Honor Before Reason / Anime & Manga

Characters who place Honor Before Reason in Anime and Manga.

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• Eita Touga of 12 Beast frequently advocates running away from the giant, city destroying war-machine. War Leader Jawea and the Harpies choose to stay and fight, to protect their tribe's honour. Less egregious than other examples as fleeing would leave over half the tribe — the elderly, young, and flightless — behind.
• When Train confronts Shiki near the end of Black Cat, just before his final battle with Creed, he has, depending on whether it's the manga or the anime, either the ability to fire one last nanomachine-powered railgun shot for the day or an Orichalcum bullet that can pierce any object. Just before the fight actually starts, he ends up firing it into the sky instead, just to show that he doesn't need it to beat Shiki or Creed.
• Bleach:
  • Ichigo believes in fighting his way. He won't let his Hollow get in the way of that, even if disadvantages him to do so. His Hollow taking over allowed him to not only survive Byakuya's killing blow, but to gain the upper hand and badly wound Byakuya. Upon regaining control, Ichigo apologised to Byakuya and asked if they could start the fight over. It was the first time Byakuya realised Ichigo had a lot more honour to him than he'd realised and, fortunately for Ichigo, he agreed.
  • Ichigo displayed this trait again against Ulquiorra. Ichigo, at the verge of death, was so completely taken over by his Hollow that he lost all reason and not only overwhelmed Ulquiorra with raw power, but even stabbed Uryuu for trying to calm him down. When Ichigo regains control, and sees what he's done to both Ulquiorra and Uryuu, he insists that the only way he'll continue fighting Ulquiorra is if he's given the same injuries in compensation. This means chopping off an arm and a leg. Ulquiorra's too far gone, however, and dies before Ichigo can carry through his vow. It's especially bad because Ulquiorra has very clearly displayed that he can easily regenerate limbs. The fight would be even again if Ichigo just stood by and allowed him to heal up a bit naturally so the offer to have his own limbs cut off is exceptionally irrational.
  • Ikkaku has vowed to fight and die under Kenpachi's command. To this end he'll even throw a fight to avoid revealing how powerful he really is, just in case the truth puts him under pressure to work towards becoming a captain of another squad. Called out on this by Iba who told him he's not as expendable as he thinks he is, he should be working to get stronger, and he should never put personal pride before his shinigami duty.
  • Yumichika is so determined to remain a subordinate of both Kenpachi and Ikkaku, and so determined to uphold the squad's kidou-hating, direct combat-loving philosophy, that he hides his power and would prefer to die than reveal the truth in public. Ikkaku may only be hiding bankai, but Yumichika's even hiding his shikai thanks to his power being kidou-based. This means he has to fight his battles on Heroic Resolve alone.
  • Ukitake placed so much value on honour that he ignored his own misgivings and allowed Kaien to avenge his murdered wife. When Kaien requested Ukitake and Rukia stay out of the fight no matter way, Ukitake agreed and explained to Rukia that there was a difference between a fight for life and a fight for pride. Unfortunately, the culprit wasn't a normal Hollow and had a special ability that proved Kaien's undoing.
  • Subverted with Kyōraku. He's a devoted Combat Pragmatist and lectures other captains that idealistic fighting is a distraction captains can't afford when in battle. Kyouraku and Ukitake are acknowledged as the greatest partnership in the Gotei 13, and it's made clear that while one side of the partnership plays this trope painfully straight, the other blows it to hell.
  • Yamamoto lost his left arm in the battle against Aizen. Afterwards, he chooses to leave it as it is, even though Orihime would easily be able to restore it. He says he didn't think it would be right to ask a human for help in a matter that should have only involved shinigami. Yhwach completely mocks him for this attitude, pointing out that if he still had both arms, he might have stood a chance against him, before killing Yamamoto.
  • Cang Du believes that people with bonds in life should go Together in Death. He'll even go to the trouble of knocking enemies out and dragging them to their comrades so he can kill them at the same time. He also said it didn't feel right to attack Hitsugaya with his own Bankai, even though he doesn't believe Bankai have wills and souls of their own.
  • While attempting to rescue Orihime in Hueco Mundo, Renji lectures Ichigo about "true warriors not fearing death" when the latter doesn't want to split up the group. Apparently Renji forgot that they were there on a rescue mission and they weren't supposed to get into a series of life and death battles.
  • Jidanbo Ikkanzaka believes that fights should be honorable one on one duels, and believes that if anyone defeats him, he should let them into the gate he is guarding because they proved themselves. Gin Ichimaru punishes him for this, pointing out that a guard is never supposed to let anyone in.
  • The first time the Vandenreich invade Soul Society and start killing everyone, Retsu Unohana refuses to leave the Squad 4 barracks and stops Isane from leaving too. When the Vandenreich leave and a lot of people are dead, Isane laments and asks Unohana why she didn't help or let her help (Unohana is later revealed to be super powerful). Unohana says Yamamoto ordered them to stay put.
• One of the main defining characteristics of Captain Harlock, no matter which of the many, many different versions you recognize. His Establishing Character Moment for the very first episode of the first anime is coming to Earth to visit a little girl's birthday party like he promised... despite being considered Public Enemy #1 by the corrupt government.
  • Essential to the Twist Ending of "Endless Odyssesy": Harlock promises early into the series that he will help Tadashi Daiba succeed in his vow to kill the man who murdered his father, commenting on his belief that a man cannot break a promise and anyone who would break a promise or an oath is not a man. After Nu is defeated, he then reveals that he was the one who killed Daiba's father, as he had promised to do so if Tsuyoshi Daiba gave in to his hunger for knowledge and betrayed humanity to Nu. He repeats what Tsuyoshi's spirit had earlier revealed to Tadashi, that he has vowed to Tsuyoshi to kill Tadashi if he cannot become a man, and firmly declares that Tadashi either kill him or be shot down.
• Captain Tsubasa has a few examples:
  • Genzo Wakabayashi is very proud of his goalkeeping skills, and during the Nankatsu vs Shutetsu match he almost leaves his team on account of losing his personal duel with Tsubasa (that Tsubasa would be able to score him a goal during the match). His coach Mikami quickly slaps him and calls him out on leaving his teammates on a personal whim.
  • Jun Misugi suffers from a heart illness that forces him to sit out and play only half a match per day. However, during important matches, he's willing to go past his limit and risk his life rather than leaving his team when they need him.
  • Tsubasa himself during the Middle School arc. He gets an ankle injury during the opening match, and then for good measure, he hurts his shoulder saving an opposing player from a bad fall during the second. Despite his doctor's warnings, he continues to play and pulls through the pain, doing what it takes to win his third National Championship before graduating.
  • Genzo gets another moment when he plays a friendly match against Schneider. Against his coach's orders to keep the tie, Genzo leaves his goal unguarded when his team gets a free kick to try and score a goal himself. It backfires horribly because not only he misses the shot, but gives Schneider the perfect chance to shoot back and win.
• Examples from A Certain Magical Index and its sister show A Certain Scientific Railgun:
  • When Mikoto Misaka learns that her clones that she loves like sisters are being slaughtered by Accelerator, she considers the affair her problem and tries to solve it on her own, not telling anybody about it. When she realizes that she can't beat Accelerator, she decides her only option is a Heroic Sacrifice. When Touma Kamijou finds out, he calls her out on being too proud to ask for help and solves the problem by kicking Accelerator's ass.
