There's Always Someone Better in Anime & Manga.
- This is one of the biggest staples in sports manga as a whole. Even some main characters fit this trope, or become so as the plot goes on. Examples are...
- Captain Tsubasa: Tsubasa himself (being The Ace of sorts), Wakabayashi, Hyuuga, Schneider, Pierre, Santana.
- Slam Dunk: Sendoh, Fujima, Maki, the Sannoh team, Okita from the movies. Rukawa also was this for both Sakuragi and Kiyota from Kainan.
- The Prince of Tennis: Tezuka, Atobe, Shiraishi, Chitose, Sanada, Yukimura, Renji, Ryoma himself.
- Future GPX Cyber Formula: Hayato himself, as well as Kaga, Shinjyo, Randoll, Osamu (as Knight Shoemach).
- In Ah... and Mm... Are All She Says, Norush constantly struggles with feeling inadequate compared to other mangaka, especially the newcomer Toda.
- Anaru and Tsuruko in Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day feel like they cannot match up to the extremely high standards set by the perfect Menma since her death and feel that the guys who they like won't ever love them the way they had loved Menma.
- As Anotsu from Blade of the Immortal so poetically expressed himself concerning Makie as she effortlessly slaughtered a dozen shingyoutou-ryuu samurai:"W- watch... S- see... What I- I can never- WILL never be. Dancing before me... When I was a child, afraid of a single wild dog... And that girl appeared, no more than ten, slicing it in half. The same feeling. Only now, remembering my emotion... It wasn't fear of her. No... I already knew... Instinctively... That she'd walk ahead of me the rest of my life. Accepting that, I felt no fear. No resistance. Only familiar, comfortable despair. I remember it now... What I felt then...It was awe..."
- In Bleach, Renji Abarai trained for decades to defeat Byakuya Kutchiki to reclaim his old relationship with his childhood friend Rukia whom he views as having been stolen from him when Byakuya adopted her into his clan. Not only does he completely fail to defeat Byakuya despite achieving bankai because a new bankai is nowhere near the level required to fight a captain, but some punk human kid who's been a Soul Reaper for all of two months shows up, kicks his ass, kicks Byakuya's ass, saves Rukia from being executed by Soul Society all despite having a brand new bankai himself. The only way it could possibly suck worse for Renji is if this upstart kid was the main character. Oh, wait...
- A more appropriate example would be Ichigo himself. In record time, he becomes a shinigami capable of fighting and defeating captains to save Rukia and change Soul Society enough to ensure Rukia won't be executed once he's gone home. It seems as though he's achieved his goal when the real villain puts in his appearance, able to stop Ichigo's unstoppable blade with a single finger. The significance of this moment is lampshaded in the anime by having Aizen not only stop Ichigo's blade with his finger, but actually bring Ichigo's theme music to crashing halt mid-note.
- In Brave10, Saizou was famous for his skills and was considered to be unbeaten until he met Hattori Hanzō, who frustratingly proved to be more than his match, such that Hanzo was foiled by his own arrogance at the climax instead of bested in a fight.
- Case Closed: The series has quite a few of these among the main cast.
- Shinichi is this to Heiji Hattori, who considers Shinichi a rival he has to outdo. When the two cooperate in solving a case they're more or less equals but when they compete against each other Shinichi always manages to come out on top as a detective. This seems to stem from Heiji's Hot-Blooded personality making him more reckless in detective work. In areas that he specializes in though, like kendo, Heiji can outdo Shinichi.
- Shinichi's father, Yusaku, is this to him. Yusaku is just flat out better at detective work than Shinichi, able to solve the case faster than his son and not even needing to be present at the scene of the crime to do it.
- This is zigzagged in regards to Shinichi's continual conflicts with Kaitou Kid. Because Status Quo Is God Shinichi will never be able to bring in Kid and the Phantom Thief will always escape to plot another theft. But Shinichi is always able to figure out whatever tricks Kid has come up with and a few times has straight up outsmarted the thief as well. And it should be noted that Shinichi has allowed Kid to get away a few times for one reason or another, meaning Kid's win record isn't quite shining as he would like to make it out to be.
- Shuuichi Akai is this to Tooru Amuro. Akai is outright The Ace who has managed to become The Dreaded to the Black Organization, including their own dreaded Gin. Amuro is capable on his own merits but he just can't compete with Akai. Word of God even has it that while Amuro could surpass Akai in certain areas when it comes down to genuinely important things he just can't win.
- A Certain Magical Index: Comes up a lot in this series, though mostly in the minds of the Unknown Rival.
