The Dog Bites Back/Anime and Manga

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Examples of The Dog Bites Back in Anime and Manga include:

  • Subverted, averted and inverted in the span of only a few seconds in Death Note. After Light is revealed to be just a human with a note and a bunch of bullets in his chest, Mikami Goes Mad From The Revelation, but instead of turning on him, (some say) stabs his arm with a pen (and kills himself in the process) to allow Light to run. Also Light takes good care to subvert this as much as possible with his other "doggies": he "writes in stone" everything Takada will do, leaving no chance for her to retaliate in any way and positively reinforces Misa to do anything he wants (otherwise he'd just kill her as fast as he could) and ultimately makes sure she won't bother him in his part of his life as Kira by forcing her to renounce her Note.
    • It's also played straight when Matsuda shoots Light after an entire series of being useless after Light says he was manipulating Matsuda's trust the entire time. Light himself is shocked by that, having figured that Matsuda would be the one most loyal to him...
  • Subverted in Monster. Johann didn't need help to be a Complete Monster and he didn't care enough about his creators to take revenge. He kills them anyway.
  • Baccano! has this moment with Czeslaw devouring his guardian, Fermet after 200 years of endless torture. This trope is beyond justified in this case.
    • Siri eventually gets to give Bride, a man who forced her into a cult "marriage" and tortured her constantly for several months, his comeuppance by holding him over the edge of a cruise liner by his arms as its sister ship slams up against it. Severed limbs ensue.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist, Solf J. Kimblee gets his throat torn out by his ex-bodyguard Heinkel, who Kimblee almost killed twice during his battle with Ed and another with his brother Al.
    • Kimblee himself does this to Pride, who had absorbed his soul following his "death".
    • Dr. Marcoh also stuck it to Envy by laying out a trap with his travel partners, after Marcoh had been held captive with his home village as hostage. Envy went from One-Winged Angel to Clipped-Wing Angel once Marcoh was done with him.
    • In the end of the 2003 anime version, Dante was killed by Gluttony after she erased his memory to turn him into a mindless monster.
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Nena Trinity undergoes the transition from spoiled little sister princess to servant for Wang Lieu Mei because she attacked Louise's family for no reason, and her brothers were killed by Ali Al-Saachez. Wang Liu Mei decides to work for the people who killed Nena's brothers, so Nena betrays her and later kills her. This is all rendered pointless though, because Louise shows up with karma on her side to beat the living shit out of her.
  • In Crows, Hideomi Kunou gets Yamazaki to sell out his friend Bandou, who gets his ass kicked before getting run over by a motorcycle. When everything falls apart for Kunou, Yamazaki returns to pay him back in kind.
  • Subverted in Toward the Terra. Keith Anyan is repeatedly abusive towards his subordinate Jonah Matsuka and informs him that once the war against the Mu is over, he'll be disposed of; he asks if Matsuka will kill him before that happens, apparently deliberately trying to needle Matsuka into doing just that. Instead, Matsuka sacrifices his own life to save Keith's - to Keith's considerable surprise and dismay.
  • In Pokémon Special, Blue really didn't appreciate being kidnapped and being forced to become someone's underling, so she swiped the Applied Phlebotinum on her way out escaping, setting back the Big Bad's (named the Mask of Ice) evil plot for several years, and actively looked for ways to take him down. Granted, she didn't deliver the finishing blow, but she was a big part of it nevertheless.
  • Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Plus: Shadow Link breaks the Dark Mirror, killing Vaati, but also sacrificing his own life, to save Zelda and the other Links.

Shadow: "I came out of the Dark Mirror, and with it's power woke you. How fitting that I use it to destroy us both!

  • In Digimon Adventure, Myotismon raised Gatomon as a minion but abused her on a regular basis. While she has some loyalty to him, it's ultimately destroyed when she discovered she had a choice in the matter and be good, maybe if he'd treated her better this wouldn't have happened. Then he goes and kicks one dog too many and kills Wizardmon, resulting in Gatomon digivolving and killing Myotismon.
    • Wizardmon himself might count too as by the time he attacks Myotismon (from behind) drawing first blood it should addeded. Myotismon has abused his best friend as mentioned above, tried to drown him and presumably subjected him to the same abuse as all the other people who work for him.
  • In Sakura Gari, this is Tomohiko Katsuragi's perdition. The three persons whom he abused the most ( Masataka, Souma, and his own wife Asayo) are the ones who orchestrate the spectacular Humiliation Conga that he suffers and which finishes in a fiery Karmic Death.
  • Sakon Daimaru from Gamaran had his life and mental sanity ruined by his elder brother Ryuugo, who even yell at him for losing his battle against Gama. This prompt Sakon to go insane and snap Ryuugo's spine as soon as he turns around.
  • In Soul Eater, Chrona stabs their Complete Monster mother, Medusa to death after all the nightmare-inducing experiments she ran on them. Actually, that's a bit misleading. They doesn't kill her because of how horrible she is, they did it because Medusa was suddenly acting like a real mother, such as cooking their favorite meal for them and apologizing for all the things she did, even hugging them. But Chrona is so insane from the experiments and so shocked by this that they assume that this is an impostor. And in the end? The last thing Medusa says in the chapter confirms that this was all part of her plan...
  • In Jack to Mame no Ki throughout the movie the witch Hecuba insulted and abused her son the giant Tulip, eventually he has had enough when she tells him to finish Jack and Margaret he chooses to kill her instead by stepping on her.
  • In the final episodes of Kirby: Right Back at Ya! (Brought to the US as a DVD movie Fright To the Finish), when Dedede meets the Holy Nightmare salesguy, the first thing he does (Besides comment on Salesguy's height) is force-feed him a spoonful of Kawasaki's awful cooking.

Salesguy: (Washing his mouth out) That was completely disgusting!
 Escargo(o)n: Now you know how we feel about you!

  • Dragon Ball:
    • In the Commander Red Saga, after narrowly surviving being knocked out of a window and being flattened (It Makes Sense in Context), Black overheard Commander Red's plan of wishing to Shenron to become taller. Black then confronts him on this - he and the rest of the Red Ribbon Army were earlier been led to believe that the wish was meant to be for world domination. Red not only protests Black's accusations, but also Kicks The Dog one time too many by implying that the reason why Black's upset is that he's jealous that he isn't commander, and lets slip that he deliberately made Black an expendable lackey while also claiming that Black is pathetic even for that; Black decided that was the final straw and proceeded to execute him by shooting him in the head.
    • In Movie 8 of Dragon Ball Z, Broly The Legendary Super Saiyan, the titular bad guy finds his dad Paragus (who is pretty much the true main antagonist throughout the film, even with Broly being the central main antagonist), planning to abandon him to the soon-to-be-destroyed planet in an escape pod. Broly noticed it was only built for one person, and promptly returned the favor by crushing the pod with Paragus inside, and then throwing it like a discus into the comet. The fact that Paragus had earlier fitted him with a Hypno Trinket, and presumably used his powers to destroy a galaxy against his will, was probably a large contributing factor to Broly's decision to kill Paragus as well.
    • While he ultimately doesn't go through with it, Dende could have simply let Vegeta die when he was badly injured. Indeed, he had a justified reason for doing so: Vegeta was responsible for the death of at least one Namekian village. However, he eventually realizes that whie Vegeta is not a saint, they both share a common enemy in Frieza, who was more than willing to commit genocide against the entire Namekian race. So he decides to put his fear of Vegeta aside to patch him up, allowing Vegeta to use his zenkai to get stronger.
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