You Have Failed Me.../Anime and Manga
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Examples of You Have Failed Me... in Anime and Manga include:
- In Rosario + Vampire, Anti-Thesis leaders execute anyone who fails to kill Aono Tsukune...and are then promptly executed by their higher-ups when they fail to kill him. Subverted at the end of the first manga season when the second in command appears to execute the leader for failure, and then heals him instead. It helps that the second in command was the leader's only friend during the time he is a human and gave him some of his abilities to help survive.
- Mimi and Sheshe suffer this fate at the hands of both their bosses in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch. They got off lucky the first time, only turning back to their original forms; the second time, depending which version you're following, either their hearts are absorbed like Seira's, or they get eaten alive.
- Subverted twice in Yes! Pretty Cure 5 by Bunbee. He drops Girinma down the Trap Door, presumably never to be seen again... only for Girinma to climb back up five episodes later, ready to fail him again. Much later, Bunbee finds himself on the other end of this trope, being dropped off of a building by Kawarino. Bunbee turns out to have grabbed a convenient ledge... and then remembered that, you know, he can fly, thus the reason why he has appeared during the sequel.
- The Quirky Miniboss Squad in 4 of the 5 Sailor Moon seasons all fall prey to this trope at the hands of each season's Big Bad. There was at least one villain per saga doing so, from Queen Beryl killing Jadeite to Galaxia eventually winding up killing all but one of her minions, including the "Brainwashed" Uranus and Neptune. Rubeus gives a specially cruel twist to it in regards to Kooan from the Ayakashi Sisters, whom he gives an exploding MacGuffin and sends off to fight the Senshi to force her kill herself for him, since she loved him.
- Sailor Stars is a particularly cruel instance of this trope. The Big Bad (Sailor Galaxia) sends her four minions, the Anima-Mates to Earth to find "true star seeds" (immortal souls) inside of the living beings of Earth that would impede her chances of taking over the galaxy, and killed most of them when they failed (except Sailor Lead Crow, who was too ambitious for her own good and got eaten by a black hole). At the end of the series, it turns out Galaxia knew that the Sailor Soldiers held the true star seeds the whole time, which makes it seem like she toyed around with the Anima-Mates for yuks and giggles.
- What's amusing, such stratospheric minion-disposing rate is the consequence of the anime being Lighter and Softer compared to the manga. In the manga, Sailor Senshi just fry most of their opponents, while the anime tones down violence considerably, so when villains (with notable exceptions of certain Big Bads), die, it is either through this trope or Hoist by His Own Petard.
- Interestingly, the Live Action TV version, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, averts this by having Queen Beryl respond to a subordinate suggesting their rival be killed for failure "....why should I kill a loyal servant?"
- This practice is also probably the reason that no youmas in Series 1 ever attempt to flee when outmatched. In Episode 05, Jadeite calmly informs youma Kyurene that should she fail at her task, her life is forfeit.. so when she indeed fails, she only flies a short distance away and then does not try to run away when Sailor Moon attacks her - probably knowing she is doomed to die either way.
- Sailor Stars is a particularly cruel instance of this trope. The Big Bad (Sailor Galaxia) sends her four minions, the Anima-Mates to Earth to find "true star seeds" (immortal souls) inside of the living beings of Earth that would impede her chances of taking over the galaxy, and killed most of them when they failed (except Sailor Lead Crow, who was too ambitious for her own good and got eaten by a black hole). At the end of the series, it turns out Galaxia knew that the Sailor Soldiers held the true star seeds the whole time, which makes it seem like she toyed around with the Anima-Mates for yuks and giggles.
- Subverted in Excel Saga, in which Diabolical Mastermind Il Palazzo drops Excel down a miles-deep, alligator-filled pit almost every episode and in several chapters. It isn't always alligators; in fact, the first time they appear in the anime, Il Palazzo refers to them as a Christmas present ("I have provided you with a knife and all suitable supplies"). The next time we see Excel, she's discussing the proper way of killing an alligator and complaining about how tough it is to skin one.
