Blessed with Suck/Anime and Manga

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Blessed with Suck in Anime and Manga include:

  • In Urusei Yatsura, Ataru Moroboshi considers his Accidental Marriage to Lum Invader an example of this, while the other guys at his school consider him Cursed with Awesome. A reader/viewer could swing either way; it's undeniable that, particularly in the early stories where she was supposed to be a villain until fan popularity prompted a redirection of focus, she is a Tsundere, possessive, and something of Psycho Electro (particularly her tendency to shock him as a sign of affection)... but, on the other hand, much of her angry reactions are prompted by Ataru's constant attempts to bluntly ditch her and/or chase other women, and Ataru's biggest objections are rooted in "being married to her means I can't go trying to pick up other girls"... despite the fact Lum is beautiful, genuinely affectionate and more than willing to go to bed with him.
    • Not to mention his dreams of his own personal harem were pretty much undermined by reality: The only other girl in the series who didn't see him as a pest or a means to an end was Shinobu... who dumped him once it was clear the choice in his mind was "Lum" or "Lum and her everyone else".
  • Sesshomaru in Inuyasha receives a very powerful sword born from his own demonic power. This sword has not only enormous power but also the ability to disintegrate the enemy until nothing's left. Big Bad Naraku kidnaps his companion Rin and he realizes he can't use the awesome Bakusaiga against Naraku because the virus-like effect would be too dangerous with Rin inside Naraku's enormous body. Then he discovers his brother Inuyasha being possessed by Magatsuhi. Obviously he can't use Bakusaiga to whack Inuyasha without killing his brother (like he did once with his former weapon, Tokijin). So he has to rely on his claws and Tenseiga, a sword which can only wound those not of this world (which Magatsuhi is, unfortunately defeating him's still troublesome because he uses Inuyasha's body as a shield), until Magatsuhi is defeated and Rin is safe. Also, he wouldn't be able to revive anything that's killed by Bakusaiga because his Tenseiga needs a relatively intact body to do so. Ironically, while Bakusaiga is not considered evil, and Tenseiga is "The Sword of Heaven", Tokijin - the sword that never brought any trouble (outside of the fact that it wasn't strong enough in some cases) and was absolutely obedient to him till the day it broke - was extremely evil.
    • It gave trouble—the guy who made it got possessed and killed Jaken. Sesshoumaru is just too cool to let it get away with anything while he's wielding it.
  • Jusenkyo, the famous Valley of Cursed Springs from Ranma ½, is capable of bestowing either Cursed with Awesome or Blessed with Suck upon those who receive its magical touch- it all depends on what spring, specifically, a person falls into. Some springs provide definite superpowers. Others, however...
    • Ryoga Hibiki's piglet form is small and adorable, an instant hit with just about any cute girl he meets. However, Ryoga is so nervous around women that this just makes him uncomfortable, and being adopted by Akane as "P-chan", when she's normally oblivious to his feelings, is like torture to him. Beyond that, he goes from a Made of Iron destructively strong martial artist into a weak and helpless animal considered delicious by man and beast alike. Couple this with the fact that he's often deep in the wilds when the curse goes off, and you can see why the pain outweighs the gain in his mind.
      • Wilds nothing, the first time Shampoo and Cologne see Ryoga as a pig they attempt to cook him.
    • Shampoo's cat form is just as small and helpless as "P-chan", though less personally risky... however, her unwilling boyfriend has issues with cats due to an ill-advised training regime he was forced into by his father, which means that the slightest splash of cold water, from any source, will send him running for the horizon.
    • Anime-only Villain of the Week Kin'nee is a hulking brute of a fighter, but his Spring of Drowned Priest not only makes him a skinny little weakling barely half his true size, but also messes with his mind, making him timid, cowardly, and a devout pacifist.
    • Ranma Saotome's Spring of Drowned Girl would, of itself, be a fairly neutral curse, but though less extreme than the others here, it's still a genuine curse to Ranma, though one he is pragmatic enough to take advantage of. His Fair Weather Mentor, the Dirty Old Man & Old Master Happosai, routinely gropes, fondles and otherwise molests him, as well as trying to force him into female underwear- which makes his Tsundere fiancee Akane Tendo get angry (and she's already ticked off over the fact Ranma's female form is better built), which usually means Ranma gets pummeled. He has two love-crazed stalkers, one of whom is a deliberately oblivious guy, who routinely try to Murder the Hypotenuse, figuring that the same-gender form is a different person and a rival for the affections of the opposite-gender form. His alternate form got him a (symbolic) Kiss of Death from Shampoo that forced him to leave China before getting cured, a matter which got resolved... unsatisfactorily. He later spends much of the series being forced to avoid his long-lost mother because he and his father have every reason to believe his curse will force him to commit Seppuku.
      • It may be of note, however, that Ranma does utilize one legitimate advantage from his female form in combat. He's faster as a girl than as a guy.
      • Isn't this only mentioned in the anime, and the manga just leaves it as purely a downgrade of his capabilities? In either canon, it's smaller, has less strength, it's more awkward to use (different centers of gravity), possibly impairs his ability to use Ki Attacks due to naturally being less "in sync" with his mind if Herb is an example, and it has less reach (Ranma almost loses his first match against Mousse, one of the taller teens, because s/he underestimates just how much longer Mousse's limbs are than Ranma-chan's).
