History Main / SortingAlgorithmOfEvil

** Interestingly, aside from Team Evil and possibly [[spoiler: the Three Fiends (who have yet to show their full hand),]] this has mostly been played straight thus far. The first notable villains the Order encountered was the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Linear Guild,]] who attacked them twice. Later, they dealt with Kubota, a corrupt aristocrat threatening to kill [[BigGood Lord Hinjo,]] and Bozzok, the leader of the Greysky City Thieves' Guild. Next, they encounter [[spoiler:Tarquin, Elan's father]] whose team subtly controls the Western Continent with an iron fist. And most recently, there is the [[spoiler: High Priest of Hel, serving the Goddess of Death who wants to bring about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.]]

* The [[LawfulEvil Guild of Calamitous Intent]] of ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' fame. Enrolled villains (and protagonists alike) are ranked in order of their threat level; a low-ranking villain such as The Monarch is a good fit for a wash-up scientist like Doctor Venture, while a full-fledged superhero such as Captain Sunshine needs an equally sinister antagonist to match him. Villains and protagonists can increase (or decrease) in rank if their skills improve (or degenerate). And it's all good for keeping the bureaucracy happy, and making sure there's no outright murders of one or the other.

Occasionally, a [[StoryBreakerPower particularly strong]] or evil villain will ignore this trope and [[FinalBossPreview arrive early]] to [[CurbStompBattle beat the hell out of the heroes]], [[DeusExitMachina only to leave them alive]] because they're NotWorthKilling.

A problem comes up if a long-running show goes [[PostScriptSeason past its]] first GrandFinale. We may believe that the ultimate EvilOverlord is enough of a tactical dunce to think that sending his henchmen out in ascending order was a valid strategy. But why should the ''new'', unrelated, BigBad happen to be even stronger? Sometimes the {{Big Bad}}s might form a string of [[TheManBehindTheMan Men Behind The Men]], making this structure more sensible. Although this leads to new FridgeLogic issues: why doesn't the Man Most Behind use the [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking unimaginable power]] of his position to just wipe all the heroes out [[OrcusOnHisThrone instead of just sitting there]]? If the first Big Bad is only a local terror, bigger bads may not have even been ''aware'' of the heroes. The increasing threats they face are a reflection of the threat they pose to the ultimate boss. And then there's the FridgeLogic that can rise when one wonders why later, more powerful villains would tolerate the earlier, weaker ones hatching plots of their own. If the villain of Season Three [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt wants to destroy the world]], and the villain of Season Four [[TakeOverTheWorld wants to conquer it]], why would the Season Four villain tolerate his predecessor's attempts to destroy it? One way to address these issues is to make the later villain a SealedEvilInACan who only gets released after the earlier villain is defeated, not necessarily as a result of it.

Another downside of this trope is viewers who get into a show later may find early villains lame by comparison when they go back to catch up -- "pshaw -- we're supposed to be worried about this guy? [[SuperWeight He can't even]] blow up a [[SlidingScaleOfVillainThreat galaxy]]!" VillainDecay can be used to soften this blow; if the BigBad ends the season a lot lamer than he started, the next season's enemy doesn't have to actually be any stronger to give the impression of an increasing level of tension.

See also SlidingScaleOfVillainThreat, which breaks down the scales of villainy.

Contrast EvilEvolves.

Compare AlwaysABiggerFish, LensmanArmsRace, SoLastSeason, SequelEscalation, RuleOfEscalatingThreat.

'''Since the examples on this page necessarily detail most of or the entire run of their series and what villain later gets replaced by whom, beware of spoilers.'''

* Series/KamenRiderZiO has as its MonsterOfTheWeek faction the Another Riders, [[EvilKnockoff corrupted versions of past Riders’ powers given to people who stand for everything the originals stood against]]. The hero can defeat them as long as he uses the same power set as they do. After a while, [[spoiler: the BigBad Schwartz gets GenreSavvy and creates Another Riders that [[LoopholeAbuse can’t have their powers copied by Zi-O,]] forcing him to get a SuperMode to bypass the restriction… [[XanatosGambit which is what Schwartz was hoping for]], intending to raise Zi-O’s powers to a point where he can steal all the Riders’ powers at once and TakeOverTheWorld. After this, [[InvertedTrope he returns to sending out the ones who can be defeated easily]], and when Zi-O gets all the powers he was collecting, Schwartz [[OneWingedAngel becomes an Another Rider of equal power]], and sticks to using [[PsychoRangers previous Dark Riders]] as his minions, since Zi-O’s powers aren’t as curb-stompy against them.]]
* Series/KamenRiderZeroOne starts out with the Magia, out-of-control robots hacked by a terrorist group. Once all the possible Magia have been dealt with, the terrorists face the Riders themselves, getting captured and [[spoiler: temporarily]] killed respectively. Then TheManBehindTheMan makes his appearance, not only proving himself stronger than anything the heroes currently possess, but bringing with him a set of EvilKnockoff versions of TheLancer.

* ''VideoGame/Wizard101'' follows this trope in broad strokes. While bosses may zig-zag in difficulty depending on your school of magic or loadout, the villains of each new world are stronger than the last to justify the higher level cap that comes with it. Partway through, the game also introduces cheating bosses who get special effects or powerful summons in combat should the player meet certain fail conditions, and keeps introducing more as you go on.

*** The first arc gave us Malistaire Drake, who was once the professor of Ravenwood Academy's Death School and therefore no slouch in power (especially [[spoiler:when brought back as a BonusBoss during the second arc]]) but ultimately his plans and immediate threat fall short in comparison to later villains.
*** Then came the second arc's villain Queen Morganthe, who in addition to being a magical prodigy that learned directly from Merle Ambrose himself and also has access to powerful Astral magic and can completely waste to entire worlds of the Spiral;
*** Then third arc's villain goes from [[spoiler:Grandfather Spider, one of the three Primordials responsible for the Spiral's creation]] to [[spoiler:[[BigBadDuumvirate two of the Primordials]] with Grandmother Raven threatening the world by destroying Grandfather Spider]] to finally [[spoiler:the Aethyr Titan, who [[CurbStompBattle manages to mop the floor with Spider and Raven]] and requires the main character to become a PhysicalGod to stop him]];
*** The fourth arc has only recently begun, but all candidates for BigBad equally ramp up the tension from the last arc: [[spoiler:The Cabal, an entire faction of dark wizards who were responsible for Malistaire Drake's FaceHeelTurn and wish to unmake the Spiral to bring back the First World]], [[spoiler:a mysterious force from beyond the Spiral known only as "the Nothing"]], and [[spoiler:the after-effects of the player's fight with the Aether Titan in the form of the Aberrant Paradox]].

There are several ways to justify this; due to MonsterThreatExpiration, the current villain usually [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind Forgot To Level Grind]] while the heroes are out collecting TwentyBearAsses and are [[TrainingMontage Gonna Fly Now]] thereby outclassing him. This at least provides an in-story [[SophisticatedAsHell explanation]] for the {{Lamarck|WasRight}}ian evolution of evil from one bad guy to the next. In some cases the BigBad the heroes defeated last time was actually a mere member of a powerful organization. The others can show up to avenge their fallen comrade, so now we have the previous big bad times two or more. One of the more realistic possibilities, albeit one that's hard to justify in many stories, is a tournament structure, where the opponents become more formidable the closer the heroes get to the championship. In a series centering around military technology this can be explained by technological progress. The heroes will get new weapons, strategies, and better technology, but so will the enemy. In some cases, particularly the {{Shonen}} genre, it could be that an earlier BigBad who presented a powerful threat is now dead and can no longer grow anymore in power and by the time the heroes face the latest BigBad, the new villain (and subsequently the heroes themselves) will have had that much more time to become stronger that the previous villain, who will be left in the dust since his level of power will have been set in stone by the time of his final encounter with the heroes and subsequent death. Another example would be that the Big Bad has been defeated but lesser villains are forced to fill the power vacuum by becoming [[{{Sorting Algorithm of Evil}}even more evil.]]

Occasionally, a [[StoryBreakerPower particularly strong]] or evil villain will ignore this trope and [[FinalBossPreview arrive early]] to [[CurbStompBattle beat the hell out of the heroes]], [[DeusExitMachina only to leave them alive]] because they're NotWorthKilling. Villains who use [[ObfuscatingStupidity this as a tool]] are often {{Not So Harmless Villain}}s. Sometimes, rather than toss a stronger villain at the heroes the writer might decide to surprise them with an OutsideContextProblem that uses different tactics than brute force.

Sometimes, this is justified if a hero has already faced past enemies many times to the point where they make up a part of his recurring RoguesGallery. After battling those past enemies so many times, it would only make sense that the hero would get used to them and be able to defeat them more easily over time. However, if a new enemy enters the mix later in a hero's story with powers and abilities the hero has never encountered before, the hero may legitimately be at a loss as to how to deal with this new villain and that later-story villain may come across as far more powerful than a hero's older villains precisely because he/she brings something new to the table that past foes never did.

When this happens involving entire [[AlwaysChaoticEvil breeds/species of villains]], it's changing the VillainPedigree. If it's because various villains were sealed away it's SealedCastInAMultipack. If a particularly powerful villain remains on screen for too long and [[CantCatchUp can't keep up]], compare MonsterThreatExpiration.

** Subverted in ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed'': Kazdan Paratus is [[ThatOneBoss far harder to kill]] when compared to the next Boss character: Shaak Ti.

*** Season Three features Savitar, who spends most of his screen time bound to the Speed Force. He is so impossibly fast that only speedsters like the Flash can see the wisps of light he leaves behind. He can use the powers of the Philospher's Stone to invade the mind sof others and pit the members of Team Flash against one another. Finally, [[spoiler: he is revealed to be a time remnant of Future Barry Allen, giving him an intimate knowledge of Team Flash that no other villain had. No matter what plan Barry comes up with to stop him, Savitar will simply draw on whatever new memories he gains and plan around it. Only the HeroicSacrifice of H.R. allows the heroes to disrupt Savitar's plan and kill him once and for all.]]

* ''Film/FromDuskTillDawn'' has an unusual inverted example. When the vampires reveal their true nature, the named ones with actual character and personality are ''all'' killed before the climax, including Santanico Pandemonium, who was seemingly being set up as the leader of the vampires and the BigBad. The climax ends up involving several waves of no-name {{Mook}} vampires, alongside three converted allies.

* ''ComicBook/BatmanYearOne'' reintroduces [[Franchise/{{Batman}} The Detective]] as being principally concerned with cleaning up [[WretchedHive Gotham City]]'s [[TheMafia mobster problem]]; its nominal sequels such as ''The Man Who Laughs'', ''ComicBook/TheLongHalloween'' and ''ComicBook/DarkVictory'' concern the gradual emergence and rise of the supervillain threat, and by the end of ''Halloween'' and ''Victory'' nearly all the principal mobsters are either incarcerated or dead, and the supervillains have taken over. Afterwards, though, this trope is zig-zagged and subverted since, while Batman does deal with global, even genocidal villains as his career moves on, and as part of the ''Franchise/{{Justice League|of America}}'' takes on intergalactic menaces and otherworldly threats, those same supervillains still pose as much or even more trouble for him as they ever have, though under Creator/GrantMorrison there was / is a tendency to make the city-based threats part of larger international conspiracies, to the point where prior to the lastest CosmicRetcon Batman had decided to start his own multinational crimefighting ''franchise'' to tackle ''crime everywhere''.

* ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'': Creator/WarrenEllis' run consists of three four-issue storylines. In the first, the Authority fight a supervillain. In the second, they fight an alternative Earth. In the third, they fight what could be described as {{God}}. When Creator/MarkMillar took over the writing, he went back to various kinds of supervillains again.
* ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'': During his tenure as the writer, Creator/JimShooter pitted the team against a series of progressively more powerful and more dangerous opponents, all of whom had powers that bordered on invincibility. They faced the genetically enhanced Atlantean Tyrak (who had superhuman strength), the robot Ultron (who was equipped with an "encephalo-ray" which could place his enemies in a death-like state and possessed an indestructible adamantium body), the mad scientist Graviton (who had the ability to control one of the fundamental forces of the universe), Count Nefaria (a FlyingBrick), and eventually Korvac (a would-be warlord from the 31st century who had obtained godlike powers by absorbing part of the Power Cosmic from Galactus's abandoned starship). The first four typically took down Thor and Wonder Man (the strongest members of the team) with a single attack, while Korvac actually managed to kill the entire team in battle [[spoiler: before being driven to despair by the apparent betrayal of his similarly cosmically-empowered wife and restoring the team to life with his final breath]].

* {{Subverted}} in ''ComicBook/ScottPilgrim'': Matthew Patel, the first member of the League of Evil Exes to appear, is the most pathetic, and the second one, Lucas Lee, gives Scott a hard time... Then the third, Todd Ingram, is by far the most powerful (enough to punch a hole in the Moon-''twice''), and is only defeated due what [[LampshadeHanging Scott himself calls]] "some kind of last minute, poorly set-up DeusExMachina" taking away his psychic powers. After that, Roxy Richter is stronger than Lucas Lee, the Katayanagi Twins are individually weaker than Lee but fight together and prove at least as formidable as Roxy, and [[BigBad Gideon]] is second only to Todd in terms of power.
* {{Justified}} in ''ComicBook/{{Lilith}}'': for every time travel the protagonist does she comes closer to the source of [[TheVirus the Triacanto]], so the [[{{Mooks}} Thistles]] defending the original carriers of the various infection strains are closer to their source (no matter the place in the timeline), going from a few guys unable to properly manifest during the siege of Wilusa to the small army of EliteMooks defending Emin Pasha.
** {{Subverted}} in issue 9, where the Thistles are much stronger than ever before or after until the GrandFinale, and in issue 11, where the Thistles are at their weakest. [[JustifiedTrope Both exceptions have good reasons]]: in issue 11 the carrier was [[spoiler:dying of bubonic plague]] and that interfered with the Thistles' ability to manifest, while in issue 9 Lilith, looking for the infection strain of that era, had come very close to [[spoiler:the still immature ''source of the Triacanto'', and the Thistles there were at their strongest and the same ones that would be fought in the final battle.]]
* In ''ComicBook/MightyMorphinPowerRangersBoomStudios'' issue 45, the Omega Rangers launch an assault on the moon palace that ends with Lord Zedd's minions on the run and Zedd himself imprisoned. Zordon, however, is far from happy, pointing out to the Red Omega Ranger that ''something'' is going to replace Zedd and the Omegas won't be around next time.

* Subtly toyed with in ''Film/PointBlank'' -- the hero keeps killing his way up the chain of command without truly getting anywhere.

