Chad gets this often. In this case, the canon isn't much different from the meme. Twice, he goes from getting handy wins to being on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle. In the Soul Society arc, he goes from fighting Paper Tiger seated Shinigami Tatsufusa to Master of All Captain Kyoraku (while Uryu was fighting Mayuri, who struggles in straight-on fights, and Ichigo was fighting a Willfully Weak Kenpachi). In the Arrancar arc, he goes from fighting Gantenbainne, who was demoted from the rank of Espada for being weak, to fighting Nnoitra, who received three promotions in the Espada ranks. Then he ends up being Out of Focus for the second half of the series, despite being Ichigo's best friend. Chad's become a poster boy for The Worf Effect within Bleach, with a line from Ichigo playing him up being a meme in its own right.
Orihime Inoue notoriously has a character arc dedicated to getting stronger that goes nowhere, with her in fact achieving the exactoppositeresults in the Hueco Mundo arc.
Renji Abarai has a pretty poor reputation among fans, having some pretty nasty losses and a surprisingly ineffective Bankai. The revelation in the final arc that his Bankai had been telling him a fake name and was thusly weaker for it didn't help.
Toshiro Hitsugaya gets a fair amount of flak. In the fights that he wins, it's against someone who isn't all that tough. And whenever he pulls out a new technique, something is bound to happen to deprive him of a victory. Revealing his Bankai? One-shot by Aizen. Deploying his flashy Finishing Move? Harribel gets out with little more than scratches. Using his complete Bankai to completely shut down Gerard Valkyrie for Byakuya to finish the job? Gerard bounces back only to get hit by Auswahlen. His underwhelming results have made him a bit of a joke in American fan discussions.
Chihiro "Chii" Kobayashi from The Dangers in My Heart. She's playfully mocked by the fanbase for generally not having a clue; being the one person who can't pick up that Ichikawa and Yamada have a thing for each other even when she's literally right between them for a chapter, let alone any other situations happening under her nose while she happily goes about her day in close proximity. It is very common to see people state that despite the series taking place in middle school, she'll find out exactly by the two's wedding day, or that she could attend their wedding and still not notice. Not helped by early chapters having Ichikawa refer to her as “Yamada's boyfriend” in his mind, leading to some jokes about how the whole series is about Yamada cheating on Kobayashi behind her back. The fact that once Ichikawa and Yamada start dating, they keep it a Secret Relationship, and that their Secret Keepers are particularly careful to not let her know, only makes it look more like "cheating" to some fans.
Kabru and his party in Delicious in Dungeon. Canonically, they're a perfectly competent adventuring party, just less experienced than the protagonists and ill-prepared for the threats on the deeper layers of the dungeon. However, since their first two appearances ended with them suffering a Total Party Kill to monsters that Laios' party had little issue dealing with, fans love to mock them as "Team Scrub" and crack jokes about them being noobs.
In Digimon Frontier, KaiserGreymon and MagnaGarurumon are considered to be near the apex of the legendary Ten Warriors, so powerful that it was worth every other member of the show's cast giving up their power to Takuya and Koji to get them out. Unfortunately for them, they basically never manage to feel like they're that strong, because they share most of their screentime with the Royal Knights, who spent a good fifth of the show repeatedly stomping then into the dirt. Even the fights they do win are very narrow victories (with their most infamous outing being a battle against three SkullSatamon, who is supposed to be a whole evolutionary stage lower), and they ultimately don't even defeat the final villain, because that honor went to 11th-Hour Superpower Susanoomon. In the Japanese fandom in particular, it's widely claimed that their Theme Music Powerup, rather than a boast of "ooh, the bad guys are gonna get it now!", is actually an assurance that the next fight will be, at best, an inconclusive draw.
