Small Name Big Ego / Anime & Manga

• Thomas Bester of the Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth manga claims to be a great detective, but he is a Clueless Detective comparable to Gumshoe, and he has only worked on infidelity cases and found lost pets before being hired to protect Randolph Miller's prized painting, "Officers" from a group of Gentleman Thieves because he doesn't know enough about art to recognize the painting as a counterfeit.
• Azumanga Daioh: Tomo Takino doesn't excel at anything, because she never really applies herself to anything, but still likes to compete with her classmates, and seems to think she's pretty hot stuff. She isn't. The first New Year's Dream series of strips implies that she's actually somewhat insecure about the "small name" part deep down and that the big ego is a means of covering that up, considering how her own dream revolves around her one-upping her peers to cartoonishly unrealistic heights.
• Ishizawa in Bakuman。 constantly criticizes manga professionals and thinks that he's a great manga artist, when in fact, he can only draw cutesy sketches of girls. When One Hundred Millionth fails to get a prize from the four chosen for finalists for the Tezuka award, Ishizawa claims that he's better than Mashiro and that Mashiro is dragging Takagi down, despite never having tried anything as ambitious as what Mashiro did, prompting Takagi to punch him. He later gets a series in Chara Kira Magazine, but it's clear that he's nowhere near the main characters' skill.
• Black Clover:
  • Sekke Bronzazza paints himself as a prodigy and a womanizer, when he is clearly neither. During the Magic Knights Entrance Exam, he stays near Asta so that he will look good in comparison, only to get slammed into the ground during their fight. Whenever he's faced with real danger, Sekke's default response is to take cover and hope that he goes unnoticed. His idea of going on a date consists of singing praises about himself and aggrandizing his accomplishments, which naturally repels any woman who spends five minutes with him. When Asta and Yuno get praised during a festival as the star rookies of their generation, Sekke wastes no time trying to rain on their parade by revealing that they are peasants and that Asta can't use magic, but he's quickly shut up once the duo show off their power. He's such a nobody that even his own captain can't recognize him. The icing on the cake has got to be his ironic assignment as a bodyguard for King Clover, whom he only saved because he was passing through while he was fleeing from the chaos. Sekke sees the assignment as being Kicked Upstairs, and secretly wishes to be reassigned. It takes seeing a half-dead Asta dragging himself to his feet to continue fighting Lucifero, who at this point has mopped the floor with the captains, before Sekke acknowledges that he has never strived to become stronger.
  • Augustus Kira Clover is an interesting example in that, while he may well be the king of the Clover Kingdom, he still gets little to no respect from his subjects. It's not that he's a tyrant, but rather that he's a petty, unimposing, ill-tempered man who cannot stand being upstaged by Julius, which only happens because King Clover himself has no noteworthy accomplishments himself. Even though he has an immense pool of mana, as befits a member of royalty, his "strongest spell" consists of conjuring a giant image of himself, which is both slow for a Light Magic spell and functionally useless. When first introduced, every commoner in the city was thinking the same thing: "why can't the Wizard King be the actual king?". Even Yuno agrees with Asta that the man is just utterly unimpressive.
• Chaka in Black Lagoon thinks he's a real badass for having "capped" ten people. While it makes some sense given that Japan has insanely strict gun control laws, he's talking to Revy who usually kills that many in a given episode.
• Bleach:
  • Toshimori Umesada, one of the 15 20th Seats^note For reference, the 3rd seats are just below the captain and the lieutenant, and the higher the number, the lower rank the officer is. Umesada's rank (and the number of people who share it with him) basically means he's a nobody who's barely more significant than an unseated Soul Reaper. of the 9th Division (or 20 15th seats, depending on the translation), is highly arrogant and tries to hit on Orihime while she's posing as a new recruit, threatening the similarly-disguised Uryu with harsh punishment when he tells him off.
