People doing evil in the name of love in anime and manga.
- Subverted(ish?) in Ask Dr. Rin!. Tokiwa appears to be obsessed with becoming Meirin's boyfriend, but he's possessed and the demon has more sinister motives. However, he seems to have feelings for her even afterward and the series never made clear exactly how he got possessed in the first place, so it's at least possible, if not likely, that the two are connected.
- Justified in Attack on Titan; it takes place in a Crapsack World full of grey morality, so it's hard to say it's a negative thing, but Mikasa loves Eren and there is no one and nothing she wouldn't kill to protect him and the same goes for Armin (though he's not the type to fling himself facefirst into trouble like Eren is). Getting on Mikasa's bad side is about as good an idea as jumping off a cliff. Annie finds that out the hard way. That said, Mikasa isn't evil (in fact she's one of the three main characters); Eren's just a Living Emotional Crutch for her, so if he dies she loses all interest in living herself.
- In Chapter 47, Ymir admits that her love for Christa is wholly selfish. Ymir is willing to endanger Christa just for the chance to see her again and outright kidnaps her because she's "a shitty human being". Again she's not evil, just an extremely messed up person in a Crapsack World doing her best to survive. Plus before this, she was already a shady gadfly/troll. Christa was kind of her Morality Pet. Character Development negates the whole episode anyway, showing she used to be selfless and is willing to become so again.
- In Bannertail: The Adventures of Gray Squirrel, most of the villainous, bowtie-wearing Akācho's dirty doings revolve around attempting to steal away Sue, whom he loves. (This includes getting the hero doped out of his mind on shrooms in one episode.)
- In Berserk Griffith's Sanity Slippage started because he was unable to cope with losing Guts, who he had feelings for. Griffith also had questionable feelings towards Casca. After a year of being tortured into insanity, his “love” for Guts and Casca because violent. Even before the Eclipse happens, he's shown to be a Green-Eyed Monster over seeing a couple, and he climbs on top of Casca when he’s mute and lame, then imagines being married to Casca before trying to commit suicide. This all comes to a head during the Eclipse where he rapes Casca just to spite Guts.
- Apostles tend to be created out of people's misguided reactions to being hurt by their loved ones or having nobody to love in the first place. It’s also about sacrificing True Companions as Griffith feels each of their deaths and grows stronger with each atrocity.
- Alois of Black Butler II once stabbed out Hannah's right eye, apparently to get Claude's attention.
- From Bleach, we have Tousen, whose close friend was killed by her Soul Reaper husband, after she had scolded him for killing his comrade in battle. So what he does is join up with Aizen, pretty much wants all the Soul Reapers dead and is willing to destroy a town full of people, all to get revenge on a single Soul Reaper. Talk about Disproportionate Retribution.
- Jesus, Gin. In Chapter 415, we finally learn that he allied himself with Aizen, thus taking part in many murders and betraying Soul Society, only to find the right moment to kill Aizen for attacking and stealing a part of his childhood friend Rangiku's soul when she and Gin were still living in Rukongai. Talk about going to great lengths.
- Brain Powerd, a Yoshiyuki Tomino anime, pulls this off not with romantic love, but with motherly love. Captain Anoha McCormick, leader of the Novice Noah finds out much to her dismay that her son Jonathan has joined the Reclaimers out of bitterness for feeling neglected by his mother as he was growing up. This leads her to fall into a deep depression over her failure as a parent, and to later actually join the Reclaimers herself under the alias of Baron Maximillian, using a Char Aznable-sque mask and a bulky body armor (not to mention a voice synthesizer) to hide her true identity. She then starts working for the same goal she had until then opposed: to guide Orphan through the atmosphere and into space in order to fulfill Jonathan's (and the Reclaimers') Social Darwinist wishes. She doesn't care that Orphan's emergence will cause The End of the World as We Know It, because she's now too obsessed with realizing her son's twisted ideals and somehow make up for her parental mistakes.
- In Bungou Stray Dogs, the reason Fitzgerald wants to get his hands on the reality-altering book is to bring his dead daughter back to life for the sake of his beloved wife, who's deluded herself into thinking their child is studying abroad.
- Stefan Levin from Captain Tsubasa was a normal and talented Swedish soccer player until his beloved fiancée, Karen, died in a car accident. Before she perished in his arms, Karen begged him to do his best and become the top player in the world... Little did Karen know that the emotionally devastated Levin would become an emotionless boy in pursuit of technical perfection, injuring his rivals if it was needed to fulfill his vow. Poor Müller and Akai, indeed.
- Cardcaptor Sakura: The villain of the first movie is an ancient sorceress who fell in love with Clow Reed...and after a battle with him, he sealed her away in another dimension inside a book. As she captures Sakura's friends and family, and nearly drowns Sakura in the climax, most of her dialogue is simply "Where is Clow Reed?!" After a distraught Sakura whispers to her that her love is dead, the sorceress dissolves away in her own tears, whispering "But...I waited..."
