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My Greatest Failure / Anime & Manga

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  • In the Area 88 manga, Hoover Kippenburg blames himself for the accidental deaths of several pilots during a botched training exercise back in Europe.
  • Assassination Classroom:
    • Koro-sensei/The God of Death has two of them: the first being never properly acknowledging his pupil's efforts, leading to the pupil betraying him and taking up the title of "God of Death" as his own, the second being Aguri Yukimura getting impaled by a shot meant for him while giving him a Cooldown Hug, leading to the bitter realization that even with all his talent and skill, he can't save a life because he devoted all his effort into taking them. Because of these two failures, he resolves to spend his limited life teaching Aguri's class in her place.
    • Principal Asano turns out to have his ruthlessness rooted in failure as well. He used to be a kind-hearted and caring teacher much like Koro-sensei, but then one of his former students committed suicide in high school. He blamed himself for not preparing the boy for life properly, and his current brutal teaching techniques are the result of him trying to emphasize strength of will in his pupils, even if he has to resort to using The Power of Hate as a motivator.
  • Many characters in Attack on Titan have one:
    • Grisha Yeager deeply regrets taking his sister Faye outside the walls, leading to her death and the rise of his Restorationist movement. He also regrets indirectly causing the Titanization of his first wife and his friends by being a bad father to his first son, Zeke.
    • Keith Shadis holds a great deal of remorse for all the deaths that happened because of him, as well as callously snapping at Carla Yeager during their final conversation.
    • Mikasa Ackerman blames herself for Eren Yeager's downward spiral by not being honest with him during their last conversation before his fall.
    • In his final moments, Theo Magath confesses to the above-mentioned Shadis that sending Reiner, Annie, Bertholdt, and Marcel to break the walls is his greatest regret and realizes that it's far too late for them to live the normal lives he wanted for them.
    • Reiner Braun blames himself for many things which all contributed to his eventual status as a Death Seeker. The death of his friend Marcel when they were children, and his loyalty to Marley which led to him committing horrific acts in the name of making his people proud.
    • After finding out the truth of the so-called "Devils of Paradis", Gabi Braun holds a lot of regret for her killing of Sasha, as she realizes how senseless it was and the first friend she made on the island, who idolized Sasha for saving her when she was young, wants her dead after finding out.
  • In Beast Saga, even though he carries around a sword, Liogre swears never to use one again after accidentally injuring a little deer girl.
  • Berserk: not being able to save Casca from being raped by Femto during the Eclipse and later realizing that he made a big mistake by leaving her for two years to deal with her trauma by herself while he pursued revenge against Griffith in order to deal with his trauma alone was Guts' greatest failure.
  • Black Jack: a dying Dr. Honma contacts Black Jack to confess a shameful secret: when he first operated on Black Jack, he accidentally left a scalpel inside of him, but refused to believe it until he found the blade encased in a calcium shell during a follow-up operation years later. The mistake disgusted him so much that he found himself no longer able to trust his own skill as a surgeon, and retired from practice shortly after.
  • Bleach:
    • Urahara's failing to save the Visdored was this.
    • Unohana considers being weaker than Kenpachi Zaraki when they first fought, and thus unwittingly making him restrain himself in order to not kill her, permanently leaving him with a fraction of his true might, to be her greatest failure.
  • Buso Renkin: Mamoru Sakimori was deeply affected by being part of the team that failed to stop a group of homunculi massacring a school and leaving only a single survivor (Tokiko). This failure was what led him to create the Large Ham Captain Bravo persona and become highly protective of the younger Alchemist Warriors under his care.
  • Case Closed:
    • It's revealed that Conan/Shinichi can't forgive himself after a very Sympathetic Murderer was Driven to Suicide after being uncovered, despite Conan's pleas for him to live. Paraphrased:
    "A detective who causes the death of a culprit is no better than a murderer!"
  • Code Geass: Suzaku Kururugi has never forgiven himself for murdering his own father and actively seeks to die as an atonement for this crime.
  • In Death Note, reclusive detective L believes that the deaths of the FBI agents, and having to reveal his face, are his 2 biggest regrets.
  • Dragon Ball: Kami was the one who created Demon King Piccolo, the latter being formed from the former's inner evil. As such, Kami believes that he's as responsible for Piccolo's misdeeds as much as Piccolo is;
    Kami: I should have given up being a god quite some time ago... after all, it was I who brought the fearsome evil known as Piccolo into this world. What right have I to be a god after this? What right have I to go on living?
    • Trunks, from the Android Saga, considers his inability to save the Gohan of his future his greatest failure. This pushed him to finally become a Super Saiyan (in the anime), as well as prompt his return to the past to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. It gets worse in Dragon Ball Super when Zamasu, a god who hated mortals for their supposed arrogance and the fact that the gods always forgave them, ends up infecting Trunks' timeline, forcing that timeline's Zen-O to destroy it completely, leaving him, Trunks and Future Mai as the only remaining beings from that timeline.
