The Load / Anime & Manga

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• In the episodes of Azumanga Daioh involving the annual sports competitions, Chiyo frets and cries over being The Load. She assumes that since she's a ten-year-old competing against and alongside high schoolers, her lack of physical development must hold their team back to the point that her even participating is a handicap. She's right, but she's also adorable, and therefore easily forgiven. Especially since she means a guaranteed win in one event: cheerleading. The class does already have a cheerleader (Yomi), but this is one event where nobody judges against the cute ten-year-old.
• Berserk:
  • Farnese saw herself as this, once she began traveling with Guts. She has no supernatural powers, can barely fight, lacks much in the way of survival skills, and gets rescued on a regular basis, not to mention being a bit of a mess psychologically. That said, Guts notes that her role of taking care of Casca more than makes up for her other deficiencies, and this is fully averted later on when she starts learning magic and making use of her noble status.
  • Casca herself is traumatized and insane to the point of effectively being a Womanchild, meaning her old skills as a warrior only show up in very desperate situations. Other than that, most situations involving her focus on how to protect her and get her cured.
• Dr. Dreks in part 2 of Bio-Meat: Nectar. Evolves into The Millstone with The Reveal that he's carrying USBM spores, as the heroes are getting away on the escape helicopter.
• Black Cat:
  • Played straight at first, but slowly became subverted in the Anime. The load in question is Eve, a Tyke Bomb the heroes rescue in one of the first arcs and who travels around with them for the rest of the series. While she had her moments every now and then, anime Eve was often a Damsel in Distress for Sven and Train to rescue early on in the anime and serving more as a distraction against bounties. Once her shapeshifting improved, near the end of the anime, she manages to Take a Level in Badass, which culminates in her fight with Leon.
  • In the manga version, Eve started out the same way, but after the first time she froze up in combat she became determined not to be this trope and started frantically Level Grinding in Badass in an attempt to make herself useful. It worked. It worked very well, and the trope was averted.
• In Black Clover, Noelle Silva is about the only royal in existence who cannot control her magic, so much that she is shunned and ridiculed by her siblings and she lands a Magic Knight spot with the Black Bulls, AKA to everyone as the worst squad among the other prestigious Magic Knight squads of the Clover Kingdom. It takes several lessons from actually kindhearted magic users for her to steadily become a force of nature just like her late mother was.
• Bleach has no genuine examples of this trope in the manga. However, the anime likes playing with it in filler.
  • The first filler arc occurs while the canon Uryuu has lost his powers, so contrives a way for him to regain his powers for the arc and then lose them again in time for the canon storyline to pick back up. The filler does this by making the plotline hinge on Uryuu becoming a Distressed Dude then going out-of-character and picking up the Idiot Ball.
  • Orihime is used by the anime solely for healing injuries and ensuring she gets put into danger so people have something to rescue. She's even been made to heal the Big Bad of one arc who inevitably turned on her, requiring her to be rescued by her companions. The anime teams rarely use her for anything else.
  • In one filler arc, Nozomi is the Damsel in Distress and Love Interest of Kon. Her every action involves getting characters into trouble or danger because she gets offended at the slightest thing and inevitably storms off to be alone.... straight into danger she needs rescuing from. Even her brief stint as a fighter lasts only long enough to get everyone badly injured before she's inevitably captured again.
• Played straight and averted with Kai and Riku in Blood+. At the beginning of the series, neither have much fighting skill and mostly hindered Red Shield. On many occasions, though, they gave Saya much required emotional support in order to fulfill her tasks. After the destruction of Red Shield, Kai trains and becomes an important part of the team, being able to fight as well as counsel those in distress.
• You would THINK Beauty would be this to Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, since she has no fighting abilities of any kind, and doesn't really contribute anything to any of the battles the group is in, yet she is NEVER treated or portrayed in this way (well, not by the title character anyway...).
• In Brave10, Isanami's role in the team is just being there to be protected. Ana ends up having to give her a Dare to Be Badass speech when she's deep in the It's All My Fault rut after being captured by Date.
