Genre Savvy/Anime and Manga

"Hagemaru: Hey, Kaka, don't sneeze like this while you're naked or the censor guys will cut the scene!
 * In Tsurupika Hagemaru-kun, Hagemaru suffers from this and Medium Awareness.

Hagemaru: I can do anything, I'm the hero of this series!

Note - These lines are from the Hindi version"

"Usami: "You."
 * Mazinger Z: The Professor Gennosuke Yumi was pretty Genre Savvy. For example, he made sure they got spare parts for Mazinger-Z ready to be used in case of an emergency (during one battle Mazinger had lost his fists and they launched spare Rocket Punches at its location to help Kouji). In one episode he hesitated several persons were dead why their corpses were not found. And he memorized the plans for the Jet Scrander in case of they were stolen (and indeed, they were).
 * The title character of Suzumiya Haruhi sees everything in terms of TV and anime tropes, even where they might not otherwise have been. She borders between being a wrong and being an accurate Genre Savvy. Since she is an  with unstoppable willpower, she actually makes herself become accurate.
 * Koizumi himself is a Genre Savvy character too, using it to his advantage to convince Haruhi of certain things. Sometimes it does work, sometimes it backfires at him.
 * Kyon also is a pretty Genre Savvy guy, usually expressing it with snarky remarks.
 * Normally, Kyoko in Maison Ikkoku tends to think the worst of Godai when it comes to other women. The exception being schoolgirl Ibuki Yagami, who has an (unreturned) crush on Godai-sensei. Nothing that she tries fazes Kyoko the least (Godai isn't so lucky). Kyoko's late husband was one of her teachers and she knows that story inside and out.
 * Misaki Takahashi of Junjou Romantica, to his eternal despair. He knows very well what Usami would want as a present.

Misaki: (internally) "I knew it was me!""

""No, I can't develop feelings for her. That's how most idiots screw up.""
 * Akira of School Rumble is the only one who actually understands the Love Dodecahedron, even using that knowledge to manipulate people. As demonstrated in the Beach Episode, where a naked Harima winds up grappling a bikini-clad Eri, not only is Akira fully aware that it's Not What It Looks Like instead of jumping to the obvious conclusion, she is also capable of explaining in great detail exactly what happened.
 * Light Yagami from Death Note.

"Paru: But mostly I want to help because IT SOUNDS LIKE A BLAST!"
 * He is also well aware of I Never Said It Was Poison tactics, and is extremely careful with how he acts and what he says, managing to avoid every trap question L throws his way.
 * Konata of Lucky Star is Genre Savvy to the point of being a trope-fixated Cloudcuckoolander. She recognizes tropes and conventions... but never seems to be able to tell which actually apply to her own genre. Sometimes she gets it right, but other times, she applies tropes that are spectacularly wrong for her situation, referencing Dating Sim event flags or deciding the dentist sounds like a classic mecha anime.
 * Houshakuji Renge from Ouran High School Host Club is an Otaku example. All of the other main characters (except Haruhi), as well, to the extent of deliberately playing up their specialized Bishonen stereotypes to please their customers.
 * Because the show has No Fourth Wall,some of the characters in Oh! Edo Rocket are Genre Savvy.
 * Ex: In the English version, there is a point where Tetsuju falls off a hovering space ship and crashes to the floor of a rocky canyon. Sora then assures Seikichi, "Don't worry, he'll be fine. He's the comic relief!"
 * Shinza says the same thing about himself after he narrowly escapes being arrested and is nearly sliced in half inside his hiding place. "Good thing I'm the comic relief!"
 * In Mahou Sensei Negima, the "library girls", quite understandably, read a lot of books... which means they're quite willing to accept the idea that their teacher is secretly a wizard. In particular, Paru (Saotome Haruna, herself supposed to be an amateur manga artist!) is all too willing to participate in cliche storylines.

