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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dio_knees_danny.png
Unfortunately for the dog, this is just the beginning.
And Dio just gets worse from here.
Kick the Dog in Anime & Manga.
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  • Attack on Titan:
    • The Marleyans' horrible and very Nazi-like treatment of the Eldians in their territory in general very much smacks of this, especially when it's revealed that their Warrior program brainwashes and turns Eldians against their fellow Eldians on Paradis before turning them into the Titans that everybody on Paradis has been having to deal with. Not even the reveal that Eldia was once a cruel empire and that Marley originally started out as rebels against it does anything to offset this cruelty, which comes back to bite them hard when Eren unleashes the Rumbling on them and the rest of the world.
    • Griez spends his short screentime slagging off Sasha, who recently died, saying disgusting and racist things about her right in front of her parents and the guy she loved, shortly before Yelena has enough of him and blows his brains out.
    • Meant to keep his friends from following him or not, Eren telling Mikasa, who has loved him from the very beginning, that he's always hated her and completely tearing her apart with a lie that she and the other Ackermans were meant to be slaves, and then beating the living shit out of Armin when he is very understandably pissed at him for this was a very, very low thing to do to them.
    • King Fritz I, the founder of the Eldian Empire, stands out as probably the most horrible character of all of Attack on Titan, and pretty much did nothing but kick dogs. Of particular and horrific note was his treatment of his queen Ymir Fritz, who he treated as little more than a Breeding Slave, and who he fed to his own daughters after her death.
  • Grewcica in the Battle Angel Alita OVA kills the dog that Alita picked up. Alita then uses the pup's blood to paint her face, giving herself the marks we know so well.
  • Berserk:
    • Griffith has a horrific Kick the Dog moment within his larger scale Moral Event Horizon during the Eclipse. Sacrificing everyone who had stood by him to a horde of demons was an act of irredeemable evil, but it had the understandable purpose of giving him the power to rise from his physically and mentally broken condition as a member of the Godhand. However, the same cannot be said of the very first thing Griffith does upon being reborn as Femto, which was to brutally rape Casca while making her lover Guts watch, which served no purpose whatsoever; he had already gained power by dooming them to Hell (which you'd think would more than avenge any wrongs he felt they did him), and so the only possible reason for this particular atrocity was cruelty for cruelty's sake. Something unusual for him, reserved for the only person that made him doubt himself and forget his dream.
    • Gambino's general treatment of Guts in general. This is the guy who manages to Kick the Dog by petting one on his lap during the nightmare sequence in the second episode. And that's not even mentioning what he does to him in the manga.
    • Guts himself has a number of cruel moments from his Black Swordsman days: openly expressing his lack of concern for others that get caught up in the demon battles he fights, treating Puck like dirt, exacting Cold-Blooded Torture on Apostles crying for mercy (not that a lot of them deserve it due to the evil shit they get up to), and carving up the Count's dismembered corpse in front of the guy's own daughter — after using her as a Human Shield during his battle with him. It is only revealed through the entire Golden Age Arc (particularly the above two moments) why he's such a cruel individual, turning him from a murderous demon slayer whose only cause is revenge to an internally ravaged man plagued by the horrors of his unbelievably tragic Dark and Troubled Past. Even after some much-needed Character Development, reconnecting with Casca and the gaining of a new circle of True Companions, Guts is still quite the Anti-Hero.
  • Black Butler:
    • In the first episode of the second season, Alois Trancy stabs his maid Hannah Anasfeloz in the eye with his fingers. For daring to look her master in the eye while serving him. The nerve of her.
    • And later he forces her to strip naked, half to use her dress and half to cruelly humiliate her.
  • In Blade of the Immortal, Shira not only kicks the dog, but kills the dog Rin had befriended the previous night and tricks her into eating it. And Shira just gets worse from here.
  • Bleach:
    • In his early appearances, Mayuri Kurotsuchi from Bleach was clearly designed to be loathed by the audience due to the near constant abuse he levelled towards his daughter and lieutenant, Nemu.
    • There's also the part where he tries to kill Ikkaku when he refuses to answer his questions, before Kenpachi stops him.
    • Gin Ichimaru is introduced by slicing off Jidanbo's arm (only making a gash in it in the anime) and suggesting that he should have died defending the gate. And then there's his falsely offering to help save Rukia and all his friends before her execution just to raise and dash her hopes, turning the emotionally broken girl into a screaming wreck for no reason at all. During the war in Fake Karakura Town, he attacks Hiyori from behind when she's going after Aizen (whom she could never have put a scratch on anyway), and either effectively bisects her (manga) or impales her through the torso (anime).
    • Byakuya does some pretty assholish things in the Soul Society arc before his Heel–Face Turn, such as refusing to allow Renji to be treated when he's defeated (which earns him a harsh scold from Renji's friend Momo in the anime), attempting to overkill Ganju simply for being a Shiba, and openly insulting the more merciful captains such as Ukitake. In fact, some believe that if it wasn't for his Freudian Excuse and becoming a Sugar-and-Ice Personality over Rukia once he has his HFT, he would've crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
    • No matter some of his fans deny it, Ulquiorra has some of these moments under his belt. The biggest one is, after fatally injuring Ichigo, specifically telling Orihime to "Take a good look at how I kill the man you put your hopes on". And once Ichigo dies and Orihime begins splintering, he openly mocks her. No wonder Orihime almost completely lost it.
    • Tousen, who, after his Resurrection, was able to see for the first time in his life, started laughing like a maniac, commenting on all the things he could see, before turning towards a silent Komamura and remarked that he looked far uglier than he thought.
    • Sosuke Aizen has kicked many puppies, but two of these have been mutilated under the force of his kicks: his ex-lieutenant, Momo Hinamori, and her best friend, Toshiro Hitsugaya. How does he do such things? He stabs the girl to almost death as he reveals himself as Not Quite Dead (and as the end of all the More than Mind Control he's subjected her to for decades), then admits it when questioned by a very pissed off Hitsugaya, and seriously injures him when he tries to attack him. And much later? Upon being under attack, he uses his Master of Illusion powers to make Hitsugaya believe he's attacking him... while in fact, he's attacking Hinamori. Who took a while to return from the brink of death.
    • When Hitsugaya finds Hinamori, Aizen apologizes... and says he should've cut her body up instead. He goes the extra mile by saying that he only considered her a useful tool, and that he only ever thought of Gin as his right-hand man. The latter is especially cruel, seeing as how Hinamori dedicated herself to becoming Aizen's lieutenant.
    • Attacking Harribel, who had barely survived fighting Hitsugaya just because he was pissed off that the higher Espada lost.
    • And then chasing Ichigo's friends around Karakura with the intention of killing them and provoke Ichigo.
    • Ginjo taunts Ichigo after taking his powers.
    • The Vandereich's murder of Chojiro Sasakibe can be seen as this too. Okay, so finishing someone off when they try to stop you from reaching to his boss is something. Shooting said person into a wall with a giant crossbow out of spite to him and his boss and mocking him as he bleeds to death is... something else.
    • The Vandereich leader isn't much better, what with him murdering two subordinates for borderline whims. He also mocks Yamamoto's attempts as The Atoner before killing him brutally
    • Also done by the leader of the Stern Ritter, Haschwald, when he subjects Hidetomo to a cruel Breaking Speech before slicing him in half with his hand and by Bambietta when she insults Komamura, calling him a "doggie dog" afer killing half his division. The worst case, however, comes a while later, with As Nodt mindraping Byakuya into having an hallucination of Rukia melting before almost killing him, and Driscoll releasing the Bankai he stole from Sasakibe purely to taunt the VERY pissed Yamamoto.
  • Bokurano: Jun Ushiro is physically abusive to his younger sister Kana, but one of his cruelest acts is casually suggesting that she volunteer to pilot Zearth, even knowing that the pilots die at the end of their battles regardless of the outcome. It later turns out that Kana had secretly volunteered to pilot after the initial group signed up but before the first pilot died.
  • Brain Powerd:
    • Smug Snake Jonathan Glenn destroys Nelly's house with his brand-new Baronz. He had no reason to do that, he just wanted to show off his power and make Yuu suffer.
    • A few episodes before, Jonathan tells Yuu (paraphrased): "I have slept with your sister, and after that with your dear mom as well. They care about me more than they care about you! Hahahaaa!"
  • City Hunter: A few of Ryo Saeba's foes were right bastards, fully deserving of Ryo's sadistic punishment. The ones who take the cake are a couple of bank robbers that decided to rob the passengers of their hijacked bus, including a group of kindergarteners. Unfortunately for them, they were unlucky enough to hijack the same bus Ryo was on. Asskicking ensued.
  • Claudine: Rosemarie meets Maura while the maid was on her way to the post office. Maura got lost and Rosemarie deliberately sends her in the opposite direction out of jealousy. Since Maura has no sense of direction, she gets hopelessly lost and winds up losing the money she intended to send to her mother and dying father.
  • Claymore:
    • We are first introduced to Teresa of the Faint Smile when she casually splatters bystanders flicking the blood from her sword after killing a Yoma, then hints that failure to give the payment for her services to the correct traveller will result in more attacks and no help. In the next town she kicks a young girl the local Yoma kept for 'entertainment' halfway across a street in an unsuccessful attempt to dissuade her from following. It was only after the kid's persistence and an encounter with bandits pushes her into Morality Pet status that we learn her name (Clare) and realize this is the Backstory of the previous chapters' protagonist.
    • Ophelia has a pechant for doing this, be it chopping off her comrades legs or tossing Innocent Bystanders in the path of danger, just because. The most prominant incident was what she did to Miria, whom she made kill her best friend and mentor, Hilda, inadvertantly in order to, well, not for any good logical reason, really. Hilda was on the verge of becoming an awakened being — which Ophelia is obsessed with hunting — but she asked Ophelia to send Miria the black card that signified that she was ready to be exterminated as a human by the person she cared for the most. Ophelia of course said that she would carry out her message to Miria... and then rips the card to shreads and allows Hilda to transform into a monster. When Ophelia and Miria are sent on an awakened being hunt together, it's not Ophelia herself who ends up killing Hilda, but Miria at her command (and sadly, Hilda retained enough of her human mind to not fight Miria back). After the battle, Ophelia nonchalantly tells Miria that all of this was her doing, but Hilda deserved to die because, well, she was a monster. Miria lost her cool at this point.
  • Charles from Code Geass did this on a couple of crucial occasions (like saying "old news, what about it?" when young Lelouch called him out on his indifference towards Marianne's murder).
  • In Date A Live, Kurumi comes across four boys abusing a cat. So she puts them in their place (read: kills them all).
  • Dear Brother:
    • Aya Misaki does this quite a bit, but an especially good example is when she mocks both Nanako's middle-class background and Mariko's dysfunctional relationship with her father.
    • Fukiko Ichinomiya's abuse of Rei Asaka is like kicking a puppy repeatedly — one incident that particularly stands out is when Fukiko tells Rei to wait for her under a tree on a cold rainy day. Rei stays there for several hours as Fukiko "classily" conducts study sessions for the Sorority, knowing full well that Rei's out there waiting for her. No wonder Kaoru hates her so much.
