Wrong Genre Savvy/Anime and Manga

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


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Examples of Wrong Genre Savvy characters in Anime and Manga include:

  • Vegeta's whole complex in Dragonball Z is how he views himself as the Hero or even the Chosen One, and so constantly gets mad when Goku and Gohan continue to take center stage. It takes him until the fight with Kid Buu to accept his destiny as Goku's lancer.
    • It also means that he realizes that as Goku is the hero, Goku's philosophy of being pure-hearted is right and his Type-V antiheroics wasn't. That, plus his love for his family eventually bumps him up the niceness scale to a type III.
  • Mazinger Z: Baron Ashura and Count Brocken hated each other. Big Bad Dr. Hell thought it would be a good thing since they would surely try to destroy Mazinger-Z harder to upstage each other. Or course, what happened was many operations and schemes went by the wayside because they constantly fought and got in each other's way, and they were unable to work together, ruining many joined missions, too. Hell's mistake was born of him believing he and his troops were a Five-Man Band instead of a Five-Bad Band.
    • In another episode, Count Brocken have one in which he used hostages, and cheap tricks to defeat Koji, expecting Koji to be a straight, heroic and honorable hero like pretty much most tv shows protagonist. This could have(and at times actually) work well if not for the fact that this is Koji was talking about. In fact, Brocken does mention it by complained about Koji's fans will cry because of that. Koji's reaction? Take it like a man.
  • Sanji from One Piece seems to think he's in a Shojo anime (such as in the Enies Lobby arc and Filler) and completely fails to get the girl at all times.
    • Very, very ironic when you consider that early on, he actually was popular with (non-plot-relevant) women. This trait seems to have been eased out of his characterization, probably when the artist realized Sanji was a little too perfect and needed to be funnier and more over the top.
    • Luffy seems to be affected for the one moment he attempts being Genre Savvy, assuming that Chopper's scope attack will in fact be a beam, a la Dragon Ball. ("BEAM, BEAM! IT'S GONNA BE A BEAM!")
      • He's got the genre down, One Piece just happens to be rather non-traditional.
      • He and Chopper are both (in) appropriately enthusiastic when they witness Bartholomew Kuma lookalike PX-4's beam attack
    • More traditionally, Donquixote Doflamingo, whose steadfast belief in a world without dreams runs contrary to... basically everything about One Piece.
    • Blackbeard seems to be under the impression that he's the main character.
      • Either that, or he thinks he's the Big Bad (which he's got a good chance of being right about) in a story where The Bad Guy Wins (which he has absolutely no chance of being right about).
  • Konata from Lucky Star plays so much Eroge to think that she's living in one — despite this is a Slice of Life Schoolgirl Series. If the plot calls for something unusual she changes the game genre accordingly (for example, thinking in sports games terms when the School's sports competition time arrives), but still she doesn't get that she doesn't live in a videoconsole.
  • 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. Madarame seems to visualize life as a Dating Sim, and beats himself up about it when he realizes it.
  • The eponymous character of Suzumiya Haruhi hopes to meet aliens, time-travelers and espers, experience supernatural mysteries, and expose ancient conspiracies. Since she is a Reality Warper, it actually does happen all around her, but she doesn't notice. One could put it so that she makes herself an accurate Genre Savvy.
    • Example: She expects a student president who runs the school and all the clubs like a dictator. There isn't one, so Itsuki hires some guy to play the part of a jerkass president. He's a jerkass in a different way entirely, though. Of course, since this is Haruhi he starts having trouble differentiating himself from the role he is playing, and will possibly end up exactly as Haruhi thinks he is. Wrong Genre Savvy -> Genre Savvy!
    • She does wind up Wrong Genre Savvy in the positions she thinks the other members of the Brigade have. She views Itsuki as The Lancer, Kyon as The Big Guy, Yuki as The Smart Guy, and Mikuru as The Chick. She is only right with Mikuru; in reality, Kyon is The Hero, Itsuki is The Lancer, and Yuki takes the position of both The Smart Guy and The Big Guy.
  • Gai Daigouji and the Jovians in Martian Successor Nadesico spent too much time watching ultra-idealistic Super Robot anime in the vein of the original Getter Robo, and failed to realize they were in a much more conspiracy-filled, morally grey, and lethal Real Robot series.
    • In the Super Robot Wars games, he sometimes gets to actually be genre savvy—for example, in the Super Robot Wars W stage where Voltron Golion is introduced, the cast is shocked when the lions combine... except for Gai, whose reaction is something along the lines of "Yeah, OF course they were gonna do that."
