Save The Villain / Anime & Manga

• At the end of volume 22 of A Certain Magical Index, Touma puts Fiamma of the Right into the last working escape pod on the falling Star of Bethlehem. This is a 50 km structure very high into the atmosphere that lost more of its floatation power. Though partially justified since Touma wanted to stay behind and make sure it didn't crash on land, since that would have caused immense damage.
  • Touma in general has a habit of doing this more often than not: he will punch someone's lights out for doing bad things, then turn right around and offer to help them with whatever problem was motivating their villainy. Accelerator believes this is what makes Touma truly heroic: he saves everyone in a situation, not just the victims. Queen Elizard after Touma decides to save the Magic God Othinus and become the world's enemy to do so notes that while the saints of old would slay dragons to save innocents, Touma is the type who would save the people and the dragon.
• In Attack on Titan, the villains are left to face a Zerg Rush of Titans as the surviving soldiers ride away to safety. However, Ymir in Titan form hesitates upon hearing Bertolt screaming and makes the decision to go back to help. When asked about it later, they admit to having acted out of a sense of gratitude as well sympathy for their situation. The villains, being Anti Villains, express their gratitude for the rescue and suggest their rescuer flee in order to avoid capture by their forces.
• A bizarre inversion in Baki the Grappler After Retsu is knocked out before he can finish Doyle, a death-row criminal, off, Doyle starts walking away...and then returns to ward off a pair of thieving mobsters and a dog from Retsu's unconscious body. He eventually ends up standing watch to the point of bleeding out... Which leads Retsu to play this trope straight and rush him to hospital to repay him for his kindness.
• Train from Black Cat does this after his final battle with Creed. After successfully knocking Creed out, Creed starts falling off the roof they were fighting on. Train manages to grab onto his hand but starts slipping himself. His reason being that he can't let Creed die now, since Creed must live and repent for his sins - especially after Train has gone through the trouble not to kill him during the fight. Leon eventually saves them both by using manipulating the wind to allow them to stay afloat.
• Bleach:
  • In the Soul Society Arc, Orihime saves Makizou Aramaki from being blown up by some Squad 12 members who have been turned into living bombs, prompting him to wonder why she did it and why she is crying over the detonated Shinigami.
  • After defeating Ikkaku Madarame, Ichigo uses the ointment Ikkaku keeps in his sword to heal them both (much to Ikkaku's anger).
  • Shortly after defeating Grimmjow, Ichigo protects him from being finished off by Nnoitra, and Nnoitra notes that Grimmjow is quite pathetic for letting an enemy save him.
  • In the Zanpaktou filler, Muramasa enters Ichigo's soul and fights his inner Hollow. When he's about to win, Ichigo jumps in and saves his Hollow. Ichigo didn't really have a choice in the matter. His Hollow is still part of his soul and makes up a large portion of his power. Not only that, but Zangetsu was working for Muramasa at that point and wouldn't allow Ichigo to use bankai and was using it himself against Ichigo. He'd've been screwed without his Hollow.
  • Ichigo later saves Muramasa from drowning. Muramasa dies a few minutes later because his wielder Koga died, but at least he was able to die at peace with a friend by his side.
• During a sequence in The Daughter of Twenty Faces, a villain attempts to kill Chiko with an axe while atop a speeding train. She overextends, stumbles, and is hanging on for dear life against the wind. Chiko attempts to save her, but...
• In the Mugen Train Arc of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, All-Loving Hero Tanjiro goes out of his way to save a Brainwashed and Crazy civilian who tried to kill him despite Inosuke's protests and preaches mercy even as he's bleeding out.
• Denpa Teki na Kanojo: Idiot Hero Juu will try to save the Big Bad of the first OVA with an epic You Are Not Alone speech after the Big Bad wounded him with a razor. This noble act maybe brings back the Big Bad from the Despair Event Horizon, maybe...
  • Then, he will try to save the Happiness Club from a Death Trap.
• Digimon Ghost Game:
  • Starter Villain Clockmon tries to get revenge on Hiro and Gammamon by using his Time Master powers to torment Hiro for days before attempting to kill him when he's alone. Despite this, after Gammamon deflects his Rapid Aging attack back at him, he begs for help as he's slowly dying and the team obliges with little-to-no hesitation. As a result of their kindness, he has a Heel–Face Turn and swears to stop preying on humans. Unlike previous series, Talking the Monster to Death is the go-to for this group.
