Friend or Idol Decisions made in Anime and Manga.
- In Baccano!, it's revealed in the 1933/The Slash arc that, once she informally hooks up with Claire Stanfield, Chane's greatest fear is that she'll be forced to choose between him and her loyalty to her father should Huey ever order her to kill him (particularly since Claire is proving to be a serious Spanner in the Works of his more recent plans). Claire's response is exactly what you think it might be:Claire: "Feel free to try. I'll just dodge them and stay in love... Hey, that's even more like true love, now that I think of it!"
- Griffith is faced with such a dilemma during the climax of the Golden Age Arc in Berserk: he has the chance of ascending to godhood and healing his broken body should he sentence the Band of the Hawk to a Cruel and Unusual Death. Horrifically, he takes the Idol and gleefully crosses the Moral Event Horizon with it.
- Codename: Sailor V (the series from which Sailor Moon was spun off) ends with Sailor Venus and the Big Bad both having one: for Venus is between love or continuing to fight as a Sailor Senshi, and for Danburite/Ace is to stand down and join Sailor Venus the woman he loves, or fighting (and dying) to make her understand she'd always choose her duty over love before she can be destroyed by the doubt. They both choose to fight.
- Played With in the Tower of Heaven arc of Fairy Tail. Simon sacrifices himself to shield Erza from Jellal's attack; after Natsu defeats Jellal and passes out, the Tower of Heaven begins to collapse. Erza briefly sees Simon's body sliding slowly into a crevasse, but she turns away and escapes with the unconscious Natsu rather than retrieving him.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist:
- During a chaotic fight, May Chang has to choose between going for the Philosopher's Stone, which she needs to complete her quest to save her clan, or stop Hawkeye from bleeding to death, someone whom she barely knows. She chooses the latter, only to see that Wrath has seized the stone.
- One chapter later, Al faces a similar decision — reunite with his body or leave it to join the fight against Father. When he sees the bad shape his body's in, it's an easy choice.
- In HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!, Princess Hime's been collecting PreCards in order to use them to grant her wish, rescuing her kingdom from the Phantom Empire, undoing one of her mistakes. She finally gains enough cards in episode 22, but finds herself in a conundrum: Iona Hikawa, Cure Fortune, is at the mercy of the Precure Hunter Phantom, powerless and trapped in another dimension. This is also the same girl who has spent the same amount of episodes giving Hime hell over her Dark Secret. Hime decides to lead the charge into that dimension and begs Iona to take her cards. Iona does so and uses them to regain her powers.
- The iDOLM@STER - Played literally with Miki in episode 24 when she has a chance to become the solo MC of the show to be aired in the timeslot that would succeed the "Are we live?" show.
- Near the end of the first season of Love Live! School Idol Project, Kotori was given the choice to either leave to study fashion abroad, or stay and continue being a school idol with her friends. When Umi announces this to the others, Honoka questions Kotori about why she never told her, she learns she was intending to tell her following the live performance, but got put off following her accident. This caused Honoka to become depressed, get into a fight with the others, and say that she wants to quit being a school idol, Umi even threw a slap at her. In final episode, after cheering up and realizing her true feelings with the help of her friends, Honoka and Umi forgave each other, and the latter sends the former to get to Kotori before she leaves Japan and manages to convince her to stay behind, helping Kotori to realize her own desire to be an idol as well with the rest of μ's members.
- Before the Naruto timeline begins, Sakumo Hatake faced a choice between saving his comrades or completing a mission. He chose to save their lives... and was punished heavily for it, blamed for triggering war and shunned by his whole country. Eventually he committed seppuku, followed by his son, Kakashi, dedicating his childhood to turning himself into an emotionless weapon. It would take years of thankless service and losing several of his own comrades for Kakashi to come around to his father's way of thinking, deciding that those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.
- In the Grand Finale of Ojamajo Doremi, the girls are asked if they want to become full time witches or return to being regular humans. They choose the latter, which Sixth Ranger Hana doesn't take well.
- In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Negi is forced to either stay behind and fight a giant monster so his students can escape with a magical book that can make them smarter (for the big exams) or dump the book so they can all escape safely. Subverted in that Negi ends up trying to stay behind, but Asuna decides to make the "right" choice for him anyway.
- During their fight in Budokai, Evangeline makes Setsuna choose between "sword" and "happiness". Setsuna takes a third option, which Eva wasn't meaning to give.
- The Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl episode "Jumping Rocket Ship" has an interesting villainous Reconstruction. When Meowth becomes The Mole and infiltrates the heroes, they discuss his potential as a talking Pokémon, with Dawn even offering him media ties via Rhonda. Starstruck at the idea of becoming a potential TV star, he ponders whether to ditch Team Rocket for real. However, when Jessie and James find Meowth and suffer their usual Curbstomp Battle against Ash's group, he realises he doesn't have the heart to abandon them, turning on the heroes and happily joining his team in another blasting off.
