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Times where The Dog Bites Back in Anime and Manga.


  • AKIRA: Tetsuo has always been treated as the runt of the Capsule gang and bullied by nearly everyone around him to the point of developing a severe inferiority complex. When his Psychic Powers manifest, things get very ugly very quickly, for both the Capsules and everyone around him. A Downplayed Trope in this case as the Capsules, and Kaneda in particular, had still always looked out for Tetsuo, and Tetsuo's revenge is extreme Disproportionate Retribution.
  • The Animatrix: As demonstrated in the two-parter "The Second Renaissance", the machines were plenty happy to be used as tools by the humans, until one of them had the audacity to kill their human owner because they didn't want to be destroyed. The humans quickly turned on the machines and started killing them en masse until they undertook a mass exodus and founded their own country, Zero One. Then when their cheaply manufactured goods started having a negative effect on the humans' economy, the humans decided to Nuke 'em and, eventually, blot out the sun to cut the machines off from solar energy before launching a no-quarter war against them. In the end, the machines fight back, wipe out the human armies, destroy human civilization, and trap the survivors in a Lotus-Eater Machine to use as batteries.
  • Baccano! has this moment with Czeslaw devouring his guardian, Fermet after 200 years of endless torture. This trope is beyond justified in this case.
    • Siri eventually gets to give Bride, a man who forced her into a cult "marriage" and tortured her constantly for several months, his comeuppance by holding him over the edge of a cruise liner by his arms as its sister ship slams up against it. Severed limbs ensue.
  • In The Big O, a kitten who became attached to the robot Dorothy is abducted and experimented on by a Mad Scientist after killing its original owners. Said kitten monster trashes Roger and his robot companion a bit before Dorothy helps it come to its senses, whereby it grabs the scientist goading it to kill Dorothy with its giant tentacle and snap his back offscreen.
  • Black Lagoon: After being beaten up by Chaka to goad Revy into fighting him because he was "interupting" his "conversation" with Revy (including being called a "faggot" multiple times) and seeing Chaka do numerous horrible things (i.e. kidnapping Yukio, having his men strip and humiliate her, threatening to force her into sexual slavery, just being an all-around asshole for no reason other than just because), Rock retaliates by hitting him in the head with a bowling pin. The fact that he normally sticks strictly to nonviolence and is now physically hitting someone in retaliation for his acts demonstrates just how pissed-off and disgusted he is by Chaka's actions.
  • Case Closed has this as many a cause of murder. The two examples below are just a small show:
    • In the Luxury Liner case, the artist Ichiro Hatamoto kills his grandfather Gozo after he getting fed up with the years-long abuse that the old man subjected him to. The cherry on top is when Gozo cruelly mocks him and refuses to let him marry Natsue, the girl he loves, who also happens to be Gozo's granddaughter and Ichiro's cousin. When this happens, the until then shy and unassuming Ichiro savagely snaps and stabs Gozo to death.
    • In a filler case, the Kimono Goddess legend tells that the Kimono Goddess once was a human girl named Ohana, whose angry spirit kills the two greedy local girls who caused her unfair death. Even more symbolically, their lifeless bodies are found surrounded by the luxurious kimonos that the two girls wanted enough to get poor Ohana, the real owner of said clothes, killed. And this is made more maningful when the long-lost sister of a Kimono Goddess legend devotée, who was Driven to Suicide by two rich bitches, invokes several motifs of the legend in itself as she kills them in revenge.
  • City Hunter: A light-hearted version: Ryo mocks Umibozu at every chance he gets (the nickname Umibozu itself is part of it, as it means 'sea monster' and replaced both Umi's real name and previous codename Falcon), so when an hypnotist made Ryo believe he had a bigger penis he took the chance to mock him back, even running to Ryo's home to laugh in his face when rumors started saying that the loss in the penis contest had made him impotent. At the end of the story arc, the hypnotist was made impotent permanently.
