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  • Banished from the Hero's Party: Downplayed. Red usually wins his fights with his book smarts. His knowledge about Blessings and their weaknesses is tremendous, and he makes sure to analyze the situation (sometimes by charging ahead of the party) properly, which allows him to overcome enemies that theoretically are stronger than him (and the party).
  • Battle Programmer Shirase: Don't mess with Akira Shirase. Yes, he does look like a textbook example of computer nerd, who hasn't shaved, washed or gotten enough sleep in three or four days. He also can listen to a song and write a binary of mp3 of it out of his head. He can also hack your PC into going boom using nothing more than a cellphone with internet connection. Or hack and drop a sequence of decommissioned spy satellites on your head.
  • Battle Royale: Kazuo Kiriyama from the Manga version is an evil version, a sociopathic genius who spent most of his time quietly reading books and staying out of everyone's way. Due to this their gym teacher, a former Olympic Judo champion, decides to pick on him for a bit of a laugh, failing to notice that he's been reading a book on martial arts and looking remarkably confident... plus Kiriyama's first meeting with the guy who became his lieutenant. A book on anatomy and no human compassion equals the most ridiculously violent high-school beatings ever captured on a page.
  • Black Jack: The titular doctor, aka Kuroo Hazama. Apparently, obtaining his Medical Doctorate has transformed him into some sort of surgery-performing ninja. This is the only way one can explain feats such as using scalpels to deflect bullets, or climbing across the surface of an airplane in mid-flight. Perhaps he wasn't really mentored by Dr. Honma, but by Dr. McNinja.
  • Black Lagoon: Rock is probably the most dangerous character in the whole series. Not only does his business and schmoozing experience make him the best negotiator of the Lagoon company, he also plans out the events of an arc beforehand based on his limited knowledge of the characters involved..
  • Bleach.
    • Eccentric inventor/businessman Kisuke Urahara, who used to be 12th Division captain. He designed a method of achieving Bankai, a formidable power that takes years to achieve, in three days and was the only one capable of this until Ichigo. He has also been known to pitch his numerous inventions in the midst of battle. Aizen, a frightfully villainous version of the badass bookworm, acknowledged Urahara as the most intelligent person in the story.
    • Uryu Ishida is top of his school class and student body president yet one-shotted both a Shinigami captain and his Bankai with a single arrow at the age of 15. In the final arc, Yhwach is so concerned about the threat the now 17-year-old Uryuu presents that he kicks Uryuu upstairs.
    • Ryuuken, Uryuu's father, was so intelligent as a teenager that he took even Urahara by surprise. He is now director of Karakura General Hospital at a ridiculously young age. He is so powerful that he makes his extremely talented son look like an amateur.
    • Nanao Ise, Shingami lieutenant and member of a famous reading club in Soul Society as well as the Shinigami Women's Association. She gained lieutenant rank due to her formidable kidou skill, which is so good she could design a brand new kidou in only a day or two that was capable of repelling even Haschwalth.
    • Risa Yadomaru used to be a lieutenant prior to losing her position as a result of hollowfication. Hollowfication increased her power from what it used to be making her more powerful than a normal lieutenant should be. Her mentoring of Nanao when Nanao was very young is responsible for Nanao's love of books.
    • Momo Hinamori is a Shinigami bookworm who often partners Nanao for reading sessions. She's also a lieutenant who is an expert kidou master. Aizen spent years messing with her mind to ensure she had a powerful Heroic BSoD so that she couldn't be as effective as she should be when his villainy was revealed.
    • Mayuri Kurotsuchi prefers working in his laboratory to fighting the enemies of Soul Society. When he does fight though he can easily eliminate enemies physically his superior through cunning and liberal "testing" of experimental drugs on his opponents.
    • Shuukurou Tsukishima stands out as he is not only a bookworm, but his powers is related to story books. With his Fullbring Book of the End, he transforms his bookmark into a sword, and anything and anyone he cuts with it, he is able to put himself into their memories to create Fake Memories. He usually makes himself as perfect whenever he manipulates someone's memories, e.g. making himself their best friend, relative, love, teacher, former leader, etc.
  • Buso Renkin: Even after his transformation into a superhuman Homunculus, the highly intelligent Papillon retains his thin, sickly and nerdy appearance even though he can now easily impale an opponent with his hand and is impervious to any non-alchemical weapon.
