Determinator / Anime & Manga

aka: Anime

Let's just get this out of the way — many anime and manga, especially of the Shōnen and Seinen variety, have protagonists like this.

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Anime and Manga having their own pages:

• Dragon Ball
• Naruto

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Bleach

• Bleach:
  • Ichigo seems to need to get beaten to within an inch of his life before he can call on his true power. When the Big Bad tried to split him in half, the wound only reached the spine. Aizen commented that it was Ichigo's will to live that was keeping him conscious and alert when he should have been dead. At one point, he gets a hole blown in his chest, and it was stated to be unhealable. He gets better.
  • Chad attacks and attacks Kyoraku, who is much faster and stronger than him. Even though he never hits him, Kyoraku is very impressed by Sado's determination. Also, when Sado is badly cut by Nnoitra, he still continues his fight until he loses his consciousness.
  • Kenpachi doesn't think death is an excuse for losing a fight. He lives by the code that anyone who wants to give up with an "honorable death," instead of fighting on to MAKE what you want happen, is just a whiny little bitch. It's eventually confirmed that he needs to be brought to the verge of death to grow stronger.
  • Renji during his battle against Byakuya. After being cut over a thousand times by his opponent's Bankai and being cut again by some thrown swords, he still continues his battle and attacks him with his sword and reaches him. The blade of Renji's sword falls apart before it could pierce through Byakuya, but he still hits him with it, and then falls unconscious. Highly impressed by Renji's willpower, Byakuya appreciates this by throwing his incredibly expensive scarf at him to show his respect.
  • Rukia during her battle against Aaroniero. At the edge of death, being pierced through her chest by a trident doesn't stop her from killing him.
  • Byakuya is willing to cut his own tendons and keep fighting with only one functioning arm and leg. He went through hell to both defend Rukia's execution from Ichigo and then protect her life from the Big Bad, due to conflicting vows he'd made to uphold the law and protect her life. When brainwashed into believing a villain was his mentor figure, Byakuya still resisted the brainwashing purely because it didn't change the fact the villain was an enemy of Ichigo's.
  • Grimmjow doesn't give up on continuing his battle against Ichigo, despite him having already technically lost. Badly injured, reverted back to his weaker form, he still tries to attack Ichigo. Until Nnoitra attacks him with his big freaking weapon. Grimmjow survives.
  • Nnoitra himself as well. Due to his nature as a Blood Knight Death Seeker, he won't stop attacking his opponent until one of them dies. He's scared from Kenpachi several times during the battle, but it doesn't prevent him from attacking his enemy. Just telling this Espada that the fight is over and walking away, after you just cut four of his six hands off (in the manga) and sliced him from his shoulder to his chest, just pushes Nnoitra's Berserk Button.
  • Yumichika doesn't use his zanpakutou's power in battle. He would rather die than have his division find out what he's capable of. As a result, he pretends to activate his power and then simply fights on sheer willpower alone.
  • Baraggan, even when he's dying and his body is dissolving away, still tries to kill Aizen by throwing his axe at him.
  • Sui-Feng loses her left arm to Baraggan, but that doesn't make her surrender. She even uses her Bankai twice, despite her limit being once in three days.

One Piece

• One Piece:
  • Luffy...just...LUFFY. Sure, he's the title character and thereby required to win in the end, but he's gotten his ass handed to him multiple times, and all of those times he's pulled himself out through sheer willpower. During his third fight with Crocodile, he got injected with a poison that could MELT SOLID ROCK, collapsed from it, and then got back up again after he should have been long dead. Not to mention, he took Lucci's most powerful attack at point blank range that damaged him INTERNALLY and even then, he refused to let himself even touch the ground!
    Zeff "I've seen one or two like him before. Stubborn brats who'd rather die then turn their back on a fight once it starts...I'm glad he's on OUR side because people like that are hell to fight."
  • This trait of Luffy's is eventually deconstructed in the Impel Down/Whitebeard War arc. His determination to save Ace is so great that he travels to Impel Down where he is curb stomped by the warden, goes through a procedure that shaves off some of his life span, receives a temporary adrenaline superboost, has to claw his way out of the prison after missing Ace, then travels to Marineford, where an armada awaits. He has to fight through the Marines, including the Three Admirals, the Fleet Admiral, the Seven Warlords of the Sea, and his own grandfather. And despite all the obstacles he has to push through, he still didn't save Ace!
    • Well, technically he did, but Ace pulls a heroic sacrifice to save Luffy instead.
    • And then it gets reconstructed, because Luffy's ultimate response to the whole situation is simple: Get stronger. And he does. Now, he really does have the power to back up his words.
  • One of Luffy's greatest feats of determination was during the climax of the Fish-Man Island arc. After defeating Hody Jones, Luffy took on the task of destroying Noah, a ship that was sinking towards Fish-Man Island, which was surrounded by a giant bubble. If said bubble pops, the entire island and the people on it would be completely wiped out. Anyway, Luffy uses Gear Third with both fists infused with Haki to try to smash Noah into pieces, all while blood gushes out of a shark bite wound he received from his fight with Hody. He manages to destroy half of Noah. To put this in perspective, Noah isn't your average sized ship. It's so huge that it was designed to be pulled by several Sea Kings at once! Thanks to Princess Shirahoshi, she unknowingly summoned a couple of Sea Kings that stopped the ship from sinking, saving Luffy's life. Even if they didn't show up, Luffy would have continued his giant ship smashing barrage, despite his severe blood loss and fatigue. Two of the Sea Kings put it best after all was said and done:
    Sea King #1: "Boy, what a human!"
    Sea King #2: "He is a very strong one, isn't he?"
  • Another simple, yet scary instance is during his second round against Kaido, after entering Gear 5. He's still growing accustomed to his highly-taxing new form, which runs out and causes him to collapse midway through the fight. After Kaido reassures Luffy that the story of their fight will be told after the latter's death, Luffy counters that going down in history is meaningless if he doesn't achieve his goal, then wills himself back into Gear 5 just to beat Kaido and prove his point.
  • When Hannyabal is faced with Luffy and his group of extremely powerful prison escapees, he takes several attacks from Luffy's Gear Second form (including Gomu Gomu no Jet Gatling, the attack that beat Rob Lucci) and keeps going, refusing to let Luffy leave despite having no Devil Fruit abilities.
  • Usopp; not only is he the weakest member of the Straw Hats (and according to Word of God, will always be the weakest, no matter what), he is completely normal. No Devil Fruit. No Haki until Dressrosa where he discovers unconscious Observation Haki. No Charles Atlas Super Power. Completely. Effing. Normal. He survived a 4-ton bat to the face, multiple explosions, having almost every bone in his body shattered, and got up to continue the fight, winning through cleverness and sheer determination. This after traveling through the desert for several days (admittedly, so had the others).
    • He is a Charles Atlas Super Power after his 2 years training for the New World, he's just still the weakest member of the crew.
  • No one who's traveled the Grand Line for this long can be considered normal, though. Usopp and Nami are at least Badass Normal from sheer experience alone.
  • As of the latest chapters, we now know why Whitebeard is known as the World's Strongest Man. Even though he's been stabbed and slashed 267 times, filled with over 560 bullets, hit by 46 cannonballs, and having half his damn face melted off, he continued to mow down everything in his path, only stopping when he dies standing up.
    And in testament to his pride, upon the back of his body, throughout his entire life as a pirate, there was not even a single wound telling of displays of cowardice.
  • Most people who carry the "Will of D." would probably qualify as Determinators as well (or is it "D.terminators"?).
  • Trafalgar Law. He devised a plan over 13 years to take revenge on Doflamingo for the death of late father-figure Corazon. When the plan failed, he met Doflamingo in a battle that leads to having his arm severed but still wanting to finish off Doflamingo personally in a failed attack. When Luffy took over the fight, Law remained at the site, determined to observe the outcome and meet the consequences of victory or death.
  • Zoro. Good God, Zoro. This man has experienced every form of bodily trauma just short of decapitation. You name it: slashed, stabbed, burned, exploded, crushed, bludgeoned, buzz-sawed, took in a pure distillation of pain. He is the poster-child of Overdrawn at the Blood Bank. At one point, when his leg is trapped during a fight, he decides cutting off his own leg to keep fighting is a perfectly rational thing to do. Nothing stops this man. He doesn't even have any powers, like Haki^SpoilerUPDATE: Zoro can now use Haki after the Time Skip, so he's even more formidable now! or a Devil Fruit. He's just that tough.
  • Sakazuki is a great villainous example of this trope. After being handed a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by the World's Strongest Man, he was presumed dead by many both in-universe and out. Cue shocked faces when he gets up, bleeding from the mouth, and starts wrecking shit with his Magma Man abilities again.
    Sakazuki: "The minute I said 'I'm not letting them get away' ...it means you need to abandon the idea that he's going to survive, shit-for-brains."
  • The Going Merry. Water 7's dreaded Aqua Laguna and a violent rainstorm didn't stop her from coming to her crew's rescue in Enies Lobby despite her physical form being barely held together by Iceburg's temporary fixes. The Buster Call fleet comprised of the Marines' most immense and armed-to-the-teeth battleships didn't even make her flinch (not that they managed to hit her in the first place). The only thing that did stop her was her keel (the ship equivalent of the human body's spine) finally giving in to all the damage it sustained over the past several arcs, causing the ship to essentially break in half. Even then, said damage didn't appear to have any effect on Merry until after the Straw Hats had another ship to carry them back to land, suggesting Merry was keeping herself seaworthy through nothing but sheer force of will.

Pokémon

• Pokémon: The Series anime:
  • Ash at full throttle absolutely refuses to go down so easily, no matter how outclassed he knows he is as he doesn't give up on his goal on becoming a Pokémon Master.
  • Ash's Pokémon have taken up on his never giving up persona and would hang in there till the end.
  • May didn't give up on beating Drew as her determination paid off in the Kanto Grand Festival as she used what she learn from both her journeys with her brother and friends to achieve this.
  • Dawn's determination in getting to the finals of the Grand Festival paid off as she was able to make it and got her wish to battle her rival and good friend, Zoey, in it as well.
  • Iris has shows to be determined to prove herself to those around her, which paid off when she became the Champion of Unova.
  • Clemont grew to a strong determined Gym Leader as he uses Ash as his inspiration and will do anything to get his Gym back no matter what it took to do so whenever it was taken from him.
  • Serena grew into this through Ash's motto and encouragement as she hasn't given up on her goal in becoming a great performer one day.
  • Lana shows determination in her fishing as she refuses to back down from tougher catches, such as the Totem Wishiwashi and Kyogre. Also, Lana has grown to not give up in a Pokémon battle until its over.
  • Kiawe doesn't usually go down in a Pokémon battle as he'll hang in their until the end. Also, in Racing to a Big Event!, Kiawe refuses to quit the Pokémon pancake races even though his partner is too heavy for him.
  • Lillie was inspired by Ash to not give up on herself as he got her to find answers to her past in any relation to her fear of touching Pokémon, although she had some help from Nebby as well, and befriending them all over again. Also, in Chasing Memories, Creating Dreams!, Lillie strong desire to see her long lost father again and the advices Ash gave her inspired her to not give up on her Z-Moves as she not only became in sync with Snowy but also perfected it as well.
  • Sophocles would't give up on any contests he participants in as it paid off when he wins. Although, in A Fiery Training Camp Trick!, Sophocles at first thought about giving up when he was training his Z-Moves but seeing how determined his Vikavolt was shook those doubts off and decided to not quit on perfecting it and himself. With Kiawe's help and everything he been through with Vikavolt, Sophocles determinedly perfect his Z-Moves and gave his confidences a boast.
