They Wasted A Perfectly Good Character / Anime & Manga

Works with their own pages

• Bleach
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
• Dragon Ball
• Fairy Tail
• My Hero Academia
• Naruto
• One Piece
• Pokémon: The Series
• Pretty Cure
• Sword Art Online

Digimon

• Link to the franchise:
  • Digimon Adventure 02:
    • The series had numerous examples of wasted plots, but two infamous ones were the aborted Dagomon arc and later the Demon Corps. Both characters could also count as wasted.
    • BlackWarGreymon. His overall story and search for purpose is one of the few genuinely interesting plots, but it's also largely unconnected and its resolution is a Senseless Sacrifice.
  • Digimon Tamers:
    • Tamers introduces Alice, a Mysterious Waif who, along with Dobermon, appears with virtually no foreshadowing or explanation, and never appears again, giving a lot of speculation.
    • Mostly averted for Beelzemon, who keeps up with the main cast in terms of importance and plot relevance... until his near-fatal injury at the hands of the D-Reaper. After that, he's completely side-lined, and Ryo reprises his spot in the final battle, which for some is just rubbing salt in the wound.
  • Digimon Frontier:
    • This season dropped the concept of Mons in favor of a Henshin Hero gimmick cutting the main cast by half in the process. This makes the episode where the group meets four children (Katsuhito, Teppei, Teruo, Chiaki) who remained behind in the Digital World under the care of an Angemon when all the other non Digidestined children returned to Earth and who happen to correspond with the unused warrior spirits of (wood, earth, water, and steel) that were recently obtained by the heroes all the more baffling. They seemed like they were going to be sixth rangers but instead the main cast just tells them to go home, claiming that the Digital World isn't safe.
    • There are also some minor characters with potential, such as the Gotsumon who befriends Kouji early on, the Oryxmon who lives in Cherubimon's castle despite being a loyal ally of the Legendary Warriors, and a Gallantmon - a Royal Knight who was the most powerful hero in the previous anime - who only appeared in a cameo.
    • Every Legendary Warrior's fusion forms except Takuya's and Kouji's, the only two fusion forms to actually appear in the show. The other children end up giving up their Spirits so Takuya and Kouji could reach fusion level and then just stand around for most of the rest of the show. In the previous series the protagonists that didn't reach Mega were able to at least still fight and thus try to contribute.
    • The Royal Knights. The group is far larger than the two Lucemon sent out to claim data. Baromon hints that they were well known, but this is never brought up again.
    • Lucemon. Unlike the villains of many previous incarnations, he's never given any sort of backstory or explanation as to where'd he comes from or how he'd become evil, outside of an admittedly fitting sense of pride.
  • This can also apply to ANY Digimon (without a default level) that has debuted in Digimon Fusion, considering how they could've fit into and complete any digivolution line that certain fans would consider a complete mess.
  • Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time:
    • Yuu and Damemon are Ascended Extras who are somehow simultaneously Demoted to Extra. While there are a couple of episodes that focus on Yuu, Damemon gets even less attention to the point where he's practically a Living Prop in some episodes.
    • All three rival hunters. We never get any background information on them (what their family lives are, what motivated them to become what they are now, how Airu and Ren met their partner digimon), nor are they all that developed personality wise save for Airu (and Ryouma in the last few episodes). For many, this was disappointing due to their initial potential.
    • This series could have been a new opportunity to work out Dagomon as a powerful antagonist like a true lovecraftian digimon deserves, unlike his aborted role in 02. However, he only appears as a curiosity and is fastly forgotten.
  • Digimon Adventure tri.:
    • You'd think that the Final Boss of Determination would've left a stronger emotional impact upon appearing, given how powerfully his appearance on the advertising posters threw the audience for a loop. Instead, he's little more than a Monster of the Week.
    • Seraphimon's first appearance is kind of a let-down. Where Vikemon, Rosemon, and Phoenixmon all appear as part of an epic moment of Taking a Level in Badass, or at the very least after their Rookie form being in focus for that movie, Seraphimon just digivolves after a short moment of conflict resolution.
    • Ophanimon Falldown Mode seemed like it'd be a horrifying moment like SkullGreymon, Megidramon, and ShineGreymon Ruin Mode in the past. She literally only has about a minute most of screentime before merging with Meicoomon's final form and doesn't do anything outside of that, despite being featured heavily in promotional materials.
    • The original Digidestined can feel like this, as many agree, even those who hate Tri, that they're some of best parts about the entire thing... but they're not really utilized at all and Maki is relegated to a side antagonist at best. Some feel a prequel focused on them would've been a much better use of the concept or Maki should've been the outright Big Bad rather than a side antagonist, as her motivations are far more interesting than Yggdrasil desiring to destroy humanity. What's worse is that Daigo gets killed off in the finale while Maki faces an Uncertain Doom.
    • Yggdrasil, the God of the Digital World who wants to Kill All Humans...exists and wants to kill all humans. He never appears onscreen and is defeated by Homeostasis without even having one line of dialog. Especially after his much more compelling and sympathetic portrayal in Savers, many feel he could've been used either much more creatively and interestingly, or replaced by another villain, of which the Adventure continuity had no shortage of.
  • Digimon Universe: App Monsters:
    • Sateramon was a pretty entertaining villain before he was finally defeated by Shutmon, but at least his chip was retrieved by Unryūji Knight, so he could have returned in the future. Sadly, he was basically forgotten afterwards. Same with Sakushimon.
    • Rei and Hackmon are rarely ever involved in the plot, something that is especially notable in the first season.
    • Coachmon used to be Leviathan's henchman before becoming Dokamon's Appligattai partner, so he could have been more involved such as giving the team some inside info on Leviathan.
    • Mienumon in general spent most of the first season working behind the shadows and constantly spewing cryptic comments about experiments on humans, and her potential was ultimately fairly underused as she rarely ever directly fought the Applidrivers despite of being a Super Grade herself.