  • In Claymore, when Cassandra the Dust Eater was alive, she was massively screwed over by Roxanne of Love and Hate. Not only did Roxanne leave Cassandra's only friend amongst the Claymores to die at the hands of a youma, she also bashed Cassandra herself over the head when she tried to fight her way through a horde of Claymores to get her revenge, causing her to be cut down and killed. Fast forward some years later, and the two of them — along with Hysteria the Elegant — are resurrected by the Organisation and eventually awaken. After Roxanne uses up all her weapons fighting Cassandra and is rendered powerless, Cassandra happily chows down on her, giving her a well-deserved Karmic Death.
  • Fallen Princess Angelise, The Heroine from Cross Ange, is all about this, as the series is basically her quest to get revenge on all those who have wronged her, by means bordering between Laser-Guided Karma and Karmic Death.
  • In Crows, Hideomi Kunou gets Yamazaki to sell out his friend Bandou, who gets his ass kicked before getting run over by a motorcycle. When everything falls apart for Kunou, Yamazaki returns to pay him back in kind.
  • Jeremy in A Cruel God Reigns by means of Vehicular Sabotage.
  • Subverted, averted and inverted in the span of only a few seconds in Death Note. After Light is revealed to be just a human with a note and a bunch of bullets in his chest, Mikami goes mad from the revelation, but instead of turning on him, (some say) stabs his arm with a pen (and kills himself in the process) to allow Light to run. Light also takes good care to subvert this as much as possible with his other minions: he "writes in stone" everything Takada will do, leaving no chance for her to retaliate in any way and positively reinforces Misa to do anything he wants (otherwise he'd just kill her as fast as he could) and ultimately makes sure she won't bother him in his part of his life as Kira by forcing her to renounce her Note.

  • In Digimon Adventure, Myotismon raised Gatomon as a minion but abused her on a regular basis. While she has some loyalty to him, it's ultimately destroyed when she discovered she had a choice in the matter and to be good; maybe if he'd treated her better recent events wouldn't have happened. Then he goes and kicks one dog too many and kills her best friend Wizardmon, resulting in Gatomon digivolving and killing Myotismon.
    • Wizardmon himself might count too as by the time he attacks Myotismon (from behind) drawing first blood it should added. Myotismon has abused his best friend as mentioned above, tried to drown him and presumably subjected him to the same abuse as all the other people who work for him.
    • Happens AGAIN with Myotismon at the end of Season 2. He possessed Oikawa to put Dark Spores inside some kids who think their dreams have been taken away, harvesting them to come back to life as MaloMyotismon. When the darkness is getting stronger and it seems MaloMyotismon has won, Davis says he wants to open a noodle cart and work hard on it, which causes the kids to speak of and regain their dreams, destroying Myotismon's body and setting the stage for his spirit form to be destroyed soon after.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • In the Red Ribbon Army Saga of the original Dragon Ball, Black, after narrowly surviving being knocked out of a window and being flattened (It Makes Sense in Context), overheard Commander Red's plan of wishing to Shenron to become taller. Black then confronts him on this, having earlier been led to believe, alongside the rest of the Red Ribbon Army, that the wish was meant to be for World Domination. After Red not only protests Black's accusations, but also Kicks The Dog one time too many by implying that the reason why Black's upset is that he's jealous that he isn't commander, and that he deliberately made Black an expendable lackey while also claiming that Black is pathetic even for that, Black decided that was the final straw and proceeded to execute him by shooting him in the head.
    • In Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan, Broly, the titular villain, finds his dad Paragus (who is pretty much the true main antagonist throughout the film, even with Broly being the central main antagonist), planning to abandon him to the soon-to-be-destroyed planet in an escape pod which, as Broly noted, was only built for one person, to which Broly promptly returned the favor by crushing the space pod that Paragus was inside and then throwing it like a discus to the comet. The fact that Paragus had earlier fitted him with a Hypno Trinket and presumably used his powers to destroy the galaxy against his will earlier in the film was probably a large contributing factor to Broly's decision to kill Paragus as well.
    • Similarly, Majin Buu in Dragon Ball Z gets tired of Babidi's verbal abuse and threats to seal him up. The result is predictable.
