Common Knowledge / Anime & Manga

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Shows with their own pages

• Dragon Ball
• Kimba the White Lion
• Pokémon
• Voltes V
• Yu-Gi-Oh!

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Examples:

• Attack on Titan:
  • Many parts of the ending have been misinterpreted, in part due to its Ambiguous Ending nature but also due to many fans using fan translations that are not accurate to how the author intended:
    • One of the most common beliefs is that Eren, using the power of the Founding Titan, directed Dina Fritz to eat his own mother to inspire himself into hating titans and create a Stable Time Loop. While Eren ultimately is responsible for the Smiling Titan eating Carla, it was not to inspire his child self into action. He was trying to direct Dina away from Bertolt to secure his survival and ensure he will be eaten by Armin, after which Eren realized that he is the reason why Dina targeted Carla instead. He also made this decision while he was confused by the nature of the Paths, being unable to properly tell past from future.
    • It is also believed that all of Eren's actions was part of a Zero-Approval Gambit to make the Survey Corps and Marleyan warriors heroes to the surviving world. In truth, Eren only admits that him fighting Armin and insulting Mikasa when they all met at the restaurant in Paradis was an act. It is implied that Eren truly believed that he would destroy the entire world and was committed to it, until he came in contact with Ymir Fritz and saw the future in which his friends defeat him and subsequently end the power of the Titans. Eren also admits to Armin that he would have done the Rumbling even if he did not see the future that came to pass.
    • No, in the ending of the manga Eren did not reincarnate as a bird to watch over Mikasa; the final panels were meant to be a somewhat humorous callback to the beginning of the manga. The extended ending that was released later also disproved this.
    • Mikasa's spouse in the extended epilogue is widely believed to be Jean, though this is never confirmed by the manga or any source.
• BanG Dream!: There are male characters in this show, from background characters in the anime to family members and occasional plot obstacles in the mobile game. It's just that they only ever appear when the plot requires, which is still more often than other series like Love Live! that Bandori is often compared to.
• Berserk:
  • Guts was not based on the real-life Götz von Berlichingen. While the similarities are uncanny (both are medieval mercenary captains with prosthetic hands, and both even have similar names), Miura has stated that he was unaware of Gotz until the connection was brought to his attention, and it's simply a very improbable coincidence.
  • Even among fans of the series, many believe that the Beast of Darkness is Guts's Superpowered Evil Side or an entity possessing him or inhabiting his body. It's not. It's merely a visual representation of Guts's rage and his struggle to control it, not a physical being.
• Black★Rock Shooter: People say that the titular character is a Vocaloid or that her design is based on Hatsune Miku (or even that she's a dark version of Hatsune Miku herself). Miku sang the song, and the song helped popularize the character, but Black★Rock Shooter herself is not a Vocaloid and has nothing to do with them.
• Bleach is "known" to have been canceled which was why it came to a rather sudden end. Except it was due to Kubo having some pretty severe health issues, and he ended it on his own terms.
• Blue Flag: Some people with less knowledge about the story say that it's a Boys' Love. It isn't, it's shonen with a few gay characters. And the story covers a fair amount more than just romance anyway. The fact that the lead male characters do end up Happily Married still doesn't make it less of a Shounen.
• Bunny Drop is about the relationship between a man and his adopted daughter (who happens to technically be his aunt). Except, their relationship is more complicated than that. Daikichi does raise Rin but she explicitly doesn't see him as her father. In the anime this is because she sees her deceased father as her dad, while in the manga this is foreshadowing for Rin falling for Daikichi as a teen. Either way, their relationship is similar to a parent/child one but is not exactly that.
  • Relatedly, "going Usagi Drop" is slang in anime fandom at large for a parenting series veering into Wife Husbandry. This only applies to the manga; the anime cuts off before the Time Skip, underlines the family element, and more strongly hints at Daikichi ending up with someone his own age.
• It's widely believed that the main plot of Case Closed started off reasonably paced, and only became infamously dragged out over time as the manga grew in popularity and became a Cash-Cow Franchise. Except the truth is actually the other way around; the manga early on was almost completely episodic with the overarching Myth Arc being touched on very rarely, and it was only after the introduction of Haibara that this begins to change, with cases that don't contain some form of plot and character development being increasingly rare as it goes on. It is just that the main plot is very slow-paced and increasingly complex, making it look incredibly stretched-out paired with the series sheer length.
• Citrus is frequently stated to be an Ecchi Fanservice series filled with sex and designed to appeal to male audiences because Girl on Girl Is Hot. This isn't true. There are a couple of scenes played for drama near the start of the series, but there is practically no nudity and the series overall is a pretty fluffy, light-hearted and tame Romantic Comedy that was written by a woman who based it on an unrequited crush she had in school. It actually becomes a plot point later in the series as to how chaste and non-physical the main relationship is.
• Meta example: Everyone knows Cowboy Bebop sold poorly in its home country yet became a phenomenon in America. Except half of that isn't true. While it didn't have the lasting staying power the series still has in the States, Bebop was very well-received in Japan and sold very well. In fact, of all anime released in 1998, it was the number one best selling anime on home video in that year. Even counting anime from previous years, the only two series that sold more in that year were the absolutely juggernauts Neon Genesis Evangelion and the original Mobile Suit Gundam. It's possible the misconception stems from confusion with fellow 1998 space western Outlaw Star, which did indeed tank in Japan but is a nostalgic favorite for an entire generation of anime fans in America.
• Crayon Shin-chan: The anime did not end because of the death of Yoshio Usui. He just so happened to die when the show was already scheduled for a three-week hiatus to show other programming in it's timeslot, which was scheduled months in advance. The October 23rd date most people give in regards to the show's "renewal" was actually the debut of it's 11th opening theme, Happy Happy by BECKY.
• A lot of people think that the Persocoms in Chobits are all female. While most of the Persocoms in the main cast are female, there is a major character, Zima, who is a male Persocom and plenty of male Persocoms are seen as background characters in the anime. The manga also mentions them.
• The ending of Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School reveals that the Observer from Danganronpa 2 assumed the form of Chiaki Nanami because she was the person her classmates stuck on the New World Program missed the most. This is true to a extend, but the main reason the Observer took her form was because the students they saw Chiaki as the ideal administrator, since she was their class rep. Plus, Chiaki was the best friend the 15 students had in common, not the person each one of them loved the most in the entire world.
• Death Note:
  • Light is often believed to be morally ambiguous Well-Intentioned Extremist who slowly descends into outright villainy. This only actually applies to the first chapter/episode - after that point, Light is an outright unambiguous villain willing to do anything to keep his identity hidden, and given very little in the way of humanization for his actions.
  • Alternately, there exists the other interpretation that Light is just a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist only interested in personal power. This is something Light himself personally refutes in his climactic Motive Rant, pointing out that, had he only wanted personal recognition, he would've gone public in some form as Kira instead of continuing to commit his murders in total secrecy. Light's actual primary failing, as highlighted both in-series and by Word of God, is that he is delusional, genuinely believing that the countless murders he commits with the Death Note can be justified on account of making the world better, and that everyone trying to stop him is merely acting out of arrogance.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: A common accusation leveled against the series is its propensity for long flashbacks detailing how the Demons were ultimately victims themselves and receiving an Alas, Poor Villain send-off. This only actually applies to a handful of fights specifically meant to mirror Tanjiro and Nezuko's circumstances; while some are shown to have had circumstances that shaped who they became, many Demons are shown to have been monstrous bastards even before they lost their humanity, up until including Muzan himself.
• Many people assume that the first Devilman anime was a Lighter and Softer adaptation of the manga. This is incorrect: the Devilman anime was made as a Lighter and Softer adaptation of another Go Nagai manga, Demon Lord Dante, while the manga was made concurrently as a tie-in for the anime and ended up to become a Darker and Edgier take on the same story.
• Digimon:
  • Many people will refer to fanfics that are supposed to be a sequel to 02 (or sometimes even Tamers) as "Digimon (Adventure) 03". While technically correct, it's not right for the reason people think it is: "02" in "Digimon Adventure 02" refers to the year in which the story takes place (2002; Adventure took place in 1999, three years before); thus "03" would actually be a story in 2003. Interestingly, the English dub increases the Time Skip between Adventure and 02 to four years, so in the dub continuity, the second season took place in 2003.