Gundam

• Link to the franchise:
  • Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: Gates Capa is the last named character introduced in the series, showing up in Episode 42 as Rosamia's new partner in the Titans, and immediately distinguishes himself by being both one of the few male Cyber-Newtypes and one of the few sane Cyber-Newtypes. During his initial appearance he acquits himself well, managing to survive a duel and shootout with Kamille before escaping, but he only appears one more time and dies in a very abrupt way, screaming after his partner Rosamia dies in some sort of Newtype psychic feedback experience and apparently dying from it, though his Mobile Suit is never seen destroyed. Notable is the fact that he he was planned for some sort of return in early drafts of sequel series Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ but was ultimately cut, while in the original Tomino manga he and Rosamia went Ax-Crazy at once and killed each other.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ: The Hero Judau Ashta originally had a much more different, and arguably more interesting, personality than the one he ultimately wound up with. In the final product he is a fairly stock All-Loving Hero, basically a rougher-around-the-edges Amuro without the No Social Skills element of his character. In the original draft however he exhibited a personality much closer to that of Shotaro Kaneda, being much more prone to violence and much more interested in his own self-interests (and to a lesser degree those of his gang) than saving the universe from Haman Karn or Glemy Toto. While this personality is arguably more fitting for a street child surviving by their wits like Judau, it didn't mesh well with the comedic and lighthearted tone ZZ was originally slated to take. Ironically the series took a Darker and Edgier turn midway through when it became clear the comedic style wasn't working out.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack: This movie is somewhat infamous for the last-minute replacement of Beltorchika Irma, Amuro's Love Interest from Zeta who would have (and in the original Tomino manga, did) graduate to the mother of his child, a significant presence on the plot despite not even being born yet. Feeling that carrying over a love interest from the previous series would make Amuro less cool and preferring him to have "Bond Girls" instead, Executive Meddling forced Tomino to create a new love interest for him in the anime instead. This new character, Chan Agi, was written in a very halfhearted manner by Tomino and had minimal impact on the plot. Clearly letting him keep Beltorchika would have been the better call, but hindsight is of course 20/20.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: A They Wasted a Perfectly Good Gundam case is Gundam Aquarius, a Mobile Suit that didn't make it into the anime but was included in the later SD Gundam G Generation games. A sister unit to the Gundam Epyon also designed by Treize Khushrenada, the Aquarius was designed to be the ultimate weapon against Mobile Dolls, and like Epyon had a minimalist armament loadout focused on close combat. With the prevalence of Mobile Dolls in the second half of the season, the Aquarius would have been an interesting addition to the anime, in addition to completing the set OZ Theme Naming-named mobile weapons. But because the writers wanted to focus on the Wing ZERO as the thematic rival to the Epyon, Aquarius was cut.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny is full of this, unfortunately...
    • Stella Loussier. She's the most child-like member of the three Biological CPUs, almost bordering on Obliviously Evil. When she accidentally fell off a cliff and was saved by Shinn, she first learned the concept of "protecting" something. This later led to her going out on her own in an attempt to protect her teammate Auel's "mother" from harm. Is this a sign of her growth as a character? Seems like it, especially as she winds up being captured by ZAFT afterwards, and Shinn wants to devote time and resources to curing her. Surely they'll be able to help her right? Nope! Turns out that ZAFT doesn't have the medical assistance to fix her up, and likely plan on dissecting her corpse if she dies. So she gets sent right back to Phantom Pain when Shinn breaks her out, and he earnestly begs Neo Roanoke, Stella's superior, to take her away from the war. Guess what happens, then? Neo lies to Shinn's face, has Stella's memories wiped, and gets her to pilot the giant, city-demolishing Destroy Gundam, leading to her going on a rampage and killing millions. Shinn manages to get through to her and stop her horrific assault... but just when it looks like he's succeeded in Defusing the Tyke-Bomb, the sight of Kira Yamato and the Freedom Gundam freaks Stella out again, and she nearly attacks Shinn... and is then killed when Kira intervenes and brings down the Destroy. In the end, she was doomed from the start, and Shinn failed to protect her as he promised. All of that, just so her death could be used to motivate Shinn to take down Kira. It would be far more interesting to see her survive the rampage of the aforementioned Destroy, face the consequences of her actions, and mature as a person. But all of her character development turned out negative, and only served to cause Shinn's character development to degrade further as well. It really didn't help that the second opening implied she was going to be a major character, yet she ends up dying slightly more than half way through the series without doing anything important (other than dying).
    • Heine Westenfluss also suffers from this. The first member of FAITH introduced to the audience, he is a charming, suave character who appears to be brought in as an effective Foil to Athrun as a senior member to the Minerva crew. Surely he has a lot to offer, right? Wrong. In the first battle we see him participate in — with the prototype GOUF Ignited that is meant to introduce the GOUF's superiority to the ZAKU Warrior — he is unceremoniously killed attempting to attack the Freedom; Stella and her Gaia Gundam carve him and his GOUF clean in half because he got in the way of her attempt to ambush the Freedom. Like Stella's death, all it serves is to increase Shinn's hatred towards the Freedom, and nothing else from Heine — like a show of his credentials or more of his personality — is gained or learned.
