Karma Houdini / Anime & Manga

Karma Houdini in Anime & Manga.

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A - F

• Aquarion Evol.
  • Despite killing Jin, Izumo and Alicia and manipulating Kagura and Zessica into doing his evil bidding. Mikage gets trapped in Apollonius/Zen which is what he wanted all along.
  • Zen himself far outstrips Mykage as a Houdini, given Mykage only even exists because Zen tricked his dog into thinking he was him, and the entire plots of both Evol and the original Genesis of Aquarion are the direct result of his deception. He receives no punishment for any of this.
• Waiting for that treacherous Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Rosemary from Ashita no Nadja to finally get what's coming to her? Well, when the series ends, you'll still be waiting. A slap in the face is the most she receives for her crimes.
• In Baccano!, three of the serial killers get away with all of their crimes, including not only complete killing sprees but also torture and mutilation. One of them is apparently about to get married.
• In Bakemonogatari, during the Owarimonogatari chapter, we are introduced to Sodachi Oikura, a classmate of Koyomi since his first year. A flashback then shows an incident where everyone who attended the study session had scored unusually higher than those who did not attend, causing Sodachi to suspect that someone leaked the exam questions. After Koyomi insists on ending the meeting due to the discussion becoming chaotic, Sodachi decided that they should resolve this incident by having people vote for the person they suspect. However, this backfired, because most of the class voted for Sodachi, causing Sodachi not to come to school anymore and Koyomi to lose faith in friends and relationships in general. The culprit was eventually revealed to be the homeroom teacher of the class, who has also attended the study session. The homeroom teacher, who turns out to also be a math teacher, wants to raise the average score of her class in order to increase her own reputation. As she was directly responsible for the incident and also for voting against Sodachi while knowing that she is innocent, she's basically the reason as to why Koyomi had become an anti-social, sparking the events that lead to Kizumonogatari. As the culprit was never revealed publicly, she got away scot-free and is even leading a happy life.
• In Baki the Grappler, Baki's Archnemesis Dad, Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy Yujiro Hanma, is a sadistic murderer and rapist. He's also an Invincible Villain, as he's the Ultimate Life Form who's simply too far above and beyond anyone's ability to punish. Even at the very end of the series Baki is unable to defeat him, but earns his respect.
• In Beastars, the Sublime Beastar Yafya groomed Legosi from afar to take his position one day by leading him on to solve Tem's murder. Then when Legosi had to eat Louis' foot with consent to get the job done, Yafya tossed him aside like garbage, branding him a predatory offender and ruining his life just to spite Legosi's grandfather Gosha for something that happened decades ago. If that wasn't bad enough, he used that predatory offender status as leverage to get Legosi to go after a dangerous serial killer, more than anything to use Legosi as a proxy for Gosha. It took Legosi almost getting killed and Gosha threatening Yafya with death if Legosi didn't wake up from the ensuing coma to get Yafya to reconsider, but even then he was willing to let Legosi deal with the predatory offender status for the rest of his life. He's never called out for his childish obsession with Gosha or for ruining Legosi's life, nor does Legosi ever find out that he's been Yafya's pawn from the beginning.
• Almost all of the villains in Black Cat do not die or suffer any permanent injury. Some are never even defeated or fought. Only one member of the Apostle of the Star dies. Some undergo a Heel–Face Turn. Creed is defeated but spared and actually saved by Train, in spite of the things he had done. Even the leaders of Chronos who turn out to be pulling the strings are never defeated.
  • This is also true in the manga. Letting Creed go may actually be excusable (as his mind is more or less broken) but Kyoko? Shiki? The Doctor?!
• Bloody Monday has the assassin Maya Orihara who gets away from all the crimes that she committed which includes shooting a high school girl, aiding a terrorist cult, and the evil Prime Minister Masamune Kujo, who is also a Karma Houdini himself. In the end, she gets no punishment and remains on the run and the Prime Minister is treated as a victim without his crimes being exposed to the public.
• Yuka Amino from Blood-C, the 28 year old woman who wanted to become the Governor of Tokyo in exchange for helping to kill an entire village of people. Although Yuka herself doesn't actually kill anyone personally, she still willingly went along with the massacre of the village and showed no qualms about it to get what she wants. She gets her wish, becomes governor, and nothing bad happens to her at all. The fact that she indeed does a good job as a head of government also helps.
• Hatagai Morihiro, from Bokurano, seduces Honda Chizuru, has sexual intercourse with her, takes pictures of the act and then uses them to blackmail her into allowing his friends to gang rape her. He ends up becoming the private secretary of a high-ranked member of Japan's ministry of education, and it is implied that he had done the same thing with other children before Chizuru and will continue to do so.
• Bokutachi ga Yarimashita centers around four friends who accidentally killed ten people from a neighboring school with a bomb, and their biding time as they await a punishment that never comes. The incident is ultimately covered up by a don of the red light district, someone else takes legal responsibility for the bombing, and no one is the wiser. However, this gets slowly deconstructed as everyone involved starts to lash out with guilt, leaving the protagonist broken inside.
• Buso Renkin: Despite being directly responsible for dozens of deaths, and indirectly responsible for many more, Papillon doesn't receive any form of lasting punishment^note he did get killed at one point but he was then brought back to life by his great-grandfather much the same as he was. By the end of the series he even becomes a beloved urban legend, serves as inspiration for children's toys at fast food restaurants, and is the only person, except for the main character, to be allowed to keep his kakugane due to his character development, despite still showing no remorse for his initial actions.
• Captain Commando: Due to the cancellation of the manga, even with the extra chapters, Scumocide and his remaining followers do not receive any punishment unlike the game.
• Apparently Kenichi Sonoda loves this trope. His other well-known manga, Cannon God Exaxxion features General Shes'ka, ruthless field commander of the Alien Invasion, who is directly responsible for upholding brutal policies of the occupation regime in general, personally gives orders that lead to countless civilian deaths, patently doesn't give a shit about the lives of his fellow Riofaldians as well, and schemes against the central Riofaldian government at the expense of everyone, caught in the crossfire. He doesn't even attempt to hide what a heartless monster he is. What happened to him? He survived and became the leader of remaining Riofaldians on Earth.
• Black Organization from Case Closed: due to the apparently never-ending Myth Stalling, Conan never gets to encounter Gin and Vodka in person, while the terrorists keep piling up bodies, killing failures/traitors, and escaping even the most complex of FBI's Batman Gambits. That, and nobody knows who or where the mastermind is.
• Code Geass's infamous ending is chock full of it. Lelouch decides to pull off the Zero Requiem with Suzaku; he would build himself up as an Evil Overlord, conquer the world, and be such a monster that no one would want to do anything associated with him. Then, after Suzaku (having spent time as his Knight of Zero) fakes his death, he'll return as "Zero" himself, and assassinate Emperor Lelouch, uniting the world against him and behind Zero. It works. Problem? The only reason this entire plan ended up necessary is thanks to the Black Knights betraying Lelouch by listening to Schneizel and tossing him into a Kangaroo Court that he only survived thanks to Rolo rescuing him. All of them get off scot-free due to the Zero Requiem placing the blame for everything on Lelouch, and get to lead happier lives for it. Forgetting the Black Knights, almost none of the Britanians involved in the military suffer any consequences for their numerous war crimes. Nina designs and encourages the use of the Fleija, a WMD, resulting in the deaths of millions of people. Cornelia kills many Japanese civilians to lure out Zero. These two and many others face no punishment for any of this, and instead get to attend a wedding in the end.
