We Can Rule Together / Anime & Manga

• At the height of his madness in the finale of the 2003 Astro Boy series, Dr. Tenma takes over the Ministry of Science and demands to see "Tobio" again. Fully believing that Astro is Tobio, he asks him to join him. When Astro refuses, Tenma snaps completely and tries to commit suicide.
• Attack on Titan:
  • Reiner Braun makes various attempts to convince Eren and Ymir to join their side due to considering both friends. Eren refuses outright, while the ever-pragmatic Ymir weighs the benefits and drawbacks of such an alliance.
  • Rod Reiss makes his daughter Historia such an offer. If she takes the serum and eats Eren, she can become ruler of the Walls and "reunite" with the inherited memories of her beloved sister, Freida. She almost takes the offer, but then recalls Ymir's words and realizes she's being used. She takes a third option, rejecting his offer completely but later killing Rod's Titan form before hundreds of witnesses, claiming the throne on her own terms.
• Berserk:
  • the Apostle and Dark Magical Girl Rosine offers this to her best friend Jill. Who refuses, so Rosine abducts and tries to transform her into one of her followers instead.
  • Later, Emperor Ganishka offers Guts a position in his army so he can get revenge on Griffith. Guts tells him to fuck off.
• Creed from Black Cat practically lives this trope. According to him, his entire plot to rule the world will always be incomplete if Train isn't by his side. It could be said that he is the most persistent character in the entire series, offering Train this countless times.
• Bleach:
  • Quilge Opie offers Apacci, Mila Rose and Sung-Sung the chance to join with the Vandenreich. They refuse. Since he has a join or die mentality, he obliterates them.
  • Yhwach makes this offer as well. To both Aizen and Ichigo. They both refuse. Yhwach doesn't mind; he planned for that.
• Blood+:
  • Amshel appears to want to bring Saya to the Cinq Fleches' side by revealing that Diva is her sister. It is then revealed that Amshel did this in order to isolate Saya and Haji so he could "convince" Haji into becoming Diva's groom. Amshel actually plans to kill Saya as she will never stop trying to kill Diva.
  • Solomon -more out of love for Saya than any agenda- asks her to reject her humanity; reasoning that in spite of their bad history, Saya, Diva, and their chevaliers are family while Saya's human family will reject her. She is strongly tempted this time but ultimately turns him down, mainly because on principle, Saya cannot let Diva live after all she has done and plans to keep doing to humans.
  • In the manga, Saya and Diva had a sisterly friendship in The Zoo until Diva escaped. Saya immediately hates Diva for killing everyone but Diva is oblivious to her rage and earnestly believes that Saya will join her as soon as the humans are out of the way.
• Riful from Claymore offers the Clare and several other warriornesses. For this purpose, the warriors are supposed to awaken before, but they refuse.
  • In the manga you can also see Luciella, who sees her sister Raphaela again, and she also asks to awaken, so that they can rule the continent together.
• In Corrector Yui, Grosser offers this to the titular Magical Girl in the first season finale. Yui says no.
• Faye Valentine gets an offer like this from Big Bad Vincent in Cowboy Bebop The Movie. She rejects it.
• This is the same proposal that Death Note's Light offers anytime he sees a potential tool to use. Usually, though, he's secretly planning on killing that person once they have done what he wanted them to do. This is actually a common idea that fanfic writers have him use.
• Touma of Digimon Data Squad gets this offer from his Evil Counterpart Nanami. In this case, it was combined with a different kind of temptation.
• Genkaku of Deadman Wonderland frequently offers this to Nagi who always turns him down.
  • Gokudo, being an Anti-Hero, actually takes the offer. It backfires, but he still tried.
• Dragon Ball:
  • In the Ocean dub of Dragon Ball Z, Vegeta makes this offer to Goku. Goku turns him down, not only for moral reasons but pointing out that Vegeta has just sent his last right-hand man to the next dimension. This is changed back to the original dialogue of Vegeta bragging about how he was going to kill Goku for the Funimation re-dub.
