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Bunny Ears Lawyer / Anime & Manga

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  • In act-age, film director Sumiji might be a hot-blooded and idealistic guy whose recruiting methods can involve kidnapping a girl on her way to school, but he sure knows how to make Kei (an aspiring actress who has a bad tendency to get Lost in Character) aware of her flaws and potential.
  • Belldandy of Ah! My Goddess is extremely competent and powerful with goddess magic, but woefully ignorant of most everything else, to the chagrin of her Love Interest, Keiichi.
  • Mihara Ichirou from Angelic Layer acts every inch the Mad Scientist (even wearing a lab coat everywhere he goes), torments his assistant, never gives out his plans to his co-workers, and pops up around a twelve-year-old girl and drags her around town to play a doll fighting game; however, he's also a genius in robotics and, in the anime, an innovative medical researcher. That doll fighting game he drags the girl to? He created it. And not to mention computers that look like cute, teenage girls.
  • Koro-sensei from Assassination Classroom is perverted, clumsy, and obsessed with matchmaking, on top of being a yellow tentacle monster who holds the entire world hostage in order to get a job as a teacher in one of the worst classes in Japan. And before he was turned into a monster he was considered to be the best assassin in the world. Despite all that he's a ridiculously good teacher, who would go to crazy lengths like memorizing every workbook in Japan or using government attempts to assassinate him to educate his students, while also cultivating their strengths and getting to know his students as people.
    • Since she can be more than a little silly sometimes, cares a little too much about fashion, dresses in very revealing clothes, and often ends up in awkward situations, it's easy to forget that Irina Jelavic is a high class assassin, specialized in deception and seduction, and can be very dangerous, if she wants to. On top of that, she knows several languages and is really good at playing piano.
    • Gastro really likes to lick his guns — he has a gun in his mouth every time he not shooting someone and even uses guns as kitchen utensils. However, he is an excellent shooter, can hear slight breathing from across concert hall and has experience from fighting as a soldier.
  • Many of the senior officers from the Survey Corps, in Attack on Titan. It's even pointed out that their bizarre quirks are tolerated or humored solely because they are so good at their job. Captain Levi is a Obsessively Organised clean freak... but he's also the World's Strongest Man. Squad Leader Hange Zoë is a would-be Fluffy Tamer, but also an exceptionally capable (if slightly mad) scientist and field commander. Mike Zacharius has a habit of smelling people as a greeting, but Eren is told to ignore it because Mike is one of the best soldiers in the military.
  • Yukari Tanizaki from Azumanga Daioh is constantly late to work, sleeps on the clock, throws temper tantrums at the drop of a hat, calls off class to goof off in P.E. instead, and even hits her own students if she's pissed enough. It's likely the only reason she's still employed is because she's an expert at English — her comprehension is flawless. Chiyo-chan notes that professional college entrance exams aren't as interesting or well-written as Yukari's tests.
  • Nizuma Eiji, mangaka prodigy of Bakuman。, can't work without making lots of loud sound effects and preferably turning up the stereo to battlefield volume. His way of blowing just about everybody off makes Topher look like a master of tact in the workplace. Altogether, the T.O. team seems to have branched out by making the Bunny Ears thoroughly obnoxious.
  • Elliott in Battle Spirits Shonen Toppa Bashin. Perhaps the fact that his job is game designer has something to do with his weird, childish behavior. But even after becoming a school principal as well, he's seen building card houses in his office with Battle Spirits cards.
  • Big Windup!:
    • Baseball player Mihashi Ren has an inferiority complex, cries easily and has weak velocity on his throws, but he has incredible control over his pitches.
    • Tajima is a somewhat strange guy who occasionally says inappropriate things and twice almost strips naked in public, but is the most accurate hitter in the team, and a baseball prodigy.
  • The Phantomhive Staff from Black Butler are hopelessly incompetent at their service jobs. But cooking, gardening, & cleaning aren't what they were REALLY hired for, as they are top notch assassins. Also Grell as a Shinigami, but ONLY in the manga.
  • The Black Bulls from Black Clover. They all are at the very least weirdos, but they are also among the best and most honorable Magic Knights Clover Kingdom has to offer. In a single year where Asta & Noelle are in the squad, they manage to go from last to second position in the rankings once they are inspired to put more work into it.
  • Dr. Black Jack. The global medical community isn't quite sure how to feel about the greatest surgeon alive dressing like a vampire, chewing out half of his clients, and obstinately refusing to get a license because it limits the ridiculously high fees he charges. Nonetheless, most hospitals find themselves paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to sneak him in for an operation at least once. Also, Black Jack has, on two separate and unrelated occasions, been mistaken for the leader of an alien invasion.
  • Leigharch from Black Lagoon is an Irish getaway driver whose car driving skills are completely flawless, even though he drives under the influence of so many drugs that he tends to spend his workday screaming various non-sequiturs about pop culture. Eventually he overdoses and winds up in an institution.
  • Bleach:
    • Mayuri Kurotsuchi, full stop. He's a full-time Mad Scientist, a part-time Mad Doctor. On a bad day he's a Knight of Cerebus who'd either cut anyone up or use them for experimentation(sometimes both at the same time). Before Urahara got the idea to make use of his prodigious scientific talent, he was locked in prison. Now, he's kept on because he's just too darned valuable to be anywhere else; he may be a lunatic, but he often plays an instrumental role in figuring out how to stop whatever problem Soul Society is having.
    • Urahara back when he was still the Captain of Squad 12. The only shinigami scientist better than Mayuri and just as eccentric(if less evil). To date, he's the played the role of the Eccentric Mentor, the Gadgeteer Genius, and will use Obfuscating Insanity as a weapon or just for the heck of it. Even after he stopped being a captain, he was known as a strange business owner. He's so competent the first two-thirds of the manga can be viewed as one long chess game between him and Aizen. Doesn't stop him from being an utter Cloud Cuckoo Lander when he feels like it, such as telling Ichigo to survive his training by putting on a silly bandana and gloves and yelling out a summons for the "hands of justice"... just because he felt like it.
    • The 11th division's reputation is simple: They're rough, they're violent, they're uncouth, they're undisciplined, they're sweaty, filthy, loincloth wearing men (to quote Isane and Rangiku). And then there's Yumichika. He fusses about his appearance, he worries about his looks. He will delay entering battle if he needs to change his clothes first and he will kill you without a second thought if you call him ugly. He gets away with it because he's officially the third strongest man in the entire division and is capable of defeating vice-captains in battle (and Word of God has stated that he's Ikkaku's equal in strength, which unofficially makes him the joint second strongest man in the entire division).
    • Lieutenant Yachiru Kusajishi is the only known female in the 11th division, a small Rose-Haired Sweetie, Genki Girl. There's no way she looks like she should be there... and she spends most of her time doing almost anything under the sun for sweets. Then you notice that every single person in the entire division except the captain is absolutely terrified of her. As are the communication corps and with damn good reason.
