Karma Houdini/Anime: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

* Shou Tucker from [[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|the 2003 anime version]] of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]''. This prick turns his sweet daughter, and her dog, into an abomination, which Scar has to [[Mercy Kill]]. The worst punishment he gets is getting turned into some kind of twisted chimera. He even lives through the whole show, unlike likeable characters like Hughes. Bullshit.

*** It should probably also be pointed out that Tucker between the first anime and manga are somewhat different in character. In the anime, it's clear he's already rather out of his gourd when they meet him, although it doesn't show until what he did was revealed and he just kept slowly losing his mind as the series progressed. By the end, any physical punishment as a normal person would know might not even apply to somebody who had gone as insane as he had. In the manga, he wasn't as crazy and basically did it [[For the Evulz]].

** This isn't so much of a problem in [[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|the manga and the second anime adaptation]]. When he turns poor Nina into a chimera, he doesn't survive to the end of the ''episode.'' [[And There Was Much Rejoicing|Thanks, Scar.]]

* Dakki from ''[[Houshin Engi]]'' devoured human beings for seemingly no reason, stopped someone from being executed just to build a burning pillar to use on said person, invites people to parties and then sics tigers on them, turned a guy's son into hamburger and had said guy eat it (the guy later starved to death), and in general made things miserable for the inhabitants of Ancient China. But the worst she did was {{spoiler|plot with a godlike entity who's been manipulating the history of the Earth for centuries in order to serve her own interests.}} What happens to her? {{spoiler|she takes control of the body of said godlike entity and uses it to become the Great Mother and merge with the Earth}}. Talk about Karma.

* The [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|Necks of Orochi]] from ''[[Kannazuki no Miko]]'', after having their plot to destroy the world foiled (also, a couple of massacres early on), basically just get revived and live on as if nothing had happened.

** Anime: Although he's apparently killed during a battle with Chrono and Rosette, in the epilogue he appears before Father Remington and seems to be behind the assassination attempt of the Pope in the 1980's. Debate rages within the fandom on if he's ''literally'' there, or if it's an allegorical representation that even though he was defeated, what he wanted to happen came true anyway.

** Manga: Chrono and Aion face each other in a final battle, charge toward each other, and then...the scene cuts away. We never find out whether he was killed in the battle as he's never seen again, although it's heavily implied Chrono ''probably'' defeated him. But we never truly know for sure one way or the other.

** '''''YUBEL''''' -- once Judai remembers the nature of their past lives, he completely forgives her for everything she put him, his allies, and 12 dimensions through because of her [[Stalker with a Crush|obsession with him]]. Albeit he blamed himself for her mental state, she had been corrupted by the Light of Destruction (turning her more dangerous), and reconciling was the best way to beat her at the time. {{spoiler|He also took responsibility by taking her soul inside himself and thus prevented her from causing any further harm while her mind healed.}}

** Kagemaru: who did God only knows what to the missing students and who attempted to destroy the world just to stay young. Juudai hugs him and wishes him well and nothing bad ever happens to him at all.

** Nezumi of the original [[Yu-Gi-Oh!]] manga escapes after tricking Yugi and Jounouchi into confronting Hirutani, avoiding getting beaten up or put into a Shadow Game.

* Rimelda of ''[[Madlax]]'' kills off or is responsible for the deaths of the most likable members of the cast, including {{spoiler|Madlax's apparent romantic interest, Vanessa}}. Not only does she survive in the end, but {{spoiler|she gets together with Madlax}}. Presumably Bee Train was trying to replicate their success with ''[[Noir (anime)|Noir]]''.

* Despite ostensibly being one of the "good guys" throughout 2/3 of the series ''[[Mai-Otome]]'', [[Spell My Name with an "S"|Nina Wang]], who is the poster child for [[Love Makes You Evil]] and fits into about several dozen other tropes, pulls a selfish, spoiled, bratty [[Face Heel Turn]]. She willingly and freely betrays everything she's ever stood for, tosses her morals and decency aside, murders her best friend, attempts to murder several of her other good friends, aids [[The Empire]] in conquering the world, and almost single-handedly completes 90% of a plan to bring about [[The End of the World as We Know It]]. Her excuse? She's a little cranky that her father (yes, they're not related by blood, but he's still her FATHER) refuses to see her as a woman and fell in love with her friend instead of her. She continues down this path even after her father, the only thing she cares about, basically DIES (he later lived, but she didn't know...) trying to stop it. Her outcome at the end of the series? Happily ever after, never answering for anything she caused or even having to face anyone or anything from her old life to remind or accuse her, taking advantage of her father's amnesia to make him fall in love with her for real this time.