* ''Creator/BruceLee'''s last film ''Film/GameOfDeath'' is practically the TropeCodifier as it had him climbing a pagoda where each level had a progressively harder fighter.
* ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanTheCurseOfTheBlackPearl began]] with the enemies being a crew of cursed undead pirates. The [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest second movie]] had them facing against primarily the mythological Davy Jones. The [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd third]] was a battle royal against Davy Jones and the entire East India Company navy, with the God of the Ocean thrown in for good measure. Good thing Elizabeth TookALevelInBadass.

* ''Film/TheKarateKid'' series has a pattern in which he must use a new technique that the previous final boss proves immune to, thus suggesting that each opponent is tougher than the previous.

* In the first ''Film/{{Alien}}'' film, just one alien manages to kill off all but one crew member of the ''Nostromo'', Ripley. In ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', she has to face a ''colony'' of them, including their Queen. Then averted in ''Film/{{Alien 3}}'', which like the first in the series has only a single alien menacing our protagonists, in addition to a Queen embryo maturing in Ripley's thorax. And finally played half-straight in ''Film/AlienResurrection'' when a colony of them is being faced again, but this one consists of no more than 12 individuals in addition to their Queen, as well as some sort of alien-human hybrid in the end.
* Subverted in ''Film/ThreeHundred''. After his first wave of {{Mooks}} fails, God-King Xerxes sends his best troops, the Immortals, to kill the Spartans. While the Immortals make quite a few casualties among the Spartans, it ultimately fails because, as the narrator claims, the Spartans were not yet weakened by fatigue.
* ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'' makes use of this trope, with each main villain becoming more competent. Alluded to in ''The Dark Knight'' where the first time we see Batman he handily arrests Scarecrow. In addition, the first two movies have Gotham City at risk of losing hope or sanity. The third movie has the city at risk of every person in it dying.
** ''Film/BatmanBegins'' has Batman first fight the mob, then [[PsychoPsychologist Scarecrow]] and his [[BrownNote fear toxin]] and finally Batman must defeat [[EvilMentor Ra's al Ghul]] who nearly drives all of Gotham insane with fear toxin, before Batman defeats his army and leaves Ra's to die. Scarecrow appears briefly in the sequels having gone through VillainDecay, making him the weakest of any leading villain.
** Then in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', ComicBook/TheJoker manages to put all of Gotham into panic without the vast resources and army that Ra's al Ghul had in ''Batman Begins'' and creates another villain, Two-Face, by causing Harvey Dent to become a FallenHero. The Joker also nearly succeeds in making Gotham lose all hope.
** In ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', [[GeniusBruiser Bane]] at first seems to be just a robber who attack the stock market. Very quickly, Bane is shown to be a huge threat, ''especially'' when he defeats Batman and traps him in a prison halfway around the world. After that, Bane forcibly takes over Gotham for months, and is secretly working with [[DaddysLittleVillain Talia al Ghul]]. Both want {{revenge}} for Ra's death, and want it by [[NukeEm nuking Gotham]].
* [[FacelessGoons Stormtroopers]] board the ''Tantive IV'' in the beginning of ''Film/ANewHope'' and several of them [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy promptly get gunned down]]. Then, [[TheDragon Darth Vader]] enters and lets everyone know who is in charge. It's not until [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack the sequel]] that we are introduced to [[BigBad Emperor Palpatine]], [[EvilOverlord leader of the Galactic Empire]].
* Used briefly in the first ''Film/{{Gamera}}'' series. In ''Film/GameraVsGyaos'', Gamera takes the entire film to kill Gyaos. Then, for ''Film/GameraVsGuiron'', Guiron is introduced as he's effortlessly killing a Space Gyaos. This wasn't entirely intentional on the filmmaker's part, as they'd originally intended for Space Gyaos' role to be filled by a completely different, new {{kaiju}}--they only reused the Gyaos costume because they couldn't make the new monster in time.
* The opposition in ''{{Film/Legion}}'' gets increasingly stronger: Old lady > an ice cream man (bummer) > about 100 angels > another 500 angels > an uber angel.
* Justified in ''Film/PacificRim''. The first {{Kaiju}} to arrive on Earth are ''scouts'' sent to cause as much mayhem as possible. Once humanity began to show resistance, the Precursors responded by sending more advanced and larger Kaiju to deal with the Jaegers. And once the plan of wiping out all Jaegers succeeded, an extermination wave of deadly Kaiju would come to destroy humanity once and for all.
* In ''Film/SpiderMan1'', Flash Thompson is designed as the primary antagonistic character during the beginning of the film, which quickly graduates to Uncle Ben's killer for a short period and then, at long last, the Green Goblin.
** ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderman'' does more-or-less the same thing, though it replaces the Green Goblin with The Lizard.

* In ''Literature/{{Wyrm}}'', the dragon variations that the protagonists have to fight get progressively harder, ending with Wyrm itself -- although, since they've found Eltanin by then, Wyrm isn't srictly one of the dragons required by the game.
* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', the villains don't strictly follow this, for example the fight with [[spoiler: Coil]] comes well after both Leviathan and the S9, but overall fights get harder, culminating with [[spoiler: Golden Morning, the fight with [[PhysicalGod Scion]].]]
* ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' works up from interplanetary gangsters to an evil older than the formation of the solar system whose goal was domination of all intelligent life in the universe. These books [[JustifiedTrope justified]] the algorithm by revealing in each book that the BigBad of this book was TheManBehindTheMan of last book's BigBad. Then again, the nesting that would be present in the beginning is somewhat mind-boggling. [[note]]The prologue of the first book describes it. This is a {{retcon}}. The original Lensman series consisted of ''Galactic Patrol'', ''Gray Lensman'', ''Second Stage Lensman'', and ''Children of the Lens'', all originally published in ''Astounding Stories'' magazine. In this version, the Eddorians weren't revealed as The Men Behind the Men Behind the Men Behind the Men until the last set of stories. When Creator/EEDocSmith sold the rights to a book publisher, his editor felt the lack of foreshadowing made the series a bit silly and asked Smith to write a prequel introducing the Eddorians from the beginning. Smith took an old, unrelated novel of his, ''Triplanetary'', added the prologue and tweaked the plot to fit the Lensman universe. He then wrote ''First Lensman'' to bridge ''Triplanetary'' with the original series.[[/note]]

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': Intially played straight, but later averted. After fighting an evil wizard with more ambition and [[KickTheDog enjoyment for kicking puppies]] than actual power or brains in the 1st book, Harry Dresden fights werewolves, ghosts, vampires and the ''faerie queens'' by the 4th book... and back down to vampires in the 6th. While there's plenty of fighting and Harry and the other protagonists are powerful in their own ways, the drama generally comes from scheming and Harry's personal stake in the matter. The faeries in ''Proven Guilty'' would have been no problem for Harry even back in book 1, but the problem was that now he had to handle the person who summoned them as well.
** Also, the most dangerous antagonists are not always the ones with the greatest raw power. Villains like Nicodemus and Mavra are significant threats not because of their admittedly considerable powers, but because they are cunning, patient, and pragmatic. Tactics and FlawExploitation win out over brute force more often than not.
** Lampshaded when, caught in the middle of a GambitPileup between several supernatural heavy hitters, Harry reminisces about Bianca St. Claire, a "mere" high-ranking vampire and powerful sorceress. However much she might have terrified him at the time, she was just peanuts compared to the PhysicalGods and [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] he'd tangle with in later books.
* In the ''Literature/CodexAlera'' also by Jim Butcher, [[HordeOfAlienLocusts the Vord]] have this as a superpower, which when coupled with the raw intellect of their Queens is just as scary as it sounds. Even though the Vord are defeated in the early books, this just taught the Queen new tricks to use to modify future generations of her children, so that when they come back they're ''far'' more formidable. The only way to stop the Vord for good ''without'' this happening seems to be to [[spoiler: kill the Queen]].
** Also played generally straight in ''Alera'' with the three successive invading forces. The Marat are ProudWarriorRaceGuy barbarian elves who are very individually formidable but don't really have the logistics to take and hold much of Alera; it also turns out that it's mostly one particularly bloodthirsty leader who wants them fighting Alera in the first place, and once he's removed other leaders are willing to talk things out. Next, the Canim are highly disciplined, technologically advanced wolfmen who succeed in waging a prolonged war along the Aleran coast- at least until it turns out they're only there to try and escape from the even more formidable enemy that assaulted their homeland, which turns out to be the Vord, mentioned above, who nearly destroy the world.
* Generally averted in Creator/JRRTolkien's works- the supernatural powers of evil tend to get ''weaker'', not stronger, as the timeline advances. The supernatural powers of good ''also'' get weaker, however (or at least less accessible) in accord with the general transition of Middle-Earth from a mythological world to a more realistic one. If you start with ''Literature/TheHobbit'' and then go to ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', however, it's played straight, going from the BigBad being a dragon (dangerous on his own to be sure, but lacking minions or the ambition to range far from home without proper incentive) to an EvilOverlord with world-conquering ambition.
** Although at the very end of ''The Lord of the Rings'', the heroes have to face one last battle: a handful of bandits in the Shire. After the climax and death of Sauron, this seems comparatively petty.

* ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'' both inverts this and plays it straight, since the villains get progressively less ''powerful'' but progressively more ''dangerous''. The villain of the first book was a cosmic-scale EldritchAbomination that ''eats universes'', but it ended up being defeated without causing any damage to our universe, [[spoiler:and without a single casualty]]. The next villain was an insane millionaire with vast resources trying to reactivate an ancient biological superweapon, both of whom ended up dying before they could do anything beyond killing a few people. Then there was a fairly generic {{cult}} of (mostly) ordinary people, [[spoiler: who cause the hero far more suffering than any other threat so far, and come within a hairsbreadth of ''killing'' him and summoning a demon to destroy the world, necessitating a full-out military operation to defeat, AND they had already horribly murdered countless people]]. The latest villain was a SinisterMinister and his CorruptChurch, armed only with money, religious fervor, and a few {{Puppeteer Parasite}}s...who pretty much took over a large chunk of Colorado and tried to summon one of the most powerful and evil forces in the multiverse [[spoiler:and (partially) SUCCEEDED]]. The sixth Laundry Files novel, "The Annihilation Score," uses this trope name as the title for the second section of the book.
* The ''Literature/NewJediOrder'' novel ''Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream'' has Wedge Antilles trying to string along a merely average Yuuzhan Vong commander at Borleias in order to buy time for the rest of the fleet to regroup after [[spoiler:the fall of Coruscant.]] But due to a snafu, they accidentally kill him (prompting Tycho Celchu to snark that [[SpringtimeForHitler "Wedge Antilles was so good he couldn't lose when he tried to."]]), and Warmaster Tsavong Lah responds by sending his own father Czulkang Lah, a far more effective CO, to command the reinforcements.

* ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' doesn't have the usual progression from one installment to another -- they aren't even in chronological order anyway -- but instead has a variant where nearly every individual novel starts with facing the threat of one enemy faction, only for it to turn out that an even more dangerous enemy is coming from behind the scenes. This allows ranking them all in an order based on who's the more dangerous enemy (in this series) that can be the hidden threat behind someone else: Tau/Orks < Tyranids < Chaos < Necrons.

* The ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' franchise's main antagonists follow this pattern:
** The first film has [[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil Tai Lung]], Master Shifu's former disciple and a OneManArmy capable of plowing through a few dozen rhinos, the Furious Five, ''and'' Shifu himself with little effort. But he is still only one guy and his focus is solely on the Dragon Scroll, making him a complete non-issue to anyone outside the Valley of Peace (at least in the short term). This makes him the perfect StarterVillain, but he pales quite a bit compared to the following antagonists.

!!Examples:

