I Just Want To Be Normal / Anime & Manga

Special people who'd rather be ordinary in Anime & Manga.

---

• A few Magical Girls, especially Usagi of Sailor Moon, who spent all of the first arc of Sailor Moon R saying this and got two separate chances at it via reincarnation-induced amnesia — once before the show started, once at the end of the first series.
  Usagi: "I wake up in the morning. The white lace curtains sway in the breeze. The cuckoo clock in my room tells me it's seven o'clock. "If you sleep longer, you'll be late!" Mama cries out. I nod off thinking, "Just let me sleep three more minutes." I'm late, just like every other day. Teacher makes me stand in the hall. I fail another test. On the way home from school I eat crepes with my friends. A party dress decorating a show window catches my eye. Such little things delight my heart.. It's that.. that ordinary life I want back.. I want it back.
  • She even cried when she does get her powers back in Sailor Moon R because getting them back also means she remembers watching her friends and her lover all die in battle right in front of her.
  • Eventually she resents her Sailor life so much that her powers give out entirely. It's after encouragement and realizing that being Sailor Moon also brought the benefits of True Companions and romance that she finally accepts her Destiny as Sailor Moon and Princess Serenity. At this point although she occasionally gripes about how fighting the baddies is irritating and inconvenient she mostly accepts what she is and no longer seeks to be normal.
  • In the manga Usagi specifically comes to the conclusion that while being Sailor Moon is painful because of the endless battles and the loss she suffers, she's glad it happened because she got to meet everybody she now loves and has the ability to protect them. Of course, she had a lot less of the "I want to be normal" bits in the manga in general.
  • Exceptions: Nanoha from Lyrical Nanoha, Yui from Corrector Yui, and Nozomi from Yes! Pretty Cure 5, all of whom jump into the weirdness with both feet. Yui does this because she is a Genre Savvy Magical Girl Otaku, Nanoha and Nozomi because they're looking for a true calling. Shugo Chara! is somewhere between the two extremes. The powers didn't seem to bother Amu, it's the charas that annoyed her.
  • Parodied with Pretty Sammy, whose whole motivation for not wanting to keep her powers is because her outfit is lame and being a skimpily clad superhero is really embarrassing.
  • Ichigo of Tokyo Mew Mew wanted to be normal out of fear that her crush Masaya would reject her if he found out — fighting aliens is really not a big deal compared to this.
  • Prétear, on the other hand, is a strange case. By the time Himeno receives the Call to Adventure, she already doesn't consider her life to be "normal", since she is all of a sudden a member of a rich family and feels ridiculously out of place there. Turns out that something even weirder — namely, being a Magical Girl — actually fits her better. To the point when she almost gets a Heroic BSoD upon being Brought Down to Normal for one episode.
• It is fairly common in Real Robot series for the main character to wish for a return to their regular life, usually because their unique situation is brought on by warfare.

---

• Ao no Fuuin has the heroine Soko, who is the resurrected Queen of the Oni and the key to the rise of the Oni family and, as an Oni, she has to feast upon humans or their energy to live. And all Soko wants to be is normal, so she tries to find a way to rid herself of her Oni status and powers, which makes up part of the story's goals.
• Sakaki in Azumanga Daioh is a deeply shy girl who's cursed with an Aloof Dark-Haired Girl appearance. Other girls mistake her silence for coldness, and this has made her an idol — which embarrasses her, but she's too shy to say that either. Sakaki would much rather be small and cute like Chiyo-chan... who would much rather be big and tall like Sakaki.
  • Arguably, Osaka as well; her Image Song "Shikkari! Try La Lai" has some shades of this in places.
• Oboro from Basilisk would just love to marry her fiancé Gennosuke and live Happily Ever After. However, they're both the heirs and leaders of warring Ninja clans...
  • There's also Genki Boy Yashamaru, who views the clan truce as his chance to get married to his beloved fiancée and fellow Iga Ninja Hotarubi. They both get bloodily killed off. Sniff.
• Bleach
  • At the beginning of the series, Ichigo wishes he could be a normal human who cannot see ghosts and spiritual beings. When he finally gets that wish, So What Do We Do Now? and Can't Stay Normal kick in as he realizes he's lost his ability to protect his friends and family.
