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  • Belldandy in the original manga Ah! My Goddess starts as a character who is divine (of course), good-hearted, and a genuinely nice person but who is not above the occasional eye-roll or violent expression of rage (mostly towards Urd). As time went on she became more and more passive and sweet to almost saccharine levels. This is also illustrated by the progression of the different anime (OVA, movie and TV shows) which was made at various points in the manga's history. Best example: in the manga Keiichi works himself almost to death to get a ring for Belldandy and she reacts (at first) with anger at him beating himself up. In the same story adapted for the TV Series, she just cries.
  • Azumanga Daioh has a veritable boatload of flanderization in the manga. The anime versions of the characters are the end result.
    • Kaorin's crush on Sakaki, though the series is arguably too short and Kaorin's crush simply less-discussed in the early stages for it to be a classic case, but it's still plenty discussed enough to get a shade creepy.
    • Osaka starts out as a somewhat slow-witted and eccentric, yet generally still well-adjusted girl, but becomes weirder and creepier as the episode count goes up. Most people agree this is an improvement.
  • Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts:
    • In the first season, Minami is quite jealous and hits the main guy often for looking at other girls, but it's not too bad and she has her nice moments. Come the second season, and she's became a mistress of the Unprovoked Pervert Payback with a massive case of Disproportionate Retribution. She gets better though, but until then... wow.
    • Much more obvious with Mizuki, who had a Yandere gag that was used rarely in the first season coupled with wanting to see the protagonist in drag. The second season has this as her primarily character trait. She also gets better over time.
  • Beastars: Legosi gets this of the sexuality variety. While far more subtle and less intrusive than most examples of this trope, it can still retroactively ruin the entire story if you think about it too hard. Legosi is introduced as someone whose nature compels him to be assertive, courageous, and a tad domineering. However, he lives in a society that views such traits as wholly negative and so forces himself to be meek to fit in. Louis and Haru both saw right through his facade and treated him accordingly, which caused him to fall in love with Haru and come to view Louis as his moral compass. He's also a little bit more preoccupied with herbivores than is normal for a 17-year old Wolf, and multiple characters have noted that it reaches the level of fetishizing them. However, towards the latter third of the series this fetish starts to reach a point where his motivation for doing anything can be traced back to it, to the point where his bond with Louis and Haru were now born of his fetish first and that they were the first people his own age to treat him like a real person second. In the case of Haru, it's especially creepy since he has romantic feelings for her which wouldn't be a thing if she weren't a rabbit.
  • In Berserk, the Fairy Companion Puck has always been rather goofy, but during the Black Swordsman and Lost Children Arcs he was mostly occupied with trying to be Guts' conscience and keeping him from losing his humanity. Once Guts acquires a new adventuring party, his role as comic relief has increasingly been the dominant part of his characterization.
  • Takao of the Bakuten Shoot Beyblade anime seemed to have his pride and Hot-Blooded attitude upped with each season, starting each arc as a narcissistic Jerkass that required his ego getting brought down to earth over and over.
    • This was only punctuated by most of the other characters acting as an inversion and having their defects and attitude problems nuanced as time passed. Kai became less aloof and callous, Max had his Cloudcuckoolander tendencies downplayed, while Hiromi had her uptight attitude nuanced.
    • G Revolution actually turns this into a plot point for the first half of the season, with Takao's aforementioned character flaws and repeated tournament victories (which, as the most recognizable member of the BBA Team, means he gets the lion's share of the credit) causing the other members of the team to break away and try their luck with other teams, as they want to step out of Takao's shadow. Of course, Takao still ends up winning the tournament.
  • Black Butler:
    • Ciel Phantomhive in season 2. They made him a lot more dependent on Sebastian than in the first season, making him more of a Distressed Dude when he could have been capable of handling himself a little easier, which is somewhat out-of-character for his manga counterpart.
    • Grell was given a much bigger role in the anime but had little character development or backstory for the animators to work from, so the character was flanderized right out of the box and made into a love-sick comic relief character. Her manga counterpart is significantly more serious and less romantic.
  • Bleach:
    • A minor character, Keigo Asano, falls victim to this. He starts off being a goofy and slightly neurotic kid who hangs around with Ichigo. In his appearances after the Soul Society arc, he freaks out at the drop of anything even resembling a hat. He's even worse in filler.
    • Aizen might actually count as an Invoked Trope. He's already close to being the single most powerful, intelligent, omnipotent character in the series... He just wants to be more so.
    • While Kon was always a comic relief character, his first appearance showed that he had a great respect for all life, brought on by his fears of almost being destroyed simply for what he was. In subsequent appearances, Kon loses the deeper parts of his character and does nothing but perv on the female cast and be an Ungrateful Bastard to Ichigo, even though he saved his life and gave him a home. This is one case where the anime actually portrayed a character better than the manga, as the anime would give Kon a solo episode every once in awhile to remind the viewers of his more noble side. He also plays a major role in the last filler arc, and seems to win the respect of some of the other cast members.
  • Cardcaptor Sakura:
    • The title character went from a sweet natured Everygirl to a living embodiment of cute and innocence. Her naivete and obliviousness also seemed to be one-upped to borderline-Cloudcuckoolander scales, albeit both probably because the plot called for it.
