History Main / CantCatchUp

* Agumon X in ''Manhua/DigimonDCyber'' fell behind in the evolution race despite having the most skilled tamer.

* Expert level ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' players almost universally struggle at high levels with V moreso than the other playable characters. While his [[PuppetFighter fighting style]] takes some time getting used to at first, at mid-level, he does well against mooks and he can keep his Stylish rating high rather easily since he can avoid taking damage and losing ranks while still using his minions to combo, and [[LimitBreak Nightmare]] lasts long enough for his minions to not get knocked out easily. At higher difficulties, V's weaknesses start to show, namely his slow attacks and relatively weak combos. In Dante Must Die difficulty and [[MarathonLevel Bloody Palace]], enemies have more health and can gain Devil Trigger to become ImmuneToFlinching, so his minions are more likely to get knocked out, even moreso against bosses. He's not quite a SkillGateCharacter and while it is possible to optimize V further, the amount of effort required to get a small improvement is much higher compared to the rest.

* This VERY easily happens in the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 game ''VideoGame/DarkCloud'' for numerous reasons. One is the fact that it uses a "No battle no experience" rule and the fact that the number of weapons available to some characters clearly indicates that the developers favour Toan and Ruby. Ungaga and Osmond are also obviously middle-tier characters in those games. They can actually be pretty good if a player invests time into building up to their ultimate weapons and uses their playstyles effectively. Xiao and poor Goro wind up the weakest characters because they can only attack once and they are so vulnerable to retaliation or attack when trying to line it up it's just not worth using them as a primary attacker.

* In the UsefulNotes/PlayStation version of ''VideoGame/{{Persona|1}}'', experience is awarded based on the game's arbitrary and seemingly random perception of the character's usefulness in that battle. In other words, the strong get more experience and become stronger, while the weak get less experience and continue to lag behind.

** In ''Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth'' (the [[UsefulNotes/PlayStationPortable PSP]] port of the original game), the titular Valkyrie must always be in your party. Since you have a couple dozen other characters to recruit and train, this means by the end of the game, she may be up to 10 levels higher than the next closest warrior. More so because you're expected to, every so often (more often than you'd like if you want the best ending) kill off one of your characters. You're rewarded with an item that boosts the stats of a second character based on how high a level the one you killed off was, and the best ending and bonus dungeon requires a fairly high total minimum level of all your sacrifices.

** Because Ryoga is officially TheRival to Ranma, some actually view him as this, though the series itself makes it quite clear that Ranma and Ryoga are always spurring each other on to greater heights and so the one of them who is "better" keeps seesawing. Ranma beats Ryoga who comes back and beats Ranma who then comes back and beats Ryoga again, on and on throughout the entirety of the series. This belief most likely stems from the fact that Ranma is usually the one shown as having "the last laugh" in their battles in any particular story, and the fact that the flashbacks from Ryoga's introductory story all depict young!Ranma implicitly [[CurbStompBattle curbstomping]] young!Ryoga.

* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'', after the Dark Tournament, got to the point where even the main character couldn't catch up. It took a rather DeusExMachina plot twist to power Yuusuke up enough to beat Sensui, and after that, even with a solid year of training, he still had very little chance against the antagonists of the last story arc. Even though he gained the power to win, he was still only exchanging blows with Sensui. Raizen, his very powerful demon ancestor who hadn't been mentioned at that point in the story, actually had to take control of his body and finish off Sensui because of Yusuke's inexperience with his own power. That's right, it took two DeusExMachina's in a row to ensure that the TheHero himself could stayed relevant in his own series.

* ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'': As the series progresses and [[SerialEscalation the scope escalates]], up-and-coming supervillain [[SuperMobBoss Titan]] finds himself having to contend with the fact that his powers — [[InstantArmor turning into solid, super-strong rock]] — are actually [[NormalFishInATinyPond relatively weak in superhuman terms]] and can't be made stronger, meaning that even though he's a perfectly skilled and dangerous fighter by normal human standards, he just can't keep up physically with the increasingly powerful and well-trained Guardians of the Globe, [[FlyingBrick Invincible]] himself especially. To compensate, he gradually has to rely more and more on [[GeniusBruiser his intelligence]] to stay in the game, [[CharacterDevelopment slowly transitioning]] to being a NonActionBigBad who only goes into battle personally when left with no other choice.

