Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Hoist By His Own Petard / Anime & Manga

Go To

Often a Death Trope, so expect to see unmarked spoilers ahead.

One of Anime & Manga's favorite ways of destroying an arrogant villain is with their own creations.

Shows/franchises with their own pages:

  • Adventures of the Little Koala: In "Lost in a Race", Walter and his brothers have taken the lead in the orienteering race, and when they reach one of the markers indicating the correct path at a fork in the trail, they point it at the wrong path to mislead the other teams. However, when they lose their bearings later on the trail, they decide to backtrack to the fork... and forget which way the sign was originally pointing and fall into their own trap by taking the wrong path.
  • Assassination Classroom: In the climax, Shiro suffers this in every conceivable way. He conducted research on the Reaper, empowering him with tentacles. His abused fiancé led to the Reaper becoming Korosensei. His actions with Itona led to the Assassination Classroom solidifying their resolve to kill Korosensei themselves, which led to Korosensei growing stronger and stronger. Finally, when the deadline comes, he injects himself with tentacle cells to fight Korosensei himself. And the result is that Korosensei uses his strongest energy blast to send him flying directly into an anti-tentacle barrier. After that, his research was terminated, his inheritance was terminated, and the barrier left him in a state where he could no longer survive without help from the same kind of people he looked down on.
  • In Asteroid in Love, Sayuri want to find some scoops to blackmail the Earth Sciences Club, because the latter's newsletter is more popular than the school newspaper they make. But then she blurted out all her intents to everyone in the club, and Mari recorded all that to use as a bargaining chip towards the Newspaper Club.
  • Baccano! provides an indirect example of this. After first inflicting damage on Szilard Quates herself, Ennis, one of his created homunculi, gives Firo Prochainezo instructions with her dying words on how to finish him off. Consequently, since the method of killing Szilard involves absorbing his knowledge, Firo is able to save Ennis.
  • Beyblade
    • There's many in Bakuten Shoot Beyblade. For the first season, it was a theme for each arc's main adversary to explicitly refuse on something the BBA Team embraced, which would always prove their downfall. Only Borg didn't have such a defeat. In the second season, Doctor B and Gideon die due to the destruction brought on by the Cyber Bit-Beasts they brought into existence. Another case is that of Queen, who uses an attack ring with a sharp blade in an attempt to strip down Max's Beyblade and obtain his Bit-Beast. However, Max causes the attack ring to spin in the opposite direction. The special attack ring was made only to work in one direction, so it came to literally tear itself apart.
    • Reiji Mizuchi from Metal Fight Beyblade loves striking fear into his opponents till they're broken wrecks. Gingka ultimately delivers an epic Shut Up, Hannibal! on him. The sight of Gingka not being afraid of him causes him to have a Villainous Breakdown and be overwhelmed by his own fear, allowing Gingka to defeat him. He's last seen as the same broken wreck he typically left his opponents in.
  • Black Clover:
    • Lotus can't see through his own smoke and has to rely on sensing his opponents' magical signatures. As a result, he's caught off guard since Asta, being an Un-Sorcerer, has no magical signature at all. His earlier advice to Luck about the value of teamwork also works against him since Luck takes the advice to heart and cooperated with his teammates to beat him, something Luck is quick to mention.
    • The Witch Queen spent years trying to make Vanessa realize the potential of her thread magic. After Vanessa helps her friends stop the Diamond Kingdom from invading the Forest of Witches, the Queen manages to trick Asta into almost killing the Magic Knights. This triggers Vanessa's latent "red thread of fate" magic to manifest and since it can only be formed from whom Vanessa has a bond with, the Queen's plot is ultimately thwarted.
    • Zora is this trope personified. His trap magic has no outright attack spells and his core magic attribute (Ash Magic) has no offensive potential and thus can only really be used to draw the magic circles for his traps. As such, his go-to is to lay traps that reflect a mage's spell back at them with twice the speed and power.
  • Bleach:
    • Hachigen kills Barragan by teleporting his rotting arm into Barragan's stomach, causing him to age himself to death. Barragan's constant boasting about how nothing is immune to the ravages of time clues Hachigen in to the idea that Barragan lacks immunity to his own rapid-aging effect.
    • When Tousen's Hollow form gives him the ability to see, he becomes focused on his new-found sight to the exclusion of everything else, allowing Hisagi, his former lieutenant, to sneak up on him and land the finishing blow from behind. Hisagi notes that back when he was blind, Tousen would've "seen" that attack coming a mile away.
    • For Aizen, relying on the Hogyoku for power is fine when it still considers him a worthy master. The moment it doesn't, the Hogyoku takes back all of the power it has given him, leaving him vulnerable to Urahara's sealing kidou.
    • In the Lost Agent Arc, Yukio Hans Voralberna tries to kill Toshiro with an inescapable Zerg Rush of monsters programmed to zone in on Toshiro's location and crush him. Then Toshiro flashsteps right next to Yukio and freezes his Fullbring. Yukio can't do anything but scream in terror as his own monsters surround him and Toshiro, knowing full well that Toshiro will be able to dodge their attacks while he can't. Toshiro then saves Yukio's life, ensuring that Yukio is both his prisoner, and indebted enough to be forced to give any information Toshiro wishes to extract.
    • Gremmy Thoumeaux has an Imagination-Based Superpower that lets him become a Reality Warper, which he uses to great effect. He dies when Kenpachi Zaraki's continuing refusal to die from his brutal onslaughts make Gremmy briefly wonder if Kenpachi is an unkillable monster. From there, Power Incontinence sets in as Gremmy's own imagination makes it so that Kenpachi does become an unkillable monster. The final nail hammers in when Gremmy tries to imagine himself as something stronger than Kenpachi and ends up ripping his own body apart because his power is trying to produce mutually exclusive results (making him strong enough to kill something that his own power has already rendered unkillable).
    • Yhwach, the overall Big Bad of the manga, has a ritual named Auswahlen that he's used to depower any Quincy that he feels is "impure". Among the Quincies he did this to were Kanae Katagiri, who was sent into a coma that ultimately led to her death, and Masaki Kurosaki, who was depowered just as she was facing down Grand Fisher. When their sons, full-Quincy Uryu Ishida and part-Quincy Ichigo Kurosaki, face him, Yhwach's fall is brought about by Uryu using an arrow on him made of Still Silver, a substance made when Kanae's powers were stripped from her, which has the effect of suspending Yhwach's godlike powers long enough for Ichigo to finish him off.
  • In Brave10, Hanzo's plan to unleash Isanami's Superpowered Evil Side so he can control it goes exactly as well as you'd expect.
  • A Certain Magical Index:
    • The Deep Blood arc concludes with what is seen as an example of this trope in-universe. Aureolus's power lets him make anything he imagines into reality. When he cuts off Touma's arm, Touma stays standing and laughs maniacally, and a dragon emerges from the stump, terrifying Aureolus into unconsciousness. Afterward, everyone thinks that Aureolus lost control of his ability, by imagining Touma as an unkillable monster and thus turning him into one. However, later events confirm that the dragon is an independent entity.
    • Accelerator defeated Kakine Teitoku the first time by using Kakine's own Dark Matter constructs on him. The second time, Kakine overwhelmed both Accelerator and Mugino with his Dark Matter clones, but in the process, he spread his consciousness too thin among the constructs to control them. One of his rhinoceros beetle constructs developed its own free will and was able to take control of his mind and body from him.
    • Kakeru Kamisato's special ability, World Rejecter, can banish anyone who feels doubt, weariness, and/or dissatisfaction with the world to a Pocket Dimension. This ends up happening to him when he starts to feel these things.
  • In Claymore, the organization is indirectly responsible for the fact that seven of the warriornesses have deserted, strengthened their forces, and finally returned to overthrow the organization.
  • In the mid-season of Code Geass R2, when he is badly wounded and expecting help from Charles, V.V. instead gets his Code taken from him by Charles out of anger for lying to him too many times, and is left to die.
  • In Death Note:
    • One of the Death Note owners, Kyosuke Higuchi, is killed when his notebook is repossessed by Light, who recovers his memories and writes Higuchi's name in a scrap that he tore out of the notebook earlier.
