Times where characters are left questioning Dude, Where's My Respect? in Anime and Manga.
- The Survey Corps in Attack on Titan are the most active and experienced in the war against the Titans and has a higher kill count than the other two divisions combined, but the Military Police and some civilians look down on them, calling them a waste of resources and a bunch of lunatics and weirdos. It's all propaganda from the Military to make the Survey Corps lose face.
- Berserk:
- Guts went through some pretty damn far lengths in order to help Griffith achieve his dream, up to and including doing some dirty work that had a pretty deep emotional impact on Guts. Despite all that he did, Griffith never really had the nerve to consider Guts a true friend, since in his eyes a true friend went after their own dream and wouldn't be a lackey to someone else's (which is a stab at the entire Band of the Hawk). After hearing this, Guts eventually gets fed up with Griffith looking down on him and up and leaves the Hawks, ironically having to defeat Griffith after he was acting very yandere-ish toward him. The sad part in this was that Guts was going to come back someday in the hopes that he and Griffith would become true friends. That would never to be.
- Oh Casca. She went through so much for the sake of the Hawks (having the responsibilities as the second-in-command, being the only woman in an all-male environment, putting up with sexism and threats of sexual violence routinely, etc.) and asked for very little in return. She only really wanted some emotional recognition from the two men that she held dearest to her: Guts and Griffith. But they seemed to be too preoccupied with their own dreams and "feelings" toward one another than with her, and she eventually allowed her feelings to be known. Through all of her efforts, things did not end kindly for Casca by the end of the Golden Age Arc concerning her relationship to Guts and Griffith — or her mental health.
- Black Clover: No matter how much merit Asta and Yuno accrue, nevermind the fact that even the Wizard King himself has acknowledged them, most nobles will still look down on them just because they are peasants from the boonies.
- A Certain Magical Index: Touma Kamijou has saved countless numbers of lives, saved Academy City in a few instance, and saved the entire world on more than one occasion. Despite this, the second the trouble is over, he's back to being luck's Butt-Monkey. Usually signified when Index shows up and gives him the usual bite on the head. The President of the United States once appeared on national TV and radio and praised Touma as the hero who ended the conflict against Othinus and convinced her to pull a Heel–Face Turn. Touma still doesn't get any respect.
- Code Geass uses this trope for drama:
- Li Xingke. After a battle in which he risks his life, what do the Eunuchs do? They forget all his contributions and still want him executed!
- Schneizel is able to convince the Black Knights to turn on Lelouch using half-truths, despite the large amount he did for their cause. The Compilation Movie even clarifies that they'd rather not have to.
- Before any of this though, we have Suzaku, who spends most of the series trying to work within Britannia to change the system. Problem is, he's a low-ranking Honorary Britannian, which has him sent for cannon fodder missions for much of Season 1.
- Dragon Ball Z:
- Goku is seen as the Hope Bringer among his family and friends. Outside that circle, however, no one knows or cares about him. This is mostly because Goku purposely keeps himself under the radar, preferring to live a peaceful and calm life when fighting is not involved. However, Goku has helped a number of people and he was actually known as the person who beat King Piccolo and his son, saving the world (King Furry tried to give Goku a medal for defeating King Piccolo, but an oblivious Goku left before he could). He is also a winner of the World Martial Arts Tournament and runner-up two years in a row with matches that are considered legendary. Also, thanks to Babidi's magic, the entire world saw him fight Buu at Super Saiyan 3 and cheered him on. Yet, when Goku asked for help to form the Spirit Bomb to kill Buu, only a few people cared. Only the people who knew Goku throughout his life or met him personally offered anything. Dragon Ball Super averts this, however, with Mr. Satan giving him the reward money he got as the world savior as his way of thanking him as well as keeping him quiet about things. It is somewhat subverted in the Tournament of Power, where Goku reveals he doesn't care what people think of him as long as he gets a good fight. While widely considered to be non-canon and to have no bearing on Dragon Ball Z, the finale of Dragon Ball GT finally does away with this and has the world acknowledge Goku as a hero, with there being a statue of him still standing at the site of the World Tournament 100 years after he was last seen.