- Touma Kamijou to Accelerator. Despite Accelerator's genius intellect and Superpower Lottery, Touma can kick his ass. Touma can easily solve problems without resorting to deadly force, Accelerator struggles with this. Touma can easily make connections with people and befriend defeated foes, Accelerator struggles to even open up to his adoptive family, etc. Accelerator is jealous, but awkwardly looks up to him.
- Touma Kamijou and Accelerator to Shiage Hamazura. Despite being a Grade-A Badass in his own right, Touma and Accelerator overshadow him. Touma is a Butt-Monkey, but Shiage's luck is even worse. Shiage doesn't hate them, instead seeing them as role models.
- Accelerator to Kakine Teitoku. Kakine's power and intellect rivals Accelerator's, but in the end, Accelerator is the #1 Esper and Kakine is the #2 Esper for a reason. Kakine hates him and desperately wants to kill him and prove his superiority.
- Kaori Kanzaki to Itsuwa. Kaori is stronger, the more skilled fighter, has bigger boobs, and in Itsuwa's mind is more beautiful. Itsuwa looks up to her, but worries that Kaori is more likely to win Touma's heart.
- Touma freely admits without shame that Othinus is his superior in every way. Even when he has a feel of her fighting style through Save Scumming, it is ultimately not enough to beat her. However, while he lost the physical battle, he was able to truly understand her pain, suffering, and how hard she worked to get where she is now, moving her into pulling a Heel–Face Turn.
- Awaki Musujime has teleportation powers superior to Koroko Shirai's in every way except speed.
- Touma is an experienced street fighter, but Motoharu Tsuchimikado is an elite martial artist and can casually beat him into the ground without breaking a sweat. On one occasion where Touma managed to beat him, it was only because he was utterly exhausted from scaling a building and fighting other people, and he was unbalanced from hearing a report that his little sister had just died. Touma immediately realized something was wrong as he should not have been able to even touch him.
- Subverted in Claymore by Teresa. She is the number 1 warrior of the organization then comes up a new recruit, Priscilla, who is very promising and is said to share Teresa's abilities. Other warriors say that she might be able to surpass Teresa one day given her potential and Teresa herself considers killing her before it happens for a brief moment. However when they fight, Teresa easily subdues her with only 10% of her yoki while Priscilla is in rage mode with 70% of her yoki. The final cements Teresa 's undisputed status as the most powerful warrior to have ever lived.
- Code Geass: Schneizel is this to Lelouch. He is the only person he couldn't defeat in when they were kids. They tie when they played later. And the final battle was won by Lelouch because he was able to think in ways his opponent couldn't.
- In Cowboy Bebop, Spike is set up as the biggest badass of the galaxy, matched only by his nemesis Vicious; however, when Ed's father briefly shows up in "Hard Luck Woman", he effortlessly outfights Spike.
- Daimos: Nana feels this about Princess Erika. Ever since she was young, Nana had a crush on her adopted brother Kazuya, but Kazuya never reciprocated her feelings and felt annoyed by them. When he meets Erika for the first time, he's Head Over Heels in love with her, and everyone in Daimovic comments on it. Nana is driven to tears, but eventually accepts that it's the reality.
- Dragon Ball features this as an over-arching trope:
- This was the reason Muten Roshi went undercover to test his students in the Tenkaichi Budokai (World Martial Arts Tournament); he didn't want them getting lazy, thinking they'd already reached the top, and imposed himself as their roadblock. It becomes a recurring facet in the series, as characters like Tien, Piccolo, Vegeta, Frieza, Cell, Buu, Beerus, Hit, Goku Black, Jiren and Broly appear, each being the strongest opponent Goku has ever faced when they're introduced. Goku even calls out Frieza's ignorance on the subject when fighting against him on Namek.
- This is how most villains and rivals get introduced throughout the series, using the Sorting Algorithm of Evil. General Blue is the earliest example, followed shortly by Arale and Tao Pai Pai. The latter proved strong enough to almost kill Goku, forcing him to do the series' first instance of acquiring a power up in order to defeat him. Bandages the Mummy from the Baba saga is another, more minor example.
- Goku was this trope to everyone else in the early portion of the series. Every time a rival showed up to challenge him, he would always find a way to be better than them. As shown time and again, Goku actually looks foward to this trope, as it makes him realize he hasn't reached his peak and has an exciting new opponent to test his skills with. This is part of the reason why he's spared characters like Piccolo, Vegeta, Frieza, Buu (sort of) and Broly.
- Tien was much like Vegeta when he was first introduced. He was the star pupil of the Crane Hermit, who boasted about being better than the Turtle School and went through almost the entire 22nd Tournament talking about how much better he was compared to everyone else. Then he got matched against Goku, who proved to be his match. After that, Tien spent his entire life trying to surpass Goku, although he was nowhere near as bitter about it as Vegeta and accepted earlier on that he would never catch up and instead focused on bettering himself as a martial artist.
