Big Damn Heroes / Anime & Manga

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• Agni's Philosophy: Just as Agni finishes the incantation and is about to be done in by the monster, the dragon bursts out of the compound, swoops down and snaps the monster up.
• In Attack on Titan, Mikasa is rather prone to this.
  • She makes the very first Titan kill of the series in order to save a group of refugees that are trying to get out but are being blocked by an Entitled Bastard.
  • She appears at the head of a group of reinforcements at Castle Utgard, coming out of nowhere to kill a Titan just before it grabs Christa.
  • A short time later, she leaps to Eren's defense just before Reiner tries to kidnap him, severing one of his arms and stabbing the other, as well as slicing into the nearby Berthold's neck and right hand.
  • Levi arrives to save an exhausted Eren, Armin, and Mikasa from two Titans effortlessly.
• In Azumanga Daioh, Sakaki is saved by the gang of cats led by Kamineko by the Iriomote cat she befriended earlier. Said cat becomes her pet.
• For a Mafia gangster that insists he's a villain, Baccano!'s Luck Gandor sure ends up doing this a lot. Notable examples include pulling a very timely *Click* Hello on Dallas Genoard just when Dallas and his buddies have Firo and Ennis at gunpoint, and braining Gustavo Baggetta repeatedly with a chair when he finds Gustavo menacing Eve Genoard.
  • Rachel also makes a habit of this, despite orders to the contrary.
• Berserk pulls a big one of these off in the manga when the Skull Knight saves the lives of Guts and Casca at the end of the Eclipse just as the two of them are about to be finished off by Griffith and the Godhand.
  • Skull Knight seem to be doing this for a hobby.
  • Guts pulls off a supremely awesome one of these during his reunion with Casca during the Conviction arc, saving her from the Great Goat Head's attempt to rape her, and then tearing apart the possessed pagans trying to get to her.
• Kan, Kan, Kan, Maaya Kan of Bio-Meat: Nectar, who has actually lampshaded the trope by stating that an entrance should be dramatic. Shingo has even called him out (accurately!) for hiding in wait for the perfect moment to appear.
• In the Black Cat manga, Train goes and saves Rinslet just before Creed is about to kill Naizer, making this example slightly different in that the person whose life was in immediate danger wasn't the Damsel in Distress.
  • Train also does it the jerk-way when soldiers of the Apostle of Stars show up and corner Sven, Even, and Dr. Tearju; Train saves them with a newly acquired ability that forces the soldiers to retreat. Train later reveals that he had actually been watching for a while, and thought it would be funner if he showed up at the very last second. Sven comically punched him in the face for his trouble.
• Bleach does this. A lot. Seriously, it would be easier to write down the times they didn't pull this, but that's near impossible since EVERYONE does it! Usually because the Main Characters are failing and someone swoops in to save them, but at least every Arrancar has pulled this. Examples? See There Was a Door and the tropes for the Bleach series.
  • The most famous example, however, has got to be Ichigo stopping Rukia's execution the second before the Sokyoku can obliterate her.
  • One of the franchise's most iconic themes even has the name "On the precipice of defeat".
• Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense.: During the 4th event Sally pushes herself to her limit alone and eventually gets surrounded by the Order of the Holy Sword led by Frederica. After messaging her guild members that she's about to die, she still puts up a good Last Stand but eventually collapses from exhaustion. At this moment Maple makes an explosive appearance from the sky, creates some defensive walls, equips Machine God, picks up Sally, flies into the sky, and blasts about 70 members of the Holy Sword. A rescue that Sally believed was impossible due to how far out she was from others.
• In Brave10, this trope is the bread and butter of the action scenes throughout the entire series. Someone will always show up at the last moment to save the day, guns blazing. Some examples:
  • After Yukimura rejects Isanami's plea for help and turns her away, she and Saizo are attacked by her pursuers and chained up. Sasuke, who had been established as a rival ninja, suddenly shows up to turn things around and Yukimura steps out of the shadows to reveal his real intent was to flush out the enemy chasing her.
  • Kakei's introduction is to show up as Saizo is being curb-stomped by Hanzo at the festival, rifle in hand and immediately begin firing.
  • With Isanami out like a light, Kakei under assault, and Saizo losing to Hanzo at the Izumo shrine, the recently defeated Kamanosuke swoops in from out of nowhere to stop Hanzo from killing the guy he wants to kill him.
  • Seikai and Kamanosuke were not invited along to Kyoto, but their choice to ignore this decision sure came in handy later as the others nearly lost the whole party to Benmaru's Death Course before they showed up to save the day.
  • With the Braves pursued by Masamune's army and cornered against the shore of Lake Biwa, they are saved by sudden canon fire as Kakei and Jinpachi unexpectedly sail up out of nowhere.
  • On a particularly cold night, Sasuke jumps through the window to rescue a badly wounded Rokuro from Ana. Rokuro repays him later by getting up just long enough to repel an accidental darkness blast from Isanami while Sasuke is frozen in ice.
  • Hattori Hanzo, of all people, does this in the sequel when Benmaru is kidnapped, cutting the kidnappers into ribbons before they even realize it's happened, to the shock of Saizo and Sasuke who were pursuing ineffectually.
  • The climax of Brave10 S is fundamentally a prolonged series of Big Damn Heroes moments as everybody who was previously scattered arrives in style at the battlefield, one after the next, to save whoever is in mortal peril in that chapter and look cool while doing it.
• Captain Tsubasa has many instances, with a player showing up in the nick of time when his team is on a pinch:
  • Ken Wakashimazu appears during the Furano vs Meiwa semifinals, when Hyuga has overstrained himself, subbing in as goalkeeper and stopping a penalty from Matsuyama that would have possibly given victory to Furano.
  • In the World Youth arc, Matsuyama remains absent of the Japan vs. Sweden quarterfinals, due to his girlfriend Yoshiko being hospitalized. Thankfully, after she wakes up, he heads for the stadium, right on time to replace a very injured Tomeya Akai for the overtime, stopping Levin in the final play and contributing to Japan's victory.
  • Subverted in the Brazil vs. Japan finals. Natureza enters during the last minutes of the game when Brazil is one goal down and overpowers the entire Japanese team alone, scoring the tie, but Tsubasa manages to surpass him in the final play and wins the match and the tournament for Japan.
• Touma of A Certain Magical Index does this with alarming frequency. Index, Aisa, Misaka, both Mikoto and Imouto, Hyouka, Orsola and Kuroko. All have been saved by Touma, usually coming from absolutely no where.
  • Also, Acqua of the Back pulls these off constantly after Volume 16 and his Heel–Face Turn. He was even introduced with a Big Damn Heroes moment, albeit for the other side, saving Vento of the Front after her defeat by Touma.
• Chrome Shelled Regios when Layton increases his kei in order to save Nina and win the match with the 16th platoon.
• This happens fairly often in Chrono Crusade.
  • Remington suddenly appearing to chase off Aion as he looms over a weakened Rosette and a badly injured Chrono
  • Satella who comes flying in on a summoned beast to save Chrono and Rosette from a long fall.
• In Claymore, Awakened Being Agatha has Galetea pinned to the wall, and is about to kill Clarice and Miata. Her attack gets thrown off by one of her legs being destroyed. Cut to Clare and the rest of the Sexy Seven standing on top of a building in the rain and informing Agatha that as she is about to die, she doesn't need to know who they are.
  • The Sexy Seven (actually, the remaining Sexy Five — but with reinforcements) pull it off again, arriving in the nick of time to prevent their rogue captain Miria from Awakening in a desperate attempt to stop the most powerful Abyssal One of all times (Priscilla notwithstanding).
• Code Geass:
  • Suzaku is an expert at pulling of Big Damn Heroes moments. Although, considering that he never once actually rescues the hero — seeing that he is the strongest enemy pilot and is rescuing enemy leaders — the definition is being used very loosely.
    • Well, once, right before Mao is killed by C.C. in Season 1, he saves the hero. But most of the time, he's performing Big Damn Heroes to save the antagonists.
  • Kallen's return after the end-of-season upgrade right into the middle of a climactic fight.
  • The Earl of Pudding himself, Lloyd Asplund, and his assistant Cecille had one in the first season finale when they swooped onto the battle field and saved Suzaku and the student council from the gun happy Black Knight and Zero's self-proclaimed best friend, Tamaki.
    • Lloyd gets another one, alongside Suzaku and Euphie of all people, in the Nightmare of Nunnally Spin-Off. And you can just tell from the way he's holding himself that he was thinking of this trope...
  • Episode 20: "The Battle for Kyushu". It looks like Suzaku's finally run out of energy, ready to be picked off...in comes Lelouch with the recently fixed up Gawain he stole to rescue him by melting the enemies with his Knightmare's BFG, leading into a very badass teamup between two friends who are, thanks to circumstances of the plot, usually at odds.
• Corpse Party: Tortured Souls gets a bittersweet one of these in the third episode. Near the end it looks like Kishinuma permanently stayed in the real world and left Ayumi to go face the horrors of Heavenly Host by herself. Cut to poor Yuka being stabbed and tortured by the deranged Kizami. However, right before he can finish killing her...Kishinuma comes running in and knocks Kizami's head off with a pipe. Then, just to be even more of a badass, he starts fighting off the giant zombie Yoshikazu so that Ayumi has time to get Yuka out of the room. He then barricades the door with his own body and is brutally killed by Yoshikazu so Ayumi, Yuka and Satoshi can escape. It's bittersweet that Kishinuma dies but he goes out like a true big damn hero.
• In the 1st Digimon Adventure 02 movie (which is a Non-Serial Movie), Angemon and Angewomon (with accompaniment by TK and Kari) show up just in time to save the other Digimon from being eaten by the corrupted Cherubimon.
  • In the 5th movie, Battle of Adventurers, Rika, Henry, and their Digimon are delivered by Omnimon to help Takato, interrupting Mephistomon's "this is how I destroy the world" rant right after he succeeds in capturing what he wanted.
  • Another example from Digimon Tamers is when Kazu and Kenta rescue the other Tamers from being swallowed along with the Big Bad, which is even more impressive considering that Takato and Guilmon, the main characters of this series owe them their lives twice.
  • Another example from Digimon Tamers includes Beelzemon swooping in to help Wargrowlmon, Gargomon, and Taomon fight one of the D-Reaper's agents, which had been kicking their asses. Without him it's very likely they would have lost and been deleted.
  • Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time has Tagiru rescued by previous leaders Tai and Marcus in Episode 22, confirming the hinted Crisis Crossover.
• This is trope taken apart quite a bit in Dragon Ball Z.
  • The TV special The History Of Trunks deconstructs this trope in a brutally honest and heartbreaking way. After the death of Future Gohan at the hands of Android 17 & 18, Future Trunks was overcome with anger and grief and became a Super Saiyan. Trunks then spent the next few years training to avenge his fallen mentor. He eventually takes on the Androids as a Super Saiyan, and loses...badly. By the time this fight occurred, in Future Trunks timeline, more than HALF of the world’s population had been wiped out by the Androids, ALL of the Z-Fighters were dead with no way of bringing them back, humanity was struggling to survive with Trunks being the last hope for the survival of what was left of mankind and Future Gohan, who was stronger than Future Trunks, had already taken on the Androids twice and as a Super Saiyan and lost on both occasions, with him losing an arm in the first battle and being murdered in the second battle, and on top of all that the androids were only using half of their full power. Trunks at that stage had no chance of defeating the androids and the TV special sure hammered home that point.
  • In the Namek Arc, the Warrior-type Namekians, who are strongest amongst the Namekians, arrive to stop Freiza from getting one of the Namekian Dragon Balls in one of the villages only for them to be killed with great ease by Zarbon and Dodoria essentially making Frieza’s goal easier as the village is left defenseless. As expected, Frieza gained the Dragon Ball from the elder Namekian of the village, but that didn't stop Frieza from killing one of his sons and then having Dodoria kill the elder and nearly kill his second son if it weren't for a last minute rescue from Gohan and Kirllin.
  • In the Cell Arc, Android 16 came out nowhere also tried to play the role of hero. 16 carried a self-destruct device with a magnitude higher than a nuclear bomb that was presumably implanted by Gero for an attempt to kill Goku. 16 ultimately attempts to use this on Cell, but he ended up unable to go through with it because Bulma removed the device when doing repair work on 16. This gets even worse because Cell states that even if he had the bomb, since he was ridiculously powerful, it probably would not have been enough to kill him. Ironically, had he not been destroyed by Cell he wouldn't have been able to inspire Gohan to become stronger.
  • Averted when Gohan took on Super Buu, which was a fight that demonstrates what can happens when a Big Damn Heroes moment is turned on its head. [[spoiler The tables dramatically turning the way they did when Gohan took on Buu is a prime example of what can happen if a fighter regresses in general technique and strategy, doesn't get the job done quickly and underestimates a villain. Super Buu could sense Gohan's immense power while he was fighting Gotenks and had already come up with a plan if that great power were to come to Earth; and by not killing Super Buu quickly, Gohan played right into Buu's plan and paid the price for his arrogance as the fight went on, with Buu tricking Goten and Trunks into fusing and then absorbing Gotenks along with Piccolo and proceeding to own Gohan.]]
  • Subverted in Dragon Ball. When Goku decides to storm the Red Ribbon Army's base and his friends hear about it, they all panic and quickly gather everybody to go help him out. Apparently, not even Muten Roshi thinks Goku can beat them all by himself. After a pretty intense race to the Red Ribbon hideout, everybody mentally prepares to go into battle... only to find that it isn't necessary. Contrary to their wildest expectations, Goku had already single-handedly destroyed the entire base.
  • Piccolo tends to do these to help out Gohan whenever he's in a tight spot, to the point it's a Running Gag in the Non Serial Movies.
  • Despite being the main character, Goku's record of successfully invoking this trope is mixed at best. He was successful in invoking this trope against Nappa, Recoome, Jeice, and Burter. However, he was unsuccessful in invoking this trope against King Piccolo, Raditz, Cell, Frieza, Majin Buu, and Beerus.
• The final episode of Dragon Crisis! has an intense one in which the protagonists arrive with a squadron of Society members to hijack an airplane and save the main character's love interest, Rose. This includes an ice dragon freezing the runway, a Society member crashing a helicopter into the cockpit, and another character falling onto the kidnaper, Onyx...WITH A CAR. All to the truly epic music "Run & Gun."
• In the Elfen Lied manga, just when Mayu is about to be raped by the unnamed "hunter", Bando shows up in big damn heroes fashion.
• Subverted for laughs in Eureka Seven's infamous football episode. When things aren't looking good for the Gekko team, Holland takes off his coat and declares that he's going in. Cut to the score of 34-0 against the Gekkostate.
  • Played straight in the final episode, with Renton blasting his way through thousands of Coralians to rescue Eureka, who is trapped in the scub coral command cluster and not expecting any rescue.
• Fairy Tail: It is safe to say that Hiro Mashima is REALLY into this trope.
  • Gildartz arrives in the nick of time to save Natsu, Lucy, Cana, and several others in Chapter 233.
    • He does it again in Chapter 495, this time saving the entire guild in a losing battle against the entire Alvarez army.
  • Followed up in the next chapter by Freed and Bickslow saving Levy, Lisanna, and several injured members of Fairy Tail from Rusty Rose.
  • In another chapter, we have Laxus saving Wendy, Natsu, Lucy, Grey, and Erza.
  • Invoked by Mirajane when she is about to be killed by Seilah; she uses Take Over to override Seilah's Macro curse and calls upon her brother Elfman, who had been controlled by Seilah earlier. By the time Seilah realizes what has happened, Elfman has already flattened her.
• Happens in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, during Bahamut Sin's attack on Edge as the other party members from Final Fantasy VII begin turning up one by one, starting with Cid arriving just in time to save Tifa (Who's shielding Denzel in attempt to protect him) from some monsters leaping to attack them, with the party immediately leaping into battle against Bahamut. Then Cloud turns up, as a building's about to collapse on Tifa & Denzel's about to be slaughtered by the afforementioned monsters, and throws one sword like a boomerang to kill the monsters before they get to Denzel before using another sword to cut through the building falling towards Tifa.
• Honoo no Alpen Rose: When the Count finds Jeudi in Austria, Leonhardt walks out of his Big Fancy House and tells him to back off. A frightened Jeudi runs behind him and cowers behind his back, and he continues to intimidate him into leaving.
• At one point in the manga of Flame of Recca, Recca suffers a serious Heroic BSoD. Apparently, not only that he found out that Mikagami picked up a Distress Ball and is now a hostage to the enemy, then he learns that Domon can't survive his jumping off a cliff stunt way back, and Fuuko is currently getting drained of her personality. Who came to snap him out of it? DOMON, Not Quite Dead, instantly gives out a rallying speech that raises everyone's morale back. And you thought he's just a Dumb Muscle Joke Character...
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • In Episode 19 of the Brotherhood anime, Lust is about to kill Hawkeye, who has all but given up on living, when she is torched from behind by Mustang, whom she had left for dead earlier.
  • There's another from Lan Fan, complete with new automail arm in Chapter 86.
  • Lampshaded by Hohenheim in Chapter 88. When putting Alphonse's plan into action, he nonchalantly says "A hero always waits until the last minute to save the day, right?" Ed was not amused.
  • Ed manages to save Heinkel from being killed by Pride right in the nick of time, blocking his razor-sharp shadow tendril with his carbon-hardened auto-mail.
  • Even Yoki manages to pull one off, when he, scared out of his wits as he was and the coward that he is, drives a car onto the battlefield where they're fighting Pride, and saves everyone by slamming the car straight into Pride and sending him flying.
  • Izumi and Sig in Chapter 96, with their heroic appearances just in the nick of time to save the Armstrong siblings from being killed by Sloth, with Izumi throwing him in the air after it took a dozen trained men to hold him back.
  • Roy gets one as well when he destroys all the Cyclops army in one page. Ed and Scar were having a lot of trouble with these same guys for the entire previous chapter.
  • And again in Chapter 101 when Mei and the Chimeras appear just in the nick of time to save Roy, Riza, and Scar from the creepy doctor, and heal Riza's neck wound.
  • Mustang also gets one in Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa, which doubles as a He's Back! moment, saving his men and Central from the invading Thule Society soldiers after having been away and moping up north.
• In Full Metal Panic!, Sousuke tends to have entrances like these to save the day. In fact, the amount of times he does this to his Arch-Enemy Gauron are so numerous, Gauron eventually lampshades it mockingly. In the finale of the first season, Gauron tackles Sousuke (while in their AS), and holds him down while he tries to self destruct, teasingly telling Sousuke: "Well well, how do you like this? It's such a disgrace like this, isn't it? You can't act like a big damn hero and save the day in a cool way." Guess what: He does it anyways.
  • In The Second Raid, Sosuke does this when it appears that Gates is going to wipe out his combat commander, and is even lampshaded by Kurz.
  • Both the first series and TSR opens with this. Plus the memorable moment where Gauron is about to shoot Sousuke point-blank when he gets scared off by Kurz descending on a parachute, firing a sniper rifle.
  • Sousuke in general tends to do this. There's a reason why Gauron eventually lampshades it — it happened so many times. The Behemoth Arc ended with a Big Damn Heroes moment with him rescuing everyone, the Helmajistan Arc had him popping up in front of Gauron and having a Big Damn Heroes moment, on the Tuatha de Dannan he had a Big Damn Heroes moment saving Tessa from Gauron just in the nick of time, and countless other examples.
• Fushigi Yuugi:
  • Miaka gets handed the Distress Ball a lot, but the trade-off is that her warriors get to pull off some nice last-minute saves. Tamahome does this too many times to count, and in fact one of these is the start of their Rescue Romance.
  • Tasuki runs a close second: saving Nuriko, Hotohori and Miaka as they're about to be killed by zombies, showing up at the very last second to prevent Miaka from having her skull bashed in by brainwashed Tamahome, and finally showing up with Chichiri in the real world to take on Nakago.
  • The twins get their moments as well. Amiboshi saves Miaka after his Heel–Face Turn. As a result, Tomo corners both Amiboshi and Miaka with intent to kill them — at which point moral event horizon-crosser Suboshi unexpectedly shows up and murders Tomo on the spot for daring to threaten his beloved brother.
• Future GPX Cyber Formula:
  • At the climactic end of the no-rule Fireball race, it looks like Hayato is heading towards defeat when the leading car trails behind him and tries to destroy Asurada with a device. Cue Kaga, who seems to be out of the race after a crash, appearing out of nowhere to crash his Proto-Jaguar head-first into the other car while injuring himself in the process. This allows Hayato to win the race.