  • This goes for referring to season one as 01. Again, 02 takes place 3-4 years later; a scene in S1 would not take place in '01, it would take place in '99. However, referring to the seasons as 01, 02, 03, 04, etc. isn't going anywhere, to the point that the DVD release (at least in America) do it, in part due to the fact that the first four seasons were all under the umbrella title of Digimon: Digital Monsters in the U.S., so they needed a way to differentiate them. So now it's at least an official way to refer to the seasons.
  • The term "Digidestined" refers only to the chosen children from Adventure and Adventure 02, and only in the dubs (though the official subs for Tri later used it as the official translation over the more literal "Chosen Children"... only for the 2020 reboot to use the somewhat more literal "chosen ones" instead). The default term for any human with a Digimon partner is "tamer", but people will often use the term "Digidestined".
  • Some also assume that the English dub was done by 4Kids Entertainment, which had done the dubs for many other anime in the late 1990s/early 2000s. The dub for Digimon was actually done by Saban Entertainment.
  • A lot of people seem to think Koushiro's favorite drink is oolong tea. Koushiro never once so much as even mentioned oolong tea in any episode of the TV series for Adventure and 02. He did famously drink a ton of oolong tea in Digimon Adventure Movie: Our War Game!, but it wasn't because he had a particular preference for it, but because he was exhausted and thirsty and that's what Taichi's mom offered him. That said, Digimon Adventure tri. did Flanderize Koushiro to outright loving oolong tea and bringing it up constantly, though Tri shared almost none of the original staff and had many other inconsistencies with the original series.
  • There are some people who refer to the English dub theme song of Digimon Adventure, which was reused with some alterations in Digimon Adventure 02 and Digimon Tamers, as the "Digi-Rap". However, the "Digi-Rap" is actually the altered version with added rap lyrics from Digimon: The Movie, while the TV version is simply called the "Digimon Theme", which doesn't even have any rap lyrics, being more of a techno song.
  • The Brazilian dub of Digimon Adventure (and sometimes its sequel) is sometimes mistaken by some fans in the country to be based on the Saban edit. This is because the dub used a localization of such opening theme as basis, as well as it used the American names for the characters, the Western logo,^note its cable broadcaster Fox Kids also used to promote its series until Frontier as Digimon 1-4, just like it was promoted in the eponymous US block and depending on the broadcast, it also used the instrumental version of the Saban opening in the credits and such credits layout was very similar to the Saban one. However, despite those facts, the dub was really based on the Japanese one. Unlike the Saban dub, it kept the "Brave Heart" Digivolution theme and other background music, no visual edit was made, title cards and general text in animation were maintained in Japanese, and in the original broadcast, the original opening and ending theme used to be played. The reason why they changed the original opening to the localized one by Saban? Channel TV Globo decided to promote singer Angélica (who was the host of the block which used to broadcast the anime at the time) to perform such song, and chose the Saban version simply because it sounded funkier and "badder" than the original. That version was so "liked" that its cable broadcaster (Fox Kids)^note yeah, it was a channel outside of the US also used that theme later and it became the Bootstrapped Theme in the country.^note it didn't affect Hispanic America, however, the dub localized "Butter-Fly" instead Such cable channel also used the Saban theme for the sequel mentioned before, (the reason for the previous parenthesis, while Globo broadcast a localized "Target"^note however they "translated" that song as an explicit Bragging Theme Tune, making it sound really Sabanesque) however they didn't use the instrumental version in the credits of this season. In fact, in question of the rest of the localization, the short ending in TV Globo (which was also used by later in Fox Kids) was for giving space for other shows in their block and the American names were requested by Toei themselves. What really used to be broadcast with an editing by Saban there was their blended movie and, more than a decade later, Digimon Fusion.
• Domestic Girlfriend is frequently known as that manga where a teenage boy gets new step-sisters and falls in love with them. That does happen, but the order is backwards. In the actual story, he has sex with one sister and falls in love with the other before their parents get together.
  • Later on it is frequently stated that Natsuo swore an oath to his dead mother that he would marry Rui and then went back on it. There is a scene where he talks to his father at his mother's grave where they discuss the marriage, but he doesn't even speak to his mother's spirit let alone come close to anything like swearing an oath.
• Dragon Half: Everyone knows that the reason it was a One-Episode Wonder is because Ryusuke Mita, the mangaka, was arrested for drug possession. Or alternately, that the animators were arrested for drug possession. Except there’s no evidence of any such thing ever happening; there’s no record of Mita ever having any kind of drug-related criminal charges, and he’s actually still making manga. And the animators? Well... The real reason the Dragon Half anime is so short is because it’s just a two-episode OVA rather than a proper series, and the manga itself was a bit of a Short-Runner anyways. The whole thing seems to just be an urban legend that spread too far, helped by the fact Dragon Half is the only of Mita’s works to get attention in the US, let alone any sort of localization. The whole thing is likely because the English DVD commentary made a joke about drug possession and some people took it literally.
• Fruits Basket: It is common knowledge that Kagura is Yandere toward Kyo, constantly beating him whenever she's around him. In canon though it's treated more like a Split Personality. She has no recollection of doing this and it developed due to rather realistic causes.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Everyone knows that Edward is an atheist... except he's not, especially in Fullmetal Alchemist (2003). He's an agnostic theist, which makes perfect sense seeing as how he actually met this universe's depiction of god face-to-face during the event that kickstarts the entire plot. Beyond this, Edward makes several references that heavily imply he believes in a God, he just doesn't show any interest in praising/worshiping it, seeing as it took away his limbs and little brother entirely because they were clueless kids who wanted to bring back their deceased mother. In the 2003 anime Edward never meets God, but he still has lines showing he does believe a God exists but he doesn't want to worship it.
• F-Zero: GP Legend: The cosmos-wrecking explosion that occurs in the series finale came from the destruction of the Dark Reactor, not as the result of Captain Falcon being a Memetic Badass with the sheer power of the Falcon Punch. This is a misconception that largely came about as a result of a widely-circulated clip that was taken out of context.
• GaoGaiGar: It's been long since believed that GaoGaiGar was produced as a response to the dark, deconstructive Neon Genesis Evangelion—except it wasn't. Not only was Evangelion a dark twist on Ultraman instead of mecha anime, GaoGaiGar released eight months after Evangelion debuted and was the final entry in Takara's long-running Brave franchise, serving as a send-off to that series' themes and aesthetic. Given how long production leads take, GaoGaiGar and Evangelion were most likely in production at the same time, wholly unbeknowst to each other. Also, GaoGaiGar was largely a vehicle for selling toys; only in the latter half of the series where it turned out to be more popular with older viewers did GaoGaiGar's writing take a more dramatic turn.
• Ghost Stories: The commonly accepted story behind how the show's raunchy English Gag Dub came to be is that ADV Films picked up the rights to some obscure children's anime on the cheap, and were told by the Japanese licence holders that since the show had flopped so badly domestically, they were free to do basically whatever they wanted with it, with only some minor restrictions.^note They weren't allowed to change the names of the characters or ghosts or the general episode plots, but everything else was fair game. However, as this article explains, Ghost Stories was anything but a failure in Japan — the series was an entry in the popular and influential Gakkou no Kaidan franchise, and the average ratings of its initial televised run were so high that it ranked among the top 10 most viewed anime of the 2000s, with some of its episodes even outperforming titans like Doraemon and Pokémon: The Series. The myth that the show was a failure seems to have started within ADV itself, as the dub's director Steven Foster mentions in his autobiography that he first heard it from a member of the studio's legal team who helped to secure the rights to the series, and this is likely why the misconception spread as far as it did; hearing the story from people who had worked on the dub would have felt like official confirmation to those who didn't know of the series' Japanese popularity.