  • Baraggan, as the God-King of Hueco Mundo, had the power to control time to age everything around him. He was deposed by Aizen and is second in power only to Starrk, another Walking Wasteland. His Fraccions therefore have an over-inflated sense of their own importance, share his great arrogance and believe they're much more capable than they truly are. Abirama and Nirgge horribly underestimate Kira and Omaeda and find themselves blindsided and rather easily dealt with. Findorr and Ggio fare well enough against Hisagi and Sui-Feng (especially in the anime), but they get too overconfident (Ggio in particular only lasted because Soifon held back to gauge his ability) and die for it. The exceptions are Poww, who needs to be defeated by Komamura while using his Bankai, and Charlotte, who requires Yumichika's Coverblowing Superpower to be defeated and seems to be Barragan's genuine Number One fraccion, and he's even later resurrected by Mayuri to fight an enemy even shinigami captains struggle against.
  • Lilynette Gingerbuck is the sole Fraccion of the #1 Espada Starrk and likes to talk a big game, but she's probably the weakest Arrancar in Aizen's army. Ukitake went so far as to block her Cero with his bare hand and note a Gillian can fire a more potent Cero (and for reference, by this point in the series, Gillians were reduced to lumbering Giant Mooks on the threat scale). However, it turns out her confidence is for a different reason, because she's not truly Starrk's Fraccion, but an actual part of him, specifically the analogue for his Zanpakuto, and therefore the key to unleashing his Resurreccion.
  • Filler Villain Oko Yushima talks about how people who try to help him are merely jealous of his power and that "being alone is the privilege of a superior soul". While the Mod Soul version of Oko Yushima was a powerful fighter with a ridiculously broken power set, the real one who originally said the above quote was absolutely pathetic, having no fighting ability and was barely capable of graduating from the Shinigami Academy. If anything, Yushima was a man with an Inferiority Superiority Complex going to absurd lengths to preserve his ego and rationalize what he perceived as pity from his peers.
  • Xcution thought they could take on the Shinigami Captains and Lieutenants who spent hundreds of years training simply because they gained a piece of Ichigo's Fullbring. Obviously, they are quickly defeated with little difficulty.
  • Luppi, the guy who replaced Grimmjow as the Sexta Espada for a while, mocks and looks down on Grimmjow, completely ignorant of how powerful his predecessor was. However, he only replaces Grimmjow because Aizen needed a decoy to distract the Shinigami while Orihime was kidnapped, and even then he is defeated by Hitsugaya's team. When Aizen reveals the plan and forces Orihime to heal Grimmjow, Grimmjow immediately one-shots Luppi to show the difference in power between them and to reclaim his position as Sexta Espada.
  • Driscoll Berci thinks that a recently acquired power will enable him to successfully kill the Gotei 13's Captain Commander. The power concerned is the Bankai of Yamamoto's lieutenant and he gloats to Yamamoto about killing him. The result? Driscoll's reduced to a pile of ashes.
• Kogoro Mouri from Case Closed thinks of himself as a master detective. This mostly stems from the fact that Conan lets him take credit for solving cases.
• Cells at Work: Baby!: Prior to his first battle, Killer T-Cell is entirely too convinced of his own importance as an immune cell, even though he hasn't yet done anything to earn it. Afterwards, he maintains this quality to some extent, though his antics become more comedic than callous.

• Faraday from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners may act like a big shot but he's not even an especially important Fixer. Just a Fixer who sometimes acts as a middleman for the corps, but he wants to move up to becoming an actual corporate employee instead. But at the end of the day, he's nothing but just another tool for them, something that can be exploited to put a degree of separation from themselves; used without any respect or care, only kept around because he's convenient, and thrown away without hesitation when he proves too much trouble to keep. He even has the temerity to think that he can give orders to Adam Smasher.
• DARLING in the FRANXX: Zorome talks a big game, acts like a big shot and constantly calls himself "Zorome the Great" (using the obnoxiously arrogant pronoun "ore-sama" in the original Japanese), eager to prove that he's better than the double-digits while constantly belittling them. Of course, whenever he actually tries to prove his so-called talent, he ends up making a fool of himself.
• Detective School Q has Saburomaru, the self-proclaimed "Todai graduate with an IQ of 180" who constantly flaunts his supposedly superior intelligence to the heroes whenever they meet. However, he is such a poor DDS student that he's constantly ranked bottom in his class, and is demoted from A-class to B-class at some point in the story. The sequel reveals that he also does poorly in B-class and is threatened is likely to be demoted again to C-class if that keeps up.