    • Light himself suffers this fate at the very end of the series when Ryuk makes good on his promise to Light in the very first chapter and writes Light's name into the Death Note, ending the reign of terror that Light caused with the Note once and for all. Even better, Light dies by the same kind of heart attack that he's killed countless people with.
      Light: I...I’m going to die. N...N...No...I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die! Damn it! STOP IT! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!
      Ryuk: You sound so undignified. It’s not like you, Light. I told you in the very beginning that I would be the one writing your name in the notebook when you die. That is the rule between the shinigami who brings the notebook into the human realm, and the first human to pick up the notebook. If they put you in prison, who knows when you'll die? I don't want to just lie around waiting for you to die, so it's all over. You should die right here.
      Light: N-NO! I don't want to die! I don't want to go to prison either! Do something! I know there's a way out of it, Ryuk!
      Ryuk: Once a name is written down in the Death Note, you can't do anything about it. You more than anybody else here should know that. Goodbye, Light Yagami.
  • In Demon King Daimao, Manipulative Bitch Fujiko tries to trick Akuto into dosing himself with a Love Potion that would make him her devoted slave and allow her to control his powers. That is until Keena steals the potion and bakes it into an extra large helping of rice that is freely offered to the student body to defuse a tense situation. Cut to Fujiko "enjoying" her unwanted all-girl harem.
  • In The Devil is a Part-Timer!, Sauriel attempts to get an advantage over Maou by drawing the Moon closer to Earth so he will be powered up even more than usual. However, Maou draws strength from people's negative emotions. The fear and panic the townspeople felt on seeing the the Moon moving toward them powered Maou up enough that he still curbstomped him.
  • Digimon Data Squad: The Big Bad Kurata committed genocide, created collateral damage to take over the world, in the meantime he sucked in void-bending devices, so what does he do when he gets defeated? He activates a huge explosion that causes the Digital World to crash into Earth, and he disappears into a light while doing it. This action also is the final straw for the Final Boss.
    • In Digimon Fusion, Neptunemon is killed by his own trident. It has a homing ability, and Shoutmon X4 uses that to his advantage and jumps behind Neptunemon, causing the trident to have to pierce through him to reach its target.
  • Doraemon: Occurs in "Soap Bubbles". Shortly after Doraemon gives Noby the Soap Bubble Straw, Noby uses the gadget on Doraemon to make him let Noby use the gadget however he wants.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • Dragon Ball:
    • Dragon Ball Z:
      • In Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone and another point in the series, Garlic Jr. opens a hole to the Dead Zone, an empty dimension, to try to capture our heroes. No points for guessing what happens both times. Even worse, being immortal, the Dead Zone is the ONLY known thing that could potentially defeat him. And he let it be used against himself TWICE. He was asking for it, really.
      • Frieza really has no luck when it comes with this trope. One, it's stated that he was the one who created the Super Saiyan legend - when he destroyed Planet Vegeta, he ended up sending Bardock to the planet's past, where Frieza's ancestor confronts him. Their fight leads to Bardock becoming a Super Saiyan and killing him; with his dying breath, the ancestor warns them of the golden-haired warrior. Two, he kills Krillin and then goes on to threaten his son, since that's what finally triggers Goku's transformation into Super Saiyan, the very thing he killed the saiyans for all those years ago. If he instead just killed Goku immediately, he could have easily won and avoided the situation in which he cut himself in half altogether. Speaking of that, three, he gets cut in half by his own attack (he even lampshades it; earlier in the fight, Goku tries to trick Frieza into hitting himself with the Death Saucer and Frieza sees through it, but later on he loses track of his attack and flies into its path all by himself) which led to his first demise (though he got better later on). And four, his insistance on going to Earth to personally deal with Goku as Mecha-Frieza instead of going with King Cold's suggestion of blowing up the Earth from their spaceship only resulted in both of their deaths, as in the Future timeline, all of the Z-Fighters were still around when Goku passed from the Heart Virus implying he and Cold failed to kill them all. Whereas in the main timeline, they instead end up dying at the hands of Future Trunks.
      • Frieza's brother Cooler was hoisted even higher. As shown in Dragon Ball Z: Cooler's Revenge, he and his squadron were watching as his younger brother destroyed the homeworld of the Saiyans, and had a chance to fire on an escaping space-pod. Cooler let it go, saying his brother was "too soft" for letting a child escape and it was his problem. Years later, when he went gunning after Goku to avenge Frieza, he was soundly trounced by the child he allowed to escape, who happened to be Goku. And the real kicker? In the last seconds of his life after Goku blasts him into the Earth's sun, Cooler remains lucid enough to wonder how a Saiyan was on Earth in the first place...and then it hits him.
        Cooler: I DON'T BELIEVE IT! I COULD HAVE KILLED HIM! I LET HIM GO! I LET HIM GO!
      • At least three incarnations of Dr. Gero (the present timeline and two future timelines), in his pointless obsession with revenge on Goku, ends up dying to the Androids he created.
      • A good example of the monster variety: Babidi is done in by Majin Buu, who he spent the arc trying to release, despite Dabura warning him that Buu was uncontrollable. Of course, verbally abusing Buu and relying solely on threatening to use the sealing spell to make Buu do what he wanted certainly didn't help things any.
    • Dragon Ball GT:
      • Firstly, Dr. Myuu is killed by Baby, his creation.
      • Secondly, both Dr. Myuu and Dr. Gero in hell end up being killed by Super 17, an Android they created together.
      • Thirdly, Cell and Frieza, while fighting Goku in Hell, trap him in Hell's freezing depths. Unfortunately for them, ice down there is actually sentient, and the living Goku is too warm for them to freeze him. Cell and Frieza, being dead, are naturally far more vulnerable.
      • And lastly, Rage Shenron turns himself into a giant and nearly kills Goku and Pan, but then it starts raining, water being his Weaksauce Weakness, and he is now too big to take shelter from the rain.
    • Dragon Ball Super:
      • In the Golden Frieza Arc, Vegeta casually kills the returned Captain Ginyu with his final words to the villain being that if he hadn't stolen Tagoma's body and just stayed in the frog, he'd still be alive.
      • In the Future Trunks Arc, Future Zamasu fusing himself with Goku Black resulted in his Complete Immortality being nerfed to "hard to kill but possible to kill".
  • In Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan, because the dragons will not accept a pilot that has fallen in love, Vice Minister Iiboshi devises a plan to prevent it, to make the girls fall in love with the men closest to them and then have the men brutally reject them, so the girls could shun love entirely. However, due to incorrect information received, Hisone and Hoshino develop feelings for their respective partners without the superiors realizing it, causing their dragons to reject them just a few weeks before the Ritual is to start.
  • In Fairy Tail, you have Toby who was tricked by Natsu of all people to scratch himself in the head with his electrified claws.
    • Most of The Seven Kin of Purgatory were defeated this way.
      • Angel of the Oración Seis is taken out by Lucy because of this. Lucy holds an incredibly deep love for Stellar Spirits, so when Angel used the Mind Reading spirit Gemini against her they are moved by her passion and refused to fight.
    • And then you have Master Hades of Grimoire Heart. His Evil Plan involved reawakening Zeref. Too bad Zeref had a Heel Realization and wanted no part of said Evil Plan, and absolutely annihilated Hades for even thinking of trying to use him for his own ends.
    • Jiemma, the head of the Sabretooth guild, is a Social Darwinist who imposes his doctrine upon his guild, outright stating that "no weaklings are allowed in Sabretooth." Later, when he kills Lector right in front of Sting, Sting is pissed off enough that he takes Jiemma down with one blow; Minerva subsequently kicks him out of Sabretooth in accordance with Jiemma's own rules, as he had proved himself to be weaker than Sting.
  • Fate/stay night:
    • During their final battle in the Fate route, Rider lures Saber to a building's roof, because she needs a wide open space to summon her Pegasus. Saber then notes that with a wide open space, she can finally unleash Excalibur without risk of collateral damage, and obliterates Rider and her Pegasus.
    • In the Fate route, it is already ironic that Kirei Kotomine was killed with the Azoth dagger he gave Rin years before. What is even more interesting is that the dagger was given to him in the prequel by Rin's father, Tokiomi Tohsaka who was Kirei's teacher. It was then used to stab Tokiomi by Kirei while Tokiomi's Servant Archer (Fate/Zero's Archer, aka, Gilgamesh) watched impassively.