  • The Compilation Movie series attempts to fix this by having the Black Knights not jump to conclusions as much and try giving Lelouch a chance to tell the truth so they might not have to betray him. Schneizel’s men essentially take their place in the Kangaroo Court by being the ones that Rolo saves Lelouch from. The result this time is that the Black Knights aren’t entirely sure what to think, and are pretty much only working with Schneizel because they don’t have much of a choice. In other words, they didn't do as much to get away with this time. Lelouch Of The Re;surrection even has Ohgi step down as Prime Minister (because the job was apparently tough to handle) and nearly Driven to Suicide for what he still did, only for Lelouch, now Back from the Dead to stop him. This heavily implies that he and the rest of the Black Knights in the original series actually were remorseful and that their happy endings were the result of them trying to make up for their actions.
  • Cornelia is a particularly jarring case of this since she's alluding to have carried out war crimes including ethnic cleansings, and onscreen is shown doing things like massacring civilians, even at one point explicitly ordering the liquidation of an entire ghetto of innocent Japanese people simply out of racism. Yet while she does suffer some minor humiliations she's completely let off unpunished at the end, instead of receiving some form of retribution for crimes that would land her with the death penalty or a life sentence if she was put on trial in real life.
• In the Cowboy Bebop episode "Bohemian Rhapsody", Chessmaster Hex gets away scot-free simply on the grounds that he's too old and senile to remember the plan he set into motion 50 years ago that just now activated and because (since Ed befriended him) Jet and Spike blackmailed the Gate Corporation into dropping their bounty on Hex and leaving him alone. That is, until his old age takes its final toll and he passes away in his sleep.
• Despite being a Super Robot OVA series, Dangaioh is heavily on the cynical side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism... and loves Karma Houdinis! To drive the point home, the main villain of the show (Garimos, leader of a population of parasitic beings who depopulate planets to fatten themselves) never gets punished for his crimes. Another villain, the psychotic cyborg Gil Barg, dies in the first OVA, but is then resurrected as an even worse Ax-Crazy murderer, thus making his comeuppance null and void.
• Monaca Towa in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School. During her debut in Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls it's revealed that she provided Junko with most of the technology she used to bring about The End of the World as We Know It, and reappears in the anime under the pretense of finishing what she started. However it's then revealed that she was merely a Red Herring, but while she had nothing to do with the new Deadly Game she did Kill and Replace an innocent woman purely for her own amusement. She then escapes into space before Komaru and Toko can apprehend her.
• Death Note:
  • Ryuk was the catalyst for several years' worth of murders, simply because he was "bored." At the end, he just goes back to the Shinigami world from whence he came, with nothing to stop him from returning to the human world and causing another murderous streak. It doesn't help that the only way a Shinigami can die is by using a Death Note to save the life of a human, something Ryuk would never do.
  • Hitoshi Demegawa in the film. While in the manga he's just a greedy, obnoxious character, the films take it up a notch, wherein he sexually harasses Takada. He is killed by Teru Mikami in the manga and anime, but does not die in the film.
  • Misa Amane, in the films. At the end of the second film, she is shown to have been let go of by the police after losing her memories of having used the Death Note, despite having previously killed Mogi (who dies here in place of Ukita in the manga). However, the police couldn't convict her without exposing the existence of the Death Note. Plus with the Note's destruction, she will as mentioned before lose her memories.
  • Misa and Mikami, in the TV drama. Both not only survive, they also lose their memories of having ever been Kira.
• Muraki Kazutaki of Descendants of Darkness got away with a impressive number of things. Even though he was stabbed by Tsuzuki at the end of Kyoko it can be assumed that he survived somehow. After all, his body was never found and Hisoka's marking didn't disappear...
• The Necks of Orochi from Destiny of the Shrine Maiden... is a subversion. After having their plot to destroy the world foiled (also, a couple of massacres early on), just get revived and live on as if nothing had happened. Seemed that way, until it's revealed that the universe resets itself so Orochi and Chikane never existed, and without Orochi, the tragedies that would spur them into becoming Necks and committing all those horrible plots never happened and they become better people (Miyako and Girochi never lost faith after the war, or the war never occurred; Corona was able to grow into a successful idol on her own; Reiko's type of favorite stories found success so she didn't have to write dark stories just to survive; Nekoko was treated fairly rather than being a guinea pig... and Tsubasa and Souma's parents aren't THAT abusive now so they led a fairer life.)
• In Digimon Ghost Game, in contrast to previous series the heroes prefer Talking the Monster to Death and attempt to seek less violent resolutions (before Cerebus Syndrome kicks in). As a result, a few Monsters of the Week manage to escape justice.
  • Sistermon Ciel was an Ax-Crazy lunatic who wreaked havoc across Tokyo and killed multiple Digimon after hijacking their friendly race, turning it into a Deadly Game with the aid of The Grim Reaper Digimon MetalPhantomon. Hiro and his friends are too busy trying to survive to confront her, and in the end their Mysterious Protector BlackGatomon just sends Sistermon, MetalPhantomon, and their victims back to the Digital World.
  • Cherrymon was a man-eating Botanical Abomination who preyed on both humans and Digimon unlucky enough to enter the forest he claimed as his territory. Hiro, overcome by Suicidal Pacifism and fear of awakening Gammamon's Superpowered Evil Side again, resolves to resolve it nonlethally and leaves Cherrymon alive to continue his reign of terror once he recovered from his wounds.
• Tonogai's works seem to have this as a theme. In Doubt, the actual mastermind behind the incidents, Rei Hazama, is never reprimanded or prosecuted for having used her ability to hypnotise people and force them to kill others. In fact, since that part is unknown, and hard to believe, it would be difficult prosecute her. She also has moles in various locations, including the police and crime scene investigators, so any clue that may lead to her being at the scene of a crime is close to nill. And she implies that her hypnotism of those people isn't going to be lifted when she dies.
  • In its Spiritual Successor manga Judge, the masterminds behind the Judge game are Hiro and Hikari. Both have caused the jury, the judge and their children to die to fulfill their revenge for giving a mild sentence to the man who killed Atsuya and are free to leave, with the judge's reputation also heavily ruined and it looks like both will be free and ready to start their new life. Subverted with Hiro, who suddenly falls ill and learns that Hikari poisoned him. Played straight with Hikari, who lets her boyfriend's brother die and is implied to have no problems in the near future.
  • Subverted in Secret. Just when it looks like Shinichi Mitomo has won and is going to get away with his manipulations, Iku reveals that he is still alive and uses Shinichi’s confession to turn him in to the police.
• Captain Silver at the end of Doraemon: Nobita's Treasure Island. Yes, he had a Heel–Face Turn near the end after realizing his dreams of restarting the world anew had driven his children away from him, leading to his Heel Realization. But he still gets away unpunished for trying to destroy the world and wipe out all life on it's surface, and receives a happy ending at the end. Never mind how Doraemon effectively pulls a Heroic Sacrifice and damn well gets close to dying in order to deactivate Silver's doomsday machine.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Subverted with Mercenary Tao. The character kills a couple of innocent people and nearly kills Goku and another kid, and after his supposed death it's later revealed he was brought back as a cyborg. Though he's last seen being defeated by Tenshinhan, Dragon Ball Z filler reveals he's still causing trouble during the Cell Saga. But then you remember that at the very end of the series, Kid Buu blows up the Earth with everyone on it, and when the heroes used the Dragon Balls to revive everyone, they made sure that the truly evil people were excluded, and considering that Tao definitely isn't a good person...
    • Although in his case it's played straight if you count Dragon Ball Online as canon, he either survived Kid Buu destroying Earth or SOMEHOW got revived along with all the good people on Earth. 216 years after Goku trains Uub and he's still causing trouble, and he even gets an upgrade!
  • Played completely straight by the Red Ribbon Army's Colonel Violet, who in the anime flat-out murders several of her own men in cold blood to distance herself slightly from a pursuing crocodile and spends her remaining time in the series stealing huge quantities of money. Not only is she one of the only three major officers to survive the events of the saga, she escapes without taking so much as a punch.
