History NiceJobBreakingItHero / AnimeAndManga

* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' Itachi, ordered to kill his entire clan to prevent a bloody coup that would kill all of Konoha, couldn't bring himself to kill his younger brother, Sasuke. As a result, he spared said person, and tried to enact a [[GambitRoulette plan]] that would end with that person a hero beloved by Konoha, and capable of defending himself and it against the BigBad. Instead, it ended with him as ally to the BigBad, swearing to ''destroy'' Konoha. Oopsie!
** Itachi's entire plan for Sasuke is a NiceJobBreakingItHero. It never occurred to him that [[MindRape mind Raping]] him twice would be detrimental to Sasuke's mental health. Nor occurring to him that beating him half to death twice would make him psychotic. Nor occurring to him that Sasuke might kill Naruto to get the MS. Nor tried to stop Orochimaru from getting Sasuke. If he didn't intervene or interfere with Sasuke's life at all, he would have gotten what he wanted-a Konoha Aligned Sasuke killing him instead of a fucked up mentally Neutral Sasuke.

*** [[spoiler:He abandoned his mission so that he could help Obito when they were kids, resulting in a crippled Obito ending up on Madara's doorstep setting off most of the plot.]]
*** [[spoiler:He inadvertently caused the Kyuubi incident by blabbing that Kurama's Jinchuuriki was gonna have a baby in front of Rin's grave, not realizing Obito was there as well.]]
** And then there's the Sage of the Six Paths, in his day he saved the entire world from a monstrous threat, founded the Shinobi way, and was pretty much revered as a Messiah and PhysicalGod. [[spoiler: That isn't an exaggeration, the threat he defeated was a godlike Ten Tailed beast, which he then proceeded to ''seal into himself'', inadvertently giving himself [[RealityWarper Reality Warping Powers]]. He then proceeded to use those powers to ''create the moon in order to seal away the beast's body'' and then split it's chakra into the nine Tailed Beasts]]. Nice guy. Unfortunately he's also indirectly responsible for [[spoiler: The Uchiha massacre and the Fourth Shinobi World War. Not to mention all the deaths the tailed beasts caused over the centuries.]]
** [[TykeBomb Gaara]] probably wouldn't be half as screwed up as he is if his father had not only had him turned into a Jinchuuriki, killing his mother in the process, but also [[spoiler:sent Gaara's uncle on a suicide mission and ordered him to tell Gaara that no-one loved him in order to test Shukaku's power]]. OK, so the Fourth Kazekage was doing it to protect his village in desperate times, but he ended up with an unstable, AxCrazy child who kills people left, right and centre, is treated like a monster, has his own siblings terrified of him, and probably would have gotten a lot worse if [[DefeatMeansFriendship Naruto hadn't showed up]]. During the 4th Shinobi War arc, [[spoiler:when Gaara's father is one of the zombies raised by Kabuto using Edo Tensei, he is defeated by Gaara and admits that he's well aware he screwed up on every possible level.]]

** The Second Hokage [[spoiler: was of the opinion that the Uchiha would eventually betray Konoha. Well, he certainly laid the groundwork to [[{{SelfFulfillingProphecy}} making sure they would.]] Between Tobirama's paranoia about the Uchiha, and Madara's even ''more'' paranoid reactions to Tobirama, a betrayal became inevitable.]]
*** [[spoiler: ''Edo Tensei''. Even ''[[BigBad Orochimaru]]'' [[WhatTheHellHero calls him out]] on documenting a jutsu that allows the dead to be resurrected and used as an indestructible army. And it requires HumanSacrifice to activate. Tobirama's idea was that fallen allies could be raised on the battlefield and enemy soldiers used as the sacrifices to raise them, but still. He should've known such a technique was too dangerous to leave lying around.]]
** The First Hokage [[spoiler:for stopping Tobirama from killing Madara.]]
** Naruto and [[spoiler:Minato stopping Kakashi and Sasuke from killing Obito. Ends up with Madara being revived]].

* ''Doki Doki Densetsu Anime/MahoujinGuruGuru'' has the characters discover Kukuri's birthplace where items for her use had been left behind. The bad news is the items had been collected by monsters called Gimu Gimu. Good news is they're tame and don't object to people taking back what's theirs. Unfortunately, they also don't object to people taking items and ''selling'' them, which is exactly what Nike, Kukuri, and Toma did prior to reaching the ruins. To make it worse, a necklace meant specifically for Kukuri was lost when Toma earlier used the item it was kept in as an impromptu rocket launcher. Poor Kukuri simply snaps at this point and regresses to a four-year old for a few moments. For the record, they ''did'' find the necklace soon after.

