#daniel rand

I'll be kicking this discussion/rant off with ML, because that series is one of the most egregious examples of this trope that I've ever seen, especially as it is actually 'the tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir', so Chat should have equal weight in the narrative regardless.

I've complained about this before, but Marinette seems to have whatever skills the plot requires of her no matter what, even if it would make far more sense for other characters to have those skills.

Take her skill in video games. I don't believe, outside of the one episode it is relevant, we ever really see Marinette play video games again, but she is good enough to beat basically everyone.

I also find it hard to believe that, even with the magical upgrade, she should be anywhere near Adrien/Chat's level of athleticism. He is in a bunch of sports clubs, and she falls down her own stairs basically every morning. Yet, aside from the two part Origins special, her clumsiness barely ever seems to have an impact on her hero persona. If the suits can compensate that much, Adrien should be even further ahead as the suit would be giving a buff to someone who already has great balance/reflexes/stamina/etc!!

There is also the fact that the show finds a way to shoehorn her into every single plot line, even if she has no relevance being there! This comes at the expense of pushing other characters out of situations that they really should be present at. (I remain salty that Adrien didn't get to confront his father/Hawkmoth because the show wanted to go down the BS path of Marinette being so troubled by 'having' to keep 'the big secret'.)

The fact that she is also the only one who can heal everything/get rid of akumas also means that it is very unlikely we will ever get any episodes that don't spotlight her, as no akumas can be fully defeated without her present. I've stated before, both Ladybug and Chat should be fully necessary to get rid of akumas as that would up the stakes for whenever one of them isn't (i.e. Chat) isn't there whilst also maintaining the original premise from the show that the Ladybug and Black Cat are an equally matched pair. Instead, Maribug can either handle everything by herself, or can pull support from the roster of superfluous secondary heroes.

There should be more episodes where Adrien gets to handle things on his own, either as a civlian or as a much more fair reprise of Reflekdoll where he gets to actually show potential with the Ladybug miraculous rather than being the butt of a joke.

Moving on, with Ultimate Spiderman, I can definitely see why the show plays into this trope. They are working with an established IP and, out of all of the heroes on the team, Spiderman is definitely the most well known/popular. I can absolutely see why they would want to have him front and centre as much as possible.

But they decided to make a team shown, and I would have hoped that they would have at least made an effort to make things fairer on the other characters. Instead, characters are usually nerfed one way or another to give Spiderman the chance to be the best/save the day/solve the problem, even if the characters have far more experience/training than him.

For example, in every episode that is about someone's backstory (to my memory), Spiderman is given a role that is equal to, or even larger than that of the the person whose backstory is coming into play. Again, I very much understand that Spiderman is the main draw of the show, but it still irks me to some degree.

I may be biased here, but this was the most rage inducing for me when it came to the episode around Danny/Iron Fist's backstory. Why couldn't they have given Spiderman another role to play, rather than having him in the tournament itself?? I can't believe I have to say this, but having Spiderman participate in the Iron Fist tournament on Danny's behalf is stupid, especially when the show had to then come up for a reason why Spiderman wouldn't inherit the powers after competing in the tournament (which was that Danny had shown wisdom in choosing Spiderman to be his champion, even though Spiderman had been the only person there who would be on Danny's side without question and was thus the obvious choice!!).

Instead, the show very easily could have had Danny tell Spiderman that he believed his fellow competitor was trying to cheat. The show could have switched between Spiderman dealing with people working with the Scorpion who were trying to sabotage the tournament behind the scenes (perhaps residents of Kun Lun who disagreed with the thought of Danny taking the throne/being the Iron Fist) and the tournament itself with Danny competing. Spiderman would still be doing something interesting, without stealing Danny's thunder, and they could have even tied in the whole 'choosing well' moral as Danny would have chosen to believe in Spiderman to stop any saboteurs!

Now, Bleach does have some moments like the above, but I really wanted to delve in here around not needing your character to be everything, a trope that is abundant in shonen anime (go figure).

I started watching/reading Bleach when it first came out, and I found the premise to be very interesting, with Ichigo balancing his new found role as a shingami (an extension of what back then had just seemed to be a lucky/unlucky ability to see ghosts) with his normal life. I thought it was pretty cool that other characters (Ishida, Orihime, Chad), all also had their own distinct power sets. Ishida as the 'last of the Quincies' particularly charmed me.

When Ichigo gained his Hollow form, I wasn't too bothered. Again, it seemed pretty in line with a shonen power up, and I do understand wanting to make your main character stand out. It seemed like a fun, unique power for him to have, without stepping on the toes of other characters. I have a problem with everything that came later on.

The initial reveal that Ichigo's dad is actually a shinigami and the assumption that that was why he had his original ability to see ghosts was skating on thin ice for me, but I again accepted it as it did at least make Ichigo's original connection to the dead make sense.

But finding out that Ichigo was also part Quincy and that Zangetsu was a manifestation of his Quincy powers was an absolute kick in the teeth. This immediately diminished Ishida's character, even more so with the previous revelation that there were a bunch of Quincies still alive Ending the series with Ichigo as part-human/shinigami/hollow/Quincy just seemed unnecessary to me. Surely there must have been other ways to power him up rather than this last minute revelation that he is part Quincy as well.

Even though I fully imagine this was a built in plot point from the start, I still think it's frustrating that Ichigo discovers this heritage (power up) in the final arc of the story, without many real hints towards it beforehand. (I will flag that I may simply not be recalling any foreshadowing of Ichigo being part Quincy as it's been a long time since I have watched/read Bleach).

Anyway, this is a pretty long post by this point, so I will leave it there for now. I may dive back in to explore these examples further, or to look at new examples, at some point later though. To conclude, most shows don't benefit from having one character able to take care of everything, especially things they have no business being a part of.