Instances of people attempting to take Revenge by Proxy in Anime and Manga.
- In 7 Seeds, Ango wants to make Hana pay for the sadistic, brutal treatment that her father had subjected him and his old schoolmates to, which included a cruel test that resulted in the deaths of his best friend, and by letting his daughter be added into the project simply because she was his child. His revenge ranges from making her work harder, longer, and alone compared to others to outright trying to rape her.
- In the first episode of Black Jack 21, an Italian billionaire blames the Japanese Medical Board's head for not letting Black Jack operate without a license; he is convinced that Black Jack could've saved his son (and, to be fair, he's probably right). He contacts certain 'associates' ...and the same day, the son of the Medical Board Chairman is gunned down by a mob assassin. The boy survives, but only just barely, with the bullet stopping right next to his heart... and there's only one doctor in the world who could possibly save him. The Surgeon with Hands of God. Black Jack! Cue the Chairman agreeing to release Black Jack, AND pay him an exorbitant fee, for the life-saving operation...
- Case Closed:
- A suspect poisons his new bride to get revenge on her policeman father, who'd neglected to notice that, while chasing a perp, he had run into his mother and failed to notice her lying there (and she then bleeds to death later). Subverted in that the bride found out that the suspect was the childhood friend she had a crush on and guessed that he'd attempt something like this, so she could have set the poison aside, yet she didn't.
- A man whose son died during an operation holds the lead doctor responsible. He abducts the doctor's own similarly-aged son and intends to kill him to make the doctor feel the same agony. In the end, the man can't bring himself to hurt the child.
- Cat-Eyed Boy: Komodo plans to turn the un-moral people his sister knows into monsters, because of the grudge he has against his sister.
- Dragon Ball Z: After his rather humiliating defeat in Namek, a rebuilt Freeza makes a beeline for Earth, having learned that Goku is on his way there, and orders his men to slaughter the humans while he goes to personally kill Goku's friends and family in order to make him suffer. The arrival of Future Trunks puts a stop to that, however.
- Elfen Lied:
- Lucy does this to Kurama... repeatedly. Turns out he was responsible for a bullet (intended for Lucy) hitting Aiko, her Only Friend at that timenote and then told her he could save Aiko if Lucy gave herself up... which leads to Lucy spending the rest of her childhood and her teenage years being a guinea pig while Aiko dies anyway. By the end of the manga, Kurama has watched just about everyone he ever cared about die, appear to die, or be terribly maimed. And it's strongly implied that Aiko might not have actually died.
- Kurama's capturing of Lucy and other Diclonius stems from Lucy infecting him with the virus.
- In Full Metal Panic! TSR, Gauron attempts to do this to Kaname to get to Sousuke (knowing that that would affect him more than if Sousuke himself was hurt or killed). Of course, what Gauron did can either be interpreted as this or Murder the Hypotenuse (in which case he was actually thinking he's doing Sousuke a favor). Or, knowing Gauron, it's possible it's just both, and he can't make up his mind what exactly he wants.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, Scar's quest to kill all State Alchemists, in revenge for the Ishvalan Massacre, eventually leads him to attempt to kill Edward Elric, a State Alchemist who is not only 15, but was never involved in Ishval at all.
- Gate Keepers 21: Since Shun is unavailable, Count Akuma will go for the next best thing: Shun's own daughter Ayane.
- Gintama: During the Courtesan of a Nation arc, after his nephew the Shogun effectively turns against him and he finds himself forced to flee the Earth, Sada Sada decides to take a trip to Yoshiwara and kill Suzuran so that Gintoki and his friends cannot help Rotten Maizo fulfill their promise to meet again, which is effectively the root cause of his current predicament. Oboro agrees to grant him this request before taking him offworld, but Gintoki, Tsukuyo and Nobume catch up to them before they can board the ship.
- Because Haruhi Suzumiya is being too boring in her twisted opinion, Ryoko Asakura attempts to kill Kyon, the person closest to her, in order to get her to react. Thanks to Yuki Nagato, she doesn't succeed in this endeavor.
- In The Heroic Legend of Arslan, Silvermask wants revenge on Andragoras for killing his father, Andragoras' brother so before he kills Andragoras, he wants Andragoras to see his son Arslan's severed head.
- In Judge, this turns out to be one reason for the titular game. The group is composed of the children of people who were the jury and judge of the trial that dealt with Atsuya's death. The sins of the group themselves were never being judged, they were simply being killed while sadistically forcing their parents to have to watch.
- The Kindaichi Case Files: The killer in "The Undying Butterflies" murdered two of his half-sisters (he failed to kill the third) because his mother got married to the guy who drove his father to suicide. And then he discovered the truth...
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016): Unable to kill the Hero’s Shade, who foiled his plans back when he was Young Link, Ganondorf plans to torment the Hero of Twilight.
