Never Live It Down / Anime & Manga

Current works with its own pages:

• Dragon Ball
• Gundam
• Hetalia: Axis Powers
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
• My Hero Academia
• Naruto
• Sword Art Online

The rest:

A-F

• Sasha Blouse from Attack on Titan really suffers from this: despite being a well-fleshed-out character with hopes and a personality, an excellent soldier, and something of a badass, the vast majority of fan art and references have to do with her undying romantic love for potatoes. Because she was introduced by comically eating a potato. Granted, the other cadets called her "Potato Girl" for a bit, but that died down after their three years of training with her. But Jean brings it back up again in chapter 51. Even acknowledging that her gluttony is one of her most prominent traits, she's actually much more obsessed with meat.
  • Levi has a similar problem. His insanely skilled badassery just can't quite overcome that incident where he harasses Eren because he didn't clean the castle thoroughly enough. This has even become an Ascended Meme: his first official figurine includes mop accessories.
• We, as the Berserk fandom, will never forget the pinnacle moment of Guts' realization of Casca's beauty. Hey, it was a big deal, since it pretty much marked the moment that Guts began to view Casca as more than just "friends." Plus it was just so Goddamn funny.
• Bleach has poor, poor Orihime Inoue. You get kidnapped by the Arrancar ONCE, and suddenly, you're the Princess Peach of anime. Even Kairi didn't have it this bad. And while captive, she was tortured and abused so much, for literally no reason at that, and it only pushed the poor girl past breaking point even more, where she can only cry to the person she loved the most, who had been killed right in front of her by her captor Ulquiorra, for help. And what makes it worse for her is that she's such a gentle girl that she even healed Loly and Menoly, the two Arrancars who attacked her out of spite.
  • Not to mention, it just wasn't a mere kidnapping. Ichigo and the others were barely recovering after a huge battle, Orihime was trying to cope with her feelings for Ichigo and her recent depression over feeling left behind. She does fine for a bit, with Rangiku helping her to deal with her jealousy of Rukia and Rukia herself taking it upon herself to train Orihime for the fight with the Arrancar. It was only after that when Ulquiorra came with the Sadistic Choice. The hate came from many angles; haters of Orihime's character basically threw every insult they could at her and wanted her to die, but other sides of the fandom were disappointed that, in their view, Orihime folded instantly after learning she had Physical God powers and promising to herself that she would no longer be a burden to Ichigo and fight alongside him and everyone else. While she ultimately managed to get out of the pit and, in the Vandereich arc, she finally got to fight alongside Ichigo and the other True Companions, tragically, by that point, her reputation as a Damsel Scrappy had been solidified for a good eight years. A good chunk of the negativity comes from just how long she was captive in real time, which did not help matters.
• Code Geass:
  • That incident involving Nina Einstein and a certain table.
  • There's a scene in the second season where Schneizel engages Lelouch in a game of chess, which became infamous all over the Internet when Schneizel moved his King next to Lelouch's, which is illegal AND impossible in chess. This tends to get portrayed as the writers being idiots who know squat about chess...ignoring that the actual game was already over and Schneizel was just testing Lelouch to see what kind of leader he is.
  • Princess Euphemia is likely going to be forever remembered for slaughtering thousands of innocent Japanese under the influence of the Geass, never mind that she would never do such a thing of her own volition.
• Crayon Shin-chan: Misae Nohara suffers through this for her infamous hypocritical behavior towards her husband Horoshi. She would beat him either if he flirts with random women or for trivial reasons. She is also known for constantly striking their son, Shin-chan in the head whenever he misbehaves.
• No matter how much more of the comparatively tame materials see release Stateside, Cutey Honey has never quite been able to shake its reputation in the American fandom as a hentai series ever since the first official release to hit the States, which was of the Hotter and Sexier (not to mention Bloodier and Gorier) OVA series New Cutey Honey.
• Death Note's Light Yagami spends the vast majority of his time portraying a near-flawless modest front over a cold, calculating and, above all, rational interior. However, he's usually remembered for his two Evil Laughs, his near-sexual pleasure in victory, and his abiding love of potato chips.
• Lenalee from D.Gray-Man suffers from this. No matter how many Akuma she defeats, it seems she'll always be best known for that one time when she was Brought Down to Normal after a massive fight (that she did win anyway), and became unable to fight for a while. Even after she recovered from her injuries, got her powers back and curb-stomped a Level 4 Akuma, fans didn't stop portraying her as a whiny Damsel in Distress. What makes it even worse is that Allen went through the exact same thing, but nobody bashes him for it.
• Doki Doki! PreCure: While Aguri/Cure Ace gets Character Development and a fleshed out backstory as the series progresses, many fans' view of her was tainted by her first full episode, where she lashes out at Mana for trusting Regina, despite her having at least plausible reasons to do so, and taking away her Lovead (and her Cure powers with it) over it.
• In the Durarara!! novels, a new character is introduced named Aoba Kuronuma. There is no official artwork of him, however he has shown up a lot in fan art. How? Because he's most remembered by being stabbed with a pen by none other than Mikado and is always drawn with a bandage on his hand. He has shown up as of the second season of Durarara.
• An incredible amount of Fairy Tail fan art dedicated to Zeref has him in tears. While he did cry during one scene, he then went on to take down two of the biggest Jerkasses in the manga's history, one while giving a speech on how the man is a worthless scum who has wasted his life. The manga also spent 200 chapters throwing out occasional references to what an absolute monster he was prior to the events of the story. Much of what isn't him crying is still him clinging to Natsu and looking mournful.
  • Sting of the Sabertooth Guild is widely regarded as a Memetic Loser for simply surrendering at the end of the Grand Magic Games, instead of taking advantage of their weary condition as we had been led to believe he would do. This is mostly because he started off as a Smug Snake, even though he has become much more likable.