  • Smith tries to kill Bootsvorz with a missile for failing him many times after he attacks Osamu with the same weapon. Bootsvorz would’ve suffer the same fate as Osamu - or worse - if it not been for Hayato and Asurada GSX taking a shortcut to arrive in the nick of time, leaving Smith distracted and it leads to his death.
• F-Zero: GP Legend: Captain Falcon gets a VERY badass one in Episode 47 of the anime.
• Perhaps ChoRyuJin's Big Damn Heroes in the original GaoGaiGar when, after realising a second ubercharged railway cannon shell is coming moments after the first has been dissipated, detaches his Mirror Coating chestplate and stands firm, holding it up as a shield.
  • ChoRyuJin also gets a Big Damn Heroes moment when he flies into a gigantic asteroid on a collision course with Earth, preventing the collision but in the process becoming stranded with no way back. This also resulted in ChoRyuJin killing the dinosaurs by sending that asteroid back in time 65 million years, so...oops?
  • Big Damn Heroes is the reason for ChoRyuJin's existence.
    • And all the other Symmetrical Docking mechanoids.
  • King J-Der gets one in Episode 31, launching out of a volcano and effortlessly blasting the first three Primevals, saving GaoGaiGar in the process.
  • The titular robot even gets one of these towards the end of the main series. Arm Primeval, fused with one of Jupiter's moons, is about to annihilate the entirety of the Gutsy Galaxy Guard in a single blow, and everyone believes they're completely and utterly screwed due to GaoGaiGar falling into the planet's gravitational pull...then, just before it hits? "PROTECT WALL!!"
• The last 5 or so minutes of the OVA GaoGaiGar FINAL is the ultimate Big Damn Heroes moment, after an episode leading up to it: after all of the Yuusha Corps members pull out all the stops to defeat their 'rivals', the bad guys revive. In droves. No, really. Droves. But then it is revealed that the battles themselves were merely a diversion for GGG to figure out just how the Sol 11 were regenerating themselves — the 'Sun'. So Genesic GaoGaiGar flies up and — in what has to be the most incredible attack sequence ever animated — combines with the 3 battleships waiting in orbit, themselves combined in hammer form. The show had its Goldion Hammer before, which crushed enemies with near-infinite mass — the Goldion 'Crusher' was designed to be used against Jupiter-sized enemies. So yeah, GGGG warps to the fake sun, and crushes it into light.
  • Most of the new character (and tool) introductions in that series actually qualify. Especially anything involving Symmetrical Docking. ChoRyuJin, being the only one who can operate the energy-dissipating Eraser Head "missile", gets multiple ones, including the crowning Big Damn Heroes moment in the third episode of FINAL.
• Badass Biker babe Houquet's introductory scene in Genesis Climber MOSPEADA is this when she appears as a mysterious fighter clad in red armor saving Mint and Ray.
• In Ghost in the Shell (1995), Batou arrives just in time to save the Major near the end. In the sequel Innocence, the roles are reversed.
  • And then there's the fight against the guy in the walking tank in the office building, which mostly copies the end of the first movie.
  • And later the arrival of the Taichikomas, who save Batou at the Majors house from the death squad.
• Gintama has a lot of last-minute rescues. Gintoki especially rescues Shinpachi a lot.
  • Just as Jiraia prepares to torture Tsukuyo in order to break her and force her to abandon her comrades, a Not Quite Dead and very pissed off Gintoki sends him flying across the room, before untying Tsukuyo and giving Jiraia the beating of his life.
• Girls und Panzer: During their first match, against St. Gloriana Girls Academy, Miho and her team are cornered by the four remaining tanks on the other team when the Absurdly Powerful Student Council arrives in their tank to challenge Gloriana's tanks at point blank range... only to miss all of them with their one shot from five feet away and get hammered in turn.
  • In their match against Saunders Academy, the Oarai girls have the Saunders flag tank on the run after having wrong-footed them, only to have the rest of Saunders' tanks come over the hill to the tune of "The Caissons Go Rolling Along."
• Great Mazinger was a master of these kinds of moments, as even his debut was a major one. During the final episode (and its extended movie version) of Mazinger Z, a new enemy army appears and proceed to completely overwhelm Kouji. As the Mazinger barely holds itself even a tiny bit together, the Great Mazinger shows up just before the final blow is struck and proceeds to absolutely dominate the new foes. Also something he's fond of doing in remakes, often with a nice big THUNDER BREAK to blast any number of enemies ready to swarm his allies. Also some really nice descending from the clouds shots.
  • A good example of this can be seen in the final episode of Mazinkaiser. Kouji and Mazinkaiser are trapped in the reactivated Mt. Fuji, Boss Borot is destroyed, Venus Ace is a Mechanical Monster and the Photon Power Plant is lost. Just as the beast that took out Mazinkaiser is about to go after the rest, his wings are clipped by a red streak. The Japanese version pussyfoots around it, but the English dub goes straight to the point:
  Professor Yumi: He's come back!

  • Cue the reappearance of Great Mazinger (who had been out since Episode 2) and shows how powerful he is with a Double Thunder Break.
  • UFO Robo Grendizer was also fond of those moments. In the first episode, Duke pulls a Big Damn Heroes moment to save Kouji, deploying Grendizer for first time. In another episode, Hikaru Makiba (who had not been an Action Girl until that moment) pulls another to save Duke.
• Great Teacher Onizuka does this all the damn time, sometimes with gunshot wounds. Ask any of his students. He even lampshades it once, where he apologizes for not arriving earlier, but then that wouldn't have been as dramatic.
• GTO: The Early Years: Ayumi escapes from the Kyokuto gang, but they chase her until she's backed up against a cliff. Just as they're about to rape her, Ryuji shows up and takes them out with a few roundhouse kicks.
• GunBuster, Episode 4. The Exelion fleet is ambushed during a Fold jump by Alien Monsters. Almost all of the fleet is destroyed, the mecha squadrons are decimated, and everything looks at its worst . . . then Gunbuster Rises, Noriko at the controls, and destroys nearly entire alien fleet with one attack.
  • DieBuster manages to do its predecessor justice in Episode 4: The Variable Gravity Well has gone berserk. Most of the Buster Machine pilots are dead, and Europa has been shot through several times. The two remaining resident Action Girls are next to dead, and their mechs are totaled. The Variable Gravity Well turns around, stares right at them, charges its Texas-sized attack when, suddenly, reality shatters like a pane of glass, and up out of the hole to nothing, having warped all the way from Pluto to Jupiter instantaneously, raises Nono, hair aflame and sporting new duds. She absorbs said giant fucking death ray, summons a legion of space monsters, then slices Europa in half, all while giving a motivational speech with the Buster Machine March playing.
    • She does it again in Episode 6 when the Earth government has pooled its resources together to build a Buster Machine to propel Earth like a bomb to kill a blackhole, and just as it gets up to speed, reality shatters like a pane of glass, and up out of the hole to nothing, having warped all the way from outside the Solar System to Earth, raises the titular Earth sized fembot, "DIE! BUS! TER!"
• In Guyver, Guyver III tends to do this a lot to Guyver I, the protagonist. Occasionally, Guyver I will return the favor.
• .hack: This is Balmung's MO. He does it CONSTANTLY, in every installment of the series, in suitably epic fashion. In .hack//SIGN, Balmung rescues Subaru, Mimiru, and Bear from One of the Phases, which puts people into comas. In Legend of the Twilight Bracelet manga, Balmung swoops in and saves Rena from getting destroyed by a high level monster and teaches Shugo to use the Bracelet. It happens over a dozen times in the games, most notably the first time in Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground, before Kite has activated his Bracelet. This tendency of his is parodied in the GIFT bonus episode.
• Haruhi Suzumiya:
  • When Kyon was about to get killed by Ryoko Asakura, Yuki Nagato arrives to the rescue by breaking through the wall/into the space and catches the knife with her hands, shortly before taking Asakura down.
  • In the 4th novel Disappearance, Yuki gets another Big Damn Heroes moment. Again, she catches Asakura's knife.
    • And then when Kyon himself mobilizes Mikuru, Yuki and the older Mikuru to save himself and shoot the changed Yuki with the program Yuki (non-changed one) gave him.
  • That's not all. In Boredom, the baseball game, Yuki hacks the baseball bat in the final inning, when the opponents have scored 10 points. The resulting 11 home-run streak is both hilarious and cool at the same time. And then the opponents ask Kyon after the game if they're willing to sell their supposed magical baseball bat.
  • Moving back, we have Melancholy, where Kyon prevents the end of the world by making out with Haruhi.
  • In Day of Sagittarius, Kyon insists that nobody cheats. The readers might figure out that this isn't a good idea, but eh...When Yuki drops the bombshell that she isn't cheating, despite controlling 20 subfleets perfectly using text-based inputs, but their opponents are, Kyon reluctantly lets her hack the opponents' computer, rewrite the software on all 10 computers, and continue decimating her opponents all under the constraints of human technology.
  • In the 10th novel, Ryoko returns from the dead to protect Kyon from Kuyoh in a knife battle. She's still a Boxed Crook because she can only appear under special circumstances.
• Hello! Sandybell: Alec, regularly. When Kitty Shearer is kidnapped by Jirobi's drug gang, Sandybell & Co. appear in their multipurpose vehicle and Alec delivers a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to the members. He also comes to Sandybell and Ricky's aid when they're being intimidated by his goons. Being the oldest of the team and having a pretty messed up Dark and Troubled Past, he's a skilled martial artist and a friend to the weak and helpless.
• In Hellsing, Alexander Anderson and his monk/nun army, of all people, shows up to save Integra from an horde of vampires.
• The second season of Higurashi: When They Cry does this twice, a great indicator of the gradual mood change.
  • First is towards the end of Minagoroshi-hen, with Keiichi, Rena, Mion and Shion saving Rika and Satoko from the Yamainu, only to be subverted by the main villain showing up and personally murdering them all.
  • Second, in Matsuribayashi-hen, Akasaka saves Rika by way of his new martial arts mastery.
  • Higurashi: When They Cry Rei: Just when Keiichi has given up hope of escaping with his swimsuit from his friends, Tomitake, Oishi, and Irie (together with Keiichi, the "Heavenly Kings of Darkness") swoop in on surfboards in the middle of a pool scene to save him, each sprouting a grandiose line about not giving up. Oishi even ends up summoning a squad of fully-armed riot police to help, which storms in after their truck bursts through the pool fence.
