A stock reason given in the opening/narration of a show. This is why the good guys in some shows (particularly Anime, Kaiju, and Toku) fight against evil. It's for justice, righteousness, principles and values that depend more on what people deserve than on what they enjoy, or some other term that seems like a good reason to launch all your fighters or Humongous Mecha and beat the stuffings out of rubber suit monsters. Justice especially seems to apply to anything in relation to these series.
This seems like Concepts Are Cheap, but these shows can have fully developed plots. This is just mainly applied to the trailers, narration, and theme songs. Then again, most of the audience is here to watch giant monsters and robots fight, so why worry about deep motives?
This trope has become somewhat anachronistic since the 1990s, with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arguably being one of the last pure examples of it. Most heroes nowadays tend to have more complex motivations than simple, unblemished goodness or altruism, and some aren't necessarily that much more morally desirable than the villains they fight.
Compare For Science!, Captain Geographic, Captain Patriotic, Captain Space, Defender of Earth!, For Happiness.
The Evil Counterpart is For the Evulz.
Do NOT confuse with Justice Will Prevail, a more complicated topic to say the least.
This is Older Than Print, with early examples going all the way back to Ðe Faðer of Engelish Lytterature hymselfe, Geoffrey Chaucer.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
The lyrics to the opening of Go Lion, as well as dialog in its American localization, Voltron.
The World Government Marines in One Piece have a bit of a thing for justice. Aside from having the characters for justice printed on captain-rank officer's coats, several prominent personnel tend to have their own take on the concept; Admiral Aokiji has "Lazy Justice," Admiral Akainu has "Absolute Justice,"Rob Lucci has "Dark Justice," etc.
It is even discussed during the Whitebeard War arc when one man laughed when Marines were crying out they were fighting for "Justice." The man pointed out how history will be written by the winner and if the Marines win, it will be a just win and if the pirates win, it woo will be just.
Invoked by the less-dead-than-advertised Maria Ross in her stirring radio address during the Promised Day, in Fullmetal Alchemist. She lampshades it when speaking to Breda afterward. "Everyone cares about justice. So I used it."
Superman is actually a subversion of this though. He's mainly concerned with For Happiness, spending most of his time doing random acts of kindness like stopping floods, chasing off supervillains, and plucking kittens out of trees. He doesn't much care what supervillains do as long as they're not hurting anyone (or being Lex Luthor). Writers have him bandy the term "justice" around a lot, but crimefighters like Batman and The Flash are a lot more focused on criminal justice than Superman is.
It would be more accurate to say that Superman maintains a balance between For Great Justice and For Happiness, for the most part. Over the years, Superman's motivations to do good have changed. In some stories, he wants people to be happy. In others, he wants to bring evildoers to justice. It's all Depending on the Writer.
In PS238, an elementary school for the children of superheroes (and villains), some of the superkids have picked up an odd habit:
Kid #1:"To the cafeteria!"
Rest of the class: "FOR JUSTICE!"
The much criticized Justice League: Cry for Justice has a lot of the characters saying that they "Want Justice!" despite the fact that they are really just out for revenge.
While the X-Men have a somewhat more original concept, and had some of the first antivillains in American comics, the promos for the cartoons would talk about using mutant powers "for the benefit of mankind."
Judge Dredd. While he can often come across as an uncompromising jerk, people too often forget that the Judge really does embody the Lawful half of Lawful Neutral, and his primary motivation in doing so, is his conviction that his society will not survive without it.
Film
In Star Wars, Obi-Wan described the Jedi as "the guardians of peace and justice". Of course, he was talking to a young-for-his-age twenty-ish rube with stars in his eyes.
Literature
This is the driving force behind the Knights of the Cross in The Dresden Files. No matter what their background, the Knights are driven by the sole purpose of righting wrongs, fighting evil, and protecting the innocent. In a setting that at best runs on Grey and Gray Morality, they are unquestionably the Good Guys.
Shifts a little later when it's revealed that they're Heaven's mortal players in preserving free will by redeeming the hosts of the Denarians at swordpoint. Any other good they do is more a result of judicious recruitment than being in the job description.
Harry fights bullies. It takes him a little while to figure it out - but in the flashback to his formative duel with He Who Walks Behind, it's violence against the helpless that he wont run from.
It.
Wasn't.
Right.