    • Shaoran went from a male Tsundere with comical deredere qualities on occasion to a meek Dogged Nice Guy by the end of the anime's run. Granted, this may have been due to the new object of his affections now being the title character, but even when Sakura wasn't present he seemed noticeably more timid and underconfident than before.
    • A strange aversion with Kero's big form, that was initially depicted as more serious minded and gallant than his Sleep-Mode Size. He gradually became goofier and more childish as the show progressed making the two forms of the character more interchangeable.
    • While Tomoyo has always been comically obsessed with dressing and filming Sakura, as of the Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, it seems to have become her only reason for existing. Her role as Secret-Keeper having been largely usurped by Syaoran and Sakura herself acting a little more mature, all that's left for poor Daidouji is to exclaim woefully every time she fails to capture Sakura on camera.
    • Kaho Mizuki is presented as a mysterious, sweet and mature lady whose presence flusters Sakura and makes Syaoran suspicious, but in the manga, she is also clumsy, cheerful and as Eriol pointed out, forgets about streets quite often. The anime emphasize her former traits more, dropping most of her clumsy moments in favor of making her a Yamato Nadeshiko
    • It's worth noting that the Cardcaptors dub toned down a lot of the exaggerative traits of the characters and made the dialogue and voice acting more 'down to earth', albeit often because they were relevant to plot points they didn't want to translate (especially in the case of Shaoran).
  • In Claymore, #22 Helen was originally a mature, serious, but lighthearted Claymore, but in later volumes her lightheartedness was exaggerated to Plucky Comic Relief proportions and she began acting like something of a child who needed Deneve, her Blue Oni, to keep her in check.
  • Crayon Shin-chan:
    • Shinnosuke himself, or rather his butt. He's been mooning everyone for years, but ever since halfway through The Noughties he suddenly Took A Level In Ass and flashes it all the time, speaks about it often and is far more proud of it he ever was, and "worse", he can perform amazingly well in pretty much anything that involves a tool if he holds said tool with his buttcheeks.
    • Masao is a bigger coward, Tohru's Closet Otaku tendencies overtook most of his character, Nene can't seem to talk about anything other than playing house, and Boochan only thinks of rocks.
    • Shinnosuke's mom Misae used to be mildly reasonable even if strict, but she became much louder and angrier. His dad Hiroshi used to get some respect, but now he's a giant Butt-Monkey. Those facts likely have no relation, but who knows.
  • D.Gray-Man's Cross Marian's suffered this treatment, which can lap over into Adaptational Villainy . First there was his treatment of Allen. In the manga, Allen received Training from Hell from him surely. But, the worst seems to be the debts Cross made him pay. The anime takes it up a notch with filler episode 27; My Mentor, general Cross. The episode has Cross selling Allen into slave labor. He's also seen, at one point, asking Allen to bring him man-eating animals, which ends with Allen almost being killed by a lion. In another scene, he has Allen pinned to a wall in an alley, taking his money-the scene giving off pimp vibes, complete with Allen asking Cross how long he was going to be forced to make money for him. None of these things were present in the manga. Canon-wise, he is, at worst a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, it seems. The anime however, seemed to want him in the Jerkass camp.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • Chi-Chi in Dragon Ball Z. Her Hair-Trigger Temper and Education Mama tendencies are turned up a notch to make her an overbearing parent with severely Skewed Priorities. It comes to a head in Dragon Ball Super, where she almost steals her granddaughter Pan from Gohan simply because she's beyond insistent that Pan never become a martial artist (compare to her second son Goten, who she actually trained herself).
    • Dragon Ball GT also made Goku much dumber in comparison. He isn't able to count up to three, even though he could count at least above 10 at the beginning of DB. He could count up to 9,999 in DBZ, but in DBGT, he cannot count to 3?!
    • Dragon Ball Super also messes around with Goku's personality, at times making him more like his Dragon Ball Z Abridged counterpart in regards to his Blood Knight tendencies. He displays a childlike fixation on fighting, challenging anyone and everyone up to the literal King of Everything, blows off Bulma's birthday party to train on King Kai's planet, hires The Multiverse's greatest assassin Hit to kill himself just so he could fight him, and never seems to consider whether it's appropriate or what the consequences of his actions might be. In fact, a good portion of the fandom blames him for the events of the Future Trunks and Universe Survival Saga, since his challenging Zamasu to a fight is what drove the latter to decide that all mortals were too dangerous and needed to be wiped out while the latter has him reminding Grand Zen'o for the tournament so he can fight strong opponents only for the Omni-King to declare the losing universes to immediately be erased from existence.note  He only twice displays anything resembling the cold, focused anger he demonstrated with Freeza, and that comes when Goku Black says that he killed his universe's versions of Chi-Chi and Goten after stealing Goku's body and then when Jiren tries to murder everyone on Universe 7's stands.
      • This stems from what people feel is an emphasis from the Toei writers to bring Goku more in-line with his manga portrayal, but going overboard with it as well as the writers of the anime not quite knowing how to balance his character traits, leading to a strange reversal of what Akira Toriyama is recorded as saying about the anime. That being that Goku was made too stereotypically heroic in Toei's older Z films and filler materials, even before the English dubs added to it (despite this most fans still consider Goku unambiguously heroic). Some people say he also feels too much like Luffy from One Piece, who is not the same as him, leading to a weird recursive thing where a character heavily influenced by Goku is influencing the writing of him now.