      • Amusingly enough, this is probably why he survives in Super Robot Wars despite being swiftly killed off in his own series.
  • Noboru Yamaguchi from Cromartie High School acts as though the world around him follows the rules of traditional (read: old) styles of comedy, despite the world of Cromartie being one of the most surreal places ever.
  • Edo Phoenix of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX thinks he's The Hero. In fact, he practically thinks he's Batman... in a Shonen anime. He initially sets out to defeat Judai, thinking he's the enemy. Then when Judai is getting ready to defeat the Big Bad, Edo rushes off to fight him, believing he will win because of a promise he made, not realizing he is not The Only One Allowed to Defeat You.
  • In the second season of Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yuya has a bout of this after he finds out that being eliminated from the Friendship Cup means being sentenced to a life of slave labor at a waste treatment facility. He tries to play hero by announcing this revelation to the crowd before his first match, but not only did everyone already know about it, they didn't object to it! All it does is cause everyone to consider him very naive. Downplayed, however, in that a few episodes later, it seemed Yuya simply needed more experience as an orator; Yugo's attempt to deliver the same message to the crowd seemed to make far more progress.
  • Cancer Deathmask, of Saint Seiya. He decides to serve the corrupt Pope because Utopia Justifies the Means and Right Makes Might, and points out that winners write the history books, which is technically true. Unfortunately, he's in a Shonen Jump series, so he is bound to pay dearly for that remark.
  • Berserk is a Seinen fantasy manga that contains orgies of violence and sex, of both the consensual and non-consensual types. Despite this, Isidro seems to have convinced himself that he's not only in a Shonen manga (which are generally idealistic and where good always triumphs over evil), but thinks he's the main character. Suffice to say, if it weren't for the fact he's the Plucky Comic Relief, he probably would've died a long time ago.
  • Naga in Slayers believes that she is The Rival when she's actually more of a Sidekick. Lina often corrects her when presenting themselves to a new character. In the TV series, Amelia tries desperately to uphold Justice in a slapstick fantasy world.
  • In Puni Puni Poemi the eponymous character is convinced (apparently correctly) that she is the main character—and her voice actress. In the final scene the show's director (who is also a character) reveals that the main character is apparently her love interest.
  • Asuka in Neon Genesis Evangelion arguably thinks of herself as a Action Girl. However, she doesn't realize in what kind of Anime this particular Action Girl appears.
    • She also seems very convinced that she is the main character and that Shinji is The Rival and is crushed when she is confronted with the fact that she isn't.
  • Yuka Sugimoto from The Twelve Kingdoms anime even manages to get her genre right. Unfortunately, she leaps to the immediate assumption that being transported into a fantasy realm means she is The Chosen One, even though all signs point to her classmate Youko Nakajima. In the original novels, Yuka never even reached the Twelve Kingdoms in the first place, which should put things in perspective.
  • In G Gundam, young Maria Louise from Neo France is a Rebellious Princess with a crush on the local Knight in Shining Armor, George de Sand. She's depressed because he doesn't fight for her, but for her country. So, if she stages her own kidnapping and recruits Domon Kasshu, a rival that George spurned, he'll fight for her honor, right? WRONG! The far more Genre Savvy George does come for her, but delivers a What the Hell, Hero? speech on how he's much more likely to be absorbed into fighting Domon than on Maria's honor. Domon's partner Rain has to bail Maria out, and she's Put on a Bus until the second part of the series.
  • Haruka Akashi of Kamen Tantei is a huge mystery buff and aspiring mystery author who keeps running into mysteries. So far, so good. Unfortunately, she's a "fair play" mystery fan trying to apply "the rules" of such to a world where psychic powers, ghosts, All Just a Dream endings and fictional characters come to life are regular occurrences.
  • Pretty much everyone in Hayate the Combat Butler. Nagi thinks she's in a shounen manga in a case of First Girl Wins. Most of the rest of the cast thinks they're in a genuine action series instead of a parody. Sakuya comes the closest by realizing she's in a comedy series, but even she has the style of humor wrong.
  • Would-be hard-boiled private eye Guy Kurosawa in Darker than Black either doesn't know or refuses to admit that he's in a Speculative Fiction series. When a cat yells at him from two feet away, he looks in the opposite direction and says, "Who's there?" He happens to stumble on the real plot a couple of times through sheer dumb luck, and only makes it out alive because he's too dense to figure out that he's in a story where an elaborate revenge plot is much less likely than industrial espionage.