    • And in a non-related example, Ranma accidentally ate Dragon Whisker Porridge while in China. This causes his hair to grow and grow, making it a genuine and perfect cure for baldness. As Ranma already has hair, however, if he doesn't keep it under control by using another Dragon's Whisker to tie it up, his hair will keep growing until he uses it up. An entire lifetime's supply of hair, burnt through in about a week, tops. And, of course, his self-centered father couldn't care less when he finds out, immediately trying to steal the Whisker so he can cure his own baldness.
    • Ryoga's Shi Shi Hokodan is one of the most powerful attacks in the series. The downside? It's so powerful because it's powered by his depression... then again, with the aforementioned curse, the fact he has No Sense of Direction, his inability to confess his romantic feelings, the obliviousness of his desired one to said feelings, and the fact he has never been able to beat Ranma Saotome, it's no wonder that he's so depressed.
      • Even more so, it's self-limiting. When he starts winning a fight using it, it gets weaker as he cheers up.
    • A story arc centers on Ryoga getting a special mark on his stomach that made him unbeatable in battle. Unfortunately, not only does the mark look ridiculous, but the only way to remove it was to defeat him in battle. Worse yet is that the mark shows up on his piglet form too, compromising his identity. He only got out of it by flexing his stomach muscles so the mark distorted and Ranma could defeat him.
    • Rouge hovers between this and Cursed with Awesome. As an Ashura, she can fly, has multiple arms, several faces, can breathe fire and hurl lightning... but, all those arms means she gets horrific backache. How bad is it? When Pantyhose Taro steals her magnetic backpain relievers, she goes on a rampage and chases him all the way from China to Japan to get them back, it hurts that much.
  • Another Rumiko Takahashi work, Wasted Minds from Rumic World features a main character with the useful ability of teleportation... between anywhere garbage is, be it a trashcan or landfill.
  • The immortals in Rumiko Takahashi's Mermaid Saga are neither indestructible nor immune to pain. In Mermaid's Scar, Mana is tied up with barbed wire by the main villain, who gleefully informs her that it's too bad there's nothing in mermaid flesh to counteract pain. At the end, Yuta informs Mana that the villain will die if the fire from the car crash he was in burns through his neck all the way. Squick.
  • Borderline in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Shinji Ikari always believes that his job as an Eva pilot causes him nothing but pain, but many of the characters, most notably Kensuke Aida, believe that being a pilot of an Evangelion is really amazing, and can't understand how he gets so upset about piloting. Of course, those who do understand what's going on know otherwise.
  • Light Yagami is given a supernatural artifact capable of killing anyone, anywhere, using any method physically possible, (provided he knows their name and face.) Sounds awesome. But in the first volume we are told that the Death Note is a curse to all mortals who have ever owned one. Light is not an exception. His sense of morality, once so important to him, vanishes within days of receiving the Death Note, he has to take part in the killing of his own father who was once the man Light admired above all others, and oh, yeah, he gets the crap shot out of him.
    • Interestingly, a straighter example of this trope is given by the false rules. If you don't write any name in the Death Note during 13 name after you already wrote one, you die. If the Death Note is burned or destroyed, all who have touched it will die.
  • Subverted in Ah! My Goddess: Keiichi Morisato is granted a wish by a goddess, which promptly gets him kicked out of his dorm, and leaves him with said goddess and her sisters as dependents and being harassed by everyone except the goddess and his sister. Despite all this, he is still happy with his wish, and makes this clear at several points.
  • At the very beginning of Bleach, it would seem that Ichigo is blessed with suck, because even though he can see ghosts and acquires a means to defend against them, the ability draws soul-devouring monsters, Hollows, to him, his friends, and family.
    • We also can't forget the Vizards. After they all get turned into Hollows, they had to deal with it. They had to figure out how to turn their inner Hollows into their power without getting taken over. Oh, and if any one of them hadn't managed it? They would be DEAD. Before this transformation takes place, they were about to be killed for becoming "abominations" in the Soul Society's eyes, so they have to GTFO. So, in the end, they've got evil on the inside, and are official outcasts. But look on the bright side! They now have super awesome powers~!!!!
      • Notably, none of them hate their situation by the events of the series. Even to the point where Shinji breifly mentions they should thank both Urahara and Aizen (though that may have been sarcastic).
    • Shunsui Kyoraku's Shikai has arguably one of the most diverse and powerful benefits introduced in the series. The major drawback is Shunsui is also susceptible to the effects of every one of his own abilities making it a massive double edged sword. It's implied that his Battle Aura means this effect is extended to his allies, which would make group situations hopelessly problematic unless everyone knew the 'rules'.
      • The diversity also works in his favour - if the opponent doesn't realise the rules, or notice that they apply equally, they can't gain the upper hand. Minor Hollows presumably lack the capacity to even notice the 'game', and even a strong one had a tough time of it.
    • This is Soi Fon's general attitude towards her bankai. For all its power, the weight of it renders her immobile, stripping her of one of her primary advantages: speed. The size of it also makes it impossible for her to fight as she normally does, which further limits her ability; nor can she conceal it.
      • But wait, it gets better.
