History TheLoad / AnimeAndManga

* ''Anime/DigimonTamers'': Kazu and Kenta become this to the Tamers and their partners once they arrive the Digital World. Soon after entering the strange world, the two aren't as aware of the dangers like the Tamers do; they and Rika, who tries to save them, end up getting separated from the others thanks to a Data Stream. Once they manage to go back to the original starting point, Rika wanders alone and tells the two to stay back in case the other three Tamers may come back there again. Those three do come back, but Kazu and Kenta have left the location to go look for Rika, and then, another Data Stream from a distance shows up and catches them off-guard (mainly Kazu and Kenta), causing these three to be transported to another place yet again. The two stop being Loads once they get their own Digimon Partners and finally become useful, saving their friends several times in occasion.
** Prior to this, Kazu gives Takato a self-made Blue Card which allows Growlmon to digivolve to [=WarGrowlmon=] to defeat Indramon.

** Vegeta zig-zags this. While he does do some useful things and is a highly competent fighter, his arrogance, stubborness and insecurity causes a LOT more problems than he fixes. He's actually responsible for every major story arc in ''Anime/DragonBallZ''. He was the BigBad of the Saiyan saga, tipped Freeza off about the Dragon Balls, let Cell absorb Android #18 so he could fight his perfect form, and agreed to Babidi's mind control to fight evenly with Goku, resulting in Buu being released. He usually makes up for it afterward by helping out against the BigBad but often times it's his mistakes that made the confrontation necessary in the first place.

** Karin was a subversion at first. Despite having little combat skill she was treated as Sasuke's most valuable member (mainly thanks to her sensing and healing ability as well as logical skills). This changed in the fight with Danzo where, after being captured, Sasuke sees her squarely as this and tries to off her. Emphasis on "Sasuke sees her as this". The general conscious within the fandom is: offing your only medic? This is ultimately played straight as it is shown that Sasuke, Juugo and Suigetsu all had acceptional healing factors, and Juugo is capable of healing injuries that would completely drain Karin's chakra.

** Karin was a subversion at first. Despite having little combat skill she was treated as Sasuke's most valuable member (mainly thanks to her sensing and healing ability as well as logical skills). This changed in the fight with Danzo where, after being captured, Sasuke sees her squarely as this and tries to off her. Emphasis on "Sasuke sees her as this". The general conscious within the fandom is: offing your only medic?

* Played straight and averted with Kodaka in ''LightNovel/{{Haganai}}''. Played straight during the gaming sessions in episodes 2 and 5. To be fair, he's still relatively new to the game (as opposed to Sena and Yozora, who both are familiar with it), and in the case of episode 5, he was playing a game where his character didn't even have any abilities, compared to the girls, who all had some kind of role or abilties for the group. Averted in real life situations, where he actually does do things and is essentially the linchpin to keeping the group together during said sessions.

* [[TheChick Fuu]] from ''Anime/SamuraiChamploo''. Some may argue that she's the one keeping the group together, but it's undeniable that she can't hold her own against serious opponents. Although this is arguably the point; if Fuu ''could'' hold her own, she'd have no need for bodyguards and there would be no show.

* Azmaria in the anime version of ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'' starts out as TheChick, but devolves into The Load. She was never a real combatant to begin with, but [[spoiler:her Apostle wings and healing powers stop working near the end of the story, and she does absolutely nothing in the final battle against Aion]].

* One of the reasons why many fans have a problem with the first anime of ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist'' is due to the fact Al was somewhat this to his brother. Completely avoided in ''[[Manga/FullmetalAlchemist Brotherhood]]'' when Al is able to hold his own with the strongest homunculus, Pride, and Kimblee who had a Philosopher Stone with him. One of the main reasons Al was something of The Load in the first anime was that he was the only prominent alchemist in the series who didn't have portable alchemy circles, and could not transmute by clapping. This is avoided midway through the manga when he [[spoiler:regains his memories of the night at the Gate and]] gains the power to transmute by clapping.

* You may argue this, but in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamAGE'', the [[EnfantTerrible disturbing]] Desil Galette eventually became deadweight for the Vagans when he grew up. Although he was still scary, the way he was developed made him more of a liability than an asset. True to the trope, his Kronos had to be carried away from a battle by his brother, Zeheart. [[spoiler: This culiminated to a head when another battle proved to be futile for the Vagan forces and Desil tried to save his ass by using his X-Rounder skills to get other soldiers killed by using them as Vagan shields. Zeheart decided there that his brother had no reason to live anymore and had his entire team leave Desil at the mercy of Asemu Asuno.]]

** Her Togepi as well, which is the reason for its hatedom, [[{{Americans Hate Tingle}} mainly to the non-Japanese audience.]] It has rarely taken action, such as [[{{Deus ex Machina}} saving the heroes from a dangerous situation.]]

* Pacifica of ''LightNovel/ScrappedPrincess'' is frequently afraid of [[LampshadeHanging being the load]], constantly having to be protected by her adoptive sibling bodyguards, Shannon and Raquel. [[spoiler:Fortunately, she does turn out to have useful special powers.]]

* ''LightNovel/SorcerousStabberOrphen'' has the trolls Volkan and Dortin. While they're not villains, they still have an antagonistic relationship with the main character Orphen since they owe him money and the sheer amount of times they inconvenience him or make his life more difficult far outnumber the amount of times they do anything to help Orphen and his party out. It also doesn't help that Volkan has a case of SmallNameBigEgo, making his constant disruption of the main character's life just that much more obnoxious to Orphen.

* The title character from ''Anime/TheHeroicLegendOfArslan'' starts out as this. This is justified since he starts out as an inexperienced teenager with no experience in war or politics who finds himself as acting king in exile of a conquered nation after his father is bested in battle and captured, and because of that is totally dependent on a handful of loyal retainers for survival and to come up with a plan to retake their home. A sizable part of the story is [[CharacterDevelopment Arslan growing from that scared kid into someone worthy of being called a king]].

* Rui from ''Anime/TelepathyShoujoRan'' arguably qualifies. Sure, he is supposed to have the ability to reduce and amplify psychic powers, but that hardly ever comes into play. Most of the time he acts as a male DamselInDistress and has to get saved by Ran and Midori numerous times. Worse, he even gets in the way of the RomanticTwoGirlFriendship dynamic between the two female leads -- and his personality is pretty bland to boot. He redeems himself somewhat in later episodes, but not by much.

** Vegeta zig-zags this. While he does do some useful things and is a highly competent fighter, his arrogance and [[IWorkAlone refusal to cooperate]] causes a LOT more problems than he fixes. He's actually responsible for every major story arc in ''Anime/DragonBallZ''. He was the BigBad of the Saiyan saga, tipped Freeza off about the Dragon Balls, let Cell absorb Android #18 so he could fight his perfect form, and agreed to Babidi's mind control to fight evenly with Goku, resulting in Buu being released. He usually makes up for it afterward by helping out against the BigBad but often times it's his mistakes that made the confrontation necessary in the first place.