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':
** PlayedStraight for most of the original ''Manga/DragonBall''. The first major enemy Goku faces is Pilaf, who is laughably weak and incompetent. The Red Ribbon Army is more dangerous and powerful with General Blue being their strongest soldier who nearly kills Goku several times. They then hired Mercenary Tao who utterly beats Goku. After that, most of Goku's opponents were either a little weaker than Tao or a little stronger, with only Tien really pushing him. That is until King Piccolo comes, he is stronger than any enemy Goku ever faced and his final son Piccolo Jr is even stronger, closing out the original anime.
** ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' starts off by giving characters an explicit numerical "Power Level". [[note]]The baseline human rating was about 10, while a very strong human fighter with SupernaturalMartialArts would have a power of about 100. Goku's rating was [[MemeticMutation over 9000]].[[/note]] This held out until the middle of the Frieza arc, when the devices that were used to calculate these combat ratings were destroyed; at this point, the ArcVillain's [[OneWingedAngel strongest form]] had a rating of around ''120,000,000'', whereas just two months earlier the heroes had been hard-pressed to deal with an opponent nearly seven thousand times weaker (Vegeta, then at 18,000). The plot helps support the progression; Raditz arrived first, and called on a pair of stronger allies; the heroes went after their boss next; the next ArcVillain was created from said boss' cells, plus those of the powered-up heroes, and so on. The final villain was a mild subversion because, while its final form was not as strong power-wise as some of the other transformations, its unique physiology made it nearly impossible to kill and its nature became far more merciless. If you go back to watch the series again, you soon realize that even the first fight was equally as tough as the last. The numerical concepts of "power levels" were quietly dropped after the Frieza Saga, since the people who used the concept were all dead. Starting from Frieza and continuing onward, each ArcVillain was the most powerful and dangerous being in the universe, even more so than the previous most powerful and dangerous being in the universe. This was justified by the later ArcVillain being artificially created and not actually existing at the time Frieza was named as the most powerful, or was [[SealedEvilInACan sealed away]] so long ago that people forgot the being even existed outside of one of the {{Top God}}s.
*** Incidentally, Frieza, the ArcVillain with 120,000,000 power level in question, was actually ''significantly'' more powerful than every other character even in his own arc; Goku, who defeated him, was actually several ''million'' points weaker, and only won because he got a power boost in the form of going Super Saiyan for the first time at the 11th hour. Prior to this boost, Frieza could easily have killed Goku and every other Z fighter whenever he wanted- that he didn't was down to BondVillainStupidity as he was irked that Goku, while leagues weaker than Frieza, was still much stronger than any Saiyan he had ever faced, and Frieza wanted to crush him with as little effort as possible out of spite.
** Subverted in the special ''Anime/YoSonGokuAndHisFriendsReturn'', in which an alien menace arrives and is easily defeated, because it arrived a bit too late in the chronology, and everyone was so enormously powerful that it really didn't ever have a chance at all. Specifically, the two villains are noted to be as powerful as Frieza. Goku remarks that it should be a good match for the ''kids''.
** Subverted in ''Anime/DragonBallGT'', where the first ArcVillain turned out to be pathetically weak, but had the ability to possess the bodies of the various insanely superpowered supporting characters surrounding the hero in order to increase its strength. It is later played straight [[spoiler: after possessing Vegeta]] where he becomes much stronger than a Super Saiyan 3 Goku, and a Super Saiyan 4 was needed to defeat him. The next ArcVillain was Super 17, who forced Goku to go all out, and the final BigBad, [[MadeOfEvil Omega Shenron]] was much stronger than Super Saiyan 4 Goku on his own. It took a fusion and an Universal Spirit Bomb to take him down, making him the strongest villain in the ''GT'' canon.
** Beerus from ''[[Anime/DragonballZBattleOfGods Battle of Gods]]'' is even higher in power than any villain in canon, being an official "God of Destruction" for his universe and is [[TheDreaded feared by all the gods in the universe]]. He curb stomps Super Saiyan 3 Goku without trying and [[spoiler:the Super Saiyan God form, the strongest Super Saiyan state at that point,]] only forced him to go to 70% of his power and Goku still lost. That's right, Goku, famous for almost always winning, [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter was outmatched by someone who will always be better than him]]. And the real kicker, [[spoiler:his assistant Whis is actually much stronger than him]] and there are eleven other universe's Gods of Destruction who could be [[SerialEscalation stronger than Beerus]].
** This trope is actually played with in ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'', in that the main antagonist of the movie is once again Frieza. However, this time Frieza ''DIDN'T'' [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind forget to level grind]] and instead "decided to train for the first time in his life". The results are... dramatic.
** {{Averted}} for most of ''Anime/DragonBallSuper''.
*** Beerus is the first enemy the Z-Fighters face and he is so far above their level that Goku is still weaker than him even after training with Whis.
*** Frieza is a threat after coming back to life, training, and gaining an ultimate form that surpasses Super Saiyan Blue Goku, but he's still weaker than Beerus and would have been no threat at all if Goku and Vegeta worked together. His army is also easily defeated by the Z-Fighters who included Master Roshi and were missing several of their heavy-hitters like [[WrittenInAbsence Buu, Android 18]], and Gotenks only appears for a short time.
*** In the Champa Saga, while there is no villain per se, only Hit on the U6 team poses a threat to Goku and Vegeta in their god forms (3/5 of the team are comparable to their base forms, 1/5 comparable to their Super Saiyan 1 forms), and strength-wise he is at best a little above Golden Frieza. Skill-wise, however, he is far more dangerous. Champa himself may be a little weaker than Beerus, but he is still far above any of the heroes since he was ready to [[spoiler:murder the entire U6 team]] despite all the power they showed and Goku is helpless to do anything about it. The next ArcVillain of an anime-only arc, Copy-Vegeta, is as strong as Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta, which makes him on par with Golden Frieza and Hit in terms of pure power, but much weaker than the latter skill-wise. The manga more explicitly averts this with both the four lower tier team members (Goku mentions even Fat Buu could beat them easily, and a rusty Piccolo does fine against their third-best) and Hit (Goku states that Vegeta easily could've defeated Hit if he wasn't worn-out and surprised by Hit's Time-Skip, making Hit a lot weaker than Golden Frieza, just not in terms of skill).
*** In the Future Trunks Saga, [[spoiler:Goku Black]] is stated by Future Trunks to be only as strong as Super Saiyan 3 Goku (notable in the manga version as this Goku isn't much stronger than he was in the Buu arc, meaning manga Black is only around Majin Buu's lower forms). However, Black is able to improve rapidly much like Hit, and by the time Goku and Vegeta confront him in the future he is able to go toe-to-toe with Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta. Then it's revealed that he has a Super Saiyan form, Super Saiyan Rosé, which he uses to overwhelm SSB Vegeta and he's ''still'' getting stronger. Then averted with Future Zamasu, who in the anime is at least weaker than the [=SSBs=] and in the manga is weaker than even Cell (he admits that Super Saiyan Goku is stronger than he is), but [[MatterReplicator has]] [[{{Teleportation}} a]] [[CompleteImmortality plethora]] [[StoneWall of]] [[HealingHands abilities]] that make him useful as support for Black. Then it gets taken UpToEleven for the final four episodes of the arc where Black and Future Zamasu perform a Potara Earring Fusion to create Fused Zamasu, who delivers an effortless CurbStompBattle to Goku, Vegeta, and Trunks all at once, ''all at their full power'', forcing ''Vegito'' to make a return appearance to stand a chance against him, although whether Fused Zamasu stronger than Beerus depends on the version. In the manga, he isn't since Shin states only Vegito surpasses Beerus and Vegito crushes manga Fused Zamasu effortlessly, while in the anime he is because he can match Blue Vegito blow for blow. Then it's played horrifyingly straight for the first time ever when Fused Zamasu loses his physical form and becomes Infinite Zamasu. This entails becoming either an insane EldritchAbomination with the ability to ''consume the entire future multiverse and break time to the point where he can devour the present timeline as well'' (anime) or an infinitely-duplicating version of Fused Zamasu with CompleteImmortality (manga), something that Beerus could never hope to achieve (nor desire to achieve). In both versions, '''nothing''' hurts him anymore and it takes the TopGod himself, Zeno, to end Fused Zamasu once and for all.
*** In the Universal Survival Saga, none of the competitors even come close to Infinite Zamasu in terms of danger (they are not allowed to kill in tournament rules and can all be killed at least theoretically, for one), and only three of them (Agnilasa, Top, and Kale/Kefla) are clearly above SSR Black (With Top as a Destroyer and Kefla ''maybe'' being roughly comparable to Fused Zamasu). Only one, Jiren, clearly exceeds Fused Zamasu.
*** That said, Jiren counts as another example of the trope being played straight (besides Infinite Zamasu). Whis explicitly says that he's stronger than a God of Destruction that's ''stronger than Beerus'' (it's implied said God is Belmod, who admits Jiren is stronger than he is). After seeing him show off a bit of power, Whis not only reaffirms what he said, but notes that Jiren may very well have surpassed the level of the Gods of Destruction in general. Beerus, in the same scene, is [[NotSoStoic absolutely terrified]] by what he senses from Jiren's strength and wonders how ''any'' being could have so much power. The best part? All of that is ''before'' he [[LetsGetDangerous actually goes to full power]]. When he does, not only is Beerus practically pissing himself, but even Whis seems a little alarmed. It's telling that the EleventhHourSuperpower needed to give Goku a bit of a chance against Jiren (he would straight up NoSell anything else) can't be accessed willingly, even by the end of the Universe Survival arc. The narrative basically acknowledges that Goku being able to fight on par with Jiren completely throws off the FixedRelativeStrength previously established that necessitates Beerus being above the heroes.
*** Then came the titular antagonist of ''Anime/DragonBallSuperBroly''. While [[BrokenBase fans continue to debate]] whether Broly at full power is stronger or weaker than Jiren, official merchandise labeled him as the strongest foe faced yet, and Goku asserts his belief that he is stronger than Beerus. After all, it does require [[spoiler:Gogeta as a Super Saiyan Blue to beat Broly]].
* ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' carried this off by declaring that Zentradi < Masters < Invid. ''WesternAnimation/RobotechTheShadowChronicles'' added The Children of the Shadow to this progression. However, it's not so simple, as in terms of raw power it's Zentradi > Masters > Invid > Children of Shadows:
** The Zentradi are, in absolute terms, ''the'' strongest faction of all, having a force of ''six million warships'' capable of taking on ''all'' the other factions at once and winning. They're only defeated due a combination of their advance force of one million ships defecting (thus providing Earth with the numbers they need to take on the Zentradi), Earth's secret weapon depleting their forces even further and the Zentradi having an unexpected weakness, and even then they casually decimate Earth;
** The Robotech Masters, creators of the Zentradi, have the most advanced technology of all factions, but lack the sheer numbers of their minions and can't make the most of their advanced technology due a lack of [[McGuffin Protoculture]]. This allows the defenders of Earth (whose technology has advanced in the meantime and whose weapons don't suffer from Protoculture depletion) to score a PyrrhicVictory;
** When they arrive on Earth the Invid are at their weakest: they too suffer from Protoculture depletion, and their might suffers even more due only half their race arriving on Earth (the other half is busy attacking the Robotech Masters' former empire, getting destroyed by the Robotech Expeditionary Force in the process). However the defenders of Earth are too weakened by the battle against the Masters to stop them, and by the time the Robotech Expeditionary Force has rebuilt their own forces and returns the Invid have used the Protoculture on Earth to rebuild their own forces;
** The Children of Shadows are weaker than the rebuilt Invid, and are a danger only due them having [[spoiler:supplied the Robotech Expeditionary Force with boobytrapped technology]] and the Invid having left with all the Protoculture on Earth and the means to produce more, plus the SDF-3 disappearing with the only other mean to produce Protoculture.
* ''Anime/YuGiOh'' and ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' presented villains not only in ascending order by menace, but also, for some reason, [[CampGay effeminateness]]. For instance, the first BigBad in season 1 of ''GX'' was a withered old man; Season 2's villain was a younger, more strapping adult male. Season 3 had a Hermaphrodite Duel Monster. The effeminateness of the villain ties directly into their personal interest towards the hero. At first, the BigBad is usually just interested in a certain trinket or item carried by the protagonist, while the next is usually more interested in the protagonist's actual abilities and strengths. The biggest of the {{Big Bad}}s ''always'' seemed to have some kind of intimate interpersonal relationship with the hero, which would border on HoYay (since both sides in this series were invariably male), if only the BigBad wasn't trying to enslave/murder them for some deep, scarring betrayal they blame on the protagonist. There are only two exceptions: Dartz, in the Doma StoryArc, and the BigBad of the Capsule Monsters arc, which, as far as the rest of the series is concerned, [[FanonDiscontinuity never even happened]]. Even the original series (never released beyond Japan and taking place before the anime we all know and love) has most of the villains being random thugs met in chance encounters, fitting into the algorithm perfectly.
** This is played straight throughout the continuum of all three series so far, the first villains were merely bullies that wanted to abuse their authority, then came Seto Kaiba who was willing to kill the protagonists as well as being a very high-ranking member of the corporate world. Then came Shadi and Dark Bakura, both with magical powers, with the latter being far more malign and able to alter reality, then came Pegasus who was a more personal threat with Pegasus who wanted the Puzzle to revive his dead lover, and a much longer arc. Marik arrives and really raises the CerebusSyndrome with far more deadlier stakes involved and more personal past to the Pharaoh. Once his dark side is revealed, it's either a TakeOverTheWorld or [[ForTheEvulz watching the world fall to ruin]] depending on which dub you watch. The biggest threats outside of Sieg who merely wanted to best Seto, were Dartz and Zorc, the one who was being summoned by Dark Bakura, with the former being even more dangerous as his ambitions to destroy humanity involving a dangerous EldritchAbomination needed offerings from two worlds with life forms, while the latter wanted merely TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. GX comes around and while Kagemaru merely wanted youth, Saiou, or rather the Light Of Destruction, wanted universal dominance and was kind of responsible for everything in the series, while [[spoiler: Darkness' AssimilationPlot]] was threatening, it was not on the same scale. 5Ds introduces [[spoiler: Z-ONE]] who is implied to have complete control of the space/time continuum, ''Anime/YuGiOhZEXAL'' has Dr. Faker, Vector, and Don Thousand, all with with the goal of destroying Astral World, and ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'' had Zarc, who required a dimension and himself being split into four just to defeat him the first time, and who is content to rampage across all four dimensions in the show. Subsequent series ''Anime/YuGiOhVRAINS'' and (thus far) ''Anime/YuGiOhSEVENS'' avert this, having comparatively far lower stakes.
** This is also played straight in regard to the villain's ace monsters, each of which is more powerful or at least more visually impressive (to invoke this trope) than the last. To recap:
*** Kaiba was the first Villain, and his ace monster was the "Blue Eyes White Dragon", a 3000 ATK beatstick. In the early days, where players had 2000 Life points, monsters also didn't require tributes and card effects weren't as common, that's all it needed to be a major threat. It sure didn't help Kaiba had three of them.
*** Pegasus, the second main Villain, had " Blue Eyes Toon Dragon", a more difficult to destroy version of Kaiba's ace, and once his toons no longer sufficed he brings out "Reliquished" and its upgraded counterpart "Thousand Eyes Restrict", which have 0 ATK and DEF but horribly broken effects that allow them to possess Yugi's monsters and negate their own destruction.
*** During the first Virtual World Arc, the Big Five's Ace monster was "Five-Headed Dragon", a 5000 ATK beatstick that couldn't be destroyed by anything other than LIGHT monsters. The show's 4 premier examples of dragons making a work better cannot defeat it, forcing Kaiba and Yugi to fuse their ace cards together.
*** During the second Virtual World Arc, Gozaburo Kaiba's ace card was "Exodia Necross", a zombified counterpart to the game's InstantWinCondition. It started off with a respectable (at the time) 1800 ATK, could not be affected by card effects, could not be destroyed by battle, and gained 1000 ATK and DEF each turn. By the time Kaiba had figured out its KryptoniteFactor, it already had 5800 ATK, at the time the highest value any villain monster had achieved.
*** Meanwhile, the Big Five and Noah from the same arc have respectable aces of their own:
*** The Big Five bring back "Five-Headed Dragon" for their combined duel with Yugi and Joey, and when they manage to destroy it, they summon "Berserk Dragon" to replace it, which isn't as powerful as "Five-Headed Dragon", but is still a sizable threat with 3500 ATK and the ability to attack ''four times'' a turn (though it loses ATK after every turn), not to mention that beating "Five-Headed Dragon" put Yugi and Yoey into a vulnerable position and they cpuldn't use the same monster they used to destroy the Five-Headed Dragon.
*** Noah's deckmaster "Shinato's Ark" can summon monsters that were previously destroyed for every monster his opponent has or use them to recover his life points by a huge amount. And if it somehow gets destroyed, he can summon the even more powerful "Shinato, King of a Higher Plane", which has 3300 ATK, cuts his opponent's life points in half every time it destroys a defense position monster and gives the lost life points to him, and can remove itself from the playing field if it would get destroyed (which would make him lose due to the rules they were using), meaning that the opponent has to settle for winning the normal way by depleting the ''thousands'' of life points he'd accumulated.
*** During the Battle City Finals arc, and by extension the entire Battle City arc (which was interrupted by the second Virtual World Arc), Yami Marik is the main Villain and his ace monster is the "Winged Dragon of Ra", the strongest of the Egyptian Gods. If that description would not suffice, bear in mind that it is the shows premier offender of NewPowersAsThePlotDemands.
*** The next villain, Dartz, upped the ante even further with "Orichalcos Shunoros" which, because of the method by which it was summoned, had a whopping 20000 ATK points, although it lost ATK whenever it battled a monster. And then there is his "Divine Serpent Geh", which has ''infinite'' ATK points, but had no immunity to card effects, a powerful restricting effect, and would cause Dartz to automatically lose should it be destroyed (more of a side effect of him having 0 Life Points at the time it was Summoned). And then there was the Great Leviathan, an EldritchAbomination, rather than a Duel Monster, so powerful the Egyptian Gods had to gang up on it outside the card game, and even then only barely won.
*** The same goes for the next and final villain, Zorc Necrophades. He, too, was an EldritchAbomination rather than a playing card, and successfully defeated the three Egyptian Gods (which not even The Great Leviathan could do) to start his rampage, and then went on to defeat Exodia and the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon/Dragon Master Knight without any issue.
*** The KC Grand Prix anime filler arc (which comes between Dartz and Zorc) plays with this with Zigfried and [[spoiler: Leon:]]
*** Zigfried, the ArcVillain, has a powerful One-Turn Kill combo, but if that fails, it leaves him vulnerable, and all he can really do is stall until he can get an offense going again. However, he's also an [[TheCracker expert hacker,]] which he uses to mess with Kaiba, his company, and his tournament.
*** [[spoiler: Leon,]] TheDragon and FinalBoss, is a competent duelist with a deck filled with monsters with tricky effects. In addition, Ziegfried provides him with an illegal card that he hacked to be both playable and loaded with overpowered effects. However, the FinalBoss is a FairPlayVillain, and wanted no part in cheating, and would have thrown the match if it weren't for said overpowered effects preventing him from doing so, the card triggering a virus in Kaibacorp's systems, and Yugi's insistence on continuing the duel anyway.
** While ''Anime/YuGiOhVRAINS'' averted this trope in regards to its placement with the previous series, it played it straight with each ArcVillain. In the first season, Revolver/Varis and Dr. Kogami wanted to wipe out the internet with a massive EMP to destroy the six Ignis to prevent them from destroying humanity, at the potential cost of millions of lives. In the second season, Bohman desires to absorb all of humanity into himself to create a perfect world, while in the third season, [[spoiler:Ai]] effectively commits suicide to avoid destroying humanity if he were to continue existing. Their power strategies follow this too; Revolver used a series of powerful 3000 ATK Link-4 Monsters that he assembled into the first Extra Link in the series, Bohman used the 4000 ATK Link-5 Chimera Hydradrive Dragrid and then the 5000 ATK Perfectron Hydradrive Dragon (which he powered up to 100000 ATK at one point), and [[spoiler:Ai]] used the Link-6 The Arrival Cyberse @Ignister, which was frequently above 10000 ATK and even briefly rose to 22000 ATK.
* ''Anime/SailorMoon'': The opposition sorts itself out into ascending levels of power per season, starting with the Dark Kingdom (which could only field a single youma at a time) all the way up to Galaxia, who threatened the entire universe. The only exceptions seem to be Ail and En who, regardless of probably being weaker than the last villains, had to face senshi with unusually strong attacks. Naturally this filler was forgotten later. It also seems to have been the original M.O. of the Amazon Trio, explaining their penchant for disguising themselves; likewise, there aren't real arc villains either. The strange thing is that the five {{Big Bad}}s of the villain groups (Queen Metaria, Death Phantom, Pharaoh 90, Queen Nehellenia, and Chaos) are all portrayed as having the same dark power to destroy or conquer the universe which would mean they were at the same level of power. In the manga, it's because [[spoiler:they're all the same villain being reincarnated over and over again]].