  • Cowboy Bebop: Appledelhi, Ed's father, is a geologist studying and mapping the ruined Earth, and a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander to boot. When he is forced into a confrontation with Spike, he effortlessly beats off all of Spike's attacks, and is well on the way to stomping him good when he's interrupted. The Cloudcuckoolander part? The earth he's mapping is STILL BEING RUINED by rocks falling from the sky. Every time one lands he races off to map the changes. And like Ed, Appledelhi can take somewhat cartoonish amounts of abuse and shrug it off. In a show that, for the most part, obeys all the laws of physics. A show so based on reality that Spike uses a known martial art—Jeet Kune Do, as created by Bruce Lee. Sure, the Bebop crew run into some pretty strange occurrences, but Spike is strictly Badass Normal, ending the episode several times wrapped up as if he were a mummy. He is... outclassed several times.
  • Daimos: In an episode where Dr. Izumi, the genius scientist, is at risk of dying, a flashback reveals it was him who trained Kazuya in martial arts. Kazuya even uses a move he was taught by Izumi to defeat the two enemy robots he's fighting.
  • Death Note: L, who is laconic, lazy, a brilliant detective, and quite able to hold his own in the occasional fistfight with Light. Must be all the sweets. In the third live action movie he uses a thrown hammer to knock out a Psycho for Hire.
  • Delicious in Dungeon: Marcille, a high powered mage and the party's magical heavy who was top of her class at magic school and loves to read and study. Heck, even her dreamscape was a library.
  • Digimon Data Squad: Masaru's dad, Professor Suguru Daimon. Brilliant scientist who designed and built the Digivice iC, and considering he did it in the Digital World, he probably had less to work with than Tony Stark's box of scraps. He is also a massive Hot-Blooded badass, who can punch out even the strongest Digimon, fought his partner BanchoLeomon to a standstill with his fists in their first meeting, and saved the Holy Captial by smashing a hole in the ground with his fist, making water burst out. And he actually survives getting a huge hole punched in his chest long enough to transfer his spirit to his partner's body. One of the most badass ass-kicking scientists ever.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • Gohan was raised his whole life to become a scholar. Despite being a straight-A student, Gohan is one of the strongest fighters of the series, even having more fighting potential than his father. Even after spending a decade doing no martial arts training and not fighting anybody more formidable than random unpowered criminals, he's still capable of effortlessly kicking the ass of well over 99% of all fighters in the universe, and is stronger than God.
    • And then there's Piccolo, who is simultaneously the Big Guy and The Smart Guy of the Z-Fighters.
  • Durarara!!: Izaya Orihara's primary forte is information dealing and being a manipulative rat bastard of a troll. However, as he points out to Anri Sonohara, one doesn't make as many enemies as he does (particularly when one of those enemies is Shizuo Heiwajima aka Ikebukuro's God of Wrath) and survive unless they're also damn good in a fight.
  • Manabu Yukimitsu from Eyeshield 21. Scrawny and weak, the only thing that even lets him join the team is the fact that he's more of a Determinator than the character whose determination is a running gag. However, after finally being put into the game against Shinryuuji, he manages to outsmart gifted Jerk Jock Agon Kongo and score a touchdown.
  • The Familiar of Zero: Professor Colbert. Also qualifies for Retired Badass and Heel–Face Turn.
  • Fate/stay night:
    • Rider. She actually loves literature, when she is in her Meganekko mode. Combined with her already powerful abilities...
  • Fate/Zero:
  • Fist of the Blue Sky: Kasumi Kenshiro.
  • Fist of the North Star: Kenshiro's uncle Kenshiro Kasumi. He is a chain-smoking professor of literature at a womens' university in Tokyo who plays piano, speak several languages and dances. He is also known as Yan Wang, has friends in the Qing Bang Triads, and can bust your head open with Hokuto Shinken.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist:
    • Edward Elric. Without all the angst and dangerous adventures, he's really just a short science geek (though don't mention that to his face). Minus the Artificial Limbs and wiry physique.
    • Izumi is another splendid specimen — though it mainly happens offscreen, she must have studied like hell to get her alchemical know-how. But the most obvious case is probably manga Hohenheim: he's shown as a nerd of unspeakable proportions who spends more time in his study than with his family, lives on his own little nerdy planet and hardly ever fights. But when he does, it automatically results in Crowning Moments Of Awesome.
    • How about we say ALL alchemists fit? Since you know — even if we don't see Roy leafing through books too often he is an expert with his own alchemy, has a vast knowledge about other fields than his fire-thing — oh, and he's a colonel in the army. Which implies he is not only badass but also anything but Book Dumb.
      • Considering this, that would effectively make the state alchemists an army of badass bookworms.
    • Even Fuery could fit this.
  • Gaiking: Gen Sakon from the original series wasn't only a top mechanic and a great Big Brother Mentor, but a Adventurer Archaeologist and pretty handy in hand-to-hand combat.