- With its various murders and other crimes over the years, it's only natural that Case Closed should visit this trope from time to time.
- This includes cases where the victim's obsessions with the person they loved led to blackmail, and eventually their murder. And in one case a man became so obsessed with getting one woman to love him that he drugged her and set her in a burning building planning to 'rescue' her and become her Knight in Shining Armor. It's not only related to romance, either. There's also:
- Sibling love (a Buddhist novice kills his master after learning he murdered his older brother, an average guy becomes a thief to force the police investigate his younger sister's presumed murder, a ghost writer brutally kills his boss after he causes the death of his Delicate and Sickly sister when he was supposed to pay for her treatment, an Innocent Flower Girl brews a Thanatos Gambit to punish her older sister's rival who stole her tricks and drove her to kill herself; an uni student enters a local Tokusatsu fan club and kills the biggest Otaku in the group for stealing his little brother's memorabilia out in the open and cauing the kid to get hit by a truck;
- Parental love (a widow keeps her son locked up for years because she doesn't want him to turn himself over after accidentally killing his dad during a fight, a businessman stages a Batman Gambit to catch and kill the hitman who caused his little daughter's death by proxy during one of his "missions"; a security guard beats up ganguro girls after one of them accidentally runs over his son);
- A son/daughter's love for their families (the anti villainous Crossdresser who kills almost everyone related to his parents and siblings's deaths when he was little, the Sexy Secretary who makes a Corrupt Corporate Executive believe that she kidnapped and killed his daughter as revenge for him causing the ruin and death of her family, the Osakan cop who becomes a Serial Killer to punish the people who caused his father's death in a prank Gone Horribly Wrong);
- Friendship (a computer expert disguised as a Corrupt Corporate Executive's butler kills his boss to avenge his best friend, driven to bankruptcy and suicide by him; a teen detective kills another fellow sleuth after he wrongfully accuses her best friend of killing her boss and causes her to kill herself, too);
- A mentor/teacher's love for their pupils (a school teacher kills two of her co-workers after they murder one of their students when she finds out they're involved in money frauds; an uni professor kidnaps Takagi and puts him in a cruel Death Trap while forcing half the Beika police force to watch because he mistakenly believes that Takagi is the man who dumped his favorite pupil and caused her to go the Spurned into Suicide way.)
- Lelouch vi Britannia in Code Geass. Lelouch seems to be rather affectionate towards his sisters. Lelouch often dotes on her and promises that he'll create a better world for her which essentially means manipulating, blackmailing, sacrificing, and disposing whomever he wishes to ensure that his rebellion in Japan achieves a violent revolution against the Holy Britannian Empire.
- There's also the Alternative Character Interpretation saying that Lelouch's love for his sister is the only thing keeping him good and if he didn't have her he would take the step from morally ambiguous Anti-Hero to ruthless Villain Protagonist.
- Another more explicit example happens with Suzaku Kururugi. When he first appeared, he was a Knight in Shining Armor who later falls in love with Princess Euphemia, but when she dies he pretty much ventures into Anti-Villain territory.
- In R2. An episode after Lelouch and Shirley officially become boyfriend-girlfriend, she gets killed by Rolo. Lelouch then goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Geass cult (which involved him slaughtering a lot of noncombatants) that sets off a series of events that leads to Zero's identity being exposed and him being betrayed/abandoned by the Black Knights.
- Also Rolo's own psychotic love for Lelouch, the first person who was kind to him ever, prompted him to kill Shirley (aside of her mentioning something she should've NOT even known of), wish he could kill Nunnally, and die for Lelouch after he's abandoned by the Black Knights.
- And not to be outdone, Rolo's master V.V, who kills his sister-in-law Marianne out of jealousy and psychotic devotion to his beloved brother Charles.
- If we include parental love, then Charles and Marianne fit to a T. They not only were as much in love with each other as persons like them could be, but they were willing to bring up The End of the World as We Know It and horribly traumatize Lelouch and Nunnally, if this allowed them to create a world where (according to them) their children would be happy.
- Also, little Nina Einstein's obsessive love for Euphemia made her go bonkers once poor Euphie was gunned down. She remained nuts (and her madness was further encouraged by Schneizel and his More than Mind Control) until at least the second half of R2. Nina's final redemption can best be described as "How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Hate The Bomb".
- Mao's psychotic devotion to C.C may be a more conventional case of Love Makes You Crazy, but if Nina counts as this trope, he would too.