  • Light Yagami from Death Note isn't the most moral person to begin with already, what with killing criminals with a magical notebook and seeking to become the "God of a New World". But in the very second episode, he shows that he's not your classic Anti-Hero but a Villain Protagonist with his murder of Lind L. Tailor, who denounces Kira on TV and tells him that what he is doing is evil, hitting Light's Berserk Button in the process. Light then proceeds to top himself with dog-kicking moments even more horrific than the last, a particularly noteworthy one being his murder of Naomi Misora, which, unlike the other times he's killed his victims, was cruelty for cruelty's sake, as he tells her that he's Kira the moment before the Death Note takes effect, just to see the look of horror on her face as she realizes what's about to happen, and taunts her with offers to get her in touch with the Task Force, knowing that she can't do anything about it as the Death Note takes effect. This string of horrific dog-kicking is topped off with having his former lover and now follower Kiyomi Takeda murder Mello. As she calls him from Mello's truck, naked, terrified and crying, Light tells her to kill as many people with the death note as she can before writing that the poor girl dies by burning to death, a move that cost him all but the most diehard of his fanbase.
  • In the "anime" of Deltora Quest we have the filler villain Oacus, wizard of fire. A young girl with a doll is cleared on of her home, and he proceeds to burn it down. She asks him if he can save her (why is already silly, since he's the very person who burned her place down and unlikely to lift a finger). To which he says, "I certainly could, but I don't want to," and points his magic at the girl's doll.
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
    • Muzan Kibutsuji, the Big Bad, does this on a consistent basis. But what better standout example is there than his first onscreen appearance? When Tanjiro confronts him in Asakusa, he swiftly turns a nearby man into a demon to distract him, while still pretending to be a good person in front of his human family. When he walks into an alley, he murders two drunkards who insulted him - but the woman amongst that group, who didn't so much as say a word to him, gets the most gruesome death, being forcefully injected with demon blood until she's reduced to a pile of gore and mush. All in all, this scene shows how extremely petty and cruel Muzan is as the leader of the demons.
    • Daki, the Upper-6 of the Twelve Kizuki, in her guise as the oiran Warabihime, punishes a small girl in her house by pinching her ear so hard she draws blood. She also murders the madam of her house by dropping her to her death.
    • Gyokko, the Upper-5, kills several swordsmiths and turns their mangled corpses into a horrifying sculpture, something that he is quite proud of. The gruesome display deeply angers Muichiro and leads to their fight.
    • Kaigaku, the new Upper-6 mocks the death of Jigoro, who was Zenitsu's master as well as Kaigaku's own. To make matters worse, Jigoro died because of Kaigaku, having committed Seppuku in penance for his student betraying the Demon Slayer Corps.
  • Prior to her Heel–Face Turn, Gatomon in Digimon Adventure does a minor case of this. A growling dog approaches her, and she smacks the animal with her tail. The dog goes off whimpering as the catmon smirks.
  • Digimon Adventure 02:
    • The trope is used literally in the third episode: the Digimon Kaiser kicks a small dog in his civilian persona because it was "Staining [his] shoes." He also kicks his Digimon, Wormmon, on numerous occasions.
    • Done again near the end, where a girl named Noriko, one of the Dark Seed kids, kicks a kitten. the now Heel–Face Turn-ed Ken witnesses it from afar and very visibly winces at the sight. This is in direct parallel to the Kaiser's dog kicking.
    • Both occasions of punting are cut from the dub.
  • Digimon Tamers has an example of this when Beelzemon does this to Kyuubimon; a 9-tailed fox digimon. Made even worse by the fact that Kyuubimon was already wounded and couldn't defend herself.
  • Many villains in the Dragon Ball series have these moments under their belts:
    • Mercenary Tao killing Upa's father and telling Upa he should be grateful to him for choosing not to kill him, too.
    • Tenshinhan deliberately breaking Yamcha's leg at the World Martial Arts Tournament when he was already lying on the ground defeated.
    • Tambourine killing Krillin is bad enough, but the anime extends upon his cruelty, showing him killing King Chappa AND his students as well as killing a bear child's father for no reason and mocking him about it.
    • Raditz literally kicking Krillin through a wall, despite him posing no threat. During their fight, he brutally stomps on Goku's ribs, enough for him to scream in pain, and rubs in what an idiot he is after Goku had granted him mercy.
    • Nappa incinerating a city to nothing. Him mocking Chiaotzu's Senseless Sacrifice to Tien also counts.
    • Vegeta has had dozens of these moments before his Heel–Face Turn, but everyone can agree that two of his absolute worst actions were slaughtering a village full of innocent Namekians, children and all, and obliterating a massive amount of audience members at the 25th World Martial Arts tournament. Both atrocities were committed purely because he could, and if it weren't for him getting TWO Redemption Equals Deaths in a world where Death is Cheap, he NEVER would have washed his hands clean of either of them.
    • Recoome of the Ginyu Force beating Gohan far more viciously than what was necessary and breaking his neck, with Jeice and Burter casually mocking the poor kid as he's bleeding out.
    • Frieza has a whole litany of these moments under his belt, such as blowing up Planet Vegeta, brutalizing the Z Fighters, killing Vegeta and Dende, mortally wounding Piccolo, then blowing up Krillin before threatening to do the same to Gohan. Killing Krillin sends Goku over the edge and awakens him as a Super Saiyan, however.
    • Cell stomping on #16's head before mocking him, whether it be calling a piece of junk, another fighter Gohan could have saved, or flat out declaring that he has no soul. Much like Frieza above, this comes back to bite him in the ass, as this pisses Gohan off enough to reach Super Saiyan 2.
    • Majin Buu transforming whole crowds of civilians into food and eating them. When Super Buu took over, he unleashed an attack that killed literally everyone left on Earth below Kami's Lookout, with an exception of a lucky few.
    • Brolynote  killing a whole group of Shamoians unprovoked. He then proceeds to completely vaporize their home planet and taunt them over it.
    • Bojack blowing up Zangya, his own teammate, with a ki blast just so he could catch Gohan by surprise.
    • Goku Black killing Future Bulma right in front of her son.
    • Just minutes before he attempts to Kill All Humans, Zamasu switches bodies with the Goku from his timeline, then kills him, Chi-Chi and Goten, and reveals this fact to the primary Goku with a shit-eating grin on his face.
    • In the Tournament of Power, Maji-Kayo attempts to cut off Dyspo's ears for fun.
    • Napapa and Methiop overpower Kale and could've easily rung her out of the tournament, but they choose to brutalize and torture her purely for shits and giggles.
    • Jiren attempting to murder all of Goku's friends (and his son, Gohan) sitting on the bleachers. Because he was losing.
    • In Dragon Ball Super: Broly, King Vegeta has the titular Saiyan exiled to the planet Vampa without his father Paragus's consent, out of fear of the boy becoming strong enough to overthrow him. And even that's an act of decency compared to the non-canon film, where he stabs Broly to near-death not even an hour after he was born.
    • Done more literally by the thug Van Zant, who snipes the helpless puppy Bee that Buu had befriended. For no other reason then that it amused him. Van Zant then repeats the performance on Mr. Satan, and things go From Bad to Worse.
  • Dragon Quest: Your Story: The Reveal that all of the events of the film have been a Dragon Quest VR game occurs because some virus (which had not been even hinted at until now, although the "video game" part did) pauses the hero's game, explains its reason to be here Architect-style for the sake of making the kid suffer (the VR game blocks out real world memories for maximum immersion, this reveal shocks him) and then trying to kick the hero out of the game and destroy everything (including the hero's simulated wife and son). The virus calmly explains that it was created by some random hacker precisely to screw over gamers as some sadistic invocation of the Anti-Escapism Aesop.
    The Big Bad: I have a message to give to you. Do not worry, it'll be quick. It says: "grow up, loser."
  • Durarara!!:
    • Izaya Orihara, series asshole extraordinaire, spends all of Episode 17 making Kida's life HELL, even using his Honey Trap Saki for such purposes.
    • His treatment of the distraught Rio Kamichika, whom he almost drives to suicide purely for the lulz.
  • ef - a fairy tale of the two.:
    • While nobody ended up dead and she's not exactly a villain, Kei's deletion of a very nervous Miyako's extremelly anguished text messages to their common love interest Hiro, when he stands up to her in their date to stay with Kei after she has an accident, and doing so before he can check them up — so he won't know that poor Miyako's been waiting for hours and ended up having a huge Heroic BSoD feels very much like this. So much that, for some, the scene where Kei finds a naked Miyako in Hiro's home, thus becoming aware that they've reconciled and have had sex as well and running away in tears until her injured leg gives in comes off as the girl's karmic punishment rather than the Tear Jerker it may have been supposed to be.
    • OTOH, when Miyako herself verbally rips Kei apart quite brutally at the end of her chapter, in order to preserve her relationship with Hiro, that also felt like punting a pup. To her credit, she does feel bad afterwards.
  • Elfen Lied:
    • Lucy lived in an orphanage when she was younger, where the other children often harassed her because of her horns and emotionless nature. Soon after she started caring for a puppy, the others forced her to watch them kick a dog and beat it to death with a vase, just to try and get her to show something. They got more than they bargained for: Lucy snapped and left no witnesses.
    • Played with near the very beginning of the series, when Mayu is first introduced. After leaving the house, Lucy stares for a while at Mayu's dog, which tied to a post near the front gate. It seems like she actually killed the dog for real... but the only thing she did was cut its rope. Which, given that it was quite obviously terrified of her, might actually count as a Pet the Dog instead. The scenes manage to be even more shocking when you take into account the fact that both of these dogs are drawn as little more than small puppies.
  • In Eyeshield 21, anything that Agon does. Highlights include: taking Kurita's spot at Shinryuuji just to spite Hiruma; perving on, accosting and nearly assaulting Mamori; nearly taking Sena's eye out at the tournament drawing; beating up the sympathetic Zokugaku Chameleons; intentionally dislocating the rather puppy-like Mizumachi's shoulder in a scrimmage, all the nasty things he says to his less talented but much nicer twin brother, and trying to break the knees of a child in a wheelchair.

    F-L 
  • Fairy Tail:
    • The manga had its fair share of Kick the Dog moments from Gajeel attacking Shadow Gear and Lucy.
    • Ultear possessing Jellal and in turn making Erza's life even more miserable.
    • Faust using Magnolia as a missile against The Exceeds so he could have infinite magic among other things.
    • Flare Corona had a big one against Lucy in the first match-up, first by taking little Asuka hostage in order to beat Lucy up without resistance. Then after Natsu foiled that plan and Lucy was ready to retaliate with a match-ending spell, one of Flare's teammates nullifies not only the spell but all of Lucy's power, rendering her unable to continue. Flare, who was crying just moments before, gets up and laughs mockingly at her.
    • SaberTooth's Guild Master, Jiemma, not only kicks Yukino out of the guild for losing to Kagura, but he also forces her to strip so that he can remove her guild mark. He later becomes furious with Sting and Rogue for losing to Natsu and Gajeel. When Sting's Exceed companion shows Jiemma his guild mark, Jiemma tries to kill Lector, outraged that an "animal" would bear the guild mark.
