Accomplices by Inaction in Anime and Manga.
- 7 Seeds:
- Ayu believes herself partly at fault for her bullies' deaths because she knew the branches they were using to make chopsticks out of were poisonous, but said nothing. She only explained when one of them accuses her of intentionally poisoning the food. It is probable that Ayu let this happen because they would just use her as their servant. However, she did not feel relieved for that.
- Ban refused to stop the others from Team Summer A from fatally shooting their teacher when they awoke in the future. It's unclear if he was so broken from the final test, where he was incapable of saving several people despite being The Medic, that he honestly believed he was incapable of saving him through his medical knowledge... or showed a darker side by letting the others get away with it, and refusing to administer help to someone he thought didn't deserve it.
- In Attack on Titan, Floch, when criticizing Eren's decision to use the Titan serum to save Armin's life rather than Erwin's, a decision that Eren had convinced Levi to accept, also calls out the other Survey Corps members for not intervening to try to stop Eren.
- In Berserk, in Lost Children during the pseudo-elf attack on Jill's village, Guts stops them from killing a little boy named Thomas, and then uses the boy as live bait on the end of his sword to lure the elves into a fire trap. Thomas is traumatized, but his life is saved as a result. After the elves are gone the villagers come out of their houses and call Guts despicable for using a child like that, but he throws their hypocrisy back in their faces by saying, "You people make me laugh. When this kid ran out, did even one of you unlock your door?"
- Discussed in Digimon Adventure 02. While he didn't actively participate in Ken's campaign as the Digimon Emperor, and tried to serve as his Morality Pet, Wormmon still stood back and and did nothing while Ken enslaved and tortured countless innocent Digimon. In "United We Stand," he states outright that because of this, he's just as guilty for the Emperor fiasco as Ken himself.
- In Eternal Sabbath, the abusive mother of the young girl Yuri was herself horrifically abused by her violent father as a child. However she eventually admits that, while she hated and feared her father, she hated her mother just as much if not more for being too cowardly to try protecting her beyond meekly asking him to stop. Whenever her father beat her, her mother would buy her candy to try apologizing to her, but she could never even taste it.
- Fruits Basket: While he didn't directly abuse Yuki in his childhood, Ayame still did nothing to stop his parents and Akito from tormenting his younger brother to the point of trauma, going so far as to ignore Yuki and walk away while he was begging him for help. Yuki still holds a grudge against Ayame for his inaction, and it's one of Ayame's greatest regrets in life.
- Is It My Fault That I Got Bullied?
- Shoji Ryoko, the person who seemingly organized the middle-school reunion Shinji attended is guilty of this. When she saw Shinji and his Gang of Bullies brutally torture Aizawa inside the science room, she simply said "Oh, I can see you guys are busy", closed the door and walked away without lifting a finger to help him. This hurt Aizawa more than the torture itself because it signified to him that he was completely alone. We never see what Aizawa did to her, but whatever it was, it was enough to bring her to tears and make her cut all further contact with Shinji.
- The school principal doesn't do anything when confronted with the problem of bullying instead opting to cover it up in order to maintain his school's "bully-free" reputation and staging an Engineered Public Confession in order to scapegoat Aizawa. By the time Aizawa is done with him, both his personal reputation and his school's reputation are in complete shambles.
- Himekawa tries to invoke this on her fellow students of her class, telling them that they are just as guilty, since they saw what her and the Gang of Bullies were doing and chose to do nothing. The rest of the class responds by telling her not to lump her with the likes of her, since they never did actively do anything cruel to Shiori, also commenting on the fact that Himekawa's parents were former delinquents. It's then that Aizawa walks in the classroom and calls her out on being a Hypocrite.
- Shiori later calls out her entire class on how quick they were to condemn her bullies after they were publicly exposed while pretending nothing was going on while Shiori was actually being bullied right in front of them and joining their chants on forcing her to apologize to the bullies once she fought back.
- Kino's Journey:
- The citizens of the Coliseum country ultimately let their king do as he pleases because he gave them what they wanted. Possibly because of this, Kino doesn't have a problem with decreeing that the citizens must fight to choose a new king, resulting in the populace turning on and killing each other.
- Kino herself becomes this when she meets a man who agrees to travel with a woman in atonement for killing the latter's fiancee. The woman, unwilling to forgive the man, shoots him to death, then says Kino could have stopped her if she wanted to. Kino nonchalantly says she has no desire to play god.
- In Photo's introductory episode, she feels this way when the merchant family who enslaved her die from eating poisoned herbs, since she didn't try hard enough to stop them from doing so.
- Maken-ki!: During season 2's fifth episode, Aki tells her parents she's dating Takeru to avoid being pressured into marriage. So her parents have him kidnapped and stranded on an island with her in hopes they'd "make memories" together. When Haruko and Himgami find out, they race to the island under the assumption that Takeru has run off with Aki, who could have cleared up the confusion by explaining what really happened. Instead, Aki lets Takeru take a beating for a situation that wasn't his fault. At the end of the episode, she admits that she didn't say anything because seeing Haruko and Himegami jealous of her, made her feel young again.
- My Hero Academia:
- Following the Kamino Ward Incident, during which five of Class A's students provide a small, but critical moment of aid in the rescue of a kidnapped classmate, Class A's teacher Aizawa takes them to task afterward for going off on their own and against instructions. He berates not just the five who went out, but the rest of the class who were fully aware of what they were planning and did nothing to stop them beyond futile attempts at persuading them not to go. Aizawa goes on to declare that had the Kamino Inicdent not become such a Game Changer and that they would soon need every Hero they could get (due to All Might retiring), he would have expelled the entire class save the kidnapped classmate and two others who were, at the time, unconscious in the hospital from a prior attack and unable to intervene.
- In the same episode, Tsuyu had a lot of regret when realizing her usual Brutal Honesty about the situation (going so far as to compare the students on the mission to villains) was too harsh, and doing nothing at all hurt even worse. She avoids them until she finds the courage to tearfully apologize and set things straight.
- In the Internship arc, Midoriya and Mirio, while out on patrol, happen upon Eri, a young girl in bandages, at which point Overhaul, the Yakuza boss their hero agency is investigating, comes to retrieve her, saying that she's his daughter. Midoriya realizes that something's up, as does Mirio, but they follow Sir Nighteye's orders not to interfere (albeit reluctantly in Midoriya's case), letting Overhaul leave with Eri. It later turns out that Overhaul has been submitting Eri to horrific abuse, using her body to create bullets capable of destroying people's Quirks. Midoriya and Mirio are both horrified over what they allowed to happen, and swear to save Eri.
- Tenko Shimura (also known as Tomura Shigaraki) grew up in an abusive household, with his father Kotaro locking him out of the house and even hitting him for being interested in heroes. While Kotaro's wife, daughter and in-laws didn't approve of his treatment, they also didn't stand up to him, either, and told Tenko to endure it. Shortly after they finally put their foot down, Tenko's Decay Quirk activated, resulting in his family's deaths.
- Rei Todoroki, Shoto's mother and Endeavor's estranged wife, acknowledges herself in the aftermath of the Paranormal War Arc that she herself is accountable for turning a blind eye to Enji's mistreatment of their kids, and Toya (alias Dabi) in particular. Toya himself lashes out at his mother when she tries to convince him to stop training, telling her that she also has a hand in his ordeal, mostly because she enabled it by choosing to do nothing, even though she could.
- In Persona 5: The Animation, Ren happens upon Youji Isshiki being beaten up by loan sharks, and simply walks off, letting it happen. By this point, Ren's learned that Youji was abusive to his niece Futaba while caring for her, so it's clear that he has no intention of helping Youji.