  • Isuzu Ayane from Gate Keepers 21 is quiet, ranked third in the second year level of her high school, spends most of her time reading and sitting in front of her laptop, and yet when it comes to her part time job, effortlessly takes down scores of Invaders by throwing cell phones at them.
  • In Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Ishikawa gets his Badass Bookworm moments near the conclusion of each season. The first time, he proves that he is definitely not a Technical Pacifist, by blowing up a building with his pursuers in it, and in the next season by bludgeoning a secret agent into unconsciousness with the cast on his broken arm so that he can safely deliver a rod of weapons-grade plutonium.
  • Golgo 13: In the 3rd episode, the titular hitman is in a sniper duel with two mercenaries using advanced rifles superior to his own M16, and modified with a unique electronic "super scope". Based on their firing patterns, he deduces that the scopes have a vulnerability in that they do not take shifts in gradient into account. He then calculates the gradient necessary for their shots to be inaccurate, and positions himself in an area of the battlefield with that gradient, easily blowing them away. Duke Togo — international assassin, and math nerd.
  • Great Teacher Onizuka: Yoshito Kikuchi and Kanzaki Urumi. Also, Azusa Shiratori's little sister.
  • Gundam:
    • Uso Evin likes to learn as much as he can, and his friends know that is usually near books when he is not piloting Gundam's. If he doesn't have a Gundam nearby he just Gundam-jacks mid-air the nearest mobile suit.
    • Paptimus Scirocco is the poster boy for the villainous Bookworm: an ambitious political mastermind and Ace Pilot to rival Amuro and Char, he disdains social interaction and seems at his most content when he's working on his mobile suits or perusing data in solitude.
    • Kira Yamato has a habit of completely rewriting his mobile suit's operating systems in seconds, optimizing in mobility, and weapon performance, and constantly tweaks them to counter-balance with his location and surroundings. Did I mention he does this in mid-combat?
    • Flit Asuno completed his mother's mobile suit design, thus building his own Gundam. He also didn't intend to pilot it, but did end up being the very first to beat a UE Veigan mobile suit as well as destroying every single Ace Custom in his path, and in the second generation, he may be a fleet commander but his home office is still filled with books.
  • Haruhi Suzumiya: Yuki Nagato is usually quiet and unassuming, and rarely ever puts down her book, even when everyone else is playing around... or when she's playing around, or even when she is water skiing. However, whenever she's confronted by the weirdness brought about by Haruhi Suzumiya herself and her Reality Warper power, Yuki exhibits surprising battle abilities. Such as the ability to temporarily overwrite reality, or play a bitchin' guitar solo. Her badass-ness is one of the reasons why she's not creepy. Her fight with Ryouko Asakura was great. Not only was she stabbed straight through by multiple objects, she was able to be graceful while doing it. She won that fight, actually. Given that her true identity is that of a highly, highly advanced robotic interface, whose job is to gather information for The Data Integrated Thought Entity (an Eldritch Abomination), her mastery of data is very fitting. In later books, after Kyon assists her in slipping the leash a little, she becomes badass enough to break away from her own creator, and form independent emotion.
  • Walter 'Angel of Death' Dornez from Hellsing, a polite elderly monocle-donning butler whose WWII experiences happen to include tearing whole armies to shreds with monofilament. He can still do that, as he eventually proves with spectacular scenes of gore and destruction.
  • Kidou Yuutou in Inazuma Eleven is a Teen Genius who gets good grades at school and usually acts as the team's strategist, commanding the others what to do in order to help the team win. It's mostly his sheer intelligence the reason why he ends up being one of the best football players and why his team is nearly unstoppable but he also knows some of the strongest hissatsus, such as the Emperor Penguin series (the penguins he summons may be cute, but they're strong).
    • Subverted with Megane, a short, nerdy kid with glasses who claims to be a soccer ace and joined the team at the last minute as the ace striker in order to be the hero who saves the team, but he runs away from the match after his teammates fell one after another because of Teikoku and is mostly a Non-Action Guy after that because the team can't rely on him to win.
  • Jewelpet:
    • Sapphie is a brilliant Jewelpet with a vast knowledge of science and other topics, owing to the fact that she loves reading. She's also one of the better and more consistent magic casters in a world of Inept Mages.
    • Jewelpet Twinkle☆: Sara is a Teen Genius scientist and a very good magic caster, enough that she manages to hold her own against Alma in a long magic battle.
  • This trope becomes a Establishing Character Moment for Jotaro Kujo of all people, as he's shown to be a talented marine biologist when he's older.
    • Kakyoin is also this trope. He knows a lot of different random things in a time before the internet and is a very skilled tactician but will not hesitate to demean or brutally kill DIO's minions.
