchers at that lab, being worse than bastards to her.
    • Actually, it was less the lie than the thought of Kouta expressing romantic feelings towards someone else. After hearing Kouta say the cousin he was going with was a boy, Lucy thinks to herself that she would have killed Yuka in a fit of jealously if she'd known she was a girl. So regardless if whether Kouta had spoken the truth or not, someone was still bound to get killed.
  • In Bleach, Aizen pays more attention to his captive Orihime than to his biggest fangirls, Arrancar twins Lolly and Menoly. Their response? To get Orihime alone, and beat the shit out of her. When that fails (only on the fortunate timing of Grimmjow), their plan is to kill her while Ichigo is fighting Ulquiorra.
    • Another one would be Tousen. His closest friend was killed by her shinigami husband. So what does he want to do? Get rid of all the shinigami, all who have pretty much nothing to do with his friend's death.
      • The main reason for Tousen's revenge may have been that the Central 46 did not sentence to death the man that killed his best friend over something petty and so he wants to take down the entire Shinigami system through the most bloodless way possible: letting Aizen, a traitor, take over the throne to Soul Society.
  • Sumire/Shiwasu Mina in Getsumen to Heiki Mina decided to declare herself Supreme Queen of Earth by forceful takeover and to put a fellow team member out of business just because she was losing against her in the overall team rankings. Just a little overboard there...
  • Many Shoujo manga have this, where the protagonist attracts the attention of the "School Prince", causing all of the female students in the school to kidnap her and attempt to beat and cut her up.
  • More of a villainous example, but in Deadman Wonderland, after Shiro breaks Genkaku's beloved electric guitar, the next time he meets her, he captures her and orders his men to cut her up and rape her. (Part of it was also because he seemed angry and jealous that she was Nagi's friend, but mostly because of his guitar.)
  • One Piece:
    • The island of Ohara was subjected to the Buster Call, which is basically an assload of warships pelting the place with giant cannons until there's nothing left. Their crime? Researching the history of the world.
    • It is disproportionate in that everybody but Robin was blown to smithereens, including non-researchers, but the subject matter did contain some information which the World Government didn't want out. It's implied that the government didn't put much effort into hiding their displeasure of Ohara's research.
    • Near the beginning of the series, Morgan decreed that anyone who tried to feed a prisoner tied to the cross in the courtyard would be punished for the prisoner's crime. A little girl, not eight years old, would have been executed for trying to feed Zoro if Luffy hadn't defeated Morgan.
    • In the flashback to Luffy's childhood, Saint Jalmack sinks Sabo's boat and possibly kills him for cutting in front of the ship the World Noble was on. He could have justified it with Sabo's pirate flag, but he gave the crossing paths excuse higher priority. Hence this trope.
    • When Luffy punches a World Noble named Charlos for shooting Hachi, Charlos's father calls in the Marines, including Admiral Kizaru, to the island, and then declares his intention to starve the men of the crew to death while working them as slaves and have the women stuffed, overlapping this with Knight Templar Parent and Moral Myopia.
    • Katakuri, The Dragon to Big Mom during the Whole Cake Island arc, is very sensitive about his mouth, which is overly large and full of sharp teeth. He always covers it with a scarf except when he eats, and he does that in private. When Luffy witnessed him eating, Katakuri flew into such a rage that, in addition to attacking Luffy, he murdered his own chefs for no reason at all.
  • In Naruto, Madara Uchiha wanted to continue the war with the Senju when the two clans had gotten tired of fighting and banded together to create Konoha. The Uchiha family rejected him as a warmonger, and Madara elects to get even with this "betrayal" by assisting Itachi in killing the entire clan.
    • And it seems that Uchiha Sasuke is following after his ancestor in the 'disproportionate retribution' department. How? Well, after Finding out that Itachi was under orders by Danzou, Sarutobi, Koharu, and Homura to execute the Uchiha clan for treason and an attempted coup that would result in a costly civil war, he apparently decides to MURDER EVERYONE! Danzou, Homura, Koharu, the villagers of Konoha (who had no idea about the attempted coup, much less that Itachi's genocidal actions were sanctioned), innocent samurai who are only doing their job, etc. Apparently the only way to make everything better is to go on a genocidal rampage that would make Pain green with envy.
