Broken Pedestal / Anime & Manga

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• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
  • Zig-zagged with Hakari Hanazono and her mother, Hahari, as established in chapter 28. The chapter opens with Hakari thinking about how she holds her mother high regard as a stern, but kind parent. The very next page has Hahari eagerly trying to invoke a Baby Morph Episode so she can play Mommy to everyone, to Hakari's embarassment. The events of said Baby Morph Episode give Hakari a greater appreciation for what her mother went through to raise her and makes Hakari realize the serious mother she had always known has been much more full of life than she had ever seen her since joining Rentarou's family. The chapter ends on the Rebuilt Pedestal being almost immediately ruined by Hahari yet again. From then on their relationship zig-zags between being on good and loving terms and Hakari desparately trying to keep Hahari in check.
  • Downplayed when Kishika joins. Even after seeing Kishika's Emotional Regression to childhood, the girls are happy to accept her into the family with the narration noting that they're only a bit disappointed that she isn't as cool as they first thought she was.
• Angel Sanctuary has several occurring during the story.
  • Setsuna gets an early one with Kira-sempai when he learns that Kira is actually not a normal human, but a ghost that has been following Alexiel's incarnations for a long time now. Includes the Was It All a Lie? question and Kira bluntly affirms it.
  • Setsuna 'The Messiah' Mudo is an idol and, well, the messiah prophesized to appear and clean up the mess that heaven is. Zaphikel actually asks Setsuna to play the appropriate messiah role for his people, to motivate them. Setsuna starts this, but then reveals his true nature: he's nothing but 'this cute little boy who doesn't care about heaven or fixing anything, he just wants to save the earth and get back the girl he loves'. As inspirational as those words initially were, the pedestal is quickly broken when the rebels see that Setsuna really acts nothing like the messiah and a lot of people have senselessly given their life to protect him. They do call him out on how nobody would even help him, if Zaphikel hadn't ordered them to.
    • Fortunately, after a Heroic BSoD that the above deaths have given him, Setsuna promises to actually become a better person and not just get a big head by being called the messiah. He even meets a kid later that admits that his honest words really did inspire him.
  • What Zaphikel thought would happen, if Raziel learned the truth behind Zaphikel, that Zaphikel used to be a horrible person who enjoyed killing, was betrayed by the government and later decided to become the leader of the rebels in heaven, given how honest and earnest Raziel was about being a help and thinking heaven was fine. Subverted, Raziel says he's honored that Zaphikel told him and retains his pedestal for Zaphikel.
    • Raziel loses his pedestal for the entirety of heaven, particularly the higher ups like Sevothtarte, after he begins to like an angel in the lower layers of heaven, where a lot of unregistered, forbidden children live. Thinking that he really was bettering heaven, Raziel asked for supplies from the higher ups, which ended up to be all laced with bombs, killing the children and the angel Raziel liked. His pedestal broke, realizing how messed up heaven is and blaming himself for the events.
    • Raziel loses his pedestal for Setsuna as the messiah, too. He thought Setsuna would be a wonderful messiah, but then realized that he's a headstrong boy, who is ignoring his more rationaly-thinking friends, and is disgusted when he hears that Setsuna is in love with his twin-sister Sara. The kicker really came when Setsuna returns from the failed messiah mission in heaven and Raziel learns that Zaphikel has been captured and will soon be executed by the government because of Setsuna's actions. He explodes at Setsuna and yelling 'You want to be our messiah!? Who could you possibly save?!', leading into Setsuna's aforementioned Heroic BSoD.
• Karma's backstory in Assassination Classroom involves this - when he says his last teacher "died" (the clear implication being Karma killed him) he actually meant the teacher was dead to him. Said teacher covertly supported Karma being a Bully Hunter because of his grades, until he targeted a student who the teacher considered more important, and was propmtly kicked down to Class E. This is rather... graphically depicted from Karma's viewpoint by said teacher literally disintegrating down to a skeleton over the course of his angry rant.
  Karma: He said he'd stand by me no matter what. So much for that. Son of a bitch screwed me over, so that's it. He's dead to me now.
• Reiner Braun from Attack on Titan is admired and highly respected by others, as well as being the Team Dad to his comrades. Eren in particular looks up to him, as the person who taught him the value of honor and duty. Then, it's revealed that he's the Armored Titan that destroyed the inner gate of Wall Maria and doomed roughly 20% of the human population to a horrible death. Something similar happens with Annie Leonhart and Bertolt Hoover, who are the Female Titan and Colossal Titan respectively.
  • The military itself could be considered this to many young soldiers, due to the massive corruption and We Have Reserves attitude. The Military Police in particular, a prestigious group of soldiers that only the top 10 graduates in any class can even get into, are a far cry from the protectors of the kingdom the more naive new recruits might have thought.
  • Ironically, as Grey-and-Gray Morality of the conflict really starts setting in, the heroes start to get the uncomfortable realization that they're really not so different from the enemy Titan Shifters, up to and including killing plenty of humans themselves. They each take this realization differently, with Eren in particular even admitting to Reiner post Time Skip that where once he declared I'll Kill You! he now understands where Reiner's been coming from. Unfortunately, this is the point where Eren becomes a broken pedestal to his friends in the Survey Corps when he decides he's gonna manipulate everyone into helping him gain the power to commit genocide on the world outside Paradis.
• Season 1 of Baki the Grappler has Baki looking up to his absent father and constantly training and fighting to follow in his footsteps...and then when he finally appears, it turns out he hospitalizes Hanayama, kills the Yasha ape and presents its severed head to Baki, beats and humiliates Gaiya, mercilessly beats on Baki when the fight finally occurs even when he's knocked unconscious, kills Emi when she finally comes around to protect her son, then beats up all of Baki's friends before leaving Japan. He didn't just break the pedestal, he pulverized it.
• Guts has the misfortune of having gone through two of these in Berserk, both of whom betrayed him in unforgivable fashion. The first was his adoptive father Gambino, who first taught him how to fight as a wee little boy, but who had him raped by one of his men and eventually got drunk and tried to murder him, both acts of which were done out of hatred for him born from blaming him for the death of his lover Sys, itself born from the superstitious belief that a child taken from a corpse is bad luck. The other was Griffith, who refined Guts' fighting skills and made him an able battle commander, but who was also a Manipulative Bastard who became obsessed with him over time, which would lead to him falling apart when Guts left the Hawks, growing to hate him during his year of torture, and finally hitting his Despair Event Horizon upon learning Guts was in a relationship with Casca, his Number Two, and were discussing the possibility of leaving him behind, which would set off the events of the Eclipse in which Griffith betrayed and sacrificed everyone he'd led to the Godhand to become their fifth member, Femto — and then went on to personally betray Guts further with what he did to Casca right in front of him.