- After narrowly losing to Tien, considered his equal, Goku then has to face Piccolo Daimao, who is strong enough to stop Goku's heart before getting his youth restored. He returns in the form of his son for the 23rd Tournament, but aside from a sacrificial example he would not be able to score another win against Goku (although he comes incredibly close on several occasions). Early in Z Piccolo has an almost equal amount of power as Goku does.
- Invoked by Mr. Popo to Goku after he beats King Piccolo, both verbally and literally. Mr. Popo chews Goku out for being so arrogant and thinking that he was the strongest in the world after beating King Piccolo, telling him point-blank that no matter how strong he becomes, there will always be someone better, such as himself.
- In Dragon Ball Z, characters like Raditz, Nappa, Dodoria, Zarbon and the Ginyu Force are interesting in that while they mathematically are stronger than all previous opponents, they happen to be in the shadow of someone stronger than them. Raditz in particular kicks off Z and teases Nappa and Vegeta, giving the heroes (and the audience) a warning that future foes will be in a whole different league than in Dragon Ball.
- Frieza (along with most of his men) tend to have problems wrapping their heads around this. Thanks to their over-reliance on Scouters, they're used to everyone having a static battle power by a certain point and sit in particular spots on the pecking order. Thus when the heroes show up with the Zenkai power up and the ability to mask their battle powers, the Frieza Force struggle to comprehend it and wind up losing through pure, stubborn arrogance. Frieza in particular was so used to his unnaturally high battle power going unchallenged he had never trained a day in his life, and wound up unprepared in the Goku fight as a result.
- Whatever new skill Vegeta manages to acquire, he always ends up falling behind Goku. His sense of jealousy and rivalry gets increasingly bitter since Goku doesn't care and treats him like an old friend. Also, Goku is a good guy who can almost treat gods on a first-name basis, while Vegeta ends up in Hell after his Heroic Sacrifice. At the end of the anime, he seems to have found some peace in always playing second fiddle to Goku as it gives him something to strive towards.
- Goku is better than everyone by the end of the series, only for it to subverted in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Super where this trope is now applied full-time to specific characters rather than temporarily for a villain.
- When Beerus, the God of Destruction, turns up, he easily beats everyone including Goku's Super Saiyan 3 state and even the Super Saiyan God state, canonically the strongest power in the series at that point. It only manages to bring him to 70% of Beerus' power and still lose. And it turns out that there's his master Whis, and eleven other universes' Gods of Destruction who are stronger than him, the former stated and the latter implied, combined with the fact that Beerus didn't show his full power.
- And then there is Jiren, a mortal who is stated to be stronger than even a God of Destruction, possibly even moreso than Beerus.
- At the tippity top (for now) is the Omni-King, who is THE ruler of the MULTIVERSE, and has such power to back it up that he not only destroyed 6 universes in a fit (in comparison, Kid Buu devastated a galaxy and Beerus can only destroy one universe on a good day), but also, Beerus and Whis, the previous record holders, wet their pants in terror of this news.
- The latest introduction to this trope is Broly, who has such an unnaturally high battle power that he's described as a freak by his people. Without any formal training he completely wipes the floor with everything Goku and Vegeta throw at him, including Super Saiyan Blue: it takes the Gogeta fusion to bring him down.
- Being about sports, this happens a lot in Eyeshield 21, where there's at least one of these on any major opposing team. For instance, Sena's come up against Riku, the guy who taught him how to run in the first place; Panther, at once a kindred spirit and a total opposite who is actually even faster than him; and Yamato Takeru — the real Eyeshield 21.
- Food Wars!: From the start, Erina Nakiri is set up as this, and she herself is aware of this fact. Whenever the story praises the other first years, it usually does it in a way like 'they might be the best in their year... after Erina Nakiri' or 'they might have talent that could come close to Erina Nakiri eventually.' How the other characters react to that really says a lot about them. Akira Hayama sees her as a major rival, while her cousin Alice gets frustrated at being unable to match up, but lacks the passion to really improve herself. Her aide Hisako doesn't even want to compete with her. Soma, for his part, seems to view her as a stepping stone on the way to his actual goal and doesn't even give her the same kind of acknowledgement that Hayama does.
- In Girls und Panzer, mentioning the Nishizumi School of Sensha-donote will inevitably bring up its heiress, Maho Nishizumi, and how her talent outshines everybody else's in that sport. This makes the protagonist and Maho's younger sister, Miho, feel that she'll forever live under her sister's shadow. This causes Miho to become a Reluctant Ruler once she's given command of her own Sensha-do team. However, Maho believes that Miho's talent is roughly equal to her own and is only held back by the fact that Miho is too nice of a person to follow their family's "win at all costs" tradition.