    • Also, on one occasion when Jiraiya was caught peeping on Tsunade bathing in his younger years, she proceeded to break both of his arms, six of his ribs, and ruptured a number of his organs as punishment. Yamato even said Jiraiya came very close to dying that day.
      • In fact Jiraya himself admits that's one of TWO times he came close to die, with the other being Naruto losing control of his Kyubi-mode.
    • Danzo could be a Well-Intentioned Extremist version of this. He had a very black and white viewpoint about how ninja should operate, to the point that seeking a Heroic Sacrifice is one of the best ways to prove one's worth. In his backstory during his death, he has the slightest of hesitation to fill that role during the last war. The Second Hokage refuses both his and Sarutobi's offers in order to do it himself, picking Sarutobi as the third. What does he do as retribution? He creates a martial faction of the Anbu which he uses to hide numerous secret enhancements to his body which came as a result of connections to known criminal Orochimaru, all of which lead up to him using mind control in order to take control of the village and eventually attempt to control the ninja world. He's found out, however, and is told that if he had done things nicely, he'd have probably gotten his way anyway, but because of his brainwashing, he can't be trusted. What's worse, before his hacking into being Hokage, he basically waited while Pain was destroying the village. If Naruto hadn't won the fight, there wouldn't have been anything left for him to rule over in the first place.
  • People who got sent to Hell in Hell Girl are largely deserving of what they get, if not for what they have done to the aggrieved personally. As the series goes on it becomes increasingly clear that you can get sent to Hell just for looking at someone the wrong way.
    • A few episodes of Jigoku Shoujo Futakomori (Hell Girl 2nd season) portray this trope. Also happened in an episode of Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae (Hell Girl 3rd season).
    • One target in the third season literally gets sent to hell so the client can avoid potential minor embarrassment.
  • Mahou Sensei Negima has a number of things like this, but the most ridiculous is probably the time that Asuna managed to nick Evangeline's cheek. Eva's response? Lick the blood off and encase Asuna in a block of ice. Fridge Horror sets in when you realize that Eva is a vampire who can regenerate any damage anyway, that this took place during a training exercise, and that if it weren't for Asuna's Anti-Magic, she would have been encased in ice for ten years.
  • Excel Saga played this for laughs when Department of City Security head Dr. Kabapu forced his team to patrol the city in Sentai suits. Cue Stuff Blowing Up for minor offenses, like littering and flirting.
  • An older boy in Yu-Gi-Oh GX that Judai looked up to used a trap card to stop him from summoning Yubel in a duel when he was a kid. He was fairly upset... so Yubel put him in the hospital. When Judai visited the boy later, Yubel did something that made him scream. Small wonder nobody wanted to play with him, because she kept doing these kinds of things.
    • And it must be remembered that this was before Yubel's "corruption" by the Light of Destruction, which only served to increase the scope of Yubel's crazed actions, affecting their core nature not at all.
  • Lelouch has his moments in Code Geass. His response to Rolo murdering Shirley (Because she mentioned Nunnally, the one person Rolo wanted dead) is to wipe out the entire Geass Order. While there were undoubtedly some monsters in that number, he still has his minions slaughter kids. Tykebombs, yes, but kids.
    • Rolo had killed an OSI agent named Victor for touching the locket Lelouch gave him, and as mentioned later kills Shirley for suggesting reuniting Lelouch with Nunnally.
    • The part where Charles basically kills his brother V.V. for lying to him for the second time seems like disproportionate retribution, even considering the pact they had, but doesn't seem so disproportionate once you find out what V.V. lied about the first time.
  • Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple has Odin, the leader of Ragnarok, who got started on the path of evil as a child when he didn't get the pin he wanted out of a vending machine, but Kenichi did. He fought Kenichi over it, lost, and has been bitter about it ever since in part because Kenichi wanted him to have the pin anyway.
  • Johan much? If you've seen him, you die. If you've associated with him, you die. If he thinks it would be funny, you die. If you sheltered him and his sister, you die. Though if you're Dr. Tenma and made the mistake of saving a little kid with a potentially fatal bullet wound, he Mind Rapes you and dedicates himself to trying to break your faith in humanity instead. Just go take a look at his picture over on the Complete Monster page.
  • In 20th Century Boys by the same author, second Friend is ready to annihilate mankind as "unworthy to live" because one of his childhood friend once committed a petty theft and let him take the blame. Keep in mind they were about nine years old at the time.