      • Whereas other bankai offer multiple means of attack and can be used repeatedly, Soi Fon's has but one function and limits her to a single shot. The recoil is clearly more than she can handle, necessitating the use of a ginjotan, essentially a steel sash, to anchor herself before firing. The worst part? Regardless whether she hits the target, or not, it drains so much of her reiatsu that it normally takes her three days to recover before she can safely use it again. Otherwise, this happens.
  • Several people in Mushishi appear to be genuinely blessed after being infected with mushi that gives them special powers (prophetic dreams, the ability to see while blind, etc.) Unfortunately, mushi has a nasty tendency to grow in power and get beyond its user's control, which usually results in disaster for the infected individual and the people around them.
  • Russia from Axis Powers Hetalia hates General Winter for tormenting him with the constant cold. However, in war time, the weather is effective on his enemies.
  • Yami no Matsuei has sixteen-year-old Hisoka Kurosaki, who has powerful empathy which is helpful in his line of work as a shinigami and allows him to feel emotions, see memories, and pick up imprints of clairvoyance off inanimate objects. His power also keeps him from physical contact with most people, brings him large amounts of both mental and physical pain and was the reason his parents despised his very existence and locked him in a cell for most of his life up until he was raped and murdered by a psychotic doctor.
  • Practically every Geass power granted in Code Geass starts off sounding pretty cool... until it becomes uncontrollable and makes its user's life hell (unless it already had a terrible drawback to begin with). Examples:
    • Lelouch has the power to issue absolute orders, but it only works once and those orders can't be taken back. Once his Geass becomes permanently active near the end of the first season, he accidentally triggers a genocide. How... unfortunate. For the most part, though, his power is portrayed as positive, since he gets a contact to deal with the Power Incontinence in the following season.
    • Mao can read the thoughts of anyone within 500 meters. To be more precise, Mao reads the thoughts of everyone in 500 meters. This was bad enough when he could turn it on and off. Once it becomes permanently active, he has to read the thoughts of everyone within 500 meters. Unlike Lelouch, there's no easy way to fix the problem, isolating him and eventually driving him insane from being bombarded by random thoughts. He's obviously in so much pain, in fact, that it's hard to see how his power was ever a blessing in the first place!
    • Rolo has the power to stop perception of time. However, his heart stops along with everything else, putting the time limit at a few seconds and making it risky to use in quick succession. This is what eventually kills him, when he consciously overuses his Geass to save Lelouch.
    • Pre-immortality C.C. had a Geass which acted as a love-magnet, which was nice until she couldn't turn it off and people got increasingly obsessed with pleasing her. This made it impossible to tell where people's true feelings ended and the Geass-generated love-brainwashing began, causing C.C. to become jaded and cynical about love.
    • Suzaku may not have a Geass, but he does get a command from Lelouch to "live", forcing Suzaku to survive by whatever means necessary. For a Death Seeker like Suzaku, this is bad enough as it is. But it gets worse. Thanks to the "Live" Geass, he ends up nuking Tokyo and causing 35 million deaths when using the nuke was the only thing left to keep Kallen from killing him. Then it becomes Cursed with Awesome as he turns the command into a quasi-SEED mode. In the Grand Finale... well, let's say that he was given a Fate Worse Than Death. God, it sucks to be Suzaku!
    • Lelouch's mother, Marianne, is also a case. Her Geass apparently never activates... until she's shot to death, locking her in the body of a loli she was training... and on time share to boot. However, she mentions that she could have gone back at some point if she had wanted.
    • Elite Mook and Knight Of One, Bismarck Waldstien, has the power to see the future. It's permanently active, so that eye, while still usable, sees the future constantly. He has it clamped shut with some easy to remove clips.
      • All this gets a lampshade courtesy of Jun Fukuyama in one audio commentary, where he observes that most Geass powers would be nice to have once in a while, but they become terrible curses when permanent.
      • Fridge Horror: Imagine somebody had a geass that could blow up anything that falls into their line of sight. When the geass becomes permanent, everything they look at blows up (including planes, people, maybe even their eyelids).
  • Kurau in Kurau Phantom Memory benefits greatly from her Rynax-powers in her job as an agent, but it causes her some trouble too. She gets separated from her father at a young age and goes through years of loneliness, because she has to hide her powers and the Rynax she merged with has to miss its "pair". Once her pair appears, she has to run from the authorities, while being more vulnerable as she has to defend her "little sister" as well. Still, flying, being able to phase through walls and disintegrate massive objects is pretty cool.
  • Gene and Jim of Outlaw Star inherit one of the most advanced ships in the galaxy after one of their clients kicks the bucket. This would seem like a good thing, until the two realize that it's going to cost them an arm and a leg to dock, maintain, and arm the damn thing. Not to mention that it effectively paints a big fat target on Gene's head for the Kei pirates to strike at. Gene puts it best when he says, "We sure inherited a big pain in the ass."
  • The titular heroines from Gunslinger Girl get saved from death and gain enormous strength and agility through cybernetic implants. Alas, this comes with severe mental conditioning (including enormous emotional dependence on their "Handlers") and an immensely shortened lifespan, so the girls will likely die before reaching adulthood.
  • In The Law of Ueki, kids are granted powers by candidates gunning for the position of God, who must then fight in a tournament. One power in particular seems unbeatable (The power to turn ideals in to reality), until you find out that it takes away a year of your life to use it. An even worse example is the kid who can turn his forehead in to a diamond, but only when his hands are in his pockets. This trope is pretty much the focus of the entire series.