  • Kaleido Star: Playwright prospect, Kaleido Stage fansite webmistress, very skilled with technical stuff as well as with literature-related knowledge, and a talented acrobat and actress on top of it all... That's Mia Guillem to you.
  • Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: Tsutomu Tanaka. This 18 year old Salaryman with a young daughter first appears as a diminutive wimp who is fairly well whipped by his wife and boss, up until he stabs his index finger into a man several times larger than him without any resistance, KOing him instantly, and outruns a member of YOMI so fast that by the time she turns a corner, he has already disappeared.
  • Kigeki: The Black Swordsman will lend his services only if his employer gives him a book upfront as payment. If he happens to like the book, then you've just secured yourself a Vampire One-Man Army.
  • Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Yang Wenli, an aspiring historian turned strategist due to various circumstances. He has never been defeated in his career, besting even the Empire's brightest star Reinhard von Lohengramm. However, all he ever wants in life is early retirement and a generous pension so that he can pursue his real interest: study history.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords (2004): Vio is Link's "smart side" and is often seen reading. And yet, he's still strong and skilled enough to beat the "original" green Link in a sparring match.
  • Love Hina: Seta Noriyasu is a university archeology professor who is something of a parody of Indiana Jones. He's also a remarkably skilled martial artist and (in the anime, at least) passes on some of this knowledge to Keitaro.
  • In almost the same exact vein as Harumi, Konata Izumi of Lucky Star is a great athlete to the point of winning the 100m Dash for her school's Athletic Festival....by visualizing herself in the original Track & Field/Hyper Olympic video game. Complete with custom controller and ruler trick. Much the same way, her athletic ability is shelved for her...other interests.
  • Lyrical Nanoha:
    • Yuuno Scrya is a mage, an Adventurer Archaeologist, a librarian, and a scholar — at age 9. In a library practically infinite in size, he can use magic to locate and decipher world-savingly critical information in a matter of hours. In battle, he can hold his own against a powerful ancient Magic Knight armed with a powerful Empathic Weapon, despite having no Empathic Weapon of his own, and he wasn't even giving the fight his undivided attention. Unfortunately, he is still a guy in a Magical Girl show.
    • Vivio, who became a librarian in the Infinity Library in third grade, begins showing more of her fighting skills in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, including her skill in the Strike Arts style of martial arts, sparring evenly with Nove. This comes off as a surprise to Rio, who had thought of Vivio and Corona as "more of bookworm types."
    • Nanoha herself qualifies. The reason she's a Person of Mass Destruction at age 9 is that her math skills and intelligence allow her to perform really powerful magics. In fact, math skills are essential to spellcasting, and talented mages are normally math prodigies. Out-thinking opponents doesn't hurt, either.
    • Hayate, a sweet girl in a wheelchair who bonds with Suzuka over their shared love of fairytales... and is also the most powerful living character in the entire franchise with an entire arsenal of spells that have destructive force equivalent to a nuke. Plus, her power literally comes from a book.
    • Lutecia is a summoner who was estimated to be around S rank at age 10 (for reference, that's a full rank higher than Nanoha was at that age), and has a passion for reading about history, having a large collection of books on the subject.
  • Majin Devil: Dekoppa or Kazuya Idetaro qualifies. Quote:"...How boring. Solving Fermat's Theorem is more difficult than this." He proceeds to walk away with Badass Longcoat flapping in the breeze of the exploding remains of his opponent,Scary Shiny Glasses glowing doing an Unflinching Walk.
  • Mazinger Z: Professor Gennosuke Yumi. He was a quite geeky-looking, Married to the Job scientist, but he could be pretty badass when he wanted.
  • Monster:
    • Inspector Heinrich Lunge. While being a ridiculously intelligent BKA investigator with a photographic memory is impressive, Lunge's real threat is that he's practically a human terminator who doesn't shoot to wound so much as he shoots to cause excruciating pain.
    • Johan himself. A bona-fide genius — he once posed as a law student, but legitimately got all A's, in between advising a tycoon on how to run his financial empire whilst the two discussed Latin — who happens to be a super-prolific Serial Killer, a man who amongst other things slaughters entire families off-screen. He has hardened criminals, mad scientists and Neo-Nazis all worshipping the ground he walks on, and the rest of the world p*ssing themselves in his presence because he just oozes evil. He is utterly fearless (even inviting) in the face of death and has been shot in the head twice and survived. His hobby is walking the edges of skyrise rooftops and he is probably The Antichrist. Not known for his fighting skill, but he's pretty familiar with guns and was bred to be an Übermensch. He is also a Manipulative Bastard of the highest order and seems capable of talking civilization into destroying itself.