  • Touma Kamijou has Chronic Hero Syndrome and absolutely refuses to ignore or abandon anybody in trouble, no matter how injured he is or how powerful the foe. It is later pointed out that he also has a problem with asking others for help, which he later grows out of.
  • Gunha Sogiita has Super-Speed, yet he always announces his presence and refuses to ambush or attack from behind. He claims that a true warrior always takes his opponents head-on and does not use dirty tricks. Ironically, this is part of the reason why he sees no reason to learn how to master his abilities and improve his fighting skills.
  • Index insists that dealing with enemy mages is her responsibility and not Touma's, due to her encyclopedic knowledge of magic. She ignores Touma's arguments that he is better suited to fight them, though this is in part because she doesn't want to see him get hurt fighting.
  • Leivinia Birdway carries an antique flintlock pistol that only has one shot and takes a long time to load (she typically uses it to finish off a downed opponent). She doesn't use modern guns because of her contempt for science and because flintlock pistols are cooler.
  • Princess Villian is an Actual Pacifist, and as a result refused to learn how to use magic because it can potentially be used to fight, something which her older sister Carissa mocks her for. She becomes more of a Martial Pacifist during and after Carissa's coup against the royal family.
• Both protagonist and antagonist fall victim to this line of thinking in Claymore. An awakened being Ophelia puts all of her vulnerable, human portions at her tail and challenges Claire to cut through the awakened being's body using her dangerous "Flash Sword" technique. As Claire begins the test of mettle, Ophelia thinks to herself, "The fool, she could've just ignored me and aimed right for my tail." Ophelia seems to slightly realize that she too is guilty of honor before reason since she agreed to put all of her vulnerable parts in one easy to target place. As she continues to berate Claire's foolishness, Ophelia thinks to herself, "Wait, who am I talking about?"
• In a somewhat unusual example, Suzaku Kururugi from Code Geass displays shades of this trope. Unusual since many consider him to be a villain, because the main character is a Necessarily Evil Anti-Hero violently rebelling against The Empire that Suzaku has joined to attempt to induce legitimate social change.
  • Prior to a certain event near the end of the first series (Euphie's death), Suzaku follows this trope pretty closely despite working for the evil empire. He refuses to shoot his friend even when threatened with being shot himself if he doesn't, he stops pursuing his target in order to save endangered civilians, he always gives his targets a chance to surrender (even after things get pesonal), and basically has to live as a Technical Pacifist who's involved in killing tons of people. He also regularly risks himself to save others (although this is partially because he's a Death Seeker).
  • Lelouch Lamperouge himself falls under this on a few occasion: the chess match against Schneizel. Schneizel deliberately moves his king into check. Instead of accepting an immediate win, and in the process captivity of Suzaku, one of his biggest obstacles, Lelouch refuses the move. Schneizel notes that the Emperor would have immediately checkmated, and has just learned the type of man the still masked Zero is.
    • Furthermore during the battle against Xingke and the Chinese Federation when Kallen was captured, Lelouch uncharacteristically chose to risk his entire military operation to engage the enemy and save her.
    • Another notable example from Lelouch is shown in how he uses his Geass power throughout the story. After most of the series using it to make people perform specific tasks that are only done once in his quest to destroy Britannia, by the final arc of the series he uses it to completely enslave the Britannia Royal Court and its soldiers to take over as emperor. Why didn’t he do that from the beginning? Because despite his Geass, Lelouch respected free will too much to do so, and his taking such a route is done as another sign that he’s crossed the Despair Event Horizon after a brutal Trauma Conga Line. It’s also later revealed to have been deliberately temporary, as material explains that after Lelouch and Suzaku enacted the Zero Requiem, Jeremiah freed everyone with his Geass Canceler.
• In Combatants Will Be Dispatched!, the royal army is discussing how to climb the monster-filled tower and defeat the demon generals. Agent Six proposes lighting a fire and letting the monsters suffocate from lack of oxygen. The army admits that would certainly be effective and prevent casualties on their side, but deem it too cruel and resolve to just fight their way up the tower conventionally, getting utterly destroyed for their troubles.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Tanjiro is really uncomfortable with lying and tries to avoid doing it; might be justified because the few times he tries it, he sucks. He also refuses to sneak attack opponents, even if they are demons, and will come out into the open and challenge them to a duel.
• Digimon has a few examples:
  • In Digimon Adventure 02 there are two cases of this: Cody, who suffered an Heroic BSoD for lying, and for a while considered himself worthless to the point of not being willing to be the one chosen to escape from a underwater base in order to save the others. The D-3 chosen children (well, mainly Yolei and Cody) also showed the trope when it came to the point of having to kill an actual digimon, which wasn't a problem for the previous chosen.
  • In Digimon Tamers, this a definite, if not lampshaded, character trait of Ryo Akiyama.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Son Goku's seemingly illogical and insane unconditional love for life and his ability to forgive anyone has allowed him to turn the dozens of monsters, madmen, and murderers that he has fought throughout the Dragon Ball Z saga (with the unfortunate exceptions of Frieza, Dr. Gero, Cell, and Zamasu) into heroes.
    • Another infamous example is when Goku gives Cell a Senzu bean to fully heal himself so that he can fight Goku's son Gohan at full strength. He was confident in his son's strength and he is partially impaired by his Saiyan genes. What he did to Frieza on the other hand...
    • Earlier, he rejected Bulma's suggestion to hunt down and kill Dr. Gero before he activates the Androids, partly for Blood Knight reasons, and partly because he's not comfortable with killing him yet because Gero hasn't actually done anything bad; of course, he's forgetting that Gero was one of the head scientists of the Red Ribbon Army, and most likely built most of their weapons and technology.
    • The whole scene near the end of the Buu arc where Goku is refusing to throw the Genki Dama because Vegeta's in the way must qualify for this. He's holding back an attack with enough power to destroy the final Big Bad because it would kill Vegeta too. Forget that not throwing the attack would doom the entire universe including that one person he's trying to spare.
    • In the original series during his final fight with Piccolo in the World Martial Arts Tournament, despite his friends constantly telling him that Piccolo is out for blood and is a threat to the entire world itself, Goku absolutely refuses any outside help saying he wants to win the tournament. At one point in the match, Kami intercepts an attack from Piccolo and this upsets Goku. He then allows Piccolo to take a free hit on him in order to continue the match properly. While not a wise decision considering the state of Earth is at steak here, this is quite the Character Development from Goku where, as a kid, he was one of the most pragmatic fighters in the entire series.
    • In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, after they perform the ritual to turn Goku into a Super Saiyan God, which involves the other Saiyans pouring their energy into him, Goku is unenthusiastic in his fight with Beerus. He explains that he prefers to become stronger by training, and becoming stronger by getting it handed to him with a ritual just feels wrong.
  • Vegeta is almost as bad about this as Goku, with a distinctly Saiyan-centric cultural influence to it. While Goku will allow his opponents to power-up or transform to their maximum power before fighting them, Vegeta will take it a step further and let his opponents eat another person to reach their full power, as he has done with Cell and Android 18. With that said, he is also more willing than Goku to be pragmatic, usually when his ego isn't out of control. In Dragon Ball Super, Vegeta gets taught Instant Transmission by the Yardrats, but only uses it in emergencies and refuses to practice and master it. He says he doesn't like using it because it is one of Goku's techniques.
  • While generally a Combat Pragmatist, Future Trunks falls into this at least once during the Cell Saga. After Cell becomes perfect, Trunks deliberately stands back and watches while Vegeta is getting his ass kicked because he knows Vegeta is too prideful to want his help, despite Krillin literally begging him to do something, as well as the fact that Vegeta's pride is exactly why Cell was able to become perfect in the first place. He only steps in to fight after Vegeta is beaten unconscious.