  • Subverted with Knight of Cerebus Sealsdramon, an unrepentant Digimon Serial Killer who had killed a thousand innocent Digimon by the time Gammamon gets his hands on him including their mentor Bokomon, causing Gammamon to awaken to his Superpowered Evil Side GulusGammamon. Even after everything that had happened, Hiro still attempts to spare him, which pisses GulusGammamon off enough to kill it himself and go rogue. This is later deconstructed, as Hiro and his friends are called out for their tendency towards Suicidal Pacifism by several Digimon and slowly start to learn that it's ultimately unsustainable.
  • Hiro tried this on Publimon in Episode 45, despite he flat-out attempted a serial killing spree against his friends and a celebrity because they said his "journalism" (read: pointless reports about harmless pranks) as "boring". Publimon ends up falling to his death.
• The main villain of Doraemon: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey, Nekojara, intends to steal the Wan-Nyan City's Noradium supply for himself to power his own Time Machine and rewrite history to his liking, while leaving the entire city's populations to be wiped out by a cataclysm. After a series of action scenes and intense chases, Doraemon and friends managed to defeat Nekojara and his minions, and they're free to leave Nekojara on the soon-to-be destroyed city to his own fate. Nevertheless, the last scene reveals they did save Nekojara by allowing him on one of their evacuation vessels, albeit reduced to the ship's janitor.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Goku does this, or at least tries to, constantly. Sometimes it works (like with Vegeta), other times it doesn't, as Frieza proved.
  • This is actually a major story point in Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' as both Whis and Beerus tell Goku that his mercy allowed Frieza to detonate the planet. They give Goku a second chance by going back in time, and this time Goku rushes a weakened Frieza and kills him immediately. It is kept from being a villainous moment for Goku as he knows that all of Earth will be annihilated if he doesn't do this.. Vegeta wasn't showing mercy but was so busy posturing after Goku handed the fight off to him that he didn't kill him fast enough.
  • Dragon Ball Super: Broly: Gogeta saves Frieza from a berserk Super Saiyan Broly in his entrance and ultimately, despite being stopped from hitting him with a big ki blast, Gogeta doesn't seriously hurt Broly, smiles in a satisfied manner when Broly is transported offworld to a safe spot, and even stops Frieza from killing Cheelai and Lemo, who staged Broly's aforementioned escape with the Dragon Balls. Then he takes it a step further by sparing Frieza and simply telling him to scram and not try anything again. At the end of the film, Goku also brings house-capsules and food to help Broly survive on the Death World of planetoid Vampa.
• In Freezing, Satelizer saves Louis after he falls off a cliff into the ocean, ruining his death and turning him into a Karma Houdini.
• Subverted in Fullmetal Alchemist. When Mustang is about to finally kill Envy, Hawkeye, Ed, and Scar intervene before he can land the final blow. However, this was not because they wanted to save Envy, but because they didn't want Roy to give in to his rage. They had every intention of taking out Envy themselves.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Ed desperately tries to prevent the younger Slicer brother from committing suicide, but fails. He later yells at Lust not to kill the older brother, stating that "he's still a human being", but his pleas fall on deaf ears.
• GTO: The Early Years:
  • Ryuji saves Fumiya from a Disney Villain Death after his bike got hit by a truck. And this is after Fumiya beat all the male Tsuji-do students half to death, stabbed Kamata in the back, dragged Eikichi on a rope behind his bike, kidnapped Ayumi, threatened to have her gang-raped and/or murdered, and had been trying to murder Ryuji right up until he got hit by the truck. Somehow, he becomes an ally after that.
  • Eikichi is implied to have saved Akutsu from a similar fate, though the police tell him that all they know is it was someone wearing Masaki's coat. Since Eikichi was the owner of the coat and the last person wearing it, it's pretty clear it was him.
• Absolutely defied in Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure. Near the end of the series, Dairuzen, badly injured after a failed attempt on the Big Bad, confronts Nodoka/Cure Grace and begs her to let him hide in her body to recuperate. Since him residing in her body is what lead her to be an Ill Girl in the first place, she panics and runs. She feels bad and wonders if she made the wrong decision, only for her Fairy Companion Rabarin to reassure her, that her body is her own. When Nodoka and her teammates confront Dairuzen for the final time, she asks if that she allowed him to rest in her body, would he stop attacking people. His silence is all she needed to know that she made the right call and the Cures take him down for good.
• Attempted and failed in Interstella 5555. When Earl de Darkwood gets too close to the lava-filled chasm in his manor during his fight with the Crescendolls, Arpegius grabs him by the cloak and tries to pull him back, but is unsuccessful, and Darkwood falls into the lava.