- In Glass Mask, Ayumi Himekawa, is the product of two successful and famous actors. She was born and raised to follow in their footsteps. She seemed like the obvious choice to play the iconic Crimson Goddess role. Along comes Maya Kitajima; a daughter of a restaurant worker. A girl who dreams of becoming an actress and can memorize every line, action, and scene from her favorite films. After Chigusa Tsukikage discovered her, she would turn out to be a natural actress and would always seem to out-do Ayumi without even trying.
- Sakuma Ryuichi (and, to a lesser extent, Seguchi Tohma) are this for Shindou Shuichi in Gravitation.
- In Great Mazinger, Tetsuya is superior to Koji in many ways: he has better combat training, more maturity, and a much more powerful robot which can easily defeat the opponents that were too much for Koji's Mazinger Z. Tetsuya, in contrast, sees Koji as the one who's always better than him, having a substantial inferiority complex that he masks with an arrogant persona. Their appearances in future material settle on an odd balance of this trope: Tetsuya in an average situation is better than Koji, but Koji at his best is better than Tetsuya at his best.
- Highlander: The Search for Vengeance features the main villain: Marcus Octavius for Colin MacLeod. He just won't take vengeance-driven Colin seriously, even after 1000 years.
- His and Her Circumstances's Yukino was considered to be the perfect person by her peers until Arima came into her life.
- Near the beginning of Hunter × Hunter is Nikoru (often interpreted as Nicole), the top athlete, scholar, and leader at his school by a significant margin. He decides to take the notoriously strict Hunter Exam — and winds up as the second examinee eliminated out of 405. That being said, he may not be as deficient as it seems, as a subsequent chat between fellow examinees Tonpa and the Amori Brothers imply that they sabotaged him. Nevertheless, the psychological damage was done, and he did not attend the following year's Hunter Exam.
- Idol Densetsu Eriko: Yuusuke (Eriko's father) was always one step ahead of Kosuke, which is why he resented him. He had a successful company, a loving wife, and was a well-respected media mogul, when Kosuke worked a lower role. After his death, Kosuke took over his company.
- Inuyasha:
- Kagome Higurashi has Kikyou, her past incarnation and love rival. Kikyou was a powerful Miko when she lived, and a conflicted undead Miko when she was forcefully revived; aside of her love for Inuyasha, Kagome's biggest conflict is constantly feeling that she's got to re-assert her own identity to not have everyone tell her she's inferior to Kikyou. What makes her situation even more depressing, is that Kagome has more raw power than Kikyou (due to currently having the majority of their shared soul) but she does not know how to control any of it. Trying to learn a new skill while being constantly belittled for it and compared to the one who has mastered it can be infuriating.
- Inuyasha's nose is something of a marvel given how sensitive it is. Then it's revealed that his sense of smell cannot compete with his full-blooded dog-youkai brother's sense of smell. It becomes a plot-point in the mastering of Inuyasha's sword.
- The protagonist Tatsuya Shiba from The Irregular at Magic High School is this to aces. Anything that any ace of the team do, including his sister, he'll do better despite the fact that he can't cast magic.
- Isabelle of Paris: For most of her life, Isabelle was a tomboy until she turned 15 and decided she was to be a Proper Lady. However, no matter what, she could never measure up to her older sister Geneviève, who was prettier, skilled at playing the piano and caught the eye of Captain Victor, Isabelle's crush.
- Kekkaishi: Yoshimori's older brother Masamori is first shown as one of these, being incredibly powerful at a young age, the object of Tokine's affection, and overall everything Yoshimori wants to be. Their grandparents Tokiko and Shigemori play this role to Masamori, with the former being able to mend holes in space and dimensions using her powers.
- Word of God even said the Tokiko is the best kekkaishi
- However, after much plot development, Yoshimori goes through more training, and eventually can do things not even Masamori can do.
- Specklerex from Kimba the White Lion is a Reasonable Authority Figure, but Caesar winds up being a more successful leader than he is. This leads to Specklerex developing Fantastic Racism towards white lions.
- Both Seta Noriyasu and Aoyama Tsuruko in Love Hina can outfight Aoyama Motoko. Granted, Seta is The Ace and Tsuruko is Motoko's older sister (older siblings tend to be like this).
- Lupin III: The titular thief is this to Inspector Zenigata and oh how the cop hates it. Zenigata is a phenomenal officer by any measure and has often been able to act as a Spanner in the Works to Lupin and his gang. But the thief is always just that one step ahead and manages to slip right on out of Zenigata's hands.