• The Familiar of Zero: The infamous scene where Louise beat up Saito with a horse whip and we see him unconscious bruised and bleeding. While Louise's treatment of Saito as a whole has been quite the point of contention, that particular scene stands out, probably because having a character actually bruised instead of covered in, say, cartoonish bumps make it hard to take the scene as slapstick violence.
• Yamakan's disastrous anime Fractale not only failed to sell well but it became the new running gag for "Saving Anime Line" and torpedoed Yamakan's career and anything he touches.
• There was one instance in Full Metal Alchemist 2003 where Colonel Mustang is seen slacking off at work and avoiding paperwork until the last second. This wasn't even a very important episode, just a little fanservice since he hadn't shown up in a while. However, try to find ONE Royai fic (or even just a fic about the colonel in general) that doesn't at least mention this 'tendency'. Just one.
  • Author example. Al hides a kitten in his armor once, and this is repeatedly parodied in the manga omakes (for example having an enormous cat that breaks out of the armor or multiple cats that claw Marta when she tries to hide in there, resulting in Al recovering his memory of being at the Gate).
  • In one of the GBA games a sidequest involves him finding and collecting dozens of cats, all of which boost the power of his special attacks where he releases a swarm of them to maul opponents.
• Fushigi Yuugi as a series is prone to this. What plot? What Coming of Age Story? All most fans remember is Miaka and Tamahome screaming each other's names, pretty boys and attempted rape.
  • Miaka is only remembered as "that dumb bimbo who eats a lot and makes all the pretty boys fall in love with her". As if she never did anything else. Yui? Oh, she just went Yandere for Tamahome and tried to kill herself. Suboshi gave Amiboshi a Medicine Kiss, so obviously they're canonically doing each other. Soi sleeps with Nakago, Tasuki sets everything on fire, Chichiri says "no da", Nuriko's gay, Tomo wears makeup, let's stop here, shall we?

G-N

• In Ghost Hunt, Naru is shown drinking tea maybe 3 or 4 times in 25 episodes, and other characters are often given tea as well when they come into the SPR office. The fandom, however, always portrays Naru as a tea addict. Find one fanfiction featuring Naru that does not mention tea multiple times, I dare you.
• A few cases in Girls und Panzer
  • Before the Anzio OVA was released, Anchovy was shown in the manga as obsessed with victory and harsh toward Miho, which is how she's most often portrayed.
  • Averted with Anteater Team. They only join in the Final Battle and their sole contribution to it is being taken out almost immediately, by accidentally reversing into the path of a shot aimed at Anglerfish Team. In fan works, they typically have at least a passable understanding of how to fight, even if they're not one of the better teams.
  • While some people are starting to warm up to Shiho after Der Film, a large number of fans mainly remember her for 1) scolding her daughter for sacrificing a victory to save lives, 2) announcing that she's going to disown said daughter (quite a few fanfics have Miho's disownment as a plot point), and 3) calling any way of tankery besides hers "heresy."
  • Quite a few fans who haven't read Little Army or saw Der Film tend to conclude Maho is a textbook Aloof Big Sister, rather than a more complex and sympathetic character who actually cares for Miho.
• Kageyama in Haikyuu!! and his love for milk. He is seen drinking milk or buying milk from a vending machine a few times in the series in passing. It is never talked about nor emphasized enough but looking at the fandom you would think he'd crumble down and cry without his carton of milk.
• Haruhi Suzumiya:
  • Haruhi does rather a lot of stuff, both good and bad, ranging from molesting Mikuru to performing in a band to, uh, warping the fabric of reality. The main thing she's known for, though, is that stunt where she barged into the computer club's room, forced their president's hand onto Mikuru's breast, took a photo, and used it to blackmail them into handing over their new PC. Which does, at least, sum up all of her personality flaws in one neat package. This happens pretty early in the show, and future Character Development is ignored, along with her friends' negative reactions to this incident; many people seem to think the entire show is just Haruhi being an asshole for Cringe Comedy.
  • Mikuru herself is a Time Traveler with a significant role in The Movie of book 4 (the most popular volume). But, for some reason, people's memories tend to fixate on either that time Haruhi forced her into a Bunny Girl costume—not only are there official figurines of this, but embarrassed bunny Mikuru is also in the page image for that trope—or the scene where she told Kyon about the mole on her breast. The latter is especially unfair to teenage Mikuru, who technically hasn't done it yet.
• While most Higurashi: When They Cry characters can, and have, gotten past their violent reputations and their respective arcs, Shion Sonozaki is still most well-known for her acts in Meakashi. It seems like most fans don't know, or care, about the fact that her personality isn't like that. It doesn't help that Shion is Yandere (in the anime, at least, since it skips out on an extremely important Inner Monologue from the visual novel about her true motives near the end of her arc), though not to the level she is when Hinamizawa Syndrome is involved.
  • There's also the case of Rena Ryuugu, who is perceived by many to be the series' trademark Ax-Crazy, Cute and Psycho, cleaver-wielding girl. The truth is, she is only truly like this in the sixth arc; her psychotic behavior in the first arc was merely a hallucination out of extreme paranoia by its main protagonist, under effects of the Hate Plague.
  • In fact, the entire franchise will never live down having oodles of gory murder scenes.
• Remi from Horimiya is usually remembered for her first appearance when she blamed Hori for losing a book for the student council (when she was the one that lost it). This despite the fact that all of her subsequent appearances showing the two to be on good terms.
• Hunter × Hunter:
  • Discussions of Gon's morality will inevitably bring up his unquestionably lowest moment in the series: threatening to kill Komugi, an innocent, disabled, confused little girl who he was essentially holding hostage, if Pitou dared to delay him. His nightmarish expression made it clear he wasn't bluffing (not to mention he had previously come very close to attacking Pitou who was mid-surgery on a critically wounded Komugi, only stopping because he realized he needed Pitou to live rather than any concern for Komugi's wellbeing). This is made even worse by the fact that he never addresses any of this while recounting the events of the arc later on, and by the fact that much earlier in the series he chastised the Phantom Troupe for... killing people who have nothing to do with them.
