Times where The Chosen One Missed the Call in Anime and Manga.
- Attack on Titan: Reiner Braun spent his childhood working himself to the bone and determined to gain recognition in the army so that he would be next in line to inherit one of the Titans and earn the title Honorary Marleyan for himself and his mother. Despite being sub-par, he managed to improve enough and was granted the Armored Titan — until Marcel, one of his companions in their army squad, apologized and revealed that Reiner never originally made the cut. His bad performances would have left him at the bottom of the ladder, but Marcel played up and praised Reiner to the higher-ups in the army to change their minds because he wanted to keep his younger brother safe. Reiner learning that his determination never helped him achieve something turned out to only be the first in a long line of many failures on his side that have taken a toll on his mental health.
- In Brigadoon: Marin and Melan, while Marin has an important role to play it turns out she isn't the "Creis". She helps save the world anyway.
- A minor one from Code Geass: right at the beginning of season 1, when the Britannian forces are purging the Shinjuku ghetto, we see everyone's favorite Ensemble Dark Horse Jeremiah Gottwald verbally ignore an order to return to the staging area, where a certain Super Prototype knightmare frame, the one and only Lancelot, was waiting for a pilot. Later, with the original choice of pilot a no-show, Suzaku Kururugi gets to answer the call instead. Given how everything worked out for the two of them, one has to wonder what could've been.
- In Corrector Yui, Yui wasn't supposed to be The Heroine. Her best friend Haruna was. Yui, who originally Jumped at the Call, is devastated when she hears the news and sees how much of a natural Haruna is at the job that Yui actually had to work at. Just when Yui concedes her position, she's needed again because Haruna's fallen under the control of the Big Bad.
- Digimon:
- Ken from Digimon Adventure 02 was about to receive his Digivice when his older brother Osamu insisted that it was really for him. The resulting jealousy and anger, played on by outside forces, left Osamu dead and Ken evil.
- Well, Ken sort of missed the call. He did answer it for Wonderswan game Tag Tamers (which, naturally, wasn't released outside of Japan) to team up with Ryo, and they defeated Millenniummon, who was responsible for the dark spore in his neck. When Ken got back, Osamu got pissed off at him for touching the Digivice, and you know the rest. In a sense, he picked up the call, then dropped it.
- Hikari also missed the call at the start of Digimon Adventure due to being sick. Coincidentally, her partner was in the hands of a Big Bad by then, having been lost as an egg and taken in by Myotismon... which raises the question of what would've happened had Hikari not missed the call and gone to the Digital World anyway.
- In Digimon Tamers, Ai and Mako got Impmon and became Tamers a lot earlier than anyone else, but because they were three or four at the time they were too immature for their partner to handle. He left them, and they subsequently missed out on adventuring to the Digital World and fighting the Big Bad up until the last minute possible.
- Four random kids in Digimon Frontier, Katsuharu, Teppei, Chiaki, and Teruo, ironically, miss the call to go home from the Digital World and end up just wandering around doing all of nothing while the real adventure is taking place on the other side of the planet.
- Also in Digimon Frontier, Kouichi missed the call... because he fell down the stairs and died. However, he made it into the Digital World anyway, initially corrupted, but became good later on.
- Subverted in Fist of the North Star: Toki was originally chosen to be the successor of Hokuto Shinken over Kenshiro, but his exposure to radiation sapped his physical might and he was obligated to cede the successorship to Kenshiro. However, Toki does not begrudge Kenshiro for this, and in fact, his biggest regret of not being successor is that he could not spare Kenshiro of the immense burden that successorship carries.
- In Fresh Pretty Cure!, after Eas is killed for turning against Labyrinth, the Red Pickrun confronts her and reveals that she'd always meant to be the fourth Pretty Cure, but couldn't get near her because of her evil influence. With her Heel–Face Turn and death, it's able to fix this problem, resurrecting her and allowing her to become the fourth Pretty Cure, Cure Passion.
- In Jubei-chan, Yagyu Jubei passed on his power in the form of a "Lovely Eyepatch", eventually going to a girl hundreds of years in the future because he believed his heir had died in Russia. Actually, she didn't. She was just frozen in an iceberg. By an amazing coincidence, she thaws in the same time period Jiyu receives the Eyepatch and is furious she didn't get it.
- My Hero Academia: Midoriya wasn't the first choice to receive One For All from All Might. Originally, when All Might started looking for a pupil, Sir Nighteye and Nedzu suggested the third year Mirio Togata, who had an Intangibility quirk and is considered the closest to succeed All Might as number 1 hero, even among pros. However, before Mirio was even approached by All Might to talk about the subject, he met Midoriya and decided to give his quirk to him. Becomes Refusal of the Call after Midoriya offers to give One For All to Mirio after the latter loses his quirk to a villain, and Mirio rejects the offer without a second thought. Later on, this all turns out to have been a good thing as it's revealed that One For All actually burns out the lifeforce of users who already have Quirks and that only a person who is Quirkless can use it without this drawback.
- In the Black/White arc of Pokémon Adventures, the call wasn't missed; it broke. Bianca and Cheren were chosen to be Pokedex Holders (which is a pretty big deal in this series), but unfortunately their Pokedexes were dropped into a puddle and short-circuited. Meanwhile, Black (who was also chosen) kind of ran off with the last Dex without seeing what happened to the other two. At least Bianca and Cheren still got their starter Pokemon...
- Now, it's beginning to look like Bianca and Cheren were never meant for the (main) call in the first place. Bianca gave her Pokedex to White, while Cheren's was eventually completely destroyed by N's Pokemon.
- Depending on how you define "the call," almost everyone in Princess Tutu misses it in some way, but the title character in particular voluntarily gives up her fated role as Mytho's true love, allowing Rue to marry him instead.
- In Tales of Wedding Rings, Prince Marse was chosen to be the Ring King, but Hime instead chose Sato. On the plus side, Marse didn't want to be the Ring King and is happy that someone who genuinely loves and knows Hime has taken the role instead. On the negative side, it is later revealed that he made a promise to marry one of the Water Kingdom's princesses so giving up the title has caused him problems romantically and socially with his family, but he is still genuinely supportive and appreciative of Hime and Sato being wedded.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Otogi/Duke in Yu-Gi-Oh!: He came close to inheriting the Millennium Puzzle in the manga, when his father lost a game for it against Yugi's grandfather, leading them to believe it should have been Otogi's.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Season 2: the villain ultimately can't decide whether Judai (The Hero) or Edo (the Anti-Hero) is The Chosen One. Although a prediction years ago said that Edo would be the one to stop him, Judai has the unique power to Screw Destiny. To that end, he puts them through a few tests, with Edo (obviously Genre Blind to Only I Can Kill Him) determined to prove he's The Chosen One.