- The manga chapter of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's that dealt with their school life depicted New Transfer Student Fate (and to a lesser extent, Nanoha) as this for over-achiever Alisa. Already annoyed when she saw Nanoha and Fate get the same perfect scores as she did in a math test, Alisa outright challenges Fate for the first place in the upcoming Prep Exam when Nanoha mentioned that Fate was so smart, she even helps her older sister Miyuki solve her high school math problems. This is actually justified as magic in the Nanohaverse is in reality super complex quantum mathematics thus Nanoha and Fate would have to be polymaths in order to use them to the effectiveness that they do, as a trade off, both are absolutely horrible at languages.
- Miki Koishikawa from Marmalade Boy often saw her love rivals for Yuu's affections this way. Almost a whole episode in the anime is about Miki watching the beautiful and elegant Arimi Suzuki from afar and thinking she's just a little girl when compared to her.
- Deconstructed in Medaka Box. The titular character can and does copy any physical ability she sees and any other character's "abnormal" power she comes in contact with. This means she can copy, say, Akune's "superhuman" abnormality, or Maguro's "perfection" abnormality...but she can also absorb and perfect things that don't need to be perfected, like an abnormal desire to kill others, or the abnormal ability to cause everything you touch to decay.
- Athrun Zala is this to fellow red suit Yzak Joule in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, who always is at the top in everything. Though Yzak tries his hardest he never quite manages to get within Athrun's range and ends up being the No. 2. It does not really make things better that Athrun seems to be mostly oblivious to the fact that he is causing Yzak in fact a lot of Tsundere moments. It's shown in a manga chapter, that Athrun did notice his rivalry with Yzak, and is as upset and serious about it then the other one, not wanting to lose by any means.
- In Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny, this continued with tension between Shinn and Athrun, while they were both with the Minerva crew. Though this time, Athrun was just trying to set a good example for Shinn to follow. he failed
- In Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam: The Steel 7, Giri (former Ace Pilot for the Jupiter Empire) initially refuses to help the Crossbone Vanguard fight a revived Empire because he says it's not his concern anymore. Then he learns that the Empire's new leader is his own personal Someone Better, who twists the knife further when he shows up to kill the heroes by mocking Giri as the Empire's second best pilot. After that things are a mite more personal and Giri readily joins up.
- Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation: Norn is constantly compared to her siblings, each of which is a Child Prodigy, giving her a complex and eventually causing her a Heroic BSoD when she's compared to Rudeus many times over a short period.
- My Hero Academia
- Deconstruncted with Overhaul and Shigaraki. Initially, Overhaul appears to be Shigaraki's better in every way: he has more resources, a larger force, is a more effective long-term planner, and his Quirk is even a better version of Shigaraki's Decay. By all accounts, he would have been the next Big Bad, reducing Shigaraki to a Big Bad Wannabe, but it's because of this that Shigaraki steps up his game and ultimately outgambits him. His scale as a potentially worse threat than the League drives both the heroes and villains alike to bring him down, ending with Overhaul's organization dismantled, and Shigaraki removing his arms to render him Quirkless and using him as a stepping stone by reaping the benefits of his life's work.
- In the final battle with Shigaraki Bakugou admits to himself that all this time he was the one following Izuku. He always looked up to his ability to help people in spite of his lack of strength. His Inferiority Superiority Complex means that for most of the series his feelings manifested as veiled disgust and anger.
- In Naruto:
- This frequently flip-flops between Naruto and Sasuke. At the start of the series, Naruto is the Idiot Hero while Sasuke is The Ace with a super power lottery. Naruto is envious of Sasuke's skills while Sasuke himself is jealous of Naruto's quick progression. This gets flipped on its head towards the end of Part I where Naruto ends up surpassing Sasuke, and Sasuke's realization ends up serving as the catalyst for his Face–Heel Turn.
- Madara Uchiha has never really gotten over the fact that, no matter how powerful or popular he is, Hashirama Senju will always be better than him in every way, and not even Hashirama's early death can change that fact. Like Sasuke, this set the beginning of a very convoluted Evil Plan, as all Madara wants is to achieve something that Hashirama got a long time ago (namely, control over the masses), though because he lacks the latter's natural charisma, he wants to do it through mass hypnosis.
- In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Negi's Ala Alba has been trying to catch up to his father's Ala Rubra since before they were officially formed.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Asuka Langley Soryu spent years firmly convinced she's the best Evangelion pilot ever, and she's indeed very skilled and arguably the one with the most training under her belt among the three recurring pilots. Yet she finds her status and sense of superiority challenged and then gradually and decisively destroyed:
- She's shocked to learn that Shinji managed a surprisingly high synch score on his first try, despite having zero training or preparation.