  • Ryuuken Ishida tells his son Uryuu that he is incapable of getting rid of his (hated but considerable) Quincy powers so all he can do is refuse to use them. When he was a teenager, Ryuuken was extremely invested in protecting the future of the Quincy clan, until events shook his faith in his ability to do so. Unknown later events tipped him over the edge from shaken to resentful. It appears to be linked to the Quincy King's purge of all "impure" Quincies, which successfully killed his wife and tried, but mysteriously failed, to kill Uryuu.
  • Coyote Starrk wanted so desperately to be be able to exist among other hollows without killing them with his presence alone that he created Lilynette out of part of himself simply to have someone to talk to. Aizen recruited him with the promise that the other Espada would be strong enough to withstand his presence.
  • Ichigo ends up believing that the loneliness that came from not being normal was the driving force behind Aizen's actions.
  • The Fullbringers are motivated by the desire to be normal humans. In the end, it's revealed only Jackie genuinely wanted this and the others had been lying about it. Like Ichigo, Jackie gets her wish to be normal and regrets the loss of her powers.
• Turns out to be the case for Q from Bungou Stray Dogs. While being used by the enemy for his powerful and mostly-uncontrollable ability to create hallucinations, he says that he never asked for this ability and wonders why he was forced into a life of hurting others.
• Campione!: Godou Kusanagi's greatest wish is to have a peaceful, normal life. Unfortunately, he is a Campione, a godslayer who must fight to defend the people from maddened gods. He learns the hard way that shirking his responsibilities leads to people getting hurt.
• Cardcaptor Sakura:
  • The entire plot in the manga was this from Clow Reed, even the very existence of the titular heroine. He was so damn powerful he couldn't control his own powers, mostly seeing the future, which took away all the pleasures of life. So he created a more powerful witch (Sakura) who could divide his power between his two reincarnation-like versions, one of them being Sakura's father Fujitaka.
  • Sequel series ×××HOLiC and Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- go into more detail about why he wanted to divide his power so badly — just by wishing someone (his girlfriend Yuuko) wasn't dying, he turned her into an immortal zombie, eternal unliving as everyone around her ages and dies. He took this even harder than she did, somehow.
• A Certain Magical Index:
  • Accelerator, of all people, really seems like he would have lived a much happier life if he didn't have his incredible powers. He expresses several times a desire that people would just stop attacking him all the time, but due to his power, they never will. Indeed, when he's left to his own devices, he's pretty passive and doesn't have any desire for violence or destruction. It's only when he or his loved ones are threatened that he goes psychotic Blood Knight.
  • Kakeru Kamisato used to be an Ordinary High-School Student when he suddenly gained the ability World Rejecter, making him one of the most powerful characters in the series. He greatly dislikes this and being thrust into the role of a hero. Also, he believes the girls in his Unwanted Harem only like him because of his power. His dislike of having powers is so great that he starts attacking the Magic Gods, believing they were responsible for giving him his powers. When he hears about Touma Kamijou and his Imagine Breaker, he immediately assumes he feels the same way and tries to recruit him to his cause, only to be thrown for a loop when Touma tells him, as much hell as his ability has given him, he'd still be a hero regardless of whether or not he has it.
• Chainsaw Man:
  • Having grown up a penniless orphan, all Denji ever wanted was to have the same basic necessities as everyone else and enjoys his Demon Slaying job because it allows him to have the three meals a day he dreamed of.
  • At the end of Part 1, it's revealed that this was Makima's motivation because, like Denji, she was raised to be a weapon and just wanted to have a normal family which her powers made impossible. The whole reason she latched on to him and Pochita so hard was because they could make her dream a reality, which ends up being realized after she reincarnates into a Creepy Child that Denji adopts.
• Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School: Despite how much he puts his highly talented classmates on a pedestal and how dismissive he is towards those that lack one, it’s revealed in an Image Song released for the anime that Nagito would prefer to live a normal life without his own talent, feeling burnt out from the constant miracles and tragedies that were constantly bestowed onto him his whole life by his extreme luck, both good and bad. This would be expanded on in an OVA, where it’s revealed his version of an ideal world is one where he never had his luck cycle and lives as a relatively normal boy. It also reveals that’s it not just his own talent he resents, but talent as a whole, thinking it prevents everyone from having an equal chance at happiness. However, once he snaps out of the illusion and returns to his regular self, he immediately denies thinking this way.