- Minotaurus' Plate
has a rather dark, but weirdly funny (and borderline Black Comedy) example. The protagonist crash-landed on a planet where cows ruled over humans, and humans - including the girl he befriended - were used as Human Resources by the bovine lords. After attempting to - and failing - to escape with the girl, in grief the protagonist made it back to earth. His first meal upon landing is a huge beef steak. - Mobile Suit Gundam: Char Aznable not only used his best friend in exacting this but also talked plenty of cold-blooded smack to him for good measure.Char: "Hey, Garma! Do you read me? Blame this on the misfortune of your birth!"
Garma: "What?! Misfortune?!"
Char: "You were indeed a good friend to me. Don't take it personally; you can thank your father for this."
Garma: "You've double-crossed me, Char?!"- He then goes on to betray every member of the victim's family, killing them all in revenge for their father having killed his. The amusing part? Their dad, Degwin, is killed partway through the series by oldest son Gihren, making Char's revenge truly pointless. And to top it all off, there was never any conclusive proof that Degwin actually poisoned Char's father — it's entirely possible that the man really did suffer a fatal heart attack in the middle of a politically volatile speech through a mixture of pre-existing health conditions and chance.
- My Hero Academia: Dabi's original plan to take revenge on Endeavor was to kill the boy his target had been grooming as a successor. Following All Might's retirement and Endeavor's promotion to number one hero in Japan, Dabi changed plans and began focusing on his actual target, instead. He reveals he's responsible for the villains Starservant and Ending attacking during the Endeavor Internship Arc as part of this plan. As he reveals all of this in person to his target and the successor, Dabi is having his life story broadcast across the internet, which includes revealing that he is Touya Todoroki, Endeavor's eldest son, confessing that he has killed over 30 people in cold blood, and explaining Endeavor's misdeeds in his quest to raise a successor to surpass All Might.
- My-HiME: Takumi is a target of this from two separate people. Nao enters his hospital room with the intention of harming him because she hates Mai for being well-liked for her persistence despite the loss of her parents. Akira rescues Takumi and escapes, but then gets attacked in the Forest and her Child is destroyed, killing Takumi. The perpetrator later turns out to be Shiho, who did it both out of jealousy of Mai's closeness with Yuuichi and under the influence of Nagi.
- In Naruto, Sasuke has decided to make use of this trope to have his cake and eat it too. While initially Sasuke was after his older brother for killing the entire Uchiha Clan, and then the three elders of Konoha who decided it had to be done to avert a coup, eventually Sasuke just snapped and decided everyone who'd ever heard of the Uchiha needed to die because they weren't aware their lives had been saved by his family's murders. Sasuke's out of touch with reality at this point.
- One Piece:
- After the Straw Hat Pirates beat up her family, Saint Shalria decides to get revenge by killing Camie, whom they were trying to rescue from being enslaved, if only to deny them their victory. Luckily for everyone Rayleigh shows up just in time to stop her.
- Don Chinjao decides to get revenge on Monkey D. Garp by killing Luffy, his grandson, as he thinks killing Garp wouldn't be enough punishment for what Garp did to him and wants him to suffer. He also comments to Luffy that, had he known Dragon was Garp's son, Luffy wouldn't have even been born. Chinjao gets over his grudge after Luffy accidentally fixes the damage Garp inflicted on him during their fight.
- This happened in Katakuri's backstory. He was constantly bullied for his bizarre looks and eating habits, but he didn't care because he could beat up anyone who tried to make fun of him. Unfortunately for him, the bullies were not above attacking his weaker sister Brulee and permanently scarring her. This is what made him decide to cultivate the image of a perfect, stoic badass so that no one would try that ever again.
- In Rave Master, Haru's dad, Gale, told the Imperial where Demon Card's Headquarters is with the deal of taking King alive as prisoner to end his corrupt ways. To his horror, the Imperial killed all the people inside the Headquarters, including King's wife and son (presumably). As revenge for it, King broke out of prison and killed Gale's wife, Sakura, in front of him. He even put the Dark Bring, End of Earth (which causes another Overdrive), inside him, which forces Gale to be away from his children and endure eternal solitude.
- In The Rose of Versailles, Du Barry tries to take revenge on Oscar— who had sided with Marie Antoinette during their particular feud— by framing Oscar's mother for murder.
- In Rurouni Kenshin, the villain Enishi attempts to get revenge on Kenshin by attacking his friends and allies, culminating with killing Kaoru... or so it seems. Except he can't bring himself to actually do the deed because she reminds him of his Dead Big Sis.
- Vampire Game: Leene plans to do this, but finds that she's only really emotionally capable of going after her actual target.
- In the "Waking the Dragons" arc of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Allister, one of the Co-Dragons, had a personal vendetta against Kaiba, due to his stepfather, Gozaburo, financing an army that killed his little brother, despite Mokuba's protests that Seto had nothing to do with that and was completely different from their stepfather. It's eventually revealed that Allister's grudge was for nothing, as it turns out that Dartz, posing as Gozaburo, had been the one responsible for the army's attack, so that he could manipulate Allister.