No, it wasn't. But the world wasn't a fair place, was it? And I had more reason to know it than most people twice my age. The world wasn't nice, and it wasn't fair. People who didn't deserve it suffered and died every single day.
So what? So somebody ought to do something about it.
Murphy upholds the law. She's not a terribly devout Christian, but she has Faith in the law, and it's enough to give her a standing job offer among the Knights of the Cross.
Tom Joad's famous speech at the end of The Grapes Of Wrath. "Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there..."
Angel. "We live as though the world is as it should be, in order to show it what it can be." Angel initially thinks that he does what he does, in order to gain redemption and avoid going to Hell; but he eventually realizes that he helps people simply because doing the right thing is an inherent part of his identity.
Angel's evil alter-ego, Angelus, made light of this trope several years earlier on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Spike, hilariously, when he discovers his chip only prevents him from hurting humans. Demons are fair game.
Spike: What’s this? Sitting around watching the telly while there’s evil still afoot. That’s not very industrious of you. I say we go out there (Rubs his hands together) and kick a little demon ass! What, can’t go without your Buffy, is that it? Too chicken? Let’s find her! She is the Chosen One after all. – Come on! Vampires! Grrr! Nasty! Let’s annihilate them. For justice - and for - the safety of puppies – and Christmas, right? Let’s fight that evil! - Let’s kill something!
Odo in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was motivated by what he described as an inborn need for justice. Law was a secondary thing. He used to theorize that a need for justice may have been an inborn trait of his unknown species...too bad it turned out not to be the case.
Their natural tendency is only to enforce order and obedience. While Odo justifies the need for both with Justice (no pun intended), the rest of the species is only interested in domination (ostensibly to protect themselves from ever being victims again). Odo's experience working as chief of security under the Cardassians, witnessing the atrocities and the oppression of the innocent Bajorans, is implied to have taught him the value of Justice over pure order. He still takes the Lawful part of Lawful Good very seriously though (so long as the Law in question is itself "Good", like when he allowed several Cardassian dissidents to escape because their crimes did not warrant the death penalty they would have received otherwise).
"The Earth calls out! The Heavens call out! The People call out! They are calling on me to defeat evil! Listen well, evildoers! I am the warrior for justice...Kamen Rider STRONGER!"
Professional Wrestling
"Real American", Hulk Hogan's iconic WWE entrance theme:
I am a real American Fight for the rights of every man I am a real American Fight for what's right Fight for your life!
As do the Tau Empire in Warhammer 40000, with their ubiquitous catchphrase, "For the Greater Good!" This has the effect of making newcomers to the series believe and latch onto the idea that the Tau are the "Good Guys", prompting others to mock them with the phrase "Good for the Good God!"
The Tau were this in their original incarnation. At first, the Tau were a Mary Suetopia whose White morality clashed terribly with the setting's charcoal-grey-on-black-on-event-horizon-of-a-black-hole morality. Fan reaction was fairly negative. The Tau got a bit of character development and started doing things that would make them Scary Dogmatic Aliens in most settings, but by 40k's absurd Stealth Parody standards, the Tau are downright nice guys. The Tau may not be in it For Great Justice, but they're amongst the least evil. By now, the Tau have been accepted by most of the fandom. However, the fanbase is so broken and vocal that everything is hated by a good chunk of the fanbase.
In Mega Man Powered Up, a remake of the original Mega Man game, this is Fire Man's personality quirk, as he perceives himself as a Hot Blooded robot hero of justice. He constantly veers into nonsensical non-sequiturs about fire, justice, vanquishing evil, and sometimes all three at once.
In Mega Man Battle Network 6, the Joke program causes MegaMan.EXE to lampshade this line during a joke. When that fails, he tries to one-up it into "For Greater Justice?" Lan is not amused.
Probably the most common character trait found in hero profiles in JRPGs. It isn't unusual to find an entire team of characters with no similarities apart from having "a strong sense of justice."
Although in Tales Of Symphonia and its sequel it's subverted somewhat, in that Lloyd realizes it's a Meaningless Meaningful Word and doesn't resort to just calling it out as a motivator (and gets pissed if someone else does, particularly when used by Well Intentioned Extremists like the Big Bad for both games).
And completely inverted in Star Ocean Till The End Of Time, when the in the gap between the penultimate and ultimate battle, the Big BadLuther's world comes crashing around him and he goes rather mad. In a rather Narmy fashion, he screeches at the party that "RIGHTEOUSNESS SHALL PREVAIL!" before attacking.