• Strongly averted in Cage of Eden. Despite being trapped on an island with dangerous animals, no-one in Akira's group is willing to complain and slow everyone down, and they all want to contribute something. Though, as Tooru points out, because no-one is willing to complain, this nearly gets everyone killed when they attempt to climb a mountain and come down with altitude sickness. Of course, this also means that they reach the peak faster than they would if they'd stopped.
• Ran Mouri from Case Closed. If her martial skills are not requested, generally she doesn't contribute much to the resolution of the cases. She may or may not give some hints to Shinichi/Conan that help him solving cases.
• Azmaria in the anime version of Chrono Crusade devolves into The Load by the end. She was never a real combatant to begin with, but her Apostle wings and healing powers stop working near the end of the story, and she does absolutely nothing in the final battle against Aion.
• Some readers regard Raki from Claymore as a heartwarming Morality Pet, others deride him as a loathsome irritant; however Everyone agrees that the best thing he can do when he and Clare stumble across a Yoma or psychotic high-end Claymore is run away QUICKLY. Clare's companions for her first Awakened One hunt actually mock her for keeping him around (complete with hints of him being her "plaything").
  • Post-Time Skip Raki, however, averts this trope.
• Code Geass has an in-universe example, where the Black Knights feel that C.C. is The Load because she just hangs around the base eating pizza and snarking at people without doing any real work, and on top of this they believe (incorrectly) that she's only with the group because she's Zero's mistress. In truth, she's actually Lelouch's biggest benefactor, as the person who gave him his Magical Eye, meaning she's indirectly responsible for Zero existing in the first place. The attitude improves in the second season, where C.C. temporarily leads the Black Knights when Zero is missing, and after his return she's much more active, even piloting her own Ace Custom mecha.
• Daltanious: Princess Catine is a stupid, self-obsessed gold digger who wants Kento's attention more than anything. She even pilots a Humongous Mecha during one of his battles (despite not having any experience with it) so that he would look at her. She's a Corrupted Character Copy of Princess Erika, the main female love interest of the creator's previous work, but while Erika had a tendency to be kidnapped, she did her best to fight back and aid Kazuya against the Baam-seijin.
• D.Gray-Man: Lenalee Lee is this trope for 32 episodes (out of 103 total at this time) in the second half of the series, barely able to walk under her own power due to over-exerting her Empathic Weapon, and is unable to help in battle for a further 5 episodes after that. Thankfully it's temporary.
• Matsuda sees himself as this in Death Note and endangers himself when he tries to be more of a contributor to the investigation team. Technically, it works. He was able to lead the team to the Yotsuba group. He also turns it around when Light is relying on Matsuda to be the Load who won't mess anything up for him in the endgame, and winds up being the one who saves Near's life by shooting Light.
• Kyoko from Den-noh Coil manages to raise her already very annoying presence by getting herself into danger throughout the series, usually by following her older sister Yasako around and/or refusing to stay put when told to do so.
• Digimon Tamers: Hirokazu and Kenta become this to the Tamers and their partners once they arrive the Digital World. Soon after entering the strange world, the two aren't as aware of the dangers like the Tamers do; they and Ruki, who tries to save them, end up getting separated from the others thanks to a Data Stream. Once they manage to go back to the original starting point, Ruki wanders alone and tells the two to stay back in case the other three Tamers may come back there again. Those three do come back, but Hirokazu and Kenta have left the location to go look for Ruki, and then, another Data Stream from a distance shows up and catches them off-guard (mainly Hirokazu and Kenta), causing these three to be transported to another place yet again. The two stop being Loads once they get their own Digimon Partners and finally become useful, saving their friends several times in occasion.
  • Prior to this, Hirokazu gave Takato a self-made Blue Card which allowed Growmon to Matrix Evolve into MegaloGrowmon to defeat Indiramon. However, the card itself didn't actually work, since Takato knew that Culumon's power would help Growmon to evolve anyway.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Oolong in the first story arc of the original Dragon Ball. He contributes only the bare minimum to the group with his already-limited transformation power and spends most of the time either complaining or trying to run away. He finally shows his worth when he stops the Big Bad from taking over the world, though.
  • Goku flat out tells Bulma that she's useless and gets in the way when she wants to tag along with him on his adventure to find the Sixingqiu (Four-Star Ball) in the Red Ribbon Saga, though she insists that Goku needs her help.