    • Minerva, Jiemma's daughter, quickly racks up a laundry list of such moments in her introductory arc.
      • Trouncing Lucy so badly, she needed to be hospitalized in her match-up just because Lucy refused to give up even after having her Keys taken away.
      • Delivers one to her own father by kicking him out of his own Guild after an enraged Sting nearly kills him, since she believes he's too weak to lead the guild. Later revelations that Jiemma abused her, as well as Jiemma provoking Sting by nearly killing Lector, however, show this to be a Kick The Son Of A Bitch moment.
      • In the finals of the Grand Magic Games, Minerva, Erza and Kagura end up fighting each other. Minerva then takes Erza and Kagura's mutual friend Miliana hostage to force them to fight each other. As Kagura is about to surrender to Erza, Minerva stabs Kagura In the Back to get the points for defeating Mermaid Heel's team leader, then reveals that she'd been torturing Miliana wile Erza and Kagura fought.
      • After Erza is turned into a child by a spell, who should come in to take advantage of the heroic redhead's current state to torture/kill her for revenge?
  • In Fate/Apocrypha, Celenike Yggdmillennia, one of the most monstrous members of the Black Faction, cements her utter evil when she uses her Command Seals to try to make her Servant Astolfo kill Sieg, a homunculus that he's developed a bond with, in the most sadistic fashion possible just to make Astolfo break his code of justice as a Paladin of Charlemagne and break him. Unfortunately for Celenike, Mordred isn't having it, chopping her head off before she can finish the order.
  • In Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works], Gilgamesh already has Illya at his mercy after taking down Berserker. But rather than ripping Illya's heart out, like what happens in the original VN and which is brutal in and of itself, Gil proceeds to cement himself as an even further bastard by slashing the poor girl's eyes out and then stabbing her through one of her lungs, intending to make her suffer before the end. He is only stopped from going further by Berserker coming back for one last attack.
  • Fate/Zero:
    • Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald receives a paper from his student Waver Velvet proposing ways that people can increase their magical potential through effort and experience. He, the ninth head of a prominent mage family, finds the theory laughable, so he insults the paper in front of Waver's entire class, making him a laughingstock. He turns out to be right, but there was no need to publicly humiliate Waver like that.
    • Kiritsugu's darkest and most ruthless moment comes in how he deals with Kayneth and his Servant Lancer. Taking Kayneth's fiancee Sola-Ui hostage and ordering Kayneth to use his last Command Seal to force his Servant to commit suicide in exchange for placing himself under a geas that forbids him from harming Kayneth or Sola-Ui is an underhanded move, but one that could be justified due to pragmatism. Having Maiya gun down Kayneth and Sola-Ui anyway, so Kiritsugu can kill them without breaking the contract is even worse, but it does tie up loose ends. Smugly telling a mortally-wounded Kayneth about the loophole, and refusing to Mercy Kill him (admittedly, Kiritsugu can't do it because of the geas, but still...) is just cruel.
  • Fist of the North Star:
    • In general, pretty much every villain in this series does some manner of cruelty to innocent people, and when you're dealing with Kenshiro or one of the other heroes of the series, it's one of the fastest ways to wind up on the wrong end of their Supernatural Martial Arts, which are capable of doing really nasty things to said scumbags.
    • In one of the early episodes of the anime, one of Diamond's men forces a villager to shoot a can off the head of his little boy with a bow a la William Tell. When the father can't go through with it, the scumbag takes it upon himself to "help" him, taking hold of the bow and arrow in a Hands-On Approach fashion, but deliberately shaking up the poor guy's aim just to be a sadistic asshole. When the arrow finally does get launched, Kenshiro intervenes before the arrow can go into the boy's head, catching the arrow with Nishi Shinkuu Ha before dispatching the mook for his cruelty. When Kenshiro confronts Diamond, he responds to a demand for his name with "I don't give my name to monsters."
    • And as Kick the Dog-tastic as the above scene was, the scene it replaced in the manga was even worse. In the part of the manga where the scene takes place, the bad guys are murdering villagers to try to draw out Kenshiro so they can kill him. Diamond pulls a move right out of Once Upon a Time in the West and forces a village girl to support her father in "keep your lovin' brother happy" fashion (for those who haven't seen that movie, the bastard uses her as a human hanging stool, such that when the girl's strength gives out, her father will die by hanging). Fortunately, Kenshiro is there to save them both.
    • Jackal and his men are singularly nasty. Not only do they murder Taki, Bat's adoptive brother who is all of seven years old, for stealing water for Toyo, their adoptive mother, but when they learn that Kenshiro has just provided the dried-up well with water again, they wait for him to leave before descending upon the village. Jackal deliberately gives Toyo a mortal wound, intending for her to live just long enough to see the kids under her care hanged one by one in front of her, and then when Kenshiro comes back and cleans house, the bastard has dynamite tied to the kids to keep Kenshiro from pursuing him, resulting in the death of Toyo when she unties the last stick of dynamite from the poor kid it was strapped to and throws it into the air. This pisses Kenshiro off enough to hunt Jackal and all of his men down in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
    • Souther is this trope. He kidnaps children, forcing them to work on his massive pyramid, and poisons a supply of bread knowing that it will be stolen from him, just to serve as a warning. On top of this he kills the nicest guy in the series in an unimaginably cruel way, an act that infuriates Kenshiro to the point of telling him that "when I'm done with you, there will be nothing left!"
    • In a flashback we see Kaioh decide to start being evil and then, as his first evil act... you guessed it. Oddly enough this is meant to be a serious scene. He also plays this trope very straight in a variety of other ways...
    • A soldier of God's Army kicks Lin's puppy.
    • In The Legend of Yuria, young Jagi, vicious and sadistic even at that age, attempts to stomp young Yuria's puppy for growling at him. The puppy is saved by a young Kenshiro, who takes Jagi's stomp to protect the puppy before bringing it back to her.
  • Flame of Recca:
    • In his first appearance, Kurei reveals himself to be a complete douche after showing he killed off a minion by showing off his head, deciding Yanagi's electrotherapy needed to be turned up and threatening to kill Ganko, a little girl for betraying him. He then proceeds to taunt her by bringing up her dead mother and how she will be seeing her soon. Add this in with him beating a woman who loves him more than life itself, and you see where this is going.
    • Moruken is full of these, trying to kill Recca's teacher's wife, broadcasting the screams of Yanagi's agony while reliving in the face he kills women for pleasure, attacking Koganei from behind after pretending to be a Noble Demon, but his worst is fatally wounding Mikoto, his lover, for losing a fight, which makes you feel sorry for her even though she's also as big a jerk as he is.
    • Mikoto killing a little boy's father and canceling Fuko's victory by forcing the ref to make it her victory.
    • Kadotsu recounting the fact he killed most of Team Ku's reinforcements to Saichio.
    • A nameless Mook turning a fox's mother into a monster For the Evulz
    • Morei killing a former minion after revealing he had arranger for her to kill her lover, knowing their affair and then mocks her sacrifice. Also his treatment of the aforementioned Kurei, by having his foster mom be implanted with a bomb to force his loyalty and then brings in a daughter for Kurei to love only to kill her in front of him.
  • Fruits Basket:
    • In the backstory, Kakeru Manabe had the gall to tell Tohru to her face, right in the middle of her mother's funeral, that she wasn't the only one who lost a parent (the father of his girlfriend, Komaki Nakao, was the driver who hit Kyoko, and he also died in the accident), and she was being whiny and disgusting for openly grieving. Unlike others, he gets his karma back at him immediately: Komaki is rightfully furious at him for saying that supposedly "for her sake", calls him out on his bullshit, and nearly breaks up with him.
    • Akito Sohma pulls a lot of these throughout the series, most noteworthy early on is injuring Hattori's eye while refusing to allow him to marry Kana, additionally blaming Kana for Hattori getting hurt, and severally beating Kisa after Hiro confessed that he loved her, for no good reason. And then there's her treatment of Yuki and Rin...
  • Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist has a couple of Kick the Dog moments, the biggest of which is when he not only gleefully gloats to Mustang about how he killed Hughes, but even outright mocks Hughes in front of his best friend. It does not end well for Envy.
  • Whenever Madoka Wakamatsu, the heroine's bitchy rival in Full Moon, looks like she might be getting too sympathetic, she is shown being cruel to her adorable pet pig, thereby cementing her reputation of bitchiness.
  • Fushigi Yuugi
    • In one episode, while talking with underlings, Nakago takes a canary out of its cage and crushes it in his hands, just for the heck of it.
    • And there's also his role in Suboshi's Moral Event Horizon crossing, in which he clearly knows how disturbed the guy is upon thinking his beloved brother is dead, and he encourages him to "take revenge"...
  • In Girls und Panzer:
    • Erika's Establishing Character Moment is, when she chances upon Miho in a cafe, saying "Vice captain?" then "Ah, I mean, former vice captain" in a highly sarcastic and patronizing tone of voice. She then mockingly tells Miho not to lose badly enough against Saunders that she disgraces the Nishizumi family name, and then expresses her opinion that Oarai should not even be entering the tournament at all. More subtle examples occur later on when she complains about Maho deciding to Pet the Dog by loaning Mako their helicopter so that she can get to her grandmother in the hospital and shooting a glare at Miho's former teammate when she goes over to thank Miho for saving her in the last tournament.
    • In the manga, Miho's mother not only decides to threaten Miho with disowning if she loses against Pravda, but doesn't even bother to tell Miho herself, instead sending Kikuyo, one of the maids and Miho's Parental Substitute over to do it, and the viewer can see that Kikuyo is very unhappy about having to break the news to Miho.
  • In an episode of GoLion, One of Prince Sincline's slave women accidently spills some wine on his lap, he responds by taking out his Laser Blade and killing her on the spot. Obviously this scene could not be portrayed in a kids' cartoon in America so it was cut from Voltron.
  • In Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics episode "Jorinde and Joringel" the evil witch is introduced as a cat wandering through a town intending to ruin happy couple's lives, she comes across a dog who she turns into a mouse with her magic and eats it.
  • While Togenishia and Yabooki from Hana no Ko Lunlun were mostly a Goldfish Poop Gang, sometimes they did shockingly terrible acts. An example happens in the Netherlands arc when they kidnap the talking dog Nubo and almost kill him by drowning, to force a depressed Lunlun who's tempted to come back home for a while go back in track. Another takes place in the Italy arc, where Yabooki almost blows up an Orphanage of Love that Lunlun is trying to help via attempting to activate a World War II bomb in its yard that the kids are trying to use to force people help their Delicate and Sickly companion. The worst one happens in the Grand Finale: destroying the flower field that Lunlun's grandparents planted with their own hands in the nearby grassy hill, which was actually planted thanks to the seeds sent by the friends Lunlun made during her travels. For no other reason than being butthurt because Lunlun was taking some days off. And then it blows up on their very faces, since the only flower that survived... was the MacGuffin aka the Seven Color Flower, which grew there specifically because the field was made with tokens of love.