    • Ueki Kosuke, who has the power to turn trash into trees. Although he does find some extremely interesting and practical uses for this power in battle, he is helpless without any rubbish.
      • That is, until it turns out that he can use a piece of tree to create another tree.
      • Also, the piece of trash has to be small enough to fit completely inside one or both hands.
        • I think the ultimate reveal is his level-2 power. While other powers revolve around changing one object to another, Ueki's power allows him to infinitely transform tree parts (trash) into trees, which influences his level-2 power of reversing the objects his opponents have changed, returning them to their original state. More interesting is that his candidate, Kobasen suggests that he deliberately chose his power knowing that it'd eventually have a high pay off. Despite the fact that in it's initial state it's not a bad power, it's just not as cool as the others.
    • Seiichiro Sano, who can turn his towels into iron, but only as long as he can hold his breath.
    • Ai Mori, who can later on make her opponent really, really love glasses. The effect is immensely powerful, but before it can be activated the opponent must strike a rather specific girly "Squeee!" pose, making the power practically useless.
    • Robert Haydn, who has the aforementioned power of making ideal objects (for examle, a cup that will never spill a drop even if turned upside-down) at the cost of one year of his lifespan.
    • Marco Maldini, who can change tomatoes into magma. I'm sure by now you get the point.
      • If any of them hit a non-powered person with their power they lose one of their innate talents, and losing all your talents causes you to be struck out of existence. Welcome to the suck.
  • Law of Ueki Plus, sequel to the above series brings back Kosuke, having lost all his cool heavenly powerups and his original powers. He's sent to a new world full of naturally born power users and is forced to choose a new power to survive. By chance he accidentally picks the power to wield a mop. Things get more interesting when he learns how to make it grab stuff and hit people with it's end. In the end turns out that the mop is actually a powerup that allows Ueki's new friend to reach it's final form
    • Though quite a few of these are more Cursed with Awesome; They start off sounding like a curse, but turn out to be amaxing. Such as Ueki's, for example. Kind of a mix here, though, I suppose.
  • Yakumo of School Rumble is an empath who hears the thoughts regarding her from any guy who has any interest in her. Her being a Yamato Nadeshiko, that usually means all guys—it comes as a surprise when she can't hear anything from the male lead (because he's purely in love with someone else, her older sister) -- and people don't help her because she looks too perfect to need it. The blaring thoughts of the Stalker with a Crush don't help her situation, either.
  • Zelgadis Graywords from The Slayers wants to become strong, so his great-grandfather makes him strong. By turning him into a 1/3 rock golem, 1/3 blow demon chimera with blue skin and wire hair. He then devotes his life to finding a cure for this condition.
    • He's Nigh Invulnerable and his appearance doesn't seem to cause panic amongst the normal people. Where's the suck?
    • Most of the time we see him he's hanging around the rest of the cast or has himself covered in clothes head to foot. Also showing the effects of his appearance beyond it being funny is not particularly on the show's agenda. There's also been rumored a solo story about Zelgadis on his own that basically got scrapped because it was too dark and serious for the usual Slayers tone. But put in some imagination (given how most people react to someone who looks weird) and the fact he sinks in water, his hair can get stuck in wood etc and there's plenty there that sucks.
      • In the new series, Slayers Evolution-R it's shown in a flashback how children Zelgadis used to play with start to consider him a monster after his change - oddly, considering that they also used to play with wolfman Dilgear and fishman Noonsa with no reaction to their monstrous appearances. It seems that Zelgadis only became serious about finding the cure after it became clear to him that Rezo was only using him as a tool, and didn't change him because he cared about him, as he claimed.
  • The five Signers of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's consider their power to range from a mere inconvenience to a dire curse.
  • Wangan Midnight has the Devil Z, a heavily tuned Nissan Fairlady Z (S30, which was sold as the Datsun 240Z in North America). For a car from the 1970s, you'll be amazed at how fast this badass mother can go. The tradeoff? It's extremely hard to control, and thus has a long history of accidents involving the deaths of its past owners. In fact, it's believed to be possessed; one chapter has the protagonist Akio exclaiming that his foot is stuck on the pedal as if it was being pushed down.
  • Chise in Saikano is turned into the ultimate weapon, which makes her invincible and she becomes absurdly strong as well. Comes at a very steep price: Using her powers hurts her directly, and is slowly taking away her humanity. Oh, and she can't control her powers very well, leading to her destroying several cities.
  • A Certain Magical Index: Touma has what he calls "Imagine Breaker", a right hand that can absolutely cancel any esper/magic power it touches (even, according to him, miracles from the gods), which is useful considering the extremely powerful trouble he attracts starting with the first episode. However, it doesn't protect the rest of his body, isn't of any use in mundane situations, interferes with beneficial powers (e.g. healing), can't be turned off, and also cancels his luck, making every day a bad day and probably causing most of the deadly trouble in the first place. Without an inhumanly-skilled doctor on hand, he'd likely have died several times over by now—he's actually ecstatic when he survives an arc without getting sent to the hospital for heavy injuries.
  • The twelve members of the zodiac in Fruits Basket, who turn into animals when they become weak or are hugged by someone (outside of the Zodiac) of the opposite gender. Mostly, though, their problems seem to be due to their twisted, abusive family's way of dealing with this.
