Idiot Ball/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

* ''[[Naruto]]''

** In one filler episode (161), Naruto gets whacked with the idiot ball ''hard''. He fails to recognize that two people are wearing terrible disguises to make them look like Guy and Rock Lee and misinterprets their horrible tasks as ''Taijutsu'' training.

** In Episode 193, Rock Lee fails to recognize his own sensei, simply because of a weird wig. To make it much worse, [[The Guards Must Be Crazy|the city guards]] fail to realize something is up when two identical Might Guys are running around all crazy like. This, when the ''children'' can disguise themselves as teachers... and just to pound the point home, the next adventure chronologically has yet even more people using disguises to threaten the lives of everyone. Way to go, guards.

** Naruto held the idiot ball '''hard''' during {{spoiler|[[Fan Nickname|Kabutomaru]]'s attack on the turtle island he and Killer Bee were hiding on to not realize something was wrong. To say nothing of his believing that the "mission" he was on there was a fake to begin with. Even the other characters with him [[Lampshade Hanging|remark on this]].}}

** Sasuke has dribbled the ball for a while, having switched his goals from "Kill Itachi" to "Kill the people who made me kill Itachi" to "Kill everyone who happens to live in the same area as the people who made me kill Itachi." Itachi went rogue specifically to prevent the needless deaths of thousands... The same thousands Sasuke is now bent on killing to avenge Itachi.

** By giving the book to Tomoe, Irina's just passed the Idiot Ball, as Tomoe leaves the book behind in Professor Youko's lab in a presumed attempt to frame Irina for {{spoiler|injuring Erstin}}, despite the fact there were at least a dozen eyewitnesses who could vouch for Irina never having left the classroom at the time.

** Luckily for Irina, {{spoiler|the professor recovers the book in a later episode and returns it to her, no questions asked.}}

** A specific example: The Whirl Cup. Ash is facing Misty's Psyduck with his Kingler. He already demonstrated knowing how to bypass Psyduck's headache powers in a previous episode, yet the writers made him fall for it just so they could hand Misty the win.

** In a later episode, James is feeling down because his Cacnea is having trouble learning a new move. Ash and Co., for absolutely no fathomable reason, decide to help train it. That's right. They're willingly going to ''help'' Team Rocket, the group who have been stalking them, spying on them and attacking them since day one, get ''stronger''. When Dawn points out that Ash is being a monumental idiot, he brushes it off, saying it's their job to help Pokémon. Have to wonder how he would feel if the training had succeeded and Team Rocket used their newly improved Cacnea to successfully steal Pikachu once and for all...

** And then we have [[Big Bad|Giovanni]], in [[Pokémon: The First Movie|the first movie]]. He's been using [[Physical God|Mewtwo]] as his servant for a while, pretending that he believed Mewtwo could be equal to humans. He must have grabbed the Idiot Ball when he decided to let Mewtwo know that he felt Mewtwo was only meant to serve humans... Giovanni isn't unwittingly saying this to a Pokémon that he doesn't know is powerful. He's seen Mewtwo at work. He knows what devastation his "servant" can cause. Even with the [[Restraining Bolt|armor]]. Giovanni knows that Mewtwo is an enhanced clone of [[Olympus Mons|Mew, the probable ancestor of all Pokémon]]. And he ''[[What an Idiot!|still insults Mewtwo, right to his face]]''. With a leader this dumb, it's a miracle that Team Rocket hasn't all been rounded up and arrested, or killed by angry Legendaries.

** Specifically, this is the Pokemon who, minutes after "birth" slaughtered every last scientist in the facility, burned it to the ground and, under Giovanni's training, grew STRONGER still. And AFTER all this, Giovanni STILL chases Mewtwo to the next region over, bringing an army to try and stop him.

* Luffy from ''[[One Piece]]'' seems to willingly carry the idiot ball because, to him, it makes the adventure more fun. There's a noticeable difference between "serious" Luffy and "non-serious" Luffy. Serious Luffy is the guy who received a 400,000,000 beli bounty for crushing Arlong, defeating Sir Crocodile, and annihilating Enies Lobby, defeating CP9, rescuing Robin, punching a Tenryuubito, causing a prison breakout in Impel Down, and intervening in the War of the Best. Non-serious Luffy is the guy who dances at random, picks his nose in front of enemies, and considers "Four Swords" an appropriate insult against Zoro.

** There's a stunning example in volume two of the manga, in which Luffy, who is made of ''rubber'' seems helpless to get out of a cage. A cage that has only vertical bars spaced more than six inches apart.

** This is practically confirmed in the Sabaody Archipelago, where Luffy not only willingly passes up a chance to find the location of One Piece, but threatens to quit being a pirate altogether if any of the others ask because he doesn't want to go on a boring adventure. By contrast, Robin asks Rayleigh about what the Rio Poneglyph says, but is convinced that it might be best to see for herself.

** It seems like every character except [[The Stoic|Robin]] has carried it in some way, shape, or form.

* Omi Tsukiyono from ''[[Weiss Kreuz]]'', who is supposed to be by far the ''smartest'' member of his team of [[Hitman with a Heart|Hitmen with Hearts]], gets hit by the Idiot Ball when he decides that the best thing to do with a [[Brown Note|CD]] that causes [[Driven to Suicide|suicidal psychosis]] in half the people who listen to it is ''play it and see if it works''. It takes two of his teammates passing out for him to realize what a very, very stupid idea this was.

* Suzaku and Lelouch from ''[[Code Geass]]'' strike a deal, wherein Lelouch has Zero's crimes absolved in return for exile from Japan, as well as his bringing one million people to participate in the Special Administrative Region which Suzaku supports. Then, in typical Lelouch fashion, he {{spoiler|has the million people [[I Am Spartacus|dress as Zero]], meaning they get exiled too.}} The entire plan hinges upon Suzaku being [[Lawful Stupid]] and obeying their deal to the letter (though in fairness to Suzaku, it relied equally on his honest desire to avert a potential riot/massacre).

** And the people who caused this situation weren't much better. If they wanted {{spoiler|Yurin's powers for their own benefit}} so badly, '''why in space''' did they {{spoiler|just strap her to a cockpit and use her as an amplifier for the local [[Enfante Terrible]]'s powers}}?