• Kanata of Betrayal Knows My Name is Yuki's childhood friend who grew up with him in the orphanage. Yuki considers him to be like an older brother figure and looks up to him. However, as it turns out, Kanata is actually the Big Bad Reiga who tried to kill Yuki's friends numerous times.
• Captain Sosuke Aizen to everyone in Bleach, especially to his lieutenant, Momo Hinamori.
  • With Tousen with both his long-time friend Komamura and his vice captain Hisagi. The two are especially shocked to learn that he was motivated by the desire for revenge for his friend's death since he saw that revenge as justice and saw a peaceful life with her dead and her murderer unpunished by the Central 46 as evil.
  • In the anime-only Zanpakuto Unknown Tales arc, Koga for Muramasa, who betrays him after being freed from his seal.
  • Soifon regarded Yoruichi this way after her defection though, truthfully, it had more to do with abandoning her than breaking the law. What's worse, Yoruichi never offers her an explanation for it. Emotionally spent and, having lost the will to fight, Soi Fon submitted to her former master, in the end. According the Official Bootleg, they've since reconciled their differences and their bond is as strong as ever.
• Bloom Into You
  • Touko always looked up to her older sister Mio, who was a well-respected Student Council President and popular student who died in an accident while in high school. Touko, who'd been shy, unconfident and a mediocre student, spent the next seven years working hard to improve herself, and eventually succeeded her sister as student council president, but never fully overcame her insecurity. While in the process of trying to revive the school play, a school tradition that ended the year Mio died, Touko meets with Ichigaya, a classmate of Mio's, who reveals that Mio was actually a bit lazy, tending to delegate work to the other student council members and even making them do her summer homework, and Touko is probably a better president than her sister. Touko's fairly shaken by the idea that she may have never known her sister's "real" personality, prompting Sayaka to tell her the following.
    "The part of your sister that you knew was as real as the rest of her. Tell me who she was to you, Touko."
  • Sayaka's First Love was her senpai at her previous school, who said she'd fallen for her and asked her out. Some time later, though, the older girl suddenly broke off the relationship, saying that they were getting too old for a Gay Romantic Phase. After Sayaka transferred to Toomi East High School and met Touko, she ended up meeting her senpai by chance one day, and the older girl apologized to Sayaka for getting her interested in girls, expressing the hope that she was once again heterosexual. Sayaka, who'd since fallen for Touko, told her senpai that she had no idea how she fell in love with her, then left arm-in-arm with Touko after calling her by her first name^note Touko and Sayaka are best friends, so this isn't unusual for them, but Sayaka's senpai doesn't know this, subtly implying that she's still a lesbian.
• Case Closed loves to apply this trope to murderers and victims.
  • The best example comes when Conan Edogawa, during the "3K's of Osaka" storyline, realizes that his idol, the famous European soccer player Ray Curtis, is the murderer of the week. Not only that, but the rumors about his heroin addiction were, in fact, true.
  • Ran goes through this twice. First, the karate champion she idolizes is Taking the Heat for his girlfriend, the true murderer. Second, she not only finds out that her favorite school teacher also was the killer of the week, but has to actually reveal the truth, making said episode a massive Tear Jerker.
  • Another instance involves a woman who worked at a pastry shop and was kind to Ayumi...who had lured her downstairs neighbor under her window and dropped a flower pot on her head. Ayumi didn't want to believe she could have done it, and was broken-hearted when it turned out she did.
  • It happened again when the Detective Boys investigated a case of "self-defense" by a man Mitsuhiko idolized and discovered it was actually premeditated murder.
  • And then there's a subversion... Shiratori is genuinely saddened when he meets a girl who seemed to be his "girl of destiny" and it turns out she's a Woman Scorned who has just killed her boyfriend after he screwed her over and tried to use him to strengthen her alibi... but soon he finds out she isn't the girl he's been pining for. And he later finds out who she *actually* is.
  • It's played straight twice for Kogoro, too. First, one of his True Companions turns out to have killed another person from their friend circle. Later, a young lady whom he tutored in the past kills her older sister.
• Its implied in episode 20 of Code Geass R2, and confirmed in the subsequent episode, that Empress Marianne is Lelouch's broken pedestal, by virtue of being complicit in her husband's Assimilation Plot and abandoning Lelouch and Nunnally for years, among other things. She's certainly quite the Magnificent Bitch and Lady Macbeth, instead of the borderline Purity Sue that Lulu thought she was.
• In Comic Girls, Fuura's roommate was this. The other girl taught Fuura quite a bit of what she knows about drawing manga, and helped her improve her craft. Fuura thought of the other girl as a close friend, but was crushed when the other girl moved out of the dorm without telling Fuuka where she was going or how to reach her.
• A Cruel God Reigns: Greg for Ian. Ian near idol worshiped his father, and you feel really bad for the poor guy when he finds out that his father was beating and raping his step-brother. Especially considering this revelation leads to Ian's massive My God, What Have I Done? moment.
  • This also applies to Jeremy's view on Sandra when he finds her diary and reads that she knew all along he was being abused. Leads to his Go Mad from the Revelation and Driven to Suicide.
• ''Daimos:
  • Erika used to look up to Richter, but after his violent nature took hold of how he acted in the Baam-Earth war, she could no longer associate herself with him. Nevertheless, she still cared for her brother even though he tried to execute her, and begged Kazuya not to kill him when they were on the battlefield.
  • Erika initially obeyed Olban when he told her to participate in the war, but she later came to realize that war wasn't what she wanted and her father would have wanted peace. Her view of Olban is broken for good when Kaya informs her that he's been mind-wiping and killing Baam, and that he killed her father.
• Daltanious: When the Awful Truth of how Kloppen came into this world is outed, he begs Dolmen for guidance, only for his so-called father to abandon him. Kloppen then defects to the Earthling's side.
• Machiya from DEAD Tube is betrayed by the whole Film Research Club, which hits him hard but the Club’s President betrayal hurt him the most, Oushima was his beloved Senpai, Machiya admired and harbored romantic feelings for her; when she revealed to be part of DEAD Tube, also being a completely different person personality-wise and had sex orgies behind his back knowing full well he liked her, Machiya quickly doomed Oushima to her death.