  • Haruhi Suzumiya:
    • We all know how the titular character loves to mistreat, molest and abuse the closest thing to a female friend she has, Mikuru. Naturally, this is Played for Laughs, but in the 2nd novel, there is a definite scene that crosses the line: During the filming of the Brigade's movie "The Adventures Of Mikuru Asahina", Haruhi (with the help of Genki Girl Tsuruya) puts tequila into Mikuru's drink, so she would act more realistic for the kissing scene. The next thing she does is to punch Mikuru on the head simply because she still wore her colored contact lens. She then continues to punch her several times because the "contact lens is supposed to fly out when your head gets smacked." After Kyon understandably yells at her that Mikuru is not her toy, she seriously replies "Well I've decided, Mikuru-chan is my toy!". This makes Kyon explode and try to punch her, but he is stopped by Koizumi. After Haruhi realizes what Kyon was about to do, she still doesn't get it, confronting him even more. This also shows just what a sociopathic Jerkass Haruhi can be... though soon she starts to get better.
    • This is softened in the anime adaptation, where Haruhi does declare the same thing... but when Kyon is about to hit her for making Mikuru cry and Itsuki stops him, her resulting Heel–Face Turn comes a bit sooner — she does understand that she was wrong, almost immediately stops arguing with Kyon and then stares away from him (with tears in her eyes). Kyon, thanks to Itsuki, realizes that it's not in him to be physically violent.
    • In Disappearance, Kyon threatens the IDSE with complete destruction should they kill Yuki by provoking Haruhi. Wisely, they step down. So what could be worse than killing Yuki? That's right! A Fate Worse than Death! They elect her in Book 10 to be the ambassador to the Sky Canopy Domain; exposing her existence and sanity to something which is as alien to her as the Data Overmind is to humans. A lesser being would Go Mad from the Revelation. Kyon isn't going to be happy if Yuki doesn't wake up from her naps.
  • Hell Girl: When you've got a show about Asshole Victims being sent to Hell by those they've tormented, you know this trope's in the cards.
    • A very nasty example is in the first episode. Mayumi Hashimoto is being tormented by Aya Kuroda, who not only steals the 100,000 yen in donation money that was entrusted to her, but frames her for the theft, forces her into Compensated Dating to get the money back, and then blackmails her with photos of her in the grip of an older man, which she threatens to release to the school if she doesn't continue to pay her and her Girl Posse — and then Aya decides to release the photos anyway For the Evulz, getting poor Mayumi in trouble with the administration and driving her to pull the red string. Throughout all of this, Aya believes she's just doing "kid stuff" and isn't doing anything wrong. Needless to say, no pity is had for her when she's sent to Hell.
    • One involving an actual dog: in Episode 4, a veterinarian by the name of Yoshiyuki Honjou doesn't care about treating the animals in his clinic, and through his negligence eventually allows young Junko Kanno's dog to die. As you can probably guess, Honjou is sent to Hell for this.
    • Another one involving dogs: Episode 18 has a girl named Miki Kawakami, who has two Welsh Corgis. The evil, greedy, abusive rich woman the girl is forced to keep house for, Meiko Shimono, poisons both dogs and then drowns the puppies that the second dog had given birth to the day before. Miki, who had made the contract with Enma Ai but was hesitant to fulfill it, sends Meiko to Hell immediately after finding out about the puppies.
    • In what seems to be a trend for this trope involving dogs, Episode 8 of the third season has a girl named Hatsumi who owns a chihuahua and lives in a building with a woman named Shimatani. Shimatani attempts to get Hatsumi's dog kicked out of the apartment, and finally ends up poisoning the dog and causing Hatsumi to fall off a balcony. No guesses on what happens to Shimatani soon after.
  • Hellsing:
    • Pretty much everything Zorin Blitz does to the Wild Geese during her assault on the Hellsing Organization HQ late in the series. She mind rapes them, including one poor guy who's fooled into believing his dead daughter is alive. Even though he knows it's an illusion, he can't help but give the girl a hug... and then Zorin gleefully slices him in half. When Seras Victoria comes storming in, Zorin forces her to remember her childhood — specifically, the time when burglars killed her parents, shot little Seras in the leg and raped her mum's corpse — chops off her arm and blinds her. And as if she hasn't kicked the dog enough, when Pip Bernadotte tries to rescue Seras, he gets killed off courtesy of a scythe in the back, and Zorin makes fun of him while Seras is crying over his body, calling him an insect. This proves to be the last mistake Zorin ever makes.
    • When Enrico Maxwell arrives in London with his army, he proves himself to have become just as evil as Millennium by ordering his men to kill everyone in the city, who are already having to deal with the Vampire Nazis and thought that Maxwell and his forces were coming to help them, due to his hatred of Protestants. This horrible act, in addition to earning the disgust of Alucard and Integra both, is enough to turn his most loyal agent, Alexander Anderson, against him.
    • When Walter is revealed to have betrayed the Hellsing organization, he shows his true colors in truly despicable fashion — namely, by treading on the ashes of Anderson, who had just received a send-off worthy of a Worthy Opponent, and then calling him "garbage". This was enough to send Yumie, one of Anderson's most loyal subordinates, into an utter fury that got her sliced apart, as well as eradicate any ounce of respect that Alucard may have had for him.
  • Hoshin Engi: This is Dakki's hobby. All of her early appearances consisted of her devising a particularly cruel and brutal way to enslave the population or kill those who dared to speak against her. A good example of this is the part where she condemned 120 innocent people, randomly picked among those she enslaved, to be thrown into a pit full of reptiles just to spite Taikobo. One of her most heinous acts was when Hakuyukou, eldest son of Sho Ki, came to negotiate the liberation of his father whom she had been holding hostage for seven years. She killed him, made a hamburger out of him, and then served him to his father. She had absolutely no reason to do this since releasing Sho Ki was part of her plan, but she did so anyway just because it annoyed her that Hakuyukou was able to resist her temptation spell. Even the reveal that causing the downfall of the Yin dynasty was the instructions given to her by the Greater Scope Vilain doesn't justify her actions, as Joka's order never specified that she had to be so inventive about being a monster.
  • In the 2011 anime adaptation of Hunter × Hunter, Hanzo delivers a horrifying beatdown to Gon in hopes of convincing the kid to surrender so that he could get his Hunter's license. He actually boasts that the first strike alone probably gave Gon a severe concussion. His attempts fail — Gon somehow manages to hold out for so long that Hanzo decides to forfeit rather than risk killing him (which would have caused Hanzo to lose his eligibility for the license) — but not before breaking Gon's arm and enraging Gon's friends to the point that they threaten to burst into the ring and beat Hanzo to a pulp.
  • Jerkass road racer Shingo from Initial D. We first witness him tapping the bumper of Iketani's car (which had just come back from being repaired after a horrible crash), and later when confronted, says that it's Iketani's own fault for being too slow. He continues his Kick The Dog moments by challenging Takumi to a match in which both drivers' non-shifting hands are taped to the steering wheel, breaks up a date between Itsuki and his blind date by crashing Itsuki's car, and during the race that he challenged Takumi to, attempts to crash Takumi's car in an attempt to end the match in a draw (since Shingo couldn't catch up anymore), and this is where his rampage ends: He misses Takumi and crashes into the guardrail instead. But this is when Iketani and Itsuki come across Shingo and offer to take him to the hospital instead of getting mad at him, and since then Shingo is more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
  • Inuyasha:
    • Hiten, a Monster of the Week, comes home with a woman, and when his brother Manten tells him that he failed to collect some jewel shards he discovered, flies into a rage and kills her for no apparent reason. Very gruesomely, too: in the manga he punches a hole through her head, and in the anime, he uses a blast of lightning to fry her to a charred husk.
    • Manten himself was no slouch. He and Hiten had killed and skinned a powerful fox youkai, and when the youkai's son Shippou confronted them, he noticed... that Manten was wearing his dad's fur around his belt. And Manten openly laughed about it in front of little Shippou, driving the boy to tears. Shippou is no fan favorite, but he did NOT deserve to be at the receiving end of that seriously dickish move.
    • Tsubaki the Dark Priestess gets one when she contaminates the Shikon no Tama with her own miasma, which causes Kagome incredible physical strain and pain. Then, she takes control of Kagome's body and forces her to try shooting Inuyasha, despite an horrified Kagome's protests.
    • Naraku has dozens of moments like this:
    • The moth demon bandit Gatenmaru is also pretty dickish; when he has Inuyasha and Miroku trapped in an acidic cocoon, he decides to show them just how helpless they are before they die by making them watch as he drains the village women of blood. He gets his just desserts when Inuyasha succumbs to his Superpowered Evil Side and tears him to shreds.
  • The Christmas present episode in Jazz was a massive Kick the Dog moment on Naoki's part.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Series author Hirohiko Araki has made this basically into an art. This happens so much that it's become a running joke in the fandom that Araki must hate animals, based on how many of them die in the series. (Though in reality, Araki explained in an interview that it's simply an efficient way to immediately get the audience to hate a new villain.)
    • Long before he became a vampire, Dio Brando, Big Bad of Parts 1 and 3, introduced himself to Jonathan Joestar by kicking his poor dog Danny in the head. He racks up further asshole points when he forcefully kisses Jonathan's girlfriend Erina, stealing her Sacred First Kiss just to fuck with Jonathan, and then following this up by not only taunting her about it (“Your first wasn’t JoJo! It was me, Dio!”), but also slapping her when she tried to deal with this by washing her mouth off with muddy water. However, we see how truly evil he is after Jonathan finally snaps and beats the taste out of his mouth; as payback, he puts Danny in the incinerator and tricks the butler into burning him to death just because his favorite punching bag dared to stand up to him. And Dio only got worse from there on out.
    • Kars, the Big Bad of Part 2, plays with this trope, as he often goes out of his way to avoid harming animal and plant life at the cost of harming or killing humans, like the time he redirects a car to save a stray dog on the road, killing the driver in the process. However, once he becomes the Ultimate Life Form, he becomes Not So Above It All, as his first display of power is to turn one of his hands into a squirrel, then command it to cannibalize another squirrel nearby.
    • All over Part 3:
      • Yellow Temperance who kills a dog in front of his owner, a young boy.
      • Then we have the encounter with Justice — where the first eerie sign is the sight of a freshly impaled dog.
      • Death 13 kills a dog in front of Kakyoin (in a dream, but the Stand's power is that those who are killed by it in a dream die for real. The dog was sleeping nearby).
      • Pet Shop (an evil hawk who's guarding Dio's mansion) impaled and ate two dogs in front of their kid owner as slowly as possible For the Evulz. When the boy goes to them, Pet Shop tries to kill him, too. It's worth noting that neither the boy nor the dogs were of any threat to Dio, unlike the man Avdol hired to find Dio's mansion.
      • Again in Part 3, Vanilla Ice literally kicks the dog (Iggy, the heroes' Team Pet, who ends up dying as a result) to reinforce his utter admiration of and loyalty to Dio. Iggy had used his stand to create a sand-based image of Dio, and Vanilla Ice was enraged at being forced to destroy the image when it attacked him.
