Nightmare Fuel / El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera

• The effect that Manny's huge, saucer-like eyes has in contrast with the bright tiger-like pupils while not in El Tigre form (Though YMMV on that one).
• Sartana's undead skeleton army and General Chapuza's zombie family count, especially to younger viewers.
• Frida (and later Manny) nearly turning into zombies due to one attaching itself to their heads.
• Manny and Frida slowly turning into skeletons in "The Grave Escape" By the time they return to the living realm they only had skin on their faces.
  • Also when Manny and Frida meet his ancestors they are furious at him for eating their offerings. Rather than just scold him like a normal child, especially since there was nothing indicating that Manny had ever done so before, they all (hero and villain alike) decide to kill him! Not helping is that them all being indifferent to Sartana's destruction of Miracle City (until Frida points out how it affects them) implies that being dead for so long may have affected their moral compass and don't see much value in life.
• Grandpapi’s terrified reaction when Manny suggests that the Riveras use the Super Macho Blitz (which no one has ever survived in the past) to defeat Sartana in "The Grave Escape" becomes this when one remembers the fact Word of God revealed that Sartana’s father is Xibalba, who is just waiting for Puma Loco to die so he can personally deal with him for breaking Sartana’s heart and causing her Start of Darkness.
• Seeing the psychotic glee that El Tigre has while slaughtering the Cactus Kid's cacti army can be as unsettling as it was awesome/funny.
• Maria when in her Plata Peligrosa form was full of this. It reached its peak when she nearly killed Manny, the only thing stopping her was being distracted by the garbage truck's ringing melody. Her knowing full well what she was about to do and crying while the freed prisoners cheered her on does not help.
  • The glove that gives her the powers? It's actually a sentient being unlike the other mystical objects, so it's a question as into how much it might be controlling Maria along with her own violent desires.
  • And then to top it all off, according to Jorge if the show would have continued then Frida would have gotten possession of the glove/Plata Peligrosa, albeit it's only used occasionally. Just imagine what the effects of the glove would have on her!
  • Also worth mentioning is the glove influencing Maria to flirt heavily with Rodolfo like she's under a Love Potion and while scantily dressed at that. Maria might still have feelings for her ex-husband but it's clear she's not ready to restart a romantic relationship with him, making a lot of the interactions between Plata Peligrosa and White Pantera quite dubious. Thankfully White Pantera himself realizes this and puts a stop to it.
• Vice Principle Jacal stalking Manny during "Burrito's Little Helper" can be quite creepy, especially since it was outside of school time and he really had no right to.
• The reason why Chief Suarez hates Manny and wants Frida no where near him: He knows darn well that Frida is constantly putting herself in potentially deadly situations whenever she is with Manny (along with the general mischievousness) and is probably afraid that one day she just might wind up permanently injured or even dead! Doubles as a Tear Jerker.
  • On the other hand, Emiliano's tendency to go as far as harm Manny even when he wasn't doing anything bad can also count.
• The Golden Eagle Twins' Moral Event Horizon (and Karma Houdini) from the YMMV section.
  • At one point the twins manage to tie Manny to their zeppelin, proceed to summon the eagle equivalent of The Ancient Tiger Spirit of all things, and then proceed to start slowly burning Manny to death! And Manny would have been a goner had Frida not managed to press Carlito's Berserk Button to end said summoning.
• The Titanium Titan. Apparently, the best way for coping with White Pantera breaking off their friendship was to not only turn to a life of crime (after failing as a solo hero) but to also go after Manny when he got older and attempt to murder him. Not even re-teaming up with El Tigre AND White Pantera was enough to curb his obsession, hatred, and bloodlust.
  • One time Frida found that the Titan had both a love shrine for White Pantera along with a huge El Tigre hate shrine looming above it. The way Titan has the latter done up looked for a split second like Manny was covered in his own blood and had his eyes gouged out.
    • And even more nightmarish? At least part of the Titan's motivation was revealed by Word of God to be because of Incompatible Orientation, meaning the Titan wants Manny dead because Rodolfo isn't romantically interested in him. Good lord...
  • "Silver Wolf" gives two more fear points to the Titan. First, he can use his titanium to change his himself into a completely different individual, and second, he uses his alias of the titular teenage supervillain to borderline romance the tweenaged Frida away from Manny in an attempt to kill them both.
• "Party Monsters". Sure, none of the kids had any right going to that abandoned cottage that Manny and Frida (Frida especially) invited them to, but if it hadn't been for El Tigre and the geeky cosplayer kids, it was pretty obvious that the Mustache Mafia would have "disposed" of them all...
  • And then, there's what might have happened to the cosplayers that very night if they had been alone as planned...
• Near the end of Manny and Django's battle in "The Good, the Bad, and the Tigre". Manny has Django pinned to the volcano wall with his clawed hand and offers to spare Django if he walks away from the fight. However, Django decides to grab hold of the chain and sets it on fire, forcing Manny to cut off his hand in order to save himself from getting barbecued! Luckily, the hand was fake and he has a spare at home, but the pained scream at least indicates that he probably felt the cut.
