Times where the idea that You Can't Fight Fate comes up in Anime & Manga.
- In ½ Prince, a different kind of fate takes place when it comes to NPCs in Second Life. The game is programmed for things to happen, which is explored in a rather sad tale when Prince meets two NPCs on the Eastern Continent. Prince has to complete a quest by taking Kenshin the demon lord to see his game-programmed lover, but they find her grave. Even though the game was programmed for this to happen, because Kenshin developed a conscience it made it a very sad experience for him, because to Kenshin it was as if she really did exist and she'd waited for him until the end of her days.
- Attack on Titan: This hits present Eren particularly hard, to the point he crosses the Despair Event Horizon and falls straight into Villain Protagonist territory to fulfill what his future self has revealed to him while desperately hoping on some level there's another way, but finding none and thus doubling down on what he believes he needs to do. But in the end, his attempts to secure a better fate for his people end up becoming futile.
- The theme in Berserk, where the Big Bad seems to control fate, while Guts and the Skull Knight are people who "struggle against fate/causality." Guts' power to do this stems from surviving his fated time of death on the day he was born (as well as again during the living hell that was the Eclipse). It is very much implied that 'whatever' Griffith did before or even during the Eclipse, some factor will always happen to make him say yes. The recent events imply that even the 'struggling' is a part of a much greater plan by the Godhand, as Griffith (sorry, Femto) managed to usher a Hell on Earth as well as a Utopia.
- In Bokurano, it's next-to-impossible to even make a serious attempt to fight fate, given how it toys around with laws of physics you've never even heard of. And if you do somehow try to fight it, you'll only make things worse. All you can do is try to make the best of it.
- This is actually very prominent in CLAMP works. As the time witch Yuuko Ichihara herself's catchphrase goes "There is no such thing as a coincidence in this world, there is only the inevitable." It's to the point that everything that happened in one story will affect the others.
- In Date A Live, Origami Tobiichi's parents were killed five years prior by what was considered to be a Spirit, and at one point, after being turned into a Spirit herself, she traveled back in time with Kurumi's help to try and save them, only for it to be revealed that it was her own present self's actions that accidentally killed her parents. Later, after Shido goes back in time and manages to prevent the deaths of Origami's parents, Origami's past is considerably altered. However, it turns out that Origami's parents ended up dying anyway a year after in a traffic accident.
- Once your name is written in a Death Note, that's it. It can't be erased, tearing the page out won't change anything, even killing the Note's owner won't stop it. Once your name is written down, you will die, exactly when, where, and how it was written (provided it fits with the Death Note's rules).
- In Doctor Slump, the chapters where Obotchaman and Tori-Bot use Turbo's invention to visit Penguin Village a decade in the future serve this purpose.
- Obotchaman encounters Future!Taro, who works as a cop, on his way to the Norimaki household. Late in the story-line, Taro decides to become a cop after high school and succeeds in doing so.
- When Tori-Bot asks Future!Arale about Dr. Mashirito, she shows him by pointing at a spot on the ground where a bolt lies. That's precisely what becomes of Dr. Mashirito after the "Who's the Strongest in the World?" tournament, which commences shortly after Tori-Bot's Time Travel chapter takes place, ends.
- The characters who have been hitherto paired romantically, whether explicitly or implied, are shown in those chapters to have been Happily Married, with some of them having a baby each for good measure. In the present time, none of them have ever broken up.Tori-Bot: [thinking to himself] Haven't these rubes heard of "dating around"?
- Zig-zagged in one of the earliest chapters of Doraemon, where one of Doraemon's gadgets lets Nobita see that getting hit by a truck is in his future. Nobita understandably spends the entire chapter trying to avoid this, to little avail. But it turns out that fate is flexible enough to settle for a metaphorical version of this future, like Nobita getting punched by a trucker, or almost getting crushed by a car billboard, and it's implied that fate is satisfied when Nobita makes it to his original destination and gets beaned in the face by a little kid's toy car.
- Dragon Ball:
- Dragon Ball Z: Bardock - The Father of Goku: In spite of Bardock's visions of the future, the destruction of Vegeta was inevitable. Bright side, his vision about his son defeating Frieza was also inevitable as well!