• The premise of the Light Novel series Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life? is a Child Prodigy worn out by the social isolation her intelligence brought her and the expectations of her family, so she asked to be reincarnated as somebody totally average after dying in an accident. As such, in her next life, everything about her is a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. However, since she didn't specify the scale on which she is to be considered average, and she reincarnates in a fantasy world, 10 is not peak human, it's peak ability for rare mystical creatures. Peak human is more like a low 3, making her incredible by human standards.
• Zig-zagged with the title character of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.. While Kusuo does like the convenience of some of the many powers he has, the feeling of picking up a book without reading the thoughts of everyone who ever touched it or not having to worry about how much he warped reality if one of his hair bobbles fell off really makes him wish he didn't have them. And despite him going through arcs where he depowers (turns out not having telepathy means everyone is unpredictable, who knew), Kusuo still wouldn't think of any other goal. He happily gets his wish at the end of the series.
  • Inverted with Kaidou, whose delusional ramblings and strict home life make it clear that he wants the powers he doesn't know Saiki already has.
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, while Zenitsu later shows that he has an inner dream where everyone sees him as a hero who can be relied on to always protect them — thus being a wish of someone who wants to be special —, in the end the boy used to gravitate mostly towards thinking that the demon slaying life really isn’t for a person like him, asserting that a normal humble life where he lives quietly and builds a family is the best outcome he could ever hope to achieve.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Gohan has the potential to become the strongest fighter in the universe, far surpassing his dad and the other hybrids. Instead, he chose to live a peaceful life as a scholar and family man, and only fights if there is an immediate threat. At least Gohan is a bit of an exception as he does step up when he has to and doesn't descend into complaining about having to play the hero (heck, he even became a Protectorate in his late teens), he just has better things to do during the down times and his passions in life are different from his father's.
  • Despite being a badass who saved the world from the androids and kept Majin Buu from being revived, Future Trunks is envious of Gohan since he can live his dream and have a happy family, while Goku Black stole everything from him including his mother and Mai (so he thinks). Just being reminded of the life he could have had if Black never came to Earth reduces Trunks to tears.
• Durarara!!:
  • Shizuo Heiwajima may be a nigh-indestructible, vending machine-tossing badass, but he'd give that up in an instant if it meant he could go a day without hospitalizing someone in a fit of Unstoppable Rage.
  • Then there's Anri Sonohara, a quiet girl who is aware that supernatural things are going on around her (though she doesn't know all the details), and just wants to be left alone. If that means using her Yandere magic sword to mind-control people into leaving her alone, then so be it.
    Anri: I will have peace in my life.
• The very wish of Eureka to be a normal human in Eureka Seven. She broke down in tears in episode 45 upon knowing her body is undergoing bizarre changes.
• Fairy Tail:
  • Fresh from a Defeat Means Friendship, Gajeel is smart enough to realize that it'll take a lot of time for most of Fairy Tail to forgive him. In addition to protecting his new friends, Gajeel goes to huge lengths to be accepted. This is usually played for laughs, since Gajeel doesn't have much of an idea as to how that works. For example, he once tied up the guild's singer and hijacked her concert so he could sing a ballad.
  • Mirajane also suffered from this when she was a kid. Her powers got her and her siblings chased out of their home. Now averted, as she realized she needed her power to protect her True Companions.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, Alphonse wants his normal body back, and wants Ed to get his limbs back. This is also the whole motivation of the Homunculi in the first anime, especially in the case of Lust.
• Sousuke begins entertaining these thoughts midway through Full Metal Panic!. It's not that he particularly dislikes being an ace mecha pilot and soldier; rather, as he's started learning that Living Is More than Surviving, he's also become painfully aware of his Crippling Overspecialization and worries about his ability to carve out a future for himself now that he actually kind of wants one. In the end, he actually does wind up quitting Mithril altogether so he can stay with Kaname.
• Ghost Talker's Daydream: Misaki never had a choice, since spirits have always been drawn to her and all it's ever done is alienate the people around her. As a child, her classmates made fun of her, their parents thought she was strange and kept their children away from her, and her father sent her to live with her grandmother (who was also a medium) to have her train Misaki. The only ones who want anything to do with her are her father, who enlists her aid as an exorcist, and her clients at the Roppongi S&M Club, where she works as a dominatrix. The worst part being, she's stuck with The Gift, so she's justifiably bitter.
  Hitsumaru: (to Saki) Even if you try to quit, they'll still find you.