  • Fans will always remember the time Gon harshly criticizes Killua's behavior and tells him "It means nothing to him/It's none of your business" when Killua did everything to help him. Many fans never forgave Gon for hurting Killua's feelings and label him as a selfish and toxic friend who abuses Killua all the time when this only happened once when he was slowly breaking down from guilt for Kite's death. The same people forget that Gon lashed out at the latter since he has nowhere to direct his anger due to the circumstances and he was never told what Killua did for his sake in the entire arc., not to mention the fans turning a blind eye to Killua's Psycho Supporter tendencies.
• Inuyasha: fan perceptions of Kikyo are heavily colored by her initially vengeful behavior after she was resurrected against her will, the most infamous example being when she tried to drag Inuyasha to hell with her, plus at least one attempt on Kagome's life. In fact, these events occur fairly early in the series, and Kikyo gradually mellows as she lets go of her misdirected anger and turns her focus toward defeating Naraku. A substantial camp of fans still have yet to forgive her for it, however, especially given the fierce Ship-to-Ship Combat between Inuyasha/Kikyo and Inuyasha/Kagome shippers.
  • In the anime and manga, Inuyasha sometimes mentions enjoying snack foods from Kagome's era and specifically says he enjoys cup ramen more than her home cooking once or twice as a gag. In the fandom however, cup noodles are singled out and his love of them is jacked up to the point that it's often made out to be a G-Rated Drug or Scooby Snack that Inuyasha would do anything to get a hold of.
• Did you even hear about a Magical Girl anime called Kamichama Karin? If not, but you know about the existence of this picture◊ and the main reason of its hilarity...
• If one only ever looked at Kill la Kill's fandom, they'd swear that all Mako Mankanshoku ever did was become president of the Fight Club and almost killed her friend Ryuko for wealth and power and be in a relationship with Ira Gamagoori. This is despite Mako having an effective (if bizarre) skill at pep-talking that helps Ryuko numerous times when she's in tight spots, and that she and Ira never quite got to a romantic relationship (albeit not without Ira having to loudly deny his obvious attraction to Mako later on in the story).
  • A darker example would be in the case of episode 16 of the series, which exposes the shocking twist that Life Fibers are an alien life form, but the moment that most people remember from this episode is the infamous "Bath Scene," which establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ragyo is sexually abusing Satsuki and that she's been doing that to her daughter for her whole life, casting her past overly touchy interactions with Satsuki in a more horrifying light.
• K-On!
  • Mio will never live down the time she tripped onstage after Afterschool Tea Time played their set for the culture festival and accidentally flashed her panties to the entire school. Not after all the image of of the rice bowl used as a Gag Censor went memetic. Even in-universe, she can't, since that incident led to her getting an Instant Fan Club,
  • Mugi, meanwhile, will always be jokingly called a war criminal for stealing the strawberry off of Mio's cake and bringing the poor girl to tears,
• The title character of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has a tendency to take Defeat Means Friendship to ridiculous levels of excess, and many fans act as if she's truly looking for excuses to blow people up. However, the reason she's so quick to attack is because her weapons are incapable of killing people.
  • And she always tries diplomacy first. It's just that her opponents are never willing to just talk, so she has to force them to listen to her.
  • Ironically, the only character Defeat Means Friendship was played straight for was Fate and the only other character it was used for, if subverted, was Vita. The fandom would have you think that she beats the crap out of all of her friends despite befriending Yuuno, Chrono, Amy, Arisa (arguably not a Defeat Means Friendship), Suzuka, Hayate, among others without being locked in battle.
    • Interestingly enough, Dieci, whom Nanoha defeated quite easily, turned good, but the two of them have never been shown interacting after their battle.
  • The Manga Omakes run with this, stating that characters often see Nanoha as somebody who would blow people up with maximum destructive force at the slightest provocation and thus are afraid to get on her bad side. There's even a rumor floating around the Academy and the Bureau about how she "Mows enemies and allies with pure destructive force" and "People forfeit their lives whenever they make the White Devil angry".
  • Hayate's Cosplay Otaku Girl tendencies are also subject to a great deal of exaggeration, based off her designing the Wolkenritters' barrier jackets in a deliberate attempt to make "knight-like clothing".
  • Shamal's Lethal Chef tendencies tend to get exaggerated in fan works, despite Hayate suggesting in the first A's sound stage that her cooking has improved significantly and the Wolkenritter conceding that it's not as good as what Hayate makes, but it's "not bad." It doesn't help that the other Wolkenritter like to remind her about her mistakes. One suspects that the makers caught on when they included this scene◊ in The Battle of Aces.
  • First impressions are a large part of how a character is portrayed, and it's somewhat unfortunate that Cypha had to debut easily dispatching Signum while mocking her status as a knight.
• When Mohiro Kitoh said he would make a manga about a girl riding a mountain bike, people blew the premise out of proportions, making jokes of how the bike will destroy the Earth and such. Why? Because of his previous works.
• In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Nodoka will forever be considered the series' foremost Covert Pervert after she came up with a solution to the love triangle involving herself, Negi, and Yue. She is a Covert Pervert, but her fantasizing is greatly exaggerated by the fandom.
