Misplaced Retribution in Anime and Manga.
- Berserk: Griffith doesn’t take it well when Guts wins his freedom, so how does he cope? By doing a Sex for Solace with Princess Charlotte. Her father does NOT take this well and has him imprisoned and horrifically tortured in the lowest dungeon of his kingdom. But the King of Midland doesn’t stop there. He has Griffith’s army, The Band of the Hawk, declared traitors to the kingdom and commands them to be exterminated. Even though it was their leader, and their leader alone, who’s responsible for deflowering the crown princess. But The King of Midland only cares about satisfying his unadulterated fury against Griffith, so just being his associate makes it all justified for him. It’s even more messed up when Griffith guesses that The King of Midland himself has a repressed lust towards his own daughter, so he’s pissed that Griffith stole her virginity first. It’s proven later on when he tries to rape Charlotte.
- Daimos: King Leon's death had nothing to do with the humans, but the entire race was scapegoated for his demise thanks to Olban's manipulation. Even Leon begged Richter not to unleash his wrath on them, only for his son to ignore it and open fire on them instead. When Richter finds out that he's been massacring innocents all along, he is Driven to Suicide.
- Justified with the Kimura-Andou-Izayoi feud in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School. Kimura blames Andou for getting her expelled from Hope's Peak Academy. Andou and Izayoi, in turn, blame Kimura for their expulsions. As it turns out, Nagito Komaeda accidentally took a performance enhancing drug that Andou wanted and left her with the laxative he wanted. Naturally, when Andou spiked the candy she was making for a practical exam with the laxative, it ended up causing her proctors severe stomach pain. When Andou accused Kimura of setting her up, Kimura revealed a detonator for a bomb she had come into possession of when she accidentally swapped bags with the aforementioned Komaeda. Then a giant mutant puppy attacked, startling the two into detonating the bomb. The result of this was that Kimura and Andou looked like Mad Bombers, getting them kicked out. Izayoi's expulsion is a straight example of this trope; he was basically lumped in with them because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and happened to be Andou's boyfriend.
- The main villain of Doraemon: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey is an andromorphic cat named Nekojara who is descended from Zubu, a stray cat abandoned by his owners, who despises humans for abusing his own kind to the point of wanting to use a Time Machine to wipe out humans from even existing. Nevermind that it's another group of humans - Nobita and his friends - who saved Zubu and sent them back in time to an utopia, where they can live in their own paradise away from the human world, but Nekojara's desire for revenge made it impossible for him to judge both sides equally.
- In a Dragon Ball Z movie, Broly wanted to murder Goten for looking like Goku, the person Broly was originally looking for, and he attacks Trunks just for being in proximity.
- In Dragon Ball GT, Doctors Gero and Myuu plot to get revenge on Goku for their deaths...despite the fact that they both were killed by their own creations.
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Scar tries to kill the Elric brothers shortly after he's introduced. He is one of the few surviving members of a genocide perpetrated by the Amestrian government, and so has good reason to be angry, but he chooses to exact revenge for the deaths of his people by killing State Alchemists, and all State Alchemists, regardless of whether or not they were involved in the Ishvalan conflict. Ed and Al in particular were small children when the genocide took place and had absolutely nothing to do with it. He murdered Winry's parents, who saved his life as doctors, when it seemed like they were Amestrian scientists who were conducting experiments on Ishvalan survivors. Basque Grand, an early victim of his crusade, is revealed in a flashback to have vehemently opposed the genocide and even put Logue Lowe under his protection when escorting the Ishvalan elder in an attempt to save as many Ishvalans as they could. As a bonus, it turns out that the people responsible for the whole war were Father and Envy, who treat their Amestrian minions like fish food. Whoops.
- This is played with in Hetalia: Axis Powers. Canada is frequently the target of this because he looks almost identical to his brother America, though the countries that are pissed at America wouldn't harm Canada if they knew the difference. That he's very soft spoken means he rarely is able to stop the abuse or convince the other countries (rightfully angry at America) from beating up on him.