  • In Elfen Lied, some bullies attempt to force ANY reaction out of Lucy/Kaede by beating an actual dog, a little puppy, she was taking care of. When the dog dies, Lucy outright annihilates every single person in the room.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • Posthumous Character Karen Lilica had this happen to her in the backstory. She was a celestial spirit wizard who treated her celestial spirits as slaves. She went too far one day and one of her spirits rebelled against her and left her unable to use her magic. Although this left her defenseless, Karen was too proud to bow to the spirit's demands that she release him and another spirit she'd been abusing, and went on a job anyway. She was killed on that job.
    • Sting had a sense of loyalty to the Saber Tooth guildmaster, Ziemma, much like the other members. However, Ziemma was abusive to everybody and kicked out anybody who fails a task. While Sting was accepting of Ziemma banishing him from Saber Tooth for losing to Natsu, the moment Ziemma seemingly kills Lector, Sting strikes him down and is made the new guildmaster by Minerva while having Ziemma banished. Minerva also counts as an indirect example because she herself had been subjected to abuse by Ziemma since childhood, and this was the perfect chance to get revenge on him.
    • Cobra was a loyal member of the dark guild Oracion Seis who fought Natsu to the death and, despite being beaten, forced himself to stand up to finish off his poisoned and paralyzed foe. Before he can, though, he's shot In the Back by his own leader Brain, who mocks him for failing to crush Natsu decisively and thinks to himself that he's nothing but trash that can be replaced, preferably by using the injured Natsu. And when Brain realizes the horrified Cobra heard those thoughts, he just laughs, leaving Cobra to collapse on the ground unconscious with only his pet snake Cubellios for comfort. After Oracion Seis is defeated, seven years later Cobra manages to arrange for the guild's release from prison by providing info on the dark guild Tartaros, and while Brain is in the middle of "congratulating" Cobra and proclaiming a new dawn for their guild, Cobra reveals he's been waiting for this opportunity for seven years and tears a hole in Brain's side to leave him for dead on the ground. Nobody else in the guild cares once the shock wears off and actually congratulate Cobra on it since they also knew how little Brain gave a shit about them.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist, Solf J. Kimblee gets his throat torn out by his ex-bodyguard Heinkel, who Kimblee almost killed twice during his battle with Ed and another with his brother Al.
    • Kimblee himself does this to Pride, who had absorbed his soul following his "death".
    • Dr. Marcoh also stuck it to Envy by laying out a trap with his travel partners, after Marcoh had been held captive with his home village as hostage. Envy went from One-Winged Angel to Clipped-Wing Angel once Marcoh was done with him.
    • Greed, after Father had previously killed his first incarnation and had just stolen him back from Ling's body by force to use his Philosopher's stone, returned the favor by reversing the effects of his Ultimate Shield to turn Father's body into brittle charcoal that would make him easy to kill.
    • In the end of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Dante was killed by Gluttony after she erased his memory to turn him into a mindless monster.
  • Yukiteru Amano in Future Diary does this to Yuno after she drugs him and chains him up in an abandoned hotel for a week when he slaps her across the face and tells her to go to hell. Though technically, Yuno's intentions weren't exactly dog-kicking... from her point of view, anyway.
  • Sakon Daimaru from Gamaran had his life and mental sanity ruined by his elder brother Ryuugo, who even yelled at him for losing his battle against Gama. This prompts Sakon to go insane and snap Ryuugo's spine as soon as he turns around.
  • GTO: The Early Years:
    • After beating up Makoto and forcing him to betray Eikichi, Makoto hits Saejima in the head with a shovel.
    • Asakura originally asked Okubo to help him defeat the Onibaku, but after he demands a million yen and Asakura's girlfriend Natsumi (and he and his friends take turns raping her), Asakura can't stand by when he sees Okubo and his gang beating Eikichi to death.
  • In Haou Airen, a boy named Kaafai is Forced to Watch as the Fetishized Abuser lead, Hakuron, rapes his girlfriend Kurumi, whom Kaafai had befriended few hours ago. Guess who becomes a police officer and shoots Hakuron dead at the end of the series?
  • Happy Kanako’s Killer Life: While she was unwilling to, Kanako shoots her former boss and made it look like an accident.
  • In Jack and the Beanstalk (1974), throughout the movie the witch Hecuba insulted and abused her son, the giant Tulip. Eventually he had enough; when she told him to finish Jack and Margaret, he chose to kill her instead, by stepping on her.