    • It should be noted that the consequences of the above were that Friend was symbolically executed and everyone pretended he was dead. This was done so thoroughly that, as adults, everyone from that clique thought he was really dead. Which should be considered Disproportionate Retribution as well.
  • Both the grievance and the response are delivered accidentally in Kyou no Go no Ni's first episode. When Yuki and Megumi get hit on the head (accidentally) by two high-bouncing "Superballs", and then hit again on the upbounce of another round, cue an argument ending with Yuki accidentally slipping on said superballs in such a way as to deliver a perfect Groin Attack to Ryouta. Needless to say the matter is considered settled after that.
  • Change 123 has Sora—who is using Kosukegawa to get Motoko mad so she can see her most powerful personality, Zero—chuck into a dumpster some Kamen Raider tapes that Kosukegawa gives her, tapes that are very important to him. Hibiki (the most abrasive of Motoko's normal personalities, all of who like Kosukegawa) sees this happen. Her response? Throwing a punch that makes Sora's bone stab out of her wrist. Ouch.
  • In the Touhou Musou Kakyou Fanime, Patchouli Knowledge, already rather stressed out due to Reimu Hakurei, the protagonist and resident Miko, interrogating her about her donation box which was stolen from her shrine, gets hit in the face with one of her own books, thrown by Aya during a heated argument with Marisa. Patchy gets very pissed at this and decides to take it out on Reimu. After a short scene with Sakuya and Remilia, we cut back to the library and Patchy is busting out "Sun Sign: Royal Flare," one of her more powerful spellcard attacks. Reimu herself doesn't exactly hold back in her retaliation either.
  • In Eyeshield 21, this is Hiruma's entire stance. To quote: "Attack attack and attack! Two eyes for an eye, two teeth for a tooth!" One wonders what sort of karmic retribution he's expecting for all the stuff that he does.
  • One fight in Variable Geo involves Genki Action Girl Satomi Yajima against Ayako Yuuki. After landing a few Les Yay moves on Satomi, and stripping her down with a bladed fan, Satomi retaliates with one of Kyo Kusanagi's trademarked fire attacks.
  • Pokémon's Harley comes in seemingly innocent in his debut episode and acts all nice to May, a fellow competitor. Then, May makes a few innocent comments (calling his Cacturne scary and saying that his cookies aren't half bad), which causes him to apparently change his goal in life to humiliating her at every contest that they participate in.
    • It's even worse in Japanese, where his reaction is to her Verbal Tic.
    • Dawn has ended up in a similar experience with one of her rivals, Ursula. Why does Ursula have a vendetta against Dawn? One of Dawn's Pokémon didn't like Ursula's Poffins.
    • No mention of Paul, who feels the best way to prove himself a better trainer than his brother (who lost to Pyramid King Brandon in a Curb Stomp Battle) is to crush the morale of everything he can possibly reach?
    • James has shades of this. He really likes his bottle cap collection. When it had been (accidentally) stolen by a trash-collecting robot, he tried to steal the Sunnyshore Tower. In other words, he tried to steal a bloody skyscraper. What truly seals the craziness is that that was Team Rocket's evil-plan-of-the-week...and Jessie and Meowth were still freaked out at James' sudden gung-ho attitude!
  • In Pokémon Special, the Sinnoh Trio make a lot of noise in Mt. Coronet's caves. Cyrus feels that burying the three twelve-year old children in a rock slide is the appropriate response.
  • Lucia of Rave Master succeeds at exacting this. While what happened to him really sucked, I mean really sucked, his reaction was a bit extreme.
  • In Paranoia Agent, Tokyo is leveled due to Tsukiko Sagi lying about how her dog died when she was in grade school.
  • In the first episode of the second season of the Kuroshitsuji anime, Alois stabs one of his maidservants in the eye. With two of his fingers. Why? "A maid should never look directly at her master!" The other servants understandably have an Oh Crap moment, but are then commanded to clean up the bloody mess.
  • Manabizaki of SWOT threatens to beat the crap out of anyone who interrupts his study time. It's not an empty threat.
  • Narutaru villains love this trope. For starters, Satomi Ozawa develops a murderous grudge against the heroine that started just because she made fun of the name of her school. Later in the manga, Naozumi Sudo shoots two delinquents to death just for throwing a bag of trash in a river...