  • Moriarty the Patriot: William might be an Evil Genius professor and The Chessmaster, but he's also quite handy with a sword and has never been seen losing a physical fight.
  • Nabari no Ou: Aizawa Kouichi is, for all intents and purposes, that one kid with the glasses — smart, somewhat nerdy, nice, and almost boring in the shadow of his weirder friends. Yet he's revealed to be the most professional and capable ninja in his village, and is more than willing to kill/brainwash the influential (including the CEO of a vast, international medicine/defense technology corporation) if the mission calls for it. To be fair, he's actually not exactly human, or a middle schooler, having been created as a living experiment centuries ago.
  • Naruto:
    • Shikamaru Nara. What do you get when you give a ninja an over 200 I.Q.? Almost all of his fights involve him showing surprising quickness to dodge his opponent's attacks all the while analyzing their every move. And then deciding always on the correct counter strategy. Characters go through some pretty serious, near-fatal injuries in battle (Naruto even lost a lung), yet to date, Shikamaru's most severe battle-related injury that we know of has been... a self-inflicted broken finger.
    • All of the smarter ninja in this world count as this trope; on account of them being, you know, ninjas. Learning ninjutsu actually requires a lot of study and intelligence itself. Naruto himself, a prototypical dumb hero, demonstrates some pretty decent strategic thinking when the need arises.
    • Kakashi Hatake. Naruto calls him "as smart as Shikamaru"note  which, combined with his status as the most elite ninjutsu specialist in the Hidden Leaf, would make him this easily. Inverted with his actual choice of literature — Jiraiya's erotic novels.
    • Sakura was introduced as an actual bookworm, and while one of the weakest of the Rookie 9, she is still a trained killing machine who demonstrates Improbable Aiming Skills and can kick a normal persons ass, she once let herself be hit with shuriken to get at an enemy. Post-skip, she has gained Super-Strength and is a medical prodigy capable of inventing cures to elaborate poisons on the fly, before helping an old hag nin fight and kill the S-Class criminal who invented it. She is also hinted to have a talent for Genjutsu, which according to Jiraiya is a fairly intellectual branch of the ninja arts.
    • Orochimaru is a Mad Scientist who has pushed the boundaries of Forbidden Jutsu — including achieving a gruesome kind of immortality. He is a fairly competent strategist — if Sarutobi didn't have that one jutsu, he probably would have destroyed the Leaf Village after all, one way or another — has his own village where he conducts numerous horrific human experiments, and probably personally trained most of the younger Sound nin himself, as well as probably "modifying" them too. His Dragon, Kabuto, is a talented medic who has spliced his genes with Orochimarus' DNA.
    • Tsunade is a revolutionary medic-nin who now runs the entire Leaf village. And Jiraiya, arguably the most capable of the Sannin, is a best-selling author as well (of smut, but still...), and seemed pretty knowledgeable of ninja history.
    • Sand puppeteers like Sasori, Kankuro and Chiyo are expected to make and repair their own puppets, which are often elaborate death machines requiring a fair amount of maintenance. Sasori and Chiyo are both master poisoners as the weapons of the puppeteer are usually coated in poison, and Chiyo appears to have some medical knowledge as well. Sasori used to work with Orochimaru and it is implied they performed experiments together. And he's an artist, or regards himself as such at any rate.
    • The Akimichi clan secret jutsu rely on knowledge of special medicines; the Aburame are bug experts who turn their bodies into bug nests; the Inuzuka appear to be decent vets; and the Yamanaka... er, sell flowers.
    • The last one sounds lame but many poisons are made from plants so...
    • Iruka. Chuunin-level academy teacher. Capable of projecting two sophisticated, all-senses illusions on opposite sides of Konoha. Echolocation (a possible bloodline limit). Can handle repeatedly being kicked in the spine by a beyond-super-strong former best friend. As skillful as Anko. Stood up to Pain. He's still a Chuunin simply because there's no reason for a higher rank while working as an academy teacher.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
    • The story plays with this by translating the Library girls' abilities into battle magic. Given that said Library is filled with death traps to the point where the ground floor is off limits to Jr. high students and below the 3rd sub-basement is off-limits to the university students, rock climbing gear is needed to get to some parts of the Library that is open to the public, one of the librarians is a top class mage, and there is a dragon in the basement, a case can be made that they were fairly badass even before starting to learn magic.
    • Even without that Teen Genius Yue was already clever enough to begin with to qualify. She actually manages to defeats a dragon/griffin hybrid after two classmates by leaping in front of them to block an attack,using her artifact to look it up, determine its weaknesses, and coming up with a plan that involved her stabbing a spot a few centimeters square with a small knife while dodging friendly fire.
