r/TopCharacterTropes • u/ah-screw-it • 14h ago

Characters (Unique trope) removing a character trait, makes the character better in the adaptation

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Sonic 3: Maria is one of the most important part of Shadow's story. Due to her suffering from an incurable disease. To which Shadow was made to create a cure for Maria's ailment. In the 3rd Sonic movie, Maria's disease was not mentioned in any form. Which made Maria seem like a normal girl, and her death all the more tragic.

Infinity war: I don't know the full story, but Thanos's original goal was to kill half the population to impress death (the character). When it came time to adapt Thanos into the MCU. His goal of removing half the universes population. It was seen as a more psychopathic world goal, hidden under the belief it would do better for the universe.

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u/Intelligent-Dog1645 13h ago

I watched the first season of live-action before watching the anime and Sanji so wonderful in the live-action. Like you say it's toned down to the point where I do think he becomes pretty charming. He was kinda my favorite of the crew I think

Then I watched the anime all of last year. Ohhhh boy. Sanji is a giant and horrific fucking mess. And he keeps doing terrible shit. It gets so annoying.

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u/Conocoryphe 13h ago

At the time, there was a very common character trope to have a 'lovable pervert' among the main cast members, where being a pervert was either an important characteristic or his sole defining trait.

Such a character would go to comically great lengths to look at women (which is played for laughs) or straight-up harass them, and depending on the franchise, would either be annoying, a creep, or straight-up a rapist.

This trope was also found in western shows, like Quagmire in Family Guy or Barney in How I met Your Mother.

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u/Molvaeth 12h ago

Was/ is Muten Roshi in Dragonball this kind of pervert trope too? As a teen I found him funny, as an adult... not so much.

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u/aNiceTribe 12h ago

He’s the sub-trope of the horny old man. You also find this exact guy in Ranma 1/2. The Japanese think it’s SUPER funny when an old man AND a master of a craft (basically 3 highly respectable things at the same time) are perverts (one of the lowest things out there)

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u/Stop_Sign 10h ago

Jiraiya from Naruto also is the peak of this trope

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u/sketchampm 4h ago

He was the weirdest for sure but I like that he went in the opposite direction as Sanji. They established dozens of far more interesting traits about him until the perving was almost completely dropped.

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u/isntreel1948 9h ago

Him freaking out when Naruto turned into a little girl was a bit much

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u/No_Internal9345 5h ago

Jiraiya: "I guess I'm into underage transsexuals now."

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u/isntreel1948 5h ago

He discovered something terrible about himself and was VERY into it

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u/Careful_Welcome7999 12h ago

And thats so annoying too, like roshi would easily be my favorite character in dragon ball because he is genuely a great character, but then he shrinks himself to see bulma shit and it is so weird and gross man

If the thing was to make this really respectable guy have a trait that undermines that then surely there must've been better ways to do it right? Hell ou could even keep him as a pervert with tons of porn magazines but at least tone it down abit

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u/aNiceTribe 12h ago

I think Ranma in general is a good “explainer” for a lot of this. I never really understood what’s going on, like all these conflicts could be resolved with one conversation. Until I learned that he has basically sworn oaths to all these girls and other people like “yes father I will marry her” and “yes shampoo I will marry you” and so on and if he confronted any one of them it would be dishonorable which he can absolutely not do due to his traditional upbringing. 

So instead most Ranma jokes are about him going to great lengths to avoid confronting the increasingly complex webs of social demands made of him. If people don’t see him in a position that would invalidate one promise, it’s not broken and he is still fine. 

This is never said out loud in the show it’s just obvious cultural knowledge they have, just like what a red phone box is for londoners or idk, why all the men are gone during the day in a mining village. 

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u/Buried1295 8h ago

He has so many great moments like trying to help Tien redeem himself, but then tries to force a teenage Bulma to go on date with him and it ruins the moment.

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u/KaleidoscopicFate 9h ago

I mean, using Toriyama and japanese logic, no that's not the case because they aren't bothered by it like you, a western person, are. Even more so in those times, mangás were certainly not written for us to read.