* When Portia Perez heard that SHINE was making an effort to promote newer wrestlers who haven't had their chance to...shine yet, she said it was time wasted, as no upstart would ever catch up to her.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': When the character was originally created he was considered one of the strongest physical heroes, second only in physical strength to a small number of heroes. But among the characters they achieved more exaggerated feats such as lifting thousands of tons or even mountains, Spider-man stopped being so special in terms of physical strength, being demoted to being a Mid Tier

** In fact Mashiro inspires this in ''everyone'' who knows her for extended periods with Sorata and Jin feeling the same way Rita does. Mashiro is not just an IdiotSavant: she has absolutely no idea about personal hygine, can barely dress herself, and has hardly any social skills, let alone anything that could let her live on her own. But when it comes to anything, especially drawing and painting, she can easily beat anyone at it. She barely even tries and she still does better than all of her classmates. There's AlwaysSomeoneBetter and she's that, therefore everyone starts developing inferiority complexes and begin to give up on things, such as art, because they will never beat her. Sorata himself gets a bad case where his game pitch is rejected while Mashiro is given an opportunity by the same people.

** The same unfortunately applies to [[spoiler: Satsuki Kiryuin post Episode 18. For most of the series she's by far and away the strongest and most skilled fighter in the entire cast, winning fights easily and often without taking a single hit. Then Raygo enters the plot and... yeah. It does not go well for her after this. While she's still one of the strongest characters, the only opponents left are Life-Fiber hybrids with superhuman abilities, whereas Satsuki is just an ordinary human despite her prowess and determination, and her skill in combat just can't make up the huge difference in power between them. What's more, it's revealed that she cant even use her Kamui to its full potential as she lacks compatibility with Life-Fibers. Nearly every fight she is in after this point is a Curb-Stomp Battle with her on the receiving end. Most times she ends up using herself as a human punching bag in order to distract her opponent, and when Junketsu is restitched with Life-Fibers from Senketsu to increase her compatibility with it she still gets crushed by Ragyo. The worst part is probably when it's revealed that because her Bakuzan has been reforged into two blades it now has the same ability to prevent Life-Fibers from regenerating as Ryuko's Rending Scissors, giving her a potential way to kill Ragyo permanently... which then goes out the window less than two minutes into the final episode when Ragyo effortlessly shatters both blades again, relegating her to a support role for Ryuko. However despite this she fares better than Tsumugu, remaining relevant to the plot and getting a lot of focus on her in the OVA... which sees her tied up and useless for most of its airtime.]]

** Najimi Ajimu forces this on everyone else in the series([[spoiler: except Ihiko who is immune to skills]]), from the sheer number and variation of her abilities if nothing else, which span everything from controlling her breast size to becoming God. As for the how many she has...

*** When Nami and Sanji get body-swapped in Punk Hazard, Sanji worries about using her body to perform his Black Leg techniques because her body isn't toned for physical combat. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when it turns out that she

* Literal example in ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice200''. During the ''Invasion'' season, [[SuperSpeed Wally]] decides to retire as Kid Flash, feeling that he can't be as fast as Barry Allen (the current Flash) and that he'd just slow him down.[[note]]As an aside, in the comics, Wally actually goes on to gain superior mastery over the Speed Force and become faster than him.[[/note]] This feeling is made even worse when Barry's grandson, Bart Allen, comes from the future and proves to be faster than Wally despite being much younger. [[spoiler:This leads to Wally's death in the series finale.]]

** The reason behind Sasuke's initial defection was because he felt Naruto ''could'' catch up, and indeed may have surpassed him already. This was fueled by Sasuke losing several battles in which Naruto's brute strength was far better suited to dealing with. When Naruto reveals his Biju Mode in the Fourth Shinobi World War, effortlessly uses all the chakra it gives to save the entire Alliance, and then he ''combines'' it with Sage Mode, Sasuke clenches his hand into a tight fist angrily when he realizes how far ahead Naruto's come. Sasuke is at least able to fight ''comparably'' with help, and his manifestation of Perfect Susano'o means he's trying to close the gap. But it's clear he needs more than even Perfect Susano'o to truly catch up.

*** When Nami and Sanji get body-swapped in Punk Hazard, Sanji worries about using her body to perform his Black Leg techniques because her body isn't toned for physical combat. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when it turns out that she ''is'' strong enough to use several of the techniques though.
** Part of the reason for the TimeSkip was to give the crew two years to catch up to a point where they could survive in the [[CrapsackWorld New World.]] [[spoiler:As evidenced by the massacre at Sabaody, they really, really needed it.]]