    • And also, Albireo "Ku:nel Sanders" Imma, who qualifies as a badass librarian.
    • Negi himself qualifies, although his scholarly abilities aren't emphasized. However, in the first chapter he responded to one of his new students questions "I'm fluent in English to a university graduate level." This from a ten year old (though one would think that his knowledge of Japanese would be the more impressive feat seeing as he is from Wales and all). And he's referred to as a genius more than once, by people familiar with his true background. He is even able to defeat the most famous warrior in the world, Rakan (known as the immortal, among others), through a barrage of new spells and applications of magic theory that would bring top professors to his knees, to the point that Rakan declares him a badass whose greatest power is at the desk.
    • Nodoka Miyazaki is taking this trope and running with it in the last arcs with the way she is Min-Maxing her artifact. According to Nodoka, ancient crypts and ruins in the Magic World are no match for Library Island. Nodoka's artifact is absolutely no help in dealing with traps, locks, or natural hazards — it's all her.
  • Yui Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion. A geneticist in the top of her field who fuses the with Unit 01 to counteract Seele's plans.
  • One Piece:
    • Nami is a highly skilled navigator as well as a talented cartographer, to the point where Arlong considered her skills on par with the Fishmen "superiority" since they were superior to any Fishman's. When Luffy destroys her room at Arlong Park, maps of both bathymetric and geographic nature were seen, indicating Nami has a wide variety of cartographic skills. She is capable of formulating advanced equations in mere minutes to predict a precise course of action, although she usually needs to write the equations down on a physical medium when formulating them. She has the innate ability to sense changes in the weather, and can even predict the appearance of supposedly unpredictable cyclones in the Grand Line, even when running a high fever. The movie Strong World also shows that she performs better than a crew of scientists with some advanced equipment in predicting the weather.
    • Chopper being a trained doctor is extremely well read, and he can also become huge and smash things as well making him a Combat Medic. Chopper despite his gentle nature can be particularly deadly in combat when he invokes Diagnosis from Dr. Badass and exploits any weakness the opponent has with his medical knowledge. This was very explicit during the battle against Oars the undead giant where Chopper worked out how Oars and died originally and how to take him down again by instructing other crewmates to attack certain parts of Oars’s body.
    • If Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji are the jocks of the crew, Usopp can be considered the geek. Physically underwhelming, Usopp possesses no great power and seems like a push-over but that's just surface, not only is he a excellent sniper but Usopp's plans, schemes and strategies would make even Batman impressed. This especially shown in Water 7 where he almost defeats Luffy the main protagonist and Rubber Man solely through strategy and his own knowledge of Luffy as his friend which is something the villains of the series lack. Even up against the near unstoppable Logias, Usopp shows off his brain power using fire against the gas-based Caesar Clown and later Sea Prism Stone.
    • Sanji, while initially acted mostly as The Big Guy for the crew, proves to be a very well-read Genius Bruiser. This is seen in Alabasta when the rest of the crew were captured and caged, Sanji figured out a scheme to rescue his friends and throw the Warlord of the Sea Crocodile off their trail by outsmarting him. This was especially impressive since Crocodile was known for his cunning and nobody had outwitted him before that point. Sanji also tends to analyze foes while he fights them, figuring out their weaknesses and exploiting them in conjunction with his strength. And he has snuck off on at least four big occasions to sabotage a villain's plan, like damaging Enel's Arc Maxim or closing the Gates of Justice in Enies Lobby, guaranteeing the Straw Hats' safety.
    • Nico Robin, a Hot Librarian and a former Dark Magical Girl who now uses her considerable smarts and fighting skills for the sake of her True Companions.
    • Klahadore/Kurahadol is introduced as Miss Kaya's unassuming, well-dressed butler. Early on he's shown to be incredibly gentle and possibly bookish, as he constantly has to adjust his glasses. He's secretly a massive badass named Captain Kuro, who to his credit, still wears those glasses and was pretty well-dressed when he was a pirate. Acknowledged as the second smartest character from East Blue by the series' creator, he's a genius whose nickname is "Kuro of the Thousand Plans." And besides being a mastermind when the gloves come on his Freddy Krueger-sque clawed gloves he's also an incredibly powerful pirate who can move fast enough to vanish in front of people. Oh yeah, there's one really bad point — he has zero respect for human life and plans on murdering his entire crew after his latest plan, a pirate attack on the village culminating in the death of Miss Kaya so he can inherit her fortune), is completed. He also faked his death by framing a look-a-like via hypnosis.