    • Mashiro's childish, ditzy, naive, and prone to temper tantrums. It's hard to believe she could ever become, let alone remain, a lieutenant of the Gotei 13 and yet, until the hollowfication accident, that is exactly what she was.
    • In general, this tends to apply to a lot of the officers of the Gotei 13. Kyoraku is a drunk and a flirt (and also the most senior captain after Yamamoto). Matsumoto is a slacker who uses her feminine wiles to get what she wants. You get the idea. Justified in the fact that the Gotei 13 tend to be centered around the idea of Asskicking Leads to Leadership.
  • Nanvel, from Burn Up!: she can make some incredible things, and has won several awards for her inventions, but, they're always designed in some absurd way that's supposed to be 'cute'. She also has a massive sweet-tooth, eats a certain snack exactly at 3:00 PM, never misses dessert, and loves children's programming.
  • Captain Harlock has the Arcadia's entire crew. Oddly, Captain Harlock and Kei Yuki are the only ones who remotely seem to be serious about the whole pirating thing. Harlock later explains it: the Arcadia is a home before being a pirate warship, so the pirates acts just like they were in their previous homes. The two rules of the Arcadia, in fact are "You are in the crew until Harlock says so" and "If there's no emergency, do whatever you want". But when there is an emergency, the usually drunk, sleeping and lazy pirates become sober, serious and extremely competent fighters the very second they hear the alarm siren.
  • In the manga Category Freaks you have a group of paranormal investigators who are the absolute best at what they do but...er...aren't exactly normal. You have *ahem* a Brilliant, but Lazy stand (practically a demi-god), a Camp computer geek, a little girl with bunny ears who eats monsters, a woman whose split personality could kick your ass halfway across the room, and a very polite young man who just happens to spend most of his time as an eye. If you're looking for your sanity, you might want to check somewhere three feet north of your brain.
  • Hinoka from Chatting at the Amber Teahouse is a high school student who is fairly good at construction, as we see with her renovation of the Amber Tea House, but her methods are rather unorthodox. And by unorthodox, I mean Chainsaw Good.
  • In City Hunter:
    • Ryo is a casanova and a lech who tend to goof around, but he's an excellent private eye and hitman. If you're the Villain of the Week pray he wasn't hired to kill you, because otherwise you're dead.
    • Mick Angel is even goofier than Ryo, but once he's seduced your woman he'll kill you.
  • In Classi9, Class S- was built on the concept. The nine students each have their "thing", be it an unusual fetish or a fragile health, but are still brilliant composers and musicians.
  • Code Geass:
  • Ed from Cowboy Bebop is a prepubescent girl who looks more like a boy, refers to herself in the third person, is perpetually loopy, and also happens to be one of the best hackers in the Solar System.
  • In Deadman Wonderland, we have a whole host of really, really disturbing Ax-Crazy Blood Knights who are absolutely brilliant at killing people, but who have a lot of really odd... let's just say 'quirks'.
  • Death Note:
    • L, the most brilliant detective in the world, is a reclusive and eccentric young man who locks himself away in an apartment and solves cases from around the world. He has awkward mannerisms and almost no social skills. He's always crouching in his chair and staring fixedly at something. He grips everything from the top with two fingers, like you might hold up a salamander or wet noodle. He's a Big Eater with an incredible sweet-tooth. He's almost always toying with or devouring a mountain of candy or pastries.
    • Mello and Near come from the same school for gifted children as L and are basically proto-Ls. Like L, they also have their eccentricities. With their powers combined, they are as good or better than L, and appropriately they split his habits: Near is always toying with things, in this case actual children's toys. Mello is always eating candy, in this case chocolate.
  • Laios from Delicious in Dungeon is a goofy, ditzy Nightmare Fetishist who is also a Horrible Judge of Character, and yet he's also a skilled and badass warrior capable of taking on some of the most dangerous dungeon monsters. His monster obsession is actually an advantage, as it means he has a trove of knowledge about how they behave and attack — as particularly demonstrated when he survives being attacked by about six different kinds of dragon simultaneously by exploiting each species' unique behavioral and biological quirks to evade and misdirect their breath weapons, and even get the drop on the Lunatic Magician who summoned them. In contrast, the rest of his party, who don't have his knowledge, got killed in seconds.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • Goku himself. Despite his quirks, he is one of the strongest and most feared beings in the universe who can also become a real Physical God and beyond, and the characters rely on him when there's serious trouble afoot despite how he takes the 'protecting the Earth' part of fighting much less seriously than most of the others, has a habit of turning up late to fights, and often gives very Obviously Evil opponents second chances at great cost. It helps that when the poop hits the fan, he knows to drop the goofy and excited demeanor... Most of the time.
    • As the series escalates this part of Goku's character becomes more prevalent as he comes into contact with the deities of his universe and beyond; whatever respect or formality that may be due to a Kai or Kaioshin due to their position is often roundly ignored by the extremely socially ignorant Goku, but it is excused due to his great strength and role in protecting the universe from threats even the Kais cannot handle. He also gains immense powers and privileges such as keeping his body in the afterlife, teleporting between the afterlife and the living world whilst still alive (very much against the Cosmic Rules) and being able to call on the god of his entire universe as a friend, even being able to use their sacred planet as his personal battleground when needed.
    • Turtle Hermit of course. A 300-year old perverted man... who happens to be the creator of the Kamehameha, master of Goku and Kulilin, and in early parts of the series the greatest martial artist on Earth.
    • Taken more literally for Bulma in a Playboy Bunny outfit when she and Goku encounter Monster Rabbit. Bulma's also this in general. As most of the cast is obsessed with strength rather than material goods, she stands out as a "normal" person. While she is bossy, loud, and violently vain, most of the cast tends to look to her when dealing with anything technological, as she is not only one of the richest women on Earth, but a genius-level engineer, inventor, and apparent physicist who has singlehandedly built a Dragon Ball detector, at least two reusable interplanetary spacecraft, a gravity-controlling machine, and a time machine.
    • In Dragon Ball Z, the Ginyu Force are a team of extremely campy, silly, overconfident apparent idiots who have odd quirks like striking embarrassing poses before a fight, betting chocolate bars on a fight's outcome, and playing Rock–Paper–Scissors to decide who gets to fight. However, there is a reason Freeza hired them as enforcers and ordered them to take down Vegeta, and while he does find their behavior peculiar, he never once comments or chastises them for it (and Vegeta himself is forced to team up with the heroes when he hears they're about to arrive). They are just that good at what they do.
    • When Gohan takes up the mantle of the Great Saiyaman, he embarrasses himself and those around him with his Large Ham tendencies and his love of striking dramatic poses. Make no mistake, though: behind that goofy costume is the Super Saiyan who destroyed Cell, and who only needs to expend a fraction of that wellspring of power to put criminals in their place.