- And finally, this was the main reason Lelouch did not respond to Kallen in the last few episodes of R2 even after she kissed him, as he knew that if he told her he loved her (whether true or not) that she would turn against the Black Knights and the rest of the world to follow him. And by "follow him", I don't mean just supporting him in the coming battle; she would have willingly died with him. That said, this is more a case of "Love Makes You Support Evil", but it still counts.
- There's also the Alternative Character Interpretation saying that Lelouch's love for his sister is the only thing keeping him good and if he didn't have her he would take the step from morally ambiguous Anti-Hero to ruthless Villain Protagonist.
- Codename: Sailor V: Danburite, the Big Bad himself; everything he did was out of love for Sailor Venus herself.
- Haruka from Cuticle Detective Inaba love's his brother Hiroshi so much that he becomes a Villain just to get attention from his brother working for the police. He even attempts to wipe out all the police so that his brother will have nothing else but him to go to.
- In Danganronpa 3, Kyosuke's love for Chisa causes him to snap and become a Knight Templar after her death. He becomes increasingly paranoid and extremist, to the point of attempting to murder his best friend because he suspects him of working for the enemy.
- Also, Hajime's reciprocated feelings for Chiaki, combined with his low sense of self-worth, caused him to seek to better himself to be worthy of her. Unfortunately, his means of "bettering himself" were completely destroying his old personality and replacing it with that of a very talented, but very apathetic man. Now renamed Izuru, he quickly fell under the sway of the Big Bad. Fortunately Love Redeems him in the end, but not until after Chiaki dies.
- Date A Live:
- Spirits go into Inverse Form when they feel intense despair, and most cases of this have happened when someone close to them died/was about to die.
- From the light novels, this is the entire motivation of Mio. She is in love with Shinji Takamiya, who was killed by people who were pursuing her. She was able to recreate him (as Shidou Itsuka, the main character) but decided that this wasn't enough, and she planned to give him her power so that he could become her eternal lover. To this end, she created the Spirits (which required killing countless people first) so that Shidou could gradually accept her power.
- Misa Amane from Death Note. She loves Light Yagami because he is Kira, and then she loves Kira because she feels she's in debt to him for killing the burglar who murdered her parents when Misa was young. And because she loves Light... Misa becomes the Second Kira.
- Chikane Himemiya from Destiny of the Shrine Maiden does this to the point of raping her friend. This is all so that her friend will be willing to kill her. This is because she is guilty over killing that same friend in a past life where they were lovers.
- Neo Saiba from Digimon V-Tamer 01 plans to merge the Digital and real worlds in order to create a world where he can control everything. His motive for doing this is his sister, who was left crippled after an accident he blames himself for. In his new world, he would not only be able to heal her, but also make sure that accidents never happen again as he will be in total control of everything. Despite all the evil he causes during the story, his intentions are pure, as proven by how he was able to use the Digimental, which can only be used by a pure-hearted Tamer.
- Marco, Manipulative Bastard par excellence and quarterback/quarterback spy for the Hakushuu Dinosaurs in Eyeshield 21 is motivated entirely by his desire to impress his crush — and upperclasswoman — Maria, manager of the team. To do so, he institutes a regime of brutal plays, using Gaou and Kisiragi to cripple the quarterbacks and recievers of other teams. In the process, of course, he only drives Maria further away. Interestingly, she may have confessed her feelings to him after his final defeat.
- Fairy Tail: "The Black Wizard" Zeref had this twofold: he became cursed by Ankhseram for studying taboo magic in order to bring his dead brother back to life. This led to centuries of being ostracized by the world at large and considered the most evil mage of all time. However, he didn't really break until he fell in love with Mavis Vermillion after finding out that they shared the same curse. They kiss… and she dies, because his happiness contradicts the purpose of the curse, which is to ensure that the recipient can never be happy. That's when his true Start of Darkness began.
- Shin from Fist of the North Star kidnapped the protagonist's fiancée, Yuria, and became a wasteland overlord in his attempt to win her love. Later in the same series, Souther is revealed to be enslaving children to build him a giant pyramid all for the sake of his beloved master, who he had been tricked into killing. In the end Ken declares that Souther was the one who loved the most of all.
- This is Ren Sohma's Freudian Excuse in Fruits Basket. She was the maid who took care of the former leader of the Sohmas, Delicate and Sickly Akira, and the only one able to reach for him. But when Ren married him, got pregnant and started fearing that he'd love her less once their child was born... Ooooh, boy.
- The Yandere Yuno from Future Diary tries to justify her evil deeds and homicidal tendencies by saying it's all for Yukiteru's sake and it also corrupts Yukiteru.
- In Gankutsuou, being on the losing end of a Love Triangle with his childhood best friends Mercedes and Edmond causes Fernand's Start of Darkness, which he blamed in large part on the fact that he was still poor and struggling while Edmond was already rich and successful.