- Played straight later in the anime and the manga, though in different ways. In the anime Il Palazzo shoots Excel through the chest and leaves her to die in the desert, and in the manga Il Palazzo abandons Excel on a deserted island and replaces her with a competent robotic double.
- My-HiME: Father Joseph gets the "You're fired" speech from the higher-ups at Searrs for failing to eliminate the main characters in Episode 12. However, they don't actually kill him...they allow him to sit and watch as Alyssa and Miyu enact their plan to take over Fuuka Academy. He was eventually killed by Miyu after he shot little Alyssa at mission's end.
- His shooting Alyssa was also an example of this trope, as he was sent in to deal with Alyssa for her failing to take over the school.
- During the Saiyan Saga of Dragonball Z, Vegeta kills his partner Nappa after he gets his ass kicked by Goku, considering Nappa to be no use to him as a Saiyan warrior considering how Goku made an idiot out of him.
- Must be genetic. King Vegeta pulls one of these during a flashback.
- Well, his back was also broken during the course of the fight... it was still a jerkass thing to do.
- Especially given that they had access to medical technology that would heal such injuries.
- Plus the natural ability of Saiyans to gain huge power boosts after recovering from near-death injuries would have made Nappa much more of a match for Goku.
- Freeza also does this to his henchman Orlen when he failed to question the Namek that he killed so he blasted him with his eyebeams.
- Dragon Ball loves this trope. The Red Ribbon Army is known for its low tolerance for failure. For his failure to collect Dragon Balls, Commander Blue is used as a measuring stick for new baddie Tao Pai Pai. Commander Silver is likewise condemned for his inability to retrieve Dragon Balls. Freeza holds his army in line with fear of this. He promised this punishment to Zarbon if he failed to retrieve Vegeta. When facing off with Trunks, he kills one of his lackeys who is scared to face Trunks after all the other Mooks are sliced up effortlessly.
- On the topic of the Red Ribbon Army, their definition of failure is... well, just say that anything even slightly wrong is a failure, sometimes with the successes expected to be beyond the impossible. For instance, Commander Red, when he is talking to Colonel Silver, mentioned that a soldier who ended up losing an eye from being unable to efficiently dodge Red sicing his pet cat at him was "no longer with them", implying that he executed him because he couldn't evade the cat efficiently.
- Parodied in the case of Emperor Pilaf, who in his first appearance decides to kill Shu for farting in his presence,[1] but changes his mind shortly after when Mai comes in and mentions a lead on finding the dragon balls.
- MetalSeadramon from Digimon Adventure kills Scorpiomon after he fails to capture and incapacitate all 8 of the kids (Joe and Mimi escape). Though it must be said Scorpiomon failed big time and multiple times before MetalSeadramon did him in, and that MetalSeadramon was probably the least Bad Boss out of all the Digimon Adventure villains.
- Machinedramon also kills WaruMonzaemon after he's defeated by the kids, and Puppetmon shoots Blossomon and Mushroomon after they let TK slip away. And the most famous, Myotismon's killing of Pumpkinmon and Gotsumon when they fail at being evil. Myotismon did this a lot actually. Very few of his minions survived till the end of the arc and at least half of them were killed by him for this reason, and most of those that did were absorbed to fuel his One-Winged Angel form.
- In Digimon Frontier Duskmon says Arbormon (who was just defeated) has become a liability because he has lost his Beast Spirit before casually slicing him.
- In Princess Tutu, when Princess Kraehe continually fails to bring the Raven a heart as a sacrifice, he attempts to eat her heart instead. She escapes, but barely. (Ironically, he then later seems to be surprised when she betrays him and tries to save Mytho from the same fate.)