  • Vegeta zig-zags this. While he does do some useful things and is a highly competent fighter, his arrogance, stubborness and recklessness causes a LOT more problems than he fixes. He's actually responsible for every major story arc in Dragon Ball Z. He was the Big Bad of the Saiyan saga, tipped Freeza off about the Dragon Balls, let Cell absorb Android #18 so he could fight his perfect form, and agreed to Babidi's mind control to fight evenly with Goku, resulting in Buu being released. He usually makes up for it afterward by helping out against the Big Bad but often times it's his mistakes that made the confrontation necessary in the first place.
  • Piccolo in a very nontraditional way. Because his life is linked directly with Kami, if he dies, so does Kami. When Kami dies, the Dragon Balls become forever inactive. Because of that, the heroes do their best to make sure that Piccolo does not die. Although Piccolo is one of the strongest fighters, he does tend to get in over his head, like the fight with the Saiyans, Freeza, and in Trunks' timeline the Androids. At least twice, Gohan and Goku tell Piccolo to run if things go badly. After merging with Kami, this status goes away since Dende is the new master of the Earth's Dragon Balls (and the new Guardian of Earth).
  • Guldo of the Ginyu Force. Aside from his admittedly handy ability to freeze time, he's an utterly pathetic fighter. The other four only keep him around for his time freeze ability.
  • As powerful as he is, Gotenks becomes this due to his childish and arrogant nature, caring more about showing off and making himself look cool than actually saving the world, which bites him in the ass big-time when his goofing around just keeps making the situation worse; in this order, he gets himself and Piccolo trapped in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, enables Buu to escape and eat all of his loved ones, and gets himself absorbed by Buu, allowing Buu to beat Gohan senseless. Come the Universe Survival Saga of Super, the rest of the Z-Fighters are well aware of this, and decide right off the bat that Gotenks is far too young to be trusted with anything revolving the Tournament of Power.
• Haruto Sakuraba of Eyeshield 21 starts off as a totally useless member of the Ojo White Knights, and his friend Shin Seijuro, the team's ace responsible for pretty much all of the team's victories, admits that Sakuraba really doesn't contribute anything. Painfully aware that the team could do without him, Sakuraba gets an Important Haircut and Takes a Level in Badass after one summer of training, shedding his status as The Load.
• Mr. James from From Eroica with Love manages to jeopardize almost any mission he participates in at least once. The first thing anyone (even his own teammates) does upon gaining custody of him is try to foist him off on some other poor sucker.
• One of the reasons why many fans have a problem with Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) is due to the fact Al was somewhat this to his brother. Completely avoided in Brotherhood when Al is able to hold his own with the strongest homunculus, Pride, and Kimblee who had a Philosopher Stone with him. One of the main reasons Al was something of The Load in the first anime was that he was the only prominent alchemist in the series who didn't have portable alchemy circles, and could not transmute by clapping. This is avoided midway through the manga when he regains his memories of the night at the Gate and gains the power to transmute by clapping.
• Played straight and averted with Kodaka in Haganai. Played straight during the gaming sessions in episodes 2 and 5. To be fair, he's still relatively new to the game (as opposed to Sena and Yozora, who both are familiar with it), and in the case of episode 5, he was playing a game where his character didn't even have any abilities, compared to the girls, who all had some kind of role or abilities for the group. Averted in real life situations, where he actually does do things and is essentially the linchpin to keeping the group together during said sessions.
• The title character from The Heroic Legend of Arslan starts out as this. This is justified since he starts out as an inexperienced teenager with no experience in war or politics who finds himself as acting king in exile of a conquered nation after his father is bested in battle and captured, and because of that is totally dependent on a handful of loyal retainers for survival and to come up with a plan to retake their home. A sizable part of the story is Arslan growing from that scared kid into someone worthy of being called a king.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers has Italy. The only thing he contributes is good food and white flags to surrender with. Otherwise, he eats, sleeps and on occasion makes strange noises, all to Germany's dismay.