• Gundam:
  • Ennil El toys with this around the middle of After War Gundam X. She starts working in a bar and gets an offer of marriage from an ordinary Nice Guy around the same time she gets an offer of a brand-new mobile suit. She chooses to keep piloting and eventually learns that her would-be fiancee was executed after the Federation conquered the island.
  • Zeheart Galette from Mobile Suit Gundam AGE. He confesses to Asemu that his greatest desire was to marry the person he loved and raise a family, right before he dies.
• In Guyver, Sho doesn't want to have the powers. When he technically has the opportunity to get rid of them (when the Guyver Remover is found), he still keeps them because he needs to protect his friends. The new anime adds a nice twist to this, with Tetsuro picking up the G-Unit first and then passing it to Sho only when it started sprouting tentacles.
• We're still not sure what the hell's going on in Haruhi Suzumiya, especially in relation to Kyon. He continually mentions how he wishes Haruhi would just settle down and be a normal, well-adjusted schoolgirl (Hell, it's even in his Image Song), but the fact that he's an Unreliable Narrator (in regards to his feelings, anyway) and that he was once stuck in a universe where everything was normal and he still attempted to revert it to its very Haruhi, abnormal state may prove otherwise...
• A variant of this occurs in Hayate the Combat Butler. After finding out Hayate wants a normal girl and normal life, Nagi finds Ayumu Nishizawa, essentially the most normal person in the cast. (The narrator pointed this out.) and follows her all day, learning how to be "normal". In the end, she realizes that normal is "an extremely scaled down version of what I normally do."
• Iceland in Hetalia: Axis Powers is this way. He's constantly exasperated and embarrassed by the eccentric behavior of the other Nordics, pretends he can't see his brother Norway's magical creatures, and tells his Puffin not to speak when in the company of other people, as they'd "think him pitiful" if he was seen talking to a bird. He's absolutely horrified by the thought that out of all of the Nordics, he may be the "weird" one.
  World☆Stars, Chapter 103: He doesn't want to be treated as 'the kid who sees things', so he pretends he can't.
• High School D×D: It turns out that in spite of his Blood Knight attitude and constant desire to push his abilities to the limits in battle, this is Vali Lucifer's deepest desire. When he was caught in a Lotus-Eater Machine, his ideal world was living a peaceful, ordinary life with a loving family.
• Yuu from Holyland really doesn't want to have to keep fighting just so he can stay out at night, though he doesn't run away from the challenges either.
• After a lot of Character Development, Chimera Ant King Meruem from Hunter × Hunter professes that he wishes he was born a human.
• Nagisa spends almost all of the two Iczelion OVAs whining and crying about being chosen to bond with the Iczel.
• Inuyasha: Kikyou, one of the most powerful miko who had ever lived, just wanted to be a normal girl and live a normal married life with Inuyasha. She and Inuyasha wanted this so much that Inuyasha also agreed to his give up his Youkai heritage and become a normal human boy to make that dream come true. Their plan was ruined by another which became the entire reason for the plot of the story.
  • One story arc has the half-demon Gyu-oh. He is a pure human during the day and a pure bull-yokai at night. He wants to create a new jewel of the four souls in order to be able to be a pure human being. However, his plan is not sucessfull.
• Zig-zagged by JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 4's Big Bad Kira Yoshikage. His main motivation is to live a normal and uneventful life, taking deliberate steps to avoid all conflict and make himself as unnoticeable and nondescript as possible. Unlike most examples of this trope, his supernatural powers actually help him achieve that goal. What doesn't help him, though, is his... unusual hobby.
• Kaguya from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War was raised to be a Social Darwinist because of her family's beliefs and was basically robbed of having a proper childhood due to her father's neglect. As such, she relishes any chance she can get to act like a normal girl.
  • In Chapter 100, her flip phone breaks and since all the photos she took with it were saved in the internal storage, the data is lost forever, leaving her heartbroken. Kaguya treasured these photos because they captured special moments of an ordinary high school girl's life. After Kaguya gets a smartphone and joins Shirogane's newly created LINE group, she regains her smile when her friends upload their own share of photos.
  • This even extends to her views on romance, as she comments that Kashiwagi and Tsubasa having their first kiss in front of a convenience store must have been wonderful despite her own first kiss with Shirogane having been a thousand times more romantic.