  • Ixpellia from StrikerS Sound Stage X of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has the ability to cause the Mariages to arise, whereupon they would immediately sally forth into battle. Great when you have to fight in a war. Not so great when you neither need nor want to fight anymore and your undead warriors with one track minds won't stop no matter how much you beg them to.
  • Nishijou Takumi the real one from Chaos;Head awakened unparalleled Gigalomaniac powers at age 10, which allow him to alter reality to match his thoughts. However, using his powers also gives him progeria (rapid aging); the more power he uses the older and sicker he gets, and he can't use his powers to fix the problem. When the series opens, the real Takumi is close to death, having used a great deal of power to create the protagonist.
  • In Chrono Crusade, it's implied that all of the Apostles have side-effects that go along with their holy powers. For Joshua, he has the ability to heal, but along with it comes an Incurable Cough of Death and seizures, which his powers can't heal. Azmaria also has the ability to heal others, but she believes it brings misfortune since many of the people she was close to in the past died, often because of people wanting to use her powers. Mary Magdalene can see the future (and various other things), but she's seen so many visions of other people's lives that she's lost her own memories in the shuffle. The anime also has Rosette, who is blessed with stigmata, but that only brings her constant pain, makes her a target for Aion to brainwash and control, and she later ends up using her powers to wound Chrono, which kills him in the end.
  • Dragonball Z. In the movie Bardock, Father of Goku, Bardock is "blessed" with the gift of prophecy by the natives of his most recently conquered planet. The problem being that the only vision he gets is of Frieza destroying Planet Vegeta, and nobody will believe him. Note to self: do not tick off psychic aliens.
    • Of course, it's not the only vision: He gets to see that his son will grow up to be a good warrior, and will fight Frieza one day...
  • One of the most obvious cases of blessed with suck EVER must be from Code Breaker, where people can get awesome elemental powers, seriously who wouldn't wanna control lightning?, but in the end your powers will turn on you and consume you.
  • The pactio cards in Negima!? (not to be confused with Negima!) have suck written all over them. When the pactio is activated it randomly triggers one of three cards - the null card, the cosplay card or the armour card. The armour card is for maximum offense, the cosplay card is a powerup but it isn't as strong and the null card turns the recipient into a chibi animal which can't actually fight. So that's a 1 in 3 chance of being useless in a fight. To top it off, regardless of which card is activated, when it wears off (after a very short time) the person is both tired and very hungry. So if it runs out before the fight is over you are in even more trouble.
    • In the original manga, Chisame kinda got shafted in the Pactio department. Her artifact, a Magical Girl staff that gives her super hacking powers, is theoretically incredibly useful...except that it requires electronics to function, and the next arc features the cast getting Trapped in Another World, where there aren't any computers, rendering her artifact more or less useless.
      • Useless? Kurt Godel and his super-advanced illusion space that Chisame crashed would like a word with you.
  • In Soul Eater, Crona's blood is a sentient being named Ragnarok which offers very strong capabilities in offense, defense, and maneuverability. He does this by hardening to stop attacks or turning into a sword, needles, or wings. Unfortunately, the process of getting said powers as a child was stressful enough that Crona is hardly ever in a state of mind that isn't depression or insanity. Also, Ragnarok likes to bully Crona constantly and, being initially huge and musclebound, is able to easily overpower his partner. Factor in the fact that Ragnarok appears by violently and painfully ripping out of Crona's back and you have a very undesirable (but still fun to watch) power.
  • Gaara from Naruto had sand-related powers given to him at birth which, by automatically blocking any attacks, make him virtually unkillable. Unfortunately, this power has also made everyone around him want him dead. He was deprived of any sort of love as a child, which brought him great grief (he tried and failed to slit his wrists when he was like five years old for Christ's sake!) and made him become a psychotic killer who believed that he was meant to kill every living being in the world. Did we mention that he can't fall asleep or the giant sand raccoon will come out and start a ruckus? In part II of the story, he reforms, accepts the love of his siblings, and becomes the leader of his country. He is then kidnapped, robbed of his powers, killed, revived at the expense of another character, and excluded from the rest of the story so far. Poor Gaara.
    • Actually, when Sasuke attacks the meeting of the Kages, not only is Gaara present and attacks Sasuke with his powers, his "perfect defense," as Sasuke calls it, is still in place. Whether his insomnia is still there, or whether his powers are capable of what they were when he was possessed, remains to be answered, but since no one's usurped him as Kazekage it stands to reason that he is still one of the most powerful individuals in the Naruto Universe.
      • As noted above, Gaara actually does maintain a presence much the same as his post-villain days. He also displays roughly the same level of power, aside from his demonic transformation.
    • Sasuke himself (in fact, almost every Uchiha) is a good example. The Sharingan bloodline trait lets him use his eyes for massive combat effectiveness. At their lowest level, they can detect minute details of everything around them, including the muscle tensions that precede any action that lets them predict their opponent's movements. At higher levels, they can memorize the hand seals and chakra flows that let them copy their opponent's techniques. But once you cross the line into the Mangekyou Sharingan (obtained by killing the person closest to you), the eyes become more effective than ever and let the user perform a whole slew of insanely powerful techniques. The only catch is that these new techniques feel like broken glass in your retina to perform and inevitably, without fail, whether you use your new Hax powers or not, you will eventually go blind. The only way to prevent this is to be lucky enough to have a brother that has the exact same eyes as you, kill him, and transplant his eyes into yourself.