  • Beerus from Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Super is another straight example. While he's friendlier and less evil than Frieza, Cell, or Buu, he still gets away with some unpleasant actions. He cruelly used King Vegeta's head as a footstool in front of his own son Prince Vegeta while making him treat him to an Eight-Course Banquet, knowing that he is much weaker than him and with no possibility of defense, and has been responsible for numerous genocides throughout the universe. Then again, he is a god needed to keep creation in balance.
    • Then again, Beerus' very petty and random destruction is shown to run contrary to his role and only further damages the balance he's allegedly supposed to uphold. Consequently, not only is his universe considered one of the worst in terms of quality and the 2nd least competently handled, but he's also looked down upon by the other Gods of Destruction and was almost erased along with his entire universe (and unlike Shin, who was Incompletely Trained due to the death of all the other Universe 7 Supreme Kais when he was younger, Beerus has no excuse for his incompetence as a god other than his own personality).
  • Goku Black and Future Zamasu from Dragon Ball Super are this in a roundabout way. In the name of creating a universe free of mortals, they go on a genocidal campaign across the universe to kill all of them, and also go out their way to kill all the gods so they won't interfere with their plans. The former came into existence when an alternate version of Zamasu used the Super Dragon Balls to steal Goku's body and kill him and his family in cold blood before going on to corrupt another version of himself, and the latter has Complete Immortality, so he can't die no matter how badly the heroes beat him up. They clash multiple times with the heroes and often come out on the better end while gleefully admitting to the atrocities they've done, and are only truly pushed by the final battle. What ultimately happens? They use Potara Fusion to become Merged Zamasu, and since a fused character is considered a different entity entirely, neither of them will ever face punishment as an individual for their crimes despite being ultimately defeated. This is especially true of Goku Black, as while Future Zamasu suffers a Villainous Breakdown before fusing, Black remains in complete control of himself to the end even after being beat up by a vengeful Vegeta.
  • King Yenma tried to subvert this to Dabura with an "Ironic Hell" twist by sending him to Heaven since Dabura would have enjoyed Hell, but Heaven's innate goodness in essence "purified" the former Demon King and he ended up enjoying Heaven.
• Izaya Orihara from Durarara!! does get punched for his actions. Once. In the anime only. For emotionally destroying a middle schooler and causing a huge gang war that puts an incredible strain on the relationship between three of the main characters. He also gets hit once by a trashcan Shizuo threw, but this is Played for Laughs and has no effect on him, and blatantly doesn't make up for having framed Shizuo for numerous crimes and sending wave after wave of thugs to attack him when they were in highschool. The novel however subverts this as karma is starting to come back and hit him particularly getting stabbed by Jinnai, leaving him in the hospital for days when anyone who hates him can come and kill him. Karma seems to have hit him in volume 9 when he's tortured by Earthworm but this is later subverted too as it turns out he had everything planned out from the beginning and was waiting for the best moment to humiliate her.
• Chaos Choir's leaders and Well-Intentioned Extremist main villains in Elemental Gelade were beaten in combat but were not punished for their villainy.
• Fatal Fury: Devil Street of Horror: While the Martial Emperor and Liuo Himmler die, Geese Howard disappears from the plot with no hint he was ever punished for his misdeeds.
• Franken Fran is better-known for its particularly vicious Laser-Guided Karma... but the villain of Chapter 21 manages to pull this off. Not only does the greedy, self-serving, abusive child molester live, but he manages to get a job at an amusement park where he'll be surrounded by children. The sum total of his "punishment" is that he's trapped in a living mascot costume... which will only make it easier for him to find victims. Fran is too much of a Cloudcuckoolander to see anything more than slightly odd about just how happy he is with this outcome.

G - L

• Mitogawa in Ga-Rei -Zero-, who, by virtue of playing a major role in the manga actual, escapes any form of punishment for what he did, despite being the one who singlehandedly kick-started Yomi's downfall. Thankfully, he gets his in the manga.
• Shigeo Ogawa from Geiger Counter manages to escape any retribution for stalking Saori Etou for over a month and eventually tricking her into letting him into her house so that he can rape her, traumatizing the poor girl to the point that she has to move away — and keep in mind that he specifically targeted a fifth grader. It ends with him at the entrance of another house with a little girl home alone, with the heavy implication that she will share Saori's fate. And to twist the knife, the epilogue of Utaite no Ballad, another story by the same author, shows him in the midst of claiming another victim.
• In Gilgamesh, Dr. Monica and the rest of the original scientists survive to the very end of the series with no one else left alive to exact retribution upon them. Monica killed off many people especially during the Twin X incident. At the end of the series he manages to kill off the main characters and the rest of the human race. What happens to him after the end of the series is unknown. Even if he ceased to exist, which is likely what happened, it's still not karma, because that's exactly what he wanted to happen.
• Glass Fleet's Manipulative Bastard Vetti Sforza uses his allies as tools and turns against them when they've served their purposes, is responsible for the deaths of Michel's father and brother, seduced if not actually raped his foster mother in order to get her to kill his foster father and then murdered her once she'd done it, drugs and apparently rapes Michel, and kills Cleo, his own twin brother, while Cleo is trying to save the world. He states up-front that all of his efforts are for the sole purpose of prolonging his own life. Not only does he never receive any particular comeuppance, he ends up receiving instant redemption courtesy of some last-minute Epiphany Therapy with Cleo's spirit, and becomes the rightful leader of the entire galaxy, with Michel's apparent ungrudging support.
• In Good Luck! Ninomiya-kun, the main villain is duly punished, essentially with death (Reika's dark side disappears or gets reabsorbed or something). But Hosaka has happily assisted with every step of the evil plan, from simple kidnapping to chucking a woman out of a helicopter... and his comeuppance consists entirely of losing to Shungo in a fight. The woman even forgives him! (So okay, she survived, but he wasn't sure she would.)
• Great Teacher Onizuka: The kids in Onizuka's class (Anko, Murai, Urumi, Miyabi, etc) get away with terrorizing and generally ruining the lives of several teachers before Onizuka shows up, but somehow it's all swept under the carpet like it never happened once Onizuka won them over.
  • Urumi isn't even called out for her role in arranging Miyabi and her cronies' kidnapping and gang-rape.
  • Miyabi destroyed a teacher's life by making a False Rape Accusation and led the whole class into an insane anti-teacher campaign (which in turn destroyed the lives of at least 2 other teachers) based on that lie (not to mention the mean way in which she treats her classmates). Even after Onizuka and her classmates discover all this, she still gets their sympathies and full moral and emotional support.
  • Mayu, being the chairwoman's grandson, often uses a Wounded Gazelle Gambit or just plays on his grandma's tendency to let him get away with stuff.
  • Sho Shibuya gets off incredibly lightly for trying to kill Onizuka, putting him in a coma, and burning down the school.
  • Mr. Sakurai is a pedophile and has been recording hundreds of underage girls in bathrooms and locker rooms for decades, yet he's never fired. He does get some Karmic Butt-Monkey moments though, and it's implied at the end that his secret may be made public.
• In Guardian Fairy Michel, Salome stole Kim's father's inventions and the resulting explosion killed him, but at the end of the series she still has Dr. White's floating castle and robots.
• Gundam:
  • The resident Psycho for Hire Yazan Gable in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, notorious for being the most cruel and immoral of the Titans, gets away scott-free even after Kamille completely dismantles his Mobile Suit. Although he does seem to meet his doom in the sequel, viewers never get to actually see his demise, which suggests that he may have cheated death once again.
    • Yazan makes a brief cameo◊ in episode 27, and while unnamed, his identity is later confirmed in Gundam Ace. "Immortal Cockroach", indeed.
    • MSV-R: The Return of Johnny Ridden makes Yazan's survival explicit and makes him part of the regular cast.
