The Ace / Anime & Manga

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• In Arisa, the titular character is seen as this by the protagonist, her twin sister Tsubasa and her attempted suicide is what kickstarts the plot. She turns out to be a Broken Ace.
• Assassination Classroom has Karma in regards to class E and Koro-Sensei for the entire series.
• Asteroid in Love: While she was only referred to, Nishina, a common friend of Endou and Hayakawa's when they were at the Shining Star Challenge. Not only she is good at astronomy, but she is also good at a wide range of subjects, including history and literature.
• Attack on Titan has Levi and, to a lesser degree, Mikasa Ackerman, when compared to the rest of the cast. This is ignoring that virtually the entire 104th trainee corps is this compared to the rest of the army, with even Armin being on par with the average soldier physically.
• In Berserk, Griffith seems to awe everyone upon first meeting with his otherworldly beauty and charisma, and has a reputation to match. He is a skilled swordsman, master strategist, and shrewd politician who is seemingly able to accomplish anything he sets his mind to, leaving those in Midland who oppose his rise frustrated — or dead. He is favored by the King of Midland and loved by the common people and his own followers. At the same time his most loyal lieutenants Guts and Casca feel as if he is unreachable to them and suffer from feelings of inferiority. Guts eventually decides that he has to leave and pursue his own dream so that he can one day stand beside Griffith as an equal, which ironically drives Griffith to the breakdown and fatal mistake that turn him into a Broken Ace.
• Big Windup! has two: Mihashi, the "official" ace pitcher, and Tajima, the real ace of Nishiura High, with the highest BA, OPS and RBI of the team.
• Black Clover:
  • Yuno is good looking, admired by pretty much everyone, born with immense amounts of magical potential, and joins the most prestigious squad of Magic Knights without even trying. He's even the top Magic Knight rookie for acquiring the most stars not only out of every new Magic Knight but his entire squad.
  • Mereoleona Vermillion is incredibly powerful, renowned as the "Uncrowned, Undefeated Lioness", and is made the Captain of the elite Royal Knights unit, who also completely crushes the strongest member of the Third Eye. She could have easily become the Wizard King but chose not to.
• Gin Ichimaru from Bleach. According to his stats, he is a Jack of All Trades, and managed to graduate from the Academy in just one year.
  • Yoruichi Shihoin. Very intelligent, and one of, if not the, best hand-to-hand combatants and Flash Step masters in the Soul Society. Her students Byakuya Kuchiki and Soi-Fon were never able to surpass her skills even after a hundred years of trying.
  • Byakuya Kuchiki. An expert in every form of Soul Reaper combat, with a very versatile zanpakuto and a better strategist than most of the other characters. He's even said to be the most famous of the current captains.
  • There seems to be one genius who stands head and shoulders above the rest in every generation. The original one is, of course, Head Captain Genryusai Yamamoto, who claims he's remained in charge because no one in over 1,000 years has ever been stronger than him. Next is Sosuke Aizen, second in power only to Yamamoto, and who's strength gave him one of the worst god complexes ever seen in anime. Then comes Gin Ichimaru, who graduated the six year course in the Soul Reaper Academy in only one year, then became a vice-captain as a child. Finally, there's Toushiro Hitsugaya, who is still very young and has yet to realize his potential. Kyoraku, shortly before he takes down a Vasto Lorde class Arrancar without using his bankai, says that within the next 100 years Hitsugaya will surpass him.
  • The Zero Division, also known as the Royal Guard, are a squad comprised of these. In fact, their combined combat prowess is said to surpass that of the Gotei 13 itself, and even Sosuke Aizen avoids confronting them head-on without preparation. Too bad they are crushed by Yhwach and his Schutzstaffel, who are monsters far above their level.
  • Hell, even Ichigo can be considered this. Given that most Shinigami take ten years to learn how to manifest Bankai, and another ten to master it, the fact that he learns within two days how to use his effectively enough to match one of the strongest Captains, even with an advantageous matchup, is nothing short of terrifying. And that's before he starts getting crazy power boosts from mastering his Inner Hollow abilities.
• Bloom Into You:
  • Touko's deceased older sister Mio was also her predecessor as Student Council President, as well as Touko's role model following her death in an accident. According to Ichigaya, who was a schoolmate, Mio was a bit of a slacker who had her fellow student council members do most of the work and even her homework, which calls her reputation into question.
  • Subverted with Touko herself. While she is genuinely talented at school and sports, and is good at her job as Student Council President, it gradually becomes clear that Touko has severe self-esteem problems, revealing that she's more of a Broken Ace. It also turns out that she used to be a mediocre student without many friends when she was young, thus causing her to believe that the only way she could have any worth is to become her sister.
  • The main character of the School Play that the student council puts on is apparently this, according to a classmate. Said classmate said she had amazing grades, was great at sports, and was well-liked among the school. The girl in question finds it a bit hard to believe that someone that perfect exists, and it turns out that her younger brother and girlfriend see her very differently.
• Break Shot is full of these, and the main character Shinsuke Oda can be considered one himself.
• A Bride's Story:
  • Barring her age, Amir is pretty much the perfect bride. Good at sewing, cooking, and hunting, kind, patient, etc. To top it off, she’s a beauty. There’s a funny moment when Pariya thinks of Amir and gets angry because she’s struggling to learn to embroider while Amir is good at everything. Later on, when Pariya tries to think of an impossibly perfect human being, guess which face springs into her mind?
  • Hot-Blooded tendencies aside, her elder brother, Azel, is basically the perfect man by the region’s standards. He excels at hunting, archery, swordsmanship, leadership, falconry, equestrianism, and most traditionally male tasks. He’s also smart, handsome, and very loyal to his family. In short, he’s very clearly Amir’s brother.
  • Anis and Sherine also think that Anis' husband is this, particularly after he marries a widowed Sherine as well. He's rich, handsome, healthy, intelligent, cultured, and breathtakingly generous and compassionate — Anis constantly thinks how lucky she is to have married him and Sherine elaborates on what an admirable man he is as well.
  • Kamola is considered the finest and most eligible girl in the village (sort of like the regional equivalent of a Yamato Nadeshiko) and her family is inundated with marriage proposals for her despite her being too young to marry quite yet. When Pariya is looking for an ideal girl to use as a role model (and, as mentioned above, writes off Amir as impossible for her to match) she settles on Kamola, and starts to stalk her around observing her, accidentally giving Kamola the idea that Pariya hates her. Ironically, when Pariya owns up to being jealous of Kamola's perfection, Kamola admits that she actually envies Pariya's ability to boldly speak her mind without reservation, and the two become friends.
• Buso Renkin: Shusui Hayasaka is the most impressive student at Ginsei Private Academy. He is the kendo club president who competes at a national level, is the Student Council vice-president, is extremely popular with the girls, is extremely intelligent, and is also more impressive in the trouser department than Kazuki and his friends. Outside of school he is also the best Familiar of the L.X.E.
• Tsubasa Ohzora from Captain Tsubasa constantly walks the thin line between The Ace and Invincible Hero (and The Minnesota Fats, within the story). His Ace qualities are slightly downplayed in World Youth Cup and Road to 2002, but not that much.
  • Also, Genzou Wakabayashi. He's such a good goalkeeper that in one Road to 2002 match he wasn't in his game due wounded hands... And the opposing team still couldn't score. Hence why he was Put on a Bus
• Claudine: At university, Claude becomes a popular gentleman and scholar whose even invited to events like the gentleman's club.