  • PandoraHearts: Leo counts, being that he's Elliot's servant and all Nightray servants are supposed to double as their bodyguards. Though Leo's badassery is at first mostly dependent on his Accidental Aiming Skills, he later plays this trope straight after he contracts Jabberwock.
    • Elliot and Oz also count. The both of them spent their first conversation fighting over their favorite characters from their favorite book. The former, while not as good as many others, is still an able swordsman who is not afraid of rushing towards a Chain to save his friend and the latter has control over B-Rabbit's power, especially considering he is B-Rabbit, to begin with.
  • Pokémon Adventures:
    • Platinum Berlitz who reads 10 books a day and knows quite a lot of concrete facts about Sinnoh, and various facts about a wide range of disciplines despite never leaving her mansion.
    • Black. Is he a Large Ham Determinator with Hyper-Awareness? Yes, but he actually did some research before he went on his journey, and outright states that he's been spending time reading in libraries ever since he was a little kid so he could learn everything he possibly could.
  • The Prince of Tennis:
    • Played around with the Data Tennis players (Sadaharu Inui of Seigaku, Renji Yanagi of Rikkaidai, Hajime Mizuki of Saint Rudolph, Taichi Dan of Yamabuki and Koharu Konjiki of Shitenhouji). All of them use the information they collect to further their playing strategies (hence the "Data tennis" name), but the results are different since they have very distinct personalities and methods.
    • Inui and Yanagi also qualify in the Genius Bruiser category, both being over 6 ft. tall.
  • Ranma ½: Ranma is more likely to look at books for answers and to read for entertainment at least in the manga. We see Ranma turn to books for answers such as when Dr Tofu hurt his neck we later see him reading a book on chiropractics, during the reversal jewel he turned to dating magazines for advice on dating, turned to a scroll to counter Miss Hinako's draining, picked up the diary to find out why no one was at the island with the Hawaiian virus, etc. We also see him reading at other times as to what he was reading at those other times is unknown he was reading something while waiting for Ryoga prior to the Shi Shi Hadoken, read something while going to sleep when Miss Hinako stayed at the Tendo's, etc.
    • He might be more of a Genius Bruiser, Ranma is definitely well rounded, heck he is probably the most well rounded in skills in the manga displaying knowledge in a large variety of fields (cooking, cleaning, repair work, sewing, horse riding, first aid, CPR, some knowledge on magic, designing (he makes his own disguises in the manga; can be seen sewing a costume before the battle with Mousse — pictured above), tea ceremony, proper manners (though he doesn't always use them), animals, constructed spirit wards (didn't screw them up in the manga only in the anime), dancing (went dancing on a date in the manga), wrote a play and went to see plays), etc.
  • Read or Die: Yomiko Readman is a particularly good example, as her extraordinary power stems directly from her love of books. The manga goes even further, with a school teaching Awesomeness by Analysis. They are ridiculously good at what they do.
  • While he has yet to appear in the series, in Record of Ragnarok Nikola Tesla of all people was named as one of the fighters capable of squaring off against the gods themselves.
  • Sailor Moon:
    • Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury is the smartest junior high/high school student in the whole of Japan and a Sailor Senshi with mastery over water and ice-based attacks. She even has a visor and a special calculator that allows her to analyze the situation and discover the weak spots of their enemies. Her Badass Bookworm status is lampshaded by Ami herself in the Stars season of The '90s anime, when Haruka chides her for prioritizing the analysis of the rival they're fighting over her own safety and Ami replies "This is MY way to fight!"
    • In the manga version Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask who graduated at the top of his class, is considered almost as smart as Ami, if not as smart, is an excellent fencer, and is also considered one of the best hand-to-hand combatants in the series. Pity the poor guy is still subjected to The Worf Effect even then...
  • Saiyuki: Hakkai, the polite and scholarly type in the party heading west. He even wears a monocle (if for different reasons). And then there's the matter of his energy blasts ... His past life Tenpou from Saiyuki Gaiden is actually a bookworm (to the point of being shown buried in books) and bespectacled, but people know very well you don't want to get him mad. He also single-handedly does the work of a military unit.
  • Samurai Deeper Kyo: Hishigi, as well as Yukimura and the Sendai Aka no Ou (the latter two spend their entire fight quoting Confucius at each other).
  • Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: Harumi Fujiyoshi is a Yaoi Fangirl who spends much of her time producing doujinshi. However, she's also a very competent athlete and the school's sports teams often try to force her to join. One episode indicates that her glasses are a Power Limiter, and she'd be an even more amazing athlete without them.
  • Shaman King: Think twice before attacking Faust VIII. Enjoy your vivisection if you do. He can operate a bone transplant on himself in the middle of battle. Now that's badass.
