Times where someone attempts to undercut, undermine and ruin the success of another in Anime and Manga.
- In Black Clover, during the Star Awards Festival, Asta and Yuno are introduced as the rookies who obtained the most star awards for their respective squads. Sekke promptly tries to rain on their parade by shouting out how not only Asta and Yuno are both peasants, but also how Asta can't even use magic. While the news have everyone doubt Asta and Yuno's merit, they're quickly silenced when Yuno uses Bell's power to attack Asta with Wind Magic at full power, which is easily nullified when Asta blocks it with the Demon-Slayer Sword, proving to everyone that their strength is the real thing.
- In Food Wars!, this is something that main character Soma Yukihira very much endures in his Social Darwinist school. A good majority of the student body resent his talent and achievements and frequently try to downplay them. One notable example is in the Tournament Arc where despite making it all the way to the finals along with two other top chefs from his generation, Soma is treated as a complete afterthought between them by the students. True to form, the students are jealous of his hard-working attitude, and acknowledging that would mean acknowledging that they do not work as hard as Soma does.
- Parodied in Good Luck Girl!. Ichiko is extremely lucky, very rich, beautiful, smart, and capable, and knows it. The first episode has her overhear two girls badmouthing her in a bathroom and breaks out laughing, reveling in being better than them. Her fabulous luck turns out to be so extreme that it threatens reality's karmic structure and the goddess of misfortune is sent in to hammer her down, with middling results.
- Averting this trope is the reason Nico Niyama from Kiznaiver acts the way she does. Being rich, smart and cute, she fears that she'd be resented for it and end up a Lonely Rich Kid. Her Cloudcuckoolander act is her way of appearing less perfect, and therefore more normal, to others.
- Haganai:
- Yozora frequently attempts to sabotage, belittle or humiliate others who she feels are getting in the way of her friendship/potential romance with Kodaka. She refuses to make any sort of attempt herself.
- Additionally, Sena herself is a victim of this, as the entire school pretty much resents them for being a prodigy; their personality, doesn't help though they do attempt to rectify this. This all comes to a head during a Christmas party where she's accused of seducing another girl's crush and mocked by the entire crowd for not having any friends. Of all people, and in a surprising display of Character Development, Yozora steps in and delivers a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the audience. their response to her words end up proving that she was right.Yozora: O-Foolish commoners who hate what they can't understand...Who can't do anything but maliciously misinterpret this girl's earnest effort to change! You maggots just play the victim and never even try to improve yourselves! The only thing you know how to do is hold other people back!
You're in the wrong here! There isn't even the tiniest glimmer of righteousness in attacking someone simply to blow off some steam! HOW DARE THE LIKES OF YOU MAKE KASHIWAZAKI SENA CRY?!
- Medaka Box: This is the stated goal of Kumagawa Misogi when he transfers into Hakoniwa Academy as the first member of Class -13. He claims to want to cooperate with the Flask Plan's efforts to create a perfect world, but rather than find some way to make every human being "elite", he asserts that it's far easier to simply get rid of the "elite". He makes it his mission to eliminate all individuals that could be considered superior, especially the Abnormals in Class 13, leaving only fools and weaklings. This animosity towards the "elite" is shared by his fellow members of Class -13. This sentiment is practically embodied in his original Minus which he traded away in middle school; "Book Maker", which makes any target degenerate to his level, turning even a Plus into a Minus.
- My Hero Academia:
- With the villain attack at USJ and with each successive crisis Class 1-A, or members of the class, have endured and overcome. Peers at U.A., particularly amongst the other courses, have clearly grown to resent Class 1-A, believing them to be unrepentant glory hogs.
- Invoked during the cavalry battle in the Sports Festival, with each player has a set of points based on their results in the last round, and the four teams with the highest score gets to proceed. Izuku, who got in first place during the previous round, has one million points. This leads to most of his classmates not wanting to pair up with him due to how high-target he's become. Only Uraraka, who's close friends with him, Tokoyami, and Hatsume, who wants to use the fact he's the focus of everyone's attention to advertise her inventions, choose to team up with him for the next event.
- All For One in the past targeted those with powerful quirks to prevent rivals from usurping him. He also killed the glowing baby when they began to gather followers, believing that they had no right to be so famous just because they were the first reported Quirk user when he knew that there were others before them (i.e. himself).
- In My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, as I Expected, heroine Yukinoshita Yukino says that she's been the victim of this for much of her life, having few friends because the other girls resented her superiority, and having to deal with the frustration of being surrounded by lazy people who'd rather drag her down than raise themselves up.
- In Naruto, Kakashi uses the nail proverb to describe Sasuke during the bell challenge, although he was also taking the opportunity to make a pun, having just used an earth jutsu to grab Sasuke's ankles from underground and dragged him down so only his head was left sticking out like an unhammered nail.
- One of the running themes in Osomatsu-san is the sextuplets' inability to let each other succeed at anything, with Osomatsu being the most blatant about it out of fear that any change will permanently drift them apart. It gets to a point where when an accident creates Kamimatsu, an Anthropomorphic Personification of the brothers' collective goodness, they try to kill him on the basis of giving their parents higher standards to expect from them.
- Boys Run the Riot: At the start of chapter 1, Ryo keeps telling Jin the proverb about "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down". Ryo sees himself as having been "that nail" in the past, someone who got punished for standing out too much, and as a result, he isn't out to anyone as trans. He also says that he uses his fashion choices to blend in as a guy, and he dislikes how much Jin draws attention to himself. Seeing Jin be fearless about his ideas helps Ryo slowly change his mind over the first volume, though.
- Outbreak Company: Shinichi and the group become hostages for a group of terrorists. The terrorist leader claims that his attempt to teach everyone about Japan’s culture regardless of their race is an invasion, stating that the reason different races even exist with unique abilities is because of God, with humans having the ability to rule and unify the nonhuman races. Shinichi calls the leader out on their Fantastic Racism, stating that they just want to have the same abilities as the other races and that their inadequacies make that impossible, so they group all the nonhuman races together and belittle them so they can feel like they’re better than them. The leader actually AGREES with him and continue to see Shinichi as a threat since all they want to do is maintain the status quo of Eldant.
- Sk8 the Infinity: Miya Chinen was a victim of this. He used to have a group of friends that he loved to skate with because they made it more fun, but when he started winning tournaments and excelling at a faster rate, these same friends abandon him out of envy. Because of this, he became prideful and closed off, even losing his love for skating, right up until Reki and Langa pull him out of that mindset (what’s notable is that before they befriended him, he always seemed annoyed and/or jealous when watching their interactions).
- Discussed in Tokyo Ghoul. While the younger generations of Ghoul Investigators practically worship the legendary Kishou Arima, it turns out that the older generation almost universally resent him. Many were shown to have been openly rude to him as a rookie, viewing him as a threat that made them look bad in comparison. As such, it's very clear that most of his career has been spent isolated from others through a wall of resentment or worship.
