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You're browsing around, and you find out about something that looks neat. A new TV show, a new movie, a new book, maybe a video game. You don't know anything about it, but it looks neat. Something about it jumps out at you. Could be the humor, could be the action, could be the eye-candy. So you decide to try it out.
And it turns out the show is pretty good, too, and you like it. But over time, you start to like it for a completely different reason. This show with the cute lead character actually has an interesting side character with an in-depth story that you're really getting into. Or this movie might be very funny, but it also has some great undercurrents of drama that you weren't expecting, and that really jump out at you. Either way, you end up really liking the show/movie/book/game/etc for a reason completely different from why you started to check it out.
This is an example of Come For The X Stay For The Y. You originally start to get into something for reason X, but in the end, it's reason Y that causes you to get hooked and stick around.
See also Hello Boys, which is the sub-trope of this. Watch It for the Meme may lead to this. Compare I Read It For The Articles and contrast Just Here for Godzilla.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Axis Powers Hetalia: Come for the historical references, stay for the quirky characters and the Ho Yay.
- Agent Aika: Come for the fight scenes, stay for the panty shots.
- Baccano: Come for the levels of gore on par with a Quentin Tarantino movie, stay for the best English dub since Cowboy Bebop.
- Basilisk: Come for the ninja fights, stay for the touching drama.
- BECK Mongolian Chop Squad: Come for the awesome dubbed music, stay for the best Slice of Life this side of The Wonder Years.
- Berserk: Come for Guts being a Badass, stay for the compelling, human story and character development.
- Black Lagoon: Come for the over-the-top Tarantino action, stay for the surprisingly deep philosophizing. Seriously, name me one other action anime where they quote Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre.
- Bleach: Come for the spinning leeks, stay for the sword fights.
- Come for the sword fights, stay for the characters.
- Brigadoon: Marin & Melan: Come for the robot battles, stay for the heart-wringing drama. Or, come for the Slice of Life, stay for the epic science fiction adventure.
- Candy Boy: Come for the hope of some Twin Cest Yuri Genre, stay for a surprisingly sweet show about sisters, with some real heartwarming moments.
- Chu-Bra!!: Come for the Fanservice, stay for the character relationships and your brand new understanding of what middle-school girls go through.
- Code Geass: Come for the mecha and World of Ham (and glorious Fanservice), stay for MORE ham and the resident Magnificent Bastard's epic tactical Xanatos Gambits while observing the fairly realistic feudal and social politics. And for why this show has a Broken Base nearly as epic.
- Cowboy Bebop:
- Come for the space battles, stay for the Hong Kong Blood Opera.
- Come for the spaceships and gunfights, stay for Spike (and Ed).
- Come for the action, stay for the soundtrack.
- Come for the soundtrack, stay for the characters and the gorgeous art.
- Darker than Black: Come for the vicious subversion of everything that makes the superhero genre what it is, stay for the surprisingly sympathetic characters and Yoko Kanno soundtrack.
- Death Note: Come for the potato chips, stay for the Magnificent Bastards.
- Digimon Adventure: Come for the giant fighting monsters, stay for the very compelling and constantly evolving characters, well written plots and the awesome soundtrack.
- For most seasons Come for the plot, stay for digivolutions.
- Elfen Lied: Come for the Gorn and Fanservice, stay for the sympathetic and wonderfully human characters and heart-wrenchingly tragic story.
- Eureka Seven: Come for the Humongous Mecha on surfboards, stay for the awesome story line and catchy music.
- Fairy Tail: Come for the Fanservice and Badass magic, stay for the Nakama and other Heartwarming moments.
- Fist of the North Star: Come for the Badass protagonist and his way of making foes already dead, stay for the Manly Tears.
- FLCL: Come for the Gainax Mind Screw and endless sexual symbolism, stay for
the actually complex and interesting characters Haruko.
- Franken Fran: Come for the implied yuri and fanservice, stay for the over the top Body Horror and black comedy.
- Gakuen Heaven: come for the actual Ho Yay, stay for the well-rounded characters and the overdose of cute. Also, the catchy theme-tune and the decent animation.
- Get Backers: Come for
Juubei the Ho Yay and Fanservice, stay for the surprisingly intricate plot.
- Grenadier: Come for the Fanservice and stay for the action and Improbable Aiming Skills.
- Gun X Sword: Come for the mid-air mecha swordfights, stay for the characters, the quirky sense of humor, and the tight, fast-paced plotting of the last 15 episodes.
- Gunslinger Girl: Come for little girls kicking ass, stay for the touching and well-executed drama centered around the girls and the political subplots.
- Haruhi Suzumiya - Come for the dancing and smoked cheese, stay for the engaging story and complex characters.
- Hajime No Ippo: Come for the boxing, stay for the personality growth.
- Hellsing: Come for the OTT violence, stay for the awesome plot.
- Alternatively: come for the violence, stay for the Alucard and the Norio Wakamoto-voiced Alexander.
- Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni: Come for the "killer lolis" and horror, stay for the depressing storyline, True Companions and willingness to stop the everlasting June... Also, the yuri-filled official art.
- Also, the numerous Image Songs and The Power of Friendship.
- The manga: Come for a better adaptation or just because you love the series, stay for everything you said took to eleven with sound novel stuff drizzled over it.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Come for the "Ora Ora" and steamrollers, stay for the epic battles of wits.
- K-On!: Come for the guitar play, stay for the slice-of-life Moe.
