Riches to Rags in Anime & Manga
- Candy♡Candy: This is Louisa's "punishment" in the Boarding School arc.
- Cyberpunk: Edgerunners: David's family was never wealthy enough to qualify as having "riches" to fall from, but David's fall from lower-middle-class with ambitions and prospects to street-running mercenary is definitely significant.
- Code Geass
- Lelouch Lamperouge was a royal prince of Britannia before being disowned into poverty by his abusive father.
- Suzaku Kururugi's father was the prime minister of Japan and was a blue blood along with Kaguya. His family lost most of their social standing when Brittania invaded and occupied their country and he fell further out of favor when he decided to associate himself with the Britannians.
- The Downer Beginning of Cross Ange has Princess Angelise Ikaruga Misurugi going from the beloved daughter of the Emperor and Empress... to the most hated girl in the kingdom when her brother, Prince Julio, exposes to the world that she is a Norma, a person (always female) who cannot use the Light of Mana. Normas are seen as violent, destructive monsters by the Society of Mana, and their fears are all but confirmed when Angelise defies arrest in her refusal to accept what she is, only for her mother to get shot dead protecting her. Before Angelise is even able to comprehend it all, she is dumped at Arzenal, stripped of her belongings and her human dignity, and left lying on the cold hard ground of a prison cell, bleeding from her rear end with tears streaming from her eyes after such a Humiliation Conga.
- In Fly Me to the Moon, Tsukasa grows up in a Big Fancy House with at least two maids. She ends up marrying a middle school graduate who's gone into the workforce and lives in a small apartment.
- Future Robot Daltanious: Kento was once a moderately rich boy who lived in downtown Tokyo with his mother and sister. They ran a supermarket, and never had to worry about food insecurity. Come 1995, the Zaal Empire invaded and left Earth in ruins, and a now-orphaned Kento has to resort to stealing food to survive. It's later found out that he's an Alien Prince, but funnily enough, he rejects his alien heritage.
- Gorgeous Irene: Irene was the daughter of an assassin, and while her parents were dead, she still lived in luxury with her butler. "The Girl in the Slums" begins with her butler getting assassinated, leading Irene to live in the slums of New York on her own.
- Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: Shirogane's father used to be the CEO and at least partial owner of a pharmaceutical company, but it was stolen from him by Kaguya's eldest brother Oko and he was left with a(n either figurative or literal) 500 million yen of debt. He hasn't held down a permanent job for a long time by the time the series starts.
- Muromi-san: Otohime, the princess of a castle in the ocean from Japanese folklore, is seen by the protagonist working as a cashier at a fishing supply store in a seaside town. She lost her wealth when her business went bankrupt, and she hates how she has fallen into poverty and hides her identity.
- One Piece:
- In Trafalgar Law's flashback, he began as a sweet little boy who came from a wealthy, reputable family of doctors, used to live in a castle-like home, and wore tailor-made suits. Then the tragedy in Flevance decimated his hometown by the time he was 10, and he was forced to crawl among dead bodies as a fugitive, before he encountered the Donquixote Pirates at the dumpster and decided to become one of their flunkies.
- Happened to Doflamingo twice:
- He was the son of a very aristocratic family belonging to the World Nobles, but then his father decided to take off the group. Things went From Bad to Worse in few days and became his Start of Darkness.
- In the present, before the Straw Hats came to Dressrosa, he managed to at least regain some form of wealth though Black Market brokering, weapons trading, becoming a Warlord for the World Government, and forcefully taking over the Kingdom of Dressrosa, which he claims was his ancestors' anyway before they left for Mariejois with the other World Nobles. While still peeved at the World Nobles for refusing to give him back his title just to spite his father for leaving them, he was content to at least still be partial royalty with his pirate crew... but all the people he likewise screwed over just to get that position eventually put a plan into motion to expose his criminal activity. While not going completely flawless, they succeeded and ultimately in the ensuing fights that followed, Doflamingo's crew was defeated and Doflamingo himself was K.O'd by Luffy. His title of Warlord was stripped, his kingdom back in rightful benevolent hands, and Doflamingo now considered nothing more than a dangerous pirate sent to Impel Down.
- The Secret Garden: This happens to Archibald Craven. He takes a loan from Max which he can't pay back, and Max seizes his house and assets. Max's fiancee Camila convinces him to have mercy on him despite all he's done to them, since that would also affect Mary and Colin. Max then agrees to give Mr. Craven a deadline before he can accumulate the wealth he owes.
- Silver Plan to Redo From JK: The economic bubble crash resulted with Sayuri and her family going into poverty and she herself ends up losing home years later. Thanks to the titular "Silver Plan" she cooked up during her stay in the new timeline, she was able to get some of her life back (albeit not a rich one), this time as a convenience store employee.
- Three Leaves, Three Colors: Youko Nishikawa was a rich girl until her mother died and her father's business went bankrupt. She is now living in Perpetual Poverty, to the point where she only eats bread crusts and mayonnaise for lunch.
- The Twelve Kingdoms: This happens to Komatsu Saburou Naotaka in the middle of a cruel local war in medieval Japan. His land had lost soundly, his retainers and supporters had all been slain in front of him, and Naotaka himself was badly wounded and all alone. Then he meets an odd kid named Enki, who turns out to be a Kirin, a mythological beast who chooses and advises the rulers of another world, and he had just seen that Naotaka is the only one who can become the leader of the Kingdom of En.
- Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle: Lux and Airi are the last survivors of the Old Arcadia Empire, and suffered two separate instances of this. While the Empire was still around, their maternal grandfather Wade criticised the emperor's policies, resulting in his imprisonment (and death in prison) and his descendants being thrown out of the palace (where they were subject to attacks by vengeful citizens). Then the Empire was overthrown (with Lux playing a key role in this) but Lux and Airi were still seen as criminals for being part of the former royal family. They were released but with a debt equal to a fifth of the national budget. Lux has to work all sorts of odd jobs for the citizens to gradually pay off the debt, while Airi is allowed to live in relative comfort (and also pays off the debt with her own work) but as a hostage to keep Lux in line.
- Implied with Mitsuki Yano's family in Yuri is My Job!. In Chapter 6, which takes place while Mitsuki and Hime are in elementary school, Mitsuki's family lives in a Big Fancy House with a maid, which amazes Hime. In Chapter 27, which takes place in the present day (while Hime and Mitsuki are high schoolers), Hime visits Mitsuki at a small apartment. Hime is mildly surprised that Mitsuki is living in such a place, but doesn't ask Mitsuki about it.
