Defusing The Tykebomb in Anime and Manga.
- Done by Terasaka to Itona in Assassination Classroom.
- Attack on Titan sees Jean and Connie attempt this on Reiner and Bertolt, in the midst of a desperate chase through Titan-infested lands. Both appeal to their years of friendship and comradery, asking Was It All a Lie? and attempting to coax them into talking to them. While their attempts are successful in not only defusing Mikasa's Unstoppable Rage, but triggering Bertolt's Villainous BSoD.....it seems these Tyke Bombs are Trapped in Villainy and can't be talked down. Any further efforts are prevented by Erwin leading in a Zerg Rush and throwing gasoline on the proverbial fire. Quite a few people are killed in the ensuing chaos.
- The whole comedic point of Beelzebub. Poor Oga has his work (and life) cut out for him to prevent his adopted demon spawn from erasing humans off the face of the earth.
- Sven toward Eve in Black Cat.
- In Black Lagoon, Rock tries to do this with Gretel (who might really be Hansel). He seems to have some success with befriending her, and even caused her to behave in a nonviolent fashion towards him. And then (s)he gets shot.Benny: Stories like these don't have happy endings.
- Subverted in the second season of Code Geass. Lelouch tries to do this for his "false brother" Rolo, by using their memories from the past year to appeal to his "brotherhood" to turn him into a personal Tykebomb for him instead of V.V., but with full intent of offing him when he no longer needed him as payback for replacing Nunnally. It works, and he gets a loyal pawn that he does get a little attached to, but eventually this goes horrifically wrong when said pawn becomes a murderously jealous Yandere who ends up killing Lelouch's would-be girlfriend Shirley in cold blood, and intends on offing Nunnally in the process.
- Done in DNA², towards Rurara Kawasaki.
- Dragon Ball: Goku, of all people, is a defused tykebomb. The loving care of Son Gohan and a blow to his head rendered him harmless years before the first chapter.
- In Endride, Demetrio, the Rebel Leader and part-time Warrior Therapist, manages to defuse the tykebomb that is the brainwashed child assassin, Mischa, by a combination of beating her in battle, destroying her Slave Collar, and offering a few kind and optimistic words about the future.
- Dominic helps bring this about for Anemone in Eureka Seven.
- Subverted in the 2nd G.I.G. of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. When the Individual Eleven have a group of people suicide bomb random areas across the city, the last bomber is revealed to be a little girl. Togusa tries to convince her to not detonate the bomb she has, and at first, he seemingly gets through to her only for Batou to shoot the girl in the cheek, and pull out a detonator from her teeth that she would have bitten down had Togusa gotten closer to her.
- Gundam:
- Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: Kamille Bidan attempts this with both Four Murasame and Rosamia Badam, even playing along with the latter's delusion that he's her elder brother in an attempt to help her. Tragically, both of them get killed in battle before he's successful, one by Kamille himself, no less.
- Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ: Judau Ashta is more successful: Elpeo Ple settles into a fairly stable brother-sister relationship with him, and even Ple-Two seems headed in this direction by the end. Both of them still die... both times, in protecting him from danger.
- Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn: Banagher Links tries to talk Loni out of levelling Torrington with her mobile armour. He nearly succeeds, coaxing Loni out of her cockpit, only for her to witness her last family member dying at the hands of the Federation, and driving her back into her rampage in despair. There's also an example in the backstory - Banagher is a defused Tyke Bomb himself.
- Mobile Fighter G Gundam: Domon Kasshu does this to Allenby Beardsly. When she's kidnapped and then Brainwashed and Crazy by Prime Minister Wong, his partner Rain Mikamura finishes Domon's work.
- Also, Shinn Asuka tries this on Stella Loussier in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. It nearly works, and Shinn has Stella successfully calmed down... until she spots the Freedom Gundam of Kira Yamato behind Shinn's Impulse. Seeing the Freedom causes Stella to flashback to Neo Roanoke encouraging her to kill everyone she encountered with the Destroy, or she would die. And due to that being her Block Word, she goes nuts again out of fear of dying and starts advancing on Shinn. Shinn tries his best to calm her down again, but she is completely beyond help now and attempts to blast him point-blank. This forces Kira and the Freedom to intervene and take down the Destroy before it can fire on Shinn, and he violently tears the giant machine down. Despite the fact that Shinn's life was actually saved by this action, Stella died from wounds sustained from Kira's finishing blow on the Destroy. And that only increased Shinn's hatred towards the Freedom Gundam and its pilot... despite the fact that there was most likely no hope for Stella regardless of any attempt to save her.
- In Kekkaishi, Yoshimori attempts to do this to Hiura.
- Some characters of Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple (Kenichi himself, Miu, Niijima) are gradually doing this with Creepy Child Chikage Kushinada as an alternative to letting her fight Kenichi. Some want to help her, others are concerned because Kenichi Wouldn't Hit a Girl, let alone a little girl. As a result of all these attempts (especially Kenichi's), she becomes Tsundereish towards Kenichi.
- Lyrical Nanoha: A few examples.
- Nanoha does this to Fate in the first season. Of course, this being Nanoha, she defused the bomb with a bigger explosion.