- Despite being a god and overseeing of the entire northern galaxy, King Kai gets little respect from Goku and the other lower Kais. Goku treats King Kai like an old buddy. He eats all his food and often uses his planet for training without any regard towards him. To the other lower Kais, he's the Butt-Monkey because he's dead.
- Goblin Slayer: The main character is looked down on by the other adventurers for doing nothing but fight low-level goblins while they're off fighting demons and whatnot. Subverted with the guild girls who actually give out the quests; they are well aware of how dangerous goblins are since they see unprepared young parties go out to fight them and never come back. Therefore, they love Goblin Slayer since he's the only one doing anything about it, and snub the higher-level adventurers. The commonfolk who usually have to deal with the goblins are fond of him, too. However, Goblin Slayer himself doesn't care what anybody thinks of him as long as he gets to kill goblins. After the goblin raid on the town in Volume 1, the other adventurers have warmed up to him somewhat: He's a goblin-obsessed weirdo, but he's their goblin-obsessed weirdo.
- Amuro Ray, the original Gundam pilot and hero of the One Year War, gets this in later series. What's his reward for winning the OYW and taking out lord knows how many enemy pilots (both Mooks and Aces)? The Federation confines him on Earth (in a nice mansion, but still), watches him all hours of the day, and won't let him go anywhere. Most of this is because he's a Newtype and the Federation leadership doesn't trust them as far as they can throw them. It still happens in the novelization of Chars Counterattack, where the Federation denies Amuro's request to bring the Zeta Gundam out of storage because they don't trust such a powerful weapon in a Newtype's hands. Bear in mind, now he's not only an active Federation soldier, but the second-in-command of the special ops force that stands the best chance of defeating Char, who wants to Colony Drop the planet into a new ice age—and they still treat him like he's going to kill them all.
- In Heavy Object Quenser and Heivia are famous for the uncanny ability to destroy Objects on their own, a task previously thought impossible. However within the military they are still given grunt work and receive no official recognition for their work due to being a civilian and private who regularly violate orders and regulations.
- Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: For all of Miko's hard efforts to keep order in the school, she's constantly mocked behind her back and thought of as an annoying try hard. It's heavily implied that she wants some sort of validation for her work, given that she listens to encouragement CDs in her spare time and her most precious middle school memory being the mysterious "thank you" letter. Also, the trigger for her developing feelings for Ishigami during the culture festival is him showing her a video he took of everyone laughing and having fun at the bonfire that she worked so hard to get approved. That said, this is strictly limited to her classmates, as Chapter 115 shows that all the members of the Neighborhood Association recognize her hard work and tend to dote on her, and by the end of the series she's earned enough respect that she wins the position of Student Council President in a Landslide Election.
- Inverted by Kabane, the protagonist of Kemono Jihen. While others are very grateful for the things Kabane does for them, he's incapable of perceiving how meaningful his actions are, insisting that he didn't do anything useful when he does things like walk into a room full of flesh-eating bugs that can devour a human in minutes to save a mother and her child.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), some of the Twili, including Zant, comment on how the Light Realm treats the Twilight Realm as a sort of supernatural sewer, a place to throw cursed items and sentenced criminals away, on top of never even remembering of their existence.
- The Jersey Club in Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne spends most of their time wandering around helping other clubs, rescuing drowning children, and...what was that last thing? Oh, right: repeatedly saving the town and/or planet from annihilation at the hands of alien invaders. But, despite knowing all of this, the student council tries to take their teensy clubroom away because they're technically not an official club. They try to recruit a fourth member because 3 is too few for a club — rules are rules, apparently — but most people dismiss them as weirdos (even though the clubmembers are usually very popular), and they only manage to get one prodigious klutz who quits by the end of the episode.
- In Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero this happened to the Hero and some of his companions after they defeated the Demon Lord, much to the Demon Lord's horror when he comes back to life:
- Max, the Hero, was involved in a scandal when he slept with a woman without knowing she was married until after the fact (and is convinced the husband was on it too to extort him money), horribly beat up some civilians (it's never seen, but he claims they attacked him and hurt them in self defense because they were too fragile for someone who used to massacre demons in hordes), and various women came out claiming he was the father of their children. By the time the revived Demon Lord barges in to announce his return ten years later, Max is a lazy and depressed bum living in a dirty one-room apartment, his sword left with the piled-up trash bags.