• Matsuda in Death Note is very fond of Light. After he finds out Light is Kira, and hears him personally denigrate his own father, who Matsuda also looked up to, Matsuda loses any and all respect he had for him, gets very angry, and gets very close to killing him, shooting him several times.
• In Dragon Ball Z, when Vegeta and Bulma's future son Trunks goes back in time to warn Goku about the androids who devastated his timeline and murdered all of the Z-Fighters, he's very eager to meet his father who died when he was a baby. Later, when he finally gets a chance to meet Vegeta and fight by his side, he realizes that his father is actually a vicious Blood Knight who didn't really care that much about Bulma or his infant son and would have let them die in a plane crash had Trunks not rescued them. And that's before Vegeta makes it clear that he's perfectly willing to let Cell ascend to his perfect form to have a stronger opponent, regardless of the risk that Cell would destroy the world if he got too powerful. This is what actually pushed Trunks into blasting his father and nearly killing him. Thankfully, in part due to Trunks's influence, Vegeta eventually becomes a nicer person and a better father.
• Eureka Seven:
  • Renton learns not too long into the series that his idol Holland is not quite what he imagined him to be. Holland beating Renton repeatedly and essentially using him as a physical outlet for his frustrations may have had something to do with that... Their relationship gets a lot better though, after Holland gets a heavy dose of Character Development.
  • Charles and Ray Beams also become one for Renton when he learns that they are planning to kill Eureka and have a grudge against the Gekkostate, including Holland.
• In Failed Princesses, Nanaki Fujishiro befriends Kanade Kurokawa, the girl she used to bully, putting her at odds with Miki Midorikawa, who used to admire Fujishiro. Confused by and upset over Fujishiro's changes, Miki takes it out on Kurokawa by being even nastier to her than before.
• Fairy Tail
  • Hades, also known as Precht Gaebolg, is this to Makarov. He was one of the founding members of Fairy Tail, the second master of the guild, a friend of Makarov's father, and the man who instilled the values that Makarov would take to heart in becoming the third master. As such, Makarov looks up to him, and is dismayed to find out that since leaving the guild, he's founded the Dark Guild Grimoire Heart and is trying to resurrect Zeref.
  • Gajeel was this to Rogue, who idolized Gajeel as one of Phantom Lord's best mages, but was dismayed when, after Phantom Lord was disbanded, Gajeel joined Phantom Lord's Arch-Enemy Fairy Tail. Gajeel, however, points out during their fight that there was nothing admirable about the way he was back then. Rogue after the fight and being freed from his Superpowered Evil Side realizes Gajeel is right and goes back to respecting him.
  • The Agria sisters are a strange example in which the one on the pedestal is the one who realizes how far she's fallen. Yukino deeply loves her older sister Sorano(also known as Angel of the Oracion Seis), but when they finally meet again, Sorano denies being Yukino's sister, because while Yukino is a decent person, Sorano has committed many terrible crimes since they were separated, and doesn't feel as though she deserves to be around Yukino until she's atoned.
  • Adaptational Expansion reveals that this was the crux of Acnologia's Face–Heel Turn. He was once a doctor who lived in a village protected by an old dragon named Proton Acnologia and looked up to him. Then Proton Acnologia was attacked and horribly injured by Dragon Slayers, and in his madness slaughtered the village out of a newfound fear of humans. The doctor took this betrayal so bad that it founded his thirst for vengeance that ultimately led him to start killing other dragons, become a dragon himself, and turn into an Omnicidal Maniac, taking the name of that old dragon as he lost any love he had for dragon or human himself.
• In Fruits Basket, when Arisa Uotani was in junior high, she deeply admired the "Red Butterfly", a legendary gang leader. When she learned that she lived nearby, Arisa was eager to find her. When she finally did, she discovered that the tough Red Butterfly, Kyouko Honda had turned into a Doting Parent. She wasn't happy, but she eventually warmed up to her, especially after Kyouko helped her quit her gang, who weren't about to let her leave.
• May Chang from Fullmetal Alchemist imagines Edward Elric to be a tall, handsome, princely figure, and spends half of her time daydreaming about him. When she actually meets him and finds that he's a short snarker with a bad temper, she just about flips her lid, accusing him of toying with her heart.
• Zaied from Full Metal Panic! is a mild version of this. Not that Sousuke really worshipped him or felt so eternally grateful to him...but Zaied was a respected memory to Sousuke of an honorable, dead comrade of the past. Needless to say, any feeling of goodwill on Sousuke's part completely vanishes when he realizes that Zaied decided to team up with Gauron and kill a bunch of his current comrades. Let's face it - Zaied's alliance with Gauron was enough to piss Sousuke off to the point where he thinks absolutely nothing of killing Zaied, and is afterwards never shown to ever think about the guy again.
• In Genesis Climber MOSPEADA (a.k.a. Robotech's Invid Invasion saga), Stig ("Scott") Bernard's mentor and hero, Major Johnathan ("Colonel Johnathan Wolff") has sold out to the Inbit, running a free town of would-be rebels while leading the most serious ones into certain death. He does experience Redemption Through Death by the end of the episode.
  • The Robotech example gets subverted in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. There we see Marcus Rush, Marlene's little brother who wants to avenge their (presumed for Scott) deaths. When he meets Scott, he is overjoyed and regards him with high respect...until he finds out about Ariel, at which point he goes berserk. The subversion is that Ariel IS a friend, even if she is Invid.
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: One of Batou's idols was a former boxer and a silver-medalist in the Paralympics. He had the skill to easily take the gold, but he threw the fight. It's not like his life had been devastated by that decision he made, as he still lived a comfortable life. Batou find out that he's actually a very decent man, someone actually worthy of looking up to. However, he had lost his way and started spying on the country just to earn a little extra cash. Batou didn't take this revelation very lightly...
• Poor Sugi of Girl Friends (2006), in her Day in the Limelight chapter, had a most awkward reunion with her idolized former elementary school teacher and first crush when the latter molested her while she was commuting on a train, completely shattering her rose-tinted memories of him. Tamamin had a good laugh at her expense when she told her about it.