    • Majin Buu, a pink blob who is obsessed with sweets and acts like a total child, who has to be taught that hurting people is bad. He is the most dangerous villain in all of the original manga, and in his Super Buu form he out-gambits everyone, including Piccolo. He also has the most broken set of powers in the entire series, in particular having a malleable body that all but resists attacks, bottomless stamina, and the ability to resurrect not just From a Single Cell, but from vapourous smoke particles (all without losing any energy like prior villains did). When he eventually takes the form of Pure Buu, the childish tomfoolerly goes away, leaving only violent insanity.
    • Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Super introduces Beerus, a god who often sleeps for decades at a time, is incredibly lazy, is more food obsessed than Goku, complains when things take too long, and is a big Sore Loser at games. However, he is one of the characters who holds the title of God of Destruction, giving him permission to destroy planets for whatever reason he can think of. King Kai, Vegeta, and even Frieza fear him, and remains one of the only powerful beings Goku is unable to defeat.
      • The Tournament of Power arc deconstructs the concept by showing what happens when the "bunny-ears" part of this trope overpowers the "lawyer" part. As a God of Destruction, Beerus is supposed to consult with the Kaioshin (the Gods of Creation) when he does his job, destroying old, lifeless planets so they can be replaced by new ones that can foster new life and improve the universe. Instead, his lazy and superior attitude results in his doing his job poorly half the timenote , not doing it at all the other half, and treating the East Kaioshin (the only one left after Majin Buu's rampage) like an annoying subordinate rather than a divine equal. As a result, Universe 7 is ranked next-to-last among the 12 universes and is generally regarded as a lawless hellhole by the others.
      • While having has a campy attitude and being as much of a foodie as Beerus, Whis is one of the Angels tasked with training Beerus for his role as God of Destruction. Since the angels are more powerful than the Gods, they are able to keep them in line.
      • Even more powerful than the Gods of Destruction, and even Whis and the other Angels, is Zeno. Despite his size and child-like mentality, there is a reason why the otherwise arrogant Beerus and Champa change their tunes when this guy is around. Zeno is a Top God who rules over the entire multiverse, and all who live or watch over the 12 universes within. While characters like Beerus can destroy planets with just one hand, Zeno is capable of wiping out a single universe with the same method. Which he actually does to the Future Trunks timeline, after Zamasu corrupted it. Plus, thanks to Goku, there are now two of them!
  • Mr. Takuma of Elf Princess Rane is a brilliant Jack-of-All-Trades who insists on speaking backwards. All the time. If you look closely at the subtitles, he says at one point, "If I talk backwards, people will think I'm smart!"
  • Eyeshield 21 has a host of eccentric but skilled football players:
    • Yoichi Hiruma has a penchant for firearms of all kinds, and never hesitates to discharge them in the general direction of his teammates. He also enjoys heaping verbal and physical abuse upon them, to the point of kicking people he likes. And let's not get started on his use of blackmail to help his team. However, he is a highly skilled quarterback and tactician.
    • Natsuhiko Taki is a boastful, good-looking idiot who likes to brag "My success rate is 100%!" to the point that it's his Catchphrase. All the same, he makes a damn good tight end.
    • Wide receiver Monta's resemblance to a monkey is not helped by his bad temper, his obsession with bananas, and his tendency to take his shoes off and grab things with his toes.
    • Shin of the White Knights is one of the best linebackers in Japan because he trains almost nonstop, and in unorthodox ways (doing vertical push-ups with his thumbs at one point). He also has no grasp at all of how to use electronics, to the point that if it's electronic and he touches it, it's broken.
    • Otawara, also of the White Knights, is extremely slow-witted and crude; Running gags involve him farting and his pants falling down. Oh, and, while he isn't the most powerful lineman around, he's close, and he's incredibly fast for someone his size.
    • Jo Tetsuma of the Seibu Wild Gunmen almost never speaks unless Kid tells him to, and follows orders to the very syllable, even to illogical extents. In addition, he is only shown in two situations to take actions under his own initiative. However, his single-minded obedience to commands makes him one of the best four wide receivers in all of Kanto.
    • Kengo Mizumachi of the Kyoshin Poseidons is a spastic, energetic, irrepressibly cheerful guy who is constantly making a fool of himself but couldn't care less. Also, the only reason he started playing football is because no other sport provided an adequate level of challenge for him.
    • Agon Kongo is a dark take on the trope, along with being a kind of insufferable genius. He never trains and spends his days lazing about, picking fights, womanizing, and giving his brother (the team captain, no less) noogies, yet he gets away with it because he's the most talented athlete of the century.
  • Food Wars!: Isshiki Satoshi. Seventh Seat of The Council of Ten Masters by dint of his impressive culinary skills. Organic gardener of growing stature. Consummate politician. Master manipulator. Walking Chick Magnet... and completely unabashed nudist, to the point that Isshiki wearing clothes is a sign that something serious is going down.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist:
    • Maes Hughes, who is a very competent investigator and soldier while also quite eccentric, but he might be faking it. Or he just loves his wife and daughter to a crazy extent. Would you draw a gun on children for wanting to play with your daughter?
    • The five hand-selected members of Mustang's personal unit are all excellent soldiers (for example, Breda graduated from the military academy at the top of his class), most of whom just act goofy. Mustang himself may also qualify, especially given his Obfuscating Perversity.
    • Armstrong also counts. He tends to be a tad... wacky, but it's not long before you realize it's a good idea not to piss him off.
    THE BUNNY EARS LAWYER TECHNIQUE HAS BEEN PASSED DOWN THE ARMSTRONG LINE FOR GENERATIONS!
    • The title character, Edward Elric, is a brilliant alchemist with a hair-trigger temper who flies into a rage when people call him short.
  • Date Masamune from Gate 7. He's a Bratty Half-Pint who doesn't like to be reminded of that, wants to be an adult quickly and therefore he lies saying that he's in 6th grade since he was in 1st grade; he's acts as the typical in-love-teenager girl towards Hana to the point to imaginate her as a Cat Girl at the middle of a serious fight and it's even Lampshaded that he is comic relief once. Who would believe that this boy is really a excellent swordfighter and an honors student?
  • Goldfish Warning!: Inverted with Tanaka, the worst lawyer/butler ever, who somehow remains employed by his former client's daughter's rival, & literally wears bunny ears on a several occasions.
  • Great Teacher Onizuka: Would you trust the former most notorious gang leader of your country, who just happens to be a pervert, a Manchild who is also One of the Kids, a slacker, and a klutz whose M.O. is destruction everywhere? That's exactly what Holy Forest Academy did when they hired Eikichi Onizuka to be a high school teacher. It turns out his unorthodox method of teaching is quite possibly the greatest thing to happen to the school.