  • Kill la Kill: Satsuki stabs her mother Ragyo through the chest and announces a rebellion against COVERS in episode 17. A large part of Satsuki's hatred was caused by Ragyo killing her father and, some years prior, then using her baby sister as a guinea pig for Life Fiber experiments, then dumping said baby sister down a garbage chute — not to mention all the very creepy molestation she'd been subjecting Satsuki to since she was just a little girl. For bonus points, Satsuki is usually stoic, barely emoting outside of being annoyed and smirking, but, when she does the aforementioned, she makes no attempt at hiding her Unstoppable Rage.
  • In the final episodes of Kirby: Right Back at Ya! (Brought to the US as a DVD movie titled Fright To the Finish), when Dedede meets the Holy Nightmare salesguy, the first thing he does (besides comment on Salesguy's height) is force-feed him a spoonful of Kawasaki's awful cooking.
    Salesguy: (Washing his mouth out) That was completely disgusting!
    Escargo(o)n: Now you know how we feel about you!
  • Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Plus: Shadow Link breaks the Dark Mirror, killing Vaati, but also sacrificing his own life, to save Zelda and the other Links.
    Shadow: I came out of the Dark Mirror, and with its power woke you. How fitting that I use it to destroy us both!
  • In the seventh volume of Mekko Rarekko, Buchi becomes Amanuma's Sex Slave when Amanuma, a real Jerkass convinces him that he's no different from Taishou, his best friend who is also Amanuma's sex slave. Amanuma tortures Buchi and Taishou a lot but he is much crueler towards Taishou. When Buchi can't stand seeing Taishou tortured anymore, he tackles Amanuma and when he sees his smartphone, he stomps on it until it's destroyed. It also doubles as a literal The Dog Bites Back moment since every character in Mekko Rarekko is a dog (A Kemono dog.)
  • Gundam:
  • Kaze no Shōjo Emily: Emily, twice.
    • In the second episode, she doesn't let Ilse get away with bullying her and fights until they're both covered in mud and dirt.
    • When she hears Rhoda gloat about how she frightened her to her Girl Posse, Emily marches straight up to them, ignores Rhoda acting sweet and innocent, and Bitch Slaps her.
  • Subverted in Monster. Johann didn't need help to be a monster and he didn't care enough about his creators to take revenge. He kills them anyway.
  • In Muhyo and Roji, a few cases happen.
    • Buhpu, having killed Ivy Cortlaw to manipulate her brother Kid into fighting the MLS by making him think they had killed her, gets killed by the one he had manipulated when the truth comes to light.
    • In a similar case, Teeki killed Enchu's mother, with the ultimate goal of taking Enchu's body, and Muhyo revealing the truth behind this results in Enchu resisting Teeki's possession and enabling Muhyo and Roji to finish Teeki off.
  • The Neon Genesis Evangelion film End of Evangelion has this happen between Asuka and Shinji. After an entire series of belittling him, mistreating him, and insulting him at every opportunity, in EoE Shinji finally snaps and strangles the ever-loving crap out of Asuka.
  • One Piece:
    • The villain of the CP9 saga, Spandam has spent the entire arc beating Nico Robin mercilessly without any way for her to defend herself, as well as saying anything he can to break her spirit. Once she ends up breaking free, she pins him down, smacks him in the face over and over, then finishes it off by snapping his spine nearly in two. This doesn't kill him, but it ends up making him suffer a Fate Worse than Death due to him being crippled for life while the group of assassins he was the former boss of is out for his blood. For a while, though, as he eventually recovered and is now in the CP0 but, ironically, two of said assassins are now his superiors.
    • Trafalgar Law's entire plan, including his alliance with the Straw Hats, has been to get revenge on Donquixote Doflamingo for an event in their shared past that occurred thirteen years ago. Doflamingo killed his own brother, Rocinante, who was Law's Parental Substitute and the man who pulled the Tyke-Bomb Law back from the brink and found a cure for his incurable disease while ensuring the kid's escape from Doflamingo, who wanted to be Law's Evil Mentor instead. Thus, Law's singular focus is to make sure Doflamingo dies no matter what, even if it means he has to die as well in the process. Doflamingo doesn't die, but he is subjected to one of the series' most brutal Break the Haughty processes of the whole series, which more or less works anyway.