• In Girls und Panzer, Miho has this with her older sister Maho for a brief time. In the prequel manga Little Army, Miho is upset to learn that Maho once fired on an enemy flag tank (whose being disabled is an Instant-Win Condition) that was going to save one of her team's tanks that fell off a cliff, especially when she not only admits to it, but coldly brushes Miho off. After Miho summons the nerve to ask her mother whether this was necessary, her sister goes up to her, apologizes for her aloof behavior and tells Miho to find her own way of tankery; the last scene of the chapter also indicates that Maho is trying as hard as she is to be a good Nishizumi heiress so that Miho can live the way she wishes. The incident, however, did cause Miho to question the Nishizumi style's philosophy of winning regardless of the cost, and inspired her to seek out her own way of tankery.
• A humorous example in Gundam Build Fighters. Ricardo Fellini is usually regarded as not just an excellent world-level builder and fighter, but as a suave lady killer as well. Which just sets up Sei and Mao for a big Disappointed in You reaction when they see him derailing a so far successful pickup with a drunken nerdy rant about the new 08th MS Team animated short.
  Sei and Mao in unison: So disillusioned...
• Subverted in Hamtaro. Laura finds out that her favorite pop singer, Glitter, is a sharp-tongued Yandere who tried to steal her crush Travis, but at the end of the episode, she writes in her diary saying that she feels sorry for her.
• Iona attempts this on Hime towards Megumi and Yuuko in HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! by revealing Hime's Dark Secret: opening the Axia Box and releasing the Phantom Empire. It doesn't work. This was more geared towards Megumi more than Yuuko, though, as it was through Hime that Megumi became a Cure.
• There are few examples of this in Hell Girl. One example is during Season 3, when a teenage girl, who was mostly ignored by her classmates, suddenly becomes popular after it is discovered that she was able to get all of her letters read on air during a popular late night radio that is catered to teenage girls. Later in the episode, she along with another fangirl, find out that the whole show is scripted and written by a "creative producer" and that the disc jockey the girl became infatuated with was just reading lines that the creative producer written. The teenage girl sends the other fangirl to hell so the secret can be kept from everyone else.
• In How the Masked Earl Fell in Love, Crysta thought her father was Happily Married to her mother until he not only remarried after his first wife's death but revealed that he had a daughter with his second wife Deborah, a girl named Stephania. Crysta then watched her father become an alcoholic as his second wife and stepdaughter spent money, as well as taxing those living on their land.
• In episode 9 of Inazuma Eleven, Megane gets one when he figures out that Noberu, the author from his favourite manga series and captain of the Otaku team Shuuyou Meitou, used dirty tricks inspired from animes to cheat in the matches. After Noberu realizes his mistakes, Megane forgives him.
  • Tenma from the GO series started to love soccer after Gouenji, who has since become his idol, saved his life when he was a child. Too bad by the time he entered middle-school, Gouenji had become the Holly Emperor or as revealed later, The Dragon to him.
• Is It My Fault That I Got Bullied?: Shinji Suzuki is viewed as a self-made man, the perfect husband and father by his coworker's, his wife and his daughter. Once they see the monster he truly is and how selfish and cruel he really is, they all become disgusted with him and cut ties with him.
  • Shinji's boss and coworkers greatly admired him for his ruthless personality and for dealing with clients in his bank. Shinji worked on cases where a normal banker would sympathize with the clients and cruelly reject helping them. His boss uses him for that kind of work to make money for the bank, and while one of his coworkers is reserved for his ruthlessness, most of them admire Shinji, with one of his coworkers defending his actions, saying that he's an elite person. But by the end of the story, when Shinji's former mistress and victim revealed him to be a cheater and a bully, they all became disgusted with him and cut ties with him.
    • His boss angrily called him out on his actions and how he hurt the company before denying him his promotion and demoting him to just making copies of papers. His coworkers were disgusted with him and refused to talk to him and be threatened by him, with it being implied by some of their words that they always resented him on some level and learned what a monster he was. They let their resentment out, which turned into hatred.
  • Shinji Suzuki's wife, Shiho Suzuki, worships the ground he walked on at the start of the series; it was revealed that they were dating in their late teens and that she got pregnant, which led to their marriage. Shinji greatly resents his wife for, in his opinion, baby-trapping him when their relationship was deteriorating, and while he genuinely loves their daughter, he would often abuse his wife, hitting her and apologizing. Eventually, Shinji's wife tried to commit suicide when she learned from his mistress that he was cheating on her, and while he did save her life, he did not visit her in the hospital. That and the fact that their daughter was being bullied destroyed her worship of her husband.
    • Shiho decided to divorce her husband mainly because he did not care for her and he failed as a father to his daughter. She decided to focus on raising her daughter. She also decided to cut ties with her husband, get custody of their daughter, and cut him out of their daughter's life because of how bad of a father he is. Shiho admitted that she wanted her daughter to be the perfect daughter for Shinji so that he would love her, but now she is focused on her daughter's well-being.
  • Shinji Suzuki's daughter Shiori deeply loves her father and starts the story worshiping the ground he walks on. Shinji, despite being a remorseless and Barbaric Bully, generally loved his daughter and was a good parent to her, always loving and supporting her, and Shiori's main motive in life became making her father proud and happy. As the story progresses, Shiori slowly finds out about her father's transgressions that led to her being bullied and her mother attempting to end her life; she starts to lose all respect for him.
    • First, when Shiori was being bullied by her classmates, and she came to her father for advice, Shinji, not knowing that her daughter was being bullied, tells her that it is the bully victim's fault for being bullied, to her shock and heartbreak. That kept her from telling her father she was being bullied, and even when she outright told him that she was being isolated in her class, he apparently did not notice. Later, when the situation was solved without his help, and Shiori had learned that the reason she was bullied was that her father was having an affair with the coach, Shiori blamed her father for being bullied and moved in with her maternal grandparents when her father tried talking to her she angrily reminds him of his advice of the bullies victims fault for being bullied and refused to speak to him further.
    • Later, when Shiori learned that her father was an unrepentant bully who destroyed the life of Aizawa, the teacher who saved her and even learning that Aizawa saving her was not enough to get Shinji to apologize and change his ways, he had the nerve to try to turn her against Aizawa's, Shiori tearfully gave Aizawa's permission to have revenge on Shinji Suzuki stating that she does not have a father.
• In Jin, Saki is heartbroken when she learns that kabuki actor she admires doesn't care that a woman he's made pregnant is heavily sick and he won't give money to heal her. Later subverted, as he does end up paying a debt Jin made to afford a medicine for her. Not that he cares.