• Teresa from Claymore is the woman every ace in this trope aspires to be. She's a demon hunter, ranked at the top of her class, the most beautiful woman in her organization by far, and virtually unbeatable even in a group of her best subordinates. For example, after breaking the rules of the Organization by killing a group of bandits that were threatening to kill a child traveling with her, she is sentenced to death by beheading. In a flash of light, her comrades appear to have sliced right through her, only to find all five of them wounded and bleeding from her lightning quick counterattack. It doesn't even appear as though she'd even drawn her sword at all.
  • As if they didn't learn the last time, they attempt to bring her to justice again by recruiting members of the top ten ranked warriors in the Organization to seek her out and kill her. After having exhausted their capacity of demonic power, only Priscilla, the second ranked warrior puts up even a decent fight. Even after she pushes herself beyond her limit, Teresa evens the score by using only 10% of her power (a rare occurrence, considering she generally fights without using any power at all) and aptly defeating her. Her death at the hands of one of the most powerful beings in the series is clearly shown to be only possible through a very cheap sucker punch after she had let her guard down.
• Cowboy Andy in the "Cowboy Funk" episode on Cowboy Bebop. Scenery-chewing, completely-off-his-rocker, the only person in the whole series to have a personal leitmotif that plays whenever he appears (and breaks the fourth wall, considering all the other characters hear it too), and is able to stand up to Spike in a fistfight.
• One of the few cases where The Ace is fully Played for Drama is Crying Freeman, where Yoh Hinomura is a handsome, skilled, very aesthetically-sensitive man known as the most talented and famous potter in the world... but he has been forcefully recruited and mind-controlled by the Chinese mafia to become their top assassin, and cries outta regret after each kill.
• Nago (the cleaned up one) in Daily Lives of High School Boys is Yanagin's rival, who outdid Yanagin in academics, karate, and ramen eating.
• Subverted with Light Yagami from Death Note. On the surface, Light is a handsome, athletic genius and incredible skill at getting women. However, for someone who started out as The Ace, Light is very childish, completely lacks emotional intelligence and seems to have no idea how the world and society at large works, unlike L.
• The Megaplayboy from DNA² is an extremely handsome man who can swoon every woman in the world with a single smile and also has a ridiculous level of fighting skills that lets him defeat the worst enemies. There's a catch, tho: this comes from his DNA... and he will make 100 women pregnant with sons who will become megaplayboys in the future, causing a HUGE superpopulation problem. Therefore, Karin Aoi comes from the future itself to actually kill the DNA of this super special Ace...
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Muichiro Tokito isn’t stated to be the strongest Hashira, but is by far the one who has the most potential, he holds the record of fastest growth within the Corps rankings by age, Tengen reminisced Muichiro and Gyomei became Hashira in mere months of joining the Demon Slayer Corps. All that potential is explained through Muichiro being a descendant of the Tsugikuni family by his ancestor Kokushibo/Michikatsu.
• Mana Aida in Doki Doki! PreCure is very athletic and dependable. She gets good grades, helps out several of the sports clubs, settles conflicts between students peacefully, and is the Student Council President. When she becomes a Precure, she figures out her powers very quickly. Just don't ask her to sing.
• Doraemon has Dekisugi (renamed Ace Goody in the English dub). While he's mostly known for his intelligence (he's the top of his class), he's also really good at sports and video games as well. He's also nice and good-looking, and consistently one-ups everyone else without really knowing it. In fact, most of his role is simply to highlight how bad Nobita is by comparison.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Goku most definitely. He learns techniques just by watching them once or twice, and becomes immune to them since he knows how to counter them. Within a few years, his martial art skills surpasses all his masters, including God/The Guardian of the Earth, and wins the World Martial Arts Tournament when he's still a teenager, becoming the strongest man in the world. He then finds out why he's able to do all these things when it's revealed that he's a Saiyan, who are a race that is born for battle. Even that doesn't fully explain how he's able to defeat members of his race consider to be elites and even royalty, defeats and/or kills seemingly invincible aliens and monsters, and achieves all the available Super Saiyan transformations and even goes beyond godhood. He's so good that everyone defers to him to solve the problem of the current arc, even if he isn't the strongest at the moment. His ace status, however, does get deconstructed after the Frieza Saga. Because he is so powerful and so good at what he do, his friends and family depend on him too much to fix the current problem, which leads to a Bad Future in one alternative timeline. His one true rival, Vegeta, also becomes so sick of being overshadowed by Goku that he sells his soul for power and unleashes Majin Buu upon the world.
  • In a franchise full of genius and prodigy fighters, Frieza may just stand head and shoulders above the rest. Unlike every other villain in the series who were either the embodiment of evil, demonic, or created to be ultimate weapons, Frieza is just a mutant who was born the strongest being in the universe without training a day in his life. He also has an insane amount of durability thanks to his species extreme survivability and was able to remain sentient after Trunks cut him to bits. In Resurrection F, through training for only four months Frieza manages to close the power gap with Goku, who had powers beyond godhood. With that said, his own arrogance in his greatness proves to be his Fatal Flaw. He never bothers to learn to control his full power, which leaves him with very poor endurance. Both times he fights Goku, he loses because he burnt himself out. The mental trauma he suffers after Goku beats him turns him into a Broken Ace.
  • The Nameless Namek, aka Piccolo and Kami. The Elder Namek called him a prodigy among the Namekians and Dragon Clan, which was why they sent him to Earth when the weather changed on Namek. When Krillin tells the Elder Namek that Piccolo was killed by a Saiyan, he asks if it was a Super Saiyan who did it. After reading Krillin's mind and learning that the Nameless Namek split into Piccolo and Kami, he says that if they were whole no ordinary Saiyan would have been able to kill him. Nail echoes these thoughts, telling Piccolo that if he had came whole he would have been stronger than Frieza. It is not until the Cell Saga that we finally see the power of Nameless Namek, and he doesn't disappoint. He's stronger than a Super Saiyan and Imperfect Cell, and is an even match for Androids 17 and 18. He also combines the battle experience and wit of Piccolo, and the godly knowledge and wisdom of Kami.
  • Pikkon, a Filler character from the Otherworld Tournament, definitely fits this. He's able to beat Frieza, King Cold, the Ginyu Force, and Cell all single-handed with no effort, and go toe-to-toe with Goku without any real problems. He's presented as the West Quadrant's answer to Goku and faces him in the climax of the Otherworld Tournament arc.
  • This is a requirement to be appointed a God of Destruction. Both Beerus and Champa are called the strongest in their universes, although those titles really belongs to Whis and Vados. Them just fighting can destroy the 6th and 7th Universes.
  • From Dragon Ball Super, there is Hit, the strongest fighter from Universe 6. He is a legendary assassin who never fails to kill his target, given him the nickname, The Flawless Hit. He definitely lives up to his reputation since he easily decimates Vegeta who was fighting as a Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, without Vegeta even touching him once. He is also a Time Master with the ability to pause time for 0.1 seconds, making his movements invisible even to people like Jaco. He also shows that he can improve his time-skip in the middle of a battle.
  • Beerus claims that Monaka is this, citing him as the strongest mortal in Universe 7 who gave him a much better fight than Goku. He tells members of his team to do rock-paper-scissors to chose who will fight in what order, but says that Monaka will go last since is the 'ace'. Beerus also seems to be afraid of him, going out of his way to keep Monaka happy. It's revealed by Whis that Monaka isn't that strong and is actually an amateur fighter who Beerus build up to motivate Goku and Vegeta into becoming stronger.