    • His Genki Girl secretary Kiko appears to be completely convinced that she lives in a Shojo comedy. She doesn't. It also gets sort of turned around in the OVA, since it parodies the main series; Mayu has exactly the same ideas as Kiko about what genre she's living in, and starts stalking Hei because she thinks of him as a romantic hero. Hei and company spend so much time dealing with crazy Spy-Versus-Spy plots and counterplots that it never occurs to them that Mayu might be following him due to nothing more than a huge crush and start speculating that another, previously unknown organization is after them, briefly making them Wrong Genre Savvy.
  • In the third episode of Ouran High School Host Club, Tamaki identifies the show as a high-school romance anime, calling himself and Haruhi the main pair destined to be together - not too far off the mark so far, but then he identifies the rest of the club as "the homosexual supporting cast". This last remark inspires Kyouya to show him up by coming up with a better plan to save Haruhi from being exposed by the physical exam and saying "I just don't think I'm supporting cast, homosexual or not."
  • The protagonist Sugisaki Ken from Student Council's Discretion is this. He seriously believes that he is inside a H-game, always says that the student council is his harem, always getting downplayed by Kurimu: "This is not a harem, it's the student council!".
    • "Don't be ridiculous. I don't think I'm in a dating sim. In a dating sim I get all the girls! Have you ever seen me with a girl?" Yep, that'll show her. Still spends too much time looking for flag events though.
  • Code Geass: Poor, poor Shirley Fennette. She seems to think she's in a shoujo series, when it's anything but, and things just keep getting worse until the bottom falls out for the poor girl. Just two episodes after her proclamation of The Power of Love, and right after she seemingly consummates her one true love or it looks like she has a better chance than the other girls in the story... she gets mercilessly killed off for trusting the wrong person. A boy who also has interest in the guy she loves. Sorta.. All the more tragically ironic in that said power also had just earlier inspired Lelouch as Zero to make his inspiring speech about the Power of Passion after he and the Black Knights liberated China, and may have also saved Lelouch from falling into madness, and his eventual self-induced demise via Zero Requiem, if not for Shirley's murder.
  • Minor example from the second episode of the 2005 Gaiking series. The main character fires off his Rocket Punch, expecting it to fly back to him afterwards. It doesn't, and he even screams out "But don't these things usually come back?!"
    • Notably played with when the protagonist /starts off/ a fight after freshly receiving an upgrade by using his rocket punch...and missing terribly. The villain laughs at him for his stupidity, leaving them wide open for the fist to fly back towards him and drill a hole straight through, coming back to rest on Gaiking's arm once again.
  • Haruka and Michiru of Sailor Moon, otherwise known as Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, seem to think they are in a much more cynical series than they are. Therefore, though they are both very competent fighters who can certainly get the job done, they don't seem to understand that Sailor Moon could have the problem solved in half the time with twice the number of happy endings and tend to do things that make the ultimate situation worse. See the series' Grand Finale for more details.
  • From Super Robot Wars Original Generation Divine Wars. During a live-fire training, Ryusei Date believes it's impossible for tanks to outmaneuver and down a mecha. His mech's disabled and shot down in a matter of minutes. He's actually figure the genre right, except this show is hybrid and "Super" part doesn't kick in until much later.
  • Rotton in Black Lagoon seems to believe he lives in a much more idealistic series. One that allows In the Name of the Moon speeches. He actually does have genuine genre savviness to go with it, though, but even this is only about 50% effective. Wearing a bullet proof vest: Good idea. Basing all your fighting on trying to be cool: Bad idea. You're not supposed to try.
  • Winner in Karin thinks he's the star of a Shounen vampire hunter series. Unfortunately for him, he's a side character in a Rom Com.
  • Matt in Death Note:

Matt: You got me, I'm part of this whole kidnapping incident. That means you'll have a lot of questions to ask. You won't shoot--
(The bodyguards of kidnapped start firing)

  • Tatewaki Kuno sees himself as an almighty Samurai, loved by all, God's gift to women, and that Ranma is his rival . In reality, his role in the plot is of a Starter Villain at most (and quickly degraded into Butt Monkey), and to the other characters he's nothing but a major pain in the ass with delusions of living in a very different era that the modern times the series is set in.
  • Kumojacky of Heartcatch Pretty Cure is an outrageously hammy and Hot-Blooded character who believes in the power of his own inner strength and loudly declares that any problem can be solved through the sheer grit and determination of your own burning spirit. He also thinks that the only kind of friendship worth having is the kind forged through mutual respect of the other person's strength. In short, he's the kind of guy who would fit in perfectly with any group of Shonen action heroes or anime bookshop owners... But he's stuck in a Magical Girl show that more or less runs on the Power of Friendship/Power of Love, and thus his clashing ideals default him directly to a villain role.