• In Doraemon, Gian, The Big Guy of Nobita's group of friends, has an over-inflated view of his cooking and singing skills, saying that he is very good at both when in reality his cooking's terrible and his singing is probably even worse.
• EDENS ZERO: Rebecca Bluegarden is a B-Cuber (B-Cube is the Fictional Counterpart to YouTube). She thinks that she is a famous Internet celebrity and disguises herself when in public so that she won't get mobbed by fans. She's disguising herself for nothing, as everyone agrees her videos suck and she has no fans.
• Excel♡Saga's eponymous character Excel is extremely confident about her ability to accomplish ACROSS's goal of world domination (and win the heart of Il Palazzo), but fails to make any progress whatsoever in either of those two goals.
• While he's a skilled football player, Natsuhiko Taki from Eyeshield 21 isn't nearly as smart or as cool as he makes himself out to be.
• In their first appearance in Fairy Tail, many members of Sabertooth fit this trope, especially Sting. Even though they've won the annual guild competition for several years now, they mainly did so because the strongest members of other guilds were either not participating or holding back. Sting mocks the members of Fairy Tail for being unable to defeat a dragon, even though the dragon in question is Acnologia, the Black Dragon of the Apocalypse. When the dragons attack during the climax of the arc, Sting is unable to defeat a single dragon that's nowhere near Acnologia's level (granted, the same applies for the other Dragon Slayers). Meanwhile, Orga from the same guild thinks he can take on Laxus and Jura at the same time. Orga ends up being curb-stomped by Jura, whom Laxus barely manages to defeat.
• Chitose Karasuma of Girlish Number has only been a voice actor for a year, and done just minor roles in that period. She complains about it and she likes to think she deserves much better.
• In Gundam Build Fighters Try, Kei Karima is a very skilled Gunpla Battler, making it to the Gunpla Battle Nationals twice. However, he really plays up his supposed importance towards his opponents, who usually don't find him that interesting. He also pilots loud and flashy Mobile Armors who get trashed by more agile Mobile Suits.
• In Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE, Kazami begins as this. When he's first introduced, he claims that he was a great fighter who fought alongside Force Avalon and Build Divers, but is quickly laughed off by other Divers. As it turns out, he's an amazing builder, but his obsession with being a great hero like G-Tuber Captain Zeon blinds him as he believes that being a hero means never losing, so he brushes off all of his defeats as flaws from others getting in his way. He ultimately learns that Captain Zeon's heroic because of his losses and Kazami starts getting better.
• Takamura of Hajime no Ippo refers to himself as "ore-sama", which basically means "my great self" and generally thinks to be the greatest in every field when he's not (e.g. women and singing.) In terms of strength, he would be this, if it weren't for the fact that he really is as superhumanly strong as he believes himself to be.
• In Hellsing, Luke Valentine is indeed an abnormally strong vampire by the standards of Millennium's artificial creations, possessing Super-Speed and a degree of regeneration that lets him handily take on a fully-restricted Alucard. However, he thinks he's one of the strongest vampires in the world, and openly boasts about having all of Alucard's abilities and more. When Alucard proceeds to start actually trying and reveals a hint of his true strength, Luke is reduced to a sobbing, bleeding wreck of terror, and Alucard leaves him to be devoured by one of his familiars. When he gets resurrected in the finale and humiliatingly killed again, it's shown that the Major, his commander, doesn't even remember his name.
• High School D×D: Raynare. She fancies herself as a schemer who will earn her place beside the Fallen Angels' leader Azazel by stealing a valuable Sacred Gear. She's actually a Stupid Evil bully and low-level scout with next to no command authority, passes over an insanely more valuable target that she'd been directly ordered to keep an eye on, and only wins a fight because the person she was picking on didn't understand the nature of his own abilities. Not only does she die in a shameful display as a Dirty Coward, but Rias and her peerage are never held responsible for it. In fact it's hinted Azazel would have killed her himself for her actions if he hadn't been beaten to it.