  • Zamasu went from a lower Kai to being trained to become a Supreme Kai because of his prodigious talent. While the strongest Supreme Kai in Universe 7 was only as strong as Kid Buu, he can take hits from post-God Super Saiyan 2 Goku whose base form surpasses Super Buu. After sparring with him, Goku supposes that he might eventually become as powerful as Beerus. As his future self, Goku Black, and eventually Merged Zamasu show, Goku was right, although that only happened after he went off the deep end.
  • Zen-O tops all of them by being the most powerful being in the entire multiverse, being able to destroy the multiverse easily if he wanted and has destroyed six universes in the past (to the point where the aforementioned God of Destruction is scared of him). Luckily for everyone, he's too chill to want to.
• Dr. STONE: Everyone has something that they are the best at. Taiju is the best at toughness and endurance, able to work for days without rest. Yuzuriha is the best with her hands, able to craft anything and reassemble even shattered stone. Tsukasa is the best at physical combat, able to defeat absolutely anyone in a fight until guns come into play. Kohaku has the best eyesight, Chrome is the best scavenger, Gen is the best liar, so on and so on. And of course, Senku is the best scientist, which serves as the basis of the series, as he advances the human race back up the tech tree at a breakneck speed.
• Nabeshin when he appears in Excel♡Saga by merit of being a parody of a Marty Stu. He is essentially a living Deus ex Machina.
• Every American football team in Eyeshield 21 has an ace, with Sena being the ace running back for Deimon. More prominent to this trope, however, is Riku of the Seibu Wild Gunmen, who taught Sena how to run properly. Two more examples who fit this trope are Shin and the villainous version, Agon. Agon especially, since he has God-Speed Impulse, which allows him to react faster than anyone, can catch up with Sena (at his average pace) after being passed by, and also stole the Devilbat Ghost after only seeing it. It is cemented by the fact that he's allowed to do whatever he wants by his school.
• Fairy Tail:
  • Gildarts Clive is a wise Lightning Bruiser who's also considered pretty fun to be around by his peers and quite the ladies man. As Gildarts is 45, whereas most of the main cast is late teens to early 20s, Gildarts has had over twice as long to learn how to be awesome. Like "destroying black holes" awesome.
  • Erza Scarlet, the leader of Team Natsu, earned the nickname "Titania, the Queen of the Fairies" by being the most active and revered S-Class member and by being the guild's strongest female fighter. And yes, she has a tendency to do the impossible as well (Pandemonium, anyone?). Not to mention, several of the guild's females have a crush on her.
  • Laxus Dreyar, after he stops being an asshole, is the most powerful male member of the guild behind Gildarts and possesses incredible physical and magical abilities even not counting his Dragonslaying powers and mastery of Fairy Law. And like the previous ones, he does the impossible too (defeating Wizard Saints on his lonesome). Not to mention, plenty of women (and some men) outside of the guild think he's hot and have crushes on him.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Alex Louis Armstrong, a Hot-Blooded and muscular guy who gives off Bishie Sparkle and is a master of alchemy and martial arts.
  • His sister Olivia Milla Armstrong is one, too.
• Future GPX Cyber Formula has Shinjyo, Randoll, and Osamu. Shinjyo is a 2-time European F-3 champion, Randoll is incredibly rich and excels at every sport and endeavor he could get his hands on and Osamu had an excellent record in F-3.
• Because each planet in Galaxy Express 999 is a Planet of Hats, there a lot of individuals and machines that are described as "the best in the universe" in some regard.
• Genshiken has Makoto Kousaka. Unlike the other socially awkward and mundane otaku in the show, he is an attractive, well dressed, charismatic, all around nice guy who also towers over the rest of the cast in intellect (he landed a job as a programmer after studying for one month). He's also the first member of Genshiken to get a girlfriend.
• Tatsugoro in Gintama. A cop in Kabukichou, respected by everyone (including his vigilante rival), a good fighter, an upright, honest guy, got the girl and was thereby deemed Too Cool to Live. Two characters (his vigilante rival-turned-yakuza and The Hero) lampshade how awesome he was years later by saying that no matter how much they try to imitate Tatsugoro, they'll never be as good as him.
• Kintaro from Golden Boy.
• Great Teacher Onizuka. He is also a rare example of an Ace that's also a bona fide Butt-Monkey. Though it's balanced out by his moments of sheer idiocy:
  Onizuka: All right, I'll sell my organs then. No other choice, right?
  Student: Sell the brain first! You never use it!
• In Haikyuu!!, "Ace" is what a team's best offensive player is called. Their main characteristic is their ability to fight blocks head-on, which usually results in them being the ones spiking if the receive goes awry and the setter can't toss properly.
  • Karasuno High has Azumane Asahi. Although his technique is nothing special and his mentality can be shaky, he's tall and extremely strong. There's also Tanaka Ryuunosuke, who is a year younger and touted to become the team's next ace after Asahi graduates. He isn't as tall or strong, but has an iron mentality.
  • In the events that took place 4 years before the main story, Karasuno's ace was a player nicknamed "Little Giant". Despite being disadvantaged due to his short stature, his high technical ability made him excellent at defeating blocks, mostly by spiking the ball onto blocks in angles that would cause it ricochet off the court.
  • Nekoma High doesn't really have an ace, but Haiba Lev claims to be the one under the reasoning that "the ace is the one who scores the most points". The closest they actually have to one is Yamamoto Taketora.
  • Shiratorizawa Academy has Ushijima Wakatoshi, considered one of the top 3 high school aces in Japan. While his strong point is his physicality (he has immense height, strength, and stamina), he's strong all-around as well, with good spiking technique and rock-solid composure.
  • Fukurodani Academy has Bokuto Koutarou, considered one of the top 5 high school aces in Japan. Although he is prone to getting dejected, his technique is top-tier and his physicality is very good as well.
  • Aobajohsai High has Iwaizumi Hajime as their ace.
  • Wakutani Minami High School has Nakashima Takeru, who although short and not particularly strong or intelligent, has incredible spiking technique.
• Hajime no Ippo: David "Golden" Eagle. The second world champ Takamura faces and the complete opposite of Brian Hawk in both character and boxing style: Friendly, honorable, intelligent, hard-working and dignified and an orthodox "text-book" boxer who's best at the very basics of boxing and a good strategist inside the ring. Ippo mentioned how he looks like a super-hero, contrasted with Takamuras' Jerkass image of a super-villain. And if that isn't enough, he also has the "same eyes as Ippo". Yeah, the ones with the ominous glow that never give up.
• Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair: Jeanie is good at singing, playing the piano, captures the hearts of many of her male classmates and is a fast runner. She's also a skilled doctor-in-training.
• Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto: Sakamoto is handsome, brilliant, and accomplished, can literally do anything (even things that are physically impossible) without failing or even getting flustered, and never loses his cool temper or casual, relaxed demeanor. Girls flock around him (but never manage to get to him), and most guys hate him and want to take him down a peg (but fail miserably at it) unless they instead befriend him (in which case he'll be a perfectly loyal and great friend). His only real flaw is that his impossibly impossible perfectness can weird out his more normal schoolmates.
• There's very little that Helck can't do with ease, though he's humble enough that even people who would normally be jealous end up inspired instead.
• In Hellsing Alucard is the Ace of the Hellsing Organization and Alexander Anderson is the trump card of Iscariot, both of them are extremely good in the jobs because of their powers and skills.