    • Talia Gladys and Arthur Trine were positioned to be the Murrue Ramius and Natarle Badgiruel (or Mu La Flaga) of the sequel, both given strong and interesting personalities of their own. However, due to the increased cast size and writing problems of the show's second half, they stay Out of Focus due to the shift of perspective turning back to the Archangel crew over the Minerva's. After a while, they are only given silent scenes rather than any pivotal moments, and are mostly remembered for Arthur's comedic gags. Talia certainly could have done more before running off to die with Durandal at the end and abandon her own son (whose father is currently dead as well), or perhaps had a storyline that led to a different, less abrupt end. And Arthur certainly could have done something rather than simply being The Cassandra.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam 00: Nena Trinity. She's introduced, like her brothers, as an unsettling figure and later crosses the Moral Event Horizon by killing all of Louise's family. Then Ali Al-Saachez unknowingly gives her a taste of her own medicine by killing her brothers and leaving her all alone. Now in Season 2, this seems to have affected her and she's slightly less batshit insane and more thoughtful. She also has to work with an even bigger spoiled, sociopathic villainess in Wang Liu Mei, giving her someone to reflect on. She later helps out the cause of good, not due to a Heel–Face Turn, but because her side isn't living up to her standards. All the while, Louise is becoming a Dark Action Girl and is out for revenge against Celestial Being... particularly Nena. This would be a great plot: have Louise face Nena now that the latter has somewhat redeemed herself, and is beginning to change for the better. It would be a fascinating conflict of Grey-and-Gray Morality. So what happens? A Time Skip occurs, and Nena is suddenly back to being as much of a psychotic bitch as before. She discards her standards in hopes of crawling back to the Innovators, just for the sake of saving her own skin. And though she does awesomely get rid of Wang Liu Mei, nothing really happens to even out the conflict between her and Louise, who brutally kills her out of vengeance for her family. Nena dies unredeemed, and in a completely unsympathetic way that leaves her no better than an Asshole Victim. Which leaves the question: What was the point of trying to develop Nena's character if the staff was just going to end her this way?! The Broken Base, of course, can't decide whether Nena's death was a perfect waste of character to help Louise experience some positive development, or that it was right to keep Nena a blatant Hate Sink so that when Louise offed her, it would further her downward spiral and make it so much more difficult for Saji, Louise's Love Interest, to reach Louise later.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam AGE
    • Yurin L'Ciel is established to be an X-Rounder, this series' equivalent of a Newtype. She's conscripted by the Unknown Enemy for this ability. So of course you immediately hand her over to Desil Galette, a seven-year-old psychotic brat who's already proven himself too capricious to be a commander. And Desil gets her killed in the first battle she's used in by his carelessness. Why? To motivate Flit, because just killing his mom and exclusively targeting civilian colonies isn't enough to make him hate the Unknown Enemy forever. But mostly, it's because in a Gundam show, the Newtype girlfriend dies, and by gum the whole franchise will end if we break that rule.
    • In the third generation, Clanche pilot Shanalua Mullen coaches Kio in how to be a better pilot, pulling him away from the dangerous habits he developed from his simulations and reminding him that even enemy pilots have families, so he should not be so gleeful about defeating them, and generally being a Cool Big Sis. It turns out she's The Mole so she can pay for her sister's hospitalization and she dies in a Heroic Sacrifice shortly after being found out. Which is maybe four episodes into Kio's arc. But don't worry, Derek and Jonothan are okay! You know, those two guys who barely even meet the significance requirement to be Those Two Guys.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans:
    • Hush initially wanted to become a better pilot than Mikazuki. You’d think he would be The Rival and challenge his status as Tekkadan’s Ace Pilot. Instead, Mikazuki saves his life and he becomes his number #1 fanboy and follows him everywhere, to the point Mikazuki finds it annoying. He's started to pull his own weight with the Hekija, though. Then, he got killed off in episode 49 which made a lot of people disappointed that he was supposed to be the next ace pilot if Mikazuki kicks the bucket.
    • Gaelio/Vidar in Season 2. There are a lot of expectations on him once he made his appearance, most especially his connection toward McGillis. However, he usually sits out on the first half only just to observe McGillis's true motives. It's only in the second half where he revealed his true identity that he got his ass moving. And yet, his last conversation with McGillis in episode 49 hinted that he might take up his role in reforming Gjallarhorn. However, it's Rustal doing the reforming which made a lot of viewers disappointed. In fact, many believe that Gaelio should be the one doing the reforms instead.
    • In a case of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Gundam, Gundam Flauros was barely featured at all, and only participated in three battles before getting destroyed. Another example is Gundam Bael, which is continually played up to be the most powerful Gundam in the series but is hardly ever used in battle and is defeated relatively easily by Gaelio's Kimaris.
    • Though his actions in the finale do make sense, many fans agreed Rustal Elion is severely underdeveloped as a character and doesn't seem to have any defining personality asides from being a ruthless tactician which is why some had a hard time accepting him as the one who reforms Gjallarhorn. In fact, there's a lot of backstory potential in him such as his connection to Galan Mossa, his mentor-protege relationship with Julieta which can be similar to Crank and Ein's relationship and his rescue on Gaelio after his defeat from McGillis. Sadly, these were never played well in the show.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

• Link to the manga:
  • Phantom Blood introduced Dire, Straizo and Tonpetty, who were fellow Hamon warriors that Zeppeli had called for as back-up. They all had a good dynamic; Dire was the best friend of Zeppeli during their training and the latter had just been killed by Dio's reanimated minion Tarkus, Straizo was mysterious and roguish, and Tonpetty was Zeppeli's teacher who predicted the latter's death and could have taken over as Jonathan's mentor. None of them were particularly important during the final battle against Dio; Dire gets killed by Dio in an Idiot Ball moment to demonstrate Dio's strength, while Straizo and Tonpetty just gets to beat up some minor mooks with Jonathan being the one to actually fight Dio. Tonpetty later retires off-screen in the interim between Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency and is never heard from again, wasting a potential mentor figure.
  • Battle Tendency has Straizo raise Lisa Lisa off-screen in the interim, then undergo a sudden Face–Heel Turn in the present day and become a vampire simply so Joseph could fight him and show off his abilities to the audience, despite the fact that Straizo had now inherited Tonpetty's position and could've easily joined with Joseph to fight against the threat of the Pillar Men.
    • Santana also suffers from this. Despite being the first of the Pillar Men and a great adversary to Joseph on their first meeting, he gets turned to stone by the sun and is subsequently kept for research purposes by the Speedwagon Foundation. Aside from a minor mention later on, he never appears again and his fellow Pillar Men don't even bother rescuing him.
  • Stardust Crusaders has three examples — and they're all part of the main cast.