** Averted in the final arc of the manga: the first opponent they meet is ''Galaxia herself'', and the only reason she retreats and sends in her minions is that she needs Sailor Moon strong enough to match her and they'll be a good training while also serving to take out her allies, and she's more than willing to step back in if necessary for the latter job.
** ''Manga/CodenameSailorV'', set before ''Manga/SailorMoon'' and telling the story of Sailor Venus before she became part of the group appropriately has a big bad who though a threat to Sailor V is an extreme small fry in the scheme of things. He's one step below the first arc's QuirkyMinibossSquad being an underling of Kunzite. ''Manga/CodenameSailorV'' debuted before ''Manga/SailorMoon'' but wrapped up shortly after.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' initially averts the algorithm by including fights between characters much stronger than the main heroes throughout the first part of the series. The first major enemy, Zabuza, is so strong that the Genin can't be expected to hold their own against him (even his BattleButler, Haku, is too much for them). In addition, the BigBad, Orochimaru, shows up in the ''second'' major arc, and for the longest time, even the strongest characters could, at best, manage a tie against him. However, this trope shows up more and more as the heroes gain strength until they're able to hang with the big boys on their own, and once [[spoiler:Orochimaru is defeated, we are introduced to a number of major villains who are even stronger than him]]. Granted, [[spoiler:one of the later antagonists is an internal one with more of a threat for his political influence than his physical power, and a number of major villains meet their defeats for reasons other than the heroes being stronger (Orochimaru himself was at his weakest when he was taken out)]], but even then, [[spoiler:when a number of previous antagonists are resurrected during the Shinobi World War arc, most of them fall victim to this trope (with Nagato being the main exception).]] The trope plays out this way mostly because in part 1, the main characters are fresh out of ninja school and there are several more powerful adult shinobi around; as the heroes catch up to their elders after the TimeSkip, this trope shows up more and more.
* ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'': Seems to actually be part of the dungeon ecosystem, with powerful mid-level bosses preventing deep-level boss monsters from forcing lesser species further up and overrunning the easier levels.
* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', this is mostly [[JustifiedTrope justified]]. The goal of the series is to reach a geographical destination that has been known but not yet reached for over 20 years, so a lot of pirates have gathered around it. Naturally, the strongest are the ones who have gotten the closest.
** As Luffy and crew get further along the Grand Line, they discover tougher opponents. The series isn't above throwing the odd curveball though, like Mihawk first appearing and [[HopelessBossFight dominating]] Zoro very early in the series, and Bellamy showing up and going down like a punk after the defeat of Crocodile. In contrast to major arc villains, Eneru is a bit of a subversion in that he is the most powerful and dangerous opponent Luffy has actually defeated, his [[ShockAndAwe lightning powers]] giving him enough power to destroy entire islands and NighInvulnerability, [[PlotTailoredToTheParty but]] the one thing that could make all of that power completely useless was being a RubberMan, which Luffy is. Later on in the show's run, the Sabaody arc started with the Straw Hats [[CurbStompBattle dominating]] some lame pirates, then introduces nine pirate crews, some equal to the Straw Hats. It ends with the Straw Hats completely [[HopelessBossFight dominated again]] by some of the strongest characters introduced in One Piece up until now.
** Subverted with the Marineford arc, with numerous high level Marines and pirates that are just [[OvershadowedByAwesome too strong for Luffy]]. These include the Seven Warlords of the Sea like Doflamingo and Mihawk to the three Admirals and from the Vice Admirals to Sengoku. It's going to take time for the Straw Hats to overcome these opponents.
** Also subverted by the Four Emperors. The first one we see is none other than [[NiceGuy Shanks]], followed by [[AFatherToHisMen Whitebeard]]. Then we hear about [[KillEmAll what Kaido did]] to Moria's old crew. And [[EstablishingCharacterMoment the first thing we see Big Mom do]] is [[spoiler:eat one of her crewmates for no reason whatsoever and decimating islands for not giving her sweets.]]
** It is played with, however, as each emperor to be shown on screen has been more evil than the last, going from Shanks (NiceGuy), to Whitebeard (JerkWithAHeartOfGold) to Blackbeard (AffablyEvil to an extent), to Big Mom (AxCrazy, but also somewhat tragic), to Kaido (no redeeming qualities whatsoever (at least, none revealed so far)). Bounty-wise, Blackbeard has the lowest, followed by Shanks, Big Mom, Kaido, and then Whitebeard. However, Roger had a higher bounty than all of them when he was alive, which is also the highest bounty for a pirate in recorded history, and he was on a FriendlyEnemies basis with Garp.
** Subverted with the Seven Warlords as well, as far as the original group goes. The first member introduced is the aforementioned Mihawk, and he is arguably the strongest member. He was followed by Crocodile, Doflamingo, and Kuma, who all prove to be heavy-hitters in their own right and of whom only Crocodile was beatable to the pre-TimeSkip Straw Hats. Then came Moria, who was surprisingly weak (relatively speaking. He still proved to be a huge thorn in the Straw Hats' sides). The last two Warlords introduced were Hancock and Jinbe, who, while not ''quite'' as powerful as the first four, were stronger than Moria, and were by far the most moral members. They both ended up allying with Luffy (Hancock as a result of falling in love with him, Jinbe due to his prior friendship with Luffy's brother Ace), [[spoiler:with Jinbe officially joining his crew during the Whole Cake Island arc.]]
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'':
** Played straight through the first three major story arcs (Substitute Shinigami, Soul Society, and Arrancar).
*** In Substitute Shinigami, the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Monsters Of The Week]] start out as ordinary, non-sentient Hollows but steadily grow more powerful and cunning, culminating in the Gillian Menos Grande at the end of Ishida's introduction story.
*** Ichigo's near-instantaneous defeat by Byakuya in the prelude to the Soul Society arc shows that the Shinigami up the ante as antagonists. On their way to rescue Rukia, Ichigo and Company fight their way up through the Gotei 13 hierarchy, from seated officers to captains with released bankai.
*** Once again, the increased threat level is indicated by Ichigo being handily defeated by Ulquiorra and Yammy's scouting party at the beginning of the Arrancar arc. When the battle begins in earnest, the Arrancar attack the protagonists in line with their power levels: Fraccion first, then Privaron Espada, then up through the ranked Espada, then finally the CoDragons Gin and Tousen, then (after 5 LONG years of publication time) the BigBad Aizen himself.
** Subverted in the Fullbringer Arc. Tsukishima and [[spoiler: Ginjou]] are far less powerful than Aizen or even the Arrancar (on the level of Ichigo's early Soul Society Arc opponents) but make up for it by being much more manipulative at a time when Ichigo is especially ill-equipped to deal with their mindgames.
** ''Consciously'' subverted by the [[PuttingOnTheReich Vandenreich]] in the Thousand Year Blood War Arc. [[BigBad Yhwach]] is a CombatPragmatist who uses a Blitzkrieg strategy true to his Nazi motif, by sending his most powerful fighters in first to steamroller the Shinigami and using the rank-and-file to mop up after them.
* ''Anime/MonsterRancher'' is complex: Pixie is the first of the Big Bad 4, but stronger than Gali and Greywolf -- it takes the entire team ''sans'' Golem to beat Pixie, but only Moochi or Tiger to beat Gali and Greywolf, though this was after the team got their strongest moves. They also meet Moo (the BigBad) on the road quite early, and the encounter plays out like a HopelessBossFight. Although it's played straight in a sense, since Naga is the strongest of the Big Bad 4, and after that it's Moo in his Dragon Body who is incredibly powerful. But is subverted again, because in the next series they're up against one of his captains, who is obviously much weaker than Moo was.
* ''Manga/DGrayMan'' would [[JustifiedTrope justify]] this, since the Akuma all have [[EvolutionaryLevels specific Levels]]... except that, as the heroes get stronger, they start fighting higher-leveled Akuma in larger groups. Partially justified as the BigBad was relatively inactive in the beginning, and they only appear in large groups when he gathers them.
* In ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'', every villain is billed as the most powerful, strongest, blah blah blah. This begins with several D-Class Demons early on and ends with the heroes fighting [[RankInflation S-Class demons]] at the end of the series. Somewhat justified in that the Spirit World set up a powerful barrier that prevented powerful demons from entering the living world.
* ''Manga/{{Saiyuki}}'' inverts this with its seasonal big bads. The first series has Homura, the [[PhysicalGod God of War]]. ''Reload'' has Dr. Nii's disciple Kami-sama, and ''Gunlock'' features Hazel, a mere priest from the west. It also plays with the trope by making the villains harder to defeat in other ways -- Homura was unquestionably a bad guy, but is followed by PsychopathicManchild Kami-sama, who just didn't work on the same level mentally. Then there was Hazel, who was in all appearances a good guy, creating a huge ethical backlash to fighting him.
* The classic example of the technology creep variety would be the Zeon mobile suits in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam''. They go from the rather pathetic Zaku which was designed for fighting conventional vehicles rather than other mobile suits, to the fast, heavily armed and armored, though somewhat unwieldy Dom to the powerful and agile Gelgoog, which nearly matches the Gundam's performance, with a few Ace customs and [[SuperPrototype Super Prototypes]] along the way for flavor. This would be a fairly realistic setup... if the war had lasted longer than a ''single year''. The novelization is somewhat better about this as the war drags on for two years and the Gelgoogs never show up. It also subverts this trope, as the antagonists use a slightly less advanced Mobile Armor to fight the Gundam in the climactic battle due to supply shortages and [[spoiler:though the Gundam defeats it, it proves to be enough of a distraction that a MauveShirt piloting a lowly Rick Dom is able to finish Amuro off]].
* The entirety of battle in ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' is a combination of this and a LensmanArmsRace. [[BigBad The Anti-Spiral]] actually does explain, though, that he [[LawfulStupid intentionally did it that way]], the reasoning being that the harder the heroes have worked to get to where they are, the more crushing it'll be when they're finally defeated. That's, uh... [[{{Determinator}} not what happens]].
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' uses a series of EvolutionaryLevels: Baby, In-Training, Rookie, Champion, Ultimate, Mega. The team has to advance to the next level to face the next level of enemies. This gets a little ridiculous in later series, where every bad guy seems to be Mega level and some are just that much more powerful than other Megas.
** Initially {{downplayed|trope}} in ''Manga/DigimonVTamer01'' where the enemies went from adult/champion to perfect/ultimate to the then final level but it was explained partially by enemy and ally alike continuing to evolve while the protagonists [[CantCatchUp were not]] and the big bad Demon had not gotten personally involved because he was winning. ''Then'' it [[ExaggeratedTrope went a step further]] and introduced Arkadimon, which was the "Super Ultimate" Digimon, a whole new level entirely. Among other things, it killed Sigma's Piedmon (a Mega level) while still at in-training level. In one hit. Its Champion level did the same to Seraphimon (a considerably stronger Mega) with about as much effort. In fairness to the Piedmon, he was already injured but until that point it was established in V-Tamer that a difference of more than one level was an insurmountable hurdle.
** The ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' has Devimon, an evil Champion-level Digimon. Then there was Etemon, who was purely comical as opposed to the serious Devimon, but was at the Ultimate level and thus [[NotSoHarmlessVillain considerably stronger.]] Then came Myotismon, an Ultimate of great strength who was the first Digimon in the show to evolve to Mega form. Then came the four Dark Masters, who were all Mega level. The last, most powerful enemy they faced, was Apocalymon, an insanely-strong Mega level, who beat the Digidestined at first, but was defeated in the GrandFinale by DeusExMachina. Explained by the Dark Masters: they were heading up a mountain, through each of the Dark Masters' turfs one at a time and the Dark Masters rarely interfered in one another's matters. The four got progressively tougher the further up the mountain they got, the most powerful Piedmon reigning from the very top.
** Also, in ''Anime/DigimonTamers'', the first several Digimon to appear are all Rookie or Champion level, and are easily beaten by the Rookie level Digimon used by the protagonists, that quite quickly unlock Champion level. Later, the Devas appear and nearly force them to unlock Ultimate level, after which they wind up in the Digital World and learn of the D-Reaper, which eventually results in the good guys unlocking Biomerge Digivolution. In the end, it all came down to 4 Megas against one Mega. Guess who kicked ass for most of the fight.
** ''Anime/DigimonDataSquad'' averts this, in that the first major "villain" they encounter is of the Mega level. Then, however, it turns out that he's not actually a bad guy, and the main antagonist becomes ''Gotsumon'' (a Rookie level digimon), the human-hating minion of the aforementioned bad guy. He ends up manipulating another Mega level digimon into attacking the humans, and then it's revealed that everything bad and the reason why Digimon distrust humans is due to the actions of Dr. Akihiro Kurata -- a ''human.'' Later, it appears that Kurata is going to be usurped by [[spoiler: Belphemon]], Kurata instead [[spoiler: fuses with it and remains in control of it until his defeat.]] Yggdrasil rounds out the series as the penultimate antagonist, but considering his actions are due to Kurata's own misdeeds, Kurata still remains the [[BigBad main villain]] of the series.
* ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth''. The first enemy the PowerTrio faces, Alcyone, is a powerful [[AnIcePerson Ice Mage]] but easily dispatched. Then come [[SummonMagic Ascot]], [[MasterOfIllusion Caldina]], [[{{BFS}} Lafarga]] and, ''finally'', [[TheDragon Zagato himself]]. While their power levels are all over the place, they have specific skills that make them increasingly dangerous, and it would have been easy for any of the later foes to eliminate the Knights had they been dispatched earlier. In particular, [[FridgeLogic one wonders why]], since Zagato knew all about the Magic Knight legend, why he didn't go after the girls himself as soon as they arrived. In the anime, Zagato does show up for a few moments to show the heroes just a tiny portion of his power. Had he actually attacked them, they would not have survived. What Zagato wants to do [[spoiler: Other than keeping his beloved Princess alive]] is never fully explained. He may not intend to kill the Magic Knights, regardless of what that will mean for him. The Ascot arc shows the trope in miniature: the first few "friends" are indeed strong enough to squish the Magic Knights into paste, but they have glaring weaknesses that the girls discover and exploit within minutes. However, his very last Summoned Monsters are titanic foes that can go toe-to-toe with the ancient [[HumongousMecha Rune Gods]], and continue to be powerful presences in the second arc [[BigDamnHeroes whenever the Knights need rescuing]]. He always had access to them, so why he didn't call these right off the bat is a mystery to everyone.
* ''Anime/CodeGeass''. Lelouch faces off with increasingly improving resistance from TheEmpire, but manages to cope because his allies also get better mechas over time. In the first major battle, he faces inept commander Prince Clovis and a bunch of regular Knightmares with his terrorist allies using mostly outdated Knightmares of their own, and they own the field...and then [[TheDragon Suzaku]] shows up...algorithm leaps somewhat later when Lelouch tries to do this again against much better leader Princess Cornelia, and his (different group) allies are slaughtered. He later however turns the tables when he tries this again, only using the environment to his advantage, supported by the JLF, and with AcePilot Kallen in a better mecha. He nearly has Cornelia beat...and then Suzaku shows up...again. Eventually, his allies begin to power up faster than TheEmpire, and he's likely have won the war, if not for some extreme circumstances and misfortunes. Eventually, Kallen's able to easily [[spoiler: turn Suzaku's mech to scrap, even after it gets an upgrade.]] By the end of the series however, his terrorist army has gotten ''so'' good, that [[spoiler: when he's forced to fight them, this time commanding the forces of TheEmpire,]] he's no match. Unfortunately, the trope is subverted in R2, where Lelouch deals with [[spoiler:the immortal]] V.V. (the target of his vendetta), TheEmperor, and [[ShelteredAristocrat Schneizel]] when everyone thought it was going to be the other way around. Even worse, TheEmperor [[spoiler:kills V.V. before Lelouch even learns that V.V. was the one who killed his mother.]]
* Played straight then subverted in ''[[Manga/KenichiTheMightiestDisciple History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi,]]'' in the manga at least. The storyline covered in the anime plays it straight, with Kenichi fighting stronger opponents as his skill improves; high school bullies, Ragnarok mooks, the Eight Fists of Ragnarok, and finally their leader, Odin. Kenichi's struggle against YOMI, the next antagonist group subverts it. YOMI's leader Sho Kanou, touted as the strongest fighter of them all and inheritor of the styles of YOMI. the series' BigBad organization...is the ''second'' YOMI member Kenichi defeats. However, Kenichi then gets his ass handed to him against another member of YOMI. Possibly justified since each of the YOMI members and their masters in YOMI believes that he or she is really the strongest. Some of the YOMI members believed that Sho was unsuitable to be YOMI leader. That and Kenichi's fighting ability is highly dependent on the circumstances involved. Even though he's practically superhuman at this point he's ''still'' slightly intimidated by high school bullies.
* ''Manga/Eyeshield21'' and other such sports manga tend to increase in scope as the story goes on. Athletes face opponents from other cities first and other countries later. Played straight ''and'' subverted earlier in the manga, where the Devil Bats' first opponents are a very weak team, followed immediately by the uber-talented and powerful Ojou White Knights, then the moderately challenging but not all that Zokugaku Chameleons. But, naturally, once they get to the fall tournament, the easy games all happen first. It is a knock-out tourney so only the best get far. Subverted again in the Kanto tournament, where the match-ups are decided through a lottery. They do not go against the nine-times-in-a-row-champions Shinryuuji Naga in the finals, or in the semi-finals, but in their ''very first match''. They then face their ultimate rivals, the White Knights in their second match, and fellow darkhorse team, the Hakushuu Dinosaurs in the final. All are very close, very tough matches, and which one was the best is a matter of debate among the fandom.
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' both plays this trope straight and averts it. While the enemies fought in each series grow stronger the closer that you get to the end, the fact that each volume stars a different hero means that [[BigBad Big Bads]] don't necessarily have to be stronger than what came before. For example, while Dio Brando of Part 3 was quite dangerous, he wasn't an immediate threat to the world as the Pillar Men of Part 2.
** This is arguable considering what his true master plan was revealed to be in part 6, which was to make a Perfect World for DIO. And although orchestrated by one of his minions and the Part 6 BigBad Enrico Pucci, it was still a large threat either on par or greater than the Pillar Men. Especially since the Perfect World would not only have to remove the Joestar family, who are DIO's biggest threat, but also anyone who would ever pose a threat to DIO, including the Pillar Men and the Part 5 BigBad Diavolo.
** Given that above point, the only time it's really been subverted (without getting into technicalities) is with Yoshikage Kira from Part 4. Although to be fair, Part 4 is about simply protecting one town over protecting the world. He was merely one SerialKiller as opposed to a vampire or a mob boss.
*** While Kira most certainly did not have as much ambition or as many resources as any of the other Big Bads, he won the SuperpowerLottery so handily that he was just as hard to beat as he should have been given his place in the series.
** Played straight in-between Part 1 and 2. In Part 1, vampire Dio was the big threat of the series, with [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire zombies]] serving as the series' mooks. Come Part 2, vampire zombies have disappeared and vampires are downgraded to {{Mook}} status to make way for the Pillar Men. It helps that Jonathan, the first [=JoJo=], had to learn [[KiManipulation Hamon]] to stand a chance against Dio, while his grandson Joseph, the second [=JoJo=], was apparently born with the skills to use Hamon and his arc was learning to control it better.
* ''Manga/SaintSeiya'': By LawOfChromaticSuperiority, the heroes must first battle their peers, the Bronze Saints (and, later, their EvilCounterpart Black Saints) in a local skirmish for the Gold Cloth; then, the Silver Saints, who hunt them down for said Cloth; and finally, the Gold Saints, who never leave the Sanctuary. Then come the Asgardian God Warriors, who can give Golds a run for their money; Marine Shoguns, likewise; and then Hades' Spectres. The last foes they encounter are actual Gods, and the teaser movie for Chapter of Heaven hints that the Bronze Boys are raring to take on the Olympian Gods themselves. Subverted in the manga when Gold Saint Virgo Shaka seeks out and nearly kills Bronze Saint Phoenix Ikki before the actual plot even begins. Their [[CurbStompBattle battle, such as it is,]] is shown as an extended flashback.