  • A lot of DBZ villains try this. Vegeta, Frieza, King Cold, Zarbon, Raditz, Turles... probably a bunch of others, too.
  • This actually goes all the way back to Adviser Black from the original series. After taking over as leader of the Red Ribbon Army, he offers to join forces with Goku, even going so far as to propose first using the Dragon Balls to revive the man Goku is trying to bring back to life. Goku still refuses.
  • Frieza does it again in the Resurrection F movie, offering Vegeta the chance to kill Goku while the latter is helpless and reinstating Vegeta as supreme commander of Frieza's army (second to Frieza himself, naturally). Vegeta seems to be intrigued for a moment, but turns him down, saying that he needs Goku alive because their rivalry is what pushes him to better himself... and besides which, Frieza blew up Vegeta's planet, and he still hasn't forgiven him for that.
  • Frieza actually has a habit of this, having also asked Nail to join his army. He doesn't actually expect any heroes to take him up on the offer, but if there's someone strong enough to be useful he'd be happy to have them.
• Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai:
  • In the Dragon Quest tradition, the final battle against Demon King Vearn has him attempt to convince Dai to join his side. His chief argument plays to Dai's insecurities over humans fearing him for his power and Half-Human Hybrid origins. Vearn actually feels genuine sympathy towards Dai for being Lonely at the Top, and is able to give examples of similar scenarios where humans were all to quick to turn on their "heroes" once they were no longer needed; by contrast Vearn himself has never discriminated against someone for their race, and even continues to respect those subordinates who have switched sides to fight against him. On a practical level, while Vearn still has enough power in reserve to be confident that he can defeat Dai, pushing himself that far would have long-term consequences he'd rather not incur.
  • Before the start of the series, Vearn made this offer to Dai's father, the Eternal Hero known as the Dragon Knight. Given that humans had just murdered his wife and separated him from his son, he agreed, becoming one of Vearn's generals. It's implied that, since Vearn is a sworn enemy of the gods, he takes sadistic pleasure in having the gods' own champion fight by his side. And as icing on the cake it gives him a chance to gloat to Velzar, a rival of his who was previously defeated and turned to stone by the Dragon Knight.
• Food Wars!: Early on, after Soma ruins his kaarage business near the Sumire District, Etsuya Eizan makes Soma an offer to join him as his henchman. Soma refuses on principle as he won't work with the guy responsible for the crisis at his neighborhood.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, this offer is already in effect with most of the high-ranking Amestrian military.
  • The real Ashleigh Crichton extends this offer to Julia in the climax of Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos. She's not having it and neither is Ed, who wasn't even asked but oh well.
    Ed: SHUT UP ALREADY!
• GUN×SWORD has an anti-hero-to-hero variation where Ray suggests to Van that they partner up against the Claw, since they both lost their wives because of him. Van refuses on the grounds that Ray is just too Ax-Crazy to work with on a moral and pragmatic level. They do eventually join forces, but on terms more agreeable to Van.
• In Inuyasha the Movie: Swords of an Honorable Ruler is the sword So'unga, which promises tremendous power to anyone who leads it. It is explicitly stated during the film that this sword prefers humans as carriers.
• In K: Return of Kings
  • The Green King, Nagare Hisui, makes this offer to Shiro, the Silver King, right after the latter has formed an alliance with the other Clans to defeat the former. Shiro turns him down, because his ideas sound a bit too familiar to Shiro, considering his backstory.
  • Later, Nagare makes this offer to The Mole, Saruhiko Fushimi. Nagare is something of an Anti-Villain, and Saruhiko is definitely an Anti-Hero - it was ambiguous up to that point whether he was in Jungle as a mole or as a real traitor, and he legitimately might accept the offer. He turns it down in his usual brilliant deadpan way.
• Phil Maxwell tried pulling this on Yuri in the backstory of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Detonation. She said no. Near the end of the movie he attempts to make Nanoha one of his daughters after seeing her use both Midchildan and Formula magic at once. She also says no.