      • The fight with Raditz is a particularly strange thing in hindsight. In that fight, Goku shows no problem with fighting Raditz two-on-one, is fully willing to let Piccolo take the kill, and demonstrates no interest in fighting Raditz because he wants to get stronger—rather, his objective was solely to save his son. While he does make the fight harder for himself by letting go of Raditz's tail, it's because of Raditz appealing to his sense of decency and trying to pull a fake heel-turn, not because it was making the fight too easy. And when Raditz mentions that he is the weakest of the Saiyans and there are more out there who are much stronger than him, Goku isn't excited; he's horrified. Compare that to Goku by the Cell Saga, refusing to track down Doctor Gero despite being told point-blank that the Androids will murder his friends and family, or the later Buu Saga, where he breaks the Potara earrings in favor of going mano-a-mano with Kid Buu (who had recently finished blowing up the planet).
    • With the villainous Vegeta, this set in already in the original manga. Early on, he was portrayed as a pragmatic and ruthlessly efficient Sociopathic Soldier, in deliberate contrast to the several purely randomly evil bad guys who preceded him (and, as it turned out, followed him), who was not above Enemy Mine or even unceremoniously running away when the fight turned against him. However, at one point he did indulge in a bit of sadistic taunting by letting a group of inferior minions fight a team of hopelessly outclassed heroes who were no threat at all to him for his amusement—nevermind that he quickly dropped this charade and got deadly serious when some heroes appeared who were a genuine potential threat. His later appearances drew increasingly exclusively on that single sequence for his characterization, however, making him an honor-obsessed Blood Knight who would do things like help his enemies grow stronger so he'd get to fight the most formidable opponent of all.
    • Broly in his first movie wasn't what you'd call a particularly talkative or emotive character; he was introduced as a quiet and meek Saiyan who seemed content to let more dominating personalities like Vegeta boss him around. Midway through the movie came The Reveal that he was an actually an Ax-Crazy berserker warrior whose insanity was being suppressed by his father and that he hated Goku because Goku's nonstop crying frightened him the day he was born. But even in his maniacal Legendary Super Saiyan state he has dialogue, a handful of Badass Boasts and enough brainpower to anticipate his father's Dirty Coward escape and beat him to the punch. In his sequel appearance, and most of his appearances in games and specials thereafter, his insanity and his obsession with Goku have become his sole character traits, to the point that his dialogue now primarily consists of screaming Goku's name. It's become fairly common fanon that his signature Super Mode is degrading his mind, a compelling argument in light of the fact that he rarely ever appears outside of that form. When the character is reintroduced in Dragon Ball Super: Broly, he was dialed back to closer to how he was in his first appearance with his backstory with Goku removed and only going crazy as a result of his dad getting killed.
  • The anime to Elfen Lied flanderized the somewhat Clingy Jealous Girl Yuka, in mostly an attempt to make Lucy more sympathetic and a better Love Interest to Kouta.
  • Onihei Yamamoto of Eyeshield 21 is introduced as the lineman's lineman: a cool, thoughtful player with incredible technical skill who's a hero to linemen across the league. However, his team loses to establish the strength of the Poseidons, and he's shifted into the role of commentator when the protagonist team, the Devil Bats, go up against them. Repeatedly, he comments on how he and his team tried a certain move or strategy the Devil Bats are using, and that the Poseidons are sure to shut it down like they did for him, only to be shocked by how the Devil Bats manage to make it work. From that point on, his only character trait is being wrong about everything he says, to the point where he's mocked and parodied in-universe for it. The respect and skill he was introduced as having are completely absent.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • Rampant in the Edolas (mirror world) versions of the anime characters. They have literaly one trait showing how they're different from their Earthland counterparts, and every single thing they say shows us this one trait. This is averted with the ones originally from the manga, as the primary ones (Lucy Ashley, Natsu Dragion, Erza Nightwalker, and Mystogan/Jellal) all demonstrate multiple facets of characterization, and several of them regularly contrast with their Earthland counterparts.
    • This shows up in filler a lot as well. Gray is all Juvia talks about, Fried is unable to make a simple decision without wondering how Laxus would handle it, and Elfman, who was never very subtle when it came to his love of manliness to begin with, gets to the point where when asked by the aforementioned Juvia what a good gift for Gray would be, he suggests to give him a man. Not something manly, just a man.
  • The characters of Fate/stay night and Tsukihime are prone to being flanderized in sequels, such as Kagetsu Tohya really playing up Kohaku's craziness or Fate/hollow ataraxia doing similar things to the likes of Saber or Tohsaka. However, Carnival Phantasm has taken these depictions and ramped them up even more resulting in a near stalker Akiha, a moe Caster who acts like a schoolgirl and even more exaggeration of Ciel's love for curry. Arcueid and Taiga, on the other hand, act completely like normal while Ilya's sociopathy is greatly downplayed. Carnival Phantasm was made like that on purpose for comedy, though.
  • Another Type-Moon example is what happens to Fate/stay night's protagonist, Shirou, in Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA. As he's now in a supporting role, his warped ideals that the original examined aren't carried over and he's portrayed as just a genuine Nice Guy. He's even more of a Chick Magnet, too, and there's no hint that he knows anything about magecraft or has any duplicitousness whatsoever.