Despite being one of Kenshiro's most depraved opponents, Jagi of the four Hokuto Brothers is rather infamous for being ludicrously below the skill of his brothers and the series itself ignoring his existence when talking about the three Hokuto Brothers. This got taken to its head in DD Fist of the North Star where Jagi is The Woobie who can't even beat regular people and is constantly put down by his brothers.
Falco of the second series, despite being a powerful martial artist, is very infamous for being defeated by a Shura Mooks that other characters would easily kill, similar to Yamcha's situation.
Zeed and pretty much any mohawk-wearing thug. While they are a legitimate threat to the war-torn society, even the weaker martial artists don't even break a sweat slicing them to ribbons or making their heads pop like balloons. Zeed deserves special mention for simply doing nothing during his fight but threaten to kill a little girl, watch his friends die, and let himself get pummeled to death by Kenshiro until his head explodes. But the most famous is Filler VillainGarekki whose supposed deadly Martial Arts style involves putting himself in a cannon, and firing himself at people. Buronson, and Hara, the creators even asked the anime studio why they created such a silly martial arts.
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End: When first introduced, Aura the Guillotine was established as a Badass executioner demoness who commanded an army of Animated Armors she gathered from the many knights she slew. However, her Undignified Death - wherein she was overpowered by Frieren and Ordered to Die - made Aura an internet punching bag overnight while simultaneously establishing the latter as a Memetic Badass in her own right. Aura's humiliating demise has become infamous among the anime community and one of the manga's most memetic moments, having long since eclipsed whatever credibility as a Badass that she may have once had.
Kamille Bidan from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam starts out whiny but grows out of his anger issues as the series goes on. Despite this, most fans bringing him up are likely to talk about him getting pissed at having a girl's name (usually mocking him for it at the same time) and then getting beat up by someone else after he lashed out at them.
The Leo mobile suit model in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing is considered non-human example of this. While the Gundam universe is full of disposable grunt suits piloted by Cannon Fodder pilots and destroyed en-mass. Other Grunt suits from various continuities like the Zaku II were at least developed into more powerful Ace Custom versions piloted by a major antagonist. But the Leo is always on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle from Gundams and even its older peers like the Aries and Cancer mobile suits, and tends to explode even from missed shots. While its specs aren't terrible and the first episode showing it could defeat a Gundam with the right pilot and equipment, the fans (albeit affectionately) always regard it as low-level cannon fodder that will explode if it is so much as sneezed on.
Despite being the titular Gundam and having an extremely devastating weapon, the Wing Gundam is subject to a fair amount of derision from fans due to its relatively limited screen time, lack of upgrades (it's the only one of the five Operation Meteor units to be replaced, rather than improved), and its tendency to be abandoned or ignored by its pilot. This is likely referenced in the Mythology Gag-riddled Gundam Build Fighters, where it serves as Sei's first Gunpla and gets completely thrashed by a Gyan.
Lunamaria Hawke gets this in Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny. Canonically, she's supposed to be an elite pilot on par with the likes of Dearka or Yzak, not quite to the level of the main characters but just below them. However, the fact that she never had any outstanding moments of awesome piloting (like Dearka and Yzak got), and the fact that the one time it looked like she might she missed (it was established early on that her marksmanship isn't the best), leads fans to view her as little better than the Cannon Fodder pilots.
Noriaki Kakyoin from Stardust Crusaders is an interesting example. While Kakyoin himself is well regarded among the fandom for having a number of badass moments, the fact that his signature attack, Emerald Splash, always proves to be completely useless against the Crusaders' opponents has been regularly joked about by the fandom.
Okuyasu Nijimura from Diamond is Unbreakable, while by no means a smart character, usually has his Idiot Hero tendencies heavily exaggerated by fans, as a result of him never using his Stand, TheHand, to its full potential, regularly being outsmarted by his opponents, and the fact that his first appearance has him knocking himself out with his own Stand.