• In the last episode of season one of MegaMan NT Warrior (2002), Lan, fused with Megaman, is fighting with a giant navi-fused Dr. Regal. Our hero is on the ropes, but rather than taking Lan out, Dr. Regal explains that he's impressed with him and explicitly states "I want you by my side, Lan." His offer is refused.
• In the last episode of My-HiME, the Obsidian Lord offers Mai a chance to replace Mikoto as his right-hand, after the latter does a Heel–Face Turn when Mai shows her The Power of Love. Mai tells him where to stick it, and the final battle begins.
• Maoyu has an interesting take on this trope. The Maou wants the Yuusha to work together with so they can end the war between their races peacefully with the least repercussions and enough benefits for everyone. They also note that offering to rule together is considered standard procedure for a Maou (one of the manga adaptions shows a picture of the Dragonlord with a Censor Box over his eyes during this explanation), and lampshade how a real hero would never accept such an offer. They also discuss how such division would not actually end the war, just change the names for the sides (from human-demon to Hero-Demon King).
  • Later, the spirit of a previous Maou who's possessing the current one makes a similar offer. The Yuusha again points out how ridiculous it is to expect a hero to accept such an offer.
• In chapter 581 of Naruto Kabuto actually asks this of Sasuke twice. He refuses the offers.
  • After killing Neji and giving Naruto a Hannibal Lecture about his naivety and inability to protect everyone, Tobi asks Naruto what he even has left in this reality and invites him to stop prolonging his suffering and join him and Madara. Naruto hesitates, but Hinata snaps him out of it.
  • Madara later makes this offer to Sasuke. Of course, his offer is promptly refused.
• Senator Kurt Godel proposes this to Negi in Negima! Magister Negi Magi. It initially seems to have the sole purpose of making him angry (which works wonders), but later turns out to be a serious offer. He wants Negi to take up Queen Arika's legacy and become King. In the end, Negi nearly does take him up on it, but ultimately rejects it, as Kurt's Fantastic Racism means that he would only save about an eighteenth of the population. According to Negi, Arika would have tried to save everyone, so if he's going to follow in her footsteps, he's saving everyone too.
• Tabool from Now and Then, Here and There, a child soldier whose predicament has driven him to the brink of scathing insanity, tries to convince his sane best friend Nabuca that they can take over Hellywood together. Strange subversion in that Nabuca refuses, but it's Tabool who winds up killing Nabuca.
• One Piece, full of heroes and villains and being all about dreams and goals, have had these moments:
  • Near the end of their fight on Drum Island, Wapol offers Luffy the title of 'Vice King'. In this case, it's because Luffy's winning the fight, and all Wapol can do is throw out worthless positions in the hopes that it'll stop Luffy from Bazooka-ing him off the island. It fails.
  • After Enies Lobby, Blackbeard offers Portgas D. Ace, who had been hunting the former because he had killed a crewmate, to join on his plan to kill Whitebeard and become Pirate King. It fails for two reasons: One, Ace idolizes Whitebeard; and two, during the pitch Blackbeard outlines the first step of his plan- killing Luffy to become a Shichibukai. When Blackbeard shows himself to be the stronger of the two and asks Don't Make Me Destroy You, Ace retorts that giving in would invalidate him being born as a man.
  • A flashback during Dressrosa shows that Donquixote Doflamingo was so impressed by Trafalgar Law's Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour that he offered to make him his right-hand man someday. Initially, Law loved the idea, but after circumstances involving Doflamingo's brother (The then-current right-hand) and the Op-Op Fruit, he realized that Doflamingo only saw his minions as tools to be used and sacrificed if need be. But even after Law left the Donquixote Pirates, Doflamingo apparently kept the Heart seat open for Law.
  • The soon-to-be Pirate King himself was offered this by a rival of his, Shiki. The two apparently had many disagreements and issues in the past, but Shiki was willing to ignore it if they could team up. Unfortunately, Roger had no interest in dominating the world.
• Ping Pong: Kaiō Academy's consistent proposition to Smile. Surprisingly, even Mr. Koizumi, his trainer thinks the opportunity is nice.