• Goodnight Punpun: It's widely believed by many people, specifically those speed-reading, that the series ends with Punpun being arrested for the murder of Aiko's mother Mitsuko, only to be found innocent due to him only killing her to protect Aiko and being subsequently released. This is untrue; as stated multiple times throughout the final part of the story, Punpun wasn't the one who killed Mitsuko, it was Aiko who did so after he had left the room, with Punpun being aware of this but convincing himself that he had killed her due to wanting to shoulder the guilt. While he is arrested, it's implied to be for dumping Mitsuko's corpse in the mountains and fleeing the authorities, and he is indeed found guilty for this, as he mentions spending an unspecified amount of time on probation during his Dead Person Conversation with Aiko in the second-to-last chapter.
• Go Nagai's series: A common misremembering made by old-time Italian anime fans was that there was a mecha show in the 80s featuring a character named "Venusia" that shoots Torpedo Tits. This is actually a fusion of more characters from different Go Nagai series: Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger featured Aphrodite A, Diana A and Venus A, three female-shaped mechas that indeed had breast missiles, while "Venusia" is actually the name the Italian and French dubs gave to Hikaru Makiba from UFO Robo Grendizer, and she was a normal human with no weaponry of sorts.
• Gundam:
  • A good number of fans speak of the franchise as if it never does happy endings, often citing series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino's nickname of "Kill 'Em All Tomino" as proof of the franchise's prediliction towards the "Everybody Dies" Ending (in fact, it was at one point the Trope Namer). The truth is, among projects made by Tomino, a number of shows (including the original Mobile Suit Gundam) have more or less completely happy endings or Bittersweet Endings, and one—∀ Gundam—kills off no major characters. Even endings often labeled as such are more complicated than they appear. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam does kill off quite a few characters, but they still accomplish their goals, with the monstrous Titans having been obliterated, and it leads right into Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ—as in, ZZ started airing the very next week—which has a fairly happy ending. Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack kills off a lot of characters, including the two leads, but ends in Char's scheme having been completely foiled and his philosophy thoroughly proven wrong, and Amuro's death is a textbook Heroic Sacrifice that entirely works. And this is just Tomino—aside from him, the vast majority of shows feature happy endings or endings that are at least fairly positive, even if (though not always) that ending is reached with a heavy bodycount. In fact, only one TV series ever went so far as to kill off the lead hero, that being Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, and the generally downbeat ending of that series was actually quite controversial among the fans. A chunk of this comes down to some of the most popular projects among fans also being relative downers, particularly Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team—which has often led to the more zealous fans calling No True Scotsman on any series that doesn't kill off the whole cast and end in misery, ignoring that said endings are distantly the minority.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: The Nazca carrying the Neutron Stampede is commonly assumed to be called the ''Marie Curie''. Except that it's not; no name is given in-series, and the origin of the name is from a fanfic called Birds of a Feather.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: More of a meta-example if anything, but the Narmtastic English dub is was oft considered to be an "American" dub. While The Ocean Group is American in the geographic sense, the actor and the studio is actually Canadian.
• Haruhi Suzumiya:
  • Many of the comments left on videos of the anime, both on YouTube and Crunchyroll, state that the original broadcast order is the only way to properly enjoy the series and that those who are watching the episodes in chronological order are missing out, implying that the directors of the anime chose to broadcast the first season in anachronic order in order to be artsy. Reality is a bit more complicated:
    • Those making this claim usually not take the original light novels, which largely follow the chronological order,^note The third novel takes place before the second, and the fifth takes place before the fourth, but since the odd-numbered "novels" were merely collections of short stories with little bearing on the plot, this can easily be overlooked. And of course, the short stories are never told in between the novel-length stories, like in the anime. into account. Obviously, the original fans who were only familiar with the light novels did not have the experience "ruined" for them.
    • A reasonable explanation for the anime's strange order is because of how the industry works: the studio demanded at least a 12-Episode Anime^note and when the anime-only episode and "The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina" are included, they wound up with fourteen yet the first novel only has enough material for six. Standard practice when adapting light novels is therefore to adapt the first two, but the second novel's ending doesn't compare at all to the ending of the first, and so would have resulted in an anticlimax. Skipping it and adapting the third novel would have been even worse, because of the third novel consisting of a bunch of disconnected stories, and so would be the equivalent of having the second half of the season be nothing but filler. And of course, they couldn't skip straight to the fourth novel because those stories from the third are necessary to understand the plot. Therefore, the only way that the series could be animated without massive Adaptation Explanation Extrication, anticlimax, or hours of padding was to disperse the later stories amongst the first arc.
    • With the second season and movie included, chronological order no longer drops the overt supernatural elements partway and it does end with a climax. The producers needed a different kind of marketing stunt this time... cue Endless Eight.
  • Many fans were convinced (and some still are to this day) that the Endless Eight arc lasted for so long in the anime solely because Kyoto Animation wanted to troll the fanbase. The real reason is much less exciting: the second season was originally going to adapt The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (the fourth volume of the original light novel series), but during production Disappearance was shifted to a feature-length movie instead. The Endless Eight arc was stretched out as long as it was to fill in for time the anime would have spent on Disappearance.
    • Likewise, it's common for people to blame the anime's adaptation of Endless Eight for the decline in popularity the franchise suffered in the 2010s, with some even believing it was an outright Franchise Killer. The truth is that people stopped talking about Haruhi because there simply wasn't anything new coming out; Kyoto Animation stopped producing the anime after the Disappearance movie as part of a pivot away from adapting outside works in favour of creating original ones in-house, while the light novels went through a nine-year Sequel Gap between Surprise in 2011 and Intuition in 2020. Endless Eight certainly didn't help matters, but it was far from the biggest culprit.
• Hikari no Densetsu: For years, there were rumours that this anime had a hentai version, even though this wasn't true. These rumours are so prevelant that they're even mentioned on the Wikipedia page.
• Most would assume that the Isekai genre always kicks off with the main character getting run over by a truck and Reincarnate in Another World. However, that isn't true and as this video points out, more people just get summoned to the other world or get locked in a video game than outright dying.
• Many European fans believe the English versions for the Inuyasha songs are produced by The Ocean Group ("Change the World"). They are really made by the Italian dub, sung by Italians, and have only aired in Italy. Anyone who has seen the American TV broadcasts will quickly tell you the English dub uses the original Japanese ending themes, and the openings aren't broadcast at all due to time constraints (though they did air on Canadian TV and are on the DVDs and, yup, in Japanese).
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Amongst fans, there is a ridiculously high number of people who insist that Jonathan Joestar was the father of Joseph Joestar. Except that's not true, Jonathan is Joseph's grandfather and Joseph's father, George, is Jonathan's son. One of the main plot points of Battle Tendency is the reveal of Joseph's heritage, but there are still fans who genuinely think that Jonathan is Joseph's father (this tendency isn't helped by the fact that George is an extremely minor figure; he only appears in a flashback and is killed off).
  • Characters and Stands are always named after classic rock songs or bands, right? Not quite - it's more accurate to say that they're named after songs or bands in general; there's no particular predilection toward any genre or era, and there have been Stands with names inspired by more modern artists too (like Limp Bizkit and Born This Way.) Part of this stems from how long-running the series has been, coupled with how it didn't see widespread popularity in the West until the anime came out almost 30 years after the manga began - many references that seem classic to readers today were in fact referencing artists that were relatively recent at the time the manga was written.
  • JoJo is so infamous for its high canine mortality rate that the fandom have long joked about Hirohiko Araki having some kind of vendetta against dogs, so it can come as a shock to learn that only three of the series' nine Parts — those being Phantom Blood, Stardust Crusaders, and Diamond is Unbreakable — feature any dog deaths whatsoever, or that the last chapter to do so was published in 1993, less than a decade into the manga's over 30-year run. This reputation likely stems from just how early and brutal the dog kills that do happen are; Dio locking Danny in the incinerator is one of the series' first big shocking moments, and Stardust Crusaders, the Franchise Codifier, is also the Part with the most dog deaths, with four separate villains of the week killing one onscreen, both of which give the impression that this is a common trend across the whole series as opposed to something Araki mostly dropped afterwards.
  • Stands are not "psychic projections". Stands are stated to merely be physical manifestations of the user's life energy. During Jotaro's introduction, he's even seen having books in his possession titled "ESP", "Occult", and "Mysteries and Magic", implying that this isn't the case.