  • Nina Purpleton in Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory is partially responsible for the success of the colony drop, stabs Kou in the back (after lots of tedious relationship development setting them up as a couple that culminated shortly before this) by running back to her old boyfriend (who happens to be Gato, one of the major villains) and then pointing a gun at him to protect the villain, and this on top of being a bitch to Kou for most of the series. And not only does she get off scott-free in the end, she has the audacity to smile at Kou in the epilogue! Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Rebellion changes that last part to be a hallucination on Kou's part.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam F91: While Karozo "Iron Mask" Ronah is the Big Bad and does get his comeuppance, the same cannot be said for Meitzer Ronah. The Affably Evil head of the Ronah family, Meitzer is a Non-Action Big Bad who doesn't actually kill anyone with his own two hands, but he did come up with The Social Darwinist ideology which demands 90% of mankind be culled and drives Iron Mask to act on his Ax-Crazy nature. All the blood Iron Mask spills (and he spills a lot of it) is ultimately on Meitzer's hands, yet he faces no punishment at all by the OVA's end.
  • ∀ Gundam's Guin Sand Lineford does lose his power in Inglessa and is exiled, but the loss of political prestige isn't explicitly shown and the exile doesn't seem to trouble him too much; in the epilogue, he and Merrybell are seen calmly sailing off on a yacht.
  • Rau Le Crueset from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Omnicidal Maniac and Straw Nihilist Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. Dying at the hands of Kira Yamato and the Freedom after killing Flay Allster was not much of a punishment for him, considering Le Creuset was also a Death Seeker. So, in the end, he got what he wanted, and was Breaking Speeching the hero from beginning to end. Some have theorized that Le Crueset shot down Flay's shuttle exactly because he wanted Kira to be enraged enough to kill him...
  • An interesting moment in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: Shinn Asuka kidnaps Stella Loussier from the Minerva to try and save her life, returning her to the Earth Alliance. For this action, Shinn is thrown in the brig. Captain Gladys is more than certain that Shinn is going to be executed for treason and that she'll be punished for failing to stop him. She does think that they might use his achievements and merits to perhaps lessen his punishment, but is completely shocked and horrified when he's completely let off the hook. The incident doesn't humble Shinn at all, instead his first action is to effectively mock Athrun when he returns.
  • Then there's Louise Halevy from Mobile Suit Gundam 00, who committed many atrocities with the A-Laws, but lives in the end and has an apparent happy ending. The show director, apparently unsatisfied with this, makes it more clear in the following movie that Louise's life is far from happy now and that dying would have been easier on her, but she must instead live as The Atoner. At least, however, she has Saji by her side.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans:
    • Rustal Elion was never punished for his atrocities such as attempting to assassinate the Arbrau Prime Minister Makanai just to provoke a war between two Earth blocs, manipulating media into making Tekkadan as terrorists and using illegal weapons. And yet, for a man who wants to keep the status quo, he ends up ironically reforming Gjallarhorn only because three of the Seven Stars families had been extinct (and because it's a convenient excuse to advance his own personal power). In the end, he's seen as a "hero" for putting down McGillis and Tekkadan and helping Kudelia abolish the Human Debris system, which is as much Pragmatic Villainy as anything.
    • Iznario Fareed, the Arc Villain of Season 1, is ultimately outmaneuvered and exiled by his son. Season 2 reveals Iznario's history as a pedophile who sexually abused McGillis for years and also that his exile is quite a pleasant one living on a large estate out in the country. He even gets to assist Rustal in taking down McGillis and Tekkadan.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury:
    • Like Rustal before her, Lady Prospera causes many of the conflicts in the series, abuses and experiments on Suletta and Ericht, uses everyone around her, causes many deaths, tries to spark a war, and receives no punishment whatsoever by the end, instead giving up on her plans, then being forgiven and allowed to live a happy life with the very daughter she abused.
    • The original Elan Ceres conspired with Peil Technologies. They had Disposable Vagrants who impersonated him and destroyed their own bodies piloting Gundams for his benefit, only to be killed once they stopped being able to pilot. At the end of the show, he backstabs them and only the CEOs he betrayed suffer any consequences.
• Care to guess the ultimate fate of Goldie Musou, the main antagonist of Gunsmith Cats, a brainwashing, drug-dealing Psycho Lesbian crimelord? She ends up in a happy, debatedly consensual relationship with Misty Brown, a protagonist she once kidnapped, brainwashed and presumably raped. And she doesn't even quit being a drug-dealing crimelord, albeit becomes a less psychopathic one, because apparently, it'd be worse if she was ousted.
• Character Development or no, there have been times where Karma seems to love giving Haruhi Suzumiya the longer end of the stick. From groping Mikuru, to blackmailing the Computer Club, to spiking Mikuru's drink and calling her Haruhi's toy, many come to wonder why she hasn't been suspended/expelled/arrested.
  • She did almost earn a punch from Kyon for those last two offenses (the last straw being the "Mikuru is my toy" thing), which prompted her immediate Heel–Face Turn (even more immediate in the anime version), so this could be a subversion. Doesn't stop her from molesting Mikuru in "Someday in the Rain" just for old time's sake, but then again, that may just be the author confused about the timeline he had set up in Anachronic Order.
• In Heat Guy J, Daisuke's older brother (and boss), Shun stages a coup d'etat and tries to enforce martial law in Judoh, but gets granted amnesty because of the good things he'd done leading up to that as the police chief.
• The local Yakuza Princess and sadic Mikako Satsukitane in Heaven's Lost Property. She never gets any sort of true comeuppance for her misdeeds.
• Rome-Ro from Heroic Age gets away with quite a lot of things from mass genocide, to brutally abusing Yuti-Ra. The two princes cheat death three times and eventually become the rulers of the known universe, after blowing up Jupiter, leading their entire fleet into suicide and bombarding the Bronze tribe homeworld, killing billions of helpless larvae.
• Higurashi: When They Cry:
  • Mrs. Nomura, who along with her cohorts in Tokyo, funded the schemes of Big Bad Miyo Takano to wipe out Hinamizawa and its residents get off scot free when said scheme fails by making Takano their scapegoat for the entire plot. This is in spite of them being as quite guilty of causing the disaster as Takano, and unlike her, having NO Freudian Excuse.
  • Takano herself arguably qualifies too, as despite all she's done her mental illness is used to absolve her of responsibility, she is taken in for treatment, and even keeps her boyfriend that she tried to murder. But then again, she was literally granted divine forgiveness by Hanyuu after breaking down and showing remorse for her actions, so perhaps that is understandable.
• Honoo no Alpen Rose: Count Georges de Gourmant. In the Grand Finale, he tries to assassinate Guisan after his goons fail to. Jeudi, Leon, Lundi, Robert and Heinrich band together and warn Guisan just in time, and he escapes through a plane. When George sees his plane in the sky and realizes he's too late, he declares This Cannot Be! and falls to his knees. He then corners Jeudi and says that he has nothing to lose now, except for her, and aims his gun at her, looking like he's going to shoot her. He then smirks and puts his gun back in his clothes, walking away from her. What happened to him next is never known. Even in the sequel manga, that showed the fates of the characters years later, it's never mentioned if Gourmant was hanged in the Nuremberg Trials for being a high ranking Nazi Nobleman, which paves way for some Fridge Horror if he's still alive...
• Dakki from Hoshin Engi devoured human beings for seemingly no reason, stopped someone from being executed just to build a burning pillar to use on said person, invites people to parties and then sics tigers on them, turned a guy's son into hamburger and had said guy eat it (the guy later starved to death), and in general made things miserable for the inhabitants of Ancient China. But the worst she did was plot with Joka, a godlike alien entity who's been manipulating the history of the Earth for centuries in order to serve her own interests. What happens to her? She takes control of the body of said godlike entity and uses it to become the Great Mother and merge with the Earth.
• Hyouka: Houtarou Oreki. He always gets away with blackmail.