  • Mallow would't give up on making a signature dish for her families restaurant. However, in A Recipe for Success!, Mallow went through some self doubts when she was helping at Oranguru's place but regained her determination when her Pokémon friends gave her the encouragement to not give up on helping the customers and herself. Although, in Battling Besties!, during her battle with Lana at the Pokémon League, Mallow thought about forfeiting as she knew she could't win and was concern about Tsareena. However, seeing that her partner refuses to back down and hearing Lana's words of encouragement, Mallow not only decided to not give up until the battle was finished but also perfect her Z-Moves.
  • Goh spent four years of his life finding Mew in hopes of catching it as his first Pokémon. However, despite not getting what he originally wanted, Goh hasn't given up on getting Mew as he decided to catch all the other Pokémon first then work his way back to it.
  • The Team Rocket trio. Hell, they friggin' follow Ash EVERYWHERE, from the Kanto region to Sinnoh and appear in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE except the first, 99% of the time ending in them getting their asses handed to them and flying off into space AND THEY STILL COME BACK FOR MORE. Not even Ash becoming the #1 trainer in the world after beating Leon has deterred them in the slightest - in fact, it just makes them that much more adamant on on capturing his Pokemon.
    • In the Advanced Generation series this trait was Flanderized even further. Their inability to recognise any target as too big or too dangerous can be somewhat awe-inspiring. Consider their attempt to catch Kyogre, the Legendary Creator of the Sea:
      "I hope you have a plan."
      "Of course I do... we'll catch it in a net!"
    • However, this waters down a bit in Best Wishes, where the trio leaves Ash alone in favor of getting a special mission from their boss. They still come around to bother Ash from time to time when Giovanni leaves them to their own devices, though.
  • Lysandre. He'll stop at nothing to achieve his vision of a perfect world. Even when taking on two Lumiose Conference finalists, eight Gym Leaders, an Elite Four member, a regional Professor, and two regional Champions all at once, he refuses to admit defeat. It takes Zygard Complete Forme to finally take him out, and even as he seemingly dies, he still won't admit he lost.
• Pokémon Adventures:
  • Gold. Kick his ass multiple times? Doesn't matter. He'll still try to fight you.
  • Pearl is one too. It helps that he's closely associated with Azelf, the Pokemon of Willpower.
• Hareta from Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl Adventure!. No matter how much you beat him, he'll come back with a grin and a renewed determination to train harder and fight better. And no matter how many threats you make against him, his friends, or any Pokémon, he'll be doubly determined to stop you.

Other series

• Retsuko (at least in the TBS version) thanks to her love of death metal: No matter how bad a day at work she's had or how many annoyances she's had to put up with, she can just sing about what annoyed her and come back to work the next day with renewed resolve.
• Ah... and Mm... Are All She Says: Toda, who is determined enough to make eromanga that she dropped out of high school and left her family unannounced to move to Tokyo with little money in her pocket.
• Ah! My Goddess: Lind. Most goddesses faint due to the sheer feeling of loss and shock when their Angel is ripped out of them, but when confronted with the fact that the angel eater has latched onto her own angel, what does she do? Why, rip her own angel out. Granted that she had a second angel, but she gives that away to Keiichi to a last minute gambit to defeat said Angel Eater. And when later confronted with a possessed Belldandy during the same arc, she tells her allies (one of whom still had her remaining angel) to deal with the Angel Eater and leave demon-Bell to her, all the while knowing that the only way that she could do this was to use booster patches that would eventually leave her unable to fight ever again.
• Airmaster: Sakamoto Julietta In one fight he gets his both legs and right arm broken, and yet he still stands up and attacks his opponent with his left arm... and then a kick. The referee decides that the match ends in a draw (as both are unable to move at the end) though some spectators disagreed as he has fallen a bit latter.
  • What was his motivation for all this? He wanted to go to his beloved girl.
  • But that's not the end. His friend, after the fight, takes him to his daughter's (aka The Main Heroine's) apartment (Said daughter is mentioned love interest.). Before leaving he renders him unconscious with a choke hold. But the moment Sakamoto hears her voice he gets on his feet. Poor girl attacks him repeatedly (and she is a fighter herself), but he goes down only after a precise kick.
• Akagi pursues outrageous, life-threatening gambles with absolute determination. Part of it is due to completely trusting in his abilities (which would already qualify him for this trope), but his total disregard for the possible consequences of failures even when large amounts of luck are needed has forced every single character, including a batshit insane serial-killer, to call him "a devil" and "a lunatic with a deathwish".
• Ao in Asteroid in Love, after she Grew a Spine during the third volume. Her rather audacious plan to go to Ishigaki Island on her own and door-crash herself to be an observer at the Shiny Star Challenge makes a few other characters to comment her as being "stubborn" and "gutsy".
• The whole cast of Astra Lost in Space could qualify, but Kanata in particular, thanks to surviving a harrowing disaster that included the death of his teacher, has grown averse to hopelessness.
• Eren Yeager in Attack on Titan. In a bit of a deconstruction, his refusal to give up nearly gets him killed during his first Titan battle. In a bit of a reconstruction, that same refusal to give up activates his Titan shifter powers, saving his life.
  • This is also shown to be the case with Child Soldier Gabi Braun, who won't let her hometown being destroyed and two of her good friends being killed stop her from chasing after the enemy... and ultimately ending up in their airship — where she shoots Sasha. Her companion Falco is less of a determinator, but can still keep up with her.
  • Eren takes this trope to the extreme by the end of the series, becoming single-mindedly determined in his goal to protect his home, even if that means the death of 80% of the world's population
• Eiichirou in the sports manga Baby Steps shows shades of this early on, as when he can't remember how he made his first "perfect shot" in tennis by accident, he practices for hours against the wall every day until he can duplicate it.
• In Bakuman。, Nobuhiro "Taro Kawaguchi" Mashiro never gave up, continually trying to make another successful series even after his contract expired. His brother, Moritaka's father, finds the idea that he could have been Driven to Suicide, a misconception Moritaka had for years, ridiculous, as he does not believe Nobuhiro was the type to give up.
  • Shujin and Saiko as well; they've perpetually been in Eiji's shadow for 8 years, and yet never given up on firmly taking the number-one spot.
  • Nizuma, too. Whenever it looks like Shujin and Saiko will FINALLY take the commanding lead, that's when he REALLY starts getting interested, and cranks the awesome meter up. The worse the situation, the more determined he is to retain his position.
  • It's even invoked right on the first volume when Moritaka talks to his dad on the phone: he reminds him of Ryoma Sakamoto of Kyojin no Hoshi / Star of the Giants ("If a man should fall, he must fall forward, even if face-first into the mud") and Joe Yabuki (who protagonizes Moritaka's own favorite series).
• Battle Angel Alita:
  • Niz holds "persistence" as his core tenet, and manages to impress the local badass, Sechs, enough to learn what she can from his philosophy. Considering that Sechs had much more combat experience, was more physically capable, was kicking his ass for most of the fight, and on top of that was notorious for ignoring anything apart from a straight-on berserker assault, the mere fact that Niz made such an impression on her was pretty amazing. Then again, remaining standing and not crying or grimacing in pain after your arm, artificial heart, and half of your chest is blown away would probably have an impact on whoever you were fighting.
  • And let's not forget Alita. She's quite the dogged survivor and determined fighter -she has even survived war on Mars, being sentenced to dying in outer space two hundred years before the events of Battle Angel Alita, nearly getting mashed and thrown to the garbage on Chief Bigot's order, being blown apart by Desty Nova, and, depending on whether you're reading Last Order or the ending of the first Battle Angel Alita, fusing with the Ladder or being entirely destroyed at the nano-level while looking for the fata morgana. On top of all the more 'regular' fighting and danger, which include the destruction of several of her cyborg bodies. And let's not forget that *just* achieving the Panzer Kunst and the whole training around it is a feat in itself.
• Berserk: Guts is a pure example of this trope. No matter how hellish his life is, no matter how many soldiers he faces, no matter how large and invincible the demons he fights are, no matter how seemingly impossible his goals are, he will simply not give up! It probably helps that he knows what will happen to him if he dies, and that he needs to complete his revenge against Griffith before he gets taken out.
  • There are numerous examples of that in the manga. Just to make two examples, Guts chisels off his own arm with a broken sword to free himself from a demon's jaws during the Eclipse where he is made a sacrifice. Later on, he gets both his legs and his arms (the remaining one and the artificial one) broken with ease by the God Hand, a group of 5 major demons that are actual gods of evil, and he, despite the obvious difference of strength that makes him look like an ant confronting an atomic bomb, rises back to his feet and uses HIS TEETH to swing his humongous sword, the Dragonslayer.
  • There is also a lot of emotional drive behind Guts' determination. Perhaps the saddest example came during the Eclipse, when Guts sees Casca, his lover, about to get the, ah, tentacle treatment by a mess of demons, starts to go into a Foe-Tossing Charge to get to her, gets his arm nommed by a demon with a set of impressive choppers, then hacks off that arm we were talking about when Femto starts raping her, and then continues his rampage to try and save her... But it was all in vain. But even after he gets dogpiled, Guts is still trying to get to her by trying to force himself up from beneath the demons on his bloody stump of an arm which evidently causes one of the demon's talons to claw out his eye. After all of that occurred, Guts not only remains a determinator to ensure his own survival, but also Casca's survival, since if he dies, she also dies.
  • Guts was a determinator even as a baby! Guts was born after his mother was hung from a tree, and despite being exposed to the elements for who knows how long before a band of mercenaries found him, he absolutely refused to die. He's been fighting for survival his entire life.
• Black Clover's Asta thrives on determination. No matter how many times he gets knocked down, or put down by the elite, he refuses to give up and will keep on fighting. According to him, even with no magical prowess, and instead having anti-magic, his "magic" is never giving up.
• Black Lagoon: Roberta. Terminator jokes are made, but saying them will be regretted to a point where any Shounen protagonist you want elected for this trope should just step aside.
  • The "Goat, Jihad, Rock N' Roll" arc has Masahiro Takenaka, a somewhat unusual example. He has been a Terrorist Without A Cause for well over 20 years and has lived through innumerable setbacks and conceded a lot because being an enemy of the state is the only thing he finds meaning in. In his own words, he is willing to concede battles but never the fight itself.
• Blame!: Killy. Broken arm? Use the other one. Three-fourths of your body incinerated? Grow a new one. Half of your skull blown off? Just shoot back. Seriously, there is nothing that can stop this killing machine. Now add in the fact that his quest takes 3,000 years to complete, during which he does not complain or quit once. Furthermore, he walks through the majority of The City, which a growing Dyson sphere roughly the size of Jupiter's orbit.
• In Brave10, although the quality is generally shared among the Braves, there are two standouts:
  • Saizo, who has been curbstomped and left cut up and bleeding countless times against Hanzo (as well as a few others), and still stands up and fights rather than staying down for count.
  • Rokuro, who doesn't fight very often and is Weak, but Skilled, meaning it's very easy to get him down if you land your blow, but nothing will stop him standing up again if the threat's not over. You can stab out his eye, it's okay, he'll replace it with a magic stone that casts from HP, because when his HP is down to zero, he's just gonna get back up again and keep protecting his lord and kin.
• Buso Renkin: While it is implied that he always had the mental attitude to carry on no matter what, the series justifies protagonist Kazuki's physical ability to do so despite serious wounds due to his Magitek artificial heart granting him greater stamina, and a low level Healing Factor. This even becomes a major plot point in the second half of the series when the kakugane serving as Kazuki's heart is discovered to be a highly dangerous, modified version, which has given Kazuki energy-draining abilities and is slowly turning him into a monster.