• The title character of Himouto! Umaru-chan presents this type of persona to the outside world. To everyone at school Umaru is smart, beautiful, helpful and excels at all she does. At home she's an insufferable Lazy Bum who would rather spend all day watching anime and playing games.
• Played with in Ilegenes - Kokuyou no Kiseki: Fon is ridiculously smart (skipping two grades in high school to graduate early), places first on every exam he takes, excels at virtually everything he's ever tried, and is handsome to boot. Turns out, Fon is an Artificial Human who was created to have all the qualities of a hero so that he could one day rid Ilegenes of corruption, thus making this an Invoked Trope. Everything he's accomplished in his life is the result of the genes he was created with and was planned by the scientists who made him. This revelation sends him into a Heroic BSoD, ending in him becoming a Broken Ace.
• Tsubaki from In the Heart of Kunoichi Tsubaki is the Akane Class's top student, with very few amongst their ranks able to be considered her equal when it comes to skill. She's the leader of Team Dog, is well-versed in ninjutsu, and is diligent in her studies and training.
• Both Kaguya and Shirogane from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War are incredibly skilled at a wide range of subjects. That said, there are things that they're really bad at (like Kaguya being Hopeless with Tech and Shirogane being a Dreadful Musician).
• Similar to Kei is Takumi Usui of Maid-Sama! who excels at anything he does, whether it be athletics, cooking, academics, music, or anything else you can think of. Misaki thinks he's a space alien. It's probably true.
• Kaze to Ki no Uta: Serge is smart, athletic, good looking and, among other things, a musical prodigy and an excellent equestrian.
• Kimagure Orange Road has Madoka Ayukawa. She's an Academic Athlete, is extremely smart, particularly musically inclined, and also a very good fighter, with both brains and brawn.
• Akisame Koetsuji of Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple is generally known as one of the greatest jujutsu masters in the world, but is also a talented sculptor, calligrapher, philosopher, medical practicioner, Go player... and everything else he puts his mind to.
• Shuri Komori from Komori-san Can't Decline! can do anything (except beat tough video games), provided that someone is asking her to help them.
• All of the Generation of Miracles^note Kise, Midorima, Aomine, Murasakibara, Akashi from Kuroko's Basketball are this for their respective high school teams, but special mention goes to Aomine, who was considered The Ace of the Generation of Miracles.
  • Kagami also counts, since he is capable of going toe-to-toe with and defeating the GoM. And then you have Akashi, who can do pretty much everything outside of basketball as well as being an excellent player...
  • There are also the Uncrowned Kings, 5 players who are on the same level as the GoM but one year older who never got as much fame^note Kiyoshi, Hanamiya, Mibuchi, Nebuya, Hayama. Himuro is also noted as being one of Yousen's "W Aces" (the other half being Murasakibara).
• Siegfried Kircheis in Legend of the Galactic Heroes is the greatest tactician of the galaxy, a good fighter, a better marksman than his best friend Reinhard, and is the only one who was able to make Yang Wenli sweating bullets as the latter has no counter against him. He's also a Nice Guy and he would always call out Reinhard whenever the latter would do something morally questionable. No wonder he's dead at the end of the first season, otherwise the story would have been over. His death is also one of the biggest meme sources in anime: "If only Kircheis were here..."
• Lady!!: Baron Gruffald's niece Rebecca. She's been training under the Baron ever since she was a kid, and at nine years old, is a skilled equestrian. So it's a shock to the Baron when Lynn and Rebecca have a race and Lynn beats her. Though the next day Lynn, Rebecca and Percy race and Rebecca wins.
• Diana Cavendish from Little Witch Academia (2017). She comes from a very important family of mages who descends from one of the Nine Old Witches (basically the supreme authorities on magic), is extremely intelligent and talented, has always the right answer for everything, knows more than her teachers do, looks always elegant and composed... And after all of this we discover that having her magic drained out of her as a child, so she had to re-learn everything, and having her evil aunt plot to sell her family's artefacts to muggles didn't even affect her that much, making her even more of an Ace.
• Sae Maki in The Love and Creed of Sae Maki is the most popular student at Seirinkan High because she's beautiful, intelligent, atheltic, and rich, so much that Even the Girls Want Her.
• Seta Noriyasu from Love Hina fits this trope, being a comedically impossible benchmark for the This Loser Is You protagonist to reach after. He is better at everything than any of the other main characters are (except anything involving safe operation of a motor vehicle), and about the only thing that fazes him is a Megaton Punch from Haruka or Naru and the fact that he is a high-level Cloudcuckoo Lander. He may start out looking like the ace but in the Manga later we see that he is way more like Keitaro then should be humanly possible, he failed to get into Tokyo U. 3 times, also was in a Love Triangle that ended badly (Sarah's Mom, Haruka and Seta)^note Sarah is not his kid. he always says the wrong thing to Haruka getting punch or taking a rocket to the face. He is good at martial arts, acts cool around anyone but his Love Interest. Keitaro takes these traits too.
• Chrono Harlaown from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is a less over-the-top variant of this, since he does prove consistently more effective than both Nanoha and Fate through being Weak, but Skilled. Instead of Hot Blood, we have The Stoic one. Nanoha herself is known as the "Ace of Aces", while her partner Fate, being one of the top Enforcers of the TSAB, is known as the "Ace of the Navy". Subaru is also known by her coworkers at the Gulf Special Rescue Unit as the "Silver Ace".
• Kanna is considered to be this by her classmates in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, both academically and physically. It helps that she's a centuries old dragon from another world.
• Char Aznable and the vast majority of his Expies in the Mobile Suit Gundam multiverse. Usually, they're The Hero's Rival or Evil Counterpart, making them less sympathetic (but no less badass).
  • The most blatant example is Mu La Flaga from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, otherwise known as the "man who makes the impossible possible", who seduces the insanely hot Murrue TWICE! He's also arguably a better pilot than the actual main character Kira, without being a Super-Soldier. Apparently he's actually a Newtype, even though SEED already has Newtype equivalents.
  • George Glenn, in the backstory, was The Ace up to eleven. He was a Nobel Prize winner, a star athlete, an Ace Pilot, a literal rocket scientist, and the creator of the space colonies. Shortly after becoming a celebrity he revealed to the world that he was a Designer Baby and released the means by which others could be like him; 40 years later he was assassinated.
  • In Gundam Build Fighters and Gundam Build Fighters Try, there's Tatsuya Yuuki, who uses the prestigious name "Meijin Kawaguchi III". The man is an amazing Gunpla Builder and Gunpla Fighter and the only loss we see him get was because he was Brainwashed and Crazy.
    • In Gundam Build Divers, we have his contemporary, Kyoya Kujo of Force Avalon, who is known far and wide as "Champion" and for good reason, too. He's defeated players playing both the right way and by illegally modifying their Gunpla and his losses is only through running out of time or being tag-teamed by two people giving it all they got to win.
• Speaking of Char Clones (although not strictly in the Gundam multiverse), Lelouch and Suzaku come across to each other as this. Lelouch constantly felt cheated each time the mysterious white Knightmare showed up to ruin his plans with over-the-top acrobatics, whilst Suzaku felt that Zero was dirty terrorist who stole the "Good Guys'" thunder. It only got worse when they discovered each others' identities.
• Mischievous Twins: The Tales of St. Clare's: Pat and Isabel O'Sullivan twins were both the best athletes and the top students at their old school. Their parents think they're becoming too stuck-up as a result, so they send them to another school. They don't take to St. Clare's well at first. The first episode of the anime is literally called I Hate St. Claire's.