• This happens to Nanami from Kamisama Kiss when she finds out the Idol Singer she has a crush on, Kurama, is something of Jerkass, and later, isn't really human.
• A rare positive example occurs in Komi Can't Communicate with Katou Mikuni and Sasaki Ayami. They, like many other of their classmates used to worship the ground where Komi walks at and made great efforts to impress her when placed in the same group as her during the class field trip. But after spending the entire trip with her, they realizes that the real Komi is different than the image of Komi they had in their minds and no longer sees her as a revered figure. However, they also admit that they liked her kind and approachable real self more than their idealized image of her, thus the two became Komi's most grounded friends and closest confidants alongside Manbagi.
• Azusa to Yui in K-On! is a mild example because her worship doesn't turn to hate like every other case here, but it still fits: she's inspired to join the Light Music Club after their performance in the high school entrance ceremony, admiring especially the frontwoman (whose little sister is a friend of hers). As it turns out, she knows more about musical theory than Yui (who really doesn't know one iota of it) and is absolutely appalled to see that she spends 90% of her time in the club slacking off rather than actually, you know, rehearsing or training. In the end, it's Azu-nyan who snaps at Yui when she screws up horribly at their school festival performance. And all of this in one manga volume.
• In The Mutineer arc of the second Legend of the Galactic Heroes Gaiden series, First Officer Lieutenant Bertram was idolized by the crew of the destroyer Hameln II for being the role model of common-born soldiers. However, when crisis struck the destroyer, he was revealed to be selfish person willing to throw the Hameln II into certain doom just to preserve his name as an "honourable Imperial officer". The crew members were so disappointed with him upon that revelation that they decided to join the Chief Navigator Reinhard von Lohengramm (then Müsel) and start a mutiny to wrest back control of the ship. Eventually however, Bertram had a Heel Realization and redeemed himself with a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Throughout Little Witch Academia (2017), Akko's solitary goal is to meet Shiny Chariot, return the Shiny Rod to her, and thank her for inspiring her to take up magic. When she finally meets Chariot, it's revealed that not only has she been at Luna Nova the whole time, disguised as Professor Ursula, but she had been (unknowingly) using her audiences' magic power to fuel her performances. In other words, Akko's lack of magical talent is all Chariot's fault. Akko understandably doesn't take this well, but by the next time she meets Chariot, all is forgiven and she fulfils her original goal of thanking her and returning the Shiny Rod.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's has the Lieze sisters and Gil Graham for Chrono, though they were less evil and more of the Well-Intentioned Extremist types. Naturally, he's the one who figured out their scheme and arrested them.
  • Graham could very well be one for Hayate, too, but we don't know if she knows the truth about him. Granted too, he still did a lot that was respectable, accepted he was in error and got off with just resigning his TSAB post.
  • After being rescued, by the titular character in the first episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Subaru had admired Nanoha almost to the point of worship and was genuinely happy that she has been given the opportunity to work with her idol. When Nanoha shot down her partner and friend mercilessly during training as punishment for insubordination and afterwards removed said partner from combat readiness during an operation she was visibly upset. The trope gets subverted after she learns why Nanoha acted the way she did: she was looking out for her trainees' well being by planning their training regimens step by step to avoid the necessity of Training from Hell, something that Subaru's partner constantly subjects herself into as Nanoha herself suffered almost career-ending injuries when she was younger because of overtraining. After this, Subaru's admiration for Nanoha returned and possibly intensified even more.
• In Märchen Awakens Romance, Galian is this to Nanashi. The former leader of the thief guild Luberia erases Nanashi's memories of him and joins the Chess Pieces.
• Master Asia is Domon's broken pedestal in Mobile Fighter G Gundam. He eventually turns out to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist who dies seeing the error of his ways—but at the same time, his death from this is ensured that it won't be in vain.
• Gilbert Durandal in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. Just...everything about him qualifies. As ZAFT's Glorious Leader and an apparent moderate he was idolised by his own followers and much of the world. And then we find out that he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist who aims to make the world a better place by imposing a genetic determinist utopia. In the end, much of his fleet switches sides after this gets outed. His last real follower, Rey Za Burrel, is the one who does him in after Kira gives him a Breaking Speech.
  • In a milder example, Ace Pilot Athrun Zala is one to the younger crew of the Minerva. They were expecting The Ace that the news told them about. They got a Shell-Shocked Veteran with No Social Skills and an inability to see anything but shades of grey.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Astray has a lesser version, Kisato Yamabuki is shown to be a major fan of George Glenn, the first Coordinator. When the GG Unit, a device containing the algorithms of the man's brain, is hooked up to a hologram on the ReH.O.M.E., Kisato's shocked to find out that Glenn is laid-back and scatterbrained and not the larger-than-life pioneer that she envisioned him to be. Later on Glenn tells Kisato that legends rarely match up with reality and he's just an ordinary man like anyone else, and thus convinces her to give him a second chance.
• At the start of Monster, Tenma greatly looks up to his boss and seems to view him as a father figure. Said boss exploits his surgical skills for media publicity, plays political games that get one of Tenma's patients killed, and screws Tenma's career over for daring to defy him.
  • Nine years later, Tenma still tells his patients about that young boy he's so proud to have saved. Yeah...
  • Another case happens to Jan Suk, who admires a police officer who is actually corrupt.
• Rio Kurotori for Biko, and to a lesser degree, Muhyo and Yoichi in Muhyo and Roji, although Biko seems to forgive her after she defects from Ark.
• My Hero Academia:
  • At the start of the story, Izuku Midoriya suffers this when not only he finds out about All Might's weak form, but All Might himself tells him to grow up, that being Quirkless means he'll never be a Hero. Downplayed, since he still sees All Might as a great hero and good person, just not as powerful as he thought. Fortunately, this soon changes after Deku attempts to save his classmate Bakugo even without a Quirk, ultimately giving All Might a Heroic Second Wind which he later thanks Deku for, deciding that his selfless act makes him the right person he needed to inherit his Quirk and become a hero after all. A recurring theme of the manga is Izuku learning to see All-Might in a more realistic manner - he's definitely the Big Good, but he still makes plenty of mistakes and is a rather subpar teacher.
  • A straighter example happened to Inasa Yoarashi in his backstory. When Inasa was a kid, he tried to get the Pro Hero Endeavor's autograph, only for Endeavor to shove him away and coldly tell him to stay out of his way. This leads Inasa to hate Endeavor for going against what a hero should be, and Endeavor's son Shoto for having the same cold eyes as his father and rejecting him in the same way when they met.