  • In a very satisfying example of reaping what you sow, Jackal, one of the many villains of Fist of the North Star, after turning loose a giant convict called Devil Rebirth against Kenshiro, makes the mistake of thanking him for freeing him from the "monster" he had previously convinced was his long-lost brother after Kenshiro defeats him. Devil Rebirth promptly grabs hold of Jackal in a grip too strong for him to escape, and Kenshiro finishes him off by means of Jackal's own dynamite, the weapon the Dirty Coward of a crimelord used to commit his most despicable acts of the arc.
  • Frieren: Beyond Journey's End: Aura has a magical artifact called Scales of Submission, which allows her to make anyone submit to her will as long as her mana level is bigger than the other. This is turned against her when she uses it on Frieren, who has much more mana than her and just hides it, putting Aura under her control and simply telling her to execute herself.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist, one of the corrrupt generals awakens the Mannequin Soldiers so they can take back the city from Mustang/Armstrong's insurrection. They promptly eat him.
    • In an early episode of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Ed does battle with an alchemist who transmutes a sword and is later impaled by it. Needless to say, he doesn't get better.
    • Pride eating Kimblee after the latter's near-death proves his downfall, when Kimblee's soul ends up distracting him at a crucial moment and enables Edward to destroy his Philosopher's Stone (something Pride had never even considered because he had assumed it was impossible for any soul he consumes to maintain its individuality).
    • The main villains of both series also fall victim to this. In the first anime, Dante, tired of Gluttony's whining over the loss of Lust, transmutes his reason away and turns him into a mindless monster. She is later killed by him because he's gone berserk. In the manga and Brotherhood, Father's attempt to absorb Greed for his Philosopher's Stone also backfires when Greed uses the connection between them to use his Homunculus power on Father, turning his body to charcoal and leaving him vulnerable. On top of that, Hohenheim's counterattack plan revolved around how Father's master plan involved using an eclipse for his national transmutation circle; while an eclipse does indeed form a circle in the sky, its shadow forms a circle on the ground, and Hohenheim uses this to create his own national transmutation circle that reverses Father's absorption of everyone's souls.
  • In Future Diary Ai is raped by a juvenile gangster. When her friend Marco sees what is done to her, he attacks the rapist. He pulls out a knife and attacks Marco, intending to kill him. But Marco can steal the rapist's knife in the fight, and finally kills him with his own knife. Shortly before, the rapist still boasted that he was a minor, and therefore would not be punished for this act.
  • GaoGaiGar: This happened prior to the series to the people of the Purple Planet. The Zonder Metal was originally intended as an anti-depressant and stress-reliever. And it would've worked, if they hadn't made it sentient too.
  • Great Teacher Onizuka: Murai is on the receiving end of this twice in one chapter. First he tries to trick Onizuka into eating a cockroach, but it ends up in his spoon, and then Onizuka jostles him so the spoon slips into his mouth. Then he tries to set a tripwire so Onizuka will fall and have his face sliced open by scissors, but Onizuka appears behind him and pushes him into the room. He only narrowly misses losing his ear.
  • GTO: The Early Years: When Fumiya gets out of juvie, Saejima tries to get his revenge for Fumiya pencil-nosing him earlier, crawling on the ground with two fistfuls of pencils to pencil-nose him back. Shouldn't have held them right in front of his face, since Fumiya steps on his head and they go right up Saejima's nose.
  • In Guardian Fairy Michel, the Black Hammer Gang are often done in via the fairy monsters, happening more often as the series goes on.
  • In Gundam Build Fighters, Kirara charms Sei into letting her take care of his Build Strike Gundam, which she promptly sabotages. However, she only sabotaged the Mobile Suit and not the Build Booster pack and when the Build Strike falls apart, the Build Booster takes over and swiftly defeats her Gerbera Tetra.
  • High School D×D:
    • Cao Cao replaces an eye with a Medusa's after losing the original to injury, giving him a petrifying gaze. Later on, he arranges Issei's death via Samael's blood, which is extremely toxic to dragons and snakes. However, he doesn't anticipate Issei coming Back from the Dead, with a small sample of the blood sealed inside a bullet. Issei uses a toy to fire the bullet at Cao Cao, who intercepts it but causes it to break open and splash the blood on his face. Thanks to the association between Medusa and snakes, Cao Cao is badly poisoned and loses.
    • A minor one for Rias; when Issei comes to the clubroom for the first time, she insists he call her Buchou/President instead of Rias-senpai. Three seasons/five novels later, she is angsting about the fact that Issei calls everyone by name except her. In BorN, due to Loki time-traveling to the past to rewrite history as depicted in EX, Rias's angst causes his curse to corrupt her. Fortunately for Rias, this doesn't last.
  • In the anime version of THE iDOLM@STER, President Kuroi convinces the audio technician from the Idol Jam to conveniently forget where he put the CD with the 765PRO idols songs. This comes to bites him in the rear, when Chihaya starts to sing in A Cappella, making the tech (and crowd) be so moved by the scene that he restarts the audio in the next chorus, effectively creating a greater effect on the public than it would be if she had just started singing normally.
    • Also, this little stunt was the last drop for his own group of Idols who didn't want to keep up with his crap anymore and quit his company before the song Chihaya was singing even ended.
  • Initial D: In Fourth Stage, the cheating Saitama Lan Evo racing team has this happen to them twice:
    • First, they sabotage Keisuke's practice run with an oil slick, causing him to crash and crippling his FD. The oil slick wasn't entirely cleaned from the road afterward, and during Takumi's downhill run against them, the Evo driver's front wheel catches some of the leftover spill and causes him to lose traction. While this doesn't cause him to crash like Keisuke, it does give Takumi a window to pass him and win the race.
    • Next, bitter over their loss, they hire a Bosozoku gang to intimidate and beat up Project D as revenge. This backfires when it's revealed that, not only is the gang they hired from the same prefecture as Project D, and are big fans, but the gang's leader also used to run with Keisuke's old crew back when he was a delinquent, and he is not happy that he was hired to beat on his former boss. For this, Project D is allowed to leave unmolested while the cheaters are left to face the wrath of their own hired muscle.
  • Inuyasha has several examples.
    • One of the first episodes shows a painter who uses a fragment of the sacred jewel to create demons with his ink and attack other people. Eventually he dies because he wants to strengthen the ink weakened in the fight with Inuyasha, with his blood, but is sucked mercilessly.
    • The black miko Tsubaki once threw a curse on Kikyo, which she threw back and disfigured Tsubaki in this way. Later in the plot, the same thing happens again, except that this time Kagome throws back the curse. In the anime, Tsubaki eventually transforms into a monstrous hanyou, but in this way she also gets a demonic aura, and Inuyasha can destroy her with his sword (the same attack would have been ineffective on a human being).
    • It was similar with Bankotsu. He was an undead, but before that he was a human. Because of this, Inuyasha could not use the magic attacks of his sword against him. But then Bankotsu turns his weapon into a demonic weapon in the midst of combat and is therefore no longer protected from Inuyasha's sword.
    • The half-demon Gyu-oh was a pure human during the day and a pure bull youkai at night. He created false copies of the holy jewel and wanted to create a real jewel with their help. But as the fight dragged on, he just swallowed the fake jewels to get stronger. And when he turned into a human again at dawn, the false jewels killed him.
    • Inuyasha the Movie: Affections Touching Across Time: Ruri, one of Menomaru's Co-Dragons, copies Miroku's Wind Tunnel for her own use. During a subsequent fight, Ruri tries to get an advantage over Miroku by using a knife to cut the edge of her Wind Tunnel to make it bigger and stronger... and it quickly grows big enough to consume her right then and there.
  • Is It My Fault That I Got Bullied?: Shinji Suzuki downfall and eventual death comes as a natural result of his own Smug Snake behaviour.
  • In Kamen Rider Spirits, Riderman has to deal with his old enemy Marshall Armor, whose thick armor deflects all but the strongest attacks. So Riderman manages to drill a single hole in the shell, then pump it full of bullets, which bounce around inside Armor's shell and shred him to pieces.(And before anyone says it, yes Armor's a Giant Enemy Crab, and yes Riderman Attacked Its Weak Point For Massive Damage.)