- High School D×D:
- Played with in Irina's case. She's a genuinely good person through and through, but as a Brave Saint, she can't even think too hard about how much she loves Issei or she's in danger of joining the Fallen Angels. This has nothing to do with her feelings themselves, which are entirely sincere, but because the modern idea of love is so intertwined with sex that it counts as being a sinfully lustful thought. Even Archangel Michael admits the system is horribly out of date, but for spoileriffic plot reasons it can't simply be changed. instead, he has Heaven develop a way around it.
- Also examined with Issei. He's normally running on the power of lust and Crazy Is Cool, but threaten anyone he loves and the staunch Technical Pacifist is liable to end up with a body count. Issei on The Power of Love is a horrific, bloody, no-holds-barred affair where he'll stop at nothing until the threat to his loved one ceases to exist.
- Onigumo from Inuyasha was already pretty damn evil before he met Kikyou, but it was his desire for her that prompted him to sacrifice himself to a horde of youkai and become Naraku, the Big Bad of the series, who is much, much worse than Onigumo was as a human, considering the vestigial trait of Onigumo's potential to feel guilt and empathy an unacceptable weakness to be purged from himself.
- Rune of Karakuridouji Ultimo nearly rapes Yamato when his feelings for him go unreturned. As well as the other evil things he does out of love for Yamato.
- Psycho Electro Precia Testarossa of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, in regards to parental love, is one of the most spectacular cases ever. As the Alicia in Fate's dream put it:Alicia: She was a really kind person. Because she was so kind, she broke while trying to revive me after I died...
- A few in Magic Knight Rayearth:
- The sorceress Alcyone gave only one reason for betraying Cephiro: she loves Big Bad Zagato. Never mind that his actions could cause Cephiro's destruction. In the second season of the anime, she joins the new Big Bad to hasten Cephiro's destruction because Zagato rejected her. And he's dead, so she wants revenge. Although in Season 2, she's mostly either Brainwashed and Crazy or half-mad with grief.
- Zagato himself sent out several people to murder the Magic Knights, in a couple of cases taking advantage of said people's emotional vulnerability to manipulate them into evil acts and outright brainwashing one. He did this because he was in love with Emeraude and desperate to save her from her fate, which leads us to the third...
- Emeraude's love for Zagato made her unable to support the land as Pillar, which is the real reason it's in such a bad state. When the Magic Knights kill Zagato, she completely loses it and tries to get revenge. Her fear of just such an event is why she summoned the Magic Knights in the first place: to kill her before she could destroy Cephiro with her power.
- Maria no Danzai: Maria is far from evil, but her unconditional love for her unfortunate son is the deepest core of her revenge against the brats responsible for destroying her family. She is willing to do unethical and illegal actions, such as hacking a student's phone and kidnapping, to proceed her goal, then to eventually kill these little shits once she is done with them.
- Mazinger Z: Dr. Hell fits the trope to the letter. He was psychologically unstable before... but when he fell in love with a cute Japanese student attended his college he became obsessive, jealous (he even fumed if she spent time with someone else) and erratic. When he found she was in love with someone else, his mind finally snapped out completely. He thought everyone was out to get him, and attempted to Murder the Hypotenuse (he stormed into the campus with a shotgun!). That incident (and another more where he tried to help someone and he got the crap beaten out of him for it) were his Start of Darkness. He decided Humans Are Bastards and he would make everyone pay. People had shunned him out of scorn or indifference before, but from that day they gave him a wide berth out of fear because he already started looking Obviously Evil (and downright creepy).
- Near the end of Mirumo de Pon!, it's revealed this is the Big Bad 's Freudian Excuse for turning to The Dark Side and wanting to destroy Mirumo and the Fairies' royal line: in his younger days, he got cruelly rejected by the girl he loved. Mirumo is not pleased when hearing this and chews Dark out a new one, calling him an idiot and a pain for such a ridiculous motive.
- One of Patrick Zala's main motivations in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED was to avenge the death of his wife Lenore, killed by Naturals during the Bloody Valentine Incident.
- Quite a few cases in Muhyo and Roji.
- Enchu worked hard to become an executor so that he could support his sick mother. His Start of Darkness was his mother dying of illness around the same time that he lost the position to Muhyo. Several characters notice that he's a potential victim for this trope, as Page tells him that one of the reasons he was passed over was his preoccupation, and Teeki caused his mother's death so that he could eventually take his body.
- Rio joined Enchu after her mother's death, especially after two Executors refused to help her.
- The Cortlaw siblings- Kid, Ivy and Mick- want to bring their parents back from the dead.
- Panza became attracted to Roji after he showed her kindness by giving her a spare application form, and was thus desperate to be noticed by him, enabling Teeki to manipulate her into joining Ark.