  • By the end Paranormal Liberation War story arc, society, as a whole, has the pedestal on which they propped heroes — and Endeavor, in particular — broken when Dabi reveals himself to be Endeavor's supposedly-dead eldest son, and airs out all of the current Number 1 Hero's dirty laundry, how he supposedly left him for dead, how he married a woman with an ice-based Quirk for the purpose of bearing a child with both fire and ice powers, neglecting his other children who did not have the powers he sought, putting his youngest son, Shoto, through abusive training, and being abusive to his wife to the point of domestic violence and Shoto's scarring. Once these revelations came to light, many hero agencies were forced to close up shop in the face of public backlash, civilians began taking to vigilantism after losing their trust in pro heroes, and Endeavor is forced to rebuild his reputation from practically nothing.
• My-HiME: Natsuki lost her mother at the age of 8, and spent the next few years training and investigating, trying to learn who had her mother killed and why. Well into the HiME Carnival, Natsuki meets with a representative to one of the two Illuminati groups trying to control the situation, John Smith. Smith tells her that her mother had sold out her employers at the other group, District One, and had even taken money to sell Natsuki to the Searrs Foundation. Natsuki is driven to a Heroic BSoD afterwards, suffering a Psychosomatic Superpower Outage, the memory of her loving mother shattered. Natsuki's contact in District One, Sakomizu, who also worked with Saeko Kuga, tells Natsuki he believes that her mother made an error in judgment trying to protect her, not out of greed or avarice. Natsuki, after regaining her powers, says she'll believe in the mother in her heart.
• Played for Laughs (like just about every other trope) in My Monster Secret, where Shirou realizes that Akari (his other personality Shiho's teacher) is the legendary delinquent known as "Akari of the Hundred Visits" and asks Asahi to introduce him. Unfortunately, Principal Akane and later Akari herself reveal that all the "legends" about her were just about her going nuts when she got rejected by guys. Subverted when Shirou says that he admires Akari all the more for having the courage to get back up after being rejected; Akari mistakes this for a Love Confession, but when Shiro denies it and says she's too old for him, Akari Megaton Punches him into the nearest wall.
• Naruto:
  • Dosu Kinuta of the Sound Village starts out as a loyal servant of Orochimaru like his teammates. After deducing Orochimaru's plan and realizing that he was truly sent to test Sasuke's power rather than kill him, he realizes that Orochimaru sees him and his team as expendable. Determined to throw a wrench into his former master's schemes, he then concocts a plan to strike out on his own and kill Sasuke himself so Orochimaru can't have his body. Unfortunately, he's nonchalantly killed by Gaara before he can get far – and Orochimaru later uses his teammates as human sacrifices to resurrect the two Hokages.
  • It's revealed that Itachi's massacre of the Uchiha clan happened with the approval of Konoha's elders, the end result of the village's fear and suspicion of the Uchiha clan ever since Madara's one-man rebellion when he was denied the position of 1st Hokage. However, this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the Uchihas really were planning a coup. It's also worth noting that while the Third Hokage knew the truth behind the massacre, he did try to prevent it from happening.
  • An interesting example is Naruto toward the Fourth Hokage. In the first chapter Naruto admits to having a deep respect for the Fourth due to his actions and abilities. He never shows any change in attitude towards the man until actually meeting him, at which point Naruto promptly punches him while yelling about how tough his life was thanks to the sealing. However, this might have compounded by the fact the Fourth literally just dropped the bombshell about being his dad.
  • In the second Shippuden movie Shinnou turns out to be one for Amaru. Amaru is quite shocked, but separates the person who taught her medicine and served as an inspiration to save lives and the person who is the Big Bad.
  • In the Six-Tails arc, Utakata has one in his master, whom he killed as he tried to extract the Six-Tailed Beast. It's played with as Utakata hears that his master did it for his own good, but Utakata refuses to believe it until it's finally subverted when Utakata realizes, with Naruto's help, that his master wanted to help him. In the same arc, there's also Shiranami for Hotaru.
  • Chapter 599. The look on Kakashi's face once he realizes just who Tobi is is heart wrenching, especially considering that Obito was remembered as a hero of Konoha and was the one who inspired Kakashi to consider bonds with comrades most important. The fact that Kakashi spent years trying to live up to Obito's loyalty and kindhearted nature, to the point of emulating his personality and mannerisms as a memorial to him, just makes it worse and drives the knife in even deeper than it already was.
  • This occurs to Hanabi in two anime episodes about her. She deeply admired her older sister Hinata as a toddler but when she was able to beat her despite being several years younger than her that's when she became confused. After years of their relationship being rocky she begins rebuilding the pedestal after noticing her sister really isn't as weak as she seems and is shown to have a good relationship with her when Hinata is an adult.
• In No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular! we have Kii-chan, who looks up to Tomoko as a Cool Big Sis character. But when she finds out that Tomoko, to appear like an experienced high schooler, lied about having a boyfriend and being popular, and even cheating at a card game with kids to impress her, she lost a lot of respect for her. And now has taken to treating her like a pitiful puppy.
• One Piece:
  • Dr. Hogback for Tony Tony Chopper, as Chopper realizes that he was doing research on zombies, and enabling Moria to create an army of beings that should not naturally be alive. Hogback also admits that he was in medicine for the money and he doesn't particularly care what Chopper thinks of him (although he does point out that he plans to kill Chopper and reanimate his corpse with a shadow so that he can serve the doctor he admired).
  • Vice Admiral Vergo for the Marines of G-5, who admired him for taking command of Marines who couldn't fit in anywhere else, until it turned out that he was working as The Mole for Donquixote Doflamingo and was responsible for the children being kidnapped.
  • Caesar Clown for Brownbeard, who pretty much worships the ground he walks on after he saved him and his crew, only to find out that he doesn't return the respect in the slightest and only treats them as expendable forces.
  • This is the real reason Buggy hates Shanks; back when they were young men serving under Gol D. Roger, Buggy was so confident that Shanks had what it took to be Roger's "heir" that he put his own dreams on hold in order to support Shanks. However, at the last minute Shanks decided against sailing out to claim the One Piece after a chat with Roger Buggy was not privy to, leading to Buggy to assume Shanks chickened out and disgraced Roger's legacy. Furious, he stormed off and struck out on his own, nursing a grudge for over twenty years against his former friend.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Charmander was completely oblivious to the fact that his Jerkass of a trainer abandoned him because he was weak and waited for the day for that trainer to return, even through a fierce storm, which would be fatal to Charmander had it not been for Ash and friends. However, Charmander discovers who its Trainer really is and left him when he decided to take it back.