- In Juuni Senshi Bakuretsu Eto Ranger, it turns out that the main villain Nyanma's mistakenly thought that, during her past as Chocolat, Princess Aura had deliberately tricked her into getting herself disqualified from a race by appearing in a vision to her and asking her to start the race too soon. This lead to Nyanma seeking power from the evil cat spirit Bagi, and led to Nyanma trying to sink the entire country of Mugen in revenge. But Nyanma's retribution is misplaced; it was Bagi herself who sent that vision to Chocolat to trick Chocolat into getting herself disqualified, so Chocolat would have a reason to do Bagi's dirty work in attacking Mugen.
- Maria no Danzai: The day after Maria hacks Kowase's phone and blackmails him with a video of himself masturbating, Yashima runs away from him (whereas she normally freezes in fear), leaving Kowase to assume she's the one who hacked his phone. Later that night, Kowase tries to torture Yashima by drowning her, repeatedly asking her why his videos aren't on her phone and repeatedly being answered that Yashima doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
- In My-HiME, Nao, who has turned fully antagonistic after losing one of her eyes in a fight with Natsuki (which, unbeknownst to either, was the result of manipulation by Nao's alleged victim Yukariko), decides to seek revenge on everyone whom she blames for this. This, unfortunately, includes Mai, who tried to stop the fight between Nao and Natsuki, and Nao decides to take revenge on Mai by targeting Takumi instead. To a degree, this can also apply to Shiho's grudge against Mai (for which she kills Takumi by destroying Akira's Child), since it was Yuuichi's declaration of love for Mai that showed her that he was attracted to her, rather than anything Mai did, although it also falls under Murder the Hypotenuse in that Shiho wants Mai out of the way as long as she is a potential rival.
- Naruto:
- Naruto himself has been a victim of this from the day of his birth to the start of the series, since the Nine Tailed Demon Fox that destroyed the village 12 years ago is sealed within him. While the worst he got was adults angrily shooing him off or occasionally throwing stuff at him while some of the children would bully him, it still made for a lonely and utterly miserable childhood. For added irony, the children were deliberately kept in the dark about the Nine Tails being inside Naruto; they began to bully him anyway because the adults already treated him like dirt. And that it was the dying wish by the Fourth Hokage Naruto's father who sealed the Nine Tailed Fox into Naruto to have him be treated as a hero. The villagers slowly begin to grow out of it, however, as Naruto gets more and more people to acknowledge him; by the time of the Chunin exams, they cheer for him after he defeats Neji.
- To an extent, Neji beating Hinata within an inch of her life during the Chunin exams, as he blamed her and the Hyuga Main House for the death of his father Hizashi. Even before Neji knew the full circumstances, keep in mind that Hinata was only three years old at the time, and her only contribution to the events that lead to Hizashi's death was nearly getting kidnapped for her Byakugan.
- Sasuke Uchiha finds out his brother was ordered to kill his entire family to save his village from civil war and prevent a world war that would've killed thousands of innocents all over the continent. Only the three village elders even knew about that, but Sasuke decides every man, woman, and child in the village, including dozens of people who used to be his friends/family substitutes/mentors, have to die because they owe their lives to what was done to him. Though originally he, rather more reasonably, only wished to kill the three elders who had given the order in the first place. Unfortunately, he later lost most of his SAN points and decided that everyone who wasn't an Uchiha must have been in some way responsible for it and therefore needed to die.
- One Piece:
- Duval targets Sanji, who has never met him before, because the poorly drawn composite illustration on Sanji's wanted poster happens to look like him, resulting in Duval being attacked by Marines and bounty hunters who are looking for Sanji (interestingly enough, not over the crimes Duval actually committed).
- Because of a certain incident in Big Mom's childhood, all the giants of the world hate her guts, and are one of the three races that do not live in Totto Land. One day, however, Prince Loki of Elbaf fell in love at first sight with Lola, one of Big Mom's children. Big Mom saw an opportunity to bring the giants into the fold and arranged a political marriage between Loki and Lola that would cement an alliance between her and the giants of Elbaf, which would give her the military might to take out the rest of the Four Emperors, find the One Piece and become Pirate King. Lola wanted to Marry for Love, however, and ran away before the wedding in order to find true love on her own. Big Mom became desperate and switched Lola with her twin sister Chiffon, hoping that the giants wouldn't notice. Somehow they did, however, leading to the marriage being called off and their hatred for Big Mom burning even stronger than before. Big Mom became infuriated at this and took out her frustrations on Chiffon by physically beating her within an inch of her life. She would continue to beat her up over the years since looking at her reminded Big Mom of Lola. Chiffon, understandably, gets sick of the abuse and doesn't bat an eye when her husband, Capone Bege, independently makes plans to assassinate Big Mom, no longer acknowledging her as her mother.