  • Unlike their future counterparts, #17 and #18 from the main timeline never team up against one person to keep things fair. If their enemies' comrades are intruding the battle, the remaining twin would join in to help out. It's made clear, however, that this is because they're fighting out of boredom and for the sake of having fun — in Dragon Ball Super, when their existence is on the line, they are full-on pragmatists.
  • During the Buu Saga, Goku evacuates his friends and loved ones to Kami's Lookout, but Bulma's parents refuse to go, saying they didn't want to leave their home and pets.
  • Master Roshi is one of the few Z Warriors that doesn't fly. This is because flight is a skill that was first seen being used by his rival the Crane Master. Despite otherworlder allies like Piccolo, Vegeta and Buu using flight, Roshi still refuses to learn.
• Duel Masters: At one point, Shobu gets a huge losing streak, but stubbornly refuses to update his deck with new cards. He says he inherited his deck from his father, so he didn't want to dishonor him by changing it. After Mimi points out that his father would have probably used the new cards if he knew about them, he adds them and starts winning again.
• In The Elusive Samurai, Hoshina and his retainers are so obsessed with dying a glorious death for the sake of honor and pride that they'd rather die defending their home turf against an invading army with superior numbers instead of help secure a safe retreat for the residents of their territory. When Hoshina revels in the idea of dragging Tokiyuki's friends into his suicidal plan, Tokiyuki becomes so pissed off that he berates him for his selfish reasoning, splashes a flask of alcohol across Hoshina's face, and attacks him in a drunken stupor until he finally agrees to evacuate and regroup.
• Fabricant 100: Ashibi calls Hugo a "cheater" because he's not giving the info on the No 33, banking on his young age and lawful personality, resulting in Hugo spilling most of what he knows.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward turns down the opportunity to take the Philosopher's Stone and run, despite it being the one thing he's been searching for for three years. He leaves it, because the doctor who has the stone used it to heal injuries and sicknesses in his town. Edward says that he didn't want to take away the town's life support, and if he achieved his objective at the cost of others, then it would leave a bitter aftertaste. His brother agrees.
  • Also, even to save his friends, Edward finds himself unable to kill anybody, even his virtually immortal enemies. He makes an exception for Father.
  • Once the brothers discover the true source of a Philosopher's Stone (human souls), they resolve to never use that means to get their bodies back to normal. And in the end, they didn't have to.
  • Late in the game, Al concedes to use the Stone during a fight with Kimblee, because he's helping to save humanity, not himself, and the souls in the stone would probably want to fight for what's best for humanity as well.
  • In the finale, Hohenheim, having exhausted his Philosopher's Stone, was down to his own soul and would likely die soon; he offers it up to save Alphonse, who had sacrificed his bond to his armor to give Edward his arm back and prevent Father from turning him into another Stone. Edward turns it down, because the brothers believed that, as it's their own fault for losing their bodies, they won't have anyone pay for their mistake, even their own father. Probably a good thing, though, because there's a chance that Hohenheim would have ended up stuck in the Gate.
  • A rare villain example in the form of Kimblee. As despicable as he seems, he still has his code of honor which he never breaks even to save his own life, or at least keep his soul from fading away. Had Kimblee simply stood by as Pride attempted to steal Ed's body when his own was disintegrating, he might have even been able to reassert his own consciousness over Pride's at a later point.
• Tendō Rushuna in Grenadier specifically fights to "remove an enemy's will to fight" without killing, or if possible, without hurting them at all.
• Gundam:
  • Judau Ashta from Gundam ZZ who began acting like this about the same time they touched down on Earth and the show started Growing the Beard, simply because he couldn't handle any more death. Sometimes it actually worked, such as with Masai and Puru 2. However, it usually failed miserably (the death of the entire Blue Team, Rommel, Chara Soon, and Haman). At the end of the series, having born witness to the Federation dragging its heels before mobilizing a fleet to defeat Neo Zeon and showing up after the battle was over, he was at the breaking point. To let him blow off steam, Bright let Judau deck him in the face... something awesome for both of them.
  • Shiro Amada of Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team , who believed in killing only as an absolute last resort, despite being the commander of a mobile suit unit. Even Zeon gassing his home colony in front of him during the first week of the war doesn't change his mind about this. They're a reason why people laughed in his face when talking about this.
  • Char Aznable in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack, who purposefully leaked the specs for the cutting-edge Psycoframe system, knowing that Amuro would get it and have it built into his next Gundam. The reason he did this was because he thought there would be no point in defeating Amuro if he and Amuro weren't evenly-matched in the battle.
  • Gundam Wing:
    • Wufei tracks down Treize Khushrenada in an attempt to kill him to prevent him from taking control of the Earth Sphere Alliance. However, instead of blowing Treize to smithereens with his Gundam, Wufei accepts a challenge to a sword duel from Treize which he loses. Treize reciprocates Wufei's earlier gesture of honor and allows him to leave in his Gundam rather than seizing the state-of-the-art machine for study or reverse-engineering. Wufei departs — again passing up the perfectly good chance to eliminate the would-be dictator with superior firepower.
    • Played as a major defining character trait for Zechs Merquise. He won't defeat an opponent if it not a fair fight. This translates to, he can disarm them in mid-combat, then spare them because they are no longer armed with a weapon. His need to be honorable certainly seems to cloud any sense of priority, as he will give his rival a powerful and destructive Gundam, just so they can have a fair duel, while in the middle of a war.
    • In Endless Waltz, Zechs, Noin, and the Wing boys also do this. After they defeat hundreds of enemy mobile suits without killing a single soldier, Quatre comments that if they were fighting to kill, they could have blown through the Mariemeia Army far more easily, but then there would have been no point to their intervention.
  • Kira Yamato, the protagonist of Gundam SEED. He realizes that although stopping one's enemies without murdering them may be difficult, but doing otherwise would breed more hatred and thus not bring an end to war. Of course, his aim is so good and his arsenal so large that against anything other than a top ace the fact that he shoots to disable rather than destroy really makes no difference at all.
    In the sequel series, he takes this to ridiculous levels, allowing himself to be defeated losing his mecha and seriously risking his own death rather than allow his side to wipe out an enemy force instead they try to outrun and only disable and shoot near misses. He also refuses to hold a grudge and kill enemy pilot Shinn Asuka when the guy has nearly killed him and killed countless pilots on his side and it's clear the man as a very nasty vendetta against him.
  • In Gundam 00, Graham Aker is the embodiment of this trope. "Sounds reasonable! Too bad I'm an unreasonable man!!!". Especially pronounced in the second season where he and Setsuna are dueling over an ocean. Setsuna's Gundam malfunctions in the middle of the fight and Graham leaves him be because he can't see any value in defeating a disabled opponent.
  • In Gundam Build Fighters Try, this happens twice in the same tournament:
    • During the first Semi-Final Match of the 13th U-19 Regional Tournament, Team Celestial Sphere has Team Von Braun dead to rights. Shia points out that all her team needs to do is just hold out for a minute and let time run out. However, Saga points out that neither he nor Shia's brother Wilfrid would allow such an ending and Wilfrid challenges Lucas to a final fight. Wilfrid's Transient Gundam overpowers Lucas' Crossbone Gundam X-1 Full Cloth, though Lucas points out that, had he had a little more energy, it would have been different.
