History TheWorfEffect / AnimeAndManga

** Also, in any series, when a character manages to pull off an impressive or game-winning combo on their first turn, you can count on them losing in the next turn. A good example is when [[ThoseTwoBadGuys Haga and Ryuzaki]] Duel [[BigBad Siegfried]]. They both Summon their most powerful cards, Insect Queen and Black Tyranno... and then Siegfried defeats both of them by playing Walkuren Ritt. Similarly, one-off character Dr. Collector Summons five powerful Spellcasters and sets up a devastating mix of lock-and-burn that would make him invincible... unless his opponent, DD, played Destiny Hero Bloo-D, which he did.

** Renji had his brand new bankai ruined by Byakuya in the first appearance of Byakuya's bankai to establish exactly what Ichigo would be fighting in the supposedly climactic battle of the Soul Society arc (prior to the real villain being unmasked, that is).
** Komamura is instantly defeated by Aizen to show Ichigo that Aizen is so powerful even the other captains can't do anything to defeat him.
** When Aizen artificially jumped in power level Creator/TiteKubo displayed the new power level by having him one-shot three very powerful shinigami at the same time. [[spoiler:Urahara, Yoruichi, Isshin.]]

** Makarov, despite being the BigGood and a Wizard Saint like Jellal, has been hit with this a few times to raise the stakes. During the Phantom Lord arc he's incapacitated by the [[ManaDrain magic-sapping powers]] of Aria of Phantom Lord to hype up his threat level, [[WorfHadTheFlu though it's acknowledged by several characters it only worked because Aria sneak-attacked him]], as proven when Erza defeats him despite her own injuries and when Makarov returns and flattens his ass with ease along with the Phantom Lord guild master/fellow Wizard Saint Jose Porla. He gets hit with it against during the Tenrou Island arc, where he gets [[CurbStompBattle utterly wrecked]] by Grimoire Heart's guild master and former Fairy Tail guild master/his predecessor [[FallenHero Precht "Hades" Gaebolg]] to show just how much stronger he is (and unlike with Aria, there's no WorfHadTheFlu involved and he proves to be every bit as dangerous as advertised).

* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure'':

** Sasuke Uchiha suffers from this a lot, especially pre [[FaceHeelTurn time skip]]. Kakashi, Rock Lee, Itachi, The Sound Four all beat [[TheRival Sasuke]] fairly quickly and easily with the latter two actually helping lead to his FaceHeelTurn. He still suffers from it post [[FaceHeelTurn time skip]], even getting hit with it 3 times in a row at the Kage Summit, and the fight with Killerbee...
** Speaking of Bee, Bee got the worf effect to later ninja who later go on to be opponents Sasuke keeps up and beats.
** Sasuke may count as a {{deconstruction}} pre-timeskip, since being repeatedly defeated led to him believing he was falling behind which eventually drove him to seek out Orochimaru for power. But it didn't help that no one stopped to explain to Sasuke about Naruto's unbelievable learning curve because Naruto originally couldn't control his chakra at all, and it was only his vast reserves that pulled off his main cloning jutsu. Said cloning jutsu sends all the experience of the clones back to the original.

** This also happens quite frequently to Kakashi Hatake, more so post time skip. In Part 1, Itachi Uchiha proceeds to curb stomp him. With ease. In part 2 Kakuzu had every advantage leaving him nearly helpless offensively (Kakashi, however, mentions that he could have won with the Mangekyo Sharingan, but would have ended up in the hospital again). We also see him nearly killed by Deva Path Pain who takes little to no effort to defeat him and set him up to die.

** This happens ''a lot'' in ''Naruto''. Aside from the examples listed above, Orochimaru got curb-stomped twice by Itachi, once before the series, and again at the end of Sasuke's fight with Itachi. Deidara made his introduction by defeating Gaara, and then lost to Sasuke, who in turn got hammered by Killer Bee and the Five Kages (including Gaara). Probably the best example is when Pain worfed ''[[PersonOfMassDestruction the entire Leaf Village!]]''

** One interesting case is [[spoiler:Naruto's defeat of the Third Raikage.]] In this case, his victory was used not to show how powerful he had become, as his best attacks still failed to work, but how much he had progressed ''tactically.''