Death Spank is a self-described Dispenser of Justice.
Tsubaki gets in on this in BlazBlue. She's a fan of historical dramas, and in the "Help Me, Professor Kokonoe!" segements, it's shown that it's the source for her battle quotes.
Her achievement/trophy is actually named after this trope.
Forms one of the major themes in Tales Of Vesperia in which two of the main characters are primarily motivated by ideals of justice but have very different ways of going about doing it, and both run into problems when they take their respective viewpoints too far. Per the trope's "playing with" examples, Yuri toes the line between subversion and double-subversion of this trope (and narrowly avoids Slowly Slipping Into Evil), while Flynn borders Deconstruction and ends up in Reconstruction territory by the end. The game's charateristic genre name is to enforce "justice" (yes, with the word placed in quote marks) playing this trope completely straight while at the same time highlighting that it is a difficult concept to define.
Vesperia's successor, Tales Of Graces also features a much more minor, less serious version of this. In the childhood arc, Asbel will go into battle shouting "I fight for justice!" for no readily apparent reason. This is probably to highlight that he's still too young and immature to know what he's fighting for at all, and is just saying this because it sounds cool.
In Valis III, whenever Yuko is asked what her aims are, says she's fighting for justice.
Linkara's review of Justice League: Cry For Justice issues 3 and 4 has him beginning the review with the inevitable joke of, "So, let's review issues 3 and 4 of Justice League: Cry For Justice. For Great Justice."
"No Justice, No Peace" an old rally cry against unfair trials etc.
Tomonobu Itakagi, formerly of Tecmo (and Dead or Alive fame) used these words almost exactly in a lawsuit against the suits he used to work for.
This is the basis of the ethical theories grouped under Deontology.
Many national mottos (official or otherwise) follow a formula that combines shades of "For Great Justice" with Rule of Three. While many of these mottos seem quite vague, they are often popular rallying cries amongst the people, as well as being the basis for the outlook that country usually has on how the society should be run (usually reflected in its laws).
The highly unofficial United States motto "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" is probably the most famous example in the English-speaking world.note The official United States motto is "In God We Trust", adopted in The Fifties to show the atheist Dirty Commies that America still believes. An unofficial-official motto—dating back to the Revolution and used on the Great Seal and on virtually all US currency—is E pluribus unum, "Out of many, one"; this originally referred to a single union out of many states, but it has also gained connotations of the formation of a single American people out of immigrants from around the world. Almost directly derived from the works of John Locke (having "pursuit of happiness" stand in for the rather crasser-sounding "property" of Locke's original), it reflects America's "rugged individualism", particularly its rigid stance on individual rights and more laissez-faire attitude towards economics.
The Constitution is a bit more verbose: "... to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty ..."
A close second in English-speaking countries and probably more famous over all is France's "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity). French democracy places a great deal of emphasis on social equality and solidarity, which often together trump the idea of personal freedom; the French have never forgotten the indignities of the ancien régime. This is how France justifies many policies which Americans (and, truth be told, Britons) would find repulsive, such as banning religious clothing and symbols in public places or the heavily-regulated and state-directed French economy.
In some parts of the British Empire (notably, the colonies that became the Commonwealth Realms), the motto "Peace, Welfare, and Good Government" (with "Welfare" referring to the general "Greater Good" rather than to it's modern, narrower meaning) was popular amongst the political class of the day, typically being in the long titles or preambles of the various Acts of Parliament creating responsible governments in the colonies/dominions.
It eventually morphed into Canada's current unofficial motto "Peace, Order, and Good Government", or POGG (as Canadian wags are liable to call it).note The official moto is A mare usque ad mare, meaning "From sea to sea". This is often used in contradistinction to its southern neighbor, emphasizing Canadian deference to law, legitimate authority, and tradition, and Canada's generally more socially-oriented mindset (even in ultraconservative Alberta, universal public healthcare is seen as an unquestioned if problematic good).
Germany has "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit" (Unity and Justice and Liberty). Modern Germany, as one might recall, had a very hard time in getting to where it is now. Its legal system is noted for trying to strike a balance between the extremes of France and Britain in substance (in format, it's all French) and is very concerned with ensuring that the rule of law is applied consistently and fairly.