• Aru Honshou from Hitoribocchi no OO Seikatsu calls herself "vice class president of the world" despite only being the vice class president of class 1.
• Megane from Inazuma Eleven claims to be a soccer ace and at first Jumped at the Call when Endou needed more members for the soccer club to be "the hero who saves the team", but when Teikoku injure the other players, he runs away crying from the match, and from then on, he's almost always on the bench. Despite being the worst player in his team, he often tries to get credit for things he either isn't good at or aren't significant. His Butt-Monkey status doesn't help, either.
• Love Hina: By the time she makes her first appearance in the anime, Motoko Aoyama lets her pride get the better of her and initially considers herself more qualified to be the Hinata Inn's manager as opposed to Keitaro Urashima, given how much she Does Not Like Men. Well, at least until the end of the episode...
• Subverted in Magi: Labyrinth of Magic. When we first meet Sinbad, he gives his name and various titles and is stunned when Aladdin doesn't recognize him. But as the story progresses, it's clear how important (and dangerous) Sinbad really is and Aladdin was simply oblivious to the outside world.
• Patrick Colasour from Mobile Suit Gundam 00, who will proudly boast that he's the champion of mock battles - even as the Gundams take him apart limb by limb. The fact that he still manages to be The Determinator in spite of this, and that he's comic relief that isn't annoying as all get-out, has made him an Ensemble Dark Horse. By the end of the series he is actually a fairly skilled pilot, though still hopelessly outclassed by the Gundams. He also seems to have gained some humility in the meantime: he no longer boasts about being an awesome pilot, though he does jokingly call himself "invincible" due to his mocking nickname.
• Mashymar Cello of Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ started out in this trope, he would remember his awesomeness compared to the plebeians whom he fought and seemed to have multiple dinners with Haman Khan where she would teach him about how he must portray himself and Axis as he was something of a Vanguard, all the while getting his ass handed to him by Judau on a very frequent basis. Later subverted when he takes a level in Badass and comes back as a credible threat.
• Shiragami "Cool Beauty" Youko in My Monster Secret is a sexy, Tall, Dark, and Handsome expert in love. At least, if she tells you that, just quietly nod in agreement and don't tell her that… she's not. Or find a roundabout way to say it.
• Naruto:
  • The title character in the early chapters before Character Development kicked in. This is best shown when he asked Iruka why a "great ninja" like himself was in the same group as Sasuke, only to be told that the teams had to be balanced; Sasuke was ranked highest while Naruto was ranked lowest. Although you could say it was almost entirely an act to compensate for his feelings of inferiority due to spending his entire life being the target of public shaming, hate, and mocking.
  • The Hidden Star Village, a filler-only village, believe that it can be strong enough to join — or even surpass — the Five Great Shinobi Nations with the power of a chakra meteorite, the "star" in question, and even has the audacity to give its leader the title of "Hoshikage" ("Kage" is a title only given to the leaders of the Five Great Shinobi Nations, who are far beyond the current Hoshikage's Filler Villain level of strength). Unfortunately, this also means that they're willing to make the children of the village train with the "star", thus putting them at risk of health complications and death.
  • When Tobi released the nine tails on Konoha and fought Minato, he praised the man for managing to keep up with his power as he left. At the time, it seemed fitting as it was still believed Tobi was Madara. With the reveal that it was actually Obito, Tobi goes from a legend acknowledging another legend to a fourteen year old trying to pretend that his former teacher hadn't spent the entire fight kicking his ass.
• The eponymous Nora is obsessed with defeating his leash-holder Kazuma via one of his "Ingenious Plans" (TM). However, Nora's attempts at strategy usually have flaws visible to an average five-year-old child. One of his Ingenious Plans (TM) in its entirety: 1)Dig a big hole in the ground 2)Make Kazuma walk into it somehow 3)Drop a big rock on his head. Kazuma shows up while Nora's still digging and points out the plan's low probability of success.
• A common trait among One Piece villains, though a few stand out.