  • In Naruto, the title character is told multiple times by several different people that he is the kind of person who could never be the main character in a story.
    • Danzo believes that he is the one destined to bring peace to the world. His belief in this is so strong that he begins to take measures to sabotage Naruto and his allies under the idea that they'll just make things worse. Danzo is an Anti-Hero from a generation that ran off of Black and Gray Morality in a show focusing on a younger generation that runs off of White and Gray Morality. He's also a Dirty Coward, willing to let the rest of the village do the dying while he and his supporters hide underground, and then use the aftermath to seize power. He's unable to accept that the world around him has taken a major shift on the Sliding Scale of Cynicism Versus Idealism, and so he cannot believe that a self-sacrificing person (like Naruto) can not only become a ninja but also derail his plans and give a better outcome.
  • Rossiu in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann thinks he lives in a much more cynical world than he actually does. Sorry, but this isn't Neon Genesis Evangelion or Bokurano: here we solve all our problems with Hot Blood Spiral Energy.
  • In Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei, the character Mayo Mitama is an "evil looking girl" who likes to commit acts of ultra-violence. However, even when she does these things in front of/to people, they refuse to suspect her due to Wrong Genre Savvy. Going by the logic of detective stories and most anime using Face of a Thug, she can't be evil because "no one who looks so obviously evil could actually be evil" (because it wouldn't make for an interesting story). The problem is, Mayo's name means "exactly as she looks", and she's really is an example of Obviously Evil.
  • In Nana to Kaoru, the student council president complains that the main character's "got a secondary character's face!" The poor guy doesn't realize he's in an Ecchi, Ugly Guy, Hot Wife comedy. He's also absolutely dumbfounded at Kaoru's sad, depressed resignation about Nana being way outside of his league, expecting some form of argument or fight.
  • Shinzen from Speed Grapher is a very Genre Savvy villainess who is perfectly aware that her handsome and ruthless Dragon, Suitengu, views her as a Meal Ticket. So she tries to use her knowledge to try to keep him under control and outgambit him. Where does she go WGS? In that she accepted to marry him... not seeing that he'd try to kill her as soon as he could. Which he did.
  • Taikoubou of Houshin Engi zig-zags between this and Dangerously Genre Savvy. At the beginning of the story, he tries to skip the traditional Sorting Algorithm of Evil and goes straight for the Big Bad. Too bad Dakki is an even more Magnificent Bastard Chessmaster than he is and the plot fails horrifically. Later, Taikoubou tries to invoke Defeat Means Friendship on Nataku, who is out and out trying to kill him (Nataku does eventually join Team Taikoubou, but not for this reason). However, just as many of Taikoubou's insane plans succeed because he seems to be aware of what kind of series he's in.
  • Sayaka Miki thinks she's in a conventional Magical Girl Warrior show, where The Power of Love will make her a victorious "ally of justice". My God, was she WRONG. Once you get down to it, it's a Cosmic Horror Story with a side order of Psychological Horror.
  • All the generals in Irresponsible Captain Tylor seem to think hard-nosed militarism and taking your enemy down with you are the most important aspects to winning a war. They are completely unaware that the show is a wacky sitcom/space opera hybrid where stuff will occur just because it's funny. Or just out of sheer luck.
    • There is also the possibility though that they actually ARE genre savvy and Tylor is just a much better tactician than everybody else.
  • Peorth in Ah! My Goddess manages to pick up that she's in a Magical Girlfriend series, but initially fails to realize that she's not the main love interest, and at one point seemed under the impression she was in Hentai manga.
  • Musashi Tomoe in the Getter Robo manga clearly thinks he is in the Lighter and Softer anime adaptation.
  • Midori from My-HiME seems to think she's in a Sentai series. She's not, and her forcibly assembled team of Magical Girls ends up wallowing in a mess of conflicting personalities. She does, however, set in motion the plan for the girls to Take a Third Option against the Big Bad.
  • Drosselmeyer in Princess Tutu manages to guess his genre wrong despite being the "author" character, since he has no understanding of Post Modernism. He writes the story as a conventional tragedy, viewing himself as the guiding hand rather than a character in his own right, not realizing until the very end just how thin the fourth wall really is.
  • The Literature Girl in Daily Lives of High School Boys is trying to reenact her own romantic novel in a Slice of Life comedy. It completely weirded out Hidenori.
  • Sogiita Gunha from A Certain Magical Index thinks he's the hero of a Sentai anime. Not only is this series much more mature and complicated than that, he's not even a main character.