  • Several characters from Future GPX Cyber Formula has gone through this, more notably in SIN, where those traits are taken to ridiculous levels. Bleed Kaga suddenly cranks up his melodramatic personality to an unbelievable level so that there will be a reason why he holds so much grudge toward the ex-protagonist. Hayato Kazami takes a God Mode, and their respective love interests do nothing but mope around on an idea that their beloved may get killed in auto racing.
  • Gintama provides an in-universe example with Pattsuan, a character from Show Within a Show Gintaman. He was reduced to repeating his Catchphrase over and over.
    • Actually, flanderization is noticeable with a LOT of characters in Gintama. Hijikata and Kondou start out as pretty serious characters until Hijikata's mayonnaise addiction gets amped up and Kondou becomes the embarassing gorilla that he is. Same with lots of other characters (e.g. Katsura and especially Madao). One of the only characters to (hardly) suffer from this is Shinsuke, but it seems to this troper that in general, some characters tend start out as more mellow and get crazier as time passes.
  • Shuichi's hyperness and Tohma's obsession with Eiri (which starts out as merely protective and gets creepier over time) in the Gravitation manga. The anime has more stable characterizations, though skipping over most of the character development in the later volumes.
  • Gundam:
    • A Mobile Suit example is the MSM-04 Acguy from the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Despite always having a squat and cute appearance (in as much as a mecha can ever be described as 'cute'), the Acguy was originally taken seriously, being a mass-produced aquatic unit for the Jaburo invasion armed with missiles and nasty mecha Wolverine Claws. But because of said cute appearance, the Acguy has become more and more of a Joke Character over time, and in most of the games it appearances in it is ranked down there with the Ball (a mobile weapon that is literally just a pod with a gun and claw arms welded do it) in efficacy.
    • Yazan Gable from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is a terrifyingly competent Hero Killer and Sociopathic Soldier. He also has two compromising scenes, one in which he clearly squeezes the junk of his new recruit Adol to gauge how excited he is for the upcoming battle, and another where he cries "I'm gonna violate you!" at The Hero mid-battle. Thanks to Memetic Mutation these two scenes have come to define Yazan's character completely, with the SRW games gleefully lampshading it and the New Translation movies lovingly updating the "I'm gonna violate you!" scene (significant all on its own, as only new scenes and certain "important" old scenes were given the new animation treatment).
  • Takamura's not-so-sudden (de-)evolution from a skilled and respectable boxer into a Jerkass in Hajime no Ippo. He's always been portrayed as a Jerkass outside of the ring, but there's a limit...
  • Higurashi makes rather entertaining use of this. When the show takes a break from all the drama and horror, more comedic and lighthearted moments often make characters act in a hilariously different way from their usual selves. Keiichi, usually a positive, optimistic charismatic boy who cares about his friends, becomes either Keiichi the Overreacting Prank Magnet or Keiichi the Brainless Perv. Dutiful, level-headed Mion becomes Mion the Tomboyish Leader. Rena, who is affectionate and friendly if a little... dangerous, gets all obsessed with things she considers cute (and taking them home). Satoko becomes a hyena-like prankster and Rika is just cute and helpful.
    • Of course, this has somewhat dark twist for some of them. Keiichi acts that way because he became extremely stressed from taking studying too seriously and takes Dumb Is Good to high levels, Rena thinks happy days are limited due to her parents' divorce and acts as wacky to make the most out of them and Rika is Really 700 Years Old.
  • In It's Not My Fault I'm Not Popular!, Yoshida was originally implied to be misjudged by Tomoko, and just a normal girl with the Face of a Thug who just happens to be into punk fashion, In one of her early appearances, Tomoko accidentallynote  gropes Yoshida when trying to wake her up. She responds with a slap, Yoshida spends the rest of the chapter angry with her with Yuri acting as a consoler between the two. Post-Field trip arc, she's a delinquent, just like Tomoko originally assumed her to be, with a Hair-Trigger Temper and a manic obsession with cute things. She has a sort of Vitriolic Best Buds relationship with Tomoko in later chapters.
  • In Inazuma Eleven the character portrayals are consistent for the most part, but with the special movie, Inazuma Eleven Chou Jigen Dream Match, one of the complaints by fans was how the characters are reduced one trait or persona. Gouenji's first line is about him being late, a joke on the show that occured a handful of times. Almost all of Endou and Tenma's lines are them being soccer freaks, Matatagi's introduction shows him as his dark-side even though what he says comes off as randomly jerkish, Kinako uses one pose that she used a few times in Chrono Stone over and over again and Hiroto for no reason whatsoever goes back into his "Gran" persona. This is among others as well.
  • Jaken, Sesshomaru's henchman from InuYasha, started out as a sadistic and very competent evil sidekick who occasionally wound up the butt of humor at his expense, and later on became a goofy weak klutz who often messed up his master's plans.
  • The anime adaptation of Lady!! makes the Waverly family near-Complete Monsters in terms of characterization:
    • In the manga, there were some moments that showed Madeleine had some humanity in her and cared for her kids. In the anime this was cut out, as Madeleine and her kids are at odds with certain matters (such as her being an Education Mama), and Madeline's verbal abuse of Lynn increases.