- Leo, his second in command and almost equal, was given a large amount of wastelands as a "reward" and then cut off with his followers. Since they were now forced into independence they created the Gamma Republic and worked hard to cultivate the lands, eventually finding precious magical ore... At which point the kingdom declared them all traitors and criminals illegally occupying their land and threatened a war to try and steal the land.
- Boss from the Mazinger trilogy (Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and UFO Robo Grendizer) is treated as a joke by almost everyone. Even Ashura underestimated him, so much so that at one moment, he/she says that he is not a problem at all. This is someone saves Koji's life so many time during the series, and is ridiculously helpful during Koji's fight against the mechabeast. Naturally, Koji is the only person that treats him the way he should have been. And in the Great Mazinger VS Getter Robo movie, after destroying the monstrous Gilgilgan, Tetsuya and the Getter team shook their robots' hands, congratulating themselves for their victory... and then Boss Borot's head — the only body part remaining! — stumbled between them and reminded them, angrily, that he also took part in the battle. Tetsuya and the Getter team laughed, followed by the former admitting that their plan worked thanks to him. Boss smiled, stating it was about time someone acknowledged his talent.
- In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Negi is treated as a kid by much of his class (with the exception of maybe four or five out of thirty-odd students). Asuna is a particularly annoying example, downplaying his accomplishments constantly while giving her classmates credit for lesser achievements. (Even acting at multiple points as if she were a stronger combatant, despite her power being awakened by him in the first place.) He finally gets the respect he deserves (from the nations of Magicus Mundus, at least) after he stopped Fate from erasing everyone. And although a lot of his students still call him Negi-bozu, it seems to have become a friendly nickname rather than a deliberate show of disrespect.
- One Piece: The Straw Hat Pirates fall to this quite a bit. It's granted that they ARE pirates, and most of the time the people don't even know it was them in the first place, and if they do it's usually because of their wanted posters. Chopper, in particular, when he gets his first wanted poster, is appalled to find that the Marines have classed him as the Straw Hats' pet, and given him a bounty of 50. (Even currently, it's only 1000, and that's just because the bounties of the whole crew went up.) To compare, the second-lowest bounty in the crew is of several hundred millions. Though when they get to Fish-Man Island the Fishman Princes are looking for them, not to arrest them, to deliver a message from their mutual friend Jimbe and invite them back to the Royal Castle. This all changes after the Marineford Arc, where Luffy and his crew are either respected or feared, thanks to the incident in Sabaody Archipelago, the mass-breakout in Impel Down — the World Government's "unbreakable" prison, and Luffy taking part in the War in Marineford just a day after. Two years later, entire legends spread around them implying their ruthlessness, and Luffy being barely human.
- In One-Punch Man, Saitama joined the Hero Association just to avert this trope, due to the fact that he was fighting monsters, but no one recognized him. He ends up throwing it away during the Sea King Arc when citizens watch in total awe that he struck down the titular Sea King in one punch where even S-Rank heroes had difficulty beating him. He tells them that they weakened him so he could finish them off so they are the real heroes. Thankfully, a few people DO realize he's a real hero and treat him with respect.
- In Oreimo, Kyousuke goes through great lengths to help Kirino's secret hobby become accepted by their father and her best friend Ayase. He also helps her to meet Saori and Kuroneko, which she forms a strong bond with and would never have met on her own. And even though he didn't really want to, he plays the gal games and eroge that Kirino dumps on him. Despite this and more, she still treats him like dirt for the most part.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- Ash is still treated as an average trainer by new trainers that he meets despite the numerous accomplishments he has achieved. You would think that a guy who won against 36 Gym Leaders in 5 regions and got up into at least the top 10 in the league challenges that followed, beat the Orange League champion, defeated the Battle Frontier, has befriended and caught numerous Pokémon over his years of traveling, won numerous conventional battles and even those he lost against ended up respecting his talent, has helped out countless people who were in trouble, and on at least a dozen occasions saved the world from the wrath of legendary Pokémon would get a little recognition now and again. It seems extremely implausible that he hasn't at least gotten a few reporters asking for an interview or entered a town or two that has heard about him. It doesn't help that how good Ash, along with how strong his Pikachu is, depends entirely on what the plot requires. He might vary from coming off as an average trainer, simply because if he was kept consistent after each season there would be no tension. The only humans who ever really respected him were Gary after the two reconciled, his mother, and Prof. Oak. Pokémon themselves, however, respect him immensely, with many Legendaries regarding him as a Chosen One at various points (particularly in the second film and Black & White).