  • Durarara!!:
    • Everything Shizuo Heiwajima hates about himself can be distilled into one incident during his childhood: when he was about ten or eleven, he developed a Precocious Crush on a woman who looked out for and worried about him due to his constant injuries (unaware that they were the result of overexerting himself in violent, uncontrollable bouts of anger). One day, while walking by her store on the way home, he saw her being assaulted by Yakuza thugs. Shizuo tried to help. He screwed up. While this wouldn't be the last time he'd end up hospitalizing someone he was trying to protect (the light novels imply that this sort of thing happened constantly), it's the example that sticks with him the most.
    • Meanwhile, Kida Masaomi of the same story struggles throughout most the earlier plot with the fact that years ago, as the leader of the most fearsome gang in Ikebukoro, he got cold feet right when the time came to dash in and rescue his girlfriend who's been kidnapped, resulting in her being beaten into an inch of her life and left crippled.
  • Fairy Tail: Lisanna, Elfman and Mirajane's younger sister, almost died while trying to calm Elfman down when his Take Over magic went awry. Though the exact details of the event are unknown, Elfman and Mirajane's lives were completely changed after the event.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist:
    • Edward Elric feels terribly guilty for pushing Alphonse to help him use forbidden alchemy to try and resurrect their mother Trisha, leading to the loss of Ed's limbs and Al's human body. It takes years before Edward gets up the courage to ask if Alphonse blames him for it, but the answer is ultimately no; Alphonse even says that he knew the risks and went along with it.
    • The Elric brothers consider their being unable to save Nina Tucker from being turned into a chimera or from dying shortly thereafter a massive failure, as well as proof that they are ultimately mere humans.
    • Major Armstrong, Colonel Mustang, Riza Hawkeye, and several other veterans of Ishval have deep regret and seek to atone for the massacre. Hawkeye specifically says that no matter who (or what) the orders came from, they were carried out by her and others like her, and they bear the responsibility for committing atrocities they knew at the time were wrong.
  • Fushigi Yuugi: Chichiri has spent years trying to atone for the circumstances leading up to his best friend's death. This inspired him to become the calm, dedicated monk we're first introduced to when the series begins.
  • Gundam:
    • Mobile Suit Gundam: the death of Lalah Sune, which haunts Amuro Ray for the rest of his life.
    • Heero Yuy from Gundam Wing, as revealed in The Movie, accidentally destroyed a building while bombing a military base, killing (at least) a little girl whom he had befriended the day before. This put a face on his victims and made him The Atoner until his encounters with Rebellious Princess Relena gave him something to fight for.
    • Gundam 00 has quite a lot of these: there's Sumeragi's guilt over causing a friendly fire incident that killed her lover (accidentally: she was given false intelligence), Smirnov's guilt over (indirectly) killing his wife through following his orders, and Setsuna seems to consider murdering his own parents in cold blood as a child to be his. Then there's that whole incident with Saji and the Katharon base...
    • Mobile Suit Gundam AGE: Flit's guilt over being unable to stop Desil from killing Yurin.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Kira Yamato has two of these. The first time being the failure of saving a shuttle full of fleeing civilians, one of them being a little girl he recently befriended. The second time was when he failed to save Flay Allster, his first love.
      • And to a lesser extent, Yzak Joule's failure of losing to Kira Yamato. His face was badly scarred during a battle that was inevitably lost. Though he could have removed the scar with surgery, he chose to keep it until he settled his score with Kira.
      • Athrun also seems to feel this way towards Shinn in the latter half of Destiny because he couldn't help him see through Durandal and Rey's manipulations.
  • Holyland: Masaki's is begging forgiveness from some thugs when he could have stood up to them and took them down. Yuu treats Shinichi getting attacked this way.
  • I Had That Same Dream Again:
    • After Nanoka reveals that she got in a fight with her mother and said some very hurtful things, Minami vehemently pleads with her to go home and make up with her mother, revealing that her parents died in an accident shortly after something very similar happened between them. It's implied that her guilt over this is one of the driving factors behind her cutting herself.
    • On a similar note, Skank-san tells Nanoka that she was a lot like Nanoka when she was young, but remained aloof and distant as she grew up and ended up driving away everyone who could've actually meant something to her. As a result, she fell into an empty and self-destructive lifestyle, and she implores Nanoka to be better about getting along with her classmates.