The fact that Guido Mista cannot go one fight without getting hit by his own bullets (despite his Stand, Sex Pistols, being shown to have the ability to block them) has not gone unnoticed by the fandom. Interestingly, Mista actually manages to be both this and a Memetic Badass, especially since he is the only other member of Bucciarati's gang to stand with Giorno until the very end.
Of all characters, Diavolo ends up being one. Despite being the Big Bad and killing off half of Bucciarati's gang, his Fate Worse than Death at the hands of Gold Experience Requiem wherein he is subjected to an infinite Resurrection/Death Loop has made him an object of mockery among the JoJo fandom. It has become a popular meme to kill him off in various and often humiliating ways. To add onto the Humiliation Conga, a related meme is that all of Diavolo's deaths are canon due to the loop he is trapped in, even the most outlandish ones that the fandom subjects him to.
Narciso Anasui from Stone Ocean is often treated as a Butt-Monkey by fans, with many fanworks involving him attempting to advance his relationship with Jolyne, only to fail miserably.
Megumi is a character who seems like he should have it all: his father was one of the most dangerous assassins in the world, through his father, he inherited the Ten Shadows technique, which gives him up to ten different powerful summons, and he's the main apprentice of Gojo, one of the strongest sorcerers in history. At the start of the manga, he's still relatively unimpressive—he's only mastered a few of the Ten Shadows, his combat skills are solid but not spectacular, and the strongest summon he has access to, Mahoraga, is one he can't control and who will target him after being summoned, reserving it to a Godzilla ThresholdTaking You with Me attack—but he still has a lot of room to improve. Unfortunately, said improvement over the course of the manga has ended up being fairly marginal, with him still using only a few summons, failing to learn techniques like Black Flash that less major characters have mastered, and repeatedly trying to resort to Mahoraga (a technique that, again, will kill him if used) against opponents that don't seem to warrant that kind of firepower. It only gets worse after Sukuna jacks his body, at which he then starts using Ten Shadows in ways Megumi never came close to, and kills his beloved stepsister. Consequently, after years of both the story and his fans hyping up Megumi's vast untapped potential only for him to not deliver on it, the fandom has come to dub him "Potential Man," the superhero with the power of never living up to his hype, and "007"—zero feats, zero relevance, seven failed suicide attempts.
Sukuna might be one of the only cases of a character who became widely viewed as a loser after winning a fight. He's repeatedly said and shown to be one of the most powerful characters in the setting, and his fight with Gojo, apparently one of the few characters on his level, had been built up practically since the series began. During said fight, they display all kinds of impressive abilities—but fans took note of the fact that Sukuna seemed to be the one more protected by Plot Armor, receiving more lucky breaks and outside help in the form of the summoned Mahoraga and Agito. A particular sticking point was that Sukuna seemed to be relying heavily on to the Ten Shadows technique to bring out Mahoraga, a technique he could only use because he was possessing someone who had it—suggesting that Sukuna's own power was inferior to Gojo's, and he only lucked out by having a strong body. The intended idea was that Sukuna was using Mahoraga's Adaptive Ability to figure out a means to get around Gojo's defenses, but as the sum result of this was Sukuna spending months of real time hiding behind Mahoraga, it wasn't exactly convincing. Then, Gojo was ultimately Killed Offscreen in an incredibly abrupt fashion, after a point in the fight where he seemed to be winning, and it was proclaimed that Sukuna was actually in control of the fight the entire time. The fandom didn't buy it, and proclaimed Sukuna to be "The King of Frauds", declaring him to be a Paper Tiger who's only able to beat anyone due to authorial favoritism, with jokes about him being completely reliant on Mahoraga to do anything or summoning the author to make him win.
Tenten has this status amongst the Konoha 12. She has almost no screentime in manga canon (her Curb-Stomp Battle against Temari was outright offscreen in the manga), her two teammates completely overshadow her, she is never given a surname despite being a character since the second arc, and her use of weapons often gets teased due to seeming easy to counter. The anime artists even forgot to put her in the original High School AU ending, and had to create a second version where she's depicted sulking in the Corner of Woe. Tenten's status as this serves to make her more popular though, as fanon instead depicts her as a woobie-ish determined orphan who doesn't let her shoddy life get her down.