- In an episode of Sun & Moon, Mallow, one of Ash's classmates at the Pokémon School in Alola, quits her father's restaurant because she feels she doesn't get the respect she deserves for her contributions to the restaurant.
- Ash finally starts to get out of this in Journeys — while he still has to climb from the bottom for the right to face Leon, his past major opponents and allies definitely give him their due. He also has a few fans in Alola due to being the region's first Champion.
- The Rising of the Shield Hero: It doesn't matter how many times Naofumi saves Melromarc—The three other heroes, the ruling family, and the citizens of the royal capital still find reasons to hate him, to the point of actively going out of their way hinder his progress in the whole "growing stronger so that he can save the world" thing. That said, his allies and the civilians in small towns he saved still think very highly of him for the many deeds he performed for them, and his name is eventually cleared once the Queen of Melromarc finally steps in and exposes her husband and oldest daughter's treachery, which significantly improves his reputation as a whole.
- Sailor Moon:
- Minako/Sailor Venus. She's the Sailor Senshi active for the most time, stops bank robbers in her free time and single-handedly freed London from Dark Kingdom monsters (where the other Sailor Senshi were nearly killed many times, once being saved by Venus who had just returned from London). Comes second season and we find out that Sailor Venus has apparently been overshadowed by Sailor Moon and forgotten. At least in the manga she's still famous... It didn't help that her Sailor V persona was presumed dead after one mission back in England.
- Subtler, but she gets the same treatment in the Dream Arc of the manga... From her own teammates, who are so in awe of the Outers they apparently forgot her role in training them in the first arc, rescuing them from the Black Moon in the second, and generally putting a performance as good or better than the Outers in the third, something she eventually call them out on-before going on what under the circumstances is a suicide mission just to prove she still has it. What makes this really tragic is that the others actually admire and respect her far more than she realizes, to the point they don't realize how broken she actually is under her smile until she suddenly starts shouting at them, and what Minako mistook for awe at the Outers was the result of them assuming that, after they had all been Brought Down to Normal at the start of the arc, she had recovered her powers before them (she was still depowered) and were trying to tell her that the Outers, being better than them, could help her save the day much better than they could.
- Usagi throughout the entire first season and parts of the second. As Sailor Moon she's mocked and put down constantly by Luna and Sailor Mars. Although she is a crybaby and clumsy, she is literally the only thing that can kill the Monster of the Week. She also have the least experience out of all the Sailor Soldiers since she is a reborn princess and not a warrior, so her being scared while fighting makes a lot of sense. Things actually get worse for her after they learn she's the Moon Princess and is often compared to her past self. It does gets better in later seasons, but by then, Sailor Uranus and Neptune are the ones constantly putting her down and calling her naive, despite being right more often than them. And she gets almost no respect from her future child, Chibiusa, who she saved on countless occasions (though Chibiusa does get better later on). At least the public loves her.
- Minako/Sailor Venus. She's the Sailor Senshi active for the most time, stops bank robbers in her free time and single-handedly freed London from Dark Kingdom monsters (where the other Sailor Senshi were nearly killed many times, once being saved by Venus who had just returned from London). Comes second season and we find out that Sailor Venus has apparently been overshadowed by Sailor Moon and forgotten. At least in the manga she's still famous... It didn't help that her Sailor V persona was presumed dead after one mission back in England.
- Saki and her teammates on the Kiyosumi mahjong team often gets this, despite having advanced far in the tournament. The media tend to focus on Nodoka who, despite her accomplishments in the middle school tournament the previous year, isn't as good as Saki, and there are those who would claim that Nodoka's breasts are the only reason she gets attention. In the first round of the quarterfinals of the tournament, one reporter gets chewed out by his colleague for even considering giving an interview to Yuuki, and he's told that Nagano is a weak prefecture. Yuuki gets offended because it not only insults her and her teammates, but also their opponents who gave their all in the prefectural finals.