    • During the second Semi-Final Match, Team Build Busters has Team Try Fighters on the ropes with only Yuuma and his Lightning Gundam Full Burnian against the Tryon 3. The Tryon 3 is almost out of energy, yet completely unscathed, but Yuuma's ready to fight until the end. Minato Sakai is ready to just let time run out, but his teammates implore him to have his fated duel against Yuuma and go all out. Despite their brutal fight, Yuuma ends up on top, defeating Minato.
  • Deconstructed in Iron Blooded Orphans. In a post-war world where pragmatism and survival are more vital than honor, Carta Issue is obsessed with honor to a point she repeatedly loses to a group of Combat Pragmatic Child Soldiers. Despite Tekkadan making clear that her rules do not apply to them, she refused to learn the lessons and repeated her feat, to the point she ends up killed by Mikazuki in cold blood in their third encounter.
    • In the second season, Iok Kujan accidentally re-awakens an automated, human-slaughtering mobile armor from the Calamity War and his subordinates sacrifice their lives in order to let him escape. When Julietta finds Iok later, he's come to the conclusion that he has to destroy the mobile armor personally to avenge the deaths of his men, despite the fact that none of their weapons so much as scuffed its paint. Julietta just looks at him like he's lost his mind. Iok then proceeds to fruitlessly attack the mobile armor, unknowingly derailing Tekkadan's carefully laid plans, which also causes the deaths of an entire farming village before it can be stopped.
  • Chibodee and George in G Gundam both lose their rematch to Domon because they showed their attacks to him beforehand, and he was able to learn moves to counter them.
    • Sai Saici had a different version of this in his rematch with Domon. Even with his Gundam getting thrashed by Domon, he still kept fighting. It took the intervention of Neo-China's Emperor to prevent Sai Saici's death.
• In Hajime no Ippo, World Champion David Eagle is unwilling to exploit Takamuras bleeding wound by targeting it, possibly giving him a TKO win. Any normal boxer would have done so, and Takamura himself does without hestitation. However, this also has to do with Eagle wanting to fight his opponent on the same level, in order to push himself further.
• In Hayate the Combat Butler, the titular character's suicidal devotion to Nagi and every person that needs his help often falls into this. Plus, the fact he never called social services on his deadbeat parents (who are either heartless, brainless, or both) as a child speaks volumes about his kind character. Becomes downplayed though the course of the series due to how cynical he has become thanks to his horrid childhood.
• Heaven's Lost Property: Parodied by Tomoki Sakurai, who is a pervert and proud of it, so he refuses to compromise his principles for anything. When on a game show, he is asked an ethical question and answers that he would peep on a girl, which is wrong and gets him penalized. Later, the host accidentally asks the same question and he gives the same answer, saying even though he knows it is wrong, he has to stay true to himself.
• Henkyou no Roukishi Bard Loen:
  • Upon Yotish Pain's death, the mercenary Ven Uril decides he has no business against Bard and follows the contract to return his employer's corpse to Kaldus Coendera. And since Yotish technically joined the fight he wasn't supposed to, Ven considers this a breach of the agreement and demands full payment. He hasn't considered that the Lord would not be happy with his newphew being killed right in front of his alleged bodyguard, and on top of that Gyenzera Pain, the father, sends assassins after him.
  • Jogg Ward threatens villagers on Coendera's behalf, then duels Bard Loen who's protecting them. Who he also has a personal grudge against for defeating him when he was younger. After Bard falters due to old age pain, Jogg loses interest in both him and the villagers.
• Highschool of the Dead has our protagonists, long been obsessed with survival and avoiding fights with "them" wherever possible, decide to brave an entire horde of them to save a 7-year-old girl. they were successful.
  "IT'S. A. LITTLE. GIRL."
• The entire premise of Idolmaster: Xenoglossia is that Japan's government is so committed to honoring its post-WWII disarmament agreements, that when the planet is threatened by asteroids that used to be pieces of the moon, instead of arming itself with ballistic missiles to protect itself like most nations did they go to the ludicrous expense of creating Humongous Mecha which can only be piloted by children who have certain qualities to destroy the rocks instead.
• Imaizumin-chi wa Douyara Gal no Tamariba ni Natteru Rashii: ~DEEP~: When Ruri gives Imaizumi her credit card to cover his living expenses (and with him taking care of three extra people in his apartment, his wallet is nearly empty), he tries to find excuses to not use it and still tries to return it, even after she specifically said he'll get punished if he tries.
• Immoral Guild: Hitamu Kyan is a trained martial artist, but she keeps losing fights and having to be rescued because she always thinks of a fight as an honorable spar. She always politely introduces herself to her opponent before challenging them, even if said opponent is a monster, which of course doesn't care and will usually attack her midsentence. She doesn't learn from this and keeps trying to introduce herself.
• Inuyasha:
  • Inuyasha will not run or hide from a fight, even if caught in his powerless human form. The anime expands this to explore how Inuyasha and Kikyou first met. When Kikyou demands to know why he didn't attack her when she was too injured to fight back, he explains he doesn't play dirty.
  • Sesshoumaru will fight his opponents head on, even when severely de-powered. He inflicts a Die or Fly test on Inuyasha to prove Inuyasha's ready for Meidou Zangetsuha, promising he'll give up both swords if it works. Badly injured, Inuyasha succeeds, Sesshoumaru keeps his promise, and Naraku ambushes Inuyasha with Tenseiga. Sesshoumaru dives into the meidou to save Inuyasha, destroying Tenseiga and also his ability to escape the meidou. When Inuyasha notices, Sesshoumaru says saving them is up to Inuyasha now, prompting Inuyasha to realise he's been given Meidou Zangetsuha.
• Welf Crozzo of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? refuses to craft magic swords for this reason. Despite being spared from the curse that prevented people in his family to craft the weapons, he instead chooses to make a normal sword that can surpass one. Unfortunately, this mindset has made him somewhat of a pariah both in the Guild and his previous familia, and even Hephaestus herself warned him not to let his pride get those close to him hurt.
• I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level: Because Azusa was tricked into touching her horns, by law of the blue dragons, Flatorte has become her servant. There is nothing binding her to this, no spell, no physical threats, and when Azusa offers to free her since she doesn't want a slave, Flatorte states she'll have to kill herself. Flatorte, despite hating this, states she has to as per her pride as a blue dragon. Azusa decides to order Flatorte to do as she pleases, granting her some agency in her new life.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Josuke Higashikata is the poster child of this trope. In a series where Anyone Can Die, he holds the distinction of having not killed a single human, despite the deaths of people around him, including his grandfather early on! Of course, that's just not taking their life...
  • In Part 7, Steel Ball Run, Ringo Roadagain is determined to make sure that not only is he aware of everything that could play a role in a duel; he wants his opponent to be likewise aware. There's actually a great reason for this—those duels are to help purify his spirit of uncertainty. If neither side has an advantage (and before you ask, although Mandom's good at saving Ringo's neck, it gives his opponent the same capacity to avoid Ringo's attacks), then he can be sure that his victories were genuinely deserved.
• In Kaiji, the titular character is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and The Gambling Addict who winds up stuck in a Deadly Game and developing Chronic Hero Syndrome after bearing witness to all the suffering the masterminds inflict on people like him. He can always be counted on to do the right thing when it comes down to it, which is not a good quality in this series as he's surrounded by backstabbers, and the number of times his heroism hasn't completely screwed him over can be counted on one hand. His hero complex ends up seeming more like an excuse to keep getting himself into more dangerous gambling scenarios and after a while, even the friends that he saved start to get sick of his shit because even when he wins big and finds a way out, he just worms his way back in because it's never enough.