  • Gundam:
    • Char Aznable from the original Mobile Suit Gundam is a bit of an oddball for constantly wearing a masked helmet on his face, never removing it in front of anyone, including superior officers, even for a second. He justifies this to his superiors with a bogus medical condition that gives him extremely oversensitive eyes, though his real reason is just to cover his eyes so nobody can recognize who he really is. On the other hand, he's among the top aces and better commanders Zeon has, so nobody bugs him about it. The mask eventually becomes such an iconic part of his persona that several people in the original timeline copy it to invoke his image.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED:
      • Andrew Waltfeld, the Desert Tiger. He takes his coffee making very, very seriously, to the point of boiling it in an elaborate chemistry-set-looking contraption, talking about percentages of ingredients he's changed, and randomly mentioning it before or during serious combat situations. However, he's also a brilliant and decorated military commander and an ace mobile suit pilot, so his soldiers don't seem to do more than just blink in temporary confusion when he offers them the chance to try his latest brew.
      • Rau Le Creuset manages to pretend to be one of these. He's the mentor to the deuteragonist, Athrun Zala, and a senior military commander with the ear of the high-command... who, like Char, happens to wear a white mask on all occasions and speak in cryptic, philosophical terms. No one seems to mind as his perceived competence, strategic ability and sheer badass outweigh these considerations. And then he decides to drop the act...
    • Mobile Suit Gundam 00:
      • Graham Aker is pretty much what happens when an Otaku gets into military... except this Otaku is just about as badass as he can get, to the point that he gets special permission to act as he wants, because his superiors figured out bad things tend to happen to their enemies when Graham gets to do things his way.
      • Setsuna F. Seiei is a frighteningly competent, effective, and even vicious Mobile Suit pilot. He also acts like he's the hero of a super robot show, tends to get worked up about dishing out justice to the point that he constantly breaks formation from the other Gundam pilots, and is convinced that he himself is a Gundam, all to the irritation of his more grounded teammates who frequently comment on his bizarre behavior.
  • Hajime no Ippo:
    • A rare villainous example in Bryan Hawk. He spends all his time screwing around with women to the point that it seems they're only thing he's interested in apart from boxing, is a gigantic jerkass, has absolutely no social tact and basically does whatever he wants. Oh, and he's lazy. Too lazy to train. And despite all that, he's one of the most fearsome boxers in the entire story. His natural talent is so high that even without training, he easily curbstomps his opponents.
    • Takamura is a tremendous Jerkass who pranks people in the shower, has an ego the size of Japan itself, chases women around and has been featured in newspapers as a huge pervert... and yet he's a brilliant fighter who works very hard for his prowess and wins every fight he's in.
  • Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • Ms. Yoshinoya from Hidamari Sketch is an immature Cosplay Otaku Girl who also like to make sexual statements to her students. She's still at the job exactly because the Principal recognized she's an example of this trope — she's just great in teaching art.
  • The spaceship crew of Irresponsible Captain Tylor includes a doctor who can only practice when he's drunk, a severely gynophobic pilot, a marine who insists on having a pink power suit, and a guy in a hockey mask named Jason. Captain Tylor himself manages to beat everyone out.
  • Jagaaaaaan: Nakadai is a seemingly half-witted fellow officer of Jagasaki and Bell's with a constant stupid grin on his face. It later turns out that not only is he a member of S.K.A.T. with the fractured human ability of invisibility, but he's a top undercover agent who sussed out Jagasaki for S.K.A.T. to begin with. His personality doesn't change following this revelation, so it makes him this.
  • Rohan Kishibe from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable is an independent example of this. He's egotistical, stubborn, beyond eccentric, and throws money around on a whim. (He once bought an entire mountain to use as his studio so the government wouldn't bulldoze it) but he stays the best and most successful Mangaka in the world. This is partially in due to his (insanely broken) Stand ability, but he's mostly just that good.
  • Junjou Romantica: Usami Akihiko is a brilliant best-selling award-winning author of both literary and popular fiction... who sleeps with a teddy bear in a room full of toys.
  • Kaguya-sama: Love Is War:
    • Papa Shirogane is The Gadfly through and through, seemingly living just to embarrass the living hell out of everyone with whom he interacts, especially his children (and in a slightly more serious side, he refuses to divorce his wife despite her walking out on the family seven years ago). However, it's also shown that when he's not screwing with people, his life experience allows him to give very good advice about life and love, suggesting that his claim of being a nationally certified career consultant might not have just been a lie. In a later chapter he becomes a Youtuber and manages to get 50,000 subscribers and 1 million yen in donations in his first month of streaming alone.
    • Karen and Erika are both shown to be competent journalists whenever their constant fangirling over Kaguya doesn't get in the way, which is why Shizuka appoints them as the new president and vice president of the Mass Media Club when she graduates.
  • Kogarashi in Kamen no Maid Guy — even though he's wearing a dress and frequently harassing Naeka and her friends, most of the time his plans work. Naeka and Fubuki do occasionally beat him up when he goes too far, but that can't stop him forever.
  • Many of the girls in KanColle are immature, goofy and/or have particular obsessions. However, they are badass anthropomorphic battleships who can and will blow their enemies to the bottom of the sea with cannon shells and clever tactics.
  • Just about everyone in Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, but the best is Siegfried. He'll come across as a crazy, and sometimes scary martial artist, who won't stop getting up after getting the crap beat out of him. After getting to know him, he's less scary, but he's downright weird. He'll fight with anyone for inspiration for music, and sometimes use their bodies as sheet music. That being said, he's still one of the most powerful members of the Shinpaku Alliance.
  • The currently-known members of Nudist Beach in Kill la Kill come off as this; for a start, they named their organization "Nudist Beach." Tsumugu, a ridiculously dangerous Badass Normal assassin, uses sewing needles instead of bullets and prefaces most of his sentences with "Let me tell you two useful pieces of information," while Aikuro Mikisugi is barely tolerated by Ryuko for his knowledge about Kamui, since he seems to have an uncontrollable aversion to keeping his clothes on while speaking.
  • Kindergarten Wars: Most of the staff of Kindergarten Noir is very quirky, ranging from Rita's desperation for a boyfriend to Luke's obsession with Shōjo romance. All of them are also extremely competent at protecting the children in their care from the assassins targetting them.
  • Every senior member of the Light Music Club in K-On!, especially Yui. Widely considered to be odd in their personal conduct by the other students at their private all-girls' school, and they only practice music for half an hour (usually not even that) out of their 2-hour after school club time, spending the rest of the time goofing off, drinking tea and eating cakes. Despite this, they're all extremely competent musicians (especially considering they're still in high school) who also write their own songs, and their performances are the highlight of school events at the start and end of each year.
  • Manabe from Kotoura-san may be kooky as all hell, but he constantly uses his zaniness as a calculated method of reassurance or encouragement for the former Broken Bird Haruka exactly when she needs it.
