History TheLoad / AnimeAndManga

** Vegeta zig-zags this. While he does do some useful things and is a highly competent fighter, his arrogance 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.

* Ran Mouri from ''Manga/DetectiveConan''. If her martial skills are not requested, generally she doesn't contribute much to the resolution of the cases. She may or may not give some hints to Shinichi/Conan that help him solving cases.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}''

%%
%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%
%%
%%

** Zia in season 1 is a lesser example: Her skill at deciphering kipus early in the series is essential to the plot, but after this, she's prone to being kidnapped and needing rescuing a lot while contributing very little to the plot, especially when the story moves away from her people towards the tribes of the Amazon.

* ''Anime/SailorMoon'': The eventual role of the Outer Senshi. While their B-team status means they generally don't earn big wins on their own, their original premise was as fairly well informed side characters who could still provide an extra hand and a different point of view made them useful. In the anime, however, they were introduced as super capable - [[BadassDecay until they weren't]] - stubborn, and contradictory, yet always proven wrong by the main cast and unable to actually defeat threats on their own. This results in a severe dissonance in the final arc, where rather than the Outer's establishing their credibility, they make Usagi buy into their paranoia about the Starlights potentially being threats and it just comes off as them being petty and shortsighted.

----
Load Anime https://load-anime.online/

* ''Anime/SailorMoon'': The eventual role of the Outer Senshi. While their B-team status means they generally don't earn big wins on their own, their original premise was as fairly well informed side characters who could still provide an extra hand and a different point of view made them useful. In the anime, however, they were introduced as super capable - [[BadassDecay until they weren't]] - stubborn, and contradictory, yet always proven wrong by the main cast and unable to actually defeat threats on their own. This results in a severe dissonance in the final arc, where rather than the Outer's establishing their credibility, they make Usagi buy into their paranoia about the Starlights potentially being threats and it just comes off as them being petty and shortsighted.

** Downplayed with Misty's Psyduck. While he does occasionally have [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass sudden bursts of competence]], in many of his early appearances he is more or less useless, unless he gets a headache, and often actually does more harm than good thanks to not being able to use most of his moves properly. The fact that he has a bad tendency to [[JumpedAtTheCall eagerly leap from his Pokéball]] when Misty requires another of her Pokémon, effectively ruining whatever strategy she had, does not help. That being said, once Psyduck has a headache, he proves to be scarily competent with his Psychic type moves and has managed to save the day on more than one occasion. Come Sun&Moon, this has become subverted.

* ''Anime/{{SailorMoon}}'': The eventual role of the Outer Senshi. While their B-team status means they generally don't earn big wins on their own, their original premise was as fairly well informed side characters who could still provide an extra hand and a different point of view made them useful. In the anime, however, they were introduced as super capable - [[BadassDecay until they weren't]] - stubborn, and contradictory, yet always proven wrong by the main cast and unable to actually defeat threats on their own. This results in a severe dissonance in the final arc, where rather than the Outer's establishing their credibility, they make Usagi buy into their paranoia about the Starlights potentially being threats and it just comes off as them being petty and shortsighted.

* ''Manga/AxisPowersHetalia'' has Italy. The only thing he contributes is good food and white flags to surrender with. Otherwise, he eats, sleeps and on occasion makes strange noises, all to Germany's dismay.

* ''Manga/BlackCat''

* Played straight and averted with Kodaka in ''LightNovel/BokuWaTomodachiGaSukunai''. 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.

* Haruto Sakuraba of ''Manga/{{Eyeshield 21}}'' starts off as a totally useless member of the Ojo White Knights, and his friend Shin Seijuro, the team's ace responsible for pretty much all of the team's victories, admits that Sakuraba really doesn't contribute anything. Painfully aware that the team could do without him, Sakuraba gets an ImportantHaircut and [[TookALevelInBadass Takes a Level in Badass]] after one summer of training, shedding his status as The Load.

* ''Manga/KatekyoHitmanReborn'': A lot of the female characters’ (even the ones that were introduced to be capable hitwomen) significance as characters and fighters slowly fade away as the series progresses, and a lot of them began to fill supportive roles instead or even worse, only significant enough to serve as [[SatelliteLoveInterest the male characters’ development]]. Kyoko and Haru get the worst treatment however, as they are always [[DamselInDistress the damsels of distress]] in any given situation that calls for it.

* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima''
** When a small handful of non-magically trained, {{ordinary|HighSchoolStudent}} students enter the [[MagicalLand Magic World]] without main lead and teacher Negi knowing, he spends most of the TrappedInAnotherWorld arc distressed about their safety. [[spoiler: Thankfully, they all end up making pactios with Negi by the end of the arc, meaning that while they still can't fight on the front lines, they can at least play a decent support role.]]
** In the early Library Island arc, when some of Negi's students dragged him to [[GreatBigLibraryOfEverything Library Island]] to find a magic book to help them pass their finals, the usually powerful Negi becomes The Load because he [[AlwaysNeedWhatYouGaveUp sealed his magic]] to avoid the temptation to fix their grades.

