Passing The Torch / Anime & Manga

• Asteroid in Love has an example that happens in the middle. Being the only eleventh-grader of the Earth Science Club, Mai will eventually succeed as the club president when twelve-graders Mari and Mikage graduate. That said, Mai is an Extreme Doormat, so Mari and Mikage decided to retire as president and vice-president half a year early so they can look after the transition.
• Bi no Kyoujin: A huge point of dissension between Kabu and his clan is that he's the next head of the clan and him being involved with another man gets in the way of this big time. Not because of any moral problems, but because Kabu is supposed to produce heirs at some point in time and can only do so the old-fashioned way, as a female consort isn't optional in yakuza society.
• Bleach displays an interesting take on this trope. Ichigo is the main character set up from the start to take out Aizen. Simple enough, except it turns out that some characters have a very different view of how the story should be, or is, unfolding. It's only at the end of Gin's life that we ever see the situation with Aizen from his point-of-view and it turns out his interpretation of the story was a little different to everyone else's. He believed he was the only one who was capable or even allowed to defeat Aizen and spent over a century plotting it. When he realised just how successfully Aizen had broken Ichigo's self-belief and resolve, he was even more convinced only he could defeat Aizen. Unfortunately for him, his revenge was part of Aizen's plan so he fails. As Aizen leaves him for dead, he spots the newly arrived and powered-up Ichigo. Upon seeing the strength in Ichigo's eyes, he realises that he is finally free to pass the torch (for defeating Aizen) onto Ichigo and dies. Gin was never the hero of Bleach, or even a good guy, but apparently inside his own head he was, and Ichigo was his successor.
• Code Geass: Lelouch passes on Zero's helmet to Suzaku in the finale episode so that Suzaku can carry on as a 'knight of justice'.
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, the series protagonist, Tanjiro Kamado, wears distinguishable earrings that look like hanafuda cards with a rising sun motif. As the series progresses, these earrings are given more importance than they seem to have, as the originator of all demons Muzan Kibutsuji knows those earrings quite well to the point they send chills to his spine. The hanafuda earrings belonged to a legendary demon slayer named Yoriichi Tsugikuni, who almost killed Muzan 400 years prior the series' events. Having no children in his lifetime, he decided to pass on his will and earrings to his good friends, the family whom Tanjiro descends from.
• Digimon Adventure 02 has its first episode end with Tai giving his goggles to Davis, giving this effect. The trope is also referenced at the end of the Digimon Emperor arc.
  Izzy: [looking over the exhausted juniors] That sure must've been some battle those guys fought. I think we older kids can take a lot of pride when we call these beginners the new Digidestined.
  Tai: You're right Izzy. The torch has been passed, and they didn't get burned once.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Master Roshi (Or rather, Jackie Chun) passes the torch onto the younger generation, including Goku, Yamcha, Krillin, and Tenshinhan. He officially retires at the start of the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament, saying that he was no longer their master. They still wear his colors in honor of him.
  • Son Goku tries to pass the torch to his son Gohan in the Cell arc. Gohan defeats Cell and the Cell Juniors at the Cell Games and assumes protagonist duties for the early parts of the Buu arc, while he and his little brother Goten do the same for the Non-Serial Movie installments set in this time period (defeating Bojack, Broly, Bio-Broly, and the Legions of Hell/resurrected villains). However, Gohan has no love for fighting and slacks off on his training during the seven year time-skip as he wants to live a peaceful life, becoming weaker than he was in the Cell arc. After a near-death experience with Buu following Buu's revival that most of the cast assumes he was killed in, he trains in the realm of the universe's gods and regains his lost power and fighting instinct, resulting in him completely trouncing Buu. However, Buu reveals that he had been aware of Gohan's power and had come up with a plan to defeat him, resulting in Buu becoming stronger than Gohan and requiring the universe's gods to bring Goku and Vegeta Back from the Dead with the Potara fusion to do what their sons couldn't and win the final battle; making the series end on the note of an outright inversion. Dragon Ball Super at first makes Gohan lax again on his training, making him suffer an enormous defeat at Frieza's hands, and then makes him bounce back into the Uber tier by the time of the Tournament of Power, where it's shown he's still has unlimited enough potential to compete with godlike Saiyans. Gohan, however, wants nothing to do with his father's legacy by this point, rather preferring to maintain his power so he can properly protect his family, a thing he wasn't able to do when Frieza invaded Earth.
  • Goku tries again with his second son Goten and his rival's son Trunks, which takes up a large amount of the Buu Saga's plot while Gohan is mistakenly believed to be dead, culminating in their fused form's childish nature and insistence on adhering to genre clichés making the situation worse. They lose their passion for fighting when they reach their teen years after this, so he trains his granddaughter Pan and the reborn Kid Buu, Uub, to be his successors. The anime-only sequel, Dragon Ball GT, mostly ignored this as Goku is ultimately the only member of the cast to accomplish anything substantial. However, in the ending where Goku has to leave for 100 years with Shenron, he leaves the duty of protecting the world to Vegeta, and since the world is still standing 100 years later, he did a good job. Super, as well, doesn't even see him bothering to find a successor anymore, though it is set chronologically before the end of Z and after the final Buu fight, so his successors-to-be for that super brief period of time aren't exactly old enough for him to try.