- Rei effortlessly aces the pilot synchronization training with Shinji in Episode 9, where Asuka herself had failed to do until then (which she had insisted that it's all Shinji's fault).
- She suffers several humiliating defeats at the hands of the last few Angels: Zeruel basically slaughtered her the same way he did with almost everything else, Arael raped her mind and she couldn't do anything; and against Armisael, she wasn't even able to move her Eva (let alone fight). Each time, it's either Shinji (vs. Zeruel) or Rei (vs. Arael and Armisael) that gets the kill. And to rub salt in the wound, she has to be rescued from Arael by Rei of all people, whom she utterly despises for being essentially the antithesis of everything that Asuka had worked hard to be.
- Gendo refused to allow Shinji to take to the field and pull Asuka out of Arael's Mind Rape range (due to it risking Eva-01 getting caught as well), only for him to send the boy out to save Rei when Armisael began to physically invade Eva-00 (even though it risked Eva-01 getting infected as well). This basically gives Asuka the impression that her life and well-being are worth less than those of a mechanical and doll-like person like Rei, despite the fact that Asuka is the better-skilled and generally better-performing pilot between the two.
- And finally, in End of Evangelion, Asuka makes her long-overdue comeback by going up against the eight Mass-Produced Evas and doing quite well... only to get slaughtered and Eaten Alive anyway when the true power of their signature weapons is unveiled, the supposedly disabled ones rise up in spite of being in varying states of heavy damage, and all eight gang up on her. In the very end, it's Shinji (in whose the decision is left) and Rei (who more or less holds the key to the required power to do so) who are instrumental in averting Instrumentality.
- One Piece:
- In his first appearance, Dracule Mihawk, the greatest swordsman in the world, utterly trounces Roronoa Zoro, the greatest swordsman in the East Blue, with a tiny dagger. He only spares Zoro because Mihawk grows to respect his conviction and because Zoro shows the potential to become a Worthy Opponent.
- Luffy's brother, Ace. He was already stronger than Luffy before he got his Playing with Fire powers, which was after Luffy got his rubber-powers. It should be noted that Luffy never resented his brother for this. If anything, he idolized him, especially since Ace was his protector for nearly all of their childhood.
- Luffy himself is this to rest of the Supernovas (sans Zoro, who is his crewmate). The heaviest hitters of the next great generation of pirates, Luffy was the last member of the group to enter the New World. Yet, in the scant few months he's been there, he's managed to outdo nearly every single major achievement they've accomplished during the two years he was training. To wit:
- Trafalgar Law becomes a Warlord of the Sea and manages to give Donquixote Doflamingo a decent fight, even liquefying Doflamingo's organs at one point; Luffy activates Gear Fourth and completely dominates his fight with Doflamingo, and the latter only manages to last longer than a few minutes because Luffy briefly runs out of energy due to overextending his Haki.
- Urouge defeated Snack, the weakest of Big Mom's Sweet Generals before being driven out of Totto Land by his older brother Cracker, another commander. Luffy not only beats Cracker (albeit with Nami's help), he beats Katakuri, her single strongest subordinate, on his own and even manages to win his respect. And both of these happen within a couple of days of each other to boot.
- Capone Bege bends the knee to Big Mom with the intention of eventually assassinating her, and nearly succeeds with Luffy's help. Luffy and his crew lead a crazed, hunger-driven Big Mom all across Totto Land, causing her to destroy a significant portion of her kingdom and allowing their allies to defeat thousands of her subordinates, indelibly weakening her position while boosting their own to the point that their crew is now considered on the same level as hers. Their actions outshine Bege's so much that Morgans attributes his assassination plot to Luffy in order to further sensationalize the incident, much to Bege's anger.
- Saitama in One-Punch Man who is the someone better to everyone else. It doesn't matter how strong, fast, skilled or durable someone is, Saitama is better than them by orders of magnitude. It doesn't matter if you're a planet-conquering alien pirate, the world's strongest esper, the most talented martial artist to have ever existed, or a supergenius scientist; no one can land a scratch on him.
- Especially highlighted with ninja-for-hire "Speed of Sound" Sonic who is very proud of his Super-Speed, such that it is practically invisible to the human eye. The problem is that he is the Unknown Rival of Saitama, the most overpowered being in existence. When Sonic tries to leap around unnoticed, Saitama easily watches him go. When he attempts a Back Stab, Saitama inadvertently nails Sonic with a painful and embarrassing Groin Attack. When he revels in his ability to create ten 'speed clones' in a fight against Saitama and considers it his best chance to kill the hero, Saitama effortlessly creates hundreds of speed clones and just the resulting pressure wave knocks Sonic out cold. There's just no winning for Sonic, and the audience is expected to have a good laugh at his expense.
