Non-Indicative Name/Anime and Manga

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Non-Indicative Names in Anime and Manga include:

  • Edward "Whitebeard" Newgate from One Piece doesn't have a beard. He does rock a magnificent mustache though, and in the original Japanese, the word they use applies to facial hair in general.
    • Marshal "Blackbeard" Teach, on the other hand, had neither beard nor mustache before the Time Skip, though he did grow one by the time the plot resumed.
  • Pokémon anime:
    • Despite one season being called Sinnoh League Victors, Ash doesn't win the Sinnoh League. Takuto/Tobias does. Also, Nozomi (Zoey) wins the Sinnoh Grand Festival instead of Dawn.
    • At least the plural works there, unlike the fourth season Johto League Champions - which did not have The Silver Conference or even The Whirl Cup, and had only one regular seeking a Championship (which he doesn't get in the succeeding season).
  • How I Became a Pokémon Card does not relate to becoming cards in any way, but is instead a set of Slice of Life one-shots drawn by the artists for the Pokémon Trading Card Game - each chapter also comes with a Pokemon card.
  • Archer from Fate/stay night... is not an archer. He has a bow that he can use, but he's primarily a swordsman. The same goes for Gilgamesh, the Archer from the previous Holy Grail War. In each Holy Grail War, there's the same set of seven titles the servants go by; Word of God has stated either could have gotten the title of Saber, but the Saber of that War (King Arthur) fit the title even better, and since they often used their swords as ranged weapons, "Archer" was the next best fit.
  • Hidamari Sketch is the source of the page quote, which comes from a drunken rant on various misnomers.
    • The 'traffic light' segment is rooted in the Japanese language - the lowest light's color is often called "ao", an old Japanese word that refers to any color from blue to green. Modern Japanese has specific terms for blue ("aoi") and green ("midori") and a lot of shades in between, but "ao" still can be a number of colors.
  • The manga series Blame! doesn't actually involve any finger pointing whatsoever. It's theorized that the title is a misspelling of "blam!" - which would certainly fit all the gunplay that goes on - the title is pronounced Buramu!, which lends credence to the possibility that it was mistranslated.
  • From Azumanga Daioh:

Osaka: Okay, so, you know how we write "dolphins" as "sea pig"?
Sakaki: Uh-huh.
Osaka: But we use the same character for "pig" in "river pig" and somehow it comes out as "puffer fish", but they live in the sea.

  • Suddenly, the "ocean bacon" in the Gorillaz book (meant to be a random word combo and Noodle's Berserk Button) makes a lot more sense...
  • The anime adaptation's title is also an example of this. "Azumanga Daioh" is a compacted version of "Azuma's manga for Daioh magazine." The anime, being an anime, is of course not a manga. Of course, "Azuanime Daioh" (or for that matter "Azuanime TVTokyo") just doesn't sound as good. Thus, its full title is Azumanga Daioh: The Animation. This is even lampshaded in one of the episode previews.
  • Princess Mononoke: She is neither a princess, nor is her name Mononoke. She also isn't the main character or the center of the plot. The Japanese Titel Mononoke Hime is more 'obvious' about it being an epithet for San, but she is still only one of the four major secondary characters Ashitaka meets during the movie.
  • Prime Minister Honest from Akame ga Kill! was anything but honest. He was a lying bastard and a cruel man.
  • The weapon names in Tokyo Mew Mew are usually at least straightforward puns, but the Mew Berry Rod is too small to be a rod and not intended to be used by Mew Berry. And what's the "tone" in Mew Mint's Mintonarrow supposed to mean? And the StrawBellBell (or whatever) didn't even have a bell originally.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha:
  • There's a manga entitled Yandere Kanojo, which you would expect to be about dating a lovesick girl, especially due to its female lead's first appearance carrying a bloody baseball bat. Not so, as the "yan" in the title is for "yankee" - his girlfriend is a deredere juvenile delinquent.
  • Naruto:
    • The "Hidden Villages" aren't really at all hidden, but rather large and populated with open roads leading to and from it. In fact, they are required to have their locations know to the public, or else no one would know where to go to hire them as mercenaries. The only one that's really "hidden" is the Hidden Sound Village, but that's not a village so much as it is a series of labs and bunkers. Mist came somewhat closer, as its valley is perpetually covered in a thick mist, but it's too large to effectively hide.
    • The Hidden Waterfall Village is shown in the Non Serial OVA to be actually hidden, since it's the smallest and weakest village, and if its location was widely known, any of the other villages could crush it easily.
    • Kabutowari is a hammer and axe linked by a cable. It's referred to as the "bluntsword", and counts as one of the Seven Swords of the Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.
  • There is a species of Digimon called "Flymon" even though they're really closer to bees - they're more likely named after its primary style of locomotion.
  • The towering sumoesque Big Guy in Berserk is named Pippin.
  • The fourth Black Jack OVA is called Anorexia: The Two Dark Doctors. The patient does not have anorexia per se - she has a parasite that makes her involuntarily vomit whenever she eats.
  • The Japanese title of the fourth Dragon Ball movie is "Super Saiyajin da Son Gokū" (Super Saiyajin/Saiyan Goku), during which Goku takes a form that was supposed to be a Super Saiyan, but since it was made before the manga reached the point where Goku became one, it's not what most people would recognize as such - there's no change in eye or hair color, and it's a completely Unstoppable Rage instead of Tranquil Fury. The form was later Retconned by a sidebook to be a "false" Super Saiyan form.
  • In Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?, Haruna has a Finishing Move called Mystletainn Kick, which consists of bisecting the opponent with her chainsaw (which at the very least is called Mystletainn). Everyone on the receiving end responds with "That's not a kick!"
  • Justin Law of Soul Eater has an attack named "Law Abiding Silver Gun", which is not a gun but a guillotine blade. The name makes no sense except as a Shout-Out to B. Ichi, whose weapon of the same was a gun.
  • Haruhi Suzumiya: The "Endless Eight" story arc does, in fact, end - eventually, anyway. The "Eight" refers to the number of almost-equal episodes, within which the characters relive their summer vacation over fifteen thousand times. This is an adaptation artifact - the light novel only told the story once. "Eight" also refers to August - on Japanese calendars, the months are often numbered instead of named, and August is month number eight; the number "8" is also an infinity sign when placed on its side.
  • The Snipers in Él don't ever appear to do any actual sniping in the OVAs, and in fact mostly just use pistols while running around and doing ordinary police work. It's possible that The Serial Rapists, while more accurate, wouldn't have gone over as well with the public.
  • "The Midnight Parasites" is an animated re-imagining of the works of Hieronymus Bosch. Only two of the creatures seen are portrayed as parasites (specifically, reproductive parasitoids), and there's no indication it takes place at midnight.
  • Sailor Moon :
    • Tuxedo Mask does not actually wear a tuxedo; he wears white tie and tails, which is more formal. A tuxedo (or "dinner suit") has a black bow tie and a suit-style jacket rather than a tailcoat.
    • In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: Crystal, the "Dark Kingdom" appears to have a population of five actual sapient beings. That's a gang, not a kingdom.
    • The Witches 5 does not have five members.
  • School Rumble is described by FUNimation as "The absolute funniest show you'll ever see that's not about anything that rumbles... ever!" Admittedly, there is at least a school.
  • In Gundam AGE, the DOTS/DODS Rifle is an upgraded Beam Rifle which adds... rifling, meaning that "beam rifle" is a non-indicative name.
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