- In Full Metal Panic!!: The Second Raid, a Running Gag sees Ax Crazy Psycho for Hire Gates do this to quite a lot of subordinates for any number of random reasons. It's mostly played for comedy, if only because of the utterly insane ways he does it: In one case, he shoots a man who gainsaid him in the head point blank and then argues with his corpse for a good thirty seconds before noticing he is dead, and then starts bemoaning the man's sudden and unexpected death and wonders how it happened.
- Marik Ishtar of Yu-Gi-Oh! tends to do this whenever one of his Rare Hunters loses. He controls their minds briefly and leaves them in a seemingly permanent comatose state after delivering his messages.
- In the manga, Marik's punishment to Pandora (Arcana in the US) could be considered worse. Marik scans the unconscious Pandora's mind for a time he contemplated suicide and increased those fealings, stating that when Pandora comes to he's immediately be Driven to Suicide.
- Averted in Mazinger Z, where Dr. Hell certainly punished and berated his subordinates when they failed, but never killed them for their failures. When Ashura died in battle, Dr. Hell was very pissed off at the heroes.
- The One Piece conspiracy group Baroque Works held this as the penalty for any agents failing their assigned mission. While none of them liked it (except insofar as it got them promoted), most of the Officer Agents treated it merely as part of the job.
- Donquixote Doflamingo does this to Bellamy after he loses to Luffy for disgracing his flag by using his powers to force Sarquiss to kill him.[2] He later attempts it again on Gecko Moria, apparently on orders of someone in the World Government who outranks Sengoku, as it would be better for the Seven Warlords of the Sea's reputation.
- Nero, a CP9 initiate, gets finished off and thrown in the ocean by Rob Lucci for failing to defeat Franky, as well as for losing his temper and trying to kill him instead of bringing him in alive.
- Subverted in Naruto. After Madara notices that Sasuke failed to capture the eight-tailed beast for Akatsuki, he intercepts him and reminds him that betrayal means death, but instead of killing him, has him go to kill Danzo instead.
- Mentioned much earlier in the Sasuke Retrieval arc, when Kimimaro stated that even if Tayuya succeeds in killing of Shikamaru (which she didn't), he was going to kill her (and probably anyone else left in the Sound Four) anyway because she failed to bring Sasuke to Orochimaru by sunset. Kimimaro would never have gotten a chance to make good on his threat, though, since he died too.
- Sasuke eventually does this to his second team, throwing Suigetsu and Jugo to the wolves just because he doesn't want to wait to fight Danzo, then stabbing Danzo through Karin rather than making an effort to save her as he decided her getting taken hostage makes her not worth keeping (he was even going to finish her off himself to keep her quiet).
- Used in Nurarihyon no Mago. Interestingly, this isn't used just to demonstrate that the Big Bad is a dick. One of the protangonist's youkai allies uses this to infer that the Big Bad in question is extremely confident and has legitimate reason to be so.
- In episode 42 of Tekkaman Blade, Tekkaman Omega imprisons Blade's twin brother in a sort of organic prison pod for his repeated failures. It's only when his sole other Tekkaman is slain that he is willing to release him.
- Katekyo Hitman Reborn has a bad guy group which actually has a stated policy of killing those who fail. They're the Varia, the Vongola crime family's elite assassination squad. One of the reasons they're so tough is their tradition of "erasing the weak," meaning those who fail in a mission are swiftly put to death by one of the others.
- They must go through a lot of recruitment drives.
- Or so you'd think, but this may be closer to an Informed Ability, as we've only actually seen them carry out the policy once, and the victim survived and was even allowed to rejoin the unit.
- They must go through a lot of recruitment drives.
- This is apparently the standard policy of The Syndicate in Darker than Black. Huang regularly reminds Hei of this whenever he gets insubordinate, but Hei, apparently aware of the absurdity of the situation completely ignores him most of the time. Huang was right, though; their bosses do try to wipe them out when they get too far out of line.
- Bleach:
- After Renji is defeated by Ichigo in the Soul Society arc, Byakuya orders him imprisoned without having his life threatening injuries healed.