      • There is also the Izanagi, which lets you cast an illusion on yourself to convert reality to illusion potentially letting you escape a difficult situation. The price to pay is that the eye used to perform the Izanagi permanently goes blind. But then, losing an eye is much better than losing your life, especially in the Naruto Universe where you can transplant eyes within a wink, and stack them up in your arm.
      • Kakashi obtained a Sharingan without being an Uchiha. On the upside he mastered it to an astonishing degree; on the downside, he got the eye but not the Uchiha stamina, and his fights tend to go like this:

*AWESOMENESS*
*falls over*

    • Jugo is a descendant of Sages. As a result, he has the power to absorb nature chakra from his environment just like Sage Mode Naruto. Unlike Sage Mode Naruto, he can't stop absorbing nature chakra. His body needs to vent chakra, which is why he transforms into a Hyde-like berserker if he doesn't use his powers often.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica, full stop. To put it simply, anyone who becomes a Magical Girl IS DOOMED. To go into detail, being a Magical Girl means that your soul is now in a constant state of decay and once it decays completely you turn into a witch. And this result is unavoidable. Thanks, Kyubey. Thanks a lot.
    • At the end of the anime the system is changed so that you don't become a witch. You just vanish instead. You're still doomed.
  • Czeslaw Meyer from Baccano! is a potential champion of this trope. Despite his immortality he DOES feel pain and gets to spend a couple hundred years as an experiment to underscore how many ways he can die and come back This eventually leads Czes into living as strange hybrid of paranoid survivalist and woobie.
    • He gets away by killing his parent figure/torturer and inheriting not only the knowledge of killing someone, but having all of his guardian's memories of joyfully abusing himself. Anyone questioning how the kid got so screwed up?
    • He also seems to serve a purpose on the show of being mercilessly killed at every potential occasion. It ranges from the typical gun exploding his head to his rather gruesome encounter with Claire.
    • While the "cursed" nature of immortality varies for each immortal, Roy Maddock's unusual ability can't be seen as much of anything but a detriment: he feels twice the full effect of any drug he takes - including withdrawal symptoms and likelihood of addiction.
  • Raid from Mahoujin Guru Guru is a formidable Magic Knight. His magic is powerful - however it has the drawback of requiring really stupid dance moves to cast. Worse yet, his attempts to remedy this have backfired because he was so focused on style he ignored the effects and twice cast recovery spells on his opponent.
  • The Diclonii from Elfen Lied are considered a new species of human, destined to supplant Homo sapiens, are more resilient than H.sap and have deadly psychic powers. They are also easily identified from the horns with which they are born and the ones that are not outright killed are taken into custody before their powers can manifest and have spent their short lives being brutally tortured and treated as experimental animals (at the same time).
    • Part of the problem is that Diclonii are born with an "instinct" (for lack of a better word) that wants them to Kill All Humans. It is possible to suppress this, but given that Humans Are the Real Monsters in this setting, few are given the motive to do so. Then again, the series is one that asks the questions "Are the Humans or Diclonii the real monsters?"
  • In Speed Grapher The protagonist, Tatsumi Saiga, gained the power to destroy anything that he takes a picture of. Which is cool but not only does he need a camera to use his power but he can't turn that power off. That means that he can't take pictures without killing anyone, which is pretty hard for him because he used to be a passionate photographer. Oh and Every time he uses his power, he weakens his eyes and eventually goes blind in one eye, and the other one EXPLODES.
  • Tiffa Addil of After War Gundam X is a sweet, beautiful and gentle girl. Who is also a Newtype, and maybe the last one alive. Not only the poor child is treated like a Barrier Maiden and persecuted by pretty much everyone in the world... her powers let her see the future (and her visions are NOT pretty) and sense the thoughts and feelings of everyone (which either alienates her from others or lets her feel what people feel as they horribly die in battle thanks to a beam weapon that * she* helps Garrod to set up in self defense. Wow, no wonder Tiffa is terribly withdrawn and prone to seizures once in a while.
  • Yoite's Kira technique from Nabari no Ou. You can basically control someone's life force however you please, but at the cost of your own. Basically, you're guaranteed a very early death. Yoite lasts about two years of using Kira.
  • Early in Kamichu!, the characters meet the god/spirit of poverty. His power? To bring financial bad luck to everyone around him, merely by existing. As a consequence, he was forced to wander from place to place all alone because people had always chased him out of town.
  • The pilots of Zearth in Bokurano - each child takes turns to pilot an insanely powerful Mech that is indestructible by conventional means, and fights humans from alternate universes to save their own. Except piloting takes your life force and you die after the fight. Oh, and you destroy an entire alternate universe and kill all those inside when you win.
  • Most of the main characters from ×××HOLiC seem to have this problem.
    • Watanuki can see and attract supernatural creatures, but they all hunt him attempting to kill him and what not, and he's constantly running for his life. Eventually, he does get the ability to do things like talk to the dead and inanimate objects in his dreams (It Makes Sense in Context... sort of) which proves useful. Unfortunately, if he uses it too much, he could vanish.
    • Himawari brings bad luck to almost anyone she's near. She killed at least two people with just her presence, and almost got Watanuki offed at one point.