• Jack and the Witch: Jack immediately nurses Allegra back to health when she's injured trying to kidnap him and his friends... again. His friends immediately lampshade this, pointing out just how stupid it is, given how many times she's tried to capture them, and suspect he's falling for her.
• In Kämpfer, Natsuru saves Shizuku from Akane since he's not a sociopath. He demands that Shizuku leave Kaede alone.
• In Karakuridouji Ultimo, a corrupt politician named Iruma is killed by his own douji, Jealous the Envious, while the heroic Yamato can do nothing but watch in shock. Later in the series, Yamato hits the Reset Button, sending everything back to the first chapter. The second time around, Yamato knows Jealous's attack is coming and prevents Iruma's death.
• This is usually how Kimba from Kimba the White Lion deals with villains once they're down or about to be killed; this even extends to saving the man who killed Kimba's father before he was born. Most of the time, however, the character's rescue causes him or her to do a Heel–Face Turn.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha does a traditional villain saving with Fate Testarossa, helping her fly out of a collapsing lair. To be fair, Fate was more The Dragon than the Big Bad. Other seasons are mostly saving via Defeat Means Friendship.
  • Earlier on, Nanoha intervenes to help Fate while she is performing a highly dangerous attempt to seal the Jewel Seeds that fell into the ocean, splitting the seeds with her and telling her that she wants to be friends with her.
  • In A's, Fate intervenes during a fight to save Signum from a desert monster, causing Amy to tell her that her job is to capture her. Signum notes that she won't thank Fate because she destroyed the monster and prevented her from getting its Linker Core, but Fate takes it in stride, noting that she has to interfere with the "bad guys".
• Kenzo Tenma of Monster, given that he's perhaps the best example of Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help, does this a lot. There is more than one scene where he takes an antagonist to the hospital at gunpoint. This turns out better for him than it does for most of the people on this page, too. With one probable exception.
• Done beautifully in Monster Rancher. In Episode 35, Naga, one of the chief villains, is blasted through a wall by Mocchi and is now hanging onto the edge of his castle above a deep canyon. Holly reaches her hand out to him and tells him to take her hand. Genki and Mocchi do the same. Suezo is reluctant because Naga destroyed his village, but eventually extends his tongue with the others' hands. However, instead of taking their hands, Naga says "So that's why you're all so strong" and lets go, falling to his death.
• In My Hero Academia, superheroes are officially sanctioned by the government, thus they have the same rules on lethal force as the police and have to hold back in their fights. Though if the need to prevent greater collateral damage and save civilian lives outweighs trying to bring down a villain non-lethally, then they can use lethal force.
• In My-HiME, Natsuki stops Shizuru from finishing off a Child-less Nao, having come to realize that she and Nao aren't that different.
• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: Nausicaä rescues Kushana when their ship is going down. This turns out to have serious consequences later on.
• One Piece:
  • Luffy carries Robin out of the collapsing tomb of the Arabastan kings, despite her being resigned to death after her last lead on the Rio Poneglyph turned out to be useless, because she saved him once before and he feels that he has no obligation to leave her to die either. She later reasons that as he forced her to live when she wanted to die, and she has no place to go or return, he should let her in his crew, and he does.
  • Earlier, Luffy had Zoro rescue Smoker before the lot of them drowned. Luffy says he doesn't think Smoker's a bad guy despite the fact that he is ruthlessly hunting down the entire Straw Hat crew across the Grand Line.
    • Indeed, Smoker is actually the good guy since the Strawhats are pirate and as a marine, it is Smoker's job to hunt them down. As for Robin, she did save Luffy's life twice before he saves her from the tomb, so they were technically not enemies since she has been undermining Crocodile nearly the entire time.
  • A straight example occurs in the Whole Cake Island arc with the Vinsmokes, the abusive family of Sanji. Despite loathing his father and brothers, Sanji doesn't want his family to be executed at the wedding, especially his sister Reiju, whom he truly cares about. He ultimately requests Luffy's help in saving them. When his abusive father Judge asks Sanji for a reason, he merely replies that letting the Vinsmokes die because of some silly old grudge would disappoint his father (in this case he's referring to Zeff, his adoptive father).
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Ash and friends once in a while end up saving the Team Rocket trio's lives. The reaction varies from Ungrateful Bastard (the lampshade is even hung sometimes) to a Heel–Face Turn for the remainder of the episode. Expect them to blast off again, anyway because Status Quo Is God.