** The BigBad of the arc often does this to several of Luffy's crewmates before Luffy goes to fight him (Buggy did it to Zoro, Arlong did it to Zoro and Sanji, Eneru did it to Sanji, Robin, Zoro and Wiper, and Moria and Oars did it to the entire crew), typically to establish that he's too strong for anyone except Luffy to defeat (or to remove the stronger crew members i.e. Zoro and Sanji from the equation). The villains often do it to minor characters to reveal just how strong they are, sometimes offscreen (for example, Mr. 3 supposedly captured a criminal worth 42 million, and this is revealed back when Luffy's bounty was 30 million). Although, 42 million is in fact a fairly low bounty for the Grand Line; Luffy's bounty shot up to 100 million as soon as he had the chance to prove himself against an opponent stronger than what the East Blue generally offers.
** The Straw Hat crew as a whole can be used for a variation of this. During the Whitebeard War following Impel Down, antagonists who had defeated the Straw Hats without question in their first encounters (Aokiji, Kizaru, and Mihawk) have their initial moves blocked almost effortlessly by Whitebeard and his officers Marco and Jozu, which quite clearly displays the weight class we're seeing for these characters. Further, Little Oars Jr. was defeated easily by the combined power of three of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, when his zombified ancestor took all nine Straw Hats and then some (although Oars was bigger and presumably much stronger than his descendant and Oars Jr. didn't have the RubberMan powers or inability to feel pain that Oars possessed as a zombie).
** Luffy's older brother Ace is also hit with this. Though he is quite strong compared to Luffy in both [[PlayingWithFire devil fruit]] and combat abilities, he's also used to show how much stronger certain characters are. In his backstory, Whitebeard easily defeated him [[spoiler: more than a hundred times]], Jimbei tied with him in a match that nearly killed both of them. [[BigBad Blackbeard]] also takes him down after a relatively short fight, and Akainu burns and eventually [[spoiler: kills Ace]].

** Smoker's subordinate Tashigi is also pretty bad about this. During Punk Hazard, she is [[spoiler: cut in half by Law, then knocked down by Vergo, and against Monet, despite dealing the final blow, she had to be saved by Zoro beforehand]].

** Jack "the Drought", oddly enough, gets worfed ''in his favor'': Soon after being established as one dangerous, unstoppable pirate, he proceeded to get trashed twice in a row, rather catastrophically at that even if he survived both times. Why in his favor? First time was his overconfidence leading him into a fight with multiple Vice-Admirals (including Garp), one Admiral, and ''the ex-Fleet Admiral'' all at once, and somehow surviving to have the bad memory, even if he was reported as dead. The second time? He tried to shoot Zunisha (an elephant big enough to carry a huge country on its back) with an entire fleet's worth of cannons, thinking that'd be enough, only for it to one-shot them all in return. Sure, he lost his fleet, but he ''did'' somehow survive being slapped with a trunk that could be an island in itself from sheer size. Instead of learning how tough the others are, we learn how stupidly overconfident, if still extremely powerful, Jack truly is.
** Luffy himself finally ends up on the receiving end of this trope in the Wano Arc when he decides to face off against Kaido (one of the [[TheDreaded Four Emperors of the Sea]] and proclaimed to be the [[WorldsStrongestMan strongest creature in existence]]). At first it looks like it's going surprisingly well, as Kaido is caught off-guard and Luffy absolutely pummels him in Gear Fourth. Then, [[spoiler: Kaido gets up without a scratch, sighs, and knocks ''Gear Fourth'' Luffy out cold in a single hit of his club.]] The form that utterly stomped Doflamingo is treated only as a ''mild annoyance at best'' to him.
** The aforementioned Jack is shown to cower before his fellow crew member Queen despite his unwavering arrogance shown before, showing how strong Queen must be. [[spoiler: Queen however is then taken down by Big Mom in 2 hits!]]

** The Sea King takes this UpToEleven by spending an ''entire episode'' trashing about eight different heroes, including four A-Classes and an S-Class, as well as Sonic. Then Genos shows up, and... well, you can guess. [[WorfHadTheFlu Justified]] because a) he mistakes the Sea King for just another mook, think he's defeated him in one blow, and lets his guard down, and b) [[HeroicSacrifice he jumps into the path of an acid projectile to save a young girl from being melted]].