** Also {{Subverted}} for Seiya: the first foe he fights is Cassios, a candidate Bronze Saint, but the second is Shaina, ''the strongest and [[AxCrazy sadistic]] Silver Saint available'', and he only survives because, following the code, she had left behind her Cloth as it was a personal matter, and thus wasn't sure of winning once he managed to make use of his (plus other personal reasons); in the anime Seiya has another run-in with her before the Silver Saints are deployed and, as this time she's on official business and thus is wearing her Cloth, she almost ''kills him''; and when the Silver Saints are deployed, [[NoNonsenseNemesis the first one to come out is almost as strong as Shaina and much saner]], and give Seiya the hardest non-Shaina fight until the Gold Saints.
** Averted in its prequel ''Manga/SaintSeiyaTheLostCanvas''. The difficulty of the enemies varies ranging from [[EliteMooks simply strong Specters,]] the three [[MiniBoss Judges]], to [[CoDragons Thanatos/Hypnos]], but a good deal of energy is put forth into defeating Thanatos/Hypnos before even finishing off the Judges; and many [[EliteMooks rankless strong Specters]] actually served as obstacles for the last arc, outlasting both [[TheDragon the Dragons]] and [[MiniBoss mini-bosses.]]
* Played with in ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'', where the first major antagonist that Negi faced -- Evangeline -- is the strongest character in the series, only winning the fight by a combination of luck and the fact that Eva wasn't really taking the fight seriously/more or less let him win. Played with because part of Eva's curse was still in effect, and when he first fights her without it, he can barely last three minutes...which is impressive in itself once you see how strong she ''really'' is.
* This trope is straight out mocked in the second episode of ''Manga/HaruhiChan''. After being 'defeated', Asakura warns Kyon and Yuki that she is "the weakest of the Radical Four", which will now come after them. And above the Radical Four, are [[TheManBehindTheMan the top three leaders!]]
* Played straight for most of ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar''. Shin, Ken's initial rival and the man who engraved the seven scars on his chest, isn't even the strongest of the Nanto Seiken masters. Rather, it's Souther, a character who is introduced a bit later and is shown to be immune to the effects of Ken's martial art at first. Jagi, the first of Ken's adoptive brothers to appear in the story, is a petty thug who never truly mastered Hokuto Shinken, but is still stronger than the average {{mook}}, in contrast to Raoh, the eldest and the last one to appear, who is the BigBad for most of the first series and ends up [[HeroKiller killing most of Ken's allies.]] Then there's Kaioh, the ultimate Big Bad of the second series, who was the only villain that was actually immune to Kenshiro's ultimate technique of Musou Tensei and almost killed him during their first encounter. Subverted in the final chapters of the manga, in which the final villain, Bolge, was just an average wasteland thug far weaker than Shin or Jagi, and was only a threat due Kenshiro having [[spoiler:lost his memories and fighting abilities.]]
* In ''Manga/BusoRenkin'', the series begins with the main characters fighting off animal- and plant-type homunculi. Then comes along a stronger animal-type homunculus, and then the humanoid homunculi, and then Victor, and then Victor AND the Alchemist Army, and then Victor in his third stage...
* ''[[Anime/UchuuSenkanYamato Star Blazers / Space Battleship Yamato.]]'' Initially, Dessler does not consider the Star Force a serious threat, and orders low-ranking shlubs Ganz and Bane to fight them. After Ganz and Bane's defeat, Dessler takes the threat more seriously and sends his best general, Lysis to fight them. After they defeat Lysis, ''then'' Dessler decides to take them on personally.
** In the second season, first the Star Force fights some weak Comet Empire lackeys while Dessler's hanging out at the Comet Empire, then they fight Desslok who almost defeats them but is tricked to run away, then a tank battalion that almost destroys the Space Marines, then they fight Desslok again except this time he's ENRAGED, then they take on the Comet Empire, then the [[spoiler:dreadnought inside the Comet Empire]].
** In the third season, Dessler's buddy-buddy with the Star Force. His generals do not understand this and keep throwing more and more power to capture the Star Force without telling him. He is not amused when he finds out.
* While threat level varies in ''Manga/FairyTail'' the threat and strength of the more serious villains does increase each time, with lesser villains thrown in between them. This is mostly managed by the characters getting by on strategy, nakama power, of in some cases temporary power ups rather than non-stop training.
** Threats thus far are an ordinary dark guild wielding a fairly weak soul-sucking demon, a rival turned evil who is on par with one of the main characters and wanted to unseal a similar demon, a rival guild whose master is on par with the BigGood who was trying to put Fairy Tail out of business, An old friend turned evil who was on par with the BigGood and wanted to revive [[SealedEvilInACan Zeref]] (this was when all threats start to guarantee death), one of the larger dark guilds who wanted to start a guild war, a foreign king who had no powers beyond a HumongousMecha who was willing to kill the guild for their magic, then a former guild member and his new, serious dark guild who easily [[CurbStompBattle Curbstomped]] the BigGood and were trying to create a world where only 10% of the population could survive. [[spoiler:Then, there's also the Black Dragon of the Apocalypse who the entire main and supporting cast can't put a scratch on and only leaves once it assumes they're dead.]] The most recent arc seems to be toning it back down with a government official who only wants one guild member, supposedly for the sake of the country at the cost of her life, [[spoiler:except it turns out that was a RedHerring and the true threat is one of the current dragonslayers [[FutureBadass from the]] [[FutureMeScaresMe future]] with seven dragons that can curbstomp most of the mages at the place, and even the dragonslayers are hard-pressed to hurt them.]] It gets toned back down when the next arc involves at worst a fairly average demon and another rival turned evil (though she was [[{{Jerkass}} pretty nasty]] even before that), but it sets up the events for the final dark guild filled with genocidal demons who want to [[TheMagicGoesAway erase all the magic in the continent,]] all for the purpose of reviving their leader, who, from the words and actions of other characters in the know, is a demon on par with both [[BigBad Zeref]] [[spoiler: and the previously-mentioned Black Dragon.]] The [[spoiler: 2nd]] Time-Skip also has format to its villains. Orochi's Fin is only a problem for its rival guild Lamia Scale as Natsu with his off-screen training takes down its legions of monsters with ease.The black magic cult Avatar seems to be just as weak until Natsu sees [[spoiler: [[FakeDefector Gray Fullbuster]] working with the cult until it's revealed to be a ploy to expose Avatar.]] An entire empire that wants to invade Ishgar for the Lumen Histoire, which has a PraetorianGuard with members on par with [[WorldsStrongestMan God Serena,]] [[spoiler: who defected for unknown reasons]] and is led by some dude named Spriggan [[spoiler:which is another name for Zeref,]] and finally [[spoiler:the previously mentioned Black Dragon who is opposed to ''everyone else'' and wants to kill all the remaining dragon slayers.]]
** It gets played straight with the Balam Alliance, though. You first have Oracion Seis as the weakest with both the fewest members and the most [[AntiVillain sympathetic villains]] aside from their Guild Master, then Grimoire Heart which is led by the BigGood 's mentor, and finally, Tartaros, a completely genocidal guild comprised entirely of Zeref's demons and led by [[spoiler: the very same and previously-mentioned demon that once gave ''Igneel'' a hard ass-kicking. Keep in mind that non-Dragon Slaying magic does jack squat against dragons in the series.]]
* ''Anime/{{Bakugan}}'' plays this straight.
** S1: Naga, an egomaniac Bakugan whose plot is to absorb the power of the core of the Bakugan homeworld and conquer the universe.
** S2: King Zenoheld and the Vexos. Zenoheld rules a planet and finally goes AxCrazy and tries to [[OmnicidalManiac destroy the universe,]] creating a Bakugan actually capable of doing so. Despite being strong enough to beat Naga, they've got to get a few upgrades to be able to beat them.
** S3: Emperor Barodius and the Gundalians are already on the winning side of a war with a peaceful planet and decide to invade Earth [[ForTheEvulz for kicks.]] Once again, the power that was able to defeat Zenoheld isn't enough to beat his forces and more upgrades are needed.
** S4: Mag Mel has yet to show his actual power, but considering he's a SealedEvilInACan that was imprisoned for actually committing '''genocide''', it's a safe bet.
*** Now that he has, it's been confirmed, with still more upgrades needed to face his strongest forces [[spoiler:although technically he could simply be considered the same Big Bad but with new tricks, as he's actually what Barodius became after his defeat...]]
** Finally, Coredegon is so powerful that damn near nothing can scratch him (he boasts that he doesn’t have a weak point), is smart enough to subvert TransformationIsAFreeAction and [[spoiler: actually requires a ResetButton and intervention from the show’s GreaterScopeParagon to be put down for good.]] The only reason he has minions is [[spoiler: because he gets rendered OnlyMostlyDead along with his fellow CombiningMecha components and needs them to resurrect him.]]
* Played a bit with in ''Anime/{{Slayers}}''. The first major enemy Lina fights is the NighInvulnerable Rezo the Red Priest, who happens to have a fragment of the world's Demon God sealed inside of him. Said Demon God is the most powerful of all evil creatures in the world, so, that's it right? Nothing can challenge Lina? Wrong. Oh, so wrong. The next major enemy Lina fights (in the anime) is a creature that's IMMUNE to magic attacks and has to be taken down in a rather unusual way. The next season has the Demon God's underlings show up and be enemies. Surely they can't be as powerful, right? Wrong. Even though they are less powerful than the Demon God at full power, the underlings are stronger than the fragment that Lina fought against in the first season. [[spoiler:In the novels, the BigBad of season 2 manages to freaking TANK the incomplete Giga Slave and managed to fight The Lord of Nightmares to a draw, though that was justified in that the Lord of Nightmares was in Lina's body and did not have access to her full power.]] Season 3 had a combined Demon God and God fusion from another world that needed a specific kind of spell to take him out. Season 4 had the same immune to magic enemy from season 1, though this one had no human controlling him, and thus was actually stronger. Season 5 brought back the Demon God fragment from season 1, but this one had more control over the human host and was able to use more of his power. [[WordOfGod If said Demon God from Season 1 had been at full power, that is, completely consumed the human host, Lina would not have been able to kill him.]]
* ''Manga/{{Holyland}}'': The first enemies Yuu fights are usually generic punks who know a bit of streetfighting. He starts coming up against more experienced fighters with genuine training in various disciplines. Eventually, he has to face prodigies and pros in combat-tested styles like kickboxing and UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts.
* ''Manga/RamenFighterMiki'', being a DeconstructiveParody of the FightingSeries, Inverts and subverts this trope because the opponents are not presented in order of menace to Miki, but in order of their CharacterAlignment: First we know ToughLove / AbusiveParent Miki’s mother, then BitchInSheepsClothing TheRival Megumi, later UnknownRival IdiotHero Kankuro, finishing with WorthyOpponent AngryGuardDog Toshiyuki, the only one of them who is not an ArrogantKungFuGuy.
* ''Manga/MedakaBox'': PlayedStraight with most of the antagonists. Medaka and her friends face an escalating threat of enemies from a justice-driven CreepyChild, a megalomaniacal MindControl abnormal, her RealityWarper ArchEnemy, and a PhysicalGod.
** It is briefly averted in the Jet Black Wedding Arc, where the suitors, despite their powerful abilities called Styles are nowhere near the level of Ajimu, the aforementioned PhysicalGod or Kumagawa.
** PlayedStraight in the final arc with Iihiko, who not only defeated Ajimu numerous times in the past, but is completely immune to abnormal or minus skills. Only the aforementioned styles provide a potential way to defeat him.
* Each of the ''Franchise/{{Zoids}}'' manga/anime has its own sorting algorithm of evil.
** In ''Manga/ZoidsChaoticCentury'', it goes in order of Saber Tiger to Geno Saurer to Death Stinger to Berserk Fury, with minor antagonists sprinkled inbetween.
** In [[Anime/ZoidsChaoticCentury the anime]], it went Saber Tiger, Geno Saurer, Death Saurer, Geno Breaker, Death Stinger, and Ultimate Death Saurer.
** ''Anime/ZoidsNewCentury'' gave us the Elephander, and then the Berserk Fury, with lesser antagonists sprinkled inbetween.
** ''Anime/ZoidsFuzors'' went in order of the Buster Fury, Matrix Dragon, Energy Liger, Gairyuki and Seismosaurus as its primary antagonists.
** ''Anime/ZoidsGenesis'' started off with the Bio Megaraptor, then the Bio Tricera, Bio Volcano and Bio Tyranno.
* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'' is rather guilty of this. While not every villain is more powerful than the last, the {{Big Bad}}s have become successively more powerful, to the point that currently there are multiple characters who are ''stronger than {{God}}''.
* ''Manga/MajinTanteiNougamiNeuro'' both demonstrates and subverts this trope. While the important bosses continue to increase in difficulty, the entire series takes place [[spoiler:while the titular character continues to grow weaker]]. It is shown later in the series that two characters of similar strength, fighting at different times, have different levels of difficulty.
* Played with in ''Anime/KillLaKill'', in which the Elite Four set up a series of battles for Ryuko based on the number of people they took out in the "student election" (a battle royale), in order from least to greatest. In theory, this would result in this trope...however, Gamagoori, who suggested the system, actually gamed it by deliberately fighting as few people as possible, hoping to take Ryuko out by himself. Consequently, even though he's fought first, he's not at all the weakest.
* By design or happenstance, the characters in both ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'' and ''LightNovel/LogHorizon'' have a DiegeticInterface that displays information about friends and enemies as befits their MMORPG game elements. ''Log Horizon'' is TheGameComeToLife while the initial story of ''Sword Art Online'' is WinToExit, making game information to beat a foe crucial to stories in both plots.
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' -- [[SignatureStyle as is its custom]] -- [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructs the scale]]. [[ContemplateOurNavels As the premise of the show sits atop an existential crisis,]] [[BlackAndWhiteMorality what is good and evil]] [[GrayAndGrayMorality is subject]] [[BlueAndOrangeMorality to discovery.]] So, rather than idealize the heroes and [[AndThatsTerrible vilify]] [[VillainAntagonist the villains,]] the hostile Angels consecutively lay siege to NERV HQ via ascending methods of potency and cruelty -- remember that menace, rather than strength, is the unit of measure on the Sliding Scale. Basically, the [[VillainOfTheWeek Angels]] assault their opponent pilots in [[TraumaCongaLine increasing increments of traumatic attacks]] that [[DeusAngstMachina perfectly fit the most prominent flaws of each hero at the time of the conflict]]. [[CerebusSyndrome The latter Angels seamlessly match their psychological attacks]] [[OhCrap with a physical presence that successfully exploits the gap made]] in the [[{{Pride}} AT-Field]] of the [[TheWoobie pilot under attack.]] The final Angel in the TV series -- Tabris -- marvelously seals the dual-pointed conflict with physical and ethereal enemies by being the strongest Angel in terms of physical effectiveness and also the most sympathetic [[spoiler: as Kaworu, thinking for himself, decides that Shinji destroying him is the right outcome of their conflict and so encourages and enables him.]] After Shinji defeats Tabris [[MoralEventHorizon and crosses]] [[ThouShaltNotKill the line]] he [[ResignedToTheCall never intended to cross,]] [[DespairEventHorizon the series brings the protagonist to the most important moment of his life.]] [[GainaxEnding We are given]] [[EsotericHappyEnding two]] [[BittersweetEnding endings]] as resolutions, [[WordOfGod though the show's creators insist]] that [[ShrugOfGod whichever ending you pick]] -- even both or neither -- [[BeYourself is the right ending for you.]] A special note goes to ''[[TheMovie The End of Evangelion,]]'' in that [[BigBad the villain]] ([[spoiler: Seele]]) actually intends [[RealityWarper to enable Shinji]] to have that which he [[IRejectYourReality truly wants]] [[spoiler: [[TheBadGuyWins and succeeds.]]]] The movie also produces the series' straightest example of TheDragon in the Mass-Produced EVA Series, who enter a memorable and [[EstablishingCharacterMoment personally-climactic (for her)]] [[DuelToTheDeath battle-to-the-death]] with [[TheLancer Asuka]] [[spoiler: [[HeroKiller and succeed.]]]]
* ''Manga/TigerMask'' manages to both play this straight and avert it:
** It's played straight in his conflict with Tiger's Cave, as the enemy organization holds back at first. The sequence is: Black Python, less talented but more experienced wrestler than Tiger Mask, Gorilla Man, [[TheBrute the single strongest character in the series in terms of raw strength]] but [[UnskilledButStrong with no technique at all,]] a group of five talented but inexperienced wrestlers and three trainers, using some of the most unbelievable fouls of the series (the trainees used a vinyl costume with a ''cannonball in the head'', a costume with steel fangs and needles that inject a paralytic substance, a rather nasty trick that allowed two of them to attack together, and an armored mask with a powered bite that could tear an arm off, while one of the trainers had sleeping powder in his costume and their boss was just freakishly strong), [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Red Death Mask,]] their HeroKiller, Mr. Kamikaze, the champion of their underground fighting ring (as Tiger Mask went to their underground fighting ring first, he had to deal with the NighInvulnerable Mapman and King of the Jungle with his trained cobra before dealing with Kamikaze), not as foulish as his fellow Tiger's Cave wrestlers but ''a lot'' stronger than even Red Death Mask, Miracle 3, a wrestler that excelled in excellent technique, overwhelming strength and cruel fouls ([[BeyondTheImpossible something impossible:]] [[WeakButSkilled an excellent technician would need to be too skinny to be incredibly strong,]] [[UnskilledButStrong a formidable strongman would have muscles that slow him down too much to use fine technique in combat,]] and if someone somehow managed to achieve both excellent technique and superhuman strength, he just wouldn't have had the time to learn the fouls), [[spoiler: actually three guys with the same costume and body build, one of which excelling in technique, one excelling in strength and one excelling in fouls,]] and as the grand finale, they use the fake Tiger Mask (strong but not as fearsome as Miracle 3) to lure him to a tournament with the most cruel heel wrestlers ''in the world.''
** Averted outside Tiger's Cave, as many wrestlers he dealt with early on remained powerful opponents even later, when Tiger Mask had become both stronger and more skilled with legal techniques, and in fact his worst opponents in the Tiger's Cave tournament are Wrestling/DickTheBruiser and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Kowalski Killer Kowalski,]] who had been some of his early opponents and in this rule-less tournament could finally show what they could ''really'' do. Some, on the other hand, suffered TheWorfEffect.
* {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer''. The Goblins are the weakest sapient villains in the setting, [[NotSoHarmlessVillain but are far more dangerous than that would suggest]] and often fatally underestimated, especially by the rookie adventures who most often deal with them. Goblins are smart enough to know their weakness and use [[CombatPragmatist all manner of methods to even the odds]] (including [[ZergRush attacking in numbers,]] [[HomeFieldAdvantage terrain familiarity,]] [[FakingTheDead faking death,]] [[TheFarmerAndTheViper faking pliability]]). [[RapePillageAndBurn What Goblins do,]] [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil especially to females,]] makes them just as dangerous and reprehensible as the more powerful villains. Goblins are often overlooked by experienced adventures as unglamorous or not worth the minuscule reward (as their weakness often limits them to attacking small locals that can't afford better), leaving them to rookie adventures who often find themselves out of their league. This give Goblins experience, equipment to salvage, and [[BreedingSlave means to grow their number,]] enabling them to become greater threats. Even the powerful, experienced heroine [[spoiler:Sword Maiden]] fell victim to them by being careless and unlucky, an ordeal made worse as her thinking no one would believe of such happening to her meant [[ThereAreNoTherapists she never got the help she needed for her trauma.]] A CentralTheme of the series is that this trope, heroes saving the day from increasingly powerful villains, is only possible because Goblin Slayer was doing the unceremonious task of keeping the lesser ones from destroying everything or becoming powerful while said heroes are busy.
[[/folder]]