** Guessing Orihime's unique power is valuable to Aizen, Urahara takes her off the front line to prevent her being targeted but doesn't admit why he's doing it. Rukia takes Orihime to Soul Society to train her for front line battle takes her away from Urahara's watchful eye, and allows Aizen to stage a kidnapping within the Dangai. The Dangai is supposed to be impossible to break into, so people travelling there are very vulnerable. However, the person who figured out how to break into the Dangai was Urahara himself, the only man capable of predicting and countering everything Aizen does. Urahara ends up kicking himself for his mistake.

* ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia:'' In the ''Running Away With Mr. Swe'' strip, [[NiceGuy Finland]] decides to follow [[GentleGiant Sweden]], who's fed up with Denmark's attitude and being controlled, and run away to live on their own. While he's at first glad that he's gotten away from Denmark, it doesn't take long for Finland to start mentally kicking himself for his spontaneous decision, considering the person that he ran away with has a FaceOfAThug and IcyBlueEyes. He's so terrified of Sweden that he decides he can't live with him and makes plans to run away in the middle of the night while Sweden is asleep...only to have his [[ThwartedEscape escape attempt thwarted]] by an unknowing Sweden himself.

* ''Anime/{{Doraemon}}'' should have a lot of examples throughout the show's run. It at least happened in the movie, "Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey". Nobita finds stray dogs and cats and wants them to have a home. The gang time traveled them back 300 million years and providing them with evolution and a food making machine. When they visit them again, they encounter a time disturbance causing them to be stranded in a different year in that era with advanced sentient dogs and cats, thus started the movie.

* In one of the early arcs from ''{{Toriko}}'', titular character gives Komatsu his special, gunpowder-charged firecrackers for scaring off dangerous animals, knowing that he didn't have superpowers to defend himself. However, he went a little bit too far with explosive power. As the result, after crackers exploded, sound not only scared off predators, but also ruptured both of Komatsu's eardrums and ''stopped his heart''. Luckily for him, Jiro managed to reanimate him.

* In ''PokemonSpecial'', one of the first things Yellow does is breaking up an attempt by an apparently resurfacing Team Rocket to hijack the ship S.S. Anne. [[spoiler:Said hijacking was part of a plan by [[HeelFaceTurn a reformed]] Lt. Surge to lure out the Elite Four with a rumor about finding the one they were looking for]].

* In episode 9 of ''Manga/KoufukuGraffiti'', Kirin's mother tells her to get a seat reserved on the train. Kirin mentions she's already done it and continues watching television. Unfortunately when they get to the station, it's completely full, and Kirin is forced to wait another hour for the next train since she didn't bother getting a ticket.

* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', [[spoiler: Itachi]], ordered to kill his entire clan [[spoiler:to prevent a bloody coup that would kill all of Konoha]], couldn't bring himself to kill [[spoiler: his younger brother, Sasuke]]. As a result, he spared said person, and tried to enact a {{plan}} that would end with that person a hero beloved by Konoha, and capable of defending himself and it against the BigBad. Instead, it ended with him as TheDragon to the BigBad, swearing to ''destroy'' Konoha. Oopsie!
** Itachi's entire plan for Sasuke is a NiceJobBreakingItHero. [[spoiler: It never occurred to him that [[MindRape mind Raping]] him twice would be detrimental to Sasuke's mental health. Nor occurring to him that beating him half to death twice would make him psychotic. Nor occurring to him that Sasuke might kill Naruto to get the MS. Nor tried to stop Orochimaru from getting Sasuke.]] If he didn't intervene or interfere with Sasuke's life at all, [[spoiler: he would have gotten what he wanted-a Konoha Aligned Sasuke killing him instead of a fucked up mentally Neutral Sasuke.]]
** Jiraiya's desire to give Sasuke a shot at killing Itachi in the hotel is understandable, but it takes all of three seconds for it to become apparent that he's [[CurbStompBattle absolutely no match]] for his older brother. It still takes him at least another five minutes, many broken bones, and a vicious mind raping to actually intervene. [[spoiler: In fact, it's very possible that the ''only'' reason Itachi even resorted to Tsukuyomi is because he was waiting for Jiraiya to give him the excuse to flee, and nothing else was making him act.]] This loss was one of the biggest reasons for Sasuke's defection.
** The Uchiha's [[spoiler:planned coup]] in the first place could have only ended in tears. And assuming that [[spoiler:Madara]] is not [[BlatantLies lying through his teeth]] about wanting to restore his clan's position of power and prominence, it's hard to see how reducing the clan to a few hated, emotionally broken criminals could result in this, though I suppose it's stretch to apply "Hero" here.
*** [[spoiler:Tobi's not even ''Madara'', and actually hated the Uchiha Clan with great vigor. The actual Madara has been dead for some time, and Tobi is really Obito. Which leads to another offender-Kakashi. Why did Obito become a mask-wearing psycho terrorist who's obsessed with his AssimilationPlot? [[LoveMakesYouEvil Because Kakashi killed Rin.]] Though, to be fair, how was he supposed to know that his supposed-to-be-dead best friend would become said mask-wearing psycho terrorist who's obsessed with his AssimilationPlot, ''just'' because the girl he had a crush on died, anyway?]]
*** [[spoiler:It's later revealed that it wasn't Kakashi's fault. Rin practically forced him to kill her.]]
*** [[spoiler: Kakashi could have averted a whole lot of this if he'd stayed as a [[TheStoic stoic]] Jerkass and ''stuck to the damn mission'' instead of saving his team.]]