    • While Noriaki Kakyoin was a major ally for a good chunk of the story, he was hit hard with this during the Egypt section of Part 3, being Put on a Bus to recover until the Crusaders were heading into DIO's place. He gets set up to have a cool fight against Terence, but ends up losing and generally doing nothing more of significance except for leaving a Dying Clue in the final battle. The anime gives him some Adaptation Expansion in the form of flashbacks and extra scenes.
    • Muhammad Avdol gets it even worse. After recruiting Polnareff, he was Put on a Bus when the Crusaders reached India (fairly early in the story) and only returned by the end of the Judgment arc. He doesn't do much of significance upon his return, and he only has two fights afterwards; one shared with Joseph and the other is barely even a fight since he ended up being killed by Vanilla Ice in one shot. All in all, it's pretty clear that Araki had no clue what else to do with the poor guy.
    • Iggy has the excuse of being brought to the main cast later on, but still gets only one fight for himself and little to no backstory.
    • Hol Horse, who had signs of strongly considering a Heel–Face Turn, and even would have had Avdol not returned, and is generally one of the more popular minor villains in the series. Instead, he suffers heavily from (admittedly hilarious) Badass Decay.
    • Enya and J. Geil. The former was Dio's Dragon, and the latter was Polnareff's motivation for joining Jotaro. However, they both die relatively early in the story. It would have been interesting for Enya have been the penultimate boss before the battle with DIO, but her role instead gets taken by Vanilla Ice.
    • DIO spends most of this part as an Orcus on His Throne, and dies an Undignified Death not long after he finally reveals his Stand.
  • Diamond Is Unbreakable. Overall the most aversions of any part, with several supporting cast members managing to log A Day in the Limelight even after their introductory arcs, but there are a few examples:
    • Nothing is done with Okuyasu's father after The Reveal of his nature.
    • Tonio has absolutely no role in the story after his initial short story arc.
    • Hazamada, pretty much the only true scumbag among the friends of the main cast, only briefly has a role at the start of Rohan's introductory arc before dropping out after him and Koichi's first visit.
    • Akira seems set up to possibly be the main villain of the part before being shortly dealt with. He could have had a role as Kira's Dragon and act as Okuyasu's personal rival, in a similar vain to Vanilla Ice in the previous part.
    • Tomoko Higashikata, Josuke's mother, shows signs of an interesting personality and dynamic with her son (and is said to still not be over Joseph), but barely ever appears and is explicitly kept away from him for her own sake.
    • Shizuka Joestar, the invisible baby stand-user, never reappears after the conclusion of Part 4. While not a Joestar by blood, mention of her would've provided interesting insight on what Joseph and the others were up to in the time after Part 4, and an older Shizuka with more control over her invisibility powers would've made a very useful ally to Jotaro and Jolyne. Shizuka's untapped potential makes her a prime source of Fanfic Fuel.
  • Golden Wind:
    • While Leone Abbacchio was a very useful asset to the team and many found his backstory to be tragic, others were disappointed that he was never able to undergo any meaningful Character Development, with his personality and relationships stagnating the whole way through until Diavolo killed him, with Abbacchio leaving a Dying Clue. Of note, whereas Mista and Narancia were skeptical of Giorno, but grew to admire him, Abbacchio never got over his Irrational Hatred of Giorno, and his sudden death kept him from ever getting to that point.
    • When Pannacotta Fugo was first introduced, he was established as a mentor figure towards Narancia and the serious guy in the group. This opened up a lot of potential for an interesting dynamic between him and Narancia and having a major role among the protagonists. Also, the abilities of his Stand, Purple Haze, are ridiculously powerful. Unfortunately, Fugo only gets ONE major fight in the whole story and is Put on a Bus after Bucciarati betrays Diavolo.
    • This part's secondary antagonist Risotto Nero. Initially established as a major threat in the first half of the story, many felt he was going to get a major battle with the protagonists at some point. Unfortunately, he's immediately forgotten after Diavolo tries to kill Trish, and when he does finally appear his fight is with Doppio instead of the protagonists. In fact, he doesn't even get to fight the protagonists since Narancia unknowingly kills him using Aerosmith while attempting to kill Doppio. Some fans also lament that he never formed an Enemy Mine with the protagonists and take down Diavolo. It's especially embarrassing when you consider that Hol Horse had a more active role as secondary antagonist.
    • Vinegar Doppio, the Split Personality of Diavolo. Established as a major secondary antagonist in the second half of the story. The narrative was setting up a confrontation between him and the protagonists in the finale. Unfortunately, he is hit with the body swap and is unceremoniously killed in Bruno's body by Mista in Trish's body, with Diavolo leaving him to die soon after in order to pursue the heroes himself. Some fans lament this decision as his presence helped to add something unique to Diavolo's identity and would've added some tension and potential drama in how to deal with this odd and violent yet endearing in his own way sort of threat being attached to the main villain — with the moral quandaries it could provide.
  • Stone Ocean has a few examples, with two being main characters.
    • Foo Fighters, especially given their sheer popularity. In and despite of being one of the main characters they only get one major fight which is really just helping Jolyne defeat Kenzō. Not helping is the fact that quickly afterwards, they are killed by Pucci only halfway through the story—and, unlike the other characters who die, they aren't brought back in the ending (which does have justification in that Pucci, the one who gave them life, is now Ret-Gone).
    • Fans believe Ermes to not get enough attention following the battle with Sports Maxx. While her being Put on a Bus was justified due to the fight being so severe that she had to be put into intensive medical care, once she returns when the cast breaks out of prison, she gets very little relevance. She assists Jolyne in taking down Donatello Versus, and she's one of the first victims affected by Heavy Weather, but then she isn't seen again until the end of the fight against C-Moon, and she contributes very little to the final battle against Made In Heaven, only allowing the crew to dodge Pucci's attacks a couple of times. It also doesn't help that she's killed by the exact same attack that kills Jotaro, and his death is presented as much more harrowing than hers.