* Played straight in ''VideoGame/BaldursGate''. Your character is targeted by assassins. It starts with some mooks who pose no threat to even a 1st level character, then a moderately powerful spellcaster [[note]]Who approaches your party in the middle of the street, loudly boasting that he is a master assassin, and proceeding to engage all of you and the guards all at once. TooDumbToLive.[[/note]] And so on, until you finally meet the godlike BigBad himself and easily dispatch him with all the loot and experience you've taken from his minions. The reward for killing you grows over time, attracting higher-level assassins. Also averted: the games allow you to wander wherever you want, and some of the starting areas are directly adjacent to areas with creatures that can kill low-level characters in one shot. It's also averted in the very beginning. The BigBad hunts you down personally and your foster father pulls a YouShallNotPass HeroicSacrifice to give you the chance to escape.

There are several ways to justify this; due to MonsterThreatExpiration, the current villain usually [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind Forgot To Level Grind]] while the heroes are out collecting TwentyBearAsses and are [[TrainingMontage Gonna Fly Now]] thereby outclassing him. This at least provides an in-story [[SophisticatedAsHell explanation]] for the {{Lamarck|WasRight}}ian evolution of evil from one bad guy to the next. In some cases the BigBad the heroes defeated last time was actually a mere member of a powerful organization. The others can show up to avenge their fallen comrade, so now we have the previous big bad times two or more. One of the more realistic possibilities, albeit one that's hard to justify in many stories, is a tournament structure, where the opponents become more formidable the closer the heroes get to the championship. In a series centering around military technology this can be explained by technological progress. The heroes will get new weapons, strategies, and better technology, but so will the enemy. In some cases, particularly the {{Shonen}} genre, it could be that an earlier BigBad who presented a powerful threat is now dead and can no longer grow anymore in power and by the time the heroes face the latest BigBad, the new villain (and subsequently the heroes themselves) will have had that much more time to become stronger that the previous villain, who will be left in the dust since his level of power will have been set in stone by the time of his final encounter with the heroes and subsequent death.