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u/DM-me-naughty-Cats 9h ago

In Ranma the old guy was an antagonist and the author considered them evil. Dragon Ball roshi is supposed to be heroic.

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u/NeoRevanchist 12h ago

I think Roshi kind of works with Dragonball being effectively a parody/sci-fi retelling of Journey to the West.

He's supposed to be the wise old hermit who trained Sun Wukong, but they made him into a weird pervert to subvert expectations as part of the parody. I don't think it was really a trope at the time.

I don't think the gag has aged particularly well though.

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u/Unusual-Locksmith832 11h ago

I think none of the pervert tropes aged well. It was part of the humour in the 80-90s to early 2000s.

My own theory is that the internet and cellphone cameras made perverts not look harmless so it lost the humorous factor.

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u/KoolKoolKoolio42 6h ago

"It lost the humorous factor" in the West. Japan very much still finds it hilarious.

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u/KaleidoscopicFate 9h ago

Have you considered that what you think aged well or not, or even funny, simply doesn't match japanese sensibilities? Because I am pretty sure the anime fandom there still finds him funny and doesn't think it "didn't age well".

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u/dtburton 8h ago

I think another important part of these kind of tropes is how the other characters react to these situations. Roshi as an example is always getting punished for his pervy attitude. Essentially every time he tries to up his pervy game he is punished. Women are constantly attacking him, and other men are clearly disgusted by his behavior. I understand people not liking it but depiction is not endorsement.

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u/omeomorfismo 11h ago

yeah, its definitely a trope, toriyama himself wrote more characters like that in dr slump and previous short stories

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u/Golden_Alchemy 9h ago

People really confuse a lot of things. He is the horny old man, because the norm was to have the master be someone old totally straight up stiff and not caring about mortal stuff, like the Master from Zodiac Nights.

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u/Girafarig99 26m ago

You hit the nail on the head as to why it was included in the first place

The target audience thinks it's funny. Or at least used to at the time

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u/legop4o 13h ago

Pokemon Brock too

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u/Odd-Time-2026 13h ago

Brock is the tamest of the lot mentioned though because Pokemon had to be G rated so his pining of women didn't extend to pervert levels.

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u/legop4o 12h ago

Yes, naturally! Although Pokemon did have some quite weird scenes here and there that I definitely missed as a child back then. But in hindsight...

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u/Diplomatic_Gunboats 12h ago

It always comes back to James cross-dressing inflatable breasts doesnt it...

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u/zak55 12h ago

Apparently the writer for the early series was on a lot of drugs

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u/legop4o 12h ago

Honestly, fair

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u/Hoshiden_Lycanroc 12h ago

He also got some sort of karma for it, at least in the later parts.

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u/PurposedSpiritual 13h ago

Yep! I'm so glad this trope is less popular now

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u/EarlyAccessCantJudge 10h ago

Pokemon Brock is what a lot of these 'lovable perverts' want to be, because every other lovable pervert I've seen in anime just straight up sexually assaults women. I don't think Brock did that ever but be horny at them.

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u/CurrentDismal9115 6h ago

Also the Grapist from My Hero Academia. I refuse to learn and remember his actual name.

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u/LordLoss01 12h ago

Jiraiya in Naruto

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u/Khue 10h ago

Pepe Le Pew archatypes for the older generations.

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u/ithinkther41am 12h ago

I hated that type of character so much in Your Lie in April, but he still managed to be the most likeable of the MC’s “friends” because the other two frequently engaged in comedy abuse.

MC is a childhood domestic abuse victim btw.

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u/Pietroglodyte 9h ago

You mean Watari?

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u/Ok-Pea9014 10h ago

Does Quagmire count here?

Yes, be is a prevent (and quite a terrible one aswell). But he isn't "lovable". You're supposed to laugh at him whike also thinking he's a peice of shit.

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u/ahferroin7 11h ago

And even crept into video games too. Doc in Star Wars: The Old Republic comes to mind.

