Cry For The Devil / Anime & Manga

Cry for the Devil moments in Anime and Manga.

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• Attack on Titan plays with this, without actually revealing more than a few precious glimpses of their history. Instead, the focus shifts to our villains so the audience can see that they really aren't so different from the heroes. Turns out that The Colossal Titan, Armored Titan, and the Female Titan aren't at all what was expected. All three are simply Child Soldiers, serving on the opposite side of a conflict linked to an Ancient Conspiracy.
  • Annie has an entire chapter devoted to this, showing how much she admires "special" people like Eren that have the courage to follow their ideals. We also get glimpses of her childhood, and the complex nature of her relationship with her father. He put her through Training from Hell, but finally broke down and begged for her forgiveness while admitting to being wrong. Even so, he told her to consider the entire world her enemy and made her promise to come home someday. Her father crying is the last thing she recalls, prior to encasing herself in a Crystal Prison.
  • Several chapters are devoted to showing just how deeply traumatized and remorseful Reiner and Bertolt are about their actions. Reiner's guilt caused him to suffer from bouts of Trauma-Induced Amnesia, while the formerly stoic Bertolt breaks down and admits their time with the 104th was the only time they were happy. Even so, both acknowledge their actions are impossible to forgive and resolve that they've come too far, with no choice left but to finish their mission or die trying. Their Last-Second Chance is rejected with a tearful reply that they can't. They even get a bonus epilogue in Volume 12, filled with Pet the Dog moments. Ymir, one of the few characters with knowledge of the Ancient Conspiracy, views them sympathetically and resolves to sacrifice herself to save them.
  • Zeke Yeager also gets this treatment, which shows that he was essentially a "Well Done, Son" Guy who just wanted his father Grisha to stop endangering himself and his family by being part of La Résistance. Whether or not he's actually sympathetic is highly subjective, however.
• In Berserk, behelits are only activated when their holder crosses the Despair Event Horizon, which means the series does this quite a bit. The Count, who eats people alive? He was a noble crusader, warring against pagan cults... and then he came home one day to find his wife holding a pagan orgy in his house. When she mocked him for not realizing sooner, his world collapsed and the behelit triggered. Rosine, abductor of children? Grew up in an abusive home, and when she ran away, she found that even leaving it wouldn't save her. The beating she got when her father found her set off the behelit. Emperor freaking Ganesha? The behelit was the only thing that saved him when his own mother poisoned him in favor of his brother taking the throne. No Apostle comes to that state without suffering.
• Alois Trancy from Black Butler season 2. Spent the first episodes abusing his maid and generally acting like a complete Jerkass. Then episode eight reveals in a flashback that Alois lost his brother, the only person he cared about, and was later sold as a sex slave to the earl. After telling his Battle Butler Claude, while bleeding to death from a stab wound he got in the previous episode, that he is the only one he's got left in the world, Claude simply kills Alois and takes his soul. Even Alois' greatest detractors found the scene quite heartbreaking. Having this song playing in the background did not help matters.
• Black Lagoon:
  • When Gretel tells Rock about her and her brother Hansel's lives as orphans, snuff film "stars", and hit-children, making Rock break down in tears before Karma catches up with her, just like it did with her brother.
  • Anime only, showing Balalaika before, during, and after the Soviet War in Afghanistan.
• Diva's backstory in Blood+ is definitely worth the viewer's pity. As a baby, she was separated from her twin sister, Saya, as soon as she was born and locked in a tower without a name and with nothing but the basic necessities to live. Her only companion was a man who was completely obsessed with her and only viewed her as a very interesting, study worthy creature. She spends the first sixty something years of her life like this, after which she escapes with her caretaker. As a result of her seclusion and her ruthless upbringing, she developed an unstable, immature personality and severe attachment issues, being unable to respond to her Chevaliers' undying devotion and affection (which messed up quite a few of them). Despite her deep, desperate craving for a family of her own, she never obtains it, as she dies before her babies emerge from their cocoons.
  • This also extends in-universe: After she finally succeeds at killing Diva, Saya starts bawling her eyes out.