** [[TykeBomb Gaara]] probably wouldn't be half as screwed up as he is if his father had not only had him turned into a Jinchuriki, killing his mother in the process, but also [[spoiler:sent Gaara's uncle on a suicide mission and ordered him to tell Gaara that no-one loved him in order to test Shukaku's power]]. OK, so the Fourth Kazekage was doing it to protect his village in desperate times, but he ended up with an unstable, AxCrazy child who kills people left, right and centre, is treated like a monster, has his own siblings terrified of him, and probably would have gotten a lot worse if [[DefeatMeansFriendship Naruto hadn't showed up]]. During the 4th Shinobi War arc, [[spoiler:when Gaara's father is one of the zombies raised by Kabuto using Edo Tensei, he is defeated by Gaara and admits that he's well aware he screwed up on every possible level.]]

*** [[spoiler: ''Edo Tensei''. Even ''[[BigBad Orochimaru]]'' [[WhatTheHellHero calls him out]] on documenting a jutsu that allows the dead to be resurrected and used as an indestructible army. And it requires HumanSacrifice to activate. Tobirama's idea was that fallen allies could be raised on the battlefield and enemy soldiers used as the sacrifices to raise them, but still. He shouldv'e known such a technique was too dangerous to leave lying around.]]
*** The First Hokage [[spoiler:for stopping Tobirama from killing Madara.]]

* In one of the early arcs from ''{{Toriko}}'', titular character gives Komatsu his special, gunpowder-charged firecrackers for scaring off dangerous animals, knowing that he didn't have superpowers to defend himself. However, he went a little bit too far with explosive power. As the result, after crackers exploded, sound not only scared off predators, but also ruptured both of Komatsu's eardrums and ''stopped his heart''. Luckily for him, Jiro managed to reanimate him.

!!Shows that have their own page:

* In ''Manga/PuellaMagiKazumiMagica,'' poor, poor Pleiades Saints. [[spoiler:Their plan is to hide Kyubey from existence, making it unable to contact and contract other girls, including preexisting [[MagicalGirl Magical Girls]]. To help this, they make Jyubey, an artificial Incubator, who supposedly can clean darkening Soul Gem. Only, there is a ''[[{{Understatement}} slight]]'' problem: It can't. It can only polish them. Whoooops.]]

* In one of the early arcs from ''{{Toriko}}'', titular character gives Komatsu his special, gunpowder-charged firecrackers for scaring off dangerous animals, knowing that he didn't have superpowers to defend himself. However, he went a little bit too far with explosive power. As the result, after crackers exploded, sound not only scared off predators, but also ruptured both of Komatsu eardrums and ''stopped his heart''. Luckily for him, Jiro managed to reanimate him.

* In one of the early arcs from ''{{Toriko}}'' titular character gives Komatsu his special, gunpowder-charged firecrackers for scaring off dangerous animals, knowing, that he didn't have superpowers to defend himself. However, he a little bit too far with explosive power. As the result,after crackers exploded, sound not only scared off predators, but also ruptured both of Komatsu eardrums and ''stopped his heart''. Luckily for him, Jiro managed to reanimate him.