* ''Anime/MonsterRancher'' is complex: Pixie is the first of the Big Bad 4, but stronger than Gali and Greywolf -- it takes the entire team ''sans'' Golem to beat Pixie, but only Moochi or Tiger to beat Gali and Greywolf. Then they meet Moo (the BigBad) on the road quite early, and the encounter plays out like a HopelessBossFight. Although it's played straight in a sense, since Naga is the strongest of the Big Bad 4, and after that it's Moo in his Dragon Body who is incredibly powerful. But is subverted again, because in the next series they're up against one of his captains, who is obviously much weaker than Moo was.

** This is played straight throughout the continuum of all three series so far, the first villains were merely bullies that wanted to abuse their authority, then came Seto Kaiba who was willing to kill the protagonists as well as being a very high-ranking member of the corporate world. Then came Shadi and Dark Bakura, both with magical powers, with the latter being far more malign and able to alter reality, then came Pegasus who was a more personal threat with Pegasus who wanted the Puzzle to revive his dead lover, and a much longer arc. Marik arrives and really raises the CerebusSyndrome with far more deadlier stakes involved and more personal past to the Pharaoh. Once his dark side is revealed, it's either a TakeOverTheWorld or [[ForTheEvulz watching the world fall to ruin]] depending on which dub you watch. The biggest threats outside of Sieg who merely wanted to best Seto, were Dartz and Zorc, the one who was being summoned by Dark Bakura, with the former being even more dangerous as his ambitions to destroy humanity involving a dangerous EldritchAbomination needed offerings from two worlds with life forms, while the latter wanted merely TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. GX comes around and while Kagemaru merely wanted youth, Saitou, or rather the Light Of Destruction, wanted universal dominance and was kind of responsible for everything in the series, while [[spoiler: Darkness' AssimilationPlot]] was threatening, it was not on the same scale. 5Ds introduces [[spoiler: Z-ONE]] who is implied to have complete control of the space/time continuum and finally Zexal has Dr. Faker with the implied goal of destroying other dimensions.

** Threats thus far are an ordinary dark guild wielding a fairly weak soul-sucking demon, a rival turned evil who is on par with one of the main characters and wanted to unseal a similar demon, a rival guild whose master is on par with the BigGood who was trying to put Fairy Tail out of business, An old friend turned evil who was on par with the BigGood and wanted to revive [[SealedEvilInACan Zeref]] (this was when all threats start to guarantee death), one of the larger dark guilds who wanted to start a guild war, a foreign king who had no powers beyond a HumongousMecha who was willing to kill the guild for their magic, then a former guild member and his new, serious dark guild who easily [[CurbStompBattle Curbstomped]] the BigGood and were trying to create a world where only 10% of the population could survive. [[spoiler:Then, there's also the Black Dragon of the Apocalypse who the entire main and supporting cast can't put a scratch on and only leaves once it assumes they're dead.]] The most recent arc seems to be toning it back down with a government official who only wants one guild member, supposedly for the sake of the country at the cost of her life, [[spoiler:except it turns out that was a RedHerring and the true threat is one of the current dragonslayers [[FutureBadass from the]] [[FutureMeScaresMe future]] with seven dragons that can curbstomp most of the mages at the place, and even the dragonslayers are hard-pressed to hurt them.]] It gets toned back down when the next arc involves at worst a fairly average demon and another rival turned evil (though she was [[{{Jerkass}} pretty nasty]] even before that), but it sets up the events for the final dark guild filled with genocidal demons who want to [[TheMagicGoesAway erase all the magic in the continent,]] all for the purpose of reviving their leader, who, from the words and actions of other characters in the know, is a demon on par with both [[BigBad Zeref]] [[spoiler: and the previously-mentioned Black Dragon.]] The [[spoiler: 2nd]] Time-Skip also has format to its villains. Orochi's Fin is only a problem for its rival guild Lamia Scale as Natsu with his off-screen training takes down its legions of monsters with ease.The black magic cult Avatar seems to be just as weak until Natsu sees [[spoiler: [[FakeDefector Gray Fullbuster]] working with the cult until it's revealed to be a ploy to expose Avatar.]] An entire empire that wants to invade Ishgar for the Lumen Histoire, which has a Praetorian Guard with members on par with [[WorldsStrongestMan God Serena,]] [[spoiler: who defected for unknown reasons]] and is led by some dude named Spriggan [[spoiler:which is another name for Zeref,]] and finally [[spoiler:the previously mentioned Black Dragon who is opposed to ''everyone else'' and wants to kill all the remaining dragon slayers.]]

*** During the first Virtual World Arc, the Big Five's Ace monster was "Five-Headed Dragon", a 5000 ATK beatstick that couldn't be destroyed by anything other than LIGHT monsters. The show's 4 premier examples of InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons cannot defeat it, forcing Kaiba and Yugi to fuse their ace cards together.

* ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheSecondStory'': Invoked by Lucifer ([[DubNameChange or Cyril]]) of God's Ten Wise Men. Instead of having all ten fight you at once, he splits them up among the VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon in order to increase the party's chance of success. The reason for this is that he, true to his [[TheDevil namesake]], wants to backstab his way into [[AGodAmI ruling the Universe by himself]].

** Played straight in ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown''. The aliens spearhead their invasion not with their mighty battleships, but small scout [=UFOs=] manned by Sectoids, their puniest, least effective soldiers, carrying out low-profile abduction missions. It's only after humanity begins shooting down alien spacecraft that the invaders step up their game with terror strikes at heavily-populated areas, and larger [=UFOs=] crewed by alien shock troopers or mechanical war machines. It takes several months more for the aliens to send in their battleships, and for their psionically-powerful leader caste to actually appear in the field directing their forces, by which point XCOM will have reverse-engineered alien plasma weapons and started deploying their own psionic soldiers. [[spoiler:And it's all entirely {{Justified}}. The invasion is a test by the Ethereals to see if humanity can balance physical fitness and PsychicPowers, and with every successful mission and psionic operative you make, [[INeedYouStronger you're only proving your worthiness in their eyes]].]]
** Played straight and justified in ''VideoGame/XCOM2''. In this scenario, the aliens averted this trope and steamrolled XCOM during the initial invasion, and have spent twenty years [[VichyEarth ruling Earth]] as the ADVENT Administration. To keep the humans in their [[GildedCage shining city centers]] pacified, the aliens use HalfHumanHybrid peacekeeper soldiers and robotic units more than their exotic, inhuman forces. It's only after months of XCOM victories that ADVENT starts deploying their most destructive units like [[HeavilyArmoredMook Andromedons]] and [[WalkingTank Sectopods]].
** Justified once again in ''VideoGame/XCOMChimeraSquad'': The villains simply ''[[AvertedTrope didn't]]'' [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind forget to level grind]], and have been busy when you were dealing with the other organizations.

** ''Anime/DigimonSavers'' averts this, in that the first major "villain" they encounter is of the Mega level. Then, however, it turns out that he's not actually a bad guy, and the main antagonist becomes ''Gotsumon'' (a Rookie level digimon), the human-hating minion of the aforementioned bad guy. He ends up manipulating another Mega level digimon into attacking the humans, and then it's revealed that everything bad and the reason why Digimon distrust humans is due to the actions of Dr. Akihiro Kurata -- a ''human.'' Later, it appears that Kurata is going to be usurped by [[spoiler: Belphemon]], Kurata instead [[spoiler: fuses with it and remains in control of it until his defeat.]] Yggdrasil rounds out the series as the penultimate antagonist, but considering his actions are due to Kurata's own misdeeds, Kurata still remains the [[BigBad main villain]] of the series.

* ''Manga/{{Eyeshield 21}}'' and other such sports manga tend to increase in scope as the story goes on. Athletes face opponents from other cities first and other countries later. Played straight ''and'' subverted earlier in the manga, where the Devil Bats' first opponents are a very weak team, followed immediately by the uber-talented and powerful Ojou White Knights, then the moderately challenging but not all that Zokugaku Chameleons. But, naturally, once they get to the fall tournament, the easy games all happen first. It is a knock-out tourney so only the best get far. Subverted again in the Kanto tournament, where the match-ups are decided through a lottery. They do not go against the nine-times-in-a-row-champions Shinryuuji Naga in the finals, or in the semi-finals, but in their ''very first match''. They then face their ultimate rivals, the White Knights in their second match, and fellow darkhorse team, the Hakushuu Dinosaurs in the final. All are very close, very tough matches, and which one was the best is a matter of debate among the fandom.

* Played with in ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'', where the first major antagonist that Negi faced -- Evangeline -- is the strongest character in the series, only winning the fight by a combination of luck and the fact that Eva wasn't really taking the fight seriously/more or less let him win. Played with because part of Eva's curse was still in effect, and when he first fights her without it, he can barely last three minutes...which is impressive in itself once you see how strong she ''really'' is.

* ''Comicbook/TheAvengers'': During his tenure as the writer, Creator/JimShooter pitted the team against a series of progressively more powerful and more dangerous opponents, all of whom had powers that bordered on invincibility. They faced the genetically enhanced Atlantean Tyrak (who had superhuman strength), the robot Ultron (who was equipped with an "encephalo-ray" which could place his enemies in a death-like state and possessed an indestructible adamantium body), the mad scientist Graviton (who had the ability to control one of the fundamental forces of the universe), Count Nefaria (a FlyingBrick), and eventually Korvac (a would-be warlord from the 31st century who had obtained godlike powers by absorbing part of the Power Cosmic from Galactus's abandoned starship). The first four typically took down Thor and Wonder Man (the strongest members of the team) with a single attack, while Korvac actually managed to kill the entire team in battle [[spoiler: before being driven to despair by the apparent betrayal of his similarly cosmically-empowered wife and restoring the team to life with his final breath]].

* Notably subverted in ''[[FanFic/UltimateSleepwalker Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams]]'' and ''[[FanFic/UltimateSpiderWoman Ultimate Spider-Woman: Change with the Light]]''. Villains who appear early in the series have continued to remain deadly threats to the protagonists throughout the entire series, and in some cases outright beat them and [[TheBadGuyWins actually succeed in their evil plots]]. Even when they don't, they often manage to [[EvilVersusEvil defeat other villains]], sometimes in an EnemyMine situation with their heroic nemesis.

** ZigZagged in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsFriendshipGames''. The ''actual'' BigBad, [[DeanBitterman Crystal Prep's Principal]] [[FourEyesZeroSoul Abacus Cinch]] is a NonActionBigBad who [[SoreLoser just wants to preserve]] her school's winning streak [[SeriousBusiness whatever the cost]]. However, [[AlternateSelf Human Twilight Sparkle]], the one [[TheHeavy who actually drives the plot]], originally starts out as [[AntiVillain a very polite young lady on the opposing Shadowbolt's team]] [[CuriosityIsACrapshoot whose desire to understand the magic she's been sensing around Canterlot High]] causes problems for everyone. [[PeerPressureMakesYouEvil When Cinch and the other Shadowbolts convince her to unleash the magic she's gathered despite having little clue of how to use it]], she [[spoiler:[[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope transforms into]] [[SuperPoweredEvilSide Midnight]] [[PaintItBlack Sparkle]], a {{RealityWarper}}-level threat [[MadScientist whose desire to understand magic is so strong]] ''[[OmnicidalManiac that she nearly destroys the human world]] [[LackOfEmpathy without a care to get to Equestria]]'']], something no other antagonist has ever gone to the lengths to do, [[spoiler:and forces Sunset to [[GoldenSuperMode absorb her friends' magic and become Daydream Shimmer]] to fight her alone (with timely assistance from [[SpannerInTheWorks Spike]])]]. In the end, [[spoiler:Twilight and the other Shadowbolts pull a HeelFaceTurn, but Cinch [[NeverMyFault refuses to even take responsibility]]]].