• Pokémon Adventures:
  • Red was given the offer twice with Team Rocket and The Elite Four. Both times he refused, though the outcomes were quite different. First time, epic battle which he barely wins thanks to a Chekhov's Gun. Second time, not so lucky as he ends up as a Human Popsicle.
  • Courtney offers for Ruby to join Team Magma. He refuses and she tries to kill him, but he escapes.
  • The latest instance occurs in the DP arc when Pearl surmises that Cyrus is trying to have them join him.
• Queen Millennia: Larela tries to bribe Hajime with replicas of his deceased parents along with anything he desires, for as long as he obeys her, which only offends him more.
• Reborn! (2004): In chapters 385, 386, and 387 Bermuda asks Reborn to join him and says he likes him and wants him (for his team). Reborn refuses and Bermuda responds by capturing him.
• Queen Beryl from Sailor Moon offers Prince Endymion the chance to join her and rule over her kingdom (and presumably whatever else she conquers) during her attack on the Silver Millennium. It is also implied that she wants to have children with him as well. Naturally, he refuses which results in his death.
  • The second time around, she doesn't bother offering it she just brainwashes him.
• Also used in Shadow Star:
  • The maddened Lonely Rich Kid Hiroko offers this to her friend Shiina as they face each other after Hiroko's Freak Out and Roaring Rampage of Revenge with Oni. It doesn't end well.
  • And before that, Akira Sakura gets offers from the likes of Tomonori Komori and Naozumi Sudo to join their respective causes of creating a new world. These don't end well, either.
  • The entire ending of the manga is the result of Shiina accepting one of these. After the deaths of her father, mother, boyfriend, best friend, and everyone she'd ever cared about, Mamiko asks her if there's any reason left not to end the world. Shiina replies that there isn't.
• Soul Eater: Medusa offers this to Stein on several occasions, in an Unholy Matrimony sort of way, and confesses her "love". Professor Stein turns her down flat on (almost) all occasions.
• Tokyo ESP has the adoptive family of Kyotaru, who offers him this. However, Kyotaru decides to be a hero.
• In the first episode of Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Megatron offers to let Optimus Prime join him so they can despoil Earth together. Optimus, naturally enough, refuses.
• Valvrave the Liberator: In the third episode, enemy soldier and ace mecha pilot L-Elf reveals that he wants Haruto to "form a contract with him and serve as his right hand", essentially asking Haruto to become his personal Dragon, to bring revolution to Dorsia. Haruto eventually accepts, realizing that L-Elf's genius can potentially minimize the losses his friends will have to face. That wasn't part of L-elf's plan, but Haruto says that L-elf is like bitter coffee that needs sugar, and offers to be L-elf's sugar.
• In an interesting example, in the first Vampire Hunter D novel (and comic), The Dragon Rei-Ginsei give this offer to D "As two beautiful lords ruling the night" (to paraphrase) - despite that Magus Lee would most certainly have something to say about the attempt to double-cross him.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Seto's side of the story in the Memory World arc centers largely around this trope, with a Luke, I Am Your Father for good measure.
  • Earlier in the series, Yami Marik tries this on good Marik in a last-ditch effort to avoid banishment to the Shadow Realm. He's completely ignored.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions, Aigami thinks that Humans Are the Real Monsters, but starts to think of Yugi as the exception, so he asks Yugi to help him create a new world without hate. Yugi tells him to shove it since Aigami is driven by hate, so he could never create a world without hate.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Carly, as a Dark Signer, showed Jack a world where they would rule together as King and Queen. Jack almost fell for it, too bad that his Hamminess snapped him out of it.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Roget, the main villain of the Synchro arc, proposes this to Yuya: if Yuya beats Jack, he will take his place as the city's champion, and keep the peace between the two warring states of the city. Yuya declines, as he realizes that Roget has no intention of using the role to actually fix the problem, and would rather keep up the status quo and retain his control over the city. Roget also tries to groom Serena as his next pawn, but Serena refuses to take his hand-outs.

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