** Iris's new Dragonite is the newest mon to join the Worf train. After proving even a 4x type advantage isn't enough to take it down, it loses to Ash's newly evolved Krookodile, the first to get knocked down when the [[OlympusMons Kami Trio]] came back, beaten by Drayden's Druddigon in the middle of its best attack [[spoiler:and got laid out by Charizard when he returned to Ash's team]]. [[spoiler:Its reappearance in ''Journeys'' didn't do it many favours, getting a decent showing against Ash's Dragonite before being comically taken out by Dracovish in the latters first battle.]]

** Sanosuke Sagara was the first enemy to pose any sort of threat to Kenshin. He was superhumanly strong, almost invulnerable physically and wielded a BFS that would have made Cloud pull a muscle. His skills were so impressive he was worthy of becoming a regular cast member. Unfortunately for Sanosuke he had to take second string to the title character. In a short time it became a running theme that before an enemy could be considered a match for the Battousai, they first had to curb stomp Sanosuke. By the end of the series the people Kenshin goes toe to toe with laugh in Sanosuke's face and for shear amusement smack him around in unarmed combat (which is supposed to be Sanosuke's specialty).

*** During one of the final arcs in the manga Sanosuke is getting his ass handed to him while Kenshin does nothing but observe, a character tells Kenshin that he's truly heartless if he can watch his friend getting killed and not help him, to which Yahiko answers that, if it was anyone else (even someone Kenshin didn't knew) he would go help him without second though, but Sanosuke was the only one strong enough to not need Kenshin's help and because of that he was the only one suited to fight side-by-side with Kenshin.

* ''Manga/{{Toriko}}''

** Nitros were introduced as a terrifying beasts -- Toriko and Zebra had serious problem with just one. However, in [[spoiler: the Cooking Festival arc [[TookALevelInBadass Zebra easily killed three of them singlehandedly]], and [[TheParalyzer Jirou]] blow the head of one of them off with a flick.]]
*** The same thing happened with a [[spoiler:Blue]] Nitro -- even though, they are insanely powerful, [[spoiler:they usually get [[OneHitKill one-shotted]] ]].
** Toriko was once worfed by an ''environment'' -- the first time, when he stepped foot in the Gourmet World, he was nearly killed by pretty much ewerything, even though he already survived several icredibly tough environmebts in the Human World.
** Speaking of the environments, several of the harshest environments in the Human World, in which Toriko strived to survive in previous arcs, were completely demolished by the Four Beasts, simply to show just how powerful they are.
** In the battle between Toriko and horse king Heracles, the horse king simply [[spoiler:snorted at him, creating a giant crater and destroying nearly a third of Toriko's body. Later Toriko (regenerated with the help of cure water) unleashes his ''second'' [[SuperPoweredEvilSide inner demon]], which can withstand Heracles' snorts and deal damage to him. So Heracles ''inhaled'', taking away all the air in the vicinity and instantly defeating Toriko]].
** The first encounter with monkey king Bambina turned out even worse -- he [[spoiler:defeated three of the Four Heavenly Kings, during the time that took the fourth one to blink. And he wasn't attacking them -- he just tried to dance, and nearly killed them by accident]].

*** When Grimmjow's group invades the human world, Chad is almost one-shotted by the Grimmjow's weakest follower D-Roy to establish the threat Grimmjow's team poses. This is a lead-in to all the fights Hitsugaya's team face and, in particular, leads in to Ichigo's eventual fight with Grimmjow.

** Kakyoin from ''Manga/StardustCrusaders'' does this a lot. He claims "no one can just deflect the Emerald Splash", yet this move is deflected or dodged by Star Platinum, Tower of Gray, The Sun, and [[spoiler: DIO, who deflects it with a single finger! And DIO kills him by using his TimeStandsStill powers in one of both the most memetic and ''tragic'' scenes in the series]].
** Jotaro gets this quite a bit in ''Manga/DiamondIsUnbreakable''. He gets his flesh melted by Bug Eaten, which would have left him permanently crippled if not for Josuke's healing abilities. It took an all-out barrage of attacks from Star Platinum to deal an insignificant amount of damage to Sheer Heart Attack and then Jotaro gets severely, if not fatally wounded by it (once again, Josuke saves the day. There's a reason that his stand has the limitation that Josuke can't use it on himself). And then he gets it again in the Bites the Dust arc [[spoiler: where he gets temporarily killed off by Kira using absolutely zero effort along with Josuke, Koichi, Okuyasu, and Rohan.]]