• Initial D has Iketani and Itsuki as The Load in the sense they will never beat almost anyone in a race. Ever. Takumi came around to help them out for a bit but after he left, they were back to being a weak team.
• Shippo from Inuyasha is the most useless member of Inu-Yasha and Kagome's group as he has virtually no fighting skills, often has to be rescued, and whines a lot. Occasionally he will try to fight, but the best he has ever done in a battle is using his illusion powers to momentarily distract an enemy...and in one early battle transforming himself into a bow for Kagome to use when her own weapon gets destroyed. As the series goes on, Shippo's abilities become more and more useful. Even against other Kitsune his own age, he stands out and in his first test, he obtains a high rank.
• Kiddy Grade: Mrs. Padushka. The first time she appears, Éclair and Mrs. Padushka are supposed to escort some classified materials. Mrs. Padushka is both clumsy and anxious, and has little or no bluffing ability.
• Christmas from Kurau Phantom Memory forms quite a burden for Kurau, despite being her long-awaited pair — that is, until she finally appears to be able to use Rynax-powers herself.
• In A Lazy Guy Woke Up As A Girl One Morning, the protagonist, Yasuda, the eponymous lazy guy-turned-girl, ends up complicating an upcoming sports tournament that pits the guys against the girls. Initially, the guys insist that Yasuda would be better off on the girls' side, since his female body doesn't have the strength or stamina to keep up with his male peers, while the girls insist that since Yasuda still identifies as a guy, he should play with the guys. Before long, both sides reveal their real reasons; they're both aware that because of Yasuda's laziness, the boys in his class lost to the girls for the past two years. As a result, the guys want to get rid of him so they can win for once, while the girls want the guys to keep him.
• Nanoha desperately subverts this trope during the first battle with the Wolkenritter in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's. After being injured by Vita, she spends most of the time inside a healing barrier and is forced to see how her friends are getting beaten up slowly. Then, she and Raising Heart decide to destroy the Phantom Zone of the Wolkenritter with Starlight Breaker, and she doesn't stop it even when Shamal is sticking a hand through her chest. She succeeds, and the Wolkenritter are forced to retreat, albeit after absorbing Nanoha's Linker Core to help fill the book.
• You may argue this, but in Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, the disturbing Desil Galette eventually became deadweight for the Vagans when he grew up. Although he was still scary, the way he was developed made him more of a liability than an asset. True to the trope, his Kronos had to be carried away from a battle by his brother, Zeheart. This came to a head when another battle proved to be futile for the Vagan forces and Desil tried to save his ass by using his X-Rounder skills to get other soldiers killed by using them as Vagan shields. Zeheart decided there that his brother had no reason to live anymore and had his entire team leave Desil at the mercy of Asemu Asuno.
• The Mysterious Cities of Gold:
  • Pedro and Sancho. Mendoza's supposed "assistants", they're really just a pair of greedy, incompetent klutzes whose only talents are sniffing out treasure (the only thing they really care about), setting off dangerous traps before anyone can be killed by them, and giving the villains someone to shoot at other than the Kid Hero Power Trio.
  • Zia in Season 1 is a lesser example: Her skill at deciphering kipus early in the series is essential to the plot, but after this, she's prone to being kidnapped and needing rescuing a lot while contributing very little to the plot, especially when the story moves away from her people towards the tribes of the Amazon.
• Naruto:
  • Played straight with Sakura Haruno in Part I, but zigzagged in Part II. Her only contribution to her team before Part II was protecting Sasuke and Naruto from the Sound Genin while they were unconscious, managing to hold them off long enough for Ino and her team, followed by a reawakened Sasuke, to force them to retreat. After pleading for Naruto to bring back Sasuke and his failure, Sakura realized she had fallen under this trope and resolved to fix it. Following the Time Skip she Took a Level in Badass with her fight against Sasori in the beginning of Part II, but afterwards she had no truly memorable fights and was The Medic on the sidelines at best, until she took to the front lines halfway through the Fourth Shinobi War, where she temporarily is able to match Naruto and Sasuke in terms of power.