  • Mr. Shinhue the coroner from The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is a pathologist, mortician, embalmer and historian of ancient Egypt who is an expert on giving customers a pharaoh-style burial (and fairly good at most other forms of burials and respectful body disposal). He also dresses like a mummy, complete with funeral rites in hieroglyphs on the insides of his bandages. While he has severe burns that necessitates wearing bandages 24-7, he seems to like the attire. A throwaway appearance in a later chapter, placed two hundred years in the past, implies that he may actually be a mummy. The story may be non-canon, however.
  • Tsubaki of Lapis Re:LiGHTs is a Lovable Sex Maniac Lad-ette with a serious inappropriate interest in her younger sisters and a long, long track record of sexual harassment and other forms of misbehavior. Despite this, she remains in their idol/witch unit because she has full command of the stage during a performance and knows well enough to control herself when there's someone who can ruin her (and by association the group's) reputation.
  • Chisato from Lycoris Recoil has a fairly whimsical and eccentric personality at times, including fixating on a supercar during a mission, and randomly hugging Takina at one point. Moreover she rarely if ever follows her superiors orders, mostly because her job is supposed to be assassination and she's a pacifist who would rather spend her time performing various good deeds and insists on using non-lethal bullets and even tending to those wounded in her fights she'd been fighting just before. Off missions she's not particularly respectful to her superiors at Direct Attack (DA) either. Despite all of these traits that make her a very bad Child Soldier for a paramilitary organization to use to kill potential threats to Japanese peace before they happen, she is without question the strongest and most skilled Lycoris so DA still keeps her around, even though they can barely get her to do what they want, because she is just that good with a borderline super-human combat awareness.
  • Lyrical Nanoha:
    • Hayate likes to grope other women and answers a videophone while wearing a tanuki mask. She's also a very effective military commander, and one of only two SS rank mages in the entire series, capable of leveling small cities with her bombardment magic.
    • Sein is worse than Hayate in that regard (since she doesn't ask permission before groping people) plus she's One of the Kids, but she is shown to take her duties as a sister of the Saint Church very seriously.
  • Martian Successor Nadesico: The entire crew was selected based on their skill in their respective field without any consideration for how odd they might be when doing anything other than their job. Lampshaded in the first episode, where Mr. Prospector says that they assembled the most skilled crew available at the cost of some "minor character flaws."
    • Captain Yurika is a ditz, but also far more talented at her job than given credit for.
    • Engineer Uribatake is a skirt chaser, and he signed on to get away from his wife, but he's also capable of designing absurdly-powerful machines.
    • The pilots include a yaoi fangirl and a woman who loves puns — and her ukelele.
    • Goat Hoary, while he starts out as the Straight Man to the rest of the crew's antics, quickly turns out to be Not So Above It All to the point where he ends up literally wearing bunny ears in several scenes.
  • In Mission: Yozakura Family, Kyoichiro is one of the best spies in the world, but he's also a Knight Templar Big Brother. The rest of his family aren't slouches either and have their own quirks (i.e. Nanao is a Gentle Giant who constantly wears a bucket on his head while Futaba dresses in Gothic lolita).
  • Graham from Mother Keeper, as a killer he's fantastic and he's fully capable of getting past the greatest security in Eden without any hassle. Yet he has no clue as to how to manage money, how to tell quality from a cheap rip off, his plans often end in someone getting killed, he tends to go overboard when killing and he forgets to take feelings into account.
  • The Mouse character Yayoi's genius, and irrational fear of men, are both so great that her superiors hire only women for their scientific team, just so she will stay on it. Luckily, outside factors eventually force Yayoi to confront and overcome her issues.
  • My Hero Academia has a number of oddball characters, but the standout for this trope is Mirio. He's fond of making weird jokes the other characters don't get, and his "permeation" Quirk seems to operate half on realism and half on Rule of Funny — for one thing, using it makes his clothes fall off unless he's wearing his special super-suit made entirely out of his own hair. In his introduction scene, he repeatedly falls through the floor and bounces back out, occasionally pausing to yell "POWEEEEER!", all while butt-naked... and single-handedly clobbering the entirety of Class 1-A. Yeah, there's a reason he's the top student at U.A. — he's so skilled with his unusual superpower that no one minds his bizarre behavior. It later turns out that he was the top candidate to inherit One For All, before Midoriya came along.
  • Naruto:
    • Naruto himself is a goofball who loves ramen and playing pranks on people, but not only is he a very effective combatant, but he's pretty darn stealthy despite wearing bright orange at all times. He's managed to take out jonin, the Hokage, and to some extent Kaguya, the Physical God who was the first Chakra user with his Sexy no Jutsu, he has enough chakra to casually create a Clone Army (which is usually dangerous, hence the technique being considered forbidden), and his Establishing Character Moment has him deface the Mt. Rushmore-esque Hokage Monument in broad daylight with no one noticing until he was done, followed by evading the ninja sent to track him down.
    • Kakashi Hatake is chronically late, reads porn (sometimes even in mid-battle), and is a bit of a goofball, but threaten his students or anyone else under his care and he'll kick your backside all over Fire Country.
    • Masashi Kishimoto seems to like these: Such as Gai and Lee who are Love Freaks and have Big Ol' Eyebrows but they're very strong and noble. Tsunade, who likes to drink and gamble, hates paperwork to a degree most people would reserve for their worst enemy, and is a bit of a Vain Sorceress but also a competent leader as well as a kickass medic and fighter; Jiraiya, who's a self-proclaimed "super pervert" and porn writer but one of the strongest ninja in the world (to the point that some of the other top-tier ninja are wary of fighting him even with a numerical advantage) and who dies heroically. Anko (Stripperiffic and smartass kunoichi who was among the survivors of Orochimaru's experiments with Cursed Seals) and Shikamaru (genius strategist who is so lazy he'd rather hide his smarts than do paperwork) might also count.
    • Killer Bee tops all the others, though. He fights using seven swords, none of which he holds in his hands, because he prefers to keep them free so that he can write rap lyrics in the middle of combat.
    • Kishimoto seems to follow a certain trend with his characters: the stronger they are the more strange quirks they have, or in the worst cases (like Madara), the more Ax-Crazy they are, but they are dang good at what they do.
    • It's pretty much become fanon that the characters develop their various neuroses in order to cope with the stress of being shinobi.
  • Misato Katsuragi from Neon Genesis Evangelion is an unabashed drunk who lived in squalor until Shinji Ikari moved in with her (after which Shinji cleaned up after her) and stocks her fridge and pantry with tons of beer, instant noodles, and instant curry. Nonetheless, she is a military genius whose unconventional plans served well in fighting unconventional enemies such as the Angels. Said plans include, but do not limit to, defeating one Angel using a BFG powered by Japan's entire power grid, and defeating another Angel by having two pilots fight it in a synchronized dance.
  • In Nerima Daikon Brothers there is a character named Ichiro who is the head host of a successful host club...who grows algae in a jar as a hobby and is in love with a panda.
  • New Game!:
    • Kou may be quite the goofball (and before Present Day downright No Social Skills), but the reason she's the lead character designer is that she's just that good at what she does.