  • The Majin Buu arc ultimately deconstructs this idea. Right before the final battle with Kid Buu, Goku admits that he could have defeated Fat Buu with Super Saiyan 3 earlier in the arc but didn't because he wanted to leave something for the next generation to do. ^note Though there's debate as to whether or not Goku's Super Saiyan 3 actually could have defeated Fat Buu. The next generation ends up not being up to the task due to various factors- Namely Buu's dangerously unpredictable nature, the immaturity of Trunks and Goten, and Gohan's carelessness; with Goku having to come back to life to set things right. Instead of being proactive and stopping Buu when he had the chance before things could get worse, Goku chose to gamble with the fate of the planet and the entire universe just to give his kids (and rival's kid) the spotlight- resulting in the deaths of almost the entire cast, the entire population of Earth being wiped out, and the planet itself eventually being destroyed (with Goku and his remaining allies barely managing to undo all of this and defeat Buu). Goku's attempt at Passing the Torch wound up being a costly failure due to factors he didn't/couldn't account for. Though as noted above, Dragon Ball Z ends with him intending to try this again with Uub (though with the ulterior motive of getting a great fight out of him).
• In Eyeshield 21, Hiruma, Kurita, and the other second-years graduate. Hiruma, as team captain, passes leadership onto Sena, who leads the team a successful season the next year.
• Subverted in Fairy Tail — Makarov wants to pass on leadership of the guild to Gildarts after quite a bit of setup, but he decrees in his acceptance letter that Makarov is now the new master. It ends up becoming a Running Gag that every time a new Master of Fairy Tail is appointed, they hand it right back to Makarov and simply tell him he's still the superior option for leading the guild.
• According to bonus material included with the DVDs of GaoGaiGar FINAL Grand Glorious Gathering, this would have happened after GaoGaiGar FINAL had the sequel series ("Project Z") not been canceled. With Guy and 3G apparently dead, Mamoru and Kaidou would've taken up the roles as lead heroes and Super Robot pilots at the helm of a new Earth-made robot called GaoGaiGo. While what exactly they were supposed to be piloting it against isn't clear, promotional pictures hint at an odd twist to the trope, namely one image that shows Genesic GaoGaiGar coming out of the sun, with an added implication that it may have been the villain of the series. Thankfully for GaoGaiGar fans, the story was eventually picked up in a series of light novels.
• Subverted in GTO: The Early Years. Before the events of the manga, Kyousuke Masaki, founder of the legendary Midnight Angel Bōsōzoku gang, gave his Badass Longcoat to protagonists Eikichi and Ryuji, but got them to promise to make sure the gang didn't rise again. During the Midnight Angel arc, Eikichi wears the coat to fight Akutsu, who wants it to legitimize his leadership of the Third Generation of the gang. Eikichi never actually leads the gang, since he's a One-Man Army on a mission to destroy it.
• Starting with HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!, the stinger for the end of later Pretty Cure installments is the leader of the newly ended series meeting up with the next leader and wishing her luck. This tradition, dubbed the Baton Pass by fans, is inspired by Pretty Cure’s brother franchise Super Sentai and its Red Ranger Hand-Off tradition. Later installments also see the next season's leading Cure join in on a Post-Climax Confrontation fight against one last monster, or making an appearance untransformed to hang out with the team.
  • For those wanting a specific order, Cure Lovely had the baton first and passed it to Cure Flora, who passed it to Cure Miracle, who passed it to Cure Whip, who passed it to Cure Yell, who passed it to Cure Star, who passed it to Cure Grace, who passed it to Cure Summer, who passed it to Cure Precious, who passed it to the current owner, Cure Sky.
• Fujiwara no Sai in Hikaru no Go disappears a baffling fifteen episodes before the end of the series, appearing only once more, in Hikaru's dream in the last episode. From inner monologues in previous episodes, we can assume that he's letting Hikaru take his place in the search for the Divine Move. He never does speak, but, he hands Hikaru his fan.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure could be the best manga example of this trope, having featured no less than six starring heroes. Sometimes the previous one retires himself, but it's more frequent that they just give up the lead and turn into a side character. (Each main character taking on the nickname JoJo -based on their alliterative names- is symbolic of the changeover.) This is most apparent with Joseph Joestar, who is the protagonist of Battle Tendency, becomes a part of the group of heroes in Stardust Crusaders, and is fully Demoted to Extra in Diamond is Unbreakable. This ends after Stone Ocean and the Cosmic Retcon; the next three JoJos have barely any relation to each other.