  • The woman who was with Dario Brando while he was looting the Joestars' carriage at the start of Phantom Blood is not Dio's mother, as is often assumed. She was just a woman Dario had met that night at a bar who briefly acted as his partner in crime. The confusion is understandable though, as Dio's actual mother never appears onscreen and Dario only makes one passing comment about her being "some girl from the bar" which didn't make it into the anime and wasn't properly translated in some scanlations.
    • The unnamed woman from the bar was possibly given an Adaptational Dye-Job (she was blond in the manga but black-haired in the anime) to help establish that she wasn't related to DIO.
  • Stardust Crusaders:
    • It's common for people who are into the franchise's shipping fandom to assume that Jotaro and Kakyoin's relationship is a hotbed of Ho Yay, standing out even in a franchise well-known for it. While the existence of gay subtext in media is always going to be in the eye of the beholder, Jotaro and Kakyoin actually have very few interactions in the entire run of the manga, with most of them being concentrated near Kakyoin's introduction when he was a mind-controlled villain, and even fewer that could be considered homoerotic. Even Araki described their relationship as "not super close." However, because Stardust Crusaders is a historically popular Part, and Kakyoin is the character in the Part who it makes the most sense to ship with Jotaro (they're the same age, come from similar backgrounds, aren't tied up in other pairings, lack any real obstacles to them getting together, and map to Seme/Uke archetypes without much difficulty), this naturally translated to them being an incredibly popular pairing, despite being mostly a case of Ships That Pass in the Night.
    • It's often believed that Muhammed Avdol's Disney Death in the first half of the Part was originally intended to have been permanent, and was changed after the fact due to the character being an Ensemble Dark Horse. In actuality, Araki confirmed in an interview that the fake-out was always planned and just done as a way to shake up the formula a bit while giving Polnareff some Character Development, and to the contrary, he claims that Avdol was probably the least popular member of the group, which was why he never got a proper Day in the Limelight (something Araki regretted). The misconception likely stems from the explanation given in the manga not matching what is actually shown in the original scene, something amended in the anime.
    • Despite fandom memes, Alessi is not stated to be a pedophile. He's merely a coward who turns his victims into children before killing them because they can't pose a threat to him that way. It's not helped by the fact that most of his battle takes place with him chasing around a naked, de-aged Polnareff, but this was because Polnareff shrunk out of his clothes (and was later attacked while taking a bath), in addition to Values Dissonance, as nudity of children in a non-sexual context is not considered inappropriate in Japan and is often played for laughs.
  • Diamond is Unbreakable:
    • Many people think that Josuke was meant to go back in time to help his younger self when he was sick, and that it was scrapped for unknown reasons. In reality, there is no statement confirming this, and in fact Araki states that the man in Josuke's flashback is only Josuke's memory of him, which just happens to look similar to himself^note not identical though, as the unnamed savior has the uniform of a high school sophomore (not that of a junior, like Josuke's) and lacks Josuke's characteristic pins.
    • Rohan Kishibe is often called an Author Avatar for Araki, sometimes jokingly but sometimes not. While Araki acknowledges there are similarities between them, he stated that the character is not based on himself, and there are several differences between them as well — most notably, Rohan hates Josuke, while Araki considers him his favorite character. It's much more accurate to say Rohan is a take on Araki's philosophy on manga, with many of his scenes directly referencing or acting as exaggerated portrayals of Araki's creative process and writings.
    • Joseph not using Hermit Purple's divination abilities to search for Yoshikage Kira is considered one of the most flagrant examples of Forgot About His Powers in the series, with fans arguing that someone should have thought to ask him since the whole reason Joseph became involved in the plot in the first place was to help track down Akira Otoishi, another elusive Stand-using criminal. Setting aside the question of just how effective Hermit Purple's divination would have been in that situation, what's often forgotten is that Joseph wasn't going to use it to track down Otoishi — according to Jotaro, he planned to have Hermit Purple search Morioh's power grid, a trick that wouldn't have been much use against Kira but would have easily exposed Otoishi as his Red Hot Chili Pepper had been using the power lines to move throughout the town.
  • Golden Wind:
    • A number of fans question how the Passione will make money since Giorno ended their drug operations after taking over. However, Giorno never said he was going end the Passione's drug trade. He just said he wanted to stop the Passione from selling drugs to kids.
    • Because of Purple Haze's powers, it's often thought that Fugo was Put on a Bus halfway through Golden Wind because his power was too broken.^note That Purple Haze only ever had one fight doesn't help. The real reason was because Fugo was supposed to have been a traitor who spied on the heroes for the Boss, and Araki, in a dark place at the time, couldn't bear to have him betray Bucciarati and the gang, and therefore wrote him out instead. The most likely source behind the rumor is the fact that Araki mused in a different interview that he disliked writing characters with poison-based powers (along with fire-based powers, an experience he learned when writing Avdol), and Fugo is the most notable character with a Stand whose ability could be described as poison, which makes it an easy conclusion to jump to.
  • A fair number of fans believe that Steel Ball Run takes place within a new timeline created by Made in Heaven at the end of Stone Ocean. To the contrary, Made in Heaven explicitly backfires, resetting the Stone Ocean timeline to a state in which Jolyne was never imprisoned, Jotaro was a better father to her, the Joestars/Kujos are implied to be a less dysfunctional and mostly happy family, and Enrico Pucci has never even existed at all. To top it off, Araki has directly spoken against this theory, stating that Steel Ball Run takes place in an already existent Alternate Universe among The Multiverse.
• Kirby: Right Back at Ya!: The names of GSA leader Arthur's companions are and always have been Percival, Galahad, and Lancelot. The names Falspar, Dragato, and Nonsurat are nothing but gibberish caused by a "Blind Idiot" Translation for the fansub.
• Little Witch Academia:
  • Both the first film and The Enchanted Parade are often referred to as OVAs by fans and even by some of the English dub cast members at one point. Neither of them though are actually OVAs, as both films were released in theaters in Japan first, making them theatrical films as opposed to OVAs (OVAs are works released on home video first).
  • Diana Cavendish is sometimes referred to as being an Alpha Bitch towards Akko for her muggle, non-magical background. While Diana dislikes Akko (at least, early on) and is a jerk towards her, it has nothing to do with her background as a muggle. Rather, it comes from Akko being a fan of the scorned Shiny Chariot and embracing the ideal that magic should be fun (in a setting where magic is treated as Serious Business), on top of her childish naiveté and general disregard for tradition and rules. This might be from people assuming that the world of Little Witch Academia follows the same rules as Harry Potter, where muggles and magical people from non-magical backgrounds are discriminated against.
  • Sucy Manbavaran is often said to come from the Philippines. While there are some hints of her being from there (such as holding a Wallis Tambo broom in the first episode of the TV series), there is no explicit confirmation in the films, nor in the TV series that she's from there and most profiles of her keep it deliberately vague on where she comes from (listing her as only coming from Southeast Asia, with no specific country being mentioned). The only time Sucy is stated to come from the Philippines is in the manga by Teri Terio, whose canonicity to the franchise is dubious at best.
  • Due to most male characters being muggles, there is a frequent misconception that all magic users are female. Although male magic users are not as prominent as female magic users are, they do exist and are shown, as an elderly male wizard is shown arresting Croix near the end of the series and most of the wild hunters are shown to be male. Little Witch Academia: The Midnight Crown also features a prominent male wizard named Yuuto, as well as an all boys equivalent to Luna Nova.
• Lucky Star: In case anyone needs it cleared up, Kasukabe is not the name of where any of the girls live, nor is Saitama. The former is only where their school is located, and the latter is the prefecture where the twins and Konata live. Tsukasa and Kagami live in Washimiya (now Kuki), Konata lives in Satte, and Miyuki lives in Tokyo.
• Lupin III: While the title character is likely the grandson of Arsène Lupin, he officially doesn't have a first name. He's simply "Lupin III". On that note, his samurai companion is the 13th generation descendant of Goemon Ishikawa, he doesn't have the generation as part of his name like Lupin does. He's simply "Goemon Ishikawa", not "Goemon Ishikawa XIII". Both of these mistakes (particularly the latter) have popped up in official English translations, which doesn't help matters.