** John Smith from [[Mai-Otome 0~S.ifr~]]. He kidnaps Sifr to take control of the ancient technology, and while he loses the Schwarz Space Station, M9 and quite a few of his men, he escapes in the end, albeit because the heroes' mission was about protecting Sifr rather than defeating Schwarz.

* Because it only covered about 60% of the manga, the ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' anime ends with Kakuzawa laughing maniacally and declaring his victory. {{spoiler|In the manga, Lucy slices his head off for being a pathetic Diclonius poser, and his plans ultimately come to nothing.}}

* Schwarz of ''[[Weiss Kreuz]]'' were most likely allowed to become Karma Houdinis, despite being the [[Evil Counterpart|Evil Counterparts]] of the protagonists and perpetrating quite a lot of carnage, by virtue of gaining enough of a fan following to become [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Ensemble Dark Horses]]. Sequel series ''Weiss Kreuz: Glühen'' sees two of them recast to some extent as [[Heroic Sociopath|Heroic Sociopaths]] and one more performing an arguable [[Heel Face Turn]], but none of them have been redeemed or seen any justice for their various acts of villainy. (Meanwhile, none of the ''protagonists'' escape anything like unscathed.)

** [[Alpha Bitch|Otome Katou]]'s [[Girl Posse|so-called "friends"]] (Natsumi, Minami and Kumi) who cruelly bully Kotonoha, {{spoiler|bring [[Bokukko|Sekai's friend Nanami]] to tears and ruin her reputation at school by showing a tape featuring her sex scene with her boyfriend/sempai}} ''and'' {{spoiler|have sex with Makoto just [[For the Lulz]], despite knowing their "friend" Otome is also sleeping with him}} get clean away too. Though with {{spoiler|Kotonoha's mind snapping like a twig, one can only imagine the [[School Days]] version of what happened to those bullies in [[Elfen Lied]]}}

** It looks like Taisuke is, if anything, even ''worse'' in the PS2 game extension. {{spoiler|In the extended version of Sekai's Yandere ending (the one where she's pregnant and kills Makoto), Kotonoha strongly hints that Sekai's child (born few after the murder, taken care of by Sekai's mother [[Promotion to Parent|and Kotonoha herself]] since [[Missing Mom|the traumatised Sekai has disappeared]]) is not only Taisuke's child, but may have been conceived through rape as well.}}

** The Higa team. The coach is a [[Jerkass]], and doesn't receive any more comeuppance than being hit with a tennis ball by the captain of the team when he tries to leave. Half the team itself is comprised of unsportsmanlike [[Jerkass|Jerkasses]] who attack other teams' coaches, and the other half is just ''slightly'' less unsportsmanlike than that. Once they're beaten by Seigaku, it's as if all grievances disappear. They even show up in a comedic [[Breather Episode]], and no mention is made of their earlier conduct.

* Akito of ''[[Fruits Basket]]'', in spite of spending most of the manga series being nigh-on [[Ax Crazy]] and making the lives of every member of the Zodiac as miserable as possible at every opportunity, {{spoiler|gets a last-minute redemption story via Tohru and ends up ''friends'' with her, Uotani and Hanajima, with Shigure as her lover}}.

* Akabane Kuroudo in the ''[[GetBackers]]'' manga.

* [[Boring Invincible Villain|Paul]] in the ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' anime, has gotten away with countless cases of psychological and physical abuse towards his own Pokemon, equally countless cases of neglect and abandonment, multiple counts of poor sportsmanship, conduct unbecoming a Pokemon trainer outside the arena, one count of critically demoralizing a Gym Leader, and one Rage Quit, among others, with nary a word in reprimand for it. In fact, [[Creator's Pet|he's quite often praised for being a "strong trainer" instead!]]