  • Higuma thinks he can threaten Shanks because he has a bounty of 8 million Beri. Not only is 8 million next to nothing, even in the East Blue (Arlong, the most wanted pirate in said sea, has a bounty of 20 million, and even that does not truly reflect the threat he poses since he bribes Nezumi to cover up his crimes), but Shanks' bounty eventually reaches 4 billion^note He wasn't a Yonko at that time; he has been in the position for only six years. Higuma learns the hard way that, while Shanks doesn't pick fights over Higuma's petty provocations, he won't stand for Higuma hurting Shanks' friend Luffy. This results in Shanks' men taking down Higuma's underlings with barely any effort, forcing Higuma to flee with Luffy as a hostage and getting eaten by a Sea King. A Sea King who later lost to Luffy easily.
  • Don Krieg gets special mention because, even after getting his entire fleet decimated by a single swordsman, Mihawk, a situation he himself barely survived, he still thinks he's the greatest thing ever, while he only means anything in East Blue.
  • Wapol sees himself as a great king in both the Sakura and Black Drum Kingdoms, when he's really just a spoiled brat.
  • Bellamy's inability to recognize someone tougher than he is led to one of the most satisfying moments in the series. While he hadn't heard that Luffy's bounty had jumped from a little over half Bellamy's bounty to just under twice that amount, he should have realized that Luffy was deliberately choosing not to fight back during the bar brawl.
    • Post-Time Skip, he got over it. He is noticeably embarrassed about how he was during this time period. Now, surprisingly enough, he and Luffy respect each other.
  • Shoujou, one of the two salvagers who work with Cricket, once expresses his belief that he has a chance at replacing Crocodile as one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea. Shoujou ends up being curb-stomped by Bellamy of all people.
  • Where do we even start with Spandam?! His Doriki was stated to be 9, while the average enlisted Marine has a Doriki of 10. The only reasons Spandam was a threat at all were because of his position as the head of CP9 (whose Doriki range from 630 to 4,000), his other connections including Admiral Aokiji, and his evil, as he was very cruel whenever he had the advantage. His Humiliation Conga was entirely satisfying.
  • Hordy Jones is this to the point he believes he and a small army of slaves and pill-popping underlings could take on the entire World Government. He was defeated first by Zoro with one slash, underwater, and he and his entire crew are the biggest example of The Worf Effect in the series in regards to the Straw Hats. In fact, he can be considered the Don Krieg of post-timeskip. He is a big deal to his turf, so he thinks he is a serious threat for the entire setting, and is proven wrong repeatedly.
  • Caesar Clown. He's a Logia user, so sure, he'd be considered extremely powerful... if it weren't for the fact that he's in the New World, where Logia users have notoriously short lifespans because they don't get that everyone there has Haki and thus can actually hit you. It really says a lot when he, the Big Bad of the Punk Hazard arc, is actually the weakest of the three main villains of the arc. This is mainly due to the fact that unlike other Logia users in the series, he relies entirely on his Devil Fruit power, and has no back up other than his connections to Donquixote Doflamingo and, by extension, Kaido, one of the four Yonko.
  • Same goes to Caribou, a Logia user who could turn into a energy-draining swamp. He made the mistake of gloating about being a Logia user to Pekoms, a Zoan user, and then said Zoan user (note that Zoan Devil fruits are generally considered the weakest type unless you luck out with one that turns you into a mythical creature or dinosaur) drops him in a single attack. In fact, his purpose (moreso than Caesar) was to introduce the fact that a Logia user needs to be equally badass when their powers are unreliable to survive in the new world.
  • From the "Return to Sabaody" arc immediately after the Time Skip, we have "Triple-Tongued" Demaro Black, who had the bright idea to try and impersonate Luffy, along with his "Fake Straw Hat" gang. His bounty was 26 million, which means he was a nobody, especially since he appeared post-timeskip. For comparison, Luffy's first bounty was 30 million, which means the World Government considered Luffy to be a bigger threat than this guy while Luffy was still in East Blue. And even this bounty probably came because he had some influence with his lies and shot civilians. He doesn't stand a chance against Sentoumaru, and the previously mentioned Caribou makes short work of his crewmates.