• Genpou Saji in Ikki Tousen. He orchestrated everything and somehow no one feels compelled to harness their rage and kick the crap out of him. If he had an actual reason to be forgiven, or had some further development later then it would work, but he's let go like he never did anything. Saji's appearance in Great Guardians doesn't fix things.
  • Strongly subverted in the manga, where his manipulations are not only generally well-intentioned and far less damaging, they eventually do get him killed by Hakufu. This, in fact, is even part of his plan, which he thinks of as his due comeuppance.
• Throughout Infinite Ryvius, a shadowy conspiracy launched a False Flag terrorist attack against a school, tried to murder everyone aboard (resulting in the deaths of the entire faculty and many students,) chased after the surviving students (all children) and attempted to kill them all, caused massive collateral damage in the process, blocked the students' attempts to communicate with anyone, framed the students for everything that happened so far, and blew up an inhabited moon. In the last episodes, one of the naval officers they've duped finds out about the situation and publicly exposes the whole thing before killing himself in shame, the result? They're apparently given administrative control over researching the Super Prototype spaceship the students survived aboard while being hounded around the solar system in. Oh, and the protagonist (who, up to this moment has been an utter Butt-Monkey) slugs one of them in the face after considering their apology.
• In Inuyasha, Sesshomaru gets a very long Character Development arc to end the story as an Anti-Hero with a happy ending, having gained the sword he always wanted, had his missing arm restored, his conflict with his brother resolved, and being much more easy-going than he used to be towards humans. In the early stages of the manga, however, he would kill people just because he could.
  • Even moreso with Kouga. While Sesshomaru in his early appearances would kill humans who happened to be in his path, Kouga and his wolf demon tribe actively sought out human villages to massacre and eat, despite being perfectly capable of surviving on the meat of non-sentient animals. His wolves were even the ones who killed Rin. After he becomes an ally against Naraku, all of this is completely forgotten and his two minions are even treated as Plucky Comic Relief despite being mass murderers.
• In the anime Jyu-Oh-Sei, the evil character Nagi murders innocent people. He is never punished for what he does and never shows any remorse. Not only does he live at the end of the series, but the good characters like Thor and Tiz continually defend him and save his life.
• Ogata from Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple. Despite having conducted dangerous "experiments" on his disciples, despite having killed Tanaka's pregnant wife, master, and Tanaka himself, despite having played a major role in nearly kicking off a world war... at the end of the manga, he has not received a single defeat and is still alive and well.
• Eiji Touno from The Kindaichi Case Files is probably one of the worst Serial Killer in the series — barring Yoichi Takato — who cold-bloodedly murdered four innocents (including Miyuki's cousin) simply for sharing the same initials as the guy who let his sister/girlfriend, Keiko, die. He would have killed 5 others too, if Kindaichi didn't stop him in time. He commits suicide before the police can come to apprehend him, and everyone considers the case closed. A year later, however, he re-appears as Hikage Miyama, having survived his suicide attempt, which left him with an Identity Amnesia. Even though he is the prime suspect of the second case, he is eventually found innocent, and despite Itsuki's misgivings, Kindaichi allows him to live on under his new identity, declaring that Eiji Tono has already died during his first suicide attempt. In other words, the man never really get any repercussions for his crimes.
• Schwarz of Knight Hunters were most likely allowed to become Karma Houdinis, despite being the Evil Counterparts of the protagonists and perpetrating quite a lot of carnage, by virtue of gaining enough of a fan following to become Ensemble Dark Horses. Sequel series Weiß Kreuz: Glühen sees two of them recast to some extent as Sociopathic Heroes and one more performing an arguable Heel–Face Turn, but none of them have been redeemed or seen any justice for their various acts of villainy. (Meanwhile, none of the protagonists escape anything like unscathed.)
  • Farfarello. The fourth member of Schwarz. He's arguably the worst of them all; aside of everything else, he accidentally killed Ouka, purposefully killed his mother and Tot (although she got better), and his ultimate fate? Apparently, he quits being an assassin and lives happily ever after with his girlfriend. Weiß is specifically ordered to assassinate Farfarello, and Schwarz curb stomps them within an inch of their lives.
• In Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions!, there is Touka, who gets her happy ending when Rikka is forced to get over her chunibyou and goes to Italy to pursue her dream of becoming a master chef while everyone back in Japan angsts and struggles with the situation that she left behind.
• In Love Hina, Kanako nearly rapes Motoko while disguised as Naru to sow chaos among the residents. The incident is briefly mentioned when the residents attack Naru, and then when the real culprit is found, completely forgotten. Kanako suffers no punishment for this and other cruel acts. To be fair, they really had it coming as Kanako did those things in retaliation for the pain they caused Keitaro, thus was their Laser-Guided Karma personified.

M - Q

• Rimelda of Madlax kills off or is responsible for the deaths of the most likable members of the cast, including Madlax's apparent romantic interest, Vanessa. Not only does she survive in the end (along with most of the cast being resurrected), but she gets together with Madlax. Presumably Bee Train was trying to replicate their success with Noir.
• In Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, while most villains are killed, Arba is not even imprisoned. The Manipulative Bitch is responsible for most of the misery in the world, has caused many wars, betrayed and killed her surrogate and real children. In the end, she only loses her power that she planned to use to cause an Eldritch Abomination to destroy the world. She is seen at the very penultimate page of the manga casually flying with only a bored look, perfectly free to do whatever she wants.
• In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, the Book of Darkness decides to kill Nanoha and trap Hayate and Fate in eternal dreams. The one responsible for setting up the whole thing turns out to be Gil Graham. That person's fate at the end? Retiring back in his home country of England, Earth, with his two familiars to keep him company. He thought it was the only way to get rid of the Book of Darkness once and for all. It took Nanoha's over-powered ten-member party, which included the current master of the book plus the Arc-en-Ciel to temporarily regain control of it.
  • Perhaps a more troubling example is the above character's accomplices, the Lieze twins, who, in order to activate the Book Of Darkness, absorb Shamal and Signum's Linker Cores, beat up Zafira to do the same to him, and then finish off Vita in front of Hayate while disguised as Nanoha and Fate. While all the people in question get better, no one brings up what happened or proposes any punishment for the responsible parties.
  • More egregiously, the cancellation of the Force manga leaves the Huckebein unbeaten, with only a minor damage to Veyron as any form of punishment for their murderous ways. Similarly, it also means that Hades Vandein will never be punished for his crimes either.
• In Maria no Danzai, Okaya and his cronies get away with sending Kiritaka Nagare to his untimely death by making it look like a suicide. After learning the truth, Kiri's vengeful mother Maria sets out to correct that, and spends the next two years preparing to pass judgement upon her targets.
• Many were disappointed that Admiral Haruki Kusakabe from Martian Successor Nadesico didn't die at the end. However, you can kill him in several Super Robot Wars games.
• Throughout the course of the My-Otome anime, Psycho Lesbian Smug Snake Tomoe Marguerite has amassed for herself a pretty long rap sheet: assault, vandalism, attempted murder, kidnapping, blackmail, Attempted Rape of a high-ranking school official, aiding and abetting terrorists, and at one point openly declared that she intended to kill anyone who stood in her way (read: everyone), and has shown no remorse for any of it. She never receives any sort of formal punishment, and the only retribution she gets for this is a few broken bones after falling out of the sky... which barely counts as a slap on the wrist compared to the lives she tried to ruin. She comes back in My-Otome Zwei clean as a whistle, presumably to do the same things all over again.
  • John Smith from My-Otome 0~S.ifr~. He kidnaps Sifr to take control of the ancient technology, and while he loses the Schwarz Space Station, M9 and quite a few of his men, he escapes in the end, albeit because the heroes' mission was about protecting Sifr rather than defeating Schwarz.