** This is mostly due to [[Author Existence Failure]]. Sunao Yoshida, the author of the novels that Trinity Blood was based on, died before he finished the series.

* At the end of ''[[Code Geass]]'', Most notably Ohgi, who not only receives no punishment for his actions but is rewarded for it {{spoiler|as he became Prime Minister of Japan}}. Villetta, too, to a lesser extent, and various surviving Britannian soldiers, including [[Lady of War|Princess Cornelia li Britannia]], who in the real world would no doubt be tried for their war crimes. Not to mention that Ohgi and Villetta, who were responsible for the betrayal for somewhat unfounded, and a few hypocritical reasons, got the happiest ending. (To add to this, Villetta herself was no stranger to screwing over Lelouch for her own ignoble reasons, to which effect she used a traumatized Shirley to capture him.) Compare and contrast to the {{spoiler|self-sacrifices of Lelouch and Suzaku, who alienated from and made themselves dead to the world, [[Thanatos Gambit|literally in the case of the former]] and [[Fate Worse Than Death|figuratively in the case of the latter, who also became the new Zero as per the Zero Requiem]], which made the new peace possible for everyone else.}} Consider also that {{spoiler|the two may not have went with such a plan, which also had a high degree of inferred destruction,}} if not for the aforementioned betrayal, and it only looks even worse.

* Ryuk from ''[[Death Note]]'' was the catalyst for several years' worth of murders, simply because he was "bored." At the end, {{spoiler|he just goes back to the Shinigami world from whence he came, with nothing to stop him from returning to the human world and causing another murderous streak. It doesn't help that the only way a Shinigami can die is by using a Death Note to save the life of a human,}} something Ryuk would never do.

** Not to mention Hitoshi Demegawa. While in the manga he's just a greedy, obnoxious character, the films take it up a notch, wherein he {{spoiler|[[Politically-Incorrect Villain|sexually harasses Takada]]}}. He is {{spoiler|killed by Teru Mikami}} in the manga and anime, but {{spoiler|does not die in the film}}.

* Momoko from ''[[Telepathy Shoujo Ran]]'' has quite a history of atrocious behavior throughout the series, ranging from putting masses of people under mind control up to getting a woman killed so she can get her hands on some special plant. At one point she also plays a major part in an effort to [[The End of the World as We Know It|eradicate all of mankind]]. Her fate? She gets to bring her grandmother flowers in the hospital. That ought to teach her.

* The [[Psycho Lesbian]] Duo from ''[[Strawberry Panic!|Strawberry Panic]]'' got away with attempting to wreck a school play, messing around with the Etoile Elections, and two separate cases of [[Attempted Rape]]. Kaname takes this one step further by {{spoiler|pretty much using Momomi to get closer to Amane, her real crush...''and they got back together in the finale''.}} To a lesser extent, Shizuma gets away with pretty much messing around with every attractive student in the school.

* ''[[Doubt]]'' has a massive one in {{spoiler|Rei. Who orchestrated the entire event, is shown to have done it at least once before, and comes out from it all with everyone who knows the truth dead and the only survivor hypnotized, psychotic, and ripe to take all the blame while she dances of scott free to do it again gloating all the way.}}

* Sae from ''[[Peach Girl]]''. She does do some make-goods, and she encounters some serious setbacks and heartache, particularly in the manga sequel/spinoff, Sae's Story. But the pain she puts Momo through - at one point threatening to disgrace her on an international level, just so Toji will break up with her, and making Momo believe she's been raped - means that she should have had some kind of beatdown. Note that the classmates she tricks early in the series to hate Momo are ready to hold Momo down and maybe hit her, but no such brutality is even mentioned when Sae is majorly exposed. She doesn't do a complete Houdini, except when the level of her actions is taken into account. Her pain with Ryo was largely self-inflicted, so it really doesn't balance the scales.