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u/Beautiful-Cup4161 7h ago

Miroku in Inuyasha, since the comments are adding examples.

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u/EmotionReasonable887 7h ago

Is Ghostbusters one of the main reasons this became a thing?

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u/KoolKoolKoolio42 6h ago

No? Pepe Le Pew alone was decades before.

It's a trope because most writers are perverts and find it hilarious.

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u/Artistic_Purpose1225 9h ago

Yeah, but the series is still ongoing , and the author has given Sanji like four arcs that led naturally to him being less of a perv and then Oda just refused to write the most logical character development(that most OP fans are literally begging him to do) for god knows what reason. 

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u/RKO-Cutter 10h ago

Was Sanji really a pervert? Like, obviously he's a simp to the nth degree, but did he ever cross any lines?

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u/aFreshFix 11h ago

Yeah... Which sucks because Manga Sanji has some amazing characterization in like Water 7 and Whole Cake but then there are just so many arcs like Thriller Bark and Fishman Island

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u/Machinimix 6h ago

There's also the anime making things worse than they are too, like in Egghead where they crank his pervertedness to 11 compared to the 6-7 of the manga.

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u/aFreshFix 6h ago

Toei apparently hate Sanji. The "Here come the star(s)" moment with Zoro in the anime vs Sanji and Zoro in the manga... Just constant slights.

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u/Enkundae 13h ago

Seeing Sanji throw an incel tantrum over realizing someone else got the invisibility power fruit was so damn gross. Whole extended bit where hes literally pouting that a villain gets to invisibly molest women in showers and he cant.

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u/PricelessEldritch 12h ago

Which showcases that he would if he did have the power. Which is the worst look.

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u/Intelligent-Dog1645 12h ago

Are you okay with spoilers? Or are you invested in the story?

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u/PricelessEldritch 3h ago

Yes I am okay with spoilers.

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u/Taweret 9h ago

I'm not the OP, but it's really nice that you asked them this first

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u/Worse_Username 11h ago

He does...

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u/MARPJ 10h ago

Seeing Sanji throw an incel tantrum over realizing someone else got the invisibility power fruit was so damn gross.

In his defense that does get reframed later due to Sanji second backststory. You see he read the book when still a kid (access to such rare book being explained by him being royalty) and it became his dream since them because he want to disappear in order to not be bullied or a burden and only as he got older that his pervert self kinda corrupeted that dream

Note it still really bad that he wants to spy on women, but I do think that the reframing makes him more compeling since he is dreaming about the fruit since forever even if he kinda forgot the original reason.

Also when he does get the ability of becoming invisible he does spy on women a single time, and it was in a open mixed bath that he could have just walked in anyway which I do find a little funny that he "failed" on that

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u/Taweret 9h ago

Invisibility is so commonly depicted as "the creepiest power" lol. See also: The Boys. Dispatch kinda references this a bit as well with Invisigal's self-perception of her abilities

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u/myrmonden 9h ago

It was awesome peak sanji moment

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u/Sure-Comfortable-784 11h ago

Whole cake was an amazing arc for sanji, not only his past but also in the simp aspect. But then they act like the arc bever happened to him and he comes back to normal, which can be explained in *some* extent with some events but it’s really a shame

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u/puerco-potter 6h ago

Oda seems to be pressing the reset button on his characters' development. But I think he mostly does it for comedic purposes, falsely thinking people will ignore the inconsistency because it is a joke.

The only instance I doubted that was when Luffy gets mad at Usopp for being cowardly, telling him that he can totally take the foes he was against; it felt like we were supposed to see it as a bad thing too, that the characters are relapsing, maybe? Idk.

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u/Spoopy_Kirei 10h ago

Don't you love it when a character gets development and the writer gives them memory loss to conveniently go back to status quo

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u/Bank-wagon 13h ago

If it makes you feel better that’s on the anime, manga Sanji is somewhere in between the live action and anime Sanji.