- Kamen No Maid Guy: Come for Naeka's boobs, stay for Kogarashi's Crazy Awesomeness... and Action Girl meido Fubuki.
- Kanokon: Come for the fanservice, stay to see if it'll accept it is softcore porn and show some nipple.
- Which it does, if only for a handful of frames.
- Kara No Kyoukai: Come for the Tsukihime tie-in, stay for the eye bleeding visual quality, deep character relations, and Yuki Kajiura soundtrack.
- Kiddy Grade: Come for the fanservice (and some hints of Ho Yay), stay for the philosophical thoughts and Heartwarming Moments.
- Lucky Star. Come for the Haruhi references, stay for the lovable characters.
- Alternatively, come for Konata, stay for Kagami, Akira, and Misao (as well as the rest).
- Macross Frontier: Come out of a misguided loyalty to Robotech, stay for the epic soundtrack and frenetic space battling robots.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is based upon this: come for the Token Mini-Moe of Triangle Heart 3 Sweet Songs Forever doing cute things (not to mention the fanservice), stay for the deep plot, the well-developed world and technology, and a genre-blend you've never seen before. Look at the evolution of the logo, the music and the episodes; it starts like a typical Magical Girl series, but when things get further, it resembles a Humongous Mecha series progressively more and more. Of course, now the whole thing's been reversed... see Video Games below.
- Mahou Sensei Negima! Come for the fanservice from Love Hina Expys, stay for the humor and (epic) shonen action.
- Mai-Hime: Come for the fanservice and lesbians that the fanbase always seems to talk about, stay for the fanservice, humor, and characterization.
- Mirai Nikki: Come for Yuno, stay for the developing relationship between her and Yukiteru.
- My Balls: Come for the hentai, stay for the comedy.
- My Lovely Ghost Kana: Come for the hentai, stay for the heartwarming.
- Nana To Kaoru: Come for BDSM, stay for character development.
- Naruto: Come for the ninjas, stay for the Fan Dumb.
- Or just come to see what all the fuss is about, and stay for the interesting plot development.
- Or come to see what the fuss is about, and stay for your new favorite side character.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Come for the naked Moe girl, stay for the Deconstruction of just about every previous anime genre. And to watch the director cry himself to sleep when you find Rei attractive.
- Or, come for the Mind Screw Gainax Ending, stay just to watch what leads up to it.
- Better yet, come for the Giant Mecha badassery, stay for the intense psychological drama. Or vice-versa.
- Ouran High School Host Club: Come for the humor, stay for the character development.
- Potemayo: Come for the Chiyo-chan-level cute, stay for the many varied styles of humour and high weirdness.
- Princess Tutu: Come for the ridiculous premise and Magical Girl, stay for the deep characters, original plot, and affecting story.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Come for the adorable Magical Girls, stay for the storyline, the art direction, and the music.
- Queen's Blade: Come for the fan service concentrating on warrior women, stay for the interesting story line and intriguing characters. And of course more fan service.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena: Come for the Les Yay, stay for the complex character relationships and the Mind Screw.
- Rosario + Vampire: Come for the cute monster girls, stay for the awesome fights.
- Rozen Maiden: Come for the Desu, stay for the well developed cast of endearingly quirky characters. And moar Desu.
- Saikano: Come for the lolicon, stay for the heartbreaking storyline, awesome fight scenes and gut-wrenching transformations.
- Saint Seiya: Come for the Cast Full of Pretty Boys and the Ho Yay, stay for the epic characters, the ridiculously far-fetched and fabulous plot, the battles, the surprisingly emotive moments and the awesome music (amongst other things.)
- Seikon No Qwaser: Come for the breast sucking, stay for the interesting plot, and fight scenes.
- Sekirei: Come for the boobies, stay for the characters.
- Simoun. Come for the Schoolgirl Lesbians, stop laughing for the music, stay for the war story and character drama.
- Spice And Wolf: Come for the naked wolf-girl, stay for the character interaction and the economics lessons.
- Strike Witches and Sky Girls: Come for the fanservice, stay for the history jokes (Strike Witches), character development (Sky Girls), and dogfighting (both).
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Come for the Reconstruction. Stay for the manliness. And stay for the manliness. And stay for the manliness. Destroy us all! And stay for the manliness.
- Or, come for Kamina (or Yoko), stay for, well, whatever is up there.
- Come for Kamina, stay for Simon.
- Come for Kamina, stay for Nia.
- Venus Versus Virus: Come for the yuri subtext, stay for the action and... more yuri subtext.
- Witch Blade: Come for the Fanservice and asskicking scenes, stay for the heartwarming moments and comedy, topped with aesops about the positive effects of the love between mother and children
- Yami No Matsuei: Come for the supernatural detectives, stay for the character development and handsome death gods.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: Come for the crazy concept of card games on motorbikes, stay for the kickass plot and Cast Full of Pretty Boys.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: Come for card games, stay for the card games.
Comics
- Empowered: Come for the fanservice and comedy, stay for the intricately-weaved plot and well-written characters.
- Scott Pilgrim: Come for the simple premise and video game references, stay for the surprisingly deep story that comes from it.
- Watchmen: Come for another nice Alan Moore comic book, stay for Watchmen
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Come for strange pastiche of Victorian fiction, stay for the Crowning Moment of Awesome, Deconstructor Fleet, Darker and Edgier and much, much more.
- The Sandman: Come for the horror stories, stay for one of the best comic books that can be compared to a fantasy novel.