  • Jessie Mavia in Kinnikuman lost to Kinnikuman when he was goaded into going on the offensive. This was a mistake because, while Jessie is a master at move counters and reversals, he has no original moves of his own. Taking the initiative as he did left him wide-open to Kinnikuman reversing Jessie's attacks.
    • Stecase King was a living tape player that gained the fighting styles of different Choujin depending on what cassette he was playing. Eventually, he decides to play Kinnikuman's tape...but the tape was three years old, back when Kin was a cowardly wimp. As such, Stecase King becomes too stupid and scared to fight properly, and the current, Took a Level in Badass Kinnikuman defeats him easily.
  • Episode 6 of the Little Lulu anime has Lulu wanting to ride a fire truck, and thus tries to impress Tubby and the boys by starting a fire brigade, only for the boys to mess it up. Eventually at the end of the episode, Tubby and the boys attempt to make a fool out of Lulu by tricking her into climbing a tree and imitating a cat, claiming that the fire chief had sent his firemen to save her, but Tubby's plan backfires because 1) a crowd of people ended up discovering Lulu in the tree, and 2) a cat happens to be stuck in the exact same tree as her. After one man calls the fire department to get her down, Lulu is rewarded for her finding of the cat with a well-deserved ride on the fire truck that she wanted, leaving Tubby and the boys defeated.
  • Played for Laughs in Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions!:
  • Lupin III has used the Self-defeating villain version a few times.
    • In Lupin III, we have a literal example of the phrase, as Lupin hires an assassin to kill a Yakuza boss (who is a split personality of the assassin) and the boss has set bombs all over his house.
    • In Lupin III: The Secret of Twilight Gemini, Sadachio breaks off the tip of Goemon's katana, and it flies into the air... and falls into his back just before killing Goemon.
    • In Lupin III: Travels of Marco Polo – Another Page, Bernardo, who tries to use his Kill Sat to kill Lupin's gang, instead ends up right in the center of the shot. That's why you don't try to screw over Lupin, especially when a Chinese triad boss with connections to your weapons company owes him a favor.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha:
    • Toredia was an insane Orussia Liberation War activist that experimented on mass-producing the Mariages in StrikerS Sound Stage X, planning to use them to attack the capitols of numerous countries, saying that they needed to know pain. He was devoured by the Mariages before he could execute this plan.
    • Precia Testarossa, desperate to reach Al Hazard before dying of her disease or being arrested by the TSAB, tried to go do the dimensional transference when she had nine out of 21 Jewel Seeds, short of even the 14-seed bare minimum she suspected she would need. She falls to her death as the transference fails and her lair collapses.
    • Jail Scaglietti took part in Project Fate, an illegal cloning experiment that Precia completed. It's Fate Testarossa, the product of this experiment, who eventually defeated him and brought him to justice.
  • Mazinger Z:
    • Big Bad Dr. Hell designed a Mechanical Beast (Spartan K5) that resembled a Gladiator... but it was a pacifist that refused to attack unless provoked. Baron Ashura requested testing it against Mazinger Z anyway, but Kouji actually befriended it. Enraged, Ashura ordered several Iron Masks to put a time bomb on Spartan K5 to blow it up. Later, the Mechanical Beast was accidentally goaded into attacking Mazinger Z and UTTERLY BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF IT. Right when it was about to deliver the final blow, the bomb went off. Kouji and his friends were sad. Hell and Ashura were angry.
    • A nearly literal example in another episode. Kouji was fighting the Mechanical Beast Glossam X2 in an underwater battle. Glossam shot a pair of torpedoes at Mazinger. Mazinger grabbed them and threw them back, blowing Glossam up.
    • In episode 27, Ashura captures Aphrodite A and scans it in order to learn how to build a photon engine. He hands over the records to an Iron Mask and commands him to go and hand them out to Dr. Hell, though a Kikaiju — that had been deployed by Ashura to delay Mazinger Z — is returning to base right on that moment, and steps on the Iron Mask, killing him and destroying the information they had obtained.
    • UFO Robo Grendizer: The Vegans managed to make huge technological breakthroughs by exploiting ores of the material radioactive known as Vegatron. However, it led to his planet becoming unstable, forcing them to find new worlds to colonize. The Vegatron bombs they rained upon Fleed scorched the Fleedian army to ashes, but they also turned the planet they intended to colonize on a radioactive wasteland. And finally, Vegatron radiation destroyed their homeworld and rendered their Moon Space Base -their last safe haven- uninhabitable.
    • In Shin Mazinger, Tsubasa mentions this trope by name over Viscount Pigman's plan to obtain Zeus' hand. Inflicting her with a curse using her Dark and Troubled Past concerning Kenzo Kabuto and her younger brother Tetsuya Tsurugi, Pigman, disguised as a repentant Baron Ashura, attempts to get Tsubaki to reveal Zeus' hand's location, especially as Kouji and the Mazinger-Z are being beaten by the Super Prototype Energer-Z, seemingly being piloted by the revived Kenzo. However, as Baron Ashura narrates the incident and begs Tsubasa to reveal the hand, she gets the drop on him, realizing that the only way they would have known all of this was because of their time in the pillar. She guts "Ashura" and later forces Pigman to retreat as she does reveal Zeus' hand... for it to turn into Mazinger-Z's ultimate weapon, the God Scrander.
  • Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Azad tricking Kanna into absorbing the power of the dragon ball to flare up hostilities between the dragon factions was this twice over. First, Kanna being exiled over her actions led her to gaining access to technology that helped her reveal his plans to everyone. Second, Kobayashi used the very power that Kanna had absorbed to defeat both him and a brainwashed Kimun.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam and its related side stories showed that the majority of Zeon was hoisting their own petards. Many of the soldiers and higher ups are Glory Seeker-types who seek to outdo their own ace pilots, no matter if their actions harm their chances of actual victory. On top of that, all the prototype machines predictably resulted in supply lines being strained, and eventually resulted in the Gelgoog being pushed out far too late to make a difference.
    • According to both Stampede: The Story of Professor Minovsky and Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, Trenov Y. Minovsky, the man who discovered the Minovsky Particle and lead to the creation Mobile Suits, is killed by his own creations, though both stories differ on how he dies - he either dies at the hands of Zeon remnant Mobile Suits or has a Guncannon crush him.
    • In Mobile Suit Gundam F91, this is how Seabook defeats the mighty Mobile Armor Rafflesia. He uses the F-91's MEPE Effect to completely confuse Iron Mask, flies in close to its cockpit, then pulls away, leading to the Rafflesia's tendril weapons to shoot the cockpit with its beam guns.
    • In Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz features a Heroic example of this trope. Heero uses his Twin Buster Cannon to destroy the Big Bad bunker. Though Heero survives Wing Gundam Zero is destroyed by the third shot's recoil.
    • Ah, but the super weapon with a programming defect may as well be the same as the mad scientist whose creations kill him in the end. This also happened in the live-action movie, G Savior, directly to the main antagonist.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny has the Federation once again trying to nuke ZAFT into space dust... only to get spectacularly one-upped when ZAFT's Neutron Stampeder detonates their nukes in-flight and even while still in the launch tubes. And yes, it's every bit as plausible and awesome as it sounds.
  • My Hero Academia:
    • The Hero Killer Stain has a Quirk that allows him to temporarily freeze someone in place by ingesting their blood. After Midoriya, Todoroki, and Iida manage to defeat and subdue him, Stain suddenly regains consciousness, breaks free from his bonds, puts the absolute fear of God into the onlooking heroes... then suddenly freezes. A rib broken in the earlier battle had pierced through his lung, causing him to ingest his own blood and get frozen in place by his own Quirk.note 
    • How All For One was defeated. The original prototype for One For All was just a Quirk that could transfer itself to others. All For One actually put another Quirk that permitted the user to stockpile power, either out of pity or pride. As One For All is a cumulative power, it just enabled the 2 codominant Quirks to evolve with the help of the first one's eventual successors, all the way until by the time of the 8th user, All Might, it had evolved into the only way All For One could finally be defeated. And that's how All Might defeated him, twice in fact, until the second one finally drains him.
  • In the Grand Finale of My-HiME, after the Obsidian Lord sheds his host body and reveals his true Eldritch Abomination form, he taunts the heroine and says that as long as the HiME Star (supposedly the prime source of the violence that's surrounded their school) hangs in the sky above their school, he will keep regenerating. Cue about a dozen charging, re-energized HiME and one blown-the-heck-up celestial being, leaving him wide open to be blasted into oblivion.