"'If this is a comic, you are the main character!'"
 * But then, one character is Genre Savvy enough to freak out when she realizes that she's in a Love Triangle, and those never end well... (especially not in Japanese literature!)
 * In a curious and almost tragic use of this trope, Ako expresses her lack of self-confidence and feeling of being "ordinary" by saying she's literally "just a supporting character". Negi, of course, tries to reassure her that she is important... but in the context of the manga as a whole, she's exactly right about her lack of importance. At least so far...
 * This comes up again (much) later on. In chapter 245 she shows that even a "side-character" can be incredibly important when she
 * Not to mention that
 * Also, Chisame often points out, that in this World of Magic, not everything is shining and clean, and often worried about Negi's obsession with Nagi, who ends the war,, and often worrying if Negi had troubling parents.
 * Shows up a lot in Hayate the Combat Butler, which has No Fourth Wall. Almost everyone is Genre Savvy about the fact that they're in a shounen anime/manga and what that usually entails. Key word: usually.
 * The trick is, they don't know they're in a parody.
 * Most of the characters in Genshiken are major, major otaku and therefore genre savvy, but share Konata's affliction of being unable to tell exactly what kind of anime they're in. Most of the guys seem to visualise life as a dating sim, and beat themselves up about it when they realise it.
 * Zola in Blue Dragon. In the second episode, after she effortlessly destroys several dozen enemy robots, the remaining ones begin combining into a single much larger robot. Zola notes that it would be stupid of her to wait for them to finish, and successfully attacks before the Transformation Sequence is finished.
 * Fullmetal Alchemist
 * Edward Elric shows great perception through the manga like realizing that he can imitate the attack of the enemy or realizing that pressing the enemy's Berserk Button actually helps in a battle, or that a shadow monster doesn't exist without light, etc.
 * Got a villain who can transmute his skin into an invulnerable material?
 * In the same manga (and Brotherhood anime), Roy Mustang, who knows How to Survive a War Movie, loses his cool in a flashback to the Ishvalan War when his buddy Maes gets all excited about a letter from his girlfriend Gracia. Maes survives the war, though he does not learn from his mistakes.
 * Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure
 * Dio Brando from Part 3 gets into Dangerously Genre Savvy territory, as he usually does not take chances when it comes to his known weaknesses (he's a vampire, after all). For example, instead of throwing one knife (which he knows the hero can block), Dio stops time and throws about 10 to 20 knives in succession so that he can't possibly block them all. After that, the scene plays out like this: Jotaro is lying on the ground, apparently dead. Dio first listens for breathing. Then he moves closer and listens for a heartbeat. Jotaro first holds his breath, and then uses his Stand to keep his own heart from beating. So then Dio decides to grab a stop sign from the street corner and decapitate Jotaro, just to be sure. And later, just to be really, really sure, he drops a steamroller on him. Is it any wonder that this guy is one of the most beloved anime villains of all time?
 * On the heroic side, Jotaro shows signs of this during the battle against Akira Otoishi. He forces his opponent to switch to plan B by correctly guessing his entire strategy before they even started fighting, including any bluffs and gambits that Akira might employ given the current situation.
 * Another Big Bad, Yoshikage Kira, is Dangerously Genre Savvy to the point where he's downright paranoid!
 * Keima of The World God Only Knows is an internet-famous genius when it comes to Dating Sims, so when Hell has a problem with evil spirits hiding inside schoolgirls--where making them fall in love is the only way to exorcise them -- they call him. And despite Keima's dislike of real girls, it works.
 * You can tell from early on when he's able to point out the local rich girl is a Tsundere because she has cat eyes, light hair, a visible forehead and twintails. He's a little disappointed that she's not short to make it perfect, but then Elsee points out she's also wearing high heels.
 * Hayate Yagami in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha not only Jumped At the Call after witnessing the Wolkenritter and hearing their story, but she designed their costume-like Barrier Jackets. Having people recognizable as family probably helped too (she's an orphan).
 * Simon of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann becomes rather Genre Savvy in the last two arcs, recognizing that they've always snatched victory at the last second from the jaws of defeat merely by being sheer bloody-minded Determinators, in stark contrast to Rossiu who thinks things like "plans" and "logic" have any effect in a universe governed by the Rule of Cool. Kamina has the same mindset before Simon, but this is less to do with being Genre Savvy than it does Kamina being the kind to charge in without a plan. Fanboys try to ignore all the times this didn't really work.
 * Rossiu was very savvy as the rest of the cast fell for the hot springs trap.
 * Ikki Tousen is basically "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Gender Flipped and as a High School AU". Well, the teenage fighters know they're the reincarnations of these heroes, and several of them use such knowledge to their advantage as they fight their ways in the story, searching for a way to either fulfill or screw their fates.
 * In Kannagi, Akiba Meguru, being a "self-conscious akiba-freak", is Genre Savvy to the extreme, even recognizing that Mikuriya Jin for what he is:
 * In Kannagi, Akiba Meguru, being a "self-conscious akiba-freak", is Genre Savvy to the extreme, even recognizing that Mikuriya Jin for what he is:

