Butt Monkey/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions

*** Being around and eventually {{spoiler|in love with}} Keitarō seems to bring out Naru's inner Butt Monkey, and if she is not a victim of his being an [[Accidental Pervert]], then she is a victim of her friends' dubious efforts to "help" the would-be couple. This may also apply to Shinobu, whose own efforts to win Keitarō may have "infected" her. Almost any time she takes the other girls' advice to win their "game", she suffers some mishap, triply so if this help comes from Kaolla Su.

**** Then there's Motoko's "adventures" with her sister. Until [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|she was finally able to confess to Keitaro and beat her sister at the same time]]

* Manabu Kuchiki from ''[[Genshiken]];'' when he joins the Genshiken, he becomes the frequent recipient of Saki's violence, once simply for being there. The others have him do grunt work at Comifest, leading to him going a entire day buying their doujinshi without food or water. However, unlike most Butt Monkeys, he entirely ''deserves'' it, knows that, and accepts it all without complaint. In fact, he seems to like it; early on, he cheerfully declares himself to be a "shameless servant", and his masochistic streak causes him to smile whenever the Genshiken mistreat him. Except when they tied him to a lamp in volume 7 of the manga to keep him from peeping on the girls' bathing. ''Then'' he complained... for about ten seconds. And it was mostly acting.

** He's also highly self-sabotaging; the one time he was shown to be underneath a fairly <s>decent</s> human being, managing to stop a thief from stealing from their stall, his reaction to the [[Not What It Looks Like]] that inevitably followed was to... wear the dress. In the middle of the crowded university. And scare off potential members.

* Geraba, Fatman, and occasionally Blume from ''[[Xabungle]]''. Geraba usually does nothing to incite Horra's wrath other than question his orders, but he still gets the crap kicked out of him on a regular basis. Fatman is Elche's loyal bodyguard and mute, but he usually gets shoved aside in times of need and constantly suffers physical abuse without striking back or saying a word. Blume is a much less extreme example, but he still manages to take the occasional bullet or strike without necessarily deserving it, while most of the others remain unharmed.

* Natsuki in both ''[[My-HiME]]'' and ''[[Mai-Otome]]''. Having one's [[Panty Thief|underwear stolen]] and ''eaten''? Being forced to [[Show Some Leg]] to hitch a ride back to school/town? Falling into an easily-avoidable trap set by {{spoiler|a [[Trickster God]]dess}}? It's funny how the most [[The Comically Serious|serious]] member of the cast is always the one to take the comedic pratfalls.

* The ''[[Claymore]]s'' in the series titled after them are infused with the blood of Yoma, the monsters they are trained to fight and will eventually become them if they exert themselves too much; plus, if they start asking too many questions, the organization will send them on suicide missions to shut them up. The main character, Clare, generally has it the worst, since she started out as a human who was a companion to the most powerful Claymore, only to have her killed before her eyes. Her body is then used to turn Clare into a Claymore herself, except since she's only a quarter Yoma, she's the lowest ranked Claymore and everyone looks down on her.

* Tamaki from ''[[Code Geass]]''. He's not the butt of every joke, but he's disliked by the cast, and can't pilot a Knightmare to save his life, yet [[The Fool|never comes close to dying]].

* Patrick Colasaur and Saji Crossroads from ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]'' have had ''[[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain|very]]'' [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain|embarrassing]] and ''[[Break the Cutie|very]] [[Break the Cutie|soul-crippling]]'' things done onto them, respectively. Patrick bounces back effortlessly every time; Saji [[Earn Your Happy Ending|has to work at it]].

* Mullin Shetland from ''[[Last Exile]]'' becomes the series' Butt Monkey when he joins the Silvana crew as a mechanic. Basically, he sucks at it, no-one bothers teaching him anything and every woman he falls for rejects him. A former rifleman who survived 19 battles (where riflemen have a 33% survival rate) he's remarkably [[Badass]] at other times of the series- after leaving the crew he ends up single-handedly saving the Anatoray flagship with his [[Heroic Sacrifice]] {{spoiler|(he gets better)}}.

* Hanai of ''[[School Rumble]]'' is usually the first target for pranks. In fact, when he tried to play the recorder to remind Mikoto of when they were kids, Mikoto laughed at how bad he was and had forgotten completely.

* Matsuda of ''[[Death Note]]''. Everyone on the investigative team doesn't hesitate to point out what an idiot he is. L especially treats him like crap. Of course, he does get his hero moments, particularly at the end.