** Ash's Lucario egregiously gets this during [[spoiler:the so-called "Winter Arc," which is set after its victory against Bea after using Mega Evolution once. It gets easily apprehended by the Team Rocket trio of the other dimension to show how threatening they were and remains a DistressedDude with Goh's Inteleon until the very end when it's rescued thanks to a DeusExMachina by Arceus answering prayers all of a sudden without having done any battling. Cue the group shot ending.]]

** Ash's Torterra has fallen victim to this by losing every battle it's been in since it evolved to show just how powerful the other Pokémon is. This is mostly due to being moved aside in favor of [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys Infernape]]. Bizarrely enough, the exception seems to be any battle against Team Rocket, where it's shown to have no problems.

* Kakyoin from ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders'' does this a lot. He claims "no one can just deflect the Emerald Splash", yet this move is deflected or dodged by Star Platinum, Tower of Gray, The Sun, and [[spoiler: DIO, who deflects it with a single finger! And DIO kills him by using his TimeStandsStill powers in one of both the most memetic and ''tragic'' scenes in the series]].

* ''Manga/ShonanJunaiGumi'': Machida is the first person to actually beat Eikichi in a duel, since he uses [[PowerFist brass knuckles]]. Ryuji goes to challenge him, but he loses too.

* Fist of the North Star:

** The first chapters of the Kozuki Oden flashback fully show how powerful Oden (the only person to ever leave a scar on [[spoiler:and, were it not for Orochi's underlings timely intervention, probably kill]] Kaido) was, able to effortlessly defeat a mountain-sized boar, clash roughly on par with [[WorldsStrongestMan Whitebeard]] himself. And then he runs off eagerly, all enthusiastic for a fight, and (admittedly, taken by surprise and not too wounded afterward) get sent ''flying in one hit'' by Gol D. Roger.

* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', Giyu's own creation, the 11th Water Breathing form: Dead Calm is introduced as an ultimate defense to counterattack measure capable of completely negating even a strong demon part of the Lower Rank's strongest attack with much ease, as it was shown against Rui; come the Infinite Castle arc, where Giyu has grown a lot stronger thanks to the Hashira Training and later [[spoiler:awakening his Mark, and the best way to show Upper Rank 4 Akaza's ultimate technique: Blue Silver Chaotic Afterglow is extremely strong is to bypass Giyu's Dead Calm]].

** The first chapters of the Kozuki Oden flashback fully show how powerful Oden (the only person to ever leave a scar on [[spoiler:and, were it not for Orochi's underlings timely intervention, probably kill]] Kaido) was, able to effortlessly defeat a mountain-sized boar, clash roughly on par with [[WorldsStrongestMan Whitebeard]] himself. And then he runs off eagerly, all enthusiastic for a fight, and (admittedly, taken by surprise) get sent ''flying in one hit'' by Gol D. Roger.