  • In the same chapter, she notes that Kashiwagi refers to her as "Kaguya-chan" as if she considers Kaguya an ordinary friend. When Kashiwagi apologizes and says she won't do it anymore, Kaguya looks a little sad and says she is fine with it, showing that as well as an ordinary love, she also wants ordinary schoolmates who treat her like one of them.
• Nanami Momozono from Kamisama Kiss is an Ordinary High-School Student who inadvertently becomes a Shinto Land God. Her main thought about the situation is how the hell is she going to find a way to go back to being an Ordinary High-School Student. She later changes her mind and gets used to being a Physical God.
• The title character of Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple is usually pretty happy with the changes in his life due to meeting Miu (i.e., Miu herself), Training from Hell aside. However, he's less than happy with the fights that he's forced into as a result. It's best illustrated here as he sneaks into the cruise ship of a worldwide criminal organization led by some of the most dangerous martial artists in the world, whose disciples want to kill Kenichi to prove their Badassitude.
  Kenichi: Where did I go wrong in life?
  • At the start of the series, Miu tries very hard to fit in at their normal school. While she enjoys her thoroughly abnormal life as a martial artist, being gorgeous, smart, and an exceptional athlete has led to jealousy from her peers, so she wears non-prescription glasses and keeps her hair braided. Part of her character development is her no longer pretending to be normal.
• K-On!:
  • In a rare non-supernatural example, Mio. She chose bass instead of guitar because she doesn't like to be the center of attention. Subverted in the anime; Mio's forced to take lead singer Yui's place in the first live show the girls perform.
  • There's also Mugi, who comes from an incredibly wealthy family, but gets much enjoyment from doing ordinary everyday things that most people would take for granted.
• Haruka from Kotoura-san. You can't blame the girl after all the hell she's gone though because nobody understood her gift and how to cope with it.
• Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions!'s Yuuta just wants to spend his high-school days in relative normalcy after treated as a virtual pariah due to his middle-school-age delusions of grandeur. Alas, along came Rikka.
• Matoi the Sacred Slayer: This is Matoi's wish in life. Unfortunately for her, as an exorcist girl, she keeps dragged into battles with the demonic Nights.
• The Wolkenritter in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's are a quartet of immortal super-warriors who have been fighting an even battle against the entire multiverse for centuries. Their one true wish in the series is for a peaceful family life with the one person who has ever showed them kindness — a nine-year-old paraplegic Japanese girl who is being slowly devoured by the very thing that allows them to exist. "It was only a small wish," indeed... That said, they merely want to live normally, not be normal, as all four of them take great pride in their abilities, and Signum in particular loves combat.
• In Mob Psycho 100, The Protagonist Mob is one of the most powerful psychics in the series and could let him do many things. But to Mob, he doesn't think highly of his powers and is more interested in living a normalish life. In fact, he notes that despite his vast psychic powers, it doesn't really help him much with things like physical improvement or talking to girls. Fascinatingly enough, this trope is explored througout the series, namely in juxtaposition with other espers. Many indulge in their powers and believe they deserve special treatment because of their psychic powers. However, Mob points out just how petty and hollow it is, something he learned from his mentor/"master" Reigan and indeed, many end up turning their life around and find meaning from the more mundane aspects of life and that they're no better than anyone else just because they are psychics. The Final Boss turns out to be none other than Mob himself or rather the repressed emotions he had over fear his psychic strength in ???% where his power grows expotentially. Mainly that despite Mob's desire for normalcy, he refuses to accept his powers as wholly part of him. As such, having his powers is his norm. By repressing it, he just makes his anxiety worse and his fear of not being in control of his powers feeds into himself. The final chapters have him overcoming this.
• Midoriya in My Hero Academia sort of inverts it. In his world, having superpowers is normal, and he was born quirkless, without powers, so he spends his childhood wishing he had a quirk like most other people. It eventually comes,true.
• When Maria in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! was younger she was admired for being a friendly and pretty little girl. However, she activated magic when she was young, scaring away her friend even as she healed her injury. As a result of her magic, she became isolated in the community because it made her special and different. On top of that, it tore her family apart because of constant rumors that it must mean she's an illegitimate child since magic tends to run in noble families and she's a commoner. Her father started staying away from home and her relationship with her mother became strained. Maria just wants to go back to being normal and having friends again, but since that's not possible she begins to hope that she can make friends at magic school instead. And she does, eventually, but only because the main character of the story is way nicer than she's supposed to be.
