History EstablishingCharacterMoment / AnimeAndManga

** Our main character Ryoma Echizen establishes himself quickly in the first few scenes. First by telling of some bullies(mostly for being noisy), and then correcting them on their tennis grip. Cheeky but knowledgeable.

** [[spoiler:The Beast Titan]]'s first order of business is to casually terrify [[spoiler:Mike Zakarius]], one of the most powerful members of the Survey Corps, before ordering a group of Titans to tear him apart.

* L from ''Manga/DeathNote'' is introduced as a character when he tricks Light into killing Lind L. Tailor, and then uses various pieces of circumstantial evidence to discover that Light is not omniscient or all-powerful; he does, in fact, have limits on his ability to kill people, and ''L now knows where "Kira" lives''. He also ''openly taunts'' Light, becoming the first person in the series thus far to truly make him angry.

** The anime introduces Mello and Near in the same scene, having the former freak out in reaction to what he's told while the latter remains calm, nicely setting up the RedOniBlueOni dynamic between them.

* L from ''Manga/DeathNote'' is introduced as a character when he tricks Light into killing Lind L. Tailor, and then uses various pieces of circumstantial evidence to discover that Light is not omniscient or all-powerful; he does, in fact, have limits on his ability to kill people, and ''L now knows where "Kira" lives''. He also ''openly taunts'' Light, becoming the first person in the series thus far to truly make him angry.

* [[WorldsStrongestMan Levi]] from ''AttackOnTitan'' first appears taking down Titans in a bored manner before being annoyed with having to clean Titan blood from his hands - [[SuperOCD being a neat freak]]. But he doesn't hesitate to grab a dying subordinate's bloody hand [[AFatherToHisMen to comfort him]].

* Amelia, the chef of ''Manga/TheVoynichHotel'' attempts to commit suicide, fails, and tries to poison a hotel guest so she won't die alone. When Elena foils her murder attempt, she quietly goes back to work. This is pretty much her entire life. [[BlackComedy And it is hilarious.]]

** Miho and Maho's mother Shiho is first shown berating Miho for [[spoiler:abandoning the flag tank to save the crew of another]], telling her that she's expected to live up tot he family standards, and that it's impossible to win without sacrifice.

* In ''{{Manga/Saki}}'', Mihoko, after winning the first round of the prefecturals along with the Kazekoshi team, prevents [[DrillSergeantNasty her coach]] from slapping her close friend and teammate Kana for making a minor mistake late in her match, telling her that Kana is skilled and that if she makes any mistakes, she will take responsibility. After the coach storms off, Mihoko hugs and comforts Kana, showing her motherly and protective relationship with the Kazekoshi team.

* In the first episode of ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', Kamina challenging a giant robot to a fight on foot ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome with nothing but a katana]]'', while self narrating, clearly displays the level of HotBlooded {{determinat|or}}ion the audience is to expect.
** In the same episode, Yoko comes in swinging down on a rope and blasting the Gunmen with a sniper rifle.
*** And then Simon [[FunbagAirbag falls on her]], and she ''doesn't'' deliver the slap-in-the-face gut reaction you'd expect from [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion a Gainax heroine]].

* Ryoma from ''[[Manga/GetterRobo New Getter Robo]]'' successfully prevents a Yakuza boss from stabbing him by grabbing his wrist in time...only to grip down on the blade with his free hand anyway, just to show how {{badass}} he is. "Come on, push or pull. You'll save face if you at least chop off a finger." This sets the tone for the rest of the series, which is mostly composed of CrazyAwesome and {{Slasher Smile}}s.
** The Getter Robo manga is an absolute ''goldmine'' for amazingly memorable ECMs. To wit:
*** Ryouma: Walking into a multinational Martial Arts tournament, insulting everyone there, ''[[BadAss beating the shit out of everyone there]],'' declaring that its revenge for the way the showboating modern martial artists had destroyed his father's career as a Dojo master, and then fighting off a hit-squad even after getting stabbed in the shoulder.
*** Professor Saotome: After Hiring above-mentioned hitsquad to test Ryouma's capabilities, his response can be summed up as such: "Good job, you proved you're a badass. Now shut up and get in the giant robot."
*** Hayato: Ripping a dude's face off with his bare hands for not being willing to follow him.
*** Musashi: After Ryouma crashes the Getter Falcon in a forest full of de-evolved humans, Musashi rolls in, saves his life, and then proceeds to help repair the eagle with a squad of monkeymen that he cowed into submission by beating the shit out of them until they followed his lead, and then helping the Injured Ryouma pilot the Getter. What makes this establishing is that [[ManChild at no point in this entire sequence does Musashi ever stop acting like a dangerously cheerful 8 year old]].
*** Prof. Shikishima: While being used as a Human Shield, he proceeds to recommend that Ryouma use a particular gun on the nearby workbench to [[ShootTheHostage shoot the Dinosaur Assassin through him]], describing in gory detail how he wants to get shot in the head and die in a massive explosion of gore, [[CrossesTheLineTwice going on for so long that the Assassin gets freaked out and runs away]]. After Ryouma compliments him on his bluff, Shikishima responds in confusion that he wasn't bluffing.
*** Go: After it is established that Go deliberately underperforms in everything he does and hangs around in a bad crowd, a seven foot tall supermuscled cyborg monstrosity arrives on his front door. [[CrowningMomentOfFunny His mother immediately sighs, turns around, and yells to Go that one of his friends has come by before said Cyborg demolishes the front end of the house]].