- In fact, Frieza's attempt to stop the rise of a Super Saiyan (and unbeknownst to him, subvert Bardock's vision) ended up with him creating the means to his defeat. In Dragon Ball – Episode of Bardock, after his defeat by Frieza, Bardock gets sent to the past and finds himself in a conflict with Frieza's ancestor, Lord Chilled. It also turned out that the Legendary Super Saiyan was Bardock, meaning Frieza created the very legend that would eventually lead to his death.
- In Dragon Ball Z Gohan muses on whether the dark future Trunks comes from is inevitable, voicing his concerns to his father Goku by citing how the Androids were supposed to kill his friends and then one day kill Gohan himself. Goku notes that the future is far from set since his own death detailed in Trunks' timeline has been prevented thanks to the antidote which cured his heart virus. Though despite the future not being ruined by Androids some small echoes of the future do come true Goku dies sacrificing himself to stop Cell, and Cell cripples Gohan's left arm echoing the future Gohan who had his left arm blasted off in a battle with the androids. Fortunately, both are fixable in this timeline.
- The aliens whom Bardock and his fellow Saiyans slaughtered also saw a vision of their future demise. Despite their efforts, they also failed to change their fate. One of the last ones invoked the trope for Bardock by passing on the ability to see the future, just so Bardock would also have to suffer foreseeing his own end without being able to change it.
- Lots of things in Eureka Seven are predestined and many things happen for a reason. Its revealed that whoever makes Eureka smile is her destined partner - Holland refuses to acknowledge that he was The Unchosen One by Eureka and tried ways to gain back her attention and trust (involving beating up Renton), which ultimately backfired and nailed the coffin on his chance with Eureka during their quarrel in the second season finale. Renton and Eureka meeting each other and falling in love, as well as them being together ever after, is also proven by the events in both TV series and movie to be a destined thing. One good example is Eureka being always able to make a come back in some form in the ending and stay with Renton, one way or another (Tv, movie, manga). There's a dialogue said by Talho in the movie when Renton reunites with Eureka after 8 years: "A first-timer breaking through a net of monsters...Is this just a coincidence? Or is it the work of a mysterious power?"
- Flying House did this on Jesus' death. The three kids try to prevent it, but other actions prevent them from stopping it.
- Ghost Talker's Daydream: Misaki gets told this, while she's on vacation and meets Hiratsuka, who's a retired medium. She tells Misaki that even if she tried to quit being a necromancer, the spirits would still be drawn to her anyway because she's got the gift and she's their only hope of tying up any loose ends that're binding them to their world.
- According to Word of God, this seems to be the fate of the Gundam multiverse with ∀ Gundam, that the timelines will merge to create the Dark History and the Turn A will wipe it out with the Moonlight Butterfly. Just which universes will be affected is unknown as the series was created after After War Gundam X and that implied everything before then would be affected with Gundam: Reconguista in G, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn and Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative retroactively joining them due to being part of the Universal Century timeline, but the franchise continued afterwards with no official ideal as to the fates of the others.
- Henyoku No Labyrinth: Miyako travels back in time to prevent that her crush Hiroto falls in love with her sister but she fails to do so because he falls in love with her the first time they meet.
- Discussed in High School D×D. Ddraig tells Issei a rivalry with Vali is inevitable, since Issei possesses Boosted Gear (read: Ddraig himself) and Vali wields Divine Dividing, which houses Albion. When questioned, though, Ddraig admits this isn't certain, past generations have had one wielder die before meeting the other (Issei was asking because he narrowly avoided being an example); it's only extremely likely since wielders of such powerful Sacred Gears tend to make a lot of noise and attract each other, and the two dragons will encourage the rivalry, since they were sealed into their current forms mid-fight. Ultimately it's completely subverted when it becomes obvious that the once-Divine Conflict has boiled down to a centuries-old pissing match, and Albion and Ddraig eventually reconcile, removing the driving force of the rivalry.