• Captain Tsubasa is rife with these. Just to highlight some examples:
  • Tsubasa himself, despite numerous injuries, pulls through the entire middle school tournament to give Nankatsu a third national championship. He does, albeit forcing a tie with Toho in the finals.
  • Kojiro Hyuga, Tsubasa's main rival among Japanese players, is mostly motivated in his matches to provide for his family after his father died, and losing to Tsubasa two years (three counting the elementary school nationals) in a row only strenghened his resolve to finally beat him in his final year in Toho. He succeeds in the finals, albeit with a tie.
  • Jun Misugi, despite suffering of a cardiac illness, is more than willing to put his life on the line for his team, even playing past his daily limit instead of leaving his teammates when they need him.
  • Hikaru Matsuyama. Grew up in Hokkaido, where the weather is harsh to play soccer, but there's no wind too harsh or snow too deep to make him stop.
• Chrono Crusade: Rosette Christopher, in the manga. She'll do anything to get her brother back, going as far as making a Deal with the Devil that would ultimately cost her much of her life to do so. She even comes Back from the Dead, almost entirely by sheer force of will.
• Claymore: Clare is a positively epic Determinator. She can get filled with holes, lose her limbs, knocked down over and over again, and it just. Doesn't. Matter. While considered a Gecko Ending, her climactic battle with Priscilla in the anime is the best example of this.
  • Though, her fight with Priscilla in the manga might be an even better example. When Clare is assumed to have been killed by the Destroyer, she ends up taking control of it and attacking Priscilla. There's a reason quite a few people consider her the Distaff Counterpart of Guts.
• Code Geass: Kallen Kouzuki and Jeremiah Gottwald are competing fiercely for this title, with the former having succeeded in fighting Suzaku to a Combat Breakdown standstill in the Grand Finale, and the latter having survived everything from Kallen blowing his mech to hell to getting hit point blank with an EMP device specifically designed to work on the mineral his later cyborg parts were powered by, and continuing to keep moving by sheer force of will. And what's left of his human muscles, of course.
  • This makes it fitting that the first R2 opening shows Jeremiah while screaming: "I CONTINUE TO FIGHT/FLY!! I CONTINUE TO FIGHT/FLY!!!!"
  • Both Lelouch Lamperouge and Suzaku Kururugi also fit this. Both are determined to, in their own way, to reform and change the world, no matter what lines they have to cross or how much blood they must shed. In the end, both end up deconstructing this as their determination results in a lot of grief to the point they both break by the end, resulting in the Zero Requiem to try to make up for what has been done and truly fix the world.
• Daimos: Kyoshiro constantly mocks Kazuya for wanting to reunite with Erika, as the world keeps doing whatever it can to keep her away from him, but he insists in his regular Hot-Blooded manner that he will find her no matter what.
• Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School has Chiaki Nanami. Her execution involves her powering through a dungeon from hell, avoiding or straight-up tanking death trap after death trap fueled by nothing but the desire to see her friends again. Even when blood loss finally does her in, she goes out stubbornly clinging to life to her last breath.
• Both Light Yagami and L of Death Note are known to be "childish, and hate to lose" and "don't know any limits." Both are convinced that they are in the right and will stop at nothing to prove that their "justice" is correct.
• In Death Parade, a handful of the deceased that visit the Afterlife Antechamber to fight one another in an Absurdly High-Stakes Game behave this way when they find out that that they've died and desperately plead for their lives back, even going so far as to assault the person they're paired with if they think that will get them what they way. Notably:
  • When the young man in Death Billiards (the short precursor to the series) believed he was going to lose to an old man in a game of pool, he immediately attacked him, going so far as to shove him into a large aquarium, shattering the glass in what he thought was a lethal assault, not yet realizing they were both dead.
  • Misaki in episode 4 was so desperate to see her kids again she had no qualms smashing her partner's face into a glass and attempting to assault the man who was there to decide her fate, later begging him to bring her back.
  • Shimada in episodes 8-9 dropped out of high school and got a full-time job, devoting himself to taking care of his little sister after their parents died. After his sister gets assaulted, he makes it his goal to kill the people who hurt her, finding one and getting into a fight that ended up getting him fatally stabbed. He killed her rapist and managed to survive long enough to kill his "accomplice," Tatsumi, who was now his opponent in the game. He proves to remain this way even after death, torturing Tatsumi in a blind rage and giving a creepy laugh as he declares to protect his sister "this time."
• D.Gray-Man:
  • Allen and Lenalee in particular push their Innocence past all reasonable limits, willing to sacrifice themselves in the process to save their friends. Allen also has his promise to Mana to never stop walking the path he's chosen until he dies.
  • The Fourteenth is arguably this too seeing how he devised a way to come back to life just so he could kill the Earl with his "own" hands.
• Denjin N: Despite being shot and his brain in the open, detective Yanagida still tries to destroy Tadahiro to prevent him from escaping by any means necessary, though it proves to be futile.
• Digimon:
  • Tai Kamiya/Taichi Yagami of Digimon Adventure, BIG TIME!
  • Digimon Adventure 02: Daisuke/Davis Motomiya - "No! I'll never retreat! Not as long as there's a fighting chance! I've never quit before, and I'm not going to start now!"
  • Impmon of Digimon Tamers survives literally getting curb-stomped and thrown in lava through sheer stubborness, and is incredibly durable as Beelzemon. He also digivolved into Beelzemon Blast Mode with just his willpower—no Digimodification, no Calumon, just pure determination to help his friends.
  • Ditto Masaru from Digimon Data Squad for being the first human in the history of the franchise to punch a digimon and do real damage. He does this several times, in fact he broke through a shield made by the god of the digital world (even if it had been weakened) with a punch using his determination
• Taiju and Senku from Dr. STONE are petrified at the start of the series, and manage to stay awake for over 3700 years through sheer force of will. Senku has a super-powered brain and managed to literally count every single second he was petrified, but Taiju just kept thinking about delivering his love confession to Yuzuriha. Every other person on Earth stopped thinking a short time after being petrified, but by remaining conscious for millennia, the duo managed to revive themselves as their bodies started undoing the petrification to create fuel for their brains.
• Dr. STONE reboot: Byakuya is about a sentient robot named Rei who is determined to keep the International Space Station and Earth safe after the astronauts on board return to Earth. Even after centuries (Rei is ignorant about human lifespans and is convinced its creator, Byakuya, is still alive), it keeps on upgrading itself and the space station to prepare for Byakuya's return, and sends messages to Earth using a super-powered lamp.
• Played straight by several characters in Elfen Lied. Nana in particular is on the receiving end of several Curb Stomp Battles, but still gets up for the next one. Bandou doesn't let the loss of his eyes stop him from being one of the biggest badasses in the story. Lucy is this and especially in the manga finale. The Agent demonstrates this in every fight she's in looking for ways to survive and win even in the final scene she's in, trapped in a cave with the Big Bad's daughter, after a brief discussion, she turns to a hulking tumorous mass, and asks if its edible. That last scene Makes Sense In Context.
• In Eureka Seven AO, the Secrets are hellbent on chasing the Scab Coral to whatever timeline and dimension they went in order to eliminate them.
• Eyeshield 21: Subverted. In one early match against the Oujou White Knights, Hiruma stops playing because he realizes Deimon's chances for victory have reached 0%, although he is willing to keep playing in any other match as long as his team's chances for winning are even marginally greater than nil. In recent chapters, he's gone from being a subversion to almost an embodiment of sheer determinatorism: He plays half a game with a broken arm and apparently heals it in less than a month by willpower alone. Well, willpower and his oxygen tank/segway. Hahahaha.
  • Then there's Yukimitsu Manabu, who has more determination than any of the other Devil Bats, and managed to overcome Agon in the game with the Shinryuuji Nagas. Ojou's Sakuraba and Takami both elevated themselves into great players by never giving up; Takami, particularly, had to overcome a lack of speed that many said killed his chances of being a quarterback. He compensated by practicing the living Hell out of throwing until there wasn't a more precise QB in the country. Monta managed to overcome the Nagas' catching ace, as well. Because catching is all he's good at, he's vowed to become the number one catcher in the world if it kills him. Interestingly, characters who started out hearing threats of "do it, or I'll kill you!" (Sena, Monta, the Ha Ha brothers, etc.), end up deciding for themselves "I'll do it even if it kills me!"
  • Riku from the Seibu Gunmans. After Kid and Tetsuma are benched due to injuries from Gaou, Riku refused to throw the towel and continued to play even when his team is painfully aware they are going to lose.
• In Fairy Tail, pretty much everybody from the eponymous guild is a Determinator. Natsu and Erza in particular stand out for taking the determinator status to ludicrous levels.
• Fist of the North Star:
  • Juuza and Fudo definitely exhibit this in their respective fights against Raoh. Despite all the punishment they're put through, they absolutely refuse to surrender. At points in both fights, Raoh specifically states they should have already died from their injuries, yet they continue to fight on, even in death.
  • Also, Rei. He had to kill Yuda, but due his earlier fight with Raoh he was dying and in horrible pain. And he soldiered on. But Yuda was still running, so he had Toki treat him in a way that could extend his life for a while... Assuming he survived the horrible pain, ten times worse than what he had experienced from Raoh's attack and concentrated in a few minutes. He survived (even if his hair went white from the pain), and continued fighting, living until he had killed Yuda (and doing so in spite of Yuda flooding the town to rearrange the battlefield).
• Freezing: Satellizer L. Bridget is a true female pinnacle of this trope. Because of her late mother's dying wish, she refuses to give up in any situation and refuses to be bossed around by anyone. Even with her body paralyzed or brutally maimed, or even after having her throat slit, she will not give up. She has pushed her will so high that she defeated a superior opponent while unconscious (she has "dead eyes" during the latter stage of the fight).
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Edward. OH SO MUCH. Not one injury he receives during the entire series is enough to make him give up on a fight. Ever. Special mention for his final fight with Pride. The one where he invaded Pride's philosopher's stone to make him stop trying to possess him, while Pride was pulling a Grand Theft Me via shadow tentacles burrowing into his skin.
  • Mustang has to endure the loss of his best friend, the crippling of one of his best men, having the rest of his most trusted men reassigned all across the country by Fuhrer Bradley as punishment for sticking his nose where it doesn't belong, and having his eyesight forcibly removed by Truth for a human transformation he didn't initiate. And he still keeps on trucking right through the final battle.
  • Lan Fan also deserves special mention. She is one of those people willing to cut her own arm off for the cause, and does not give up on the Young Master even after he is turned into a homunculus. She went through automail rehabilitation (this normally takes upwards of two to three years) in six months, cutting Ed's record of one year in half.
  • Let's not forget Kimbley. They guy got his soul added to Pride's Philosopher Stone and is essentially dead. Then, when Ed is in the final fight with Pride, Kimbley's soul emerges from the legions of other souls to stop Pride because he had lost his fierce pride by trying to take over Ed and thus lost the fight in Kimbley's eyes.
  • And, of course, King Bradley/Wrath. Over the course of a few hours, he gets stabbed through the stomach, gets his eye torn out, is shot, falls multiple stories, is shot again, gets his arms blown up, and still keeps fighting by holding his blade in his teeth. Say what you want about Bradley, but he has absolutely no quit in him.