  • For the same reasons, nobody will probably forget Robot Girl Chachamaru's "winding" incident. It was even popular enough to get done a second and third time. Pity how the OVA failed to translate this scene into audio-visual form.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion:
  • From hearing the so-called "Fans" talk, you'd think all Shinji Ikari ever does is sit around wangsting ineffectively and endlessly about his daddy and how he doesn't want to be an Evangelion pilot, only ever ceasing to do so to masturbate over comatose girls. Actually, he spends most of the series being a kind and helpful, if not very confident young man who risks his life to save the world in battles against reality defying Eldritch Abominations despite the fact that he's understandably terrified of them. He is also quite efficient in battle, so much that Asuka is jealous of him. You gotta forgive him for ending up as a mental wreck after his relationship with his father (which was never all that good to begin with) was utterly shattered, his best friend (Toji) was maimed (killed in the manga adaptation), his mentor/father figure (Kaji) was murdered which caused his mother figure/guardian (Misato) to fall into depression, one of his love interests (Asuka) was brutally Mind Raped, became suicidal, and was placed in a coma as a result, shortly while other love interest (Rei) pulled a Heroic Sacrifice to save him, all that while Shinji was forced to watch helplessly by circumstances he had no control over. Rei was then replaced by a clone that looked the same, but did not exactly act the same. Then, Shinji met a nice boy (Kaworu) that thought he was really awesome and wanted to be his friend (and possibly more...) — turns out he is actually the Monster of the Week and Shinji has to kill the only person who ever said "I love you" to his face. Did we mention that he still saves the world after this? After ending it, that is.
    • The part about jerking off over comatose girls... that one actually did happen, and unfortunately all but onscreen so there's no way to minimize it except "it only happened once".
  • While Shinji is known for being a whiny Memetic Loser who constantly angst, Shinji, as a matter of fact, rarely ever angsts out loud, instead being mostly just brooding and quiet. If anything, Asuka is actually shown to be more angsty and emotionally unstable. Yet many people are more lenient towards Asuka.
  • As for Shinji's reluctance towards being an Evangelion pilot, it is not that overshadowing in the larger scope of the series, being a minor arc that only really last for about the first four episodes, with Shinji having a minor relapse in Episode 6. After that, it only comes up two times, the first being in Episode 19, where it just ended up forming the basis for a 10-Minute Retirement plot that only lasted for that episode, and then finally in The End of Evangelion, where Shinji spends most of the plot reeling from having crossed the Despair Event Horizon.
  • Also, Rei. The first episode to properly focus on her clearly establishes her as a Sugar-and-Ice Personality who does have emotions, but apparently, four episodes of sitting around enigmatically are enough to brand yourself as the Emotionless Girl.
  • Toji is known for being violent because of a fight with Shinji. Toji is normally a pacifist, and it relates to the same reason he picked a fight with Shinji: the reason he was pissed at him was how his sister was injured in an Eva battle.
  • Misato is often characterized as a crazy driver by fans due to a scene in the anime where she deliberately (and playfully) acted like one to give Shinji a scare.
  • Kaworu in the manga was introduced by strangling a kitten to death. This was never forgotten by fans.

O-R

• No matter what character development they obtain, particularly after the Time Skip, there are certain people among the One Piece fanbase who see Nami as a pirate-hating complainer who bitches whenever she gets a bounty and Usopp as an utter coward.
  • On a meta level, the fandom takes Mihawk's statement that the East Blue is the "Weakest Sea" as entirely true and accepted in-universe, never mind that in the context he was saying that was deliberately hyperbolic trash talk in the lead up to a fight with Zoro, then considered the East Blue's strongest swordsman.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • James in one episode remarked that he wanted a doughnut once. In the show's earlier days, he seemed to be known for wanting doughnuts.
  • Ash’s Charizard gets a lot of fan backlash for being disobedient in general, but the worst moment, and the one he will never be forgiven for, is getting Ash disqualified at the Indigo League. Even after he gradually improved and started to genuinely develop a bond with Ash, fans refused to forgive him for his earlier attitude.
  • James crossdressed well over a dozen times but has almost completely stopped since Sinnoh ended, yet people constantly prop his crossdressing tendencies as a core componet in character as if he were always Disguised in Drag. People ignore Jessie's also frequent crossdressing (she most notably does it in "The Misty Mermaid", where it even serves as the page image for our recap) and act like James has Wholesome Crossdresser tendencies. Even in the first couple of seasons, only about 10% of his costumes were crossdressing.
    • He'll never live down wearing inflatable breasts in the Banned Episode "Beauty and the Beach". On this website, him in a bikini makes up half the images on his character profile.
  • Despite all the things that Ash has accomplished over the years^note saving the world multiple times, beating the Orange Islands Champion, clearing the Battle Frontier..., fans still think he's a failure of a trainer for taking over 20 years to win a Pokémon League. This is in spite of the fact that about half of those losses were because of something that wasn't due to his ability, like Charizard's disobedience combined with a persistent Team Rocket in the Kanto League or Tobias using Legendaries and Mythicals in the Sinnoh League, and with the exception of Unova, Ash would always rank equal or higher than his previous standing. Even after Ash managed to win a Leauge in Alola, his worst defeats remained more remembered than his greatest achievements.
    • Ritchie gets this for causing Ash to unfairly lose the Indigo League. This is despite the unfair parts were caused by everyone except Ritchie ^specificallyTeam Rocket for capturing Ash leaving his team exhausted save for Charizard, the judges for not giving time for them to recover despite this and ruling "fell asleep" as "knocked out" which has never counted before or since, Charizard disobeying Ash, Ash's friends showing him No Sympathy despite the circumstances being out of his control while Ritchie convinced the referee not to award him the match by forfeit giving Ash as fair a fight as possible.
  • While it has subsided since, Erika sometimes still gets a lot of flak for not allowing Ash in her gym to battle for the badge, due to him disliking her perfume when he and the others stopped by the shop earlier that day. Let's start counting: first, he was causing trouble in her shop that could drive her customers away, so she had legitimate reasons to get him out; second, it wasn't Erika herself who kicked Ash out of the gym, but her staff (and for what we know, they could have done so without her consent); and three, he got in cahoots with Team Rocket to sneak inside, and at this point he had to know they were up to no good. Some even forget that Erika not only accepted his challenge afterwards, but actually awarded Ash the badge without a victory just because he rescued Gloom from the fire (which considering the above, was partially his fault to begin with).