- Cable and Deadpool: Come for Deadpool, stay for the complex plots, Ho Yay, and interesting character developments.
- MAD: Come for the TV and Movie parodies, stay for Spy vs. Spy, Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions, and so forth.
- Cracked.com: Come for the gut-busting "top five" lists, stay for the even more gut-busting fan poster contests.
Fan Works
- A Glass of Wine: Come for the sex, stay for the heartwarming.
- Phalanx: Come for the unique concept, stay for the Character Development.
- Scordatura: Come for the Love Triangle, stay for the humor and well, the Love Triangle.
- Snowblind: Come for the concept, stay for the epicness.
- Nobody Dies: Come because it's freakin' hilarious, stay for the awesome fight scenes and well-thought-out universe expansion. Alternatively, come for Terrifying!Rei, stay for Woobie!Asuka.
- Kyon: Big Damn Hero: Come for the trope references and being advertised as a TV Tropes crossover, stay for the character interactions, the fighting scenes and the Reconstruction of the harem plot.
- My Immortal: Come to see if it really is as terrible as you've heard, stay because you can't stop laughing.
- Red Witch's newest fanfic sums up her entire output in its title: Come For the Madness, Stay For the Insanity.
- Tamers Forever Series Come for the insanely hilarious antics and touchingly realistic romance. Stay for the incredibly engaging plot.
- Batman Versus Barney: Come for the novelty - and sheer perversity - of seeing Barney the Dinosaur in the Batman: The Animated Series continuity, stay because it's a surprisingly well-written and dark tale with violence and horror you'll scarcely see on the actual show, plus a thoroughly bloodthirsty and oddly Foe Yay Joker.
Films — Animation
- WALL•E: Come for the impossibly adorable robots, stay for the heartstring-pulling love story.
- Yellow Submarine: Come for The Beatles'' music, stay for the trippy animation.
- The Incredibles: Come for the Deconstruction, stay for the action and plot.
- Toy Story: Come for the groundbreaking CGI, stay for the heartwarming and funny plot.
- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: Come for the two memelious actors, or because you read the book as a kid, or for the 3D, stay for the plot, the humour, and the hot nerds.
- Come for the comedy, stay for the Scenery Porn of giant food.
- The Princess and the Frog: Come for the 2D animation and nightmare fuel-erific villain, stay for the characters, the romance actually acted more realistic than the average Disney Princess one, the music, the story and well, let's just say they were following Linkara's advice with this movie.
- Fantasia: Come for the dancing hippos and Mickey Mouse dressed as a wizard, stay for Chernabog.
- Despicable Me: Come for the funny moments, a Harmless Villain and his adorable minions trying to conquer the world, stay for the story that leads to Gru's puppet book.
Films — Live-Action
- Stargate: Come for the sci-fi, stay for the religious discussion.
- The Princess Bride: Come for the fairy tale, stay for the quotables!
- A Hard Day's Night: Come for The Beatles' music, stay for the witty dialogue and humorous characterizations.
- Similarly, Help!. Come for the Beatles' music, stay for the fun spy movie spoof.
- Also Across The Universe. Come for the music, stay for the clever story, interesting directing, and solid acting.
- Repo! The Genetic Opera: Come for the name(s) you recognize, stay for the music.
- Hot Fuzz: Come for the Brit-humor Deconstruction of every cop-movie trope ever, stay for the awesome playing-straight of every cop-movie trope ever.
- 300: Come! For! The! YELLING!!!, stay for the action and heroics.
- The Matrix: Come for the action, stay for the mountain of symbolism.
- Inglourious Basterds: Come for the promised revenge on the Nazis, stay for the rivetingly dialogue-based plot and copious amounts of Fetish Fuel.
- Avatar: Come for James Cameron, stay for the special effects. There's not much of a plot to stay for anyway.
- Hairspray: Come for the lively music and plucky, sweet heroine, stay for
the uplifting social commentary John Travolta cross dressing in a fat suit.
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Come for the novelty of seeing Jim Carrey in a serious role, stay for the novelty of Kate Winslet in a free-spirited role as well as the brilliant plot and beautiful direction.
- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: Come for the experience of seeing Bill Murray do a riff on Jacques Cousteau, stay for the experience of seeing a fantasy for grownups.
- Annie Hall: Come for the Woody Allen/Diane Keaton element, stay (if you're reluctant about Woody Allen films) for the bittersweet romantic elements.
- Any Russ Meyer film: Come for the Boobies, stay for the crazy-assed plot.
- The Harry Potter movies. Come to see live action put into the plot... and stay for the actors.
- Inception: Come for the visual spectacle and the All Star Cast, stay for the Mind Screw.
- The Lord of the Rings films. Come because you read the books they were based on, stay because they're epic.
- Sucker Punch: Come for the Fetish Fuel and epic special effects, stay for the deconstruction and epic fantasy plot.
- Black Swan: Come for the lesbian sex scene, stay for the ABSOLUTE BATSHIT INSANITY!!!!!
- Animal House: Come for the food fight and the toga party, stay for some surprisingly sharp Swiftian satire and shockingly dark comedy. Oh, and John Belushi.
- Real Steel: Come for the giant robots fights (both in size of the fights and the fighters) stay for the story of Father and Son bonding.
- Starship Troopers: Come to watch guy's shoot giant bugs, stay for the hammy propaganda. "Would you like to know more?"