- The moment Kin'emon realizes that Zoro is in possession of Shusui, a legendary sword that was once a national treasure of Wano Country before it was stolen, he immediately attacks Zoro and accuses him of stealing it while demanding that he return it, while an exasperated Zoro tries to explain that it was bequeathed to him. Not only was the sword stolen by Gecko Moria instead of Zoro, it was also stolen around 2 years before Zoro was even born. The only reason Zoro even has it is because it was relinquished to him by the animated corpse of Ryuma, the sword's original owner, after Zoro defeated him in Thriller Bark.
- Deconstructed in the Wano Country arc: over 8 decades ago, during a Succession Crisis, the patriarch of the Kurozumi Family tried to poison his fellow Daimyo in order to become the next Shogun. When the ruling Shogun actually bore an heir in the form of Kozuki Sukiyaki, however, the Kurozumi patriarch's plot was revealed, after which he was sentenced to commit seppuku for his crimes. While the Kurozumi Family fell from grace as a result, the commoners of Wano Country decided to take justice into their own hands by hunting down every other member of the family and enact justice for the former patriarch's crimes, regardless of their actual culpability. As a result, surviving members of the family came to resent Wano Country and its citizens for ruining their lives in spite of their innocence, which eventually culminated in Kurozumi Orochi scheming his way to supplanting the Kozuki Family as ruler of the country and becoming a despotic tyrant who lived for the sole purpose of making the citizens of Wano Country as miserable as possible. Kanjuro, another member of the Kurozumi Family whose parents were murdered in front of him, was eventually approached by Orochi to aid him in his schemes by having him become one of Kozuki Oden's retainers while he spied on the Kozuki Family, something which an equally vengeful Kanjuro was more than happy to do.
- Rosario + Vampire: Gyokuro Shuzen's motivation for everything she does, up to and including trying to wipe out humanity, is because she's pissed that her husband Issa paid more attention to his mistress, Akasha Bloodriver, than he did to her. While that is already Disproportionate Retribution, she chooses to specifically blame Akasha rather than Issa himself.
- A particularly bad example in the case of the anime-exclusive villain Valgaav from Slayers; he was subservient to Gaav, one of the world's five Dark Lords, and he goes on an all-out vendetta against Lina and her comrades for killing him. Problem? Another Dark Lord, Phibrizo, killed Gaav, whereas it took a massive effort for Lina and co. to stand against him. Of course, Lina and co. were used by Phibrizo to lure Gaav from hiding, and Phibrizo is already dead by the time of TRY. It just shows how obsessed Valgaav was with revenge, on top of his other vendettas.
- Before that in the first Slayers series was Eris, a devout follower of Rezo the Red Priest. She placed bounties on Lina, Gourry, and Zelgadis in order to capture them and kill them in revenge for killing Rezo. The problem? Rezo was killed by Shabranigdo when he gets resurrected through his own body, something Lina and company were trying to prevent. Despite knowing that, Eris still blames them for Rezo's death. Zelgadis even calls out that she has totally misplaced resentment.
- Zuuma from Revolution and Evolution-R is even worse. A group bandits abducted him and his wife at the order of one of his father's enemies. His wife was injured, and ended up dying in captivity before the ransom was paid. But before he could get his revenge and learn who hired them, they all got wiped out during an incident in Sairaag. Since Lina and co were involved in said incidents, he goes after her for keeping him from avenging his wife.
- In the Doma Arc from the Yu-Gi-Oh! second anime, Alister has a grudge against Seto Kaiba because his little brother died in a war where the weapons were provided by Gozaburo Kaiba, Seto's foster father. Not only was Seto hardly even involved in this (he didn't even know about it), but he actually hated Gozaburo for being an Abusive Parent, and one of the first things he did upon taking over Kaiba Corp was to stop building weapons to instead focus on card games. What's more, it's later revealed that the whole thing was actually an elaborate Frame-Up engineered by Dartz to recruit Alister. Overall, it makes Alister's hatred really misplaced.Abridged Alister: I still haven't forgiven you for being related to someone who was vaguely associated with the death of my brother, Kaiba! Let's duel!