** The crew falls to this near the end of the first half. While Luffy only just managed to break in and out of Impel Down, with the help of some of the most notorious criminals in the world, and was TheLoad at Marineford. Justified in that Impel Down was seen as impenetrable by everyone, and Marineford was a battle between the most dangerous pirate crew around and the entirety of the Marines. They really were biting off far more than they could chew.

Something similar often happens in video games with {{Character Level}}s and more usable characters than the ArbitraryHeadcountLimit will allow, but no LeakedExperience. Even if the designers go out of their way to make each character relevant in some meaningful way, some will still fall into a lower {{Character Tier|s}}, meaning they will spend less time in the active party and, as a consequence, be much weaker than the party's main heavy hitters. This can become a vicious circle -- because the weaker characters are often left out of the party, they fall further behind, and as a result [[UnstableEquilibrium are even ''less'' likely to be included]].

Something similar often happens in video games with {{Character Level}}s and more usable characters than the ArbitraryHeadcountLimit will allow, but no LeakedExperience. Even if the designers go out of their way to make each character relevant in some meaningful way, some will still fall into a lower {{Character Tier|s}}, meaning they will spend less time in the active party and, as a consequence, be much weaker than the party's main heavy hitters. This can become a vicious circle -- because the weaker characters are often left out of the party, they fall further behind, and as a result are even ''less'' likely to be included.

'''Krillin:''' Huh. So this is my full potential?\\

* ''Manga/SoulHunter'': While there was a power gap between the more powerful members of the team and the others from the begining, it just keep getting larger over time, to the point that members of TheTeam like Raijinshi can't even give [[TheLancer Youzen]] a good training match. Before the final arc, Nentou even [[BrutalHonesty flat-out state]] that only thoses who have the level to use a super Paopei [[note]]the serie's most powerful magical weapon[[/note]], or in Nataku's case [[spoiler: Became a super paopei]]) should come as the others would just be useless.

** When [=CP9=]'s [[TheBusCameBack bus finally comes back]] in the Egghead arc, as [=CP0=] this time, Rob Lucci and Kaku have their rematches with Luffy and Zoro respectively, and they certainly did not [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind forget to level grind]], with both of them having (among other things) awakened their Devil Fruits, and even point out that the Straw Hats are not the only ones who have gotten stronger since last time. Mind you, when [=CP9=] first fought the Straw Hats, the Monster Trio all had to unlock a new SuperMode to be able to keep up with their opponents, and Luffy himself nearly lost to Lucci, were it not for the moral support of Usopp. This time, however, after Luffy underwent TrainingFromHell during Wano [[spoiler: and awakened his own Devil Fruit, gaining an entirely new and [[CartoonPhysics ridiculously powerful]] SuperMode]], he finds the fight with Lucci so boring that he ''falls asleep'' while casually dodging his attacks. Similarly, while Kaku can now casually throw out what used to be his ultimate attack, Zoro can quite literally block it in his sleep, and it's strongly implied he would have won his battle as well [[spoiler: if it weren't for the intervention of [[DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent Stussy]], who knocks both Kaku and Lucci out before the fights can go anywhere.]]

** Android 18, one of the few legitimately dangerous women in the series, gets hit with this immediately after her HeelFaceTurn. When she's first introduced in the Android Saga, she was strong enough to [[CurbStompBattle effortlessly defeat SSJ Vegeta]], and along with her brother 17, ended the world in Future Trunks' timeline after [[TotalPartyKill killing every]] [[HeroKiller Z-fighter]]. After marrying Krillin though, the only other super-powered opponent were a disguised Goten and Trunks. She doesn't even participate in the battle against Frieza's forces in ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'' despite, [[LampshadeHanging pointing out to Krillin]] that she is still stronger then him. Although there is some justification in that, after the Cell arc, she stopped participating in major battles, everybody not named Goku got [[CurbStompBattle their asses beat ten shades of blue]] by Beerus, and during ''Resurrection F'' Krillin asked her to protect their daughter Marron in case things went south with Frieza. The Universal Survival Arc in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' finally gives her a chance to shine, but that also highlights how underused she'd be.

** Piccolo (Junior) managed to somewhat evade this trope by staying relevant all the way up to the Cell Saga despite not being a Saiyan. He still contributed to battles by defeating Dr. Gero and later on, combining with Kami to trade blows with both Android 17 and Cell in his first form. It's only afterwards that he became a jaded babysitter for Trunks and Goten during the Buu Saga. In ''Super'', he actually ''does'' get to catch up somewhat, but he still fulfills the role of being WeakButSkilled and still doesn't compare to Goku and Vegeta in their Super Modes.