  • Karin was a subversion at first. Despite having little combat skill she was treated as Sasuke's most valuable member (mainly thanks to her sensing and healing ability as well as logical skills). This changed in the fight with Danzo where, after being captured, Sasuke sees her squarely as this and tries to off her. Emphasis on "Sasuke sees her as this". The general conscious within the fandom is: offing your only medic? This is ultimately played straight as it is shown that Sasuke, Juugo and Suigetsu all had acceptional sensory abilities as well as healing factors. With Juugo's sensory abilities being able to go distances that Karin's can't, and his own brand of healing being able to heal injuries that would leave Karin's chakra drained.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • When a small handful of non-magically trained, ordinary students enter the Magic World without main lead and teacher Negi knowing, he spends most of the Trapped in Another World arc distressed about their safety. Thankfully, they all end up making pactios with Negi by the end of the arc, meaning that while they still can't fight on the front lines, they can at least play a decent support role.
  • In the early Library Island arc, when some of Negi's students dragged him to Library Island to find a magic book to help them pass their finals, the usually powerful Negi becomes The Load because he sealed his magic to avoid the temptation to fix their grades.
• One Piece
  • A major theme as the story progress is that the more human characters of the crew (mostly Usopp) gets concerned about becoming The Load, in a Lampshade Hanging of Can't Catch Up.
  • Luffy recently became the load during the Paramount War Saga with everyone constantly having to save him from the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Vice Admirals, and Admirals who were way out of his league, though his Haki which knocked out a large amount of marines and Pirates and freeing Ace made up for it.
  • Princess Shirahoshi is a load who, strangely, carries Luffy. Averted when her abilities prove instrumental to saving Fishman island. She couldn't help being a large target for the Big Bad Duumvirate, but her power to control sea kings saved a lot of lives once the Straw Hats took care of the bad guys.
• Takashi of Ouran High School Host Club is apparently viewed as The Load, by the other members of the Host Club, due to not really doing anything. He himself is unaware of this, until episode 22.
• Pokémon: The Series
  • Downplayed with Misty's Psyduck. While he does occasionally have sudden bursts of competence, in many of his early appearances he is more or less useless, unless he gets a headache, and often actually does more harm than good thanks to not being able to use most of his moves properly. The fact that he has a bad tendency to eagerly leap from his Pokéball when Misty requires another of her Pokémon, effectively ruining whatever strategy she had, does not help. That being said, once Psyduck has a headache, he proves to be scarily competent with his Psychic type moves and has managed to save the day on more than one occasion. Come Sun & Moon, this has become subverted.
  • Her Togepi as well, which is the reason for its hatedom, mainly to the non-Japanese audience. It has rarely taken action, such as saving the heroes from a dangerous situation.
  • Max gets a lot of flak for this, too, as he's not a trainer yet and has no Pokémon. At least he gets a couple moments to earn his place, and by the end of Battle Frontier we can assume he'll start training in a couple more years.
  • Ash's Poipole didn't have much in the way of actual battling skill. Subverted in a big way when it returns from Ultra Space as a Naganadel with a full moveset to go into Ash's battle with Kukui.
• The Prince of Tennis: Hikaru Zaizen accuses Taka-san of being "Seigaku's dead weight" in the episode titled "Seigaku's Dead Weight".
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica's title character is a subversion. Her helplessness in battles is very justified, as she isn't a Magical Girl and therefore doesn't have the power to protect herself against witches. In the alternate timelines where she did become a Magical Girl, Madoka is shown perfectly capable of holding her own.
• The Quintessential Quintuplets: Later chapters reveal that Yotsuba views herself as this. As it turned out, the reason why she and her sisters transferred to Asahiyama High wasn't because they all failed their remedial courses, only Yotsuba did, but the others lied to the teachers saying that they cheated so that she wouldn't transfer alone. At one point, Yotsuba confesses to Fuutarou that she feels she's holding her sisters back, and considering that it's heavily implied, if not outright stated, that they purposely slack off in their studies for her sake, Yotsuba's guilt complex about it is not completely unjustified.
• Raideen: Akira Hibiki is always surrounded by children who can be counted upon to put themselves in mortal danger every episode.