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple. The series oozes this: even the antagonists, none of whom are even remotely nice people, will abide by the rules of martial arts — which is to say, even though they all want the main character either dead or on their side, none of them will go ahead and kill him, despite having many chances to do so. The title character himself, meanwhile, has a strict set of beliefs that he will not break, regardless of how much sense they make to others. It's completely awesome, of course.
  • As long as the antagonists from Yami/YOMI are concerned, this is not so much "Honor Before Reason" as much as it is their, as they call it, "pride as martial artists". They want to prove that their way of doing martial arts is the only proper way. If you want to prove that your kung-fu is better, than you have to defeat the enemy by using kung-fu, otherwise you haven't proven anything.
    • This extends so far that the ones who are defeated will willingly rot in prison once defeated even though it's clearly displayed they can enter and leave at will.
• Lord Marksman and Vanadis:
  • The entire nation of Brune will only fight with swords and thinks that people who use bows are sissies and thus have no honor. The protagonist (an improbably skilled archer) politely thinks they're idiots.
  • That's not the best example in the series though, oh no. The best example is the protagonist's Childhood Friend and Meido (of the non-battle variety) Titta staying in the protagonist's mansion when an invading army ransacks the town, only starting to flee when the enemy general enters the mansion and announces his intention to rape her. Why? Because the protagonist told her to watch the house.
• Fate of Lyrical Nanoha, who, despite the insistence of her superiors, stayed inside the Big Bad's Collapsing Lair to try and stop the Self-Destruct Mechanism during the third season finale because there were innocent people trapped inside. Not to mention the time she freed her Worthy Opponent from the clutches of a monster out of instinct... which promptly got her berated by Mission Control because she was supposed to capture her.
  • The latter incident is similar to one time in the first season when Nanoha intervened against Lindy's orders to help Fate seal the six Jewel Seeds in the ocean, rather than wait until she was exhausted and vulnerable afterward to capture her, even giving her half the seeds. Thankfully, Fate had not collected enough seeds for her mother to reach Al-Hazard.
• Hikaru from Magic Knight Rayearth invokes this directly in the first season during her fight with Lafarga. When Umi implores her to use her magic to save her life, Hikaru replies that "The opponent is a swordsman. I won't use magic either," despite the fact that using her fire magic would have done the job in an instant.
• Tenma in Monster, although he distinctly cares about the "right thing" rather than any type of personal honor.
• In My Hero Academia, during the Sports Festival, Shinso brainwashes some students to work with him during the Cavalry Battle, and is able to advance to the next round. Ojiro from Class 1A and Shoda of Class 1B, having some idea of what happened, decide to withdraw from the final tournament, unsure of whether they deserve to be there. While some are shocked that they'd forgo a chance to prove themselves as a heroes and potentially get a good work study that could further their career, the organizers accept their decision.
• Though she knows she can't do it for everybody (and this fact does cost her quite a bit of her happiness), Mai Tokiha from My-HiME possesses an unshakable desire to protect her friends and her brother. She even wanted to find it in her heart to forgive a pair of her enemies (who wanted to turn her school into a pile of smoldering rubble), because she saw them happily singing together in a park one day and figured that even they deserved a chance at happiness.
• Rock Lee of Naruto nearly destroys his own life to defend his Nindo. Fortunately, there were Healing Hands available.
  • The whole reason for Naruto trying to help and redeem Sasuke can be summed up as this: he must stand by his word to save his friend, however despicable his friend's actions and motives.
• Negi Springfield of Negima! Magister Negi Magi, in spite of being a talented young warrior, is so kind-hearted he even offered mercy to a Demon Lord who destroyed his village and crippled his cousin. His kindness and merciful nature has almost cost him his life on more than one occasion.
  • He tends to show mercy when he perceives an unvoiced If I Wanted You Dead... subtext — he's just painfully ready to see those. He also benefits more from showing mercy than he would from finishing enemies of the week off. For example, the Demon Lord (who was just a summoned lackey anyway) dropped on its way back home the second hint so far that the village massacre did no truly permanent harm to anybody... except emotionally, if Negi let it...
• The only way to cure Kibagami Jubei, the hero of the anime classic Ninja Scroll, of the slow-acting poison in his body was to take a Girl Ninja whose own body's potent poison would destroy the comparatively weaker venom in the process. But knowing that this would obliterate what little was left of her sense of self-worth, already shredded by the fact no man dares to touch her, Jubei instead refused her offer and walked off like a gentleman, into certain death.
  • Well, he does kiss her.
• Now and Then, Here and There — Shu always does the right thing, no matter the consequences. Stupid perhaps, but considering the impossibly bleak setting of the series it's difficult not to cheer him on. While he doesn't achieve much on his own, his idealism causes others to question their actions and [maybe] regain their hope for the future.
• One Piece:
  • During the Marineford arc, Portgas D. Ace has just been freed from his Power Limiter cuffs by Luffy, and is starting to escape. Then Admiral Sakazuki insults Whitebeard, causing Ace to stop and charge Sakazuki. This leads to Ace Taking the Bullet for Luffy when Sakazuki attempts to kill Luffy with a magma punch, and Ace dies as a result of his injury. Had Ace just let the insult go or realized there were more important things to worry about at the time, it might not have happened.
  • Lovable Sex Maniac Sanji is completely unwilling to hit a female for any reason whatsoever. This has very nearly cost him his life on more than one occasion, and he's been called out on it as well. Sanji is fully aware of this, but this rule is so ingrained in him that he can not and will not break it for anything.
  • Sanji also straight up used this trope when, against the advice from his crewmates, gave food to starving and Obviously Evil pirates who then immediately attacked him. Sanji then said that he stood by his decision. This is because he starved almost to death as a kid twice, and starving is something he literally does not wish on his worst enemy. No exceptions.
  • Another Sanji example is his fight against Wanze; Despite being the strongest of the three (Franky, Usopp, and him), he opts to fight the relatively-weak Wanze due to his honor as a cook even though there are stronger agents ahead.
  • Also Whitebeard, who'd do truly outrageous and insane things to protect his sons. He is however opposed to rushing in half-cocked, and makes sure to use strategy and not just brute force.
    • The rest of the crew counts as well, even if it's disobeying their father's wishes. Imagine if they all jumped in to rescue Whitebeard from death?
  • Nami's adoptive mom, Bellemere, essentially chose to be executed rather than disavow being Nami's mother. On the other hand, the doctor and Genzo point out afterward that their plan to send Nojiko and Nami out to sea to spare them from being discovered wouldn't have worked, as the fishmen had sunk all the boats, and Bellemere, having been a former Marine, knew it would have been impossible to resist the Fishmen, so it's likely Bellemere thought things through more than it seemed.
  • Interestingly, despite being the main character, Luffy doesn't usually follow this trope to arbitrary levels. You couldn't ask for a truer friend, but he's made it clear that he does what he wants to do, and doesn't care if other people disapprove. He's also willing to break a promise if he gets angry enough. This goes back to the first chapter, where he recklessly picked a fight with bandits who insulted his friend/mentor Shanks. Shanks lost his arm saving Luffy, and left him with the lesson to never pick fights that weren't necessary.
