Reset Buttons in Anime and Manga.
- Code Geass essentially does this for its second season. Lelouch may know a little more about the details surrounding his mother's death, but those details are essentially unimportant to Lelouch meeting his mother and resolving the series. The reset is also part of a Gambit Roulette played by Charles Britannia to prevent Lelouch from meddling in his plans without killing him.
- In Digimon Adventure tri., the entire Digital World was rebooted because it was on the verge of being destroyed by Meicoomon's virus. All digimon, even ones that who died in the real world, were brought back as their fresh level form. All digimon were left with no memories of anything before the reboot. Even Kari and TK's D3 digivices were reduced to their original forms.
- In the Dragon Ball series, the Dragon Balls are frequently used as a reset button for resurrecting dead characters, recreating destroyed planets, etc. Entire series are based on the concept of collecting all the Dragon Balls to undo the damage done in the previous arc. Unlike most Reset Buttons, this one actually has limits, especially early on when a specific wish can only be made once. The more powerful Namekian Dragon Balls didn't have this limit, though, and it was removed from the Earth Dragon Balls after Dende replaced Kami. There's also a strict time limit, at least when it comes to resurrecting the dead: the wish has to be made within a year of the person's death. Which could have added complications given that the Dragon Balls spread across the world and become inert for a year after a wish is granted, and are completely untraceable until they reactivate.
- It turns out Whis has this as a power. As opposed to other versions of time travel in this universe which simply create an alternate timeline (like Future Trunks'), they can simply rewind time for up to three minutes and undo whatever just happened. Since the first instance was Freiza blowing up the earth and killing almost everyone else simply because they took a little too long to kill him, this was a very good thing.
- This also applies out-of-universe too; in Dragon Ball Z this was an Enforced Trope due to the storylines not being in the manga - the Journey to Namek Saga, Garlic Jr. Saga and Otherworld Tournament Saga had to reset the storyline in the end, and Status Quo Is God was in play, these story arcs were never given a Continuity Nod in later episodes of the show.
- The end of the 11eyes anime. Everyone except the three main characters is resurrected and loses their memories of everything bad that happened, including 'their own deaths'.
- In End of Evangelion, humanity gets reset, with Shinji and Asuka as Adam and Eve. Maybe...
- Rebuild of Evangelion more or less confirms this to some extent with the seas being red, Lilith's corpse being on the moon and Kaworu's ominous "The third child again huh?" and "This time, I'll show you true happiness."
- The manga ending also may support that theory (at least in that continuity), showing Asuka and Shinji meeting for the first time in a restored world where Second Impact never occurred.
- In Excel♡Saga, the Reset Button is actually a character: the Great Will of the Macrocosm, a floating vortex with arms. Her major purpose is to continually resurrect cast members as needed, which is quite often. Things get complicated when she not only fails to bring back Pedro, but starts sleeping with him. It turns out she and his wife are one and the same... somehow. The Reset Button gets pressed at least four times in the first episode alone...
- Fairy Tail:
- Ultear's goal for most of her life was to find a magical Reset Button that could give her back her lost childhood. At one point she thought she found it when she discovered the Dangerous Forbidden Technique "Last Ages". Master Hades then told her why it was considered dangerous and forbidden: the spell can reverse time, but it also takes away the caster's time in the process via Rapid Aging. She eventually decides to cast it anyway to prevent the Dragons' invasion. Unfortunately, she is only able to turn back time by one minute. Fortunately, that one minute is enough to save many lives, including Gray's.
- This is also Zeref's master plan in the final arc of the series. With the possibility of dying seemingly beyond his grasp after Natsu failed to kill him, Zeref decides he's going to use Fairy Heart to power one of these, allowing him to go all the way back to his childhood, with all of his current memories intact, to stop Natsu from dying, and by extension, himself from ever getting the Curse of Contradictions in the first place. This would change the present so radically that the entire universe as the rest of the cast knows it would be Ret-Gone, making his threat to wipe out humanity Metaphorically True.
- The ending of Fullmetal Alchemist downplayed this trope. Only one thing was reset: Roy regaining his eyesight and even that was justified by the leftover Philosopher's Stone. Permanent changes include
- The death of King Bradley and Gruman installed in his place
- Ed losing his alchemy
- Ed getting his arm back and Al his body
- Miaka of Fushigi Yuugi uses her last wish to Suzaku so that the two worlds would return to normal. They don't.
- In Future Diary, Yukiteru Amano's sole reason to winning the game and becoming God is so he can wield the Reset Button and bring all his friends back to life. It won't work.
- Higurashi: When They Cry starts most arcs as if the previous ones had never happened; this at first seems to be Negative Continuity but the first season's final arc implies something more is going on when Keiichi freaks out (confessing to his very-much-alive friend that he can remember killing her) after suddenly remembering traumatic details from the very first arc. In the second season, we're introduced to the character that keeps pressing the Reset Button.
- In the original, 1969 Himitsu no Akko-chan series, after meeting a new deaf kid, the heroine Akko-chan uses her magic mirror to wish herself deaf-mute and achieve a better understanding of his plight. However, when believing to have already gotten her Aesop Akko-chan tries to wish her hearing back, she finds out that, due to having wished herself deaf and mute, she no longer possesses the ability to communicate verbally, and the mirror refuses her wish. The Reset Button hits itself, restoring the heroine at her original state, only after the protagonist is scared into her right Aesop.