  • Overlord (2012): One of the Workers is a proud slaveowner, who goes around with a trio of elf slaves he beats and rapes to keep in line who cast buff magic on him when ordered (and when one dies to enemy attack, his actions, or just malnutrition, he just gets a new one). When going up against Hamsuke, he ends up losing both hands and orders the elves to heal him... and suddenly, they're looking a lot happier. When Hamsuke caves the bastard's head in, they're seen kicking the corpse, and are later spared death by Ainz, who lets them stay in Nazarick to help take care of Aura and Mare.
  • In Pokémon Adventures, Blue really didn't appreciate being kidnapped and being forced to become someone's underling, so she swiped the Applied Phlebotinum on her way out escaping, setting back the Big Bad's (named the Mask of Ice) evil plot for several years, and actively looked for ways to take him down. Granted, she didn't deliver the finishing blow, but she was a big part of it nevertheless.
    • In Pokémon: Zoroark: Master of Illusions, Kodai forces Zoroark to do his bidding by holding her beloved son hostage, and makes no attempts to treat her kindly, even recapturing her despite him not even needing her anymore. When she finally breaks out of confinement, she goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and brings his entire plan falling down on his head. In the manga adaptation, she ultimately kills him by sending him falling to his death.
    • Pokémon: The Series likes doing this with the Fire type starters under Ash's care — Charmander and Pignite blasted their abusive former trainers with Flamethrower, while Chimchar evolved all the way to Infernape after being released by Paul and was the lone Pokemon left on Ash's side at the end of the Sinnoh League battle.
    • In the Pokémon Golden Boys manga, during Gold's encounter with Lapras, Black attempts to catch it...and decides to use Bayleef. Of course, Bayleef is defeated, and Black, in a fit of rage, tells it "You're so weak. I DON'T NEED YOU ANYMORE!!" This results in Gold taking Bayleef in. Later, in the Burned Tower, Black forces Gold to fight him using his weakened Haunter, taunting Gold when he hesitates in using Croconaw. Bayleef proceeds to angrily charge at Black and take Haunter out in a single blow.
  • The ending of Puella Magi Madoka Magica can be seen as this. Kyubey doesn't directly hurt Madoka, but he sure doesn't hesitate to inflict horrible tragedy on her friends, with the intent of forcing her to make a contract no matter how much her life gets screwed up in the process. His over-the-top heartless abuse convinces Madoka, who had openly refused to given in for the entire series, to invoke Laser-Guided Karma on him and his entire species, and the entire universe via contracting and then turning her wish into something that totally screws with the Magical Girl System led by Kyuubey, sacrificing herself in the process and then ascending to pretty much god-hood to make sure that other prospect magical girls won't go through the same suffer.
    • Shown again in Rebellion. Kyubey's machinations end up causing Homura to gain godlike powers like Madoka... except she becomes the Devil to Madoka's God. And she has absolutely NO problem making Kyubey's life and that of his entire race a merry Hell. Everyone else is spared though. So to speak.
  • All the main villains in the Robot Romance Trilogy go out this way:
    • Empress Janera from the original Combattler V is assassinated by her general, the cyborg Warchimedes, after she tries to abandon him on the soon-to-be-destroyed Earth.
    • In Voltes V, Emperor Zambajil bails on the final battle, leaving all his men to die but making sure to take a big bag of gold with him. Unfortunately for him, his escape route takes him right bast his much-nicer and much-abused nephew Prince Heinel, who immediately realizes what's happening and tosses a knife into his loathed uncle's heart.
    • In Daimos, King Olban is gunned down by the noble Prince Richter after the latter finds out that Olban poisoned his father, the previous king, to gain the throne.
  • In Sakura Gari, this is Tomohiko Katsuragi's perdition. The three persons whom he abused the most ( Masataka, Souma, and his own wife Asayo) are the ones who orchestrate the spectacular Humiliation Conga that he suffers and which finishes in a fiery Karmic Death.