• Akise Aru of Future Diary. In Chapter 51, he is stabbed and slashed in the neck by Yuno. Knowing that he's pretty much screwed, he decides to give Yukiteru a final warning about Yuno by texting it into his cell, running up a hill, and shoving the message in his face. And so he does. AFTER BEING DECAPITATED.
• Some of the racers in Future GPX Cyber Formula are this, but the biggest one of all is the protagonist, Hayato. He has a "hate-to-give-up" mentality that gets him out in most situations.
  • Shinjyo also has his moments. In episode 32, near the end of the African GP, his Fire Superion has stopped running when it runs out of gas as the car is about to cross the finish line. So he gets out and he pushes his car into the finish line. He learned this trick from his F3 days, when his car also stopped.
• Gantz: Katou Masaru is a determinator All-Loving Hero, of the "Leave no man behind!" and "There is no 'Combat Ineffective' in 'Sudden Battlefield Limb Amputation'!" variety. In one case he beats an unstoppable alien demigod equipping his own severed arm, and in another he crawls over to a BFG, props himself up on his bleeding leg-stumps, and cuts loose on yet another unstoppable alien demigod. His favored tactic? Talking people down. And he's not even the main character. Main character Kei Kuruno isn't far behind, except for the All-Loving Hero thing at the beginning.
• GaoGaiGar: The Gutsy Geoid Guard actually had written into their bylaws (Called the "Oath Sworn through Courage") : "Article 5, Section 120: ...Under no circumstances must a GGG member ever give up."
  • ChoRyuJin is even more determined than Guy to fight on. Even the end of the (prehistoric) world will not stop him.
  • But even ChoRyuJin faltered before the might of the Sol Masters in FINAL. In the darkest hour of the final battle, with the Brave Robot Corps in pieces and Guy seemingly defeated by Palparepa, it was Mamoru, alone and armed only with his purification abilities, who refused to surrender in the face of Pei La Cain's superior firepower. It was Mamoru's unflagging courage that empowered the G-Stones of the Brave Robot Corps via the "all G-Stones are connected" reveal moments later, giving 3G's warriors the strength to come back from defeat one last time and blast the Sol Masters to kingdom come.
• Gintama: Pretty much all characters in main cast have their moments, but the all-out Determinator has to be Gintoki. When things get serious, he shows this more focused side of his. Not very surprising, since he is the protagonist of shounen series.
• Great Teacher Onizuka embodies this trope. The best example is when Onizuka has to substain a student national examination to avoid forced resignation, and he manages to rescue a girl in danger from a dozen yakuzas, armed with guns, just with bare fists, then he arrives to the 5-hours exam 4 hours late and he does it in 1 hour. After completing it, he passes out and the other characters realize that he took the exam WITH 4 BULLETS IN HIS STOMACH.
• La Seine No Hoshi: Milan never stopped protesting for better rights for the commoners, even after he was sent to the Bastille prison for his revolutionary activities and had to flee to America to evade further prosecution. When he's back in France, he once again leads an uprising of civilians ready to take on Marie Antoinette and the other nobles, this time actually successful.
• Gundam has a bunch of 'em.
  • Domon Kasshu of the Mobile Fighter G Gundam is probably the best example, but in G your fighting spirit is your most powerful weapon anyway. Sai Saici deserves a special mention for continuing to fight after his Gundam's arms were ripped off. Keep in mind that Gundams in this show work through transmitting the pilot's movements directly to the machine—so Sai Saici actually felt like his own arms were severed.
  • Gundam 00's Determinator surely is... Patrick 'the Immortal' Colasaur unwilling to stop fighting Gundams (and for his love interest) no matter how often he gets shot down. Though, there is Graham Acre (aka Mr Bushido) who keeps fighting up to the point where he 'overcomes reasoning with his recklessness' - and it works. Also, Setsuna. Most people who experienced his childhood would have suffered from massive PTSD for the rest of their lives, but he is able to break away from his past and start looking towards the future through sheer determination. This trope is also the leading cause of Setsuna Taking Many Levels in Badass throughout the series, not least of which is when he activates the Trans-Am Burst on 00 Raiser while screaming "Everyone's lives are fading away...I...am NOT GONNA LET THAT HAPPEN!"
  • Garrod Ran from Gundam X is another example. This trope is the entire reason why Garrod is able to debunk Newtype prophecies again and again. D.O.M.E. even says this outright in the final episode.
  • Heero Yuy of Gundam Wing. Shoot him, blow him up, he's gonna complete his mission even if it kills him. Though that's pretty unlikely, even he can't manage to kill himself. He screams "I WILL SURVIVE!" as Wing Gundam Zero literally dissolves around him, re-entering the Earth's atmosphere unshielded and backwards, in the series finale. In Super Robot Wars W the only way to fire the two cannons at the same time is by that method.
  • Amuro of the original Mobile Suit Gundam certainly qualifies, especially in later entries. He's the one UC protagonist to keep returning to the battlefield, war after war, even when it's not required of him, and even though he's suffered a great deal psychologically. He's had a few moments where the stress of battle has gotten to be too much, but he always comes back eventually. The first thing he does after coming out of a 10-Minute Retirement in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is fly a plane into an enemy mobile suit during the middle of a battle. In fact, his final act in the UC continuity is to push an entire asteroid out of Earth's orbit. His resolve prompts even Char to call him crazy... but it works.
  • This trope is discussed in Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE concerning Captain Zeon and Kazami. Kazami is a major fan of Captain Zeon because he believes he is an Invincible Hero. As such, he refuses to watch videos where it seems that Zeon is losing against a foe and this bleeds into Kazami's fighting style - he tries to be the same type of character he sees him to be and gets trashed humorously. However, what Kazami misses is that Zeon's popularity comes from this trope as he refuses to give up, even when things look bleak. He ultimately learns that when he sees the conclusion of a video he watched but paused in disgust, showing this trope and The Power of Friendship in action.
• Guyver: Sho Fukamachi, unlike many of these heroes listed, does not seem to be very strong willed, that is until his friends and family are threatened. He frequently suffers from some of the most horrible injuries, including limbs being torn off, getting impaled, his skull smashed open, and even melting and dying (thankfully the Guyver can regenerate), but he always keeps fighting. In his rematch with Aptom, he manages to get over the trauma of killing his father to bio-boost again and save Mizuki, and he wills his megasmasher to open and fire when his arms are disabled. Much later, Sho fights for control of the Gigantic from Agito, The Ace, and wins through his sheer will power. This is notable because Agito himself is also quite the determinator who will do anything to win.
• Gyakkyou Nine: Fukutsu Toshi's name literally translates to "Indomitable Determination." Being a Kazuhiko Shimamoto character, he is a walking inferno of hot blood and believes that with determination, his baseball team can achieve anything.
• Being about sports, Haikyuu!! puts a lot of emphasis on not giving up until the game is over, meaning that many characters qualify during individual matches or situations. However, some examples are especially prominent and are exhibited outside of actual games:
  • Main protagonist and Stock Shōnen Hero Shoyo Hinata, whose dedication makes up for lack of experience and his natural disadvantage of being much shorter than average for his position.
  • Toru Oikawa, who, unlike Hinata, is not particularly talented in any way, and trains somewhat obsessively to be able to do anything special. He is also shown going to ridiculous lengths during games, like running off the court, and knocking/tripping over tables to receive a ball that went out of bounds.
• Hajime no Ippo: Virtually every boxer Ippo faces shows a will of steel and Heroic Resolve. The "determination" is even commonly seen as a green flame in the eyes of the person. However, the title of Determinator must go to Takeshi Sendo who, in one fight, after fracturing several ribs, not only fights savagely for a whole 'nother round, but after being brutally KO'd (and shattering two ribs in the process) he stands up, simply refuses to let his body go unconcious just so he could stare directly into Ippo's face and later walks out unassisted.
  • And Date Eiji, who kept fighting with a broken rib, fist and jaw against the world champion.
  • An interesting variant is Ichirou Miyata, who combines a will of steel with low stamina and durability. He really can't take much and his weight management makes his stamina even worse, but he just won't give up regardless.
• Clover/Chima from Happy Happy Clover is hyperactive and optimistic. However when she first meet Rambler, she dreams of wanting to go exploring with him.◊ Throught the manga, she would constantly ask him the same question, and he would mostly say no. Since he tells her she's too young and it's dangerous. She would sometimes not take his answer very well◊. But even if he says no, she still won't give up very easily. Rambler and Cinnamon's Sister would mostly say she's "Stubborn" but she would tell them that she doesn't give up easily.◊
• Hello Sandybelle:
  • Alec Peterson is determined to show up Sandybell and goes as far as to use dirty tricks to make sure he's a step ahead of her at Longwood Newspapers.
  • Nothing puts down Sandybell when she makes up her mind, and she holds out hope she'll find her mother, even if all she has of her is an Orphan's Plot Trinket.
• Hellsing: Alucard suggests that this is part of the reason why Humanity fascinates him, after Father Alexander Anderson refuses to roll over and give in despite having a partly blown off left arm and being severely outnumbered.
  • A more awesome example is provided by Pip Bernadotte of the Wild Geese: while wounded in the stomach, he cracks a Vampire Nazi over the head with a rifle butt, shoots them (ineffecively) with a pistol several times, then fires smoke grenades for cover, picks up Seras and carries her down the hall while having his legs shot at, whilst he's losing blood from the wound in his stomach, and doesn't stop until Zorin Blitz throws her scythe at him and impales him on it.
  • To its credit, the anime (as opposed to the OVA) depicts a flashback of Integra, aged around 12 or 13, facing down a newly rejuvenated Alucard. Even after he instantly heals the wounds she inflicts with her pistol (and being absolutely horrified of him up to this point, not to mention he's currently right in her face) suddenly CUTS ALUCARD OFF in the middle of his "I am Immune to Bullets" speech, and delivers a kickass speech almost crying Berserker Tears. Amused by this sudden display of spine, Alucard formally recognizes her as her master (and thus the rightful head of the Hellsing Organization).
• Yukino Miyazawa, the protagonist of His and Her Circumstances, is an Attention Whore who wants above all to be praised by others. What makes her a determinator is the lenghts she goes in order to do that, always trying to be the most helpful, beautiful and the best in school and sports.
• Yuu from Holyland. He's a Cowardly Lion through and through, but when the Lion is awake he will force himself to get up from things that are previously shown taking down lesser men and keep going until either him or the opponent is thoroughly down for the count. Things like getting thrown to the concrete by a judoka or being a Groin Attack victim.
• Honey Crush: Mitsu doesn't even let a pesky thing like death stop her from pursuing her love interest. Her unwillingness to ever give up is lampshaded by her rival, Kyouko.
• Hunter × Hunter: Gon makes everyone else look like pansies, mostly because unlike the rest of 'em, he's far from the strongest fish in the pond. This is a trait all Hunters share, since the final exam is to eliminate the least Determinator among them (it's an inverse fighting tournament where the loser moves forward, and the only way you can lose is by admitting defeat—killing an opponent will disqualify you). During this exam, Gon's opponent Hanzo clearly outmatches him, beating him unconscious several times, and breaking his arm. Even after hours of this, he still refuses to surrender. He finally wins as Hanzo realizes that Gon has won him over and that he's not willing to do what it would take to win (actual torture and permanent damage). As soon as he recovers, Gon pulls the same trick again when he's trying to find Killua—each time he crosses the boundary, he's smacked several yards back, but he keeps it going all day long until the person who's smacking him cries out in desperation, eventually persuaded to let him pass. A later arc has him getting his arm blown off—and counting that as a victory because he made his opponent use his special ability. Frankly, Gon's determination (or stubbornness) would probably get any non-protagonist killed within minutes. In the manga, he has gotten even worse since the death of Kaito .