  • Rockstar, a relative newcomer to Shanks' crew, tries to talk himself and his 94 million berry bounty up in the presence of Whitebeard's pirates, but none of them have heard of him before ^note For reference, he's in the New World where a bounty of 100 million is considered common and weak, which helps establish that Luffy's still relatively insignificant in the eyes of pirates like Whitebeard, whose bounty is later revealed to be more than 5 billion Berries.
  • Brownbeard is introduced boasting of his bounty of slightly over 80 million, but not only is that below average in the New World, he's boasting to Hawkins, whose first known bounty is more than triple Brownbeard's.
  • Kurozumi Orochi is very proud of being Shogun of Wano, but without Kaido or his men backing him up, Orochi would never have achieved his title. Even with a rare Mythical Zoan class fruit, Orochi is nothing but a cowardly weakling who has little to no skills in combat.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Downplayed first and then reconstructed with Gary Oak. He was able to collect 10 gym badges (by the time Ash collected 7), was always two steps ahead of Ash, and generally has better knowledge with Pokemon than Ash did in the original Kanto arc. However, he gets owned by Mewtwo, and also loses in the preliminary rounds at the Indigo League (which Ash passed that part of the tournament). Gary took the lesson with him to Johto, and took a level in maturity. While he lost again in the Silver Conference (this time to Ash), he put up a much tougher fight, and ended with a much better ranking in that tournament.
  • Ash himself was kind of an arrogant braggart in his rookie days, acting like he was the best trainer ever when his skills hovered around mediocre. His loss in the Indigo League was a major Break the Haughty moment that seriously deflated his ego and prompted him to take his training more seriously; afterwards, he Took a Level in Badass and Took a Level in Kindness, becoming the Humble Hero that he is today.
  • Downplayed with Misty during her time traveling with Ash. She is less arrogant than he or Gary is. However, she still fancies herself an expert Water Pokemon trainer and looks down on Ash for shortcomings she herself is often guilty of, and unlike Ash, she does not make a major effort to improve herself. As a result, she suffers embarrassing losses, even against opponents she has the type advantage against. After leaving Ash, Misty becomes far more competent.
  • Max has a great deal of knowledge from studying Pokemon, which gives him the impression that he could have won matches that Ash lost if he were in Ash's position, despite never participating in a Pokemon battle himself. When Max finally takes part in a battle, he shows his lack of experience means he does not know how to apply his knowledge.
• Ranma ½: Tatewaki Kuno, in his own mind, is a bold samurai with two gorgeous loves both held in foul thrall by the vile enslaver Ranma Saotome. Despite the fact he consistently defeats the foul cur, the villain continues to keep the two girls from his grasp. One day, the vengeance of Heaven will strike Ranma Saotome down, for that vengeance is slow, but sure. In reality, neither of the girls he chases are interested; one because Kuno is a pervert who likes to spout poetic talk but is ultimately a braggart intent on groping the life out of her, the other for the same reason as well as because she is in fact a he, a guy with a Gender Bender curse whom Kuno refuses to admit is the same person as his fictitious "pigtailed girl". (Nabiki Tendo once dumped hot water on girl-Ranma while Kuno was holding her.) And whenever Kuno faces Ranma, it's not Black Magic or cheating that causes Kuno to lose, but the simple fact Ranma has traded a tough upbringing for so much skill in Supernatural Martial Arts that Kuno is thoroughly Overshadowed by Awesome.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Episode 8 of the anime adaptation expands on an originally unnamed female first-year student to create Evelynn Odets, who is convinced she's a much better mage than she really is: she wants to be known as "Galewind Evelynn" or "Cold-Blooded Evelynn", but a background student mentions her having terrible aim and lousy visualization, excelling only at her speed at speaking incantations which instead earned her the nickname "Speed-Talker". She makes the mistake of challenging The Lancer Nanao Hibiya to a Wizard Duel on the mistaken theory that Nanao's present lack of skill with magic makes her an easy target, and is defeated in seconds.
• Kanaria from Rozen Maiden touts herself as the smartest of all of the Maidens. Too bad all her plans seem to fail miserably.
• Played with in Seiyu's Life!. Ichigo is aware that she's not famous or popular, but she is convinced that she will be.
