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Generally this is So Last Season, Serial Escalation, and/or Sequel Escalation.
From the Serial Escalation example list:
- Dragon Ball Z — How big can we make this energy blast? What will the villain blow up next? Just how blonde and glowy will Goku become next? How many of the cast will die and be brought back to life by the Dragon Balls? How many episodes will the battle last?
I'd like to add Invincible Hero to the mix, which used to be "Boring Invincible Hero" for precisely the reasons stated in the initial post.
Time to Unlock More True Potential for the cycle of finding new limits/foes to overcome and training to overcome them. As the analysis page notes, its ubiquity in manga and anime is in part rooted in the concept that self-improvement is never complete, a tenet that Japanese culture traditionally emphasizes.
Also suggest looking at Tropes Are Tools and Administrivia/Complaining - everybody has a Pet-Peeve Trope or ten, but try to remain impartial when it comes to writing examples.
Edited by Scorpion451
Hero gets too strong too early. Anime
I put this under Anime because it's too common there:
Protagonist levels up to defeat big bad. The day is won! But now the next arc he needs to level up again to beat the next guy! It's almost unbearable in the Dragonball series.
I found "Plot Leveling" and "Sorting Algorithm of Evil" But I am more referring to what's happening on the hero end of things. They get too strong and eventually boring.
I found the same problem happened in BBC's Sherlock. They made him out to be too smart, and by the end he was essentially a walking supercomputer.