  • The Mysterious Cities of Gold: Gomez and Gaspar blow up a wall of stones that barred the entry to Machu Picchu. It ended up blowing up the whole cliffside, sending them in a river below.
  • Naruto:
    • Gato, the gangster who hired Zabuza and Haku, gets slaughtered by Zabuza.
    • Zaku ended up having his arms blown up by his own air tubes (implants which let him perform sonic and air pressure attacks) after Shino snuck some of his bugs up into them, clogging them.
    • Sasori the puppetmaster gets impaled by his first creations: puppets made to look like his own parents, wielded by his own grandmother. She suggests that the human heart left in him made him hesitate upon seeing them rushing toward him, rather than dodge it.
      • And after he was resurrected, he was defeated again by getting trapped in his previous puppet body, controlled by Kankuro, the same guy who he EASILY defeated before.
    • In filler news, two of the three Jannin from the Land of Greens arc were whacked by having their own powers used against them. The first was Gentle Fist'd by Hinata in a way that smothers him in his own magnetic powder, effectively making his jutsu into a ball of suck by breaking the "off" switch; and the second had his ice crystal death ray reflected back at him by Naruto's headband.
      • The third was also defeated because he was crushed by Chouji who swallowed the water from his jutsu.
    • Almost happened to Deidara when Sasuke pinned him to his explosive clay bird with two large shurikens and sent the bird plummeting down to a minefield he had set earlier, but he manages to escape.
      • It almost happened in a flashback as well, when Itachi used genjutsu to trick Deidara into wrapping explosives around himself instead of Itachi, but Itachi stopped him because it was his mission to get Deidara to join Akatsuki.
    • Pain lost one of his remote-controlled bodies when he used it to absorb Naruto's Sage chakra. Without proper training, said chakra turns people into stone frogs.
    • Kisame suffers this twice. First, his own sword Samehada betrays him for Killerbee/the Eight-Tails because he fed it so much of his chakra while they fought. Then it turns out that the huge water jutsu he used to drain the Eight-Tails chakra and trap Killerbee attracted the attention of Raikage and company. Raikage and Killerbee (rejuvenated by the chakra Samehada just gave him) promptly team up to decapitate Kisame. While this was Just as Planned, even he said it worked a little too well.
    • Sasuke absorbed Orochimaru into his body using the technique Orochimaru intended to use to take over Sasuke's body.
    • Danzo's death is also an interesting case. Having spent his whole life preaching his principles that a shinobi should never show any emotions in battle, and consider the mission to be above comrades, guess how he died? Sasuke pierced his Chidori right through his teammate (whom Danzo had held hostage) to kill Danzo.
    • Kabuto got defeated by Uchiha Itachi, who he himself resurrected from the dead to fight in the war using his Edo Tensei technique. Not just defeated, but forced into undoing the technique, effectively destroying half his side's military power.
    • Also happened to Obito. He used his Kamui to suck Kakashi into the other dimension, only for Kakashi to deal some serious damage to him when Obito partially morphs into that same dimension to escape one of Naruto's attacks.
  • In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Negi, knowing he was nowhere near strong enough to take on Rakan, tricked Rakan into hitting him with one of his stronger attacks, and used his newly-learned Black Magic to absorb all of that power and use it against Rakan. On the other hand, this isn't an instant-win for Negi... all this strategy does is elevate him to Rakan's level, not overpower him. The fight ends in a draw.
  • Nakamura-sensei from Nichijou tries several times to capture Nano for her studies. All of her attempts backfire horribly, but the incidents with the paralysis powder stand out: Nakamura laces coffee with the powder and invites Nano to drink, hoping it will put her to sleep so she can capture Nano. The first time Nakamura was not paying attention and gave Nano the wrong cup, while the second time she sipped the excess coffee from the spiked cup to prevent it from spilling, falling victim to the powder herself.
  • In One Piece:
    • Even though no one dies, Luffy is beaten around by Foxy for nearly their entire fight. Foxy uses both his power to slow down time and mirrors to reflect his "slow beams." At the end of the fight, however, he's caught by one of his own beams, reflected from a shard of the same mirrors he used earlier, allowing Luffy ample time to set up a truly epic finishing punch.
    • When Crocodile impaled Luffy with his hook, he accidentally pierced his water bottle, revealing that water makes him vulnerable to attacks. Without that, Luffy would never be able to defeat him.
    • Also with Eneru, as the very gold ball he grafted onto Luffy's arm meant to slow him down becomes the very thing that ends up stopping Eneru's energized death ball and defeating the fake "god".
    • Moria uses his Shadow's Asgard technique in order to absorb one thousand shadows on the island to fight Luffy. While he's much bigger and stronger, he's also slower and struggling to keep the shadows in. Luffy defeats him handily through a combination of Gear 2nd and Gear 3rd. Also, Moria had spent the last part of the fight taunting Luffy with the fact that No Ontological Inertia wouldn't apply to his zombies, and he'd still have all their shadows and they would most likely die to the rising sun, but Shadow's Asgard brings them all into one place, allowing Luffy to literally beat the shadows out of him.
    • Robin has occasionally fallen into this whenever she tries to use her Devil Fruit powers to restrain opponents with Devil Fruit powers of their own that are activated by touch. Since the copies of her limbs that her powers create still count as her real limbs, this usually results in Robin falling victim to those powers herself. So far, this has happened with non-canon example Ain and canon example Sugar.
    • Speaking of Sugar, she invokes the trope twice over in different ways. After she captures Usopp, she attempts to kill him by feeding him a grape full of what she assumed to be poison intended to kill her. However, the grape was actually a ball of Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce intended to knock her out non-lethally, and its effects cause Usopp to have such a Nightmare Face that it scared her unconscious, thus achieving the grape's initial goal. Sugar invoked the trope on herself by trying to invoke it on Usopp.
    • A major part of the Dressrosa arc was the tournament at Corrida Colosseum. Doflamingo enticed Luffy into entering the tournament by offering up a prize he knew Luffy would not be able to resist: The Flame-Flame Fruit previously wielded by his brother. As planned, Luffy enters the tournament which keeps him out of the way, but the arrival of Luffy's other brother enables Luffy to leave and help his crew knowing the fruit is in good hands. Later on, when it all hits the fan, half of Doflamingo's officers are defeated by the top tier fighters from the tournament who sided with Luffy. Almost none of these individuals would even have been in Dressrosa had it not been for the tournament and the prize being offered.
    • Charlotte Brulee and her team were tricked and caught by Chopper and Carrot using a fake Carrot the former created.
    • When the World Government discovered the archaeologists of Ohara were attempting to uncover information about the forbidden Void Century, they had the entire island glassed via Buster Call, killing everyone except Nico Robin. However, the knowledge of the Void Century the archaeologists discovered remained intact, because they had thrown all their documents into a lake, saving them from the fiery bombardment. Said documents were later recovered and stored in a secret location by the giants of Elbaf. Vegapunk later points out that, by killing all the archaeologists because They Know Too Much, the World Government basically confirmed everything they had discovered was true. Furthermore, it's shown that the destruction of Ohara was the inciting incident that galvanized Dragon into founding the Revolutionary Army, which quickly grew its might into a fighting force capable of warring with the World Government, toppling many of its member nations over the years.
  • Pokémon:
    • Pokémon: The Series:
      • In Diamond and Pearl, Paul released his Chimchar because it lost one too many battles, and considered it weak. In the Sinnoh League, he was defeated by Ash who used the same Chimchar... as a fully evolved Infernape.
      • Kodai, the Big Bad of Pokémon: Zoroark: Master of Illusions, doesn't die, but his own TV network is used to air his Engineered Public Confession to Crown City and bring about his downfall.
      • Bianca's Minccino in Black and White had a dreadful habit of cleaning anything he found dirty. Bianca pulled out a Poké Ball that was just as unclean as Ash's badge case (she delivered that to him as well), and when Minccino saw that, he darted up to clean it off. After that, though... wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, click.
      • In that same episode, Ash used his Snivy, a female, to try to disable said Minccino with Attract, a tactic typically used by her to make battles easier.note  But Minccino dodged, and used Attract right back on Snivy, disabling her instead.