• Holyland:
  • Chapter 155: Masaki and Taka show up before Ryuu can do a Finishing Stomp on Yuu.
  • Chapter 167: Taka and Iwado show up to a showdown between King's gang and a drug-ring fighting outfit organized by Masaki, and completely demolish the former. Taka even lampshades how it feels good to know that he's swinging his (wooden) sword "for justice" for once.
• Hyperdimension Neptunia, thanks to its half comedy half badass-magical girl story, gets a few of these:
  • In the shortened re-telling of mk2 when Nepgear, Uni, Rom, Ram, IF and Compa go to face off with Arfoire to save the CPUs. Magnified when the sisters transform into their HDD forms for the first time. Uni getting a special mention as she's the last one to transform, she does it while attacking Arfoire and doesn't even notice because she's just that badass.
  • Played for laughs, but the first time Plutia transforms she saves IF, Neptune and Nepgear by beating the living hell out of Arfoire without even trying.
  • In the final episode/OVA when Peashy arrives to save Neptune and Vert from a hoard of super monsters. Another one then happens when Neptune goes back to help and rescues Peashy without even being able to transform.
• In one memorable scene from Interspecies Reviewers, the titular Reviewers are saved from going Out with a Bang by the arrival of an 100-orc "Raid Party" demanding a rematch with the low-level succubi who are on the verge of killing the reviewers through sheer exhaustion. This was adapted in Episode 4 of the anime version, with the narration noting that the Reviewers needed three weeks to recover from the ordeal.
• Inuyasha:
  • Invoked in the third movie by Rin who refuses to run from the Big Bad because she knows Sesshomaru will show up and save her, and sure enough, he appears at the last second.
  • An episode of the anime has Inuyasha and his gang see a girl being chased by a crowd of angry villagers. Being the protective girl she is, Sango steps in between them to fend them off. Thanks to wearing her non-battling kimono at the time, the crowd stopped chasing the girl when they take a look at Sango and are smitten by her.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • In Part 3, Mohammed Avdol was killed off fairly early in the story. Thanks to fan demand, he was revived, in time for a surprise (and explained as an ace in the hole) Big Damn Heroes moment.
  • Zig-Zagged during Polnareff's battle with Vanilla Ice. Ice has Polnareff on the ropes and is seconds away from killing him, and in his mind, Polnareff goes over his options. One of the options is that his friends will burst in at the last second and save him, which Polnareff dismisses due to This Is Reality. He gets saved at the last second by a Heroic Sacrifice by Iggy, who was temporarily taken out of commission earlier in the fight due to receiving a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Ice. This gives Polnareff the Heroic Second Wind neccessary to figure out that Ice has become a vampire and destroy him with sunlight.
  • The series in general is full of this trope. Usually with the trademark heroic (and fashionable) posing.
• K: This shows up in the first episode, when Kuroh Yatogami saved Yashiro Isana from vengeful members of HOMRA. Promptly turns into a Cavalry Betrayal as Kuroh was just out to kill Yashiro himself.
• The manga series Kamen Rider Spirits seems to be one Big Damn Heroes moment after another — only it's often just one such Hero against a small army of overpowered cyborgs. (The V3 version of this is the best — a seemingly untransformable Kazami Shiro versus the first half of his Monsters Of The Week, then transforms and beats them all down. While bleeding from the transformation. And then firekicks the Big Bad's body into little pieces of BLAM. On the moon.)
• In Kemono Friends, all the Friends Kaban and Serval meet during their journey show up to help and rescue Kaban in the fight against the Black Cerulean at the end.
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple:
  • The titular character has been known to do this.
  • His masters also tend to show up when things really get bad.
    Too slow...my dinner is getting cold...
  • Siegfried is made of this trope. In his most prominent example, he flies a small plane to a heavily defended island, jumps from the plane to get to the arena, dodges missiles on the way down, curb stomps his opponent, composes music on his body, and then passes out from forty three days of sleep deprivation. The best part? HE WAS SINGING THE WHOLE DAMN TIME.
• During the Seven Devils arc in Kinnikuman, Mr. Khamen is about to suck out Brocken Jr.'s blood through a straw when Mongolman saves him.
• Kotoura-san: In episode 1's second half, Haruka, thanks to her Telepathy, saves both Yoshihisa and herself from being run over by an oncoming, careless delivery van driver running the red light at full speed.
• Life (2002) is a rather realistic, though exagerrated, Slice of Life series. However the scene where Ayumu and Hatori get saved from being gang-raped and left for dead in an abandoned series really seems unusual. It's full of buildings catching on fire, dramatic Clean Pretty Reliable, and overall may just be the most dramatic scene in the manga.
• In The Love and Creed of Sae Maki, Misao dramatically confronts Sae about their relationship at an amusement park and completely rejects her. A tearful Sae decides Misao has to die and is going to kill her with the knife blade hidden in her shoe—but Sae's Kick Chick need to raise her leg for the perfect killing blow gives Kokai the opportunity he needs to dive in and save Misao. Just before the blade attracts a bolt of lightning which kills Sae.
• Volume 11 of Love Hina ends with Keitaro FINALLY showing up — after nearly a volume of agonizing strife between Kanako and the rest of the girls, which largely wouldn't have happened had he been there — Just in Time to accidentally crash his van into the booby-trapped street vendor's cart Kanako was about to use to blow up Hinata Sou, foiling her attempt.
• Rom Stoll in Machine Robo: Revenge of the Chronos practically lives by this trope. His favorite method is when there is trouble, he would suddenly appear out of nowhere and yell MATTE!!! (WAIT!!!), causing the said villain to be shocked and ask who's there. With arms crossed, Rom then proceeds to give out a long-winded speech of virtue and justice, frowning upon the said villain, and then the villain would respond with "Wha!? Who are you to talk to me like that!?" Rom's answer? "You don't deserve to know my name!". Cue ass-kicking.
  • Super Robot Wars Compact 2 and Super Robot Wars MX then plays on this one to further Machine Robo Rom's awesomeness. He would interrupt LOTS and LOTS of villains out of his series, even those who can't audibly speak (for example, an Angel) and tell them that they don't deserve his name!
• Macross Frontier Episode 14: Sheryl is forced to pilot Skull-02 (Mikhail's Valkyrie) when he's knocked unconscious, but she's shot down less than a minute later and they're both ejected from the vehicle. Then Luca shields them both from the approaching Vajra, but his shots are ineffectual and his gun is knocked away. He's staring death in the face (the biggest Vajra is reflected on his visor) when Alto folds in at the last second, destroying all the approaching Vajra and letting loose a volley of micro missiles that demolishes several dozen more, all while performing a continuous axis roll that turns his Transforming Mecha into the missile equivalent of a Gatling gun. Then he does a fly-by as the others look on in awe.
  • Pulled on a grand scale in Episode 25, as not only has Alto's VF-171EX been shot down, the Vajra are enjoying a Theme Music Power-Up thanks to Ranka, and to top it off, a Vajra gunship is charging up to fire right into the Battle Frontier's bridge. Cue the SMS Macross Quarter skewering the Vajra gunship with a shot from its Heavy Quantum Reaction cannon, while still inside the fold portal. Then, after explaining everything to the Frontier commanders, the Quarter and all its squadrons proceed to counterattack.
• Happens in the first episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, when Fate and Yuuno save Nanoha from a rather messy hammer-induced death at the last second.
  • Inverted in Force, where the Huckebein have been saving each other from Riot Force Six's operators.
• At the end of Volume 1 of Maiden Rose, Klaus (a knight) brutally rapes his lover Taki (a colonel), to the point he requires medical attention. Shortly after The Medic Suguri kicks Klaus out of his room Klaus is arrested under suspicions of treason over some sensitive documents and is mercilessly tortured by Grand Chamberlain Hasebe while Taki is still unconscious and unaware. Failing to get anything out of him, Hasebe decides to just kill Klaus only to have his sword shattered mid-strike by none other than Taki, accompanied by his own katana, Badass Longcoat, backlighting, and much Dramatic Wind. He then orders Hasebe to stand down, covers for Klaus, and apologizes to him.
• Majikoi! Love Me Seriously! has Momoyo often filling this role thanks to her in-universe status as the World's Strongest Woman, though occasionally invoked to lesser degrees by other members of the family, as well as Hideo in the Ryuuzetsuran storyline.
• Maria no Danzai: As Kowase tries to drown Yashima in a vain attempt to regain control of his life, Yashima mentally begs for someone, anyone, to come save her, and begins to think of Maria as she starts to lose consciousness. Almost as if on cue, Maria enters the room, grabs Kowase, sedates him, kidnaps him and takes her leave before Yashima has the time to catch her breath and turn around, leaving her none the wiser to her savior's identity.
• The last 30 minutes or so of the Martian Successor Nadesico movie is a long string of these moments crammed together. There's so many heroes showing up to foil the bad guys in various places that the narrative starts to fall apart at the end.
• This became a trademark feat of Gundam SEED protagonist Kira Yamato after he acquired the Freedom Gundam, and its upgraded model in the sequel Destiny.
  • Athrun Zala and Mu La Flaga are also occasionally guilty of this trope.
    • Cagalli also did this in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, arriving in the Akatsuki Gundam, playing a Batman Gambit to fork over control of ORB from Yuna Roma Seiran back to her, get him arrested (which the soldiers within the Command Center took great pleasure in) and lead her troops back onto the defensive.
  • Endless Waltz's Big Damn Heero moment.
  • Not in the series proper, but in the backstory to Mobile Suit Gundam, with The Federation on the brink of total surrender after Zeon's opening blitz, General Revil escapes from captivity and gives his "Zeon is exhausted!" speech, the full text of which appears in the novels.
  • Gundam 00 absolutely LOVES this trope.
    • Allelujah Haptism pulls two in the first season: first during the pilot episode and again in Episode 5.
    • The Thrones' first appearance has them collectively whooping the asses of the combined Union, AEU and HRL force that captured the Gundams.
    • When Setsuna turns on the Thrones, he's having a tough time with them... until Tieria shows up to assist him. Still, Johann and Nena try to use their Combination Attack BFG... at which point Lockon joins the fray too. Taking away their numerical advantage proves to be enough to chase them away.