      • In the final fight of Part 3, Dio wastes precious seconds of his time-stopping schedule to dismember a cat and drop pieces of it in people's food.
    • Then Part 4 begins, and before you know it, Angelo bites the face off a dog and spits it down its owner's throat (enabling Angelo to kill the owner with his liquid-based Stand) because he's pissed that he stepped in the dog's poop earlier.
    • There's also Yoshikage Kira, who killed Reimi Sugimoto's dog Arnold and hung his corpse on her coat rack before moving onto her next.
    • In Part 5, Formaggio is seen having a wholesome moment with his pet cat... then right before he leaves for a mission, he stuffs the cat facedown into a glass bottle, leaving it to suffocate.
    • In Part 6, Enrico Pucci gets trapped behind a locked door during a rain of poison dart frogs, and a guard who comes across him panics and runs to get help instead of opening it as he requested. Pucci became so indignant at being ignored that he threw the frog at him and made it explode in his face, blinding the guard with its poison and leaving him for dead.
  • No matter what anyone thinks of May Wong from Kaleido Star, not even she deserves to have Leon Oswald actually deliberately dropping her on-stage and causing her to get seriously injured. just to test her worth as performer. On top of it all, it's revealed that May is not the first person Leon has done it to; his actions have crippled one of his former partners and killed another.
  • In Kinnikuman, Mixer Taitei does an almost literal example (but ratchets up the brutality) by needlessly killing a helpless puppy with his blender blades, thoroughly establishing him as one of the most monstrous heels Kinnikuman would ever face. In Ultimate Muscle, you also have Dialbolik/Tel Tel Boy killing famous wrestlers just to get an audience's attention.
  • Lady!!: Madeline Waverly, the woman who's courting George, flat-out tells his five-year-old daughter Lynn that she hates her and that everything would be better if she weren't around, which convinces Lynn to return to Japan and stay with her grandparents until middle school. Madeleine continues her dog-kicking even when Lynn just wants to see her sick father and new baby brother.
  • The Legend of Zelda (Akira Himekawa):
  • In Liar Game, Yokoya does this to his two pet mice.

    M-Q 
  • Fate Testarossa introduces herself to Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha by roughing up an enormous kitten for a Jewel Seed. She (Fate) gets better.
    • Fate's mother, Precia, introduces herself by whipping Fate repeatedly for not getting enough of said Jewel Seeds, establishing herself as the cruelest villain of the series.
    • Quattro's horrible treatment of little Vivio when she gets her hands on her in StrikerS, not only helping Jail use the poor girl as a Living Battery for their ship and broadcasting her suffering so that everyone who knows her can see it, but putting her in Brainwashed and Crazy mode and setting her against Nanoha, who sees her as a daughter, just to fuck with both of them. Her comeuppance was very, very deserved.
  • Dr. Hell, the Big Bad of Mazinger Z, does not kick dogs. He catches their tails and flings them around, smashing them against a wall until they are a bloody pulp. Yes, it really happened in one of the manga versions. And it happened when Hell was a child. And it happened because he thought the dog was glaring at him (his Abusive Parents, shitty teachers and bullying schoolmates were already wearing down his sanity back then).
  • In the first episode of Michiko & Hatchin, a.k.a. Finding Paradiso, Hatchin's foster family are anything but good people, and do a lot of petty and cruel acts just to make her life miserable:
    • Maria, Hatchin's foster sister, steals Hatchin's clothes while she's in the shower and then cuts off the water, sprays her with cleaning fluid, and kicks her down the stairs.
    • Gabriel, Hatchin's foster brother, taunts and throws things at her regularly.
    • During the breakfast scene, after Joanna, Hatchin's foster mother, discovers that Hatchin had burned the underside of the omelette that she had cooked for her, her response is to dump her entire plate, omelette and all, right onto the floor, before then ordering the poor girl to not only cook her another omelette, but also clean up the mess that Joanna has just made.
    • Once Michiko has abducted Hatchin, and Pedro, her foster father, realizes he's going to lose her child support, he decides to collect on her life insurance and tries to shoot her.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam 00:
    • The Federation military unit A-Laws is established as pretty mean when they arrest an innocent Saji Crossroad for hanging out with a suspected rebel, who they both shoot and beat up for trying to run away. Saji gets sent to what appears a penal colony created solely to make the inmates' lives a living hell, and then the A-Laws test their brand spanking-new killbots by letting them run amok in the colony. And then they get a Kill Sat... the first time it is used, a refugee camp gets destroyed. It then goes From Bad to Worse.
    • The oft-cited "Nena attacks a wedding out of frustration/boredom" incident also counts, since her character was established one episode earlier as a playful yet mentally unstable child soldier (her older brothers are much less on the "playful" side... especially Michael).
    • And then Liu Mei scoffs at Hong Long's death and doesn't seem to appreciate that he did it to save her, which is a Kick the Dog moment in itself.
  • In Muhyo and Roji, the villains indulge quite a bit in this:
    • In the anime, Lily Elena, an Executor who often chides Rio for wearing revealing clothing(something Rio doesn't enjoy but does at the request of a Dirty Old Man client), invites Rio to a party and lies about it being a casual event in order to humiliate her.
    • In his introductory scene, Goryo saves some girls from a spirit that came due to an incomplete game of kokkuri- then sticks them with a $50,000 bill for the exorcism. Shortly thereafter he gets a phone call and casually mentions that he allowed a former client who didn't pay his bill to be possessed by ghosts.
    • Goryo, upon hearing the tragic tale of a destitute single mother going insane and turning into a ghost after losing her only daughter, laughs and says she could have found another man and made another child. Nana then remarks that Muhyo is correct and "This guy's evil!"
    • During the competition with Muhyo, Goryo shoves Nana out of the protective circle Muhyo set up for her, resulting in the ghosts attacking her.
    • Tomas is first seen reading the first letter an MLS operative sent to his wife in 10 years. Not only did he kill the sender and steal the letter, but he remarks on how the letter is "heart-warming drivel."
    • In a flashback, Tomas steals his students' flower journal, reducing them to tears. It pales in comparison to his later crimes, but it's an exceptionally petty and cruel act that gives Page his first clue that something is wrong with Tomas.
    • Buhpu not only performs You Have Failed Me on Ivy Cortlaw, but then uses her death to manipulate her brother, Kid into fighting the heroes.
  • Shizuru's attack on a near-defenseless Yukino (which resulted in Haruka's death) in My-HiME punctuated her Face–Heel Turn. After her victory, she then laughs at her defeated opponent, who watched her best friend Haruka die right in front of her.
    • Also, did Nao really need to kidnap both Takumi and later Natsuki? The worst part is that Mai, whom Nao tried to kidnap Takumi to hurt attempted to stop the fight in which Nao lost her eye. And then Karma, in the form of Shizuru, bloodily caught up with her...
    • It initially appears as though a brainwashed Mikoto was responsible for destroying Akira's Child and thus killing Takumi, but it later turns out that it was actually Shiho. Her reason?
      Mai: You got Akira and Takumi?
      • Really not helped by how, before that puppy punting happened, Shiho was both very ill and desperate since Yuuchi had broken a promise to her when she was in the hospital. Then, Nagi proceeded to groom the puppy to be kicked via going towards Shiho when she was at her lowest point and then getting to her head, which is soon followed by her Face–Heel Turn. It's no wonder that at the end of the series, when the dead or defeated Himes gets better thanks to Mashiro, the remorseful Shiho quietly and sadly wonders if she actually deserves to be helping out in the final battle, and Yukariko has to reassure her.
  • My-Otome reveals Tomoe's Bitch in Sheep's Clothing nature by having her slap around her so-called friend Miya to the point of tears when they botch a prank involving the sale and eventual damage of Arika's Garderobe uniform in Episode 5, and then trying to save face by coercing Miya into Taking the Heat for the whole thing. This eventually culminates in Tomoe getting Miya expelled from the academy and using the remains of Miya's dissolved GEM, which are a powerful acid, to attempt to kill Arika. The attempt fails but results in Erstin being injured, and Tomoe later mocks Erstin after the latter's tragic death.
    • In the manga, after Arika has an accident with the Artai ambassador, Nagi appears to have his bodyguards ready to kill her, but Nina intervenes, willing to accept punishment in Arika's place. Nagi then has her bend over and repeatedly hits her backside with a riding crop, doing so even more when seeing bandages on her fingers from her attempts to complete her sewing project.
  • In Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, little Marie's entire family (including her dog) are gunned down by the Neo Atlantian soldiers just because they're that mean.
  • Naruto:
    • Jirobo insulting Choji for his weight and being the weakest member of the team, but more importantly insulting Choji's best friend Shikamaru's qualifications as a leader.
    • His ally Sakon and his brother Ukon literally beat up a dog named Akamaru, who is the partner of Kiba.
    • In the anime version of the fight with Kakashi and Team Asuma, Hidan takes a brief moment to insult Team Asuma's teacher, whom he had killed earlier, in order to goad Choji into recklessly attacking.
    • Pain deciding to (almost) fatally impale Hinata in front of Naruto, right after she'd confessed her love for him. In this case, it's because he wants to drive his point home about showing Naruto "the true meaning of pain". This ends up biting him in spectacular fashion.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion:
    • Gendo Ikari, Shinji's father and the commander of NERV, has a laundry list of these, most notably his horrible treatment of his own son Shinji. Episode 18 especially stands out, where Gendo cuts Shinji off from control of Unit 01 and activates the Eva's Dummy Plug system, essentially forcing Shinji to tear apart an angel and kill his own friend against his will. Because of the way the Eva works, the synchronization meant that Shinji could feel every moment of the ordeal. And the reason Gendo did this was to teach him to follow orders. He's not any kinder to the other characters — he uses Ritsuko and later throws her away, uses his ward Rei like cannon fodder and continually brings her back to life, uses Shinji's companion Asuka like expendable cannon fodder and throws her away when she stops being useful...
    • In the manga version, Kaworu Nagisa strangles a kitten, going along with the Japanese switch of Petting the Dog with a cat. He justifies this by saying that, since neither he nor Shinji would care for the orphaned kitten, it would die a slow, painful death through starvation if he didn't put it out of its misery. Still, seeing someone squeeze the life out of a poor, innocent kitten is... disturbing, to say the least. Tokyo-3 may not have a Humane Society, and all the people there are probably preoccupied with more important things.
  • The anime series Nightwalker is mostly made up of Demonic Possession one-shot stories. The possessed often have a taste for living flesh that starts with attacking stray dogs, but is implied to scale up to cannibalism. Messily killed pooches are a sign that someone is on their way down the slippery slope.
  • Now and Then, Here and There. Except it's a cat. And it's not kicked, it has its neck snapped when King Hamdo has a tantrum. And that's about the nicest thing this guy does.
  • One Piece:
    • In a very literal version, before we even get a look at her face, the very first thing "Pirate Empress" Boa Hancock does is kick a kitten that simply happened to be in her path. In the very next chapter, she destroys a clay statue of her that the tribe's children worked on, claiming that it ruined the aesthetics, before proceeding to toss the tribe's elder through a window (though to be fair, she did know said elder was Made of Iron), and if that wasn't enough, in the next chapter she petrifies three of Luffy's newfound allies when they try to reason with her. Luckily for the side of good, that just happens to be one of Luffy's Berserk Buttons... After he beat her and made her fall in love with him, she has sort-of done a Heel–Face Turn, but she's still at it — a few chapters later she comes across a puppy and a baby seal...guess what happens. All the Kuja tribe forgives her for all that, though, because Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful!, as she herself says.