* ''Franchise/DragonBall'' ''loves'' using this trope, particularly to set up an opponent that [[TheHero Goku]] would eventually have to fight.
** The most common version of this was introducing a minor villain, saying that he's as strong as an old villain, and having another character easily beat the minor villain to prove how strong this character is, with the minor villain acting as a stand-in. Occasionally Creator/AkiraToriyama would just use the villain directly. Examples in ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' include:
*** Raditz confronts Piccolo and identifies him as the second strongest man on the planet; he pulls a NoSell of Piccolo's attempts to hurt him.
*** Nappa states the Saibamen to be nearly as strong as Raditz; Piccolo, Tenshinhan, and Krillin beat them with ease, when previously Raditz was a terrifying juggernaut able to kill everyone at the same time.
*** Cui claims to have a battle power of 18,000 which makes him equal to Saiyan arc Vegeta. The new, powered-up Vegeta is shown to have a significantly higher battle power of 24,000 and defeats Cui in a few panels.
*** King Cold is explicitly stated by Vegeta and Tien Shinhan to be around as strong as Frieza ([[AllThereInTheManual Daizenshuu 7]] states he's "somewhat weaker" and ''Anime/DragonBallZKai'' saying King Cold is stronger), the BigBad of the previous arc. Trunks goes Super Saiyan and kills him in one hit. In a variation of this cliche, Frieza ''himself'' comes to Earth and gets killed by Trunks, but he was killed by surprise before he could power up, showcasing Trunks' CombatPragmatist nature. Cold, therefore, exists to show that Trunks' victory over him wasn't a fluke, and that Namek Frieza's level of power is not relevant to the high tiers anymore; especially once Trunks states that the new threat (androids) are too much for even him.
*** After Androids 19 and 20 turn out to be {{Big Bad Wannabe}}s possibly weaker than Frieza and Cold (Piccolo and Vegeta dismantle them with no trouble), the ''real'' androids (17 and 18) establish themselves as threats when 17 takes out Trunks in two hits. Kami later just states this outright by noting that even someone who could easily beat Frieza and Cold was taken out nearly instantly, so these androids must be a big deal.
*** 17 in turn ends up on the receiving end of a CurbstompBattle with Cell, the true BigBad of the arc, shortly after a somewhat evenly matched fight with Piccolo, who had desperately resorted to reuniting with Kami to defeat them, and who gets one of his many near-death experiences at Cell's hands.
*** When Cell transforms into his second form, the first thing he does is confront Android 16, who was said (and shown) to be on par with Cell's first form. Second form Cell blasts his head off immediately after barely flinching to 16 punching him in the face.
*** At the Cell Games, Cell spawns 7 [[BossInMookClothing Cell Juniors]] who are stated and shown to be far stronger than Cell's second form and strong enough to overwhelm ''any'' of the heroes besides Gohan. When Gohan powers up, he makes them ''explode'' with one punch each.
*** At the beginning of the Buu arc, Goku clunkily drops a statement that Babidi's [[TheDragon Dragon]], Dabura, is as strong as Cell. When Majin Buu (Fat Buu) shows up, the first thing he does is knock out Dabura with one kick. He also takes out Super Saiyan 2 Gohan, who was matching Dabura, with a punch and a blast, which would have killed him if not for Supreme Kai's intervention. He then beats down Supreme Kai, who is stronger than Piccolo (but not as much as Dabura or Gohan) and in possession of [[WeakButSkilled psychic powers powerful enough to incapacitate a Super Saiyan 2]], just by smacking him into the ground and crushing him with his body. After, again, pulling a NoSell when Supreme Kai tries to use said psychic powers.
** This was Yamcha's main role in the Tournament arcs in the original ''Manga/DragonBall''. He was always beaten by an opponent that will eventually fight Goku in the Finals. Jackie Chun (Roshi), and Tienshinhan. The exception is against Shen/Hero (actually Kami), who loses to Piccolo Jr.
** General Blue is depicted as the strongest of the [[ArmiesAreEvil Red Ribbon Army]], being the only one of them able to fight Goku to a draw with his own abilities; in fact, upon their initial confrontation, Blue nearly ''killed'' him. He ends up on the receiving end of this trope during his face off with Mercenary Tao, who {{No Sell}}s Blue's paralysis technique and kills him with his ''tongue''.
** Krillin suffers from this nearly as much as Vegeta below. In ''Manga/DragonBall's'' {{Tournament Arc}}s, Krillin would ultimately lose to enemies Goku would go on to fight or to Goku himself (after they knocked out [[ButtMonkey Yamcha]], of course). Though Krillin fares a bit better as he would at least get a win in the first round before losing in Semi-Finals. He also suffers this in the twist end to the 22nd Tournament Arc, where he's kill off-screen by a minion of King Piccolo, and in the anime to one hit!
** In a rare occurrence, Goku gets this trope when he loses to the elderly King Piccolo in ideal conditions: fully fed, no distractions and [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge plenty of motivation]].
** Tenshinhan (or Tien) is on the receiving end of this in the final confrontation against King Piccolo, where he's trounced by his servant Drum to demonstrate how strong Goku is when he one-shots him... which then establishes how strong King Piccolo himself now is in his restored youth and gives Goku some serious trouble.
** Piccolo has also suffered from this a few times:
*** In the very first episode of ''Z'' when Raditz shows up. Before he finds Goku he runs into the previous BigBad Piccolo, who attacks him with his most powerful attack from the previous series. Cue [[TheWorfBarrage Worf Barrage]] that ends with Raditz laughing at how the attack barely singed him, and Piccolo having a major OhCrap moment. In fact he only survives the encounter because Raditz sensed his true target and left.
*** After fusing with Nail and fighting Frieza's second form on fairly equal footing, Frieza transforms and utterly trounces him.
*** Likewise, in the Cell Arc, he rejoins with Kami and becomes a "Super Namekian," proving himself too much for Imperfect Cell and an equal match to Android 17. Then Cell returns after absorbing several cities-worth of people, and effortlessly defeats and nearly kills him.
** Nappa is on the giving and receiving end of this. First, he easily engages all living Z Warriors who have been training for a year at the lookout to fight him and Vegeta. Nappa kills all but two of them which establishes just how strong the Saiyans are. Then he fights ''evenly'' with Goku (after calming down following a scolding from Vegeta), before being easily beaten by the latter using the Kaio-ken to double his power. This shows off Goku's newfound power after training with King Kai, and also demonstrates his new ability to multiply his strength using the Kaio-ken. The fact that Nappa is even with Goku ''despite'' his training shows that Vegeta (who is immensely stronger than Nappa) is really going to give Goku the fight of his life.