  • Don't forget earlier in the episode where Django convinces Manny that Rodolfo and Granpapi don't care about what he really wants (which, he had all rights to believe at the time), which leads to El Tigre brutally attacking the two and sending them over the pedestals (first just having them a foot off the ground, then having them suspended over lava...). This can also be a Tear Jerker.
• A smaller moment from the same episode is the part in Manny's Imagine Spot where he uses Sartana's guitar to force Vice Principal Chakal outside of the school and has skeleton banditos beat him up. Cathartic as it is given Chakal's crap, Manny was considering bringing what amounts to a magical machine gun to school and holding an unarmed civilian at gunpoint, complete with carrying the guitar in an eerily similar manner.
• "You're going to finish your homework, my friend. Or else, Super Macho Fighter gets it!" Even though it is unknown if Manny only threatened to just destroy the arcade game, or if he really threatened to harm or kill that kid! And if it was the latter, it gets worse in that Manny probably made similar/implied threats to all the other kids at school... in the name of "helping" them with the tiniest of things.
  • He didn't just "help" them, he tried to make them borderline worship him with all the posters and "dioramas" he had them make.
  • This also might put Manny's interrupted speech ("Help is like a wrestling match...") in a darker light.
  • And then there is Manny admitting to listening in on everyone's phone calls...
• El Tigre I went insane (and possibly developed a side of DID/other mental illnesses) due to not being able to choose to be good or evil. It is not exactly impossible that Manny might have something similar (though probably not as severe) happen to him in the future.
• Just the idea that the crime must be so bad in Miracle City that the police felt the need to create a Junior Cadet Force, which consists of kids and teenagers that are still very weak and can't defend themselves properly yet (proven by Anita and Nikita mercilessly beating the ever-loving crap out of them on stage during Emiliano's commemoration ceremony).
  • Emiliano and Carmella smiling with pure adoration as their daughters pummel said cadets, followed by Emiliano joyfully applauding them, might also be a little jarring even with the girls enforcing Training from Hell considered.
  • And Anita and Nikita themselves, even with said Training from Hell/experience, still proved ineffective when defending Frida from the Mustache Mafia. Sure, they probably could handle the regular banditos that infest Miracle City with their training, but it proves they wouldn't be able to cut it against super/mech-powered villains, who make up a good chunk of Miracle City's criminal activity.
• Manny and Frida laughing as kids get horribly injured at the carnival sort of made them come off as borderline sociopathic. Frida gleefully commenting that someone might never walk again didn't help.
• There's also the time that Frida purposely destroyed an orphanage and a puppy hospital with the offline Giant Robot Sánchez, given her smug comment on wrecking the latter.
• When the duo was trapped in the Land of the Dead and approached El Tigre I's house, there were bones scattered around the front. They turned out to be dog bones, but Manny and Frida thought they were people that El Tigre I killed and looked quite intrigued about it...
• When the Rivera's are forced to turn over their power items due to court order, not only does the entire city fall into chaos but they are being hunted down by all the villains!
  • Before that, when the school learns that Manny no longer has El Tigre he's pretty much attacked by everybody (though mostly the bullies... which is most of the school).
• In "Yellow Pantera", El Mal Verde is introduced as he eats/kills three heroes onscreen.
  • Overall the near-suicidal levels that Manny’s willing to go in order to preserve his family’s honor is on full display here. Even when it’s evident that Rodolfo had good reason to run (namely to make sure Manny had his father), Manny is still convinced that Rodolfo is a disgrace to the Rivera name and decides to take on El Mal Verde himself…which would have ended in his demise had Rodolfo and co. not shown up in time.
• Whenever Lady Gobbler removes/has her glass eye taken out of her socket, especially to those sensitive to Eye Scream.
• Manny and Frida's willingness to cause/allow a lot of mayhem to happen if it means they benefit from it. On example is when they cause a crime spree so that Rodolfo will give them money as he fights with Plata Peligrosa.
  • Another example is when they watch as a villain lowers a woman into lava but instead take the villain's loot. This and other examples are usually played for Black Comedy
• Sometimes, Manny is able to distort his face to the point of looking possessed for a couple seconds though this is usually Played for Laughs. Special mention goes to the unholy Gross-Up Close-Up Nightmare Face he gave Sofia at the end of "Mustache Love" that bordered on psychotic.
  • Same for some of the other characters; their faces just scream that they're not exactly sane...
  • In a similar boat some of the close ups are just downright disturbing and eugh
• In "Crouching Tigre Hidden Dragon", a superhero trio (one that Rodolfo was really fond of and trusted, no less) had Manny join their alliance in order to have him help them find some legendary robot-dragon monster (which... he really didn't). However, when they find the monster it turns out they were really luring Manny so that they could sacrifice him in order to make it extremely powerful and further boost their own egos. The kicker is that they really only needed a normal tiger and not Manny (or possibly just his belt if "piping hot tiger" alluded to the Ancient Tiger Spirit), and they really didn't get much punishment for it besides Rodolfo losing respect for them and losing their blimp.