• Reborn! (2004): A lot of the female characters’ (even the ones that were introduced to be capable hitwomen) significance as characters and fighters slowly fade away as the series progresses, and a lot of them began to fill supportive roles instead or even worse, only significant enough to serve as the male characters’ development. Kyoko and Haru get the worst treatment however, as they are always the damsels of distress in any given situation that calls for it.
• Rose from the anime Red Garden is usually seen cowering in a corner during a fight, screeching her head off. Occasionally she'll try to join in the group's efforts, but only when the opponent is busy grappling with one of the others. Even the slightly precious fashionista, Rachel, gets better results, and she has no qualms about telling Rose how useless she is in a later episode.
• Mia Koji and Yulie from Ronin Warriors are probably the definitive examples of this trope. Yes, they were both incredibly useful (and became even more so once they acquired an artifact that protected them against bad guys and had taken some levels in Badass). But just their being mundane humans trying to actively participate in a battle where all of the other participants are wearing superpowered armor was enough to make them this trope (especially with the amount of effort the heroes had to take in order to keep them alive. If Mia and Yulie had been useless, the heroes could have just sent them away to safety and could have let loose on the villains as they saw fit.)
• Sailor Moon: The eventual role of the Outer Senshi. While their B-team status means they generally don't earn big wins on their own, their original premise was as fairly well informed side characters who could still provide an extra hand and a different point of view made them useful. In the anime, however, they were introduced as super capable — until they weren't — stubborn, and contradictory, yet always proven wrong by the main cast and unable to actually defeat threats on their own. This results in a severe dissonance in the final arc, where rather than the Outer's establishing their credibility, they make Usagi buy into their paranoia about the Starlights potentially being threats and it just comes off as them being petty and shortsighted.
• Fuu from Samurai Champloo. Some may argue that she's the one keeping the group together, but it's undeniable that she can't hold her own against serious opponents. Although this is arguably the point; if Fuu could hold her own, she'd have no need for bodyguards and there would be no show.
• School-Live!:
  • Yuki is this due to her mental illness. She doesn't realize she's in a Zombie Apocalypse and thus doesn't act like she should in certain situations. Even in-series she worries this, despite not grasping the seriousness of the situation she still feels she's holding her friends back somehow. She eventually snaps out of her delusional state when forced to kill a zombie herself.
  • Yuuri becomes this after the rescue helicopter crashes in the manga. Incidentally, this begins once Yuki stops being a load. Rii was originally a Cool Big Sis with moments of Not So Stoic but after a number of unfortunate incidents in a short time period she begins to slip. She ends up finding a long-lost relative, her little sister, and that makes everything even worse, She spends so much time protecting Ruu instead of doing what she's supposed to. She even almost ends up shot due to Ruu. To make it worse, Ruu is not real. She is a teddy bear that Rii simply believes is her sister. The others treat her the say like they used to treat Yuki, however it isn't working as well due to the more hostile situation they're in.
• Pacifica of Scrapped Princess is frequently afraid of being the load, constantly having to be protected by her adoptive sibling bodyguards, Shannon and Raquel. Fortunately, she does turn out to have useful special powers.
• Shirobako: Tarou Takanashi is part of the production department of the fictional MusaAni animation studio. His incompetence and laziness result in several crises in the production of Exodus (the Show Within a Show that the first season focuses on), which is already a bit of a Troubled Production due to issues with the director. This thankfully lessens in the second season, in part because he stops screwing up so much (and is even helpful at points), and in part because the second season introduces someone worse. It's telling that he's the only one of the MusaAni staff who's addressed by his first name by the majority of his office; he's the No-Respect Guy.
• Yaya Yuiki of Shugo Chara! is often this. It could even be argued that it's somewhat intentional on Yaya's part, since her "would-be self" is a baby, who isn't expected to be able to do anything.
• Slam Dunk: Protagonist Hanamichi Sakuragi can be this at his worst moments, due to his tendency to show off and his lack of basketball experience. That said, when he gets properly focused, he's able to do very impressive plays, catching his opponents off-guard, and he grows a little with each match he plays (and it shows).