• This is true for almost all Awakened Beings in Claymore. They are man-eating monsters, and many of them are also very vicious and sadistic. But each of them was once a young girl (or a boy, in the first generation, most of the warriors were male), who watched her family being killed and eaten by youma, and then was taken away by a malevolent organization to be transformed into a half-human fighting machine that is hated and despised by the other humans and had to fight against youma until one day she lost control of her powers and turned into an Awakened Being.
  • The anime even shows Priscilla crying when she eats human guts. And Isley explains that she is an Awakened Being, and her body can digest nothing other than human guts.
  • Of course, some Awakened Beings were evil even before they were transformed, such as Roxanne.
• Death Note:
  • In the original manga, the anime, and the live-action film, shows Light Yagami’s last moments in three different ways which may or may not invoke this, depending on the viewer:
    • In the manga he, minutes after pointing out that he managed to reduce global crime by 70% and bring an end to warfare, begs for his life in terror, and rather pathetically screams for someone, anyone, to help him, before begging Ryuk to save him. When Ryuk fulfills his promise from the beginning of the series and writes down Light's name, the former Magnificent Bastard says the not-very-classy last words of: "I don't want to die! I DON'T WANT TO DIE! Oh, shit!", and dies with a demented look on his face.
    • In the anime, he escapes with his life, if only for a moment; this is followed by a flashback of him as a high school student, and he is seen passing him on the street as he runs away, and he finally takes refuge in an abandoned shack, seeing L’s image in his mind’s eye before Ryuk finally kills him off.
    • In the live-action adaptation, he argues with his father, whom he tried to kill with the Death Note, about his actions, and finally dies when he tries to convince Ryuk to kill everyone but him in the room. Ryuk does the opposite, and Light finally dies begging his father to understand him.
  • The anime and the manga feature a Whole Episode Flashback to the childhood of Ax-Crazy Kira-substitute Teru Mikami, who started off as a highly moral and kind student who protected others from bullies, and ultimately became the target of their horrifying torments.
• A recurring pattern in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is that most of its demons still have some trace of humanity in them, no matter depraved a pack of blood-soaked killers they've become. However, if they have a tragic past, it's usually only revealed right before they die, so you'll end up shedding tears for someone who up until now was a vile Hate Sink. Part of Tanjiro's power as a hero is that he never loses sight of the remaining humanity in the demons he fights, and tries to show them some compassion even as he takes them down, as shown as early as the Final Selection arc, when he kills a demon who's been eating all of his mentor's students for nearly half a century...and then holds its hand as it dies, giving it some last recognition of its human life.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Vegeta's own backstory in the Namek Saga of Dragon Ball Z. It's not just the story, but the fact that he tells it with his dying breath and sheds tears over it.
  • Paragus and Broly from the movie Broly - The Legendary Super Saiyan. About 35 minutes in, when Paragus is explaining his motivations to the near-catatonic Vegeta. Paragus begs for his new son's life to an unrelenting King Vegeta, then the shadows cast on the wall from baby Broly being lifted out of his cradle and stabbed. It ends up being a subversion in Broly's case...he ends up being such an irredeemably evil psychopath that makes the viewer wish he HAD been killed in his infancy.
  • The rebooted canon Broly of Dragon Ball Super: Broly plays this more straight. First up his backstory was changed into being banished to planet Vampa and being stranded along with his father for 40 years. After this he was used as a tool of revenge by him and later on Frieza. This made it rather hard for the audience to root for Gogeta during their battle since in the end it is clear that Broly is just another victim. Thankfully he was saved by Cheelai in the end.
• An in-story example happens in Code Geass, with Nunnally crying for a dying Lelouch during Zero Requiem. Sort of a subversion, since Nunnally is crying after Lelouch has actually done what he planned to do all along.