Literature
- The Bible: Come for the Jesus; stay for the sixty-two other Books.
- Or sixty-nine other books, depending on your denomination.
- Henry V: Come for the fun times with the lovable rogue Prince Hal, stay for the drama.
- Animorphs: Come for the teens turning into animals, stay for the human drama.
- The Lord of the Rings: Come because you heard that all those fantasy books you love were inspired by it, stay because it's epic.
- I found it was "Come for the quotables, stay for the awesome."
- Harry Potter: Come for the wish-fulfillment fantasy, stay for the human drama and to find out all the details of the deeply-plotted backstory.
- 1632 by Eric Flint (and several other people): Come for the crazy premise — the town of Grantville is suddenly teleported from West Virginia in 2000 to Germany in 1632, and decides to start the American Revolution a few years early; stay for cool characters and insanely detailed research on every imaginable subject, from "Where in the world can you mine zinc?" to "What did the Pope really think about Galileo?"
- Kushiel's Legacy: Come for the BDSM porn, stay for the political subterfuge.
- Charles and Emma is promoted under the blurb "Come for the science, stay for the love story."
- Discworld: Come for the funny, stay for the world-building.
- The Dresden Files: Come for the urban fantasy, stay for the First-Person Smartass main character and increasingly cool plotlines.
- Tamora Pierce. Come for the female protagonists, stay for the detailed world-building and non-killing-people storylines. And to find out who everyone marries.
- The Picture of Dorian Gray: Come for the Ho Yay, stay for the Nightmare Fuel.
- Wuthering Heights: Come for the romance and/or name calling, stay for the dark, absorbing story and interesting — if amoral — protagonists.
- Anna Karenina: Come for the train, stay for the well-drawn characters, history lesson and love story.
- The Doctor Who Expanded Universe Eighth Doctor Adventures: come for the Ho Yay, stay for the crack!*
- Honor Harrington: Come for the badass main character, stay for the badass side characters. All of them.
- In the Dale Brown novel Warrior Class, new POTUS Thomas Thorn's appeal is described this way: "if they had come to see the monster, they had stayed to hear the message."
- Left Behind: Come for the homophobia, stay for the... homoeroticism.
- Heralds of Valdemar: Come for the Cool Horses, stay for - everything else. But especially the love stories. Or, y'know, the plot and stuff. Whatever.
- Codex Alera: Come for the World of Badass and Crazy Awesome Guile Hero, stay for the deep and complex characters, well-plotted story, and the fact that you still underestimated the amounts of badassery involved.
- The Old Kingdom trilogy: Come for the High Fantasy Zombie Apocalypse, stay for the world you can never see enough of.
- Dracula: Come to see what all the fuss was about, stay because, contrary to your expectations, you're too freaked out not to.
- Abarat: Come to see if Clive Barker can pull off YA fiction. Stay because Clive Barker can pull off YA fiction!
- Come for the beautiful illustrations. Stay for the masterful poetry.
Live-Action TV
- Power Rangers: Come for the action, stay for Ron Wasserman.
- Power Rangers S.P.D.: Come for Buttery toast, stay for feminist subtext.
- Stargate: Come for the sci-fi, stay for the humor!
- Battlestar Galactica: Come for the sci-fi, stay for the political drama.
- Or, indeed, come for the political drama, stay for the awesome spaceship battles.
- Friends: Come for the humor, stay for the Love Dodecahedron!
- Friday Night Lights: Come for the football, stay for the human drama. Interestingly enough, TV execs realized this was what was happening and started targeting the female audience in commercials.
- Firefly: Come because it's Joss, stay because of the perfectly-balanced cast.
- Heroes: Come for the superpowers, familiar or otherwise; stay for
Hiro Nakamura the Fanservice.
- The Daily Show and The Colbert Report: Come for the spot-on political satire, stay because it becomes your source for the news.
- In general, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is: Come for the vampires and the hot chicks with superpowers, stay for the incredibly well-done dialogue and characterization.
- Angel: Come for the sexy vampire and the generally sexy cast, but stay for the well-done and intriguing Story Arcs and some random humor sprinkled in.
- Smallville. Come for Superman, stay because you just have to know how it goddamn ends already! Grah!
- Supernatural: Come for the pretty boys, stay for the intelligence, the psychology and the seriously good acting.
- Doctor Who: Come for the sci-fi, stay for the great jokes and sexy companions. Or: come for the sexy Doctor, stay for the jokes and stories.
- Scrubs: Come for the medical humour, stay for the endearing cast and brilliant music.
- MythBusters: Come for the truth behind those many urban legends you may have heard, stay for the character dynamics, the humor, the crazy gadgets and experiments, and the even crazier amount of overkill.
- Alternatively: Come for the explosions/overkill, stay for the character dynamics, the humor, the crazy gadgets and experiments, and the truth behind those many urban legends you may have heard.
- Top Gear: Come for the cars, stay for the funny.
- Come for the funny... stay for the funny.
- Psych: Come for a guy faking his way through amazing detective work, stay for the eighties references.
- Seinfeld: Come for the one-liners and catchphrases, stay for the brilliantly constructed plots.
- Veronica Mars: Come for Kristen Bell, stay for the surprisingly-dark-yet-still-compelling plot complications.
- The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Come for Summer Glau, stay for the amazing character development and jaw-dropping plot twists.
- Dollhouse: Come for Eliza Dushku, stay for the intriguing sci-fi storyline and fascinating characters.
- And briefly for Summer Glau.