Sakura started gaining this reputation during Shippuden, and the opinion really started to blow up after the series ended. She's marketed as one of the main heroines, yet she's constantly mocked for being behind the curve compared to Naruto and Sasuke and her obsession with Sasuke is routinely seen as self-destructive (especially in comparison with Naruto and Hinata), with their marriage in the far future coming off as forced and loveless due to Sasuke being away for long periods of time and Sarada left wondering if Sakura is really her mother come The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring. And then it turned out that, out of the Rookie Nine, Sakura was Kishimoto's personal Creator's Pest and treated her as such. Some have even joked that the fact that Sarada wears glasses means that her genetics have resulted in an Uchiha with poor eyesight.
Sasuke gets this from a large amount of fans, especially western ones. In canon he's a cool and aloof boy who gets in over his head with avenging his family. To many fans he instead comes off as a broody Emo Teen obsessed with killing his brother who ignores anything and anyone unrelated to his goals. This isn't helped post-series as Naruto Gaiden and Boruto screwed up his perception even more. Sasuke is also known as a shoddy, borderline Disappeared Dad and mediocre husband who never bothered to contact his wife and kid for over ten years. The fact his first date with Sakura only lasted a few minutes has only strenghtened this portrayal. Even his fans portray him as this, ranging from an actual loser to simply being a socially awkward mess.
Naruto gets this treatment, at least prior to Shippuden. In canon he is a boisterous Idiot Hero but this gets exaggerated in fan-works. Many fans also take pot shots at his bright orange clothes (which isn't even brought up in canon) and constantly yelling "Believe it!"
Team Dosu as a whole really haven't aged well. Despite the fact that some of them had quite impressive accomplishments in the context of their story arc, they're still early villains at a low power level relative to the rest of the series, meaning that compared to later villains like Pain and Danzo, they look like mediocre small-fry who died quickly and easily and served their supposed purpose as minor henchmen. Dosu himself is one of the most perceptive and intelligent ninjas of his arc, but is mostly remembered for getting worfed while trying to kill Gaara.
Naruto's son Boruto receives this by many fans. In canon he's a spoiled kid who is also upset at his father for being busy with work. Many fans instead see him as a whiny, overconfident brat.
A number of the villains have gotten this reputation for being defeated in extremely anticlimactic and disappointing ways, whether it was being killed by literally a single shot to the back despite being hyped up as a supremely powerful Invincible Villain (Madara Uchiha) or falling victim to the Sexy Boy No Jutsu and being sealed away forever only ten chapters after being introduced (Kaguya).
Kankuro has the problem of being the middle sibling of two popular and cool-looking characters. He has his fans, but he's usually in the shadow of his siblings. He gets made fun of a lot for not doing much besides getting poisoned. His design also gets poked fun of, with fans either saying he looks like a cat or making fun of his make-up.
Shinji Ikari of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame. He was meant to be a deconstruction of a typical anime action hero, a guy who really wasn't cut out for fighting horrifying monsters and who suffered extreme emotional problems because of it. He also lacks a backbone when dealing with the other characters, and almost never stands up for himself. Some viewers expected he would come onto his own like Simon above, but the angst fest the series became means he only got more and more screwed up. It's a topic of heavy debate whether he was an effective examination of his character type, or if he was just too whiny to be sympathetic. Pretty much every spin off (including the manga and Rebuild of Evangelion movies) writes Shinji to be more confident, which makes it seem like it wasn't just the casual viewers who had a problem with his portrayal. Heck, even his English VA got annoyed with him for it. note "I musn't run away, I musn't run away". Let's analyze this, where the fuck would I go?