  • Paul will forever be remembered for his physical abuse of Chimchar. While such a thing is abhorrent, it was demonstrated throughout the show Paul will simply release Pokémon if they don't meet his standards immediately and treats the Pokémon he keeps exceptionally well. Furthermore, there's no evidence that Paul's treatment of Chimchar during the Hearthome Tag Battle Tournament was his typical training regimen for Chimchar. Despite Chimchar being the exception to the rule, fans will paint Paul as somebody who regularly abuses all of his Pokémon.
  • Serena is forever depicted by her detractors as a Stalker with a Crush who started her journey because of her crush on Ash, a guy she hadn't seen in years and Ash didn't even remember. This ignores the fact it's implied Serena had been looking for any way to get out of becoming a Ryhorn Racer and was only using returning Ash's handkerchief as an excuse to get permission to finally leave home. Furthermore, Serena wasn't even planning to travel with Ash, after Ash beat Viola, Serena was planning to go on her own way only for him and Bonnie to invite Serena to travel with them. Despite these nuances, it's common for detractors of Serena to characterize her as a girl obsessed with Ash who lacks any agency outside of her crush on him.
• Pokémon Adventures has a reputation amongst Pokémon fans for being "edgy" and is frequently mocked for being seen as awkwardly violent and making characters into antagonists. A large portion of what people complain about - like the Arbok being cut in half or three Kanto gym leaders being made into Team Rocket members - count under Early-Installment Weirdness. The series has been toned down considerably since Johto, though stuff like Norman being an Abusive Parent to Ruby and Shauna being made into a Little Miss Snarker still are relatively recent and are prime hate bait.
• Did you know that Mami from Puella Magi Madoka Magica actually does more things in the series than using the Tiro Finale and getting her head eaten? Because from the way the fans talk about her, you'd think that was all she ever did. Even the official merchandise is getting in on it - a lot of it includes the Witch who killed her in some way. It also doesn't help that in the Portable game her witch form is small enough to be bite-sized.
  • Don't forget Sayaka. She was a girl with serious self-esteem problems and an Unrequited Love on a male friend, who became a Magical Girl to heal said male friend, and later suffered the downsides of both losing in a Love Triangle and being a Magical Girl in a Crapsaccharine World, thus becoming a Witch and dying. The fandom, however, flattens Sayaka's conflict only to her Unrequited Love and few see her as more than an Unrequited Tragic Maiden.
    • Similarly, Hitomi Shizuki, her Muggle Best Friend and the girl who won the Love Triangle, is mostly remembered for her memetic "girls can't love girls" line. Fandom usually takes the line and uses it to turn her into a Heteronormative Crusader, in the Transparent Closet, or plays up her crush on Kyousuke and presents her as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who doesn't care at all for her friends' desires. Not helping matters is her portrayal in the Portable game.
  • And, of course. There's Homura. In canon, she went through hell, going through a "Groundhog Day" Loop to find a way to save Madoka. In fandom? She's a huge pervert, usually wearing Madoka's panties over her head while trying everything to molest/spy on her. It does sometimes look like she's stalking Madoka—such as when she appears outside her bedroom in the middle of the night to deliver an ominous message—but she has completely non-perverse reasons for doing so.
    • Rebellion did not help matters, considering that it becomes amply clear in that movie that Homura is obsessed with Madoka to a very unhealthy degree to the point of breaking the laws of reality itself with what she herself refers to as The Power of Love to basically undo Madoka's sacrifice.
  • Even the title character doesn't get away from this. Though the circumstances of the series make it perfectly understandable, Madoka is often the least favored of the cast due to her spending much of the series standing on the sidelines and being indecisive and not knowing what Soul Gems were (never mind that Kyouko didn't know either). Some fans let it go after watching episode 10 and learning that not only was she actually a badass who leapt at the chance to be a magical girl dozens of times, but in the current timeline it's Homura who's keeping her sidelined so she doesn't recklessly lose her life again.
• Thanks to the predominance of Fanon for Ranma ½, many of the characters suffer Never Live It Down to some extent.
  • Akane Tendo used a mallet to hit her Jerk with a Heart of Gold fiancé twice in the anime, and only a few times in the manga... but lots of people in the manga also used mallets, including Ranma (who actually uses it more often than Akane does there), Soun, Genma, and a few oneshot characters. In fanfiction, she's the only one who's ever known to use a mallet when things get violent, despite the fact she canonically prefers her fist (and a shinai, to a lesser extent, in the anime version).
  • Ranma Saotome claims he Wouldn't Hit a Girl three times at most. Possibly influenced by the prevalence of the slap, fanfic Ranma is infamous for looking down on women's combat abilities, something he never does in either version of the canon, and for refusing to strike back at women even if they're actively trying to kill him.
    • Please remember, too, that there's a difference between trying to kill someone and actually having a shadow of a phantom of a prayer of succeeding. Ranma doesn't go full out against Akane, Ukyo, or Shampoo because they're no threat to him. That has nothing to do with them being female either; he's just that good. And to a lesser extent Kodachi, although that was more a case of Rumiko Takahashi needing a way for that fight to last longer than 3 panels.