- Come to watch Joss's new work, leave because it isn't engaging you so far. Come back because of the fan buzz, stay because they get to show that the concept changes everything... and you've got a ringside seat.
- Come for the feminist perspective on human trafficking, stay for Harry Lennix.
- Skins: Come for the Schoolgirl Lesbians, stop for the music, hang around for the storyline, stay for the realization that it's the new As If.
- Given the single-character emphasis some TV guides had for series 3, you could also easily say "come for Effy, stay for Naomily."
- The Office: Come for the pranks and the quirky, awkward, and inappropriate humor, stay for the large buffet of genuinely sweet romantic subplots.
- QI. Come for the trivia, stay for the jokes. Or vice versa. Either way.
- For many Americans, Jeeves and Wooster, Blackadder, and A Bit of Fry and Laurie. Come for pre-House Hugh Laurie, stay because they're amazing.
- Sherlock: Come because it's Sherlock Holmes in the modern day written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, stay for the blazing chemistry between Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. And the sheer cleverness of it all. And the Ho Yay. The buckets and buckets and buckets of Ho Yay.
- True Blood: Come for the sexy vampires, stay for the character development and intriguing plot.
- Leverage: Come for the actors you know, stay for the top-notch stories, character development, and acting (from everyone).
- Life on Mars: Come for the time travel, stay for the Gene Hunt snark.
- Star Trek: Enterprise: Come for the sexy Captain, stay for the sexier, repressed
and probably gay British weapons officer.
- Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Come for the humor, stay because if you get up everyone will see you laughed so hard you wet yourself.
- Alternatively, come for the stars of The Drew Carey Show, stay for the bald guy and the black dude (everybody really).
- Wizards of Waverly Place: Come because Maria Canals Barrera is smoking hot, stay because the show is actually pretty funny.
- Criminal Minds: Come for Mandy Patinkin, stay for Matthew Gray Gubler. And the plot and stuff.
- The A-Team: Come for Mr. T, stay for Murdock.
- Mork and Mindy: Come for Robin Williams in his Star Making Role as a wacky alien, stay for the heartwarming Interspecies Romance of the title characters and the sly social satire of the late 70s/early 80s. Oh, and the Getting Crap Past the Radar.
- Only Fools And Horses: Come for the memorable jokes and catchphrases, stay for the surprisingly complex characters.
- Community: Come for Joel McHale from The Soup, stay for the characters, meta humor and brilliant parodies.
- Around the World in Eighty Days with Michael Palin: Come for one of the stars of Monty Python, stay for the genuine sense of adventure.
- Mad Men: Come for the fascinating look at an earlier era where everyone smoked, had three-martini lunches and were openly chauvinistic, stay for the complex characters and surprising plot turns.
- Big Time Rush: Come for the cute guys, stay for the hilarity, Ho Yay, and surprisingly good music.
- Castle: Come for Nathan Fillion, stay cause it's actually a good show. or for Stana Katic.
- Kamen Rider W: Come for the humor and superhero action, Stay for the detective premise and homosexual subtext.
- Dirty Jobs: Come for the premise of a Sadist Show, stay for Mike.
- Twin Peaks: Come for the murder mystery, stay for the wacky townspeople and Mind Screw.
- Pushing Daisies: Come for the clever premise, stay for Lee Pace.
- How I Met Your Mother: come for Barney Stinson's antics, stay for the Continuity Porn.
- House: Come for Hugh Laurie, stay for the enthralling character subplots. The medicine's okay, I guess…
Music
- "Weird Al" Yankovic: Come for the song parodies, stay for the well-written and hilarious original songs.
- Or come for a parody or two and stay for his vast amounts of ingenious parodies.
- Death Metal: At least one case of coming for the awesome, hard hitting metal, staying for the ability to piss off most passerby. And the jiggy juggas.
- Frank Zappa: Come for the well-written lyrics, stay for the music.
- Taylor Swift. Come for the sappy love music. Stay because she's cute.
- K-pop: Come for the cute guys, stay for the catchy tunes. Most would vouch for vice versa, though.
- Iron Maiden: Come for Eddie, stay for the awesome music.
- Restart: Come for the cute guys in colorful clothes, stay for the catchy and sometimes heartwarming music. Or the other way around.
- Jonathan Coulton: Come for Still Alive, stay for the mad scientist ballads.
- The Beatles. Come for the Pop music, stay for the experimental stuff and drug trips.
- Or come to check out all of the hype and stay for the surprising amount of personality that the fab four manage to inject into their songs.
- KISS: Come for the makeup and spitting blood, stay for the riffs, some gleefully twisted humor, and the Surprisingly Gentle Song "Beth."
- Oingo Boingo: Come because of Danny Elfman, stay for an extravagant musical freak show that defies categorization.
- Elton John: Come for the goofy glasses and wacky costumes (at least until The Nineties), stay for the catchy, diverse and well-written music.
Pro Wrestling
- ECW: Come for the bloodshed and Garbage Wrestling, stay for the incredibly well-done matches, surprisingly deep characterization, brilliant promos, and awesome commentary from Joey Styles. This is as opposed to the current WWE-backed ECW Revival, where you come for the name, and stay for Matt Striker's awesome commentary.
- WCW: Come for the nWo, stay for the cruiserweights.
- TNA: Come for Kurt Angle and Sting, stay for the X-Division.
Sports
- Super Bowl: Come for the football, stay for the commercials (sometimes the main reason people are watching the Superbowl, except maybe hopes for another Wardrobe Malfunction).