  • It also does it insanely well with Mao in episode 15. He's introduced as a completely diabolical Smug Snake who tries to kill our hero, Lelouch, and chase down C.C. and seems unstoppable with his mind-reading skills. Then C.C. confronts him and invokes...pictures of Mao together with her as a (cute, huggable) little boy as she promises to stay with him forever...! And once he's taken care of for the episode, C.C. relates that she found him as a six-year-old orphan and gave him telepathy that he lost the ability to control and which ultimately caused him to go insane... By the time he finally dies, it isn't a Karmic Death at all... and shouldn't very well be, since it wasn't even his fault he was insane!
• Lucy from Elfen Lied. As the series begins, Lucy is seen escaping a laboratory, and mercilessly slaughtering anyone, and we mean anyone, who stands in her way. It's a complete and utter mystery as to why she seems to be unwilling to kill the male protagonist, Kouta. Cut to a few chapters/episodes later and we are shown the girl's hellish childhood. Turns out that Lucy, whose real name is Kaede, was abandoned by her father at an Orphanage of Fear, where she was mercilessly tormented by the other children and neglected by the staff, who only pretended to be nice to her and spoke ill of her when they thought she wasn't listening. It all culminated with some of the children, led by Tomoo, slowly killing her puppy (the only living being she's ever cared for) in front of her, revealed to them by a supposed friend that backstabbed her, and laughing at her misery. Cue the girl going Ax-Crazy and slaughtering them all in a textbook example of both Beware the Nice Ones and Blood Bath Villain Origin. And thus, Kaede ceased to be, and Lucy, the destroyer of mankind, was born...
  • This was merely the beginning: after meeting Kouta, befriending him, and almost turning their relationship into something more, she discovered that he lied to her...about the gender of the cousin he was going to a festival with. Broken and betrayed, the girl flew once more into an Unstoppable Rage and crossed the Moral Event Horizon by brutally killing everyone around her, including Kouta's family right in front of him. Ultimately, this cemented her decision that all humanity had to simply die.
    • And that's without mentioning that most of her murders were dictated by the manipulations of an Omnicidal Maniac inner voice.
• In Fairy Tail Zeref is pretty much this trope incarnate whenever he isn't living up to his reputation. To the world he's known as the most powerful and evil mage in history, and is responsible for creating demons and dark magics that still continue to wreak havoc today. Yet when one looks at his history, and at how miserable he is in the present, it's very easy to feel for his suffering. For starters he Used to Be a Sweet Kid who spent his childhood trying to bring his little brother back to life (who died as an infant by the way), while constantly being chided by his teachers for what they perceived as blasphemy. When he didn't take a hint and got a little too close to figuring out how to resurrect the dead, he ended up being cursed by a Jerkass God which killed everyone around him, and also gave him a horrifying case of Complete Immortality, leading to the guilt complex he would have to live with for centuries. During this time he started creating said demons in a desperate bid to kill himself because of the sheer amount of pain he's feeling and causing the rest of the world, culminating in his magnum opus, E.N.D., a.k.a. his dead little brother Natsu. A while later, he meets Mavis, the first and only person to ever show him genuine kindness, causing him to teach her magic that inadvertently makes her immortal. He eventually falls in love with her, and just when it looks like he's got a chance at Eternal Love and a tiny glimmer of hope at being happy, his curse kills her body causing her to be placed in suspended animation. Now, his only hope at ending his suffering is to die, and it has to be E.N.D., the same brother he dedicated his entire childhood to resurrecting, to be the one to do it.
• Honoo no Alpen Rose: In-universe. When Leonhardt Aschenbach learns of the Count and Countess' troubled past, he feels sorry for them, even though they're Nazi collaborators and he hates the Nazis for killing his parents. When he witnesses the flames swallow the burning mansion with them inside it, he mutters "Poor Count Garmont..." as Jeudi and Lundi look at him in surprise. Though this doesn't stop him from opposing the Count in later episodes.
• Scar in Fullmetal Alchemist at first just seems a ruthless Knight Templar Serial Killer who fanatically hates alchemy, fashioning himself the wrath of God personified. But he turns out to be an Ishvalan, whose people had been massacred by State Alchemists he targets. His flashbacks show him to be once a good (albeit very strict) person who genuinely cares for his family and people.