    • Speaking of which, the Thrones once again get to be on the receiving end of this trope when their raid on a HRL military base is interrupted by Sergei Smirnov leading a squadron of GN-X Elite Mooks against them. They proceed to absolutely kick the ass of the Trinities, marking the Thrones' first defeat.
    • When Lockon tries to take Ali with him near the end of Season 1, Setsuna tries this trope to save him... and fails.
    • Setsuna gets into a pinch at the beginning of Season 2: his Gundam's arms are both cut off at the shoulder and his opponent is too fast for him to flee. Said opponent charges at him with a Boom Stick lance... then said lance is obliterated by Tieria's new Gundam Seravee with a long-range shot. Tieria promptly beamsabers the guy when it tries to attack him from behind.
    • Right in the following episode, Tieria is the one who's having a hard time against several mooks... then Setsuna returns the favor from earlier by commandeering the 00 Gundam and wiping the floor with their enemies.
    • Finally in Episode 17 of Season 2, everyone pulls a truly EPIC Enemy Mine moment with this trope, trying to shoot down all the falling pieces of an orbital elevator. First it's only Celestial Being... then Katharon joins them... then the Federation Army follows suit... and finally A-LAWS joins in too. The result is a spectacular shootout involving hundreds, if not thousands, of mobile suits.
    • The Gundam 00 movie runs with it so much. First Setsuna and Lockon rescues Marina and Shirin from terrorists. Then the duo then rescues the series' two prominent couples, with Setsuna saving Saji and Louise from a Ribbons-like ELS, and Lockon saving H/Allelujah and Marie/Soma from ELS-infected vehicles. Then Tieria rescues the rest of Celestial Being from the ELS accompanying the second Europa. Later, the Sol Braves rescue Celestial Being from the ELS. Then the Ptolemaios, Zabanya, and Harute come to the aid of the ESF forces in the final battle. Finally, Setsuna joins the fray in the 00 Qan[T], prompting a massive opening of whoop-ass cans on the ELS.
  • Then, there's Mobile Fighter G Gundam's big finale when virtually every Mobile Fighter in the series (as well as cameos from Gundams from other series along with other Tomino Super Robots) race to aid the Shuffle Alliance against Colony Devil Gundam.
  • Also Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Apolly arriving with the Zeta Gundam and chasing off the Titans.
• It happens in Monster, mostly with Tenma, who always has a fire to stop or a child to save.
• Oh, plenty in My Hero Academia. Being a Academy of Adventure filled with heroes, having these are a dime-a-dozen and no less amazing.
  • Izuku Midoriya pulls one of these off to get into UA High. A humongous Zero-Point robot is rampaging through the test city. Izuku is panicking as everyone else is running with Tenya Iida writing him off as he runs past. As Izuku scrambles to escape, he hears a girl in pain — Ochako Uraraka, the girl who saved him from faceplanting earlier, is caught in rubble from the robot's arrival. Izuku finds his resolve, activates One for All for the first time and SMASHES the robot, saving Ochako. The robot gave him no points for fighting, but his actions gave him plenty of Rescue points to get him into the school. Probably also helps that Ochako asked for some of her points to be given to him in gratitude.
  • Inverted when All For One pulls this. When the League Of Villains is cornered by Pro-Heroes, All For One suddenly teleports Nomus to ward them while he summons the League to his side. The villain personally deals with All Might while sending his apprentice to safety.
  • During the USJ arc, the villains invade the students’ training facility. At first, things aren’t going too bad, but the Nomu overpower Aizawa and eventually the students. But Tenya escaped and ran to get The Cavalry. It’s right then that the pro heroes show up. All Might is *seething* about his students being in danger and so is Present Mic about Aizawa. The villains decide to cut their losses and warp away and fortunately All Might is able to dispatch the nomu meant to kill him thanks to Midoriya’s help.
• Mai and Mikoto play Big Damn Heroines to Natsuki at the end of My-HiME Episode 4, freeing her from the tentacles of the Panty Thief Orphan and giving her an opportunity to finish it off herself.
  • Natsuki returns the favor in Episode 14 when the others are cornered by the Searrs army, shooting the soldiers' guns and blinding them with a flash cartridge to give Mai and Mikoto a chance to escape.
  • The beginning of the final episode when Yuuichi shows up out of nowhere swinging a sword around to save Mai from Reito.
• Naruto uses this a lot.
  • Iruka and Naruto pull off one each in the first chapter/episode.
  • Naruto does it again during Orochimaru's invasion of Konoha when Sasuke is fighting Gaara in the forest.
  • The sand siblings appear to save the Konoha genins who are about to be killed by the Sound Four.
  • Chapter 437 of Naruto has Hinata taking a deathblow for Naruto and her Disney Death led to Naruto going Six-Tails. This was handled differently in the anime, where she not only breaks a few Chakra rods, but manages to land a hit on Pain.
  • Chapter 562 has the five Kages coming to the rescue (sort of) to face the newly-resurrected Madara Uchiha.
  • Kakashi and Guy get a huge one in Chapter 566/Shippuden Episode 325 when they show up Just in Time to save Naruto from being defeated by Tobi.
  • And 611 has the entire united shinobi army showing up to help Naruto, Guy, Kakashi, and B take on the 10 tails! Subverted when they fail to do anything of value whatsoever. But they looked badass while doing it!
  • In 630 Minato shows up to save their collectively useless asses from a ten tails bijuu bomb. The other three Hokages probably aren't far behind
    • Hiraishin — Big Damn Hero No Jutsu
• In the Kyoto arc of Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Evangeline, of all people, gets one when she shows up on the field trip to save Negi and co. from a giant demon.
  • Mana and Ku Fei doing the same for Asuna and Setsuna, and Kaede preceding hers with a giant shuriken, all earlier in the same arc.
  • A double BDH. Setsuna and Kaede show up to rescue Nodoka from bounty hunters, but the hunters planned ahead and they're suddenly caught in their magical lightning trap. Then Asuna appears, jumping in to rescue Setsuna & Kaede whilst Negi completes the first BDH and saves Nodoka all on his lonesome with his Dangerous Forbidden Technique. The series' transformation into Magical School Dragon Ball with added fanservice is now complete.
  • Once more in the latest arc, as Kotarou shows up to save the collective rears of Nodoka, Paru, and Chisame, entering the scene with a nonchalant "whoa there."
  • And again in Chapter 269, when in a flashback Nagi and Ala Rubra show up in the nick of time to save Princess Arika from what would've been an extremely grisly execution.
  • Chapters 273 & 275 have more than can be believed. Chapter 273 has Kuu Fei bashing Kurt Godel with her artifact...through a wall. Followed by Takahata making his reappearance by smashing Godel in the face with a full-force blow. Chapter 275 has Takane & Mei, then Yue, and finally Mana all making their Big Damn Heroes moments. Mana's is particularly epic.
  • Chapter 280. Dynamis (Fate's ultra-powerful shadow user accomplice) has Nodoka by the head in front of the others and is threatening to snap her neck. Cue Setsuna dropping in out of nowhere, hacking off the guy's right hand in the process. Faced with Setsuna and Kaede, both wielding their biggest weapons and ready for blood, the previously-unstoppable Dynamis is forced to retreat.
  • Chapter 292. Tsukuyomi shows up with her slashiest Slasher Smile yet, and swings for a death blow at Beatrice. Negi warps in in Raiten Sousou form and stops the attack, and then hoists Tsukuyomi up off the ground by a death grip on her neck from behind.
  • And again in Chapter 294 Ala Alba almost got through army of Airborne Mooks but their path got blocked by two Giant Airborne Mooks. Just as they are about to bring the ships down BAM! Negi comes back and one-shots Mooks by piercing them both with his Titanslayer spear.
  • Chisame recently lampshaded it.
    "Geez, you're pretty late for a protagonist. You promised, but every damn time..."
  • In Chapter 322, done by Ayaka, of all people. Atop of a Spider Tank and with Evangeline in tow.
  • Chapter 330 After getting thoroughly stomped by everyone who was ever in KE, Negi and Fate are both down and about to get finished off by Secundum, when in a glorious callback to Chapter 51 Eva arrives and stops his attack, followed by the entire freaking Ala Rubra, aka the most powerful mages in the world, including Jack Rakan, who seems to be making a habit of willing himself back to existence.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion:
  • Played straight in Episode 19. Zeruel, the Angel Of The Week, is about to obliterate Misato, Ritsuko, Fuyutsuki and the NERV commanding staff, and suddenly Unit One crashes through the wall and Shinji kicks arse!
  • And again in Episode 10, "Magma Diver", where Asuka, having killed the Angel of the Week, begins to sink into the magma, sure to die of either starvation, overheating or suffocation. Shinji, without specialised armor or orders, dives headfirst into the magma and catches her.
  • During his fight with Ramiel in both the original series and Rebuild of Evangelion, it appears that Shinji is going to get well and royally screwed by the Angel's laser blast. Cue Rei jumping in at the last moment, blocking Ramiel's beam with a frickin' space shuttle! Okay, fine, the modified armor of a space shuttle, but still!
  • It gets better than that. In the original once the shield is melted off Rei steps in the path herself. She also attempts to nuke an Angel, it doesn't work but it seems she likes this trope. See below.
  • In End of Evangelion, Shinji is being held at gunpoint by three JSSDF soldiers, one pressing a gun barrel directly on his head. Just before he pulls the trigger, Misato bursts in at the last minute, gunning down all the soldiers and saving Shinji in a manner most impressive. These are all trained, hardened soldiers, and Misato has likely never seen an actual battle her whole life. Then this is subverted later, when Asuka appears and completely trashes the attacking army. The day looks saved, until the MP Evas show up and tear her to pieces. Or unsubverted in the manga adaptation, where the MP Evas are going to kill Asuka...and then Shinji shows up in Unit-01 and tears them apart. And Double Subversion later on in the anime: Rei is the Apocalypse Maiden and can cause Instrumentality, but she tries to talk Shinji out of doing it. She can't, and SEELE causes it instead. Then she talks him round to reversing it.
• One Piece:
  • One of the earliest examples is Luffy being in Smoker's grasp at Loguetown, only to be freed with the timely arrival of a mysterious man named Dragon. The least a long-lost father could do for his son.
  • Usopp, a not particularly heroic character, snipes out the Marines ready to gun down Nico Robin from an impossible distance. And then strikes a badass pose.