    • In a more minor example, Gwess was set up to be a rather important character, being Green Dolphin Street Prison's resident Knowledge Broker and being Jolyne's flunky despite her not wanting anything to do with Gwess. However, right after Johngalli A. and Whitesnake enter the plot, Gwess is never seen again until the beginning of the Jail House Lock arc, and doesn't even get a proper send-off when Jolyne breaks out of prison. Thankfully, the anime adaptation manages to give Gwess more relevance by having her be the one to tell Jolyne and Foo Fighters where to find documentations of Gloria Costello's murder, rather than F.F. already knowing about it through Atroe's memories.
  • JoJolion has its most emblematic example in Kei Nijimura. She was introduced early on as Holly Joestar-Kira's daughter, therefore Josuke's "sister", and looked like she was going to be a key ally to him... but then her existence was completely ignored. Fortunately, she eventually appeared in the last chapters to fight the Big Bad and save Josuke's life, sacrificing her life in the process.

Sailor Moon

• Link to the franchise:
  • Titus/Thetis, perhaps the only MotW to show something like human emotion, and hints of a backstory connecting her with Jedite/Jadeite. None of this ever gets developed, as she's only in one episode. And Jadeite himself, who also got some hints of character in that episode, is done away with in the very next one.
  • Two particular Monsters of the Week qualify for killing major characters. Zoisite's Youma Housenka stabs Nephrite to death, and Mr. Magic Pierrot, the Lemures who serves Palla Palla, kills Hawk's Eye and indirectly causes the deaths of Tiger's Eye and Fish Eye as well (although unlike Nephrite, the trio are revived). Like Thetis, both MotWs are killed in their first and only episode.
  • Rui Saionji, Naru's "sister", had potential in her own right and could have been used to develop Naru's character and history. Also only appears in one episode.
  • Shingo's girlfriend Mika and Ami's boyfriend Ryou get two episodes each. Makoto's best friend Shinozaki gets only one.
  • Whenever someone from Minako's past shows up, like her crush Asai or her London friends Alan and Katarina, they only get one episode. With Minako's interesting backstory, there's a lot of wasted potential there.
  • Although she has a much bigger role than the above examples, Naru herself qualifies. After two seasons of being just Usagi's "normal" friend, it seems for a moment she's going to discover (or reveal that she knows) the truth about the Sailor Soldiers and so transition into a new role. Instead, from this moment on she disappears from the plot almost completely.
  • Pretty much all of Sailor Galaxia's minions qualify as wasted, especially compared to past Quirky Miniboss Squad members. Also, three out of five of the Witches 5 from Sailor Moon S, who only got one episode each to themselves whereas the first two had at least around fifteen each.
  • Motoki qualifies - he runs the arcade the Senshi spend much of their free time at, is pretty much the only friend Mamoru seems to have, both his sister and his girlfriend are targeted by the bad guys (twice for both of them), and yet somehow, he himself is never targeted, seeming to just hang around in the background. In the manga, he learned the identities of the Sailor Senshi, but in the anime, he didn't even get that.
  • Shingo as well. He's only sibling of any Sailor Senshi, has a lot of Hidden Depths and, with his strong but conflicting views of Usagi and Sailor Moon, it could make for an interesting story if he found out the truth. But he never does, doesn't appear much, and when he actually does show up, he's often just treated as a minor nuisance. Right after they hint a relationship with Ami, he's dropped from the cast. It's even worse in the manga and Crystal where he makes a few brief appearances, then kind of vanishes after Chibiusa comes along.
  • Rei in Crystal gets hit very badly with this for some. If you're coming from the like of the OS or Live Action Series where she was given a lot more focus, her lack of any real presence (or personality) can be very disappointing for fans of those versions.
  • Michiru in the Manga is practically a non-entity. We know next to nothing about her apart from being able to play the violin. Even her relationship with Haruka is barely acknowledged, as the latter spends more time interacting with Usagi. Word of God reveals that Naoko Takeuchi found Michiru hard to write for because she's so unlike her.
  • Minako. Her being the most formidable of the Inners tends to be forgotten, even falling for attacks she should outright be immune to due them taking advantage of personality weaknesses she got over before the series. In the Black Moon arc of the manga, despite being spared capture (unlike the other three Inners), she contributes nothing more beyond running around after Usagi and Mamoru playing third wheel for the rest of the storyline.
  • Hotaru. She's probably the biggest Woobie in the franchise, as well as one of the most powerful characters, but she makes the fewest appearances of the Senshi. She didn't even get a transformation sequence in the original anime. In addition to this, various continuities tend to treat her more like a glorified deus ex machina than an actual person.
  • Arguably, most of the Senshi in the main storyline of the manga are grossly underutilized compared to say, Usagi. Naoko seemed to have a lot of trouble handling large casts. Crystal is especially guilty when it comes to the Inner Senshi, who get precious little development or focus after their debut episodes. To say nothing of the show's glaring habit of reducing them to little more than ineffectual punching bags who give up with zero effort just to make newer characters look better.
  • Saphir was underused compared to the rest of the Black Moon Clan. Despite how much he must have contributed to them as the resident Evil Genius, his role is downplayed, and he barely even interacted with the Senshi. And his relationship with Petz doesn't get explored because he dies in the same episode that reveals it.

Other Anime and Manga

• Angel Beats!: Only a select few of the many characters were expanded on. This leaves fans wondering about the many gag characters and one-offs. Even with some of the characters that were expanded on, like Hinata or even Yuri, we never learn how they died or much of their backstory. This is the fault of Executive Meddling. The anime was originally going to be 26 episodes long, but was suddenly cut down to 13, leaving little time to properly focus on these characters.
• Assassination Classroom:
  • Despite the major build up of two new students transferring into Class 3-E, Ritsu and Itona fade into obscurity moments after becoming official members of the class.
  • The God of Death, more specifically, the "Death" part. During his screentime, he fails to kill any named characters. By chapter 117, the people he killed to establish his badass cred were shown to both have survived. However, it is later revealed that this God of Death was merely the apprentice to the previous God of Death. The previous God of Death was Koro-Sensei.
  • For a character with as much screen time as Nagisa and Karma, Kayano doesn't get as much Character Development, even compared to some of the more minor students of Class E, even if The Reveal of Chapter 128 and onward reveal that this was intentional.