  • Even Envy gets one In-Universe. They are Driven to Suicide when Edward points out that they are jealous of humans' inner strength and ability to make friends.
  • The manga does this for Wrath/King Bradley. He was part of an experiment to create the leader of Amestris which involved a Training from Hell beginning in childhood, and then being put through a painful transformation into a homunculus. What makes the character somewhat sympathetic is that, because he had no real identity prior to the transformation, any human that did exist was killed, and you can see Bradley's Pet the Dog moments as the vestige of humanity in him. Nevertheless, he's still an extremely cruel Fantasy Counterpart Culture Adolf Hitler.
• In Fushigi Yuugi, the Big Bad Nakago gets this treatment via a flashback presented in the final episode, while Tamahome has his fist through him and gets to watch.
• Yomi from Ga-Rei -Zero- fits this trope to a T. The whole descriptive passage above aptly describes her without modification whatsoever.
• Gundam:
  • Ginias Sahalin of 08th MS Team can qualify for this. What can be seen as uncontrollable rage and hatred in the last episode can also be seen as psychological agony, considering that he REALLY starts going off after Aina brings up their mother and his past. And realizing that Aina essentially did the same thing to him as she did, his fanatical dedication to his Wave-Motion Gun and the carnage he inflicts goes from mere selfish jerk-assery to an act of psychological desperation by a man with some pretty deep-rooted trauma and pain.
  • Angelo Sauper from Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn spends most of his screentime acting like a massive Jerkass compared to his Affably Evil boss Full Frontal. Then Banagher uses his awakened Newtype powers to peer into Sauper's memories, and we learn that as a child he witnessed the death of his father and rape of his mother at the hands of Federation soldiers, was repeatedly sexually abused by his step-father, and as a teen was forced to prostitute himself to survive before joining the Sleeves. Ouch.
  • In Gundam Breaker Battlogue, we have Kentaro Mahara, who goes off the deep end after he loses to Takuma Nagitsuji, the protagonist from Gundam Breaker 3, in a championship match, hijacking a Gunpla Battle event and threatening to erase everyone's Gunpla data if Takuma doesn't challenge him again. Even Sana Miyama finds his reasoning lame. When Takuma shows up and defeats Kentaro again, using a unique system that the Gunpla Battle system gave him, many fans understood his frustration - oh, sure, his actions and rantings make Tsukasa Shiba look deep, but losing to someone who basically has a "I Win" button is not fair at all.
• In Hajime no Ippo, Mashiba Ryo is a quiet and sociopathic boxer who's nicknamed "The Executioner" for his horribly violent boxing style. Then, we see his backstory as an orphan who had to raise himself and his little sister, after losing his parents in an accident. By the time we learn what happened to him, Mashiba had lost faith in others and come to hate everyone but his current boss and Kumi...
• Miyoko Tanishi, aka Miyo Takano, from Higurashi: When They Cry. She never knew her mother, her father got in a car crash, and immediately after her father told her, with his last words, that she should go to live with a Mr. Hifumi, she's told that that's "not how it works" and shipped off to an Orphanage of Fear, where she was brutally abused and saw most of her friends die horrifically. After she was rescued by Hifumi about a year (?) later, she saw his (mostly correct) theories scoffed at and the man himself laughed out of the scientific community. After that, it's almost impossible not to feel a little sorry for her.
• We're told how crappy the life Lucia, from Rave Master, lived before we even get to see any of the horrible things he does as a result. But for good measure, when he's entering the final phase of his plan to destroy the world, we get to see a page or so from back when he was six. If the horrified look on his face after having his mother shot down in cold blood by the government isn't enough for you, then seeing his reaction to being locked up had better be.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Wamuu from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency has had this reaction from fans, as while initially he was a sort of Mayincatec vampire demi-god in the service of Kars, who is responsible for the death of Joseph's partner Caesar, ultimately in his final fight with Joseph Joestar he retains his sense of honor upon his defeat. In his dying moments, reduced to a severed head, he acknowledges Joseph as a Worthy Opponent, uses the last of his strength to save him from Kars' vampire minions, and thanks Joseph, saying that he's glad to have met him after having lived for millenia, before fading away into dust.