- In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, fate is described as an unbreakable law of nature. Several people and Stands predicting the future are always correct, at least technically because Prophecy Twist still applies. Fate is so strong that a fated event may happen on its own even if time manipulation is used to remove its cause. However, the series presents it in a better light because: 1. the heroes' struggle still has a meaning as despite their destinies, they all make a conscious choice to fight evil at the risk of their lives; 2. sometimes, good is meant to triumph at the end. Further driving the point, the major villains of Parts 4-6, in reflection of this theme, all have abilities that allow them a measure of influence over fate, only to later suffer a Death by Irony.
- Phantom Blood: Will Zeppeli subverts this in that he's given more or less the exact circumstances of his death, but makes no move to avert it because his death will help achieve his ultimate goal. Instead, he demands to know the manner of his death so he can plan on how to live from then on.
- Battle Tendency: When Joseph asks why Lisa Lisa can't destroy the Red Stone of Aja so the Pillar Men can't use it, she replies that an ancient prophecy from the Hamon clan predicts that the Red Stone is integral to the defeat of the Pillar Men. This ends up being correct. Esidisi separating himself from the group to steal the Red Stone allows Joseph to defeat him. Also, without the Red Stone, Lisa Lisa wouldn't have been able to bargain a duel with Kars and Wamuu. Finally, while the Red Stone was used by Kars to become the ultimate life form, it's also thanks to the Red Stone that the Earth rejects Kars, dooming him to float through space for eternity.
- Stardust Crusaders: Boingo's Stand, Thoth, takes the form of a comic book that predicts the immediate future. These predictions are boasted by Boingo as being 100% absolute. While this is true, they are also highly prone to Prophecy Twists; especially if someone actively tries to avoid the predictions of the book. For example, when Boingo's brother Oingo is about to be caught planting a trap that Thoth has prophecised will blow up Jotaro, he uses his Stand to transform himself into Jotaro to escape detection and ends up being the one who is injured in the trap. However, one of Thoth's predictions shows Jotaro's face being split in half with "blood everywhere". While this doesn't happen immediately, 22 years later, Jotaro is killed by Enrico Pucci's Stand Made in Heaven. The scenario? His face is split in half.
- Diamond is Unbreakable: Yoshikage Kira's Killer Queen tertiary ability: Bites the Dust, uses this in combination with "Groundhog Day" Loop. It causes somebody to explode, rewinding time by one hour. When it gets to the point in time where Bites the Dust originally activated, fate sets in motion and the target dies again, as their fate of dying is set in stone even if nothing directly causes it. It's eventually turned against Kira himself by Hayato Kawajiri, the young boy he used as the host for Bites The Dust. Hayato was the only one aware of time being continually looped, allowing him to use his knowledge of the events to come to set the stage for Kira’s defeat.
- Golden Wind:
- Scolippi is all but built off of this. He believes that everybody is a "sleeping slave" of fate, in that everybody is at its mercy, but not everyone is aware of the consequences. His Stand, Rolling Stones, also puts the concept into motion, in that it seeks out anybody who's about to die in the oncoming future and chisels itself into a stone recreation of their scene of death. However, it also offers a Mercy Kill in that, if anyone decides to grab onto Rolling Stones, it will provide them with an instantaneous, yet painless death.
- Diavolo's Stand, King Crimson, seemingly Averts this: while his sub-Stand Epitaph shows him events set up to a few seconds in the future that are fated to happen, his main ability allows him to change the outcome of those predictions by erasing the time between the present and the predicted future from everyone but himself's perception and repositioning himself in advantageous spots. However, Word of God later confirmed in an explanation for the universal reset in Stone Ocean that any seeming change in fate is already set in stone and as such fated to happen. Diavolo can also weaponize this: if Epitaph's vision shows him doing a certain action, such as killing someone, skipping time will cause said event to happen on its own, as it was fated to happen. Diavolo is ultimately defeated by Gold Experience Requiem, who traps Diavolo in an infinite Resurrection/Death Loop of agonizing deaths, making it so not even the truth of Diavolo's own ultimate fate and final death will never be known to him.
- Stone Ocean:
- Two Stands, Bohemian Rhapsody and Under World, actually manage to turn this into a weapon. Ungalo's Bohemian Rhapsody fates people to re-enact stories that they have particular attachments to. This turns downright ugly, or even fatal, if the character they're most like met an unpleasant and/or deadly end. Donatello's Under World, meanwhile, fates people to live through an unearthed memory of their current location which he uses to trap the heroes in the memory of a crashing airplane. Under World is a little more flexible because Donatello's victims aren't necessarily incorporated into the memory like Bohemian Rhapsody incorporates victims into stories. This means it's possible to circumvent the bad portions of a memory, as long as you wouldn't keep the memory from repeating its original form.