- The haunt that Muhyo and Goryo are competing to exorcise is that of a single mother who went insane after her daughter was killed in a traffic accident, obsessively creating the dolls that her daughter wanted as a gift (which her haunt form uses against the heroes). Eventually, the spirit of the daughter intercedes, and while the daughter would have gone to Heaven while the mother went to Hell, both end up in the Styx (essentially Purgatory) by way of a compromise.
- A common theme in the second half of My-HiME, which claimed more than its fair share of characters:
- Shiho (out of her love for Yuuichi and jealousy of Mai for what she thought was an attempt to take it away, uses her Child, Yatagarasu, to attack Mai several times, eventually forcing her into a battle in which Yuuichi will die if either wins. She is also at least partially responsible for the death of Akira's child, and thus, Mai's younger brother Takumi.)
- Shizuru (out of her love for Natsuki, goes insane when she believes Natsuki has rejected her (Natsuki, however, also considers Shizuru her most important person) and kills those she sees as Natsuki's enemies.)
- Mikoto (out of her love for her brother, whom a few other characters eventually learn is the Big Bad, ends up becoming Brainwashed into doing his bidding.)
- Yukariko (out of her love for Ishigami, the art teacher who had forced her to fight the other HiME against her will.)
- In the manga, Shiho's desire to be with Yuuichi leads to her coming to the school as part of the Searrs takeover and fighting against Mai. Similarly, Alyssa's loyalty to her mother Saeko Kuga causes her to go along with her plans.
- Nina in My-Otome She not only loves, but is in love with her adoptive father Sergay, who works for Nagi dai Artai. Seeing that Sergay is Arika's Anonymous Benefactor pushes her over the edge, unlocking the power of Nagi's Ultimate Black Diamond. She attacks Arika in a rage, but kills Erstin instead when Erstin has her Slave protect Arika. She works to further Nagi's plans, first to prevent him from punishing Sergay for withholding information and later uses the Harmonium in order to keep Sergay alive after Nagi shoots him, and is partly motivated by a belief that she can no longer turn back.
- Also Tomoe, who is obsessively in love with Shizuru. She plots against Arika, trying to get her expelled, killed or otherwise unable to get between her and Shizuru, and later joins Nagi's Valkyrie unit so she can essentially have Shizuru for herself.
- A recurring theme in Naruto is that love (not exclusively romantic love) can lead to hatred and war. This is seen in Sasuke wanting to destroy Konoha in order to avenge Itachi and Pain's Start of Darkness.
- Gaara's abusive father the Kazekage is revealed to have been this in the Shinobi War. He loved the village of Sunagakure and wanted to protect it. He pulled horrible shit on everyone to do so.
- As quoted by Tobi or Uchiha Madara or someone else:"When a man learns to love, he must bear the risk of hatred."
- This becomes more meaningful during the chapter that revealed that Tobi was Obito. The chapter is basically a long flashback that shows Obito's childhood, focusing on, rather than his relationship with Kakashi, his relationship with Rin, the girl who he was in love with. It has now been confirmed that Rin is dead (at the apparent hands of Kakashi, none the less) and that her death is what caused Obito to become Tobi. Essentially the entire basis of his plan is to create a world where Rin is alive.
- It is ultimately revealed that this is the nature of the Uchiha clan's curse. Their love is stronger than that of any other clan. Whenever an Uchiha loses someone they loved (almost always due to war due to the setting) that love turns to hatred and revenge that much easier. Their brains are able to turn grief into special chakra that creates the Sharingan which is why they tend to get more eye powers under extreme emotional duress.
- Gendo Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion takes the phrase 'you're worth the world to me' to its (insanely) logical conclusion. He tries to bring about the apocalypse, in fervent belief that this will reunite his mind and soul with that of his wife, Yui. Technically, while the plan actually began working, Yui's soul rejected Gendo's at the climax, due to the untold suffering he brought, especially to their son. The moment is best summed up when the Eva her soul is in bites Gendo and Gendo's last words are an apology to his son.
- It seems to be a family trait as Shinji Ikari proceeds to actually enact the apocalypse after Asuka unceremoniously rejects him. Like his father, Shinji regrets this decision; unlike his father, the woman in question may possibly be willing to forgive him for it, but it's hard to tell for sure.
- Many of the clients' stories in Nightmare Inspector involve love in some way. Said stories almost always involve murder, or occasionally suicide. Although sometimes things are a bit cheerier, and love just causes much emotional suffering.
- Vincent from PandoraHearts will do anything, anything for his brother Gilbert, whether Gilbert likes it or not (almost always "not"). Gilbert himself is at least sometimes in the Love Makes You Crazy category for Oz. It hasn't been revealed how far he'll actually go for Oz.