• In Nabari no Ou, Miharu really does not want to be an all-powerful Sealed Evil in a Can. It pretty much makes everything suck.
• In Naruto, unlike virtually everyone else in a cast of thousands who are either trying to become heads of state, living legends, outright immortals, gain the acceptance of their persecutors, avenge horrific wrongs, or various combinations thereof — Shikamaru Nara's driving goal in life has ever been to achieve a basic level of competence as a ninja, meet a decent girl, get married, have two kids, and stay alive until retirement. Poor bastard never had a chance. Given his Character Development in Shippuden, it would appear that his goals have become somewhat more lofty.
  • In a way, Naruto's true goal was this to a degree. He wanted to be accepted for who he was rather than the monster when the villagers looked at him scornfully, though he learns early on it is because of the Kyuubi inside of him. He does come to be accepted more who he is over time and rise to be a hero.
• Chisame Hasegawa in Negima! Magister Negi Magi was fed up with her strange classmates even before she got an Adorably Precocious Child for a teacher. Naturally, things go downhill from there.
  • She eventually just gives up entirely after traveling to the Magic World with Ala Alba. In fact she's so accepting of it that she can't be trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine because deep down, she's completely content with her crazy life.
  • Another of the less blatantly eccentric ones, Asuna, turns out to only be normal because she succeeded at this, with the help of some Laser-Guided Amnesia. When the aformentioned Adorably Precocious Child appears, she goes back to paranormal of her own will not as a deliberate choice, but because she doesn't remember choosing to become normal in the first place, much less being abnormal. Remember, always analyze what you would do if you didn't know what you know if you plan on getting rid of that knowledge.
  • It's brought up again subtly with Evangeline; she admits that the reason she hates Asuna is because Asuna was actually successful at becoming normal but gave it up anyway. Eva is pissed because the person who got what she most desired threw it away, while Eva never got a chance to be normal to begin with. The fact that she lives in a brightly decorated room filled with adorable dolls and teddy bears in private hints that her Vampy and sexy Evil Overlord act is just a defense mechanism, and that she really wants to be to an innocent and happy little girl again.
• Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion really, REALLY doesn't want to pilot a giant mech and save the world. Subverted when he runs away and realizes that if he leaves, everyone he knows will die. He has no choice but to come back.
  • Rei Ayanami, quite literally, has no choice despite having a death wish and wanting just one normal life. Accustomed to the knowledge that if she dies she would be replaced by a clone, when it happens she is just pissed off and tired of it that she gets fed up with going along with Gendou's plans and enacts her own.
• Nano, the resident Robot Girl from Nichijou, who just wish to pass as a normal girl, which she would perfectly do, if it wasn't for the big Wind-Up Key on her back and pointless add-ons her creator insists on keeping.
  • Particularly amusing given that she's still easily one of the most normal people in the cast.
• Night Wizard's Renji is one of the most powerful Wizards around and can easily save the world with very little work. Except he wants to stop going on missions and actually get a chance to finish school, which is all but impossible with the number of times Anzelotte keeps calling him away.
• Yuumura Kirika in Noir hates the fact that she can easily murder people in all kinds of ways and not feel any remorse for it. Her desire is to just be a normal school girl and artist. Later in the series, it's revealed that she lost her memories because of a mental breakdown and her willfully wanting to forget who she was. She gets assigned to Japan with a fake ID to do a job, but doesn't remember what that job was and instead decides to live a normal life as a high school student. Hard to do, however, when Sodat agents kept showing up trying to kill her, forcing her to confront her past with some help.
• The main character of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan starts this way, wanting to just live a normal life as a human despite being the heir to a huge clan of youkai and a quarter-youkai himself. But it's averted early on in the first real story arc, when he begins to fully understand his youkai nature and learns of the impact his attitude is having on others firsthand. He decides that while he does want to live a peaceful life, protecting the people close to him and leading his clan is far more important.
• Nurse Angel Ririka SOS — the heroine is in the middle of a really happy childhood full of warm, quirky, supportive relatives and warm, thoughtful, reassuring friends. So when protecting her loved ones starts leading into Friend-or-Idol Decision(s) and Survivor Guilt, it produces a lot of Emotional Torque.