  • Fans also despaired at the demise of Squalo and Tiziano from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind. A pair of assassins serving as the Praetorian Guard of the Big Bad, the two have complementary Stand abilities that work with great synergy to take out their foes. But what really makes them stand out is their loving and affectionate devotion to one another, and despite them trying to kill the series' main heroes, it's still tragic seeing Tiziano sacrifice himself to protect Squalo and dying in his partner's arms. As he lies bleeding to death, he continues to encourage Squalo, saying that "victory is still ours" as he succumbs to his wounds. Squalo doesn't take this well: unfortunately for him, he ends up suffering Tiziano's fate as well.
• Inuyasha has the half-demon Gyu-oh. He is the son of a temple monk father and a bull-demon mother. For some unknown reason, unlike the other half-demons, he is a pure human during the day and a pure demon at night. These transformations eventually drove him crazy, and he becomes a tragic villain.
• Happens to a handful of the Arrancar in Bleach. Particular Coyote Starrk, who was shown to be so lonely due to his immense power isolating him, that he split a piece of his soul off into Lilynette Gingerbuck just to have someone to talk to, and only joined with Aizen to have friends. He didn't even care to fight the Soul Reapers seriously until Lilynette pointed out to him that fighting at full strength was the only way to protect his friends. When Shunsui kills Lilynette, Starrk just gives up and doesn't attempt to defend himself from Shunsui's next attack.
• As hard as it is to believe, there are some that do feel sympathy for Kill la Kill's Nui Harime. Yes, she killed Ryuuko's father, Soichiro Kiryuuin (otherwise known as Isshin Matoi), helped brainwash and sew a kamui into the main character and is one of the the most hated people in the series, but, considering some of her backstory, the implications thereof, and how she's apparently wanted someone with whom to relate (the fridge page has some more info on the horror that might entail), one cannot help but to wonder if how she would have turned out of she didn't have someone like Ragyou in her life. In the same hand, full-on Draco in Leather Pants treatment is rare, though, since even her fans know and love that Nui is a gleefully psychopathic bitch.
• Precia Testarossa in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The Movie First. Unlike the TV version, the viewers are shown her Start of Darkness and get to know exactly why she is the Big Bad. It's quite hard to fully hate someone who tried her best to be a good single working mother for her daughter, Alicia, whose life was shattered because the corporate executives she worked under didn't listen to her warnings, who worked hard despite declining health to return what she had lost, and who never forgave herself for failing to fulfill The Promise of spending more time with her now dead daughter. It certainly helped that this version of Precia was less of a maniacal-laughing psycho than the TV version, and more of a grieving mother with a Fatal Flaw.
• Mazinger Z: Neither the original manga penned by Go Nagai nor the anime series delved in the past and motivations of the villains. It was the manga penned by Gosaku Ota (and published simultaneously with the TV show) which finally revealed them. In one of the last chapters, as Dr. Hell is making preparations for the Final Battle, Dr. Hell begins to narrate what his early life was like. We learn during the flashback that he was born to a very poor family. His mother never wanted to have a child, constantly stated his existence was a bother for her and beat him constantly while his father did nothing. No child wanted to play with him because he looked ugly and weird. Looking for a way out of it he turned to the books. He became very intelligent, began to get excellent grades in school... and then his teachers accused him of cheating and several of his classmates bullied him. He grew up without friends until he got in college, when he befriended someone who appreciated his intelligence and fell in love with an exchange student. Shortly after he found out they were a couple and his frayed mind was already so paranoid he thought they were plotting against him to backstab him. After another unpleasant incident where he got beaten for making a good deed (a little girl slipped in front of him and he caught her to keep her from falling and being hurt. It was a well-meaning, innocent act— however, her parents thought he was molesting her, and her father pummeled him) his mind finally snapped and he decided Humans Are Bastards and one day he would wipe the world of idiots and make everyone else kneel before him.