• Naruto has quite a few examples:
  • The Hidden Cloud village doesn't appear to undergo any hardship for the kidnapping attempt they made on the 3-year-old Hinata, the eldest daughter of the Hyuuga clan head, during diplomatic negotiations, and indeed their Refuge in Audacity response, to demand the body of the man that had killed their ambassador while he was running off with Hinata, resulted in the death of a Konoha ninja and inflicted 9 years of mental trauma on Neji. The only time this is brought up is when Yamato reminds the Raikage that the Leaf Village had to accommodate their demands for the sake of peace in the past.
  • Orochimaru. Unlike most villains in the series, he's completely irredeemable having performed numerous massacres and experiments on prisoners (including children and infants, which were usually fatal) to become immortal. Yet after siding with the heroes against Madara, he's never seen again nor mentioned after the Great War. As of Naruto Gaiden, which takes place 15 years after the main series, Orochimaru is still alive and up to his old tricks. And not only Sasuke but even Naruto has no problem with casually paying a visit to him in his hideout and chatting with him as if he were an old friend, completely ignoring not only his huge death toll in general but also the fact that he killed the Third Hokage, who was like a grandfather to Naruto. Not even the fact that Orochimaru has once again swapped into a younger body seems to phase them, beyond their finding his new appearance even odder than the old one. Word of God even confirmed that Orochimaru gained immortality later on. This is even Lampshaded in the anime adaptation of Konoha Hiden, where Orochimaru openly strolls around town and even participates in a video to send Naruto and Hinata well-wishes for their upcoming wedding, and only Yamato who was assigned to keep an eye on him finds anything wrong with this.
  • Kabuto also qualifies. Like Orochimaru we have no idea what happened to him after he helped save Sasuke despite causing the events of the war in the first place by reviving Madara along with every other famous shinobi and forcing them to fight against their will to assist Obito in essentially destroying the world. Naruto Gaiden reveals that he not only wasn't punished for his part in the war, but is now running an orphanage with the Leaf Village's approval. This isn't quite as egregious, since Kabuto seems to have at least undergone a genuine Heel–Face Turn thanks to Itachi's genjutsu forcing him to reevaluate his life, whereas Orochimaru didn't change at all and simply joined forces with the heroes out of pure pragmatism in the face of a far more powerful villain who was just as much of a threat to him as to everyone else.
  • Similarly, Sasuke Uchiha is pardoned for his crimes following his Heel–Face Turn, despite declaring war on Konoha, kidnapping Bee (which nearly starts an international incident), trying to kill the Kages, brainwashing the Tailed Beasts, and trying to kill the few people who still care about him (namely, Team 7). To top it off, Sakura still forgives him to the point of marrying him, despite the horrible genjutsu he used on her in Chapter 693. However, it might explain why he takes his role of investigating potential threats to the world so seriously instead of taking the easier choice of settling down in the village with his friends.
  • Baki from the Hidden Sand Village never gets found out, let alone punished, for killing Hayate.
• Keel Lorenz, the Big Bad from Neon Genesis Evangelion, not only gets to see his delusions come to pass, but we get to see him reacting with sadistic glee as he is assimilated into the "perfect being" that he has created. Though his actions were implied to have been reversed by the end of the movie, we never do see him get his comeuppance.
• Mori Soiken from Ninja Resurrection. He murders two innocent children to blame it on the attacking ninjas, after Shiro the priest is fatally wounded Soiken convinces him to give up Christianity and be reborn as a demon to get revenge on the ninjas, the process involves sacrificing his own daughter having the reborn Shiro burst through her body killing her, then the reborn Shiro slaughters the villagers indiscriminately while he watches proudly, if the series had continued he would've likely been punished.
• Asuham Boone from Overman King Gainer. Towards the end of the series, his obsession with getting back at Gain for the whole mess with Asuham's sister Karin degenerates to the point where Asuham willingly manipulates Cynthia and a lot of his underlings (and President Munt himself) in order to awaken the Overdevil, an Eldritch Abomination capable of destroying the world. He never seemed hesitant nor regretful about it... and all that happens to him is that he gets his Dominator shot down and gets a What Were You Thinking? speech from Karin herself (who had come to terms with the fact that Gain's relationship with her wouldn't have lasted). Not much of a punishment, huh? Understandable in that Yoshiyuki Tomino had come out of his problems with depression and was producing lighter and more idealistic shows... but still, some were dissatisfied letting Asuham go like that, after all the crap he pulled.
• One Piece:
  • "God" Eneru, despite being one of the most psychotic villains in the series and having destroyed his homeland and most of the people who lived there, ultimately gets off fairly lightly compared to most of the villains the Straw Hat Pirates face. He gets a beating from Luffy, and misses out on his chance to destroy Upper Yard, but he accomplishes his goal of going to the moon. Double Subverted when he gets trapped there and initially is bored and lonely, but he eventually finds a civilization of robots who make him their leader after he accidentally solves their energy crisis.
  • Doctor Hogback assists Gecko Moria in building an army of zombies to conquer the world, dooming around a thousand people to live cursed half-lives in the process. To make things worse, he's a Dirty Coward and a necrophile. He successfully escapes after the Straw Hats visit Thriller Bark, and unlike his lecherous crewmate Absalom, Hogback is never shown facing consequences for his actions.
• Tsukiko from Paranoia Agent destroys most of Tokyo because of her mental instability. Her fate? She walks the streets two years later as if nothing ever happened.
• Sae from Peach Girl. She does do some make-goods, and she encounters some serious setbacks and heartache, particularly in the manga sequel/spinoff, Sae's Story. But the pain she puts Momo through — at one point threatening to disgrace her on an international level, just so Toji will break up with her, and making Momo believe she's been raped — means that she should have had some kind of beatdown. The classmates she tricks early in the series to hate Momo are ready to hold Momo down and maybe hit her, but no such brutality is even mentioned when Sae is majorly exposed. She doesn't do a complete Houdini, except when the level of her actions is taken into account. Her pain with Ryo was largely self-inflicted, so it really doesn't balance the scales.
• In Pokémon Adventures, Karen and Will were Elite Mooks who gleefully attempted to Mind Rape Blue, made it very clear that they willingly followed the Big Bad For the Evulz, and ditched the Big Bad not because they went through a Heel–Face Turn, but because they got scared and ran away. And yet, somehow, they're now part of the Indigo League Elite Four as of the HGSS arc.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • As a result of the Team Rocket Trio's Joker Immunity Giovanni goes the entire course of the series unpunished unlike all the other Nebulous Evil Organization leaders. While Ash managed to foil his larger-scale plans to Take Over the World with Mewtwo and Meloetta, he's never arrested and his organization continues to prosper well into the Grand Finale.
  • Brodie from Team Magma and the Magikarp Salesman are never caught or punished for their crimes. Although in the latter's case, his only real victims were Team Rocket.
  • Alain gets off completely scot-free for his involvement with Team Flare, who tried to destroy the entire world. The closest punishment he gets is forking over his Mega Bracelet and Charizardite X to the authorities, and even then, he returns in Journeys with those very same items during the Masters 8. That being said, he does suffer some karma there when he is completely and humiliatingly defeated by Leon in the opening match, breaking his on-screen battle winning streak.
  • Unlike the games, Rose isn't apprehended by the police and is still at large. There has been zero indication that Galarian authorities are looking for him, although it's mentioned that Leon's attempting to track him down. He even has a small cameo as his disguised self with Oleana (who's not even disguised) nearby as they look towards the stadium during Ash VS. Leon.
• In Princess Tutu, even his own grandson ruining things doesn't discourage Drosselmeyer (at worst he's a bit disappointed), and it's hinted that he'll continue writing new stories, the only difference being now he faces some serious competition.