- And then Erio and Caro do this to Lutecia in season 3.
- Fate previously reached out to Erio, who believed he was worth nothing after finding out that he, like Fate, was a clone of a dead child, and lashed out at her and the people looking after him. Interestingly enough, she used essentially the same argument that Caro eventually used against Lutecia- that people who are sad should not hurt others while seeking happiness.
- This happens to seven out of the twelve Numbers, four of whom get adopted into the Nakajima family and the other three joining the Saint Church.
- Kobayashi does this for Ilulu in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid after she protects her from Clemene. Ilulu's sudden change in personality afterwards is explained by the fact that she Used to Be a Sweet Kid, and thus she was simply drawing on past experiences rather than learning them from scratch.
- Mob Psycho 100: In the series finale, Reigen does this for Mob, who's on a rampage through Seasoning City after a near-fatal car accident, by admitting he doesn't have psychic powers.
- Monster: Mostly played with, though not for laughs; Tenma gets his intervention in early with Dieter, Nina attempts this retroactively with her brother, and Grimmer tries with Pedrov's boys, misguidedly as it turns out.
- Mai does this unintentionally to Mikoto in My-HiME, without even knowing what Mikoto's role in the unfolding events really is. Likewise, Miyu wins Alyssa from the Searrs Foundation by being the only person... well, robot... who ever actually cared about her. It doesn't quite stick, though, with Alyssa being killed shortly afterwards... until the end. anyway.
- Naruto:
- Iruka does this for Naruto himself, as he was the first adult to treat Naruto like a person - other adults were either distant or hostile, and the kids more or less followed suit. Many of Naruto's enemies are versions of him who didn't even get that level of support (or only got it from a twisted source), which Naruto has to fix with speeches and punching.
- Naruto doesn't understand how Haku can stand to work for a man like Zabuza, who frequently makes it clear that Haku's usefulness "as a weapon" in battle is why he's kept around (though this turns out to be a front...). Naruto sees Haku as a person, and tries to make Haku see that he's a person, too.
- Gaara is a blatant example of this trope. Turned into an unstable, murdering psychopath by his father, and empowered by Shukaku, after a beatdown and lecture from Naruto he became a highly admired and respected leader of his ninja-village.
- And Pain gives us a lesson in how not to do this: Naruto's future mentor, Jiraiya, attempted to help a poor orphaned child named Nagato survive by teaching him ninjutsu. Nagato and his friends did well, and lived happily for a while, until Danzou and Hanzou of the Salamander teamed up to kill Nagato's best friend in the most traumatic way possible. Nagato took up the name "Pain", and became an international ninja-terrorist, kidnapping Tailed Beasts to bring the world under his rule.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion sees Shinji unknowingly defusing Rei, by treating her like a friend
- Mireille from Noir assumes this role toward Kirika, particularly toward the end of the series.
- Trafalgar Law, at the age of 10, in One Piece saw everyone he loved murdered by the World Government and stopped believing in anything only wanting to cause destruction before he died of a lead disease. Doflamingo sought to turn him into his right hand man, but his younger brother, Corazon saw a really messed up child who needed help and took him away to find a cure to his disease. After several months together, Law came to admire the real hero who saved him from his disease and set his life towards accomplishing the fallen Corazon's wish to stop his evil brother's madness.
- This was the plot of an issue of Pet Shop of Horrors: in 'Duty,' a teenage boy belonging to an order of child assassins named 'Scorpio's Children' takes cover at D's pet shop. It is up to Count D to try to defuse him, which he does with the aid of an illusory confrontation with the boy's estranged mother. It succeeds, although D being D, he was more interested in the eponymous scorpion than in the child.
- Rowan does this to Mitsumi prior to the beginning of Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl Adventure!.
- A strange case of this appears in Pokémon: The First Movie. Mewtwo rejects the objectification of his creators on his own twice (even stating in the novelization that they treat him like an object), and is already waging war on humanity when our heroes come along. Ash and his friends, fairly quickly, realize that Mewtwo's clone soldiers are tykebombs and Ash sacrifices himself to save them and the regular Pokemon from Mewtwo and Mew's feud. This selfless act makes Mewtwo realize that not all Humans Are Bastards and defuses him partly. This process is essentially completed in the direct-to-video sequel, Pokémon: Mewtwo Returns.
- In R.O.D the TV, tykebomb Junior finds Michelle utterly disarming. Anita puts a few chinks in his armour as well.
- An absolute textbook example of this trope occurs toward the end of Rune Soldier Louie when priestess Melissa walks directly toward an enraged, lightning-bolt-flinging Child Mage named Lilly, who has been raised by the evil Lord Dardanel to be a vicious enemy of the reigning royal family. Melissa proceeds to talk her into a teary-eyed Heel–Face Turn.
- Rurouni Kenshin: Kenshin Himura does this to Soujiro.
- Maka towards Crona in Soul Eater. Though, the results and forms of this are... a little different between the anime and manga.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V (yes, a Yu-Gi-Oh! series), Riley Akaba (former Child Soldier) is the younger brother of The Chessmaster Declan, and Declan is trying to support his younger brother.