- This is the main driving force behind Enrico Pucci's actions. After experiencing the loss of his sister due to a separated-at-birth incestuous misunderstanding between her and Pucci's brother, he plummeted into despair, and through the wisdom of DIO, Pucci believed that fate was a cruel mistress, and that for everybody to be truly happy, they should know their fate in full and come to accept it. Of course, given that humanity as a whole functions independently from each other, this comes across as a case of Utopia Justifies the Means. Ultimately, however, Pucci almost does come out victorious for a while, with everybody in the new universe created by Made in Heaven's time acceleration not being in control of their bodies, but knowing exactly what they're about to do ahead of time. Though, Pucci ends up becoming Hoist by His Own Petard, as this knowledge of fate allows Emporio, whom he failed to kill during his Total Party Kill, to kill Pucci through oxygen poisoning via borrowing Weather Report's Stand, declaring that fate ultimately favors the side of good.
- The anime adaptation drives the irony home even further. In it, Emporio points out that, for all his talk of accepting destiny, Pucci was the only one in the story who didn’t choose to do so. His enemies, by comparison, despite not knowing what the future held, stuck to their convictions and moved forward, leading to Pucci’s defeat. And the kicker? Pucci, due to dying before Made In Heaven could complete the time acceleration cycle, caused the universe to be completely reborn anew, causing humanity’s fate to be definitively changed.
- JoJolion: Toru describes his own Stand's power as a manifestation of a "flow", as everything exist in an endless sequence of cause-and-effect. In short, his power manipulates fate so that anyone who pursues Wonder of U or its user is fated to be met with Calamity, and there is nothing that can be done to fight the negative repurcussions of such Calamities. Only things that exist outside the chain of causality appear to be able to override Wonder of U's vice grip on destiny.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), multiple characters point out to Link that he's the chosen hero despite his denials, so he can't even attempt a Refusal of the Call. After almost dying against Dark Link, he requires a pep talk from the Hero's Shade on his destiny.
- In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, this is embodied in the sympathetic Dark Magical Girl who is actually named "Fate". She feels that she has no choice in her life and in her actions, and thus no hope. Ironically, this is her power at first, as her ruthlessness (as there are no other options to her) gives her the edge. The Heroine contemplates a few times on how she, on the other hand, chose to be a Magical Girl, because it's something she wants to be. (Rather rare; most Magical Girls are that way Because Destiny Says So.) Thus, Fate and Nanoha's battle in the first season is symbolic of Fate vs. Free Will.
- In Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, Lucia Nanami is prophesied to go through great hardship, so she is raised as a civilian. It happens anyway, but it could be argued that because she didn't know she was a princess, she met Kaito, gave away her pearl, and caused everything to happen that gave her True Companions to get through it. The anime, however, has all this happen while she does know.
- Teeki of Muhyo and Roji makes a Hannibal Lecture on this point after Julio immobilizes the heroes, claiming that Enchu, who had worked hard to try to catch up with Muhyo and become an Executor to support his mother, is a prime example of how people cannot change their destiny by their own efforts. Roji, however, responds that Enchu merely couldn't deal with his grief, before breaking Julio's curse.
- Mirai Sasaki, aka Sir Nighteye from My Hero Academia has a Quirk that allows him to see the future of a person and his predictions always come to pass no matter what he does to change them. As a result, he absolutely refuses to use his Quirk on anybody until he's fully certain of success because he believes that if he sees the death of someone, they will irrevocably die. That is, until Izuku Midoriya manages to alter one of his predictions, defeating the villain and ensuring the success of the mission, when Nighteye previously foresaw they would be killed and the villain would get away.