In the aftermath of 3.0/3.33, this trope has gotten the figurative shot of adrenaline to the heart, putting all of the blame for the bad things that happened on him (even not having more of a spine to look for answers, even if every time he asked at the beginning of the movie he only got "You Know What You Did" in response (he was a Human Popsicle for 14 years-even if WILLE probably wanted him to suffer, it still was a stupid idea to not give him information). The meme "get in the fucking robot" (which is about people forcing Shinji to pilot and then blaming him for the bad things that happened because he pilotedor getting angry at him because he decided not to) has appeared as a result. The final film of the series provided some additional fuel to the fire by having Shinji spending a big chunk of the movie in a Heroic BSoD so strong that he had to be force-fed by Asuka and approximately three-quarters of it getting back on the saddle, with a subsequent climax that is an even bigger Gainax Ending than the trope making event from "End of Evangelion". Fans are mostly divided about whether or not Shinji's decision to man up arrived too little too late, to not mention his decision to Ret-Gone the entire Evangelion universe as we know it.
Ace, after his not-so-glorious death that leads many to compare him to a donut, as well as the fact he doesn't win any on-screen fight except against mooks and an anime-only hunter who has no powers. He was a bit salvaged after he stalemated Yamato, who can stall Kaido for a while.
Kid cannot catch a break to save his life, with mockery of him running rampant due to most of his panel time post-Timeskip involving him being beaten up, betrayed or screwed over in some way. And just when this started to change after the raid on Onigashima where he has been given more badass moments and Kid teaming with Law defeated Big Mom, he and his entire crew would get effortlessly wiped clean off the map by Shanks and his allies. There is a VERY good reason he got the distinguished nickname "Useless Captain Mid".
Bellamy the Hyena is best known as "that guy Luffy beat with one punch". Though this died down quite a bit after he came back in the Dressrosa Arc and Took a Level in Badass, and even when he still went down in one punch again he earned Luffy's respect this time.
Vice-Admiral Smoker. Post-timeskip has not been kind to Smoker. His only major appearance in canon material was Punk Hazard. His three main fights in Punk Hazard were against Law (who beat him), Vergo (who he needed Law's help to beat), and Doflamingo (who would have killed him if Kuzan hadn't saved him). It's a stark contrast to pre-timeskip Smoker who was such a threat, that the Straw Hats' only real strategy to deal with him was "run away." The main issue is that Smoker is a Logia user who hasn't really learned how to fight against Haki-users in the New World, so he frequently ends up jobbing.
Kelly Funk from the Dressrosa colosseum, for his incredibly weird and out-of-left-field Devil Fruit power that lets him turn into a jacket. If you asked One Piece fans to name some of the worst Devil Fruits in the series, his would often come up, on the grounds of "Do you really want to be the guy who can turn into a jacket".
Giants are seen as a powerful race, and Big Mom believes she would have become Pirate King if she's gained Elbaf's allegiance, but more often than not, their imposing size simply serves to hype up their opponents who easily defeating them.note Marineford-Luffy can easily defeat them, meaning any New World pirate worth their bounties aren't going to have a hard time defeating them. Special mention goes to the Numbers, who are effortlessly trounced despite being hyped up as Ancient Giants like Oars.
Jack is treated as a complete joke by a notable portion of the fandom as, while he has the first ten figure bounty shown in the series, he never wins a single straight fight since his introductionnote He beat the Minks by using poison gas, was crushed by the Marines when he tried to break out Doflamingo, lost his entire fleet against Zunisha, failed to capture Ashura Doji, and was finally defeated by Duke Dogstorm. Not helping matters is his tendency to charge headfirst into fights, even when he doesn't need to, which invariably comes back to bite him.
