We ARE Struggling Together!/Anime and Manga

Examples of We ARE Struggling Together! in Anime and Manga include:

• The Patlabor OAV 'Seven Days of Fire' starts off with a rebellion against the maintenance chief over privileges (basically, fishing and girly magazines). Within days, there are literally dozens of splinter groups, each with its own agenda (some pro-chief), soon resorting to violence (with paper fans—this is Japan). Director Mamoru Oshii hung around a lot of radical student groups during his college days; one gets the impression that he wasn't left with a very high opinion of radicalism.
• The Allied Powers in Axis Powers Hetalia seem only moments from tearing each other's throats out, even the ones that should have a lot in common (like America and England). As described here, this is Truth In Web Manga. Other historical examples are also mentioned, including the political fracturing of Italy and the decline of the (neither)Holy (nor)Roman (nor)Empire.
  • United Nations Star, preformed by all five of the Allies, is basicically We ARE Struggling Together!: The Song.
  • In The Movie Paint It White! China has this brilliant line.

China: We're too busy fighting together to figure out if we should be fighting together anyway.

• The Japanese resistance in Code Geass is like this in the beginning, until resident Magnificent Bastard Lelouch and his Black Knights wipe out or take over all the other groups.
  • It's even mentioned as being part of the Kyoto Group (the main benefactor for all the Japanese rebellion factions) main motivation for funding so many groups. Lelouch forces them to pledge their complete allegiance to him, by which anything other than minor resistance factions have been rolled into the Black Knights.
• In the world of Freezing, the world is being invaded by Eldritch Abominations, and yet most of mankind's hopes are more interested in rankings and beating the crap out of each other. Well, that's what you get when the fate of the world is in the hand of temperamental teenage girls.
• In Mahou Sensei Negima, there are several important factions. One, Negi's group. Two, Cosmo Entelechia. Three, Megalomesembria politicians led by Kurt Godel. Mahora academy seems to be involved to some extent. The goal: save everyone possible when the magic world collapses. Negi and Fate are archenemies, Negi thinks Kurt is too practical (and Kurt thinks Negi is foolishly idealistic) and Fate's group just wiped out most of the military as part of their plan to "help". And it's not clear what Mahora is doing, but they definitely disapprove of Fate's destruction of the gates. It's getting to the point that Negi and Fate are only fighting about who can do a better job of saving the world.
• Early episodes of Transformers Headmasters had elements of this trope between the Trainbots and Headmasters, until they had to team up to save Japan from Sixshot.
• All of the military factions (Mustang, Grumman and General Armstrong at least) in Fullmetal Alchemist agree that King Bradley needs to be 'dethroned' and seem to understand that part of each other- yet when it all comes down to it the cooperation starts to disintegrate into 'who-will-get-the-big-seat-afterward' plotting rather than standing as a more united front.
• In Vandread, the various factions/groups that the crew of the Nirvana come to assist them in the final episodes of Season 2, when the Big Bad's fleet shows up. Prior to this, they were either being harvested by the Big Bad, or were at odds with each other.

---

Back to We ARE Struggling Together!