    • In the manga, Thomas was a little Jerkass who eventually decided to be kinder to other people, and promised to be a better brother to Mary for Lynn's sake. In the anime, he's nothing but a cruel bully to Lynn.
    • In the manga, while Mary was still a Manipulative Bitch, she wasn't an obsessed rival fixated upon tearing down her rivals for the Lady's Crest, nor did she lord her grandfather's power over the Russells. The anime also makes Mary the Dragon Ascendant of the final arc, who personally formulates the downfall of the Russell family.
  • In her debut episode in Love Live! Sunshine!!, Yoshiko is introduced as a former Chuunibyou who is very embarrassed about her old self and is trying hard not to let that side of her show: predictably, it ends up slipping out anyways, and she doesn't come to terms with it until the other girls assure her that her past self isn't anything to be ashamed of. Come the second season, and she can't go seemingly five minutes without prattling off about her "little demons" and is completely shameless about it, basically being her old self but even more extreme, even though it contradicts her introduction.
  • Lord El-Melloi II Case Files, in another Fate Series example, does this for the titular character's students: as all of them are minor supporting characters, they lose the complexities they showed when they were main characters in other works. Thus, Flat becomes nothing more than a hyperactive idiot, Caules is reduced to an excessively serious and studious Straight Man, and Luvia is boiled down to a stuck-up Rich Bitch, just to name a few.
  • This actually happened in-universe for Shishime Iihiko of Medaka Box. An ancient hero whose destruction was irreversible, the Shiranui clan took it upon themselves to preserve this unique being by having his character and abilities inhabit a series of human vessels, or "Doubles". Down the ages, Iihiko was passed along like a living message, outliving the world he'd protected and lived in. But in the process, the part of him that made him a hero, or even a person, was drowned out by the most "interesting" part of him; his unstoppable power. By the time Medaka encounters him, he's been reduced to a being of meaningless destruction whose sole concern is preserving his own existence. But once this primary incarnation of him was destroyed BY that very irreversible power, a living "echo" of him was left behind, greatly de-powered but clearly containing the humanity that made him a hero.
  • Naruto:
    • The anime turned Sakura Haruno into a violent psychopath who's constantly punching Naruto (and sometimes Sai) into the ground for the slightest infraction. While she does hit him a few times in the manga, the anime takes it up a notch, and in the manga, it mostly stops after the time skip, while it persists in the anime.
    • While Hinata is just shy in the manga, she's much worse in the anime, stalking Naruto from afar and going red and fainting more than once when he makes the slightest amount of contact (physical or otherwise) toward her. She thankfully lost this tendency entirely when she attempted to protect Naruto from Pain.
    • Naruto himself is made to look a lot less intelligent than he actually is in the manga. Which seems to be happening in the manga as well, with examples such as Naruto not realizing that the entire island he's on shaking means something's wrong and immediately forgetting something he realized himself.
    • Sai. note  In the manga and anime he starts out pretty bad, angering Naruto in particular by insulting his manliness a couple of times, and calling Sakura ugly when trying to think of a nickname. However after a few missions with the team he begins improving and is seen reading a book on social skills. The anime however takes this to the extreme by having his relationship with Team 7 improve overall, while simultaneously increasing his social awkwardness. He's now so socially inept that Naruto actually thinks Sai is hitting on him, when he actually misreads Naruto's actions as a sign of fear and tries to "show him tenderness." There's even a scene where he tries to spoon feed Naruto who has a broken arm. Sai's reading habit has also been given a huge upgradenote , and he's seen in a library multiple times surrounded by stacks of books. Unlike in the manga, his reading habits tend to make his social interactions worse (99% of his bad interactions happen because he "read it in a book"note ).
    • Ino Yamanaka at first started out as a ninja who focused more on her appearance and love than actual fighting. However, she still isn't above giving up those two to win (as evident by cutting her hair short to outsmart Sakura). She is also known to have the highest grades out of the Konoha 11. However, when the anime fillers kicks in, she was turned into a character who only cared about her appearance, where she freaks out when a prince chooses another girl over her, and the majority of the Shippuden's Extra footage containing her is about her complaining about or glorifying her bust size.
  • A justified example in Negima! Magister Negi Magi with Tsukuyomi. Her first appearance saw her treating Setsuna with a decent amount of respect (and had a healthy crush on her), and was more of a Punch-Clock Villain than anything else. Then a bunch of chapters later, she shows up again, in total Stalker with a Crush Psycho Lesbian mode with a psychotic obsession with Setsuna and later kinda with Fate and Negi too, essentially moving from a somewhat ditzy minor minion to the only character in the series who is obviously and undeniably evil. It eventually turns out that she picked up an incredibly dangerous Evil Weapon somewhere along the line, and has become so blood crazed because she's letting the sword feed on her soul and body.
  • One Piece:
    • It may be hard to believe, but Sanji wasn't always quite such a loser when it came to romance and women. He was never all that successful in romance (unless you want to count those 20 bounty hunter chicks that were probably just leading him on) and was kind of awkward around Nami from the start, but it wasn't nearly as pronounced as it is now. His attention to the main females more often seemed kind of sweet, and he didn't quite come off as a dorky pervert like he does now. However, Oda gradually turning him into a full blown Chivalrous Pervert (coupled with epic Butt-Monkey tendencies) was actually a really positive change. In retrospect, there was a period of time where he seemed a little too perfect compared to other main characters, and was in need of a serious personality flaw in the same vein as Luffy's flakiness and stupidity, Zoro's lack of sense of direction, Usopp's cowardliness, and Nami's greed.