** The start of the Cell Saga actually {{invert|edTrope}}s this. Imperfect Cell gets annihilated by most of the cast and openly admits he's not as strong as the Z Fighters or the Androids yet. Obviously, once he goes Semi-Perfect, it's played straight from there on out.
** Vegeta is relegated to this role for most of ''Z''. After and even before his HeelFaceTurn, his place in the plot is mostly getting beaten to set up Goku's fight with the newest antagonist. It's PlayedForDrama later on as Vegeta gets tired of living in Goku's shadow and sells his soul for the power to finally beat him.
*** He loses to Zarbon at first to establish the ability to transform to increase one's strength (though he makes up for it the next time they fight).
*** He's nearly killed by Recoome to establish how much stronger Goku's training in 100x gravity was, who beat Recoome in a CurbStompBattle.
*** He's killed by Frieza after believing he's become a Super Saiyan, which sets up Goku who eventually becomes a Super Saiyan himself.
*** His loss to Android 18 wasn't to setup Goku, however, since Vegeta had actually surpassed him when he became a Super Saiyan, but rather it was to establish that it's going to take a level beyond Super Saiyan to deal with the latest threats.
*** He inflicts this on Cell, who had just absorbed Android 17, to establish how much stronger he had gotten, only to succumb to it once Cell becomes Perfect to establish just how strong the latter is.
*** Notably he, along with Future Trunks and Piccolo, are the few who can hold their own against the Cell Jrs since Goku had worn himself out fighting Cell, but even they still struggle. This sets up Gohan's transformation to a Super Saiyan 2 and killing every Cell Jr. with one hit.
*** [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Majin Vegeta]] gets a statement dropped by Piccolo about him being "as strong as Gohan was when he killed Cell... no, maybe even stronger...". When he tries to confront Fat Buu, the latter just [[NoSell lets Vegeta punch him in the face to no effect]] before finally hitting back and beating him to near-death almost as easily as Dabura. Then comes his SenselessSacrifice against Fat Buu established just how potent the latter's HealingFactor is.
*** He loses to Kid Buu to buy time for Goku to charge the Spirit Bomb.
*** Beerus is a weird example since Vegeta actually does ''better'' than Goku against him, but that's before Goku gets a new powerup.
*** He loses to Hit to establish his Time Skip ability and to set up how Goku has to deal with it himself.
*** He lost to Goku Black to establish the strength of his Super Saiyan Rosé form (though he later [[CurbStompBattle curb stomps]] Goku Black in a rematch), and then loses to Merged Zamasu to demonstrate how powerful the fusion between Goku Black and Zamasu is.
*** He lost again to Beerus in their rematch even after mastering his Super Saiyan Blue form to demonstrate just how much Vegeta still needs to overcome against the God of Destruction.
*** He lost to Jiren to establish just how overpowered he is, shrugging off whatever blows Vegeta dealt including a Final Flash and his new transformation before ultimately being knocked away from the arena.
*** He struggled against Broly even with his Super Saiyan God form to establish just how powerful the Saiyan is, who later easily shrugged off a full power blast from a Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta to establish the Saiyan's insane power.
*** He loses to Moro before getting his energy drained to show off the former's newfound power. Later, he loses to Moro's OneWingedAngel powerup again just after briefly getting the upper hand upon training a technique to counter his powers. To add insult to injury, this moment came right after Piccolo claimed how Vegeta "Never misreads an opponent's strength".
** Cell gets this treatment in the Otherworld Tournament filler arc. While Cell was powerful enough to initially able to fight Goku so effectively and decisively that the latter actually gives up trying, he had since recieved a power boost from recoving from near death and likely another from dying for real. Despite being strong enough and skilled enough that Cell should actually have a significant advantage considering Pikkon later fights Goku evenly, Pikkon effortlessly defeats Cell in Hell even while Pikkon is still wearing his training weights to demonstrate just how powerful Pikkon is supposed to be as Goku's opponent at the final match of the tournament.
** Fat Buu himself falls victim to this trope when he powers up and expels his evil side, which then becomes a separate being, Evil Buu. While Fat Buu had previously been nigh-unstoppable, taking out most of the cast instantly and matching Super Saiyan 3 Goku blow for blow with no signs of fatigue or damage (while Goku was sweating bullets), Evil Buu quickly demonstrates his power by crushing Fat Buu in the space of a few panels, blowing back the previously unstoppable candy beam, turning Buu into chocolate before eating him, transforming into Super Buu. After coming back, he is nearly beaten to death by Kid Buu, despite his ability to heal and regenerate, which seems to reach its limit here.
** All the top-tier fighting characters like Vegeta and Fat Buu gets this treatment in ''[[Anime/DragonBallZBattleOfGods Battle of Gods]]'', thanks to Beerus, who is the living embodiment of this trope. Beerus knocks him away effortlessly. How much so? He takes Super Saiyan 3 Goku out with ''two hits'', spanks Gotenks into submission, and knocks Gohan out by slamming him into Buu.
** ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', this ultimately happens to Hit, who is the strongest known member of Universe 6 and gave Blue Kaioken Goku a hard time, against Jiren to hype him up even further where even though the former did manage to put up a good fight, even nearly ringing him out, Jiren ended up breaking through Hit's Time Skip through sheer force and ultimately managed to knock Hit out of the arena.
** Universe 11's God of Destruction, Belmod, tries to use Jiren to invoke the trope in the Tournament of Power. After allowing everyone to see how Goku is among the strongest fighters in the ring, he orders Jiren to take Goku out. His thinking was that when everyone saw that Goku was taken down, the other fighters would be demoralized and give up on the spot. It does not work at all: even before Goku makes his reappearance, other fighters from the other universes were lining up to fight Jiren themselves, not intimidated by him, but rather excited to test their power against someone so strong.