• My Hero Academia:
  • All Might is the greatest hero in the world, and took to the One For All quirk far easier than his successor Izuku Midoriya did, becoming a natural. His attributes are rated 6 out of 5 in every category. This trope is Deconstructed as it's precisely because All Might is The Ace that he is constantly targeted by the League of Villains — they know they if they can bring down the Big Good of the Pro world, everyone else well fall into despair. This badly affects All Might's ability to allow others to get close to him, despite his jovial personality, as he knows anybody who works with him paints a huge target on their back. (To the point that, at the beginning of the series, Tsukauchi is his Only Friend.) He also lives in fear of anybody discovering his secret — he was badly wounded by the Big Bad of the series and as such he cannot use his Quirk to full power like he used to. It's because All Might needs a successor that kickstarts the entire plot — when he picks Midoriya Izuku.
  • Katsuki Bakugo is the epitome of this for the main cast and both a full and deconstructing example. At the start of the series, Bakugo was a skilled Quirk user who was good at just about anything he attempted, including having great grades. This, combined with him being praised by so many people for his luck and talent, meant Bakugo grew up knowing he was this — which made him into a massive jerkass who looked down on everyone else. He gets a bad wake-up call when he starts attending U.A., which is full of students who are just as talented and hardworking as he is, and his bad attitude from years of getting his ego inflated constantly gets in the way of his dream of being a real hero. His status as The Ace also means that the adults around him often fail to remember that in spite of how talented and headstrong he is, he's still a teenager and absolutely nobody noticed the signs that Bakugou was approaching a mental breakdown over All Might's retirement, which he blamed himself for until the situation exploded violently when Bakugou challenged Midoriya to a fight out of sheer guilt and frustration. All Might readily admits he completely failed Bakugou by not even thinking of his mental wellbeing and to make up for this, Bakugou is one of the only people other than Midoriya that All Might decides to entrust the secret of One For All to.
  • Shoto Todoroki is the second resident Ace of Class 1-A being gifted with two powerful abilities in a single Quirk, the combined power of fire and ice. However, he slips into Broken Ace as despite being one of two students in Class 1-A who got into UA on pure recommendation (the other being Momo Yaoyorozu), Todoroki has a number of deep psychological issues thanks to his extremely abusive father, to the point where he believes I Work Alone is the best way to surpass him and refuses to fight with his flames to spite Endeavor. It's only after befriending Midoriya and opening up to his classmates he makes steps to becoming more sociable and happier as a person.
  • Hawks, the youngest Pro Hero to get into the top ten rankings at twenty-two, is widely regarded as this, owing to both his age, and the fact his incredibly versatile Quirk basically means he can do the work of several Pros by himself, plus he's incredibly popular with the general public (and the fanbase), intelligent and is one of the few people totally unintimidated by Endeavor.
• The Mysterious Cities of Gold has Mendoza. He's the best fighter and most competent member of the group, as befitting of a seasoned and charismatic explorer with years of experience.
• My Wife is the Student Council President: Wakana Ui is top of the school in both sports and studies, is beautiful and incredibly charismatic. This of coruse allows her to easily win the election by a landslide.
• Quite a few characters in Naruto are called "genius" or "natural prodigy". They often do live up to expectations but also are not as perfect as they seem at first sight.
  • The first four Hokage were each hailed as the strongest warriors of their time and managed to surpass every other shinobi in the art of asskicking, to the point where their strength and skill were considered absurdly unnatural. Special mention goes to Hashirama Senju also known as "the God of Shinobi". In terms of raw power, even the other three Hokage are not on his level and had to compensate by developing/refining unique, extremely broken jutsu. His power is described as being so vast that no other ninja has come close to matching him. Even Madara, who wiped the floor with five Kage, used the Sharingan to bring Kurama under his control and Hashirama still beat him ( be it narrowly, and Hashirama's Wood-style did give him a natural edge over Kurama). And this is not to mention that he created the entire system of hidden ninja villages and drastically reduced the Crapsackiness of the world.
  • This is a total trait of the clan Uchiha whose members as a rule are talented since birth and are also unsurpassed geniuses in everything. But there are several examples of prominent even in this clan:
    • Sasuke Uchiha was introduced as this in contrast to Naruto, being extremely skilled, popular, wanted by all the girls. He's extremely gifted, able to use some of the strongest attacks seen yet at the ripe age of about seventeen, and elite shinobi of the entire world admit he's a genius with potential beyond theirs. At the end of the series, he is one of the strongest people walking on the ground.
    • His older brother Itachi Uchiha is one of the best ninjas the Leaf has ever produced. He was the third strongest shinobi in the Akatsuki Organization (right under Nagato and Tobi). He also understands the essence of what it means to be a true shinobi. Hiruzen Sarutobi, the third God of Shinobi, even claimed he had the mindset of a Hokage when he was just seven years old and the man who set up the current shinobi system even stated that Itachi was a far better shinobi than he ever was.
    • We also have the legendary Uchiha clan head, Madara Uchiha. He was born with exceptional chakra even by the standards of the battle-oriented and highly gifted Uchiha Clan. Having been raised in war and combat, he made a name for himself as one of the world's strongest, always fighting to protect the Uchiha. Also Madara was the first to unlock the Mangekyo Sharingan and the only one (until Sasuke obtained it) to have the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. He was also the first person since the Sage of Six Paths to awaken the Rinnegan.
  • Kakashi Hatake was a child prodigy who became a jounin before he even entered his teens, is one of the only non-Uchiha to have mastered the Sharingan and Mangekyo Sharingan, is a skilled elemental user and has over 1000 jutsu at his disposal. It is not surprising that he became a Hokage in the end.
  • The Legendary Sannin are a trinity very powerful ninjas on par with the Kages (in fact, they were all offered the role of Hokage, which Tsunade eventually accepted). They all get various moments to show just how badass they are throughout the series.
    • Jiraiya was one of the strongest ninjas in the world (a giant leap from his Genin days) and a world-renown author. His students are among the strongest people on earth (and two of them became Hokage). Many shinobi respect and fear him and even members of Akatsuki like Kisame and Itachi both considered him a too great of a threat for both of them (this is huge since despite Itachi's allegiance, he would kill Konoha shinobi to keep his cover), with Kisame even saying he was on an entirely other level.
    • Orochimaru is talented shinobi since he was a child, with his skills growing ever since. Developed into an amazing scientist who knows a humongous amount of techniques, killed the Third Hokage and is functionally immortal. When Orochimaru fought (a drugged) Jiraiya and (a freaked out) Tsunade without his arms, this ended in a stalemate that speaks volumes.
    • Tsunade is widely considered the most well-regarded and the greatest medical ninja in the world, and can hit vital points with precision or completely heal herself in midfight. She also сame up with a bunch of the rules for Medic Ninja which are used to this day and has been dubbed, "The World's Most Beautiful and Strongest Woman".
  • Naruto himself grows into one. By the time the Fourth Shinobi World War starts up, he is the only living person capable of fighting the undead, constantly regenerating, and nigh-unbeatable Madara Uchiha on equal terms. Not only that, a number of people have claimed him to have surpassed the Fourth Hokage several times over and Tobirama directly compares Naruto to Hashirama upon witnessing his mastery of Sage Mode, and later admits that Naruto may eventually become a greater Hokage than his brother was. After obtaining Six Paths Sage Mode, Kakashi states he surpassed all Hokage and is matching and overwhelming Kaguya Otsutsuki blow for blow (though Kaguya was still far more powerful than him and was holding back during the fight). In the finale, he becomes the Seventh Hokage, making him both the strongest Hokage in the Leaf's history, and the single strongest person in the world with only Sasuke being acknowledged as rivaling him in power.