Tabletop Games
- Magic: The Gathering: Come to build an army of all different kinds of monsters and spells, stay for the surprisingly in-depth and realistic color/alignment system.
- Dungeons And Dragons: Come to see what the fuss is about, stay for the adventures you will have and the stories you will share.
- Or, come for the funny-shaped dice, stay for the funny faces your DM will make when he hears your character's latest in-game plan.
- For the Dungeon Master in you, come for the excuse to build your impassable dungeon to crush your friends, stay for the moments when you let the same friends win anyway, because their solution was just that COOL!
- Exalted: Come because your D&D friend said it was worth a shot, stay for the ability to punch gods faces in.
Theater
Video Games
- Ghost Trick: Come because it's the Spiritual Successor of Ace Attorney, stay for the plot twists, smooth animation, plot twists, deep mysteries, plot twists, and plot twists.
- Gears of War: Come for the rifle with a chainsaw for a bayonette, stay for the tactical combat.
- Halo: Come for the tactical combat, stay for the plot and the soundtrack.
- Pokémon: Come for the cute critters — and possibly to see what all the fuss is about — stay for the deep, strategic RPG, and possibly pure obsessive-compulsion.
- Or come for the monsters, stay for the sheer imagination of the games' worlds.
- Unlimited Blade Works: Come for GARcher, stay for GAR Lancer.
- Touhou: Come for the precious things, stay for the hope that you'll finally 1cc Lunatic this time.
- Metal Gear Solid: Come for the Stealth Action, stay for
Snake's sweet, sweet ass the complex story.
- Silent Hill: Come for the High Octane Nightmare Fuel, stay because you just have to know what in the hell just happened.
- EarthBound: Come for the horrifying final boss, stay for the cute and funny rest of the game!
- Triangle Heart 3 Sweet Songs Forever, and possibly the whole Triangle Heart franchise: Come for the fandom prestige of actually knowing what Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha was spun off from, stay for the characters and the Fantasy Kitchen Sink.
- Kingdom Hearts: Come for the Disney characters, stay for the character interaction and addictive gameplay. And Organization XIII.
- Alternatively: Come to see what the fuss was about, stay to see what insane plot twist the writers pull next.
- Max Payne: come for the John-Woo bullet-time gun play, stay for the metaphors and Noir.
- Kingdom Of Loathing: Come for the humor, stay because you're addicted.
- Urban Dead: Come for the Zombies, stay to survive.
- Super Robot Wars Original Generation exists as a result of this trope occurring in the main series. People came for the Gundam (or whatever your favorite series is) and stayed for the entirely new characters.
- Come for Gundam, stay for Huckebein.
- Dynasty Warriors: Come for the foe tossing, stay for the World of Ham.
- Disgaea: Come for the Level Grinding, stay for the Fetish Fuel.
- Or, come for the over the top attacks and story, stay for the intricate battle system.
- Soul Nomad and the World Eaters: Come for Gig, stay for the surprisingly addictive gameplay. And the Crowning Music of Awesome. And Gig.
- Guilty Gear: Come for the 2D fighting revival, stay for the insanely whacked out characters.
- Or, come for the insanely whacked out characters, stay for the incredible background music.
- BlazBlue: Come for Guilty Gear in HD, stay for BANG INSTALL.
- The Legend Of Zelda Twilight Princess: Come for Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf, stay for Midna.
- Portal: Come for the brilliant puzzles, stay for the dark humor and the cake.
- Team Fortress 2: Come for the madcap FPS action, stay for the gorgeous animation and wacky characterization.
- Or vice versa — come for the unique art style and humor exhibited in the "Meat the Team" videos; stay for the well-balanced and refreshingly lighthearted multiplayer combat. People who were not "gamers" by any stretch, but got sucked into Team Fortress 2 and/or Portal, wound up loving the whole Orange Box set, and eventually settled into the world of video games.
- Steam: Come for Valve's amazing games, stay for the wealth of other games you never would have heard of otherwise.
- City of Heroes: Come for the character creator, stay because you're a superhero.
- Diablo: Come for the Dark Fantasy Hack And Slash, stay a while and listen.
- Come for the action, stay for two weeks without a break.
- NetHack: Come to see what the fuss is about, stay because "this shit won't beat me."
- Fallout: Come for the ludicrously gleeful amount of gore, stay for the equally gleeful deconstruction of every 50's future-tech optimisms ever.
- Mushihime-sama Futari: Come for the True Final Boss, stay for Black Label.
- Thunder Force: Come because it's an awesome Shoot 'Em Up series, stay for the awesome music.
- Jewelry Master Twinkle: Come for its resemblance to a Dating Sim, stay for hours.
- Tetris The Grand Master: Come because you're bored of mainstream Tetris, stay for the hope of one day getting Grand Master rank.
- DJMAX Technika: Come for the interesting gameplay, stay for Platinum Crew (or to painfully wait for the day your arcade gets it).
- Guild Wars: Come for the lack of monthly fees, stay for the lack of grind (and the Scenery Porn).
- Last Scenario: Come to see if the storyline gets better than it begins, stay for the tactical and balanced battle system, get hit in the face by some plot twists and finish the game for the improbably gorgeous story.
- BlazBlue: Come for probably the closest thing you'll ever get to another 2D Guilty Gear, stay to find out why the bug guy can't talk.