• Naoe Kanetsugu from Sengoku Basara loves to announce his arrival on the battlefield, with a loud declaration of his invincibility, and amazing battle prowess... and always gets swatted away like a common Mook.
• Shirobako:
  • Tarou Takanashi is a production assistant who talks big and believes that he'll one day become a director, but his incompetence leads to most of the problems his company faces in the first half of the series.
  • Downplayed with Daisuke Hiraoka. He doesn't brag nearly as much as Tarou, but he seems to regard his colleagues as beneath him despite his poor work ethic causing problems for the company. Madoka specifically calls him out on this in his "The Reason You Suck" Speech, angrily asking if Hiraoka thinks he can make a career in anime with his attitude.
• Black☆Star from Soul Eater is good at unarmed combat, but he'd have to be a deity before that ego would be even remotely equivalent to his personal power level. He specifically claims to be more powerful than God.
  • There's also the Equippable Ally Excalibur, who really is as powerful as he says he is. The problem is that his ego transcends his power level— he's so insufferable and downright annoying that no-one can stand to be around him. Tellingly, when he shows up later on in the manga, the gang ends up trying to murder him.
• Spy X Family has Agent Daybreak, an Ostanian spy who thinks himself the rival of Twilight, one of the protagonists and one of Westalis' best spies. In reality, Daybreak is completely incompetent and fails at his task, resulting in his client firing him. To make matters worse, it turns out that his client was a grade schooler with a grudge against the Desmond family, and given he only had a child's allowance, couldn't afford anyone more competent.
• Sword Art Online: Sugou Nobuyuki talks a big game, to the point of declaring himself a god, but when it comes down to it, he's just the poor man's version of Akihiko Kayaba. His inferiority to Kayaba is proven when the latter effortlessly overrides Sugou's control of the game and gives Kirito admin privileges, and Sugou is helpless to do anything but whine and cry. Kirito even spells it out for him, telling Sugou point-blank that he's nothing but a thief mooching off Kayaba's work:
  Kirito: You stole everything in this world. Everything! Including its people! You're nothing but a king of thieves, sitting alone on your stolen throne!
• Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee:
  • During an anime-only episode, a group called the Letter Pigeons challenges the Letter Bees to see who is the superior group of letter carriers, albeit partly due to how they don't like how expensive postage is in Amberground. The challenge consists of a race in which both parties ride carriages out to the letter pick up point, pick up the letter and return to the Bee Hive, with the first to return winning. The Letter Pigeons manage to get to the pickup point first, albeit by sabotaging the Letter Bees' carriage, but run into trouble when they encounter a Gaichuu, since only the Letter Bees' Shindanjuu can defeat the monster.
  • Autobahn fancies himself a great thief, but he fails to steal a doll from Lag and Sylvette, who are both twelve years old. As he's being arrested, the officers mention that they've never heard of him before.
• Nora from Witchblade is quite uppity, and stays that way until her demise at the hands of Reina. And she was actually winning that fight too, until she couldn't contain her gloating and trashtalking, then SAT DOWN upon a wounded Reina, completely forgetting that all blade users can make any part of their body a weapon.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, all you had to do was check the color of a student's blazer; if it was blue, they likely fit this Trope. With the exceptions of Zane, Atticus, Alexis, and usually Chazz, almost every Obelisk student was a snob and a serious Miles Gloriosus. In fact, in the second season it was hinted that even if you scored perfect on the entrance exam, you couldn't start there unless you went to some fancy prep school first, implying that a lot of Obelisk students just had rich parents.
• In YuYu Hakusho, some of the minor contenders in Genkai's tournament are this. Two of the people who don't even make the first cut claim to be spiritualists, despite the fact that the test didn't detect any spiritual power in them, and when they try to beat her up, she knocks them away without even touching them.
• This is probably a driving point behind many of the characters in Zatch Bell!. Gash himself somewhat fairly evaluates his own powers, but Kanchomé always brags about how strong he is although he almost never comes through. Most of the early antagonists that Gash faces are like this too, and end up being rudely awakened by Gash and Kiyomaro.

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