• I Got My Wish and Reincarnated as the Villainess (Last Boss)!: While she did not realize the Sickly Prodigy aspect of her past life, she was already a determined person despite (or maybe because of) her grave health problems, which caused her to spent most of her past life bedridden. This is demonstrated by her explanation to God why she needs no further information about her next life, all while struggling to stand up as her health problems makes it hell on her heart and lungs:
  Elizabeth before reincarnation: If I can get a ticket to a new life, I'll forge my destiny! I'm not too fond of prophecies and predictions, you see! People have been predicting my life expectancy from the moment I was born, and I'm sick of it!^note Doctors initially thought she couldn't live past the age of 3. She made it to 16.
• Protagonists of Inazuma Eleven series are known for being over-the-top Determinators, whose determination is emphasised in the anime of the original games. While Endou Mamoru is already determined enough to make others character develop, Tenma is argubly even more so than him, thanks to his show being a lot darker than Mamoru's, and every member in Zen Raimon, save his best friend, are whinny and useless until Tenma's determination put senses into them.
• Inuyasha:
  • The entire InuYasha-tachi team. InuYasha himself, Sango, Miroku, Kirara, even gentle Kagome and Shippo, who usually plays comic relief. The only time any of them could be said to give up is when Sango thinks Miroku is about to die from his curse. "Take me with you."
  • Kagura, who persisted through the most relentless circumstances, and didn't even let dying bring her down.
  • And Sesshoumaru, who will take anything that's thrown at him and still keep going. Even losing an arm resulting in him shrugging it off with the comment that it benefited him in the long run by making him even stronger than he was before. This culminates in a climactic moment when his enemy stabs him through the chest, cocooning him to absorb him into Naraku's body. Instead of dying, he digs deep for a strength that even he never even knew he possessed.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: This is half the point, for both flavors of 'tagonist. (The other half is being wicked clever bastards.) JJBA fights are traditionally won by the protagonist being put under an ungodly amount of pressure causing him to figure out something completely, well, bizarre and thus turn the tables on the unfortunate villain involved. Or sometimes to just stop time.
  • Deconstructed when Caesar fights Wamuu. After the latter manages to give the former an ungodly beatdown, he turns away before catching the victim out of the corner of his eye, back on his feet and ready for more. Unfortunately, Caesar had lost far too much blood and wasted far too much energy that he wasn't even able to throw any kind of punch with any kind of force behind it, let alone produce a Ripple. So, even though he refused to go down, in the end, standing back up didn't do anything at all. At least his final acts helped his friend Joseph in the end.
  • This is even included as a gameplay element in the Licensed Game All-Star Battle. Once their health has dropped below a certain threshold, certain characters (Giorno, Bucciarati, Mista, Fugo and Ermes) enter "Resolve Mode", which gives them a bunch of advantages. They gain super armor when attacking, they do more damage, and they gain more energy from being damaged.
  • Shigechi from Part 4 not only manages to keep his faculties when fatally wounded by Killer Queen, he retains enough control of his colony Stand Harvest to have one of them find Josuke and Okuyasu despite him being dead at the time.
  • Bruno Bucciarati from Part 5 has one of the greatest Determinator feats in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure when, after being killed by King Crimson he manages to will his soul back into his dead body so he can continue his mission.
• Jubei-chan: Koinosuke survives 300 years by force of will alone to keep searching until he finds the true successor for the Lovely Eyepatch. (He also abandons his wife and daughter to do so, but you don't find that out until later.) It's nearly the last Despair Event Horizon for Jubei when she realizes what he went through to get her something she's done nothing but reject.
• Jujutsu Kaisen: No matter how many dirty tricks Mahito pulls during their fight, Yuji won't stop trying to kill him. At several points Yuji gets his hands and his chest skewered; all this accomplishes is pissing him off as he repeatedly headbutts Mahito's face into a bloody mess.
• The titular character of gambling manga Kaiji's best skill isn't in gambling, but his ability to refuse to back down. He'll crack, he'll break down, but he'll never flat-out give up.
• Karas: Otoha definitely falls into this category. He was "killed" twice in the series that we saw—and both times just pissed him off. And yes, he was in human form both of those times. The second time was stated that Otoha was revived by "the will of the city." It seems whatever entity governs the Karas was so impressed by Otoha's sheer dragging-on-the-ground balls that they refused to give up such a valuable guardian.
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple:
  • Kenichi. His masters are firmly of the opinion that sheer stubbornness is the only reason he survives at all.
  • The same series gives us Akira Hongo, one of the members of the One Shadow Nine Fists group, Sakaki Shio's Rival Turned Evil and a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Standards. Sakaki reveals via flashback that as a young man, and prior to his Face–Heel Turn, Hongo once got shot with a semi-automatic gun and sustained injuries serious enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room; yet he got up and left the hospital on his own power, went to a karate tournament and won even with the severity of his injuries—all because the day before, he declared that he was NOT going to go back on his appointment with said tournament no matter what. That same determination translates in the modern day to him being Impaled with Extreme Prejudice several times in his fight with fellow Nine Fists member Silcardo Junazard and yet not quitting until he himself stabs Junazard through the torso with his injured arm. "I'll be the one to kill you," indeed.
  • And of course let's take a moment to remember the fucking awesome Siegfried. This guy sensed his friends need him (during the middle of his training which consisted of spinning for 40 days straight at this point!) finds and pilots a plane for another three days straight and when he finds his friends, he dives out of the plane amidst missiles and gunfire, singing all the while like the fucking badass he is, lands safely and then proceeds to kick the all mighty hell out of his opponents. Only then does he collapse from the sheer exhaustion of being awake and physically straining himself for forty-three days!!
• Kill la Kill:
  • Satsuki dominates Junketsu, a dangerous monster trying to devour her whole, with sheer force of will. She even manages to achieve its ultimate form, despite having no synchronization with it. It's notable that part of her transformation sequence is "Life Fiber Override."
    Satsuki: ASK NOT THE SPARROW HOW THE EAGLE SOARS!
  • When Satsuki was five years old, her father told her of her mother's plans for world domination, as well as the fact that she had murdered her baby sister. Satsuki spent the next twelve years dedicating her life to vengeance, recruiting the Elite Four — often by impressive shows of will — and building Honnoji Academy as a boot camp to train people to fight Life Fibers.
  • After Ryuko is brainwashed and wears Junketsu herself, Satsuki wears Senketsu to fight her. Despite Senketsu's best efforts, the attempt is unspeakably painful for Satsuki, but she still presses on, mostly as a distraction.
• In Kinnikuman: almost all of the character's qualify. Buffaloman fought Akuma Shogun (The god of evil choujin) for a FUCKING MONTH while Kinnikuman (A determinater in his own right) trained to fight Akuma Shogun. Terryman fought Ashuraman after having literally lost both of his arms, he didn't win, but he still fought Ashuraman hard. He also went up against The Mountain (The heaviest choujin in the series by that point), who not only body splashed him, but also damaged Terryman's already injured leg. Terry come back and beats the Mountain by lifting him over his head and giving him a brainbuster down a casm they were fighting over. When Kinnikuman and Brocken Jr. couldn't find Terryman, they though him dead. Lo and behold, Terry survived the staggering fall. Near the end in the Scramble for the Throne Arc, Robin has to face Mammothman in death match. After Mammothman freezes Robin in an iceberg, Robin bursts out, steals Mamothman's own move, the procedes to give the Rope-work Special, all the while Robin is fading out of existence. Geronimo probably deserves this more title the most. Way back in his first fight with Sunshine, Geronimo's heart stops. Given that he's a regular human being, you'd think that would kill him, but hell no! Geronimo shoves his hand into his own chest and FUCKING MASSAGES HIS OWN HEART UNTIL IT STARTS BEATING AGAIN!
• K-On!: If Yui wants to see something through to the end, she will. Once she sets her focus on something, whether it be her guitar playing or her grades, she won't stop until she excels in it. Her official character bio even mentions how determined and competitive she is.
• In Last Period, Haru apparently failed the Period admittance test 38 times before finally succeeding on his 39th try. Wiseman later identifies his greatest virtue as the fact that no matter how much the odds are stacked against him, no matter how impossible things seem, he just will not quit. Ever.
• The Law of Ueki: Ueki just will not go down until he succeeds, no manner how much damage he takes. His absolute determination is so great that many characters have incredulously asked: "Is this guy immortal?" It helps that he is a cosmic being, albeit still killable, who was raised as a human, but even other cosmic beings are awed at his refusal to go down.
• Lone Wolf and Cub: Ogami Itto. Enough said. Well no, not really. Er... go read the page!
• In The Love and Creed of Sae Maki, Jin refuses to go down after being poisoned by the Mysterious Baron to prevent him from saving Sae. He manages to reach her side only to be violently cast away by his mistress.
• Lupin III:
  • We have Zenigata. Whenever he's chasing Lupin, nothing will stop him. Jailing him? He'll break out to continue the chase. Reassigning him to another case? He'll solve it while still chasing Lupin. Beating the crap out of him? He'll beat you up and continue chasing. A war is closing the border between the country he's in and the one Lupin is going into? We never saw what he did, but he was later seen leading the police of the second country while chasing Lupin. His mortal coil finally gives up the ghost? The instant someone mentions Lupin in the presence of his corpse, he'll drag himself back from the dead to resume the chase.
  • More subtly, we have Lupin III himself: He always gets what he's after. No matter the challenges he has to overcome, they will be left in ruins by the time he's walking away with the treasure.
• The titular character of Lyrical Nanoha is one hell of a determinator. She doesn't give up, even in the face of a Person of Mass Destruction that is clearly more powerful than her. Quite possibly deconstructed in that her constant pushing beyond limits bites her back hard at one point. She later teaches her students not to go down that path.
  • Exemplified in the beginning of the second season. She fights a stronger opponent, gets knocked through a wall and nearly killed outright, is told by her True Companions to stay put, heal up and let them handle the rest, and instead pulls out the biggest spell in her arsenal to end the fight - and manages to cast it despite an enemy mage shoving a teleporting hand through her chest to try and neutralize her.
  • Nanoha's intelligent device Raising Heart also appears to show shades of her master's Determinator traits, especially in the second season when she INSISTED that Nanoha cast Starlight Breaker despite the possibility that she may break completely and during the battle between the Person of Mass Destruction, INSISTED that they use her new form, again despite Nanoha's protests of her possibly breaking.
  • As mentioned above, at one point in her career, Nanoha suffered near fatal injuries, as a result of overexerting herself. Doctors (not earth doctors but Mid-Childian ones) told her that her injuries may lead to the end of her career and a high possibility of losing her ability to walk ever again. Yet she went on to become one of the TSAB's most powerful mages, earning the title of "Ace of Aces." That's right, Nanoha simply refused to go down.
  • Vita is another example. She is quite possibly an even bigger determinator than Nanoha, or at least it looks more impressive since she has insane endurance. Fighting through hordes of combat machines, getting stabbed right through the chest, fighting through more hordes of combat machines for more than half an hour until she arrives at her goal, only to be greeted by automatic defense systems (laser shooting cubes) after her first attack fails. And her only response? "Bring it on.".
    • Then she keeps on fighting until her weapon literally shatters from overuse of her Full Drive and she collapses from the pain and exhaustion. Fortunately, it was enough.
• Magic Knight Rayearth: "Cephiro, the world that is shaped by the strength of the believing heart." And no one, absolutely no one, has a stronger heart than little pint-sized Hikaru Shidou, even when she's torn apart with injuries that would have killed a grown man. It's actually a plot point in the anime's second season, when her loss of will is downright catastrophic for the entire world, and her subsequent recovery makes her virtually omnipotent.