• Averted with Onpu the grade-school idol in Ojamajo Doremi. Even though some of the negative aspects of it are there (her mom's too busy to be with her on Christmas) she loves the attention she gets and the work itself.
• One Piece:
  • Captain Kuro, who was genuinely sick of being a pirate and wanted to live a nice, safe civilian life. Unfortunately, he wanted to be normal and rich, and was willing to kill to get that life. He ultimately fails and is forced back to the sea.
  • At the end of his fight with Zoro, Kaku expressed regret that he never got to lead a normal life, having been raised to be an assassin. In the manga, him and the rest of CP9 take a stab at this with the World Government hot on their tails. Lucci and Kaku at least eventually wind up back as assassins anyway, now members — and in Lucci's case, the leader — of Cipher Pol Aigis Zero.
• In the beginning of The Pet Girl of Sakurasou, Sorata is this by wanting to leave the local Quirky Household ASAP — he was sent there because he wanted to keep a cat. Eventually, an identity crisis driven by the said place's Bunny Ears Lawyers and being the Cloudcuckoolander's Minder for an Idiot Savant caused him to opt otherwise.
• Phantom Quest Corp.: Bosco is a vampire, who's trying to kick the habit and has mostly succeeded, through controlled exposure to crosses, garlic, and high-powered UV lamps. As a result, he's become immune to them and can freely walk around in broad daylight^note he still needs blood, but limits himself to feeding only four times a year, at 200cc's per quarter. All so he could be together with Makiko. It's left him anemic and severely weakened but, if you ask him, she's Worth It.
• In Ranma ½, most of the characters just want to be rid of their curses. Granted, most would be pretty damn weird even without their curses.
• Lucia from Rave Master comes off as an odd example. As the Big Bad with no real superpower who opted to take over the main criminal orginization, he doesn't seem like the type to express that sort of desire. However, he's the descendent of the sole survivor of The End of the World as We Know It (who created a 'false' parallel world where humanity didn't die off) and is therefor cursed to suffer every misery the universe can throw at him.
• Red Ash: Gearworld: Beck and Tyger are Nanos (humans with nanomachines in their systems) who are trying to save up enough money to afford the extremely expensive nano-removal procedure. If they don't they'll error out like their friend Lucy did.
• Rocket Girls: After becoming an astronaut and going into space once, and getting international attention for it, Yukari Morita admits she just wants to be a normal high school student. (Like that's going to happen.)
• Parodied in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei through Nami Hitou, the "ordinary girl" in a class where everyone else has some sort of character trait taken to the extreme.
  Nami: "Don't call me normal!" (Futsuu tte iu na!)
• In The Secret Agreement, it turns out that Yuuichi was the only member of a life-force stealing clan who functioned like a normal human being. When his supernatural side suddenly starts awakening, his (fake) uncle explains the situation and congratulates him. Considering this means that he will kill the love of his life and that they don't genuinely love each other (it's only a delusion to help the murder) Yuuichi understandably wishes he stayed normal.
• Slayers
  • Zelgadis is a prime example. Cursed with Awesome in the form of being merged with a stone golem and a demon, in the anime his quest can actually make him seem motivated by vanity, because his warped body isn't unattractive in an exotic sort of way (almost a Cute Monster Guy), he doesn't really care about people anyway (which makes their being afraid of him when they see him have less impact), and most importantly his body gives him super powers. It boosts his energy reserves, allowing him to cast more spells than either of his companions, allows him to go for ages without food or water, gives him superhuman strength, speed, hearing and stamina, and makes him Nigh-Invulnerable to all practical purposes (only incredibly powerful attacks can hurt him — Demon Lords, the Sword of Light, etcetera).
  • In the Light Novels, it's a different matter entirely; he isn't completely motivated by vain in regards to his appearance, but rather, it's revealed here that after his great-grandfather Rezo cursed him, he was forced to serve as his bodyguard and fulfill gruesome and morally questionable tasks (it's implied that one of those tasks involved getting together with a woman and murdering her) for Rezo's sake. So rather than vanity, Zelgadis wants to be normal so that he can eradicate his past as "the Evil Swordsman" (his given moniker) and live life the way he wishes to.
• The first episode of Space Patrol Luluco spells out from the very beginning that Luluco wants nothing to do with with all the aliens and weirdness in her city and just wants to live a normal life of a normal middle school student. It's implied that a lot of this has to do with the fact that her parents were always fighting when she was a child due to their opposing natures. But by the end of the series she comes to love and embrace all the weirdness around her.