"Amon: I activate my trap cards!
 * Bleach mangaka Tite Kubo has got a reputation for having characters enter fights by attacking their enemies from behind, so when Ichigo tries this on villain, what happens? Absolutely nothing, as Ichigo then gets told that never enters battle without applying protection to the back of the neck, "the weak spot of every living creature."
 * Later on, shows up and seems to finally actually do damage to  and the chapter ends with the villain's figure hidden behind the wall of fire coming from the attacks. When Ichigo attempts to talk to  at the start of the next chapter, he gets told to stop. : "Not Quite Yet. It'd be cute if that's all it took to finish things. In that case he'd be just like any other monster. He'll be back...any minute now." He's right.
 * Yammy, of all people, seems to be the most genre savvy espada. He is the first and only character to notice Wonderweiss's "special condition" on his own . He also states that "he never expected ." Not only does he seem to be aware that, but that since received much more screen time and character development, he would logically last longer than he himself would.
 * However, this was immediately after saying that he thought he would be able to kill Rukia, Chad, and Renji in time to go help fight Ichigo, so he wasn't savvy enough to realize that it is almost impossible to kill a hero in Bleach, let alone three.
 * A minor example occurs during Charlotte Cuulhorne and Yumichika Ayasegawa's fight. Charlotte believes strength equals beauty, immediately targets Yumichika's body, and shatters his arm in three places. Yumichika  so targets Charlotte's hair and stands back smiling, waiting for Charlotte to release his full power. Why? Because both characters fit The Dandy trope. In other words, Yumichika sped up the fight   by playing on the fact that a dandy cannot bear to be mussed up in a fight.
 * In Bizenghast, Edaniel comes to after being knocked out, and looks for the others, who have managed to get lost. Edaniel claims that he "knew this would happen."
 * The first Beast Fighter fought in Go Lion (what Americans would know as Voltron) was extremely Genre Savvy, being the only monster in the series that was smart enough to attack the separate lion robots before they could combine.
 * Pokémon Hunter J from Pokémon could be this. She's the only villain that hasn't been arrested or beaten voluntarily. In the two-parter Riolu episode, she is removed from the plot after delivering her quarry, then, when Ash and Company show up, she tells her henchman that they have their money, and they depart, leaving the client to be arrested.
 * She's also one of the few villains of the show to use the expedient of attacking the Kid with the Leash, rather than the Mons themselves. This forces them to scramble for defense and throws them off their game. She is furthermore completely unaverse to directly trying to kill Ash.
 * In one episode, an Officer Jenny manages to instantly defeat the poacher that, earlier, has beat Team Rocket to a pulp...by having her Growlithe steal the poacher's Pokéball containing his Tyranitar, completely bypassing the need for a Pokémon battle. A very rare occurrence in the anime.
 * In Pokémon Special, a particular Galactic mook notes the fact that anyone who comes across a Pokedex will play a key role in a major, region-wide battle involving legendary Pokemon. In other words, he knows who the main characters are in the story.
 * Subverted, though. Said Galactic Mook is That said, this makes   very Genre Savvy.
 * The dubbed version of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX often has Amon Garam poke fun at show as a whole and point out how ridiculous some of the game mechanics are.

Chazz: What, but how!?

Amon: Simple, I call out their names dramatically and they rise up!"