  • While Jigen is often stated by fans to be American, it's never been canonized, with his official bio listing his nationality as Japanese.
• Martian Successor Nadesico: It is frequently said that almost all of the female crew members of the Nadesico are part of Akito's Unwanted Harem. In fact, it's six out of ten of the named characters and if Howmei's five female assistants are included, it's seven out of fifteen, or just under half. Only the three LethalChefs, Yurika, Megumi and Ryoko, are actually fighting over him, and Megumi gives up on him after he ditches her to go fight the Jovians in Episode 13. Ryoko has also dropped out of the competition in later episodes, so when Akito tries to flirt with her in Episode 19, she sends him flying.
• Mazinger Z: Most fans know the Mazinger Z as the Humongous Mecha to represent the Super Robot Genre...except the Mazinger is actually only 18 meters tall, very modest by Mecha standards, and no higher than that of the RX-78-2 Gundam. Later incarnations such as the Great Mazinger were larger, but not the original, most iconic robot.
• Naruto:
  • It is common knowledge that the Mist village, during its "Bloody Mist" days at least, had a policy of exterminating bloodline users, and that Madara was The Man Behind the Man in this village and orchestrated these genocides because he deemed them inferior to the Uchiha bloodline. Neither of these things are true- bloodline users were persecuted, yes, but by ordinary people in the Water country and elsewhere, not by the Hidden Mist village (which is only part of the Land of Water as its ninja village); and the idea that Madara has a problem with non-Uchiha users is based on a popular fan theory, due to his Motive Rant to Sasuke where he blames the Senju clan for persecuting and betraying the Uchiha clan, even though it was largely his fault, and tells Sasuke about how superior the Uchiha were. Fans put two and two together and assumed he was an Uchiha supremacist, even though much of his rant was mixed in with Blatant Lies and was transparently designed to mess with Sasuke's mind. Haku's mother was killed by his father, and Kimmimaro's clan was killed by the Mist only when they attacked it, which they only did because they were a clan of Stupid Evil Blood Knights. Madara has never shown a flicker of hatred for bloodlines in general and the Mist, being a Hidden Ninja Village, most probably had a policy of collecting them- the current Mizukage is actually a user herself (twice over). This one is quite egregious as even a lot of Real True Fans actually believe this. The fact that Tobi is not really Madara at all and only allowed people to think he was for a time does not help this.
  • Iwa is claimed to hate Minato and will kill anyone even related to him despite the fact that he's dead. It's usually the reason why Naruto's parentage is hidden. The Fourth Hokage has never even been mentioned by any Iwa Shinobi. What Iwa had was a "flee on sight" order regarding Minato during the last Shinobi War (when Iwa and Konoha were on opposing sides), because Minato was too powerful for any of them to stand a chance against, with the possible exception of the Tsuchikage. This doesn't indicate any grudge against him, just a tactical judgement that it's never wise to fight the One-Man Army on his own terms.
  • Kurenai has been claimed to have been in Hinata's life since she was a child. However multiple (anime-only) flashbacks say otherwise.
  • Naruto doesn't take place in the past, but in a Retro Universe. They have modern technologies like cellphones and video games but lack automobiles and guns. Boruto, which takes place less than two decades later, is straight-up modern in most respects.
  • The idea that you need to be twelve to become a genin is incorrect. There is no known minimum age to be a ninja. Kakashi, for example, is indicated to have become a chunin at the age of 6, meaning he was that old at the most when he became a genin.
  • Many people think that genin are all beginner ninja. That is not true. A ninja could theoretically never become a chunin. The chunin exams even showed a lot of adults taking the exam. Might Guy's father, however, showed that while adults can be permanent genin, it's seen as very embarrassing (similar to, say, never graduating high school or college).
  • No, Naruto is not immune to Genjutsu, even after getting into good terms with Kurama (It was even shown that he was vulnerable to the Infinite Tsukiyomi, which is why he, Kakashi and Sakura had to be shielded from it by Sasuke's Susanoo). What was actually said was that when a Jinchuriki who has control over their Biju and is in good terms with it, falls under a Genjutsu, its Biju could act as a partner and snap them out of it. So there could be cases when the Biju is either unable or, for any number of reasons, unwilling to snap them out of it (as it probably happened during The Last: Naruto the Movie); plus it was shown with Killer Bee that the Jinchuriki does experience the Genjutsu for a few seconds before being snapped back by the Biju, which with cases like the Tsukiyomi would be more than enough to take the Jinchuriki out (this is even remarked by Naruto during his and Killer Bee's encounter with a resurrected Itachi).
  • A prevalent criticism of the series is that it walks back on its "hard work can overcome natural talent" moral…except there was never such a moral to begin with. Rock Lee loses against Gaara on his Chuunin Exams match, and Naruto himself never makes a point about being a hard worker or says anything of the sort, not even on his fight against Neji. Instead, the fight is about Neji himself being a massive hypocrite and lashing out against the world because of this, which Naruto himself calls out. This misconception seems to be originated on Rock Lee's popularity as a character, and assigning his motives and personality to Naruto himself.
  • It's commonly stated that Sasuke left the village when Sarada was still an infant. There's a flashback showing that he was still around when she was learning to walk, so he didn't leave that early. Sarada can't remember Sasuke but that doesn't mean he left when she was a baby.
  • One of the major complaints tossed against the series and the final arc in specific is The Reveal that Naruto and Sasuke are reincarnations of the Sage of Six Paths two sons, viewing it as an idea which retroactively devalues much of Naruto's journey to instead make him The Chosen One always destined for greatness. This stems from a lack of understanding towards the fundamental difference in how the concept of reincarnation differs in Buddhism as opposed to Western belief, as unlike the Western concepts of fate and predestination, Buddhist reincarnation is based on Eternal Recurrence, with life infinitely repeating in a loop. As shown with Hashirama and Madara (who're also reincarnations of the two sons), literally all that Naruto and Sasuke being reincarnations means is that one would be The Ace while the other an underachiever with great potential, and they would become close as brothers only to later become mortal enemies. The point of the reveal is that Naruto is trying to break the cycle of violence by saving Sasuke, which is consistent both with the series general themes and Buddhism as a whole.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion:
  • Everyone knows that Shinji is a wuss that keeps whining and running away from his duty as an Eva pilot, when he’s actually more of a Cowardly Lion. He avoids his duties three times: near the beginning, after Misato assured him Rei would replace him and egged him on (and that was after he ignored orders to retreat, fighting the Angel like an angered beast and killing it); around the middle, when he was horrified by his father sanctioning the Dummy Plug in Unit 01, which lead to Touji almost being killed and losing a leg in the anime and actually being killed in the manga; and in End of Evangelion, when he was severely traumatised by Kaworu’s death. In the first two, he comes back on his own accord. He also complains fairly little about his situation and mostly just accepts his fate humbly, which causes Misato and (far more harshly) Asuka to berate him as an Extreme Doormat. In the famous final scene of the original airing, he manages to get a breakthrough in his ability to balance influence by other people and his own personality, and is applauded by Misato, Rei, Asuka, his friends, the other NERV employees, Pen Pen, and his parents for this. However, this is a Subverted Trope, in a sense, as he admits in episode 25 of the original airing that he doesn’t run away because it would mean being alone and shunned.
  • In addition, Shinji isn't actually altogether that angsty or whiny as common knowledge seem to portray him as. In fact, his major character flaw is his complete passivity and unwillingness to actually stand up for himself, and for the most part he really just expresses his anguish through quiet brooding. If anything, Asuka is the character who most often complains vocally about her situation.
  • It's very commonly claimed that Shinji is intended as an insult to the average viewer, usually as a way to claim that Evangelion is some kind of anti-otaku screed. While he is a deeply flawed Audience Surrogate, Anno has claimed that he based Shinji mainly on himself (even claiming that the process of working on Evangelion helped him realize some of his own issues). Many of Shinji's least sympathetic moments happened while Anno was dealing with depression.
  • Everyone "knows" Asuka has a habit of hitting Shinji when she's angry at him, or just to relieve frustration. In reality, Asuka is far less prone to physically abusing Shinji than is often assumed. Over the course of the original series, she only ever hits him three times ^note slapping him on the deck of the Over the Rainbow, booting him in the head when they're crawling through the ducts during Matarael's attack, and kicking him after a screw-up during their sync training. She's actually a lot less violent towards her love interest than many other tsundere girls, and her aggression towards him rarely ever goes further than the emotional.