SMILE users in general have this reputation, primarily due to their atrocious combat record, ridiculous designs, and how they seem to avert Heart Is an Awesome Power as most of them manifest animal features in bizarre and borderline useless ways, with some even being more of a hindrance than a benefit. Granted, the fact they are made by Caesar should have been a clue as to their quality. This gets taken up to eleven when we learn that there's only a 10% chance of the Fruits even yielding these flawed powers; the other 90% of the Fruits are duds that come with only the drawbacks (becoming unable to express any emotions but smiling and laughing, and, like with other Devil Fruits being unable to swim) and none of the perks. It's quite telling that everyone above the rank of Headliner in Kaido's crew (including the man himself) have natural Zoans.
Mihawk OFALLPEOPLE got hit with this because of chapter 1082 where fans misinterpreted his refusal to pursue the newly crowned Yonko (the reason is because the Cross Guild sending all of their forces at them would just result in pointless casualties. Buggy retorted that all they need to do is get to the One Piece first) as him saying he's actually not as strong as them. Cue the fandom calling him a hakiless fraud and saying that all of his feats were just a coincidence that occurred when he was around.
Ryokugyu/Aramaki was the second of the two new Admirals ot be introduced after the Time Skip, and unlike Fujitora, who put in an impressive showing, Ryokugyu didn't. While he did curb stomp both King and Queen, it's made abundantly clear that they were both fighting with a massive handicap, as they were still injured and exhausted from their fights with Zoro and Sanji, respectively, something that Ryokugyu himself points out. He then proceeds to fight against Yamato, Momo, and the surviving Akazaya Nine, none of whom (except maybe Yamato) are particularly challenging opponents for an Admiral. Then, finally, before that fight can conclude, he is sent running when Shanks uses his WiFi Haki to intimidate him from clear across the country. All of this has led fans to brand him as a coward who runs from fights where he doesn't have an overwhelming advantage, and declare him the weakest Admiral in the series by far.
Monkey D. Dragon, of all characters, got hit with this during the Egghead arc. Despite being the protagonist's father, being the leader of the Revolutionary Army, and having the title of "The World's Worst Criminal," fans commonly dunk on him for the fact that as of the current chapter he has yet to do anything onscreen besides deliver exposition. It's especially glaring considering that Dragon was introduced during the Loguetown arc, a thousand chapters ago.
Sanji was always dunked on by a good handful of fans. However, what is perhaps the straw that broke the camel's back is when the Egghead Arc saw him getting knocked out by Saturn's Deadly Gaze and rendered immobile and helpless while supposedly weaker individuals like Bonney and Kuma were seemingly unaffected by it or able to snap out of it. Cue uproar of fans calling him a "hype tool". The fact that Oda once jokingly said to Hiroaki Hirata, Sanji's VA, that Sanji will no longer have any highlight scenes in the future is not helping matters.
The Gum-Gum Fruit, weirdly, has fallen into this among a sector of fans, who have noted that despite, or perhaps because of, it being the main character's Devil Fruit, it seems to carry a weird number of downsides (i.e. its stronger forms being Cast from Lifespan) and appears to have made Luffy weaker after he first ate it, whereas most other Devil Fruits instantly make the user stronger with no apparent downsides apart from not being able to swim. Ironically, the main people pushing this idea are people doing the opposite with Luffy himself—essentially arguing that Luffy has become as good as he is in spite of having such a patently flawed power, and that the Gum-Gum Fruit is actually holding him back.
Oshi no Ko: Ryosuke, the stalker who murdered Ai. He's already a Hate Sink loser by default, as a dark representation of a Loony Fan who killed his favorite idol because she acted not like what he expected her to, then he committed suicide instead of facing the consequences of his actions. If you go to the internet, it is perhaps no surprise that Ryosuke has evolved into a memetic punching bag. Several heroes and villains from various media get edited into the show to prevent him from committing the murder and then either brutally kill him rather than letting him commit suicide, or scaring the hell out of him, forcing him to run away in humiliation without accomplishing anything.