    • Similarly, Shamus for Tepig. After the pedestal is crushed and he suffers a brief Heroic BSoD, Tepig evolves into Pignite in a Heroic Resolve. Shamus tried to get Pignite back but he refused and decided to stay with Ash.
  • A major plot point in Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew is that Lucario believed that the Knight of Aura that he looked up to, Sir Aaron, abandoned Cameron Palace in its time of need. It was not helped by the fact that, the last time Lucario saw him, Sir Aaron sealed Lucario inside of a staff seemingly for no reason at all. However, Lucario would later learn that Sir Aaron in fact did save the kingdom by sacrificing himself, and he sealed Lucario because he didn't want the Pokémon to follow him and do the same thing.
  • Max had this for his father Norman. He saw Norman as an unstoppable gym leader who is so powerful that he won’t ever lose any battles. When Ash does defeat Norman, Max’s pedestal is broken, which led to him angrily snatching Ash’s badge away and locking himself in the green room. It took everyone else to explain to Max that losing is an important part of being a gym leader to get Max out of his minor BSOD.
  • During the XYZ Saga,
    • Sawyer idolized Ash ever since they met as he had far more badges and experience than he did, but come Ash's disastrous Gym Battle against Wulfric, Sawyer's admiration for Ash doesn't break that much, but it's easy to tell he thought less of Ash after departing for the league. After Ash beats him at the league, Sawyer is back to idolizing him in full.
    • Serena looks up to Ash greatly ever since they met as kids and reunites with him, but got shook up in her faith in him when he snapped at her, after his Gym Battle loss against Wulfric. Also, Serena saw how shattered his confidence were. Although some of her faith in him was restored when he thanked her for helping him, Serena wasn't sure that Ash regain his confidence as she was still shook up during his rematch against Wulfric. Despite it, Serena still supported Ash during his rematch and it wasn't until the battle was over with him as the victor is where she regain her faith in him, confidence and all.
  • In Journeys, Gengar waited for its former trainer for years and understandably came to resent humans as a result, but upon hearing why it had been abandoned Gengar had to be stopped from returning the favor on said trainer with a few Shadow Balls. Thankfully, it had come to respect Ash (who had unknowingly risked his life to help it) and allowed itself to be on his team.
• In Promare, Galo looks up to Kray as his hero and savior, given how he had rescued him from a fire when he was only a boy. However, after learning from Lio that the reason the Burnish have been on the run is because Kray had been experimenting on them, he confronts his hero about the veracity of Lio's accusation. In response, Kray proceeds to show Galo that every word Lio said was true as Galo learns Kray has been capturing the Burnish to use a fuel source to power his Colony Ship. Afterwards, Kray has Galo locked up and gives him a massive Hidden Disdain Reveal as he tells him he has always hated him. If Galo's pedestal could not be broken any further, in the climax Kray not only reveals that he himself is a Burnish, but that he caused the fire that he rescued Galo from in the first place and intentionally assigned him to Burning Rescue as one long Uriah Gambit to rid himself of him.
• In Ratman, the Hero Organization fits this at first, since some of its members like Ankaiser are jerks who care more for fame and fortune than about actually helping people. As the series progresses, they ultimately prove to be well intentioned and decent, if not perfect, people. The real Broken Pedestal is Shiningman who Shuuto long idolized as the perfect hero but turned out to be anything but.
• In Reborn to Master the Blade, Hero King Inglis is on his deathbed, consoling his most loyal followers by saying that he trusts them to continue the glory and prospertiy of his Sylvair Kingdom beyond his death. This is especially prominent for his chosen successor, Randall, an orphan Inglis adopted and who showed incredible natural aptitude in martial and literary arts but never got a massive ego over it. After an undisclosed amount of time later, Inglis is reborn as a girl in the successor to her kingdom... and finds the world significantly worse off than it was before, and no trace of the peaceful, egalitarian, technologically-advanced society she fought so hard to build in her previous life. When she manages to meet illusions of her past memories in a magical subspace, she yells at them and asks them how they could have failed so badly, before she realizes they'll be unable to answer and contents herself with just beating them up.
• The mysterious prince that inspires Utena so much in Revolutionary Girl Utena is...not so princely.
• Roll Over and Die has a tendency to play with this trope.
  • Flum and Cyrill used to be friends before the beginning of the series. However, after Cyrill started treating Flum more coldly due to Jean’s influence, Flum’s opinion of her certainly went down. While Flum doesn’t hold a grudge against Cyrill and they reconcile in Volume 04/Episode 05 their relationship isn’t as close as it once was.
  • In Volume 03/Episode 04, Flum openly expresses her concern that she would become this in Milkit’s eyes after she makes it clear she is going to torture Satils to death in retribution for the harm she did to Milkit. Subverted because Milkit not only assures Flum she could never hate her, but even supports her decision, and they become even closer.
  • When people learn that Flum was betrayed and sold into slavery, regular civilians have a lesser opinion of the Hero’s Party, specifically the Sage Jean.
• Chibi-Usa in the 90s Sailor Moon anime experienced this. Finding out that the great warrior Sailor Moon was actually the clumsy and crybaby Usagi Tsukino really incensed her to the point where, once she found out that she did have the Silver Crystal she was looking for, she stupidly and impulsively stole it and the brooch it was in and decided to go back home with it, one-sidedly deeming Usagi unworthy of having it for the title of Sailor Moon. This really bit Chibi-Usa in the ass once Rubeus showed up and kidnapped the Senshi because Chibi-Usa, by taking the Crystal away, got Usagi needlessly Brought Down to Normal; naturally, Usagi is pissed off and Chibi-Usa is emotionally crushed.
• In Saint Beast, Lucifer was a mentor to Judas and Luca who were crestfallen when he was banished to hell for defying Zeus. Zeus is also subject to this considering that as a god he has no shortage of angels who worship and idolize him. Being as horrible as he is, there are also many who become disillusioned with him, such as Lucifer, Gabriel, and the protagonists.