    • He does it again in the Dressrosa arc, where he awakens his Haki, locates Luffy and Law about to be turned into toys by Sugar and fires a projectile shaped like his Tatababasco face from across an extreme distance moments being getting caught by a mob. Robin watches as the projectile flies through the air, soaring upwards before reaching the palace, flying towards Sugar and reawakening her trauma, scaring her into unconsciousness again and preventing things from going dire.
  • In the climax scene from the film One Piece Film: Strong World, the entire crew minus Nami (who was thrust into the role of Damsel in Distress) burst into the Big Bad's hideout, wearing badass longcoats and wielding pistols and rifles, begin to open fire on all the Mooks as a way of saying hello (a la Tony Montana), before going into action for real.
  • One of the most epic examples to date comes from back in the Alabasta arc with "Mr. Prince" — wherein Sanji, with a little help from Chopper, manages to use his skills as The Strategist and take advantage of his Spanner in the Works status to rescue the entire rest of the captured crew (including Vivi) and Smoker by outsmarting Crocodile and luring him away, allowing him to sneak in and free all of them, complete with leaving behind a taunting note for Crocodile to find.
  • Chapter 198/199, Vivi, after witnessing Crocodile single-handedly and effortlessly beating down Alabasta's strongest warriors, is dropped to her death, but who should appear from the sky to save her from her demise but Luffy (and Pell)? Add to the scene Vivi's lamentations that nobody can hear her, and Luffy confidently saying, "I can hear...your voice!"
  • In Chapter 502/Episode 396 after the Straw Hats lose their chance of rescuing their friend, Camie, who going to be sold as a slave to the World Nobles, Luffy comes crashing through the auction house window with Zoro and punches out the World Noble. Camie gets rescued.
    • Silvers Rayleigh gets one here when he makes everyone except the Supernovas in the room and Camie black out, AND another one when he intercepts Kizaru before he can kill Zoro.
  • In Chapter 556, right in the middle of the ongoing war between Whitebeard's Pirates and the World Government, which is destined to end badly, Luffy and the Impel Down escapees throw themselves into the fray, right at what looks to be the tipping point of the battle! Unfortunately, they don't make enough of a difference.
  • Sanji saving Usopp/Sogeking by kicking Jabra in the face.
  • But...Luffy loves this trope! In addition to the above mentioned rescues at Sabaody and Marineford, he's pulled it off at Little Garden, Alabasta (twice, depending on your interpretation), and Thriller Bark.
  • Trafalgar Law showing up in the middle of the Battle at Marineford to rescue Luffy. Bet you didn't see that coming.
  • Red-Haired Shanks and his crew showing up at Marineford and ending the war.
  • Even the SHIP gets one when it shows up of its own accord at Enies Lobby for one last voyage.
  • In the Fishman Island arc, Luffy and his crew save King Neptune and his sons from imminent death at the hands of Hody Jones.
  • There was one slightly before those in Episode 2: Luffy launches his rubber body in between Zoro (and Coby) and the Marines, rebounding their bullets back at them.
  • In Chapter 698, when Doflamingo is about to kill Smoker and the rest of the Marines on Punk Hazard, Kuzan/Aokiji shows up, and asks Doflamingo to stop. When Doflamingo tries to go for Smoker anyways, Aokiji turns him into a popsicle.
  • In Chapter 786, Luffy is out of commission for 10 minutes after using Gear Fourth, giving Jesus Burgess the opportunity to try and kill him. He's saved thanks to Sabo delivering a swift kick to Burgess' face.
  • In Chapter 789, Luffy recovers in the nick of time, and manages to prevent a Doflamingo-controlled Rebecca from cutting down Viola, much to the delight of the citizens of Dressrosa. Said citizens were cheering his name and counting the seconds to his recovery before the save, and happily scream "HE'S BAAAAAACK!" after it.
• In One-Punch Man there are plenty of Saitama’s feats of strength and speed shown throughout the series that he can effortlessly move at the Speed of Sound and push to it the Speed of Light if he so desires, but like anything revolving Saitama’s character he needs to be motivated enough to show it off like that; with that there are examples of Saitama simply getting late, or being misdirected, from reaching the place some big commotion is happening as he just casually strolls (or runs in human speed) to his destination instead of just arriving in lightning strike accuracy, that results in Saitama coming up in dramatic fashion when all hope seems to be lost or when there’s no one left around to witness his real power, perpetuating the narrative that very few people know how powerful Saitama really is.
• Ouran High School Host Club manga Chapter 80 shows us that the cast of side characters is damn awesome. The main cast also demonstrated their awesomeness, too.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • This happened often in the first two seasons, complete with some great background music.
  • Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire: In "You Can Never Taillow", a flock of Taillow was terrorizing Ash, May, and Max. Just as the birds were about to overwhelm them, Brock appears out of nowhere and blasts them away:
  Brock: Forretress, Explosion!
  • In "Noodles: Roamin' Off", after Team Rocket has separated, James goes to catch a violent shiny Metagross, but gets in over his head (He tried to fight it with Psychic/Fairy (but at the time pure Psychic) Mime Jr. and Grass-type Carnivine, neither of which are very strong against Psychic/Steel Metagross). Just when it looks like he's at its non-existent mercy, Yanmega and Seviper show up with Jessie to save him (not that that should've worked either).
    • And it didn't; Meowth had to save them both.
  • At the climax of Pokémon 3, Ash and Pikachu, locked in a desperate struggle against Entei, get tossed off a cliff. At the very last second, Charizard, previously left by Ash to train in the Charicific Valley, swoops in to save his trainer. What happens next is an epic battle between Ash's strongest Pokémon and the unstoppable force of nature known as Entei!
    • Then a few minutes later, when Ash is nearly knocked off the same cliff a second time, his hand is grabbed at the last moment by Brock, who was last seen being on the wrong end of a Curb-Stomp Battle. Brock, Misty and Team Rocket then pull him to safety.
    • This happens a few more times after that, though him showing up when Ash was in Blackthorn was a coincidence and Ash can always call Riza if he needs his firepower (Johto League and his two Battle Frontier fights).
  • In Pokémon: Giratina and the Sky Warrior, as a glacier's foundation is broken and it begins moving towards a town, Regigigas and a herd of Mamoswine appear to push it back into place.
  • Happens again in the second episode of the newest series. Ash is faced with a far more competent Team Rocket than he's used to battling, and it actually looks like they're gonna get away with Pikachu (and Iris' Axew)...until an Oshawott that had been following Ash around appears seemingly out of nowhere to save the day .
  • In a more recent ep, Ash's newly hatched Scraggy is about to be attacked by four Galvantula. As one of them close in, Ash's other Pokémon show up and kick some ass.
  • Mewtwo gets no less than four in Pokémon: Mewtwo Returns: first when he saves a Bus Full of Innocents from being hurtled to their deaths by a whirlwind (though he claims he only did this to keep himself and his clone Pokémon protected), second when he swoops down and stops clone Pikachu from attacking Ash's Pikachu, who would have gotten seriously injured otherwise, third when he stops Giovanni from paralyzing and capturing clone Pikachu, clone Meowth, Ash's Pikachu, and Team Rocket's Meowth, and fourth, at the end, when he rises out of the healing spring of Mt. Quena and teleports it underground to defend it.
  • Both Falkner and Jasmine rescued Ash's Pikachu from Team Rocket, in separate occasions. The latter came into action by jumping off a cliff and used her titanic Steelix to send the Rockets packing, after which followed a gym battle for the Mineral Badge.
  • Steven Stone riding into battle at Lumiose City against Team Flare in Pokémon the Series: XY on his Mega Metagross, rescuing Professor Sycamore, Serena, and the Team Rocket trio.
  • In Pokémon Generations, we get this a few times. It's subverted in Episode 11 when a rescue attempt by Cynthia is aborted by Giratina appearing and taking out Cyrus of Team Galactic. Played straight in Episode 12 when Detective Looker's Croagunk halts Heatran from vaporizing Buck.
  • Surprisingly, in Pokémon Adventures, Giovanni of all people saves Yellow from being blasted to smithereens by Lance. (He ran away afterwards, but it was cool at the moment.)
• This happened about three times in the teamup movie, Pretty Cure All Stars. First, Cure Black and Cure White saved Milky Rose, Cure Mint, and Cure Aqua from an freakin' huge Zakenna aeroplane. Then Cure Bloom and Cure Egret saved Cure Dream, Cure Lemonade, and Cure Rouge from an falling Uzainaa. Then Cure Peach, Cure Berry, and Cure Pine, are saved by everyone else from the innards of the Big Bad!
  • The second Pretty Cure All Stars movie has a funny one: The Heartcatch and Fresh girls are evenly matched against the bad guys and it looks like the baddies are ready to cut loose. Cue the arrival of the Max Heart, Splash Star and Yes teams, who quickly join their Cure companions and defiantly tell them they aren't taking the MacGuffin! Cure Blossom suddenly starts flailing at them while Cure Marine wonders where these people came from?!.
  • The fourth All Stars movie, New Stage has a whopping 23 Precure (everyone from the original series to Suite) saving a number of innocents from a fire blast by Fusion.
  • Fresh Pretty Cure! Episodes 42 and 48, anyone?
  • Suite Pretty Cure ♪ has Bassdrum and Baritone saving Melody from being absorbed by Noise and also pulling a Heroic Sacrifice. They are then revived.
  • Doki Doki Pre Cure Episode 45. Bel takes advantage of the fact that Ace and Regina worn themselves out during their fight and unleashes a horde of Jikochus on them, and at the same time traps Sword and Jonathan. Cue for Heart, Diamond and Rosetta to arrive from the sky and saving them.
  • Cure Lovely is very prone to this in HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!.
  • Go! Princess Pretty Cure Episode 48 has a satisfying one. Shut undergoes a Heel–Face Turn, saves the Cures from one of Close's attack and then straight out punch him in the face. Then he gives a motivational speech to a controlled Lock, allowing the Cures to purify him. And then he pulls another one with Lock and Kuroro in Episode 49.
  • HuGtto! Pretty Cure Episode 47. Every purified villain at that point pull this and in grand style. First, Papple, Charaleet and Daigan save to Cures and fight with them. Later on, Dr. Traum joins the fight as well. And at last, Gelos, Jinjin and Takumi help the Cures reaching George.