- Aizen murdering Halibel, and later Tousen.
- Rudbone and the Exequias, whose job it is to kill any Arrancar who loses a fight, like Dordonii and Ciricci. In other words, Aizen is so fond of this trope he actually created an official department of You Have Failed Me....
- The Major attempts to pull this on a commander who questions his order to have all of the troops suicidally rush Alucard's familiars. Unfortunately for the Major's dignity, he isn't the best marksman in the world (although he just orders his troops to do it instead).
- Played straight later on with Zorin Blitz. The Major informs her, via Schroedinger, that normally he'd have an incompetent subordinate killed by activating their suicide chip, but as Millennium are currently occupied with Walter, he'll leave her execution to Seras Victoria. Who is more than happy to oblige.
- Subverted in Soul Eater. After failing to prevent their plans being foiled Mosquito is offered a drink by Arachne. Giriko implies it may be poisoned, however Arachne reassures him and tells him to make up for it by doing better next time.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! season 0 had Kaiba doing this with his brother Mokuba. This was the first series based on Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Mokuba wasn't Kaiba's Morality Pet there.
- Yes. Even Pokémon.
- In the anime, we don't see this out of actual villains, though Giovanni rightly chews out field grunts Jessie and James whenever they try to call him. On the other hand, Paul will regularly release any Pokemon that fails to live up to his standards, however ridiculous they may be. This tends to overlap with You Have Outlived Your Usefulness, as being a long runner on his team does not provide immunity - as Chimchar came to learn firsthand. This came back to bite him big time when Ash finally beat Paul using the same Chimchar he threw away.
- Pokémon Special sees Ark, an Aqua Admin, ordered to stay behind and defend team headquarters while Archie, Amber, Angie, and the Magma alumni take the Kaien I to the Cave of Origin. To be fair to Archie, Ark should have known better about when and around who to indulge in Evil Gloating. To be fair to Ark, however, Sapphire is harder to kill than the lot of them anticipated.
- Rapunzel in MAR has the unfortunate habit of offing any of her teammates who lose in battle, but gives them the chance to redeem themselves if they beat her in a game of rock paper scissors. It's a mark of what a Complete Monster she is, considering her teammates are Aqua, Captain Hook, and her equally as horrible brother. She cheats at rock paper scissors- Aqua wins, and Rapunzel's brother murders Aqua anyway. Her cruel ways turn out to earn her a well deserved death, killed off by a member of her side, Ian.
- Jack and the Witch. After being given a chance to recapture Jack and his friends, Allegra fails. As an example to all who fail, the evil queen punishes her by exiling her to the Ice Caves for eternity.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, Father and Pride consume the people who fail them, even members of their own "family".
- Star Driver features a rather tame version of this one. Glittering Star pilots who lose to Takuto get their Cybody piloting privileges revoked. It's understandable, as the series repeatedly mentions that Cybodies are really freaking expensive and they can't just have any incompetent buffoon step in and break their toys whenever they feel like it.
- In Shaman King, Hao does this to three random shamans by burning them alive after their failure to capture and get their revenge on Lyserg. And retains his calm, cheery attitude in doing so. Creepy.
- Averted hard in Legend of the Galactic Heroes, where Reinhard doesn't kill any of his admirals despite some of them having some rather spectacular failures. Especially in the case of Hot-Blooded Admiral Bittenfeld, who walks into an obvious trap that ends in Admiral Fahrenheit dying in an attempt to bail him out, which would certainly get him killed by Vader, but gets to fight again and distinguishes himself in the following battle.
- Subverted early in Mobile Suit Gundam to establish Char as a Worthy Opponent and A Father to His Men. When Amuro first uses the Gundam he kills all but one member of a Zeon scout team and that member escapes to Char's ship. The survivor reports the failure to Char while clearly fearing this will happen (and it would have been expected in the Super Robot shows of the time), but Char calmly praises him for having followed orders and tells him he has nothing to worry about.