  • The film Boruto: Naruto the Movie, and it’s Sequel Series retelling has the son of Naruto and Daughter of Sasuke are this.
    • Boruto Uzumaki is quite popular among his peers and is able to make friends wherever he goes. This along with his Child Prodigy status and Blue Blood made everyone believe that he will follow in the footsteps of his father and paternal grandfather into becoming a Hokage.
    • Sarada Uchiha is a young kunoichi, who despite her age, is considered to be an elite genin, with skillset on par with those of a chunin. She is well regarded by her peers, but also by Konoha higher-ups. She proved herself to be a master of shurikenjutsu, gaining the highest marks in class.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • Chao Lingshen. Mentally, she's a genius inventor, engineer, and studies robotics, medicine, bio-engineering and quantum physics at university level. In talents, she's an expert at Chinese cooking. Financially, she's a wealthy entrepreneur thanks to these cooking abilities and her business management skills. Athletically, she's a specialist in Shaolin Kung Fu. Supernaturally, she's a fire-using, device-based Time Master. She also happens to be fifteen years of age and the most intelligent student in the school (this school happens to hold over 30,000 residents).
  • She may act like an ace but she is also a time-traveling descendent of Negi, whose true objective is to avert the collapse of the Magical World, a scheme which ultimately joins a Gambit Pileup with the Magical World arc.
  • Jack Rakan could probably also count. He's obscenely powerful, capable of beating down the Quirky Miniboss Squad in their most powerful forms without taking a scratch. He can do almost anything (like reading minds, for some reason), and spends most of his fights goofing off because only about a dozen beings can seriously threaten him.
  • Nagi is almost as hammy as Rakan, and is somehow still incredibly badass even without his magical powers.
  • By the end of the manga, Negi certainly qualifies, having taken all the training he's received from Evangeline and Jack to essentially become the most powerful being in the universe.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion:
  • Kaworu Nagisa is a nice subversion. He synchronizes at a higher level than any other pilot and is probably the only sane person. He's also a Humanoid Abomination sent here to destroy humanity. He chooses not to, though.
  • This is yet another trope that NGE deconstructs, in regards to Misato Katsuragi. She's initially introduced as a beautiful, hard-drinking, hard-fighting, and improbably young elite officer of NERV sent to mentor and guide Shinji. However, the cracks start showing throughout the series and by the end she is barely holding it together following serious injuries, the resurfacing memories of Second Impact, and the death of Kaji. In the finale, having failed to motivate Shinji as a friend and as a substitute mother, all she can do is offer herself and she dies asking if she did the right thing.
• One Piece:
  • The admirals from the Marine/Navy are the most powerful Marine soldiers the World Government has and apparently, there can only be three of them. Above them is the Fleet Admiral.
  • Among all pirates, the Four Emperors are the most powerful and most feared ones. A single Emperor is much stronger than one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea. When the Marines challenged an Emperor to a war, they gathered nearly all of their forces (including their three Admirals) and even called in all Seven Warlords just to fight a single Emperor and his crew.
  • Monkey D. Luffy himself. He started off powerful enough to take on the likes of the Arlong Pirates, he defeated one of the Seven Warlords very early on in his journey, took down Rob Lucci almost single-handedly, defeated ANOTHER Warlord not long after, and survived the Marineford conflict despite being public enemy number 3. And this was only the FIRST HALF of his adventure, and his feats were so impressive that Silvers Rayleigh, the first mate of the former Pirate King, takes him under his wing for 2 years in order to become stronger. Luffy, now way stronger than he was previously, continued to perform the most insane feats imaginable. He defeated Doflamingo, who's not only a Warlord, but a Warlord capable of enslaving and wiping out entire towns with his Devil Fruit alone. He fought Big Mom and Katakuri, lived to tell the tale, and then escaped from them. This feat by itself was so insane that he was declared the unofficial FIFTH EMPEROR. Then there's his biggest feats so far: He managed to damage KAIDO, the same guy who can't even damage himself, let alone kill himself, and THEN he manages to DEFEAT KAIDO after awakening his Devil Fruit, taking his place as one of the Four Emperors. And every last one of these feats happened in a 2+ year timespan. Luffy is the epitome of The Ace.
• Paranoia Agent 's Yuichi "Ichi" Taira, who is extremely popular, good at sports, and intelligent. It later turns into a rather dark deconstruction, however. And it's debatable whether he was ever as great as he thought he was, since we only have his word on that and he's very narcissistic (and later, insane).
• The Perks of Working in the Black Magic Industry: Franz has incredible talent with magic, backed up by training, study, and a drive to excel. It's pointed out that the fact that an obvious genius failed to land a job with any of the dozens of companies he applied to is a sign of how broken the system is.
• Currently more or less of an Informed Attribute, Ojou of Please Tell Me! Galko-chan is said to be at the top of the class and aces many extra-curricular activities.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Gary at the start of the series. He'd show up in a convertible (complete with cheerleaders) every so often and completely degrade Ash with just how better than him he was. Ends up being downplayed, though. Gary Oak is initially a badass who collects ten badges from Kanto◊ when there are only 8 gyms. However, he gets owned in the Viridian City Gym by Mewtwo and is knocked out of the Kanto League preliminaries before Ash is. This, and the fact that Gary got pampered with a convertible, pretty much implies that Gary, while being a skilled trainer, did not undergo the same effort of travelling/training/gym-badge-collecting that Ash, Brock, and Misty did. By the time of the Johto league he ultimately is beaten by Ash and subsequently retires from training to be a professor, removing this status for him.
  • A lot of the rivals after him follow suit, especially the ones that beat him at the regional conference. Harrison had Mons from a region he didn't even hear about before meeting him (as a bonus he beat Ash just after Ash beat Gary), Tyson had a nearly fully evolved team of his and Morrison's team, and Vergil has a job on top off being a trainer. Doesn't even have to be his rival either, Soledad anyone? Alain would count as well beating Malva of the Elite Four which is a feat that had never been accomplished by anyone outside of other Elite Four Members and Champions beforehand, even more impressive considering that anime portrays Elite Four Members as being invincible. On top of that, Alain has beaten Ash in almost every one of their encounters which is even more impressive considering how Ash is depicted in the XY Series.
  • If an Elite Four member or champion appears they usually are this or subvert it. Lance is a Dragon Rider who takes on Legendaries, Cynthia is a Lady of War who deals out Curb-Stomp Battle after battle and Flint completely shows up Ash. On the flip side Bruno looks like a bum, Drake appears to be a Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy and Alder is a Casanova Wannabe but all show a level of understanding with Pokemon that Ash and co. can only look up to. Diantha being the Kalos Champion qualifies for the simple reason that she's a champion....as well as dishing out Curb Stomp battles like it's her day job and would casually one shot her opponents.
  • Leon proves to be in a league of his own even among his fellow champions. He bests the Champion of Ash's home region Lance in a duel and subjects Alain of all people to a Curb-Stomp Battle without boosting his Charizard to counter Alain's Mega-Charizard X. Later he defeats Diantha in a slightly more even battle where he at least loses two mons and Gigantimaxes his Charizard to face her Mega Gardevoir. In the end Ash had to use every skill he had ever used to very narrowly beat him.