• Sofia, the girl that Manny was pressured to go out with when he was acting as Raul's wing-man in "Mustache Love". Out of the whole cast she probably has the least control over her emotions (and unlike Plata Peligrosa she doesn't have the excuse of being under the influence of a mystical item), switching from a sickeningly sweet personality that delves into baby speech to a screaming banshee who could become very pushy and aggressive at the drop of a hat, notably if she senses things not going her way. The fact that Don Baffi is her grandfather doesn't help.
  • The part where Sofia forces Manny into a make out session and Manny, clearly wanting out of there, being pressured to go through with it has quite the uncomfortable vibe. Hell, Manny was downright ecstatic when Don Baffi and his goons interrupted the moment until they begin attacking Manny under the assumption that he was putting the moves on Sofia! They would have done Manny in too had Browsia not stopped them to save Raul.
  • During that particular portion Sofia is actually terrified while watching her grandfather nearly murder her date before Browsia intervened. Kind of begs the question if this was the first time Sofia witnessed her grandfather's "activities".
• Going into the vein of Yandere like behavior, the Aves Family. Yes, the Riveras might have broken their hearts, but even after years they still would rather try to murder/sabotage in any way/force the Riveras back into dating them as opposed to fully moving on. In Zoe's case this involves harassing the girl that Manny is now friends with ever since kindergarten, and one time the whole family were intent on kidnapping/doing who-knows-what to Maria (though it turns out that was a trick set by the Riveras to put an end to the Aves' latest sabotage).
  • Also applies to Sergio and Diego when they tried killing Manny because they both had strong crushes on Frida. And when it was apparent she wasn't going to reciprocate they decided to try killing her!
  • As elaborated above, the Titanium Titan.
  • Sartana could also be added to this list, as she still loves Puma Loco but wants to get rid of Rodolfo and Manny because they aren't her biological son and grandson.
• In the episode "La Tigressa", when Sartana catches Manny near the end she straight up said she was going to tear off his flesh before resurrecting him as one of her skeletal banditos/slaves. Good thing Frida was able to stop her on time...
• In short, if someone does anything to a good majority of these characters that ends up causing a grudge to be harbored, whether it'd be a major act or just a tiny thing/mistake, that character WILL be after blood. Manny tends to find this out the hard way in both intentional and unintentional cases, not to mention he is not by any means an exception to this despite (according to what was seen) not being as bad as others.
• Granpapi's giant robot in "Albino Burrito". Okay so he makes a giant doomsday device programmed to take revenge on his enemies after his death while innocent bystanders get hurt in the process, no surprise there. What was shocking and disturbing though was that gleeful smile on Granpapi's face when the robot was about to kill him and his family altogether before Davi stepped in.
• Black Cuervo becoming Woman Scorned incarnate during her brutal beat down of El Tigre for playing her for info. Gets better when he mother and grandmother join in.
  • Doubles as Awesome depending on how much one saw Manny having it coming for pulling such a dick move.
• Sergio, or Senor Siniestro. Manny accidentally mistakes Sergio for a young kid and doesn't vouch for him (due to peer pressure) when the entire city decides to turn the wannabe cowboy into a laughing stock. Understandable reason for a grudge? Oh yes. What does Sergio do? Utilize his vast knowledge in mecha technology to create skyscraper-tall, Western-themed robots to terrorize the city and try shedding Manny's blood of course! Special mention goes to his debut episode where he forces the school kids to build the very robot he intends to kill them all with after turning them against Manny during his "helping" rampage.
• While Dr. Chipotle Jr. tends to be more of a funny Card-Carrying Villain that creates monsters out of guacamole and other dips, he's managed to poison Manny's grandfather and father and turn them into zombie-like creatures, was able to not just steal Manny's belt but had Manny unwittingly assist in creating what could have been his most dangerous creation (Raul), and tricked Manny yet again into working together on Father's Day so he could kidnap White Pantera for real (and, by the way, the Chipotle family got the last laugh in that episode.) And he does this with plans that usually incorporate manipulating Manny in some way.
• "Rising Son" has Manny and Frida unwittingly set up Toshiro, the son of The Seventh Samarai who is one of White Pantera's old friends, to be ambushed by his father's most dangerous enemies. The kicker, however, is when Frida lets it slip that the attack was planned Toshiro, who till then was a polite boy to the point of everyone's detriment, completely loses his shit at the betrayal and blows up his enemies with his sumo mecha before threatening to do the same to Manny if he ever tricks Toshiro again. His last bit of dialogue implies that he's now a fledging Blood Knight planning on making anyone who breaks a rule in Shogun City suffer, and his father briefly seems to think bringing him to Miracle City to toughen him up might have Gone Horribly Right.

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