* Kyoko from ''Anime/DennouCoil'' manages to raise her [[AnnoyingYoungerSibling already very annoying presence]] by getting herself into danger throughout the series, usually by following her older sister Yasako around and/or refusing to stay put when told to do so.

** Played straight in the Anime. The load in question is Eve, a TykeBomb the heroes rescue in one of the first arcs [[TagalongKid and who travels around with them for the rest of the series]]. While [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome she had her moments]] every now and then, anime Eve's main purpose was to be a DamselInDistress for Sven and Train to rescue every second or third episode and almost never did anything really useful.

* ''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.

** As powerful as he is, Gotenks becomes this due to his childish and arrogant nature, caring more about showing off and making himself look cool than actually saving the world, which bites him in the ass ''big-time'' when his goofing around just keeps making the situation worse; in this order, he gets himself and Piccolo trapped in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, enables Buu to escape and eat all of his loved ones, and gets himself absorbed by Buu, allowing Buu to beat Gohan senseless. Come the Universe Survival Saga of ''[[Anime/DragonBallSuper Super]]'', the rest of the Z-Fighters are well aware of this, and decide right off the bat that Gotenks is ''far'' too LethallyStupid to be trusted with anything revolving the Tournament of Power.

** Sakura Haruno's only contribution to her team before Part II was protecting Sasuke and Naruto from the Sound Genin while they were unconscious, and even then she ''only'' managed a delaying action while getting a beatdown. After pleading for Naruto to bring back Sasuke and his failure, Sakura realized she had fallen under this trope and resolved to fix it. Following the TimeSkip she TookALevelInBadass with her fight against Sasori in the beginning of Part II, but afterwards she had no truly memorable fights and was TheMedic on the sidelines at best.
** 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? [[WhatAnIdiot Yeah]], ''[[WhatAnIdiot really]]'' [[WhatAnIdiot stupid idea...]]

** Misty's Psyduck. While he does occasionally have [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass sudden bursts of competence]], in almost all of his appearances he is completely useless and often actually does more harm than good. The fact that he has a bad tendency to [[JumpedAtTheCall eagerly leap from his Pokéball]] when Misty requires another of her Pokémon, effectively ruining whatever strategy she had, does not help.

* Kotori in ''Anime/YuGiOhZEXAL'' tags along in dangerous situations at all times, despite lacking skills of any kind. Her job, for the overwhelming majority of the series, is to [[NeutralFemale stand in the background]] going [[SayMyName "Yuma!"]] She has a Deck, which she uses all of one time while BrainwashedAndCrazy. Theories abound that her voice actress was contractually obligated to appear in every episode.
** Pretty much every member of the Numbers Club was this, with the sole possible exception being Tetsuo (who at least managed to beat up No.96 once). At all other times, they're more or less kidnapping fodder or {{Combat Commentator}}s. Tokunosuke is a particularly bad case of this, as his selfish JerkAss antics often wind up getting the group into trouble.
* ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'': Sawatari becomes this to the Lancers. He keeps losing all the time and almost everything he does gets the group in trouple. He only manages to redeem himself during the final battle against the BigBad, but even then it doesn't accomplish that much, granted all the Lancers were being Curbstomped, but he and Crow's role notably [[spoiler: got under Zarc's skin, which is something that none of the others managed to do.]]

* In ''Manga/BlackClover'', Noelle Silva is about the only noble in existence whose magic potential is extremely underwhelming, so much that she is shunned and ridiculed by her siblings and she lands a Magic Knight spot with the Black Bulls, AKA to everyone as the worst squad among the other prestigious Magic Knight squads of the Clover Kingdom. It takes several lessons from actually kindhearted magic users for her to steadily become a [[TookALevelInBadass force of nature]] just like her late mother was.

* ''Manga/KatekyoHitmanReborn'': A lot of the female characters’ (even the ones that were introduced to be capable hitwomen) significance as characters and fighters slowly fade away as the series progresses, and a lot of them began to fill supportive roles instead or even worse, only significant enough to serve as [[SatelliteLoveInterest the male characters’ development]]. Kyoko and Haru get the worst treatment however, as they are always [[TheDistressedDamsel the damsels of distress]] in any given situation that calls for it.

* ''Manga/KatekyoHitmanReborn'': A lot of the female characters’ (even the ones that were introduced to be capable hitwomen) significance as characters and fighters slowly fade away as the series progresses, and a lot of them fill supportive roles instead or even worse, only significant enough to serve as [[SatelliteLoveInterest the male characters’ development]]. Kyoko and Haru get the worst treatment however, as they are always TheDistressedDamsel in any given situation, serious arc or not.

* ''Manga/KatekyoHitmanReborn'': A lot of the female characters’ (even the ones that were introduced to be capable hitwomen) significance as characters and fighters slowly fade away as the series progresses, and a lot of them fill supportive roles instead or even worse, only significant enough to serve as [[SatelliteLoveInterest the male characters’ development]]. Kyoko and Haru get the worst treatment however.