* Almost all of the villains in ''[[Black Cat (manga)|Black Cat]]'' do not die or suffer any permanent injury. Some are never even defeated or fought. Only one member of the Apostle of the Star dies. Some undergo a [[Heel Face Turn]]. Creed is defeated but spared and actually saved by Train, in spite of the things he had done. Even the [[Man Behind the Man|leaders of Chronos]] who turn out to be pulling the strings are never defeated.

* Rome-Ro from ''[[Heroic Age]]'' pretty much gets away with quite a lot of things from mass genocide, to brutally abusing Yuti-Ra. The two princes cheat death three times and eventually become the rulers of the known universe, after blowing up Jupiter, leading their entire fleet into suicide and bombarding the Bronze tribe homeworld, killing billions of helpless larvae.

* Care to guess the ultimate fate of Goldie Musou, the main antagonist of ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]'', a brainwashing, drug-dealing [[Psycho Lesbian]] crimelord? {{spoiler|She ends up in a happy, consensual relationship with Misty Brown, a protagonist she once kidnapped and [[Rape As Love|presumably raped]]. And she doesn't even quit being a drug-dealing crimelord, albeit a less psychotic one.}}

* Nina Purpleton in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory]]'' is partially responsible for the success of the colony drop, stabs Kou in the back (after lots of tedious relationship development setting them up as a couple that culminated shortly before this) by running back to her old boyfriend (who happens to be Gato, one of the major villains) and then ''pointing a gun at him'' to ''protect'' the villain, and this on top of being a bitch to Kou for most of the series. And not only does she get off scott-free in the end, she has the audacity to ''smile'' at Kou in the epilogue!

** ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' actually fixes this somewhat, but those don't really count...

* Throughout ''[[Infinite Ryvius]]'', a shadowy conspiracy launched a [[False-Flag Operation|False Flag]] terrorist attack against a school, tried to murder everyone aboard (resulting in the deaths of the entire faculty and many students,) chased after the surviving students (all children) and attempted to kill them all, caused massive collateral damage in the process, blocked the students' attempts to communicate with anyone, framed the students for everything that happened so far, and [[Earthshattering Kaboom|blew up an inhabited moon]]. In the last episodes, one of the naval officers they've duped finds out about the situation and publicly exposes the whole thing before killing himself in shame, the result? They're apparently given administrative control over researching the [[Super Prototype]] spaceship the students survived aboard while being hounded around the solar system in. Oh, and the protagonist (who, up to this moment has been an utter [[Butt Monkey]]) [[My Fist Forgives You|slugs one of them in the face after considering their apology]].

* The protagonist Yamaguchi in [[Suehiro Maruo]]'s ''[http://samehat.blogspot.com/2005/10/poison-strawberry-chapter-one.html Poison Strawberry]''. Karma Houdini for its own sake.

* Needless to say, ''many'' characters in [[Hentai]]. Rare is the sex scene that's consensual throughout for both parties.

* Waiting for that treacherous [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing]] Rosemary from [[Ashita no Nadja]] to finally get what's coming to her? Well, when the series ends, you'll ''still'' be waiting. {{spoiler|A slap in the face is literally the most she receives for her crimes.}}

* In the anime [[Jyu-Oh-Sei]] the evil character Nagi murders innocent people. He is never punished for what he does and never shows any remorse. Not only does he live at the end of the series, but the good characters like Thor and Tiz continually defend him and save his life.

* In the [[Gilgamesh]], Dr. Monica and the rest of the original scientists survive to the very end of the series with no one else left alive to exact retribution upon them. Monica killed off many people especially during the Twin X incident. At the end of the series he manages to kill off the main characters and the rest of the human race. What happens to him after the end of the series is unknown. Even if he ceased to exist, which is likely what happened, it's still not karma, because that's exactly what he wanted to happen.

* Surprisingly, [[AIR]] of all things have this in the form of the Buddhist Monks. Their crime? {{spoiler|Killing an innocent (albeit powerful) girl who left the temple to go see her mom, then proceeding to put a curse on her soul so that she will die every time she feels love. This leads into Misuzu's death as well.}} They get away with their crimes. The sadder part? Someone ''was'' considering going on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] on them, but was stopped because {{spoiler|it wouldn't be what that girl would want.}}

** ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha]] Gaiden'' and ''[[Super Robot Wars Z]]'' fix this by killing him off in battle.