** The ''Musha Kero'' saga ends with one. [[spoiler:Upon learning that civilians have been enslaved to unearth something in a mine, Kululu scans the area and finds an energy reading, and Keroro speeds up the excavation. It turns out to be an EldritchAbomination.]]

* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'' [[TheHero the five Gundam pilots]] are planning to killing Earth Sphere Alliance leaders to stop their oppresion of the space colonies. [[spoiler:Problem is, they actually ''started peace talks'' when the pilots do the plan. Result: peace-seeking leaders killed, [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy OZ]] and [[WarForFunAndProfit Romefeller Foundation]] is free from hindrance and take over the Earth, and the pilots get serious cases of HeroicBSOD.]]

* NinjaPirateRobotZombie: Ichigo is a combination of Human, Soul Reaper, Hollow, and Quincy.

* ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' [[spoiler: Myotismon leaves the fog that he created behind after he is killed]], after which Joe hangs a lampshade on this trope.[[spoiler: Venomyotismon shows up just hours later]].

* In ''DeadmanWonderland'', Ganta stops the Deadmen from wiping out the Forgeries because one of his friends was among them. In doing so, he inadvertently incapacitates all of the prison's strongest Deadmen leaving the Forgeries free to start picking them off one by one. As a result, Ganta is [[WhatTheHellHero completely alienated by his friends]].

* The entire Wiseman arc in ''Manga/SailorMoon'' is one humongous set of this trope, particularly starting with the first half. The entire thing kicks off when Chibi-Usa accidentally absorbs the future Silver Crystal, leading to Crystal Tokyo to come under attack. This forces Chibi-Usa to go back into the past to find the past Silver Crystal as she thinks the future one is lost forever. At the same time, King Endymion decides to put his past self, Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Kamen, through a SecretTestOfCharacter by giving him strange prophetic dreams of some disaster happening involving him and Usagi, hoping that he can solve it and the two can handle anything together. Instead, Mamoru bombs it big time as he decides the best thing to do is to ''dump Usagi and not say why''. Needless to say, Mamoru's pissed when the king tells him what went on. And finally, when Chibi-Usa discovers Usagi is Sailor Moon and that she has the Silver Crystal, she's so indignant that she has the item that she declares her unworthy and steals the crystal and the Crystal Dream brooch, allowing Rubeus to strike and kidnap the other Sailors while Usagi is powerless.

* In the [[{{filler}} Zanpakutou Tales Arc]], Ichigo confronts Muramasa in front of the sealed Yamamoto and attempts to strike him down with his full power. This is exactly what Muramasa wanted. [[spoiler:Ichigo had thought Muramasa sealed Yamamoto, but Yamamoto had sealed himself away from Muramasa. Ichigo's attack provides Muramasa with the power he needs to break Yamamoto's seal and steal Ryuujin Jakka.]]

** In the filler Zanpakutou Tales arc, Ichigo chases Muramasa into his hideout, locates the imprisoned Yamamoto and fights Muramasa to free Yamamoto from the barrier he's trapped in. The end result is that Ichigo's great power does indeed break the barrier surrounding Yamamoto, freeing him. [[spoiler: Unfortunately for Ichigo, this was actually Muramasa's plan. The barrier had been created by Yamamoto to prevent Muramasa from being able to brainwash his zanpakutou. Muramasa needed to combine his power with Ichigo's power to obtain the strength required to break Yamamoto's barrier, which Ichigo unwittingly provided him with. The first thing Yamamoto says when the barrier breaks is "Looks like we lose this round". Whoops.]]

** When Ichigo completes his training under the Royal Guard, they give him armor made out of the King's Key, which allows him to descend from the Soul King Place back to Soul Society at maximum possible speed without risk of being killed by air friction in the process. But when he arrives in the midst of the Vandenreich invasion, Yhwach promptly thanks Ichigo...for breaking the barriers that were sealing him out of the Palace. Had Ichigo not done that, Yhwach never could have reached his true target.

* ''Anime/YuGiOhTheDarkSideOfDimensions'' starts when an excavation team finds the pieces of the Millennium Puzzle, as well as the Tablet of Memories, in the burial chamber. Also, most of the problems in the movie can be directly traced back to Kaiba and Shadi.