  • Nakamura is probably the only girl aside from Kayano that Nagisa and Karma most frequently interacted with, and yet she was still at best a supporting character. She shares Karma's love for trolling people, has an implied crush on Nagisa, and she has serious Hidden Depths to boot. Some think she would have been a more interesting third member of their trio, especially since the whole point of Kayano was to stay in the background for The Reveal.
• Bakuman。: Ogawa. He's incredibly knowledgeable about manga, from his prediction that Detective Trap wouldn't last long in Jump to knowing how to set up an office and manage assistants. Despite his talent, he doesn't try to become an mangaka, not even trying to pair up with a writer to offset his weaknesses as a storyteller, and is never seen again after Trap gets canceled. He does make a return as one of Ashirogi Muto's assistants once they start on Reversi.
• Black Butler: Despite an impressive cast, most characters who aren't Sebastian or Ciel become dead weight pretty quickly. Not to say that many aren't Flat, but many others showed serious promise before being unceremoniously killed or forgotten. It's especially problematic when two such characters are the season's Big Bads.
• Yuno from Black Clover. Many have complained that, despite being billed as one of the main characters, he has remarkably little screentime and almost never appears outside of action scenes, leading him to being very underdeveloped outside of being Asta's rival and best friend. This finally starts to get rectified when it's revealed that he's the long-lost prince of the Spade Kingdom.
• Blood-C:
  • Though most of the characters are hired by Fumito to act as Saya's "friends", Tadayoshi Kisaragi is the only character who has been under Fumito for a long time and he's a half-human, half-Elder Bairn. It would be interesting how much he has been under Fumito before the events of the TV series. Only those who have read Blood-C: Izayoi Kitan would know what he is before he worked with Fumito and sadly, that manga hasn't been licensed or scanlated yet.
  • Yuka, who is one of Saya's classmate and happens to be 28 years old who participated in the experiment so she can be the governor of Tokyo and doesn't really care about the gruesome events in Ukishima. She even appears in the movie as being one of the survivors from the TV series except that she only has two scenes where she eventually got her wish in the end. It would have been interesting on what kind of role did she contributed to Fumito's organization and possibly, her interaction with Saya if only these two ever meet again.
  • In the movie also, asides from Mana and Kuroto, the rest of the SIRRUT members have some interesting personalities but they don't have much background which makes you doubt about them being resistance fighters against an organization with a private army and the capability of creating and controlling human-eating monsters.
• Cardcaptor Sakura: Many of the cards could have made for interesting characters or benefited from further development, but the majority of them after capture are reduced to being just magic powers for Sakura to use, and could barely be considered characters, if at all.
• Code Geass:
  • Prince Clovis, despite being a prejudiced sibling of Lelouch, who killed him for his racist views on Elevens/Japanese, actually cared for his sister, painted a portrait of Lelouch's mother and children and actually made some good contributions to Area 11. He was killed off to show that Lelouch was ruthless and to show that even Zero had guilt for his actions. He could've been a nice Recurring Boss that would eventually get Character Development to actually get over his bigot pride and do some good for the Japanese.
  • The House of Kyoto, the heads of the major industries in Japan, who later assist the Black Knights by supplying them with technology after one of them, Kirihara, recognizes Zero as Lelouch who he met as a child. It would've been nice if all the members and not just Kaguya were elaborated in character or if Kirihara's past relationship with Lelouch was explored more, rather than executing them off-screen between seasons for being the Black Knights' supporters.
  • After R2, the list could include: Ohgi, Diethard, Toudou and the Four Holy Swords, Tamaki or even V.V.
  • Shirley and Euphemia at least had more development than the others before dying, but even more could have been done by keeping them alive. In fact, the producers seem to agree; several AU spin-offs end up keeping one or both of these characters alive.
  • Several of the Knights Of Round, who could've been an elite Quirky Mini Boss Squad, but most of them ultimately became cannon fodder to show how skilled Suzaku and Kallen are.
• Death Note:
  • Naomi Misora. Competent FBI agent. Developed and multidimensional. Has a very good reason and more than enough skill to bring Kira down. Dies less than three episodes after being introduced, crushed by a massive Idiot Ball. According to Word of God, she was meant to last a while longer and have a lasting impact on the plot, but she was far too clever and would have figured Light out before long (particularly, she had already pieced together that Kira can kill by means other than just heart attack, something that it was way too soon for L to know about), bringing the story to a quick end. Perhaps in compensation, the live action movie sees her role expanded from the manga, although she still does die.
  • Matt. There is a reason why he is the Ensemble Dark Horse despite only having four lines before he becomes roadkill. Not only does he have a cool character design is he L's third prodigy and he and Mello's close but ambiguous relationship is the closest there is to variety amongst the relationships of its genius characters when all others (L and Light, L and B, Near and Mello, Light and Near, Light and Mello and presumably L and the other detectives) are very similar with them all having admiration/respect for the other but ultimately being unable to work with them and being rivals.
• Fairy Tail has its biggest example in ironically its most mysterious member. Mystogan was built up to be one of the strongest in the guild who no one had even seen, operating solo but always coming to their aid when they needed it. Then it turned out he was Jellal from a parallel world and had no innate magic. Which could have been an amazing development as it would have shown a regular person could achieve such a high status while lacking natural magic. Shortly after this reveal, however, he ended the very arc that was focused on him staying in his parallel world now devoid of magic to rule them justly as their king and out of the story entirely until the main cast unexpectedly find themselves back in Edolas during the sequel manga. While it was a touching and decent send-off to his character, he never had a full, on-screen fight in the series before his exit, and what bits were given on his friendship with both Wendy and Pantherlily ultimately had to be filled in on their side without his input outside of the brief scenes and flashbacks where they were shown together.