* If Johan got away in the end, so is [[MW|Michio Yuki]]? {{spoiler|He may failed to gas the whole world and loses Garai, but he manages to get away clean from it by posing as his younger lookalike brother}}.

* [[Character Development]] or no, there have been times where Karma seems to love giving [[Haruhi Suzumiya]] the longer end of the stick. From [[Black Comedy Rape|groping Mikuru]], to blackmailing the Computer Club, [[Kick the Dog|to spiking Mikuru's drink]] and calling her Haruhi's toy, many come to wonder why she hasn't been suspended/expelled/arrested.

* In ''[[Love Hina]]'', Kanako rapes Motoko while disguised as Naru to sow chaos among the residents. The incident is briefly mentioned when the residents attack Naru, and then when the real culprit is found, completely forgotten. Kanako suffers no punishment for this and other cruel acts.

** The same can be said for the brutality the other female inmates of Hinata House put Keitaro through. Naru's antics on Keitaro, which, many times, are ''extreme'' overreactions, dip into sociopathy that could warrant arrests.

** Rezo, Rezo, Rezo...a priest who healed people far and wide...and experimented on others, often to the point of death, and sacrificing ''an entire kingdom'' to open his eyes...sure, he apologized in the end, but ''still.''

* In a rare heroic example, it's a wonder {{spoiler|Ariel}} from ''[[Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?]]'' is ''still'' teaching at Matelis after {{spoiler|trying to overthrow Lilia Lilith, Queen of Villiers, a century ago. Her accomplices [[Gender Bender|weren't so]] [[Blood From the Mouth|lucky, though...]]}}

* President Kuroi on the anime version of ''[[The Idolmaster (anime)|THE iDOLM@STER]]'', shows himself to be a [[Jerkass]] on a great caliber, attempting to sabotage the 765Pro idols only to prove himself 'superior' to 765Pro's President Takagi. In the end he's shown laughing to himself as his last scheme agaisnt the 765Pro Agency works wonderfully and they can't do anything to get back at him. He ''did'' lose his Project Jupiter, who's sick of his sabotaging, especially that one event involving slandering Chihaya with her [[Dark and Troubled Past]] to the point of traumatizing her, but considering that in his last words, he said that the Jupiters are expendable and he can find another group, it's only a matter of time until he rises back up to try and slander 765Pro again.

* Sakura Kyouko from ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'' treats humans as feedstock to farm [[Eldritch Abomination|Witches]], having probably [[Villainy Discretion Shot|directly or indirectly killed hundreds of people]] so she can throw magic around a little more freely. But oh well, she's got a [[Dead Little Sister]] and tries to save a main character (who she also previously tried to kill), so she gets a nice [[Heroic Sacrifice]] (and eventually gets a reasonably good ending).

* A large portion of [[Queen's Blade]]'s cast are murderers, thieves, destroyers of nature, and general self-centered [[Kick the Dog|dog-kicking]] psychopaths. The franchise is also a fan of giving happy endings to [[Merchandise-Driven|any character with an official game book]].

** It gets worse as the series progresses. By episode 16, it's like Hatori is trying to see how much he can get away with his [[Yandere]] tendencies. In the episode he gets to cancel his date with Chiaki and expect him to be fine about it, goes to meet his ex girlfriend (of course he was meeting her due to work but Chiaki thought he was cheating on him behind his back, and it's later revealed by Yanase that he went out with a lot of girls during his high school year and that it's not impossible to think that), and finally {{spoiler|barges into Yanase's house and proceeding to beat the crap out of him and then forcing himself into Chiaki's house. And what does he get? He gets yelled at by Chiaki for simply skipping out on the date and he gets Chiaki to calm down easily.}} The last concerning {{spoiler|Yanase}} is the cause of a huge backlash given that {{spoiler|Yanase was just rejected by Chiaki a second time and entered a [[Heroic BSOD]] and Hatori proceeding to beat him up counts as a huge [[Kick Them While They Are Down]] Moment that leaves a bitter taste in the viewers mouth.}}