  • There's really too many to list, or rather they are listed here.
  • A common claim is the idea that the series was designed with the specific intent of deconstructing mecha anime and pointing out its problems. The thing is, while Evangelion does take a notably more cynical approach to the genre than the median super robot series, its main interest tends to be character drama that isn't particularly connected to any obvious mecha archetypes. Towards the end of the series, the mecha elements increasingly fall away in favor of long stretches of conversation and introspection, and many of the aspects of the world that make it such a notorious Crapsack World have little real basis in any other major mecha series. This also ignores that Ultraman (a tokusatsu series) was one of the largest stylistic influences on Evangelion, and was itself no stranger to many of the themes the series covered, such as religious imagery, surprisingly somber narratives, and Starfish Alien monster designs. And to cap it off, Hideaki Anno himself is known by just about everyone familiar with him to be a massive geek for tokusatsu and mecha (being one of the leads behind the phenomenally nerdy Daicon III & IV), making the idea that he created the series because he hated the genre rather bizarre.
  • It's common for both fans and anti-fans of Evangelion to claim it served as a Genre-Killer for idealistic Super Robot Genre anime: fans claiming Evangelion's greater maturity destroyed a childish genre, and anti-fans blaming it for the genre's diminished state. In reality, the genre's slump started in the late 80s, and had far more to do with a decline in toy sales (not helped by the infamous asset bubble), since many of these shows were Merchandise-Driven affairs aimed at children. This was evident in the Brave Series, which had been the premiere super robot franchise of the 90s and saw its conclusion one year after Evangelion, and its final entry, GaoGaiGar, largely survived due to popularity with the same older audiences as Evangelion rather than with children. Evangelion didn't really affect it much if at all; the years following Evangelion saw all manner of classical super robot shows aimed at a similar older otaku audience to it, and they only became truly rare after the mid-2000s. Ironically, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which many proclaimed to be the herald of a Genre Relaunch, saw a much greater slump in its wake than Evangelion ever did.
• One Piece:
  • Among the fans, it's often claimed that smiling right before your death is a trait unique to those with the mysterious D. initial. While it is indeed true that all D. characters with a death scene have been shown smiling right before their death, it is by no means unique to them; dying with a smile is very common among One Piece characters in general, and the majority of parents and parental figures who have been shown dying in flashbacks do it to show their kindheartedness and courage.
  • There's a common assumption that Sanji, during his introduction when he still worked at the Baratie restaurant, was a Chick Magnet who was liked by lots of the female customers, only to be be eventually flanderized into a Casanova Wannabe who repulses women with his horndog antics. In fact, he's hardly ever shown interacting with the female customers; the only instances of this are a girl named Roxanne greeting him (which Sanji interprets as flirting, but he interprets almost every instance of a pretty woman talking to him as flirting) and Fullbody's date Moody being somewhat flattered when Sanji hits on her (but soon after she's just shocked when Sanji beats up Fullbody). There are a few women who have shown unambiguous attraction to him, but these don't appear until much later in the series — after his Flanderization took place.
  • Elbaf is often believed to be the name of the island/country where the Giant race is from, akin to Fishman Island. It's actually the name of the kingdom on the island, the island the Giants are from is canonically unnamed.
• One-Punch Man:
  • Madhouse is exclusively given credit and praise for animating season one, particularly after JC Staff was announced to be animating season two, and only intensified when the latter season aired to poor reception. While Madhouse was officially the studio that animated season one, much of the animation wasn't actually done in-house. Many of the best-animated scenes in season one were done by animators from Studio Bones, who worked under aliases (most notably, Yutaka Nakamura, who went uncredited outright). The fight between Saitama and Genos, which is often used to show the first season's animation quality? Mostly done by an animator (Arifumi Imai) associated with Wit Studio, not Madhouse. While many other notable scenes (such as Crablante's death by Taiki Imamura, or Deep Sea King's punch on Saitama as animated by Bahi JD) were done by freelance animators as a favor to director Shingo Natsume. Madhouse only produced the series and provided the studios used to do in-betweens and paint the scenes. Possibly, even Madhouse itself wouldn't have been able to match Season 1's quality if they'd done season two since many of the animators from season one are currently at different studios.
  • People often draw parallels between the Hero Hunter Garou and the Hero Killer Stain (from My Hero Academia). While there are similarities - both are villains who target heroes for a supposedly noble cause - there's also a tendency to assign Stain's goal to purge the streets of unjust heroes to Garou, which is inaccurate. Garou is not concerned with good vs. evil, but rather popular vs. unpopular. He wants to get back at those who are popular and who are in power, such as heroes, for the downtrodden and minorities of the world. He believes it's unfair how society assigns "heroes" and gives them the ability to do whatever they want, while others are assigned as "villains" or "monsters" and are subjected to the heroes' punishments. It's frighteningly similar to the mindset taken by many school shooters.
  Garou: The popular will win; the hated will lose. It's such a tragedy. Then I won't lose to anyone. I will become the strongest monster ever and change this scenario.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica:
  • Anyone who watches the anime generally knows by now that its cutesy appearance is a facade, concealing ridiculously traumatizing Psychological Horror. This is only half right; its actual genre is tragedy, not horror. Characters die in dramatic and/or ironic ways, but it has little to no graphic violence or anything else that one would expect from the general perception of it. Its most infamous violent scene happens mostly offscreen (though the manga shows quite a bit more detail). There's a Satanic Archetype who likes to screw around with souls, but that's nothing new. Much of the overreaction comes from the heavy thematic content played out with an all-female cast—many viewers seemingly interpreted it as an Utsuge that lacks a damsel-rescuing male viewpoint character, instead of a self-contained story. And they do get semi-rescued in the end—just not by a guy. Madoka herself becomes the guardian deity of all magical girls, but vanishes from the mortal world, making for a Bittersweet Ending instead of the expected Downer Ending or "Everybody Dies" Ending.
  • Kyubey is well known in the fandom and in the greater anime community as a whole as a sadistically malicious, untrustworthy Memetic Troll who's the root of all problems in the series. Much of this reputation comes from fanworks and memes, many of which became popular while the series was still airing and before his full plan became revealed. Those coming to the series now might be surprised to learn that he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist at worst, only directly harms anyone once in a brief scene that isn't that important to the plot, and takes the role of an outside observer more often than not. He even offers to bring dead people back to life on more than one occasion, and unlike many similar characters in media, the wishes he grants are never shown to be interpreted to suit his own ends or as anything other than what the person making the wish would want - although they do have unintended consequences, he doesn't actively bring them about. He also never really lies, outright citing You Never Asked by name on the details of his contracts. Nevertheless, this interpretation is such a widespread one that later works in the franchise, particularly Rebellion, portray him as being more actively malicious, which complicates matters further.
  • Due to the similarities between Madoka and Kamen Rider Ryuki, there are some who believe the show to be a battle royale-type story where magical girls fight each other to the death. The fact that later shows like Magical Girl Raising Project, which follow this show's footsteps, actually are battle royale-type shows certainly seems to reinforce that idea. While it's mentioned early on that magical girls do indeed fight each other over Grief Seeds and territory, in the actual plot of the series, only two magical girls (Sayaka and Kyouko) come to blows. Moreover, the rivalry between the two lasts about two episodes before they find some common ground and the actual plot goes on to reveal Kyubey as the actual antagonist. Various spin-offs would waver back and forth on the battle royale elements, but in the original series itself, they aren't nearly as pronounced as someone who isn't familiar with the show would believe. In fact, unlike Ryuki, the girls do not need to fight each other to have their wishes granted. The wishes are granted from the get-go, with the girls knowing full well that they have to fight Witches for the rest of their lives in exchange. Sayaka and Kyouko's fight, meanwhile, is more the result of their conflicting ideologies (Sayaka having an idealized idea of what a Magical Girl should do versus Kyouko being more pragmatic and cynical, in addition to intentionally egging Sayaka on to get the latter to battle her).