    • Earlier in One Piece, there was an even more literal version of this when minor villain Mohji the Lion Tamer kicked an Angry Guard Dog in his path. He then proceeded to cross the Moral Event Horizon by taking the only thing the dog cared about (a pet shop once owned by his deceased master) and burning it to the ground right in front of him. Cue the asskicking from Luffy.
    • Kuro, the Arc Villain of the Syrup Village arc, is disguised as a butler for Kaya, a wealthy girl, as his plan is to have her write him into his will and kill her so he can inherit her fortune. He secretly despises her, so when his fellow servant Merry gives him a pair of new glasses on Kaya's behalf, he crushes them before trying to kill Merry. When Kaya tries to reason with him to get him and his pirates to leave, he reminisces about all the time he spent with her before saying how much he hated it, all to emotionally break her.
    • During the Buster Call in Enies Lobby, we are introduced to Onigumo, a Marine vice-admiral so ruthless, his immediate response to a subordinate hesitating to fire on a base full of their own men is to shoot this officer in the face.
    • Also subverted quite cleverly at the start of the Loguetown arc. When we first meet Smoker, who is the Straw Hats' enemy by virtue of being a Marine captain, he is walking down the street looking generally sinister. A little girl running around with an ice cream cone accidentally bumps into him and ruins his Marine uniform by getting chocolate all over his pants. Smoker gives the girl an intense, hard look... and then sweetly apologizes for bumping into her. He even gives her money to buy even more than she lost. Especially effective since up to this point, all the villains in One Piece had been irredeemable bastards; Smoker is the first antagonist with real moral complexity to him.
    • Akainu ruthlessly slaughters the deserters during the Whitebeard War and tried to do the same to Coby, when Coby desperately pleads for both sides to stop fighting to prevent any more unnecessary death. There's also him goading Ace into fighting him by insulting Whitebeard resulting in Ace's death.
    • This gets invoked by Rob Lucci, who tells Paulie that if he can't believe that his long time coworkers are actually World Government assassins, Lucci would step on Iceburg's (Paulie's current boss and Lucci's former boss) face to help convince him.
    • Arlong kills a then very young Nami's mother, and forces Nami to be his navigator. He tells her she can buy back the village at a high price. A few years later, Nami (now a teenager) has saved up all the money from her work with the Strawhats and is happy she's about to save her village so everyone can put the shark-man occupation behind them. Unfortunately, Arlong decides it would be a good idea to tip off a slimy military man so that he can take all of Nami's hard-earned money, putting her right back where she started and driving her nearly to despair. This heartless moment is what convinces Luffy that Arlong needs his ever-loving ass kicked.
    • Hody Jones gloating to the Fishmen public that he killed Shirahoshi's mother.
    • Caesar Clown admitting that he caused the disaster that harmed Brownbeard's crew while pretending he's still a good guy.
    • Donquixote Doflamingo loves this. One of his favorite ways to do so is to use his ability to control his enemies (or neutral/random bystanders) like People Puppets to force them to kill the ones they love. Even when he doesn't have to do so, he still does it because he's that much of a dick.
    • During a meeting of the Council of Kings, Wapol, king of Drum Island, nonchalantly acts as though Dragon the Revolutionary doesn't have anything to do with him, thus leading Nefertari Cobra, king of Alabasta, to call him out on it. Shortly afterward, Wapol deliberately bumps into Cobra's young daughter, Vivi, in order to start an incident. Luckily for all concerned, Vivi is mature enough to realize the significance and act as though she's fine.
  • Penguindrum: Kanba beating down his brother Shoma is very much treated in this manner. Even more-so by Kanba telling Shouma they are no longer brothers. It really kicked off the Face–Heel Turn.
    • Another example is Masako and Mario's grandfather Sanbei, who treated his grandchildren really harshly. First he kicked their father and the eldest son Kanba out of the clan merely because Dad wasn't as strong as he wanted. Then he burned all of the remaining kids's toys and memorabilia — including a letter that Masako got from her dad, despite little Masako's pleas. And later, his spirit possessed Mario to force Masako into a Sadistic Choice, which she could only undo via a very risky third option.
    • Sanetoshi isn't above this, either. He could have perfectly healed Himari right after she had a very serious seizure in Episode 12, but waits until she (apparently) dies to appear, while subtly mocking Kanba's grief as he presents himself. Worse case is when he forces a desperate Kanba to helplessly watch the death of his twin sister Masako (and mind you, this happens after Kanba did his already mentioned share of puppykicking), then revives her with a Survival Strategy to fully re-inforce Kanba's Face–Heel Turn, since he promises to revive Himari in this same way.
    • And then Tabuki kicks some pups as well, when he kidnaps Himari and Ringo (who is his long-time friend), locks Ringo away, and puts Himari inside a Death Trap, all to punish the Takakuras for the death of Ringo's sister Momoka (which their parents caused). To his credit, he realizes how fucked up this is and rescues Himari in the end.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • Paul tops the list as being the biggest Jerkass in the anime by releasing Pokemon that he deems weak. In his first appearance, he captured three Starly and only kept the one that knew Aerial Ace... and later, despite the fact that it won against Ash's Starly, released that one as well (in the same episode, no less)!
      • All of that pales in comparison, however, to his brutal treatment of Chimchar. He spends the Hearthome Tag Battle tournament absolutely assaulting it in an attempt to activate its extra-powerful Blaze ability, going as far as to have his entire party attack it all at once. Despite Nurse Joy telling him to not overwork his Pokemon on the day before battle, he chose to ignore her warnings, and forced Chimchar to battle against a Zangoose, the one species it fears the most. When Chimchar still fails to activate Blaze, Paul has finally had enough — he Rage Quits in the middle of battle, and does not relent even when Chimchar briefly faces its fear. As far as he's concerned, he and Chimchar are done, and finally releases it after all he had done.
      • Furthermore, he took great joy in gloating to opponents he deemed weak as well. He defeated Gym Leader Maylene easily and called her the weakest gym leader he has ever battled, crushing her so hard that she fell into a Heroic BSoD. Even Paul's older brother Reggie admits that he'd always had a cruel streak.
    • Team Rocket is prone to doing this as well, when they're at their worst.
      • In "Pallet Party Panic", it isn't enough for Team Rocket to simply make off with Pikachu after distracting the heroes by serving them infernally spicy food; as they make off in their hot air balloon, they proceed to bombard the party, causing chaos and destroying all the food present. Ash's Pidgeotto is poisoned by Arbok in its attempt to stop them. It takes Charizard getting ticked off by them destroying a table with fruit that he had his eyes set on that they finally get their just desserts.
      • In an episode where Ash's Chikorita evolves into Bayleef in Johto, they having Weezing and Arbok beat him up because Chikorita was the only Pokemon he had with him at the time, and she'd gotten captured. Another instance where they did this was in Odd Pokemon Out!, where Ash's Grovyle evolves into Sceptile to rescue a Meganium he had a crush on... then found out that he couldn't use moves due to being heartbroken because she actually was the significant other of a Tropius Grovyle had been fighting that episode. Team Rocket seizes this opportunity, beating up Sceptile with Cacnea and Seviper, while calling Sceptile a wimp. Sceptile broke out of this Heroic BSoD two episodes later, but it was still a really big dick move.
      • The most vile thing the TRio as a whole ever did? Try to kill Ash with the very Moltres flame from which he had earlier saved them! As far as villainy goes, they never once tried to top that.
    • Pokémon Hunter J is easily one of the most ruthless villains in the entire anime, and she stands out PRECISELY because of how much of an evil bitch she is. Let's review some of her more heinous acts:
      • To start, she's an evil poacher that captures Pokémon by using a device on her arm to turn them into bronze trophies. This laser works on humans too, and both people and Pokémon struck by it are shown to be fully conscious while petrified. J does her job for rich, slimeball clients, and nothing will stand in her way to do it.
      • In her debut episode, not only does she capture a girl's Gardevoir, Ash's Pikachu, and Meowth, bringing them back to her airship, upon learning that he and Team Rocket have infiltrated it, she has no problem ordering the entire hangar to be dropped from several hundred feet in the air... with some of her henchmen still in it.
      • Pokémon Ranger and The Kidnapped Riolu, Parts 1 and 2 is where J is at her absolute worst. Besides trying to capture the titular Riolu (As heir to the Kingdom of Aura, Riolu has been raised from birth to master its Aura capabilities, allowing it to learn Aura Sphere while normal Riolu cannot, making it valuable.), she has her goons destroy the boat the gang were riding on through a river leading to a series of waterfalls. When Ash escapes with Riolu into a forest and she spots them, J gives a terrifying smirk before she reveals her method of flushing them out: Ordering her Salamence to SET THE WHOLE FOREST ON FIRE!
      • Which is subsequently supplanted by what J does NEXT: after trophifying Riolu, Ash dives into a bush to avoid Salamence’s Hyper Beam. J already got what she wanted, but what does she do next? She moves behind him and has Salamence use Flamethrower ON THE BUSH HE WAS HIDING IN, COMPLETE WITH A SCREAM! If it hadn’t been for Chimchar digging a hole just in time, Ash would’ve been DEAD.
      • And finally, when Ash sneaks aboard again, she sics her Drapion on him, and when Ash questions why she didn’t stop him sooner since she knew about his intrusion, J responds that she wanted to punish him herself. Once Ash breaks free of Drapion’s clutches by kicking it in the EYE (making it one out of THREE times in the whole anime where Ash has ever intentionally hurt a Pokémon!), J once again drops him from the ship, only for Ash to be thankfully saved the Top Ranger Kellyn.
      • And for one last insult to injury, once J delivered Riolu to her client and collected her payment with Ash and co. in hot pursuit, she leaves in her airship, completely flipping the bird to her comeuppance. (For now, anyway...) Riolu was eventually rescued and returned to its home, with its original kidnappers jailed to boot, but still.
  • In the end credits for "Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~", main character (and assassin) Zwei is depicted repeatedly shooting a target's sad-eyed dog after he's killed her. One assumes we're meant to take this to mean that he's edgy and dangerous in his brainwashed and confused assassin persona.
  • The Pretty Cure villains are pros at this.
    • In Episode 11 of Futari wa Pretty Cure, after assuming his monstrous form to fight Nagisa/Cure Black and Honoka/Cure White, Gekidrago becomes so frustrated that he willfully attacks Ryota, Nagisa's little brother, just for having wandered near the scene of the battle. Big mistake. While Cure White is known for her Once an Episode utterance of This Is Unforgivable!, if Cure Black is driven to say this, you're going down. Needless to say, Gekidrago does not survive Nagisa's ensuing wrath.