• In the manga of The Prince of Tennis, Akaya Kirihara is never directly punished for his highly violent play. In the TV series, he does get chastisement from An and Ryoma, does say he wants to change and gets a taste of his own medicine (sorta) via playing another Tykebomb, Kevin Smith, but the developments in the OAV have rendered that void. The only punishment Kirihara received was indirect: Rikkaidai loses in the finals... but he wins his doubles match, injuring one of his rivals and almost inducing a similar Unstoppable Rage on the other. What have we said about "violence isn't allowed in-courts and those who use it are always punished", huh?
  • The Higa team. The coach is a Jerkass, and doesn't receive any more comeuppance than being hit with a tennis ball by the captain of the team when he tries to leave. Half the team itself is comprised of unsportsmanlike Jerkasses who attack other teams' coaches, and the other half is just slightly less unsportsmanlike than that. Once they're beaten by Seigaku, it's as if all grievances disappear. They even show up in a comedic Breather Episode, and no mention is made of their earlier conduct.
• Psycho-Pass has those sociopathic brains in the Sibyl System. Despite that they got "judged" by the Big Bad of Season 2, Kamui, they're still standing strong and became more efficient and ruthless because he only got rid of those defective brains with high crime coefficients. Then, the movie has them taking over the Southeast Asian region and having its chairman assassinated. And when Akane confronted them, she can only remind them to stop what they're doing. It's unknown whether they're taking her word seriously but since they're sociopaths and their puppet chairman is winning the elections, it's unlikely that they won't take her seriously in the future.
  • Mika is this too. Though she did get threatened by Togane and the Sibyl System to be their pawn and realized that her investigation led to Aoi Tsunemori's death, those only made her worse and she accepted it, making her a full-fledging agent of Sibyl. She even denies responsibility for Aoi Tsunemori's death and moved on. In the movie, it doesn't help that she's the only one who knows the system's plans for the region and yet, she has the audacity to call out Akane for not knowing their plans despite that she never told her about it.
• In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Kyubey ultimately does not receive any punishment for his (species's) millennia-long campaign of turning little girls into liches and, eventually, Eldritch Abominations, all in the name of anti-entropy energy production, while having no real regard for the well-being of the victims or humanity as a whole. The ending replaces the "eldritch abomination" part with regular old death, making Kyubey's questionable power-generation tactic less efficient, but he suffers no direct consequences and gets to continue making satanic contracts with children. In The Movie, he attempts to bring back the old system, and this time he does get some sort of punishment, possibly psychological; but this ending is controversial for other reasons.
  • Part of the controversy with The Movie is that it turns the previously-heroic Homura Akemi into this. She betrays Madoka by stealing her goddess powers and becoming a Satanic Archetype, then resets the universe to a more “perfect” one where Madoka is here forever, and subnet Kyubey to eternal Mind Rape. The movie ends with her victorious.
• A large portion of Queen's Blade's cast are murderers, thieves, and general self-centered dog-kicking psychopaths. The franchise is also a fan of giving happy endings to any character with an official game book… Then came Vanquished Queens.
• Queen Millennia: At the very end, and minutes after killing Daisuke and Selene, besides countless other recent victims and eons of tyranny, all La-Metalians agree to stop fighting and return to their home planet, hoping they can endure the winter until La-Metal somehow manages to lock to another star.

R - Y

• Nabiki Tendo from Ranma ½. She runs small scams and petty blackmail schemes all over the place but was only called out once. Rumiko Takahashi is on record as saying that Nabiki's ability to avoid punishment is part of what makes her so funny.
• The Military Uniform Princess/Altair of Re:CREATORS. Her goal? To lash out at the world for taking her author away and leaving her in essentially Creation Limbo. How does she accomplish this? By plotting to kill everyone else in that world and take the Creations' universe with it. Despite being directly or indirectly responsible for all the death and destruction that occurred in the real world due to her scheme to destroy it, as well as the deaths of all the Creations that ended up in the crossfire, she ultimately is stopped by giving her exactly what she came for: a manefistation of said dead author, and ran away with her without receiving any consequences for her actions. And to top it all off, this was pretty much the only thing left that could stop her from destroying the world; she had gotten simply too powerful for the cast to try anything else.
• Taisuke Sawanaga in School Days. He rapes his crush Kotonoha during the School Festival and the worst he gets is a broken heart. Not that broken, either.
  • Otome Katou's so-called "friends" (Natsumi, Minami and Kumi) who cruelly bully Kotonoha, bring Sekai's friend Nanami to tears and ruin her reputation at school by showing a tape featuring her sex scene with her boyfriend/senpai and have sex with Makoto just For the Lulz, despite knowing their "friend" Otome is also sleeping with him get clean away too.
  • It looks like Taisuke is, if anything, even worse in the PS2 game extension. In the extended version of Sekai's Yandere ending (the one where she's pregnant and kills Makoto), Kotonoha strongly hints that Sekai's child (born few after the murder, taken care of by Sekai's mother and Kotonoha herself since the traumatized Sekai has disappeared) is not only Taisuke's child, but may have been conceived through rape as well.
• In Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Wallace seduces Todd to get back at Envy, then tells him to his face that they're just an on-set fling and that Todd's genuine infatuation with him isn't reciprocated. This is one of the major factors leading to the film crashing and burning, and while this is able to be salvaged thanks to Matthew Patel and Sex Bob-Omb's interest in a musical version of the screenplay, Wallace still walks away with enough money to visit Paris in the epilogue.
• Taken up to eleven and through the other side in Seigi no Mikata. Makiko should be a Villain Protagonist. She delights in cruel pranks and acts of Disproportionate Retribution. However, Karma seems to be full-on inverted for her. The target of her cruelty always either ends up benefitting in some way, or turns out to be an Asshole Victim who deserves it. She keeps getting civic awards and approbation for being a pillar of the community.
• Hao of Shaman King. Despite his Freudian Excuse, the guy had an organization made of people whose lives he ruined after him, he ruthlessly killed all of his opponents in the Shaman Tournament and then devoured their souls, many members of said organization among them. His punishment in the manga version? He succeeds in becoming the titular Shaman King.
  • In the anime, however, Yoh cuts him in half and kills him. That being said if his origin is the same as the manga, he’ll just reincarnate again for the next tournament in 500 years. So it’s more delaying the inevitable.
  • Faust VIII is never truly punished for his actions in the Shaman Tournament, let alone what he does to Manta even after he pulls a Heel–Face Turn. That’s not even getting into the fact that he was once a serial killer… While he does truly redeem himself, these incidents are never brought up again. In the manga he ends up making a Heroic Sacrifice, but that means little as he hangs around as a ghost until the end.
• In the Shangri-La anime, Nagiko and Tarsian instituted a system of child sacrifice yet are never called to account for this and are seen flying off together scott free in the last episode.
• Shiki has Sunako, being the mastermind of all the murders and kidnappings in the Sotoba village which resulted to all of her people being massacred by the vengeful villagers. While she felt remorseful for her actions and does accept her fate to be staked, Seishin saved her and helped her escape in the end.
• Slayers
  • To a lesser extent, Zelgadis. One of his favorite methods of getting something involves either murder or getting someone hurt, but he does it far less often than Lina so it might be justified in that context.
  • Rezo, a priest who healed people far and wide, and experimented on others, often to the point of death, and sacrificing a kingdom to open his eyes, gets away with an apology.
• Kuku from Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure is saved from being a monster by the girls...and the first thing he sees is his employee Lala with his pen (actually one of the Star Color Pens they were looking for). He immediately brands them thieves without asking for an explanation. When the mess (that got worse when the planet's AI got corrupted) is cleared up, his actions aren't commented on and he never apologizes.
• The Psycho Lesbian Duo from Strawberry Panic! got away with attempting to wreck a school play, messing around with the Etoile Elections, and two separate cases of Attempted Rape. Kaname takes this one step further by using Momomi to get closer to Amane, her real crush...and they got back together in the finale. To a lesser extent, Shizuma gets away with messing around with every attractive student in the school.