    • Nene. She causes trouble from her very first day at work and kicks up enough of a ruckus that she has to be sat beside Umiko. Despite that, she manages to stay on until the end of her working period and impressed Umiko with her thoroughness at finding bugs. Later she shows that she has some talent as a programmer by making her own game.
  • One Piece:
    • Monkey D. Luffy is by all means an idiot. The reason why he's managed to gather a crew in the first place, and why so many people, pirate or otherwise, end up respecting him? Besides the fact that he's The Heart of the Straw Hat Pirates, he's kicked the ass of damn near everybody he's gone up against.
    • The Straw Hat crew are a team of Bunny-Eared Lawyers. Here's the list, in the order in which they joined the crew: Zoro, first mate, is obsessed with strength, training, and swordsmanship, cannot find south with the help of a bird whose head always points south, and can cut steel with a sword (and that was before the timeskip); Nami, the navigator, is unbelievably competent at her job and guessing weather changes, can use well a weather-based weapon to call thunder upon any enemy, and is one of the two relatively sane members of the crew, but is also incredibly greedy; Usopp, the sniper, is a liar, a pessimist and a coward, but is a skilled artist, his lies have proven themselves useful many times, when necessary he has done acts of insane bravery, he's a hell of a Combat Pragmatist who can take on far stronger enemies, his pessimism made him immune to the powers of an enemy who could turn anyone else in a depressed wreck, and he's the goddamn' best sniper in the world; Sanji, the cook, is a womanizer who only fights with kicks to protect his hands, but his hands are what he uses as a Supreme Chef and his kicks put him on the Monster Trio of the crew with Luffy and Zoro; Chopper, the doctor, is a shape-shifting talking reindeer who is incredibly shy, and is both an incredibly skilled doctor and a fighter formidable enough to fight with the strongest opponents in the first half of the Grand Line and win; Nico Robin, the historian, is a Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant, a former assassin and brutally honest, but is also the sanest and most mature member of the crew and possibly the best historian in the world, and a formidable combatant; Franky, the carpenter, is a perverted speedo-wearing cyborg with a penchant for crying out "SUPER!", and has built himself into a cyborg and built the Cool Ship of the crew; Brook, the musician, is a living skeleton with terrible puns and an obsession for women's underwear, who is also a genious musician, a formidable swordsman and used to be the captain of his own crew.
    • Some of the Marine higher ups, like Aokiji, who sleeps standing up and rides a bicycle across stretches of the ocean... which he froze with his powers, or Monkey D. Garp, Luffy's grandfather and the man who cornered the Pirate King Gold Roger several times throughout his career, and who baffles his men with his disregard for protocol and the rules. All of the senior staff at Impel Down are prime candidates too.
    • The Water 7 arc has an abundance of this trope. First there are the Galley-La shipwrights, who are the best in the world at what they do but count amongst their best a man with a rectangle nose who speaks like he's 80, another who never speaks at all outside of using a pigeon as a ventriloquist dummy and a secretary who attacks anyone who speaks ill of the boss (and ends up beating him up as well). Then those three reveal those were cover identities and they are actually government assassins (although still perfectly competent shipwrights) and rejoin the rest of their cell, who are all just as quirky. Of special note is Jabra, who is probably the weirdest of them all, but the only one who thinks assassins should dispatch their enemies as quickly as possible.
    • We also have Doflamingo's crew (whose insanity and quirks make Luffy and co. seem downright normal), Enel's Enforcers, the crews of the Four Emperors... Let's just say that the author loves this trope, OK?
  • Gwen Khan from Outlaw Star has a very eccentric personality, repeating himself, and having a speaking pattern that makes him sound like he's talking to himself. He's also the most brilliant mind in the universe having created both the Outlaw Star and Melfina.
  • Xerxes Break, "The Mad Hatter" in PandoraHearts. He talks to a little doll on his shoulder. It may be Obfuscating Stupidity, though. He also does circus acts for no reason, has a case of Crazy Consumption, and is known to act CloudCuckooLanderish on occasion.
  • In Penguin Revolution, the president of Peacock has a somewhat idiosyncratic method of running the talent agency; among other things, Ryo Katsuragi is required to attend school disguised as a girl as part of his contract and will be fired of the secret is exposed. He also has the entire agency, agents included, undergo Training from Hell as preparation to put on a play. He can run the agency the way he wants because he's the president, but his methods also get surprisingly good results.
    • Not surprisingly, a number of the talents employed by Peacock are also rather quirky. The most notable examples are Ayaori Mashiba, a phenomenally talented actor who when not performing is so laid-back as to be nearly comatose, and Yuzuru Narazaki, another highly talented actor who emulates a samurai lifestyle and not only puts himself through voluntary Training from Hell but expects his manager to accompany him.
  • In Plastic Memories, Isla is known for retrieving the most Giftias in the terminal service department. As the first episode illustrates, however, her methods are quirky to say the least, ranging from offering tea to customers to jumping off an apartment building to catch a runaway Giftia.
  • Harley from Pokémon: The Series, as well as his DP-era Expy, Nando. The two of them act extremely feminine (to the point of being Ambiguously Gay/Camp Straight), Harley obsesses over his cooking and Nando dresses like he lives in the 15th or so century, yet they both manage to be very skilled Coordinators, reaching the Grand Festival easily.
    • Ash Ketchum, especially in Sun and Moon: excitable to the point of hyperactive, prone to Amusing Injuries, and often using eccentric training methods, he is nonetheless a skilled and insightful trainer — enough so that he has been selected as The Chosen One by several different Legendary Pokemon throughout the series.
    • This seems to be a trend with recent Champions. Cynthia has a child-like obsession with sweets, particularly ice cream, which even made the situation worse in one occasion. Alder has an overly laidback personality, and fell asleep during his battle with Ash. Leon has No Sense of Direction. In the games, Iris became Unova's Champion after Alder decided to step down, but she kept her somewhat immature and perky personality, and her pre-battle animation has her dorkily attempting to imitate a dragon's roar.
  • The Prince of Tennis:
    • Eiji Kikumaru is child-like, happy, has a flashy playing style and is somewhat of a Cloud Cuckoo Lander as well... but he also has the sharpest vision of the whole team (only matched by Ryoma), is extremely flexible and capable of very high jumps, works as hard as the others to keep himself atop of his team, and is fiercely loyal to his doubles partner Oishi to the point that one of the OVAs and a whole match in the manga are fully dedicated to Eiji's struggle to show Oishi that he's not a burden to him *and* that he wants him back on the team
    • The former Seigaku captain Yuudai Yamato acts like a full-blooded Cloud Cuckoo Lander (and looks like a teenaged John Lennon), so much so that even Ryuzaki-sensei sometimes can't understand him — but he has excellent insight into people's psyches and, if you're willing to listen to him, you can't get better advice from anyone.