    • One example he plays straight is during the Davy Back Fight, where the Straw Hats and Foxy Pirates do contests to claim crewmembers from eachother. The Straw Hats lost the first contest and so the Foxy Pirates claim Chopper. When the Straw Hats won the second contest, Nami points out that they could claim Foxy himself, who would automatically forfeit the third contest and let them reclaim Chopper. Luffy shut down the idea because he really, really doesn't want Foxy on his crew.
  • The mayor of the town Buggy is attacking in the Buggy arc tries to stand up to the pirates, prompting Luffy to punch him out. He later realizes that he was wrong and is grateful to Luffy for stopping him from throwing his life away.
  • The dueling giants Dorry and Broggy are this up to eleven. In short, according to their homeland traditions, if two warriors of Elbaf get into a dispute and neither will yield, they must fight, and the God of Elbaf grants victory to whoever is right. Fast forward 100 years, and these two guys are STILL FIGHTING. What's more, neither of them can remember what caused the argument in the first place; they still fight because its a manner of honor. it was who caught the bigger fish. This is also why Dorry fights even when a bomb goes off in his stomach; he doesn't want to lose face and disgrace Broggy by quitting, and Broggy, even knowing that Dorry isn't at 100%, doesn't want to upset his friend by showing sympathy. Interestingly, even though they're determined to kill each other for petty reasons they can't recall, they're still best friends.
  • Kid Samurai Momonosuke is too proud to accept food even when he's almost skeletal with hunger which saves him since he didn't eat the addictive, poisonous candy given to the other kids. He finally eats when sees his father give up his own pride.
  • Smoker would have chosen death over accepting help from a pirate in Punk Hazard if Tashigi hadn't reminded him they had subordinates and little kids to help.
• Red from Pokémon Adventures is subject to this as part of his firm belief that it's not a victory if your opponent is at a disadvantage. Even though this series is grittier than the anime, it's still an idealistic shonen, so it rarely bites him in the butt.
• Pokémon Chronicles was a Spin-Off of Pokémon: The Series where each episode provided A Day in the Limelight moments to many of the show's secondary characters. One episode centred around Ash's friendly rival Richie, who met an older trainer named Silver who dreamed of catching a Moltres. Unfortunately, Team Rocket tried to kidnap the Moltres, and Richie and Silver had to team up to rescue it. They succeeded, but Moltres was injured and exhausted from what Team Rocket did to it. Silver knew he could have captured Moltres easily but he chose to let it go. He wanted to catch Moltres fairly, beating it in an honest fight.
  • Though in a way, this can qualify as reasonable. Catching a legendary Pokémon in such a weakened state creates the very real possibility of ending up with a Pokémon well beyond your ability to control once its healed, and taking advantage of its moment of weakness sounds like a fantastic way of ruining any goodwill you had just earned from it.
• Pokémon: The Series
  • In the fifth episode, during a battle with Brock's Onix, Ash's Pikachu sets off a sprinkler. Ash forfeits, not wanting to take such a cheap advantage. Brock gives him the badge anyway.
  • When Ash is about to be disqualified from the Indigo League, Ritchie begs the officials to give Ash extra time because he wants to defeat Ash in a fair fight.
  • When Team Rocket steals Ash's Johto League badges, Clair suggests that Ash inform the league officials that his badges were stolen so he can get replacements. Ash refuses, stating that it wouldn't be the same because the badges he won are a symbol of how he worked to get them.
  • After Clembot kicks Ash out of the Lumiose City Gym because he doesn't have four badges, Clemont finds a way around this. He offers Ash a chance to battle there and then, but Ash decides to stick with Clemont's original wish of collecting four badges before a match.
• In the manga Psychometrer Eiji the Evil Chef Yasuo Aoki is a Know-Nothing Know-It-All who was too hung up on appearance and the taste suffered. His latest victim had to tell him this even if it killed her. Surprisingly this proved to be a good thing as Yasuo saw his food as Serious Business so he ended up being Hoist by His Own Petard trying to prove her wrong.
• In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Sayaka refuses to replenish her strength with Grief Seeds, just because Homura uses them and Sayaka doesn't want to be anything like her. This was a very poor decision.
• Alice L. Malvin of Pumpkin Scissors insists on charging ahead and "destroying evil" no matter what the odds are against them. She also will not hesitate to call out anyone who she sees as contributing to or aggravating that damage, up to and including The Emperor of her own country, regardless of how capable they might be of physically or politically squashing her like a bug. Even after she started using more reason after she was kidnapped, she stayed true to her ideals.
• Ranma ½ would be considerably less funny without this. It also would've been much much shorter.
  • This can actually be considered an element of Ranma's fighting style; whenever challenged to one of the various Martial Arts and Crafts, he always has to Beat Them at Their Own Game, even if he has only a minimum amount of time to pick up the rules and despite the fact he's usually going against a champion of that style, and the stakes tend to be something like, "If you lose, we get your dojo and/or fiancee, if you win, we'll admit you don't suck." During the Martial Arts Dining arc; despite the fact Ranma is clearly starving, s/he insists that s/he will only eat what s/he earns from the table/arena. In the anime, at least, s/he even goes so far as to turn down Akane when she offers her fiancé some smuggled food. This almost results in Ranma losing the contest when his/her frantic efforts at both fighting and thinking up counters burn out what little energy s/he has left.
  • Nodoka Saotome and her Seppuku pledge is a rather darkly humorous take on this, seeing as how the so-called "pledge" is ambiguous as all hell (It was that Ranma would grow up to be 'manly'). While the series' heavy reliance on Rule of Funny ultimately leaves the audience too skeptical to believe the threat would ever REALLY be carried out, all the evidence in the series is that, if Ranma thought he had sufficiently disappointed his mother, he would go through with it. This is despite the fact that Ranma was about a year old when he 'agreed' to it.
  • One thing that often gets overlooked is that Ranma's father Genma, despite being a Dirty Coward, has come up with two super-powered techniques which he never uses simply because he vowed not to. He holds to this even when he's getting beaten senseless and could easily wipe the floor with his attacker if he broke them out. He'd also submit to the Seppuku thing if he was called on it (of course, in typical Genma fashion, the trick is arranging matters so that he never does actually get called on it). Honour is a finely tuned thing.
• Rebuild World:
  • Katsuya as part of his introduction tries to run off to answer a Distress Call all by himself due to Chronic Hero Syndrome, gets yelled at by multiple of his fellow Private Military Contractors why this isn't a good idea, and backs down. Akira ends up running off to do the same, because he feels he owes Elena and Sara who are in that general area, which gets him chastised by his Virtual Sidekick and starts Katsuya down the path of being The Resenter. Katsuya's later off-screen participation in said battle also cements him as a Glory Seeker who gets his squad mates killed.
  • One of Katsuya's squad-mates Lilina lets her pride over Drankam being better than other hunters lead to a Right Hand Versus Left Hand firefight against Kurosawa's forces on a mission, which causes Kurosawa to decline working together when Katsuya needs their help. Realizing this, Lilina gets herself killed in a Senseless Sacrifice after realizing My God, What Have I Done?.
  • Reina has issues with letting her Pride and other’s opinions of her prevent her from getting the best equipment she can, which, after some Break the Haughty experiences on the battlefield and some words from Akira, she eventually grows past and settles on an Embarrassing but Empowering Outfit of maid themed Powered Armor.