* In ''VisualNovel/ShoujotachiWaKouyaOMezasu'', The Typhoon game company CEO challenges the Rokuhara club to a contest to see who can sell more games on their launch date after being splashed in the face with a glass of water due to her aggressive recruiting attempts of various club members.

* In ''{{Kinnikuman}}'', all the choujin were celebrating Kinnikuman's victory in the Choujin Olympics. At one point, they toss him so high into the air he goes [[FridgeLogic flying into outer space]] and bumps into a satellite. As it turned out, that satellite was a prison for the Devil Choujin and that bump hit the release button.

* The biggest and baddest of the {{BigBad}}s in the ''ZatchBell'' manga by name of Clear Note, [[spoiler:who planned to use the King's Privilege to [[KillEmAll bring genocide to the Mamodo,]]]] was powerful enough that it took Zatch and Brago's strongest spells to beat him. And what happens next? It somehow enables him to become powerful enough that [[OnlyTheAuthorCanSaveThemNow Makoto Raiku had to intervene.]] What's worse, Kiyo somewhat knew what would happen if they did what they did [[spoiler:thanks to his Answer Talker ability, which allowed him to determine the answer to any question in an instant]], but if they hadn't, Clear would have won anyway.
* In ''TsubasaReservoirChronicle'', Sakura leaves one of her memory-feathers behind in Acid Tokyo to keep the reservoir pure and the inhabitants alive. [[spoiler: While this act ultimately results in [[StableTimeLoop her birth]], the aging of the feather also allows the BigBad to win when he returns it to her body in the "several hundred years later" dimension.]]

* ''LightNovel/WatashitachiNoTamuraKun'' has this in a romantic triangle situation, where secondary characters end up accidentally hurting both females in the triangle, and almost ruin the chances for anyone to end up in a relationship. Tamura's friend Takaura has been talking to Matsuzawa on the phone and telling her about Tamura's current activities, including his budding relationship with Souma. Hachiya, the well meaning school nurse and confidant for Souma, pushes Souma and Tamura to move forward faster in their budding relationship than they probably should be. While both of them are well meaning, their actions cause some serious anguish for the love triangle, although it seems to work out in the end.

* In ''Anime/TokyoMajin'', Tatsuma attempts a BatmanGambit to redeem [[BigBad Chaos]], who claimed to be devoid of emotions other than hate and killed and/or drove insane dozens of peple (including Tatsuma's foster parents) ForTheEvulz. Tatsuma tries to kill Chaos with kindness and forgiveness, eventually provoking an emotional outburst from Chaos, which proved he could feel emotions, which is what Tasuma wanted. Unfortunately for him, it's also what [[BiggerBad Yagyu]] wanted, as he uses that breakthrough to unlock Chaos' full powers and [[GrandTheftMe possess him.]] And the first thing he does with his new found powers? [[TokyoFireball Blow up Tokyo.]] Whoops.

* ''LightNovel/WatashitachiNoTamuraKun'' has this in a romantic triangle situation, where secondary characters end up accidentally hurting both females in the triangle, and almost ruin the chances for anyone to end up in a relationship. Tamura's friend Takaura has been talking to Matsuzawa on the phone and telling her about Tamura's current activities, including his budding relationship with Souma. Hachiya, the well meaning school nurse and confidant for Souma, pushes Souma and Tamura to move forward faster in their budding relationship than they probably should be. While both of them are well meaning, their actions cause some serious anguish for the love triangle, although it seems to work out in the end.

* In a way similar to the ''Magic Knight Rayearth'' example above, [[spoiler:the ''entire first half'' of]] ''KamikazeKaitouJeanne'' was this. [[spoiler:Maron/Jeanne is helping out God by sealing demons to keep Satan at bay and her [[SlapSlapKiss boyfriend/arch enemy]] Chiaki/Sinbad is an agent of the devil, right? Bzzt, wrong! It is revealed that Maron's angel sidekick Finn Fish is actually working for the devil and had been lying to Maron the whole time, and Maron was actually helping the devil and Chiaki God, not the other way around. So Maron had actually been ''helping'' the devil that whole time, making him stronger than ever.]]

* Early in ''SummerWars'' Kenji gets a text message with a math algorithm challenging him to solve it. He spends all night doing so, and when he wakes up finds that the online world OZ used by most of the world has gone haywire and that the algorithm he solved was in fact the company's strongest security code. [[spoiler:Ultimately subverted, though, in that over fifty other people made successful attempts on the code ''and'' Kenji actually made a mistake in his resulting in it being incorrect.]]