Sayaka Miki is often considered as one in the fandom, considered to be a weak magical girl, and while she is the weakest of the main cast, the others all have extensive experience or unique powers that give them an edge. She also gets a lot of flak for "not being a strong character" and reacting to the situation that she was thrust into like... like any normal underage girl would probably have reacted in such a situation, really. Rebellion and side materials such as Magia Record do their damndest to help her live down this reputation, and have been pretty successful at allowing Sayaka to be seen as a badass in her own right.
Strangely enough, the Rebellion movie has seen Homura go from a Memetic Badass to this. Despite being more powerful than ever, Akuma Homura is often portrayed as a tryhard who can't stop her own familiars from picking on her, or somebody that ruined everything trying to "fix it" when it wasn't really needed. Heck, there's a Memetic Mutation about it "Local Girl Ruins Everything". Ironically, the fandom portrayal is pretty much how Homura sees herself at the end of the movie.
Mami Tomoe is the Yamcha of PMMM, known for one thing and one thing only, getting her head bitten off in the third episode. It's gotten bad enough that for Japanese fans (and even some English ones), "getting Mami'd" has become a synonym for being decapitated.
The Rising of the Shield Hero produces three losers, Ren Amaki, Motoyasu Kitamura & Itsuki Kawasumi. Despite having many advantages the protagonist Naofumi Iwatani lacks, such as weapons with actual offensive power, parties of various specialized fighters, and the backing of the king, they all show themselves to be hilariously incompetent heroes. Their only noticeable accomplishment is defeating the boss of the first wave offscreen, leaving nothing else but a downright abysmal track record. Not helping their case is Naofumi frequently has to fix the messes they unwittingly make in their solo adventures, how they proved to be highly ineffective against the boss of the second wave, got curbstomped by Glass in a single move (Naofumi also loses against her, but his defeat is far more dignified), proved to be highly ineffective against the boss of the third wave (and to add insult to the injury, they expected to loot the boss' drops) and got curbstomped by L'Arcin a single move, again. Considering that Glass and L'Arc both see Naofumi as the only hero worthy of any respect, this is likely an Intended Audience Reaction. Motoyasu manages to mostly escape this fate by virtue of having his own spinoff title, which allows him to showcase his full potential with very little of the drawbacks that he had in the main series.
Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon. He has throwing roses, an extendable cane (which he uses as a baton), and a propensity for dramatic entries to save and encourage the Sailor Senshi. He's somewhat useful in most adaptations, but the anime put him Out of Focus for a couple of seasons and killed him off (temporarily) in another. This has lead to Fanon of him being useless, and getting curb-stomped in (mostly Crossover) Fan Fiction. It's notable the original manga version of the character had mostly non-combat oriented powers, avoided direct fighting, and functioned more as a kind of scout or information gatherer for the team, and generally held in high regard by the audience of that version. It's quite possible the changes to the anime were, ironically, intended to make the character seem more formidable and avoid perception of Tuxedo Mask was useless. But several of the showrunners didn't like the character or didn't know what to do with him, one of the reasons of this whole mess. This only applies for fandom of the first anime. Mamoru fares much better in the manga and Crystal, where he is clearly shown as a Sailor Guardian and he even gets an official attack.
Saki has Kana Ikeda. She's one of the better players at Kazekoshi, which was the reigning school in the Nagano prefectural championships until Ryuumonbuchi defeated them one year before the start of the story and Kiyosumi(i.e. the protagonists) won in the series proper. She's best remembered for being utterly humiliated in the finals, at one point going all the way down to 0 pointsExplanationMahjong has a zero-sum point system in which whenever one player wins, the points they win are deducted from the other players' scores. While Kazekoshi had been on a decline ever since Mihoko's strong start, Kana lost most of those points to Koromo, eventually reaching 0. If Kana had lost any points after this, then she would have gone bust and Ryuumonbuchi would have won. and ultimately ended the round in last place. Kana isn't the only Kazekoshi member responsible for them ending up in dire straits, as the third and fourth players also did rather poorly after Mihoko's strong start, but Kana is often portrayed as incompetent in fan works. The fact that Kana is implied to have an unrequited crush on Mihoko, and thus falls prey to Die for Our Ship from Mihoko/Hisa shippers, doesn't help.