- Glen is shown in flashbacks to have these tendencies. At least until it's revealed that Jack, not Glen, was driven insane by his love-hatenote for Lacie and by her predestined human sacrifice. Oswald-Glen actually handled Lacie's (who is actually his younger sister) death fairly well for someone forced to kill his only family.
- The driving force behind Hira’s actions in Phantom Dream is his lover being killed by humans and Hira wishes to punish humanity for what they did. He’s so far gone that in the fourth volume, he refuses to believe that Asahi was telling him the truth about Suigekka wanting to die because her powers weren’t strong enough to help humans.
- In the GSC Arc of Pokémon Adventures, the Mask of Ice, later revealed to be Pryce, the Ice-type Gym Leader of Mahogany Town. His motivation behind resurrecting Team Rocket was out of love for his Lapras. He wanted to capture Celebi for turning back time so his Lapras could return to its parents. Even at the cost of the world freezing over from turning back time.
- In Prétear, a Magical Girl named Takako falls in love with Hayate, but he rejects her. In her despair, she calls the forces of darkness to her and becomes the Princess of Disaster. And in the anime, when the Knight Sasame realizes that nothing he can say or do will convince Takako to become good again, he reveals that he's always loved her, and betrays the Knights so he can stay by her side (even though he's fully aware she doesn't love him).
- An oddly literal example from Princess Tutu: the fragment of Mytho's heart that contains Love gets soaked in Raven's blood, so that it turns him evil when it's returned to him. Also, in a more traditional example, Kraehe's motivation turns out to be her desperate desire for his love.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion takes this trope to its Logical Extreme. Homura's Soul Gem is corrupted by her love for Madoka, and she steals Madoka's powers. This turns Homura into the devil. Homura doesn't want Madoka all to herself; in fact she doesn't even care if Madoka loves her back. Rather, Homura just wants to see Madoka happy...and because she loves Madoka so much, she's willing to go to any lengths to do so. In fact, it's the strange interaction of BOTH character's selfless attitudes that cause this to happen. The catalyst is Homura meeting a Madoka with amnesia (effectively a Madoka in the past) who expressed desire to be normal and live her own happy life, which directly contrasts the current Madoka's extremely selfless "protect the happiness of everyone at the cost of myself" attitude. This means that in order to protect and satisfy THAT Madoka, she has to directly betray the current, selfless Madoka. So she's acting in the selfish interests of a person who's become deeply selfless, the evil part comes in the ambiguity of just how much damage she chose to cause in the process.
- The Quintessential Quintuplets: Downplayed example. At first, Ichika seems more than willing to be a Shipper on Deck for Fuutarou and one of her sisters (first Itsuki and later Miku). However, spending some moments alone with him cause her to become attracted to him too, and later she grows increasingly paranoiac that the others will beat her to confess to him, which results in her resorting to underhanded methods to sabotage their efforts, such as trying to convince the others to not give him birthday gifts to focus on their studies (so she can be the only one to give him something), and later, posing as Miku to confess her love for him, since she didn't have the courage to do it herself (it backfires because Fuutarou knew that the real Miku was in love with him and she would never say that).
- Ranma ½ makes quite a heavy use of this, for a comedy series. Shampoo wants Ranma to return her love, so she tries to use Love Potions on him and has no qualms about contemplating Murder the Hypotenuse, though she only actually attacks her rivals if she's convinced she can do so without hurting her reputation. Ukyo Kuonji can be just as bad as Shampoo in the manga, but still keeps some trace of this in the anime. Mousse is the most common offender of attempted Murder the Hypotenuse due to his unrequited love for Shampoo. Ryoga Hibiki abuses his curse to take advantage of Akane Tendo's naivete due to his obsessive crush on her, at least once tried to use a Love Potion on her, once contemplated living together with her in a haunted cave forever so she would always want to cling to him for protection, and once tried to murder his rival for her hand—while his direct motivation was to make Ranma Saotome stop hitting on him (having accidentally got him with the aforementioned Love Potion), he openly recognized that killing Ranma would leave him with Akane by default.
- Wendy from the Read or Die the TV, who sheds her clumsy demeanor to becomes a cold adviser all out of admiration for Joker.
- Rosario + Vampire: It's revealed near the end that this is why Gyokuro Shuzen was such a monster. She was the wife of Issa Shuzen, a polygamist who was more loving and attentive to his mistress, Akasha Bloodriver, than he was to her. Gyokuro eventually snapped, joined Fairy Tale and embarked on a crusade to wipe out humanity, all out of petty jealousy and spite for Akasha.
