Don't know about the rest, but Rock Lee could've easily been the real main character of Naruto, considering it USED TO BE about hard work, not natural talent. And Lee trained harder than almost any other kid.

I went with Rock Lee. His whole character thrived on the belief that someone with no talent who works hard can surpass someone who's really talented. This has practically been disproven many times as most fights we've seen him in has resulted in him being outclassed by people that had more talent than him. The sound ninjas, gaara, sasuke after his training with kakashi, kimimaro and many more in Shippuden.

@ZipUpThosePants It was never about Hard work, I suggest rereading the series, it was about a hated boy trying to be admired and loved by his village.

This Hard Work shit is just a mini arc of the Chunin Exams.

Rock Lee was outdone by the fact that he was arrogant, that he believed that talented people don't train, which is false and shown the opposite several times, all of them had insane training or poor conditions to work/grow.

Hell, Neji was more of a hard worker than anything shown of Lee, the boy was seen as a slave, a tool for the main house, he wasn't even allowed to read the Eight Trigrams style scrolls, he trained his ass to use things he wasn't even trained for, while having to be careful not to anger his "superiors" so as not to be killed like his father.

People watched Naruto and chose to latch onto something because they thought it was cool, I may not like the series as much as I did in the past (Kishimoto's love for Itachi irritated me), but seeing people believe that Naruto was about Hard Work is simply saying that they stopped at the part of the story they wanted and chose to ignore the rest.

Now, back to the question...:

Lemilion) He's fine, a good hero, a good symbol, and good growth, it wasn't wasted.

Rock Lee: A prodigy and a failure at the same time, he wasn't born with an aptitude for Ninjutsu but for Taijutsu, he says he'll show that hard work surpasses natural gift (or whatever he defines as such), but how does he do that? Does he practice his lack of Ninjutsu aptitude until he becomes a master in Ninjutsu showing that you can grow in something you're not good at? Or does he ignore it, and just take what he was good at? It's like seeing a Genjutsu specialist say that anyone with elemental affinity is a genius unworthy of his power, and that he will be the best Genjutsu user to show that "hard work" beats geniuses... ignoring the journey of others, ignoring their work, because they have an advantage that he doesn't have (ignoring his own on top of that)... Honestly, he deserved to be left aside, Guy took Lee's writing, and showed a true talent for nothing, exceeding expectations, while not spitting on the journey of others.

Adam Taurus: RWBY's writing is atrocious, honestly, RWBY tried to enter a complex arc of racism, tried to show the side of the "discriminated" (the scenes of them being discriminated against are comical most of the time) and the fall of their group to villainy (failed pathetically), in the end, Adam closed his character only in a cheesy romance path and died to realize this half-assed arc, wasted writing potential at first, like all of RWBY.

Gohan: Man, he had potential, he was supposed to be the next Goku! The hero of Earth with more good traits than his father, but the anime just threw him aside for years, until the recent movies tried to give him more! And they arrived late on top of that.

Armin: I don't know and I don't care about AOT.

Kenpachi: He's fine, I don't know what's wrong with him that makes someone say "wasted potential".

Gohan