• Ranma ½:
  • The fact that Ranma and Genma disdain weaponry is common knowledge. In fact, Ranma is shown to be an expert with staff, spear, and nunchaku at the very least in both canons (one anime episode even opens with him and Genma practicing staff-fighting), and there are some official publicity pieces by Takahashi showing him performing routines with a Jian (the Chinese sword of nobility).
  • Everybody knows that Tatewaki Kuno is a huge Shakespeare buff. In fact, that's a Woolseyism; he's a fan of ancient Japanese samurai poetry, which is at most a cultural analogue, and the English dub changed that to Shakespeare because such references would have been impenetrable at the time to the English fanbase.
    • Also note that this is only true in the anime. He quotes the opening of Heike Monogatari when he first appears, and speaks in kobun (Classical Japanese). He does neither of these in the manga.
  • Ranma and Genma like to melodramatically refer to martial arts in general as "The Art". In fact, Genma used that term once, in the first episode of the anime, and Ranma never did.
  • Ryoga constantly attacks Ranma, usually shouting "prepare to die!" Whilst Ryoga isn't adverse to leaping at Ranma when their paths cross in a manner that angers Ryoga (such as Ranma running over him), Ryoga prefers to arrange formal duels when he can. Also, he shouted "Prepare to die!" at least twice, but it's hardly his catchphrase.
  • Saffron was the God of the Phoenix People, if you ask anyone. Except that the term "god" never once comes up during the Phoenix People storyline, even if he is presented with Physical God tier powers upon awakening to his full form.
  • Akane is a Lethal Chef whose dishes are closer to industrial waste than food. No, that's just a fandom Flanderization. In canon she's just a more realistic kind of bad cook, and in the manga continuity even manages to make passable curry.
  • Ukyo's restaurant is not a ryokan (Japanese old-fashioned inn), it is a modern storefront. This perception is hard to justify, as there is no possible way to confuse the two. Especially since ryokans tend to show up out in the country, and Ukyo's restaurant is in the middle of urban Tokyo. Also, Ucchan's has never been referred to as a ryokan in either the anime or manga.
  • Many, many fans will assert that it's impossible to cure Jusenkyo curses by using one to overwrite another, pointing to the existence of one of the few recurring villains, Pantyhose Taro, who added Combat Tentacles to his Yeti/Ox/Crane/Eel cursed form by using Jusenkyo's Spring of Drowned Octopus. Whilst this belief is easy to understand, the problem is that the series continues to present Nanniichuan as the cure for any of the cursed men in the series, and in fact Ranma and Genma were able to successfully overwrite their curses (albeit only temporarily) with Instant Nanniichuan long before Pantyhose Taro ever appeared. The conflict has become amongst the most notorious Plot Holes in the series, with the most commonly accepted explanation is that overwriting a curse requires total immersion, but a cursory splash can cause only limited effects, based on how a single drop of Spring of Drowned Twins water on a bump on Happosai's head caused it to become two bumps.
  • Even a cursory look online will find people claiming that, by the series ended, Ranma had fully accepted his Gender Bender condition and no longer thought of it as a curse. This is a misconception that largely stems from the very first online fan translation of the manga has Ranma declare he no longer cared about the curse — but this was a Woolseyism, and what Ranma actually says is that when he had Akane's life on the line, it took precedent over being cured, and he doesn't regret losing his chance by focusing on saving Akane. And even in both scenes, it's shown that Ranma is lying about his feelings whilst trying to come off as a stoic badass, an act that Akane sees through instantly. It's popular in no small part because it plays into an increasingly widespread Misaimed Fandom championing a Trans Audience Interpretation, who tend to ignore Ranma's vehement desire to be cured in canon.
  • The series ends with Jusenkyo destroyed, thus dooming Ranma to be cursed forever. Except no, it doesn't. The last chapter ends with Jusenkyo being temporarily flooded, but the Jusenkyo Guide asserts that the waters will go back down and everything will be back to normal. During the extended epilogue, when Soun explains how he got his hands on a cask of Nanniichuan water to bribe Ranma into wedding Akane, the Jusenkyo Guide is shown saying that the floodwater receded and the springs returned to normal, so that's why he sent Ranma the cask as a thank-you for protecting his daughter. This misconception may be popular because it makes Ranma and company departing back for Japan immediately instead of staying and waiting for the springs to return to normal seem less stupid.

• Reborn! (2004):
  • A common misconception in the series is that Tsuna's powers are constantly "reset" and that constantly loses in the beginning of an arc. This is not entirely true since it only happens in the Varia Arc where he only lost his first battle against Superbi Squalo because his five minutes in Dying Will Mode ran out. In the proceeding arcs, Tsuna manages to win his first battle and only starts to struggle later on.
  • The series is not a Shōjo or a reverse harem. The manga was published in the Weekly Shonen Jump for its entire duration, it is commonly assumed to have this genre because of the large amount of bishonen male characters and the yaoi fanbase that follows, despite this, not a single character in the series has ever been confirmed to be gay. The main character himself is straight and has a canonical female love interest, and other pairings (such as Colonello and Lal Mirch, or Daemon Spade and Elena) are straight as well.
  • Kyoko and Haru are not damsels in distress. They were only held captive once, in an anime-exclusive filler arc, and even then they were never in any intimate danger because they were being protected by Chrome and Yuni the entire time.
  • Lambo's last name is not "Bovino", he was never officially given one, "Bovino" simply refers to the name of the mafia family that he was affiliated with. The same thing can be said about Dino as well, whose last name is frequently believed to be "Cavallone", because that is the name of his mafia family.
• Re:Zero: Despite what is often claimed by people, Felix/Ferris is not transgender. It's actually stated multiple times both in the series and by Word of God that he identifies as male, and his reasons for crossdressing amount to wanting to see others reactions and so to pair off better with the very masculine Crusch.
• The Rose of Versailles: Oscar is the main character, right? Well, not in the original manga; while she certainly played a prominent role, the closest thing the story had to a protagonist was Marie-Antoinette. It's just that Oscar proved so popular she became the main character in most adaptations.
• Sailor Moon:
  • The Inner Guardians only die twice in the entire first anime series: at the end of the first season and the fifth season. They do not die and revive every season. (In the manga, they briefly get their souls stolen during the third arc, but this event doesn't happen in the anime.)
  • Mamoru is supposed to be around 18 years old in the first season of the first anime. Thanks to his age only being mentioned in a few official artbooks and the anime only describing him as a college student, a lot of fans believe him to be in his early twenties. His manga self being a high-schooler instead only adds to the confusion.
  • Due to translation issues/errors, some fans mistakenly believe Seiya Kou, Taiki Kou, and Yaten Kou all share the given name of "Kou" and the names the other characters address them by are actually their surnames. This isn't helped by the fact that the Japanese introduce themselves, "surname name, given name". For example, Usagi (given name) Tsukino (surname) would address herself as "Tsukino Usagi". However, Seiya, Taiki, and Yaten are not Japanese and were posing as foreign transfer students (who do not introduce themselves the same way the Japanese do), meaning they do not follow the Japanese naming system and their last names are "Kou".
  • Naru Osaka does not speak with an Osaka accent in the original anime, or any other version of Sailor Moon, for that matter. She speaks in standard Tokyo dialect, as with virtually everyone else in the series. Yes, her surname is Osaka, but this is a common Japanese name, and does not mean she is from Osaka, any more than someone with the surname "London" must be from London. Furthermore, fan materials often state that the DiC dub gave Naru/Molly a Brooklyn accent to parallel her non-existent Osaka accent, even though the same dub gives other characters accents for no apparent reason (e.g., Luna sounding like an English grandmother.)
• Samurai Pizza Cats is a Gag Dub of an anime called Kyattou Ninden Teyandee ("Cat Ninja Legend Teyandee"). A long-standing rumor says licensor Saban Entertainment either didn't receive transcripts of the original show's dialog, lost the transcripts, or received transcripts that were translated so badly that they were all but useless. In any case, the rumors say that the writers had to make up stories and dialog from scratch using just the animation. All of these rumors are incorrect. The official story is less amusing: the original production company didn't send the scripts because they had given Saban carte blanche to turn the show into something a Western audience would find funny. Considering that Samurai Pizza Cats is far more popular in the West than its home country, it's safe to say that they succeeded. However, none of this was by accident, as the rumors suggest; it was all by design.