    • Femme Fatale Poisonny's tactics almost always involve some dog kicking, mainly using mind control over a group of bystanders and using them as meat shields. Like getting Nagisa and Honoka's schoolmates Kyouko and Natsuko Brainwashed and Crazy in Episode 14: she not only mind-controls them into believing they are the Cures, but also into either attacking the real Cures or deliberately putting themelves in danger so Honoka and Nagisa would get distracted in battle trying to save them.
    • In Splash Star, the very first thing Karehan (the first member of Dark Fall's Quirky Miniboss Squad) does is beat up Flappy and Choppy to force them to give up information about the Source of the Sun.
    • It seems that villains, in that series, are at their worst when they're about to be killed by the heroines. In Episode 13 of Splash Star, Moerumba destroys a glass sculptor's work in front of Saki and Mai just to prove his point that might makes right. And that was his last episode, barring his resurrection later in the series.
    • Shitataare, while a somewhat humorous villainess, seemed to try her best to get under Saki and Mai's skin by repeatedly reminding them of how Michiru and Kaoru were trapped in the darkness and forever lost. The only villain who refrained from punting the pup in that season, other than Michiru and Kaoru themselves, was Kintolesky, because of his obsession with fighting fair.
  • In Princess Tutu, Mytho Kicks the Cat, just to show that he's really turned evil: When he learns about Mr. Cat's treasured pair of ballet shoes which belonged to a famous dancer, he cuts them to shreds. When Mr. Cat finds them, he's rendered, well, catatonic.
  • Puella Magi Suzune Magica has Suzune's establishing moment as a Villain Protagonist: save a random magical girl, ask her name, then slice her head off.

    R-Z 
  • Revolutionary Girl Utena:
    • Nanami Kiryuu is established early on as a deceptive and manipulative bully. She's insanely jealous of any girls her brother Touga shows interest in, and she idolizes him to an almost sexual degree. But she only really becomes freaky when shown in a flashback: She's seven years old at the time, and her brother gets a cute little kitten (as a birthday present from her) and pays more attention to it than he does to her, even while he's talking to her. Nanami puts the thing in a box and pushes it into a water treatment center, drowning it. To her credit, she does run away crying immediately afterwards, and it's strongly implied that she didn't fully realise what she'd done until it was too late; but then she says something like, "I'm sorry, I had to do it!", as if trying to justify the whole episode to herself. Needless to say, she's one messed-up kid.
    • Touga himself, being a manipulative playboy, also does plenty of dog-kicking over the course of the series. Some of his actions are comparatively petty, such as burning his childhood friend Saionji's exchange diary right after he'd promised to take care of it for him while he was gone, or showing next to no sympathy for a depressed orphan's plea when he was a kiddo ( and the orphan was none other than Utena herself). Some others, however, are downright horrific, to the point of making his abovementioned sister a far more sympathetic character: while Nanami is convinced that she and Touga are Not Blood Siblings, Touga seduces one of the members of her Girl Posse (Keiko, who is herself a backstabbing False Friend) and coldly claims that he has no sister and that he never actually loved Nanami — and that's just the beginning of what he does to her in Episode 32!
  • Romeo × Juliet's Lord Laertes Van di Montague does this regularly, but the worst (aside of the terrible massacre of the Back Story) is him forcing his ally Titus into a duel and killing him in front of his son Mercutio. For no other reason than proving a point to Mercutio.
  • Rosario + Vampire:
    • Kuyou and his goons in the corrupt Security Committee live and breathe this trope: all they do is abuse their authority for all it's worth to make everyone else at Yokai Academy miserable. Case in point: Kuyou puts Tsukune through Cold-Blooded Torture, punches Moka in the gut, and overall needs little-to-no provocation to burn someone alive even if they're not the sort of creature he despises (read: humans).
    • Keito isn't much better. She incinerates unsold papers from the Newspaper Club for the hell of it, and goes so far as to call Kurumu a slut to her face; Kurumu is anything but pleased.
    • Miyabi Fujisaki pins Mizore to the ground, gropes her, and steals her first kiss.
    • Gyokuro Shuzen seals it when she actually orders Kahlua to kill Kokoa, over Kahlua literally begging her to change her mind, with a sadistic Slasher Smile on her face. On top of it all, both Kahlua and Kokoa are her daughters!
  • Rurouni Kenshin:
    • The climax of the movie has the Japanese army surrounding a small force of rebels, stopped while Kenshin goes in to try talking them (and their leader) down. Kenshin succeeds, only for the real villain, an officer in the army, to have soldiers open fire on the surrendering rebels anyway, killing several, including the leader (who had acknowledged that he'd been wrong). True to the spirit of the trope, Kenshin (a Technical Pacifist) snaps, goes Battousai, and very nearly kills the officer.
    • The original series has Raijuta punting the same puppy twice. First he gravely injures Yutaro's arm in a way that effectively cripples him and almost surely destroys his dream to be a swordsman, and immediately after that he openly admits that he was using the bratty yet naive kid only for his own gain. Yeah, the victim was a Spoiled Brat, but he definitely did not deserve what Raijuta did to him.
    • Usui trying to stab Misao In the Back for no reason at all. Fortunately, Anji stops him.
    • In the To Ruile Flame prequel, Sameo kills Yumi's best friend Hanabi for no real reason.
  • Sailor Moon:
    • Happens with cats in the manga, when Luna, Artemis and Diana are wounded by Tin Nyanko and turn into ordinary, non-talking cats. To make matters worse, one of Galaxia's minions, Lethe, kills them in the next chapter... by tearing their bodies apart, no less.
    • Speaking of Luna, her being viciously backhanded aside and heavily injured when she tried to rush Endymion was the catalyst for Usagi to realize she needs to fight back, since the Mamoru/Tuxedo Mask she knew would never do that.
    • In the anime, Rubeus' abuse of his Love Martyr Koan feels like a repeated puppy kicking. Calaveras and Petz abandoning Berthier after she loses to Ami is also a quite dickish move. Unlike Rubeus, who crosses the Moral Event Horizon gleefully, Calaveras and Petz get better.
    • Haruna in the Season 2 premiere. Usagi was used to Standing in the Hall, and the bucket thing was something that was done in Japanese schools at the time, but she definitely thought her warning Ami away from her was pushing it.
    • Sometimes Rei just can't help herself. After Usagi's unsuccessful attempt to make a dress for the wedding gown competition and with her fingers all bandaged up, Rei "consoles" her by pointing out that Usagi probably did one thing better than anyone else: poking her fingers with the sewing needle. Ami immediately scolds her.
  • Saint Seiya
    • Aquarius Camus is quite a Knight Templar, and we get to see that clearly when he uses his power to singlehandedly sink a frozen ship... which was the sort-of tomb of Natasha, the mother of Camus's disciple Hyoga. To be fair, Hyoga did need to get over his obsession with her, but daaaaaamn.
    • Creepy Twins Thanatos and Hypnos are much worse, as they repeteadly try to kill Seiya's amnesiac Waif Prophet sister Serika just because she's there. Thank Athena that Jabu is there and helps the girl out.
    • Cancer Deathmask actually introduces himself by kicking puppies, as in the anime he throws a blind Shiryu down the Rozan cascade because he tried to defend his Old Master Dohko.
    • One of the moments when we're 100% aware that Hilda has become a Dark Messiah is when she kills a little singing bird she was holding in her hands. And later, we see her verbally abusing Mizar Bud to deliberately encourage his rivalry with his estranged brother Mizar Cid, fully aware of how much the first hates the latter. In a subversion, she's not doing this willingly, but because she's Brainwashed and Crazy.
    • Isaac also does this via not only mocking Hyoga and taking up his "offer" of blinding him in one eye as "payback" for Isaac's own Eye Scream in the past, but by savagely beating up a completely defenseless Kiki.
    • In the fillers, the trope is discussed when Agora and Shiva throw Helen, a girl no older than 12, inside an active volcano. For them, this is a Shoot the Dog scenario and they believe that the girl's soul will become a saintly spirit; for Ikki, their POV is bullshit and they did it For the Evulz. And when we learn that Helen actually managed to hold on the volcano walls and survived, Ikki turns the tables on Agora and Shiva's Curb-Stomp Battle and ultimately defeats them.
  • Sakura Gari has too many Kick the Dog moments to mention. Here's a short list:
    • Souma does it to Masataka by repeatedly raping him and then further hurts him by revealing (after his own suicide attempt) that the reason he does this is because he loves him. And Souma has been kicked continuously his whole life by every single responsible adult in his life to the point where the only way he ever received affection was through him being raped and molested... (which puts his behaviour towards Masataka in a whole other horrifying light). However, one of the two who has repeatedly Kicked The Dog throughout the series with absolutely no remorse or conscience is Dr. Katsuragi, who started raping and torturing Souma when he was in charge of him as a little boy (Katsuragi was 17/18 and Souma was 11/12 as much), and then went on to do the same thing to Masataka after drugging him. This is not a happy series.
    • And you may wonder who is the second unrepentant puppykicker, huh? Well, the reply's here: Souma's stepmother/Sakurako's mother, who slaps and berated young Souma when baby!Sakurako is accidentally injured when they're playing. One could take it as Lady Saiki being a My Beloved Smother who acted irrationally due to panic, but this is dispelled since we already know that after this incident, she crossed the Moral Event Horizon via sexually and physically abusing Souma as revenge for Sakurako losing her heir position to him.
    • Souma kicked the pup even harder by telling Masataka that his brother Takafumi died in a confusing incident... quite a while after Takafumi got killed thanks to the yakuza. And not before he got Masataka to work off Taka's debt with sexual favors some more after the fact. No wonder Masataka blows up like HELL at him.
    • And then we meet Katsuragi's other victim: Katsuragi's beautiful wife Asayo, whom he physically and sexually abuses. Though in this case, The Dog Bites Back...
    • Souma's younger sister Sakurako also gets her pup kicking turn, when she feeds Masataka glass shards hidden in the meal she cooked for him. And then we learn that she tortures all of Souma's lovers from the household...
  • Miss Minchin in Princess Sarah does this, except that it's Kick the Cat, and the cat gets its revenge fairly soon. Ironically, she soon undergoes a probable Heel–Face Turn, and is seen holding the same cat in her arms an episode later.
  • The Savior's Book Café Story in Another World: Being a Spoiled Brat who could get away with anything, the First Savior spends all of her free time abusing the staff. She chews out the chef for making food she doesn't like, has all the horses trapped in the stables when one of them startles her, and has a maid with years of experience working at the palace fired because she refused to give her her pendant.
  • Slayers
  • Choji Suitengu does this constantly throughout Speed Grapher (just as often Kick The Son Of A Bitch, actually). He has people who can't pay their debts killed and cashes in their life insurance policies, and the things he puts the teenaged Kagura through would make him a monster, were it not for his Freudian Excuse and Pet the Dog moments.
  • Steins;Gate:
  • At the climax of the Summer Wars Love Machine is shown guiding a falling space probe, zeroing in on the family dog while doing so.
  • Strider: Matic's first action when arriving in Mongolia is to kick a poor sheep away. And that's about the nicest thing this guy does, especially when we learn that he's behind the horrible brainwashing that resulted in the death of Hiryu's sister Mariya and is also the reason Kain also gets brainwashed early on in the manga.