• In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Sayaka drops this on Kirsten in order to save Madoka, combining it with Look What I Can Do Now! in the Reveal of her new Magical Girl Warrior status.
  • In the spinoff manga The Different Story, she does it again, this time to save Mami from Charlotte.
• Ranma ½:
  • Subverted in the first movie. In a tense climactic scene between Kirin and Akane, the door finally bursts open. But instead of Ranma coming to her rescue, it's Ryoga Hibiki and the rest of the motley crew. Ranma gets his own big damn moment a little while later.
  • Played straight rather sweetly earlier in the series, both anime and manga. When Ranma temporarily loses his strength to moxibustion, most of his enemies gang up and decide to give him the monumental collective ass-kicking they've been wanting to give him for some time. Ranma, on the ground, about to be completely flattened, closes his eyes, hears a strange noise and opens them again to find Ryoga Hibiki, who has appeared out of nowhere, defending him.
  • It's also played straight in the aforementioned movie. When the fishing rod-wielding Lucky God Ebiten has Ranma beaten, bleeding, and at his mercy, he winds up for the coup de grace...and suddenly a spinning bandanna comes flying and destroys his fishing rod. Cue Ryouga steamrolling over Ebiten on his way to Kirin's tower (closely followed by everyone else) while Ranma just blinks in bewilderment.
  • The same movie also gave an earlier one to Shampoo. Ranma has been ensnared by a Razor Floss using martial artist, who is going to cut him into pieces when Ranma's unwanted fiancée comes flying in from off-screen and cuts the wires before they can slice Ranma apart. She then tells him to go on and save Akane while she holds the line here.
• In Reborn! (2004) Tsuna shows up in Big Damn Heroes fashion to save Chrome from (Gola Mosca who reboots and destroys everything) after Hibari's fight with him.
  • What Mukuro and Fran did in the last chapter was this complete with extra-powerful illusions. A few chapters back, the Varia pulled one too, arriving just in time to save the day.
  • Akira Amano loves this trope. In the last part of TYL arc, you can expect to see this every 2 or 3 chapters.
  • Most recently, Kaoru of the Shimon Family, followed closely by Yamamoto himself, both of them against Arc Big Bad Daemon Spade.
• Rebuild World: This tends to be played with as much as played straight, with Akira usually answering a Distress Call and then needing a Gunship Rescue of his own.
  • Deconstructed with a Punch-Clock Hero Search and Rescue mission. Hunters barricaded inside a building during Urban Warfare send out a Distress Call from a dead man's tablet invoking his insurance. Akira's rescue expedition led by Shirakabe, after blasting their way in, start by ordering the wounded and dead be put in to the APC first (due to the insurance covering Brain Uploading memory backups often stored in hunter's bodies), and Shirakabe sends one hunter Punched Across the Room for trying to get in before the dead (but drags him in before leaving). As they leave, those who couldn't fit inside are left to fend for themselves and get mowed down. When the convoy gets back to base, the insurance company seizes all of the rescued hunter's equipment and arrest the man who used a dead hunter's terminal to summon them, to force him into Indentured Servitude to pay them back.
• Rooster Fighter: After a temporary Breaking the Fellowship, Keiji returns to save Ibokura from falling off the dam.
• Lampshaded in Rurouni Kenshin, when Hiko saves Yahiko from the giant Fuji. The boy accuses the swordsman of timing his rescue perfectly to look cool, with the latter rebutting that he was merely lost because of his pupil's poor directions.
• Sailor Moon:
  • Tuxedo Mask does this all the time! He even once did it dressed up as Santa Claus!
  • Sailors Uranus and Neptune do this all the time in the first anime adaptation of Sailor Moon. Likewise, Sailor Pluto comes to their rescue at one point in Sailor Stars. In the movies, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are the de facto Reinforcements.
  • Sailor Venus' full debut, though it differs between the first anime and the manga:
    • In the first anime her Crescent Beams first save Tuxedo Kamen by forcing Zoisite to retreat wounded, and then save the other four Sailor Soldiers from dying of asphyxiation from Kunzite's magically created shrinking dark barrier by wounding him and making him lose control of the spell.
    • In the manga Zoisite is about to stab Sailor Moon with a pointy crystal when Artemis shatters it and Venus' boomerang cuts him to pieces.
• Saint Seiya lives and breathes by this. Like whenever Andromeda Shun is faced with an opponent too dangerous to face (without unleashing his Dangerous Forbidden Technique) he will invariably end up face-down on the ground, his enemy gloating and about to deliver the killing blow...when out of nowhere a blast of flame and a flurry of razor-sharp metallic feathers will fall upon Shun's foe. With the loud cry of a bird of prey, witness the arrival of Phoenix Ikki, the strongest and most savage of the heroic Bronze Saints, and Shun's big brother. Oh, Crap!.
• Saiyuki:
  • Subverted when Sanzo, Goku and Hakkai show up to 'save' Gojyo from Kami-sama — only to spend several minutes kicking him into submission for making them go through the big damn trouble of backtracking several days to find him. (They do save Gojyo from imminent strangulation first.) Still moot, though, because Kami-sama proceeds to beat them all spectacularly. Ironically, Gojyo is the only one conscious in the end and mostly responsible for their escape.
  • Used again in the finale of Gunlock, when Goku, Hakkai, Gojyo, and Hakuryuu have gotten sick and tired of being attacked by assassins thinking they're still the Sanzo party after they split from the priest, so they decide to go kick his ass right as he's being shot repeatedly. Plenty of jeering, Sanzo gets shot some more...only after that does Goku get a chance to punch him, and then Sanzo punches Gojyo, Sanzo tells them they're pains in the ass, they agree wholeheartedly. All is right with the world.
  • In the manga version of that storyline, the group shows up just in time for Goku to yank a very badly battered Sanzo out of a black hole of Ret-Gone...and accidentally throws him so hard he hurts him worse. Hakkai is nice enough to patch him up, though.
• Sakura Wars: The Movie:
  • In the film's second half, Yokihiko Ota helps the Flower division return to the Imperial Theater and take it back by force.
  • Towards the end, Kikunojo Oka helps the IJN destroy the Japhkiel facilities and Yuichi Kayama rescues Yoritsune Hanakoji and Ikki Yoneda.
  • Then, Ichiro Ogami arrives in his F2 Koubu to help the Flower Division kill Brent for good.
• Meliodas does this in Chapter 188 of The Seven Deadly Sins and rescues Elizabeth, Hawk and Zaratras from Monspiet and Derriere. Though...he doesn't seem to be exactly the same guy he used to be...
• Sgt. Frog: To be expected whenever the storyline goes into full-blown action mode. Of special note is the Garuru Platoon arc, where Giroro is appparently shot down in combat, but later rises from a lake a la EVA-02, and blasts into the captured underground base by RIDING A BARRAGE OF MISSILES.
  • Episode 133 has a rare case of Tamama leading the Big Damn Heroes moment to rescue practically everyone else from Alisa Southerncross.
  • The fourth movie has Aki doing this in a Citroen 2CV.
• In Shakugan no Shana, the Hard-Drinking Party Girl Magical Girl (No, really) Margery Daw has a Big Damn Heroes moment. Both she and her Sidekick/Empathic Weapon point out that this is "Nice timing".
• Subverted in Soul Eater: Near the end of the Fight to the Death arc, Black Star and Death the Kid pull a Big Damn Heroes act on Eruka and Free about to awaken the Kishin, and a battle ensues. In a last-ditch effort, Black Star manages to slice in half the tool used to awaken the Kishin, seconds before Eruka can use it. As he is celebrating his victory, Black Star suddenly finds that the aura of madness that the Kishin is emitting caused him to hallucinate the whole thing — he'd really just attacked one of the room's statues, and the Kishin is revived before the heroes' eyes.
  • And played straight when Maka and Soul fight Crona. Spirit and Stein turning up when they did saved their lives.
  • Also subverted near the very beginning. Death the Kid, watching the other main characters battle Stein through Death's mirror, fears they're going to die and forces Death to enroll him in the DWMA so that he can join them in their battle, but he gets distracted by his OCD and fails to actually reach them in time. They end up not needing him anyway.
• In the final Space Battleship Yamato/Star Blazers movie, we get a Big Damn Heros moment from an unlikely source. The planet Aquarius is on a collision course for Earth. To divert the planet, the Star Force has blocked the Wave Motion Gun and filled the Yamato with explosives. As the Yamato moves to intercept the planet, the aliens that are herding Aquarius towards its target surround the Yamato. If the Star Forces gets into a fight now, the Yamato will be surely be destroyed. As the alien commander gives the order to fire, one of his ships explodes — under fire from the Gamalon fleet. Former arch-nemesis Desslok now swoops in and saves the very race he tried to exterminate just a few years ago.
• Debatably, what happens when Sara gets Ram-Dass in Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry — in any case, the other pilots certainly see it as such.
• In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Simon and Viral leave Earth to save the day when Anti-Spirals are destroying the Arc-Gurren, a huge spaceship. The shockwave of concentrated awesome destroys the whole Anti-Spiral fleet save for the mothership.
  • There's a string of these at the climax of the second movie, after the TTGL is defeated and ripped apart. Nia rescues Simon from the Anti-Spiral, then Viral turns up to save Nia, then Yoko steps in once Viral's swords break, then the twins jump in to catch a pair of galaxy shurikens headed for Yoko, then a bit later on Zoushi and Makken turn up to help Kidd and Ailac. And you gotta remember that they're ALL in Galaxy-sized mechs at least as big as the Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann.
  • There's also Episode 11, when Simon busts out of his Wangst at Kamina's death to kick Guame's ass.
  • Also, in the final episode, when Simon and the rest of Team Dai Gurren teleport through Nia's ring to save her all while "Libera Me from Hell" is playing in the background.
• Inn Transformers Zone, Metrotitan has Dai Atlas and Sonic Bomber on the ropes, but then Road Fire suddenly jets in to save them.
• In the climax of Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-, Syaoran and Sakura, arriving minutes too late to save clone Syaoran and a few days too late to save clone Sakura, are freed from a decade of imprisonment just in time to save their son, Syaoran, and his girlfriend, Sakura. Everyone with the same name looks exactly alike. Yes, it is somewhat hard to keep track of.
• During The Voynich Hotel's climax, Elena arrives just in the nick of time to save Taizou from certain death at the hands of the Yakuza, who managed to track him down and are in the middle of torturing him for stealing a Briefcase Full of Money from them. Funny thing is, if she hadn't made the mistake of relocating Taizou's heart to the right of his body during a magical surgery earlier on, she would've arrived to find him dead.