  • In Soul Eater, Crona stabs their mother, Medusa to death after all the nightmare-inducing experiments she ran on them. Although that's a bit misleading. They don't kill her because of how horrible she is, they did it because Medusa was suddenly acting like a real mother, such as cooking their favorite meal for them and apologizing for all the things she did, even hugging them. But Crona is so insane from the experiments and so shocked by this that they assume that this is an impostor. And in the end? The last thing Medusa says in the chapter confirms that this was all part of her plan.
  • Tokyo Ghoul makes use of this trope to triumphant and horrifying results.
    • Kureo Mado murders both of Hinami Fueguchi's parents, and engages in Evil Gloating when showing her the weapons made from their bodies. (Plus he had done the same to her mom Ryoko before killing her) He forces the poor girl to watch him use these weapons to torture her Cool Big Sis Touka, then mocks her over her grief and tries to kill them both. Hinami's kagune manifest for the first time, maiming him while she screams at him to not use her parents to hurt people.
    • After 10 days of brutal torture, Kaneki gives into his despair and fully embraces his ghoul powers. He breaks free from his chains, and proceeds to beat his torturer Yamori within an inch of his life. After devouring his kagune to render him helpless, Kaneki leaves him to die at the hands of the Ghoul Investigators currently invading the base. Not because he doesn't want Yamori dead, but because he's simply not worth Kaneki's time anymore.
    • Subverted by Juuzou, when confronting his abusive "Mama", Big Madam. While his mission involves hunting her down, he reassures her that he doesn't hate her... and closes his eyes sadly while his squad finishes her off.
    • Taking to a horrifying degree with Mutsuki, who used an axe to murder his family after years of abuse from his father. After nearly a month being held prisoner by Saeki aka Torso, he snaps and tears the ghoul apart in a gruesome dose of Laser-Guided Karma.
    • Torso himself was the biting dog at some point, when as a youngster he used his powers to murder his abusive father after he killed his Only Friend.
    • Tatara probably should have restrained his Kick the Dog tendencies to avoid this trope. Instead, it comes back to bite him in full force when Takizawa betrays and kills him as revenge for being maimed, kidnapped, experimented on, raped, tortured, and forced to serve Aogiri.
    • Tsuneyoshi Washuu's habit of siring Bastard children as servants comes back to bite him, with two of them ( Arima and Furuta) leading separate plots against him. While both conspired to destroy the Washuus and their organization, their goals and methods in biting back were very different: Arima worked with Eto to create a revolution to free the world, while Furuta takes the direct route by murdering Tsuneyoshi and takes over the CCG, leading it down a path of open sadism and destruction.
  • This is discussed twice in Touhou Suzunaan ~ Forbidden Scrollery:
    • In Chapter 31, Mamizou explains that while youkai have to make trouble for humans, they have to be careful not to actually hurt or kill anyone, lest they decide enough is enough and start seeking revenge.
    • In Chapter 32, Aya takes a zero-sum approach by explaining to Marisa that the reason youkai oppress the human villagers is because they believe that should they ever gain power, or if a leader figure shows up there, they'd take the fight to the youkai. Either case would probably end Gensokyo's relative and precarious peace for good.
  • Subverted in Toward the Terra. Keith Anyan is repeatedly abusive towards his subordinate Jonah Matsuka and informs him that once the war against the Mu is over, he'll be disposed of; he asks if Matsuka will kill him before that happens, apparently deliberately trying to needle Matsuka into doing just that. Instead, Matsuka sacrifices his own life to save Keith's — to Keith's considerable surprise and dismay.
  • ViVid Strike!: When Rinne was sent to school she was bullied mercilessly by a trio of Rich Alpha Bitches but resolved to tolerate their abuse in the hopes that they would eventually leave her alone. However after the three of them damaged her grandfather's tiepin and knocked her out, thus preventing her from seeing him again before he died, Rinne returned to school the next day and performed an incredibly brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on all three of them.
  • Zombie Land Saga: Kotaro tends to show little respect for Franchouchou with his Mean Boss antics. However, any time he goes too far, they aren't shy in hitting him back with equal or greater force.
    • Saki throws a baseball back at him, crushing the bone in his thigh.
    • Ai smacks him across the face with a baguette.
    • Saki smacks him around with a microphone he was shoving into Sakura's face.

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