  • Is Kichijoji the Only Place to Live?: Tomiko leaves the family dog indoors on a hot summer day, forgetting the air conditioner was on a timer. By the time she gets back, the poor thing has collapsed from heatstroke and dies shortly after. It haunts her even years later.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • Stardust Crusaders:
      • For Jean-Pierre Polnareff, it was the death and rape of his sister Sherry, regretting that he wasn't there for her. Later on, the fake, and eventual real, death of his friend Avdol becomes one. As he deeply regrets ignoring his wishes and going off on his own, leading to Avdol's fake death, and not noticing the enemy sooner, leading to his real death
      • Noriaki Kakyoin feels great shame for being manipulated into serving Dio Brando, calling his past self weak for falling into his trap. He vows never to be controlled by his fears again, and joins the protagonists' journey mainly because he was cured by Jotaro Kujo.
    • Golden Wind
      • If the light novel Purple Haze Feedback is allowed some canonicity, Pannacotta Fugo feels this way about not getting on the boat with the rest of the gang and betraying the boss. This is also supported by the video game JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle.
      • Leone Abbacchio's moody temperament stems from a mistake he made as a police officer. Said mistake was taking a bribe, which led to him and his partner encountering the criminal and Abbacchio's partner dying in the struggle due to Leone getting cold feet about arresting him. It's implied that the reason Abbacchio hates Giorno as much as he does is because Giorno's morals of doing what's right echo what Abbacchio failed to do as a police officer.
  • Kaleido Star: Kalos Eido blamed himself for more than a decade for asking his old friend Aaron Killian if he really was up to perform the Fantastic Maneuver, thus (inadvertently) planting a seed of doubt in Aaron's mind that caused him to fail and die; this still haunts Kalos up to this day, thus making him vulnerable to Smug Snake Yuri's manipulations... since Yuri is Aaron's son.
  • Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: Hayato Furinji sees his inability to prevent his son's Face–Heel Turn as this.
  • Kotoura-san:
    • This is how Manabe thought at the end of episode 3, after Haruka vanished because she thought it's all her fault that he was attacked.
    • And more importantly, Haruka causing her own mother Kumiko to hate and abandon her pretty much defines who she is today.
    • The Head Priest feels that his inability to help Haruka after Kumiko abandoned her was his greatest failure, and vows to bring them back together someday.
    • The final episode reveals that Kumiko actually considers her abandonment of Haruka as this, calling herself weak for running away from her daughter's problems instead of helping her.
  • Lady!!: Lynn's grandparents mention opposing Misuzu and George's marriage, leading Misuzu to go no-contact with them and marry George in a small church, where the two were the only attendees. Lynn's grandparents regret how they treated her and wish that they were more kinder, especially as Misuzu would die in a car accident years later.
  • The Legend of Koizumi: The Pope turns out to have unknowingly snuck Hitler out of Germany back in '45. He has, for reasons that should be blindingly obvious, regretted it ever since he learned what he had done.
  • Lyrical Nanoha:
  • In Magic Knight Rayearth, being unable to save Princess Emeraude is considered this for Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu. Mostly because they powered through the entire adventure, thinking it was completely straightforward and never thought twice about questioning their mission. It's so bad that, in the anime, Hikaru accidentally creates her own Evil Twin.
  • My Hero Academia: The pro-hero Endeavor aka Enji Todoroki, the Abusive Parent of one the deuteragonists, Shoto Todoroki, blames himself for the death of his eldest son Toya, his original chosen successor. While Toya's flames were more powerful than his father's, his body had a weak constitution thanks to his mother, ending any hopes he had of becoming a hero. Toya, however, refused to give up despite his father's roundabout discouragement, eventually leading to his death at a young age. Endeavor never forgave himself for what happened and the incident precipitated the worst of the Domestic Abuse he put his family through, as he felt he couldn't give up on his goal when it seemingly killed his firstborn. Even after coming to recognize that this was wrong and going on the path of atonement, the guilt returns with a vengeance after Toya reveals he survived and became the mass-murdering villain Dabi.
  • Naruto:
    • Not being able to save either Sasuke or Gaara is this to Naruto, especially in the infamous Tear Jerker where he thinks he is useless for not being able to save either. Thankfully, Gaara gets better, at least in the physical sense. Sasuke takes until the end of the series, but eventually he comes back too.
    • Jiraiya looks back on his life as a long series of failures, but the one that most stands out is failing to stop Orochimaru's descent into evil.
    • Kakashi views most of his life as this: he failed to save Obito and Rin, he couldn't stop Sasuke from betraying Konoha, and he couldn't be Obito's eyes.
      • With the revelation of Chapter 599, his failure to save Obito and Rin is probably what he considers his absolute worst failure by far.
    • Minato blames himself for being unable to recognize Obito as Tobi and preventing the entire plot of Naruto from happening, even though it wasn't his fault, as stated by Kurama himself. And chances are that even if he had recognized Obito, it wouldn't have changed much — the Obito he knew was long dead by that point.
      • He considers his inability to save Rin and protect Obito from Madara's influence as this.
    • Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, has two (and possibly more, seeing as no one has ever been Hokage longer than him): his inability to stop his student Orochimaru after his fall from grace and descent into insanity and inhumanity, and the destruction of the Uchiha Clan, which came as a result of his greater failure of not doing more to restrict Danzo's activities.
    • The Fourth Kazekage, Rasa, saw Gaara as this, discarding him as a failed experiment. However, when he's revived by the Edo Tensei and sees the great man Gaara has become, he realizes that his true failure was not being a good father to his youngest son, by robbing him of everything good in his life as a way to test his "worth".
    • Itachi regards everything having to do with the destruction of the Uchiha Clan as his failure, including Sasuke's Face–Heel Turn, which came as a result of Itachi withholding the truth from him and repeatedly mind raping his younger brother to seek strength by any means so he could fulfill Itachi's death wish. He openly acknowledges this to both Naruto and Sasuke himself, does his best to mitigate the damage when he's briefly revived by the Edo Tensei and in the end can only leave it to Naruto to fix his mistakes.
  • In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Setsuna's Failure Knight nature has its roots in an incident where she tried to save Konoka from drowning, fell in herself, and both were rescued by someone else. As a result, she constantly tries to train harder so it won't happen again. Konoka doesn't hold it against her, as they were both young children when this occurred.
  • One Piece: A lot of the backstories of characters involve this:
    • For Chopper — not being able to save Dr. Hiriluk.
    • For Franky — failing to save Tom from the World Government.
    • For Luffy — the defeat that scattered the Straw Hat Pirates at the Sabaody Archipelago.
    • And now not being able to fully save Ace will haunt both Luffy and Jimbei for years to come.
    • Jimbei also has allowing Arlong to run around and terrorize East Blue after he became a Warlord. The guilt only doubled when he met Nami, who was no doubt Arlong's greatest victim. Luckily for him, Nami forgives him, which drives him to tears.
  • In the horror manga Presents, Kurumi recalls an incident with a young girl whose parents would give stuffed rabbit toys as a substitute for love. Kurumi takes pity on the girl and, even though she knows better, lies and says each rabbit is stuffed with her parents' love. The next morning, however, they are anything but loving, and the housekeeper tells the girl the only reason her mother had her was to replace a pet rabbit that died. The girl violently snaps, and later that night she cuts open her parents with a pair of hedge trimmers before tearing the stuffing out of the rabbit toys and stuffing into their dead bodies. It's implied she does the same thing to the housekeeper to "share" her parents' love.
  • In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Homura failing to save Madoka from dying. And she's stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop, so she keeps failing. Fun!
  • Reincarnated as a Sword: Amanda adopted and raised Kinan and Flamia, but refused to train them because she didn't want them to risk their lives being adventurers. This backfired when after they moved out, they tried to become adventurers anyway and got themselves killed. She is haunted by this, thinking they could have survived if she trained them. She was already a Mama Bear to Fran, but when she finds out Fran is their daughter, she becomes motivated to make up for her mistake by training and protecting Fran.
  • Rurouni Kenshin: Kenshin is still wracked with guilt over, among other things, not being able to protect his first love, Tomoe. This is magnified in the manga's Jinchuu arc when he apparently fails to protect the woman he loves a second time (after Enishi fakes Kaoru's murder). He eventually recovers, though, and finds out she's still alive as a reward.
  • Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry: Sara's post-traumatic stress syndrome is only worsened when Carris dies too.
  • In Sword of the Stranger, Nanashi has more or less sworn off drawing his sword. What makes this interesting is that his failure is MORAL rather than Physical. He executed two children, by power of peer pressure. It's hard to disobey orders when surrounded by an army. Part of a military action, it's unclear the exact circumstances but it was likely a coup d'état. Nanashi only draws his sword in the eleventh hour in a last desperate attempt to save Kotaro, who strongly resembles the boy Nanashi executed. By BITING THROUGH THE PEACE KNOT WHILE RUNNING AT FULL SPRINT ACROSS ROOFTOPS IN THE SNOW TO THE CROWNING MUSIC OF AWESOME.
  • Tower of God: For Hon Akraptor, his inability to save his daughter is what drives him to climb the Tower.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yuzu Hiiragi is hit with this though the early episodes — the You Show School is on the line against LDS with a 3 vs. 3 match and while Yuya wins his match, Yuzu loses hers due to the fact that she's been distracted by the encounters with the mysterious boy who resembles Yuya. When Gongenzaka forces a tie, leading to Yuya and Reiji to have their first match, one that ends with a tie but Yuya takes harshly because Reiji used Pendulum Summon. She feels that, had she not been distracted, this wouldn't have happened.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Season 3 has been one big Greatest Failure for Judai, ironically originating from his insecurities about never failing.
  • In YuYu Hakusho, Younger Toguro is a Death Seeker because he felt he couldn't suffer enough after a demon killed his students.

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