• Aya ends a 10-Minute Retirement with one of these in Weiß Kreuz. Yoji, Ken, and Omi are cornered, outnumbered, and out of ideas — until Aya arrives, standing on top of a speeding car and packing a machine gun.
  • He does it again in Weiss Kreuz Gluhen, arriving in the nick of time to save Sena from Sagiri and Suika.
• Moroha does this in Episode 2 of World Break: Aria of Curse for a Holy Swordsman, which ends up saving Ranjou and Urushibara, both of whom were completely outclassed by the hydra they were fighting.
• In Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches:
  • Yamada saves Kaori from being raped by violently kicking her ex-boyfriend into a tree so that the two molesters (who are his friends) run away in fear.
  • Miyamura saves Yamada, Chikushi and Kurosaki from a thug by donning a "Masked DK 2.0" disguise and kicking the thug away.
  • Right after doing a Heel–Face Turn, Yamazaki enters the altar room Just in Time to stop Asuka from escaping, and as such he prevents the ceremony from failing.
• In the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Yami Yugi's early appearances were all about this. Yugi or his friends would get into trouble, and he'd emerge to give payback.
• Happens all the time in the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, as whenever Yugi or Joey is on the ropes, their friends will cheer and support them, galvanizing them to win. During Yugi's match with Pegasus, they help more directly by blocking Pegasus's mind-reading powers.
• Saiou in Season 4 of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, who saves Juudai by ramming the Trueman clones with a van and then escaping with Juudai on a motorcycle. Subverted, since he then has a Big Brother Instinct-induced Face–Heel Turn.
• In the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL's sixth arc, almost all of Yuma's friends and allies appear to fight the Barians when he is down.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds:
  • Jack Atlas rides in on his D-Wheel and saves a couple of children in the Dark Signer arc, when Yusei and Aki are trapped and can't stop the kids from being sacrificed to Uru.
  • Jack, Crow and Sector Security come to Crash Town to save Yusei, Kiryu, the children and all the people Lotten and Barbara have been abusing.
  • Dark Glass pulls this off twice; once to save Yusei from the Diablos, and again to save Yusei and Aki by providing a slipstream for them while they're crossing a collapsing bridge.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh!: Capsule Monsters, Solomon Muto appears by electrocuting a monster that Tea and Tristan were struggling to deal with. Yami later appears when Joey and Tristan are struggling with the second trial.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V has several consecutive examples during the climax of the MCS battle-royale. First Serena saves Shun from Sora, then Tsukikage and Hikage save them both from Sora, then when Tsukikage, Shun and Serena are dueling three Obelisk force members several people intervene on their behalf: Michio and Teppei join together, then Shingo, and finally Gong.
  • Crow and his gang use their D-Wheels to save Yuya, Serena, Shingo and Reira from Security.
  • When escaping from prison Shun literally drops into a duel to rescue the other Lancers from the guards.
  • The Council intervenes on the Lancer's behalf when Jean is about to arrest them again.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions, Yugi can't defeat the possessed Aigami until Atem appears and helps him win the fight.
• YuYu Hakusho:
  • Yusuke is dead...again. Sensui, the man who killed Yusuke, has just opened the door to Makai, blocked the strongest attack in the series, the Dragon of the Darkness Flame, without even raising a single hand, and forced Kuwabara to cut down the only barrier remaining between the two worlds to get at him. The remaining heroes have all gained power equivalent to A+ Class demons, the second highest power class, and yet when they try to exact their revenge, Sensui still makes complete fools of them without even using a tenth of his full power, and Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei are all on the ground, unable to continue fighting. Sensui is ready to kill the trio, when who shows up Back from the Dead and ready to kick ass? Yusuke, alive and well, and more powerful than ever thanks to his mysterious demonic ancestor.
  • In the Dark Tournament arc, Yusuke's newfound demon allies Chu, Rinku, Jin, and Touya get not one but two such moments.
  • Yusuke, exhausted from his trial with absorbing Genkai's Spirit Orb, is sleeping on Keiko under a tree during the Semifinal matches against Team Uraotogi. Three lower-class demons show up and start perving all over Keiko, amping up their threats when they realise that she has Yusuke with her. Just as the biggest one of them is about to rip Keiko and Yusuke apart, a yo-yo (Rinku's signature weapon) comes flying out of nowhere and pastes him in the face. The two left standing are left with a resounding Oh, Crap! moment when they see Rinku and Chu standing there, ready to defend the unconscious Yusuke. As they wet themselves in fear and turn to run the other way, a particular pair of Demon World ninjas appear and block their path. None of the four of them say a single word until after the lower-class demons have run away.
    Keiko: Um, didn't Yusuke's team beat you guys? Why are you helping us?
    Chu: [kneels down in front of Yusuke and Keiko] Nah, love, your boy did all right by me, and I don't forget.
  • After the tournament is over, Toguro is dead, Sakyo has detonated the stadium, and Yusuke just snapped Keiko out of her Heroic BSoD, the heroes are trying to find their way out of the stadium when they come to a dead end that's been completely blocked off by rubble. The heroes are drained, exhausted, and really probably shouldn't be standing. It seems like they're trapped, when all of a sudden the rubble cracks and then splinters into dust. When the dust clears, four of the most badass minor characters in the series are standing on the other side. The grins on Kurama and Yusuke's faces when they see just who saved their collective behinds are priceless.
    Chu: How goes it, mate?
  • Two different non-typical examples occur in the team's match against Team Masho. In the first, Yusuke was disqualified from the last of the five fights on a technicality due to the opposing team's manager bribing the officials, Hiei and The Masked Fighter have been trapped behind a barrier throughout the entire match and, thus, are disqualified as well, and Kurama lost his (third) match thanks to the life-sucking plant growing in his bloodstream. The only option left to them seems to be Hiei's killing spree idea. They are saved from that by Kuwabara, who had previously let three Brainwashed and Crazy fighters beat him senseless to snap them back to normal, dragging his broken and bloody body into the ring so that a trained fighter can make it more broken and bloody. The second example occurs during this fight. Kuwabara is rather predictably not doing well. Risho happily informs Kuwabara that his body is tapping into his spirit energy just to keep him moving, meaning he can't summon his spirit sword. Kuwabara takes this in stride and decides to use his own life energy to end the match with a double kill, which will count as a win for his side. He says goodbye to his friends, charges in screaming, and grapples Risho in mid-attack. Before Kuwabara can off himself, his love interest Yukina arrives. This gives him the strength to bitch-slap Risho across the whole damn stadium.
• Zatch Bell!: A common occurrence.
  • In Chapter 36, the first time that Gash/Zatch meets Tio/Tia and Megumi is the same time that Mars/Maruss tracks them down. With Tio mostly being a Barrier Warrior and Mars being an Extra-ore-dinary fighter and a former friend, the battle ends fast...up until Gash returns with his partner Kiyomaro/Kiyo in tow and sends them flying with a burst of lightning and take them down from there.
  • In Chapter 67, Gash and Kiyomaro run into a tag team at an amusement park, and with it being four on two, the odds aren't in their favor. In the next chapter, when Kiyomaro realizes this, he shoots lightning into the sky, alerting Tio and Megumi to their situation. The pair of them arrive just in time to save them and turn the battle around.
  • In Chapter 104, Patie/Penny comes after Gash and Kiyomaro for her ill-conceived revenge with three Thousand-Year-Old Demons/Ancient Mamodo to fight for her. Gash and Kiyomaro fend them off for three chapters before getting overwhelmed, but once again, this time thanks to Dr. Riddles tipping them off, Tio and Megumi arrive just in time, and their new spells turn the tide, forcing Patie to retreat.
  • In Chapter 142, Zofis has just burned the book of Pamoon, one of his elite minions whom Gash talked into a Heel–Face Turn, and fed up with their interference, Zofis musters all of his remaining minions to go up against them, no fewer than thirty. With Gash and Umagon/Ponygon burnt out from fighting Pamoon, they're as good as doomed...right up until Brago and Sherry show up and flatten said minions. Literally.
  • In Chapter 151, right after Kiyomaro's failed gambit against Demolt (thanks to the magic stone above his head instantly reversing all damage), the giant is about to finish them off. Then Patie comes in, fresh off her Heel Realization, and fends him off.
    • The next chapter, Byonko saves Patie when he shows off his spells for the first time...and knocks Demolt back with one punch.
  • In Chapter 170, Earth/Arth and Elly come to destroy Gash's book and nearly succeed. But their new friend Ted, who heard Earth's arrival, arrives just in time to stop them and take over the battle.
  • In Chapter 208, four people have been cursed to die if Faudo's seal isn't broken by sunrise. At the crack of dawn, ten demons are assembled to use their strongest spells...but it takes twelve to break the lock. At the last possible moment, Earth and Gash arrive and use their powers to destroy the seal, releasing Faudo and breaking the curse.
  • In Chapter 263, Gash has just fallen to Zeon/Zeno, and nobody else is still around who can match Zeon in a straight-up battle. As the heroes need to get away to heal Gash, Papipurio launches a smokescreen to help them and, more blatantly, Cherish and Nicole use their new sniping spell to attract Zeon's attention. And two chapters later, it turns out she had a bigger gambit planned: luring Zeon away from his psychic partner so that the latter couldn't warn him about her sniping the restraints off of Gash's captive allies.
  • In Chapter 261, the series' final Big Bad, Clear Note, begins curb-stomping Brago. Two chapters later, after Clear seemingly delivers the coup de grâce, it turns out that the dragon demon Ashuron arrived just in time to shield them.
  • In Chapter 316, Clear Note's final form is impossible to defeat, but Gash and Kiyomaro refuse to give up. Their willpower and thoughts of the ones that they're fighting to protect strengthen their spellbook enough that the spirits of the ones that they're protecting pull this trope, lending Gash and Kiyomaro their strength for the next three chapters and ultimately giving them the strength to destroy Clear.
• Zombie Land Saga:
  • In episode 3, Ai and Junko, finally snapping out of a two-episode-long funk, come in at the last minute to save Franchouchou's performance after an almost-disastrous slip-up.
  • In ''Revenge'' episode 9, Yugiri saves Kiichi from a lethal sword-strike by Itou.

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