      • Cyrus's grand scheme was to possess Dialga and Palkia to create a new dimension for him. However, when they are released, the dimension fades away and is brought to a more timely end by the not-yet-fully-released Dialga and Palkia - but not before Cyrus enters the portal.
      • The scientists of Pokémon: The First Movie dreamed of creating the world's strongest Pokémon... and they succeeded.
      • Team Rocket's been hit with things like this from time to time. In one instance, at the end of the Johto arc, they capture Pikachu using a massive magnet, causing him to fall ill and begin to dangerously overcharge. In the very first episode of the Hoenn arc, they capture the ill Pikachu again, using a machine to absorb Pikachu's electricity, not knowing that all they've done is helped him release the excess electricity he had built up that they caused.
      • Ash also fell victim to this twice when dealing with Leagues. In both the Unova and Kalos League, he invites the person who ends up beating him to participate in the League. It’s even more dumb in Kalos because he probably would have won had he not invited Alain to participate.
    • In Pokémon Adventures, Black only managed to beat Lenora because she had her Stoutland spam Take Down, a move that, while powerful, whittled down its HP and allowed it to be taken out in one good hit.
    • In Pokémon Zensho, this is how Giovanni is defeated in Silph Co. After Satoshi frees Sabrina's Lapras, he uses it against Giovanni's Nidoqueen. Lapras first uses Mist, and then uses a move (implied to be Confuse Ray) on Nidoqueen, thus causing Nidoqueen to become confused. This results in one of her Poison Stings hitting Giovanni, leaving Giovanni poisoned and giving Team Rocket no choice but to retreat.
  • In The Prince of Tennis, Hajime Mizuki attempts to use Yuuta Fuji's desire to defeat his hated-loved older brother Shuusuke, by (among other things) teaching him a Deadly Upgrade-type skill that could seriously injure him - without telling the kid about the last detail. Well, when it's Mizuki's time to play against the older Fuji, the other deliberately gives him the advantage... and then completely trashes him, all because he's pissed off at Mizuki for the way he treated Yuuta.
  • In the Fanservice-filled Queen's Blade, the assassin Melona's primary means of attack is to squirt some sort of acidic fluid... from her breasts. Reina defeats her by blocking off her nipples with her Breast Plate, causing the acidic liquid to back up, swelling Melona's breasts to massive sizes.... and blowing them up.
  • The Quintessential Quintuplets: Non-lethal example during the Sisters' War arc. A desperate Ichika decides to try and resort to sabotage the efforts of her sisters to get close to Fuutarou. She ends up getting caught, and due to her lies and deception, she tries to tell Fuutarou that she's the girl he met six years ago as a child, but he doesn't believe her. This ends up killing any chances she had of hooking up with him, since he states he can't trust her anymore.
  • Ranma ½ includes this on a few occasions, usually as a way for Ranma to beat opponents who, for whatever reason, outclass him. The best example is the Musk Dynasty story; Ranma's opponent Herb is far stronger and better trained at ki attacks then Ranma is, and knows how to disrupt the Hiryu Shoten Ha, which normally feeds off of the opponent's ki (which makes it a tentative example of this trope). Realizing that his opponent's attacks have left large quantities of ki floating loosely, he tricks his foe into apparently destabilizing the Hiryu Shoten Ha again- instead, Herb actually gives Ranma what he needs to gather all of the available ki, coalesce it into a single massive bolt, and drop it right on his head.
    • In an earlier story, the Date Monster of Watermelon Island, Ranma is stuck in female form and defenseless against Tatewaki Kuno, who has lost his delusions and thus is capable of actually concentrating on defeating Ranma for once. Aware that his Training from Hell has conditioned him to attack watermelons, s/he slips one onto Kuno's head, whereupon he knocks himself out cold and restores his memory- and thus his delusions.
    • The Martial Arts Dining story might also count by a technicality; Ranma's winning move, the Parley du Foie Gras, not only takes advantage of a loophole in the rules, but also turns Piccolet Chardin's normally advantageous mutations into Ranma's key to victory. Piccolet's rubber-like face allows him to eat faster then Ranma can, but also makes it easy for Ranma to force his own food down Piccolet's throat.
    • Actually referred to by name in an anime-exclusive OAV; early into the Christmas Scramble OAV, Kodachi mockingly points out that Kuno's unidentified but huge present is far too big to even get through the door, never mind into Akane Tendo's stocking. Kuno, horrorstruck, points out that he's been hoisted with his own petard (probably not in the original Japanese, though, as Kuno's Shakespearean references are a Woolseyism). And is promptly squashed under Shampoo's bicycle.
  • Subverted in Rave Master with Six Guard's Sean. When he's knocked out by his own sleep-inducing power, he ends up fighting in his sleep and is even stronger than when he's awake. He grinds his teeth, too.
  • In Resident Evil: The Marhawa Desire, the isolated nature of Marhawa Academy, where communication to the outside world from within its premise is nonexistent, is used against its populace when the Big Bad of the events dismantles all of the vehicles within the academy prior to instigating the outbreak throughout the campus, with the intention of ensuring that no one within the academy would be able to get help from the B.S.A.A. in time to halt the massacre.
  • Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles is basically an epitome of this trope. Basically REF has weapons based on technology provided by Haydonites. When they clash, the question becomes: will Haydonites manage to turn humans' Haydonite-based weapons against humans, or will humans defeat Haydonites with Haydonite-based weapons? Both actually happens, but in the end humans win, at least for the moment.
  • In Rurouni Kenshin the puppetmaster Gein surrounds Aoshi with oil soaked wires that he lights causing a forest fire. Aoshi uses Onmyô Hasshi to hit Gein with a Kodachi, and reveals that he has tied a wire Gein had left during the battle. Gein begs him not to kill him but Aoshi pulls Gein into the fire Gein had set himself killing him. Aoshi escapes the fire by using a hole he had dug earlier.
  • Sailor Moon: In contrast with the manga, many anime characters died this way (in fact, the protagonists themselves rarely kill anyone, except for monsters-of-the-week and Big Bads) — at least when they were not offed by the Big Bad for their constant failures, betrayed by their peers, or redeemed. Malachite/Kunzite died of his own reflected attack (though Sailor Moon still qualifies for that kill by reflecting it); Mimet/Mimete died when she used a machine built by Eugeal/Eudial, whom she killed; Telulu/Tellu was blown up by the giant plant she summoned; Byruit/Viluy had her Nanomachines turn against her and "erase" her; Cyprin/Cyprine and Petirol/Ptilol (regarded as one person) were tricked into blasting each other, Rubeus is killed when he blows up his ship, and Sailor Lead Crow was sucked into the black hole that she tried to use against Sailor Moon, though only because her black hole device was sabotaged by her sociopathic teammate, Tin Nyanko.
  • Sakura Wars: The Movie:
    • Towards the end of the film, Orihime Soletta tries to fire energy blasts at the Flower Division, but it destroys her Eisenkleid, breaking free of Patrick Hamilton's control.
    • Brent Furlong, the film's Big Bad, uses the Japhkiel's sound waves to merge with them so he can fight the Flower Division personally. This gets exploited by Kohran Li, who fires her missiles at the shields so that Ogami and Sakura can kill Brent for good.
  • Spy X Family: In the Cruise Ship arc, Snoops engineered a contingency plan by planting multiple bombs on the ship to eliminate the targets while he secretly escapes. Loid ends up tossing the last bomb overboard right where Snoops' raft is, throwing both him and the Asassins' Leader into the ocean where they end up getting devoured by sharks.
  • Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry kills off Medlock by having Ralph override her ship and order her own killer robots to tear her apart. The real irony is that she had recently turned good, and the good guys assumed she got out safely like they did and didn't think anything of looking for her...
  • Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note: The criminals in The Backyard Knows, animated as episodes 9-12. Basically speaking: they steal some rare butterfly samples from the museum, wanting to sell to collectors. The problem is one of them is particularly poisonous; one of them got poisoned to the point that calling the ambulance became unavoidable.
  • Tenchi Muyo! has a spectacular moment in Episode 7. The episode's main plot of Ryoko and Ayeka trying to win Tenchi's heart reaches its peak when they trick Mihoshi into returning to the Galaxy Police and locking Washu in her lab before turning on each other. Everything falls apart spectacularly when Sasami defeats an alarm Ayeka put in to keep Ryoko out, the two girls find out Washu was already in his room, fall prey to said alarm (which launches them into the lake) and, for good measure, Mihoshi returns... and crash lands on the house.