- Probably because he appears as a stuffed toy, no one in the office gives Kenzou, the manager of Servant × Service's welfare office proper respect.
- Sky Wizards Academy:
- Although Kanata and his team managed to defeat the Chimera that was attacking Mistgun, there were no witnesses and they are at risk of being disbanded if they don't win the tournament.
- It mixes with Dude, Where's My Reward? after they win the tournament but are denied the promised ranking and the prize they get was charred in the previous fight.
- In the first season of Tiger & Bunny, this is somewhat a Running Gag for the main character Kotetetsu T. Kaburagi, aka Wild Tiger. Despite being a veteran Hero whose only wish is to save people, he tends to get little to no respect from the citizens of Steinberg or his fellow Heroes for being a Destructive Savior and is very low on the Hero food chain. Whenever he does do something impressive, most people tend to credit his partner, Barnaby Brooks Jr. Lampshaded at one point when Barnaby is receiving all of the praise for killing Jake Martinez, despite the fact that it was Kotetsu who figured out that Jake had the second ability of mind reading and tricked both Barnaby and Jake with a flash bomb, which caught Jake off-guard and gave Barnaby the opening to defeat him and then it was Kotetsu who caught Jake during his attempted escape which led to Jake's accidental death:Barnaby: Don't tell me you actually want some praise, too!
- Ataru Moroboshi from Urusei Yatsura saved the world in the first chapter/episode. Everyone but Lum tend to treat him as an idiotic parasite, and his girlfriend Shinobu went back on her promise to marry him if he succeeded (and later broke up with him). For once there's actually good reasons in the form of his lecherous tendencies that alienate girls in general and drive Shinobu mad (Shinobu had actually dumped him in the first panel of the manga because of them, only to get back with him to support him when it was announced he'd have to face aliens) and him being misblamed for an accident that made a different group of aliens start stealing all of Earth's oil reserves (the self-proclaimed Lum Stormtroopers decided to try and summon her back to Earth and involved him, and they instead summoned a space taxi with ridiculous prices) and then telling Lum she'd never let her live with him after she offered to fix the mess in exchange for exactly that.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Jonouchi has had several amazing victories over cheaters, put up a tremendous fight against the duelists he lost against, and helped save the world several times. Yet, everyone treats him like a joke or has no idea who he is. He even defeated Marik before anyone else did (taking a direct hit from Ra, something even he doesn't know how he survived), he technically lost the duel because he succumbed to exhaustion at the last second from the shadow game, but he was literally one move away from ending the arc on his own. That may have been the one time Kaiba said anything about him may have come close to a compliment. In the KC Grand Championship arc, a bunch of little kids recognize Yugi and Rebecca as famous duelists and eagerly ask for their autographs. Jonouchi tries to offer his own autograph, but they refuse, saying they have never heard of him so they don't believe he is famous. He desperately cites his achievements in Duelist Kingdom and Battle City, but they still don't believe him. In his final duel of the series against Siegfried von Schroeder, he apparently becomes the first person in history to survive Siegfried's One-Hit Kill strategy, then manages to reduce Siegfried's Life Points to a mere 100 before losing. He tries to take his defeat with grace, but then everybody (except Yugi) makes fun of him and says he has no talent, and he understandably gets upset. He does get a little respect, just not much that he knows about, with Pegasus himself in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX saying in a flashback scene that he considered Jonouchi the third-best duelist he had encountered. (Pegasus invented the game, so a guy can't help but trust his opinion here.)
- Kuriboh. Seriously. From Kaiba onwards, it's hard to find a rival, antagonist, or villain who is willing to describe the little guy with an adjective better than "worthless", despite the fact that, time and time again, it and its many variations have protected its owners from monsters with godlike powers, saving them and the world as a whole from certain doom each time. (The worst part about this is, some of these folks use monsters that are, if you compare the numbers, even weaker than a Kuriboh, showing incredible hypocrisy in their words.)