      • And now after being on Okama Island for so long, Sanji's become utterly weak against women. Once again, tropes are not bad. It's justified, as he hadn't got any contact with real women for a long time. In fact, the perversion actually starts reverting to pre-timeskip levels since Whole Cake Island, after he wins Pudding over, to the point Black Maria takes effort to seduce him.
      • Though, said über-weakness has been the topic of Lampshading by Chopper, saying that his rocket powered nosebleeds, which require blood transfusions afterwards, are getting annoying and that he needs to be rehabilitated. With pictures first. This has actually become a significant plot-point, as Chopper now needs a donor to conduct a blood transfusion on Sanji after he spurted most of it out when meeting a society of actual, non-Gonk Mermaids. The Mermaids and Fish-men refuse to provide blood for a human, however. A useful trope indeed.
    • Amusingly enough, back in the Kuro arc, Zoro and Luffy arrive late to the battle, but it's Luffy who got lost due to his lacking sense of direction, Zoro simply got stuck in grease.
      • In fact, in episode 2, Zoro gave Luffy directions saying, "the tower's that way."
    • Zoro has undergone a good deal of this as well, being both far more intelligent and level-headed in early chapters, but after Loguetown he began the steady descent into the mostly-clueless meathead he is today.
  • Pani Poni Dash!: Just about everyone ends up having one of their traits exaggerated to extremes (which is typical for its sub-genre). Three obvious examples are Mesousa's uselessness, Himeko's super-high level of hyperactivity (maho), and Kurumi's plainness.
  • Pokémon: The Series - By mid-Johto many recurring characters are little more than walking collections of running gags, with Brock having his Casanova Wannabe aspect overshadowing his wisecracking and being a Big Brother Mentor to Ash, and the Team Rocket trio's comedy overshadowing their competence.
    • Team Rocket in particular starts out as goofy but generally competent bad guys who, for some reason, can't defeat Ash or capture Pikachu. After their first few appearances, however, Jesse, James and Meowth quickly turn into comic relief rather than a serious obstacle to Ash and friends, and remain that way for most of the series. They finally subvert this in Best Wishes as they Took a Level in Badass and lost their comedic quirks, breaking the base on yet another issue in the process. By the end of the series, and most of XY, both cases of Flanderization were resolved, with the trio returning to being comical but semi-threatening villains.
    • Ash, the main character, is noteworthy in that he started out as an Idiot Hero mainly due to his immaturity rather than him being an actual idiot. As he's matured throughout the show, but the writers still want to keep his idiot traits, his Idiot Hero status is due to him being honestly mentally challenged. His Oblivious to Love trait is one of the most noteworthy: compare his early release of Butterfree because he knew full well it wanted to mate with a female and make babies to a more recent encounter with a Cottonee with the same problem, whom Ash thinks just wants to "get a best buddy".
      • His idiot traits were taken up to eleven in Best Wishes, but significantly toned down in XY. The only major flaw of his character that retained from his flanderization is him being Oblivious to Love.
      • Sun and Moon reconstructs this. While Ash is much more cartoony and hyperactive, it tends to be a by-product of the more comical setup of the series as a whole, and in terms of characteristics and flaws, he's arguably one of the more evened out series renditions of the character, maintaining most of his previous battle competence and level of insight (unlike Best Wishes) without totally losing his childlike naiveté and temperament (that was near totally absent in XY).
    • The hero ensemble's tendencies to always fall for Team Rocket's trickery and Paper Thin Disguises got more oblivious the more it was used. Ironically the first time it was used, Ash and the others didn't fall for it. Now the twerps never seem to show suspicion towards a whole load of similar trios made of a blue haired boy, a red headed girl and a talking Meowth. Meowth also managed to more and more easily convince the twerps he had turned good (since a prominent stint in Best Wishes the heroes are at least slightly more skeptical, though still eventually buy it).
  • Ranma ½: This long-running comedy manga contains some of its medium's most pronounced examples of the trope. Uniquely, it was actually the original manga that was hit particularly badly by this trope, when usually it's the anime adaptation that tends to flanderize characters. Indeed, the cast of the manga can be so much more unpleasant the deeper one gets into the series that the anime comes off as Adaptational Heroism by comparison!
    • Kasumi went from a normal Yamato Nadeshiko who was capable of both openly scolding somebody for foolishness and even making dryly sarcastic quips to an unfazeable near-parody or her former self who is held up as practically a living saint. Mind you, amongst the series' fans, there are those who consider this an improvement, as they viewed her original self as comparatively dull.
    • This is also applied to Nabiki's love of money, which propels over time from a merely opportunistic character to an appallingly two-faced exploiter who is willing to engage in outright stupid behavior for the (often dubious) possibility of financial benefit.
    • The first time Akane cooks in the series, it is merely bad and she realizes why immediately after tasting it (she made an honest mistake with ingredients, 'sides she's just a beginner); later in the series (manga & anime), her cooking has become all but poisonous, she doesn't care what she throws into it, she refuses to taste it or to acknowledge that it tastes bad, and everyone else treats it like toxic waste.