  • The King of Midland in Berserk seems like a pretty mild, decent guy...until he discovers that Golden Boy Griffith slept with his daughter the previous night. So he has Griffith locked in the deepest level of the worst dungeon in Midland and put to the torture by the most sadistic little freak in the world, while also having Griffith's mercenary army, the Band of the Hawk, declared Outlaw, butchered and hunted endlessly. Overreaction much?
    • And then, after Guts returns and the Hawks regroup and rescue their former leader, the King decides to send in the Black Dog Knights, the worst rapists, murderers, and all-around scum Midland has to offer, led by a truly nasty piece of work of an Apostle, in order to kill them all.
  • Natsumi of Keroro Gunsou is this trope and then some. Yes, she is sharing her house with an alien frog bent on world domination but she loves beating him for anything that slightly annoys her. Forget to wash the dishes? Beating. Say something insulting about her, even though she always calls him a stupid frog? Beating. Look at her funny? Beating.
    • In response, Keroro himself sometimes goes into this when he plans revenge against Natsumi. One episode has her throw soybeans at him and call him an oni, which is admittedly nasty—but not nasty enough to turn her into an oni and relentlessly bombard her with soybeans until she surrenders the household.
  • In one of the most disgusting examples of this trope, an abusive man in Gantz beats his girlfriend's two year old son to death for eating the last pudding cup.
  • Love Hina is full of this trope. So Keitaro ends up walking in at a time that he shouldn't, so he gets beaten up and humiliated by the residents (all female) at the Hinata inn (as well as at least one Death Threat). Said incidents include when they are changing or at a bath. Heck, even when it is actually one of the girls who walks in on Keitaro when he's changing, he gets beaten up anyways.
  • Marvelous Melmo has the titular heroine, a 9-year old girl forced to care for her even younger siblings because of her mother's death receives a box of magical candies able to age her to adulthood and de-age her, with the express purpose of being able to care for them. However, since the angels responsible for her take them back when she abuses her power for selfish reasons (date a guy in his late teens, using the added shape-shifting abilities of the candies for making things easier...). At the very same moment, Melmo had just turned herself into a dog, and as such she gets unable to properly care for her siblings or interact with every human soul, even risking to be captured and "put to sleep". The whole while the angels and Melmo's dead mother, in Heaven, argue about Melmo's fate. Eventually the punishment gets partly amended, becoming more proportionate: Melmo's power is restored, thus making her able to resume her human life again and care for her siblings, but with a finite number of transformations, thus forcing her to be more careful.
  • In the second, 80s Himitsu no Akko-chan series Akko-chan breaks her Secret Identity by carelessly letting her friend know of her magic mirror and her shapeshifting abilities. The Spirit of the Mirror decides to take away her powers...along with her reflected image, thus forcing Akko-chan to hide her peculiar predicament. Thankfully, everything gets better.
  • Izaya from Durarara!! surprisingly shows signs of this as of volume 9. To put it simply, in middle school, a student named Nakura tried to stab him for losing a bet that he put his money into Izaya. Shinra steps in trying to calm the situation and only gets stabbed as a result for protecting Izaya. Nakura flees the scene and all Izaya can do is panic as Shinra is bleeding. However, Shinra says the wound isn't serious and to call the ambulance. Izaya does but then tells Shinra to change the story of Izaya being the stabber instead of Nakura. This makes him appear to be an asshole who hurt his only friend. However, Izaya does this because he swears that Nakura will never get away with it. EVER! So what does he do after that? He stalks Nakura ever since that incident and keeping tabs on him. He makes sure Nakura isn't suspecting him but then at the very end of volume nine after 7-10 years of planning, Izaya finally gets his revenge by framing him for two huge crimes where the bosses of those organizations want him dead. And Izaya makes sure to tell that to him over the phone before hanging up and leaving Nakura miserable for the rest of his life. Because of this incident though, it's hinted that Izaya's entire reason for becoming an information broker is because of Shinra who was the only person that cared for him.
  • In Dragon Ball Z, when Frieza's henchmen are trying out for the Ginyu Force, Captain Ginyu kills a Mook called Captain Strong because he is also a captain ("There's only one captain on the Ginyu Forces and that's me!" He then kills another of Frieza's henchmen because he touched a Dragonball (which Ginyu forbade them to do), and does the same to the rest of the mooks trying out because they lack the style to be on the Ginyu Force.