• In Monster, the main story line is about finding out what turned Johan into an unrepentant Manipulative Bastard. We get to see all the horrible places he was sent to as a child. However, there's a Spoileriffic detail...: Half of it didn't happen to him and the other half didn't change him in the slightest.
  • Played straight in the finale (Or is it?) when Johan reveals that his mother was forced to make a horrible Sadistic Choice in regards to him and his twin sister, Anna, causing Johan to question his own sense of worth.
  • The straightest example is Johan's suicidal tendencies and his attitude to other evil people. Throughout the story, the impression is that he is tired with his own evil nature, something everyone else makes a big deal of, but which, for him, is so plain, ordinary, and banal. He remarks that he is searching for the darkest place or person in the world, but fails to find it, presumably in a search for somewhere he can belong, which won't happen as his thought process is simply so alien from ordinary people that he can never fit in. Hence, he encourages people to try and kill him, and doesn't particularly care for all the grand plans his "followers" expect from him and he presumably fulfills them only because he's bored and he views it as a way to pass the time. Or he may just be The Antichrist, but that's probably just Rule of Symbolism. Probably.
  • Other evil characters such as Roberto, Christof Sievernich, and Peter Čapek are also shown to have once been relatively kind, sympathetic characters, before the effects of living in a totalitarian Orphanage of Fear, being subjected to nihilistic indoctrination sessions, and/or manipulation by the likes of Franz Bonaparta and Johan himself took their toll on their previously compassionate, caring personalities.
• In-universe example in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, where the unnamed protagonist finds herself sympathizing with Katarina, a Spoiled Brat rival from an otome game she had been playing (as Katarina is the only character in the game who never gets a happy ending or a chance for redemption). Of course, part of this is because she reincarnated as Katarina after she died.
• Naruto:
  • Gaara seems like an uncontrollable sociopathic monster during the Chuunin Exams, until we learn his backstory and discover he is the True Companions-lacking counterpart of Naruto. He mellows out afterwards.
  • Even Orochimaru got one of these. He has a flashback of when he was a sad but normal child visiting his parents grave with the third Hokage and finding a snakeskin, which he was told symbolized rebirth. My, now what are all his abilities based around?
  • Pain was driven by these lengths by three main incidents in his youth which shattered his early idealism and dreams of peace.
  • Kabuto gets one of these too. Forced to kill the woman who raised and loved him as a son in self defense who didn't even recognized him as she had been brainwashed to not recongnize him by Danzo.
  • To say nothing of Obito Uchiha, aka Tobi. Found by the deranged madman known as Madara and forced to watch as the love of his life killed herself by stepping in front of his best friend's jutsu, all to save their village, and then there's the Uchiha Clan's Curse of Hatred... you really can't blame the guy for going insane.
  • This trope is a major theme in Naruto; except for Hidan (who's a Satanist) and Kakuzu (who's in it for the money), pretty much every antagonist - even minor ones like Zaku Abumi - has had some kind of trauma happen in his past that makes him somewhat sympathetic.
• In Pokémon: The First Movie, Mewtwo outright murders the scientists who created it and attempts to wipe out the rest of humanity for "enslaving" its brethren. In the The Birth of Mewtwo radio drama, though, we learn that the infant Mewtwo formed a friendship with a human clone who perishes. The scientists inject Mewtwo with serum to subdue its traumatized mind and erase its memories of her, implying that this act contributes to Mewtwo becoming unhinged and left with so many existential questions.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica plays with this trope, when we discover that Homura Akemi has very valid reasons for wanting Kyubey dead. I mean, after watching your best friend die time after time by the mind games of that little furball, you'd be out for blood too. But to top it all off, killing Kyubey is just a means to an end.
  • The Rebellion movie cranks it up with Homura becoming the Devil herself by hijacking Madokami's powers and becoming a God of Evil. This was, however, after the Incubators attempted to forcibly prevent Homura from meeting Madoka again by trapping her in her own Soul Gem, turning her into a Witch that wasn't supposed to exist in the Madokami world. Also, Demon Homura is just trying to make a world where Madoka is happy.