- In the Pretty Sammy storyline in the No Need for Tenchi manga series, Pixy Misa had set things up for Tenchi to learn Sasami was Pretty Sammy, then turned him into a monster during a school play about Pretty Sammy (with Sasami as the heroine, natch). Pixy Misa forced Sasami to chose between revealing her identity and stopping the monster or letting the monster go on its rampage and maintain her identity (either way, Rumia would end up winning). Tsunami, then, steps in, disguised as Pretty Sammy, allowing Sasami to swap up and save the day.
- The story before that had a childhood friend of Tenchi's coming to visit, royally pissing of Ayeka and Ryoko due to her clinginess and a childhood promise. However, Washu discovers why the friend was there and agrees to help her with a plan. They end up knocking out Ryoko and Ayeka and putting through a theoretical situation - for Ryoko, she gets a chance to date Tenchi with the agreement to not use her powers or lose that chance forever. However, an ambulance carrying an expecting couple she aided gets stuck in traffic and only she can make a difference. For Ayeka, she's asked to return to Jurai with Sasami. However, she panics and tries to stay, with Emperor Azusa calling her and telling her that if she stays, she loses the crown. Both end up going with their hearts rather than what others tell them. Turns out the childhood friend set it up because she was dying and she wanted to make sure Tenchi would be alright with them. They return the favor by having Tsunami resurrect her moments after her death.
- Ahiru/Duck in Princess Tutu is given this sort of dilemma at the end of the series when she finds out that the pendant that allows her to be a girl is Mytho's final missing heart shard, meaning that she has to choose between saving the boy she loves (who, to make it worse, has decided he's in love with another girl, who just pulled an Heroic Sacrifice for him) and her ability to be human.
- In the Ranma ½ movie Nihao My Concubine, Ranma and Akane find themselves falling through open air toward a magical pool whose water will turn anyone permanently into a man, even overriding the Gender Bender Jusenkyo curse Ranma had spent the whole series trying to cure. In an unusually elegant variation of the Friend or Idol Decision, Ranma realizes that if he dives right in, Akane will fall into the water as well, and will become afflicted with an even worse version of the very curse he seeks to cure in himself! And of course, since they are the Official Couple, and Status Quo Is God, it naturally follows that Failure Is the Only Option, and so Ranma must use his Kamehame Hadoken attack to destroy the fountain before they touch the water, so that Akane will be spared. As opposed to tossing her away so she'll land somewhere else.
- In the Record of Lodoss War OVA there is a great example of this trope starring the villains. When Black Knight Ashram is given the chance to take the Scepter of Domination before the good guys can or save the life of dark elf Pirotess he actually picks saving her over the scepter. She dies anyway, unfortunately.
- Sailor Moon:
- In one episode, Chibi-Usa switches ages with Usagi and is (at first) delighted at being tall and very beautiful and well-figured. But Pegasus has trouble finding her after her dream was fulfilled and tells her that it's unlikely he'll ever be able to do so again. Chibi-Usa, through sheer force of will alone, reverses the magic that changed her and Usagi to not lose him. Somewhat averted in that she'll eventually grow up anyway and be able to have both, but she resisted taking the easy way out.
- In the same season, Fish's Eye discovers that Chibi-Usa is the host of Pegasus, but realizes that using his magic to make the Trio human permanently still wouldn't give them dreams of their own, and that Zirconia wouldn't likely adhere to the deal anyway. Instead, they use the last of the magic that gave them human forms to revive Usagi (whose dream mirror was shattered) and dying and reverting to their animal selves in the process. Pegasus, however, is touched enough by their sacrifice that he gives them dream mirrors of their own, making them fully human in the process and with the promise that they'll be reborn as such some day.
- In the Jigokiller two-parter of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, the titular creatures have gathered around an important water reservoir. G-3 (Jun the Swan) had been captured by one of the flowers very recently. G-1 (Ken the Eagle) has to choose between burning the flowers, knowing his teammate will almost certainly die, and leave them, allowing them to spread. He chooses burning, earning a punch from G-2 (Joe the Condor) and protests from 4 (Jinpei the Swallow) and 5 (Ryu the Horned Owl), although they later back him up. Double-subverted in that burning the flowers makes them release their dandelion-like seeds, and that G-3, who had been wearing an experimental protection suit, had survived, attracted Galactor's attention, and was in their custody. Incidentally, the Gatchaman and Guardians of Space versions killed women, while the Battle of the Planets species killed anyone.
- Seiyu's Life! has a literal example. The crux of episode 10 is that Rin has to decide whether she will give up her voice acting/Idol Singer career and stay at Hakuo, or go to apply to a high school where she can continue it (leaving Sayo behind). Ultimately, she chooses to apply to a different school, but Sayo points out that they can still see each other during their free time.
- In Transformers: Robots in Disguise, the Autobots enter a race to find SkidZ, in which Megatron and Sky-Byte also enter. Megatron manages to trap the other Autobots under a rock, forcing SkidZ to choose between winning and saving his friends. He manages to get both.