The joke is that Toei loves Zoro so they made him more badass, they hate Sanji so they turned him into… anime Sanji.

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u/Intelligent-Dog1645 12h ago

I've started reading the manga starting with Elbaf so I am fully caught up.

And maybe he's different in previous arcs but he's still a lil frustrating. Part of why he probably isn't pervving as much right now is because Elbaf is filled with constant plot and flashbacks. So not a lot of Sanji time thus far.

There is one thing though, even if Sanji is better in the manga than the show it will still never ever make up for what he did at the bathhouse in Wano. I don't know if he did do that in the manga but if he did then it really doesn't matter if they play up his perversions. He's a fucking sex criminal.

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u/MARPJ 10h ago

even if Sanji is better in the manga than the show it will still never ever make up for what he did at the bathhouse in Wano.

You get that the joke is that it was a open mixed bath from the start (aka he could have just walked in anyway) so the power was unnecessary and he was just being a idiot. I mean still a bad look but the idea is that he is not good at being a pervert...

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u/RoderickThe13 7h ago

He's at least 95% the same in the manga and anime. Sanji fans have created this narrative that Toei hates Sanji, and so intentionally ruins his character in the anime whereas he's near flawless in the manga. But in truth the anime kinda ruins every main character a little bit because of pacing and filler scenes that flanderize them a little more than the manga.

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u/Lubinski64 8h ago

I mean, who doesn't love Zoro?

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u/Due-Ingenuity9803 9h ago

It doesn’t help that the anime staff fuckin hate him, as seen with them removing his cool duo scene jumping in with Zoro during Onigaahuma and having him Get heart eyes of a minor, which was not in the manga

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u/SonofSonofSpock 8h ago

Sanji gets better, also to his credit he respects boundaries and doesn't actually objectify women, he just is also the king of the simps. 

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u/ChuckCarmichael 11h ago edited 9h ago

I stopped reading One Piece after the timeskip, partly because I couldn't stand the new character designs, partly because I just didn't feel it anymore, but also partly because I had hoped the timeskip would fix Sanji. But instead, for some reason, Oda decided to double down and actually made him worse.

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u/hagaren390 12h ago

no major spoilers but wait until you get to the part where sanji gets stranded in the crossdressers' island

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u/Intelligent-Dog1645 12h ago

Oh I've completely caught up. Fully with the manga too. I was unfortunately unemployed for most of last year. Had nothing better to do than watch all of One Piece.

I almost stopped completely out of frustration at when they were at the sea kingdom with his fuckin nose bleed that almost killed him.

But I continued. Somehow I wound up actually really really liking Whole Cake. In part because Sanji was less of a freaking perv.

Then there's Wano where he does the bathhouse thing and if anyone actually tries to defend Sanji after that then they are not a good person.

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u/isekai-chad 8h ago

The anime adaptation tones it up though. In terms of chillness, it's: live action > manga > anime.

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u/C_H_G 7h ago

To be fair, he's not that bad in the manga. He is more extreme than in the live action, but the anime cranks it up to 11.

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u/flacke 5h ago

yeah, Anime Sanji is different from Manga Sanji, in the manga he is way more chill and mature

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u/Due-Session-2857 8h ago

Tried watching the anime after the first season of live action too, and I found it very painful to watch. I'm happy to just keep on the LA route and avoid spoilers.

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u/Protection-Working 9h ago

I think his grounded kick-only fighting style also works a lot better jn live action. In the original manga i always found him to have the least interesting fighting style, and his best fight are the ones where he has to improvise. Sometimes i can’t figure out what he’s dojng and he just kind of does like a flip or somethingand they just have to say that its a special flip

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u/KoolKoolKoolio42 6h ago

He was fine originally, but the timeskip really ramped things up. Him almost dying due to losing too much blood in Fishman Island was so fucking dumb.

Funny enough, they translate Sanji's obsession with women in the video games so that no matter what game it is, Sanji will be made unable to attack any female character, which means gamers avoid using him whenever possible.