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I've encountered this across multiple media, but it crops up in anime most often. If it doesn't map to an existing trope, I guess it could be a new YMMV subtrope of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot, like a Doing in the Scientist on a meta level. Let's tentatively call this the "Char Aznable Letdown" to explain better. Alice and Bob are rivals. Alice is slowly learning how to be awesome at a skill. Bob is renowned for that skill. Through intricacies of the plot, they clash again and again, as Alice becomes increasingly better at the skill as she stops losing to Bob and moves through stalemating him to actually winning once in a while.
And then we get some sort of Tomato Reveal that she's actually developed a superpower revolving around that skill and now that she's firmly grasping it, Bob is no longer a credible threat, is defeated and that plot ends (should it be part of the MAIN plot, the whole story ends).
Random examples: — Mobile Suit Gundam - neither Char Aznable nor Amuro Ray are good pilots because they're good pilots, particularly Amuro. They're good pilots because they're Newtypes, and once the plot reveals it, it's no longer about a contest of piloting skills, but a contest of superpowers, and Amuro's are kinda stronger.
— Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - a bizarre inversion, with Mace's superpowers being fake, having the same in-story effect due to the context.
— Copacetic - Taylor Hebert isn't doing what she's doing when she suddenly becomes famous on Earth Dalet because she's got a lot of experience at fighting and killing capes, but because she still is one herself.
Edited by Noelemahc