• Alibaba from Magi: Labyrinth of Magic, when he first started to use his Djinn Equip fire power, failed because he couldn't concentrate the flames into his blade enough to summon Amon's sword. When he faces up against a fighter who he absolutely cannot beat without Djinn Equip, he still can't, so he engulfs his entire body in flames to create enough fire to summon the sword, an act which blackens the skin of his sword-wielding arm. He then cuts the fighter in half with once slice. "Set ablaze!" indeed.
• Mazinger Z: Kouji never gives up. Not even when he is going against several Kikaiju at once. Not even when the Robeast is completely impervious to his Humongous Mecha's attacks. Not even when it has abilities his robot could not match (he faced submarine and flying Kikaiju long before Mazinger got upgraded to be able to fly or swim or got weapons worked under water or in air). Not even when he is buried under rubble. Not even when he gets dumped into a freaking volcano! Not matter the odds, he will think fast, analyze his foe (and its weapons and capabilities), come up with a plan or cheat like crazy.
  • Geez, not even when he KNOWS the fight is utterly hopeless and there is no way to win he will quit. In the last episode of Mazinger Z and in the movie Mazinger Z tai Ankoku Daishogun he deployed Mazinger Z as stating he was not walking alive out of that battle and he knew that... but he did not care.
  • The only way you can get him stopping to fight is holding someone hostage. And even then he will try to exploit any edge to release the hostage and giving you a sound trashing.
  • Great Mazinger: Tetsuya is even greater of a The Determinator than Kouji. Not matter how hurt he is or how badly damaged Great Mazinger is, he will NEVER give up (because in his mind giving up would mean he would let his surrogate father down).
  • In the Great Mazinger tai Getter movie, the monster Gilgilgan ate Great Mazinger's left fist, shrugged a Breast Burn attack off, reflected a Thunder Break, blew Great Mazinger's right fist up and endured a Navel Missile, melted Great Mazinger's right leg... What did Tetsuya do? He tried to headbutt it. He tried his last weapon -Great Typhoon- and although it had no effect either, he YET refused leaving.
  • A Super Robot Wars Manga plays with it, showing he can not care less if he is outnumbered or hurt.
    Tetsuya: That's right... It's fine if you tell me... to fight... I'll keep answering with the same answer... MAZIN GO...
  • UFO Robo Grendizer: Even though Duke is calmer than his predecessors he is not a quitter, either.
  • In the Go Nagai manga he fought Mazinger and Great Mazinger at once in spite of all told it was crazy and hopeless, and he held his ground and even sliced one Great Mazinger's arm off.
  • And during the first season's two-part finale, Grendizer had been beaten by a pair of giant robots, Duke's nemesis Blacki had taken control of the Science and Space Center and was torturing Dr. Umon, Koji's flying saucer was too damaged to help and Grendizer was forced into hiding. Still, Duke did not give up. When he made his comeback, he engaged in a duel with one of the enemy mechs in a crumbling cave, he leapt up, shot lasers to bore his way back to the surface, decapitated the five-headed mech, and then flied straight at Blacki's command ship in a game of chicken. And he won!
• Medaka Box: Medaka Kurokami is known for pushing through grievous injuries, using conscious control of her body to do such things as force it to move at the speed of sound (despite the fact that this severs tendons in her body), throw a punch with a broken shoulder (by spinning and using core strength), and keeping the blood pumping in her body after her heart was destroyed, which she accomplishes by flexing muscles in the right order to push the blood through her body. She also takes the massive psychological attack known as Book Maker, which forces her to see the world through the eyes of the world's most contemptible loser instead of the world's most successful girl, and is able to keep on fighting.
• Monster: Inspector Lunge obsessively chases Tenma all over Germany trying to get him to confess to the murders that were actually committed by Johan. Nothing — not even his wife and kids leaving him, or losing his job — matters as much as catching Tenma. In a more traditional example, not even being stabbed so badly that he quickly falls unconscious from the blood loss stopped Lunge from trying to smash the windows of Tenma's car in order to catch him.
• My Hero Academia tends to both play it straight and deconstruct it, depending on the situation. Some examples:
  • Played straight: Uraraka going all out during her fight against Bakugou (in the end she collapses from Heroic RRoD, but manages to impress sponsors and land herself some internship offers; also Bakugou considered her a Worthy Opponent); Mirio dedicating his whole life to mastering his Blessed with Suck Quirk and turning it into Difficult, but Awesome power that puts him on the same level as high-ranked Pros, if not higher.
  • Deconstructed: Midoriya (among many, many other cases of wrecking his body for the greater good^note Though it has to be noted that in most of the situations he didn't really have any options other than break his bones yet again; besides, as he's learning to control his power, he at the very least makes attempts to keep his body out of harm's way.) trying to play Warrior Therapist to Todoroki at the cost of his limbs being broken even worse than usual (it leaves him with his right arm permanently disfigured, and Recovery Girl flat-out refuses to heal such injuries again); Iida being hell-bent on going alone after a Serial Killer to avenge his brother (it leaves him with sustained nerve damage in his arm).
  • Zig-zagged with Endeavor. On the downside, his attempts to surpass All Might turned him into a hardened Jerkass and led him to abuse his family in pursuit of an heir who would be strong enough to become the Number One Hero. On the plus side, his refusal to quit means he'll push himself beyond his limits to win the day (such as during his fight against the High End Nomu; Endeavor had almost lost an eye, could barely move, and was running on pure adrenaline, but he still pursued the monster until he had burned it to ash), and fellow pro-hero Hawks admits he admires Endeavor because of all the heroes active during the time of All Might, he was the only one actively trying to improve himself and bridge the gap between the lower-ranked heroes and All Might.
  • Played straight in All-Might's battle against All-for-One. Despite his power being almost entirely gone and facing an opponent at the height of their power, he absolutely refuses to give up, until he manages to catch enough of a Heroic Second Wind to utterly demolish the villain in his final, breathtaking punch (literally breathtaking, the push had enough force to whip up a tornado).
    All-Might's internal dialogue: I WILL NOT DIE!!!
  • All Might continues to display this in the Final Battle, as he whips out a suit of Powered Armor to battle All For One yet again.
• Haruka in the anime incarnations of My-HiME and My-Otome is the resident determinator. Whether kicking a tank as a normal human, head-butting someone while literally dissolving into green sparkles or blowing the head off a monster after getting hit by its petrification ray, Haruka does not know the meaning of the word "quit".
• Nagasarete Airantou: Ikuto once he decides something he does not give up on it,even when his decision is not have a bath with three gorgeous women.
  • A more straight example is any of his battles with the guardians.
  • And in the first chapters when he was determined to leave the island, despite the whirlwinds, his fear of heights and the fact that no one had been able to leave before
  • Shinobu also never gives up on her goals. Once she very closely followed Ikuto for a few days to request a duel, Ikuto was equally determined that he has no reason to fight her. It was Suzu caught between them that lost patience first and forced Ikuto to accept it to get rid of her. And then after the duel she did that again to become his apprentice.
  • When Shinobu remembered Mei-Mei as the one that ate her fish when she arrived here, she immediately resumes her chase she had to stop before as she was hungry. They run all day around the island until Mei-Mei apologizes which she accepts.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • Parodied when Negi is accidentally turned into one of these after Nodoka asks him for a kiss, unaware that the nearby The World Tree forces him to accept. He's going to kiss somebody, dang it, or die trying. He eventually kisses Asuna so intensely that she does an incredibly suggestive Eye Take just before the scene is jokingly censored.
  • Right after Negi and crew arrive in the magic world, Fate attacks Negi, putting a stone spear through his chest. When he moves to attack the students, Negi pulls the spear out and beats Fate in the head with it.
  • Negi gets attacked by a shadow mage. During the course of the fight his right arm gets cut off. His response? "I still have my left!", before attempting a finishing blow. Unfortunately, Jack Rakan stops the fight before we find out if it would have worked or not. And don't worry, he gets the arm back.
  • The finals between Negi and Rakan. Good Lord. Negi's got Tears of Blood, a gaping chest wound and is puking up blood... and he still gets up to fight on. Even Rakan is surprised by his tenacity.
  • Negi's tendencies along this line showed as early as vol. 7. When he first asked Evangeline to train him she refused unless he could use the kung fu he started learning from Ku Fei a couple of days earlier to land a hit on expert fighter Chachamaru. At the appointed hour he came, got sent sprawling halfway across the courtyard, and was told to go away. He simply picked himself up and pointed out to Eva that no time limit was set. The resulting beating lasted for over an hour before Chachamaru got distracted and Negi landed a feeble blow before collapsing.
  • Then there's Rakan, who takes this to absurd levels. Nothing short of erasing him from existence will stop him, and even then, he puts up one hell of a fight. Even after that, he willed himself back just to give his student one important information that he must absolutely must know, and also gives some parting words to everyone. Twice. It appears that Rakan uses a type of magic that's fueled by willpower, which is perfect for somebody like him with seemingly infinite determination to win.
  • Ayaka shows that being a Determinator doesn't require combat when she lived to the age of 115 through sheer willpower, just so she could see Asuna when she woke up from her 100 year long sleep. Sadly, this was as long as she could hold on, and Asuna overslept by 30 years.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion:
  • Asuka downright refuses quitting. She shot a Macross Missile Massacre on Zeruel—that it shrugged off—, and when it cut her mecha's arms off, she tried lunging at it. She stated she preferred dying rather returning in defeat when Arael was mindraping her. She fought the nine Mass-Production models and she nearly won. And when they plucked her right eye out, pinned her on the ground with their spears and her Humongous Mecha was out of power she still was trying to goad her EVA into a Berserker rage. She tried to battle until the very end.
  • Shinji also has some moments. During his battle against Zeruel he kept going, even though he lost an arm, his robot ran out of energy, and he was being thrown around and whipped.
• Noein: Karasu is the series' Determinator. If you threaten Haruka, he will smack you down. It is that simple. In the last episodes he took this to the extreme, by taking on an entire universe just to get to her.
• Now and Then, Here and There: Shu keeps repeating "Everything's OK!" in the most extreme circumstances, to the point that he might seem completely unconscious or heartless - as when he tells Sara that "everything's okay" because she's alive, even though she was spirited away from her world, unfairly imprisoned, raped by a soldier whom she had to kill, and ran away from a military fortress to avoid getting executed. Oh, and the rape resulted in a pregnancy that she tried to terminate by bashing herself in the stomach with a rock, until the ever-determined and optimistic Shu talked her into carrying it to term..
• One-Punch Man has a lot of determined heroes (and villains!), but this trophy probably belongs to Mumen Rider. He is the 1st-ranked C-class hero, with no special powers or abilities to his name, barely any different than the average bike cop. In spite of this, he refuses to back down even from superpowered enemies if it means that it will keep a civilian safe for a few more moments. He's fully aware of his weakness, yet refuses to give up or retreat when the alternative is someone else getting hurt. This actually earns him Saitama's respect after Mumen Rider continually stands up after having his ass handed to him by the Sea King, who's already trashed A- and S-rank heroes alike.
• Orguss 02: Verifer Decimator shrugs off absolutely everything the Rivellian army throws at it, from artillery to bombs aimed directly at its head. Even when it's finally damaged (by having nuclear weapons detonated right against its body) it only loses both legs, continuing to drag itself forward with its hands until it's destroyed by an even bigger Decimator.