  • Princess Tutu has Professor Cat, the main characters' ballet instructor who is literally an anthropomorphic cat. He's shown to be a very competent teacher and is greatly respected by other dancers, but he's obsessed with love and marriage, often threatening his young female students that if they don't keep up with their practice, he will have them "MAAAAAARRY ME!" Often followed by him doing something cattish, like falling to the floor to scratch his back, running into a paper bag, or scratching his claws against a wooden board.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica:
    • Kyouko is an arrogant, snarky asshole who won't stop stuffing her face with snack food; but she's so skilled she can lazily fend off Sayaka one-handed while eating a candy bar, and she's the only person the mysterious Homura seems interested in teaming up with, in both the original series and The Movie. Homura thinks the two of them could beat the Walpurgisnacht super-witch (an enemy that had no trouble destroying any number of non-Kyouko characters in previous timelines).
    • Nagisa, the Advertised Extra for Rebellion, is just a 10-year-old kid and very much acts like one. Her attacks mostly involve spewing bubbles into the air, and she has an obsession with cheese. But she's actually the witch who killed Mami and those bubbles are bizarrely powerful, doing most of the damage to the witch barrier. Apparently Madokami had good reasons for bringing her along on this mission.
    • The titular character of Puella Magi Kazumi Magica comes off as this. Among other things, she reads a person's morality by how they eat, demands that everyone she trains shout their attacks in Gratuitous Italian, and claims that her ahoge can detect witches. She also happens to be the ace-in-the-hole of the Pleiades Saints, and has taken down Walpurgisnacht-esque entities almost singlehandedly.
    • Kirika Kure, of Puella Magi Oriko Magica, has had her mind scrambled by her own wish. She's The Ditz on the best of days, and a Psychopathic Woman Child on the worst. She is also a magical girl so powerful that, even as a beginner, she complained the witches she was fighting were too slow.
  • Ranma ½:
    • Happōsai. He's constantly seen skirt-chasing, peeking, panty-stealing etc. but he is still one of, if not the most powerful martial artist around. Same goes for his pupils Soun and especially Genma, who trained Ranma, who in turn has bunny-ears streaks himself.
    • The Kunō family is pretty impressive. Tatewaki is a swordsman of such caliber and skill, he can use a bokken (bamboo training sword) and perform feats that surpass what is usually considered possible with a proper metal blade. Principal Kuno is a master of disguise, stealth, and using electric razors as weapons and has techniques that can cause weapons to split like banana peels. Kodachi is a mistress of poisons and rhythmic gymnastics combat. Despite delusions of grandeur, Tatewaki is actually considered quite handsome, and is very skilled in romantic gestures, just a bit misguided in who he directs them towards and oblivious to certain facts (mainly that female and male Ranma are the same person, despite Ranma transforming in front of him, both directions, on multiple occasions, including at least once while he was embracing female Ranma). Kodachi is completely psycho crazy, but she is actually pretty tactically skilled, and able to hold her own in fights with Akane, Shampoo, and Ukyō... sometimes simultaneously.
  • Yomiko Readman (and indeed, almost all Paper Masters) from the Read or Die universe. Deadly with their weapon of choice, and bibliophiles to the extreme. The manga take this to their logical conclusion, as Yomiko and Michelle sometimes get totally physically immersed in their work, allowing the paper from their books to contact their skin...with sexy results.
  • From Rosario + Vampire, Touhou Fuhai at a glance: a Miniature Dirty Old Man with severe Otaku tendencies. Touhou Fuhai when it counts: a tough old man with an Absurdly Sharp Blade, the most powerful sealing magic in the world, and Oh, Crap! inducing overall awesomeness.
  • Saijou no Meii: Although Mikoto can be very childish at times and is obsessed with collecting Mushiman merchandise, he's extremely competant at his job as a pediatric surgeon.
  • Sailor Moon:
    • Minako Aino, a.k.a. Sailor Venus, is the most battle experienced member of the Sailor Team. Which is hard to notice amidst all the ditzy moonstruck behavior she constantly exhibits as well as how she cheerfully murders all kinds of axioms, verbs and phrases (though part of her attitude is on purpose). This is downplayed in the live action version, where she is more of a Delicate and Sickly Broken Bird. The manga version of Queen Beryl can testify Sailor Venus is the most competent of the Sailor Senshi and asks her to stop disemboweling her every time they meet, and the others hold her in such esteem as a Sailor Senshi they thought her too good to be a role model.
    • For the villains, there is Professor Tomoe in the original anime's third season. While in the manga he was dispassionate and evil, in the anime, he was not only a brilliant scientist, but at times he was completely crazy. At one point, he goes out to get snacks while his subordinate Mimete creates a temporal distortion in his home. He promptly pigs out on the snacks so much that he gets a stomachache. At one point, he also plays Twister with his subordinates.
  • Saiyuki:
    • Dr. Nii Jienyi carries a stuffed bunny everywhere and babytalks to it, makes completely inappropriate comments to his female assistant, and does not appear to be proficient in social niceties such as regular bathing. He also earned a doctorate at 17, is the only one who knows how to manipulate the Tenchi Kaiden sutras to revive Gyuumaoh, and is the bearer of the Muten sutra and the second-youngest person ever made a sanzo priest.
    • From Gaiden, Field Marshall Tenpou can't for the life of him keep his office clean enough to find the floor, bathes with a rubber ducky, and walks around in a labcoat and shower sandals rather than military uniform. He's also a Four-Star Badass capable of taking on whole units by himself and a peerless strategic mind.
    • The sanzo priesthood is essentially an entire religious order of Bunny-Ears Preachers. Because the purpose of a sanzo priest is to protect the sutra they are entrusted with, they are not required to abide by the normal rules of Buddhist monasticism. Every sanzo seen so far has completely ignored the precept of shaving one's head, as well as flouting at least one other precept each. Genjyo Sanzo probably takes this the furthest, as by Word of God the only precept he's (coincidentally) complied with is chastity and he doesn't even personally identify as Buddhist. Because they enjoy extremely high social status, sanzos are also usually given a pass from local social norms. Weird as they may be, however, do not EVER cross a sanzo. They got where they are by being the most competent mofos around.
  • Amae Koromo from Saki is a monster of a Mahjong player whose bandana looks exactly like bunny ears and her power(?) draws from the full-moon, fitting the bunny theme.
  • Servant × Service:
  • Kululu from Sgt. Frog is a sadistic Insufferable Genius who tortures his own team members for fun, but he's kept around since his technology is quintessential to most of their plans.
  • During a Sports Day in Don't Become an Otaku, Shinozaki-san!, Akina keeps referring to her teammates as the colors of the PrePure characters and, in the heat of the moment, even calls her game-winning shot like a special attack. While finding it awkward to talk to her because she's an otaku, her teammates don't mind any of this because they're winning thanks to her.
  • Sendo from Slam Dunk is great at basketball but is always late for meetings and hardly ever looks serious.