- My Monster Secret has several time-traveling characters join the cast, coming from a Bad Future that's partly comical (the future is overrun by perverted women with masochistic male followers while La Résistance tries to restore some modicum of decency and modesty) and partly legitimately tragic (most of the cast didn't get their happy endings, becoming depressed and lonely adults). They tell the present-day characters that nobody who's time traveled has ever successfully managed to change the past...but this only serves as motivation for them to try even harder. It turns out that while time travelers can't change the past, the present-day characters are absolutely in control of their future, and the characters manage to earn their happy endings by learning from their experiences and making better choices.
- Neji Hyuuga in Naruto used to be a firm believer in this, until Naruto shows him that Defeat Means Friendship. While he ultimately was right about everyone sharing the fate of death, he ends up dying for Hinata's sake on his own terms.
- Naruto would later discover that he was one of the reincarnations of one of the sons of the Sage of Six Paths, destined to forever fight his brother throughout every reincarnation, he ultimately subverted this fate by making peace with his current incarnation, Sasuke.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Asuna Kagurazaka in the first anime's alternate story was doomed to die on her 15th birthday due to a Deal with the Devil so the demons would stop following her and bringing destruction wherever she went. The series' lead's Disappeared Dad attempted to save her and was promptly crushed under a bridge. She has to die and comes back in time to break the deal. And not before Negi has a Heroic BSoD upon seeing her death.
- In episode 26 of Psychic Squad, an Esper dolphin whose visions have always been 100% accurate is introduced. He has two particularly dire predictions: the first being his death by several gunshots; and the second one, where a war erupts between Normals and Espers, and a grown Kaoru has become the Queen of Catastrophe leading the Espers. Minamoto ends up gunning her down. Needless to say, Minamoto is determined to Screw Destiny. He actually manages to subvert the first vision; his interference causes the dolphin to die from only ONE bullet, proving that just maybe the visions aren't infallible.
- It's not even sure if the dolphin is really dead - he swims away and is never seen again.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica has a rule that karma cannot be averted; Homura can Time Travel all she wants but it won't prevent certain characters from dying, becoming Witches, or becoming Puella Magi in the first place. There's no rule against changing the rules, though.
- In the Laplace's Demon arc of Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Sakuta gets caught in a "Groundhog Day" Loop with a girl who has a crush on him, Tomoe Koga. Koga is "rolling the dice" to try to find an iteration of a month of July where Sakuta falls for her, but he's already in love with Mai. He finally gets her to give it up and accept that she's just going to have to deal with the angst of an unrequited crush for a while, and the loop ends.
- In Rave Master, if your a guy whose last name is Raregroove you are destined to be a good person who suffers a horrible tragedy that causes you to turn evil and try to destroy the world. If you're a guy whose last name is Glory you are destined to stop whichever Raregroove guy from the same generation as you (who always shares your birthday, apparently). Gale and King don't believe this since they're best buddies. How could they possibly fight against one another when they're trying to save the world together? ...Until Gale accidentally gets King's wife and kid killed when the later thinks they need to dirty there hands to accomplish their goal. They later try to put an end to this when King kills himself and Gale sacrifices himself to save Haru, but it turns out King's kid wasn't dead after all, so the cycle repeats.
- Interestingly enough, all of this was caused by a woman who screwed destiny in first place to save the human race.
- Played with in Sonic X with the character Cosmo, whose actual destiny (i.e. turn into a tree, die, save the universe, in that order), is not revealed until the final two episodes of the series where the spirit of her mother reveals to her that the stone she wears around her neck, similar to that worn by all species is in fact a Magical Amulet which, when activated, will accelerate her growth into maturity, allowing her to become a tree, attach herself to the Big Bad and weaken it to the point at which it can be destroyed. Because she had spent most of the series struggling with survivor's guilt, abject terror, and low self esteem, Cosmo saw this sudden revelation of her destiny as her redemption - she no longer felt that she had to stand by and watch their enemies destroy everything; she has a purpose at last. As such, she follows her newfound destiny willingly.
- Almost in place (and maliciously so) in Steins;Gate. Every world line has Attractor Fields which will prevent anyone from changing established pasts, especially the timing of deaths, which is why Okabe keeps failing to save Mayuri in the Alpha world line and Kurisu in the Beta world line. However, changes to the events surrounding the development of time travel itself can alter the path of history into another world line. Additionally, Tricked Out Time allows Okabe and Suzuha to alter events and enter the Steins;Gate world line by only changing what wasn't witnessed.