• In Plastic Memories, Isla is quite persistent in attempting to retrieve Nina, a Giftia, or android, from Chizu. However, almost everything she does fails, until Chizu hears a conversation between the two girls, in which Nina says she doesn't want her "grandmother" to feel sad when she starts to malfunction.
• The Story of Pollyanna, Girl of Love: Pollyanna Whittier herself. At one point Nancy tells her that finding things to be glad about, in the bleakest of times, could be hard. Pollyanna just replies that the harder The Glad Game gets, the more fun it is.
• Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke fits this trope to a T. Remember— he was shot through the chest and yet still had the strength to open a gate that it normally takes 10 men to open.
• Psycho-Pass: Averted and Played Straight. Only one character who tries to play it straight survives, and she averts it. Playing it straight in any context is also considered a latent crime.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Subverted with Homura, who tries to be one to save Madoka and fails spectacularly — turns out her determination didn't accomplish anything except bringing about the apocalypse. But then reconstructed when Madoka uses her wish to make herself into a force of nature that destroys witches before they're born.
  • All There in the Manual states that Charlotte's nature is tenacity. Inverted with Walpurgis Night, whose nature is stated to be helplessness.
• Pumpkin Scissors: Alice L. Malvin can't stand injustice or inequality, so much so that she will literally jump into any fight and won't back down, no matter what the odds are. This usually means her troops have to end up dragging her out of situations. There is an upside to this, though — she's definitely not just the Idiot Hero when she gets serious.
• Queen's Blade has Claudette who fights off a Brainwashed and Crazy Risty for a ridiculous amount of time against ridiculously stacked odds.
• Ayato Kamina (no, not THAT one!) of RahXephon plays this trope straighter than a ruler. At one point, upon being told it'd take a miracle to save someone, he accepts it as a challenge and pulls it off!
• Ramen Fighter Miki is a Genre Deconstruction of the Fighting Series, and Determinator is also deconstructed with Nishiyama Kankuro, the Unknown Rival who constantly defies Miki to a duel because she bullied him when Kankuro was a teenager (and Mike a child four years younger than him). Kankuro's hope of defeating Miki in a fair fight exists only in his head, as his refusal to give up is fairly foolish. In fact, he can easily defeat Miki working as a Poster Boy for the Ramen Restaurant, but he is so obsessed with the fair play that he never realizes it. * Ranma ½: Pretty much every character. Hell, Rumiko Takahashi is FAMOUS for making characters like this. It'd be quicker to list the ones that AREN'T determinators.
• In Ranking of Kings, that's Bojji's shining characteristic, he is limited by several barriers: his comparably weak body to that expected out of giant parents, his size, his hearing disability; yet Bojji does not give up on his dream of one day becoming a great king, no matter how many times he falls the little guy always gets up. Bojji refusing to give is what ears the support of people as his journeys on.
• Rave Master:
  • Let insists on fighting the Big Bad even if he's broken every bone in his body.
  • And let's not even get started on some of the crazy things that Haru pulls off in the series!
• Reborn! (2004): Hibari Kyouya. Even when half of bones in his body are broken by Mukuro, he continues fighting so hard that he was said to be moving too fast to be seen. And don't forget about the time he was been poisoned by the Cervello during the Varia arc and is supposed to take the Cloud Ring that was held up above him twenty feet high. The poison is said to stop a rampaging elephant into a standstill, but not for Hibari!
• The protagonist of Ringing Bell is a lamb whose mother dies early in the film. He won't stop at anything to be powerful like a wolf. He even grows up into a murderer.
• Rosario + Vampire: Tsukune is something of a deconstruction of this trope. The reason he got his vampire powers was that he kept protecting his friends from enemy attacks despite being the weakest among them, which obviously put his life in danger. In his fight with Hokuto, he kept getting up after taking numerous severe beatings. His feats in Season 2 place him firmly under this trope, particularly when he agrees to endure the Human Modification Technique.
• Rurouni Kenshin:
  • More in the manga than in the anime, Kenshin Himura defeats enemies seemingly by pure willpower alone, such as his determination not to kill. He survives several seemingly insurmountable fights in quick series, sustaining massive injuries each time and still managing to win every single time.
  • The young man who gave Kenshin the first slash of his X-shaped scar, Akira, did so despite being nowhere near Kenshin's level as a swordsman. Kenshin told witnesses, "His skill was nothing. But his desperation to live... was incredible." It didn't save him.
• Saike Matashitemo has a very strange version of this trope who may even be mentally unstable. Unlike other shounen heroes, Saike is driven by anxiety of his past self, performing heroic acts to extreme lengths so we won't go back to being that kind of nobody. Once, he drowned himself 226 times just to teach someone a lesson.
• Sailor Moon examples:
  • Usagi/Sailor Moon. Even when all her friends are dead and she's all alone against impossible odds, she keeps going.
  • Minako too, and how:
    • The manga had her soldiering on after a series of traumas that culminated in her having to kill her love interest. There's also plenty of other incidents, including that time, in the middle of a heat wave, she had lost about a liter and half of blood (she had donated twice, with the doctor of the second time being the Monster of the Week who took about a liter before they realized who each other was. And she's underage for donating blood) and, after drinking eight cans of tomato juice, she climbed a hospital, wiped out the Monster of the Week, climbed down, and stood still for the whole afternoon to help a charity.
    • In The '90s anime... Well, when the Death Busters take your Heart Crystal anyone else fainted, she outran a car right after donating blood. And when the Dead Moon Circus manacle you and looks in your Dream Mirror anyone else fainted in pain and was useless for a while, she was briefly turned on before fainting, then she recovered in record time, broke the manacles and opened a Goddess-sized can of whoopass on Hawk's Eye and Tiger's Eye to make them pay for breaking her heart (not that she hadn't dated both of them at the same time...).
• Saint Seiya:
  • Pegasus Seiya is one of the finest examples of this trope, if not the epitome of it. He gets dunked on his head in nearly every fight he puts himself into; he's taken punches thrown at light-speed with his face; he was once stomped so far into the Earth that it might as well have been a burial; and oh, he gets knocked off a cliff once every arc/movie. And he still manages to stand up tall at the end of each and every encounter. Somewhat subverted in the conclusion of the Hades arc, where he gets stabbed in the heart with a sword by the hands of Hades himself, and the blow was laced with a curse that's currently keeping him comatose. But chances are good that he'll be back.
  • Gemini Saga, Capricorn Shura and Aquarius Camus: In the Hades Chapter: Sanctuary, they go as Hades Spectres through the 12 temples course. They get out from the Gemini Kanon's illusion at the Gemini Temple, they survive Virgo Shaka's Tenma Kofuku at Cancer Temple. Then at the Virgo Temple while they get to kill Shaka they get their ass kicked and lost 4 of their 5 primary senses. After that they receive Leo Aioria's Lightning Plasma and Scorpio Milo's Scarlet Needle. They still pull a full fledged Athena Exclamation. And they just won't give up. Their mission: get to Athena to tell her the whereabouts of her cloth.
  • In the prequel manga, Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas, we have several examples among Athena's Saints and also among the Specters, but there are some people who deserve special mention:
    • Sagittarius Sisyphus. He had blinded himself, his body was broken by the fight against Aiacos and he had just ripped his own heart out to open the Gate to the Lost Canvas... and he was still able to join Shion and Regulus in launching Athena's Exclamation.
    • Radamanthys of Wyvern, who takes this to ridiculous levels. Relying on his Undying Loyalty to Hades (and Hades alone), he lives through: all the attacks of Scarlet Needle, being burned alive from the inside, ripping his own heart out, all the strength of Leo Regulus, Regulus' Athena Exclamation, Regulus' Zodiac Clamation, which has the power of all TWELVE GOLD SAINTS, and Regulus punching a hole through his chest. What finally kills him is being split in half by Alone... But not before he destroys Athena's picture, restoring her power and turning the tide of the Holy War. If this wasn't enough to earn him his Determinator status, the fact that, after doing all that, he still was alive enough to save Pandora from Alone's attack and teleport her away from the Lost Canvas probably does it.
• Saiyuki: The Sanzo-ikkou. Throw anything at these guys, anything, and they will get up, kick your ass, and continue West. Godlike powers, weapons that neutralize existence, whole armies of demons, or just filling them full of lead...whatever. And it's not because they're heroic or have ideals to live up to, it's just because they're adamant about setting their own path and too damn stubborn to quit. Ever.
• Samurai Champloo: Mugen. In the series' final episode, he fights three all-out brawls, loses the use of an arm and is nearly blown to bits with dynamite, and is still determined to finish his duel with Jin.
• Samurai 7: Kyuzo is willing to destroy as many enemies as necessary just so he'll be around for the one duel he actually wants to fight. After destroying countless mecha and getting his arm severely damaged, he responds that he can still fight with the other one.
• s-CRY-ed: Kazuma, and possibly Ryuhou as well.
  'Kazuma: "I'm not quitting. Even if I fall, I'm gonna fall forward! Right Kimishima?"
• Shadow Skill, as eloquently stated by Diaz Ragu:
  Diaz Ragu: As long as I can yet stand, I can still fight. And as long as I can still fight, I remain undefeated!
• Shaman King: Subverted. Yoh Asakura, after ten or so volumes of trying to become the Shaman King, gives up without a fight. Granted, it was to bring Ren back to life, but he didn't even think twice about it.
• Skip Beat!: Kyoko Mogami has this as one of her defining characteristics, (the other being holding intense grudges against anyone who mistreats her). In a flashback in Act 7 of the manga, she is given a daruma doll as a gift from her old boss, which is a symbol for unwavering persistence.
• Slam Dunk: Most (if not all) of the teams, but in particular the main protagonist Sakuragi Hanamichi, who helps will his team to victory against all odds and a nigh-invincible opponent, despite crippling pain from a potentially career-ending back injury.
• Maka and Black*Star from Soul Eater.
• Oh so much determination in the second season of Space Battleship Yamato - the Argo has been badly damaged, the Wave Motion gun inoperable, the Earth Defense Force has surrendered to Prince Zordar and the Star Force only has a couple of fighters and a handful of missiles left to their name - and yet they fight back, drive the Comet Empire Citadel off earth and manage to save the day.
• Special A: Because Hikari lost a wrestling match against Kei as a kid, she's attempting to beat Kei at anything, and will stop at nothing to achieve that.
• Okabe Rintarou of Steins;Gate, who keeps traveling back in time over and over until he gets it right. In the first season finale of the anime, he taunts someone into stabbing him, chases his attacker off while wounded, then aggravates the wound himself, all because he needs a lot of spilt blood on the floor in a hurry and doesn't have any better options.
• Nana Hiiragi of Talentless Nana. She is a normal human being who's out to murder superhuman "Talented" indviduals and never gives up no matter how outgunned, outclassed, or out-of-her-depth she may seem to be. Her Sherlock Scan and her skill in Xanatos Speed Chess certainly help.
• Tekkaman Blade: D-boy lives on this trope. Early in the series when his crystal was disabled, he still kept going until it actual broke. In the next episode he took on a Tekkaman with no powers whatsoever. In the final chapter, his Determinator status gave him the means to achieve Unstoppable Rage.
  Noal: "He fights Radham with his human body. Geeze, he really is a dangerous guy!"
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Kamina inspires the Badass Crew to fight even when they have no chance of winning. His line early in the series, "A real man never dies even if he's killed!", sums up his determination. Even after his death, his attitude, ideals and catchphrases continue to influence everyone who knew him, so he was more correct than he might have known. He takes after his father, and Simon then learns from him, winning back Nia from Anti-spiral possession by never giving up on her. It helps that the robots run on Spiral Energy, which uses sheer willpower and fighting spirit to make the impossible happen.