    • Ukyo starts the series out as relatively moral, but in the manga, slowly declines into an outright villain; she willingly joins in with Shampoo and Kodachi in things like trying to beat up Nabiki to take Ranma, leveling the Saotome home over an engagement ring, and destroying Ranma & Akane's wedding. And then there's her blatantly exploiting Konatsu, treating him like a veritable slave.
    • Genma starts the series genuinely caring about his son (including going out of his way to help Ranma keep his curse hidden), despite being a selfish idiot who tends to do more harm then good with some very warped ideals and morals. By the end of the series, his already-extreme faults get flanderized to being willing to throw away his son (and hit his wife) for a knick-knack he already knows has little value.
  • Some strange forms of this happen between mediums of Revolutionary Girl Utena; when Kozue is introduced in the manga (which ran side-by-side with the anime during their original release dates, despite technically coming first), her obsession with Miki is remarkable, scary, and more visible than it is in the anime (which is no less disturbing, but the main difference is that she's not clingy). Juri was the Alpha Bitch in the manga, smitten with Touga, and was jealous of those who got close to him; while she becomes an Ice Queen questioning her sexuality in the anime, her manga traits go to Nanami, which get taken up to eleven.
  • In the anime adaptation of Rosario + Vampire, almost every character gets hit with this:
  • Rurouni Kenshin:
    • Main character Kenshin Himura became somewhat more of a klutz after the first few arcs, but it didn't become REALLY apparent until after the Kyoto arc.
  • Sailor Moon:
    • In order to distinguish Minako from Usagi (who was actually an Expy of Minako from Codename: Sailor V in the manga), she was made more ditzy and less mature as the anime went on (compare her introduction in the first season - where she was more the Every Girl than anything with her only real "ditzy" aspect being she would get her proverbs mixed up - with how she was acting in the last), which is actually a reverse from the manga, where she became more mature and intelligent as the series progressed.
    • Ami is a more subtle case. While she was consistently serious about her education, Sailor Moon R felt the need to give it a bump to the point where she can't seem to go most episodes without mentioning the need to study. Though given the fact that the girls are studying to pass their high school entrance exams, this can be somewhat understood.
    • Makoto falling for someone who reminds her of her old boyfriend was just part of her introduction in the original manga, but is made into a recurring part of her character in the anime.
  • The School Days anime (though not the original visual novel) is also guilty of this. The protagonist Makoto transforms from a merely sex-curious teenager into an uncaring, womanizing bastard. Furthermore, the two main female love interests get reduced to only being known for their obsession with Makoto. However, it's shown in the second to last episode that Makoto is beginning to realize he's become Flanderized and tries to fix things. Only to mishandle the situation and be brutally murdered.
  • Sgt. Frog
    • In the manga version, Dororo is a Technical Pacifist who nonetheless has amazing ninja skills and doesn't ever shirk from the cause of justice, often playing the Only Sane Man to the rest of his squad. The anime exaggerates his pacifism to the point of often making him meek and indifferent to events, his opposition to his squad's schemes manifests itself more in the form of half-assed protests that eventually just alienate him from the others, his maturity is spun into an annoying emo personality, and in general he either plays the Butt-Monkey to the other Keronians or isn't even there with them a lot of the time.
    • Giroro originally just had a soft spot for Natsumi. By Season 2, he is completely obsessed with her well-being, that he'll go into Knight Templar mode against his own commanding officer if he should do anything to harm her. This doesn't exactly help take over a planet.
    • In the manga, Kululu was more obviously a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who loved mess with his platoon but deep down cared about them. In the anime, he's now a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk who cares about nothing but the suffering of others. His rare moments of caring about others comes up less in the anime than they do in the manga.
    • In the manga, Natsumi was a Tsundere Jerk with a Heart of Gold. In the anime, she's a racist Jerk with a Heart of Jerk.
    • Momoka's attempts to get Fuyuki to notice her are taken up to eleven in the anime, as she even uses spies to see what he's doing.
  • Panda in Shirokuma Cafe. In the manga, Panda could be lazy and a bit thoughtless at times. In the anime, Panda has had these traits kicked up to eleven, to the point where it's a mystery how he still has any friends. Not a very gradual case either; right away from episode 1 Panda's situation was changed from already knowing about Shirokuma Cafe and getting a job of his own volition, to being so lazy he apparently had never even ventured across the street, and being forced into getting a job by his mother. For the most part, any scene that features Panda being nice (his Tanabata wish, helping out at the Summer Festival) it's from the manga, and any scene that features Panda being borderline mean (taking away Llama's job out of jealousy, making Handa bike in the rain for his phone) it's anime-only.
  • A lot of this happened as adaptations of the Slayers light novels were made, namely the anime:
    • Lina's sociopathic tendencies were born in the anime and carried to manga adaptations, and her sociopathy (and apathy towards regular people) only gets worse as each season passes. While's she's a bit greedy and can over-react sometimes in the original books, she was not sociopathic at all, and, more importantly, she did not abuse her magical powers (i.e the Dragon Slave spell) the way she did in the anime. She is also more abrasive towards her allies as the anime goes on as well.