  • The Shaymin from Pokémon: Giratina and the Sky Warrior likes to think of itself as one.
  • In Diamond & Pearl Ash proved FAR more competent than he was before then. However it wasn't until the XY series of Pokémon were Ash would fall squarely into this trope from the start where he was generally smarter and more competent, was undefeated in battle for over 70 episodes (half of the XY series), narrowly coming in 2nd place of the Lumiose Conference which is a personal best for him, and the fact that all of his rivals and companions looking up to him and were using him as a measuring stick to live up to. He is considered a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass in Sun and Moon with Kiawe being the only one on-par with the guy. He also won the First Ever Alola League Conference and became the Region's first ever champion, in addition to defeating Kukui (the region's best trainer and an Ace himself) even when Tapu Koko itself came down to replace Kukui's team last member. In Journeys he would replace his usual plan of defeating the 8 gym leaders to enter a conference to winning the Masters Eight Tournament, a collection of all the regional champions. To that end he finally defeats Cynthia and Leon, being the only trainer to have ever be seen doing so all series.
  • Every series, Ash tends to catch one Pokémon that gets to outshine the rest of the cast, being his "ace mon" of that series. Discounting Pikachu, the list goes as follows: Charizard (original series), Sceptile (Advanced Generation), Infernape (Diamond & Pearl), Krookodile (Best Wishes), Greninja (XY), Lycanroc (Sun & Moon), and Lucario (Journeys).
• Keigo "Ore-sama" Atobe from The Prince of Tennis is the incarnation of this trope. He's the Student Council President, captain of the tennis club as well as their best player, insanely rich, multilingual, and an extremely Large Ham. He even has a horde of fangirls. Did we mention that Atobe loves the attention?
• Problem Children are Coming from Another World, aren't they?: All three of the so-called problem children. All of them are attractive, intelligent and justifiably confident in themselves. Izayoi has incredible Super-Strength and Super-Speed, and can negate magic. Yo can communicate with animals and use the abilities of any animal she befriends, giving her superhuman physical ability (if not nearly on Izayoi's level) and Super-Senses. Asuka can control people with her words, and enhance the properties of objects.
• Mami Tomoe of Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a veteran Magical Girl, as skilled, powerful and overall badass as she is nice and kind, and it seems like she's all set to play the role of The Mentor to the main characters. Madoka Magica being the Deconstructor Fleet it is, it is quickly shown that Mami is actually a lonely Broken Ace, and episode 3 shows that, yes, she is quite good at dying, too.
  • She is played straight in the Rebellion Story movie as part of the "perfect world" that is Homura's Barrier.
• Ranma Saotome of Ranma ½ is always the best at whatever fighting style, non-violent or semi-violent, feminine or masculine competition his opponents challenge him to. From coordinated team ice skating to the Tea Ceremony. All women want him, all men envy him (and sometimes want her).
• Mildly Deconstructed in Ride Your Wave. Both Hinkao and Wasabi lament that Minato is so good at everything and that they could never live up to him. Minato is surprised by this, because he's always felt like he lacks any sort of natural talent—he just studies and works to get good at things, and encourages them to do the same. Wasabi's arc also includes the realization that he doesn't need to measure himself next to Minato, anyway.
• Max Sterling in Robotech. He's made a nice guy and a hopeless romantic (who almost gets in a Starcrossed Lovers romance at some point, but manages to make his rival pull a Heel–Face Turn) to make him more of a sympathetic character, though, and the heroes want to have him for a friend both on and off duty. For instance, Rick Hunter, one of the lead characters who was a cocky pilot himself, is more than ready to acknowledge that Max is far better than himself, which makes him a great wingmate to have with you in battle.
  • Max is considered undefeatable in the Robotech novelizations in either mecha-to-mecha or hand-to-hand combat, to the point that in the final battle of the first-generation novels engaging his blue-trimmed fighter is described as an instant death sentence.
  • He's even better in his original Super Dimension Fortress Macross appearance as Max Jenius, and in Macross 7, where he becomes the Cool Old Guy. Just look at his name!
    • In the later stages of Macross 7 Max is ordered to sacrifice the entire million+ population of the Macross 7 fleet to bide time against the Protodevilin. Dismayed but not swayed, the Genius takes the battle to the enemy, even stealing the spotlight from main character Gamlin's 'death'. In the final battle, despite being a secondary character, Max outflys everyone, having the distinction of fighting closest to the Big Bad without having his VF explode.
    • In Super Robot Wars Alpha 3, Macross 7 is included, and Max is mostly used as the pilot of the Battle 7. And he still dodges attacks and shoots down enemies with the best of them.
• Rosario + Vampire has Inner Moka. Not only is she one of the most badass characters in the series (which is saying something), but she's also very intelligent and analytical, her only flaws being her complete inability to cook and her aggressive, withdrawn personality.
• Hiko Seijuro in Rurouni Kenshin. He is so ridiculously powerful that the story never pits him against anyone important, as there would be no dramatic tension involved. In the OAV prequel to the show ("Trust and Beatrayal"), Seijuro is introduced by essentially causing a man to evaporate into nothing by hitting him so quickly with his sword. In the show's proper run, main character Kenshin (himself already famous as a savant of swordsmanship) struggles for months trying to learn how to fight as well as his master, and only gains the right to inherit his master's mantle after a very, very hard struggle — at which point his master reveals that the cape he wears is lined with a large amount of metal weights, meaning that he was still probably twice as strong as his student.
• Yutaka in Servant × Service is excellent at academics, sports, housecleaning, cooking and everything else he tries without effort. On the other hand, nothing really interests him.
• In The Seven Deadly Sins, Meliodas, the leader of the Seven Deadly Sins, is the strongest among them.
• Sonic the Hedgehog in Sonic X. Nearly always defeats the bad guys with little effort, so everyone turns to him whenever there's trouble. The only other characters as skilled and powerful as him are his rivals Knuckles the Echidna and Shadow the Hedgehog, but since they're both antisocial loners with little interest of getting involved with others' affairs, people rarely seek their aid.^note Technically Sonic is an Aloof Ally too, but he's friendlier and is always ready to deal with Dr. Eggman whenever he's causing trouble.
• In Sk8 the Infinity, the rookie Langa becomes Loved by All at the illegal skate park S due to his translating honed and innate snowboarding talent into his skateboarding in astounding ways, with the villain ADAM, who founded and uses the skate park to find someone who can actually match him, turning all his attention to him. The protagonist Reki, a huge fan of S and his best friend who introduced him to the world, starts realizing that he's unable to reach Langa's heights after ADAM not only guts his already low self-confidence in skating by sadistically injuring him, but he keeps failing throughout, begins to be seen as a mere accessory to Langa, and finally crashes when he feels emotionally betrayed by Langa. However, there's an interesting underlying thread that's not really made apparent until near the end of the series. As Langa knows, Reki is a Jack of All Trades in many areas, from creating his own skateboards to sharp analysis. The only real reason he's not seen as The Ace seems to be because he and the skaters of S treat skating as the most Serious Business...
• Kei Takishima from Special A is consistently ranked #1 in the school, filthy rich, handsome, and athletic to the point that it borders on Charles Atlas Superpower. About the only thing he can't do is get Hikari to realize that he likes her.