- As Peacock's number one talent, Ayaori serves as this to Ryo in Penguin Revolution, and typically for the trope is also Ryo's adopted brother. Less typically, they're both very fond of each other and Ryo, while competitive, bears no resentment towards Ayaori.
- Pokémon: The Series: Many rival characters in the series are this to the main characters. Sometimes they are surpassed at the end of a saga, sometimes not.
- Gary Oak from the Kanto Saga to the end of the Johto Saga, whereafter Gary steps away from competitive battling after losing to Ash.
- Ritchie, during the Indigo Plateau; notably, he would almost be an Exaggerated Trope if the anime didn't actually play him straight. Being another character derived from Red, he goes so far as to have a Similar Squad and a variation on Ash's own outfit. Ritchie's always been a controversial character, in part because he shows up out of nowhere and gets some serious Character Shilling from Ash's friends, often pointing out Ash's flaws at the same time.
- Harrison, during the Silver Conference.
- Tyson, during the Ever Grande Conference.
- Drew was this to May from his first appearance in the Hoenn arc all the way to when she finally beat him in the Kanto Grand Festival.
- Solidad is this to both May and Drew in the Battle Frontier era. The latter has never defeated her, while the former suffers a Curb-Stomp Battle when they face off in the Kanto Grand Festival.
- Paul to Ash, during the Sinnoh Saga. Until the Lily of the Valley Conference.
- Zoey, Dawn's rival during the Sinnoh Arc. Dawn NEVER defeated her, not even in the finals in the Grand Festival.
- Tobias, during the Lily of the Valley Conference. Ash does hold the distinct honor of being the only trainer to defeat his Darkrai, unfortunately it took four of Ash's Pokemon to do so and Tobias invited his Latios to the party, which proceeded to finish off Ash's team while going down itself.
- Trip during the Unova Saga (which is especially jarring, considering he's a new trainer) but quickly subverted in his fourth appearance when they tie. Further subverted in the Vertress Conference, where Ash beats him in the preliminaries.
- Unova tritagonist Cilan instead serves as this towards Burgandy. She’s a novice C-Rank Connoisseur, while he’s a pro A-Rank, and she never wins any of their battles either.
- In the same arc, Cameron to Ash, to a very irritating degree.
- Butch and Cassidy started off as antagonistic versions of this trope to the main Team Rocket trio, Jessie, James and Meowth, being successful and competent criminals favoured by Giovanni, and loved flaunting it in the trio's face or screwing them over in one of their more efficient schemes. However, their recurrent Smug Snake qualities and the obvious fact they couldn't succeed in any crimes onscreen (along with the fact the trio nearly always got the last laugh on them by performing an Enemy Mine with Ash) slowly withered down on their credibility, and by their last appearances they were pretty much a Sitcom Arch-Nemesis squad only nominally less bungling than Jessie and James before their retirement.
- Aria to Serena in the Kalos arc.
- Sawyer is an inversion, as he’s always a step behind Ash. He does actually win in a sparring match once, but Ash was distracted by other matters at the time, making the victory feel a bit hollow. When they face off again in the Kalos League, Ash wins.
- Alain seems to be this to Ash in the XYZ arc. However, it is heavily deconstructed and subverted as Alain is a Broken Ace and an Unwitting Pawn to Team Flare. He rarely faces any Worthy Opponent or even the thrills of battles until he meets Ash, and finds himself in need of guidance from Ash during the climax of the Team Flare arc. By the end of the series, it is Alain who sees Ash as someone he could not best, despite never officially losing to him in a battle.
- Gladion in Alola starts out this way defeating Ash twice in the saga, but is ultimately defeated by him in the Alola League.
- Leon in Journeys is this not only to Ash, but to pretty much every Champion in the World Coronation Series. Just like Sawyer and Gladion, Ash beats Leon and thus becomes the strongest trainer in the world. For bonus points, Leon is shown easily beating Alain in the first round of the final tournament, meaning Ash has officially surpassed Alain as well.
- Ranma ½. The main cast is already superhuman (and here they're jockeying for "betterness"), and they routinely come across other people who are better. Most of this main cast Took a Level in Badass to defeat the better bunch, but only after having their collective/respective backsides handed to them. Victory is often about exploiting a weakness instead of through the application of superior firepower.
- Master Hiko Seijuro of Rurouni Kenshin. Hiko chose Kenshin as his successor because of his spirit, but because Kenshin doesn't have the physique he will never reach Hiko's level. Kenshin does defeat him once with the final succession move, but it's completely unblockable, even by someone like Hiko.