"Hell King Bass: "Kill all the women and children in case one of the women gives birth to a child and he grows up to be a hero or something."
 * Pain in Naruto is most certainly this. Unlike every other villain in the entire manga, he doesn't take the time to explain or brag about all of his abilities, drastically improving his effectiveness. Several people die just trying to figure out what he can do. It isn't until his abilities are discovered through old fashioned trial and error that anyone is even slightly effective against him.
 * Happy in Fairy Tail fancies himself very genre savvy about the comedy genre, often predicting the outcome of various gags only to be proven only partially correct.
 * At one point, Natsu, Happy, Grey and Erza are looking for Lucy and search her house. Grey reaches her bathroom and has an Imagine Spot of him walking in on her in the bath, complete with getting called a pervert and having something thrown at his face. His response? "It was bound to happen sooner or later."
 * Kid Buu in Dragon Ball Z might count as well while almost every major villain in Dragon Ball Z threatens to blow up the Planet they're on to kill the heroes, Buu is the only one who actually does it before fighting the heroes and without announcing first.
 * In a filler scene in the Cell arc, Goku is on the hunt for the dragonballs again, and finds one of them held by his old foe Mercenary Tao. Tao knows full well he doesn't have a prayer of defeating Goku in a fight... but he does know that Goku isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. So he makes a deal: if Goku can figure out a few wire puzzles before dawn of the next day, he gets the dragonball. Goku, good sport that he is, accepts, while Tao uses the opportunity to get as far away as possible just in case he lost his bet. Unfortunately for Tao, Goku is able to undo the wire puzzles in time, and thanks to his new instant transmission ability, takes the dragonball anyway.
 * In the arc of Ah! My Goddess where Urd is split into her Goddess and Demon selves, Skuld shows a bit of Savvy when Demon Urd mixes the two of them up and tries to play Spot the Imposter. It doesn't work, because Skuld wrote an identifier on Goddess Urd's backside before they even found the other: this was totally not just for Fan Service.
 * Various characters in To Aru Majutsu no Index point out certain things, including making references to dating sims when talking about Touma's harem, among other ways.
 * By the end of Code Geass Kallen's become familiar enough with Lelouch's Large Ham tactics to know that, if he says a cool-sounding philosophical line while making a dramatic gesture with his hands, it means he's about to do something incredibly improbable to screw over his enemies.
 * Reiko Himezono, the titular character of Reiko the Zombie Shop. Genre savvy in that she's very competent at her job and is intimately familiar with the things that could go wrong, such as a resurrected zombie going berserk if the person responsible for their death is nearby, knowing that said zombie would not attack a complete stranger for no reason, and carrying around a tape recorder with pre-recorded chants with her if something goes wrong. The latter proves handy when
 * In Violinist of Hameln, the demon generals immediate orders after conquering a country are:

Dragon King Drum: "Ain't that always a bitch?""

"Megane: How dare you attack in the middle of a stirring lecture or a fusion! As a robot otaku, you fail!"
 * Amamiya Yuuhi from The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer displayed a large amount of dating sim genre savviness on multiple occasions. One occasion during which he specifically chose to walk in on Asahina changing, knowing this type of situation usually engenders "special events".
 * At another time, instead of opening the door onto a changing girl, he felt accomplished instead, by having a girl walk in on him naked as a "special event"
 * Sami also remarks, at a certain point when Yuuhi suddenly grabs her face in during a dream that, had this been a romantic comedy, he'd have grabbed her boobs instead of her head.
 * During the final fight of the manga, realizes that final dramatic fights must be ended with a one-on-one Cross Counter or a Single-Stroke Battle or similarly dramatic mutual 'final technique', and charges up for a final super punch with a ludicrously long and awesome name.
 * The Inazuma Eleven anime tends to portray Megane this way sometimes, although he usually fails at trying to use it to his advantage. On one occasion, he starts with an annoyed rant in the middle of a soccer match, and gets even more annoyed when an opponent tries to steal the ball from him in mid-speech, because Talking Is Supposed To Be A Free Action.


 * In Spirited Away, it could be chalked up as childish fear but Chihiro immediately knows that something is wrong with the abandoned amusement park she and her parents had stumbled upon, as well as eating food that doesn't belong to them.
 * Daily Lives of High School Boys
 * Hidenori is quite savvy in gaming tropes, and in some cases, tropes in anime storytelling (such as Comic Book Time or Late for School).
 * Yanagin at least aware of gender perceptions as portrayed during the previous decade's fiction.
 * Yanagin's sempai, at the very least, knowing most girls in last decade's fiction are ditzy to an extreme.
 * Eyeshield 21 has Shin leaving the Deimon-Kyoshin game early when Deimon was behind because he knew Eyeshield 21 would use some crazy technique to win it all like he has done so many times before.
 * Kid likes to quote, "Something bad will happen after something so good" and vice versa. It always happens.