** Largely averted in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 1}}''. The game doesn't stop you from wandering anywhere you like right from the beginning, meaning that you could end up encountering enemies that are far too powerful for you to handle. Once the XP and the ammo start rolling in, however, you can tear the world up at your leisure.
** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'' benefits from the trope. The enemy progression is: giant ants and scorpions at first then rats and geckos. The Den will probably see your first human vs. human battle with nearly everyone in leather armor, pistols or [=SMGs=]. Vault City will have metal armors and assault rifles. Redding is fairly light but piss off the Salvatores in New Reno and your ass will get lasered -- the Sierra Army Depot nearby has various battle robots. If you are evil, Broken Hills will see your first human vs. supermutant battle. The New California Republic has policemen armed with gauss rifles. In gameplay terms, that means ouch. Both the raider hideout and Vault 15 is full of raiders in leather armor and boasting pistols and hunting rifles but three of them has combat armor and assault rifles. Mariposa is a deathtrap full of super mutants armed with laser rifles, flamethrowers, miniguns, you name it. San Francisco is light but Navarro and the Oil Rig are both utterly deadly with every single combatant clad in power armor and boasting energy weapons. Oh, and the BigBad has 999 HP, a really powerful plasma cannon, a big-ass knife and about a dozen minigun turrets for backup. [[note]]Speedrunning the game is hard: you can get to the final battle via San Francisco. But to get there from your starting location, you have to pass near Navarro which is chock full of Enclave soldiers and plasma turrets. Regardless of how good you are, chances are very high that you will stumble into at least one Enclave patrol or a pack of Aliens/Floaters/Centaurs/Deathclaws. If this happens at level 2, you should reload immediately since you will be dead in the first turn anyway. Even an experienced character will have trouble here.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem''

* Zig-zagged in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}''. You start out fighting several very dangerous targets, by order being a PE Teacher who sexually, emotionally and physically abuses all of his atheletes, a BrokenAce artist who has resorted into fleecing and plagiarizing the work of his pupils, abusing them and letting them die for the sake of getting profit from their work, then a vicious con-man with Mafia connections. The set of 3 afterwards, however are significantly less evil then the first 3, namely a suicidal shut in, a corporate executive who used to be a much better person and parent towards his daughter until he got drowned in power and tried to sell her to an abusive man for the sole purpose of political fame, and finally a prosecutor who attempts to defend the court even when it means rigging cases, with the former and latter becoming a loyal ally of yours afterwards. The Black Mask assassin follows this trend [[spoiler:as he too is trying to stop the BigBad from the get-go, only for a cost of the lives of thousands, including some of the beloved parents of your teammates.]] Everything takes a steep slope when it comes to the BigBad himself and the GreaterScopeVillain, [[spoiler:as the BigBad is a complete monster of a politican and a social darwinist that doesn't seem to exist for anything other than causing misery for all of Japan, and the GreaterScopeVillain is a false god who rigged everything up to this point for the sole purpose to rationalize his iron fisted rule towards the public.]] In ''Royal'', the true final boss that you fight [[spoiler:after the GreaterScopeVillain]] is even anything but evil, [[spoiler:he's just your school counselor confidant, who is revealed as a Persona user that the GreaterScopeVillain accidentially corrupted and unleashes a salvation plan which rids the world of all suffering by rewriting history so all tragic events, especially ones that your teammates faced didn't happen.]] Not to say that this is implied to be [[spoiler:just a radicalized and exaggerated version of what he is initially going to do.]]

* Somewhat justified in the ''{{Videogame/STALKER}}'' series. You start out at the fringe of teh Zone with basic weapons and armor (usually because you've had a BagOfSpilling moment when you almost got killed somehow, or you've just come to [[DeathWorld the Zone]]), but you won't be facing anything more dangerous than small pockets of bandits and small-fry mutant wildlife for a while. Granted, [[EverythingTryingToKillYou those are nothing to sneeze at]], but later on they're more of a nuisance (and a chance of getting pistol and shotgun ammo) than a threat, and will only get you killed if you get careless. Moving closer to the center of the Zone, you'll be facing heavily armed and armored troops in large numbers as well as the Zone's most powerful and frightening mutants. [[SortingAlgorithmOfWeaponEffectiveness At least you can adapt your gear accordingly]], [[TheEnemyWeaponsAreBetter thanks in no small part to those heavily armed troops you kill off or find dead, and their map-marked stashes]].

* Generally played straight in any given ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' game, ignoring some oddness with midbosses and {{bonus boss}}es. Averted for the series as a whole, where there's no particular scaling of villain power or threat. As characters are reused, their power relative to the point in the game you encounter them is usually relative to the amount of effort they want to exert to try and stop you.

** Downplayed in ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}''. The Mechon mostly follow this, but the enemies found in the overworld can be many levels higher than you, for example, level 35 enemies that can be found in the starting area and will all join in to kill you if you try to attack one.

** Season 8 downright inverts this trope with [[spoiler:Cozy Glow,]] who is only a filly, albeit an [[EnfanteTerrible extremely psychopathic one.]]

** Subverted in ''Anime/DragonBallGT'', where the first ArcVillain turned out to be pathetically weak, but had the ability to possess the bodies of the various insanely superpowered supporting characters surrounding the hero in order to increase its strength. It is later played straight [[spoiler: after possessing Vegeta]] where he becomes much stronger than a Super Saiyian 3 Goku, and a Super Saiyan 4 was needed to defeat him. The next ArcVillain was Super 17, who forced Goku to go all out, and the final BigBad, [[MadeOfEvil Omega Shenron]] was much stronger than Super Saiyian 4 Goku on his own. It took a fusion and an Universal Spirit Bomb to take him down, making him the strongest villain in the ''GT'' canon.
** Beerus from ''[[Anime/DragonballZBattleOfGods Battle of Gods]]'' is even higher in power than any villain in canon, being an official "God of Destruction" for his universe and is [[TheDreaded feared by all the gods in the universe]]. He curb stomps Super Saiyan 3 Goku without trying and [[spoiler:the Super Saiyan God form, the strongest Super Saiyan state at that point,]] only forced him to go to 70% of his power and Goku still lost. That's right, Goku famous for almost always winning, [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter was outmatched by someone who will always be better than him]]. And the real kicker, [[spoiler:his assistant Whis is actually much stronger than him]] and there are eleven other universe's Gods of Destruction who could be [[SerialEscalation stronger than Beerus]].

** This is played straight throughout the continuum of all three series so far, the first villains were merely bullies that wanted to abuse their authority, then came Seto Kaiba who was willing to kill the protagonists as well as being a very high-ranking member of the corporate world. Then came Shadi and Dark Bakura, both with magical powers, with the latter being far more malign and able to alter reality, then came Pegasus who was a more personal threat with Pegasus who wanted the Puzzle to revive his dead lover, and a much longer arc. Marik arrives and really raises the CerebusSyndrome with far more deadlier stakes involved and more personal past to the Pharaoh. Once his dark side is revealed, it's either a TakeOverTheWorld or [[ForTheEvulz watching the world fall to ruin]] depending on which dub you watch. The biggest threats outside of Sieg who merely wanted to best Seto, were Dartz and Zorc, the who was being summoned by Dark Bakura]], with the former being even more dangerous as his ambitions to destroy humanity involving a dangerous EldritchAbomination needed offerings from two worlds with life forms, while the latter wanted merely TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. GX comes around and while Kagemaru merely wanted youth, Saitou, or rather the Light Of Destruction, wanted universal dominance and was kind of responsible for everything in the series, while [[spoiler: Darkness' AssimilationPlot]] was threatening, it was not on the same scale. 5Ds introduces [[spoiler: Z-ONE]] who is implied to have complete control of the space/time continuum and finally Zexal has Dr. Faker with the implied goal of destroying other dimensions.

*** The next villain, Dartz, upped the ante even further with "Orichalcos Shunoros" which, because of the method by which it was summoned, had a whopping 20000 ATK points, although it lost ATK whenever it battled a monster. And then there is his "Divine Serpent Geh", which has''infinite'' ATK points, but had no immunity to card effects, a powerful restricting effect, and would cause Dartz to automatically lose should it be destroyed (more of a side effect of him having 0 Life Points at the time it was Summoned). And then there was the Great Leviathan, an EldritchAbomination, rather than a Duel Monster, so powerful the Egyptian Gods had to gang up on it outside the card game, and even then only barely won.

* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' uses a series of EvolutionaryLevels: Baby, In-Training, Rookie, Champion, Ultimate, Mega. The team has to advance to the next level to face the next level of enemies. This gets a little ridiculous in later series, where every bad guy seems to be Mega level and some are just that much more powerful then other Megas.

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' both plays this trope straight and averts it. While the enemies fought in each series grow stronger the closer that you get to the end, the fact that each volume stars a different hero means that [[BigBad Big Bads]] don't necessarily have to be stronger than what came before. For example, while Dio Brando of Part 3 was quite dangerous, he wasn't as immediate a threat to the world as the Pillar Men of Part 2.

** Threats thus far are an ordinary dark guild wielding a fairly weak soul-sucking demon, a rival turned evil who is on par with one of the main characters and wanted to unseal a similar demon, a rival guild whose master is on par with the BigGood who was trying to put Fairy Tail out of business, An old friend turned evil who was on par with the BigGood and wanted to revive [[SealedEvilInACan Zeref]] (this was when all threats start to guarantee death), one of the larger dark guilds who wanted to start a guild war, a foreign king who had no powers beyond a HumongousMecha who was willing to kill the guild for their magic, then a former guild member and his new, serious dark guild who easily [[CurbStompBattle CurbStomped]] the BigGood and were trying to create a world where only 10% of the population could survive. [[spoiler:Then, there's also the Black Dragon of the Apocalypse who the entire main and supporting cast can't put a scratch on and only leaves once it assumes they're dead.]] The most recent arc seems to be toning it back down with a government official who only wants one guild member, supposedly for the sake of the country at the cost of her life, [[spoiler:except it turns out that was a RedHerring and the true threat is one of the current dragonslayers [[FutureBadass from the]] [[FutureMeScaresMe future]] with seven dragons that can curbstomp most of the mages at the place, and even the dragonslayers are hard-pressed to hurt them.]] It gets toned back down when the next arc involves at worst a fairly average demon and another rival turned evil (though she was [[{{Jerkass}} pretty nasty]] even before that), but it sets up the events for the final dark guild filled with genocidal demons who want to [[TheMagicGoesAway erase all the magic in the continent,]] all for the purpose of reviving their leader, who, from the words and actions of other characters in the know, is a demon on par with both [[BigBad Zeref]] [[spoiler: and the previously-mentioned Black Dragon.]] The [[spoiler: 2nd]] Time-Skip also has format to its villains. Orochi's Fin is only a problem for its rival guild Lamia Scale as Natsu with his off-screen training takes down its legions of monsters with ease. A black magic cult Avatar seems to be just as weak until Natsu sees [[spoiler: [[FakeDefector Gray Fullbuster]] working with the cult until it's revealed to be a ploy to expose Avatar.]] An entire country that wants to invade Ishgar for the Lumen Histoire, has a Praetorian Guard with members on par with [[WorldsStrongestMan God Serena,]] [[spoiler: who defected for unknown reasons]] and is led by some dude named Spriggan [[spoiler:which is another name for Zeref,]] and finally [[spoiler:the previously mentioned Black Dragon who is opposed to ''everyone else'' and wants to kill all the remaining dragon slayers.]]

* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' -- [[SignatureStyle as is its custom]] -- [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructs the scale]]. [[ContemplateOurNavels As the premise of the show sits atop an existential crisis,]] [[BlackAndWhiteMorality what is good and evil]] [[GrayAndGrayMorality is subject]] [[BlueAndOrangeMorality to discovery.]] So, rather than idealize the heroes and [[AndThatsTerrible vilify]] [[VillainAntagonist the villains,]] the hostile Angels consecutively lay siege to NERV HQ via ascending methods of potency and cruelty -- remember that menace, rather than strength, is the unit of measure on the Sliding Scale. Basically, the [[VillainOfTheWeek Angels]] assault their opponent pilots in [[TraumaCongaLine increasing increments of traumatic attacks]] that [[DeusAngstMachina perfectly fit the most prominent flaws of each hero at the time of the conflict].] [[CerebusSyndrome The latter Angels seamlessly match their psychological attacks]] [[OhCrap with a physical presence that successfully exploits the gap made]] in the [[{{Pride}} AT-Field]] of the [[TheWoobie pilot under attack.]] The final Angel in the TV series -- Tabris -- marvelously seals the dual-pointed conflict with physical and ethereal enemies by being the strongest Angel in terms of physical effectiveness and also the most sympathetic [[spoiler: as Kaworu, thinking for himself, decides that Shinji destroying him is the right outcome of their conflict and so encourages and enables him.]] After Shinji defeats Tabris [[MoralEventHorizon and crosses]] [[ThouShaltNotKill the line]] he [[ResignedToTheCall never intended to cross,]] [[DespairEventHorizon the series brings the protagonist to the most important moment of his life.]] [[GainaxEnding We are given]] [[EsotericHappyEnding two]] [[BittersweetEnding endings]] as resolutions, [[WordOfGod though the show's creators insist]] that [[ShrugOfGod whichever ending you pick]] -- even both or neither -- [[BeYourself is the right ending for you.]] A special note goes to ''[[TheMovie The End of Evangelion,]]'' in that [[BigBad the villain]] ([[spoiler: Seele]]) actually intends [[RealityWarper to enable Shinji]] to have that which he [[IRejectYourReality truly wants]] [[spoiler: [[TheBadGuyWins and succeeds.]]]] The movie also produces the series' straightest example of TheDragon in the Mass-Produced EVA Series, who enter a memorable and [[EstablishingCharacterMoment personally-climactic (for her)]] [[DuelToTheDeath battle-to-the-death]] with [[TheLancer Asuka]] [[spoiler: [[HeroKiller and succeed.]]]]

* {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer''. The Goblins are the weakest sapient villains in the setting, [[NotSoHarmlessVillain but are far more dangerous than that would suggest]] and often fatally underestimated, especially by the rookie adventures who most often deal with them. Goblins are smart enough to know they're weakness and use [[CombatPragmatist all manner of methods to even the odds]] (including [[ZergRush attacking in numbers,]] [[HomeFieldAdvantage terrain familiarity,]] [[FakingTheDead faking death,]] [[TheFarmerAndTheViper faking pliability]]). [[RapePillageAndBurn What Goblins do,]] [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil especially to females,]] makes them just as dangerous and reprehensible as the more powerful villains. Goblins are oft overlooked by experienced adventures as unglamorous or not worth the minuscule reward (as their weakness oft limits them to attacking small locals that can't afford better), leaving them to rookie adventures who often find themselves out of their league. This give Goblins experience, equipment to salvage, and [[BreedingSlave means to grow their number,]] enabling them to become greater threats. Even the powerful, experienced heroine [[spoiler:Sword Maiden]] fell victim to them by being careless and unlucky, an ordeal made worse as her thinking no one would believe of such happening to her meant [[ThereAreNoTherapists she never got the help she needed for her trauma.]] A CentralTheme of the series is that this trope, heroes saving the day from increasingly powerful villains, is only possible because Goblin Slayer was doing the unceremonious task of keeping the lesser ones from destroying everything or becoming powerful while said heroes are busy.

* Downplayed in ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}''. The mechon mostly follow this, but the enemies found in the overworld can be many levels higher than you, for example level 35 enemies that can be found in the starting area and will all join in to kill you if you try to attack one.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'': there's a near max-level monster wandering around the very first area (Luciel the Eternal, who is 32 levels ''above'' the LevelCap). And you'll find extremely low-level creatures hanging out in end-game areas as well. Much of the early to mid game will have you carefully avoiding enemies that are way too powerful for you to take on (which makes it all the more satisfying when you finally are able to fight them).

* ''Manga/MutekiKanbanMusume'', being a DeconstructiveParody of the FightingSeries, Inverts and subverts this trope because the opponents are not presented in order of menace to Miki, but in order of their CharacterAlignment: First we know ToughLove / AbusiveParent Miki’s mother, then BitchInSheepsClothing TheRival Megumi, later UnknownRival IdiotHero Kankuro, finishing with WorthyOpponent AngryGuardDog Toshiyuki, the only one of them who is not an ArrogantKungFuGuy.