• Midway though RahXephon, the series throws us a flashback episode about the childhoods of Itsuki, Makoto, and Helena. Seeing Makoto treated as a defective piece of equipment by the closest thing he has to a family, Bahbem and his other clones, and seeing the one thing he loved in life fall apart is pretty heart-wrenching. It doesn't excuse his Jerkass Smug Snake behavior, but it does explain it and cast it in a new light.
• Helbram from The Seven Deadly Sins is presented as a villain who without so much as a shred of empathy, casually and often deliberately hurts humans regardless if they are his subordinates or innocent civilians caught in the fray. His backstory however shows what he was before he was like this. He was once an innocent fairy who was deeply and genuinely fascinated with human culture and trinkets, something fairies don't have. However his curiosity allowed him and a few of his friends to get tricked and captured by greedy humans who wanted to rip their wings off for medicine. The experience drove him mad and made him into the Ax-Crazy Faux Affably Evil that he is in the story.
  • On top of that, later he turned out to be dead - he was he was resurrected and controled by the current big bad. It feels especially gut-wrenching as Helldram resurrected again, at this point completely insane, begging King to kill him.
• In Seven Mortal Sins, the Mark Twain quote on the main page is essentially the basis for Lucifer's latent obsession/interest in the human Maria, as Maria's All-Loving Hero tendency had her praying to Lucifer purely out of kindness and sympathy since she was a little girl.
• In Soul Eater, Crona is introduced as a servant to the witch, Medusa, and is portrayed as someone who will kill anyone and anything all for the sake of becoming a Kishin. Then it's revealed that Medusa is actually his/her mother, and he/she is the way the are due to the way he/she was raised. For example, Medusa would lock him/her in a dark room (and s/he was terrified of the dark) with Ragnarok, who repeatedly beat him/her, as punishment for his/her refusal to kill another living creature. And Medusa would leave Crona in that room for days, not caring if he/she was starving to death as a result. She kept doing it again and again until s/he would finally give in. It's also implied that s/he never had any friends or received any compassion until Maka reached out to him/her.
• Chouji Suitengu of Speed Grapher, the true Big Bad, receives this near the end of the series. He is cruel, manipulative, and merciless to those who owe him money or stand in his way, and uses a helpless teenage girl to further his plans. Then, in a flashback episode, the audience sees that Suitengu and his little sister were sold off to pay some of the debt his parents incurred. He was forced into the military to fight for whoever bought him, while his prepubescent sister was sold into prostitution. Years later, he finally tracks her down, only to find that she's so broken that she doesn't recognize him, and he euthanizes her before weeping, distraught, over her body. Everything that he did since was a part of an elaborate plan for revenge against the people directly responsible for his ruined life and the society that allowed it to happen.
• Mantid from Spider Riders has a moment in the final episodes. He reveals that he was once a spider rider and, over time, lost everything that he loved. In fact, it's so sad, even the Oracle cries in sympathy, preventing Hunter from finishing him off and causing him to re-evalute his own views on how to save people.
• Trigun loves this trope. Just about every major bad guy is given a sympathetic reason for his behavior, at least in the manga.
• The Millenium World arc of Yu-Gi-Oh! has a flashback to the Thief King Bakura watching the massacre of his village, Kul Elna, from a hiding place.
  • Marik may count as well. He had an abusive father, and was forced to carry a tradition that he did not want or care for that required an isolated and lonely existence. This not only turned him bad, but spawned his Superpowered Evil Side, the embodiment of his resentment and rage.
• YuYu Hakusho has Sensui, the Big Bad of the penultimate arc. He used to be the Earth's Spirit Detective, which is now Yusuke's job, before his Face–Heel Turn. Unlike the jaded Yusuke, Sensui had a black-and-white view of morality and justice. He fought hard to protect the human world from what he saw as absolute evil, the demons. And then, in one moment traumatizing enough for him to qualify as Mind Rape, he discovers that not only are demons not all that bad, but there are humans far worse than most demons.

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