• The eponymous character of Saki looked up to her older sister Teru when they were younger, but their parents separated, and Teru stopped speaking with her. Saki held out hope in being able to reconnect with Teru through mahjong, but that was severely shaken when she learned that Teru had stopped considering her a sister.
• Another pedestal is smashed in its gaiden series Saki Achiga-hen. Arata really idolized Akado Harue and was greatly disappointed when the latter stopped playing mahjong after a crushing defeat in a very important match (cross-checking with Saki reveals that she lost to Sukoya). Arata decided not to join the club Harue was teaching at because she didn't want to see Harue playing with kids, but playing as a pro. However, the pedestal is quickly rebuilt (and the parties involved make amends) when Harue become the coach to team Achiga, and Arata joins it after learning that Harue's resolve has been renewed.
• An indirect example: In the Sakura Wars (2000), Kohran idolizes the inventor of the kohbu armor, whom she knows only by reputation and from the notes and plans he left behind. When she discovers that he switched sides long ago and now leads the demonic forces against which she and the other Hanagumi fight, she undergoes a crisis of faith.
• In Shakugan no Shana, Eita Tanaka greatly admired Margery Daw for her strength and coolness, doing everything he could to assist her in battle. One day, Margery, in a fit of Unstoppable Rage, blew up Eita's girlfriend Ogata with a stray energy blast without even noticing. Although Margery quickly brought Ogata back to life and Ogata has no memory of this, Eita was traumatized for life. He broke off ties with Margery and said he never wants to see her again. However, he did care about Margery enough to help her when she later went into a coma.
• Shattered Angels has Ayanokouji Kazuya, the presumed deceased older brother of the main lead, Ayanokouji Kyoushirou. Kazuya was originally portrayed as Kyoushirou's, unsurpassable better: the handsome, intelligent, diligent scientist who sacrificed himself in an attempt to prevent a lab accident involving the release of the Absolute Angels from destroying the world. Toward the end of the series, Kyoshiro and Kuu find out that Kazuya engineered the accident with the intent on wiping out all life on the planet so that he could be alone in his utopia with his beloved, the most powerful of the Absolute Angels. Also, he survived the first explosion and is more than willing to try it again.
• Zelgadis from Slayers looked up to his guardian and great-grandfather Rezo, a powerful spellcaster, as the epitome of good, nobility and selflessness. He even allows himself to be turned into a monstrous chimera (part human, part golem, part demon) in order to be stronger and more able to further Rezo's cause. Understandably, Zel is quite bitter when he finds out that everything Rezo was doing, up to and including his experiment on Zelgadis, was intended only to find a cure for his blindness. What Rezo failed to realize is that his blindness is a seal. By opening his eyes a fragment of Ruby-Eyed Shabranigdo awoke, destroyed his body, and nearly destroyed the world.
• Sara Werec of Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry learns that her beloved brother has gone insane, defected and killed her friends. (Pithy statement: "Only you can do what you've decided to do. If you feel that way, there's nothing you can't do.")
• One episode of GO-GO Tamagotchi! is about Orenetchi's admiration for Kuromametchi fading after he finds out Kuromametchi geeks out about the superstar idol Lovelin. After he and Kuromametchi's friends help save one of Lovelin's concerts, however, Orenetchi reassesses his opinion and begins to admire Kuromametchi once more.
• In Tenchi Muyo!, Tenchi suffers this towards his mother. For years, Tenchi believed his mother, Kiyone, was this sweet and kind-hearted woman. Then, years after her death, he finally gets Noboyuki and Katsuhito to tell him what happened to her. They tell this tale of all the adventurous things she did, getting wilder and fantastical... then, they can't go through with it anymore and tell Tenchi the truth - what they just told him was from a script, a script she willed them to say, that Kiyone was a massive practical joker and that she died in her sleep beside Tenchi at the age of 487. What's worse, he's come to realize that those memories of the kind-hearted woman? Were that of Rea, Noboyuki's secretary/possible second girlfriend while he was still married. Tenchi is clearly pissed off at these revelations.
• In Tiger & Bunny, Kotetsu's been inspired since childhood by Sternbild's first superhero, Mr. Legend, to dedicate his life to saving others. Guess who fell into alcoholism and Domestic Abuse after losing his powers and career? Kotetsu is told about arrests being setup and the loss of power. Only the audience see the worst of it through a flashback revealing that the ex-greatest hero in Stern Bild was killed in self-defense by his son, Yuri Petrov aka Lunatic.
• 'Tis Time for "Torture," Princess: One of the running gags is Ex, the Princess's living sword, playing up her image as an unstoppable badass... only for her to immediately undermine it by being tempted by whatever's being offered today. After thirty chapters or so, he stops being surprised.
• Yoki for Shio in Waq Waq, as he turns out to be working for the villains. He's actually a bit of a Well-Intentioned Extremist Fake Defector, but his plan to kill an innocent red-blooded girl to permanently end the tyranny of the red-blooded "kami" is quite disturbing to Shio.
• Voltes V: Heinel once viewed Zambajil as a noble and honourable man, in spite of what others told him. When he finds out that Zambajil is a selfish, cowardly, Manipulative Bastard, he drives a dagger into his chest. This trope is inverted with his father, who he spent years despising, only for his name to be the last thing he said before dying.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Joey Wheeler idolizes the movie star and kung-fu master Jean-Claude Magnum—until he actually meets the man. His behavior towards Mai makes Joey like him less and less. The final nail in the coffin is when Mai finds herself in real danger and Magnum has no idea what to do, forcing Joey to save the day.
• Season 2 of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX has Zane Truesdale, one of the biggest examples in the entire franchise. After a bad losing streak and a traumatic underground duel involving Electric Torture, he adopts his 'Hell Kaiser' persona and becomes a sadistic Blood Knight that is obsessed with victory by any means necessary. When he returns to Duel Academy for the Genex Tournament, all of his friends are forced to accept he's a changed man. It's especially crushing for Syrus, who has always admired Zane's strength and commitment to dueling with respect — he even tries to duel Zane at one point and turn him back into his old self, but ultimately fails. Zane does later become a Rebuilt Pedestal in Season 3 and reconciles with Syrus and Jaden, but he never truly returns to his Season 1 personality.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Crow idolizes the Legendary D-Wheeler, the first person to escape from Satellite, until he finds out that he is really Rex Godwin, the tyrant fostering the poverty and discrimination in Satellite.
• In Zatch Bell!, when under Zofis's control, it seems like Koko is this for Sherry.

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