    • Actually, the "only room for one captain" line is dub only. In the original? The guy's first-run tryout pose isn't quite up to snuff. OBVIOUSLY a far better reason to kill someone.
    • Broly from the eighth movie hates Goku with a murderous passion because shortly after they were both born, Goku's crying bothered him.
      • It gets to the point where he so hates Goku, that he's willing to murder Goku's sons in his second movie because he thinks they're both Goku!
  • Sailor Moon S: Mimet stole Telulu's job from her. Telulu's response? To send Mimet falling into a void of nothingness. Which either kills her or traps her in darkness for all eternity.
    • Consider this: Sailor Moon looked utterly horrified at Mimet's fate, and it's implied Mimet could have easily killed all the heores in one shot.
  • In ×××HOLiC Watanuki and Doumeki accidentally broke a spider web while doing some garden cleaning. The spider took her revenge by stealing Doumeki's eye. Considering that it takes about one hour for a spider to construct a web we could say that she overreacted a bit.
  • Nakago from Fushigi Yuugi. The reason behind almost everything he does is because of this. He blames Kutoh for the death of his mother, only friend Tarlia (Seiran Den) and the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. He claims he 'wanted revenge on the Heavens that had given [him] hell.'
    • Also Suboshi. After Amiboshi dies, he blames the Suzaku warriors and to 'get his revenge' he kills Tamahome's family.
  • Ro Kyu Bu shows just how far a school's administration is willing to go to quash suspected pedophilia amongst its students. If even one member of any club so much as makes out with a girl that's so much as three years younger than he, you can say goodbye to the entire club for the next year, and the offending party is forever branded a traitor to his club. This happens at the very start of the series, where Subaru's plans to play high school basketball are derailed by the team captain's alleged actions.
  • The fate of several girls in Master of Martial Hearts: if the sheer fact that every fight in the Platonic Heart tends to turn into a death match, it gets worse when you're made aware that actually the losing Action Girls suffer A Fate Worse Than Death itself. They're actually saved, nursed to health and then mindraped to the breaking point and sold into sexual slavery. Just to get sure, many of them get their voice box removed, thus explaining how one of the previous generations loser, after escaping her destiny, became little more than the resident Cute Mute and harmless Hot Mom. Tinged with Misplaced Retribution, since Natsume, the daughter of the aforementioned Cute Mute, organized a second edition of the Platonic Heart, thus reaping a whole bunch of completely random strangers, just to lure out the daughter of the organizer of the tournament costing her mom her voice and freedom.
    • Natsume and Miko's grandfathers killed the families of Aya's parents, so they started the Martial Hearts tournament specifically to target their children. One generation later, Natsume and Miko themselves, upon learning what the fuck had gone down, orchestrate the aforementioned copycat crime ring just to get back at Aya for what had happened to their mothers. This fucks up her brain so badly, the series ends with her trying to put an end to the Cycle of Revenge once and for all before it gets any worse than just "an eye for an eye [leaving] everybody blind".
  • Wolf Guy Wolfen Crest: Haguro beat his Noble Demon subordinate Chiba within an inch of his life, biting off his tongue, and then raping him for good measure to the point that Chiba ends up dying from a combination of ruptured organs, blood loss, and broken ribs. Thankfully, Inguami gave Chiba some of his blood which ended up bringing Chiba back to life. Why did Haguro do such a thing? Because Chiba ended up encountering Inugami out on the streets and talked to him for maybe 15 minutes when Haguro wasn't around.
  • In Saint Beast, Zeus' insane punishments are made all the more clear by the Double Standard treatment certain angels get. Shiva leads a demon into heaven to kill Shin and gets a warning. Judas and Luca start a war against Zeus and get banished to hell. Those three angels who happened to be really arrogant? Purged, and their resentful ghosts trapped in a dark pit.
  • Captive Hearts: Because a thief tried to rob the Kougamis centuries ago, his descendants were forced to serve the Kougamis for the next hundred generations.
  • In Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni, when Nonomiya is blamed for breaking school equipment, he retaliates by taking pictures of Yoko which ultimately turns the school against her and they make her into their plaything. She kills herself and her soul is then eaten by The Principal.
  • In The Garden of Words, Aizawa ruins Yukari's reputation with vicious rumours just because of speaking to her boyfriend.
  1. ↑ take turns rolling a die moving a game piece that number of spaces towards the center of the board.
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