    • Gourry got the worst of it; he goes from merely being a bit tactless to being borderline mentally retarded - his memory is so short-spanned that it's miraculous that he can still get out of bed and function normally. Much like Lina, he was never that much of The Ditz in the books - in fact, while genuinely unaware of some things (such as magical lore), he acts dumb to tease or deceive others. Later manga adaptations, like The Hourglass of Falces, thankfully revive that aspect of him. The Evolution-R anime also managed to give him back shades of his former competency.
    • Amelia had a love of justice that was both an odd quirk yet an honest belief in the novels; the anime and manga flanderized this to the point that she could see nothing gray about anybody; she's also significantly dumber to boot, to the point of being The Chew Toy. The newer anime actually tones all of these down, but some other stories crank up her enthusiasm and giddiness to compensate.
    • Zelgadis did not change much initially, save for becoming snarky, but as time passed, he became more of a whiner and, despite, well, whining about his chimeric body so much, he takes joy in the Insult Backfires that occasionally happen to him, tends to dismiss his companions (especially when they're trying to be actually nice to him), and in later manga and newer anime seasons, shows signs of being an Insufferable Genius. In the original books, he's a genuinely sad figure that simply wants to be normal again and atone for working under Rezo, the Red Priest.
    • Some of Xellos' more malevolent aspects are turned comedic in the anime (such as his tendency to spook others). Also, Sylphiel is not as demure in the novels as she is in the anime and manga.
  • Amy's Tsundere mood swings in Sonic X. Initially Amy was mostly on par with her games counterpart, a bubbly helpful team mate but with an occasionally bratty attitude. By the third season, she becomes more consistently obnoxious and haughty towards anything not related to Sonic, and her occasional psychotic temper used more frequently and disproportionately.
    • Chris started off as an unassuming boy who was somewhat lonely but still had a few friends. This gradually escalated until, near the end of Season 2, Chris was so whiny and dependent on Sonic that he disrupted the animal characters' portal back to their world when only Sonic was left so that Sonic couldn't leave him.
  • Pretty much everyone in Tenchi Muyo!, especially Ayeka and Mihoshi. Especially in all the "expansion" series. The characterization gets more and more flanderized the further away from the OVAs you get. An example of this using Mihoshi: in the OVAs, she a decent and respective cop, though a bit flighty. In Sasami: Magical Girls Club, she so idiotic, one episode had her come to class forgetting her skirt.
  • In the first series of To Love Ru, Rito's perverted accidents were more often caused by Lala's inventions, rather than Rito's own clumsiness. In the sequel "Darkness", he can hardly take a step without tripping onto a girl in a suggestive position. As a result, this has become his principal hallmark.
  • The Omake for Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase intentionally does this to the whole cast after dumping them and their house in the middle of the ocean, for the funny.
  • Umi Monogatari had everyone's traits exaggerated in the OVA, as there was no evil to fight and nothing big going on.
  • In the anime Vision of Escaflowne, one of the main villains, Dilandau Albatou, starts off as composed but really mean, obnoxious, and narcissistic, with a murderous streak. But he soon evolves into a full blown Ax-Crazy psychopath who dreams of nothing but revenge and bloody murder. But this is justified and completely intentional, and the fans LOVE it.
  • Yakitate!! Japan:
    • Kawachi. He started out as a talented baker with "real person" problems and a tendency to need to have the hero's eccentricities explained to him (and thus the reader). Over the course of the volumes this degenerated into him becoming a total Butt-Monkey, suffering any indignation or humiliation that the other characters were apparently too cool to have happen to them, and a tendency to shout disbelief at any tiny thing, causing others to mock and ridicule him. It finally culminated in even his beloved mother and younger siblings being dismissive of his abilities, and as the series went on he became the equivalent of Krillin hanging out with Goku and Vegeta... only without the abiding affection and/or small amount of respect those two gave Krillin, as Kawachi's "friends" took to using him to literally waste the opposing team's time. The worst part of this is near the end of the manga, where it's teased that Kawachi's flanderization may finally be undone when he challenges Azuma to a bake-off after enough Training from Hell to compete on his level, only for Azuma to win by default because the Reality Warper powers of his bread rendered the judge unable to eat bread at all, and thus be unable to judge Kawaichi's bread. Kawaichi's Butt-Monkey status nearly doubled from that point on.
    • Zigzagged with Kuroyanagi. He was first introduced as an antagonistic Caustic Critic, who would point out the flaws of the dishes he has to judge in the harshest manner possible, and goes out of his way to insult the makers. He was given a little more depth in the Rookie Tournament Arc and Monaco Cup Arc, when his backstory as a wanna-be baker who became a judge/critic because he couldn't handle being Overshadowed by Awesome in the professional baking world was revealed. By the Yakitate 25 Arc, he's embraced his passion as a food judge and has become a literal bread-zombie whose sole purpose and passion in life is to taste delicious bread.
    • This happened not just with characters but Plot Devices as well. Initially the pun-based reactions were Played for Laughs Imagine Spots. From the middle to late in the series, it got exaggerated into a straight up superpower that the main characters save the world with.
  • Miyu in Vampire Princess Miyu. In the OVA she was secretive, reserved, and hardly opened up to others except her bodyguard, Larva. However, she covered this up well by being charming, charismatic, friendly, and sometimes flirtatious to humans. In fact, it's not until later that you find out she has personal issues. In the television series, however, her former characteristics are taken to the point she almost becomes a Rei Ayanami Expy.

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