Magic Feather: Difference between revisions

== Anime ==

** In a much later episode, Happosai, ticked off at Ranma interfering with his [[Panty Thief|undie raids]], takes Kuno and offers him "Speed of Light elixir", which he claims will make him superfast. It turns him into a [[Lethal Joke Character]], even upgrading his [[Razor Wind]] attacks, but it's implicitly at least as much due to the [[Training From Hell]] Happosai put him through (running into ''occupied'' women's bathing areas, locker rooms, and other places where they were nude, while trying to evade their attacks and survive being beaten to a pulp). Said "elixir" is revealed to actually be tap water and [[Squick|the scrapings from under Happosai's fingernails]].

* Brutally and heartbreakingly subverted in the ''[[Vampire Princess Miyu]]'' episode "The Red Shoes". The titular shoes are given to Miyu's classmate Miho (a [[Shrinking Violet]] and aspiring [[Idol Singer]]) by her manager, and stated to magically make her an unparalleled singer. And they actually ''do just that''. {{spoiler|But they do so by sucking her [[Life Energy]], and worse yet, once Miyu has defeated the Shinma who gave them to poor Miho, they can never be removed again. Miyu has to bite her friend and exchange blood with her in order to save her life. When last seen, Miho is physically better, but she's confined in an hospital.}}

* The stuffed penguin used by Nodoka in ''[[Saki (manga)|Saki]]'' is obviously nothing but a psychological crutch to help her focus on her [[Mahjong]] playing.

* It's revealed towards the end of ''[[Fruits Basket]]'' that {{spoiler|the head maid of the Sohma household tried to do this for little Akito back when her father Akira died and she was expected to take over leadership of the anti-Ren faction, giving her a black box that the maid claimed contained her father's soul. The maid expected that Akito would realize the truth, but the fact that Akito knew so very little about the outside world's common sense helped destroy her self-confidence even further.}}.

* The lucky crystal necklace Chieri uses in ''[[The Cherry Project]]'' turns out to be this.

* Luke in ''[[Mon Colle Knights]]'' once went to find an axe of bravery that would remedy his shyness around his crush. He found it and got his courage during a desperate moment, then lost it the moment the crisis was over and he learned the axe was fake, and he returned to bumbling. In the end, he instead gets over his shyness by confessing, which required a crisis as big as the world ending.

** Which might be a subversion, as B12 might actually help with sea-sickness. But it was meant as a placebo.

* The TV show, ''[[Smart Guy]]'', had TJ giving his idiot friend, Mo, sugar pills to make him smarter. When he found out that it was a placebo, Mo got his own sugar pills to continue replicating the effect.

* Inverted in ''[[News Radio]]'', which showed Matthew being given a homemade "Smart Drink" by Joe and becoming super intelligent. Smatthew (for "Smart Matthew") later begins to lose his intelligence, but upon being urged to consume more of Joe's smart drink, concluded the drink was a placebo and only worked because stupid Matthew was so dumb he believed it would. He loses his newfound intelligence permanently.

* In one episode of ''[[My Wife and Kids]]'', Michael pulls this on his son Junior, using grandson Junior Jr. as the "magic baby" and saying that holding him will make Junior smarter. Eventually, when Junior drifts into annoying territory, Mike lets him in on the truth, saying that his own father pulled the "magic baby" trick on him, using Junior.

* ''[[Flight of the Conchords]]'' did this with hair gel which supposedly made the boys look cool. When the hair gel is all used up, they can't bear to even leave the house, and Murray, their manager, tells them that the gel didn't make them cool, it just gave them the confidence to show everyone how cool they really were. Inspired by his words, they go to perform their gig sans gel, only for the entire crowd to walk away once they start playing. Murray concedes that yes, it really was the hair gel that made them cool.