** One that has really annoyed the fandom is the first five minutes of ''Anime/DigimonAdventureTri'' when [[spoiler:the four main Chosen Children of ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'' - Daisuke/Davis, Miyako/Yolei, Iori/Cody and Ken - are taken out by Alphamon, though it's incredibly hard to tell with just a five minute preview if they were just taken out or out-and-out ''killed''.]]

* ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'': Discussed. In his first appearance, [[CowboyCop Kinnosuke]] talks about how the police tend to get this kind of treatment in supernatural fiction – they usually end up laying in their own blood to show how dangerous the enemy is. However, he doesn't really mind this, as it shows that people still believe that cops are strong and powerful.
* ''Manga/Eyeshield21'': This applies to some players, most heavily the heavyweight linemen - considering how easily Gaou crushed Banba and the Pyramid Line (previously the standard for strength, tying with the Devil Bats' own center Kurita), Mr. Don (who can smack down ''Gaou'' with ease) should be strong enough to split an anvil by coughing at it!

* ''Anime/KillLaKill'': When Nui Harime shows up to Honnoji Academy in the middle of Ryuko and [[MasterSwordsman Sanageyama's]] fight, Satsuki - the most fearless and formidable character shown in the series so far - immediately yells to Sanageyama to get away from her. Sanageyama doesn't listen, however, and charges Nui - only for her to instantly destroy his [[ClothesMakeTheSuperman 3-Star Goku Uniform]] by removing a single thread, leaving him helpless.

*** Ash's (originally Dawn's) Buizel is another offender from that season. In its debut it easily defeats Ash's Pikachu, Dawn's Piplup and Zoey's Glameow one after another but [[RedemptionDemotion after that]] it usually loses to whatever opponent it's facing and is often the first pokemon to be beaten when it appears in a gym or rival battle to show how formidable and prepared Ash's opponent is.

** During Season I, Inner Moka always managed to defeat the MonsterOfTheWeek with ease, with a few exceptions; for example, she only managed to beat Gin because the full moon, which was Gin's power source, ended up being covered by clouds, and she was nearly killed by Kuyou. Come Season II, she gets hit by this more and more starting with Kahlua, whom Inner Moka openly admitted she didn't stand a chance against.