• Sorcerer Stabber Orphen has the trolls Volkan and Dortin. While they're not villains, they still have an antagonistic relationship with the main character Orphen since they owe him money and the sheer amount of times they inconvenience him or make his life more difficult far outnumber the amount of times they do anything to help Orphen and his party out. It also doesn't help that Volkan has a case of Small Name, Big Ego, making his constant disruption of the main character's life just that much more obnoxious to Orphen.
• Strange Dawn: Eri and Yuko don't really provide much use to the story, except for scaring off enemies a few times and saving the other characters at least once or twice.
• Ruby Crescent in O-Parts Hunter apparently was one of these, until that was revealed that she was a Recipe, too.
• Rui from Telepathy Shoujo Ran arguably qualifies. Sure, he is supposed to have the ability to reduce and amplify psychic powers, but that hardly ever comes into play. Most of the time he acts as a male Damsel in Distress and has to get saved by Ran and Midori numerous times. Worse, he even gets in the way of the Pseudo-Romantic Friendship dynamic between the two female leads — and his personality is pretty bland to boot. He redeems himself somewhat in later episodes, but not by much.
• Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure has an interesting example in the form of Kururun, who compared to just about every other mascot in Pretty Cure's history, does not serve much purpose beyond being a cute Team Pet. They do not facilitate any transformations or upgrades in battle, they don’t hold any power that would make them a Living Macguffin for the plot, and they don’t give any useful exposition (and in fact cannot speak anything besides their own name). All of the usual functions a fairy mascot fulfills are generally performed by Laura instead. Ironically, Kururun's very status as The Load is what allowed them to become an Ensemble Dark Horse, with several viewers noting that they are popular precisely because the show does not artificially designate them a Living MacGuffin plot device and instead embraces that Kururun’s only purpose is to be a cute mascot.
• Kyousuke Kawachi spends much of his time in Yakitate!! Japan, playing the role of The Load, since he has less baking talent than the other characters. By the end of the series, Kawachi has realized his incompetence has largely excused himself from the final tournament arc. This realization is a bit depressing because he actually had an epiphany about being a load in the last arc. He went on to win a pivotal battle with sheer willpower and hard work. This apparently was not enough.
  • Even worse, at one point he'd undergone a grueling Training from Hell session to allegedly put him on par with the main character, and challenges him to a baking duel. Sadly, the series decided to end the battle with a gag that meant that Kawaichi didn't even get a chance to have his bread judged. Kawaichi just can't catch a break.
• Yoriko from You're Under Arrest!.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Mokuba. Kaiba. All he's good for is getting kidnapped. Though in one memorable instance, he actually managed to break himself out and alert Kaiba and Yugi to the whereabouts of the other kidnapped characters.
  • Lampshaded to hell and back in The Abridged Series, where he even gets a montage of all the times he's been kidnapped.
  Kaiba: (thinking) "Hmm. Perhaps I should consider keeping him on a leash."
  • Note that this was decidedly less of an issue in the manga, where he debuted as a straight-up villain. While he does lose prominence in later arcs apart from being his big brother's Morality Pet, he only ever gets kidnapped in Duelist Kingdom.
• Kotori in Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL tags along in dangerous situations at all times, despite lacking skills of any kind. Her job, for the overwhelming majority of the series, is to stand in the background going "Yuma!" She has a Deck, which she uses all of one time while Brainwashed and Crazy. Theories abound that her voice actress was contractually obligated to appear in every episode. For what it’s worth, her encouragement does snap Yuma out of several Heroic BSoD moments he has, particularly when Astral isn’t around.
  • Pretty much every member of the Numbers Club was this, with the sole possible exception being Tetsuo (who at least managed to defeat No.96 once, though with Yuma’s card), and possibly Cathy, who managed to evade capture during the Numbers Club’s first outing. At all other times, they're more or less kidnapping fodder or Combat Commentators. Tokunosuke is a particularly bad case of this, as his selfish Jerkass antics often wind up getting the group into trouble.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Sawatari becomes this to the Lancers to an extent. He loses almost every duel he’s apart of and his big mouth nearly gets the group in trouble on several occasions. Though he does have his moments, such as during the final battle against the Big Bad, in that while it doesn't accomplish much, as all of the Lancers were being Curbstomped, he and Crow's role notably got under Zarc's skin, which is something that none of the others managed to do.

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