  • Shampoo has two things she is particularly infamous for:
    • Firstly, she is heavily associated in fanfiction with the use of Love Potions and Mind Control Devices. In fact, she uses a Mind-Control Device a grand total of once' in canon, when she attempts to dope Ranma with mushrooms that make the consumer vulnerable to hypnotic suggestions in hopes of making him hug her. Though she admittedly doesn't help her case by saying that she would'' have used a Love Potion to make Ranma accept her feelings if she had one in the first Akari Unryu story in the manga, and the anime does imply that she deliberately sought out the hypnotic mushrooms, whereas in the manga they were delivered to the Nekohanten by accident. Then there's her ability to inflict Laser-Guided Amnesia with herbal shampoo, and the manga also gives her "hypnosis pressure points"... As for Love Potions, she attempted to steal a bracelet with three Love at First Sight potion pills on it from Happosai in hopes of using it on Ranma, and that was it in the manga; the anime does add a little fuel to the fire by having her buy a literal Red String of Fate and use it on Ranma, and by having her attempt to take advantage of Ranma unwittingly putting on a bandaid that causes him to fall in Love at First Sight with any and every girl he's looking at. Ironically, Shampoo herself has fallen under mind control at least twice in canon, being the victim of a "love to hate" magical brooch in one story and being turned into a mind-controlled slave of the villains in the penultimate arc.
    • Secondly, she's widely considered to be the most murderous of the fiancees; she was introduced trying to kill Ranma to avenge her dishonor at "her" hands during a martial arts tournament, and declared she was willing to kill Akane to have Ranma to herself in her introductory arc. She compounded this by plotting to kill Akane during the first Pantyhose Taro story, declaring she must kill Hinako to avenge her defeat at her hands in the manga, and attempted to murder Nabiki during her stint as Ranma's fiancee in the manga. She also showed up at Ranma & Akane's wedding throwing bombs. Now, this all sounds terrible, but there are some mitigating factors. Firstly, she is not the only person in the series to show up looking to kill Ranma — Ryoga Hibiki and Ukyo Kuonji are both introduced with the same goal. She also ends up going home to China because she can't bring herself to kill Ranma once the truth of his Sex Shifter curse comes out. Secondly, despite having Akane at her mercy quite early in her introductory arc, she simply gives Akane Laser-Guided Amnesia — it's not until after Akane shakes that off that she tries to pick a serious fight with her, and even then, she stops at Ranma's request. When she went after Akane upon initially finding her in the Pantyhose Taro arc, she botched the job and then promptly gave up on trying. Thirdly, in the Hinako incident, she is perfectly willing to declare the feud null and void once Ranma promises to beat Hinako on her behalf. Finally, as bad as attacking Nabiki and bombing Ranma's wedding were, Ukyo and Kodachi both joined in on those antics too. The one time she sincerely threatened Akane's life in front of Ranma in cold blood, she was under Mind Control from the arc's villains.
  • Akane stopped calling Ranma "pervert" relatively early on in the manga, and when she used it again after many, many volumes of absence, the obvious Call-Back made it very funny. To the fandom, it's pretty much her Catchphrase. Though she does frequently accuse him of lecherous intentions, it's rare that she actually says "pervert".
  • Amongst those who dislike Akane, a commonly listed complaint is that she's a hypocrite with a blatant double-standard — this references her very first argument with Ranma, where she angrily responds to Ranma pointing out that Akane was the one who walked in on him in the bath by asserting that "it's different for girls". In fairness, it's not her only moment as The Unfair Sex, but it's the one everybody seems to remember.
  • Everybody assumes that Genma Saotome was constantly selling Ranma's hand in marriage for petty reasons, to the point that in the fandom's heyday, it was a standard gag for a new female character to be accused of being (if not actually be) a new fiancee for Ranma. Whilst this has its basis in the Ukyo and Martial Arts Dining storylines, it mostly stems from the anime rendition of the Martial Arts Takeout story, in which the plot focuses on a girl that Genma promised Ranma's hand to in exchange for a bowl of rice, some grilled fish and some pickled vegetables (he was lost and starving at the time), and which ends on yet another "father in law" showing up. In fairness, if Genma has done it at least twice, it's reasonable to assume he's done it even more, because Genma's kind of a douche.
  • Ryoga shouted "Ranma, prepare to die" whilst attacking Ranma out of nowhere exactly once, in their first confrontation in the series. In fanfiction, this is basically his trademark introduction.

S-W

• Sailor Moon:
  • There's one particular episode of Sailor Moon Stars where Setsuna/Sailor Pluto scares the living daylights out of the girls on about three occasions by popping up out of the blue. The girls are eating ice cream when she appears. She pops up holding a popsicle. This episode made her famous in fandom for the Stealth Hi/Bye.
  • Mamoru, in the anime, broke up with Usagi once, during a storyline in which he was having cryptic nightmares that Usagi would die if he didn't stay away from her. They got back together when Usagi had a nightmare too and realized what was really going on. They basically vow to Screw Destiny and fight off whatever threat comes together. During the entire storyline, Mamoru was shown privately grieving their separation and several times deigning on the Screw Destiny route himself but stopping out of fear for what would happen to Usagi. The eventual source was proven to be a future form of himself trying to test the strength of their relationship because of the powerful threats they would face from the Black Moon. The way some people (especially Seiya/Usagi fans) tell it, Mamoru despised Usagi throughout the entire series, constantly abused her or ignored her, and only got back together with her out of duty to the relationship they had in their past lives. Not even the fact that they hooked up rather fast after The Reveal completely washes it down, as he didn't exactly loathe her beforehand despite all the times he teased her.
  • In the DiC dub, Rei went from a Tsundere who cares deeply for Usagi despite constantly needling her in the first season to a bullying Commander Contrarian Leader Wannabe. This, plus her past romance with Mamoru/Darien, meant she was ripe for demonization by fans; some fanfics even twisted her into a vengeful harpy who would have Usagi killed just to get back into Mamoru's pants and be leader of the Senshi.
  • Nephrite was seen taking a drink of whiskey in episode 21 of the original anime, and had a brief, fleeting romance with the 14-year-old Naru. Fandom forever branded him as a drunk and a pedophile.