- Rozen Maiden has both Suigintou and Kirakishou subject to this, although Suigintou's case is not as severe as Kirakishou's. Still, Suigintou loves her father so much that she is willing to discard almost all signs of friendship just to meet father and become Alice, partially due to a sense of incompleteness and personal betrayal at the hands of Shinku. Kirakishou, however, takes it a few steps further and imprisons past and present mediums of the other dolls in crystal, having some kind of love-crazy obsession over both the mediums and the dolls. So much she wants to eat her sisters, to make them part of her. Interestingly enough, Suiseiseki, who is also motivated by love, manages to avoid this trope completely and can arguably be classified as the most caring doll in the series, despite her habits.
- Sailor Moon: Queen Beryl is the straightest example in the series, at least in the manga and Crystal. She was an ordinary human girl whose unrequited love for Endymion made her a prime target to be corrupted by Metaria. This resulted in her becoming evil, spreading Metaria's influence across the planet, and leading an attack on the Moon Kingdom which led to its fall and the deaths of everyone in the Solar System, most of them indirectly. So Beryl's the reason everyone was reincarnated in the modern day. Also overlaps with The Dark Side Will Make You Forget as she was the one who killed Endymion (either that or If I Can't Have You…). Possibly inverted in the 90s anime, though it's hard to tell considering Beryl has no backstory. She still loves Endymion, but it seems she was always evil.
- Filler Villain Fiore in the R movie along with Yandere and a dash of Brainwashed and Crazy. He comes back to Earth looking for his old childhood friend Mamoru, except he's possessed by an evil alien flower who feeds off hatred. When Mamoru turns out to have no recollection of their meeting, along with Fiore finding out about his girlfriend Usagi . . . let's just say he doesn't take it very well. He gets better though.
- The vast majority of villains in this franchise invert it, already being evil. Classic examples include Zoisite from Season 1 and Prince Diamond and Koan from Season 2 of the anime. The first had no redeeming qualities, but was at his most vicious when trying to please or get attention from his older boyfriend and mentor Kunzite. The second was already evil before his Villainous Crush on Neo-Queen Serenity (which he projects onto her past self, Usagi) made him even more unhinged, though the anime also gives him a last minute Redemption Equals Death moment that wasn't in the manga. The third was already a vain, catty, shallow bitch obsessed with make-up, but was willing to go to extremes to get Rubeus to fall in love with her, including blowing herself up.
- Straight parental version with anime Dr. Tomoe, though it's more he's willing for both he and his daughter Hotaru to be possessed by malevolent inter-dimensional beings to save her life. That said, even with the possession he's more Laughably Evil than anything and not particularly interested in achieving his villainous goals (if he was, he'd show more concern for how Kaolinite and the Witches 5 behave). And this is from the season considered the darkest of the anime.
- SD Gundam Force has this trope by way of Deathscythe's Start of Darkness. His obsessive love for Lacroa's Princess Rele is what led him to join the Dark Axis, hoping to hijack the kingdom's magic and use it to become human like her.
- In The Seven Deadly Sins, the immortal Meliodas was cursed by the Demon King to watch his soulmate die, be reborn into a different body, and die again, forever. And if she realizes the nature of the curse (or why it was cast), her next death is invariably swift and painful. The cycle has repeated 106 times before the series starts, and even the mere thought that he might fail again to save her sends Meliodas into a despairing rampage like the one that annihilated Danafor.
- In Spiral, Kanone wants to kill all of the Blade Children... because they're basically cursed abominations not meant to exist blablabla, yes, but also because "all of the Blade Children" includes his best friends (and himself) and he really thinks it's for their own good, just so they don't suffer more than necessary, don't fall into despair like he has, don't lose their selves (a very real Threat), etc. This leads to many breakdowns of the "Why don't you understand me ?!" kind.
- This is the case for Lord Gilles de Rais in Tetragrammaton Labyrinth, whose love for Joan of Arc leads him to try and destroy all humans.
- An odd case with Subaru from Tokyo Babylon and X/1999 in that it's his one wish for his lover, Seishirou, to kill him and not anything outright evil, though his death could help cause the destruction of the planet. Their final battle culminates in Seishirou pulling off his own Thanatos Gambit and having Subaru kill him. Afterwards, plays a bit straighter when Subaru accepts becoming the next Sakurazukamori, and replace Seishirou as a Dragon of Earth in order to help Kamui realize his "true wish".
- Arashi is an example of a well-meaning one, performing a Face–Heel Turn to save her love interest, Sorata, who's destined to sacrifice his life for her.
- We also have Kanoe, who wants to free her older sister Hinoto from her obligations as the leaderess of the Dragons of Heaven, which give her enormous Psychic Powers but render her crippled, blind and deaf/mute. If she has to destroy the world to release the person she loves the most from such a cruel burden, she will.
- In Trigun, Hoppered the Gauntlet joins the Gung-Ho Guns so that he may get revenge on Vash, whom he believes destroyed July City and the blind girl Hoppered looked after who lived there. Also, Leonof the Puppet Master may have run away from home to become a Gun after being rejected by a woman he loved.
- Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-: Big Bad Fei-Wang Reed is all but outright stated to be this. He claims the purpose of his plans is to prove he's the most powerful magician of all time, but some of his words later seem to suggest otherwise. He enacts a centuries long unimaginably complex Gambit Roulette that involves the death of millions (if not billions — at least one UNIVERSE has ended by "Ass-chin"'s deeds), all for the sake of bringing someone ( Yuuko) back to life. Or keeping her from dying. Un-dying? Un-unkilling her? Terminology gets really confused at this point, as does the reader. She died years ago, but a certain Reality Warper with Power Incontinence accidentally caused the universe to not notice it; Fei-Wang wants to either keep this state of affairs or make her 100% alive rather than zombie-ish. Eventually, it's revealed that Fei-Wang Reed was likely to be the "afterimage of a wish made by someone with strong magic", meaning that he was probably created out of the said Reality Warper's deep subconscious desire for Yuuko to stay alive, i.e. he was the physical manifestation of "Love Makes You Evil".
- Naturally, she makes reality retroactively notice her death as payment to help stop him.
- The Twelve Kingdoms is a notable example in that there don't seem to be any romantic interests that actually end well (maybe because sex isn't a requirement for reproduction in that world?). UST throws jealousy fuel on the drama fire for the mains, and all the rulers shown so far that take consorts end up screwing up tremendously (and one queen's unrequited love for her partner ki-rin leads her to drive all women out of her kingdom).
- The yaoi manga Under Grand Hotel has a few examples. In the first few scenes we see Lain Brody in he gives Sen a blowjob, strips him, drugs him and outright molests him as he's drugged (including telling him "No way in hell am I letting Sword Fish kill you. Because he doesn't love you. I'm the only one that can kill you."), rapes him with a mop handle, ties him up and hides him in a dryer. And when Swordfish finds Sen he gives him CPR. Lain responds to this by stabbing Fish in the arm with a fork and screams at him, "Get off of Sen! He belongs to me!" Immediately after that Lain is shot and killed by security guards.
- Also, Swordfish acts in such a manner whenever Sen is involved. He threatens anyone who expresses an interest in Sen with death, kills the guys who raped Sen saying that he did it for Sen's sake even after Sen told him not to kill them, moves out of Sen's room and lets a rapist move in when angry with Sen, and slices the throat of another one of Sen's rapists right in front of him while saying "I love you, Sen." This being after he tried to get Sen to kill the guy himself but Sen refused. He also nearly raped Sen to almost death in one scene.
- And Norman's in love with Swordfish but pretended to be in love with Sen so he could get closer to Swordfish. He tried to persuade Swordfish to kill Sen but that didn't work. So, on one occasion when there was a scuffle going on he tried to get Sen out of the way by stabbing him with a pencil but accidentally ends up stabbing his inmate Walter instead.
- Rido from Vampire Knight after 3000 years of Unrequited Love for his sister Juri who married their other brother Haruka instead, kills both of his siblings and tries to live out his incestuous feelings with his niece Kuran Yuki.
- Wolf's Rain: Lady Jaguara was obsessed with Darcia to the point of murdering her twin sister because he loved her, and then trying to murder him so he couldn't love anyone else.
- Darcia was driven mad by the loss of his beloved just hours after finding the one person who could cure her, and tried to enter Paradise just so he could bar the doors behind him or corrupt the inhabitants. He 'succeeded'.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: Pegasus became an Affably Evil man and antagonizes Yugi and his group in order to bring back his dead wife.
- This trope spawns Judai's Stalker with a Crush (Yubel) and all the problems in Season 3 of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, as everything Yubel does is motivated by their love for Judai and they didn't take it kindly that he sent her in outer space.
- Carly in 5D's. So evil that she claims that she became a Dark Signer just so she could kill Jack and they could be together]]. Thought technically, not so much evil as [[spoiler: suffering from a bad case of Brainwashed and Crazy, coupled with a Superpowered Evil Side.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL: Dr. Faker is solely motivated to save his youngest son Haruto from his sickness at all cost, which is why he accepted the deal with the Barians and is willing to destroy the Astral World for them. While he's doing all of this, he becomes more and more evil and crazier, so whenever he rambles about obtaining almighty power that would grant him his wishes, it's is very hard to believe that he's doing it for his son and not for selfish reasons because of how crazy he acts until The Reveal. The fact that he's acting like an evil maniac while dueling his oldest son Kaito doesn't help, so it's really surprising that his good intentions are true.
- The reason behind the entire final season of Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS. While more antagonistic than outright evil, Ai's love for Yusaku drives him to commit increasingly villainous acts all so he can force Yusaku to kill him before he has to watch Yusaku die because of him.