• The heroes of Rurouni Kenshin follow this trope to a tee. Surprisingly enough, even the heartless Social Darwinist villain Shishio Makoto follows this trope, threatening to kill his scheming right-hand man, Houji, who proposed a cowardly assault on the loved ones of the heroes while they dueled his lord; for such behavior is, to quote Shishio himself, "Against the Way of the Warrior." They then do it anyway after Shishio lies to the Juppongatana about a supposed infraction Houji had committed that had put them in danger, as a way to put Houji on the spot and force him to prove the strength of his devotion, with Houji's resultant display of loyalty and commitment impressing Shishio sufficiently that he claims the idea as his own.
• Jin from Samurai Champloo. A running plot-line of the series is the fact that his fellow disciples are trying to avenge the death of their master by killing Jin. Actually Jin's Master was forced to kill Jin during the night by the Big Bad because of Jin's defiance against turning their samurai school into an assassin school/guild. Jin merely killed him in self-defense. If Jin simply told the others this, it would save him a lot of trouble. It would also disgrace the name of their master and school so he takes full blame.
• Naja of Sands of Destruction is guilty of this on several occasions, most notably when he and Lia escape from a sand submersible working together with the World Destruction Committee. After surfacing and reaching land, he has the chance to arrest them on the spot, but opts to let them go (much to Lia's frustration). After all, they had a deal.
• School Zone Girls: Fuji is determined, to Captain Ahab-levels, to win a stuffed animal from a crane game. She's long since stopped caring about the doll itself; for her, she's come too far to quit now. When a friendly arcade clerk offers to move the doll to where she can grab it more easily, Fuji is so wracked with guilt her classmate thinks she murdered somebody. Afterwards, the clerk offers to give her one. Fuji refuses. The clerk then plays the game, wins immediately, and gifts Fuji the stuffed animal. Fuji boldly declares that if she hasn't won it herself, it's meaningless, and pledges to return soon to play again. Did we mention she's already 80,000 yen^note  about $750 in the hole over a toy that probably costs 1,500 yen?
• Seven Mortal Sins: Mammon captures Lucifer and puts her in a torture device. When Leviathan attempts to rescue her, Lucifer refuses her help, saying she wants to prove she can escape on her own. It takes her a few hours to escape.
• In Speed Grapher, Saiga relentlessly protects Kagura from Suitengu and the members of the secret underground club of the rich and elite of Japan, against the advice and protests of his friends Ginza and Bob, who believe throughout the series that he should simply leave her to her fate. Saiga is willing to die in order to allow Kagura a chance of happiness, and in the end goes blind while saving her.
• In Super Dimension Fortress Macross/Robotech Millia insists that Max shoot to disable Zentradi battlepods to simply put them out of action instead of killing them to show that the Terrans are serious about wanting peace. Even though this could be seen as completely insane considering the Zentradi finally decided to fight full out to destroy the Macross, Hikaru Ichijo learns what his wingmates are doing and joins this act of mercy along with other human pilots despite the dire situation. As it turns out, this gesture actually saves the ship because many of the Zentrani forces, already becoming enthralled with Terran culture, learn about the humans' mercy and decide to mutiny throughout the fleet to stop the fight. Commander Breetai is horrified at the unprecedented insubordination and is forced to order an immediate ceasefire in direct violation of his orders.
• Theoretically this can be applied to the Dai-Gurren team in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann because they tend to put everything before reason. Viral especially which is why he can break physical laws and do the impossible.
  • Viral also provides a couple of more straight examples. First he allows Team Gurren to get dressed before a fight. Later he refuses an order to attack Simon because his commander is threatening to kill Yoko if Simon defends himself.
  • Diamond also shows shades of this, wanting to stop Team Galactic even though he's just a kid.
• Subverted in (of all shows) Transformers: Armada. Faced with the choice of leaving his friend, Wheeljack, trapped in an inferno and going for help, or staying with him to the end, Hot Shot goes with the former, but is forced to abandon Wheeljack because his commander believed in The Needs of the Many over the principle of No One Gets Left Behind, and refused to risk any more of his troops in the fire. Hot Shot defied his commander and tried to go back for Wheeljack, but by then the flames were too much for him to overcome. The decision is later regretted, out of both reasonable, genuine guilt, and the fact that Wheeljack survived, and did not...take abandonment very well.
• Despite the carnage that inevitably occurs around him, and his superhuman skill with a gun, Vash the Stampede from Trigun is absolutely determined never to kill anyone. This puts him in increasingly tighter positions as the series progresses, until he has to choose between killing a villain with his own gun or allowing his friends to be killed. He shoots.
• Vinland Saga:
  • It's also a case of vengeance over reason, but Thorfinn spends years risking life and limb to protect and further the interests of Askeladd, the man he wants to kill. The reason why is that Thorfinn always insists on doing the killing the 'honourable' way, in a one-on-one duel. Askeladd, who is a far more experienced warrior, is skilled at manipulating the younger man, and is far more of a Combat Pragmatist, considers Thorfinn's methods to be idiotic. At one point Askeladd contrasts this with his own experience when he once was in nearly the same position as Thorfinn; instead of trying to win an honorable duel Askeladd assassinated his victim while the man was in bed, and Askeladd only did it after spending two years worming himself into his victim's good graces and Askeladd could believably pin the blame on someone else.
  • Played with early in the Baltic Sea War arc when Thorfinn is cornered by a group of five Jomsvikings, the Badass Army of the series who are known for their strict discipline and rigid code of conduct. The men are on a mission to kill Thorfinn, and seeing that he is unarmed, they toss him a weapon, since it would shame the Jomsvikings to gang up on and kill a warrior who is unarmed, and then they attack one at a time, each seeking to earn glory by being the one to kill Thorfinn. Thorfinn effortlessly beats the first, and only has minor difficulty in beating the second. At that point the third guy commands his two remaining soldiers to forget honor and just gang up on and kill Thorfinn, causing Thorfinn to more or less quip "So much for the honor of the Jomsvikings."
• In Voltes V, The Dragon continues to fight the Voltes team in the last episode, even though it is obvious his side is about to lose. The only reason for doing so is that he is a noble.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • In the original version of episode 2, Pegasus points out that Yugi could have won at one point. Yugi explains that he couldn't let the match end while his monster was under Pegasus' control. Pegasus calls him a fool.
  • In the Duelist Kingdom arc, Mokuba steals a kid's Star Chips, which means he'll kicked off the island in half an hour. Yugi and his friends confront Mokuba and Yugi challenges him to a duel to get the Star Chips back. Yugi's friends point out they don't have a lot of time left and they can simply rush the scrawny Mokuba and take the Star Chips back by force, but Yugi insists on the duel. As a result, they don't make it back in time and the kid has already been forced to take a rowboat off the island.
  • In the Battle City arc, Ryota Kajiki/Mako Tsunami chooses to revive his Legendary Fisherman even though it was weaker than Jonouchi's Panther Warrior. After Jonouchi wins, he questions him, pointing out it would have been smarter to revive the far more powerful Fortress Whale. Ryota says Legendary Fisherman is his favorite card so he cannot let him stay in the Graveyard if he can help it.
  • In the Virtual World arc, Ooka/Johnson was caught cheating by Noa/Noah and Jonouchi/Joey would have won by default. However, Jonouchi insisted on finishing the duel. Never mind the fact that a. Jonouchi already had a huge disadvantage (no cards in his hand and no monsters on the field). Not to mention he had plenty of reasons to hate this guy anyway other than the cheating (Ooka was an Amoral Attorney who had admitted he had seen innocent men convicted, and had been insulting Jonouchi the whole time.) Most importantly, they were dueling for their lifes as the loser would be trapped in the virtual world forever. Even Yugi and Anzu/Tea wondered what Jonouchi was thinking.