- Returns in the "sequel" Steins;Gate 0 only this time Okabe actually figures out how to exploit it in his own favor. While he's running for the Time Leap Machine in the year 2025, his friends act as decoys to interfere with the enemy tracking them down, banking on the fact that he saw them alive up to the year 2036 to keep them alive. Much later, the heroes are trying to send Mayuri and Suzuha back in time to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, but unfortunately, a missile is destined to be launched at them to prevent them from changing the future. Okabe manages to alter events enough that the time machine leaves just before the missile destroys it, and to make sure it sticks, he observes the event to make sure the Attractor Fields prevent it from being changed.
- Superbook:
- Because some of the stories Chris and Joy visit have bad endings, they often try to prevent them, but because how the stories have to end that way, there would be some obstacles. The first episode has the kids trying to prevent both Adam and Eve from eating the forbidden fruit from the serpent. That unfortunately cannot change as the serpent blocks the kids from getting near them.
- The only exception was in Jesus' birth, where two of the guards are planning to kill the newborn king, but Chris prevents them.
- Takopi's Original Sin: While Takopi was able to help Shizuka get through a week of school, he's not able to stop Marina from spotting Shizuka walking Chappy, getting bitten, and Chappy's getting sent away.
- Undead Unluck: Negators are fated to get their powers even if circumstances surrounding their past changes. Fuuko even was willing to prevent Billy from becoming Unfair if it meant averting his betrayal, but he still became a negator regardless. However, there are factors that can change concerning their abilities and activation requirements from their original counterparts, such as Sean's ability being able to render other people invisible and Billy's activation requirement for Unfair completely changing due to Fuuko's interference.
- X/1999's main theme is that the future has already been decided and it can't be changed. Every time a dreamgazer looks at the future, they see the destruction of the world and the extinction of mankind. This did not end up coming true in the anime, and it remains to be seen if it will in the manga (if they ever finish it).
- Not every time. Kotori's last words to her fellow dreamseer Kakyou explicitly said that "the future is still undecided", which in the anime turned out to be true via Kamui taking a third option and going through a Heroic Sacrifice. The manga, eh, is something else.
- Sartorius (Takuma Saiou) was always talking about this in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX when he was the Big Bad. Aster (Edo) Phoenix did a bit, too, although this is more in the dub (where his catchphrase is "You can't fight destiny").
- The original series, at least in the dub, had a lot of this with talk about things being fated to happen, the character named Ishizu Ishstar was the main instigator of this. Being the keeper of the millennium necklace, which grants her the power to see the future, she would accurately prophesize the great battle between good and evil, and would warn the main cast of the terrible things to come. She was also the one to reveal to Yugi and his friends of his ancient past and his greater destiny, she attempted to do the same with seto kaiba but kaiba practically mocks her every single time and always screwed destiny. Even after she gives away her necklace, Ishizu continues to prophesize the coming battle, so, so much, its like her most common dialogue. The 2nd season Yu-Gi-Oh! GX went with Screw Destiny with Jaden (Judai) having the power to defy fate. Somewhat similar deal with talk between Goodwin and Yusei in 5Ds.
- Judai's rival in the second series Edo Phoenix was a moderate example. At first, he believed Saiou's predictions and that this Trope was true (mostly because they turned out in his favor) but once Judai started to defy those predictions, he started to have his doubts, until finally deciding that if Fate existed at all, it was not written in stone. (Curiously, Edo's Destiny Hero monsters have effects that suggest altering time and destiny for the player's benefit, so it seems odd that Edo ever believed that the future could not be changed.
- This situation came up in Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL too. it was revealed that both Shark and Rio were two of the Seven Barian Emperors in their past lives, and one of the current Emperors, Durbe, tryed to convince Shark that this Trope applied to them. Shark and Rio eventually did switch sides and join the Barians, but not for the reason Durbe wanted; they felt that, as rulers, they were responsible for the welfare of their people. In the end, Shark and most of the other Barians stood with the heroes against the Don Thousand, the true Big Bad, ending the crisis and proving that in this case, surrendering to Fate is not always a bad thing.
