Times where a loved one is taken hostage in Anime and Manga.
- 20th Century Boys: Subverted. The bad guys kidnap the daughter of a scientist whose help they need; however over his ensuing years of work, she becomes converted to their side, and is a minor villain throughout the rest of the series.
- Griffith from Berserk does this with one of the Queen's mooks in order to blackmail him into helping Griffith kill the Queen, only the hostage is the mook's young daughter.
- Guts also had a habit of doing this when he was in full Jerkass mode.
- Ichigo from Bleach has this done to him twice with Orihime as bait. Though, it was more of a 'We have your friend/ potential Love Interest' moment.
- Chainsaw Man
- The Bat Devil holds Power's cat hostage in order to force her to bring him humans to feed on. He promptly swallows them both whole, forcing Denji to rescue her.
- In Part 2, Ambiguously Evil Yoshida kidnaps Denji’s Annoying Younger Sibling Nayuta and their dogs in order to force him to cooperate with Public Safety's plan to suppress the Cult of Personality surrounding him.
- Subverted in Death Note, with an exchange that goes something like this (he wasn't holding anyone hostage)Kira: Guess who I'm holding hostage.
Raye Penber: ...No! You're holding her hostage? ("her" being Naomi Misora, Penbar's fiancée)
Kira: (smirks to self) That's right, and I'll kill her unless you do what I say.- It's later played straight when Mello kidnaps Light's little sister Sayu. Their father happens to be the head of the team working on the Kira case. Mello specifically mentions that it would be pointless to tell him not to contact the police, because he's in the police. But he does ask him to stop it spreading further.
- The movie has an odd variation. Naomi takes (Light's girlfriend) Shiori hostage, intending to get him to reveal himself as Kira. It turns out to be a plan on Light's behalf, with him planning a "murder-suicide" scenario.
- The Big Bad Nadil kidnaps Lykouleon's wife in Dragon Knights more than once. It always works.
- Minerva pulls off a twisted version in Fairy Tail when she tells Sting, her ally, that she's holding his closest companion Lector hostage. Because she's just saved Lector's life as well, Sting would already do whatever she wanted - she's just adding the extra punch in the gut to try and make him fight for higher stakes.
- Done by the Anti-Hero protagonist Kiritsugu Emiya in Fate/Zero, via An Offer You Can't Refuse; victim must "exit the stage," so to speak, but both parties sign a magical contract that state said hero cannot harm either wife or husband. He lets her go eventually. This is when Kiritsugu's assistant shows up with a machine gun.
- Fullmetal Alchemist is in love with this trope, at least metaphorically. When Ed and Roy step out of line in the middling chapters, the Big Bad crew hold Winry and the Mustang Team hostage, respectively. Ed's able to engineer Winry's escape with Scar's help, but Roy can't do much for his men. Riza is taken hostage, as she now works in close proximity with the Big Bad crew, and if Roy does anything they don't like her life is forfeit. The others are also in varying sorts of danger. Dr. Marcoh is constantly forced to do the Big Bad crew's bidding due to their hostage-taking. It gets so bad that he expresses the desire for death over having to work within the constraints any longer. Toward the endgame, Roy retaliates for the loss of his subordinates by taking a hostage of his own. King Bradley, I have your wife. However, this is later subverted when it turns out that taking Mrs. Bradley hostage was part of a Batman Gambit designed to make her realize that her husband and his top generals considered her as expendable as any member of Mustang's crew, followed by a promise from Mustang to keep her safe - which he does.
- Done in Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu when someone tells Sousuke that they have Chidori kidnapped. So before showing up to make a deal with the bad guys he kidnaps or threatens EVERY SINGLE MOOK'S MOST PRECIOUS SIGNIFICANT OTHER to force them to give up Chidori. Of course the only one he actually took hostage (the gang leader's little brother) had actually been bribed to play along.
- Played for Laughs in Gakuen Babysitters when one of Ryuuichi's classmates wanted to submit a video of the toddlers for a contest and proceeded to "kidnap" Ryuuichi and Kamitani so he could film the toddlers "saving" them. In order to rescue their babysitters, the children would have to do certain tasks - namely, having them conquer their fears or things they were bad at.
- In Gate 7, Tokugawa Iemitsu kidnapped the twin sister of one of the Urashichiken's members.
- GTO: The Early Years: Fumiya kidnaps Ayumi and threatens to have her gang-raped if Ryuji attacks him. He orders Ryuji to Come Alone to Enojima Station to find out where she is (though he mentions he'll kill Ryuji even if he doesn't show up).
- Gunsmith Cats: Buskie kidnaps Alan Scott's daughter to force Scott to deliver Rally into an ambush unarmed.
- In Ikki Tousen, Toutaku wants Hakufu to kill Ryoufou for him. What does he do when she says no? He grabs Hakufu's friend and teammate Ryoumou and chokes her, telling Hakufu he'll kill her if she keeps refusing.
- The series soon tops it by having the badly injured Gakushuu and Koukin being held hostage by Saji, the Sixth Ranger Traitor, so Hakufu goes face him after defeating and killing Toutaku. And it seems the writers love that, since in Dragon Destiny Kan'u surrenders herself to Kyoushou High when told by the Three Pillared Gods that her teammates (including her Les Yay Love Interest and leader, Ryuubi) are cornered by practically every Kyoushou fighter.