- The Force Unleashed: Come for the gratuitous Force usage, stay for the plot.
- Persona 3 and Persona 4: come for the dating sim elements, stay for the fun battle system, deep character development and awesome J-pop music.
- First Encounter Assault Recon: Come for the awesome slow-mo action, stay for the surreal atmosphere and the Nightmare Fuel.
- Command & Conquer: Somewhat subverted in the "General's Challenge" mode in the Zero Hour expansion pack — one of Dr. Thrax's taunts is "You'll come for the toxins, but stay... because you're dead!"
- Come for the invention of the RTS genre's gameplay style, stay for the awesome story. As Kane puts it in Tiberian Sun, "Come for the sunshine but stay for the people!"
- Pac-Man Championship Edition DX: Come because, well, it's Pac-Man, stay until you S-rank all the stages.
- Batman Arkham Asylum: Came for Mark Hamill as Joker, stay for the awesome gameplay and atmosphere.
- Summon Night Swordcraft Story: Come for the lesbian subtext, stay for the likable characters and fast paced battle system.
- Fire Emblem: Come because of that blue-haired sword-dude in that fighting game and stay for the mentally stimulating strategy, lovable characters, and intricate stories.
- The Nintendo Entertainment System did this intentionally because The Great Video Game Crash of 1983 made consoles very hard to sell on their own: Come for R.O.B., stay for Super Mario Bros.
- Some gamers' reasons for owning a Nintendo console: "Come for Mario, stay for all the other Nintendo all-stars.
- Mega Man: Come for the goofy/cool Robot Masters that you can fight in any order, stay for the challenging gameplay and addicting music.
- Sonic the Hedgehog: Come for the variety of characters and simplistic yet fun gameplay, stay for the kickass music and gorgeous stages.
- SoulCalibur: Come for Link, stay for the refined fighting gameplay.
- Alternatively come fore the awesome fighting, stay for the guest star characters.
- Dead Or Alive: Come for the fighting, stay for the girls.
- Suikoden: Come for the 108 characters from your party, stay for the amazing political plots, fun gameplay and likable characters amongst the 108s.
- Playing Mass Effect as a female Shepard: come for the lesbian alien sexual tension, stay for Jennifer Hale's voice acting.
- War Craft III come for the awesome gameplay and storyline, stay for DOTA.
- Civilization come to win the games in different endings, stay for the leaders.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney: Come for the ridiculous premise, stay for the addictive mysteries, quirky characters, and World of Ham.
- School Days: Come for the many endings and adorable wooable characters, stay for the many Bad Ends.
- For some people, it's the other way around!
- Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni: Come for the scenes left out from the anime and TIPS, stay for the same reasons you stayed for the anime and more.
- Umineko No Naku Koro Ni: Come for the magic, stay for the mystery.
- Katawa Shoujo: Come for hot cripple sex, stay for the well written and lovable characters, the witty dialogues, and the fantastic soundtrack, not to mention the intelligent and mature observations of some very difficult themes.
- Kana Little Sister: Come for one kind of jerker, stay for the other.
- Fate/stay night: Come for the swords, stay for the Character Development and unbreakable main characters.
Web Comics
- Enjuhneer Come for the geek-college, stay for the increasingly in-depth characters.
- Also, come for the geeky-ness, stay for the geeky-ness
- Girl Genius: Come for the hope that it is similar to the author's past work, stay for the well-drawn MAD SCIENCE!
- Come for the Steampunk, stay for the Jagers.
- Also, the Heterodyne museum advertised: "Come for the crushing, stay for the snow cones".
- The Order of the Stick: Come for the role-playing parody, stay for the well-done Cerebus Syndrome.
- Questionable Content: Come for the robots, stay for the well-developed interpersonal relationships, the constant introductions to new indie-rock bands, and the fact that it never forgets to be funny. Oh, and don't forget to buy a T-shirt.
- 8-Bit Theater: Come for the Final Fantasy I geekery, stay for the wicked Deconstruction of just about every RPG trope ever invented.
- Penny Arcade: Come because you're the only person on the planet who hasn't read it, stay for the sick humor and the less-sick vocabulary lessons.
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Come for hilarious subversions on beloved tropes, stay for shirtless Zach.
- Ménage à 3: Come for the hot girls/guys, stay for the zany characters and story.
- Goodbye Chains: Come for the gay, stay 'cause it's hilarious.
- Misfile: Come for the Fanservice and/or Fetish Fuel, stay for the emotional story, funny jokes, and well-done Deconstruction of the entire Gender Bender genre.
- MegaTokyo: Come for the crazy, stay for the drama. And the surrealism.
- And the Rent-A-Zilla.
- Or, come for the cute girls, stay for the story.
- The Dreamer: Come for the time travel drama/romance and American history, stay for the hot guys (or vice versa).
- F@NB0Y$: Come for the video game humor, stay for the sickeningly cute romance.
- The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: Come for the Chainsaw Nunchucks, stay for the hilarious writing.
- Homestuck: Come because you just finished Problem Sleuth, stay for the intricate characterization, intense action, sick beats, and the sheer amount of both tropes and theories. It's not like you'd be able to leave any time soon!
- El Goonish Shive: Come for the Gender Bending stay for the Character Development.
- Schlock Mercenary: come for the gag-a-day Sci Fi starring a talking pile of crap, stay for the deep, serious, intricately plotted Space Opera epic starring Chekhov's Guns you never saw coming.