  • In the first season finale, the Inner Senshi all died and Usagi had to go on to fight Queen Beryl and then Metalia alone, drawing strength from her friends' spirits to keep her going. The only other season to do anything remotely similar was Stars, but from the way some fans talk about it you'd think every single big battle ended with Usagi whimpering as all her friends tuned into cannon fodder and finally using her power when their ghosts came back to pat her back. This Very Wiki has even accused her of such.
  • Jadeite's sexism in the 90s anime, especially in his final episode, has led a good chunk of fandom to see all of his incarnations as a raging misogynist.
  • Sailor Mercury has an unfortunate reputation for being a "weak" Sailor Senshi because of her first season attack, Sabão Spray. Because its purpose was creating a fog out of bubbles, many fans joke about it being useless despite it being Boring, but Practical. It reduced enemy visibility, allowing another Senshi to attack while the enemy was blinded. Despite getting more offensive abilities in later seasons that were on par with her teammates, many fans still view Sailor Mercury as the one with lame powers.
  • While Naru is a frequent monster victim early in the series, to the point that Luna and Artemis even lampshade it, she isn't a victim in every single episode, especially once she began to get Demoted to Extra.
  • Sailor Moon Crystal isn't flawless and it has its share of issues, but all its detractors remember it for is its animation goofs or various shipping-related grievances.
  • Usagi's Crystal incarnation is forever treated like a pathetic selfish bitch who only wants her True Love and doesn't care about her friends despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
  • Chibiusa brainwashing her own father into kissing her as Black Lady (a deeply uncomfortable scene people who hadn't read the manga were not prepared for) did absolutely nothing to help her reputation of her wanting Parental Incest.
  • The Inners are forever accused of "being desperate to find husbands by 15" because of their past life romances with the Shitennou and daring to be sad when the guys were killed. (Granted, the scene wasn't handled well, but still) There's also constant cries of "Faux Action Girl!!" over them being shown to get hurt or flattened during battles instead of curb-stomping every enemy they came across, even though in the end they always managed to pull themselves up and kick some ass anyway.
• Shiryu from Saint Seiya was blinded during a fight, and quickly became a Handicapped Badass, before being healed. Then, when fighting a Medusa saint, he blinded himself again, to take advantage of the skills he already had without being turned to stone. But ask the fans, and they'll tell you Shiryu becomes blind every other episode.
• School Days is a unique deconstruction of the Harem genre of anime, but its lasting legacy can be summed up with two words: "Nice Boat".^note The series finale featured the brutal deaths of two main characters. The day before the final episode aired, a Japanese youth killed her father with an axe. To prevent controversy, many TV channels in Japan replaced the episode with a half hour of peaceful scenery, including images of a boat, set to classical music. Not helping matters is the fact that the last shot of the final episode is of one of the surviving love interests sailing away on a boat with the dismembered head of the protagonist.
• In Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi, Hatori gets a LOT of flak for what he did to his love interest (and childhood friend) Chiaki. Basically, he was stressed out from having an unrequited love for twenty years, his childhood friend was dense and his rival was rubbing it in his face that he would get Chiaki first. So what does he do that's so horrendous that that's all what people remember him for? He brutally rapes Chiaki despite him begging him to stop and being physically, mentally psychologically broken during that moment. And then he gets Karma Houdini when the two hook up later. Needless to say, mention the pairing online and the results won't be pretty.
  • What makes this most noticeable from other yaoi series is that Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi actively tries to avoid using rape to lead to love (making this series more realistic than some others) and so far, the three other pairings have successfully avoided it. This is the only pairing that has rape leading to a relationship, but it falls under Rape as Drama. Add to the fact that Chiaki doesn't handle the situation realistically telling Hatori not to leave him instead of distancing himself like a normal person would and also not pitying Hatori during the rape scene also does not help Hatori or Chiaki's case.
  • Chiaki himself has a Never Live It Down moment from the above but also because of his inability to understand love. Apparently, there is a limit to how stupid you can be when it comes to romance. It's been established that Chiaki while not the sharpest tool in the shed is rather observant of certain things (like knowing Hatori's Berserk Button (since Hatori is a hard person to read) but pushing it anyway as well as knowing what his female audience wants and doesn't want when it comes to his manga along with wanting what's best for his friends and the people around him, he will always be labeled as the stupidest, most insensitive character in the series thanks to his oblivious nature and this attitude is what leads to his best friend Yanase's breakdown.
    • Episode 10, 15 and 16 doesn't help his cause. Episode 10, Yanase confesses to Chiaki when he's drunk. Chiaki responds by leaving him at the hot springs to run to Hatori. Episode 15, he acts like it's Yanase's fault that the previous incident happened and hits multiple Berserk Buttons in the episode. He denies that Yanase confessed to him in his head and then tells Yanase that he should hook up with one of the female assistants, effectively setting him off. End of the episode has Chiaki get Yanase's hopes up by implying that he'll think about having a relationship with him. Episode 16...Chiaki flips out at Hatori because he saw him with his ex girlfriend and goes to Yanase's place knowing full well that his best friend is in love with him and setting his expectations high. Then the rejection scene comes that leads to Yanase breaking down crying asking why he chose Hatori over him, and Chiaki can't come up with a response. Finally, Chiaki tells him that he'll see him at work tomorrow implying that he just ignored the confession a third time.
• Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō will forever be known in the west as the anime with the weird toilet training episodes (or worse, Pants-Man), all because the first video of the anime ever uploaded to the Internet and promptly discovered by westerners was that one toilet training episode.
• Try taking the Shin Mazinger version of Count Brocken seriously after Boss, Nuke, and Mucha play soccer with his disembodied head.
  • That happened in the original comic in the The '70s, and Count Brocken was still an scary villain... when he regained his head.
  • BrockenBall! Everyone wins, except the ball! Which is Brocken!