** Out of Ash's many companions, Misty was near equally prone to slapstick and ego-denting humiliation as he was.

** May is possible runner up due to being most liable to hold the Distress Ball and get endangered, kidnapped or tied up.

** Not to mention the Team Rocket trio in the anime, who have sad back stories, are poor, incompetent, hated by their boss, and, oh yeah: they get blasted off at the end of almost every episode.

*** However, this is slowly changing as the trio is becoming more competent.

*** Their Pokemon aren't much better off either. The best examples would probably have to be Arbok, Weezing, and Seviper. They will always end up taking a lot of beatings from other Pokémon and on the recieving ends of their attacks in every single episode.

** In the XY series, Clemont has assumed this role. Among other things, he's in poor physical condition and his inventions constantly blow up in his face. One of his most unfortunate moments, however, was in XY018 where the group had to pretend to trade him to Princess Ally for a PokéFlute. They were planning on going back for him, but forgot about him and so he had to make a decoy of himself with his clothes and escape on his own, [[Comedic Underwear Exposure|in his underwear and undershirt]]!

** Bill in ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' was this for a little while. He seems to become less and less of this as the series goes on (and seems to have gotten Daisy Oak as a [[Throw the Dog a Bone|girlfriend]]), but Pika still shocks him for the fun of it.

* Nagasumi of ''[[Seto no Hanayome]]'' is one of these, when he isn't being [[Badass]].

* ''[[Angel Beats!]]'': Much of the SSS members take turns at the role, but Hinata by far is the most memorable.

* After his [[Character Development]] from [[Jerk Jock]], Jun Manjoume in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'' tends to have ridiculosly bad luck, from his [[All Love Is Unrequited|unrequited crush]] on Asuka to [[The Worf Effect|being the first of the main cast to lose to the new villian]]. Occasionlly, he'll return to his [[Badass]] self, but it always falls apart in the end, until his final steps of [[Character Development]] in Season 4.

** [[Catch Phrase|FUKO DA]]!!! (Such misfortune!)

** The only thing he's lucky on, however, is that his life is a [[Dating Sim]] where he gets an [[Unwanted Harem]], which is pretty much a good reason why many of his male classmates are ''jealous'' of him.

* Meiling from ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]''. She exists primarily to be the overactive idiot.

* Did I have to mention [[Catch Phrase|the genius]] [[Idiot Hero|Sakuragi Hanamichi]] from ''[[Slam Dunk]]''?? He even got a nickname "Red-headed monkey"!!

* Fate Testarossa-Harlaown of ''[[Lyrical Nanoha]]'' gets this sometimes, being socially awkward and easily embarrassed into adulthood. She gets teasing from Signum about their new relationship (in which Fate is reluctantly Signum's superior officer in [[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS|StrikerS]]), is not told about a final mock battle between the captains and forwards that includes her or her daughter Vivio's ability to turn into her [[Older Alter Ego]] at will, and occasionally gets subject to loving teasing by Vivio, particularly in the "[[Has Two Mommies|2nd Mother's Day]]" one shot.

* Due to his status as [[The Comically Serious]] and as [[I Just Want to Be Normal|a chimera who desperately seeks a cure for his appearance]], [[I Work Alone|which often makes him try to ignore or belie his comrades]], [[Slayers|Zelgadis]] is this in multiple filler episodes. One memorable episode from the second season had him being used as an ''anchor'', nearly get killed twice by a [[Our Dragons Are Different|Lake Dragon]], and almost drown. In the latter scenario, he winds up getting [[Squick|CPR from the elderly (male) captain]] of the boat they were on instead of [[Genki Girl|Amelia]], whom he secretly hoped would do it...

* Sasazuka from ''[[Ichigo Mashimaro]]''. His teachers love to pick on him, and force him to [[Standing in the Hall|stand in the hall]] at the slightest provocation, even before he's even said anything.

* Anyone who has blue hair in ''[[Carnival Phantasm]]'' is a butt monkey but Lancer takes the prize followed by Shinji and then Ciel.

** And to a lesser extent, Yuuji

* The Producer in ''[[The Idolmaster (anime)|THE iDOLM@STER]]'', although watered down a little. It's even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the final episode by the Futami Twins.

* In ''[[Saint Beast]]'', Shiva's a less-than-stellar example of angelic goodness but he gets a ''lot'' of flak from the other characters and rarely gets anything he wants including a coveted position as a Saint Beast. Some fans see him more as [[The Woobie]] because he is so unlucky he's empathetic.