  • Soul Eater
    • Maka, the protagonist, is a recognized bookworm, a very badass bookworm that will kick your ass with her scythe-partner if you get in her way. She also packs quite the punch, too. The manga indicates she's also a very skilled in hand-to-hand combat.
    • Ox Ford would probably count too.
    • Dr. Franken Stein likes to research and experiment, on himself as well as others. He is also the most powerful meister the DWMA has ever produced. His physical skill and soul wavelength abilities make him dangerous enough unarmed. Give him a Weapon, however, and he'll really start having fun.
  • Akihiko Kayaba from Sword Art Online. He programmed all of SAO, and designed the hardware, by himself. Even after his death he created a program that revived the VRMMORPG genre in the aftermath of the Fairy Dance arc.
  • Spy X Family: Loid Forger aka Twilight is a master spy with genius-level intellect, being capable of reading multiple books in mere seconds and analyzing his opponents to outthink them. He's also extremely athletic, being able to pull parkour maneuvers, and a well-trained combatant.
  • SWOT: Manabizaki is a person who studies too much (which is what the title means). He's always found with his nose buried in a book. However, he also has a Hair-Trigger Temper and gets really pissed when anything interrupts his study time. This attitude, coupled with his externally nasty behavior, have gotten him into fights with delinquents... to their detriment.
  • Tokyo Ghoul loves this trope, making it a sort of Author Appeal.
    • Ken Kaneki begins the story as a Cute Bookworm but eventually evolves into one of the strongest Ghouls in the series. He's actually shown learning martial arts through reading about them, studying manuals to memorize forms and learn about weak points in the body. When attacked by a large and physically dominating opponent, he recalls something he had read previously and uses it to break the attacker's arm.
    • Shuu Tsukiyama is extremely well-read, with a massive personal library filled with expensive-looking hard covers. He is also known as the infamous Gourmet, a Ghoul that other Ghouls fear due to his Blood Knight tendencies.
    • Rize Kamishiro's favorite hobby is finding somewhere nice to settle down and read, and first attracts Kaneki's attention because they are reading the same novel. She's also an extremely powerful Ghoul, and likes one thing more than reading — namely, using her Combat Tentacles to scramble her victims' insides.
    • Kishou Arima, the legendary "Undefeated Investigator" and "Death God" of CCG. He enjoys reading in his few moments of spare time, and as a teenager was an exceptional Academic that memorized his text books for efficiency. As his nicknames suggest, he is the most feared character in the entire series and with good reason.
    • The infamous One-Eyed Owl is actually one. She's not only a beautiful, tiny young woman that loves to read, but actually the best-selling Novelist the other bookworm characters discuss at length. The anime shows her home is filled with books, and she's a big fan of the works of Franz Kafka with the first of her eight novels referencing him.
    • Matsuri Washuu definitely qualifies. He's both an avid reader and skilled enough an investigator to make special class.
  • Umineko: When They Cry: Kyrie Ushiromiya. Sure, she knows her place in the family conferences (near the bottom) and will leave most of the arguing to her husband Rudolf. But stick any kind of demon in front of her and watch it go flying. George may also qualify in the fourth arc, but Kyrie is more consistently this, and her analytical nature is way more played-up.
    • Anyone who does truth duels with any level of skill has to be this by sheer necessity. Battler, for example, refuses to call himself well-read because it would be arrogant due to "only reading about a hundred a year."
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!: Seto Kaiba is one of the top two Duel Monsters duelists of all time, a master chess player, CEO of the world's most successful game company, and inventor of the Duel Disk system, among other high tech gaming gadgets. Oh, and he was also apparently trained well in Krav Maga, and can disarm someone with a card fling.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Daichi Misawa is a genius science student who bases his deck around scientific formulas. He's one of the best duelists in Duel Academia, and he's consistently portrayed to be better than Jun Manjoume, even letting the latter win just to the Society of Light, and therefore isn't brainwashed like the rest.
  • Zatch Bell!:
    • Kiyomaro Takamine has a genius level intellect as a middle school student, and fights alongside Zatch against demons. Even at the start of the series, he's a Determinator who takes more punishment than a human being should possibly be able to survive. As time goes on, his physical trials actually make him more of a badass: by about halfway through the series, he's breaking his school's athletic records; by the end of the series, he's on par with an olympic athlete.
    • Dr. Riddles, the self-proclaimed genius professor who knows everything actually is every bit as brilliant as he claims to be, to the point of being virtually clairvoyant. Not to mention his mansion-sized library, of whose books he's studied every single one. He and his demon Kiddo are one of the most powerful teams in the Demon Fight; had he not been a Stealth Mentor to Kiyomaro and Zatch, he would have defeated them effortlessly.


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