  • Sword Art Online:
    • Nobuyuki Sugou/Oberon does this a lot in the Fairy Dance arc. Highlights include gloating about his Arranged Marriage with Asuna to Kirito, bragging about the look on Kirito's face when he did so to Asuna, and pinning him down before impaling him with his own sword and making him watch as he molests Asuna while smirking and laughing about it.
      Sugou: Give me a break. Why don't you stay down and grovel like a GOOD LITTLE DOGGY?!
    • Kyouji Shinkawa suddenly goes off the deep end and tries to rape and then kill Shino Asada.
    • While more of a morally gray character than an outright villain, Seijuro Kikuoka asks his collaborator Takeru Higa to start up a Fluctlight version of himself, which collapses in minutes after hearing the real Higa's voice as a demonstration. Asuna and Rinko are disturbed while even Higa is reluctant, and this shows how little Kikuoka cares about Fluctlights.
    • Raios Antonious and Humbert Zisek are two arrogant aristocrats in the Centoria Swordcraft academy who look down on Kirito and Eugeo. After Kirito manages a draw against the first-ranked upperclassman Volo, Raios cuts all the buds off the flowers Kirito was growing, thereby taking advantage of a loophole to allow him to get back at Kirito without violating the Taboo Index.
    • Humbert also gives his page Frenica humiliating orders, such as to give him a massage while naked.
    • Quinella has already been established as a terrible person, but she tops herself when she callously brushes off the death of her loyal servant, Prime Senator Chudelkin, who'd died fighting for her. Alice despises Chudelkin, but she's horrified by how Quinella treats her minions. Additionally, her killing Eugeo leads to a major Break the Cutie for Kirito.
    • Prime Senator Chudelkin gleefully tells Alice about how much she'd begged to keep the memories of those dearest to her, and how agonizing the process of forcibly extracting those memories was.
    • Gabriel Miller kills his childhood fiance Alicia Klingerman because he believed her soul would lose its luster if she left for Kansas, and he did this when he was a child. In the Alicization arc, the very first thing he does after coming back as Subtilizer is to mock Bercouli for having sacrificed his life to stop him as Dark God Vector.
    • Vassago Casals/PoH does this a lot throughout his screentime, such as establishing the Laughing Coffin guild so he can make people kill each other for his own amusement, to beating up a comatose Kirito in front of his True Companions entirely to spite them, to even his announcement to Kirito and Asuna that he will always be hellbent on them no matter what until he brutally murders them in real life. Unsuprisingly his utter devotion to this trope is what does him in, as that last part makes Kirito make sure he will never go after him ever again.
    • Cruiga, one of the Four Emperors of the human territory of the Underworld, has a law that makes catching a rare golden trout illegal, a seemingly innocuous rule that becomes truly awful in context. The fishermen can't choose which fish bite on their lines, but they're desperate enough for food that they have no choice but to fish in Cruiga's ponds and risk inadvertently breaking the Taboo Index. Cruiga's Evil Gloating makes it clear that this is not an unintended consequence, and he set up the rule so that he can punish accidental lawbreakers For the Evulz.
    • Cruiga also callously badmouths a loyal subordinate for losing to Ronie and Tiese, two minor nobles who became Kirito and Eugeo's pages, fought in a war and are Integrity Knights in training. Both Ronie and Tiese are rather offended at Cruiga's lack of regard for his men.
  • The reason why Kunimitsu Tezuka from The Prince of Tennis suffers a chronical injury in his arm is a consequence of an incident like this that took place two years ago, when he defended his fellow first years from a bullying upperclassman... and said uppeclassman took his racket and hit Tezuka with it on the elbow.
  • The World Is Mine introduces its Villain Protagonists by showing Wild Child Mon casually toss the girl he was having sex with out of their moving car onto the freeway. Mon's partner Toshiya tortures and kills an elderly couple.
  • Tiger & Bunny: villain Jake Martinez holds the city of Sternbild hostage and decides to toy with them by challenging the Heroes one-by-one to duel with him, only to brutally defeat and mock them.
    • Jake doesn't hold a candle to the real Big Bad Maverick. Not only does he Mind Rape his protege Barnaby into submission through Laser-Guided Amnesia, but also has Samantha, his housekeeper and mother figure, brutally killed and blames it on Kotetsu by giving everyone Laser-Guided Amnesia. Had he succeeded, not only would Barnaby have lost his Parental Substitute, but might also have unknowingly murdered, if not imprisoned for life, his best friend!
  • Deathsaurus in Transformers Victory leaves the Dinoforce to die on Atlantis after he gets enough energy to reactivate his evil fortress of doom. Tragically, they keep on stealing energy while under the impression that he's going to return.
  • Umineko: When They Cry
    • In the fourth arc's witches' tea party, Lambdadelta and Bernkastel cracking up at poor Ange's terrible fate was one of the big shots across the bow to keep an eye on those two.
    • Erika smashing Maria's dreams in front of her.
    • Rosa going crazy and tearing up Sakutaro.
    • Ange's classmates humiliating her in the beginning of the fourth arc, by forcing her to write and read out loud a letter in which she blames herself for her bad grades and being The Load on the class.
    • Every interaction Kinzo has ever had with his sons and daughters is a Kick the Dog moment. A great example would be what he did to Eva, purely because she's female, or even "better", sexually abusing his Heroic Bastard Beatrice Ushiromiya.
  • Yoshino Takatsuki from Wandering Son is typically a Nice Guy, though he has a temper. He went through a period in middle school where one of his close friendships broke apart; around the middle of this period, he told Saori, who is very much in love with Nitori, that she was dating Anna, sending the poor girl into an Heroic BSoD. To Takatsuki's credit, he did feel bad once what he had done sunk in.
  • In Wanna Be the Strongest in the World!, we have Rio Kazama putting Sakura Hagiwara into what is called a Shame Hold for the sole purpose of humiliating her. Even the manager asks "Rio... isn't it a bit too much?" in the manga.
  • In Yakitate!! Japan, we see just how rotten Tsukino's stepsister Yukino is in a flashback, where Yukino throws the ashes of Tsukino's late mother onto a tree while laughing like a maniac. A very jarring moment for a comedy about bread-making, especially since it's all but forgotten after that scene.
  • In Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, after the good Takuma erases everybody's memories of Shiraishi, Dark Takuma can be seen inflicting pain to a bird by squashing it for no apparent reason but being an asshole — and of course to contrast him to the good Takuma who's well-liked by birds.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • Marik does this by brainwashing Joey and Tea, forcing Yugi to duel joey on a 1-hour time limit where the loser will sink to the bottom of the ocean (or they both will if no one wins), and threatening to drop an explosive dumpster on Anzu if Kaiba interferes. And a while later, there's his Mind Rape of Mai...
    • Kaiba himself has done this on at least a few occasions. In one of his establishing moments, he beats up Yugi after getting called out on stealing his grandpa's Blue Eyes White Dragon. In his next appearance, he kidnaps Yugi's grandpa and forces him to duel with the Blue Eyes White Dragon as an ante. After beating the latter, he takes the Blue Eyes and tears it up, sending the poor old man into shock and into the hospital. As if that weren't enough, he gets Yugi and his friends involved by putting them in the Death-T Amusement Park, with the former dueling in a life-or-death match.
    • While majority of what Pegasus does as a villain stems from a sympathetic goal, Pegasus is utterly ruthless and manipulative to achieve them. He abducts Yugi's grandfather and Mokuba in order to force Yugi and Kaiba to his island. Then, once the Kaiba brothers were reunited, Pegasus seals Mokuba's soul and when Kaiba tries to get Pegasus to use his Duel Disks, he agrees on the condition that the soulless Mokuba would be used as his proxy. Kaiba is forced to back down. After also taking Kaiba's soul, Pegasus mocks the two brothers that they will never know the joy of restarting their relationship in this life.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
    • Zane Truesdale, following his Freak Out, originally just came off as an unfeeling, disrespectful jerk who liked dressing in black; if anything, his new bad-boy persona only increased his popularity in the eyes of the fangirls... until Episode 95. His brother Syrus challenged him to a duel, so Zane made them both wear shock bands on their wrists that would electrocute them when they took damage. He then spent the duel taking pleasure in watching Sho writhe in pain from the shocks, and almost kills him in the end. Let's repeat that — he did this to his own little brother! Even if Syrus was the one who issued the challenge, it was still uncalled for.
    • There's also Howard X Miller who steps on a flower for no reason other than to prove to the audience that he's a villain, however this may be more of a Poke the Poodle moment.
    • Aster Phoenix also does this to Jaden in their second duel by nonchalantly walking away and saying, “Disappear, TRASH!” after he sends him into a Heroic BSoD by beating him.
    • When Yubel duels Jaden using Jesse's deck, at one point, Judai uses Winged Kuriboh's effect to make all battle damage he takes for one turn become zero, which is illustrated by a forcefield protecting Jaden. Yubel angrily orders Jesse's monsters to attack anyway, and they crash into the forcefield and injure themselves as Yubel laughs and mocks them. Keep in mind that this was a Shadow Duel, so the monsters were real, not mere holograms.
  • To drive the point home, Jack Atlas of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds kidnapped a mutual friend, tied him up and put him in a rowboat placed in the sea during a violent storm in order to force Yuusei to choose between his SDD card or their friend's life.
    • In the manga, Jack Atlas ambushes Yusei and challenges him to a duel while Yusei's trying to get his friend Sect to the hospital.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL has Vector, both as a human and Barian. A list of his cruel actions as a human include murdering his parents, his own soldiers and subjects, burning to cinders the villages he fled through, forcing Nash into a Shadow Game with the (successful) intent of killing all his men and a little girl. As a Barian, he tried killing Nash and Marin's reincarnations simply because he couldn't stand the former, mocked his injured comrades, orchestrated a Batman Gambit that left Yuma as a vulnerable nervous wreck (clearly relishing in that), killed with glee 4 other emperors, faked a Heel–Face Turn to fool Nash into KOing himself and drive Yuma in despair even further. To top it all, Yuma STILL tried saving him from being sucked into Don Thousand, and the Ungrateful Bastard tried to drag him down with him.
  • YuYu Hakusho:
    • Sakyo is revealed in his backstory to have tortured animals in his job at a pet shop out of boredom.
    • Tarukane's horrible treatment of Yukina, in which he tortured her painfully to make her cry her tears of pearls and took to having Younger Toguro kill her pet birds when she became desensitized to pain.
    • Sadist Teachers Iwai and Akashi messing up with Kuwabara's grades deliberately to ruin his promise to get good ones so his friend would be allowed to keep his part-time job. Thankfully, the director catches them on it and fixes the problem.
    • During the Dark Tournament, during the fight with Team Mashou's leader Risho. When a badly injured (and much smaller than him) Touya begs him to act honorably and honor their teammates' sacrifices, Risho intentionally waits for him to struggle up into the ring, then viciously kicks him back into the wall of the arena. Such a display of cruelty was completely unnecessary; as team leader, he could have ordered him to be quiet, or even, in Touya's state, just pushed him away.


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