* Kenshiro of ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar''. First we see that he is TheStoic, a FriendToAllChildren, and a generally decent NiceGuy. He's imprisoned due to the fear of the innocent people of the wasteland, but doesn't take it out on them. He helps others in his own way, including using a PressurePoint technique to restore the speech of a little girl who was [[DumbStruck rendered mute by the trauma of watching her parents die]], and doesn't even leave the prison when it's implied he could... until his PapaWolf tendencies are invoked by the utter cruelty of the village's attackers. At this point, he demonstrates, among other things, that he is a OneManArmy, and he is a BullyHunter who attacks his enemy's PressurePoint via RapidFireFisticuffs to reduce them to LudicrousGibs. He only has four words for the thugs who oppress others: "YouAreAlreadyDead." In spite of the fact that he shows how GoodIsNotSoft, he is still TheMessiah and the HopeBringer. We can get all of this in just the first episode of the anime. Whew.

* In ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', we have Faye first moments on screen, which are [[MaleGaze a quick show up]] [[MissFanservice of her ''assets'']], her [[TheLadette smoking a cigar]], getting attacked and [[ActionGirl defending herself quite well]] but [[FailureIstheOnlyOption getting captured at the end]]; all in barely a minute.

* Lelouch gets two critical ones in the first episode of ''Anime/CodeGeass''; firstly, after using his EvilEye to make the soldiers threatening him kill themselves, he flashes an [[PsychoticSmirk Evil Grin]]. More importantly, and more commonly overlooked, is the fact that when he thinks he's about to die, he thinks of his [[MoralityPet little sister]].

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* Tokiwa from ''AskDrRin'' first appears at the end of episode 1, staring at a photo of Meirin with [[RemovedFromThePicture Asuka's face scribbled out]]. Guess who he spends the next few episodes trying to win the affections of and who he spends the next few episodes trying to murder? [[spoiler:This is subverted later, however. It's a good Character Establishing Moment for the first few episodes, while he's possessed by a demon, alone. Once the demon's been exorcised, he becomes much nicer, more of a VitriolicBestBud to Asuka, though he still has affections for Meirin]].

* In Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle, [[{{Badass}} Kurogane]] is introduced when he kills an attacking army of assasins, [[HairTriggerTemper shouts at]] his loli [[ShipTease girlfriend]], and then is immediately sent off to another dimension.

** Captain Smoker gets an interesting introductory scene -- a little girl spills her ice cream on him, but rather than snarl at her or KickTheDog he kindly [[PetTheDog offers to buy her a new one]]. This establishes him as a more morally complex character than many of the other Marine characters in ''One Piece'' who doesn't adhere to the Marine's "Absolute Justice" doctrine, and hence mainly serves as a WorthyOpponent later on for the crew.

* Captain Smoker in ''Manga/OnePiece'' gets an interesting introductory scene -- a little girl spills her ice cream on him, but rather than snarl at her or KickTheDog he kindly [[PetTheDog offers to buy her a new one]]. This establishes him as a more morally complex character than many of the other Marine characters in ''One Piece'' who doesn't adhere to the Marine's "Absolute Justice" doctrine, and hence mainly serves as a WorthyOpponent later on for the crew.

** The first thing Admiral Akainu does onscreen is blowing up a ship full of evacuees that the Marines had promised to spare just because of the slim chance that one of the criminals they were after might be onboard. This happened in Robin's backstory, ''20 years ago''.

** Nami's first appearance in both the anime and manga does this - in the manga, she's running away from some pirates who she's just stolen from, and when Luffy falls out the sky in front of her, she uses him as a scapegoat so she can run away. In the anime, she's sweet-talking a guy on a rich passenger ship, only to sneak off to steal things the second everyone's distracted.
** Ace is introduced as having fallen asleep in a restaurant, while eating and while in the middle of the conversation, making it look like he'd died mid-sentence from spider poison. The first thing he does upon waking up is wipe his face on a lady's dress, wonder why everyone's panicking...and immediately fall back to sleep in the same position as before. His following conversation with Smoker also shows his more serious side.

* Kenshiro of ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar''. First we see that he is TheStoic, a FriendToAllChildren, and a generally decent NiceGuy. He's imprisoned due to the fear of the innocent people of the wasteland, but doesn't take it out on them. He helps others in his own way, and doesn't even leave the prison when it's implied he could... until his PapaWolf tendencies are invoked. At this point, he demonstrates, among other things, that he is a OneManArmy, and he is a BullyHunter who attacks his enemy's PressurePoint via RapidFireFisticuffs to reduce them to LudicrousGibs. He only has four words for the thugs who oppress others: "YouAreAlreadyDead." In spite of the fact that he shows how GoodIsNotNice, he is still TheMessiah and the HopeBringer. We can get all in less than 5 minutes of the first episode of the anime. Whew.

* ''Manga/SoulEater'': Black☆Star is first show in the darkness reciting the Assassin's code... and [[HighlyVisibleNinja promptly jumping on his targets' dinner table and announcing]] that he's going to "'''[[LargeHam ASSASSINATE YOU ALL!]]'''". With Tsubaki as a microphone.

* ''Manga/SoulEater'': Black*Star is first show in the darkness reciting the Assassin's code... and [[HighlyVisibleNinja promptly jumping on his targets' dinner table and announcing]] that he's going to "'''[[LargeHam ASSASSINATE YOU ALL!]]'''". With Tsubaki as a microphone.