Last Stand / Anime & Manga

• Space Runaway Ideon: Be Invoked. The final battle between the crew of the Solo Ship and the Buff Clan turns into an absolute no-win scenario.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: The climax of End Of Evangelion sees NERV make a last stand against the rest of the world. Everyone dies, Asuka gets killed off as fighting the MP-Evas to the death, and the end of the world happens.
• Saito from The Familiar of Zero faces an army of 70,000 men, eventually dying but he managed to hold them off for four entire days in order to allow the rest of Tristain's army to evacuate. He gets better, though. Later, he comments that it was easier to face an army of 70,000 men than a pissed-off Louise.
• The last few episodes of both seasons of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. The first by a Narc Hit squad, of all things, and the second by a proper False Flag operating military-industrial complex JSDF. Eventually subverted in the first one, as Section 9 retreats and is later captured.
• Reborn! (2004) is somewhat like this... After the Choice Battle which Vongola lost, they fly straight back to Namimori only to battle Byakuran and the Funeral Wreaths for the final time. And they managed to destroy all seven bad guys!!!
• Towards the end of Transformers: Cybertron, Scourge returns to Jungle Planet, hoping to save it from the Unicron Singularity. Seeing no way to prevent his world's destruction, he rallies the other inhabitants to the temple with the full intention of making a last stand. Subverted when Leobreaker and Primus manage to save the lot of them anyway.
• In Kakurenbo, this is how the Creepy Twins choose to go down after being cornered by the demons.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Homura versus The Walpurgis Night. The darned thing won't go down even though Homura unleashed the arsenal of JSDF at her/it/them. And that was not the first time it happened to Homura.
• There are two last stands in Highschool of the Dead (at least, in the anime—possibly others in the manga). The first was when the gang was cornered at a wire barricade. They slaughtered dozens of zombies, but more kept coming, but just as things approached the end they were rescued by the timely arrival of a group of people with firefighter equipment. The second time happened at Saya's parents' estate. The zombies broke through the gate and flooded the compound, leaving Saya's parents and their guards to try to hold off Them long enough for the civilians to escape. Their fate was left unknown, but it didn't look good.
• GoShogun: The Time Étranger has an interesting version: the heroine, Remy Shimada, alone fights a giant surrealistic beast that represents Death itself. She's exhausted, she has hurt her wrist due to excessive shooting her heavy revolver (Truth in Television, as 44. Magnum is likely to cause it) and has one last bullet left. Remy gets up, stands with her back to a stone cross, ties the revolver to her hand to not drop it, and takes her last shot. She wins.
• In the Digimon movie X-Evolution, a number of Digimon, including WarGreymon X, MetalGarurumon X and Dukemon X battle a never-ending swarm of Death-X-DORUguremon even as the Digital World falls apart.
• From Naruto, we get one as part of the Third Raikage's backstory. He held off an army of enemy ninja, 10,000 strong to cover his comrades retreat. He fought for three days and nights before he finally succumbed to chakra exhaustion. Note, it's only possible he died of exhaustion instead of any injury, considering he could No-Sell a fricking Futon: Rasenshuriken.
• Hilshire and Triela in Gunslinger Girl. During the climactic confrontation, Triela is crippled by enemy fire and unable to fight with the rest of the SWA, so she stays behind to mop up anyone trying a rear assault. Hilshire goes back for her when he realizes what's happened. Their bullet-riddled corpses are shown later.
• Around two-thirds through the series in Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Alexandre Bewcock led the Free Planets Star Fleet on a last stand against the Galactic Empire in the Battle of Mar-Adetta. He lost eventually, but not without inflicting considerable damage on the Imperial forces.
• Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer is also a proper example, particularly the last half: 12 fleets of the Earth Sphere Federation's Space force, an old spacecraft meant for deep space travel (outfitted with a Wave-Motion Gun), and another Spaceship belonging to the paramilitary organization which fought against them before... against God-Knows-How-Many alien shapeshifters. Lots of From Bad to Worse moments, until a Messianic Archetype of the series arrived in his new Gundam... Just to initiate the final phase of the organization's founder's larger plan - the dialogues to come. In the end, the humans had a somewhat narrow victory, after having more than 70% of the fleet "assimilated".
• Long before 00, there was "Big Zam's Last Stand" in Mobile Suit Gundam. Zeon was on the verge of losing the asteroid base Solomon and, in a last-ditch effort to buy the soldiers time to escape, Dozle Zabi hops into the massive Mobile Armor Big Zam and launches into combat. It takes a Heroic Sacrifice from Sleggar Law to allow Amuro in to take out the Big Zam and even then Dozle refuses to surrender, hopping out of the Big Zam and shooting at the Gundam with a machine gun in utter defiance before the Mobile Armor finally explodes.