- Inuyasha:
- Sango was occasionally coerced with threats against, or promises to release, her Brainwashed and Crazy brother Kohaku. After the first couple of times she finally seemed to get that Naraku is a liar and stopped going along with it.
- Also early in the series, Kagome is kidnapped by the Thunder Brothers. She convinces them to let her live so they can force Inuyasha to give up the Shikon Jewel shards for her as a ransom. This was a bluff, as her relationship with Inuyasha was still fairly antagonistic at this point, and it leads to this exchange:Inuyasha: Let me get this straight, you and I are supposed are supposed to be lovers?
Kagome: This is no time to get all shy!
Inuyasha: You actually think I'd hand over the jewel shards as a ransom to get you back?!
Kagome: Of course you would! Cause that's what a lover would do!
- Judge reveals this to be the reason why Kazuhiko Asai agreed to become The Mole, after being given a cellphone with instructions and a picture of their mother, whom they haven't seen in years due to personal reasons, held at gun-point and told to follow the instructions lest she be killed.
- In the anime of Magic Knight Rayearth, Inouva takes Ferio captive and tells Fuu to give up being a Magic Knight or Ferio will be killed. It backfires hugely, since Fuu's refusal to go along with it is what proves her heart to Windam.
- In the finale of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, Heero needs only one last shot from Wing Zero to destroy the Elaborate Underground Base, but Dekim Barton reminds him through broadcast that Relena was inside the base, making Heero hesitate in pulling the trigger. Although, it's hard to tell if Dekim thinks Heero wouldn't harm Relena either because she's a major political figure or because Dekim knows she's Heero's Love Interest. In any case, Heero takes the shot anyway, while Relena's reaction seems to indicate she knows he'll do so and accepts her possible death.
- In My Hero Academia, it's revealed that The Mole the heroes had been hunting for several arcs is none other than Yuga Aoyama, who only went along with it because All For One was holding his parents hostage.
- Mamoru Chiba is kidnapped a couple of times over the course of Sailor Moon. Usually this isn't for any purpose except to brainwash him to fight the good guys, though twice in the original anime, his kidnapping is actually used to get the heroes to act. In the first example, during Sailor Moon S, Kaolinite figures out Usagi's true identity as Sailor Moon and traps Tuxedo Kamen in glass after taking Usagi's compact. She then demands Usagi meet her at the Tokyo Tower if she wants him back. In reality, she's just baiting a trap to get an opportunity to take Usagi's pure heart, which she believes to have a talisman. Later in the series, Nehellenia possesses Mamoru via a glass mirror shard in his eye, and kidnaps him in order to lure Usagi into her realm.
- Zoisite loves this strategy in the original anime. Zoisite has his youma kidnap Naru in order to threaten Nephrite, as he's figured out Nephrite is obsessed with her, and tries to ransom her for the Black Crystal using three powerful youma. Nephrite just proceeds to beat up the youma and take Naru back, though Zoisite ends up killing him a little while later anyway. Later in the season, Zoisite uses Naru again to threaten Sailor Moon into giving up the only rainbow crystal the Sailor Senshi have collected, this time by having a youma suffocate her until Sailor Moon gives up and hands it over (though he initially planned to just turn Naru into a youma and threaten her that way, but he missed his attack and hit a Power Ranger parody instead.) Finally, Zoisite captured the Sailor Senshi through a convoluted scheme in order to force Tuxedo Mask to give up the rainbow crystals which he had collected. This is the only time he actually failed because Sailor Venus made her first appearance in this episode, thus avoiding his trap...though he still got information on Tuxedo Mask's true identity in the process.
- Rubeus captures all four of the Guardian Senshi during Sailor Moon R and demands Sailor Moon arrive in his UFO to hand over Chibiusa and the ginzuishou if she wants them back.
- In Tiger & Bunny, Maverick tries this with Kotetsu's daughter, Kaede. Not only does it serve to piss Kotetsu off, but Kaede reveals herself to be a Damsel out of Distress who manages to save her own life and that of every other superhero trapped by Maverick's subordinate, Rottwang. Hoist by His Own Petard at its finest!
- In Wolf Guy - Wolfen Crest, with Haguro in charge, it's less about having the wife and move about kidnapping the Hot Teacher that is the Anti-Hero's Morality Chain, violently torture and rape her for several hours, videotaping this and threaten said Anti-Hero with sending copies of said sexual acts to completely smear her fame.
- This is used quite a bit in Yu-Gi-Oh!. Pegasus takes Yugi's grandfather's soul to make him compete in his tournament. Then there's the Jonouchi / Joey anchor duel. Then Ryuji Otogi / Duke Devlin humiliates Jonouchi / Joey and makes Yugi duel to get him out of the dog suit. There's probably even more.
- Mokuba. He is kidnapped or placed in some sort of mortal peril (or both) at least once a season because the villain has an agenda against his brother.
- Voltes V: Prince Heinel has Mr. Sakame's daughter, Rumi, hostage. He promises to free her from captivity under the condition that Sakame infiltrates Big Falcon, sabotages Voltes V, and weakens their resolve by saying that the Go brother's father, Kentaro, is a slave driver. Though Sakabe holds up his end of the bargain, Heinel doesn't, before setting off a bomb that kills him. Oh, and said daughter was Dead All Along.