• Fullmetal Alchemist has an annoying tendency to do this to its female characters. Paninya and Sheska disappear entirely soon after they're introduced, Lan Fan gets Put on a Bus (though The Bus Came Back), Lust gets killed off while the other Homunculi last until the finale, and while May and Olivier have plenty of moments to shine they get nowhere near the pagetime/screentime that the male characters in similar situations get. Even Winry, supposedly a main character alongside the Elric brothers, constantly gets shoved to the side and forgotten about, though she's at least understandable as she's not an alchemist, soldier, or combatant of any kind.
• Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin: Cross. She is one of the best hunters and fighters in her pack, but she is rarely shown fighting, and she becomes pregnant. Because of this, she is absent from the final battle, denying her the revenge against Akakabuto that she so longed for.
• Ginga Densetsu Weed:
  • At one point, a female warrior (Ryō) appears. Until that point, the only female fighter in both anime was Cross, and she was rarely shown fighting. Ryō has a very good design, and it would have been interesting to see a female that can actually fight in a cast full of males, but instead of doing anything useful, she very easily is captured, becoming a Damsel in Distress, and is not head from again afterward.
  • Cross again, as she's not shown fighting even once.
• Kagerou Project:
  • Kosuke Seto, despite being part of the original founding trio of the Mekakushi-dan/Blindfold Gang and his connections to resident gorgon-girl Marry, not much of his character or past is explored aside from how he was raised in the same household by Ayano and a song detailing his first encounters with his powers (which was a bonus track, mind you). Mekakucity Actors tries to rectify this by giving him more screentime, but even then his character is not explored much.
  • Similarly, Kuroha during his time in the anime. He is briefly seen in the opening and episode 11, and during The Stinger of episode 11, he is hyped up as a main source of conflict in the next episode. Come episode 12, he appears for all of five minutes before Shintaro and Ayano step in to thwart his plan. He dies in the Daze not long after.
• Kill la Kill: Tsumugu Kinagase. In his first appearances he was portrayed as some sort of badass secret agent, being able to subdue Ryuko without any powers but only through superior tactics. It was implied that he fought against the Kamui because one of them absorbed his sister. Later on, after the reveal of Nudist Beach, who he was a prominent member of with Aikuro, all of his badassery was removed bit by bit until he became little more than a grunt in a different outfit who sometimes didn't even have lines. To top it off, the backstory of his sister being absorbed by a Kamui was Left Hanging, and it was never explained who he was or what the deal of his pact with Aikuro was (not that Aikuro's backstory was all that fleshed out).
• Kirby: Right Back At Ya! has Yamikage, a ninja who was once a member of the Galaxy Soldier Army before defecting to Nightmare. As such, Meta Knight considers him a traitor and indeed, Yamikage not only detests Meta Knight, but he also tries to kill Kirby as well. Once defeated, he retreats, promising revenge on both Kirby and Meta Knight. Yet apart from a very small cameo as a mini-figure, he never reappears in the series again.
• Lyrical Nanoha has Yuuno Scrya. In a series so focused on how the ancient civilizations and technologies of the past are constantly unearthing themselves to cause major trouble in the present day, having an archeologist, scholar and librarian of ancient knowledge in the cast was a great idea. But despite his many virtues and all of the potential left to explore with his background and career, the writers seemed to only care about him as a romantic possibility for the eponymous heroine. So when they decided not to do that any more, they took him completely out of the action and plot without a word of explanation, even when the rest of the cast should have been still looking to rely on his support in battle (while in terms of offense he's mediocre at best, his defense is almost perfect, he's the only person in the entire history of the franchise who can forcibly teleport an unwilling target, and he doesn't even have a device to help him^note Given how magic functions in the Nanoha-verse, that means he's doing very complex mathematical equations completely in his head, while other mages are attacking him.), or at least asking him what the heck they're dealing with this time. Yuuno even teaches magic to Nanoha's adoptive daughter, Vivio, according to the side-materials, but we never actually see or hear them interact, even when she visits his library to do what was originally his role in the story.
• Martian Successor Nadesico: Gai Daigoji, the perfect lancer, a goofball character that was never really seen before (Super Robot Wars would later base Ryusei Date off of him). He's quickly killed off to show that real war isn't fun and games, a theme the series kinda flip-flopped on.
• Marvel Anime: Wolverine: Unfortunately, out of all the other Marvel projects (Iron Man, Blade, and X-Men), it is the Wolverine anime in particular that is notorious for wasting perfectly good characters throughout the course of the story, presumably to fill the series’ runtime, leaving them with tragically wasted potential:
  • Omega Red. He was shown to be a very dangerous threat to both Yukio and Logan, the latter of whom he actually came dangerously close to killing. But the creators knew that, so they end up giving him a prolonged battle sequence with Wolverine that lasted an entire episode, then basically threw him away by lazily killing him off just as he came back for another round with Wolverine, because apparently, Wolverine needs to focus solely on killing Hideki and Shingen, and Omega Red would seem to be too much of a distraction for that goal. This, coupled with Omega Red’s own badass, legitimately scary design, hammy voice thanks to JB Blanc, and loyalty to his source material, just makes his defeat and anticlimactic demise all the more disappointing.
  • A.I.M. is another comic book villain example that was criminally underused, despite them appearing to be the Greater-Scope Villain of the story. Despite frequently being mentioned many times throughout the show, not a lot of actual members of A.I.M. actually appear, nor appear to make any relevance to the story other being the backer and supplier for Hideki. Worse yet, the two times that they do show up only feature the Mooks, who are often quickly dispatched, not important members like MODOK, Monica Rappucini, or even a Scientist Supreme of any kind.
  • Agents Takagi, Tsukino, and Machida, part of the squad that Asano leads, were actually pretty interesting characters who had plenty of badass and insightful moments throughout the show, as well as being another legitimate threat to Wolverine. Unfortunately, they strayed too far from, again, Wolverine’s end goal to kill Hideki and Shingen, so they had to just disappear from view with no apparent explanation as to why, especially as they found out that Wolverine wasn’t the one who had killed their leader in the first place. They don’t even show up to avenge Asano and prosecute Shingen or Hideki during the show’s climax, nor at least witness Wolverine fight and then kill Shingen. Too bad we will never know what had happened to these three agents, as we don’t even know about their fates on top of this.
• Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch uses Noel to develop Rina's and Caren's characters and Coco to develop Sara, but once they're rescued, they (and Caren, who had previously been an Aloof Ally with a decent character arc) do basically nothing unless the plot absolutely requires everyone to be there for an arc's final confrontation. Caren is the most glaring example as she'd been important to the plot before, but all of Coco's character development was cut from the anime adaptation, so she was basically a cardboard cutout throughout the whole thing, only getting one filler episode to herself.
• Leiji Matsumoto shows are prone to this:
  • Planet Robo Danguard Ace: Captain Dan/Ichimonji Dantetsu is the best pilot in the whole series, drop dead gorgeous, tormented beyond the dreams of even the most ardent Condor Joe wannabe, with a deep, tragic and heart-rending backstory (mind-controlled, forced to kill his fellow test pilots, mind-wiped and tortured/enslaved for 10 years, missing out on his son's growing up, forced to hide the return of his memories and enduring several potentially career-ending injuries). To top THAT he's a determinator and all round bad-ass who could put Captain Harlock to shame - none of which is fully realised given the times and the demographic.
  • Queen Millennia: The TV series gives us the Man in the Trenchcoat. No name, no backstory, but this guy is so cool HE WEARS SUNGLASSES TO PILOT A SPACESHIP. Obviously has a great deal of history with the other wasted opportunity, Selene - and frankly both of them are way more interesting than the eponymous heroine and her pint sized sidekick.
    • In the non-Macekre'd version of the series, Selene is a very important person and her motivations are explained.
  • Ozuma: back to amnesiac men in masks again. Several viewers were more interested in the horrific implications of Dick/Guido's backstory than in the rather lame ecological message.
  • The Galaxy Railways: Wattaru Yuuki. It's possible the entire pre-series crew of Sirius Squad are way more interesting than the cast we got, but the brief glimpses we get of Captain Yuuki (all-round good-egg, wonderful father, caring husband, heroic role-model...) leave the viewer begging for more. He's used to COMPLETELY deconstruct Harlock's lone-man heroics but given so little screen time to do it in you have to be a major Matsumoto buff to catch it - if you do, you'll need an entire box of kleenex by the end of season 2.
• Monster Musume: Okayado, the author, treats the characters in a fairly realistic way, according to the real-life or mythical creatures they are based on, however when he introduces characters that are more openly supernatural in nature it seems that he doesn't know what to do with them. Lilith the devil and Lala the dullahan could have opened up lots of new possibilities, but outside of the usual ecchi antics they have a very minimal role. Lilith only appeared in one chapter without any introduction or real purpose, and Lala (despite being a member of the MC's harem) after her introduction is mostly a background figure that doesn't really impact the plot in a big way.
  • Later on Lala stars in a chapter centered on her, where her role as an alleged agent of death is expanded upon a little more; Lilith reappears as well, but she remains a Karma Houdini masochistic mischief maker with no characterization other than "Rachnera's former love slave".
  • The extraspecies idol group ANM48 (a parody of AKB48 composed of Little Bit Beastly girls) could have been an interesting way to discuss Fantastic Racism issues, as well as to parody Japan's obsession with idol groups, but they don't appear again after the very first chapter aside of some very rare mention.
• Rebuild of Evangelion: reduces the roles of Asuka and Ritsuko in most movies compared to their roles in the anime. It also wastes Rei in the last movie.
• Re:CREATORS: Pretty much everyone that is not Meteora, Magane or Altair. For starters, there are lots of characters since almost every fictional character has their creator (hence the title of the show), but the latter are under-developed more often than not. The supposed main character is somewhat of an Audience Surrogate and, as such, has not much of a personality. And even among the Creations, most of them either get killed before accomplishing anything, or survive and still don't amount to much. Turns out that there was no reason for them to be more developed, since the whole show slowly becomes a "Shaggy Dog" Story with an Esoteric Happy Ending.
• Sekirei loves promptly throwing away cute character designs. Mitsuha, Katsuragi, Yomi, Kujou, etc.
• In Space☆Dandy, characters like Adelie, Prince and Pine-Pine are all set up with the potential of becoming reoccurring characters, but never appear again after their debuts. Johnny manages to get a second appearance during the finale, but doesn't get to interact with Dandy at all during it, one again causing this trope to occur.
• Space Patrol Luluco has Midori Save-The-World. She seems to be part of the main characters along with Luluco and Nova, and her illegal black hole app kickstarts the plot, however when the story turns into Luluco and Nova's relationship she doesn't even become a third wheel, she just stays mostly in the background. Studio Trigger wasted her great visual design, Mayumi Shintani's iconic raspy voice, and her backstory as a half-alien hybrid never amounts to anything.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has Kamina, one of the most iconic anime characters of The Noughties. He's a Hot-Blooded Idiot Hero who kick-starts a revolution against an oppressive regime through the strength of his charisma, forms a wonderful Bash Brothers dynamic with his adoptive younger brother Simon, and is a Large Ham of epic proportionates who provides most of the comedy. He's also a Decoy Protagonist who gets Killed Off for Real less than a third of the way into the series.
• YuYu Hakusho: Early on, we are introduced to Rando, a very sadistic demon who steals other peoples' fighting techniques and then kills them so that he can be the only one who knows said techniques. He is the main antagonist of the series' first arc and nearly kills both Yusuke and Kuwabara. However, he is defeated when one of his techniques backfires, and he is never seen again, even though he is not killed or permanently incapacitated. Rando could've been a recurring villain who had new techniques every time he was seen, always itching to torture and kill Yusuke for humiliating him and handing him his first defeat, but he never came back.
• Kolulu from Zatch Bell! could've learned on how to control her powers and be an additional ally for Zatch, as well as a potential love interest for him. However, Kiyo had Zatch burn her spell book and send her back to the Mamodo World early on. She still returned by the finale, and her inherent pacifism was the reason for not actually fighting like so because she hated it too much to ever hurt anyone.

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