  • In "The Stun Spore Detour," even after James and Meowth attack Misty and try to steal her cure for Ash and Tracey's stun spore paralysis (that Jessie also had), she realizes they were trying to help Jessie out and leaves some for them. Later, when Jessie still wants to attack the "twerps," James and Meowth refuse to help her.
• In Prétear, instead of killing Takako/Fenrir, Himeno tries to redeem and save her in the Grand Finale. She succeeds.
• Played with during the Terrorist Requiem arc of Psychometrer Eiji it involved a grandpa going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge on the people who gang-raped his granddaughter and the hero’s trying to stop him, even going so far as Taking the Bullet for the final culprit. Ultimately however they couldn’t care less about the rapist they were just fully aware this was a Murder-Suicide and was trying to prevent that.
• It's done once... no twice... no, in every other fight in Rave Master, starting with Haru trying to stop Shuda from falling which he has to do again later on after a Face–Heel Turn from Shuda and leading up to opting not to save the world about 15 volumes early by not killing Lucia and going to great lengths to keep Hardner alive after Lucia comes up from behind and skewers him (Haru really should have finished him off the first time he got the chance)
  • Haru likes to attempt this in Rave Master. It works once, but it usually fails. Reasons for this vary. Once the villain has already bled too much and there's just no way he could live. One time the man he's trying to save from a huge fall inverts the Life-or-Limb Decision and cuts his arm off so he'll fall anyway. It's a mystery whether Lucia chose not to be saved or was doomed anyway, or even if he really died, actually.
• In Sailor Moon, the titular heroine saves several enemies, including the greatest foe she ever fought, Galaxia. In the manga, not so much (though she does still save Galaxia, even though Galaxia dies anyway shortly afterward).
• Saint Seiya Omega: Souma does this to Sonia in Episode 26. He claims it's because he's the only one allowed to defeat her... probably because 'I felt sorry for you after seeing you kill my dad' would sound really awkward. He tries it again during their final battle, but even awakening to the Seventh Sense isn't enough.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, the final fight scene culminates in Metal Sonic falling into lava after saving the Old Man and the President, upon which Sonic jumps down, much to everyone else's protests. With Knuckles trying to hold Sonic back (fearing Metal would drag Sonic down with him), Sonic offers his hand to Metal to try and pull him out. Metal reaches... then smacks Sonic's hand away, uttering one last sentence before sinking down under: "There is only one Sonic."
• Thumbelina: A Magical Story: Maya grabs Cassandra's hand to prevent her from falling to her death, which leads her to decide that Maya has learned her lesson and reveals that, as stated elsewhere on this page, she was good all along.
• Transformers: Armada had a few of these. The most notable one being Optimus holding onto Galvatron's remaining tread to survive the pull of Unicron's gaping maw. Galvatron eventually cuts himself loose, letting himself die to destroy Unicron's only source of nourishment at the moment.
• Vash The Stampede, in Trigun, has done this on many occasions due to his Thou Shalt Not Kill mantra, often giving foes that he's injured first aid. This culminated in him saving his twin brother, Knives Millions, even after vowing revenge on him for his entire life after he killed thousands of people and, more importantly to Vash, his maternal figure Rem.
• Played with in an early episode of Yu-Gi-Oh!: Kaiba and Yami Yugi are dueling on a castle turret when Kaiba threatens to jump if he doesn't win. Yami, a Knight Templar, has no intention of losing and is perfectly willing to let him jump, and Yugi has to fight for control to stop him. That makes Yugi go into quite the Heroic BSoD, as he had never realized Yami would go THAT far to win.
  • Hilariously played with in the abridged version, where the only thing stopping them is Tea's revelation that Kaiba might survive.
  • In the manga, Yami saves Mokuba Kaiba from a torturous fate via his older brother after Mokuba had nearly succeeded in murdering him and Jounouchi a few chapters earlier.
• YuYu Hakusho:
  • Kuwabara fights one of the seven psychics, called "Sea Man". He fights the villain, barely escaping death, and manages to land a nice slash on him at the last minute. Instead of leaving him to die (like he said he wanted to), he saves Sea Man's life and brings him back to his allies to be patched up. Sea Man is baffled as to why Kuwabara would do this when he had stated his intension to kill Kuwabara and his friends. He proceeds to become The Woobie and makes a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Later, Yusuke tries to save Shinobu Sensui, the Big Bad of the arc, after he was fatally hit by Possessed!Yusuke's spirit gun. Unlike most examples, Yusuke's motivations aren't purely heroic, as he believes that if he were to take the life of any human being, even an evil one, it needed to completely be his choice. He also felt that he never really got a chance to prove who was the strongest.