• Fans of Shugo Chara! think that since Ikuto is very flirtatious with Amu, he is a playboy. He isn't, because Utau once even said that Amu was the only girl he ever loved.
• Slam Dunk has Kogure and his episode-long flashback three-point shot, to the point where every sports anime is expected to have those.
• Many fans of Sonic X will never forgive Chris Thorndyke for infamously taking Amy Rose's part with Shadow, despite other characters doing the exact same thing to her in other adaptions of the Sonic franchise.
• In the anime Soul Eater, Patti is shown to be childishly fascinated with a variety of animals, including pigs, elephants, and chimpanzees. However, due to the completely hilarious 14th episode where she folded her test papers into a giraffe, all anyone seems to remember is her giraffe obsession.
• The eponymous protagonist of Space☆Dandy only commented on how much he liked a woman's arse rather than her boobs in the first episode. Yet, ever since then, and even after saying he doesn't think like that anymore in the following episode, he's known memetically by the fandom as an ass lover.
  • This isn't quite true. He mentions liking booty multiple times over multiple episodes, including during the Chameleonian episode where he claims to be a slave to "the booty", and the High School episode where he sings a song in praise of Freckles' ass as well. He does however talk much more about "Boobies" throughout the series.
• For Yu-Gi-Oh!, people who complain about shows they don't watch have always made fun of Yu-Gi-Oh! characters for having strange hair. In the original show however, only Yugi had exceptionally strange hair. The only other people who came close (like Honda and Otogi) were really no different than any traditional cartoon caricatures. Of course the later series (not made by the original creator) ran with this, and led to another lead character with strange hair in 5Ds.
  • Anzu/Tea is often bashed for her speeches about friendship. However, the friendship between the four protagonists is the central theme of the show aside from Duel Monsters, which was a Plot Tumor; friendship was the main original point. There's also the fact that A—this is mostly a dub-only trait of hers, she's much less preachy in the Japanese version, and B—as it is the central theme of the show, the other four give speeches about The Power of Friendship just as much as she does, especially Yami Yugi. The main reason she gets hit with this particular stick is that she's mostly uninvolved with the plot, which means that while most characters do talk about friendship, Anzu has considerably fewer moments besides, with only a small handful of duels to her name.
  • Mai has her skills frequently called into question because most of her on-screen duels ended as losses. Fair enough on its own, except for three things: she never went beyond recurring character status, effectively reducing the number of on-screen duels she had to begin with, the most significant duels she had were up against one of the key characters, namely either the protagonist or the arc Big Bad, and even so, she put up a strong fight each and every time and came within victory's reach.
  • In one scene in the manga, Ryou Bakura mentions that he really likes spooky, occult Duel Monsters cards, and his deck actually does turn out to be really terrifying. A lot of the fandom likes the idea of him as a Nightmare Fetishist, so in some fanfics and fanart this grows to be his defining trait and he's depicted holding seances, looking for ghosts, summoning demons, and things of that nature. But Tropes Are Not Bad — he doesn't get an overwhelming amount of characterization anyway.
  • People often claim that Atem has the magic power to stack his deck and he's therefore a cheater. This was only implied in one Duel in the entire series, and it was the very last one, which also happened to be a magical ceremony rather than a straightforward competition and was not at all normal (not to mention, he lost). He does frequently use The Magic Poker Equation, but that has less to do with supernatural powers and more to do with the consistent statement that honorable and skilled duelists tend to see their decks come through for them.
• The Team Unicorn Duel in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds became a Never Live It Down moment for just about everyone involved.
  • Jack and Aki, due to losing to Andre back to back in the WRGP. Regardless of how much Jack improved himself afterward, that massive upset pretty much forever placed a massive gap between him and Yusei in the eyes of the fandom. Meanwhile, Aki, despite going out on her own terms by getting Stardust Dragon out on the field before Yusei’s turn, was largely left Out of Focus throughout the season, and therefore only received any kind of credibility in the near start of the season and the last arc.
  • Jean, the leader of Team Unicorn, is pretty much exclusively associated with foregoing a strategy which would have won him the duel (namely, Yusei's Deck had been emptied, so just ending his turn would have won the match) in favor of a more aggressive strategy that cost him the game. His team may have come only one move away from handing the good guys a major early loss, and he had played fairly well beforehand, but him making such a boneheaded move handily cancelled out all the menace generated by his compatriots in the eyes of the fandom, especially after his comrade Andre made a much stronger showing.
  • Yusei, the eventual victor of the Duel, got hit by pretty much exactly the opposite effect: after defeating the whittled-down Andre, beating Breo in succession, and winning to Jean due to Jean making the aforementioned misplay, he became forever remembered among fans as the king of Plot Armor who outclasses everyone and makes all his friends useless by comparison. Yusei did struggle a lot more early on, and had an implied loss or two beforehand, including major setbacks outside of Duels, but from that point onward, him being an Invincible Hero became by far the most common talking point about him.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS: Spectre defeating Aoi in such a way that has her literally land on her face is the moment that fans will often bring up when talking about her. It certainly doesn't help that this was after she already had spent a chunk of the series recovering from a completely different debilitating loss that knocked her into a coma, and she wouldn't win another duel for a very long period afterward, even if she would significantly improve and even go on to go toe-to-toe with the Big Bad by the end of the series.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, Yuma's Dueling skills. He suffers a handful of losses early on, but acquits himself fairly well thereafter; after ZEXAL II kicks in, he doesn't lose even once. Still, the fact that most protagonists in the franchise fall into Invincible Hero, along with Astral coaching him early on, means that any losses got remembered a lot harder by the fanbase—particularly his first rematch with Shark.
• If Zoids fanfiction were to be believed, one would think Bit and Leena were constantly stealing each other's snacks, but it's only happened maybe once or twice on the actual show.