• Layla passes on her starring role at Kaleido Stage to Sora at the end of the first season of Kaleido Star (even though Sora remains the main character), having to drop out of the Stage after a shoulder injury sustained during intensive training for their Legendary Great Maneuver required surgery and made her unable to perform.
• This is the Central Theme in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: even though the title character has no plans of retiring yet, she recognizes the need to train a new generation of worthy successors to herself and other Aces preemptively and devotes most of the season to just that (in-between fighting the new villains, adopting/saving her daughter, etc.). As later seasons show, she did a damn good job, too: her two star students go on to become aces of the Bureau in their own right, and her favorite even takes two students of her own (though the first apprenticeship doesn't work out with her for unrelated reasons).
• After their high school graduation, the four original girls of the Light Music Club in K-On! pass the torch to Azusa and her new band members, Ui and Jun, by running away laughing while the three new girls play "Fuwa Fuwa Time" in the background. The original four likely face a happy future since they have been accepted at the same prestigious women's university, but it still feels slightly bittersweet.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Izuku Midoriya is one of the few powerless people in a world where Everyone Is a Super, until he meets All Might, the world's greatest hero, and learns that a old injury has put a limit on how long he can use his superpowers. Seeing the spark of a true heroic spirit in the boy, All Might grooms Izuku to become his successor, not only passing on his power but hoping that Izuku can become the next big hero and the "Symbol of Peace". However, it's not a full torch-passing because All Might retains his own powers, at least until he expends the last of his power fighting his Evil Counterpart All For One, at which point he's forced to retire from heroics completely. At that moment, when TV crews are surrounding him, he points to a camera and declares "Now, it's your turn!", which doubles as a warning to villains and a call for Izuku to step up.
  • Much later into the manga, Izuku begins to see occasional visions of previous One For All users. Even after their deaths, they are alive as spirits within the Quirk and they approve of Izuku as their successor. He has to now master all their Quirks alongside One For All.
  • Izuku's Foil Tomura Shigaraki is a villainous version. Groomed to be the leader of the League of Villains by All Might's nemesis, he starts out as a psychotic brat who would give up easily when his plans were thwarted. Much like Izuku, Shigaraki grows and adapts very quickly and is well on his way to being one of the biggest villains around by the time All For One is put out of commission by All Might. To up the parallels with Izuku even further, All For One fully intends to pass on his titular Quirk to Shigaraki when he's finally ready, even going so far as to have one of his closest minions replicate "All For One" and give himself the recreation so he can let Shigaraki have the original version even after he's imprisoned. And then it is horribly subverted when it turns out passing his Quirk to Shigaraki allows All For One to possess him via merging their personalities; All For One never intended to pass the torch, he is the torch.
  • My Hero Academia: Vigilantes: Knuckle Duster retires from vigilantism after saving his daughter from Puppeteer Parasite that had turned her into the villain Kuin Hachisuka. This leaves his disciple Koichi, aka "The Crawler", to take the lead in continuing their legacy of unlicensed heroism. At first, Knuckle Duster just up and disappears one day, but eventually Koichi is given a letter officially naming him his successor and giving him some advice.
• Throughout Part II Naruto, there was a theme that the world had to be passed on to the younger generation. At least, until several older ninja showed up with uber-ninja-techniques. Ironically, the most powerful of those ninja, Madara Uchiha's, inability to entrust the younger generation with the future was his Fatal Flaw and the driving force behind his villainy, as he couldn't imagine anyone other than himself being able to bring peace onto the world, and only his version of said peace.
• While it doesn't happen to the main characters, in Pokémon: The Series Ash's former Lapras becomes leader of its herd in the episode where Ash reunites with it.
• In the finale of Rurouni Kenshin, Kenshin who is now married to Kaoru with a child and is unable to perform Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu, passes his sakabato onto an older and wiser Yahiko.
• Space Patrol Luluco has a meta example. In The Stinger for the very last episode, Luluco, now going as Miss Trigger, flying past and high fiving Akko Kagari, and announcing the Little Witch Academia anime.
• In Strike Witches, Mio reveals that this is her ultimate goal in regards to Yoshika. It bombs when both Mio and Yoshika appear to lose their powers by the end of the second season. But Yoshika's powers return in the Movie, so it might work out.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Simon gives his Core Drill to Gimmy in the final episode.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX starts with this happening as Yugi Muto hands Judai Yuki a card and wishes him luck; the series' finale suggests there may be a Stable Time Loop involved.
• Zombie Land Saga Revenge: In "Saga of an Almost-Broken Radio", Franchouchou does an appearance on the local news alongside White Ryu, a rock star from The '90s who's host of a radio show, So Saga Can Be Saga. Saki, who was a big fan of his show back when she was alive and carries a bit of a torch for him, gets wind that Ryu is planning to retire from showbiz completely. She (with Sakura in tow) crashes an airing of White Ryu's radio show to give a big speech about how his show inspired her and try to convince him not to quit. Ryu reveals that he was actually inspired by Franchouchou to pass on his hosting duties to them.

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