• Sound of the Sky: There's a persistent belief that the series ends with Amazing Freaking Grace magically stopping a battle and causing the two armies to make peace with each other. This is only partially correct. Kanata playing that song does interrupt a confrontation between Helvetian and Roman forces, but only temporarily. As soon as the song ends, a commander begins yelling at his troops to start shooting, only for Rio—now the daughter of one ruler and fiancee of the other—to arrive bearing a peace treaty and a sizable third army, ordering a ceasefire. That's what actually convinces the armies to stand down, but it's often not mentioned; sometimes deliberately, to promote the idea that the story is unrealistic.
• Space Runaway Ideon's famous ending where it "blows up the universe" never happened. Granted it killed all of humanity (both Terrans and Buff Clan), destroyed hundreds of planets, spawned thousand of meteors that blew up the Earth, destroyed Saturn's rings, and took out much the Milky Way Galaxy, but the rest of the universe is just fine. This was largely a piece of Memetic Mutation as "Ideon blows up the universe" sounds a lot funnier.
  • In the other movie, it is stated by one of the Buff Clan protagonists such. This can be dismissed as hyperbolic enthusiasm, however.
• Splatoon: Similar to Pokémon Adventures, the CoroCoro Comics Splatoon manga is often referred to as "the Splatoon manga" as if it were the only one to exist. There are actually several manga series based on the games; it's just that the CoroCoro one is the only series to defy No Export for You.
• SSSS.GRIDMAN: It's often claimed by fans that Alexis Kerib is revealed in supplementary material to be actually a corrupted Over Justice from Space Patrol Luluco, hence they similar designs. This is a misinterpretation of an interview comment from Alexis' voice actor Tetsu Inaba, where he joked that Over Justice had turned into a villain before being fixed by Gridman. The two characters canonically have no relation whatsoever.
• Strike Witches is frequently said to be a series about cat girls with propellers for legs.
  • The witches have normal legs. The propellers are equipment they wear to fly called Striker Units, and they take off when not on a mission or in training.
  • Similarly, the ears and tails only come out when the witches are using magic. Otherwise, they look like normal humans. Also, only a tiny minority are cats. They take the features of a number of different animals, with the majority actually being dogs.
• Sword Art Online: Ask anyone (whether they're haters or supporters) and they will probably say that the Kirito is an overpowered and confident protagonist who can effortlessly defeat anyone in the series barred Konno Yuuki and is even more invincible while dual wielding where once the second sword comes out his victory is imminent, probably basing it on his battles with Vassago and later Gabriel in Alicization which he won after dual-wielding. The truth however is that he usually starts out losing instead, is frequently uncertain as to whether he will win, is reluctant to even dual wield at all and his victories is always accompanied by some sort of external factor of various degrees such as Sinon/Shino's phantom bullet and unintentionally discovering Eugene's Demonic Sword Gram's weakness that shifts the flow of the battle to his favor momentarily which he takes full advantages of to deal a decisive or critical blow deciding the fight. While Kirito is by no means weak and is certainly one of the strongest characters in the series he has never actually outright simply overpowered his opponents through brute force or speed alone leaving a sense of how strong he is exactly being vaguely left in the dark.
• Urusei Yatsura:
  • It is said that Lum is the only girl in the universe who can stand being round Ataru. Even if you rule out Shinobu, who was supposed to be the heroine but got hit by Out of Focus, this isn't the case. Oyuki only feigns resistance when Ataru approached her in the bedroom with nobody around^note confirmed by the manga. Either way, being one of the most powerful characters in the series, she could stop him in a blink if she wished to and Benten is okay with Ataru's flirting during the setsubun battles. While the previous two instances can be considered Early-Installment Weirdness, there is no dispute that Nozomi genuinely loves Ataru. In episode 39 there was also a girl who actually agrees to go on a date with Ataru, but Lum cuts that off. In the Electric Jungle storyline, which introduced Shingo to the manga and became one of the OAVs, Ataru is likewise held up in meeting up with Lum when one of the girls he randomly asks out on the way there actually agrees to a date. In the 1981 anime's adaptation of Benten's second story, Benten's girl gang are all shown to be quite flattered by Ataru's flirting as well.
  • Everybody knows that Lum not only uses her Shock and Awe powers to blast Ataru when she's angry, but also electrocutes him when giving him The Glomp as a sign of her love. Except that "joke" actually barely existed in the manga. She does it three times, twice on the same page, when she returns in chapter 3, then does it once in chapter 4. After that, it doesn't appear again until chapter 27, which she zaps Ataru whilst believing that it's "abnormal" for humans not to enjoy being zapped when some of her stalkers (the guys who, in the anime, became Lum's Stormtroopers) wax ecstatic about being zapped — in that same chapter, when he passes out, one of them mentions that humans can die from being shocked too much, and that revelation seems to stick; Lum never zaps Ataru in happiness again, save for one time in chapter 112 when she's blitzed out of her skull on umeboshi. The anime is probably the biggest fuel for this belief, as she explicitly names this electrified glomp as "Expression of Love" there, and in episode 5 it's inferred she does it a lot "off-camera", as one of the people who make Ataru run away from home is a local electrician complaining about all the overtime he has to pull to fix the transformers overloaded when Lum does it. However, even there she gives it up fairly soon. Complicating things is that there is a late manga story (which got an OAV adaptation) where, under the influence of a Love Potion, Lum does all kinds of romantic gestures for other boys... but she glomps onto Ataru and zaps him, much to his confusion and annoyance.
  • The claim that Lum allows Ten to get away with being a Bratty Half-Pint without exception is an exaggeration. She lets him get away with a lot, but she does have her limits, and has gotten angry with Ten, scolded him, and even zapped him in punishment. It doesn't help that in story, she admits she's not really sure how to properly discipline him.
  • Everyone's heard that all the main characters, and even many side-characters, have a Catchphrase. In fact, outside of Lum's angry "darling no baka!" in the 1981 anime, most of their supposed catchphrases appear very rarely, if it all, and are almost entirely restricted to the 1981 Animated Adaptation rather than the manga. Even Ten's "I'm a good boy", probably the second most common recurring catchphrase, doesn't appear very often.
  • Nagisa Shiowatari is often believed to retain spectral powers after coming back to life. However, he displays no sign of having such abilities in his only post-debut story, though he is admittedly freaked out by spirit ward talismans.
  • Lum explaining to Ataru that her shocking him in her sleep is something she'll grow out of never happens in canon. She merely explains he needs to wear the protective suit against nocturnal discharges, with no mention of if this is a lifelong condition of hers or something she'll eventually grow out of.
• Zoids: Chaotic Century: Countless people treat the post-Time Skip episodes as either a Sequel Series with the subtitle "Guardian Force" (Like Naruto Shippuden), or "Season 2". The pre- and post-Time Skip episodes are all part of a single, continuous show titled Zoids: Chaotic Century.
• In general, a lot of anime artstyles that leans a bit more to realism tends to have the characters' eyes and eyebrows visible through the hair. Contrary to popular belief, hair isn't actually all that opaque in real life, as it is always made up of strands, as this is mainly why it's possible too see someone's eyes/eyebrows through it, especially if it's looked closely enough. It's just that hair in most anime is always drawn unrealistically opaque, as drawing multiple strands of hair makes it more difficult to animate.
• For a while, it was often assumed that certain television broadcasts of certain anime in Europe, particularly in Hungary, were Cut Short thanks to the Moral Guardians. Most of these cases are really the local dubs of pre-edited, often unfinished versions bought from other countries, not Japan.
• With Studio Ghibli films, a lot of people miscredit works done by other directors (Namely Grave of the Fireflies, Pom Poko, The Cat Returns) as being directed and/or written by Hayao Miyazaki. What hasn't helped, at least in North America, were Disney's marketing often used "Hayao Miyazaki" and "Studio Ghibli" borderline interchangeably, along with the fact his movies were the first ones distributed in English and the most popular, with the movies done by other directors coming later.

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