History CharacterizationMarchesOn / AnimeAndManga

** [[Characters/YuGiOhSetoKaiba Seto Kaiba]] in his first manga appearance is borderline unrecognizable. He's wealthy, but "rich kid" wealthy, not "billionaire" wealthy. His character design is significantly different, being of average height and gaunt rather than tall and handsome. While he is apparently a player of some repute in the world of the card game, that's about it for his actual notability; there's no indication that Kaibacorp is a thing, and Yugi introduces him to his grandpa as "this guy in my class" rather than "internationally famous billionaire." It's also one of the only times in the franchise where we see Kaiba going to school or wearing the uniform; in future stories, the idea that Kaiba goes to a regular school with Yugi would be laughable. He explicitly does not own a single copy of Blue-Eyes, and had never even seen a copy in-person. Rather than genuinely skilled, he's shown to attempt to cheat to win. And the climax of the story has Blue-Eyes turning on ''him'' because its heart is more aligned with Yugi's grandfather, something inconceivable to a later incarnation of Kaiba, where Blue-Eyes is shown to have a deep spiritual importance to him. Funnily enough, this is reflected somewhat in spinoffs: it's fairly common to have two {{Suspiciously Similar Substitute}}s of Kaiba, with one being the SmugSnake that he started out as (Manjoume, Shark, Sawatari) and one being the hypercompetent archrival that he evolved into (Kaiser, Kaito, Reiji).

* "Anime/YuGiOh5ds": In his first appearance, Rex Godwin nearly strangles Mikage for failing to properly keep Jack Atlas in check, which is a level of anger and violence at odds with his portrayal with TheStoic AffablyEvil HiddenAgendaVillain Rex is portrayed as for the rest of the show. The dub cuts the scene, keeping his characterization much more consistent.

** ''Wandering Son'' has a {{justified|Trope}} version. Chiba was originally a normal, if a bit odd, girl. She was sweet and cute girl, who liked cute things and feminine boys. Chiba wasn't that unusual from rest of other cast in early chapters. She changed after a stream of bad things happening to her, such as a rejected LoveConfession, an argument with her friend Takatsuki that made them hate each other for a while, and generally feeling she was putting pressure on her friends. She became a bitter, depressed pre-teen with a sarcastic streak, [[ArtEvolution her appearance became more mature]], and she became generally angry. In lhigh school she mellowed down and became more like her original personality.