- Insecticomics has a storyline with a title like this: Come For the Wedding, Stay For the Open Bar!
- Darths & Droids: Come for the Star Wars and Tabletop RPG jokes, stay for the Character Development as the players and GM become True Companions.
- Shiniez: Come for the well-drawn fetish artwork, stay for the characterisation, story-telling and sense of humor.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Avatar The Last Airbender: Come for the bending hijinks, stay for the sincere and unexpectedly wise writing.
- This troper found it to be "come for the bending hijinks, stay for the all-around awesomeness."
- The Venture Brothers: Come for the adventure parody, stay for surprisingly deep characters and strong continuity.
- Twelve Ounce Mouse: Come for the terribly crude art, stay for the complex story, well-defined characters, and awesome soundtrack.
- Batman The Animated Series: Come to watch Batman be awesome, stay to see just how very very wrong the Animation Age Ghetto is.
- Code Lyoko: Come for the Magical Girlfriend in a Box, stay for either the Unresolved Sexual Tension or the abandoned government conspiracy plot. (Or for Odd.)
- Futurama: come for Bender and the Nerdgasm of science fiction combined with The Simpsons' humor. Stay for the heartwarming but bittersweet romance, the devastatingly tragic time-displacement story; the complex, carefully constructed characters; and the scattering of episodes that reach the level of truly sublime television.
- American Dad: Come because it's by the same creator as Family Guy, stay because it's better at character and story.
- Justice League Unlimited: Come for the Batman, stay for the Question.
- Invader Zim: Come for GIR, stay for the social satire.
- Or come because it's Jhonen Vasquez, stay because it's the best "kid's" show ever.
- Gargoyles: Come for Demona's sexiness, stay for the story.
- Come for all the hype, stay because you've started Shipping Elisa/Goliath.
- Moral Orel: Come for the parody of Moral Guardians and Fundamentalist Christianity, stay for the dark characterization.
- Robot Chicken: Come for the humor, stay for the amazing stop-motion animation.
- Batman The Brave And The Bold: Come for Batman, stay for the hilarious stories and Mythology Gags.
- Metalocalypse: Come for the outright LOLs and brutal soundtrack, stay for the surprisingly deep plot and fantastic characters. And the buckets of Ho Yay.
- Teen Titans: Come because your little brother has it on the television, stay because... oh my god, they can't really be doing the Terra storyline in a kids show?!
- Phineas and Ferb: Come because you're bored, stayed for the writing, the music, the entertaining cast, the subtext and the humor
- Pinky and the Brain: Come because you watched it as a child, stayed because of the complex character relationships.
- WITCH: Come for the girls in spandex, stay for the awesome plot.
- Total Drama Island: Come for the making fun of reality tv, stay for the awesome characters.
- The Batman: Came for Batman. Stay for the new spin on the villains.
- My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: Come for the stylish art style, stay for the clever writing, memorable characters, and humor. Or as it was put so eloquently "somewhere on the internets", "come for the trolling, stay for the ponies."
- Come for the Memes, stay for the good animation, characters, and writing.
- Garfield and Friends: Come because you read Garfield as a kid, stay for the hilarious jokes and fourth wall breaking.
Real Life
- College: Come for the additional education, stay for the shenanigans.
- For some, it's the other way around.
- And for yet others, it's Come because you can't get a job without a degree, stay because... you can't get a job without a degree.
- Come for your parents, stay because you're getting your $30,000's worth.
- Surely it's come to avoiding getting a real job and laze around for a few years, stay for the realisation of how much money you have spent on it.
- Come for the food, stay for the wireless and free movies. (Honestly, a school that shows movies every week on a 232 inch screen between the time when they leave the theatre and the DVD release? Awesome.)
- Come to get away from your family, stay because your friends there have become your new family.
- The Gym: Come to lose weight, stay for the endorphin addiction.
- Alcohol: Come for the social acceptance, stay for the drunkenness.
- Your Career: Come for the chance to work in your specialist field, stay for the paychecks that allow you to have a roof over your head, food in your belly, a place to rest your head, and clothes to cover your body.
- The Internet: Come for the vast stores of news and information, stay for teh joeks! (Or teh pr0n, depending on your libido.) (Or the "innovative" spelling, if you've been online for any given length of time.)
- Applies for tvtropes. A huge number of people found tvtropes searching for lolita and incest. The picture of someone coming to their stuff and then get sidetracked for hours just seems inherently funny.
- Caffeine: Come for the quick pick-me-up it gives you, stay for the ability to ward off the waiting crash and burn.
- Acetominophen: Come for its ability to treat a cold's aches and pains, stay for its ability to lower your fever.
- Life: Come because you've been kind of forced into it, stay because...well there aren't any real alternatives.
- California: Come for the earthquakes, stay for the wildfires.
- Our Dumb World on Malawi: "Come for the food shortages, stay because you've died."
- Sad example: North Korea (if you're Japanese or South Korean): Come because they invited you, stay because they won't let you leave.
- Whatcom County, WA — come on vacation, stay on probation...
- Dark chocolate. Come because it's delicious, stay because it's a natural source of antioxidants.
- Movie posters and advertisements run on this trope. See Covers Always Lie for more.
- Food: Come for the deliciousness, stay because your newly-gained fat won't let you do otherwise.
- Sarcasm: Come to subtly vent about your life, stay because you've corrupted your innocence.
- Ballet: Come for the dancing and story, stay for the panty shots.
- Or vice versa (also applies to figure skating).
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