** Nitros were introduced as a terrifying beasts - Toriko and Zebra had serious problem with just one. However, in [[spoiler: the Cooking Festival arc [[TookALevelInBadass Zebra easily killed three of them singlehandedly]], and [[TheParalyzer Jirou]] blow the head of one of them off with a flick.]]
*** The same thing happened with a [[spoiler:Blue]] Nitro - even though, they are insanely powerful, [[spoiler:they usually get [[OneHitKill one-shotted]] ]].
** Toriko was once worfed by an ''environment'' - the first time, when he stepped foot in the Gourmet World, he was nearly killed by pretty much ewerything, even though he already survived several icredibly tough environmebts in the Human World.

** The first encounter with monkey king Bambina turned out even worse - he [[spoiler:defeated three of the Four Heavenly Kings, during the time that took the fourth one to blink. And he wasn't attacking them - he just tried to dance, and nearly killed them by accident]].
** [[spoiler:Don Slime]] was created simply to be worfed - he was insanely powerful, was able to transform into pretty much anything, [[spoiler:and claimed to be previous king of the universe]]. However, all his devastating attacks barely did anything to [[spoiler:Neo, the Gourmet demon]] and he ended up defeated and [[spoiler:eaten alive]].

** Speaking of Kaiba, his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon--established to be one of the most powerful dragons in the game, which even Yugi failed to take down--falls prey to this when [[PhysicalGod Obelisk the Tormentor]] is introduced. The anime also has Obelisk NoSell Mirror Force, which otherwise is a dangerous Trap Card because it wipes out every Attack Position monster on the field.

** Manjoume gets the Worf treatment quite a bit--he's lost to Daichi, Amnael, Saiou, and Amon. All four of them beat Manjoume in their first shown duels, and with the exception of Amon none of them had a particularly hard time doing it. He also tends to duel [[TheHero Judai]] whenever Judai gets a new deck. He got more victories in Season 2 after his FaceHeelTurn, including against Daichi and Asuka, and he's the one who dueled and defeated the entire Obelisk Blue dorm. Season 4 gives Manjoume a significant victory when he defeats [[TheAce Edo]]. Averted in [[Manga/YuGiOhGX the GX manga]]. Out of a dozen shown duels or so, Manjoume only loses two of them.

** Edo himself suffers from this a little. After beating his stepfather [[=DD=]] and winning Bloo-D, he only gets one more win for the rest of the show. He loses to Light possessed Saiou to show how dangerous Saiou's powers under the Light of Ruin are. His only fully shown duel in season 3 is to Amon to show how dangerous Amon's new Exodia deck is. And his only duel in season 4 is against Manjoume who he loses to as well.

** Scar's defeat of Basque Grand is done for similar reasons, in order to demonstrate how badass Scar is. This is justified in the ''Brotherhood'' anime, where we see that Grand's defeat has more to do with his not having all the information on Scar's abilities than anything else.

* ''Manga/RosarioToVampire'':

* ''Manga/KaijuNumber8'': Chapter 4 introduces a ChildProdigy recruit to the Kaiju Force, Kikoru Shinomiya, who is strong enough that she can push over Kafka's van even without PoweredArmor. Two chapters later, another humanoid {{Kaiju}} is introduced who takes her down in one shot. Downplayed in that she's able to keep fighting and hold off a revitalized Kaiju long enough for everyone to get to safety (and for Kafka to arrive).

* ''Manga/FoodWars'':
** Takumi Aldini. His first appearance showcases himself as Soma's equal in resourcefulness and experience. His loss against Subaru foreshadows the amount of planning Soma would need to overcome him.
** Terunori Kuga, eighth seat of the Elite Ten. Backstory-wise, we see how big of a threat Eishi Tsukasa (First Seat) is by the fact that he defeats Kuga 5-0 in a Shokugeki.
** [[spoiler:Joichiro and Eishi are trounced by the Noir chef Asahi Saiba.]]

* ''Franchise/{{Jewelpet}}'':

** Iris's new Dragonite is the newest mon to join the Worf train. After proving even a 4x type advantage isn't enough to take it down, it loses to Ash's newly evolved Krookodile, the first to get knocked down when the [[OlympusMons Kami Trio]] came back, beaten by Drayden's Druddigon in the middle of its best attack [[spoiler:and got laid out by Charizard when he returned to Ash's team.]] [[spoiler:Its reappearance in ''Journeys'' didn't do it many favours, getting a decent showing against Ash's Dragonite before being comically taken out by Dracovish in the latters first battle.]]