  • Transformers: Armada
    • One episode has a schemer by the name of Thrust. Sideways convinces the guy to side with giant, planet-eating Transformer Unicron. While everyone else is trying to defend their home planet from Unicron, Thrust is standing on the big guy's shoulder. Unicron starts to transform, and Thrust is knocked off balance and crushed in one of Unicron's joints.
    • To make it even more ironic, Thrust was in the middle of gloating to Galvatron (whom he'd betrayed) when this happened; he ended up begging Galvatron to help him, but Galvatron simply walked away, leaving him to his fate.
  • In Ultimate Teacher Ganbachi plants a spike to the ground in order to kill Hinako who was dropping from above, only to be nudged towards the spike and have Hinako drop on top of him, impaling him in the process.
  • Undead Unluck: God is not immune to the Negator abilities it distributes, but it's smart and powerful enough to find ways to overcome them and worse, turn them against his opponents.
  • In Wolfsmund, the Big Bad (Lord Wolfram of St. Gotthard Pass, Switzerland) is an evil and sadistic man who regularly tortures and kill the civilians there for his own amusement despite the fact his master, the Austrian Duke Leopold I, only wants him to guard the Pass so rebels can't use it to travel between Switzerland and Italy. However, his cruel rule, marked by the endless killing and torturing of even children and people whom he promised to show mercy to, finally bites Wolfram big time when Swiss rebels capture the pass and give Wolfram the most horrible (and well-deserved) execution in the series.
  • Yaiba: Gold and Silver are both defeated by their own features: Silver is knocked out when he accidentally shot his electrical laser while in a water pool and Gold is impaled by Yaiba's sword after the latter took advantage of Gold's super strength and super elastic arms to get propelled with enough force and speed towards the titan.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
      • In the second season where Yugi dueled Marik's mind-slave Strings, the only way he was able to beat his invincible card setup was to use it to his own advantage so that his monster would be destroyed and regenerated an infinite number of times within a single turn, and due to one of the effects Marik had on the field, Strings was forced to keep drawing cards from his deck every time the monster regenerated until he ran out of cards and lost the duel by deck-out.
      • Seto Kaiba Crush Card Virus destroys monsters with 1500 or more ATK, but in the Duelist Kingdom arc such cards are rare, and therefore most Duelists have only a few such cards in their Decks. His own Deck is the exception, because of all the money he spent on it. Therefore, even though Yugi was still able to get into a winning position after being on the receiving end of Kaiba's Crush Card, when Pegasus turns the card back on Kaiba in their own Duel, it completely cripples him, and Kaiba has no choice but to surrender a turn later.note 
      • In the anime, when Yugi defeated Ryuji Otogi (Duke Devlin) at Dungeon Dice Monsters, it was, in a way, Otogi's fault; he had inadvertently designed the DDM version of Dark Magician, Yugi's favorite monster, incredibly powerful, with abilities that made Yugi able to use it with almost as much synergy as he did in Duel Monsters. (Yugi could not help but thank him for making such an accurate version of his favorite card before he delivered the winning blow.)
      • The above example is a bit different in the original Japanese. As it turns out, it was Pegasus who decided to expand the DDM game, adding new monsters and features based on the Duel Monsters, and Otogi apparently hadn't checked the new additions in depth before facing Yugi, and he was thrown for a complete loop since he had no idea of the Dark Magician's abilities. Still counts as an example since, as the original creator, he should have checked the game more thoroughly.
      • In the Virtual World arc, the Quirky Miniboss Squad all suffer a defeat this way, and each one is directly because of the Deck Master system that they implemented.
      • Oshita (Gansley) insults Yugi's Deck Master Kuriboh, but fails to deal the coup de grâce because of its Deck Master Ability, and then Yugi plays a Kuriboh-related card that allows him to deal the coup de grâce instead.
      • Otaki (Crump) laughs at Deck Master Black Magician Girl (Dark Magician Girl) for being useless without her master, the Black Magician (Dark Magician). On the last turn, Anzu (Téa) uses her Deck Master Ability to add Sage's Stonenote  to her hand and uses it to Summon Black Magician; the two Magicians finish him off.
      • Oka (Johnson), a smug lawyer, cheated throughout the entire Duel by rigging Joey's gambling cards, but when he was forced to play fair, he fell for an obvious bluff that allowed Joey to use his Deck Master, the Flame Swordsman, to win the Duel.
      • Ota (Nesbitt) went up against competent Duelist Otogi (Duke), amateur Duelist Honda (Tristan), and utter novice Duelist Shizuka (Serenity). Shizuka's Deck Master Ability lets her play the powerful St. Joan, and Otogi's Deck Master Ability lets him trigger the card that Honda played with his own Deck Master Ability, which comes together to make St. Joan strong enough to destroy Ota's Deck Master, Perfect Machine King, causing him to automatically lose the Duel. Had he not challenged all three of them at once, he would not have lost, especially since he only needed one of their bodies anyway.
      • Daimon (Leichter) played a restriction-based Deck against Kaiba that nearly allowed him to win. But Kaiba triggered his Deck Master Ability at a crucial moment, allowing him to play his trademark Blue-Eyes White Dragon and destroy Daimon's Kill Sat, winning him the Duel.
      • When merged together, they Duel Jounouchi and Yugi. When they merge their Deck Masters into the Five-Headed Dragon, Yugi and Jounouchi merge theirs into Dark Flare Knight and then Mirage Knight, which destroys Five-Headed Dragon. When the Big Five replaces it with Berserk Dragon, Jounouchi's Flame Swordsman buys them the one turn that they need for Berserk Dragon to grow weaker from its own effect, then uses its Deck Master Ability to empower the newly transformed Dark Magician Knight, Yugi's Deck Master, enough to slay the weakened dragon and win the Duel.
      • In the quarterfinals of Battle City, Mai attempts to defeat Marik this way, using the effect of Amazoness Chain Master to steal The Winged Dragon of Ra. However, it backfires on her because she can't read the text on the card, which is needed in order to command it. Marik recites the text and reclaims control of it.
      • When Yami Bakura duels Yami Marik, he loses because of this. In the anime, he tries to win this way by using Dark Designator in order to add Ra to Yami Marik's hand, and then Exchange in order to steal Ra. However, the moment he tried to summon Ra, Marik activated a trap card that drained Bakura's sacrifices of their attack power, meaning Ra had zero attack points. He then sacrificed it to summon a new monster, which allowed Marik to revive Ra with Monster Reborn, the card Marik took from Bakura because of Exchange. The manga plays it out a bit differently, but is still ultimately this trope. After using Dark Designator to add Ra to Marik's hand, Bakura activates Multiple Destruction, a hand destruction card, sending Ra to the graveyard, which gives Marik the chance to revive it with Monster Reborn. In both versions, Bakura was unaware of Ra's additional powers.
      • In the Waking the Dragons arc, the Seal of Orichalcos was an utterly overpowered card, but once it was activated, whoever lost the Duel lost their soul. There were only two instances onscreen where the person who activated the card didn't lose the Duel, and one of those was a draw.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions: Aigami uses his mystical Quantum Cube to force all his duels to cater to the House Rules of Dimension Summoning. This ends up helping Kaiba and Yugi a lot, as when they dueled him, they had a lot of high level monsters in their hands but Dimension Summoning allows one to summon without tributes. Aigami ends up losing due to the negative side effects of Dimension Summoning.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
      • In season one, the second of the Shadow Riders, Camilla (Camula), had a card called Illusion Gate. It destroyed all monsters her opponent controlled and then let her summon one monster from her opponent's Graveyard. The cost? If she lost the Duel, her soul would be forfeit to the Sacred Beasts. She normally used her Shadow Charm to offer someone else's soul instead, but when Judai (Jaden)'s own charm canceled out hers, she was left with no choice but to stake her own soul. And naturally, she lost.
      • In season two, Judai dueled X, a Pro Duelist who used a Mill Deck; Judai won by decking him out. X was a very unpleasant person (even Ed (Aster), who witnessed the duel, didn't like him), so this was sort of poetic justice. (Of course, Judai does this using one of his Neo-Spacians, and a common theme with his duels is that the villains never understand how they work and never take them into consideration. Even the most Crazy-Prepared villain can never prepare for something he knows nothing about.)