• Tiger & Bunny's Kotetsu/Wild Tiger will fulfill his duties to protect the people in all circumstances and at all cost. This is the case even when his powers start to decline. Rather than find new work, he decides he may as well become Sternbild's first Non-Powered Costumed Hero. Barnaby also proves to have enduring stubbornness, albeit a far more self destructive one. Most of his life was spent on a single-minded, twenty-year quest to find his parent's killer at the expense of anything resembling a well-adjusted life.
• Joe Yabuki, from Tomorrow's Joe, is defined by his unwillingness to lose and goes into every fight determined to win. The finale of the series demonstrates this best: In spite of suffering brain damage and blindness in one eye, Joe continues to stand when taking everything his opponent, Jose Mendoza, can throw at him. Their bout goes on for all fifteen rounds, after which Mendoza wins by the most narrow of margins via post-match scoring, and Mendoza develops Prematurely Grey-Haired from the stress of fighting someone who just wouldn't stay down. It isn't until after the match ends that Joe finally (probably) dies.
• Titular character from Toriko tends to be ridiculously determined. Good example comes from his fight with Tommyrod. By the end of the fight his protective suit was torn off, leaving hin exposed to the deadly cold, his body was covered in wounds, one of his arms was too exhausted to move and other was completely blown off. Despite all that he still stands up, ready to keep fighting ... and that prompts Tommyrod to acknowledge him as a worthy opponent, take off his restraints and nearly kill him with a single punch. However, despite all that, he still manages to figure out how to fight back and attack Tommyrod with his legs, cutting off his hand and punching four holes through his body, before finally succumbing to his injuries and losing consciousness.
• Starscream from Transformers: Cybertron has many determinator moments, but his greatest is when he takes on the entire Autobot team, getting directly hit by most of their most powerful attacks before defeating them. Visibly grievously damaged (in a show where most characters rarely show visible damage) he then takes on Optimus Prime who is at full power. He is briefly knocked unconscious, but revives in the nick of time to launch one final cheap-shot and ultimately achieve his objective and acquire the Omega Lock.
  • Also this villain-to-villain counter- Breaking Speech he gave to Galvatron before their final battle:
    Starscream: "Spare me your lectures! You know nothing of power."
    Galvatron: "Oh?"
    Starscream: "Do you know what real power is?"
    Galvatron: "Get to the point."
    Starscream: "True power is simple determination, making the impossible possible through sheer force of will. I have risked everything in pursuit of this power! I have given myself over to it, body and spark! Now witness...the power of one who has sacrificed everything!" (Battle Aura flares up)
• Trigun:
  • Vash the Stampede. There's even a section where he explains he chose his red coat because Rem told him that in the language of flowers a red geranium meant 'determination.'
  • Wolfwood too, especially in the manga. He chemically pushed himself beyond all human limits to save those kids. And he saved all of them. Even "Crybaby" Livio.
• Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-:
  • Syaoran will get Sakura's feathers back without fail. No matter what. This becomes quite creepy in the Acid Tokyo Arc.
  • Also, Kurogane. He'll do anything to keep Fai from dying, even if it costs him an arm. He's also quite willing to go against Fai's wishes on this.
• Urusei Yatsura:
  • Ataru Moroboshi is a rather luckless, perverted version of this trope. Heaven help anyone between him and a beautiful girl, or the girl herself if she tries to use him to get at Lum and then underestimate how far he'll go for a kiss or grope. Nothing will stop him—common sense, decency, the law, fate, the gods, beatings, near-electrocutions, explosions, military-grade weaponry, armies, you name it. Even evil spirits are scared of him. He demonstrates a tenacity that makes his "friends" wonder if he's even human.
    • It even plays into the end of the series—Due to an odd series of events, Lum loses her horns temporarily, and they have to repeat the pilot episode's chase scene. Except this time Lum is tired of Ataru's refusal to commit to her, and is bouncing between flying well out of reach and hiding in orbit, refusing to come down until he admits he loves her—if he doesn't by the end of the time limit, the Oni will use their technology to wipe the memories of them from Earth's populace. At the end, after days of constant work, not sleeping nor once giving up, Lum is openly enraged, asking him "Do you really want to forget me?! Just say it!" while Ataru is constantly chanting "I won't." In the finale, it's revealed that he's really chanting "I won't forget you," and he was holding onto the horns she had previously lost as a keepsake—when he screams the previous line out, he falls to his knees and accidentally drops them, breaking down in the process. She picks him up as he collapses from exhaustion and places his hands on her horns, finishing the game for him.
  • In a way, Mr. Fujinami is a huge parody of a determinator. He wants a son and therefore refuses to demonstrate any acceptance of the fact that his Daughter isn't a boy in the hopes that reality will eventually be bent by his determination. Well except for the two times he's offered genderbending technology.
• Vandread: Hibiki pulls through by sheer stubbornness, Meia is The Stoic, Jura pulled a Big Damn Heroes moment after being wounded in battle and on painkillers and Dita. Considering her usual behavior, she is also a good example of a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass.
• Vinland Saga:
  • Thorfinn will do whatever is required to earn a duel with Askeladd, even if it's down right suicidal.
  • Following his Character Development, in an attempt to get an audience with Canute, Thorfinn agrees to take 100 punches from Drott, one of Canute's soldiers, as part of a bet. He falls down after 32, only to get back on his feet, demand that Drott finish the bet and shout that he's far too busy to keep people waiting, silencing the crowd of soldiers who until a moment ago were mocking him. Thorfinn then goes on to receive 67 more punches in the face as everyone watches in solemn silence, until an exhausted, out-of-breath Drott gives up and delivers what barely counts as a punch to his chest, acknowledging that Thorfinn simply won't give up and begging Wulf to grant Thorfinn an audience with Canute.
    Thorfinn: Why are you just standing there, middle-part?! Your fists hurt less than being bitten by a bug! Sixty-eight more. Get it over with. I'm a busy man. People are waiting for me!
• Voltes V:
  • Kenichi Go. After his mother dies and his father is nowhere to be seen, he keeps his head up high and becomes the resident Team Dad, knowing that they'll find a way to defeat the Boazanians and save Earth. And he does.
  • Prince Heinel, like Kenichi, is willing to die for their respective causes and fight with honour til the end. Even after all the nobles desert Zambajil in the Grand Finale, he refuses to give up and ascends into his One-Winged Angel form through Godol.
• Windaria: Marie, who defies death itself to wait for Alan to return.
• Witchblade: Masane Amaha was mostly a Punch-Clock Hero, at first. However, since circumstance (being a single mother) forced her to do something to provide for her daughter Rihoko, she willingly put herself in harm's way for said daughter. In fact, she refused to DIE one episode because no one would be around to effectively parent her child. Once that wasn't a problem anymore, then she WAS willing to die.
  • Like a total badass with a smile on her face. Basically, Rihoko was the one motivation that kept Masane from refusing to give up. Period.
• World Trigger has a lot of fun with this trope. Osamu has more courage and determination than his fellow agents, but this does not help him win fights. In series, what wins battles are strength, strategy and luck. Determination does affect the flow of the battle, but only if the two sides are closely matched in power. As lampshaded by Tachikawa: "If you make the outcome of the match about passion, then you might as well be saying that the loser just didn't want it enough." At least he admits determination makes battles entertaining to watch.
• Xabungle: Jiron Amos is possibly the most Hot-Blooded Real Robot pilot ever. The guy has the guts to take on, catch, and throw back an ICBM, isn't scared to take on the entire military force of the Innocent, and ignores the statute of limitations on his parents' murder so that their murderer is killed.
• Watanuki of ×××HOLiC proves to be incredibly stubborn, in a rather dangerous sense. The earliest example of this that stands out is when he starts visiting a woman he befriended, every day, without fail, because he doesn't want her to feel lonely. Even when he learns that being in her presence is slowly killing him. Later it even becomes common for him to assert in a bad situation that he won't die, because he'll "survive through determination".
• In Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, the titular Yamada is a typical hero who doesn't like to give up. He just gets angrier and angrier and tries again. Odagiri is also very stubborn and won't just give up on a goal (unless a better goal appears).
• Yotsuba&!: Delivering milk is Serious Business.
• Your Lie in April: Kaori is very determined to be able to do the duet performance with Kousei once again after she was hospitalized due to her growing serious illness, to the point she starts doing walking therapy and take the high risk surgery, which is sadly fails in the end and claim her life.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! has some, despite being about card games.
  • Yugi and Yami Yugi have gone to great lengths to rescue each other/their friends/the world, but Yugi deserves special mention. Highlights include forcefully swapping bodies when Yami tried to kill Kaiba, spending eight years trying to solve the Millennium Puzzle, and refusing to let go of said puzzle after it got nailed to a wall in a burning building.
  • Seto Kaiba. As the teenage CEO of a major corporation, he has to be, but he'll get even worse if his little brother is in trouble.
  • Katsuya Jounouchi, proven when he got all the way to the semi-final of Battle City without holding an Egyptian God card. He was almost about to defeat the Big Bad in that duel, but he collapsed after withstanding an attack that could've killed him. He lost by default. This was only one of two times said Big Bad actually showed FEAR, the other being his eventual defeat. That's right, Jounouchi, the normal guy with no magic powers or God Cards SCARED Yami freaking Malik.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds:
  • No amount of heartbreaking losses or near-fatal D-Wheel crashes will be able to keep JACK ATLAS down.
  • Rua will go to hell and back to protect his twin sister. Even when he's tortured to the point of tears or outright killed in order to protect her (the latter of which apparently impresses the Signer Dragon so much that it brings him back to life). Keep in mind that he's only about twelve years old.
  • Team Taiyou, especially their leader Taro. They need at least one D-Wheel to race in the Grand Prix, so they fix up a piece of junk and share it between them. All they have are weak Com Mons, so they figure out a Weak, but Skilled strategy that can use them. The crowd is constantly booing them, so they focus on their one hope of success and keep on going. Their ace card is so impractical that it's thought to be impossible to summon, but they summon it anyway.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V:
  • Yuya just never stops which is especially evident in the Synchro Arc. In the last stretch of the Synchro Arc, Yuya is tortured by an electric shock chip which knocks him out and nearly killed him. After a few minutes of rest, Yuya rushes to save his friends and is unable to do anything by Barrett as Barrett tries to force Yuzu's location out of him. This gets worse as Yugo and Yuri arrive, which causes the three of them to awaken, causing him extreme pain. He's saved by this when Yuzu arrives but with the added "bonus" of launching him into the ceiling. He then loses against Sergey as Sergey's monster electrocutes Yuya so badly he can't stand. After a rest for a bit, he goes out to find Yuzu again!
• YuYu Hakusho: Kuwabara tends to win all of his major battles by refusing to stay down. One example is his battle against Rishou in the Dark Tournament. Kuwabara starts the fight severely weakened from a previous fight and proceeds to get the stuffing beaten out of him for an entire episode. In the end, he manages to pull off a win with some help from The Power of Love. Yusuke and Kurama have had their Determinator moments as well.
  • From the Four Saint Beasts arc, it's possible to sit through sit through a ten-minute recounting of all the many hardships Kuwabara overcomes.
    • From the same arc, Byakko. Kuwabara blowing him up? Just a flesh wound. Kuwabara throwing him into boiling lava? That hurt and actually crippled him, but he would have recovered if Seiryu had let him borrow a a little yoki. But Seiryu blasted him into pieces... And his now frozen head still asked why he did that.

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