• Invoked Once an Episode in Super Milk Chan: Milk performs a number of bad deeds and behaves irresponsibly, and by the end of every episode, her assistant Tetsuko, the only character with a strong moral fiber and a good work ethic, receives all of the blame while Milk gets the credit as a hero. Occasionally, other characters will also pile blame on Tetsuko.
• In Sword Art Online, the surviving members of player killer guilds such as Laughing Coffin and Titan's Hand committed murder over the two years 10,000 players spent trapped in the eponymous VRMMORPG and got away with it (outside of being hunted and killed by the official guilds during the mass purges that happened in retribution in-game if they didn't surrender) due to officially Akihiko Kayaba, the game's creator and the one who trapped them all in the first place, being blamed for all the deaths. Even if they identified players with all the data deleted there is no way to tell if they did kill players, and the worst said players got were being placed under close supervision during their counseling sessions to reintegrate them into society. Not to mention Kibaou who wants to rob beta tester, sends guild members to their death, extorts weak players, and send a rival guild member to his death to cover up his crimes.
• Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee:
  • In the manga, Colbasso, who's Rei's Jerkass maid. After learning that Kimidori was responsible for sending Rei picture postcards, tries to take credit for it to get a reward from Rei, since Kimidori refuses to come forward. Lag is able to expose her deception by firing a Shindan at the postcard, showing that Kimidori sent it and why she's staying silent about it, but nothing happens to Colbasso. Averted in the anime, in which Colbasso is last seen wearing civilian clothes instead of her maid uniform, carrying luggage and swearing revenge on Lag, implying that Rei fired her.
  • In the anime adaptation, Calibus Garrard and Hazel Valentine turn out to be Marauders infiltrating the Bee Hive, and are responsible for various crimes, from leaking information to Reverse to kidnapping Sylvette and using her as a hostage to lure her brother out. Aria and the other Letter Bees expose them and place them under arrest, but they're able to escape during the chaos of the battle against Cabernet. They're last seen planning on leaving Reverse behind and starting a new life.
• Momoko from Telepathy Shoujo Ran has quite a history of atrocious behavior throughout the series, ranging from putting masses of people under mind control up to getting a woman killed so she can get her hands on some special plant. At one point she also plays a major part in an effort to eradicate all of mankind. Her fate? She gets to bring her grandmother flowers in the hospital.
• In Tokyo Babylon, Seishirou Sakurazuka is this, managing to walk away at the end of the series with nothing more than a lost eye (which is lost willingly, by the way) after killing one main character and horribly breaking another, in addition to many other murders he himself claims to have committed. It's not until X/1999 that he finally gets some karmic retribution, but considering that even then he dies on his terms by what amounts to assisted suicide...
• Cain from the Trinity Blood anime, was pulling the strings behind all those events and...he gets away at the end. It doesn't helped that in the notes left by the author who died when the anime premiered, Cain continues to commit horrific crimes which sets another Human/Methuselah war and while he did have a final battle with his brother Abel, it remains unknown on who won that fight since the notes just stops there.
• The Twelve Kingdoms has Yuka and Kouya, both of whom are Easily Forgiven.
• President Kuroi on the anime version of THE iDOLM@STER, shows himself to be a Jerkass on a great caliber, attempting to sabotage the 765Pro idols only to prove himself 'superior' to 765Pro's President Takagi. In the end he's shown laughing to himself as his last scheme agaisnt the 765Pro Agency works wonderfully and they can't do anything to get back at him. He did lose his Project Jupiter, who's sick of his sabotaging, especially that one event involving slandering Chihaya with her Dark and Troubled Past to the point of traumatizing her, but considering that in his last words, he said that the Jupiters are expendable and he can find another group, it's only a matter of time until he rises back up to try and slander 765Pro again.
• Vandread has Rabat, more of an Honest John, but later on he says that he deliberately leads Harvest Fleets to wipe out potential dangers in return for them sparing him. And before that, deceiving the Nirvana's crew, trying to steal Hibiki's mech, and then beating him senseless whilst lecturing him on 'using his own words' despite his own deceit and greed, before escaping. Despite helping out later on, it's a wonder he doesn't receive some sort of misfortune for his actions.
• The idols who bully Oze Romi in Episode 3 of Venus Project Climax get no comeuppance whatsoever.
• Dilandau in The Vision of Escaflowne movie gets away scot-free with his surviving Dragonslayers, without showing any remorse for his previous actions. He just shrugs, comments that there will always be new wars for him to fight, and rides off into the sunset. What's worse is that the scene has an extremely positive tone to it, like he somehow deserved to live and continue his life of violence and bloodshed without learning a thing, except maybe "don't try to fight Escaflowne".
• Witch Hat Atelier: Agate, early on, sends Coco in a mission she was not ready for and could have gotten hurt or died, but since she comes back without a scratch, nobody holds Agate accountable, not even their mentor and guardian. This is later Handwaved when Agate tells Coco that she should have told on her to Qifrey, but Coco says that it was a challenge she should have faced.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • Saruwatari is one of Pegasus's biggest and meanest thugs in the first season, who just disappears after the battle with the Big Five in Season 1. Compare him with his bosses; Pegasus does a Heel–Face Turn and the Big Five actually die in the anime (when the virtual world where they are imprisoned is destroyed), but Saruwatari is last seen running through a door with some of his goons. Although maybe Kaiba beat him up again. In the manga, though, he was probably fired.
  • There was also Zigfried. His crimes may have been tame compared to most villains, and he wasn't capable of murder, but still, if he was punished at all for his attempts at industrial espionage that threatened to wipe out KaibaCorp's records, the viewers never saw it. (In fact, the epilogue at the end of the series suggested that he and Leon were making a business deal of some sort with Pegasus, meaning he could well have gotten back on his feet because of it.)
  • The store clerk that sold Yugi and Joey their duel disks is never discovered as being the one who set Joey up to be ambushed by the Rare Hunters. While Yugi found out in the manga he never found him as he probably left town.
• From the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Nezumi escapes after tricking Yugi and Jounouchi into confronting Hirutani avoiding getting beaten up or put into a Shadow Game.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
  • Yubel. Once Judai remembers the nature of their past lives, he completely forgives her for everything she put him, his allies, and 12 dimensions through because of her obsession with him. Albeit he blamed himself for her mental state, she had been corrupted by the Light of Destruction (turning her more dangerous), and reconciling was the best way to beat her at the time. He also took responsibility by taking her soul inside himself and thus prevented her from causing any further harm while her mind healed.
  • Kagemaru, who did God only knows what to the missing students and who attempted to destroy the world just to stay young. Because he's already so old, sick, weak and almost dead already, the characters decide there isn't anything they can do to him than let him go. Judai hugs him and wishes him well, though this hug is enough to break Kagemaru's spine and send him to the hospital.
• Anna Kozuki from Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL. Collateral damage is kind of rare in this franchise, but she tends to cause a lot of it, practically blowing up a good deal of downtown Heartland City trying to get to Yuma the first episode where she appears. She also ambushed, beat up, and then tied up one of the finalists of the WDC in order to take his place on the Duel Coaster. Not only was she never punished for what she did, Yuma and Kotori were strangely willing to overlook it, probably because she helped Yuma defeat the Fallguys.
• In YuYu Hakusho, Sensui is killed by demon Yusuke... which is what he wanted. Then Itsuki takes him away so his spirit won't be judged in the Spirit World.
  • Minor examples are Mr. Iwamoto and Mr. Akashi. Iwamoto steals a bunch of stuff and frames Yusuke for it, while Akashi arranges for Kuwabara to be beaten up. Neither really gets their just deserts.
  • Whoever the arsonists was that set Yusuke's house on fire was never caught.

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