    • Kohane's powers allow her to see spirits and exorcise them, a useful power by itself. If only her psychotic abusive mother hadn't forced her into the spotlight where she would be ridiculed relentlessly.
    • Far before the beginning of the series, Clow discovered a new power when he accidentally brought Yuko Back from the Dead. Had he not done this, the Big Bad wouldn't have started destroying realities, and the whole series (along with its sister series Tsubasa Chronicle) probably wouldn't have happened.
    • Yuko seems to know everything and is an intimidating sorceress with phenomenal powers... which she can use only if someone makes a wish and pays the price. Due to the nature of her job, she can't act on her own and even those she cares about must work under her policy]].
    • Doumeki is the only main cast member who manages to subvert this; most painful experiences for him are tied in some way to the fact that the people he is closest to are all Blessed with Suck. Maybe he could be considered blessed with suck by proxy...
  • Tadayasu Sawaki from Moyashimon has the ability to see, and communicate with, microbes. One can imagine seeing talking anthropomorphic bacteria and fungi wherever one goes can get old after a while. It's especially disturbing walking into the (extremely messy) room of your new roommates and seeing one big wall of mold spores, or when the bacteria in yogurt encourage you to eat them (though they're beneficial flora; if they're telling you to eat them, they're pretty much only asking you to give them a job).
  • Yuki Giou from Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru is born with a power to heal others, but the consequence of healing is that he brings the pain upon himself. This apparently brings sympathy of many, especially Luka.
  • Yakumo Fujii of 3×3 Eyes, in order to save his life, has his soul removed, making him immortal. However, until he Took a Level in Badass, this results in him suffering fatal wounds repeatedly, including, but not limited to:
    • Getting hit by a bus
    • Being shot so many times in a gunfight that one character finds it difficult to believe he can move around while carrying all that lead inside him.
    • Having a concrete overpass collapse on him, which results in a crushed, mangled body with a severed head.
    • Being impaled on a pitchfork as a result of having been thrown off the roof of a three story mansion and through the wall of a gardener's shed. (While still carrying around a body full of bullets from the previously mentioned firefight.)
  • Durarara!!'s Shizuo Heiwajima was born without (or burned out) the unconscious limiters most people have on their physical abilities, effectively granting him Super Strength (as well as tendency to go into Unstoppable Rages at a moments notice). Awesome, right? Well, turns out that those limiters are there for a reason -- namely, preventing you from utterly destroying your body through overextension. The only reason he doesn't shatter his arms every time he uproots a vending machine now is because he's already put his body through enough hell over the last fifteen years to effectively develop low-level invulnerability
  • In the world of Fullmetal Alchemist, State Alchemists have great power and have access to a bounty of resources of all types. They're also effectively slaves to the military, and are widely despised by the normal populace, who either view them as freaks or sellouts.
  • All of the Contractors in Darker than Black have Conditional Powers tied to some sort of price. Said price can vary from the simple but annoying (eating a specific food, say, or smoking) to the weird (writing poetry) to the very, very bad (breaking their own fingers, drinking children's blood). It might not even be an action; Rapid Aging, Merlin Sickness, and partial paralysis are all possible remunerations, and all eventually fatal, at that. The only way to get around it is for the Contractor's original body to die, which isn't usually a real good trade unless their ability is possession of humans. And even then, they've still lost a lot of their morals, emotions, and empathy for other people (Of course, depending on the whims of the Superpower Russian Roulette and Superpower Lottery, there's the odd Contractor who ends up Cursed with Awesome instead).
    • There was a Contractor whose remuneration was to temporarily regain her emotions shortly after using her powers. However, as her power (the ability to make a person's organs explode) could not be used in any way but fatally, this meant that she would always have a nasty emotional whiplash after each use.
  • In My-HiME a HiME gains abilities to protect those she cares for from monsters called 'Orphans'- Never mind that they're the reason the Orphan is there in the first place, and if they ever lose a fight, someone dies.
  • Being a Claymore is a perfect type 4 mixed with type 3. While everyone will agree that not aging, being stronger and faster than a regular human, able to detect shapeshifting monster, and being as resistant to alcohol as you want it are very cool abilities, you soon understand why there had only been one person who willingly become a Claymore. Not aging isn't very useful if your boss's policy means that you will live at most seven years of active duty (which means that you will die around 30 if you are very very lucky), all your physical abilities are absolutely necessary (and in the worst case insufficient) to survive your new existence of neverending battle, and last but not least, all those cool abilities come from your Half-Human Hybrid nature, which give by itself a lot of drawbacks; people are terrified of you (good luck to find a drinking buddy), you can if you are pushed too far (which, thank to your life, means that you won't last if you aren't stoic) become a demon who take his pleasure in eating human guts (while the victim is alive, generally).
  • In Natsume Yuujinchou, Takashi Natsume was born with the ability to see spirits and youkai. Unfortunately, people generally do not react well to small children who insist they see ghosts and monsters everywhere and are prone to bizarre outbursts over what appears to be nothing. At best, he was considered an attention-seeking pathological liar. Normally, people thought he was emotionally unstable or schizophrenic: Chapter 35 indicates that he was even temporarily institutionalized at some point during his childhood.