• And in another Gundam example, it also happens at the end of Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans. After being hit with an orbital Dainsleif barrage, Mikazuki and Akihiro resolve to follow the orders that Orga gave them to their dying breath, taking out huge swathes of Gjallarhorn forces before finally succumbing to their wounds and perishing. This is in spite of the fact that the Gundam Gusion Rebake Full City and Gundam Barbatos Lupus Rex were completely wrecked at this point. In particular, Akihiro manages to kill Iok right before he dies.
• Happens a few times in The Ambition of Oda Nobuna:
  • The first is in episode 3 when Yoshiharu attempts to rescue Saitou Dosan, who is fighting his son, Saitou Yoshitatsu, after being betrayed due to the son refusing to accept Nobuna as the rightful heir. He was prepared to die until Yoshiharu convinces him to live for Nobuna's sake.
  • The second time occurs during episode 6 when Yoshitatu's forces attack the hastily built fort Yoshiharu built. Nobuna arrives to see it burning to the ground and believing she didn't make it in time. Until she saw him waving the gourd she gave him earlier.
  • The third instance occurs during episode 11. Yoshiharu volunteers to stay behind with a small force to buy Nobuna time to escape a trap set up by the Asai/Asakura forces. As expected of a larger force attacking a much smaller one, it doesn't go too well for him, and nearly every single man who stayed behind with him ends up dying, but he does succeed in his objective and manages to take out quite a few of the enemy thanks to utilizing concentrated musket firing. ^note where a row of soldiers fired, then another row fires while the first is reloading. This allowed a higher rate of fire, rather than having everyone fire at once, then have to reload, which gave the enemy time to attack..
• Attack on Titan is all about this trope. When the last remnant of humanity is locked within walled settlements and Titans clawing at their gates trying to eat them, the Survey Corps, the branch of the military devoted to reclaiming lost territory, is a firm believer in this.
  Mike: We will have lost only the moment humans give up fighting.
• The Tournament of Power arc of Dragon Ball Super has a lot of this, with the last fighters of defeated universes giving it their all trying to prevent the end of their universes. Among the stands include (in order):
  • The Trio of Danger of Universe 9 against Goku and Vegeta.
  • Obni and Rubalt of Universe 10 against Gohan and Piccolo.
  • Zirloin, Zarbuto, and Rabanra of Universe 2 against Goku and the Androids.
  • Saonel and Pilina of Universe 6 against Gohan and Piccolo.
  • Damom of Universe 4 against Goku and Android 17.
  • Agnilasa of Universe 3 against the remaining members of Team Universe 7—which consists of Goku, Vegeta, Frieza, Gohan, and the Androids.
  • And, of course, Jiren of Universe 11 against the remaining members of Team Universe 7—which consists of Goku, Vegeta, Frieza and Android 17. That quickly turns in the remaining members of Team Universe 7 against him. It ends with 17 as the last warrior standing.
    • And of course, the last stands inside the one above: after remaining temporarily alone and too tired to even go Super Saiyan, Vegeta throws everything he has left at Jiren in the desperate attempt to break his arm or at least tire him a bit, enduring a terrifying beating until he's finally knocked off the stage and sending Goku the last of his energy before being eliminated; after Goku masters Ultra Instinct, Jiren fights a desperate battle and suffers the beating of his life, barely resisting enough for the strain from Mastered Ultra Instinct to take Goku's out; after that, a heavily worn down Jiren and the equally worn down Frieza, Goku and 17 fight a desperate battle, that ends with Goku and Frieza dragging Jiren out of the ring knowing that if they failed Android 17 still had his infinite energy and would have a better chance against an even more worn down Jiren.
• One Piece Film: Z ends with Z, after having battled Luffy to technically a draw, both of them and their crews are beset by the Marines sent to eliminate both of them. Z, having finally gotten over his overzealous nature, feels he has to own up for his actions and goes to fight them to give the Straw Hats and his subordinates time to escape. Aokiji separates him from the others with his ice powers and he proceeds to go to town on the Marines as "one last lesson" ^note Though this is clearly not a happy moment for the Marines either since Z had trained many of them and they thought of them like a father. One of the Vice-Admirals, Doberman, even sheds a tear as he watches the fight. We never see Z go down, just his busted-up arm canon he had used earlier as a makeshift cross for his grave. However, it is heavily implied he didn't go down easy.
• Rebuild World:
  • Akira has a few moments of these when he proves he's a Cornered Rattlesnake despite being a self-proclaimed coward, pulling out victory due to sheer determination (continuing to fire while Eaten Alive), and a Flaw Exploitation Batman Gambit that's Crazy Enough to Work (spinning his guns through the air to shoot everyone in the room, including himself, to create an opening to kill Katsuya), respectively.
  • Babalodo and Revin, both being under Indentured Servitude due to their debts, figure that they will face A Fate Worse Than Death if they retreat during The Siege of Sheryl's base, and so make a Do Not Go Gentle declaration before making one of these going up against higher level hunters. This results in Revin having a Hope Spot crawling out of the rubble being happy to be alive, only to realize the equipment he's wearing is trashed, meaning his debts will have to increase.