  • Leon attempts to surrender the final duel of the KC Grand Prix twice upon playing an illegal card. The first time, he ends up not doing so because it would not destroy the virus plaguing KaibaCorp, but even after the card is destroyed and the mainframe is rebuilt, Leon attempts to surrender a second time, on the grounds that an illegal card just thinned Yugi's deck down to one card, essentially leaving him two turns away from Decking Out. Yami Yugi insists on continuing the duel.
    Leon: I'm quitting.
    Yami Yugi: Don't even think about it. Now that your brother's castle is gone, the real duel can begin. You owe it to yourself to fulfill your dream and see this duel through to the end! Right?
  • During the Ceremonial Duel, Atem has all three Egyptian God Cards on the field. At this point, he could win the duel by using Obelisk's Soul Max ability (which he had done to defeat Anubis in the Pyramid of Light movie) or, as Marik even pointed out, use Ra's One Turn Kill/Point-To-Point Transfer ability to give it almost 15,000 ATK. He doesn't do either of these, and it's implied that this is because he is trying to test Yugi to see if he can defeat the God Cards.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
  • Johan/Jessie refuses to use cards that destroy opponent monsters with effects, claiming that such a strategy is too simple and boring.
  • In the episode where Judai duels Society of Light member Kanda, who uses a game show deck (his cards force the opponent to answer questions correctly or else lose their monsters and take damage). For the final question, Judai remembers that his opponent gave the answer to it earlier that day. Kanda goes Oh, Crap!, but Judai purposely fudges the answer, saying he won't answer because it wouldn't be fair, and takes the damage. Sure, Judai wins anyway, but it was still pretty dumb, considering the consequences if he had lost to a member of the Society of Light.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds:
  • Jack throws Stardust Dragon, which he stole from Yusei two years before, at Yusei and say he can have it back. But Yusei throws it back at him because he wants to win Stardust Dragon back in a duel.
  • Subverted later, when Yusei is forced to enter the Fortune Cup, since his friends are kidnapped by the organizers, and the only way to save them is reaching the final of the tournament. Jack gives Stardust Dragon back to Yusei, so Yusei wouldn't lose there, and Yusei accepts.
  • In a partial example, during Yusei's first duel with Aki/Akiza, he tunes together Junk Warrior and Junk Synchron to summon Stardust Dragon and attacks with it. Rua/Leo asked what he was thinking, since Junk Warrior had more ATK points at the time and would have dealt more damage. However, while Yusei did want to win, he also wanted to save Aki from her inner darkness, and knew an attack by Stardust Dragon would resonate with her more. (A real player would probably go for Stardust anyway, since its protective effects are a natural counter for Aki's aggressive playstyle, and it ends up winning him the game anyway.)
  • Yusei and Jeager/Lazar have been locked in a factory with a time bomb and Yusei has to duel a robot for it to let them pass. In the end, the robot is open with 1750 life points left and Yusei has Junk Warrior with 2900 ATK. Even though they only have a few minutes left, Yusei chooses to waste time summoning his 2500 ATK Stardust Dragon to get the win. They barely manage to Outrun the Fireball.
  • Crow loans Jack the card Trust Guardian, which has a very useful effect. In his next few duels, when he draws it, he refuses to play it, both because he and Crow got into an argument and because it looks cute, which made it look out of place with the rest of his big, tough, and grotesque monsters. After losing a duel that in hindsight he would have easily won if he had played it, Jack realizes he was being foolish and starts playing it.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL:
  • Mizael/Mizar, one of the Seven Barian Emperors, was big on this. When he and his fellow Barians Vector and Durbe/Dumon confront Yuma, Shark, and Kaito/Kite on Sargasso, The Different Dimensional Battlefield, he refused to use the "Sargasso's Lighthouse" card that his two allies were using (which would have protected him from the Sargasso's detrimental effects) calling it a "coward's card" and preferring a battle against Kaito on truly equal terms.
  • At one point, Gauche/Nistro faces off against Yuma, who has taken a ton of damage beforehand and is down to his last few Life Points, and his boss has made sure to set up the Duel on a field where players take damage every time they do something (meaning Yuma is effectively locked down). Being a Boisterous Bruiser who saw Yuma as a Worthy Opponent, Gauche is disgusted at this, and activates a card that brings Yuma's Life Points to full in exchange for letting him draw two cards. When his boss gets angry at him, he merely responds "I just wanted to draw some cards." In addition, later in that duel, he insists that Yuma use his ace card, Utopia, against him, despite Yuma no longer using Number cards against opponents who don't wield them themselves.
  • Alito is another example. He insists on taking on Yuma in a fair duel, when Girag attempts to stop him by brainwashing a bunch of students to corner Yuma into a duel with many opponents against only him, Shark, and Rio. Alito intervenes and uses a combo to defeat all the students, even chiding Girag for using such a cheap method.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V:
  • Reiji/Declan uses several cards that inflict damage to himself each turn. In their duel, Yuya is in a position where if he just ends his turn, Reiji will take 4,000 damage and lose, but he hesitates. When he finally does end his turn, Reiji quickly plays a card that mitigates the damage. Yuya says he's glad because it wouldn't have felt right to win that way instead of with his own cards and strategies.
  • Yuya needs to win four matches in a row to qualify for a tournament. The Maiami City Committee say they are impressed by his earlier matches and offer to let him in right away, but he says it wouldn't be right and does the four matches.
  • Serena/Celina absolutely refuses to back down from a fight, even when hopelessly outnumbered and when Yuya begs her to take the small boy Reira/Riley to safety while he holds the mooks off.
  • Asuka/Alexis confronts Yuri and it is pointed out that she is strong enough to simply kick his ass, but due to her having an issue with the way he duels, challenges him to a duel. It backfires when Yuri beats her and traps her in a card.
• Great General of Darkness of Great Mazinger is this. He lives to bring his people to a better life have a battle against Tetsuya, who have become his mutual Worthy Opponent.
  • Tetsuya mention this in Super Robot Wars Alpha. He mentioned how Great General of Darkness is just a honorable warrior that took the wrong path.
• YuYu Hakusho:
  • Kazuma Kuwabara. He loudly declines his teammates' offers to keep him from dying, insisting that men fight their own battles, and later, after whupping a kid who nearly killed him and his Muggle friends, Kuwabara opts to save the kid's life by dragging not only his unconscious body, but the unconscious bodies of all three of his friends to safety despite sustaining heavy injuries himself.
  • During the Tournament Arc, George suggests Hiei attack Bui while the latter is removing his armor. The girls scold him that Hiei is too honorable to do such a thing, with Kuwabara's sister suggesting George would attack a man with his back turned or even handcuffed and blindfolded. They all seem to forget that the tournament is Blood Sport where the vast majority of the fights end in one of the fighters killing the other. The rules themselves are pretty much limited to "Keep it in the ring, fight one on one (unless both teams agree to different terms), and only five people to a team", otherwise anything goes.
  • Similar to Kuwabara, Yusuke prefers to fight his battles on his own. During his final battle with Sensui, despite his recent power-up, Sensui still has the advantage, but Raizen suddenly possesses Yusuke's body and is powerful enough to beat him. When Yusuke regains control of himself and realizes Sensui is dying, he becomes really upset and says it wasn't right to win with outside interference, even begging someone to heal Sensui so they can have a rematch and he can prove he can win on his own (Sensui is too far gone for healing, however).

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