- Since the four Inuyasha movies are not canon, each includes a short scene after the credits that undoes anything that happened during the movie that might have been expected to affect the series. For example, in The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass, the final scene returns Inuyasha and Kagome to their previous state of UST despite their earlier kiss and the end scene of Swords of an Honorable Ruler has Kagome put the necklace of control (which was previously broken) back around Inuyasha's neck.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- In Diamond is Unbreakable, once Yoshikage Kira is hit with the Arrow (again), Killer Queen gains a third bomb, Bites the Dust. With it, anyone who discovers Kira's identity via the bomb's carrier is blown up and time rewinds to an hour beforehand. It's not a total reset, however; Bites the Dust's carrier still remembers what happened, and so long as it's still in effect, those previously killed will still die at the same time they did in a previous loop.
- Although Enrico Pucci of Stone Ocean manages to cause a universal reset in the climax, it's undone when Emporio kills him before the time of the new universe reaches that of Made in Heaven's activation. Though things are mostly back to normal on a cosmic scale, all the previously dead heroes come back as people with different names and histories, and the events of the part effectively never occurred. As the following Parts take place in an Alternate Universe completely separate from the events of the first 6 Parts, this can also be seen as a reset button for the series as a whole.
- In the Love Hina anime, any time it seems there might be progression in the relationship between two characters (most usually Keitaro and Naru), an event will occur (typically Keitaro "accidentally" touching Naru's breasts with a consequent Megaton Punch making Keitaro A Twinkle in the Sky) to ensure that Status Quo Is God. Conversely, in the manga, Keitaro and Naru's relationship does progress (though occasionally in a "two steps forward, one step back" kind of way), and the Distant Finale shows their wedding day.
- The Hinata Inn is more or less destroyed on several occasions, but always comes back.
- The end of Magikano. It was revealed that time should be reversed every year so the Demon King (Haruo) would not awaken but to put some spice in the story, this time it was too late but was resolved anyway.
- My Bride is a Mermaid. Nagasumi's house and school get destroyed on a regular basis, but always come back. Handwaved with the idea that Lunar's father owns a construction company.
- The Reset Button ending of My-HiME, in which Miyu shatters the pillars, restoring all the Himes' most important people to life (as well as a few of the Himes themselves), and even heals Nao's eye.
- Naruto:
- Pain's last act is to resurrect everyone he killed during the attack on the Hidden Leaf Village, but it's implied that he can only do so within a short period of time after killing them. It also kills him from the strain, so along with there only being a couple people on the planet who can do that, it isn't exactly common.
- After he undergoes a Heel–Face Turn, Obito attempts to do the same trick as Pain, using the Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique to resurrect everyone killed during the Fourth Ninja World War. This will no doubt kill him since not only are there many more casualties than the Invasion of Konoha, but Obito is not an Uzumaki. However, the technique is hijacked by Madara at the last minute, who uses it to resurrect himself.
- The Animated Music Video On Your Mark has one, around 04:34, when two of the main characters are about to die.
- In the Ruby/Sapphire arc of Pokémon Adventures, Norman, Steven, and Courtney die in the battle, so Ruby whips out a Celebi who brings them back.
- In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Madoka uses her wish to reboot the universe into a slightly less horrible place by making it so witches cannot exist; all it cost her in return was being forgotten by everyone except Homura. A lesser example occurs every time Homura resets time following a failed attempt to save Madoka from dying or becoming a witch.
- In Sailor Moon, the title character twice serves as the embodiment of a reset button, at the end of the first and fifth seasons. Not only does she bring the entire main cast Back from the Dead in both cases, but in the first season, she also erases their memories (as well as her own) of being superheroes and saving the world, because she just wants to be normal. She is given her memories back in the very next episode, when a new enemy arrives. She also acted as a reset button in the manga at the end of the Infinity Arc when she brought the entire planet back after Sailor Saturn killed everyone on it. Furthermore, she also acts as a universe-wide reset button in the last chapter of the manga.
- Portions of the series Saitama Chainsaw Shoujo were rendered moot when it was revealed that the classmates Fumio sliced and diced were actually doppelgangers. The real students were locked away in another dimension.
- In Serial Experiments Lain, this is how the nice, child-like incarnation of Lain deals with rumors at school. Twice. It's unclear whether the events are erased, memories are erased, or whether the two are equivalent. See also Reset Button Ending.
- Sgt. Frog: Kululu's back-up memory drive in Episode 51.
- Lampshaded in Sket Dance. In chapter 159, their wacky antics burns their club room down, and in the following chapter, when trying to explain themselves, Bossun and Himeko insists that it's a "gag manga" and that the room will surely return to normal in a week's time.
- This trope is combined with Set Right What Once Went Wrong in Tenchi Muyo!. At the end of the third OVA series, Washu, Tokimi and Tsunami come to realize that Tenchi is the avatar of their universe's God. Thus they decide to reboot the universe so that Tenchi comes into his powers more naturally and the damage caused by Tokimi's attempt to force an avatar never happens. However, since doing so means that Noike would never come to meet Tenchi, a future version of her slips in to make sure the message that kickstarted the craziness of the third OVA series is sent.
- In The Wallflower manga, some progress has been made with Sunako and her unladylike behavior (she hardly ever gets nosebleeds anymore, for a start), but any development that would actually change the manga dynamic for good is reset. The most infuriating example of this is a late chapter in which Sunako finally realizes that she's beautiful and Kyohei finally seems to be having a Love Epiphany in regards to Sunako, only for all of that progress to be undone in the end thanks to a couple of thoughtless words from Kyohei.
- In The World God Only Knows, part of the "Heart of Jupiter" saga has a minor one. After being sent to the past via Mental Time Travel, Keima must prevent a cute but emotionless young girl from committing suicide, and befriend her. Should the girl get overtaken by despair, she regresses into a baby and the Reset Button is pushed, sending Keima back to the start of the mission.
- The end of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX's third season. Understandable, though, considering they killed off just about the entire cast. Was anyone expecting them to stay dead?