      • The turning point in the final duel against Darkness comes when Jaden uses Black Panther to copy his Neosphere's ability and re-set his Darkness field spell, bricking Darkness' strategy entirely.
      • Earlier in the duel, Darkness used a card to summon Yubel from Jaden's deck to his field, intending to use her to finish off Jaden. Jaden negates the attack and then uses Super Polymerization to fuse Elemental Hero Neos and Yubel into Neos Wiseman, a powerful monster that helps Jaden hold the line against Darkness.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds had a few:
      • The first example was way back in episode two. Yusei duels a guy who uses Insect cards, and had a Spell Card on the field (Ant Lion's Vengeance/Retribution of the Ant Lion) that damages a player whenever their monster goes to the Graveyard. Yusei pulls off a combo that destroys all three of his opponent's monsters, and lets his own Spell card do the rest. (Given that the guy purposely destroys one of his own Insects earlier in the duel to use its effect, he's obviously not entirely clear on how his own card works; long story short, he was an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, more or less.)
      • Arguably, this is how Yusei defeated Jack the first time. Jack was in his pre-Heel–Face Turn days, and tried to troll Yusei by summoning Red Dragon Archfiend and Stardust Dragon, the latter of which is Yusei's ace card that Jack stole. Unfortunately for him, Yusei was expecting that, activates Harmonium Mirror to seize control of it, and ultimately wins. (Well, he would if the duel hadn't been interrupted, but Yusei won in Jack's eyes, much to his horror.) The rematch at the end of the Fortune Cup has Jack deliberately reenact his previous strategy to win, but it turns into an I Know You Know I Know that ends with Yusei pulling out the victory.
      • The duel with Takasu plays it in another angle. While locked in the Facility, Yusei is forced into a duel with the head jailer. The idea of Takasu's Iron Chain strategy is to exhaust the opponent's Deck, but Yusei reveals that his last two cards (from a deck all cobbled together from other jailed duelists) actually depended on a high Graveyard count, and he wins the duel with them.
      • Durring Yusei's "Concentration Duel" (a ruleset that combines Duel Monsters with Concentration) with Clark, Clark cheats by marking his cards so that his glasses can see what kind of card he's about to flip over. However, he's too blatant about his cheating (at one point flipping over the same card 3 times in a row, which Yusei notes is an almost 1 in 10000 chance), and Yusei catches on quickly that the game is rigged. A lucky power outage exposes the trick to Yusei, allowing him to exploit the reflection in Clark's glasses to pull off a combo to win.
      • This could also be construed as how Team 5Ds defeated Team Ragnarok. Harold's Trap Card, Gjallarhorn, would have banished all three of his Divine Beast monsters in three turns and then deal damage to Yusei equal to their ATK, and make them and Harold nearly invincible until that happened. Yusei was able to turn this card against him by summoning Shooting Star Dragon for the first time. This causes Harold to use his Odin's Eye Trap, which again, is what Yusei was expecting; he counters with a Trap of his own to shanghai control of the Trap, making the three Divine monsters vulnerable; a second Trap causes their Scores to drop to zero, meaning when the effect of Gjallarhorn finally activates, Yusei takes no damage at all. Harold, however, is now defenseless, and wide open.
    • In Yu-Gi-Oh!: Bonds Beyond Time, Paradox's Sin set does him in. Paradox's set essentially hinged on weakening his opponents' monsters enough so that his overpowered beasts could curb-stomp Yami Yugi, Judai and Yusei, killing them. Yami Yugi starts the unraveling when he takes back Yusei's stolen Stardust Dragon and it was more or less a defensive waiting game, tanking attacks and rescuing fallen monsters until the time was right to flatten Paradox and save all of time.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL:
      • The episode where Rio demanded a duel from her brother, Shark. Rio tried to win by using a Field Spell that benefits Water-Attribute monsters and Xyz monsters and used them to gain an advantage for a turn, summoning a powerful Xyz called Ice Princess Zereort. Unfortunately, she seemed to forget that her brother also specialized in Water-Attribute Xyzs, and was able to use the Field Spell to summon a far more powerful one called Shark Caesar, which was able to wipe her out.
      • During Yuma's duel with Eliphas, Eliphas uses a deck focused around using Rank-Up Magic cards to keep upgrading his Xyz Monsters, culminating in a Rank 13 ace monster that, on top of having an insane 5000 base ATK, gets more powerful with every Over Ray Unit attached to it and mills the opponent's deck for more Units whenever they Xyz Summon (by the end of the duel, it has a whopping 33 ORU attached). Yuma defeats it by summoning a Rank 1 Xyz Monster that gets more powerful when it attacks an Xyz Monster depending on the difference in their Ranks, and how many ORU the opposing monster has. Coupled with "Double Up Chance", this gives Yuma's monster 79200 ATK.
      • Double Subverted with the duel between Yuma and Nasch. Nasch uses the Quick-Play Spell "Glorious Seven" to counter Yuma's signature combo of "Double Up Chance" and Hope, but Yuma stops the second attack at the last second. "Glorious Seven" would have reflected the battle damage back at Yuma, which would have make him lose, but since the damage this turn is 0, Nasch's LP become 0 due to the effect of his "Glorious Seven". Which means him attempting to use this trope on Yuma ended up backfiring on him instead.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V:
      • Sawatari steals two of Yuya's cards and gives him the weak monster Block Spider as an insult, saying it's nothing but trash. When they duel, Block Spider deals the final attack to Sawatari.
      • Later in the series, Yugo invokes this trope against a trio of Obelisk Force soldiers, wiping out their entire monster lineup, causing their own Spell Card, Ancient Armageddon Gear, to deal damage to them equal to the total ATK of the monsters they just lost.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS:
      • In his second duel with Playmaker, Revolver would have been able to win with less flair if he didn't go all the way to steal Firewall Dragon.
      • Revolver had so many chances to win in his fourth battle with Playmaker but went all the way to create an Extra Link just to give Yusaku despair. Had he just attacked or powered up his monsters before creating the Extra Link, he could had dealt enough damage to defeat Playmaker before he's able to get the cards he needs.
      • Likewise, if Revolver simply sat on his Borrels for lockdown as Borreload Savage Dragon would have been able to negate card effects. But he banished his own monsters with Zeroboros in order to clear the board, giving Soulburner the chance for a comeback with Burning Draw.
      • Playmaker summons "Cyberse Clock Dragon" and boosts its ATK to 7500 so he can end the duel in one turn, but Ai uses a Spell Card to negate the attack and summon the rest of his Extra Deck ace monsters to the field as set up for his Link-6 summon.
      • Playmaker unintentionally sets himself up for defeat the moment he attempts to use "Quantum Dragon's" effect during the battle to return "The Arrival Cyberse" to the Extra Deck, not knowing that the latter is unaffected by other card effects while it has a counter.
      • Ai's attempt to use "TAi Strike" to defeat Playmaker backfires, as the latter uses the effect of "Code Hack" in his GY to negate the Spell Card, increase "Decode Talker's" ATK by 700, and wipe out Ai's remaining 100 LP. Ai even lampshades that he shouldn't have fallen for it, since it was pretty obvious that Playmaker chose "Decode Talker" on purpose.
  • In YuYu Hakusho, Yusuke is fighting Rando, a demon that steals spells and techniques. Rando tries to shrink Yusuke with a spell he used on Kuwabara earlier...only for it to shrink him! They're fighting in a swamp, and some algae blocked up Yusuke's ears. The requirements of the spell are that the victim needs to actually hear the incantation; otherwise, the spell bounces back on the caster. Genkai states that this is the inevitable result of stealing powers and not earning them- you're bound to miss some crucial info.
  • A recurring theme in Hentai creator Jeanne Da'ck's works are some random slob creating/discovering a magic spell (either Compelling Voice or "Disregard," more than simple Visible Invisibility the user is completely ignored by everyone no matter what they do,) uses said magic spell to screw every female in town and make the men get lost until dying by either facetiously saying something stupid like "I could die fucking at this rate!" and doing just that or falling down with an injury that could've been healed with help, but instead dying alone after doing something depraved like raping and devirginizing a whole convent of nuns for the Evulz.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top