  • Combined with Aliens Steal Cable in Rinne no Lagrange - one of Human Aliens in one episode watches a samurai movie and mistakes its events for some Earth tradition he then tries to repeat to challenge Madoka for a duel. Surprisingly things work exactly like he is expecting them to, but for different reasons and he accidentally convinces girls at Madoka's school that he is her boyfriend.
  • One of Hibiki's friends from Senki Zesshou Symphogear likes to point out when people act like anime characters, which she treats as unusual because she doesn't realize she actually is in an anime.
  • Keima in The World God Only Knows gets all his Genre Savvy from galges, so he falls into this when he gets into situations outside his experience. For example, Haqua is a Tsundere who is obviously in love with him. But in galges, the girl pursuing the boy is a trap for a Bad End, and must be avoided at all costs, so he barely even notices.
    • His wrong genre savviness is the reason he got roped in the plot in the first place. He identifies himself as the Otaku character, and consequently believes that his geekery is enough to keep him away from women and any non-gaming interesting event. So, when the mail inviting him to "capture ladies" appears, he accepts because he legitimately thinks is an invitation for a closed beta for a new galge, as the idea of anyone believing he has any actual capacity with real, actual girls, is completely unthinkable from him.
  • Eren in Shingeki no Kyojin begins the series acting like the Hot-Blooded protagonist of a typical shonen series, where badassery, hard work and awesomeness can save the day. He is in a shonen series, yes, and he is the protagonist of the story, yes, but the series he is in is Darker and Bloodier than the average shonen. Therefore, his natural hot temper runs contrary to what it's needed to solve the conspiracies, the monsters and the Ontological Mystery the plot runs on, as he soon learns. Gorily.
  • Shiratori, the popular guy from Yandere Kanojo believes himself he is The Ace against Manabu, whom he sees as a mix of Worthy Opponent and The Rival. In truth, he is Manabu's Unknown Rival and the Butt Monkey of the series, whose in-universe popularity is due more to his Adorkable traits than any actual coolness on his side.
  • Teruki Hanazawa from Mob Psycho 100 thinks of himself as "the hero of this world" due to his esper powers and his time escaping from an evil organization, so when he learns about Mob's existence he approaches him the way a shounen manga protagonist approaches an evil enemy. Unfortunately for him, he is actually a minor villain in a parody of that kind of shounen manga (and one whose actual message runs contrary to said mangas' usual plots), and his attempts to get Actual Pacifist Mob to attack back only cause that Mob's Super-Powered Evil Side to take over and humiliatingly defeat him. Even after his defeat and subsequent Heel Face Turn, Teru still thinks in standard shounen tropes; for example, his approach to befriending Mob is to incite a Friendly Rivalry that actually upsets the other boy.
  • In Isekai Ojisan, the titular uncle is a Sega fanboy who was particularly expert in action and puzzle games, whose soul got into another world after an accident in 2000 left him in a coma in our world for seventeen years. Uncle claims that his time in the other world was terrible, with him suffering Fantastic Racism and more often than not fighting solo. However, his nephew Takafumi, a otakuish college aged man who grew with RPGs, dating Sims, Turn of the Millennium anime, and Isekai light novels, immediately realizes that his uncle was placed in very typical scenarios and tropes from those games and media that could have benefited him if he had took them, only for Uncle ignoring and wasting those opportunities due to a mix of Ambiguous Disorder, being Oblivious To Love, and just flat out Genre Blindness.
    • One notorious example is Uncle relationship with Elf-san. Takafumi (and the audience) immediately ping her as a textbook Tsundere who wanted to jump into Uncle's bones the minute he rescued her. However, her character type was only properly codified and popularized around 2004, so to Uncle, she's merely a jerk that constantly insults him and tends to mooch him whenever suits her. When Fujimiya name-drops Tsundere Ur Example Asuka Langley from Neon Genesis Evangelion in the hopes that Uncle notice the parallelism between his situation and Asuka and Shinji' relationship, he only says "She really liked Kaji, didn't she?"
  • The whole point of Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense. Kaede Honjō (or "Maple", the name she gives her avatar in the Fictional Video Game) is a case of this Trope benefitting the protgonist. Maple doesn't seem to understand the concept of fantasy RPG games - much less VRMMORPG games like NewWorld Online; she doen't like to fight and is scared at the thought of getting hurt, so she decides to dump all her initial skill points in Vitality. This gives her no offensive strength at all, but overwhelming defense, and causes her to unlock a pair of rare Skills that cause her to turn opposing attacks against the attackers. She quickly becomes one of the highest ranking players in the game, and is able to win guild wars by herself by just standing still and doing nothing as enemy players take themselves out by trying to attack her.
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