  • Being a witch in Umineko no Naku Koro ni sounds awesome at first. Magic can essentially let you do whatever you want. However, its limitations become more and more apparent as the arcs pass. First off, there's the problem that being able to create and destroy anything you want makes everything pretty boring. Then, there's the fact that the anti-magic toxin makes it almost impossible to do magic where there are other people around without a lot of preparation. Also, most of the witches were broken pretty hard before they gained magic powers and as a result are a little messed up in the head. In fact, almost all magic would be deemed objectively (and cruelly) to be a psychotic break. That's why the anti-magic toxin exists. Magic can really only be cast within the witch's internal world.
  • In The Secret Agreement, Kyuusai tries to convince Yuuichi of the benefits of being a member of a supernatural, vampire-like clan that steals other people's life forces. Since this means he does not actually love his lover and will kill him (and Iori will give his life willingly, because he is also not in love but under the same delusional rapture between predator and prey), Yuuichi really cannot see this as a blessing.
  • Grove Marcus in Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Grove can astral project himself into a virtually unstoppable being of pure energy, but he requires an injected serum to do so, and his power seems to have left him a bedridden invalid.
  • The Ginzouishou of the anime of Sailor Moon is the most powerful object in the universe and it kills you if you use it's full potential. Even if you don't use all the power it offers, it weakens you to use it at all in most cases.
    • Every single Inner Senshi is rejected for their skills before meeting Usagi. Ami is shunned for being a Teen Genius, Rei for having Psychic Powers, Makoto for being abnormally tall and strong, and Minako for being a senshi before anyone else. The Outers don't fare much better. Michiru and Haruka are strong, intelligent, and mature - and they have to stop the end of the world, which they're not happy about. Hotaru has the power of death and rebirth, but she is sickly and possessed because of it (and dies if she uses her ultimate power). Setsuna can monitor the future and control time, but must be alone and live much longer because of it (and dies if she uses her ultimate power). Basically, being a senshi sucks when you think about it. That said, though, all their situations eventually improve.
  • Brook from One Piece ate the Yomi-Yomi Fruit, which brings the Devil's Fruit user back to life. Once. And makes no distinction as to what state of decay the user is in when they're brought back, which left him in a skeletal state upon revival (he's just lucky that he's so charismatic and that freaky appearances are the norm where he hangs out, though he still gets some grief). He still acts in many ways as though he still has organs (eating, pooping, ect., though attempting to stab them is ineffective) which includes breathing. So if he falls overboard but can't actually die from drowning...
    • Brook has, like many before him, since turned this to Heart Is an Awesome Power by discovering that what his power entails isn't so much resurrection but control over his own soul. He can now use his soul to repair his body, or even reattach severed limbs, leave his physical body at will and become intangible spirit (Guess what he did first), and infuse his soul into his sword so that it becomes as cold as death itself.
    • Pierre is a giant bird that ate the Uma Uma no Mi and now is able to transform into a horse, or into a hybrid form that (supposedly) resembles a pegasus. However, since he already flies and is able to carry his owner in his original form, this is completely useless, so it is just unable to swim (which it was probably unable to do anyway, lacking anything like flippers).
      • The series describes eating a devil fruit as essentially Russian roulette. So Pierre may be the first example of finding a devil fruit that is truly useless.
  • Many of Fran Madaraki's patients end up this way, often with a healthy dose of Body Horror and Squickthrown in for good measure. A few notable examples:
    • The artist who replaces his eyes in one of the first chapters starts seeing ghosts and monsters that are invisible to other humans, thanks to his broadened visual spectrum.
    • One of Fran's classmates undergoes a treatment that alters his body to satisfy his innermostdesires. Unfortunately for him, the this includes powerful emotions like lust and depression, the latter of which regresses him into a mindless invertebrate... permanently.
    • Sentinel Man, one of the Sentinel's sidekicks, can regenerate from anything thanks to a stem cell factory in his arm. He's also a squishy human who's regularly beaten to a pulp by the superpowered villains he faces. Did we mention that his boss is a vengeance fetishist, and deliberately sends him into unwinnable fights so that he can get off on avenging his sidekick's brutal beatings?
  • A weird case in Mirai Nikki. The protagonist Yukiteru gets a diary (his cellphone) that tells him the future. Unfortunately he only got this diary because he's going to participate in a game where it's either kill or be killed and he doesn't have a choice in the matter. Luckily his diary is pretty versatile. However it does possess one fatal flaw. It only tells him the future of whats going on around him and nothing about himself except when he's going to die. It would be this with the other diary holders too except they actually want to participate for their own reasons.
  • In Rental Magica, Itsuki's Evil Eye is very useful, to the point of winning almost any battle he uses it in. It also gives him a lot of pain when there's a lot of magical energy nearby, and it can make him insane if he uses it too much.
  • Popotan presents Time Travel as this: Ai, Mai, Mii and Mea can never choose when to jump in time, and can't stop it once their means of transport (their house) decides to do so, otherwise they'll be unable to age. This affects Mai the most, since she's not able to remain friends for long with the people she meets before she has to leave them. One of them, Konami, even dies before she can return to see her, making her depressed to the point that she leaves her sisters almost immediately after she's given the chance by Shizuku, who controls the entire process.
  • The Type-E people in Code E, where they have a hard time controlling their natural electric powers causing electrical devices to short circut. This doesn't help that this is a time where it is Twenty Minutes Into the Future and everything is run on electricity.
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