* In ''A Lazy Guy Woke Up As A Girl One Morning'', the protagonist, Yasuda, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the eponymous lazy guy-turned-girl]], ends up complicating an upcoming sports tournament that pits the guys against the girls. Initially, the guys insist that Yasuda would be better off on the girls' side, since his female doesn't have the strength or stamina to keep up with his male peers, while the girls insist that since Yasuda still identifies as a guy, he should play with the guys. Before long, both sides reveal their real reasons; they're both aware that because of Yasuda's laziness, the boys in his class lost to the girls for the past two years. As a result, the guys want to get rid of him so they can win for once, while the girls want the guys to keep him.

* Nanoha desperately subverts this trope during the first battle with the Wolkenritter in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs''. After being injured by Vita, she spends most of the time inside a healing barrier and is forced to see how her friends are getting beaten up slowly. Then, she and Raising Heart decide to destroy the PhantomZone of the Wolkenritter with Starlight Breaker, and she doesn't stop it even when Shamal is sticking a hand through her chest.

* Tarou Takanashi of ''Anime/{{Shirobako}}'' is part of the production department of the fictional [=MusaAni=] animation studio. His incompetence and laziness result in several crises in the production of ''Exodus'' (the ShowWithinAShow that the first season focuses on), which is already a bit of a TroubledProduction due to issues with the director. This thankfully lessens in the second season, in part because he stops screwing up so much (and is even helpful at points), and in part because the second season introduces [[TheMillstone someone worse]]. It's telling that he's the ''only one'' of the [=MusaAni=] staff that receives FirstNameBasis; he's the NoRespectGuy.

* Ruby Crescent in ''Manga/SixSixSixSatan'' apparently was one of these, until [[spoiler:that was revealed that she was a Recipe, too]].

<a href="https://load-anime.online/">Load Anime</a>

https://load-anime.online/

----

* Pedro and Sancho, ThoseTwoGuys from ''Anime/TheMysteriousCitiesOfGold''. Mendoza's supposed "assistants", they're really just a pair of greedy, incompetent klutzes whose only talents are sniffing out treasure (the only thing they really care about), setting off dangerous traps before anyone can be killed by them, and giving the villains someone to shoot at other than the KidHero PowerTrio.

* ''Manga/DragonBall'':
** Oolong in the first story arc. He contributes only the bare minimum to the group with his already-limited transformation power and spends most of the time either complaining or trying to run away. He finally shows his worth when he stops the BigBad from taking over the world, though.

** Vegeta zig-zags this. While he does do some useful things and is a highly competent fighter, his arrogance and insecurity causes a LOT more problems than he fixes. He's actually responsible for every major story arc in the series. 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.

* ''Anime/DigimonTamers'': Hirokazu and Kenta become to the Tamers and their partners once they arrive the Digital World. Soon after entering the strange world, the two aren't as aware of the dangers like the Tamers do; they and Ruki who tries to save them end up getting seperated from the others thanks to a Data Stream. Once they manage to go back to the original starting point, Ruki wanders alone and tells the two to stay back in case the other three Tamers may come back there again. Those three do come back, but Hirokazu and Kenta have left the location to go look for Ruki, and then, another Data Stream from a distance shows up and catches them off-guard (mainly Hirokazu and Kenta), causing these three to be transported to another place yet again. It's no wonder why Ruki is extremely frustrated about having them around. The two stop being Loads once they get their own Digimon Partners and finally become useful, saving their friends several times in occasion.
** Prior to this, Hirokazu gives Takato a self-made Blue Card which would make Growmon evolve into [=MegaloGrowmon=] to defeat Indoramon. However, even when Takato uses takes and uses his friend's card, it doesn't do anything, but Takato pretends it does because he exactly knows that Culumon's power makes Growmon evolve anyway.

** Piccolo in a very untraditional way. Because his life is linked directly with God, if he dies, so does God. When God dies, the Dragon Balls become forever inactive. Because of that, the heroes do their best to make sure that Piccolo does not die. Although Piccolo is one of the strongest fighters, he does tend to get over head, like the fight with the Saiyan, Freeza, and in Trunks's timeline the Artificial Humans. At least twice, Gohan and Goku tells Piccolo to run if things go badly. After merging with God, this status goes away since Dende is the new master of the Earth's Dragon Balls (and the new God of the Earth).
** Guldo of The Ginyu force. Aside from his admittedly handy ability to freeze time, he's an utterly pathetic fighter. The other four only keep him around for his time freeze ability.

* ''Anime/{{PrettySoldierSailorMoon}}'': The eventual role of the Outer Senshi. While their B-team status means they generally don't earn big wins on their own, their original premise was as fairly well informed side characters who could still provide an extra hand and a different point of view made them useful. In the anime, however, they were introduced as super capable - [[BadassDecay until they weren't]] - stubborn, and contradictory, yet always proven wrong by the main cast and unable to actually defeat threats on their own. This results in a severe dissonance in the final arc, where rather than the Outer's establishing their credibility, they make Usagi buy into their paranoia about the Starlights potentially being threats and it just comes off as them being petty and shortsighted.