• Humorously deconstructed in Spy X Family: Twilight is probably one of the world's best spies...which becomes a problem for him when superiors in his organization don't appear to seriously think of solving the understaffing issue in the agency and just dump more work on him because, you know, he's just that good, resulting in a seriously overworked spy that has to do a lot of jobs on top of his major operation, giving him more than a few burnouts. Even when he attempts to take a break at the aquarium with his "family" in the first Extra chapter, he still gets a job forced onto him.
• Hibari from Stop Hibari Kun is the School Idol, an amazing athlete, a top student, and is the lead to her own band.
• Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann invokes this trope and intentionally cultivates this sort of image when in public to inspire Simon and the rest of his allies, even though he's far more restrained in private and admits he's as dependent on Simon as Simon is on him. The Worf Effect aside it works out fairly well for him, all things considered, until his untimely death.
• Kenshi Masaki of of Tenchi Muyo: War on Geminar. He was raised as a Badass Normal by a family full of Physical Gods and avatars of cosmic powers. Whether it be combat, cooking, house keeping, wilderness skills, or stimulating massage, Kenshi is unmatched in the world he has been sent to. It becomes something of a running gag the way he steamrolls over the best and brightest of Geminar and yet still thinks of himself as nothing special.
• Keith Goodman, aka "Sky High", from Tiger & Bunny. A ridiculously handsome, humble, adorkable, camp and well-meaning Cape with the title of "King of Heroes": he is the number one hero on Sternbild's HeroTV and is just as nice on-camera as off it. When an escaping criminal ends up being rescued by Kotetsu in episode 1, the criminal starts resisting and complaining because he would rather be rescued by Sky High.
• In Touch (1981), Kazuya Uesugi is kind, polite, hard-working, a sports star, makes good grades, and is popular with girls. Akio Nitta is cut from the same mold. Minami Asakura seems to be a female version.
• Jin of World Trigger. He's not quite the best at anything, rather, he combines personal fighting skill, diplomacy and Chess Master tendencies into a general talent for getting things done. Be it resolving a rough patch of internal politics, de-escalating a fight or stopping a massive invasion.
• Yuuji Yugami from Yugami-kun ni wa Tomodachi ga Inai is a diligent student with good grades, can do just about anything on his own, and is The Ace of the baseball club. In a twist, he's actually a deliberate loner who doesn't want friends and is ignored by all but one of his classmates — the friendless New Transfer Student Chihiro who ends up sitting next to him in class — and his teammates can't stand him, only tolerating him out of a necessity to win. Mind you, Yugami isn't grumpy or dour; he's just very particular about things and is brutally honest, which drives everyone away from him — not that he cares, because he seems rather happy despite being alone.
• Judai of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: played with, lampshaded, and deconstructed every which way in Season 3 when he begins to feel that he's not a real hero without anything to burden him and success always coming too easily for him. As the Big Bad convinces him, his greatest weakness is that he has no weakness.
  • Ryou "Kaiser" Marufuji is another deconstruction. He was initially the top student at Duel Academy in Season One and had never lost a match (the only time he lost on-screen is when he forfeited to save his brother). When he goes to the Pro Leagues in Season Two, he suffers his first loss and has his confidence completely shattered, going into a losing streak that drives a Freak Out and eventually a Face–Heel Turn.
• Yami Yugi of Yu-Gi-Oh!. Not exactly the protagonist, which is technically Yugi, but is the King of Games, to the point of being near unbeatable at them. He inspires both Yugi and Kaiba to try and better themselves in different ways. In terms of the anime, he is also good at fighting whilst on horseback in the fifth season and has several feats of general badass-ery.
• Yusei Fudo of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds takes this to the extreme. Out of all five Yu-Gi-Oh protagonists, you think he'd be least intelligent of all them due to having no type of formal education whatsoever unlike the others but despite having no formal education he's more than capable of building functional D-Wheels and D-Boards from nothing (The latter of which he'd never seen before), create functioning D-Wheel programs that could enhance the capabilities of multiple D-Wheels, a mechanic in his free time, and create a computer program that would ensure a future global genocide would never happen showing he's far from being Book Dumb like Yugi, Judai, and Yuma (Yuya comes off as more as having average level intelligence). In dueling he's the only one of the protagonist who's technically never lost a duel. Like Yugi and Yami Yugi, Yusei also obtained the title King of Games defeating his rival/then champion JACK ATLAS early in the series. Later for an upcoming Duel Team Tournament, people from all over the world were coming to Japan specifically to duel him or ask him to be a part of their team and went as far as kidnapping and trying to brainwash him to do so. In the final arc the final Big Bad Z-ONE said in his timeline (200 years after Yusei's time) Yusei was a legendary hero and renown duelist with many duelist who proceeded his generation being inspired by him and trying to emulate him.
• Yuya from Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V could qualify being the best Duelist from his entertaining duel school (Despite only having at the most 6 students). As the series progressed he wins the Friendship Cup and becomes another King of Games defeating JACK ATLAS and later defeating his rival Reiji Akaba in the series finale.
  • Also from the same series, the aforementioned Reiji is the best Duelist of LDS. He even bested Yuya twice, even though he let Yuya win in their first Duel because he had other things to do involving Marco's disappearance. For bonus points, he doesn't have any losses in his Dueling record, at least until he faces Zarc (who is Purposely Overpowered) and Yuya (who smartened up since their second Duel).
• Yusaku, the main character of Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS, is arguably the first Yugi archetype who acts like a Kaiba archetype. Not only he's just as cunning as Yami Yugi and Yusei (as shown when he bested Revolver in their second Duel despite his first time summoning Firewall Dragon), but is also as ruthless as Kaiba himself. That being said, he's also a Broken Ace, mainly due to Knight of Hanoi's involvement with his childhood.
• Zombie Land Saga:
  • The girls of Franchouchou(save for Sakura) were all Living Legends in life, and each of them has an array of honed skills that help them become idols. It's later revealed in the second season that their deaths were due to a curse that makes anyone skilled enough to bring Saga fame die before their time.
    • Sakura was a high-performing student and athlete in life, and already had a plethora of singing and dancing experience from training to be an idol. She takes quickly to becoming an idol for real after being revived as a zombie.
    • Saki is a natural leader, commanding a notorious biker gang in life and having a natural charisma and enthusiasm that makes her the perfect representative for Franchouchou's events. Even without industry experience, she takes to learning singing and dancing quickly, to the point of being on par with her group mates by their first few performances.
    • Ai was considered one of the greatest idols of her time, being the star of the groundbreaking idol group, Iron Frill. As the most experienced entertainer in Franchouchou, she helps coach the other girls into becoming better idols themselves, and has an incredible grasp on choreography and musical theory.
    • Junko was one of the idols that revolutionized the industry in the 80s. She has the most musical talent in all of Franchouchou, being an excellent singer and instrumentalist. She and Ai form a phenomenal duo that has lead some of the group's best performances.
    • Yugiri was a famed oiran in the Meiji era, being trained since childhood in the art of singing, dancing, and client interaction. Even thought she's a century behind on modern developments, she takes quickly to becoming an idol, and is able to use her adult appeal to charm much of Franchouchou's fan base.
    • Lily was a acting prodigy who starred in multiple hit TV series. She's got an array of performance knowledge from working in the industry, being way more savvy and talented than her age would suggest. She's also got an incredible ability to improvise, being able to make last-minute calls that help her performances for the better.
    • While Tae is a complete mystery and is the only zombie to not reawaken, she displays a remarkable amount of talent whenever she sets her mind on certain activities. She's skilled in all manner of seemingly random activities like drumming, sculpting, break dancing, impersonation, etc. She tends to be Franchouchou's wild card because of this.

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