- Saitou also serves as this for Sanosuke; Sanosuke had considered himself Kenshin's strongest ally prior to Saitou's arrival, yet Saitou proves to be just as skilled as Kenshin in swordsmanship, and far more skilled in hand-to-hand combat than Sanosuke.
- Mizuno Ami of Sailor Moon had two. One turned out to have psychic powers from the nijizuishou, lost them, and became a love interest; the other was exclusive to her OVA. Mercurious was more like her equal, the got the same grades but for some reason he was always mentioned first at the list.
- Sgt. Frog: Giroro's brother, Lieutenant Garuru.
- Slayers had Luna Inverse, Lina's older sister and the only person in a world full of chaos-demon-gods who scared her. She could trounce any of the bad guys Lina faces, being a reincarnation of one of the world's supreme gods...if she had any ambition beyond being a part-time waitress.
- In Special A, the main character Hikari Hanazono's sole objective in life is to one-up her life rival Kei Takishima. Since the day he beat her in a pro wrestling match, Hikari has challenged Takishima in everything from test scores to high jumping over a mountain-sized vaulting horse. Each time Takishima beats her with incredible ease and nonchalantly calling her "Miss No.2" which only fires Hikari's spirit even more.
- In Spiral, Narumi Ayumu's older brother, Kiyotaka, is far and away his superior (though he also seems to have vanished from the face of the earth for the anime portion of continuity).
- In Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Hikaru Ichijo comes to eagerly concede that his wingman and friend, Maximilian Jenius, is far and away a better fighter pilot than himself.
- Max also serves as this for Milia, who can't even beat him in a video game. Bizarrely enough, after Max beats her a third time when she tries to kill him in a park, they end up getting married in that same episode.
- Both Keith/Sky High and Barnaby Brooks Jr. serve as this to Kotetsu/Wild Tiger in Tiger & Bunny, in slightly different ways. Keith overshadows Kotetsu by the virtue of being comically amazing in every way. Barnaby, on the other hand, gets to make Kotetsu feel inadequate by having the exact same powers while being younger, better looking, more competent, and more loved by fans and sponsors alike. Later on in the series, however, Kotetsu's relation sort of flips around in a way, as Barnaby starts seeing him as someone he can't ever hope to compare to.Barnaby: There's no one I particularly aspire to be like, but there is someone I'm no match for... I just aspire to be someone who's worthy of his trust.
- Raigyo from Xam'd: Lost Memories exists to make protagonist Akiyuki feel terribly inadequate both as a Xam'd and as a crewmember of the Zanbani Postal Ship. The point is stressed further by the fact that Akiyuki is stuck mostly wearing Raigyo's hand-me-downs which, with Raikyo being a good head taller and utterly ripped, are almost comically oversized on the poor kid — meaning that he has big shirts to fill both figuratively and literally.
- Furuichi's resentment towards Akiyuki, who has everything Furuichi wants — mainly, the affections of their love interest Haru. And when Furuichi puts the matter in his own hands to get what he wants in Episode 14, things don't end well for the guy.
- Kousei, Emi, and Takeshi from Your Lie in April is this towards every other participant in almost every piano competition those all three participated, but Kousei takes the cake by also being this towards Emi and Takeshi.
- This is the entire plot basis of Yu-Gi-Oh!. Specifically:
- Seto Kaiba can never defeat Yami Yugi in a fair duel (and the one time he did win, it was only because Yugi took over control from Yami before Yami could execute an attack that would have killed Kaiba). It causes Kaiba to be The Resenter, and any time he has to help Yugi and company it's shown to be only because he actually has to.
- Kaiba himself is the "someone better" for Katsuya Jonouchi (Joey Wheeler in the dub), and never takes him seriously as a duelist. Though the fact that Kaiba's [[Jerkass pretty nasty]] toward Jonouchi/Joey to begin with doesn't really help the situation (admittedly, he's not so jerkish in the original series, where he does acknowledge Jonouchi's/Joey's growth in skill and experience, just not openly).
- The Orichalcos filler arc also had Raphael, the first of only two Duelists to fairly defeat Yami. To be fair, Yami was suffering a nasty case of This Is Your Brain on Evil at the time because he played the Seal of Orichalcos, but Raphael was able to push him to the point were Yami needed to play the Seal to stay in the match. Yami wins the rematch, but mostly because Raphael basically forfeited to stay true to his personal code as a duelist. It's left ambiguous if Yami would have won otherwise.
- Regular Yugi becomes this for the Pharaoh at the end of the series.
- The sequel Yu-Gi-Oh! R had a card called The Wicked Avatar that turned into a copy of the strongest monster on the field, with both stats being one point higher. Being literally undefeatable, it was only removed via New Powers as the Plot Demands.