• In Strawberry Panic!, Amane doesn't want to be Etoile and didn't ask for her legions of fangirls — she just wants to ride her horse in peace. Her rival, Kaname, finally makes the point to her that only she can win the Etoile election for Spica; the whole school has placed its hopes on Amane, and like it or not, that gives her a responsibility. It's strange how this particular Aesop feels more Broken with a normal human being than with a superhero, Slayer, or whatever.
• This is a major part of the plot to Tenchi in Tokyo. In this universe, Tenchi Masaki isn't an alien prince, he's the latest of a long line of protectors of the Earth. However, he doesn't want any of that. He separates a set of gems that turn into a sword and gives them to the six girls who stay with him, then decides to move to Tokyo for priest training, where he ends up falling in love with a girl there. This forms a wedge between the seven so that, by halfway through the series, Big Bad Yuugi's manipulations have driven Ryoko, Mihoshi and Kiyone off-planet, Washu has disappeared into her lab, and only Ayeka and Sasami are trying to pick up the pieces.
  • This is also attempted in Tenchi Muyo! and Tenchi Universe. In Muyo!, while the girls don't leave, Tenchi's thankful that the craziness with Kagato is over with and he doesn't have to put up with that anymore. But, being with the girls proves that going back to normal won't cut it anymore. In Universe, after Kagato's dealt with, everyone goes their separate ways, but when Ryoko suddenly returns to Earth, she points out that the others are following right behind — they liked how things were and want to return.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
  • Played somewhat straight in the gag spin-off Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann — Guren Gakuenhen, taking place in a modern Japanese setting. Simon expresses a desire for a life of normalcy (even praying to his deceased parents), but circumstances won't let him him (with Kamina's Hot-Blooded nature getting him into further trouble or out of it.) Granted, by a normal life, he is referring to not wanting to deal with the misforunte in his life up to that point (kidnapped by monkeys in a zoo at infancy, running away from home as a gradeschooler with Kamina and ended up in a tuna fishing boat, and losing his home being demolished in various disasters.)
  • There's also Viral, who in the alternate universe where all of one's wishes are granted, he's shown having a wife and daugther living in the countryside.
• Tokyo Ghoul has numerous examples of this, with just a few being listed:
  • Touka Kirishimi is one of several Ghouls that desperately wish for the normal, peaceful life that humans enjoy. She attempts to live like an Ordinary High-School Student, but her Horror Hunger prevents her from ever being able to truly have a normal life. When Kaneki first learns of his Half-Human Hybrid status, he begs her to teach him how to live as a Ghoul — she gives him a scathing reply, demanding to know what cake tastes like, or what it's like to live without constant fear of being discovered.
  • In Jack, this is also implied to be the case with the then young CCG investigator Arima, with him wistfully noting that he never got to experience a normal life. When he does finally get a brief experience at a somewhat more normal life while masquerading as an Ordinary High-School Student he admits that he did find it "fun".
  • Also in Jack there's Lantern, who's really schoolgirl Minami. While an unrepentant serial killer who saw their murdering of criminals and delinquents as actually helping society, their Motive Rant revealed that ultimately, she just wanted to be a normal girl attending High School like everyone else. Unfortunately, like with all ghouls, their Horror Hunger made that entirely impossible.
• In The Twelve Kingdoms, Keiki chose a young woman named Joukaku as the Fisher King of the Kei Kingdom. Joukaku, however, is a very insecure young woman who never wanted to be the Queen and felt that she wasn't up to the task, suffering more than one Heroic BSoD. Add her Unrequited Love for Keiki and her Yandere tendencies, and... well...
• Maya Matsumoto from Wagnaria!!. Ironic in that, in her attempts to be normal in a restaurant full of strange characters, she comes off just as weird to the other employees.
• Judai in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX becomes notably less cheerful when suddenly the only thing stopping all his friends from dying and the world ending is the card game he loved so much. And up until this point he was the only one who really did seem to treat it as a card game. Eventually, the stress becomes so bad that he surrenders to his super powered evil side and starts taking over the duel monsters world, requiring two heroic sacrifices to get him back to efficiency. He doesn't start enjoying dueling again until a decent bit into the next season... at which point the next big bad starts trying to implement their Assimilation Plot. Sucks, huh?

---