Making fun of Shuichi is very common in the Sound! Euphonium. An overwhelming amount of fans prefer Kumiko with her best friend Reina, so when Shuichi doesn't get Die for Our Ship treatment he just gets poked fun at. It doesn't help that in canon Kumiko is utterly Oblivious to Love and acts more like she hates Shuichi being near her. In the original book Kumiko and Shuichi become the Official Couple, but this doesn't happen in the anime until the Chikai no Finale movie so Kumiko spends the series tolerating her Childhood Friend Shuichi at most. Fans exaggerate this into complete disdain from not only Kumiko but her friends as well.
Simon from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. While early-series Simon is trying to find his footing and hence is not as Crazy Is Cool as Kamina, late in the series he surpasses his "Aniki" in spades and Kamina himself acknowledges it (if posthumously). Alas, Simon pretty much remains a useless and whiny little sidekick in much of the fandom's eyes, and if they do acknowledge his late-show achievements, they do so in a bizarre way: Simon's not one guy who outgrew his problems and faced his fears and became a badass - it's more like there's two men called 'Simon', one who is whiny and one who is pure high-octane GAR with no in-betweens.
A meta example with the very short-lived Weekly Shonen Jump manga U19, which stands for "Under 19". The series got cancelled in 18 chapters. Since then "U19 has become a shorthand for Jump series that failed to catch on, specifically if they get cancelled in under 19 chapters. Given how cutthroat Shueisha's system is, there is a lot of them.
Jounouchi - he is seen as always in third place, behind Yami Yugi and Kaiba in skill. The anime made this worse by forcing him into humiliating situations - i.e. being forced to wear an animal suit after losing a game to Otogi. Even though his skills improve to the point of no longer needing Yami Yugi's help and he almost beats tournament arc Big Bad Yami Marik completely through skill, his inability to ever beat Yami Yugi or Kaiba onscreen (he's all but stated to have beaten the former offscreenExplanationJounouchi gave Yugi his Red-Eyes Black Dragon Card for safekeeping until he proved himself, and at the end of the Battle City arc, the two have a duel. Jounouchi is later seen using the card again, implying he won), and the way the character is often used for comic relief/played as very Book Dumb resulted in his growth going largely unnoticed.
Recurring characters who either don't duel or have bad dueling records have a tendency to turn into this. Hiroto Honda/Tristan Taylor from the original series is probably the character most universally joked on for being The Load, as he only duels once in the anime (in which he loses horribly) and zero times in the manga. Even Anzu, his closest equivalent, duels three times in the anime and once in the manga (and despite being by all accounts a poor player, wins all three games). Consequently, despite having moments of at least trying to be useful in both versions through non-Dueling means (he's shown on occasion to be a solid physical fighter due to his delinquent past), his reputation for being a waste of screentime is one he struggles to escape. Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, for instance, rewrote him as a blithering idiot of a Butt-Monkey and had characters openly questioning his purpose. This has even jumped into the video games, where he's consistently depicted as a Breather Boss at best and a Zero-Effort Boss at worst. Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links, for instance, had an April Fools' Day event called Attack of the Tristans, where AI copies of him start spawning throughout the world map. Trying to engage the copies in a Duel immediately results in the copy losing, vanishing, and leaving a meager reward—the implication being that the act of challenging him is enough to beat him in a fight.
Karin from Yuki Yuna is a Hero was this for most of the show's run. She was a laughing stock in the fandom due to being perceived as The Load of the group. In the final episodes she was lifted straight into Memetic Badass territory when she single-handedly destroyed several enemies and kept fighting even when deaf, blind, and partially paralyzed.