  • Soul Eater has a few:
    • One of them is the scythe handpicked by Shinigami-sama himself, who is skirt-crazy (and has been quoted, when asked how he got somewhere so quickly, as saying "Nobody is faster than me when chasing a woman's ass") and obsessed with his daughter's safety, especially from boys. Another one is a Morally Ambiguous Doctorate who wants to dissect you For Science! and has no issue making you feel awkward if it amuses him, but is the most powerful meister (weapon wielder) his school has ever produced. Together, work for the biggest of them all: The Genki Boy, tea-party throwing, doting father that is The God of Death himself.
    • Note that this show takes it so far over the top that two of its main trio basically have crippling mental illnesses (one is such an Attention Whore that he literally can't restrain himself from yelling YAHOO at the top of his lungs and leaping atop the most prominent nearby object when he's trying to ambush someone, the other is so Obsessively Organized that he's been paralyzed with doubt and suicidal self-loathing because of worries over whether or not he folded the end of the toilet paper roll in his bathroom at home) and yet they're still incredibly powerful combatants… When their act happens to be together.
    • The bad guys have Crona, a sad, insane, awkward little gender-ambiguous pink-haired kid...who's been fused with the demon sword Ragnarok and turned into the ultimate weapon. At one point they even refer to Crona as "Ragnarok", implying that Crona's presence is merely incidental. And then there's the friendly, excitable werewolf Free, who's depressed after breaking out of a decades-long imprisonment because he didn't escape awesomely enough. He was imprisoned in the first place because of his arsenal of magical abilities and his super agility and strength.
    • Subverted with Excalibur because most powerful weapon in existence or not, his personality quirks almost always manage to drive away even the most willing of prospective wielders. After all, one cannot be a Bunny Ears Lawyer if one has been unemployed since the 12th century. He's one of The Great Old Ones, specifically, the embodiment of Madness Born Out of Anger. However, he is capable of being reasonable and even offered himself to be used, no strings attached when Kid needed to be rescued. He also was much more serious back when he was with Arthur, so perhaps it's an elaborate ruse.
  • Tamagotchi: Despite his over-the-top flamboyant and flirtatious personality, Papapianitchi is incredible at his job of being a music tutor, necessitating he stay at Melody Land to work. The first episode featuring him shows how good he is by curing Mametchi's tone-deafness.
  • Teekyu has in Episode 33 a priest who dresses in gyaru fashion, with bright clothes, an extravagant hairstyle and lots of make-up, organises a funeral with the atmosphere of a party, has her phone beeping during the ceremony, and stumbles around drunk afterwards... then recognises instantly when the deceased's spirit has taken over someone's body and flushes him out, making the protagonist acknowledge that she deserves her position.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Leeron may be an even better example; no one questions the ridiculously brilliant mechanical and technological abilities of a flamboyantly gay man in red heels and purple eyeshadow.
  • Tiger & Bunny has Barnaby Brooks Jr., a skilled and popular superhero who is more than a little maladjusted. Apart from never actually bothering to learn any interpersonal skills and suffering from a very apparent case of PTSD, he has a number of odd quirks that range from an aversion to keeping "unnecessary things" (including furniture) to a fondness for suits with an entirely excessive amount of buttons. This is later shown to be in part the result of Maverick's memory-alteration NEXT power. Keeping him obsessed with catching his parents' killer (re-enforcing the PTSD) and stunting his friendships, Maverick had spent several years abusing Barnaby's unconditional trust in him to keep the young man engaged in his work-driven lifestyle, which helped to further Maverick's goals in making HeroTV a more profitable enterprise.
    • Several of the others count: Sky High is a very successful hero in spite of being quite the Ditz; Origami Cyclone's fanboyism (which is actually his selling point) belies his actual talents (not helped by Ivan's lack of confidence). You also wouldn't expect that the showy, flamboyantly camp Fire Emblem owns the company he's affiliated with, meaning Nathan must be pretty successful to stay associated with HeroTV.
  • Juuzou Suzuya from Tokyo Ghoul has developed into this by the time of the Sequel and has left his Psychopathic Manchild tendencies behind. He remains a quirky individual that snacks on candy during meetings, oversleeps for work, throws knives at his subordinates, has to be reminded to wash his hands after handling stray animals, and couldn't dress professionally to save his life. But he's grown into The Leader of a highly-decorated squad, with numerous accomplishments to his record, and a rapid promotion through the ranks. He also serves as The Mentor to several rookies, molding them into confident and capable Investigators. So people tend to overlook his unprofessional behavior, because he's one of the most exceptional Investigators they have.
  • In Tokyo Shinobi Squad, Jin is somewhat lazy, shows flagrant disrespect for authority, and is constantly running up tabs when he goes out to eat. Despite this, he's one of the best shinobi in the business to the point that the highest levels of the Japanese government request his services by name. Unfortunately for them, he always turns them down in favor of helping the less fortunate.
  • Dr. Irabu in Trapeze is an almost literal example — but considering his actual occupation the implications are worse; in the anime, he's a psychiatrist who does most of his therapy largely in a psychedelic fursuit (complete with tye-die mascot-esque bear head). The series only gets more insane from there.
  • Weather "fairy" Amasawa Chitose from The Weatherman Is My Lover does broadcasts in a different cosplay outfit every day. He also predicts the weather via his hair.
  • Keima Katsuragi, from The World God Only Knows, is an unrepentant Dating Sim otaku, so committed that he constantly plays them in class — his teachers only tolerate his behaviour because he gets perfect grades in most of his subjects, apart from PE.
    • Also Elsie is considered an airhead by her colleagues but they have to recognise that she is the most successful daemon in the Runaway Spirit Squad. However she is very much dependent on Keima and would be far less effective on her own.
  • The titular character of Ya Boy Kongming! is an odd example. He's an excellent musical manager, with a great ear for talent, an affable personality, and a keen tactical mind. He also claims to be the historical Chinese general Zhuge Liang and dresses like him 24/7, despite living in modern-day Japan almost two millennia after Zhuge Liang's death. Everyone around him views him as a highly competent individual who's worth keeping around in spite of his weird roleplay schtick. However, he's actually not lying at all—he is the real Zhuge Liang, returned from the dead. He seems happy to let people believe what they will of him, as there's little that could convince anyone of the truth.
  • Kaori from Your Lie in April plays without worrying about being successful in tournaments or not, and she's kind of an airhead... but that doesn't make her any less amazing at violin.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, there's Akatsu, a nutty, spacey, and exuberant fellow, who's also the genius behind the current Momentum Reactor. (Of course, given what it can potentially do, this attitude may not be a good thing...)
  • Zombie Land Saga: Kotaro Tatsumi is a loud-mouthed, boorish man and totally out of his mind trying to make an idol group out of zombies. But he's incredibly effective in putting together hit performances, negotiating deals with other producers, and is such a skilled makeup artist that he can make rotting corpses pass off as stunning, fully living people.

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